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THE  WEEKLY 

REVIEW^ 

DEVOTED  TO  THE  CONSIDERATION  OF 


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Politics,  of  Social  and  Economic  Tendencies. 

OF  History.  Literature, 
and  the  Arts 


VOLUME    II 

January — June,   1920 

In  Two  Parts  :  Part  II 


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THE  NATIONAL  WEEKLY  CORPORATION 

140  NASSAU  STREET,  NEW  YORK,  N.  Y 


INDEX  TO  VOLUME  II 


JANUARY— JUNE,  1920 


(Numbers  34-59) 


BRIEF  COMMENT— AT  HOME 

Page 
ALASKA'S  Salmon  Fisliinif  Industry,  L^islation 

^       X«,kd 347 

America,  What  Ihe  Name  SigniAcs 501 

American  AraJemy  at  Rome.  Funds  Needed 475 

American    Legion:     "llonuses" 166,239,317, 

445.  503,  586 
Imposition  u>f  Its  Standards  (Franklin  D'Olier)  2 
Proposals    lor   Aid    from  the   Government....   317 

Armenia.  American   Mandate  For 557 

Aviation:      Congressional   Appropriation 120,219 

D.\SEBALL  and  tht  Needs  ot  the  World 143 

Better    Times,    Smalla^    Newspaper    in    the 

Wo«»d 269 

Bird  Act,  Migratory,  Sustained  by  Supreme  Court  419 

B'tds.   Extermination   in  -\merica    (Hornaday) ....  663 

Birds.  Refuge  for  (Rockefeller  Foundation's  Gift)  447 

Bolshevism.  Cause  of 418,  587 

Chicherin  and   Raymond   Robbins 96 

n-portations.    Government's    Policy    Toward..  95 

Favored  in  Sibrria   (Major-General  Graves)..  531 
Hapgood's     (Norman)      Reply     to     Harvey's 

Weekly's  Charges   95 

May-day  Plot  474 

Refutation  by  the  New  Republic  and  Nation. .  120 

Books 71 

Bryan's   Speeches    41 

(>rN'CIXNATUS  Legend  and  Gov.  Frazier  of  the 

Xon-Partisan  League    269 

Child-Welfare  Laws  447 

Church  and  War  (Freeman) 587 

"Civic    Responsibility,"   Compulsory    Training   for 

(F.  E.  Spauldmg) 375 

Clothes,   Style  of   Men's    (Custom   Cutter's'   Deci- 
sion)       297 

Coal    Miners    and    Operators    Indicted    by    Federal 

Grand    Jury    318 

Congress:      American    Recognition    of    "Irish    Re- 
public"   (Cdby    Interrogated) 557 

Arminian    Mandate,   Immediate   Action    Upon 

Necessary    557 

Aviation  Appropriation   120,  219 

Bonus  Bill,   House   Passing  of 586 

Bonus   Raised    by   Proposed    Retroactive   War- 
profits  Tax  Bill   445 

Bonus    Two    Billion    Dollar   Bill,   Progress   of 

503.  586 
Glass's  Recommendation    for   Starving   Europe 

41,    119,    166 
Paper    Consumption,    Bill     for     Restraint    of 

Nerdcd     473 

Protest  Against  Their  Irish  Resolutions  (Yale 

Faculty)     614 

Resolution    Proposed    to    R  cognize    Irish    de 

facto   Government    (SherwooJ) 21 

Seed  Distribution,  Abandonm  nt  of  Policy  of.    268 

Conkling's  Hatred  of  Blaine,  Cause  of 663 

Cost  of   Living:     Cooperative  Soci.ties,   Statistics 

on    503 

Lowering  of   the   Price   of    Food    (Rcs.aurant 

Men's  Assn.)    297 

Potatoes,   Increase  in    Production   of 530 

Potatoes,  Means  of  Obtaining  Pric;  Reduction  473 
Reduction  of.  Overalls  and  Oli  Clothes 418 

r\EBS  and  Free  Speech 475 

"Disclosures"  ar.d  Radical  Papers 531 

Dreiser  (Theodore),  Importan.e  of 375 

ECONOMICS:     Budget  System  Needed 70 

Deflation   (Federal  Reserve  Board's  Report)  192 

Glass's  Recommendation  to  Congress  for  Re- 
lief in  Europe 41,  119,  166 

High   Prices,  Cause  of   (Kansas  City  Star)..  374 

Taxation    of    Non-residents     (Supreme    Court 

Decision)      218 

Truths    and    Advertising 97 

Education:     Child-welfare   l^ws 447 

Colleges,  Amherst   .Memorial  Fellowship 2 

Colleges,  Degree  Requirement — Specific  Knowl- 
edge of  Our  Form  of  Government 167 

Colleges,     Final     Examination     for     Degrees 

(Harvard)     97 

Colleges,    Harvard,    Teachers  and   Production 

(Lowell's  Report)    240 

Colleges,   Pranks  and   Newspaper  Reporting..  318 

Colleges,   Professors'    Salaries    (University   of 

Wash.)     167 

Colleges,  Women's  Funds  Needed   219 

Educational  .Section  of  the  Review 269 

New   York  Post-Graduate  Medical  School 447 

Unionization      of      College      and      University 

Teachers   (Prof.    Lovcjoy) 97 

pARMERS  and  the  "Questionnaire" 120 

Fifth  Avenue  Noises 346 


Page 

Fifth  Avenue's  Beauty 347 

Fifth  Avenue's   New  Traffic  Rules 297 

Finance  [See  Economics] 

Fraud:       Election     (Senator    Newberry's    Convic- 
tion)        295 

Free  Speech:     Radicals'  .\ttitude  Towards. .  .374,  475 

Republican  Platform  On 641 

Rev.  P.   S.  Grant's  Opinions 69,  120 

Socialist  Rez'iew's   Idea  of 587 

Suppression  of.  Deb's  Attitude  Toward 475 

Freeman,   The    295 

Freeman,  The,  and  the  Nation 446 

Freeman's,  The  View  of  the  Church 587 

French    and    English    Good    Feeling,    Ruhr    Situa- 
tion  a   Menace   to — Our  Attitude   "Toward..    373 

IJOOVER  as  the  Head  of  European  Relief  Work  642 
Housing:      Apartment    House    Leases    (New 

York)   42 

Tenement   Problems,    Prizes   for 42 

I DEALISM  and  Disillusion 374 

Indian      (American)      Rights     Association — ■ 

Pima    Indians'    Case 614 

Interchurch  World   Movement,   Fund   Campaign . . 

319,  587 

Ireland  and  European   Squabbles 95 

Irish    Propaganda   Encouraged   by   New    York   City 

and   State    70 

Italy  Accuses  America  of  Spreading  False  News.  .  445 

l^EYNES  and  Miller  (David  Hunter)  Controversy 

Over   German   Indemnity 141,   142 

J  ABOR:  Attitude  in  Australia  Against   Sabotage  587 

Farmers'   Compl.-iints    1 20 

Gompers,  Overthrow  of  {Manchester  Guardian)   558 

Gompers's   View  of,  Toilers'   Rights 614 

Hiring  Capital    (Sir  George   Paish) 42 

Injunctions,    Attitude    Toward    (John    A.    Mc- 

Mahon)    97 

Party  Dissensions    642 

Shorter  Hours  and  Undiminished  Production 
Exemplified    by    American    Multigraph    Co. 

(Cleveland)    530 

Soviet-Labor  Code,  Insurgent  Press's  Attitude  446 
Task    of    (Sir    Auckland    Geddes    at    Atlantic 

City)     474 

The  Right  to   Strike    (Gompers  vs.   Allen) . . .    586 
Unionization  of  College  and  University  Teach- 
ers (Prof.  Lovejoy) 97 

Wages   and   Number  of    Employees,   Statistics 

(Labor    Market    Bulletin) 218 

Lansing's  Influence  on  Notes  Sent  to  England  and 

Germany,  The   Nation's  View 217 

Laski's    (Harold   J.)    Prediction   of   Revolution....   615 
Law:     Reform    Urged    in    Anachronistic    Features 

by    Bar    Association 167 

Reforms   (New  York  State   Bar  Association).    167 

Liberator  and    Mexico 475 

Library    (American)   Association,    Work   of 71 

JVjAETERLINCK    in    America 2 

Marshall's        (Vice-President)        Democratic 
Letter    165 

Mexico   Under  Carranza,  the   Liberator's  View   .if  475 

Minority    and     Majority    Rights     (Hobson    in    the 

London    Nation)    503 

Morton,  Levi  P.,  Career  of 530 

MATION  (The):     Attack  on.. 142,  217,  239,446,  642 
Nation's  (The)  Plea  for  Newspaper  Modera- 
tion       142 

National  Thrift  Week 22 

Negroes:     Lynching     and     the     Law     (Lexington, 

Ky.)    142 

New  Republic  and  the  "Red  and   White  Terror".  120 

New  Republic  Misquotes   Wood 529 

New  Republic's  Attitude  Toward  the  War 69 

New  Republic's  Fondness  for  "Disclosures" 531 

Newspapers  and   News   Suppression 501,  585 

QSLER'S  (Dr.  William)  Death 2 

DAPER,  Newsprint,  Consumption  of 473 

Peary's    (Admiral)    Death 193 

Periodicals,  American  and  English  Contrasted 347 

Personal  Liberty  and   Legislation 347 

Politics:    And    Investigations    (New    York) 346 

Bryan's  Re-entrance  Into 1 

Commissioner  of   Accounts'  Attack  on  Horna- 
day of  the  N.  Y.  "Zoo" 297 

Conventions,   Interest  of ',]   613 

Democratic  Convention,  Character  of..!!....   661 

Democratic   Platform,    Issues  of 661 

Election     Campaign     Expenditures     (Senator 
Newberry's)    295 


Page 
Reasons    for    Voting     for    Johnson     (Detroit 

Weekly)     446 

Republican   Convention    613 

Republican    Convention,    "Task   of 473 

Republican    Platform    473 

Republican    Platform    On    Free    Speech,    Free 

Press   and    Free    Assembly 641 

Republican  Platform,  Prize  Contest  For.  ...  70 
Scheme    for    Electing    the    President     (Judge 

Willis   Brown)     218 

Vice-President    Marshall's    Letter 165 

Pope's    Mitigation    of    Protest    Against    the    King's 

Seizure    of    his   Temporal    Power 614 

Presidential   Candidates:      Betting   Odds  Against..  613 

Harding    and    Coolidge,    Careers    of 641 

Harding,    Comment    by    French    and    English 

Press    641 

Hoover  vs.   Johnson  on  the  Treaty 529 

Hoover's  Ability  to  Reduce  Government  Ex- 
penses       417 

Hoover's    Chances   of    Nomination 141 

Hoover's  Statement  of  his  Opinions 141 

Johnson  and   the   Chicago   Convention 585 

Johnson    and    the    Primaries,    Result    of 445 

Johnson's   Convictions    613 

Johnson's   Definition   of  Radical 558 

Republican   Candidate    (Penrose) 192 

Vice-Presidency,     Importance     of     (Johnson's 

Comment)    417 

Wilson  and  the  Treaty 445 

Wilson's   Renomination,   Chances   of 661 

Wood   and   Hoover 95 

Wood  Misquoted  by  New  Republic 529 

Wood's    Fitness    for    Presidency 417 

Wood's    Primary    Campaign 585 

Wood's  Resignation  from   the  Army 21 

Primaries    and    Senator    Johnson ». .  239 

Primaries,    Value    of 641 

Primary  and  Funds 585 

Profiteers:       Department    Store    Head,    Arrest    of 

[New  York]   662 

"Progressives"      and      Grover      Cleveland       (The 

Nation)    642 

Prohibition:      Enforcement   of 71 

Entering    Wedge    for    Further    Restraints    of 

Personal    Liberty     347 

Michigan    and    Enforcement 193 

DADICAL:     Meaning   of    [Senator   Johnson]...  558 

Press    and    the    People 615 

Radical's  Position  and  the  Liberal's 418 

Radicals  vs.  Liberals 663 

Railing  on   "General  Principles" 615 

Railways:     Esch  Cummins    Railroad    Bill 191 

Esch-Cunimins  Railroad  Bill,  Labor  Provisions  191 

Freight  Rates'  Increase  and  the  Nation 239 

Revolutionists    and    Violence 531 

Rhymes:      [Clinton   Scollard  and   F.   P.   Adams]..  559 

Roosevelt   Memorial   Association.     Woman's 240 

Russian    Bolsheviki    Methods    Exposed 345 

gALVATION   Army's   Campaign   for   Funds 418 

Science     Offers     Prize     for     Inter-planetary 

Communication     121 

Sir    Oliver    [Lodge]     Exchanged    for    "Pussyfoot'' 

Johnson    167 

.Social    Force    vs.    Law    [London    Nation!....'.'.'.'.  502 
Socialism;     Albany   Bills  against.    Constitutionality 

of    417 

Berger  and  the  War 2I 

Debs  Compared  to   Liebknecht   ISurvey] ....'.  447 

Gov.   Smith   Vetoes  Heresy-hunting  Bills 557 

Republican   Platform  Stand  on   Discrimination 

Against    641 

Speaker    Sweet's    Charges    Against    the    Five 

Socialist   Assemblymen 69 

State   [Non  Partisan  League]   Cincinnatus  aiid 

I  h  eir     Governor 269 

Voting  For  '..'.'.'.  219 

Socialist    Parties,    Dissensions    of !!!!!!!!!  642 

State,    the    Passing    of    the 295 

Straw  Hats   [Mens]   Convention  Governing  Wear- 
ing of    559 

Strikes;     Heating  Plant   Operators   [New   York].!  121 

Railroad,   Justification   as    Regards   Wages...!  373 

Kailroadj   "Outlaw"  Character  of 373 

The  Right  of  [Gompers  vs.  Allen] 586 

Sugar,  Hoover's  Plans  for  Its  Supply 501 

yENANTS  of  New  York  Apartment  Houses 42 

Treaty  and  Covenant:     America's  Responsi- 
bility and  Wilson  [Fortnightly  Review! . .  585 

Bryan's   Speech    41 

George   Washington    Invoked  Against! !  95 
Hoover's    Position    on    Treaty    Attacked 

by  Johnson    529 

Issue  in   Presidental   (Campaign '217, 

239,  445,  501 

Keynes  vs.  Miller  [David]  Hunter  141,  142 


Numbers  34-59 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


Vol.  II 


Pace 
LeaRlie's       Financial       Resources      and 

Wood's  Campaign   446 

Lenroot   Reservation  and  Canada 166 

Lord  Grey's  Letter 119 

Lord   Grey,   and   the    Senate 119 

New  Republic's  Attitude   ^ 69 

Non-Ratification  of,   Responsibility  for.   267 

Ratification   Outlook  Dark 217,  267 

RatificatioTi  Without  Reservation,  Oppo- 
sition of  Taft  and  Bryan  to  Wilson's 

Plan    501 

Root  Represents  Us  at  the  League....    192 

Wilson  and   Italy's  Claims 166 

Wilson  L'rgcd  by  Prominent  Citizens  to 
Accept  Treaty  on  Best  Terms  Obtain- 
able     317 

Wilson's  New  Proposals  and  the  Trcnty  445 
Wilson's    Opportunity    to     Return     the 

Treaty  to  the  Senate 295 

Wilson's  Responsibility  for  Non-Rati- 
fication of   661 

UNITED    States    Army:     "Bonuses" ..  166,    239, 
317,  445,  503,  586 

General   Wood's    Resignation 21 

Unit  d   States    Navy;      Admiral    Sims's   Charges..      69 

Result  of  Inquiry  Into  Charges  Against 374 

Sims's     Controversy      with      Daniels,     Report 
Necessary    662 

WICK  Investigations  in  New  York 345,  346 

W^.-\R  Memorial,   Hudson  River  Bridge 642 

"         Wilson       Administration:      Colby's        [Bain- 
bridge]     Appointment     as     Secretary     of 

State     217 

Crane's    [Charles    R.]    Appointment    as 

Minister    to    China 218 

Wilson's  Dismissal  of  Secretary  Lansing  165 
Wilson's  Re-election  and  the  Treaty  239,  445 
Wilson's  Renomination,  Chances  of....  661 
Wilson's     Responsibility     Towards     the 

Treaty    585 

Wilson's  Sickness  and  Republican  Sym- 
pathy   [Senator    Williams] ..   318 

WilS(Hi's       Uncompromising       Idealism, 

Results  of   374 

VUKON    Salmon    Fishing    Industry,    Legislation 

needed    [Archdeacon    Stuck] 347 

VIONISM:     F'unds   For 70 


BRIEF    COMMENT— ABROAD 

ARMENIA,  American  Mandate  For 557 

Australia,  Unions  and  Sabotage 587 

Austria-Hungary:     "Lasko's"   Death   and   the  New 

Republic     120 

Union    With    Czechoslovakia 70 

DELGIUM:     Industrial     Conditions      [Guaranty 
*-*        Trust   Co.] 22,  559 

r^ANADA:      Financial    Prosperity,   Aid    to    [Sir 

^        Vincint    Meredith] 143 

Treaty,  Voting  Rights   [N.  W.   Rowell] 166 

Tribute  to  Prince  of  Wales's  Visit   [Sir  Vin- 
cent   Meredith]    143 

pvENMARK:     Elections  for  the  Folketing  — Re- 
'-'       suits    474 

Plebiscite   in    Slesvig,    Results   of 296,  346 

Reinstatement    of    Mr.     Hansen    as    Commis- 
sioner for  Slesvig  Affairs,  Signiiicance  of..   375 

ECONOMICS:  Glass's     Recommendation     to 

Congress  for  Relief  in  Europe 41,   119,   166 

piNANCE:     [See  Economics] 

France:     Agreement    with    Kernel    Pasha...   643 

Aviation,   War  Statistics   42 

German  Diplomacy  vs.  French 346 

German  Indemnity  and  the  Hythe  Con- 
ference       558 

Lille,   Funds  for    121 

Merchant   Fleet,    Needs 29S 

Millerand  Tries  to  Dissolve  the  General 

Federation    of    Labor 530 

Millerand's    Cabinet    Victory 96 

Politics,    Briand    vs.    Millerand 96 

I'rize    for    Inter-Planetary    Communica- 
tion   [Academy   of   Sciences] 121 

Ruhr   Situation  a   Menace  to  Its  Good 

Relations  With    England 373 

Russian  Policy   [Millerand] 586 

Socialist  Programme  for  Reconstruction  502 
France's  Part  in  the  Controversy  Over  the  German 

Territory  on  the  Left  Bank  of  the  Rhine .  .   296 

^ERMANS    in    Czechoslovakia    at    Prague,    Be- 

havior  of  586 

Germany:    Condition  of   [Dr.  Paul  Rohrbach]  . . .  .  96 
Effect    of    the    Reconciliation    of    France    and 

England   at   San   Remo 446 

Elections   for   Reichstag — Results 614 

Ex-Kaiser's    Trial 41 

German    Diplomacy    vs.    French 346 

Hermann  Muller's  Cabinet 318 

Indemnity,   Arrangement  at   Hythe 558 

Indemnity  [Keynes  vs.  Miller,  David  Hunter]. 

141,  142 

Our   Attitude   Towards 41 


Pace 

Plebiscite  in  Slesvig 296 

Prince  Joachim  Alhrecht's  Trial 643 

Prussian   Militarists'  Counter-Revolution,  Pur- 
poses      267,  268 

Prussian    Militarists'    Revolution    Against   the 

Kberl    Government    267 

ReL-itiins    with    Eastern    Europe    [Dr.    Rohr- 
bach]      240 

Spa   Conference,    Demands   of   German    Dele- 
gates at   5.i;g 

War  Criminals,   Demand  For 165 

QREAT    Britain:     Anglo-Persian    Treaty 419 

Asquith  vs.   Lloyd  George's  Policies 318 

Birds,  Extermination  of — Fight  for  Preventive 

Measures     419 

General  Strike  to  Force  Nationalization  of  the 

Mines,  Vote  on 268 

Krasin's    Visit,    Real    Purpose   of 662 

Lloyd     George's     Russian     Policy     [Krasin's 

visit]    586 

London    Ucrcvry's  Articles.   Informality   of..   347 

Lord  Grey's  Letter  on  the  Treaty 119 

Polish  Policy   fBonar  Law] 558 

Ruhr  Situation   a   Menace  to  Its  Good   Rela- 
tions With  France 373 

Saturday  Review,   Snobbishness  of 347 

Sir  Auckland  Geddes  on   Reconstruction,  Op- 
timism   of 474 

UARDING'S   Nomination,    English   and   French 

Comment    on 641 

Holland:     Ex-Kaiser's   Trial    41 

Hoover  and  European  Relief  Work 642 

Hungary:  White  Terror  and  Allied  Commission- 
ers' Representations  to  the  Horthy  Govern- 
ment    643 

IRELAND:     American    Recognition    of    Republic 

'■  [Colby]    557 

Government     of     Ireland     Bill     Amendment 

Group   [.Stephin  Gwynn]    474 

Home    Rule    Bill    [Lloyd    George's],    Stephen 

Gwynii's  Amendments   474 

Resolution  Proposed  in  Congress  to  Recognize 

de  facto  Government  [Sherwood] 21 

Sinn    Fein    Propaganda    Encouraged    in    New 

York  City  and  State 70 

Sinn   Feinism  and  the  League 70 

Sinn  FYinism  Denounced  by  Colonel  Lynch. .     22 
Italy:     America  Accused  of  Spreading  False  News 

of    Italy     445 

American  Academy  at  Rome,  Funds  Needed.  475 
Attitude  Towards  the  World  [Premier  Nitti]  142 
Coalitions,  Value  of  [Nitti's  Resignations]...  643 
Fiunie   and  Jugoslavia's  Need  of   a  Seaport..    192 

Fiume  and  the  Fourteen  Points 191 

Fiume,      Policy     of     Moderation     Advocated 

IPremicr  Nitti] 142 

Nitti's  Resignation  and  Return 530 

Pope's     Mitigation    of    Protest    Against    the 

King's  Seizure  of  His  Temporal  Power....   614 

Socialism — Leader   of,   Enrico    Malatesta 475 

Wilson's    Uncompromising    Attitude    on    Dal- 

matia    166 

JAPAN:  Occupation  of  Vladivostock,  Responsi- 
bility   for    503 

Shantung     Settlement,     China's     Distrust     of 

J  apan    662 

Japanese    Portraiture    of    Etiropeans    INeopkiloh' 

gusl    531 

lyiEXICO:     Revolution    Depicted   by   Ibancz....  530 
The  Liberator's  View  of  [Irwin  GranichJ . .  475 

Minority    and    Majority    Rights    [Hobson    in    the 

London     Nations 502,  503 

pERSIA:     Anglo-Persian     Treaty 419 

^         i'oland:     Success  of  Offensive  Against  Rus- 
sia  502,  558 

Ukranian  Debt  to 502 

RUSSIA:     Aggressive     Campaign     Against — Re- 
sults of 502 

Bolsheviki   and    Outside    Interference 193 

Bolsheviki  Kill  Madame  Ponatidine 615 

Bolsheviki  Regime  and  Free  Speech   [N.  Buk- 

harin]     375 

Chicherin's   Note  to   President  Wilson 96 

Co-operatives  and  the  Soviet 142 

Exposure  of  Bolsheviki   Methods 345 

France's   Policy   Toward    [Millerand] 586 

Japai.ese    Occupation    of    Vladivostok 503 

Kalinin's  Death  and  Soviet  Changes ;••.••  1*7 

Keeliiig's    [Mr.]    Change    of    View    of    Soviet 

Russia    345 

Kolchak,  Result  of  Allied  Aid  to 193 

Kolchak,   Testimonial  to    [Hans   Vorst] 96 

Krasin's  Visit  to  England,  Real  Purpose  of . . .  662 
Lloyd     George's     Policy     Towards     [Krasins 

Visit   to    England] 586 

Semenov    and    Japan J 

Semenov   Succeeds   Kulchak 1 

Semcnov's  Value  INew  Republic] 21 

Siberia's     Pro-Bolshevik    Tendencies     [Major- 

Gcneral   Graves]    ,•'■,■,-"■  ^ 

Soviet    Governm.nt.    Social    Democrat  s    View 

[British   Labor   Delegation] 643 

Soviet  Government's  Issue  of  Platinum  Notes  219 

Soviet   Labor    Code 446,  559 

Tolstoy   and   Bolshevism .•••,•; Jt„ 

Unity  of  Russia  [Dr.  Rohrbach] 240 


Pmb 

CAN   Remo  Conference,   Lloyd   Georte  «.   Mil- 

lerand     4I7 

San    Remo    Peace    Conference,    Reconciliation    of 

France  and   England 44< 

•'i'law    [Bernard]    and    Prize    Fichlint 42 

.Spa    Conference 558 

Sweden:     .Socialist    Cabinet     419 

Switzerland:     Votes    Condilionalljr    to    Jota    tlw 

Lt-ague  1 

Syria:     Independence  of.... 268,296 

TREATY  and  Covenant I,  41,  70,  119,  141, 

o.     .  -  >«,  166 

Signing    of 41 

Turkey:     Allied    Policy   Toward 240,268 

And   Conditions   in   the   Near   Ea«t 268 

France's  Agreement  with   Krmal  Pasha 64J 

Rea.<ons  for  Turkey   Retaining  Constantinople  218 


EDITORIAL  ARTICLES 

AGRICULTURE,    the    Basic    Industry 196 

^       Albany,  The  Issues  in  the  Fight  at  [Socia- 
lism]       121 

Am:'rica  and  the  Plight  of  Europe  [Economic]...  123 

American    Isolation    (Trealyl     589 

America's  Duty  532 

Article   X    143 

Asquith's   Return,    Mr 222 

"DLOOD  and  Iron,"  What  Hat  Come  o{  [Ger- 

'-'      many]     244 

Bolsheviki,    Poles   and 477 

Bi  nus.  Justice  and  the 351 

Branting,  Prime  Minister 451 

(CAMPAIGN  Arguments    299 

^^       Cenlralia  Murder  Trial,  The 321 

Chicago.     The     Chances     at     [Presidential     Can- 
didates)      376 

Chicago,  The  Problem  at  [Presidential  Candidates]  588 
Chicago,  The  Result  at   [Presidential  Candidates]  644 

Church  and  the  World's  Need,  The 172 

Classics,  President  Butler  on  the 76 

College  Efficiency,  The  "Student-Hour"  and 198 

Colleges    For?     What    Are 125 

Colleges,   The   Women's    223 

Cost  of  Living  Exhibit,  A 477 

Cow  to  Consumer,  From 591 

pCONOMIC    Restoration,    The   World's 71 

^         Eighteenth       Amendment,       The       Protest 

Against  the   [  Prohibition] 242 

English  Tradition,  America  and  the 147 

Europe,  The  Outlook  in 26 

Exchange  Question,  A  B  C  of  the 145 

CAILURE,  A  Lamentable  [Soldiers] 197 

^         Faith  That  Is  in  Us,  The  [Socialism] 506 

Farmers'    Questionnaire,    The 299 

Father   of  Victory   The   [Clemenceau] 75 

Fighting  the   Symptoms   [Cost  of  Living] 243 

France   and    England 322 

pERMAN   Elections,  The 590 

^^        Germany,  By-Governments  in   507 

Gompers    [Mr.]    vs.    the    Bolshevists 124 

Governor   Smith's   Opportunity    [Socialist  Billa]..  421 

Greek    at    Oxford 424 

"Greek  for  the  Greek-minded" 645 

Greeks  and  Poles 665 

UOLLAND   and   the  ex-Kaiser 100 

^^       Hoover    98 

Hoover's  Candidacy,  Two  AspecU  of   Mr 560 

Housing,   Population   and 666 

Housing  Problem— Ethics  or  Economics?  The 349 

Hungary,  Peace  for 563 

"IDEALISM"  at  its  Worst  [Treaty  and  Wilson]  241 
*       IdeaUsm  in  Vacuo  [Treaty  and  Wilson]...  505 

Industrial  Conference,  Labor  and  the 320 

Irish    Surprises    272 

lACKSON-Day    Bombshell,   The    [Treaty] 44 

J  Johns  Hopkins,  The  Case  of 24 

Johnson  and  the  Chicago  Convention 504 

I^APP'S  Ballon  d'Essai  [Germany] 301 

I  ABOR   in   Politics 146 

^        Labor  and  the  Industrial  Conference 320 

Labor  Move.  A  Hopeful ••  6 

Labor,  What  Kansas  is  Doing  About 269 

Law  or  the  Cadi.  The  [Lever  Law] 617 

Lawmakers  Found  Wanting 448 

Liberal?    What    is    a 219 

Longevity,  A  Question  of 3'9 

MERCHANT  Marine,  Our 533 
Mock-Hysteria    (Socialism]    43 

"lUATION"  Will  Say—,  The  [Reds] 23 

''     Navy    Awards.    Those 6 

.N'ewberry  Verdict,  The 450 

OLD  Familiar  Charge,  The  ["Little  Americans"]  664 
Overallers  .\re   in    Earnest,   If  the   [Profit- 
eering]     *^' 


Vol.  II 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


Jan.-June,  1920 


Pace 

pOEM?     What    Constitntn    m 246 

*  Pol«5    »nd    Bolsheyiki 477 

Population    and    Hotisinr    666 

Preacnration  of  Our  Wild  Life,  The J78 

President,    The    168 

Prices  and  the  Gold  Standard 169 

PriosSIashing.  The  Ware  of 560 

Profiteer— Hunting   and    Political    Economy 195 

Prohibition  a  Fact.  Federal 616 

Property,  The  Defence  of 3 

Prophet,   A    Rock-Bottom 619 

Public?  Is  there  a 646 

DEDS.  The  Raid  on  the 22 

**^        Revirw,"   One  Year  of  "The 476 

Russia,    Information    from 376 

Russia,   Still   Fumblini  With 101 

Russia,  The  New  Policy  Toward 72 

Russia.   The    Problem    of 25 

Russia's    Substitute   for   "Wage   Slavery".  ,.>.. ..  273 

CHEPHERDS  and  Song  in  the  Day's  News 667 

*^         Siberia  in  Despair 5 

Sim's   Memorandum.   Admiral    74 

'*Scctal  Unit."  Mrs.  Tiffany  on  the 7 

Socialism  Convention,  The 534 

Socialist    Programme,   Hillquit  on   the 193 

Socialists  at  Albany.  The  Expulsion  of  the 348 

Soothsayers,   The   World   and   the    [Sir   Auckland 

Geddes's  Address]    664 

Soviet  Drive  for  Peace,  The 220 

Sqturing    Grandfather 479 

Steel  Strike.   End  of  the 46 

Stock    Dividend    Case,   The 271 

Stock  Dividends  Again 561 

Strike,   Limiution  of  the  Right  to 170 

Sultan,  Ousting  the 351 

"TPOWN   Meeting   Hall,"   New  York's 99 

Treaty    Manoeuvers 532 

Treaty,  "The   Review"  and  the 420 

Treaty,  the  Wreck  of  the 297 

Turkey    and    the    Powers 45 

Turkish    Treaty,    The 535 

Turks    and    Germans 423 

"Two-thirds    of  Both  Houses"  [Prohibition] 47 

WATICAN,   The 422 

^         Voice  of   America,   The 616 

^WAR,  Forgotten  Derelicts  of   [Siberian  Prison- 

"       ers]     24 

Welfare   or    "Hell-fare"? 245 

White  House,  The  Anomaly  at  the  [Wilson] 319 

Winter,    Outwitting 196 


SPECIAL  ARTICLES 

ADVERTISEES,    The    264 

Air,     Empire     Building    by — Cairo    ta    the 

Cape.     C.    Hicks 494 

Aliens  and  the  Political  Party  System.  J.  Spargo  175 
Anatole  France  as  Preacher.  H.  L.  Stewart....  595 
Auvus,  The.     W.   Holbrook 606 

DARRIE,  Galworthy,  and  Others.     W.  Archer..  633 

*-'        "Batter     Upl" 624 

Bolsheviks'  Horn  of  Plenty,  The.     J.   Landfield. .  428 

Bolshevism,  Asia.  Europe,  and,     P.  Rohrbach 455 

Bolshevism   in   Holland.     A.   J.   Barnouw 247 

Books,  Packing  the.     E.  J.  Pearson 675 

Books  That  Appear   in   the   Spring.     E.    L.   Pear- 

»on    402 

British  Civil  Service,  The  Whitley  System  in  the 

E.   S.   Roscoc 611 

Budget,  Two  Plans  for  a  National.     R.  Hayden. .   513 

/CANADIAN     Ambassador     at     Washington,     A. 

r*   .J-    K.    F 568 

Certificate    Borrowing  and  the   Floating  Debt.     J. 

H.    HoIUnder 552 

Chiradame  on  Lloyd  George.     A.   Ch^radame 647 

China,   Behind  the  Financing  of   [Parts  I.   II,   III 

and     IV).     C.     Hodges 302,  324,  353,  452 

Church    Unity.      Theologian 287 

Colophons  of  American  Publishers 66 

Composing   Room  Colloquy,  A.     W.   Holbrook 568 

ConsUntinople  and  the  Straits.  P.  M.  Brown..  224 
Constantinople  and  the  Turks.  D.  B.  MacDonald  325 
Co-operatives,  Co-operating  with  the  [Russia].     J. 

Landfield  107 

rjIPLOMACY,  Pre-War  American.  L.  Rogers  199 
'-'       Drama,  The  Revival  of  the  Qassic.     J.   M. 

„  Beck   386 

Dreiser,  Theodore,   Philosopher.     P.   E.   M 380 

PINSTEIN  and  the  Man  in  the  Street.     A.  G. 

'-        Webster 115 

Ersberger-Helfferich     Trial     and     the     Afterma'th, 

The.     C.    Gauss    277 

Experimental  Allegiances   [ParU  I   and  II]    (The 

State).     W.  J.  Ghent 275,  303 

Europe?  How  Can  America  Help.  G.  Emerson.  498 
European   Rehabiliution,   Export  Credits  and.     G. 

Emerson     659 

Exporter  in  "Wonderland",  The  American.'..!.'.'.'  688 

CED?     What    Must    the   World   Do  To   Be.     T. 

H.    Dickinson     200 

Fmme,  The  Problem  of.     A  Geographer '..'.  173 


Pag( 

France,   The   Social  Revolution   in.     R.   Buell....  566 
France  Through   Agriculture,  The   Reconstruction 

of.     A.    Rostand    637 

France,  The  Transportation  Problem  in.     A.     Ros- 
tand      305 

French    Plays — Carlo    Litcn    and    "Les    Blues    de 

rAmour"     90 

French  Premier,  M.  Millerand,  The.     O  Guerlac.  456 

French  President,  The  New.     O.  Guerlac 113 

rjERMAN    University    Days,    Gone.     G.    R.    El- 

^-*        liott     384 

Germany,  The   Military    Coup  in.      P.    Rohrbach..  540 

Germany,    The    Outlook    in.     Examiner 356 

Germany,  The  Political  Parties  in.     Dr.  P.  Rohr- 
bach       592 

Germany    Recover?     Can.     Dr.    P.    Rohrbach....  104 
Germany's  Future  Relations  with  Eastern  Europe 

P.    Rohrbach    250 

Goncourt  Prize,  The.     A.  G.  H.  Spiers 599 

Great  Lakes,    Unlocking   the 235 

LJEINE'S  Buried  Memoirs.     M.  Monahan 438 

*       Holland,  Bolshevism  in.     A.   J.   Barnouw..  247 

Holland.   Dramatic  Art  in.     J.  L.  Walch 577 

Human   Cost   of  Living,  The.     D.   H.   Colcord 127 

Hungary  A  Chance,  Give.     Examiner 508 

INDIA    Act,    The    Government    of.     A.    J.    Bar- 
nouw      80 

Ireland,  A  Glimmer  of  Hope  for.     H.  L.   Stewart  102 

Iris  in  Kansas  City.     May  time 624 

JAPAN'S  After- War  Boom,  The  Collapse  of.     C. 

J          Hodges   584 

Japan,  President  Wilson's.     C.  Hodges 149 

Jazz  a  Song  at  Twilight.     C.  Wood 468 

Jobs  for  New  Brooms  [New  President's  Job].     E. 

G.   Lowry    672 

Jthnson  in  Fact  and  Fancy,  Hiram  W.     J.  Land- 
field    537 

Journals,  The  Jazz.     W.  J.  Ghent 30 

June,  Early.     E.  G.  H 683 

J^ING'S,   Old.     A.    MacMechan 185 

I   ABOR    and    Capital,    Problems    of:     Employers' 

Aesociations.      M.    L.   Ernst 361 

II,  Honest  Ballots  for  Unions  .-ind  Employers' 
Associations.      M.    L.    Ernst 408 

III,  Compulsory  Filing  of  Collective  Bargain- 
ing  Agreements.     M.    L.    Ernst 442 

IV,  Chartering  vs.  Incorporating  Employers* 
Associations  and  Trade  Unions.  M.  L. 
Ernst    610 

Lady    of     the    Violets,    The     [Suffrage].     M.     C. 

Francis    129 

Lawrence,    The    Company    Stores    at.     Staff    Cor- 

pondent    286 

r^ans,    America's    Foreign.     "T.    F.    Woodlock 344 

League     of     Nations,     Switzerland     and    the.     O. 

Nippold 541 

Lodge,    The   Case  of    Sir   Oliver.     J.   Jastrow 225 

London    Stage,   On   the.     W.   Archer 38 

MAETERLINCK,    The    Case    of    Maurice.        J. 

Jastrow    381 

Metropolitan   Museum,  The  Jubilee  of  the.     F.  J. 

M.ither,    Jr 510 

Mexico,   The  Plot  AR,iinst.     W.   J.   Ghent 536 

Monroe    Doctrine    as    an    Adventure    in    Foreign 

Policy,    The.     E.    J.    B -nton 670 

More  [Mr.  P.  E.]  and  The  Wits.     S.  P.  Sherman  54 

Moscow's    Campaign    of    Poison.     Examiner 77 

MATURE    Lover,    The.     W.    Beebe 406 

Naval  Inquiry,  The.     S.   P 426 

"New  Republic's"  Exhilaration,  The    [Russia]     J. 

Landfield   150 

North   Dakota,  A   "Gold   Brick"   From.     Eye-Wit- 

ness    621 

QUT   of    Their    Own    Mouths    [Bolshevism].     J. 

Landfield 48 

pAINTING   in   Washington,    Contemporary.     V. 

Barker    62 

Paish   [Sir  GecrEe]  A  Talk  With.    C.  H.   Meltzer.  53 

Palestine,  The   Problem  of.     E.   B.    Reed 564 

Palestine.   The  Problem   of — A   Rejoinder.      E.    M. 

Friedman     650 

Piotr   Ivanovitch,   The   House  of    [Russia].     J.    E. 

Conner     593 

Poland,    Aggressiv".      L.    Pasvolsky 480 

Political  State.   Aboli.shing  the.     W.  J.   Ghent 126 

"Politicians'    Union,"    The    Troubles    of    the.      E. 

G.   Lowry    248 

Presidential  Tnability.     L.   Rogers 481 

President's    Secretary,    The.     Spectator 177 

Print-seller,    My    Friend    the.     L.    Williams 550 

Professor,    The    Unreconstructed.     P.     M.    Buck, 

„     ,    Jr 154 

Profiteer   Hunting.   On.     H.    Hazlitt 466 

Propaganda  and  the  News.     W.  J.  Ghent 453 

Pygmalion,   The   Tragedy   of.     R.    Demos 368 

DADICAL  in  Fiction,  The.     F.  Tupper 483 

Railroads?     Life  or  Death   for  the.     T.   F. 

Woodlock    28 

Reactionaries,    Helping    the.     W.    J.    Ghent 354 

Religious   Revivals— Old  and   New.      S.   West 332 

Republican    National    Convention,    The.     J.    Land- 
field    649 

Russian  Peasants,  Tlje  Plight  of.    J.  Landfield...  276 


Pack 
Russian  Village,  How  the  Soviet  Came  to  a 153 

CCHOOLS?     Can  We  Improve  Our  Public.     C. 

•^         F.    Goodrich     50 

Scientific  Research,  Organization  in.     J.  R.  Angell  251 

Ship's  Library,  The.      R.    P.    Utter 404 

Shoe   Men,   Our  American 89 

Sinners  and   Little   Ones,   Big.     A.    Replier 668 

Slaves  of  the   Machine   [Labor].     D.   H.   Colcord       8 
Social   Unit  at  Cincinnati — Is   it  a   Soviet?     The. 

K.  E.  Tiffany 11 

Soures,    George,    an     Athenian     Satirist.      A.     E. 

Phoutrides    211 

Stock  Exchange  and  the  "Comer  in  Stutz,"  The. 

T.  F.  W 524 

Switzerland  and  the  League  of  Nations.  O.  Nip- 
pold       541 

"THIRD  Internationale,  The.  A.  J.  Barnouw 
^  [Holland]    328 

Transportation  I'roblem  in  France,  The.  A.  Ros- 
tand       305 

Trembling   Year,   The.     R.   P.   Utter 491 

Turkey    and    Armenia,    Lorn    Bryce    on.     James 

Bryce   425 

Turks,  Constantinople  and  the.  D.  B.  MacDon- 
ald       325 

IJNCULT,  The.    W.  Holbrook 201 

VOYAGE,  Impressions  de  [I,  II  and  III].  C. 
''         F.    Goodrich 440,    522,  606 

WASHINGTON    Gossip    29 

Whitley   System   in  the  British  Civil   Serv- 
ice,   The.     E.    S.    Roscoe 611 

Winter  Mist.     R.   P.   Utter 210 

Woodpiles,  Of.     R.   P.   Utter 260 

■V/OUNG  Nations,  Worries  of  the.  T.  H.  Dickin- 
'         son    620 

CORRESPONDENCE 

A  DRIATIC  Problem,  The.     Square  Deal 329 

Amendment    be    Unconstitutional?     Can    a 

Constitutional.     G.     S.     Brown 359 

Amendments,  Amending  the.     Optimist 179 

"America's     Duty."     Altruist 597 

Anglo-Persian  Treaty,  The.     Y.   B.   Mirza 432 

Anti-Saloon  League,  The  High-Handedness  of  the, 

E.    J.    Shriver 228 

DECK'S  Letter,  Reactions  to:  A.  F.  Beard;  C. 
'-'        D.   Higby;  J.    S.    Moore;   G.   H.   Putnam.. 

430,  431 

Bonus,  A  Woman's  View  of  the.     B.  D.  C 458 

Bonus,   The.      E.    L.    C.    Morse 458 

Book  Reviewing,  The  Hazards  of.     L.  G.  McPher- 

son    331 

Budget,"     "Two    Plans     For    a    National.     J.    P. 

Chamberlain   569 

Business,   Salvaging  the   Facts  of,     D.   W.   Hyde, 

Jr 570 

"pAHlERS  de  la  Quinzaine,"  The.     M.  Peguy.    131 
^-'     Church,    Loose    Talk    Within    the.        T.    M. 

Hanks     279 

Church  of  England,  Mr.  Roscoe  and  the.  L.  J.  B.     52 
Clemenceau  and  the  Left  Bank.     A.  O.  Lovejoy..    359 

Col.    Lynch's   Catholicism.     Ci.    L.    Fox 106 

Concert   Stage,  Atmosphere  on  the.     G.   Vernon..      13 

Confiscation  by  Amendment.     E.  J.   Shriver 130 

Congress's  Right  to  Declare  Peace.      E.  S.  Corwin  388 

Conservation   of   Wild   Life.     E.   W.    Nelson 544 

Constitution,    What    Might    Happen   to   the.      E.   J. 

Shriver    202 

pvANTE  Centennial,   The  Sixth.     H.   Cochin 570 

'-'        Dead   in   France,   Our.     Abbe    F.    Klein 674 

Deflation  Through  Taxation.  M.  C.  Burke.  32 
Dreiser    and     the    Broadway     Magazine,     Mr.    T. 

Dreiser  and.     A.  N.   Meyer 597 

Dreiser's  Battle  for   Truth,   Mr.     A.  N.   Meyer. .  486 

pOUCATION,  The  Work  of  the  South  in  Wom- 

'^         en's.     L.    P.   Posey 307 

"CAITH  that  Is  in  Us.  The."     J.  F.  Morton,  Jr.   542 
France  to    Pay   Her  Debts,   The  Ability  of. 

Jules     Meline 543 

Freedom   of  Opinion.     M.   F.   Clarke 152 

French  Opinion  of  the  A.  E.  F.,  A.     A.  Chevrillon     32 
French   Students,  The   War  and.     E.   Lavisse. . . .   517 

QERMAN  Despair.     G.  M.  Priest 32 

Germans    in    Disguise.     E.    Corman 152 

Germany,    Fuel    in.      W.    J.    Lowenstein 280 

Germany  the   Logical  Claiment.     B.   W.   K(;lly....  598 

Cold  as  Commodity  and  as  Money.     H.  A.  Briggs  598 

Government  by   Subterfuge.     H.   T.   Newcomb....  151 
Greenbacks,    The    Trouble    with    the.     L.    A.    Hol- 

lenbeck    13 

UOME   Rule  Proposals,  The   New.     A.    B.   John- 

*        son 390 

Hoover,  Zachary  Taylor  and  Herbert.     X 457 

Housing    Problem.    The.     F.    L.    Olmsted 652 

Human    Cost    of    Living,    Reducing    the.        L.    F. 

Loree      : 330 

Human  Cost  of  Living,"  "The.       B 227 


Numbers  34-59 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


Vou  II 


Page 

INTANGIBLE    Advantages    ["Defence    of    Prop- 

erty"].     J.   de    L.    Vcrplanck 152 

"Intrllecluals,"    The.     W.    K.    liissing 625 

Investors,    Protection    for.     H.    R.    Andrews 331 

"JEST,  The".     A.    E.   T 626 

J        Jew  and  Arab.     F.  J.  Bliss 485 

I/AISER'S   Case,  The.     O.    Nippold 625 

*^        Keyn;s  and  Dillon.     A.   O.  Lovejoy 279 

Kingsley,   List   to   Charles.     VV.    B 673 

I  ANSING'S  Statutory  Rights,  Mr.     J.  M.  Beck.   253 

'-'     Liberty,   The    Decline   of.     G.    W.    Martin 202 

Lodge  and  Sinn  Fein,  Senator.  H.  B.  Warren..  517 
Lodge    and    Wilson,    Senator    Weeks    on.      J.    W. 

Weeks     516 

Lodge,  High   Praise   for  Senator.     J.   M.   Beck 358 

Lodge    Reservation.s,    The.      M.    Storey 569 

Lodge's    "Fight   Against    Wilson."     L.    B.    Swift. .   485 

VjEDICINE,  Compul.sory.     J.  Hutchinson,  M.  D.  389 

Mexico  Intervention  in.     E.   L.  C.   Morse..      83 

Mexico,  Misstatements  About,  G.  W.  Knoblauch..  543 

MEWBERRY  Trial,  The.     W.  E.  V 431 

*^        Newberry  Verdict,  The.     H.  H.  Smith 459 

pAISLEY,"  "Keep  Your  Eye  on.     J.  M.  Dixon.   330 
Party    Membership    and    the    Vote.      F.    B. 

Simkins    569 

Pedagogy,   Pelf  and.     O.   Heller 203 

Pilot  at  the  Wh.el,  No   [Wilson].     F.   Rogers 83 

Professor,  Keeping  Tab  on  the.  C.  H.  Benjamin.  486 
Public  Schools  and  the  Colleges.  W.  H.  Buck..  131 
Purchasing  Power,  The  Theory  of.    J.  L  .  Laughlin  306 

QUANTITY  Theory,  The.     J.   L.    Laughlin....  674 
Queen  Anne's  Time,  The  Wits  of.     S.   B. 
G 517 

DADICAL  or  Conservative — a  Perverse  Dilemma. 

A.  A.   Goldenweiser 130 

Railroads?"      "Life    or    Death    for    the.      S.    H. 

Bingham    130 

Reading,  More  and  Better.     C.  H.  Milam 152 

Referendum,  The  Power  of  the.     Optimist 228 

Relaxed   Vigilance,   A   Case   of.     T.    R.    Boggs 459 

Religion,   The   Outlook    for.      C.   H.    Eshleman 202 

Religious  Liberty.     W.  H.  van  Allen 331 

Retroactive   Income   Taxes.      C.    R.    Smith 652 

Revoliition,   Inviting.     H.   W.   Lawrence,   Jr 52 

Revolutionist,  How  to   Meet  the.     H.  Barry 254 

Russian  Problem,  The.     J.  de  Lancey  Verplanck..    179 

"COCIAL  Unit,"  Queries  Concerning  the.     W. 

^     H.    Sheldon    83 

Socialism,  The   Pope  on.      L.   F.   L 516 

Spirit,    Intermolecular    Space    and    the.      E.    Ber- 
liner     360 

Strike,    The    Right     to.     W.     Haynes 673 

Survival  After  Death  as  Related  to  Physics.  T.  F. 

W 598 

TAX  Burden,  Business  and  the.     G.  Calhoun....    626 

Tax,   The   ExCLSs   Profits.     P.   Dexter 388 

"Two-thirds  of  Both  Houses."     B.  Tuska 105 

I  JNIVERSITIES  and  the  Danger  Point.     A.  M. 

Brooks    203 

University     for    New    Jersey,    An    English.       T. 

Stanton    106 

WELFARE  Work  at  Akron,  Industrial.    G.  Orb  228 
**       What  Shall  We  do  to  Be  Saved?  [Hoover]. 

M.  L 82 

Wild   Life   Preservation.     W.   T.   Hornaday 431 

Winchester,  C.  T.     H.  T.  Baker 459 

Worms,  The   Noise  of.     A  Noisy  Worm 179 

2IONISM,   Prince  Feisal  on.     F.  Frankfurter..   625 

POETRY 

^T  the  Front  in  Poetry.     O.  W  Firkins 33 

I  AODICEANS,    The.     M.    C.    Smith 651 

"Louvain    Is  a   Dull,    Uninteresting   Town". 
R.  Withington    177 

QN  Record.     R.  Burton 249 

pOEM?     What  Constitutes  a 246 

Poetry,   Prize   Contest 576 

gTORMBOUND.     W.    N.   Bates 623 

THESE  Dead  Have  Not  Died.     H.  T.  Baker. ...  336 
*         Tides.     S.     N 356 

MUSIC  AND  ART 

A  PHRODITE    261 

Atmosphere  on  the  Concert  Stage.     G.  Ver- 
non          13 

DEDOUINS.     J.    Huneker    370 

'~'        Birthday    of   the    Infanta,    The 261 

Blue    Bird,    The 186 


r;HICAGO  Opera  Season,  The .^*92 

Cleopatra's    Night "'    J37 

Concert  Stage,  Atmo.iphcre  OD  the.     G.  Vernon! !     13 

£)RA.\IATIC  Art  in   Holland.     J.    L.   Walch....   577 

PrCHERS    and    Etching.     J.    Pennell s/ 

Eugene     Onegin     34Q 

l-JUDSON    River   Bridge  aa   War   Memorial....  642 

PROVEN,    Reginald    de 93 

Krehbiel     (Henry)     and     Emeat     Newman 
Discuss    Music 62 

I   'AMORE  dei  Tre  Re 134 

Lexington,    At    the— The    Blue    Bird— Ca- 

ruso  s   Indisposition    igg 

L  Heure   Espagnole    \xk 

L""'se  ;:::;;  ,62 

MADAME    Chrysantheme 135 

Mary   Garden   and   "Louise"— The   Concert 

Season    \ , , .  162 

Massenet's   Memories  and   Music..!!!!!.!!!!!!.'!     ig 

MEW   York  Opera  War,  The— Hints  to   Libret- 
^       '«" 116 

pAINTING    in    Washington,    Contemporary.     V. 

Barker   53 

Parsifal    !!!!!!  212 

Print   Seller,   My  Friend  the.     L. 'williatns !!."!.' !  550 

QUAKER    Singer's    Recollections,    A.     D.     Bis- 
Phara    289 

PJIP  Van  Winkle 136 

yENUS  of  Milo,  Exhibiting  of 577 

Z^ZA    92 

DRAMA 

AMERICAINS  Chez  Nous,  Les.     M.  Brieux....   577 
At     the     Lexington— "The     Blue     Bird"- 
Caruso's  Indisposition    186 

OEAUTIFUL  Sabine  Women 441 

Beyond  the  Horizon 185 

QRAFT  of  the  Tortoise  and  Other  Plays,  The..  368 
Cruche,  La  ig 

J^RAMAS  for  the  Reader 607 

PAIR   658 

French   Labor  Unions  and   the  Stage 548 

French    Plays — Carlo    Liten    and    "Les    Bleui    de 

I'Amour"  90 

rjEORGE  WASHINGTON  288 

^^        Glittering   Gate,   The    442 

Grain  of  Mustard-Seed,  The 633 

I-IAMLET  555 

^  *       He  and  She   262 

Holland,  Dramatic  Art  in.     J.  L.  Walch 577 

Husbands    for   all    634 

IBSEN  in  England.     M.  A.  Franc 213 

JACINTO  BENAVENTE:    Theatre  and  Liberty.  161 

J  Jane   Clegg    288 

"Jest,   The."      A.    E.   T 626 

John    Gabriel    Borkman 494 

I   ETTER   of  the  Law,   The 264 

London  Stag?,  On  the.     W.  Archer 38 

lyiAKER   of  Dreams 497 

Mary    Broome    18 

Mary   Rose    633 

Masks.      G.   Middleton    632 

Master  Builder,  The 65 

Medea    338 

Merchant  of  Venice,  The 684 

Musique  Adoncit  les  Coeurs,   La 18 

MIGHT   Shade   658 

^^         Night's    Lodging,   A 65 

PASSION   Flower   161 

*^         Piper    338 

Po  tic  Play.   Prize  Contest 576 

Power   of    Darkness 137 

Pnletarian    Theatre    (Die    Neue    Schaubuhne) . . .  550 
Pygnalion  and  Galatea   497 

DEVIVAL   of  the   Classic   Drama,   The.     J,    M. 

^        Beck    386 

Richard    III 312 

CACHED   and    Profane    Love 312 

Shakespeare  at  Stratford,  Produced  by  Mr. 
Bridees  Adams    634 

Skin   Game,   The 633 

Social    Plays  of   Arthur  Wing   Pinero,  The.     Vol. 

II.    Letty— His  House  in- Order 213 

Sothcrn  and  Marlowe  at  the  Shubert  Theatre....  554 


JAMING  of  the  Shrew,  The ^^cj! 

•II         ■{'■""e   I'ariiien,  The '* ig* 

Ihree  ^^^J^^^^'"  the  Argeniine,  Edited  by  E, 'h1 

Twelfth  'Night  !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!;!!;!;■'  jsJ 

(JNCLE   .Sam.     V.   Sardou j;^ 

Unreviving  London  Stage  and  Its  JU^'inU. 
It"--     W.  Archer   7.  46S 

FINANCE  AND  ECONOMICS 

A.VIERICA  and  the  Plight  of  Europe...  121 

America'.    Duly     '  ViV   itt 

Am-rita.    J-orcign    Loana.     T.    F.    WJ<Idliii'. . . ,  i*4 

OUDGET  System  Needed ,« 

Uiidget  ',  "The  Plans  For  a  Naiioiij.' "  jV  K 

Chamberlain      jao 

Budget,  Two  Plan,  for  a  National.'   K.'iiaVdra!!  Mi 

QANADIAN    Financial   Prosperity,  Aid  to   ISir 

y"        Vincent  MerediihJ    1« 

Certificate   Borrowing  and  the   Floatini"Debi.' ' 'l'. 

H.     Hollander     ccj 

China,  Behind  the  Financing  of   I'p'art  "r'i"l'l'i 

C.   Hodges 3yV  32- 

Congre«   Propo.es   Bonus    Kai«d   by   RetroaOive 

War-Frchi.    Tax    Bill 44J 

Current  Investment  PaUicatioaa ','/,  Jjj 

£)EFLATION  [Federal  Reaerve  Board'a  Report]  192 
Deflation  Through  Taxation.     M.  C  Burka     SI 

gCONOMlC    Restoration,   The   World's 71 

Economic   Truths  and   Advcnisinc "     97 

Europe?     How   Can   America   Help.     G.   Emeraon  49S 

Exchange   Question,   A    B    C   of   the 145 

Export   CreUits  and   European   Rcbabiliutio'n'.'G 

£.merson    ^cq 

PRANCE    to    Pay    Her   Debt*.   The   Ability   of. 

Jules   Melinc    J43 

QERMAN   Indemnity,  Arransement  at   Hytbc..  S5S 

,-,       .  <J?,™au  Indemnity  [Keynes  vs.  Miller  J.  141,  142 
Olass  s    Recommendation    to    Congress   for    Relief 

r  ,A     '",,'^"™Pf , 41,    119,164 

Gold  as  Commodity  and  as  Money.     U.  A.  Briius  598 
Greenbacks,   The   Trouble   with   the.     L.   A.   Hol- 

lenbeck     ^ 13 

UIGH  Prices,  Cause  of  [Kansas  Oty  Slsrl 374 

Housing,   Population   and 666 

Housing      Problem — Ethics     or     Economics? 

T"":     349 

INVESTORS,  Protection  for.     B.  R.  Andrews...  331 

JAPAN'S    After- War    Boom,    The    Collapse    of 
J  C.    Hodges 5g^ 

J^ABOR  Hiring  Capital   [Sir  George  FaishJ 42 

pAISH    (Sir    George),    A    Talk    With.     C    H. 

Meltzcr    53 

Prices  and  the  CJold  Standard *  169 

Price-Slashing,   The    Wave  of S«o 

Profiteer-Hunting  and   Pohtical   Economy 19$ 

Profiteer   Hunting,    On.     H.    Hazlitt 466 

Purcliasing  Power,  The  Theory  of.     J.  L.  Laugh- 

liu     306 

QUANTITY  Theory,  The.     J.  L.   Laughlin....  674 

J^ETROACTIVE    Income    Taxes.     C.    R.    Smith  652 

COVIET  Government's  Issue  of  Platinum  Note*  219 

'^        Slock  Dividend  Case,  The 271 

Stock  Dividends  Again 561 

Stock  Exchange  and  the  "Corner  in  Stutz",  The 

T.    F.   W .' 524 

TAX   Burden,  Business  and  the.     G.   Calhoun..  626 

*  Tax,  The  Excess  Profits.     P.  Dexter 388 

Taxation      of      Non-Residents      [Supreme     C^un 

Decision]     21g 

OBITUARIES 

J^E  KOVEN,  Reginald 92 

jyjORTON,  Levi  P 530 

QSLER,  Dr.  William 2 

pEARY    (Admiral)    193 

COURES,  George  ^ 211 

WINCHESTER,  C.  T.     H.  T.  Baker 459 

EDUCATIONAL 

DACK   to   the   Republic.     By   H.    F.   Atwood 471 

'-'        Beginning  of  Education,  The.     W.  Haller. .  579 

pHILD    Welfare    I-aws    447 

^        Classics,    President    Butler    on    the 76 

College  Efficiency,  "The  Student  Hoar"  and 198 


Vol.  II 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


Jan.-June,  1920 


Fagi 

Crilcce    Entrance    Requirements 294 

Con«es,    Amherst    Memorial    Fellowship 2 

Deirree      Requirements — Specific      Knowledge 

of   Our   Form   of   Government 167 

Final  Examinations  for  Degrees   [Harvard]..     97 

Collettes    For?     What    are 125 

Har\ard.   Teachers  and   Production   [Lowell's 

Report)    240 

Professors'  Salaries   [University  of  Washing- 
ton)       167 

Colleges.    The   Women's 223 

Women's.   Funds   Needed 219 

Conservation   of    Birds  and   Trees    (University   of 
the  State  of  New  York's  Cooperation  with 

Public  Schools)   416 

Corporation  Schools 471 

DEAD  Culture  and  Live  Business.    W.  S.  Hich- 
man     290 

Democratic   Education    579 

PDUCATION  for  the  Cotton  Industry.  G.  Orb..  415 
^        Education.    The    Work    of    the    South    in 

Women's.     L.   P.   Posey 307 

Essay  Competition  Between  England  and  America  343 
CLOWER  Garden  Guide.     Mrs.   Massey  Holmes  688 

GREEK  at   Oxford 424 
"Greek    for    the    Greek-Minded" 645 

lOHNS   Hopkins,  The   Case  of 24 

[U.^NCHESTER  Grammer  School.   The.     A.   A. 

^"       Mumford 523 

Moral  Basis  of  Democracy,  The.     A.  T.  Hadley..   636 

NATURAL  History  of  the  Child,  The.     Dr.  C. 
Dunn    ...688 

Need     of     Education     in     Fundamental    Economic 

Truths 97 

New  York  Post  Graduate  Medical  School 447 

PEDAGOGY.  Pelf  and.     O.  Heller 203 

'  Physical  Educaticn  and  Scholastic  Efficiency. 

(L.  W.  Hill] 416 

Police   and    Education 344 

Propaganda  and  Education.      P.   M.   Brown 342 

Professor.  Keeping  Tab  on  th  •.  C.  H.  Benjamin.  486 
Professor.  The  Unreconstructed.  P.  "M.  Buck.  Jr.  154 
Public  Schools  and  the  Colleg:s.     W.   H.   Buck..    131 

RESEARCH   and   Organization.     A.   G.    Webster  686 
Re-.-Ult's  Educational  Section 269.  290 

SCHOOLS?  Can  We  Improve  Our  Public.     C.  F. 
Goodrich    -'^0 

Scientific    Research.    Organization    in.     J.    R.    An- 

g.-ll    251 

TEACHERS'    Salaries,   Statistics   of    (Dr.    Even- 
dcn]    580 

Thesaurus   Lirgux    I.atinx 636 

UNIONIZATION     of     Colleg;    and     Universty 
Teachers   (Prof.   Lovcjoy]    97 

Universal   Training.     W.    S.    Hinchman 412 

I'nivrrsily    President.    Th-.      Prof;ssor 410 

University   Training   for   Business 634 

WAR    and    the    Rhodes    Scholarshps,    Th-.     F. 
Aydelotle 470 

Women's  Education,  The  Work  of  the  South  in. 

L.  P.  Posey    307 


BOOKS— AUTHORS 

ADAMS,  H.     The  D.-gradation  of  the  Democratic 
Dogma   255 

Adc.  G.     Hand  Made  FabI  -s 461 

Agate,  J.   E.     Resp<)nsibility:     A  Novel 573 

Aldington.    R.      Images 33 

Aldington.  R.     Latin  Poems  cf  the  Renaissance..     33 

Ammers-Kiillcr,  D.  J.  van.     Maskerade 398 

Asian,   K.     Armenia  and  the  Armenians  from  the 

Earliest   Times   Until   the  Great  War 605 

Atwood,  H,   F.     Back  to  the  Republic 471 

Austin,  M.     Outland 158 

DABSON.   R.  W.     W.   B.  Wilson  and  the  De- 

^        parlment  of  Labor 333 

Bain.  F.  W.     The  Substance  of  a  Dream 682 

Bacheller,  I.     A  Man  for  the  Ages 231 

Barney.  D.     Chords  from  Albireo 519 

Barron.    C.    W.      A    World    Remaking    or    Peace.... 

Finance    464 

Bartlett,   H.      Within   My    Horizon 548 

Barton,  W.   E.     The  Soul  of  Abraham  Lincoln..   366 

Bates,  K.  L.     Sigurd,  our  Golden  Collie 135 

Baxter,  A.   B.     The  Blower  of  Bubbles 363 

Bazalgette,  L.    Walt  Whitman:    Th;  Man  and  bis 

Work    310 

Bcfbie,  H.     The  Life  of  General  William  Booth..  680 

BeUairf,  C:     The  Battle  of  Jutland 677 

Benson,  E.  F.     Up  and  Down 257 

Bercovici,  K.     Dust  of  New  York Ill 

Beresford,  J.  D.     An   Imperfect  Mother 654 

Berliner,  E.     Muddy  Jim 88 

Bertrand,  A.     The  Call  of  the  Soil 257 

Beve'idge,  A.  J.     The  Life  of  John  Marshall 204 

Btrnbaum,    M.     Intro^lucticns 184 

Bi^ham,  D.     A  Quaker  Singer's  Recollections...   289 

Bojer,  J.     Treacherous   Ground 520 

Borgnis,  M.  A.     Ijt  Livre  Pratique  des  Spirites. .  437 
Bnwen,  M.     The  Burning  Glass 463 


Page 

Boynton,  P.  H.     American  Literature 550 

Bradford.  Gamaliel.    Portraits  of  American  Women     60 

Bradlev,   H.      Sir   lames   Murray 311 

Braithwaite,  W.  S.     The  Story  of  the  Great  War.   210 

Branch,  S.     The  Burning  Secret 310 

Ber.sol.  B.     Socialism  vs.  Civilization 491 

Breduis,   A.     Kiinsiler-Inventare 574 

Brooks,  C.  S.     Luca  Sarto :     A  Novel 463 

Bronson,  W.  C.     .\m~rican  Literature 550 

Brown,  Alice.     The  Black   Drop 36 

Brown.  G.  E.     Book  of  R.  L.  S 436 

Browne,  R.  T.     The  Mvstery  of  Space 133 

Rullard,  A.     The  Russian   Pendulum 207 

Burgess.    T.    W.      The    Burgess    Bird    Book    for 

Children    112 

Burr,  A.  J.     Hearts  Awake 362 

Buxton.  N.,  and   C.   L.   Lecse.     Balkan   Problems 

and  European  Peace 395 

pABELL,  J.  B.    The  Cream  of  the  Jest 602 

^        Cadmus    and    Harmonia.      The      Island    of 

Sheep   487 

Campbell.   O.    J.      The  Position   of   the   Roode   en 
Whitte   Roos  in  the  Saga  of  King  Richard 

III    437 

Cannan,  G.     Pink  Roses 58 

Cannan,  G.     Time  and  Et?rnity 489 

Caron.  C.   M.     L'Admiral  dc  Grasse 88 

Chancellor.  W.   E.     The  Health  of  the  Teacher..  464 

Cheng.  Sih-Gung.     Modern   China 281 

Chesterton.  G.  K.     Irish  Impressions 284 

Chevrillon.   M.  A.     Pres  des  Combattants 184 

Clark.     C.       My    Quarter    Century    of    American 

Politics    460 

Cl"mencesu.  G.     Au  Pied  ilu  Sinai 631 

Clutton-Brock.  A.     Essays  on  Art 576 

Cobb,  I.   S.     From  Place  to  Place 363 

Cone.  H.   G.     The  Coat  Without  a   Seam 519 

Connor.    H.    G.      John    Archibald    Campbell,    Asso- 
ciate Justice  of  the  United  States:   Supreme 

Court.   IS53-1861    601 

Conrad,  J.     The   Rescue 604,  629 

Cory,    H.    E.      The    Intellectuals    and    the    Wage- 
Earners    229 

Cotterill,  H.   B.     Italy  from   Dante  to  Tasso 544 

Couperus,   L.     Ecstasy:     A  Study  cf  Happiness..  85 

Cournos.  J.     The  Mask 231 

Cross,  T.  P.    Bibliography  and  Methods  of  English 

Literary  History    17 

rvANE.  C.     Legend   334 

*-^        D'Annunzio,  G.     Tales  of  My  Native  Town  435 

Davies,  M.  C.     Youth  Riding 362 

Davies,     T.     H.       Spiritual     Voices     in     Modern 

Literature    1 60 

Daviess,  M.  T.     Th»  Matrix 463 

Davis,    W.    S.      A    History    cf    France    from    the 

Earliest  Times  to  the  Peace  of  Versailles..  285 

Dawson,   R.      Red  Terror  and  Green 600 

Dawson.     W.     H.       The     Evolution     of     Modern 

Germany    572 

D  •  Bekker,  L.  J.     The  Plot  Against  Mexico 206 

Desmond.  S.     Passion;     A  Human  Story 573 

Dickey,  M.     Youth  cf  James  Whitcomb  Riley....  159 

Dodd,   A.    B.     Up  the   Seine  to  the  Battlefields..  681 

Don    Marquis    Prefaces 37 

Doyle,  A.   C.     Vital    Message 134 

Dressir,  H.  W.     Open  Vision 631 

Dunn,   Dr.  C.     The  Natural  History  of  the  Child  688 

Dunsany,  Lord.     Tales  of  Three  Hemispheres....  Ill 

Dybowski,  J.     Notre  Force  Future 131 

ELIOT,  S.  A.,  Jr.     Little  Theatre  Classics,  Vol. 
II    608 

Escouflaire,    R.     C.       Ireland    an     Enemy    of    the 

Allies?   676 

pABRE,  J.  H.  Field,  Forest  and  Farm 113 

Ferguson,  J.  L.     Outlines  of  Chinese  Art.  .  16 

Fisher,  J.  A.     Memories  and  Records 654 

Fitzgerald,  F.  S.     This  Side  of  Paradise 392 

Fontainas,  M.  A.  La  Vie  d'Edgar  A.  Poe 259 

Ford,    H.   J.      Alexander    Hamilton 678 

Fort,  C.     Book  of  the  Damned 184 

Franc,  M.  A.     Ibsen  in  England 213 

Frank,  W.     Our  America 434 

Frankau,  G.     Peter  Jameson:     A  Modern  Romance  573 

Frederick,  J.    G.      Modern    Salesmanship 184 

Frederickson,  J.  D.     The  Story  of   Milk 184 

Frost,  S.     Germany's  New  War  Against  America.  14 

Fuller,  H.  B.     Bertram  Cope's  Year 394 

rjALE,   Z.     Miss  Lulu   Brett 394 

^-^       Ganz,  M.     Rebels:     Into  Anarchy  and  Out 

Again   231 

Gardner,  C.      William   Blake,  The  Man 181 

Gass,  S.  B.     A  Lovjr  of  the  Chair 157 

Gibbs,  P.     How  it  Can  be  Told 394 

Gilmore,   G.   W.  .  Animism,   or  Thought  Currents 

of  Primitive  Peoples 337 

Glasgow,   E.     The  Builders 36 

Goldberg,  I.     Studies  in  Spanish-American  Litera- 
ture     335 

Gompers,  S.     Labor  and  the  Common  Welfare.  .  .  333 

Gosse,  E.     Some  Aversions  of  a  Man  of  Letters. .  487 

Gosset,  Abbe.     Une  Glorieuse   Mutilee 522 

Graeve,  O.     Youth  Goes  .Seeking 132 

Graham,  S.     A  Private  in  the  Guards 232 

Grcnfell,  A.  and  K.   Sjialding.     Le  Petit  Nord,  or 

Annals  of  a   Labrador  Harbour 679 

Grey,    E.      Recreation    518 

Guild,   T.    H.     The  I'ower   of   a   God   and    Other 

OncAct  Plays  370 

Gwynn,  S.     John  Retfmond's  Last  Years 390 


Page 

HADLEY,  A.  T.     The   Moral  Basis  of  Democ- 
racy       636 

Hamilton,   E.      Elizabethan   Ulster 284 

Haiikey.    D.      Cross    112 

Harland.     M.     The  Carrington's  of  High  Hill 183 

Harrison,  A.     Before  and   Now 600 

Harrison,  M.     The  Stolen  Lands _. .  . .   364 

Heinrich,    Professor.      Dinant,    Eine   Denkschriff . .   548 

Hendrick,   E.     Percolator  Papers 37 

Henry,    S.      Villa   Elsa 436 

Henslow.  G.     Proofs  of  the  Truths  of  Spiritualism  337 

Herbert.  A.  P.     The  Secret  Battle 257 

Herford,   M.  A.  B.     A  Handbook  of  Greek  Vase 

Painting  159 

Herford,   O.     This  Giddy  World 112 

Hindenburg,  von.     Aus  Meinem  Leben 337 

Holding,  E.  S.     Invincible  Minnie 602 

Holdsworth,  E.    The  Taming  of  Nan 207 

Holland,  F.     Seneca  521 

Holliday,  R.  C.     Broome  Street  Straws 88 

Hopkins,    N.    M.     The   Outlook   for   Research  and 

Invention     488 

Hoppin,  I.  C.     A  Handbook  of  Attic  Red-Figured 

Vases   59 

Howe,  M.  A.  de.  W.    G-orge  von  Lengerke  Meyer, 

His  Life  and  Public  Services 308 

Hudson,   W.   H.     The   Book  of  a  Naturalist 112 

Huizinga,  D.  J.     Herfsttij   der  Middeleeuwen.  . .  .   435 

Huneker,  J.     Bedouins    370 

Hyndman.    H.    M.      Clemenceau:      The   Man    and 

His  Times  34 

I BA5SEZ,  B.  V.     Woman  Triumphant 520 

'  Inge,  W.  R.     Outspoken  Essays 396 

Inman,   S.   G.     Intervention   in    Mexico 206 

Irwin,  I.  H.     The  Happy  Years 363 

JAMES,  G.  W.     Wonders  of  the  Colorado  Desert     61 
J  Tean-Aubry,  G.     French  Music  of  To-day..    630 

Johnson.   S.     The  Enemy  Within 283 

Johnston,  M.     Michael   Forth 158 

Jones,   E.   H.     The  Road   to   Endor 547 

I^ARSNER,  D.     Debs:     His  Authorized  Life  and 

'*■        Letters   333 

Kaye-Smith,   S.     Tamarisk  Town 654 

Keith,  E.  A.     My   Escape  from  Germany 632 

Keller,  G.     Seldwyla  Folks:     Three  Singular  Tales  111 

Kennedy,  C.   R.      Army   with   Banners 400 

Kernahan,  C.     Swinburne  As  I  Knew  Him 576 

Keynes,  J.  M.     The  Economic  Consequences  of  the 

Peace    155 

Kite,  E.  S.     Beaumarchais  and  the  War  of  Ameri- 
can   Independence    436 

Klein,  F.     En  Amerique  a  la  Fin  de  la  Guerre...  337 

Kliekmann,  F.     Lore  of  the  Pen 400 

Kobrin,   L.     A  Lithuanian  Village 363 

Krehbiel,   H.     More  Chapters  of  Opera 62 

I  ACROIX,  L.     Le  Clerge  et  La  Guerre  de  1914.  572 

'^         La  Motte,  E.   H.     The  Opium  Monthly 400 

Latzko,  A.     The  Judgment  of   Peace 257 

Lauvriere,  E.     Edgar  Poe:     Contes  et  Poesies....  657 
La  Varre,  W.  J.     Up  the  Mazaruni  for  Diamonds.  547 
Leacock,  S.     The  Unsolved  Riddle  of   Social  Jus- 
tice     234 

Leary,  J.  L.,  Jr.     Talks  with  T.  R 656 

I>emercier,  E.     Lettres  d'un   Soldat 259 

Leslie,  N.     Three  Plays 464 

Lindsay,  V.     The   Golden  Whales  of   California.,  518 

Lippmann,  W.     Liberty  and  the  News 571 

Loekington,  W.   J.     The  Sold  of  Ireland 284 

Loisy,  A.      Guerre  et   Religion 572 

Loisy,  A.     La  Paix  des  Nations  et  La  Religion  de 

I'Avenir 572 

Loisy,  A.     Mors  et  Vita 572 

Loti,  P.     Madame  Prune 366 

Low,  B.  R.  C.     Tlie  Pursuit  of  Happiness 362 

Lowell,  A.     Pictures  of  the  Floating  World 33 

Lynd,   R.     Ireland  a  Nation 461 

A/IcDONALD,  W.     Some  Questions  of  Peace  and 

^'*       War    230 

McKenzie,  F.  A.     Korea's  Fight  for  Freedom....  545 
McLennan,   J.    S.      Louisbourg   from   Its   Founda- 
tion to  Its  Fall  1713-1758 37 

McPherson,  L.  G.     Th?  Flow  of  Value 282 

McPherson,    W.    L.      The   Strategy    of   the    Great 

War    17 

MacFarlan,  A.     The  Inscrutable   Lovers 334 

MacGill,  P.     Maureen 679 

Mackay,  H.     Chill  Hours 605 

Mackenzie,  J.    S.      Arrows   of   Desire 546 

Mackie,  R.  A.     Education  During  Adolescence...  433 

MacManus,  S.   Lo  and  Behold  Ye! Ill 

MacMasters,  W.  H.     Revolt,  An  American  Novel.  394 

MacNamara,  B.     The  Clanking  of  Chains 462 

MacPhail,  J.   M.     The'  Heritage  of  India 61 

MacVeagh,  E.  C,  and  L.  D.  Brown.    The  Yankee 

in   the   British   Zone 436 

Maeterlinck,  M.     Mountain  Paths 15 

Magnus,  L.     European  Literature  in  the  Centuries 

of    Romance    209 

Malins,  Lieut.     How  I  Filmed  the  War... 364 

Marcosson,   I.    M,      Adventures   in   Interviewing.  .  135 

Marsh,  A.  Z.     Home  Nursing 464 

Marvin,  F.  S.     The  Century  of  Hope 628 

Masefield,  J.     Reynard  the  Fox 33 

Massenet,  J.      My    Recollections 18 

Masters,    E.   L.     Starved   Rock 519 

Maurice,  F>,  General.     The  Last  Four  Months  of 

the    War    627 

Mayorga,  M.  G.     Representative  One-Act  Plays  by 

American    Authors    607 

Merrick,   L.      The    Worldlings 183 

Middlcton,  G.     Masks 632 


Numbers  34-59 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


-^ 


Vol.  II 


Page 

Middleton,   P.   H.     Industrial   Mexico 206 

Mills,  J.   S.  and  M.  G.  Crussachi.     The  Question 

of  Thrace    550 

Morris,  E.   B.     The  Cresting  Wave 393 

Moses,     B.       Spain's    Declining    Power    in     South 

America   285 

Mumford,  A.  A.    The  Manchester  Grammar  School  523 

NATHAN,  R.     Peter  Kindred 392 
Ncvill,   R.     The  Life  and  Letters  of   Lady 

Dorothy    Nevill    132 

Newman,   E.     A   Musical   Motley 62 

North,  A.     The  Forging  of  the  Pikes 463 

/"J'BRIEN,  F.     While  Shadows  in  the  South  Seas     37. 
^        Ogilvie,   P.    M.      International   Waterways. .    603 

Oldmcadow,    E.      Coggin 310 

Ollivant,  A.     Two  Men:     A  Romance  of  Sussex..    207 
Olrik,  Axel.     The   Heroic    Legends   of   Denmark. .    366 

O'Neil,   G.     The  Cobbler  of  Willow   Street 362 

Oppenheim,    E.    P.     The   Great   Impersonation....    210 
Orczy,  Baroness.     His  Majesty's  Well-Beloved....    463 

PAINE,  R.    D.     Ships  Across  the  Sea 577 

Palmer,   F.      Our   Greatest  Battle 627 

Paton,  L.  A.     Life  of   Elizabeth  Gary  Agassiz....  337 
Patt.rson,    J.    E.      The    Passage    of    the    Barque 

Sappho   15 

Patterson,    M.     A   Woman's  Man 132 

Peixotto,   E.      At   the   Ami-rican    Front 113 

I'ennell,  J.     Etchers  and  Etching 87 

Phillpotts,    E.      Storm   in   a   Teacup 207 

Porter,    A.    K.      The    Seven   Who    Slept 609 

Prescctt,    F.    C.     Poetry  and    Dreams 365 

RAINSFORD,     W.     K.       From     Upton     to     the 

Meuse,   With   the   307th   Infantry 464 

Rcade,  W.      The   Martyrdom  of   Man 629 

Reid,   F.     Pirates  of  the  Spring 310 

Rice,  C.   Y.      Shadowy  Thresholds 362 

Rihani,  Ameen.      Descent   of    Bolshevism 682 

Rihani,  Ameen.     The   Luzumiyat  of  Abu-'l-Ala. .  .  17 

Ritchie,  Lady.     From   Friend  to  Friend 522 

Roget,    P.    M.      Thesaurus   of    English    Words   and 

Phrases   61 

Rose,  R.  S.,  and  L.  Bacon.     Lay  of  the  Cid  trans- 
lated into  English  Verse 400 

Rouvier,   F.     Un  Ligne 572 

Russell,   C.   F.     After   the   Whirlwind 108 

CT,   JOHN,  C.   M.     Bibliography  of  Wordsworth  209 

•^         Sadler.    M.      The   Anchor 489 

Salecby,   C.   W.     The  Whole  Armour  of  Man 258 

Sassoon,    S.      Picture    Show 520 

Sayler,    O.    M.      Russia,    White   or   Red 135 

Sayler,  O.  M.    Russian  Theatre  Under  the  Revolu- 
tion      259 

Scarborough,    D.      From   a    Southern    Porch 87 

Schlichter,  S.  II.     The  Turnover  of  Factory  Labor  36 

Scott,  T.      Silver  Age 60 

Serao,   M.      Souls   Divided 434 

Sherrill,   C.   H.     Have   We   a   Far   Eastern   Policy?  655 

Smith,  C.  A.     New  Words  Self-Defined 38 

Smith,   L.  W.     The   Lamp  of   Heaven 370 

Smyth,   E.     Impressions  that  Remained 182 

Spargo,   J.      The   Psychology   of    Bolshevism 206 

Stearns,    H.      Liberalism    in    America ,. .  229 

Swinnerton,   F.      September 85 

Symcnds,  J.  A.     In  the  Key  of  Blue 575 

Symonds,  J.  A.     Last  and  First 575 

"TASSIN,  A.     The  Craft  of  the  Tortoise 368 

*          Teall,  G.     A  Little  Garden  the  Year  Round  392 
Thomson,  J.   E.  II.     The  Samaritans,  Their  Testi- 
mony  to   the   Religion   of   Israel 311 

Thurston,  E.  T.    The  World  of  Wonderful  Reality   132 

Tirpitz,   Admiral   von.      My    Memoirs 84 

Tweedale,  V.     Ghosts  I  Have  Seen 183 

yAN  VORST,  M.     Fairfax  and  His  Pride 393 

Von    der    Essen,    L.      A    Short    History    of- 

Belgium 335 

Von  Heidenstam,  V.     The  Birth  of  God 609 

Von    Heidenstam,    V.      The    Soothsayer 608 

Von     Hertling,     Chancellor.       Ein     Jahr     in     der 

Reichskanzlei    548 

WADDINGTON,  A.     Histoire  de  Prusse 522 

*"       Walpole,    H.      Jeremy 310 

Walston     (Waldstein),     Sir    C.       English-Speaking 

Brotherhood    and    the    League    of    Nations. .    682 
Ward,    A.    W.      Shakespeare    and    the    Makers    of 

Virginia   311 

Ward.    Mrs.    H.      Harvest 679 

Warren,     H.     L.      The     Foundations     of     Classic 

Architecture    208 

Washburn,  C.   C.     Order 393 

Webster,  N.  H.     The  French  Revolution:  A  Study 

in    Democracy    653 

Wells,  H.  G.     Love  and  Mr.  Lewisham 489 

Wheelock,   J.    H.      Dust   and    Light 33 

Whitehouse,    V.    B.      A    Year    as    a    Government 

Agent   208 

Whitlock,  B.     Belgium:     A  Personal  Narrative..  285 

Widdemer,    M.     The   Board   Walk 363 

Williams,  B.  A.     The   Sea  Bride 15 

Wood,  V.  J.     Turnpikes  of  New  England 311 

2AMAC0IS,  E.     Their  Son:     The  Necklace 111 

BOOKS— SUBJECTS 

ADVENTURES    in    Interviewing.     I.    M.    Mar- 

"^         cosson     135 

After  the   Whirlwind.     C.   F.   Russell    108 

Alexander    Hamilton,      H-J.    Ford 678 

American  Literature.     P.  H.  Boynton 550 


Page 

American  Literature.     W.  C.  Bronson 550 

Anchor,  The.     M.   Sadler 489 

Animism,  or  Thought   Currents  of   Primitive  Peo- 
ples.    G.    W.    Gilmore 337 

Armenia    and    the    Armenians    from    the    Earliest 

Times  Until  the  Great  War.     K.  Asian 605 

Army    With    Banners.     C.    R.    Kennedy 400 

Arrows  of  Desire.     J.  S.  Mackenzie 546 

At  the  American  Front.     Captain  E.  Peixotto....  113 

Au  Pied  du   Sinai.     G.   Clemenceau 631 

Aus   Meinem   I.x-ben.     Von   Hindenberg 337 

Averroes'    Metaphysics.     Translated  by  C.  Quiris 

Rodriguez    337 

DACK  to  the  Republic.     H.  T.  Atwood 471 

^        Balkan  Problems  and  European  Peace.     N. 

Buxton  and  C.   L.   Leesc 395 

Battle  of  Jutland,  The.     C.   Bellairs 677 

Beaumarchais     and     the     War     of     American     In- 
dependence.    E.    S.    Kite    436 

Bedouins.     J.    Huneker 370 

Before  and  Now.     A.   Harrison 600 

Belgium:     A   Personal   Narrative.     B.   Whitlock..  285 

Bertram    Cope's   Year.     H.    B.    Fuller 394 

Best  Short  Stories  of  1919  compiled  by  E.  O'Brien  463 
Bibliography    and     Methods    oi     English     Literary 

Histtry.     T.    P.   Cross 17 

Sibliography    of   Wordsworth.     C.    M.    St.   John..  209 

Uirth   of   God,  The.     V.  von    Heidenstam 609 

Black  Drops,  The.     A.Brown 36 

Blower   of   Bubbles,   The.     A.    B.   Baxter 363 

Soard   Walk,   The.     M.    Widdemer 363 

Book  of  a  Naturalist,  The.     W.  H.  Hudson 112 

Book  of  R.  L.  S.     G.  E.  Brown 436 

Book  of  the  Damned.     C.  Fort 184 

Broome    Street    Straws.     R.    C.    HalHday 88 

Builders,    The.     E.    Glasgow 36 

Bulletin   de  L'Institut  Intcrmediaire  International. 

Publication     Trimestrielle.       Haarlem 57 

.  Burgess    Bird    Book    for    Children,    The.     T.    W. 

Burgess    112 

Burning  Glass,  The.     M.  Bowen 463 

Burning  Secret,  The.     S.  Branch 310 

(^AHIERS    Britanniques    et   Americains.     Edited 

^^        by    M.    Georges-Bazile    61 

Call  of  the   Soil,  The.     A.   Bertrand 257 

Carrington's  ol   High  Hill,  The.      M.   Harland 183 

Century   of   Hope,  The.     F.   S.   Marvin 628 

Chill  Hours.     H.  Mackay 605 

Chords   from  Albireo.     D.   Barney 519 

Choruses   From   Iphigeneia  in  Aulis  and   the   Hip- 
polytus     of     Euripides.     Translated     by     H. 

D.     London     33 

Clanking  of  Chains,  The.     B.  MacNamara 462 

Clemenceau:     The    Man    and    His   Times.     H.    M. 

Hyndman    34 

Clerge  et   La  Guerre  de   1914,    Le.     L.   Lacroix. .  572 

Coat  Without  a  Seam,  The.     H.   G.   Cone 519 

Cobbler  of   Willow  Street,  The.     G.   O'Neil 362 

Coggin.     E.    Oldmeadow    310 

Collection    of    Mediaeval    and    Renaissance    Paint- 
ings.    Edited  by  Harvard  Art  Dept 160 

Contributions   to   Medical  and   Biological   Research 

Dedicated  to   Sir  William  Olser 391 

Craft  of  the  Tortoise,  The.     A.  Tassin 368 

Cream  of  the  Jest,  The.     J.  B.   Catell 602 

Cresting    Wave,   The.      E.    B.    Morris 393 

Cross.     D.  Hankey 112 

rvEBS:     His   Authorized    Life   and    Letters.     D. 

'-'         Karsner      333 

Degradation   of   the   Democratic   Dogma,   The.     H. 

Adams    255 

Descent  of   Bolshevism.     A.   Rihani 682 

Dinant,   Eine   Denkschrift.     Professor  Heinrich...  548 
Documents   on   the   League  of   Nations.     Compiled 

by  Mrs.   C.  A.  Kluyver 577 

Dust  and   Light.     J.   H.    Wheelock 33 

Dust    of    New   York.     K.    Bercovici HI 

PCONOMIC    Consequences    of    the    Peace    The 

'-'         J.    M.    Keynes 155 

Ecstasy:     A  Study  of  Happiness.     L.  Couperus..  85 

Edgar    Poe:     Contes    et    Poesies.     E,    Lauvritre. .  657 

Education    During    Adolescence.     R.    A.    Mackie. .  433 

Elizabethan    Ulster.     E.    Hamilton 284 

En   Amerique  a  la  Fin  de  la   Guerre.     F.   Klein..  337 

Enemy  Within,  The.     S.  Johnson 283 

English      Dictionary      on      Historical      Principles. 

Edited   by  W.   A.   Craigie 522 

English-Speaking   Brotherhood   and   the   League   of 

Nations.     Sir    C.    Walston    (Waldstein) 682 

Essays   on    Art.      A.    CIutton-Brock 576 

Etchers  and  Etching.     J.  Pennell 87 

European  Literature  in  the  Centuries  of  Romance. 

L.    Magnus    209 

Evolution     of     Modem     Germany,     The.     W.     H. 

Dawson    572 

PAIRFAX   and   His   Pride.     M.   Van   Vorst 393 

*^          Father  Duffy's  Story 160 

Field,   Forest   and   Farm.     J.    H.    Fabre 113 

Flow  of  Value,   The.     L.   G.   MePherson 282 

Forging   of  the   Pikes,   The.     A.    North 463 

foundations   of   Classic  Architecture,   The.     H.    L. 

Warren    208 

French    Music  of  Today.     G.   Jean-Aubry 630 

French  Revolution,  The:     A  Study  in  Democracy. 

N.    H.    Webster 653 

From  a   Southern    Porch.     D.   Scarborough 87 

From    Friend    to    Friend.     Lady    Ritchie 522 

From  Place  to  Place.     I.  S.  Cobb 363 

"'rom    Uptin   to    the    Meuse,    With   the   307th  In- 
fantry.    W.   K.    Rainsford 464 

GEORGE    von    Lengerke    Meyer,    His   Life   and 

Public  Services.     M.  A.  De  W.  Howe 308 

lieorgian  Poetry,  1918-1919 320 


Pacb 
Cernuny's  New  W»r  Acainst  America.     S.  Frost..     14 

Ghosts   I    Have    Seen.     V.   Tweedale 183 

GlorieuK    .Mulilie   Use.     Abbi  Cosset 522 

•iolden  Whales  of  California,  The.     V.  Lindsaj.,  SIS 
Great   Arti»i«  and   Their   Works   by    Great  Auth- 
ors.    Complied  by  A.  M.  Brooks 259 

Great  Iniperaonaiion,  The.     E.   P.  Uppenbeim . . . .  210 
Guerre    et    Religion.     A.    Loisr 572 

LJANUBUOK    of    Attic    Red-Figured    Vasea,   A. 

**       J.  C.   Hoppin 59 

Handbook    of    Greek    Vase    Painting,   A.     M.    A. 

B.    llerford    IS9 

Hand-Made    Fables.     G.    Ade Wi 

Happy   Years,  The.     I.    H.   Irwin MJ 

Harvest.     Mrs,  H.  Ward 679 

Have  We  a  Far  Eastern  Policy?     C.  H.  Sherrill  6SS 

riealth  o(  the  Teacher,  The.     W.  E.  Chancellor. .  464 

Hearts  Awake.     A.  J.  Burr 362 

Hcrfsttij  <ler  .Middcleeuwen.     U.  j.   Huizinga 435 

Heritage  of  India,  The.     J.   M.   MacPhail 61 

Heroic  Legends  of  Denmark,  The.     Axel  Olrik...  366 

His  Majesty's  Well-Beloved.     Baroness  Orciy....  463 

Histoire    de   Prusse.     A.    Waddington 522 

Histiry    of    France    from    the    Earliest    Times    to 

ihe  Peace  o(    Versailles,  A.     W.  S.  Dayi*. .  2t5 

Home   Nursing.     A.  Z.    .Marsn 464 

Home,  Th.n  What?— The  Mind  of  the  Uoughbor, 

A.     E.  F  Jil 

How   I    Filmed   the   War.     LieuL   Malins 364 

How  it  Can  be  Told.     V.  Gibbs 394 

lUSEN  in   England.     M.  A.   Franc 213 

Ideals  of  America.     Prepared  for  the  Citjr 

Club   of   Chicago,    1916-1919 56 

Images.     R.    Aldington    33 

imperfect    Mother,    An.     J.    U.    Ueresford 654 

impr.ss.ons    that    Remained.         Uemoirs    by    £. 

Smyth     182 

In  the  Key  of  Blue.     J.  A.  Symonds 575 

Industrial   Mexico.     P.   H.    .Middleton 206 

Inscrutable  Lovers,  The.     A.   .MacFarlan 334 

Intellectuals   and   the    Wage  Earners,   The.     H.    E. 

Cory    229 

International   Waterways.     P.    M.   Ogilvie 6U3 

Intervention   in   Mexico.     S.  G.  Inman 206 

Iiuroductions.     M,    Birnbaum 184 

Inv.ncible    Minnie.     E.   S.    Holding 602 

Ireland   a   Nation.     R.   Lynd 461 

Ireland   an   Enemy    ui   <ne  Allies?     K.   C.   Kacou- 

Haire     676 

Irish    impressions.     U.    K.    Chesterton 284 

Island  ol   Sheep,  The.     Cadmus  and  Uarmonia. .  487 
Italy  Irom  Dame  to  Tasso.     U.  B.  Cutieriil 544 

JAHR  in  der  Reichskanzlei,  Ein.  Chancellor  Von 
Hertling     548 

Jeremy.     H.    Waldpole    310 

John  Archibald  Campbell,  Associate  Justice  of  the 

United    States    Supreme    Court,     1853-1861. 

H.   G.    Connor 601 

John   Redmond's   Last   Years.     S.   Gwynn 390 

Judgment  of  Peace,  The.     A.  Latzko 257 

Judicial      Settlement     of     Controversies     Between 

States  of  the  American  Union.     Edited  and 

Collected  by  J.  B.  Scott 58 

J^ORE.\S  Fight  for  Freedom.     F.  A.  McKenzie.   545 
*^       Kostcs   Palamas:     Life  Immovable.     Trans- 
lated by  A.  E.  Phoutrides 309 

Kiinstler-Inventare.     A.     Bredius 574 

I   'AD.MIRAL  de  Grasse.     Canon  M.  Caron 88 

Labor  and  the  Common  Welfare.     S.  Gom- 

p?rs 333 

Labor    Sttuaticn    in    Great    Britain    and    France, 

The.     The  Commission  on  Foreign  Inquiry 

of  the  National  Civic  Federation 180 

Lamp  of   Heaven,  The.     L.   W.  Smith 370 

Last  and  First.     J.  A.  Symonds 575 

Last  Four  Months  of  the  War,  The.     General  F. 

Maurice     627 

Latin  Poems  of  the  Renaissance.     R.  Aldington..     33 
Lay    of   the    Cid,    translated    into    English  Verse. 

R.   S.  R.  se  and  L.  Bacon 400 

Leg.-nd.     C.    Dane 334 

Lettres    d'un    Soldat.     E.    Lemercier 259 

Liberalism  in   America.     H.   Steams 229 

Liberty  and  the  News.     W.   Lippmann 571 

Life    and    Letters    of    Lady    Dorothy    Nevill.    The. 

R.  Nevill  132 

Life  of  Elizabeth  Gary  Agassiz.     L.  A.  Paton 337 

Life  cf  General  William  Booth  The.     H.  Begbie. .  680 

Life  of  John  Marshall,  The.     A.  J.  Beveridge 204 

Ligne,    Un.     F.   Rouvier 572 

Lithuanian   Village,  .\.   L.    Kobrin 363 

Little  Garden  the   Year  Round,  A.     G.  Teall 392 

Little  Theatre   Classics,  Vol.    U.     S.  A.   Eliot.  Jr.  608 
Livrc  Pratique  des  Spirites,  Le.     M.  A.  Borgnis..   437 

Lo,  and  Behold  Ye!     S.    MacManus Ill 

Lore  of  the  Pen.     F.   Klicknumn 400 

Leuisbourg  from  Its  Foundation  to  Its  FaJU  1713- 

1758.     J.   S.    McLennan    37 

Love  and   Mr.   Lewisham.     H.  G.   Wells 489 

Lover  of  the  Chair,  A.     S.  B.  Gass 157 

Luca  Sarto:     \   Novel.     C.   S.   Brooks 463 

Luzumiyat  of  Abicl-Ala,  The.     Ameen  Rihani....     17 

M.-\DAME  Prune.     P.  Loti 366 
.Man  for  the  Ages,  A.     I.  Bacheller 231 

Manchester  Grammer  School,  The.     A.   A-  Mum- 
ford    52J 

Marcus   Cornelius   Fronto.     Translated   by   C.    R- 

Haines     605 

Martyrdom  of   Man,  The.     W.  Reade 629 

Mask,    The.     J.     Coumos     231 

Mask.     G.     Middleton     632 


^  1  >' 


Vol.  II 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


Jan.-June,  1920 


Pao 

Hukende.     O.  J.  nn  Ammen-KOner 398 

Matrix.  Th«.     N.  T.  Davies 463 

Maarccn  P.   MacGiU    679 

Memoirs  of  the  American  Academy  at  Rome,  Vol. 

1.  &  a 134,  209 

Memorial*  of  WiUard  Fiake:     The  Editor.     Com- 
piled bj  U.  S.  White 657 

Memona  and  Records.     J.  A.  Fisher 654 

Michael    Forth.     M.    Johnston 158 

Mim  Lulu  Brett.     Z.  Gale 394 

Modern  China.     Sih-Guns  Cheng^ 281 

Modem    Salesmanship.     J.    G.    rrederick 184 

Moral  Basis  of  Democracy,  The.     A.  T.  Uadley. .  636 

More    Chapters   of    Opera.     U.    Krehbiel 62 

Mors    et    Vila.     A.    Uoisy 572 

Mounuin    Paths.     M.    Maeterlinck IS 

Muddy  Jim.     Ifl.  Berliner 88 

Musi^  Motley,  A.     £.  Newman 62 

My  £«cape  from  Germany.     £.  A.   Keith 632 

My  Memoirs.     Admiral  von  Tirpitx 84 

My    Qtiarter    Century    of    American    Politics.     C. 

CUrke    460 

My  Recollections.     J.   Massenet   18 

Mystery  of  Space,  The.     R.  T.  Browne 133 

NATURAL  History  of  the  ChUd,  The.     Dr.  C. 

Dunn   688 

New  Words  Self  De6ned.     C.   A.  Smith 38 

Notre   Force    Future.     J.    Dybowski 131 

rvPEN  VUion.     H.  W.  Dresser 631 

^-'       Opium  Monopoly.  The.     E.  H.  LaMotte 400 

Order.     C.  C.   Washburn 393 

Our  Am.rica.     Waldo  Frank 434 

Our  Greatest  Battle.     F.  Palmer 627 

Outland.     M.  Austin   1 58 

Outlines  of   Chinese  Art.     J.  L.  Ferguson 16 

Outlook    for    Research    and    Invention,    The.     N. 

M.     Hopkins     488 

Out^ioken    Essays.     W.    R.   Inge 396 

PAIX  des  Nations  el  La  Religion  de  1'  Avenir, 
La.     A.    Loisy     572 

Passage  of  the  Barque  Sappho,  The.     J.   E.  Pat- 
terson          15 

Passion:     A    Human    Story.     S.    Desmond 573 

Percolator   Papers.     E.  Hendrick 37 

Peter  Jameson:     A  Modem  Romance.     G.  Frank- 

au   573 

Peter  Kindred.     R.   Nathan    392 

Petit  Nord,  Le  or  Annals  of  a  Labrador  Harbour. 

A.     Grenfell    and    K.     Spalding 679 

Picture   Show.     S.  Sassoon    520 

Pictures  of   the   Floating    World.     A.    Lowell 33 

Pink   Roses.     G.    Caunan 58 

Pirates  of  the  Spring.     F.  Reid 310 

Plot  Against   Mexico,  The.     L.  J.  de  Bckker 206 

Poetry  and   Dreams.     F.   C.   Prescott 365 

Portraits    of    American    Women.     G.    Bradford..     60 
Position  of  the  Roode  en  Witte  Rods  in  the  Saga 

of  King  Richard  111.,  The.     O.  J.  Campbell  437 
Power  of  a   God   and   Other  One-Act   Plays,   The. 

T.  H.  Guild 370 

Prefaces.     Don    Marquis    37 

Pres  des  Comballants.     M.    Andri   Chevrillon. . . .    184 

Private  in  the  Guards,  A.     S.  Graham 232 

Proofs  of  the  Truths  of  Spiritualism.     G.  Henslow  337 

Psychology   of  Bolshevism,  The.     J.   Spargo 2U6 

Pursuit  ot  Happiness,  The.     B.   K.  C.  Low 362 

QUAKER    Singer's    Recollections,    A.     D.    Bis- 
pham    289 

Question  of  Thrace,  The.     J.  S.   Mills  and  M.  G. 

Crussachi     550 

REBELS:     Into   Anarchy   and    Out  Again.     M. 
Gam r 231 

Recreation.     £.  Grey    518 

Red  Terror  and   Green.     R.   Dawson 600 

Representative  One-Act  Plays  by  American  Auth- 
ors.    M.    G.    Mayorga 607 

Rescue,  The.     J.  Conrad 604,  629 

Responsibility:     A  Novel.     J.  E.  Agate 573 

Revolt:     An  American  Novel.     W.  H.  MacMasters  394 

Reynard,  The   Fox.     J.   Masefield 33 

Road   to   En-dor,  The.     E.   H.  Jones 547 

Rudyard   Kipling's  Verse,  Inclusive  Ed.    1885-1919   109 

Russia,  White  or  Red.     O.   M.  Saylor 135 

Russian   I'cndulum,  The.     A.   Bullard 207 

Russian    Theatre    Under   the    Revolution.     O.    M. 

Sayler  259 

S.\MAR1TANS,  Their  Testimony  to  the  Religion 
of  Israel,  The.     J.  E.  H.  Thomson 311 

Sea  Bride,  The.     B.  A.   Williams IS 

Secret  Battle,  The.     A.  P.  Herbert 257 

Seldwyla     Folks:     Three     Singular     Tale*.         G. 

Keller  Ill 

Seneca.     F.    Holland    521 

September.     F.  Swinnerton   85 

Seven  Who  Slept,  The.     A.   K.  PorUr 609 

Shadowy   Thresholds.     C.    Y.    Rice 362 

Shakespeare    and    the    Makers    of    Virginia.      A 

W.    Ward    311 

Ships  Across  the  Sea.     R.  D.  Paine 577 

Short  History  of   Belgium,  A.     L.  von  der  Essen  335 
Short    Stories    from    the    Balkans.     Translated   by 

E.  W.  Underwood   363 

Side  of    Paradise,   This.     F.    S.    Fitzgerald 392 

Sigurd.  Our  Golden  Collie.     K.  S.  Bates 135 

Silver  Age.     T.   Scott 60 

Sir   James    Murray.     H.    Bradley }11 


Pagb 
Social  Plays  of  Arthur  Wing  Pinero,  The.     Edited 

by  C.  Hamilton 213 

Socialism     vs.    Civilization.     B.     Brasol 491 

Soldat   de   France,    Un 113 

Sinie  Aversions  of  a  Man  of  Letters.  E.  Gosse.  .  487 
Some  Questions  of  Peace  and  War.  W.  McDonald  230 

Soothsayer.   The.     V.   von    Hcidenstam 608 

Soul   of   Abraham   Lincoln,   The.     W.    E.    Barton  366 

Soul  of  Ireland,  The.     W.  J.   Lockington 284 

Souls    Divided.     M.    Serao    434 

Spain's   Declining   Power   in    South   America.     B. 

Moses     285 

Spiritual    \'oiccs    in    Modern    Literature.     T.    H. 

Davits    160 

Starved  Rock.     E.   L.  Masters   519 

Stolen    Lands,   The.     M.    Harrison 364 

Storm   in   a   Teacup.     E.    Pnillpotts 207 

Story  of  Milk,  The.     J.   D.  Frederickson 184 

Story    of    the    Great    War,    The.     W.    S.    Braith- 

waite     210 

Strategy  of  the  Great  War,  The.     W.  L.  McPher- 

son    17 

Studies     in     Spanish-American     Literature.         I. 

Goldberg    335 

Substance  of  a  Dream,  The.     F.  W.  Bain 682 

Supplementary     Diplomatic    Documents    Published 

by    the    Am jrican-Hellenic    Society 17 

Swinburne  As  I  Knew  Him.     C.  Kernaban 576 

"TALES  of  My  Native  Town.  G.  D'Annunzio. .  435 
*         Tales   of   Three   Hemispheres.     Lord   Dun- 

sany    Ill 

Talks  with  T.  R.     J.  L.  Leary,  Jr 656 

Tamarisk  Town.     S.  Kaye-Smith 654 

Taming  of    Nan,  The.     E.    Holdsworth 207 

Tauchnitz  Edition  of  British  and  American  Auth- 
ors      209 

Their  Son:     The  Necklace.     E.  Zamacios HI 

Theodore    Roosevelt:     An    Autobiography 255 

Thesaurus    of    English    Words    and    Phrases.     P. 

M.    Roget    61 

This  Giddy  World.     O.  Herford 112 

Three  Plays.     N.   Leslie    464 

'1  hrce    Plays    from   the   Argentine.      Edited    by    E. 

H.     Bierstadt     60S 

Time  and  Eternity.     G.  Cannan  489 

Treacherous   Ground.     J.    Bojer    520 

Turnover  of  Factory  Labor,  The.     S.  H.     Schlich- 

ter     36 

TurnpikfS  of  New  England.     F.  J.  Wood 311 

Two  Men :     A  Romance  of  Sussex.     A.  Ollivant.  207 

I  INSOLVED  Riddle  of  Social  Justice,  The.     S. 

*-'        Leacock 234 

Up   and    Down.      E.    F.    Benson 257 

Up  the  Mazaruni  for  Diamonds.  W.  J.  La  Varre  547 
Up  the  Seine  to  the  Battlefields.     A.  B.  Dodd 681 

\/IE  d'  Edgar  A.  Poe,  La.     M.  A.  Fontainas 259 

'  Villa    Elsa.      S.    Henry 436 

Vital   Message.     A.   C.  Doyle 134 

\Y/     B.  WILSON  and  the  Department  of  Labor. 

™  •     R.  W.  Babson 333 

Walt   Whitman:      The    Man    and    his    Work.      L. 

Bazalgette   310 

White  Shadows  in  the  South  Seas.     F.  O'Brien..      37 

Whole  Armour  of   Man,  The.     C.  W.  Saleeby 258 

William  Blake,  The  Man.     C.  Gardner 181 

Within    My  Horizon.      H.    Bartlett 548 

Woman  Triumphant.     V.  Blasco-Ibaiiez 520 

Woman's   Man,  A.      M.   Patterson 132 

Wonders  of  the  Colorado  Desert.  G.  W.  James..  61 
World  of  Wonderful  Reality,  The.  E.  T.  Thurston  132 
World    Remaking    or    Peace    Finance,    A.      C.    W. 

Barron    464 

Worldlings,   The.      L.    Merrick 183 

YANKEE  in  the  British  Zone,  The.     E.  C.  Mac- 

'         Veagh  and  L,  D.  Brown 436 

Yanks.     A.   E.  F.     Verse 85 

Year  as  a  Government  Agent,  A.     V.  B.  White- 
house    208 

Youth  Goes  Seeking.     O.  Graeve 132 

Youth  of  James  Whitcomb  Riley.     M.  Dickey 159 

Youth  Riding.     M.  C.  Davies 362 

BOOKS  AND  THE  NEWS 

AMERICA  and   England 528 

gOYS'   Books    138 

CANDIDATES,  The 340 

EDUCATION 188 

CRANCE    492 

IJEALTH     164 

I   IBRARIES    372 

Living  Expenses    556 

VICTOR  Trips    578 

NIEGRO.  The    20 

^^        New  American  Books 443 

PRIMARIES    409 

*  Profit-Sharing 40 


Page 
DECENT  Books  214 

CEA  STORIES  314 

Socialism  65 

Spiritism    118 

Sport    472 

■THEATRE,  The  94 

'■  Turkey     266 

■W/ILSON,  Mr 237 

*"       Woman  Suffrage 294 


BOOKS  OF  THE  WEEK 

[Selected     by     Edmund     Lester     Pearson,     Editor    of 
Publications,  New  York  Public  Library] 

ALL  and  Sundry.     E.  T.  Raymond 631 

■**        Follow  the  Little  Pictures.     A.  Graham 680 

IRISH  Case,  Before  the  Court  of  Public  Opinion, 

*  The.     P.  W.   Wilson 656 

I  ABOR'S  Challenge  to  the  Social  Order.     J.  G. 

^        Brooks 604 

Letters  of  Travel.     R.     Kipling 631 

Life  of  Lord   Kitchener.     Sir  G.  Arthur 680 

JUAINTENANCE  of  Peace,  The.     S.  C.  Vestal.   631 
Mrs.  Warren's  Daughter.     Sir  H.  Johnston  604 

DEACE   Conference   Day   by   Day,   The.     C.   T. 

Thompson    680 

Port  of  New  York,  The.     S.  C.  VesUl 631 

CIMSADUS:     London;   The  American   Navy   in 

"^         Europe.     J.   L.   Leighlon 656 

Stranger,  The.     A.  Bullard 656 

Swinburne  as  I  Knew  Him.     C.   Kernahan 656 

•TALKS  with  T.  R.,  from  the  DUries  of  John  J. 

*  Leary,  Jr 604 


MISCELLANEOUS 

AMERICAN  Insight  Into  French  Literature. .  .548 
^  American  Library  Association  in  France. ,  402 
A  nglo-French  Review. 490 

DIBLIOGRAPHY  of  Whaling  Books  [New  Bed- 

"        ford    Library]     656 

Bibliotheque  Plon 657 

QLEMENCEAU'S   Memoirs   631 

r\UMAS'S     Collaborator's      (Auguste      Maquet) 
'-'       Title    to    Fame 577 

pCKHOUD,  Georges,  Dismissal  of  from  Brussels 

^'        Academy    491 

Etudes     Italiennes. 285,  490 

pRENCH  Criticism  [Lecomte  in  Revue  des  Deux 

\  Mondesi     657 

French   Labor  Unions  and  the   Stage 548 

French    Literature    (J.    G.    Fletcher) 17 

French   Notes    401,   490,491 

UEINE'S    "Buch    der    Lieder" 491 

Hungary's  Intellectual  Loss,  Due  to  Being 
Deprived  of  Many  Cities 682 

J^EATS    Memorial     575 

lOEB     Library     366,605 

^ERCVRB  de  France 234 

MEW    Formations    of    Words     [English]     from 
~        Children's    Speech    Desired    by    Prof.    Jes- 

persen   of  Denmark 38 

piLGRIM    Fathers,    History   Being   Prepared  by 

*  Dr.    A.    Eekof 491 

"Psycho-Analystic    Confession".     By    Floyd    Dell 

in    the    Liberator 60S 

DAMSAY  (Sir  William),  Memorial  to 490 

^*-        Romain     Rolland's     Visit     to     Switzerland, 

Reason    for 438 

CHAKESPEARE  Identified  as  Edward  de  Vere 

■^         (J.    T.    Looney) 464 

Shaw   Desmond,   Personality  of 681 

Siknce,   Plea   for    (Temps) 491 

Simplified  Spelling  Abandoned 365 

Society  for  Pure  English  Founded  by  Dr.  Robert 

Bridges     60,  113 

Stanton,     Elizabeth     Cady,     Biography     of    by    T. 

Stanton  and  Mrs.  Stanton-Blatch 632 

"TEXT    Criticism".     By    Professor   J.    A.    Scott 

in    the    March    Classical    Journal 632 


^- 


THE  REVIEW 


Vol.  2,  No.  34 


New  York,  Saturday,  January  3,  1920 


FIFTEEN  CENTS 


Contents 

Brief  Comment  i 

Edttoriat  Articles: 

The  Defense  of  Property  3 

Siberia  in  Despair  5 

A  Hopeful  Labor  Move  6 

Those  Navy  Awards  6 

Mrs.  Tiffany  on  the  "Social  Unit"  7 

Slaves  of  the  Machine.   By  David  Harold 
Colcord  8 

The  Social  Unit  at   Cincinnati— Is  It  a 
Soviet?    By  Katrina  Ely  Tiffany  11 

Correspondence  13 

Book  Reviews: 
Germany — Misjudged  or  Found  Out?     14 
Sea  Tales  15 

Maeterlinck's  "Presences"  15 

Chinese  Art  16 

The  Run  of  the  Shelves  17 

Drama: 
"Mary  Broome"  at  the  Neighborhood 
Playhouse — The     Theatre     Parisien. 
By  O.  W.  Firkins  18 

Massenet's    Memories    and    Music.      By 
Charles   Henry   Meltzer  18 

Books  and  the  News:    The  Negro.     By 
Edmund  Lester  Pearson  20 

'T'HEY  reckon  ill  who  leave  me  out 
■*-  — that  is  Mr.  William  Jennings 
Bryan's  motto,  or  ought  to  be.  His 
sudden  emergence  into  conspicuous 
notice  at  Washington  is  no  laughing 
matter.  He  probably  does  not  desire 
to  be  the  Democratic  candidate  for 
President,  but  he  certainly  has  no 
objection  to  playing  the  part  of  king- 
maker— or  at  least  king-breaker — as 
he  did  in  1912.  Never  was  the  time 
more  propitious  for  him,  in  one  re- 
spect. His  specialty  is  the  setting-up 
of  "paramount  issues,"  and  the  woods 
are  full  of  paramount  issues.  The 
cheap  dollar  is  as  ready  to  his  hand 
as  the  dear  dollar  was  in  1896 ;  there 
must  be  some  cure-all  formula  for  the 
labor  problem  which  Mr.  Bryan 
would  find  no  difficulty  in  framing; 
the  League  of  Nations  is  in  a  sad  way 
— whatever  the  Senate  may  be  on  the 
point  of  doing  about  it — and  all  for 
lack  of  the  right  prescription  from 
the  right  doctor;  and  the  good  old 
slogan  "let  the  people  rule"  might  be 


raised  in  a  dozen  new  and  striking 
ways.  Mr.  Bryan  is  an  adept  at  mak- 
ing choice  of  slogans,  and  it  will  go 
hard  but  he  will  find  one  that  will 
make  him  a  big  power  in  the  Demo- 
cratic National  Convention.  But  we 
do  not  expect  to  see  the  cry  "He  tried 
to  keep  us  out  of  war"  raised  in  his 
behalf;  perhaps,  however,  other  peo- 
ple will  have  something  to  say  about 
the  way  he  served  his  country  as  Sec- 
retary of  State,  and  played  into  the 
hands  of  Bernstorff  and  Dumba. 

'T'HE  meaning  of  the  latest  events 
-'■  in  Siberia  is  not  yet  plain.  A  fort- 
night ago,  Kolchak  formed  a  cabinet 
of  the  Left,  and  a  policy  was  an- 
nounced that  proposed  to  subordi- 
nate the  military  to  the  civil  author- 
ity. The  object  evidently  was  to  fall 
back  upon  the  Socialist  Revolution- 
aries, but  it  was  grasping  at  a  straw, 
and  indicated  weakness.  Now,  ac- 
cording to  the  latest  reports,  what 
was  earlier  predicted  in  the  Review 
has  taken  place,  and  Semenov  has 
been  appointed  Commander-in-Chief. 
The  first  implication  of  this  is  ob- 
vious. The  predominant  military 
force  in  eastern  Siberia  is  Cossack, 
and  Semenov  is  the  chosen  Cossack 
leader.  Upon  the  Cossacks  must  de- 
pend the  country's  defense. 

T>UT  another  conclusion  may  be 
■■-'  drawn.  Hitherto  Kolchak  has 
been  bound  by  his  devotion  to  the  Al- 
lies, and  they  have  failed  him  shame- 
fully in  his  hour  of  need.  In  conse- 
quence Russians  everywhere  have 
come  to  view  the  Allies  with  suspi- 
cion and  dislike.  Semenov  is  bound 
by  no  promises  and  has  been  sup- 
ported by  Japan.  He  will  now  be 
free  to  make  with  the  Japanese 
whatever  agreements  he  sees  fit. 
Whether  Japan  will  come  to  his  as- 
sistance with  troops  is  problemati- 
cal, but  he  undoubtedly  counts  on 
their  aid.     Seemingly  it  is  now  too 


late  for  this.  When  they  could  march 
in  and  achieve  success  by  a  parade  of 
force,  the  case  was  different.  Now 
it  means  a  long  and  expensive  war, 
and  Japan  will  think  twice  about  en- 
tangling herself  in  such  a  contest 
without  American  participation.  She 
reasons  that  America  would  like 
nothing  better  than  to  see  her  thus 
entangled,  wasting  her  energies.  Still, 
the  threat  of  approaching  Bolshevism 
may  force  her  to  this  course.  In  any 
case,  with  money  and  arms  from 
Japan,  Semenov  will  put  up  a  good 
fight  and  probably  hold  back  the  Red 
horde. 

'pHE    National    Council    and    the 
■'■    States  Council    at    Berne    have 
both,    by    a    large    majority,    voted 
for    Switzerland's   accession   to   the 
League  of  Nations,  a  decision  which 
will  have  to  be  ratified  by  a  referen- 
dum of  the  electorate.     This  is  not, 
however,  an  unconditional  approval 
of  the  Covenant  as  drafted  in  Paris. 
Although  Article  I  of  that  document 
provides  for  the  accession  of  the  once 
neutral  states  as  original  members 
on    condition    that    they    join    the 
League  "without  reservation,"  Swit- 
zerland has  made   its   entrance    de- 
pendent on  the  acceptance  of  one  af- 
fecting the  tenor  of  Article  XVI.  The 
country  does  not  wish  to  bind  itself 
to  any  participation  in  a  military  ac- 
tion which  the  Council  might  deem 
necessary  to  protect  the  covenants  of 
the  League.     This  restriction,  how- 
ever, is  contrary  only  to  the  letter  of 
the  Covenant,  not  to  its  spirit  as  ex- 
plained by  its  makers.     When  in  a 
conference  of  these  with  representa- 
tives of  neutral  countries  objections 
were  raised  by  the  latter  to  the  coer- 
cive measures  contained  in  Article 
XVI,  Lord  Robert  Cecil  made  the  re- 
assuring  statement   that   "the   eco- 
nomic coercion  comes  first  and  is  al- 
ways obligatory  for  all  members,  but 
the  military  measures,  which  come  in 


2] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No. 


the  second  place,  are  not  absolutely 
obligatory.  There  will  be  no  com- 
pulsion to  take  part  in  them,  although 
there  always  remains  a  moral  duty  of 
participation."  Besides,  Switzerland's 
right  to  abstain  from  any  military 
cooperation  is  already  implied  in  Ar- 
ticle 435  of  the  Peace  Treaty  with 
Germany,  which  recognizes  the  valid- 
ity of  the  declaration  of  November 
20,  1815,  concerning  the  country's 
neutral  status.  The  reservation, 
therefore,  is  a  mere  formality,  in- 
tended to  placate  that  part  of  the  na- 
tion which,  proud  of  its  independence 
and  devoted  to  its  neutrality,  views 
the  League  with  no  little  suspicion. 
One  other  restriction  bears  the  name 
reservation  with  more  justice:  The 
country  makes  its  accession  condi- 
tional on  that  of  the  five  Great  Pow- 
ers, in  other  words,  it  will  not  join 
the  League  unless  the  United  States 
does  so  first. 

TVrOW  cracks  a  noble  heart — these 
■'■^  are  the  words  that  best  befit  the 
news  of  Dr.  Osier's  death.  Great 
physician,  wonderful  teacher,  inspir- 
ing comrade  and  associate,  unweary- 
ing worker  for  the  general  good, 
promoter  to  the  last  of  medical  prog- 
ress— all  these  attributes  fail  to  con- 
vey an  idea  of  the  man.  A  gallant 
and  poetic  spirit,  as  full  of  grace  as 
of  strength,  he  was  a  centre  of  light 
and  life  in  every  circle  in  which  he 
moved.  America  and  England  will 
join  in  mourning  one  who  adorned 
and  benefited  both  countries,  and 
whose  last  years  were  spent  in  de- 
voted service  for  the  cause  to  which 
both  countries  gave  their  best  and 
dearest. 

TN  this  human  beehive  of  New  York 
the  poet  of  "La  Vie  des  Abeilles" 
seems  strangely  out  of  place.  The  only 
spot  where  we  could  imagine  him  in 
his  element  is  the  top  of  the  Wool- 
worth  building  from  which,  in  silent 
contemplation,  he  could  watch  the 
feverish  wooing  of  Queen  Dollar  by 
the  giant  swarm  below.  But  he  has 
come  to  woo  her  himself.  The  papers 
give  estimates  of  "the  profits  accru- 
ing to  him  as  a  result  of  his  first 
American  tour,  in  addition  to  which 
he  will  certainly  receive  augmented 


royalties  on  his  many  books."  If  he 
does,  he  will  owe  them  to  those  real 
lovers  of  the  poet  who,  turning  away 
from  this  fashionable  lecturer  in 
evening  dress  suit,  look  for  the  real 
Maeterlinck  in  the  works  that  he 
wrote.  The  mystic  who  gave  to  the 
world  "Le  tresor  des  humbles"  is  a 
different  being  from  this  idolized 
treasure  of  the  proud,  this  "social 
lion  and  lecturer  on  the  immortality 
of  the  soul,"  as  the  headlines  pro- 
claim him.  Once  he  wrote  some  beau- 
tiful pages  on  the  eloquence  of  silence, 
a  language  which  will  grow  dearer  to 
him  day  after  day  on  his  "12,000-mile 
Coast-to-Coast  tour  to  confront  lec- 
ture audiences  and  social  welcomers 
in  more  than  forty  cities."  There 
you  have  the  poet's  programme 
in  arithmetic.  Imagine  Thomas  a 
Kempis  leaving  his  cell  to  read  his 
"Imitatio"  before  the  upper  ten  of 
fifteenth-century  Paris  and  London. 
"The  shy  Belgian  poet"  the  papers 
call  him,  and  shy  he  well  may  be. 
The  mystic's  proper  sphere  is  not 
the  crowd  but  the  solitude,  "in  an- 
gello  cum  libello,"  approving  the 
wisdom  of  the  earlier  mystic's  "ama 
nesciri." 

TT  has  been  obvious  from  the  begin- 
•■-  ning  that  no  organization  of  re- 
turned soldiers  which  presumed  to 
set  itself  up  as  an  "Invisible  Empire" 
and  impose  its  own  "100  per  cent. 
Americanism"  upon  those  little 
groups  who  were  quite  intoxicated 
on  something  like  2.75  per  cent,  of 
the  same  could  hope  long  to  survive. 
Responsible  leaders  of  the  American 
Legion  have  reckoned  with  this  dan- 
ger from  the  outset.  They  have  not 
always  been  able  to  prevent  sporadic 
outbursts  of  it.  The  ex-soldiers  have, 
it  is  only  too  true,  taken  upon  them- 
selves here  and  there  to  decide  that 
concerts  of  German  music  must  not 
be  held  and  that  certain  sorts  of 
opinion  shall  not  have  the  privilege 
of  a  hall  in  which  to  air  themselves. 
This  sort  of  thing  must  stop.  To  un- 
derstand is  not  to  pardon.  The 
American  Legion  exists,  so  far  as  it 
is  not  merely  a  pleasant  association 
of  old  comrades,  to  prevent  just  those 
things  which  mob  violence — "direct 
action"  in  the  canting  phrase — aims 


to  bring  in.  A  sound  strategy  d 
not  suggest  mob  violence  on  its  c 
part  as  the  most  effective  step. 
Franklin  D'Olier,  the  National  C( 
mander,  has  now  put  the  Legion  ( 
cially  on  record — "let  us  be  sure  t 
no  overzealous  or  thoughtless  or 
fair  act  of  our  own  occur  to  weal 
our  influence  for  national  bettermi 
or  alienate  the  support  of  true  An 
icans."  Maintenance  of  a  gove 
ment  under  law  is  not  an  easy  t£ 
It  may  be  confidently  hoped  that 
more  difficulties  will  be  cast  in 
way  of  it  by  those  from  whom 
much  that  is  genuinely  construci 
is  expected.  "Legion,"  in  any  of 
manifestations,  must  not  be  alloi 
to  get  the  upper  hand  of  "Americs 

rpHROUGH  the  generosity  of 
■*■  anonymous  donor  there  has  b 
established  the  Amherst  Memo 
Fellowship  for  the  study  of  soc 
economic,  and  political  institutic 
According  to  its  terms  a  fellow,  v 
a  stipend  of  two  thousand  dollar 
year,  will  be  appointed  every  sec 
year  for  a  period  of  not  more  t' 
four  years.  Although  established 
perpetuate  the  memory  of  those  I 
herst  men  who  gave  their  lives  foi 
ideal,"  the  fellowship  is  open  to  gi 
uates — and  not  of  necessity  rec 
graduates — of  any  college  or  uni^ 
sity,  and  it  is  expressly  provided  1 
at  least  one  member  of  the  commi 
which  awards  the  Fellowship  s' 
have  no  connection  with  Amh( 
College.  This  committee  has  i 
been  formed  and  is  receiving  ap 
cations.  A  foundation  so  bro£ 
conceived  and  so  generously  endo' 
should  before  very  long  becom- 
national  institution.  The  fellows 
should  be  held  by  only  the  very  ab 
of  the  country's  young  men,  i 
whose  native  capacity  for  leaders 
fortified  by  the  extensive  study  wl 
the  fellowship  places  within  tl 
reach,  will  put  them  high  am 
those  to  whom  the  world  must  1 
for  guidance  in  dealing  with 
problems  which  press  so  heavily  u 
it.  Amherst  is  to  be  congratuU 
on  receiving  into  its  hands  an  ins' 
ment  so  well  calculated  to  give 
best  opportunities  to  the  best  mi 
in  this  vital  department  of  study. 


January  3,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[8 


The   Defense   of 
Property 

THE  Presidential  election  of  1920, 
says  the  New  York  Tribune  in  a 
leading  editorial,  promises  to  turn  on 
the  issue  of  private  property  versus 
communism.  In  order  to  meet  this 
issue,  the  Tribune  declares  that  what 
is  needed  is  a  campaign  of  "thorough 
popular  education" : 

Private  property  must  face  the  issue — must 
prove  it  is  a  good  thing  for  all,  or  else  perish 
.  .  .  Personal  ownership  is  not  an  end  but  a 
means  to  an  end — the  supreme  end  of  increas- 
ing the  sum  of  human  happiness. 

"The  challenge  can  be  confidently 
met,"  says  the  Tribune,  and  it  plunges 
boldly  into  the  task.  The  human 
family  lives  not  on  what  has  been  ac- 
cumulated, but  on  what  is  currently 
produced.  Capital  is  essential  to  ef- 
fective production ;  "with  capital  and 
capitalism  gone,  and  little  to  divide, 
what  would  concurrently  happen  to 
the  production  which  is  the  real  meal 
ticket,"  and  "whence  would  come  the 
fund  for  improvements"  ?  The  "great 
works  reared  under  the  capitalist  re- 
gime" would  before  long  be  worn  out, 
and  then  "a  further  decline  in  pro- 
duction would  occur,  with  a  conse- 
quent tightening  of  all  belts."  Such 
is  the  Tribune's  statement  of  the  case 
for  the  institution  of  private  prop- 
erty ;  and  the  article  closes  with  this 
fervid  exhortation : 

First,  production;  second,  production;  third, 
production — these  are  the  three  great  argu- 
ments capitalism  can  present.  Hammer  them, 
hammer  them,  hammer  them !  Americans  are 
intelligent  enough,  and  their  perceptions  of 
self-interest  keen  enough,  to  see  and  act  on  the 
truth. 

There  is  just  enough  truth  in  the 
idea  that  the  institution  of  property 
is  in  imminent  danger  to  make  it  well 
worth  while  to  consider  upon  what 
grounds  its  defense  must  rest.  The 
requirements  of  a  campaign  of  "thor- 
ough popular  education"  are  far 
more  exacting  than  our  contemporary 
appears  to  realize.  It  is  something 
to  point  out  the  indispensable  part 
which  capital  plays  in  production, 
for  there  are  millions  among  the 
masses  who  have  no  conception  even 
of  this  elementary  truth.  But  it  is 
far  from  enough ;  the  teachers  of  so- 
cialism have  educated  thousands  upon 
this  subject  far  beyond  the  kinder- 


garten stage,  and  these  will  have  no 
difficulty,  when  the  campaign  is  on, 
in  making  the  masses  understand 
that  the  abolition  of  private  owner- 
ship of  capital  does  not  necessarily 
mean  the  extinction  of  capital  itself. 
A  well-organized  socialistic  or  com- 
munistic government  could  systemat- 
ically provide  for  the  maintenance  of 
capital  by  a  levy  upon  current  pro- 
duction ;  the  great  function  which  has 
hitherto  been  performed  by  the  vol- 
untary abstinence  and  thrift  of  indi- 
viduals could  quite  conceivably  be 
performed  by  saving  exacted  and  di- 
rected by  the  state.  Under  this  re- 
gime production  would  not  suffer  that 
utter  collapse  which  would  attend  the 
extinction  of  capital ;  the  loss  it  would 
suffer  would  come  from  the  substitu- 
tion of  governmental  routine  for  that 
varied  and  boundless  energy,  that 
alertness  of  initiative,  that  constant 
exercise  of  quick  and  accurate  judg- 
ment, which  are  the  life-blood  of  pro- 
duction and  enterprise  under  the  in- 
dividualist regime. 

To  convince  a  man  of  all  this  is  not 
as  easy  as  a  sum  in  arithmetic.  But 
the  difficulty  can  not  be  evaded  by 
shutting  one's  eyes  to  it.  Fortu- 
nately, however,  the  plain  man  is  not 
a  fool.  He  may  not  clearly  realize 
how  great  a  part  is  played  in  produc- 
tion by  the  energy  and  ability  of  those 
who  conduct  it  under  the  stimulus  of 
competitive  profit — and  under  the 
risk  of  competitive  loss — but  the 
idea  is  by  no  means  foreign  to  his 
mind.  Probably  the  greatest  obstacle 
to  his  full  appreciation  of  it  arises 
from  false  notions  of  the  share 
which  capital  and  management  get 
for  their  service.  He  will  readily 
enough  admit  that  government  would 
not  do  the  work  anything  like  so  well 
as  private  initiative  does  it;  but  he 
imagines  that  the  gain  to  the  com- 
munity is  more  than  swallowed  up 
by  the  reward  that  capital  and  man- 
agement grasp  as  their  share  of  the 
product.  He  reads  the  big  figures 
that  represent  the  fortunes  of  a  few 
multi-millionaires,  and  he  is  struck 
with  the  luxury  and  display  which 
are  the  result  of  business  success. 
But  he  makes  no  calculation  of  the 
extremely  small  percentage  of  the 
total  annual  product  which  suffices  to 


account  for  all  this.  It  would  not  be 
difficult  to  make  him  understand  that 
if  the  efficiency  of  production  were 
diminished  by  ten  per  cent.,  this 
would  probably  cut  deeper  into  his 
share  than  do  all  the  profits  of  the 
great  capitalists  and  "captains  of  in- 
dustry ;"  and  he  would  not  find  it  hard 
to  believe  that  under  a  communist 
regime  productive  eflficiency  would  be 
impaired  by  very  much  more  than 
ten  per  cent. 

But  assuming  that  this  fact  was 
driven  home  into  the  minds  of  the 
masses — itself  no  mean  task — no 
mistake  could  be  greater  than  that  of 
supposing  that  the  trouble  was  there- 
by disposed  of.  The  feeling  that  has 
been  stirred  up  against  the  existing 
order  of  society  rests  on  something 
more  than  a  calculation  of  the 
amount  of  bread  and  meat,  of  clothes 
and  luxuries,  that  the  "plain  man" 
might  expect  to  obtain  under  a  dif- 
ferent order.  The  cold-blooded  con- 
clusions of  economic  arithmetic  will 
not  suflSce  to  overcome  the  passion- 
ate longing  of  those  who  would  shat- 
ter the  world  and  "remould  it  nearer 
to  the  heart's  desire."  If  the  insti- 
tution of  property  is  to  stand  un- 
shaken in  the  coming  decades,  it  will 
be  not  merely  because  it  does  more 
than  communism  can  to  fill  people's 
bellies,  but  because  with  all  its 
faults,  it  does  more  to  satisfy  their 
souls. 

Socialist  dreamers  charge  the  de- 
fenders of  the  existing  order  with 
lack  of  imagination.  But  it  is  they 
themselves  who  lack  imagination.  It 
requires  very  little  imagination  to 
picture  a  new  world  in  which  nobody 
has  to  worry  about  food  or  clothing, 
or  in  which  everybody  has  his  flivver 
and  his  victrola;  even  a  world  in 
which  nobody  is  trying  to  get  the  bet- 
ter of  his  neighbor,  and  everybody  is 
doing  what  is  demanded  of  him  for 
the  good  of  the  community.  What 
does  require  some  degree  of  genuine 
imagination  is  to  realize  what  such 
a  world  would  be  in  the  essentials 
of  human  feeling  and  interest,  and 
what  our  own  world  is  like  in  those 
essentials. 

The  freeman's  life  is  superior  to 
the  slave's,  not  because  he  does  less 
work  or  because  he  gets  more  pay; 


4] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  34 


the  difference  lies  in  the  freedom  it- 
self, and  in  the  responsibility  that  is 
the  correlative  of  the  freedom.  It 
is  true  that  many  millions  of  people, 
under  existing  conditions,  have  little 
choice  as  to  how  they  shall  earn  their 
living;  but  each  of  them  has  never- 
theless the  feeling  of  a  freeman.  No 
man,  and  no  government,  has  ordered 
him  to  do  what  he  is  doing;  and  it 
rests  with  him  to  decide  whether  he 
shall  continue  to  do  it.  If  there  are 
thousands  who  fare  better,  there  are 
also  thousands  who  fare  worse;  and 
whether  he  fares  well  or  ill  is  his 
own  business  and  nobody  else's.  If 
he  has  succeeded  in  keeping  his  head 
above  water,  if  he  has  maintained  his 
family  without  outside  aid,  he  may 
justly  feel  that,  in  the  face  of  diffi- 
culty and  temptation,  he  has  done  a 
man's  part  in  the  struggle  of  life. 
And  he  has  always  the  spur  of  hope 
that  his  children,  like  the  children 
of  so  many  of  his  fellows  in  like  sta- 
tion, will  attain  a  higher  place  in  the 
struggle.  What  would  the  commu- 
nist regime  offer  to  take  the  place  of 
all  this?  The  joys  of  notable  achieve- 
ment— even  such  standardized  joys 
as  there  might  be  of  this  kind — 
would,  from  the  nature  of  things,  be 
for  the  one  man  in  a  hundred;  the 
other  ninety-nine  would  have  at  most 
the  pale  satisfaction  of  not  having 
forfeited  their  meal  tickets  by  fail- 
ure to  do  the  amount  of  work  re- 
quired of  them.  Of  the  chances  of 
better  and  worse,  of  the  shaping  of 
one's  own  destiny  by  the  exercise  of 
one's  own  will,  of  that  kind  of  per- 
sonal responsibility  which  gives 
strength  to  character  and  zest  to  ef- 
fort, there  would  be  little  left. 

So  much  for  those  who  are  near  the 
foot  of  the  ladder,  those  to  whom  the 
existing  order  shows  its  worst  face. 
That  a  large  proportion  of  all  the 
people  are  in  the  direct  enjoyment 
of  its  advantages,  the  communists 
constantly  forget.  To  him  who  has 
something,  though  little,  the  value  of 
what  he  has  is  vitally  bound  up  with 
the  idea  of  property  and  property 
rights.  The  lace  curtains  and  the 
white  marble  steps,  the  piano  or  the 
"parlor  suite,"  even  the  account  in 
the  savings  bank  or  the  building  as- 
sociation, mean  to  him  very  much 


more  than  the  concrete  enjoyment  of 
these  specific  possessions.  It  is  the 
fact  of  possession  when  possession  is 
not  a  matter  of  course,  and  the  vague 
possibilities  which  such  possession 
implies,  that  really  count.  Running 
water  in  the  house  is  a  wonderful 
comfort,  and  a  bathroom  is  a  most 
excellent  thing;  but  when  everybody 
has  them — above  all  when  everybody 
is  by  law  bound  to  have  them — no- 
body finds  in  them  occasion  for  so 
much  as  a  moment's  joy.  As  a  de- 
stroyer of  values,  communism  would 
cast  fire  and  flood  into  the  shade. 
Without  resorting  to  it,  we  have 
raised  the  standard  of  living  so  won- 
derfully that  the  luxuries — not  to 
speak  of  the  impossibilities — of  yes- 
terday are  everybody's  unthought-of 
possessions  to-day ;  but  while  the  gen- 
eral level  has  been  so  raised,  the  op- 
portunities for  possessions  above 
that  level  are  greater  than  ever,  and 
the  people  who  rise  to  them  are  more 
numerous  than  ever. 

To  the  radical  intelligentsia,  as  well 
as  to  the  ordinary  commun^'st  agi- 
tator, the  world  appears  to  consist 
entirely  of  millionaires  and  prole- 
tariat ;  but  when  things  begin  to  look 
really  serious,  the  great  body  that 
lies  between  these  extremes  will  make 
itself  known  plainly  enough.  They 
are  not  willing  to  give  up  all  that  has 
meant  life  to  them — property  as  we 
know  it,  the  family  as  we  know  it, 
personal  independence,  personal  re- 
sponsibility, and  personal  achieve- 
ment as  we  know  them — on  the  chance 
that  a  world  made  out  of  a  few  the- 
orists' heads  will  prove  a  better  one. 
We  hear  little  now  about  the  middle, 
and  a  great  deal  about  the  two  ex- 
tremes ;  but  it  is  the  middle  that  makes 
the  world  solid  now,  and  that  will  keep 
it  solid  when  the  test  comes.  What 
else  accounts  for  the  way  in  which 
France  has  stood  shock  after  shock, 
revolution  after  revolution,  agitation 
after  agitation,  and  remained  firmly 
"bourgeois"?  The  extremest  Social- 
ism was  familiar  to  the  average 
Frenchman  before  our  American  So- 
cialists were  born;  Clemenceau  him- 
self was  an  extreme  Socialist  in  his 
time.  But  when  the  pinch  comes,  it 
turns  out  that  the  peasants  with  their 
little    farms,    and    the    shopkeepers 


with  their  little  hoards,  and  the  clerks 
and  doctors  and  lawyers  and  engi- 
neers and  artisans  with  the  places 
they  have  won  for  themselves  and 
their  families — in  a  word,  the  people 
with  something  to  lose — are  the 
backbone  of  the  country  and  say  the 
decisive  word. 

We  are  far  from  wishing  to  belittle 
the  importance  of  the  issue  of  pro- 
ductivity, and  you  can't  have  high 
productivity  without  abundant  capi- 
tal, superior  management,  and  faith- 
ful labor.  But  the  point  may  be  over- 
worked. There  is  danger  in  identi- 
fying "the  sum  of  human  happiness" 
with  the  aggregate  of  the  material 
things  which  are  produced  by  human 
effort.  It  is  true  that  if  the  masses 
were  persuaded  that  that  aggregate 
could  be  enormously  increased  by  the 
abolition  of  private  property,  they 
would  probably  be  impervious  to  all 
other  considerations;  and  it  is  there- 
fore of  very  great  importance  that 
the  error  of  such  a  view  be  exposed. 
But  even  in  the  exposing  of  this  error 
as  we  have  pointed  out,  it  is  essential 
that  the  "plain  man"  be  treated  as  an 
intelligent  human  being;  if  you  at- 
tempt to  satisfy  his  mind  by  an  ar- 
gument that  is  fit  only  for  a  child, 
he  will  soon  take  your  measure,  and 
your  last  state  will  be  worse  than  the 
first.  And  you  will  likewise  under- 
estimate his  intelligence  if  you  think 
that  he  is  inaccessible  to  the  deeper 
considerations  that  belong  to  the  sub- 
ject. You  may  convince  him  that  he 
gets  more  to  eat  and  to  wear  than  he 
is  likely  to  get  under  communism, 
and  yet  leave  him  strongly  inclined 
to  see  what  communism  might  do  for 
him.  "The  full  market-basket"  is  a 
good  enough  cry  in  a  tariff  campaign, 
but  when  it  comes  to  the  great  issues 
of  life,  the  "plain  man,"  or  at  all 
events  the  plain  American,  does  not 
like  to  think  of  himself  as  concerned 
only  with  his  market-basket.  Treat 
him  as  a  man,  not  a  proletarian;  as 
a  man  to  whom  "the  sum  of  human 
happiness"  means  something  more 
than  food  to  eat  and  clothes  to  wear. 
What  we  have  in  mind,  however,  is 
not  those  spiritual  or  religious  or  in- 
tellectual sources  of  happiness  which 
are  but  slightly  related  to  economic 
institutions ;  to  intrude  these  into  the 


January  3,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[5 


discussion  would  be,  to  the  plain 
man's  mind,  to  draw  a  herring  across 
the  trail.  But  he  will  grant  readily- 
enough  that  the  sum  of  the  happiness 
that  men  enjoy  through  the  acqui- 
sition of  material  things  depends  not 
merely  on  their  gross  quantity  but 
quite  as  much  on  the  conditions  upon 
which  they  are  acquired;  and  he  is 
fully  capable  of  understanding  that 
the  chance  of  success  and  the  danger 
of  failure,  the  necessity  of  self-reli- 
ance, the  splendid  returns  which 
stimulate  enterprise  and  reward  sa- 
gacity or  talent — that  these  things 
justify  the  institution  of  property  not 
only  because  they  make  for  an  in- 
crease in  the  total  of  our  material 
,  possessions,  but  even  more  because 
I  the  enjoyment  of  those  possessions  is 
i  infinitely  greater  than  it  could  be 
under  a  system  in  which  they  were 
rationed  out  to  us  by  a  governmental 
machine. 

Siberia  in  Despair 

A  YEAR  of  heartrending  struggle 


/I 


against    overwhelming   odds   to 


deliver  one's  native  land  from  the 
most  bloody  and  cruel  alien  tyranny 
known  in  history,  and  then  failure 
through  default  of  promised  aid — 
such  is  the  tragic  story  of  Kolchak's 
defeat.  When,  on  November  18, 
1918,  Admiral  Kolchak  took  up  his 
unsought  task,  it  was  in  the  face  of 
difficulties  before  which  a  less  reso- 
lute and  devoted  man  would  have 
quailed.  An  army  had  to  be  raised 
instantly  from  the  sparse  and  scat- 
tered population  of  a  vast  continent, 
and  supplied  from  a  country  without 
industry.  This  army  had  at  once  to 
be  pitted  against  three  times  its 
number  of  Red  troops,  equipped  from 
the  great  reserves  of  arms  and  mu- 
nitions left  from  the  great  war,  and 
led  in  many  cases  by  German  officers. 
Thanks  to  the  enthusiasm  and  self- 
sacrifice  of  the  Siberian  peasants, 
this  undertaking  was  successfully  ac- 
complished. 

But  these  were  not  Kolchak's  only 
difficulties.  Some  sort  of  civil  ad- 
ministration had  to  be  restored 
throughout  regions  where  seven 
months  of  Soviet  misrule  and  license 
had   destroyed   all   civil   institutions 


and  left  disorder  and  chaos.  Crim- 
inal bands  of  Commissars  and  their 
henchmen,  driven  out  of  the  towns, 
roamed  the  forests,  made  brigand  at- 
tacks upon  villages,  and  threatened 
at  numerous  points  the  tenuous  line 
of  railroad  that  was  his  one  means 
of  communication  with  the  outside 
world.  American  forces  in  Vladivos- 
tok, through  an  incomprehensible 
misunderstanding  of  the  situation, 
encouraged  disunion  and  disaffection, 
instead  of  giving  aid  to  the  building 
up  of  a  unified  Russian  state.  The 
Japanese  likewise  seemed  to  think 
that  their  interests  were  subserved 
by  keeping  Siberia  weak  and  encour- 
aging independent  Cossack  bands  to 
flout  the  authority  of  the  central 
Government.  The  financial  situation 
was  desperate,  and  a  dozen  varieties 
of  hopelessly  depreciated  currency 
flooded  the  country.  Speculation  was 
rife,  grafters  abounded,  and  force 
was  lacking  to  bring  them  to  account. 
Reactionaries  on  the  one  hand  sought 
to  make  of  Kolchak's  Government  a 
means  of  restoring  Tsarism,  while  on 
the  other.  Socialist  Revolutionaries 
thought  the  time  opportune  to  realize 
their  impracticable  theories. 

Cunning  and  unscrupulous  Bolshe- 
vist propagandists  undertook  to  un- 
dermine Kolchak  in  Europe  and 
America,  representing  him  as  a  ty- 
rant and  usurper,  and  attributing  to 
him  Tsarist  aims.  But  he  gave  them 
no  heed  and  pursued  his  task  with 
unfailing  courage.  A  patriot  and  a 
liberal,  he  steered  a  middle  course 
between  reaction  and  radicalism, 
faithful  to  his  pledge  to  restore  his 
country  and  leave  its  future  govern- 
ment to  the  decision  of  a  freely- 
elected  Constituent  Assembly.  How 
effective  the  Bolshevist  propagandists 
were  in  misleading  and  alienating  the 
Allies,  and  particularly  America,  can 
not  now  be  told;  but  after  inexcus- 
able delay,  the  Council  at  Paris 
satisfied  themselves  of  Kolchak's 
good  faith  and  of  the  necessity  of 
supporting  the  loyal  Russians  against 
the  common  enemy.  On  June  12, 
Lloyd  George,  Wilson,  Clemenceau, 
Orlando  and  Makino  joined  in  send- 
ing him  the  following  telegram : 

The  Allied  and  Associated  Powers  wish  to 
acknowledge  the  receipt  of  Admiral  Kolchak's 


reply  to  their  note  of  May  26th.  They  welcome 
the  terms  of  that  reply.  It  seems  to  them  to  be 
in  substantial  agreement  with  the  proposition* 
which  they  had  made  and  to  contain  satisfac- 
tory assurances  for  the  freedom,  self-govern- 
ment, and  peace  of  the  Russian  people  and 
their  neighbors.  They  are  therefore  willing 
to  extend  to  Admiral  Kolchak  and  his  asso- 
ciates the  support  set  forth  in  their  original 
letter. 

This  support  was  "to  assist  the 
Government  of  Admiral  Kolchak  and 
his  associates  with  munitions,  sup- 
plies, and  food,  to  establish  themselves 
as  the  Government  of  all  Russia." 
But  the  pledge  was  not  kept.  Instead, 
Ambassador  Morris  at  Tokio  was 
sent  to  Omsk  to  investigate  further 
and  report.  More  delay,  while  the 
lives  of  millions  hung  in  the  balance 
and  our  own  good  faith  before  the 
Russia  of  the  future  was  at  stake. 
Finally  Morris  reported  in  favor  of 
keeping  our  word,  but  we  delayed 
further,  and  it  was  too  late. 

Many  reasons  have  been  alleged  as 
the  causes  of  Kolchak's  collapse.  Un- 
doubtedly many  factors  were  work- 
ing against  him — popular  discontent 
from  hope  deferred,  dissension 
among  officers  and  civil  authorities, 
high-handed  conduct  on  the  part  of 
the  military,  speculation  and  graft, 
insurrection  in  the  rear.  But  all 
these  were  trivial  compared  with  the 
one  great  cause — lack  of  supplies. 
The  men  were  there,  and  the  will  to 
fight  was  there,  but  flesh  and  blood 
could  not  stand  against  shot  and 
shell.  Well-nigh  bare-handed,  his 
soldiers  had  to  stand  the  onslaughts 
of  the  fully  armed  and  equipped 
hordes  that  poured  in  upon  them. 
When  Kolchak's  brave  troops  took 
Perm,  over  four  thousand  had  their 
feet  frozen.  The  spring  thaw  found 
them  without  boots.  Step  by  step 
they  had  to  retire  because  they  had 
nothing  with  which  to  fight  on. 

And  now  another  chapter  in  the 
tragic  drama  has  closed.  It  curdles 
one's  blood  to  think  of  hapless  West 
Siberia,  subjected  to  the  exactions 
and  blood-lust  of  the  Soviet  armies. 
But  Russia  has  ever  been  greatest 
in  misfortune  and  defeat,  and  has 
gloried  in  the  gospel  of  suffering 
and  sacrifice.  In  the  years  to  come, 
the  heroic  if  unavailing  struggle  in 
Siberia  will  be  a  cherished  tradition 
of  Russia,  and  Kolchak  a  symbol  of 
patriotism  and  devotion. 


6] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  34 


A  Hopeful  Labor 
Move 

HUMAN    fellowship    in    industry    may    be 
either  an  empty  phrase  or  a  living  fact. 
There  is  no  magic  formula. 

Pending  the  growth  of  better  relationships 
between  employers  and  employees,  the  prac- 
tical approach  to  the  problem  is  to  devise  a 
method  of  preventing  or  retarding  conflicts  by 
providing  machinery. 

In  these  two  passages  from  the  in- 
troduction to  the  plan  drawn  up  by 
the  new  Industrial  Conference  at 
Washington  is  to  be  found  the  key- 
note of  the  proposal  it  has  laid  be- 
fore the  country.  The  Conference 
recognizes  that  a  vital  improvement 
is  necessarj'  in  the  relations  between 
employers  and  employed;  but  it  rec- 
ognizes just  as  clearly  that  that  im- 
provement can  not  be  brought  about 
either  by  governmental  edict  or  by 
the  formal  adoption  of  any  abstract 
principle.  It  must  be  the  matured 
fruit  of  prolonged  and  varied  effort, 
and  can  not  be  purchased  at  the  easy 
price  of  a  conference  resolution, 
however  ingeniously  worded.  What 
this  very  conference  may  yet  do  to 
encourage  and  promote  this  process 
by  throwing  light  directly  upon  its 
problems  and  difficulties  remains  to 
be  seen.  What  it  has  done  is  to  offer 
a  comprehensive,  and  to  our  mind, 
an  extremely  hopeful,  plan  for  les- 
sening those  evils  which  cry  out  for 
immediate  remedy. 

The  outstanding  feature  of  the 
Conference  plan  for  the  settlement  of 
industrial  disputes  is  that,  while  it 
wholly  avoids  compulsion,  it  creates 
a  situation  in  which  resort  to  its  ma- 
chinery will  in  almost  every  instance 
be  inevitable.  We  must  be  prepared 
to  find  that  objection  will  be  made, 
both  from  the  employers'  side  and 
from  the  employees'  side,  to  the  pre- 
cise character  of  that  machinery. 
But  at  every  point  there  is  the  clear- 
est evidence  that  care  has  been  taken 
to  reduce  the  grounds  of  objection  to 
a  minimum. 

Thus  the  method  by  v/hich  the 
two  sides  to  a  dispute  shall  select 
their  representatives  upon  a  Re- 
gional Board  of  Adjustment  is  not 
prescribed,  but  is  to  be  determined 
by  "the  rules  and  regulations  to  be 
laid  down  by  the  National  Industrial 
Tribunal  for  the  purpose  of  insuring 


free  and  prompt  choice  of  the  rep- 
resentatives." The  thorny  questions 
of  labor  representation  are  thus  left 
for  full  consideration,  not  by  a  hap- 
hazard or  emergency  body,  but  by 
nine  men  appointed  for  a  term  of 
years  by  the  President,  subject  to 
confirmation  by  the  Senate.  Unless 
we  throw  up  the  job  in  despair,  un- 
less we  are  content  to  suffer  the  pres- 
ent anarchic  conditions  to  continue 
unabated,  we  must  begin  with  author- 
ity somewhere,  and  it  does  not  seem 
possible  to  get  a  better  source  of  au- 
thority than  that  proposed.  The  Tri- 
bunal is  to  consist  of  three  members 
representing  the  employers  of  the 
country,  who  shall  be  appointed  upon 
nomination  of  the  Secretary  of 
Commerce,  three  representing  em- 
ployees, who  shall  be  appointed  upon 
nomination  of  the  Secretary  of 
Labor,  and  three  representing  the 
general  interests  of  the  public. 

How  completely  the  element  of 
compulsion  is  absent  may  best  be 
seen  in  the  fact  that  not  only  does 
the  final  decision  of  a  dispute — in  de- 
fault, of  course,  of  a  unanimous  ver- 
dict by  the  Regional  Board,  upon 
which  both  sides  are  represented — 
rest  with  the  National  Tribunal,  but 
that  Tribunal  itself  can  render  no 
decision  except  by  unanimous  vote. 
When  unanimity  is  not  attained,  ma- 
jority and  minority  reports  are  re- 
quired to  be  made  by  the  Tribunal. 
The  obvious  objection  that  under 
these  conditions  the  most  difficult 
cases  will  be  likely  to  be  left  unde- 
cided, has  without  doubt  been  fully 
taken  into  account  by  the  framers  of 
the  plan.  The  answer  to  it  is,  first, 
that  in  a  plan  which  seeks  to  per- 
suade, and  not  to  compel,  it  is  es- 
sential that  both  parties  shall  feel 
that  they  are  in  no  danger  of  suffer- 
ing injustice;  and  secondly,  that 
even  though  a  decision  be  not  arrived 
at,  the  light  thrown  upon  the  dispute 
by  the  searching  process  of  inquiry 
and  judgment  to  which  it  had  been 
subjected  will  be  a  most  powerful 
agent  in  bringing  about  its  settle- 
ment. 

To  appreciate  the  merit  of  the  plan, 
we  must  keep  steadily  in  mind  the 
fact  that  in  any  great  labor  dispute 
the  dominating  force  lies  neither  in 


the  resources  of  the  employers  nor  in 
the  organization  of  the  employees, 
but  in  the  power  of  public  opinion, 
provided  only  that  that  power  is 
brought  effectively  to  bear.  The 
great  trouble  is  that  during  the  long 
period  in  which  public  opinion  is 
blindly  groping  its  way,  and  in  the 
further  long  period  that  is  required 
to  focus  it  upon  the  controversy, 
there  is  suffered  an  appalling  eco- 
nomic waste  and  there  is  bred  a  vast 
amount  of  misunderstanding  and  bit- 
terness. The  most  important  func- 
tion of  the  elaborate  and  yet  not  com- 
plicated machinery  of  the  Confer- 
ence plan  is  to  give  to  public  opinion 
both  the  guidance  and  the  leverage 
which  it  now  lacks.  The  plan  may 
need  modification;  but  in  its  essen- 
tials it  seems  admirably  calculated  to 
reduce  to  a  small  fraction  of  its  pres- 
ent dimensions  the  evil  of  those  in- 
dustrial conflicts  which  so  profoundly 
threaten  the  general  welfare,  and 
with  which  thus  far  the  nation  has 
vainly  endeavored  to  grapple. 

Those  Navy  Awards 

TTAVING  characteristically  blun- 
■'-■'-  dered  into  a  bad  mess  on  the 
Navy  honors.  Secretary  Daniels,  with 
equally  characteristic  candor,  seeks 
to  make  amends  by  reconsidering  the 
whole  matter.  It  is  the  proper  solu- 
tion. Admiral  Sims's  sailor-like  let- 
ter and  action  have  done  their  work. 
And  the  iSTavy  has  also  spoken  em- 
phatically in  the  persons  of  Admirals 
Mayo,  Jones,  and  Wilson,  and  Captain 
Hasbrouck,  who  honorably  declines  to 
receive  a  high  award  for  the  ill-luck 
of  losing  his  ship.  The  controversy  is 
in  a  way  to  be  adjusted,  and  before 
it  finally  passes  we  have  only  to  note 
the  paradox  that  the  statesman  who 
for  seven  years  has  ruled  the  Amer- 
ican Navy  still  reasons  like  a  lands- 
man and  a  sentimentalist. 

Secretary  Daniels  was  grieved  be- 
cause only  twenty-two  per  cent,  of 
recommendations  were  made  by  the 
special  board  from  the  personnel  of 
fighting  ships  in  the  war  zone.  Con- 
sidering the  very  few  fighting  ships 
that  were  in  action  at  all,  considering 
also  the  impossibility  of  getting  a 
standup  fight  with  a  "sub,"  any  Navy 


January  3,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[7 


man  knows  that  the  fighting  ships 
were  generously  treated  with  one 
recommendation  out  of  five.  The 
Navy's  task  was  mostly  preventive 
guard  duty,  mine-laying  and  sweep- 
ing, and  transportation  —  routine 
work  of  a  highly  technical  order. 
Twenty  men  were  in  such  routine 
services  for  one  even  remotely  and 
contingently  concerned  with  fighting. 
For  the  Navy  it  was  emphatically  a 
staff  and  not  a  line  war.  The  men 
whose  organizing  capacity  made  the 
anti-submarine  patrol  and  the  mine 
barrage  effective,  the  men  whose 
brains  conceived  our  successful  con- 
\  oy  system  and  whose  vigilance  car- 
ried it  out — those  men,  whether  they 
worked  afloat  or  ashore — at  Wash- 
ington, Pelham  Bay,  St.  Nazaire,  or 
Scapa — deserve  the  high  awards. 

For  the  very  reason  that,  even 
under  peace  conditions,  Navy  men 
incur  constant  risk,  they  are  espe- 
cially scrupulous  on  the  point  of  rec- 
ognition for  gallantry.  Every  year 
sees  thousands  of  acts  of  per- 
sonal heroism  promptly  and  finally 
rewarded  with  a  "Good  work!" 
from  the  officer  or  petty  officer 
in  charge.  Then  well-meaning  Sec- 
retary Daniels  comes  along  and 
rules  that  the  officers  and  crews 
who  have  been  torpedoed  have 
all  "rendered  distinguished  service" 
and  are  entitled  to  medals.  At  best 
they  are  entitled  to  sympathy  for  a 
bad  luck  that  may  have  been  unpre- 
ventable.  Such  awards  were  simply 
an  affront  to  the  hundreds  of  vessels 
of  the  destroy er-and-patrol  flotillas 
which,  without  the  luck  of  getting 
into  action,  maintained  such  vigilance 
in  submarine-infested  waters  that  the 
"tin  fish"  dared  molest  neither  the 
guard  boats  nor  the  convoy. 

However,  Navy  people  are  gener- 
ous, and  little  inclined  to  judge  over- 
harshly  the  unwitting  offenses  of 
blundering  benevolence.  They  will 
appreciate  the  promptness  with 
which  Secretary  Daniels  has  re- 
opened his  versatile  mind,  and  they 
will  hope  for  awards  based  on 
achievement  and  not  on  sentiment — 
honors  in  which  commanding  officers 
may  find  their  authority  sustained 
and  their  superior  facilities  for  judg- 
ment duly  considered. 


Mrs.    Tiffany    on    the 
"Social    Unit' 


5  > 


WE  print  on  another  page  a  de- 
fense of  the  "Social  Unit"  ex- 
periment against  the  charge  of  Soviet 
tendencies  brought  by  the  Mayor  of 
Cincinnati  and  others.  The  writer, 
Mrs.  Charles  L.  Tiffany,  regards  the 
system  as  wholly  opposed  to  that  of 
the  Soviet,  since  "its  philosophy  is 
based  upon  the  conception  that  the 
collective  intelligence  of  the  whole 
community — not  any  section  or  part 
— so  organized  that  it  can  continu- 
ously express  itself,  is  to  be  relied 
upon  as  against  the  will  or  in- 
telligence of  any  individual,  group,  or 
class."  There  is  of  course  no  valid 
objection  to  the  working  together  for 
common  ends  of  the  entire  population 
of  any  territory  small  enough  to 
make  such  unified  action  feasible  and 
effective.  At  various  times  and  places 
definite  and  temporary  problems 
have  stirred  communities  to  action  of 
this  nature,  but  such  simple  organi- 
zation as  has  resulted  from  immedi- 
ate need  has  passed  out  of  existence 
when  the  need  has  been  adequately 
met.  The  difference  between  this 
wholly  spontaneous  action  and  the 
"Social  Unit"  system  now  under  dis- 
cussion is  that  the  latter  does  not 
originate  by  spontaneous  evolution 
within  the  individual  community,  but 
comes  through  propaganda  from 
without,  and  aims  to  become  a  per- 
manent institution.  These  consider- 
ations call  for  a  careful  study  of  pos- 
sible tendencies  and  purposes  before 
thoughtful  men  and  women  are  war- 
ranted in  giving  unqualified  support 
to  the  movement. 

In  Mrs.  Tiffany's  view,  any  resem- 
blance of  the  Social  Unit  to  the  So- 
viet is  superficial  and  unimportant, 
and  will  apply  equally  to  various 
other  forms  of  collective  action  which 
pass  without  challenge.  In  an  ar- 
ticle in  the  Survey,  however,  a  few 
weeks  ago,  Dr.  Edward  T.  Devine, 
writing  as  a  friend  of  the  system, 
says: 

In  view  of  the  profound  faith  which  the 
touiiders  of  the  Social  Unit  plan  have  in  the 
principle  of  democracy  as  embodied  in  the 
plan,  it  is  evident  that,  in  the  opinion  of  those 
who  are  most  competent  to  predict,  the  success- 


ful spread  of  the  Social  Unit  plan  and  the 
general  acceptance  of  its  philosophy  would  pro- 
vide a  substitute,  not  only  for  existing  munici- 
pal departments  and  government,  but  also  for 
voluntary  social  agencies. 

Dr.  Devine  hastens  to  add  that  we 
are  not  to  infer  from  this  that  those 
interested  in  the  Social  Unit  would 
expect  such  a  culmination  in  the  near 
future.  But  its  founders  have  not 
denied,  he  admits,  that  they  regard 
it  as  a  potential  substitute  for  exist- 
ing political  government.  All  this 
being  admitted,  there  is  no  escape 
from  the  conclusion  that  Social  Units 
brought  into  being  through  the 
agency  of  the  National  Social  Unit 
Organization  will  be  channels  of  prop- 
aganda, more  or  less  active  accord- 
ing to  circumstances  and  official  per- 
sonnel, for  a  radical  change  from  our 
system  of  government.  Of  course 
such  propaganda  would  be  indirect 
and  without  official  sanction,  but  it 
would  be  hardly  less  effective  on  this 
account,  and  certainly  no  easier  to 
combat.  We  do  not  mean  by  this 
that  propaganda  for  radical  changes 
in  our  government  is  necessarily 
wrong  in  itself.  But  when  people 
who  are  thoroughly  opposed  to 
changes  in  a  certain  direction  are 
asked  to  support,  on  considerations 
of  another  nature,  a  movement  whose 
leaders  are  evidently  favorable  to 
such  changes,  their  answer  must  take 
into  consideration  not  merely  the 
good  which  the  movement  offers,  but 
the  evil  which  it  may  possibly  pro- 
mote. Before  giving  the  "Social 
Unit"  our  approval  we  should  prefer 
to  see  it  tried  by  a  community  acting 
spontaneously  and  wholly  uncon- 
nected with  the  National  Social  Unit 
Organization. 


THE  REVIEW 

A   ^'cekly  journal  of  political  and 

general  discussion 

Published  by 

The   National   Weikly   Co«PO«ATlo^^ 

HO  Nassau  Street,  New  York 

Fabiak  Fhanklin,  President 

Harold  de   Wolf   Fuixe»,    Treasurer 


Kodmam  Gilder,  Butintss   Manager 

Subscription     price,     five     dollar*    a    year     in 
advance.     Fifteen  cents  a  copy.     Foreign  TOSt- 
age,   one   dollar   extra;    Canadian    postage,    fifty 
cents  extra.     Foreign  sub>crii.tion5  may  be  sent 
to  Messrs.  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  Ltd.,  24,  Bed- 
ford   St..   Strand,   London,   W.   C.   2,   England. 
Copyright,     1919,     in     the     Umted    Stales     of 
America 
Editors 
F.^BIAN  FRANKLIN 
HAROLD  DE  WOLF  FULLER 


8] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  34 


Slaves  of  the  Machine 


PITTSBURGH  has  been  called 
■*-  the  industrial  barometer  of  the 
world.  It  is  the  first  manufacturing 
centre  to  feel  the  change  in  status 
of  any  temporary  equilibrium  that 
may  obtain  in  the  financial  market 
albeit  the  disturbance  is  scarcely  no- 
ticeable at  the  source.  Hiram  Smith 
in  North  Dakota  decides  to  restrict 
his  acreage  of  wheat  to  85  per  cent. 
of  last  year's  crop,  deciding  at  the 
same  time  to  get  along  with  his  old 
tractors  and  harvesters  for  another 
year,  which  would  have  been  impos- 
sible with  a  full  acreage.  Which 
means  that  Chicago  and  Detroit  will 
need  less  steel  billets,  cast  iron,  tool, 
and  sheet  steel — that  is,  if  all  the 
Hiram  Smiths  feel  the  same  way 
about  the  wheat.  Hiram  Smith,  as 
unconscious  of  the  fact  as  a  spring 
breeze,  is  in  his  way  counting  out 
the  number  of  bituminous  cinders  and 
graphite  flakes  that  will  glitter  each 
morning  on  our  spare  bedroom  carpet 
here  under  the  shadow  of  the  Bes- 
semer converters. 

By  the  same  token  Hiram,  and  his 
like,  decide  whether  the  employment 
manager  at  the  Edgar  Thompson 
Works  of  the  Carnegie  Steel  Com- 
pany can  hire  Emanuel  Swakoski 
when  he  applies  this  morning  for 
a  job.  The  employment  manager 
hires  because  a  particular  fore- 
man has  sent  a  "call  slip"  to  the 
employment  office  conveying  informa- 
tion that  he  needs  four  laborers.  The 
foreman  has  had  instructions  from 
the  open  hearth  superintendent  to 
build  another  fire.  The  superintend- 
ent has  a  typewritten  letter  from 
the  general  superintendent  of  the 
mill  to  increase  his  tonnage  to  a  set 
figure.  The  general  superintendent 
has  an  order  from  the  city  office  for 
a  specific  assignment  of  cold  rolled 
steel.  The  general  office  is  bound  by 
contract  to  deliver  to  a  manufacturer 
of  electric  motors  and  generators  a 
certain  amount  of  steel  according  to 
certain  specifications  on  a  certain 
date.  The  electric  manufacturer  is 
also  bound  by  contract  to  deliver  to 
the  sugar  refineries  of  Cuba  ten  tur- 
bo-generator units  on  a  certain  date, 


because  Borelle  Sancho,  Hiram 
Smith's  southern  brother,  has  de- 
cided to  do  thus  and  so  in  the  matter 
of  sugar-cane  production.  Further- 
more, Borelle  understands  that  my 
thrifty  wife  will  take  advantage  of 
the  abundant  peach  crop  and  fill  all 
available  jars  with  peaches — and 
sugar.  So  that  when  Emanuel  Swa- 
koski applies  for  a  job  at  the  em- 
ployment gate  tha^J  see  in  the  smoky 
valley  below  me-^s  chances  are 
hardly  dependent  cm  the  whim  of 
some  imaginary  St<^l  Baron. 

That  is  the  norirml  barometric  con- 
dition of  the  Pittsburgh  district — the 
way  the  winds  blew  and  the  yellow 
smoke  hung  like  a  fog  or  vanished 
into  thin  air — before  1914.  Soon 
after  1914,  our  barometer  burst  and 
the  industrial  humidity  here  has  been 
immeasurable ;  when  the  sun  shines — 
or  better,  when  it  is  hidden  by  smoke 
— it  wasn't  necessary  to  hunt  up  the 
weather  man  to  learn  the  fact.  Hiram 
Smith  has  quit  dictating  to  us. 
Emanuel  Swakoski  took  Hiram's 
place  and  the  old  order  changed. 
Emanuel  decided  that  he  would  work, 
and  this  is  the  man  that  has  been 
milking  the  cow  with  crumpled  horn 
ever  since.  Now,  since  September  22, 
1919,  Emanuel  Swakoski,  hardly  un- 
conscious of  his  power,  is  playing 
poker  in  the  back  lot,  and  our  spare 
bedroom  carpet  is  unusually  free 
from  sparkling  graphite.  The  "Kos- 
kis"  are  on  a  strike  and  Hiram  in 
South  Dakota,  Borelle  in  Cuba,  and 
my  wife  await  their  pleasure.  We 
are  eating  our  peaches — cheaper 
than  canning  them  at  the  present 
price  of  sugar! 

Pittsburgh  is  still  the  industrial 
barometer  of  the  world — but  we  have 
a  brand  new  weather  man — Mr.  Com- 
mon Labor. 

My  family  household  furnishes  a 
clear  analogy  of  what  is  going  on 
outside.  The  industrial  world  keeps 
house  on  the  same  fundamental  basis. 
In  normal  times  my  thrifty  wife  puts 
as  many  loaves  of  bread  in  the  oven 
as  there  will  be  mouths  to  fill  at  the 
table  on  the  days  following.  If  we 
anticipate  visitors,  she  gets  a  little 


more  flour,  prepares  extra  pans,  and 
utilizes  the  entire  oven — baking  six 
loaves  instead  of  four.  Thus  there  is 
an  ensuing  period  of  domestic  felicity 
and  everybody  is  happy.  Supposing 
the  situation  were  reversed  and  that 
the  number  of  loaves  placed  in  the 
oven  were  measured  in  terms  of  her 
personal  attitude  toward  the  eaters 
at  our  table.  Suppose  she  should 
cultivate  a  philosophy  of  "Why 
should  I  bake  and  the  others  eat?" 
and  conduct  herself  accordingly,  what 
a  mess  my  home  would  be  in!  That 
is  just  where  we  are  to-day  in  our 
industrial  households  in  Pittsburgh 
— Emanuel  Swakoski  questions  the 
Providence  that  has  placed  him  at  the 
furnaces  instead  of  in  the  front  office 
with  the  typewriters  and  brass  cus- 
pidors. 

I  hardly  meant  to  draw  my  analogy 
between  Emanuel  and  the  housewife 
too  close — both  are  a  little  sensitive, 
but  what  I  mean  is  that  the  man  that 
pours  the  heat  in  the  giant  steel  mills 
of  the  Pittsburgh  district  is  as  close 
to  our  national  economic  well-being 
as  the  woman  in  the  home  is  respon- 
sible for  our  domestic  happiness.  We 
can  no  more  endure  to  depend  on 
the  whims  of  the  steel  worker  for 
our  steel  rails  and  boiler  plate  than 
we  can  on  the  notions  of  our  wives 
for  our  suppers.  The  world  must  be 
fed  three  times  a  day  and  our  na- 
tional life-blood  needs  iron.  Regard- 
less of  the  competing  claims  of  the 
Steel  Corporation  and  the  American 
Federation  of  Labor  as  to  the  rights 
of  property  and  capital  and  the  prin- 
ciple of  "self-determination" — the 
fact  stands  unmodified  by  circum- 
stances that  the  future  of  our  eco- 
nomic life  rests  on  unlimited  produc- 
tion of  steel.  For  months  the  ice  that 
has  been  supporting  our  giant  indus- 
trial organizations  has  been  getting 
perilously  thin  and,  unless  labor 
ceases  to  rap  at  the  weak  spots  on 
the  pond,  the  whole  structure  will  go 
down  with  a  crash. 

What  does  labor  want?  The  steel 
situation  furnishes  perhaps  the  most 
typical  case  from  which  to  draw  an 
inference.  If  the  demands  were  alike 
in  the  thousand  and  one  strikes  that 
are  incipient  from  Seattle  to  Boston 
it  would  be  far  easier  to  answer  that 


January  3,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[9 


question  and  consequently  easier  to 
find  a  remedy  that  would  make  it 
possible  to  put  our  houses  in  order; 
but  every  organized  body  of  strikers 
has  its  own  pet  grievance.  Only  the 
most  radical  insist  that  the  underly- 
ing trouble  is  low  wages  and  long 
hours.  The  forty-eight-hour  week  is 
practically  universal  and  even  in  the 
steel  mills,  where  men  are  working 
the  twelve-hour  shift,  they  themselves 
desire  the  opportunity  to  earn  the 
extra  wages  for  overtime.  They  do 
not  want  a  straight  eight-hour  day; 
they  want  to  work  twelve  hours  on  an 
eight-hour  rate,  with  time  and  a  half 
for  overtime  and  double  time  for 
Sundays  and  holidays.  Granting  that 
the  men  object  seriously  to  the  12- 
hour  shift  in  the  steel  mill,  labor  is 
so  scarce  in  Pittsburgh's  allied  indus- 
tries working  the  48-hour  week  that 
they  can  procure  48-hour  jobs  for  the 
asking. 

Is  it  more  wages?  Yes,  we  all  are 
unsatisfied  with  our  ircome,  even  the 
executive  at  $10,000  a  year.  That  is 
natural.  But  it  is  my  firm  conviction 
that  10  per  cent  increases  each  month 
from  now  on  until  the  millennium 
would  only  provoke  continued  dis- 
content and  unrest.  Contrary  to  the 
wild  statements  of  agitators  imported 
from  without,  who  have  little  concern 
for  or  understanding  of  our  peculiar 
needs,  the  steel  workers  and  especial- 
ly the  common  laborers  are  well  paid 
— better  than  ever  before  in  their 
lives,  and  their  standard  of  living  is 
far  higher  than  their  fathers  or 
grandfathers  ever  knew.  And  that  is 
as  it  should  be! 

They  are  well  fed,  a  dinner  con- 
sisting of  the  best  boiling  piece  of 
beef  in  the  market,  baked  beans,  hot 
biscuit,  green  corn,  and  peach  pie — 
and  in  abundance.  The  largest  for- 
eign boarding  house  in  my  neighbor- 
hood served  that  menu  last  evening. 
Some  of  them  drive  medium-priced 
cars.  The  banks  in  the  Pittsburgh 
district  state  that  the  average  sav- 
ings account  of  the  foreigner  laboring 
in  the  steel  mills  is  $300.  Jewelers 
claim  this  is  an  exceptional  year  be- 
cause of  foreign-born  customers.  At 
Braddock,  the  home  of  a  large  steel 
plant,  I  counted  fifty-two  foreigners 
last  Sunday  evening  at  the  station 


platform  waiting  to  take  the  Balti- 
more and  Ohio  to  New  York,  and  they 
were  going  to  spend  their  vacations 
in  Southern  Europe.  Yet  as  I  write, 
with  the  glare  of  huge  converters  in- 
termittently giving  our  hill  daylight 
and  then  darkness,  I  can  see  thou- 
sands of  restless,  discontented  dark 
forms  crowding  the  narrow  streets  in 
the  valley  below.  They  are  steel 
workers  of  foreign  extraction  out  on 
a  strike.  Their  objective,  according 
to  the  statement  of  their  representa- 
tive, is  to  force  Judge  Gary  to  recog- 
nize the  principle  of  collective  bar- 
gaining that  industrial  oppression 
may  cease.  The  spectacle  is  no  longer 
novel;  almost  every  industrial  com- 
munity has  been  or  is  infected  with 
the  same  malady,  but  the  present 
steel  strike,  because  of  the  diversity 
of  industries  aflfected,  is  typical  of  our 
whole  industrial  discontent. 

If  it  isn't  fundamentally  wages  and 
hours,  what  is  it  they  want?  Specifi- 
cally, they  demand  of  Judge  Gary  the 
right  of  collective  bargaining;  he  de- 
nies it — there  is  the  irresistible  force 
meeting  the  immovable  body.  But 
collective  bargaining  for  what? 
Shorter  hours?  More  wages?  I 
think  not.  Representation  in  the  man- 
agement ?  Yes,  but  they  already  hold 
25,000  shares  of  the  company's  stock 
and  have  the  privilege  of  buying  the 
balance  at  any  time  they  have  the 
price.  I  am  neither  defending  nor  ac- 
cusing either  party,  the  laboring  men 
or  the  Steel  Corporation;  if  they 
could  settle  their  quarrel  in  their  own 
home  without  affecting  the  innocent 
bystander,  well  and  good — leave  them 
alone,  but  they  never  can — you  and  I 
and  every  other  man  must  suffer, 
and  somebody  must  come  along  with 
a  solution,  or  we  perish.  I  am  posi- 
tive, however,  that  the  written  griev- 
ances of  labor,  not  only  in  Pittsburgh 
but  over  the  entire  country,  are 
merely  symptoms  of  a  deeper  spirit- 
ual unrest  that  is  energizing  the 
strike. 

Two  years  ago  I  happened  to  be 
working  in  a  munition  factory  where 
the  men  employed  were  making  un- 
heard-of wages.  Five  hundred  dollars 
a  month  was  not  an  uncommon  wage 
for  a  machinist  who  had  in  the  pre- 
war days  been  averaging  something 


like  a  hundred  and  twenty-five  dol- 
lars a  month  for  the  same  class  of 
work.  Of  course,  living  was  high, 
but  not  accordingly.  The  work  was 
hard,  but  the  hours  were  reasonably 
short.  Yet  with  this  unheard-of 
compensation  for  semi-skilled  labor, 
these  men  were  as  restless  as  weath- 
ervanes  in  a  March  wind.  The  labor 
turnover  in  that  factory  was  as  high 
as  65  per  cent.  The  men  were  de- 
cidedly discontented. 

Ten  years  before  this,  I  worked 
with  a  crew  of  five  men  on  a  large 
farm  in  the  Middle  West.  We  re- 
ceived $1.50  a  day,  and  worked  at  the 
hardest  kind  of  labor  from  6  a.  m. 
until  7  p.  m.  But  these  farm  hands 
"stuck"  the  entire  season,  and  four 
of  them  were  back  the  next  year. 
They  were  the  best-feeling  crowd  of 
men  that  I  have  ever  known,  and  were 
as  happy  and  contented  as  men  can 
hope  to  be. 

What  is  there  in  the  nature  of  the 
presetit-day  industrial  employment 
that  has  bred  such  universal  restless- 
ness and  discontent?  The  demand 
for  higher  wages,  for  shorter  hours, 
for  improved  working  conditions,  a 
share  in  the  management  and  all  of 
the  other  exciting  causes  of  strikes 
and  labor  disturbances  are  only 
symptoms  of  a  deeper  industrial  mal- 
ady which  the  highest  wages  and  the 
shortest  hours  may  relieve  but  fail  to 
cure.  The  munition  workers  bought 
bungalows,  touring  cars,  and  dia- 
monds. But  they,  like  a  million 
workers  of  to-day,  were  sick  at  heart. 
They  were  dissatisfied — but  why? 
There  is  but  one  answer.  Our  social 
unrest  is  a  disease  of  the  soul  and  not 
of  the  pocketbook.  Our  workingmen 
are  sick  of  the  monotony  of  machine 
labor. 

The  hopeless  monotony  in  doing 
the  same  thing  hour  after  hour  and 
day  after  day  corrodes  and  smoth- 
ers "that  little  spark  of  celestial  fire" 
in  every  man,  until  the  pressure  be- 
comes too  great,  and  it  bursts  into 
flame.  No  one  is  to  blame — the  man 
at  the  loom  and  the  lathe  to-day  is 
not  the  slave  to  any  man  or  group  of 
men.  He  is  well  paid,  and  he  enjoys 
the  benefit  in  the  saving  effected  by 
machine  production  in  the  price  he 
pays  for  his  living.     The  fact  that 


10] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  34 


industry  has  become  so  specialized 
that  his  entire  day  is  confined  to  one 
task  can  not  be  laid  at  the  door  of 
any  one  class  of  men.  The  twentieth 
century  is  the  responsible  party,  if 
there  is  one.  World  necessity  has 
produced  the  machine  and  speciali- 
zation, and  the  ennui  and  spiritual 
sickness,  discontent,  and  revolt  are 
the  natural  consequence  of  our  at- 
tempt to  realize  nineteenth  century 
ideals  in  a  twentieth  century  world. 
A  man  who  works  with  his  hands  to- 
day is  dominated  by  the  God  of  the 
Machine,  and  whether  ownership  and 
control  are  vested  in  the  man  that 
works  at  the  machine  or  in  the  man 
that  distributes  its  product  and 
finances  its  operation  is  of  little 
consequence.  Millions  to-day  are 
watching  the  clock — waiting  for  the 
whistle  to  relieve  them  from  a  task 
of  hopeless  drudgery — doing  a  work 
that  must  be  done  that  men  may  be 
fed,  clothed,  and  housed — someone 
else  would  have  to  do  it  if  they  didn't 
— nevertheless  such  labor  takes  its 
toll  in  the  spirits  and  souls  of  men. 

Millions  find  their  day's  work  such. 
We  live  in  an  age  of  specialization 
and  machine  production  and  the  he- 
roes of  to-day  and  to-morrow  are  not 
men,  but  dynamos,  motors,  steam 
turbines,  automatic  machines,  giant 
cranes,  looms,  lathes,  tractors,  gang 
saws,  and  other  countless  devices  that 
wear  out  men  and  save  time  and 
money. 

A  chosen  few  are  selected  by  Des- 
tiny to  sit  in  the  seats  of  the  mighty 
to  plan,  to  conceive,  to  fashion  ideas, 
and  to  create;  and  this  small  group 
have  by  virtue  of  their  brains  been 
blessed  with  the  secret  of  happiness 
— they  have  the  opportunity  to  in- 
dulge their  instinct  in  creative  activ- 
ity. Theirs  is  the  fascinating  end  of 
the  world's  work.  It  is  their  ideas 
that  the  remainder  of  mankind  must 
carry  out — must  serve  masters  of 
iron  and  steel  that  other  minds  have 
fashioned,  and  serve  with  little  inter- 
est. The  realization  of  this  fact 
drives  men  mad. 

War  brought  freedom  of  thought 
and  action;  new  faces,  lands,  work, 
duties,  interests,  values;  and  now 
that  it  is  over,  men  return  to  the 
order  of  the  day  with  a  keener  dis- 


taste for  the  monotony  of  machine 
labor. 

But  what  are  you  going  to  do  about 
it?  Shall  we  destroy  our  men  with 
great  intellects,  burn  our  factories, 
tear  down  line-shafting  and  ma- 
chines, and  revert  to  the  hand  labor 
of  two  centuries  ago?  The  world 
would  starve  in  a  month. 

Your  great-grandfather  was  a 
shoemaker,  made  shoes  by  hand  and 
worked  from  6  a.  m.  until  9  p.  m. 
He  was  his  own  boss — a  glorious  es- 
tate? Had  he  the  leisure,  conven- 
ience, comforts,  luxuries,  and  priv- 
ileges that  we  enjoy?  The  aspira- 
tions you  have  for  your  children — 
those  aspirations  that  are  within 
your  reach — that  shoemaker  never 
dreamed  of.  The  good  old  days  like 
distant  sails  seem  whitest. 

My  grandfather  owned  a  forest  of 
pine  timber,  and  he  and  his  two  sons 
cut  the  entire  lot  by  hand  in  three 
years,  hauled  the  logs  to  the  river, 
drove  them  in  the  spring  floods  to  the 
saw  mill  one  hundred  miles  distant, 
walked  home,  and  after  the  whcle  job 
was  done  and  nothing  remained  but  a 
barren  waste  of  stumpage,  they  re- 
ceived for  their  timber  delivered  an 
equivalent  of  one  dollar  apiece  for 
their  labor.  They  furnished  the  land 
and  the  capital,  the  market  was  wide 
open  and  they  were  not  compelled 
to  sell.  Here  was  none  of  the  evils 
of  modern  industrialism — but  they 
lived  on  mush  and  milk  for  two  long 
winters. 

It  is  possible  to  multiply  instances 
indefinitely.  Machine  work  is  no 
worse  than  cradling  wheat,  than  rais- 
ing a  barn  of  crude  timbers,  than 
husking  corn,  hoeing  potatoes,  stitch- 
ing broadcloth,  hammering  brass  or 
grinding  knives.  We  can  not  step 
backward  and  claim  the  past  as  an 
improvement  over  the  present. 

For  the  man  whose  work  is  neces- 
sarily uninteresting,  there  is  but  one 
solution,  provided  he  has  taken  care- 
ful stock  of  his  capabilities  and  pos- 
sibilities and  finds  that  he  must  re- 
main where  he  is,  and  that  is  to  cre- 
ate a  permanent  interest  outside  of 
the  shop  doing  the  thing  that  he  likes 
to  do  best.  There  are  but  a  few  who 
find  their  work  so  absorbing  that  it 
satisfies.     In   fact,  history  is  filled 


with  men  who  have  become  famous 
not  because  of  their  vocation,  but  be- 
cause of  their  "outside"  interest.  The 
discontented  man  is  not  discontented 
because  of  what  he  does,  but  because 
he  doesn't  know  what  to  do  with  his 
surplus  time,  so  that  after  several 
rounds  of  the  movies,  a  plate  of  ice 
cream,  and  a  jazz  selection  on  the 
phonograph,  his  store  of  amusements 
is  exhausted.  It  isn't  the  eight  hours 
at  the  machine  that  makes  the  anar- 
chist ;  it's  the  eight  hours  of  idleness. 
The  men  that  succeed  in  finding  the 
blue  bird  of  happiness  capitalize 
these  hours  of  rest — not  at  work,  per- 
haps, but  at  something  essentially 
satisfying.  The  Prince  of  Peace  was 
a  carpenter  by  trade — and  more. 
Washington  was  a  surveyor ;  Andrew  i 
Carnegie,  a  captain  of  industry — and 
a  writer,  and  Theodore  Roosevelt,  a 
statesman  and  a  naturalist. 

Man's  first  duty  is  to  provide  food, 
clothing,  and  shelter  for  his  family. 
The  twentieth  century  man  sacrifices 
but  eight  hours  of  the  twenty-four 
for  these.  Let  him  call  the  first  eight 
hours  a  sacrifice  of  time  and  interest, 
and  find  satisfaction  for  the  desire 
of  his  soul  in  the  other  eight.  He 
should  be  honest,  play  square  with 
his  employer,  give  a  full  eight  hours 
of  labor;  but  get  enough  fun  out  of 
the  other  eight  that  when  he  reports 
for  work  each  day  he  is  ready  to  give 
his  part  to  the  world's  work,  and  give 
it  gladly.  He  should  get  a  hobby  and 
ride  it  until  it  gets  stale,  and  then  get 
another  one.  Two-thirds  of  the  day, 
three-fifths  of  the  week,  two  hundred 
and  nineteen  days  of  the  year  are  his 
to  spend  as  he  pleases.  The  machine 
has  given  him  this ;  no  other  genera- 
tion since  time  began  has  the  leisure 
he  has. 

In  my  daily  observation  of  thou- 
sands and  thousands  of  men  who 
work  in  the  mills,  I  have  been  im- 
pressed with  one  fundamental  fact — 
that  the  spiritual  hopelessness  writ- 
ten on  the  countenances  of  so  many; 
the  lines  on  their  drawn  faces  and 
the  lack-lustre  eyes  do  not  indicate 
the  physical  fatigue  that  one  is  apt 
on  brief  acquaintance  to  pronounce 
the  cause.  The  men  to-day  are  not 
driven — far  from  it ;  they  are  salved, 
and  petted,  and  coaxed  to  an  unheard- 


January  3,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[U 


of  degree.  A  foreman's  first  in- 
struction is  to  keep  his  men  on  the 
job,  and  every  means  is  taken  to 
make  the  conditions  surrounding  him 
at  his  work  as  wholesome  and  pleas- 
ant as  possible.  But  the  new  era  has 
put  personality  in  a  steel  niche,  and 
it  must  stay  put,  else  large-scale  pro- 
duction is  impossible.  The  strikers 
on  our  streets  to-day  are  men  enter- 
ing a  blind  protest  against  a  system 
that  has  taken  the  fun  and  romance 
out  of  their  work,  even  though  it  has 
brought  them  a  standard  of  living  su- 
perior to  the  days  of  individualism. 
The  same  spirit  drove  our  fore- 
fathers out  upon  an  unknown  sea  in 
search  of  a  new  home  in  a  new  land. 
The  same  spirit  that  forced  our  im- 
mediate ancestors  across  the  Western 
plains  into  the  Great  West;  that 
founded  Cripple  Creek,  and  Dawson 
City,  a  spirit  of  romance  inherent  in 
the  human  race,  common  to  Slav  and 


Teuton,  Greek  and  English,  that  pro- 
tests against  the  Machine. 

Practically,  the  industrial  salva- 
tion of  the  United  States  rests  on  the 
reestablishment  of  the  normal  order 
of  supply  and  demand  as  a  determi- 
nant for  production  and  employment. 
It  is  the  only  safe  method  in  com- 
merce, and  our  continued  prosperity 
as  a  democratic  country  depends  upon 
an  unhampered  functioning  of  nat- 
ural economic  forces.  Government 
regulation  is  necessary,  but  deliber- 
ative interference  either  by  capital 
or  labor  is  dangerous.  Labor  to-day 
holds  the  trumps,  and  unless  it  plays 
them  for  the  common  weal  we  are 
lost.  Some  plan  must  be  found 
whereby  men  may  become  interested 
in  their  day's  work — this  is  funda- 
mental. It  is  a  twentieth-century 
problem,  and  history  gives  us  no 
clue  to  the  solution. 

David  Harold  Colcord 


The  Social  Unit  at  Cincinnati 
Is  It  a  Soviet? 


rpHE  advertising  manager  of  a 
•■•  great  public  utilities  corporation, 
an  enthusiast  about  the  Social  Unit 
plan,  was  discussing  it  the  other  day 
with  the  city  editor  of  a  New  York 
daily.  The  latter  repeated  the  charge 
made  against  the  Social  Unit  last 
spring  by  Cincinnati's  mayor.  "It 
is  a  soviet,"  he  said.  The  advertising 
man  retorted  quickly,  "On  the  con- 
trary, it  is  quite  different.  A  soviet 
is  formed  in  a  neighborhood  to  sepa- 
rate the  classes,  the  Social  Unit  is 
formed  in  a  neighborhood  to  get  the 
classes  to  work  together." 

This  charge  by  Cincinnati's  mayor, 
occasionally  repeated  since,  is  a  very 
superficial  one.  There  is  a  slight  re- 
semblance between  the  form  of  or- 
ganization of  the  Social  Unit  and  that 
of  the  Russian  soviet.  There  is  an 
equal  similarity  between  it  and  the 
plans  of  the  National  Guilds  in  Eng- 
land. On  the  other  hand,  it  has  quite 
as  noticeable  a  resemblance  to  the 
New  England  Town  Meetings.  More- 
over, if  all  organizations  are  to  be 
condemned  which  bear  this  outward 
and  superficial   resemblance   to   the 


soviet,  or  some  other  form  of  organi- 
zation distrusted  in  America,  we 
should  have  completely  to  reorganize 
our  social  life.  The  village  govern- 
ments of  many  of  our  small  towns 
are  similar  in  organization  to  the 
rural  Soviets.  The  Chambers  of  Com- 
merce of  our  cities  might  be  lightly 
referred  to  as  Soviets  of  business 
men,  and  the  shop  committee  being 
introduced  into  many  forward-look- 
ing business  concerns  in  America 
with  equal  accuracy  as  "working- 
men's  councils."  That  the  application 
of  such  a  title  to  these  movements 
would  of  itself  affect  their  character 
is  absurd.  They  must  be  judged,  not 
by  some  superficial  similarity  to  this 
movement  or  that,  but  by  their  spirit, 
their  purpose,  and  the  function  which 
they  are  performing  in  relation  to 
American  life.  This  is  the  way  in 
which  the  Social  Unit  must  be  judged. 
The  questions  which  thoughtful  peo- 
ple will  ask  are:  "What  is  the 
philosophy  underlying  this  plan? 
How  is  it  being  applied?  Does  it  meet 
a  need  in  American  democracy? 
What  have  been  its  results  thus  far?" 


The  Social  Unit  philosophy  is  dis- 
tinctly not  the  Bolshevist  philosophy, 
which  I  understand  to  be  based  upon 
the  Marxian  conception  of  the  class 
struggle  leading  to  the  establishment 
of  a  dictatorship  of  the  proletariat. 
The  Social  Unit  has  no  a  priori  social, 
political,  or  economic  programme. 
Its  philosophy  is  based  upon  the  con- 
ception that  the  collective  intelli- 
gence of  the  whole  community — not 
any  one  section  or  part — so  organized 
that  it  can  continuously  express  it- 
self, is  to  be  relied  upon  as  against 
the  will  or  intelligence  of  any  indi- 
vidual, group,  or  class.  This  platform 
of  principles  has  been  published 
again  and  again  in  official  statements 
issued  by  the  National  Social  Unit 
Organization,  and  a  study  of  the 
Social  Unit  plan  of  Community  Or- 
ganization, and  of  the  experimental 
application  of  that  plan  in  a  section 
of  Cincinnati,  shows  how  consistent- 
ly that  philosophy  has  been  put  into 
action. 

In  the  Mohawk-Brighton  district 
— ^the  first  Social  Unit — the  whole 
population  has  been  divided  into 
"blocks"  or  units  of  about  100  fami- 
lies. Each  of  these  blocks  has  an 
elected  "Council"  of  seven  members 
who  in  turn  select  a  representative 
to  sit  on  the  central  Citizens'  Council, 
which  is  a  sort  of  neighborhood  legis- 
lature. 

All  men  and  women  over  eighteen 
years  of  age  are  eligible  to  vote  in 
the  election  of  the  block  councils. 
Residence  in  the  block  is  the  only 
requirement,  and  proportional  repre- 
sentation is  used  in  order  to  give  a 
voice  to  the  minority.  Surely  this  is 
all  in  the  spirit  of  the  Declaration  of 
Independence,  the  Bill  of  Rights,  and 
the  Old  Fashioned  Town  Meeting — 
direct  democracy. 

In  addition  to  this  "Citizens'  Coun- 
cil," which,  inasmuch  as  it  represents 
the  entire  population,  is  always  the 
more  powerful  body,  there  is  an  "Oc- 
cupational Council,"  made  up  of  the 
elected  representatives  of  those  groups 
which  serve  the  community  in  some 
special  capacity.  Theoretically  there 
is  no  limit  to  what  groups  may  or- 
ganize as  part  of  this  council.  Any 
group  may  join  the  body  through  its 
elected  representatives.   Actually  the 


12] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  34 


groups  which  have  been  formed  in 
the  Mohawk-Brighton  district  are 
those  for  whose  services  the  people 
have  felt  a  special  and  immediate 
need — physicians  and  nurses  to  help 
them  plan  a  community  health  pro- 
gramme; social  workers  to  help 
remedy  flagrant  community  evils; 
teachers,  recreational  workers,  and 
ministers.  The  district  hopes  to  or- 
ganize this  year  a  trades-union  group 
and  a  businessmen's  group.  This  has 
not  yet  been  done,  although  a  busi- 
nessman and  a  trade-unionist  are 
regularly  called  into  the  deliberations 
of  the  Councils. 

It  should  be  noticed  that  these  oc- 
cupational groups  are  organized  not 
on  the  basis  of  representation,  pri- 
marily, but  upon  the  basis  of  render- 
ing efficient  community  service. 
Whatever  programmes  they  devise 
must,  before  they  are  foisted  upon 
the  community,  bear  the  analysis  of 
the  Citizens'  Council,  that  intimate 
organization  of  all  the  people  in  all 
the  blocks.  The  object  of  the  occu- 
pational group  organization  is  to 
bring  skill  to  democracy  by  making 
it  possible  for  the  whole  body  of 
specialized  intelligence  to  serve  all 
of  the  people. 

If  there  were  not  a  need  for  some 
such  plan  it  would  be  difficult  to  ex- 
plain the  way  in  which  the  Social 
Unit  conception  has  laid  hold  upon 
the  imagination  of  the  American  peo- 
ple, and  upon  the  interest  of  some 
of  the  most  thoughtful  men  and 
women  in  the  country.  People  from 
many  States  and  representatives  of 
many  different  organizations  recent- 
ly spent  three  days  in  Cincinnati  dis- 
cussing in  the  minutest  way  the  bear- 
ing of  this  plan  upon  business,  labor, 
the  social  programmes  of  many  pro- 
fessional groups,  and  the  whole 
future  of  American  democracy.  I 
know  of  no  other  movement  so 
limited  in  the  scope  of  its  actual 
operations — for  so  far  the  only  exist- 
ing Social  Unit  has  been  buried  in  a 
section  embracing  only  about  a 
thirtieth  of  Cincinnati — which  could 
have  attracted  such  attention  or 
brought  together  so  eminent  a  group 
of  people  for  purposes  of  discussion. 

I  take  the  reason  for  this  interest 
to  be  that  the  Social  Unit  plan  aims 


in  a  very  simple  and  common-sense 
way  to  meet  some  of  the  very  obvious 
needs  in  our  democracy.  We  need, 
for  instance,  to  develop  a  public  mind 
— an  intelligent  public  opinion.  The 
Social  Unit  points  out  that  such  a 
public  mind  does  not  develop  from 
mobs — it  comes  as  the  result  of 
studied  consideration  of  public  prob- 
lems by  small  groups.  The  Social 
Unit  plan  aims  so  to  organize  neigh- 
borhoods that  public  questions  can 
be  brought  into  their  little  councils 
and  discussed  in  the  light  of  the 
acknowledged  needs  of  the  people. 

We  need  also  to  create  a  mecha- 
nism through  which  the  public  can 
have  a  power  equal  at  least  to  that  of 
organized  capital  and  organized  la- 
bor. At  present  capital  and  labor, 
both  more  strongly  organized  than 
ever  before,  are  reaching  a  deadlock, 
and  between  them  the  public,  the 
democracy,  unorganized,  is  helpless. 
Community  organization,  if  it  is 
thorough  and  embraces  the  whole 
population  in  small  units,  would 
bring  the  public  to  the  point  where 
it  could  control  capital  and  labor  in- 
stead of  these  controlling  it. 

We  need  community  organization 
in  order  to  develop  leaders — real 
statesmen  and  women  who  get  their 
earliest  training  close  to  the  people 
whom  they  must  serve  and  lead.  It 
is  not  insignificant  that  the  most  suc- 
cessful men  in  all  walks  of  life  to-day 
come  from  small  towns,  where  they 
were  not  in  youth  lost  in  the  crowd, 
but  important  members  of  the  life 
of  the  community.  In  a  village  every 
person  is  important.  It  is  in  the  vast, 
complex,  city  life  of  modern  times 
that  the  individual  begins  to  feel  that 
he  is  nothing,  and  with  that  feeling 
comes  that  loss  of  responsibility  and 
public  interest  which  is  the  menace 
of  democracy.  The  Social  Unit  aims 
to  restore  some  of  the  attributes  of 
village  life  to  city  dwellers. 

Finally,  we  need  community  or- 
ganization under  some  such  plan  as 
the  Social  Unit,  to  find  a  fundamental 
remedy  for  curable  social  ills.  The 
day  of  charity  and  paternalism  is 
past.  What  we  need  is  a  more  effec- 
tive mechanism  through  which  all  the 
latent  good-will,  knowledge  and  skill 
of  the  community  can  be  brought  to 


study  the  problems  of  the  community 
and  devise  programmes  to  meet  those 
problems.  In  the  Mohawk-Brighton 
district  the  community  has  been 
studying  its  own  health  needs,  and 
people  and  experts,  working  together, 
have  planned  and  carried  out  a  re- 
markable public  health  programme. 
The  important  thing  about  that  pro- 
gramme has  not  been  the  statistical 
results — the  number  of  babies  cared 
for,  tuberculosis  cases  discovered, 
etc.,  although  these  outward  results 
are  very  brilliant  and  have  attracted 
the  attention  of  public  health  authori- 
ties in  many  places.  The  important 
thing  is  that  the  people  have  done  it 
themselves,  that  the  doing'  of  it  has 
been  a  constant  process  of  education, 
and  that  the  conscience  of  the  whole 
community  is  behind  the  programme. 

The  Social  Unit  is  not  the  only 
movement  which  is  aiming  to  meet 
these  needs.  In  New  York  the  Com- 
munity Councils  are  headed  toward 
the  same  objective,  using  a  more 
extensive  organization.  The  Social 
Unit,  however,  is  attempting  to  find 
by  research  and  experimentation  the 
best  possible  community  programme, 
and  offers  its  findings  to  any  com- 
munity which  chooses  to  use  them. 
The  president  of  the  National  Com- 
munity Center  Association  recently 
said,  "The  Social  Unit  is  the  most 
sustained,  carefully  measured,  deeply 
imagined  plan  and  effort  of  com- 
munity organization  in  the  country 
to-day." 

Of  course  it  is  still  experimental, 
and  will  continue  to  be.  It  must  be 
applied  to  a  wider  variety  of  popula- 
tion and  tested  in  a  greater  number 
of  fields  of  social  effort  before  any 
final  and  comprehensive  conclusions 
can  be  drawn.  Meanwhile,  however, 
it  is  without  question  contributing 
largely  to  social  thinking  and 
influencing  community  organization 
everywhere  in  the  direction  of  more 
careful  and  constructive  effort.  The 
results  thus  far  prove  to  be  a  very 
hopeful  experiment.  This,  I  think, 
no  one  will  deny,  unless  it  be  those 
groups  who  fear  not  Bolshevism  or 
socialism,  but  democracy. 

Katrina  Ely  Tiffany 

Chairman,  National   Citizens'   Council   of   the 
National  Social  Unit  Organization 


January  3,  1920] 


thp:  review 


Correspondence 

The  Trouble  with  the 
Greenbacks 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

I  have  read  the  article  of  Mr.  Roberts 
in  the  Review  of  November  22,  and  be- 
lieve that  the  approval  by  Frederick 
Strauss  is  too  extreme.  Mr.  Roberts  says 
much  that  is  first  rate,  and  I  approve  of 
most  of  what  he  says;  but  I  disapprove 
of  what  he  says  about  the  greenbacks 
issued  during  the  Civil  War.  In  my 
humble  judgment,  the  depreciation  of  the 
greenback  was  because  of  the  exceptions 
placed  thereon,  that  it  should  be  received 
for  all  debts  both  public  and  private,  "ex- 
cept for  duties  on  imports  and  interest 
on  the  public  debt."  That  gave  the 
money  centres  in  Wall  Street  a  chance  to 
corner  gold  and  to  set  their  own  price  on 
it,  whenever  anyone  had  to  pay  duties  in 
imports  or  interest  on  the  public  debt. 
Had  it  not  been  for  the  exceptions,  the 
greenback  would  have  remained  at  par 
with  gold.  We  are  told  that  during  the 
forepart  of  that  war  there  was  about 
$60,000,000  of  paper  issued,  called  "black- 
caps." It  was  like  the  greenback, 
but  it  had  no  exceptions  as  to  any 
kind  of  payments,  and  when  gold  was  at 
a  premium  of  $2.85,  the  blackcap  stood 
even  with  gold.  The  two  stood  together, 
because  they  were  full  legal  tenders. 

The  difference  between  the  gold  value 
and  the  greenback  value  was  largely,  if 
not  entirely,  a  forced  difference  because 
the  gold  speculators  had  the  power  and 
actually  ran  a  corner  on  gold.  If  our 
present  currency  had  an  exception  on  it 
like  the  greenback,  who  can  doubt  that 
gold  would  now  be  at  a  premium ;  and  as 
it  has  not  an  exception  on  it,  the  gold 
and  paper  rises  and  falls  with  the  rise 
and  fall  of  commodities  on  the  market. 
I  agree  with  Mr.  Roberts  that  inflation 
is  the  principal  thing  that  causes  the  rise 
in  prices,  although  there  are  other  mat- 
ters to  be  considered,  but  the  matter  of 
contraction  should  be  carefully  consid- 
ered, for  the  people  throughout  the  coun- 
try who  buy  property  at  the  inflated 
prices  will  suffer  a  ruinous  loss  of  prop- 
erty, and  in  many,  many  cases  absolute 
financial  ruin,  and  a  tremendous  panic 
will  ensue,  if  there  be  any  great  contrac- 
tion of  the  currency. 

L.  A.  HOLLENBECK 

Duchesne,  Utah,  December  20 

[The  early  notes  issued  in  the  Civil 
War,  to  which  our  correspondent  refers, 
differed  from  the  greenbacks  in  a  more 
important  respect  than  that  of  being  re- 
ceivable for  duties  on  imports;  they  were 
redeemable  in  gold  on  demand,  and  all 
but  $33,000,000  were  retired  before  the 


[18 


suspension  of  specie  payments.    As  they 
were  not  reissued  when  received  by  the 
Treasury  in  payment  of  dues,  they  soon 
ceased  to  be  a  factor  of  any  importance. 
To  what  extent,  if  at  all,  the  greenbacks 
were  depreciated  by  the  fact  that  they 
were  not  receivable  for  customs  is  a  mat- 
ter of  conjecture.     They  were  accepted 
for  all  other  taxes,  besides  being  a  legal 
tender   in    payment   of   ordinary   debts. 
The  idea  that  the  depreciation  of  green- 
backs— as  a  standing  phenomenon,  what- 
ever may  have  been  true  of  exceptional 
moments  of  panic  or  the  like— was  caused 
by  "a  comer  in  gold"  has  no  foundation 
whatever  in  fact.     Irredeemable  paper 
money,   not  being  tied   to  gold   by  any 
fixed  arrangement,  is  naturally  subject  to 
such   depreciation;    whether   it   actually 
takes  place  or  not,  and  if  so  to  what  ex- 
tent, is  all  a  matter  of  the  circumstances 
of  the  time  and  the  quantity  of  the  issue. 
The    Continental    p^per   money    of   the 
American  Revolution  period  went  so  low 
as  to  give  rise  to  the  phrase  "not  worth 
a  Continental,"  which  still  survives  as  an 
expression  for  utter  worthlessness ;  and 
at  this  day  all  the  chief  nations  of  Europe 
are  experiencing,  each  in  its  degree,  the 
depreciation  which  is  invited  by  the  cir- 
culation   of    paper    representatives    of 
money  that  can  not  be  exchanged  on  de- 
mand   for    real    money — that    is,    coin. 
— Eds.  The  Review] 

Atmosphere  on  the  Concert 
Stage 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

There  is  nothing  more  stately  or  at- 
mospheric than  a  piano  or  a  violin  reci- 
tal in  any  of  our  concert  halls.  Usually 
the  stage,  save  for  a  huge  leviathan  of 
a  piano,  is  bare  of  everything,  a  desert 
of  hardwood  boards,  surrounded  by  a 
more  or  less  dingy  back  wall.  The  lights 
are  of  course  turned  on  full  power.  It 
is  mid-noon  on  the  Sahara,  without  the 
mystery  of  the  sand.  The  performer 
emerges  through  a  door  in  the  back  wall 
and  moves  towards  his  instrument.  He 
moves  stiffly,  he  bows  stifHy.  He  seats 
himself  at  the  leviathan  and  begins  to 
play.  Probably  he  plays  very  beauti- 
fully, for  the  spirit  of  the  artist  is  all- 
conquering.  He  conquers  himself  and 
he  conquers  a  part  of  the  audience,  but 
the  larger  portion  only  half  hears  him. 
The  atmosphere  is  as  hard  as  the  bare 
boards  of  the  stage.  If  it  is  Liszt  that 
he  plays  it  is  not  so  bad.  Liszt  wrote 
for  the  virtuoso  who  must  be  seen  as 
well  as  heard,  in  short,  he  wrote  for 
himself.  But  if  it  is  Beethoven  or 
Chopin? 

There  are  a  few  happy  souls  who  have 
heard  Paderewski  or  Hofmann  play 
Chopin  by  candle-light  in  an  Italian 
drawing-room.  They  have  heard  Chopin 
as  Chopin  was  meant  to  be  played.     All 


they  hear  henceforth  will  be  as  tinkling 
brass  and  sounding  cymbals.  They  have 
tasted  Paradise,  and  never  in  the  concert 
hall  will  they  again  be  happy.  They 
have  realized  the  truth  of  the  aristoc- 
racy of  art,  and  because  of  that  realiza- 
tion they  will  forever  more  be  discon- 
tented. They  have  paid  the  price  for 
their  selfishness  in  enjoying  what  others 
can  not  enjoy.  But  these  are  not  to  be 
considered.  Henceforth  the  kingdom  of 
art  must  be  to  the  masses,  and  the 
masses  know  nothing  of  Italian  drawing- 
rooms  by  candle-light.  But  the  masses 
do  know  the  concert  hall,  and  the  stage 
bare  of  all  save  the  black  leviathan. 
And  the  masses,  despite  their  inarticu- 
lateness, realize  that  all  is  not  right,  that 
Chopin  and  Beethoven  are  not  in  sur- 
roundings where  their  spirit  is  at  home. 
And  it  is  just  here  that  the  new  art 
of  the  stage,  the  art  of  Gordon  Craig, 
Max  Reinhardt,  and  Robert  Edmund 
Jones,  of  soft  draperies  and  changing 
lights,  might  very  well  prove  of  extraor- 
dinary benefit. 

The  movies  have  already  discovered 
it,  and  let  us  not  mock  at  the  movies. 
The  Rialto  and  Rivoli  theatres  and  now 
the  Capitol  Theatre  have  done  and  are 
doing  an  immense  service  in  educating 
the  people  in  the  love  of  good  music. 
At  these  theatres  admirable  orchestras 
play  under  capable  leaders,  but  to  the 
service  of  the  music  has  also  been 
brought  a  very  high  ideal  of  scenic  art. 
The  settings  devised  at  the  Rivoli  and 
Capitol  theatres  for  the  musical  num- 
bers have  been  executed  by  John  Wen- 
ger,  one  of  the  ablest  of  the  younger 
scenic  artists,  an  artist  who  is  also  an 
excellent  musician.  Mr.  Wenger's  idea 
has  been  to  place  his  audience  in  the 
mood  of  the  particular  composition  with- 
out distracting  its  attention  from  the 
music  itself.  He  has  done  this  with 
simple  draperies  of  a  neutral  color, 
lighted  within  by  a  series  of  lights. 
There  is  nothing  precieux  in  his  scheme, 
and  those  who  have  attended  any  of 
these  theatres  realize  that  it  is  eminently 
practical. 

Now  what  has  been  proved  practical 
at  the  Rivoli  and  the  Capitol  is  equally 
practical  in  the  concert  hall,  and  the  fact 
that  Mr.  Hofmann  and  Mr.  Heifetz  do 
not  play  in  the  movies  is  no  argument 
against  a  reform  which  may  come  from 
there.  Mr.  Hofmann  or  Mr.  Heifetz  on 
the  stage  of  Carnegie  Hall  with  that 
stage  transformed  by  soft  draperies, 
with  the  auditorium  lights  lowered,  and 
the  music  coming  out  to  us  as  from  some 
mysterious  grotto,  perhaps  that  would 
not  possess  all  the  atmosphere  of  an  Ital- 
ian drawing-room  by  candle-light,  but  it 
would  be  none  the  less  a  far  more  appro- 
priate home  for  the  spirit  of  Chopin  and 
Beethoven  than  the  present  setting. 

Grenville  Vernon 
New  York,  December  10 


14] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  34 


Book  Reviews 

Germany — Misjudged  or 
Found  Out? 

Germany's  New  War  Against  America.  By 
Stanley  Frost,  of  the  New  York  Tribune. 
With  an  Introduction  by  Hon.  A.  Mitchell 
Palmer,  Attorney-General  of  the  United 
States,  formerly  .Alien  Property  Cus- 
todian. New  York:  E.  P.  Dutton  and 
Company. 

MOST  readers  of  economics,  having  by 
nature  and  training  large  faith  in 
the  essential  goodness  of  man,  will  take 
this  book  with  a  grain  of  salt,  even  as 
most  students  of  international  politics 
before  the  war  were  slow  to  believe  that 
Germany  was  planning  the  conquest  of 
the  world.  And  yet,  in  view  of  all  that 
has  happened  during  the  past  five  years, 
it  may  be  well  to  consider  whether  Mr. 
Frost  is  regaling  the  public  with  mere 
cock-and-bull  stories,  or  whether  there 
really  is  danger  that  Germany,  defeated 
in  the  war,  may  begin  a  new  offensive  in 
the  industrial  field. 

Mr.  Palmer,  who  has  had  exceptional 
opportunity  of  observing  German  com- 
mercial methods,  says  that  industrial 
Germany  was  responsible  for  the  war, 
that  her  destinies  are  still  in  the  hands 
of  the  old  leaders,  that  her  aims  and  am- 
bitions are  still  the  same,  and  that  the 
industrial  invasion  of  America,  which 
was  begun  many  years  ago  with  hostile 
intent,  is  about  to  be  resumed  along  the 
old  lines.  At  Mr.  Palmer's  suggestion, 
and  for  the  purpose  of  forestalling  the 
coming  offensive,  the  Chemical  Founda- 
tion, Inc.,  was  organized,  which  pur- 
chased the  4,500  German-owned  patents 
in  the  United  States,  and  he  appeals  to 
the  business  men  of  America  for  help  in 
the  work  of  making  this  country  com- 
mercially free.  Evidently,  then,  Mr. 
Frost's  book  is  a  plea  for  the  protection 
of  certain  infant  industries  temporarily 
fostered  by  the  war,  especially  the  manu- 
facture of  dyes,  potash,  drugs,  and  other 
chemicals,  against  the  efforts  of  Germany 
to  regain  her  former  preeminence.  For 
all  that,  the  indictment  which  the  author 
brings  against  Germany  on  the  score  of 
unethical  trade  practices  is  formidable, 
and  should  not  be  lightly  dismissed. 

One  of  Germany's  most  characteristic 
methods  of  pushing  her  foreign  trade 
was  the  insidious  propaganda  in  favor 
of  everything  German  disseminated  by 
countless  agents  placed  in  strategic  posi- 
tions throughout  the  world.  Besides  the 
regular  consular  service  and  traveling 
agents  there  were  employees  in  banks, 
insurance  companies,  railway  shipping 
companies,  engineering  firms,  mines,  fac- 
tories, mercantile  houses — all  promoting 
the  sale  of  German  goods,  collecting  and 
reporting  useful  information,  and,  in 
general,    working    for    the   prestige    of 


Deutschtum  im  Ausland:  The  informa- 
tion sent  in  by  these  industrious  agents 
was  carefully  sifted  and  communicated 
to  the  manufacturers  and  merchants  of 
Germany  by  a  special  bureau,  the  Schim- 
melpfeng  Institut,  controlled  and  financed 
by  the  great  banks,  especially  the  four 
"Big  D"  banks,  the  Deutsche,  Dresdner, 
Disconto,  and  Darmstadter.  Mr.  Palmer 
declares  that  almost  every  German  dye 
and  chemical  expert  in  America  was  a 
spy.  Dr.  S.  Herzog,  whose  book,  "The 
Future  of  German  Industrial  Export," 
reminds  one  of  Bernhardi's  naive  and 
cynical  candor,  freely  admits  the  neces- 
sity of  securing  reports  on  every  kind  of 
commercial  secret.  Professor  Henri 
Hansen,  in  his  book  on  "Germany's  Com- 
mercial Grip  on  the  World,"  states  that 
by  means  of  universal  espionage,  coupled 
with  bribery  and  intimidation,  Germany 
had  built  up  an  industrial  power  nearly 
as  formidable  as  the  military  machine. 
Only  a  stroke  of  madness,  he  says,  could 
have  made  her  prefer  the  hazard  of  battle 
to  this  progressive  and  sure  infiltration, 
which,  in  another  ten  or  twenty  years 
of  apparent  quite  material  peace,  would 
have  created,  economically  speaking,  a 
German  world. 

In  showing  how  Germany  intrenched 
her  industrial  position  in  America  and 
elsewhere,  Mr.  Frost  has  much  to  say 
about  full-line  forcing,  boycotting,  and 
scientific  dumping  in  certain  selected  in- 
dustries. For  example,  H.  A.  Metz  &  Co., 
an  American  firm,  was  obliged  to  agree 
not  to  buy  or  sell  products  competing 
with  those  of  the  Hoechst  Color  Co.  with- 
out obtaining  their  consent.  The  Ger- 
mans have  time  and  again  cut  the  prices 
on  bicarbonate  of  potash,  aniline  oil, 
salicylic  acid,  oxalic  acid,  and  other 
chemicals,  only  to  restore  them  after 
competition  was  destroyed.  The  great 
Kalisyndikat  is  said  to  have  $100,000,000 
worth  of  potash  ready  to  dump  on  the 
American  market.  The  manufacture  of 
dyes,  as  is  well  known,  is  intimately  con- 
nected with  the  manufacture  of  explo- 
sives, and  was  part  of  Germany's  prepa- 
ration for  war.  Before  the  war,  storing 
explosives,  she  kept  down  the  price  of 
dyes;  during  the  war,  on  the  contrary, 
making  explosives,  she  was  storing  dyes. 
It  is  estimated  that  $100,000,000  worth 
of  dyes — four  times  the  normal  annual 
consumption  of  America — is  ready  for 
export  through  Copenhagen,  and  already 
"neutral"  agents  are  selling  dyes  in  Italy 
at  half  price. 

The  author  gives  a  long  list  of  Ger- 
many's questionable  trade  practices  in 
order  to  indicate  the  lines  along  which 
the  new  war  is  likely  to  be  carried  on. 
The  Metalgesellschaft  and  allied  firms, 
through  their  vast  interests  in  America, 
?.s  in  all  other  mining  countries,  exer- 
cised a  strong  control  over  prices  and 
fu'-nished  Germany  with  the  sinews  of 
war.     The  great  cartels  in  the  bar-iron 


trade,  tools  and  implements,  silk  products 
and  other  textiles,  were  and  still  are 
powerful  instruments  for  the  promotion 
of  foreign  trade.  German  and  Austro- 
Hungarian  companies  made  a  specialty  of 
reinsurance  throughout  the  world,  and 
used  the  information  thus  obtained  to 
the  injury  of  their  customers.  Discrim- 
inations in  freights  by  land  and  sea  were 
used  to  overcome  tariff  barriers  and  thus 
to  gain  an  unfair  advantage  over  com- 
petitors. More  than  200,000  German 
agents  are  said  to  be  in  Russia,  where 
they  are  buying  up  industries  ruined  by 
their  Bolshevik  friends;  while  other 
agents  are  doing  similar  work  in  Mexico. 
The  agitation  in  favor  of  wooden  ships 
was  kept  alive  by  German  influence  for 
obvious  reasons.  German  trade  will  be 
resumed  through  neutral  channels  and 
her  commodities  denationalized  or  camou- 
flaged under  neutral  colors.  Even  now 
Germans  are  buying  up  bankrupt  con- 
cerns in  Switzerland  and  other  neutral 
countries  and  running  them  under  the 
original  names.  Only  a  small  part  of 
German-owned  property  in  America  has 
been  found  by  the  Alien  Property  Cus- 
todian. The  former  German  agents  are 
all  here  and  ready  to  resume  operations 
— in  fact,  the  propaganda  machine  is  al- 
ready at  work,  preparing  the  American 
mind  for  the  imminent  industrial  inva- 
sion. 

All  this  is  very  plausible  and  almost 
convincing,  yet  withal  quite  upsetting  to 
one's  mental  balance  as  one  wonders  at  the 
astute  perversity  of  the  Germans  on  the 
one  hand,  and  the  stupid  incompetence  of 
the  rest  of  the  world  on  the  other.  If 
all  that  the  author  says  is  true,  how  was 
it  that  Great  Britain  and  the  United 
States,  for  example,  had  any  foreign 
trade  at  all?  And  is  it  possible  that  Ger- 
many, after  the  late  disastrous  war,  is 
still  gay  and  fresh  and  ready  for  a  morn- 
ing's promenade  to  the  industrial  mas- 
tery of  the  world  ?  And  how  can  she  af- 
ford to  dump  on  so  large  a  scale?  And 
has  the  United  States  no  means  of  meet- 
ing German  competition  other  than  high 
tariffs  and  stringent  import  licenses? 
And  must  the  farmers  and  textile  manu- 
facturers be  penalized  in  order  that  a 
small  group  of  people  interested  in  dyes 
and  potash  may  be  nourished  by  these 
infant  industries?  And  is  Germany  to 
have  no  export  trade  at  all?  And  if  so, 
how  will  she  pay  the  indemnities  and 
at  the  same  time  escape  the  threatened 
social  revolution? 

Yet,  when  all  is  said,  the  fact  remains 
that  Germany  has  lost  her  good  name 
among  the  nations,  and  it  is  safe  to  proph- 
esy that  for  many  years  her  every  move 
will  be  watched  with  suspicion,  and  few 
will  be  found  to  give  her  the  benefit  of  a 
doubt.  Possibly  the  world  is  misjudging 
Germany;  perhaps  it  is  only  finding  her 
out. 

J.  E.  Le  Rossignol 


January  3,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[15 


Sea  Tales 

The  Sea  Bride.  By  Ben  Ames  Williams. 
New  York :    The  Macmillan  Company. 

The  Passage  of  the  Barque  Sappho.  By 
J.  E.  Patterson.  New  York:  E.  P.  But- 
ton and  Company. 

THERE  have  been  many  sea-stories  of 
recent  invention,  tales  of  naval  life, 
yarns  of  mutiny,  shipwreck,  and  buried 
treasure,  farcical  "exploitations"  of  the 
nautical  atmosphere,  and  here  and  there 
a  narrative  conveying  something  of  its 
true  glamour.  What  we  are  always  look- 
ing for  in  sea-fiction  as  in  other  fiction 
is  not  something  new  in  kind,  but  some- 
thing fresh  in  quality.  Novelty  is  still 
a  good  thing  in  a  novel;  but  who  really 
cares  much  for  a  new  shaking  of  the  old 
bag  of  tricks,  even  by  the  most  expert 
hands?  A  new  voice,  a  new  intonation 
barely — how  clear  (for  those  who  have 
ears)  they  ring  above  or  beyond  the 
brisk,  clever,  and  monotonous  chorus  of 
whatever  latest  "school"  of  story-tellers, 
as  also,  let  us  confess,  above  the  de- 
lightful but  already  familiar  notes  of  in- 
dependent performers.  Conrad's  sea- 
spell  is  still  potent;  but  our  submission 
to  it  is  now  tolerably  deliberate  and 
placid.  After  all,  there  is  no  last  word 
in  magic,  men  will  be  searching  new  sea 
charms,  and  land  charms,  while  land 
and  sea  remain.  Mr.  Hergesheimer 
found  one  for  us  in  "Java  Head,"  a  sea 
story  which  happens  to  take  place  ashore. 
More  recently,  in  "All  the  Brothers  Were 
Valiant,"  a  new  writer,  Ben  Ames  Wil- 
liams, seemed  to  have  found  one,  slight 
but  authentic.  A  yarn,  if  you  like,  wild 
and  romantic  and  improbable,  but  true 
enough  with  the  smell  of  the  sea  and  the 
vibration  of  youth  trembling  towards  its 
destiny.  .  .  .  Perhaps  the  novelette  is 
this  writer's  natural  medium,  as  I  think 
it  is  Mr.  Hergesheimer's.  "The  Sea 
Bride"  labors  towards  bulk  at  the  expense 
of  quality.  In  gist  it  weighs  about  even 
with  the  earlier  story.  On  the  larger 
scale  the  artifice  of  its  love  story  is  pat- 
ent; and  unfortunately  the  writer's  Jack- 
Londonish  tendency  towards  unmeaning 
or  slightly  sadistic  goriness  takes  on  un- 
pleasant emphasis. 

In  "The  Passage  of  the  Barque  Sap- 
pho" most  American  readers  may  taste 
a  quite  new  savor.  Often  of  late  some 
American  publisher  has  produced  with  a 
flourish  from  his  English-made  hat  a 
brand-new  and  fullgrown  rabbit,  some 
British  novelist  with  a  string  of  books 
behind  him  and  a  marvelous  reputation 
at  home.  We  have  never  heard  of  him. 
He  has  been  hidden  from  us  till  he  and 
we  should  be  ripe  for  meeting.  Usually 
he  turns  out  to  be  another  of  the  same — 
another  clever,  flouting,  excitable  player 
of  the  Wellsian  game,  whether  with  Ox- 
ford or  Cockney  accent.  Patterson  is  a 
writer,  and  a  man,  of  a  totally  different 
order.    We  get  an  interesting  glimpse  of 


him  in  "Who's  Who,"  which  found  him 
worth  mention  as  far  back,  at  least,  as 
1914.  Born  in  1866  (within  a  month  of 
H.  G.  Wells),  a  Yorkshireman ;  ran 
away  to  sea  at  thirteen,  and  knocked 
about  the  world  till  thirty :  deep  sea  fish- 
ery, merchant  service,  naval  reserve; 
crippled  by  rheumatism,  came  to  London, 
became  an  obscure  actor  and  an  approved 
journalist;  wrote  some  fifteen  books  of 
verse  and  prose,  mainly  ballads,  sketches, 
and  tales  of  the  sea  or  its  shores.  And 
now,  with  this  posthumous  publication 
(he  died  a  year  or  two  ago),  a  Dent  book 
imported  by  Dutton  rather  than  pub- 
lished here,  we  get  our  first  chance  at 
him.  The  obvious  comparison  would  be 
with  Conrad,  and  it  has  been  drawn.  He 
shares  with  Conrad  an  early  and  long 
experience  of  the  sea,  a  power  of  vivid 
description,  and  a  serene  indifference  to 
the  mechanism  of  "plot."  A  more  direct 
relation  might  conceivably  be  traced,  if  it 
were  worth  tracing.  But  no  one  would 
justly  accuse  the  slightly  younger  man  of 
imitating  the  elder.  He  moves  on  a  more 
humdrum  plane,  his  own  plane  of  feeling 
and  observation.  It  is  a  male  plane: 
there  is  no  woman  aboard  the  Barque 
Sappho  to  becloud  the  simple  issues  be- 
tween man  and  man  or  between  man  and 
his  other  friend  and  opponent,  the  sea. 
And  this  is  a  story  of  men  at  sea  dealing 
with  each  other  rather  than,  as  w.e  often 
feel  in  Conrad's  tales,  a  story  of  the  sea 
dealing  with  men.  Patterson's  men  are 
more  closely  bound  to  each  other  for  good 
and  ill,  by  love  and  hatred,  a  floating  com- 
munity of  interdependent  and  inter-con- 
scious souls,  instead  of  (as  in  Conrad) 
a  bundle  of  lonely  and  reticent  individ- 
uals, united  in  the  main  for  duty,  for 
offensive  warfare  against  the  common 
enemy.  Nature,  but  otherwise  isolate 
and  even  desolate,  peering  over  their 
shoulders  at  each  other  now  and  then, 
but  for  the  most  part  fated  to  stand, 
back  to  back,  gazing  each  over  his  own 
reach  of  misty  sea-scape  and  life-scape, 
into — what  ? 

Conrad  would  have  made  a  more  haunt- 
ing and  tragic  figure  of  the  Sappho's  poor 
old  skipper,  and  with  the  two  who  take 
turns  at  the  narrative  he  might  have 
dealt  more  subtly;  but  the  rest  of  her 
crew  would  have  remained  figures  dim 
if  carefully  blocked  out,  the  necessary 
and  natural  background  for  his  concen- 
trated spiritual  action.  Patterson  gives 
us  the  run  of  the  ship.  A  mixed  lot  of 
shipmates  we  set  sail  with  from  'Frisco, 
but  in  the  course  of  our  long  voyage  with 
them  round  the  Horn  they  become,  every 
one  of  them,  companions  and  familiars; 
created  each  after  his  kind  and  not  to 
be  escaped  from,  however  much  they  may 
bore  or  offend  us  at  times,  till  the  voy- 
age ends.  Unluckily  for  the  writer's 
realistic  method,  his  knowledge  of  dialect 
is  not  accurate.  We  can  not  challenge 
his    Scotch    negro,    and    his    Yorkshire 


Smiley  is  evidently  beyond  cavil;  but  a 
stranger  lingo  than  that  attributed  to  the 
American,  "Booster,"  would  be  hard  to 
imagine,  even  in  the  novel  of  a  Briton. 
There  is  crudity  here,  and  elsewhere,  in 
the  book;  but  elsewhere  chiefly  of  the 
kind  that  enhances  verisimilitude,  the 
sort  of  artlessness  Defoe  studied  as  a 
trick.  Nobody  would  do  or  say  quite 
that  (we  feel)  in  a  work  of  art:  ergo, 
it  must  be  true.  So  our  fine  theory  of 
the  higher  transmuted  fact  receives  an 
apparent  setback.  .  .  .  But  it  is  a 
momentary  illusion  that  does  not  belie  the 
shaping  hand.  Literally  and  laboriously 
as  we  seem  to  be  following  the  uncertain 
fortunes  of  the  Sappho,  sparing  as  the 
voyage  is  of  high  dramatic  moments,  it 
involves  and  concerns  us  beyond  wish  or 
thought  of  escape  till  we  have  seen  it 
through.  Its  effect  is  slow  and  cumula- 
tive, like  Conrad's;  and  though  it  lacks 
his  unearthly  poise,  his  effortless  hand 
at  the  wheel,  it  gains,  for  compensation, 
an  ingenuous  warmth  we  need  only  re- 
spond, not  rise  to. 

H.   W.   BOYNTON 

Maeterlinck's  "Presences" 

Mountain  Paths.  By  Maurice  Maeterlinck. 
Translated  by  Alexander  Teixeira  de 
Mattos.    New  York :    Dodd,  Mead  &  Co. 

MAETERLINCK'S  "Mountain  Path.s," 
a  volume  of  essays,  is  brief,  but  it 
possesses  an  abundance  and  diversity 
which  almost  debar  it,  or  exempt  it, 
from  review.  The  criticism  of  its  vari- 
ous topics  seriatim  is  prevented  by  their 
abundance;  the  selection  of  repre.sent- 
ative  topics  for  criticism  is  precluded  by 
their  diversity.  What  can  one  say  of  an 
essay  on  Karma  that  can  be  pertinently 
said  of  an  essay  on  insects?  What  gen- 
eralization is  spacious  enough  to  em- 
brace an  essay  on  gambling  and  a  story 
of  three  unknown  Belgian  heroes  in  the 
outreach  of  its  hospitable  curve?  It 
would  be  easy  but  ignominious  to  escape 
from  the  confusion  by  calling  the  book 
a  miscellany.  The  book  is  not  a  miscel- 
lany; it  is  a  book  that  brings  largeness 
and  delicacy,  penetration  and  reverence, 
to  the  successive  examination  of  many 
primary  and  a  few  secondary  problems. 
How  is  criticism  to  find  a  centre? 

The  perplexity  is  serious,  but  a  partial 
and  imperfect  clew  may  be  found  in 
Maeterlinck's  fondness  for  indwellings, 
for  what  may  be  called  by  a  word  whose 
vagueness  is  part  of  its  justness,  pres- 
ences. One  mind  in  another,  one  life  in 
another— that  is  a  quite  peculiai-  interest 
of  Maeterlinck's.  Sometimes  the  indweller 
is  more  like  a  being,  sometimes  more  like 
a  thought;  but  as  being  it  seems  alwayu 
ready  to  dissolve  into  thought,  as 
thought  always  ready  to  condense  into 
being.  In  the  first  essay,  the  "Power  of 
the  Dead,"  it  is  the  dead  in  us,  the  dead 


16] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  34 


being  halfway  between  memories  and 
ghosts.  In  the  "Soul  of  Nations"  it  is 
"floating  forces,"  mystic  reservoirs,  de- 
posits extrinsic  to  the  nation's  mind  and 
character,  celestial  armories  from  which 
weapons  are  drawn  in  hours  of  crisis. 
"In  "Macrocosm  and  Microcosm"  the 
human  body  is  pictured  as  a  sort  of  ark 
in  which  all  the  animal  life  of  all  periods 
is  lodged  for  indefinite  preservation.  In 
"Heredity  and  Preexistence"  it  is  the 
occupancy  of  our  souls  by  ancestors  and 
descendants  that  furnishes  the  theme. 
In  "Karma"  it  is  the  past  self  that  in- 
habits and  controls  the  present. 

Maeterlinck  in  all  these  beliefs  is  a 
poet,  a  rare  and  intimate  poet.  This  is 
the  explanation  of  his  remarkable  incre- 
dulities and  his  still  more  remarkable 
credulities.  On  the  question  of  com- 
munications from  spirits  he  discloses  a 
hesitancy,  a  skepticism,  which  is  very 
surprising  at  the  first  view  and  very  nat- 
ural at  the  second.  Maeterlinck  craves 
the  poetry,  and  when  the  celestial  vis- 
itant becomes  an  interlocutor  and  vis-a- 
vis, when  he,  in  effect,  presents  his  card 
and  unpacks  his  verbal  merchandise,  he 
assumes  to  Maeterlinck's  protesting  gaze 
the  prosaicism  of  a  commercial  traveler. 
It  is  taste  perhaps  rather  than  sense  that 
steadies  Maeterlinck  in  these  special 
bogs  and  quicksands;  he  is  prompt 
enough  in  his  surrender  to  unreason 
where  his  imagination  is  caught  by  its 
mystery  and  beauty.  For  instance,  in 
"Heredity  and  Preexistence"  he  ven- 
tures to  propound  the  theory  that  we  are 
as  much  influenced  by  our  posterity  as 
by  our  ancestors,  to  put  it  tersely,  that 
we  are  the  children  of  our  descendants. 
There  is  no  abstract  objection  to  the 
notion  that  causes  should  work  backward 
as  well  as  forward  in  the  same  fashion 
in  which  they  act  with  equal  facility 
from  right  to  left  and  from  left  to  right ; 
but  there  is  the  very  strong,  indeed  the 
quite  decisive,  practical  objection  that 
the  inductive  evidence  is  all  the  other 
way. 

The  truth  is  that  in  Maeterlinck  as  in 
Plato  there  are  two  men,  a  dialectician 
and  a  mystic,  though  in  the  Belgian,  as 
in  the  Greek,  it  is  a  visionary  dialectician 
who  shares  his  habitat  with  a  rationaliz- 
ing mystic.  Everywhere  in  this  book  one 
feels  the  fascination  which  negations 
possess  for  Maeterlinck's  critical  subtlety 
and  the  empire  which  affirmations  retain 
or  regain  over  his  impulse  to  honor  and 
revere.  There  are  passages  of  critical 
insight  in  the  volume  which  the  noblest 
thinkers  of  our  race  might  have  rejoiced 
to  father.  Take,  for  instance,  the  fifth 
section  in  the  "Great  Revelation,"  in 
which  Maeterlinck  defends  the  appalling 
thesis  that  any  ultimate  doctrine  which 
was  great  enough  to  be  commensurate 
with  the  truth  would  be  too  great  to  have 


any  congruence  with  our  faculties.  Sense 
and  profundity  combine  to  overwhelm  us. 
Yet  Maeterlinck  always  reserves  a  hope, 
suggests  an  extrication.  One  might  crit- 
icise his  optimism  perhaps  as  a  little  too 
versatile ;  he  feels  moved  every  five  years 
or  so  to  revise  his  pact  with  the  uni- 
verse. At  present  his  hope  turns  towards 
Karma. 

Karma,  which  Maeterlinck,  in  one  of 
his  serene  ecstasies,  describes  as  the 
most  beautiful  and  reassuring  doctrine 
that  the  mind  of  man  has  imagined,  is  a 
form  of  justice  which  makes  man's  con- 
dition nothing  more  nor  less  than  the 
result,  or,  if  one  pleases,  the  footing  or 
aggregate,  of  all  his  actions,  the  sins 
counting  as  minuses,  the  good  acts  as 
pluses,  in  the  calculation  of  his  present 
welfare.  Reincarnation,  its  vivid  and 
poetic  accompaniment,  is  apparently  un- 
related to  the  essence  of  the  system.  Re- 
incarnation, it  would  almost  seem,  is  an 
adjunct,  an  amendment,  a  postscript,  a 
convenience  for  getting  around  the  un- 
mistakable disparity  between  Karma  and 
the  superficial  facts.  Justice  is  a  rela- 
tion between  two  terms.  Put  the  two 
terms,  conduct  and  welfare,  for  example, 
side  by  side  in  the  same  life,  and  the 
facts  are  clearly  unmanageable.  But  it 
is  still  possible  to  believe  in  the  univer- 
sality of  justice  if  you  will  separate  the 
terms  4"d  conceal  their  relation  by  put- 
ting them  in  distinct  lives.  The  locks  on 
hand  do  not  fit  the  keys  on  hand,  but 
optimism  vindicates  the  locksmith  by  the 
charitable  supposition  of  absent  keys  and 
locks  to  which  the  visible  fittings  are 
duly  complemental.  Maeterlinck  himself, 
whose  views  are  rather  criticised  than 
reproduced  in  the  foregoing  sentences, 
admits  that  Karma  is  only  an  hypothesis ; 
but  is  content  to  accept  an  hypothesis, 
which,  as  he  truly  says,  is  irrefutable, 
and  which  is  food  and  comfort  to  his 
aspirations. 

It  is  doubtful  if  in  the  general  ca- 
pacity or  in  the  depth  and  subtlety  of 
particular  insights,  any  philosopher  has 
surpassed  Maeterlinck.  System,  of  course, 
he  lacks,  but  what  system  as  a  system 
has  ever  imposed  its  cumbrousness  upon 
mankind?  Truth  in  philosophy  is  per- 
ceived, is  consumed,  in  particulars.  The 
analogy  with  bread  is  instructive.  Hu- 
manity takes  small  grains  of  wheat  or 
smaller  flakes  of  flour,  makes  them  into 
a  large  loaf,  which  can  not  be  digested 
until  it  has  been  crumbed  by  the  fingers 
and  ground  by  the  teeth.  A  system  is 
just  such  a  loaf.  Maeterlinck's  true  im- 
perfection lies  elsewhere.  Philosophy, 
being,  when  all  is  said  and  done,  a  human 
product  looking  toward  a  human  end,  is 
finally  conditioned  by  the  largeness  and 
robustness  of  the  philosopher's  human- 
ity. It  may  be  abstract  and  passionless, 
as  an  eye  is  cool  and  pellucid,  but  the 


eye  no  less  than  the  abdomen  is  nour- 
ished by  the  blood.  Maeterlinck  lacks 
neither  humanity  nor  experience;  the 
only  question  is  whether  he  possesses 
them  in  a  degree  correspondent  with  the 
splendor  of  his  own  gift  for  abstraction 
or  the  requirements  of  philosophies  that 
endure. 

Chinese  Art 

Outlines  of  Chinese  Art.  By  John  L.  Fer- 
guson. The  Scammon  Lectures  for  191& 
Published  for  the  Art  Institute  of  Chi- 
cago by  the  University  of  Chicago  Press. 

THE  collector  of  Chinese  art  soon  comes 
to  the  dilemma  that  he  must  trust 
either  his  daemon  or  the  Chinese.  On 
this  issue  Dr.  Ferguson  takes  a  firm 
stand.  His  approach  to  the  subject  is 
literary,  traditional,  exclusively  Chinese. 
His  loyalty  knows  no  shrinking.  He 
treats  calligraphy  as  of  equal  dignity  with 
sculpture  or  painting;  he  excludes  with 
an  almost  contemptuous  brevity  the 
stately  statues  of  Gandhara  type  because 
they  are  exotic  and  the  Chinese  think 
little  of  them.  He  is  as  enthusiastic 
about  the  feeling  of  jade  as  he  is  about 
the  quality  of  a  primitive  landscape.  In 
Chinese  fashion  he  exalts  bronzes  and 
slurs  ceramics,  while  old  inscribed  stones 
seem  more  important  than  the  master- 
pieces of  the  imported  Buddhistic  school. 
Compared  with  our  author,  such  Far- 
Eastern  critics  as  Seichi-taki  and  the  late 
Okakura  Kakuzo  are  fairly  cosmopolitan 
in  their  sympathies,  while  the  lamented 
Ernest  Fenollosa,  Laurence  Binyon,  and 
Alfred  Morrison  appear  as  mere  eclectics. 

We  have  emphasized  the  unbending 
character  of  Dr.  Ferguson's  Sinophily 
because  it  constitutes  at  once  the  limita- 
tion and  the  positive  strength  of  his 
work.  There  is  no  book  which  tells  so 
briefly  and  accurately,  on  the  basis  of 
first-hand  knowledge,  precisely  how  the 
best-trained  Chinese  regard  their  own 
art.  Their  interest  ceases  with  the  Yuan 
dynasty,  so  does  Dr.  Ferguson's.  They 
care  as  much  for  famous  seals  or  eulogies 
of  noted  critics  or  collectors  on  a  scroll 
as  they  do  for  the  painting  itself.  Their 
systematic  criticism  and  archaeology  ex- 
tends over  fifteen  hundred  years,  begin- 
ning at  a  moment  when  our  Teutonic 
forebears,  without  an  alphabet  or  an  art 
to  remember,  were  just  beginning  to  be 
uneasy  in  their  Baltic  fens. 

One  can  not  but  respect  so  long  a  tradi- 
tion of  culture,  yet  many  of  its  results 
look  just  about  as  trustworthy  and  im- 
portant as  the  Alexandrine  dabblings  in 
rhetoric  and  criticism.  For  a  thousand 
years  China  has  been  in  an  Alexandrine 
condition,  and  any  real  study  of  her  art 
must  transcend  the  Chinese  tradition.  In 
particular,  the  collector  who  trusts  over- 
much to  signatures,  seals,  and  eulogies, 
neglecting  that   subjective  appreciation 


January  3,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[17 


which  our  author  wholly  distrusts,  will 
have  more  literary  evidences  of  Chinese 
art  in  his  godowns  than  Chinese  art  it- 
self. Dr.  Ferguson's  collections  have 
been  exhibited,  and  many  pieces  have 
passed  into  museums.  The  average  qual- 
ity of  these  paintings  is  calculated  to  en- 
courage the  amateur  who  in  the  first  in- 
stance trusts  his  daemon,  while  cautious- 
ly enlisting  in  his  quest  all  available  Chi- 
nese lore. 

As  a  guide  to  the  collector  we  can  not 
unreservedly  recommend  this  book.  As 
a  solid  and  entertaining  means  of  infor- 
mation it  deserves  all  praise.  Numerous 
unhackneyed  illustrations  add  to  its  value 
and  constitute  its  chief  appeal  to  the  spe- 
cialist. 

The  Run  of  the  Shelves 

EASY-CHAIR  strategists  will  find 
abundant  food  for  thought  and  argu- 
ment in  William  L.  McPherson's  "The 
Strategy  of  the  Great  War"  (Putnam). 
The  book  grows  out  of  the  remarkable 
comment  which  Mr.  McPherson  wrote 
week  by  week  for  the  New  York  Trib- 
une. He  is  a  convinced  Easterner. 
The  great  failure  of  the  Allies  was  to 
strike  soft  at  Gallipoli.  Equally  the 
great  error  of  Germany  was  to  seek  the 
impossible  on  the  Western  front,  while 
neglecting  to  consolidate  and  exploit  the 
Middle-Europe  she  had  conquered.  Her 
ultimate  and  fatal  folly  was  to  incur 
war  with  the  United  States.  The  French 
were  blameworthy  in  maintaining  an 
initial  aggressive  in  Alsace  and  in  fall- 
ing to  defend  the  Northern  frontier  in 
force.  The  policy  of  attrition  was  falla- 
cious from  the  point  of  view  of  the  En- 
tente, and  the  correct  western  policy  for 
Germany  from  the  first.  Throughout, 
the  larger  strategy  of  Germany  was 
stupid,  she  threw  away  out  of  vanity  a 
good  chance  of  securing  all  her  political 
aims.  Such  is  the  general  tenor  of  a 
vigorously  written  book,  the  upshot  of 
which  is  perhaps  that  a  model  strategy 
is  always  retrospective,  and  more  easily 
compassed  in  the  easy  chair  than  on  the 
stricken  field. 

The  American  poet,  John  Gould  Fletch- 
er, who  has  been  residing  in  England  for 
the  past  three  years,  writes  as  follows  in 
a  recent  letter  from  London  concerning 
his  relations  wih  France: 

I  may  say  that  they  are  wholly  confined  to 
a  great  admiration  for  French  literature, 
poetry  and  art.  In  regard  to  French  literature 
my  knowledge  of  it  begins  with  Frangois  Vil- 
lon, Rabelais,  and  Montaigne,  all  three  of 
whom  I  greatly  admire.  With  the  sixteenth 
and  seventeenth  centuries  I  have  never  been 
able  to  find  myself  in  sympathy,  although  I  ad- 
mit the  supreme  artistry  and  polish  of  Moliere 
and  La  Fontaine;  the  sombre  concision  and 
mysticism  of  Pascal  attract  me  more  than 
either  Corneille  or  Racine.  In  the  eighteenth 
centurv  I  liave  admired  and  studied  the  works 


of  Voltaire  and  Rousseau,  especially  the  lat- 
ter, having  read  the  whole  of  his  "Confes- 
sions," as  well  as  the  "Reveries  d'un  Prome- 
neur  Solitaire,"  several  times  in  the  original. 
In  the  nineteenth  century,  or  rather  the  period 
after  the  publication  of  "Emaux  et  Camces" 
and  "Les  Fleurs  du  Mai,"  I  am  most  at  home. 
Hugo  I  do  not  like,  despite  his  enormous  fe- 
cundity and  energy ;  but  both  Gautier  and  Bau- 
delaire— the  latter  especially,  because  he  con- 
tinued a  line  of  thought  which  started  with 
Foe — made  an  early  and  deep  impression  on 
me.  After  1910,  I  became  interested  in  the 
Symbolists  and  have  read  most  of  Verlaine, 
all  of  Mallarme,  Corbiere,  Lafargue,  Lau- 
treamont  (Maldoror),  Rimbaud,  as  well  as 
others  of  the  succeeding  generation,  such  as 
Remy  de  Gourmont  (whom  I  regard  as  a  very 
great  critic),  Henri  de  Regnier,  Francis 
Jammes,  Viele-Griffin,  Stuart  Merrill,  and 
others  almost  too  numerous  to  mention. 


Among  the  "fata"  of  "libelli"  those  of 
the  commonplace  quatrains  of  the  math- 
ematician Omar  Khayyam  are  of  the 
strangest.  Through  accident  and  the  sin- 
gle genius  of  Fitzgerald  they  have  been 
lifted  from  being  quite  undistinguished 
minor  poetry  in  Persia  to  a  unique  place 
in  the  English-speaking  world,  and  were 
made  the  voice,  for  a  time,  of  the  later 
Victorian  period.  But  besides  the  magic 
given  by  the  great  English  stylist,  there 
was  in  the  clay  with  which  he  worked  a 
certain  broad  humanity,  a  kinship  to  all 
our  yearnings,  questionings,  and  consola- 
tions. It  is  more  than  doubtful  whether 
that  was  present  in  Abu'1-Ala,  some  of 
whose  poems  have  just  been  rendered 
into  the  forms  of  Omar  Khayyam  and 
Fitzgerald  by  Mr.  Ameen  Rihani  (The 
Luzumiyat  of  Abu'1-Ala  (James  T. 
White).  The  blind  Syrian  intellectual 
and  moralist  is  both  more  sombre  and 
less  friendly  than  the  Persian  and  bon 
vivant.  He  was  not  only  an  agnostic,  a 
pessimist,  and  a  rebel;  he  was  an  ascetic 
to  the  uttermost  and  rejected  all  human 
ties  save  those  of  the  intellect.  We  may 
be  puzzled  as  to  how  the  creator  of 
Omar's  universe  could  have  created 
Omar,  just  as  the  God  of  Ecclesiastes 
leaves  Ecclesiastes  himself  inexplicable; 
but  Abu'1-Ala  is  of  a  piece  with  the  uni- 
verse he  saw  around  him,  and  it  is  no 
kindly  or  attractive  piece.  Nor  is  it 
likely  that  Mr.  Rihani's  art  will  over- 
come the  handicap.  His  renderings  are 
often  very  clever;  but,  as  the  Arabic 
proverb  says,  the  merit  belongs  to  the 
precedent — Fitzgerald. 

"Supplementary  Diplomatic  Docu- 
ments" follows  the  publication  by  the 
American  -  Hellenic  Society,  a  few 
months  ago,  of  "The  Greek  White  Book" 
(Oxford  University  Press).  This  sup- 
plement presents  additional  evidence 
from  authentic  texts  of  documents  is- 
sued by  the  Ministry  of  Foreign  Affairs 
of  the  Greek  Government,  dealing  with 
the  Greco-Serbian  Treaty  and  the  Ger- 
mano-Bulgarian  invasion  of  Macedonia, 


and  telegrams  exchanged  between  the 
Royal  Courts  of  Athens  and  Berlin  be- 
fore the  fall  of  Constantine.  Although 
there  is  neither  an  explanatory  preface 
nor  interpretative  comments  to  influ- 
ence the  reader,  much  of  the  material 
contained  is  little  short  of  dramatic. 
The  struggle  of  the  Greek  people  to  as- 
sert its  will  against  a  popular  King, 
backed  by  a  tremendous  propaganda,  is 
one  of  the  most  absorbing  episodes  of 
the  Great  War,  in  which  the  figures  of 
Constantine  and  Venizelos,  the  forceful 
and  blind  soldier  king  and  the  honest 
and  far-sighted  Cretan  statesman,  are 
the  protagonists.  Probably  the  tele- 
gram of  Mr.  Coromilas  to  King  Con- 
stantine in  consequence  of  the  events  of 
December  1-2,  1916,  forms  the  most 
striking  document  of  the  collection,  in- 
asmuch as  it  comes  from  a  man  who  felt 
very  deeply  the  struggle  between  loyalty 
to  his  king  and  loyalty  to  his  country. 

"...  To  crown  the  horror,  Greece  in 
the  midst  of  the  misfortunes  which  have 
thus  overwhelmed  her,  is  divided  into  two 
camps  which  have  a  deadly  grudge  against 
each  other;  hate  is  in  their  hcerts  and 
civil  war  is  in  their  souls  and  in  their  ac- 
tions; we  kill  and  assassinate  each  other; 
while  the  Bulgarians  are  settled  on  our 
soil  and  oppress  our  brothers.  The  coun- 
try is  in  the  greatest  distress,  it  is  in  a 
state  of  anarchy;  criminal  and  atrocious 
acts  have  been  committed  at  Athens 
against  the  civil  population,  and  the  agents 
of  public  order  have  done  nothing  to  stop 
them.    .    .    . 

.  .  .  Whatever  the  issue  of  this  great 
conflict  may  be — and  even  your  majesty 
feels  that  it  will  be  indecisive — Greece 
must  remain  the  frank  and  sincere  friend 
of  the  Powers  of  the  Entente,  and  must  be 
the  enemy  of  Bulgaria.  Mr.  Venizelos  and 
his  colleagues  at  Saloniki  have  seen  this 
truth.  Do  not  refuse,  sire,  to  see  it  your- 
self. And  since  you  are  king,  not  of  the 
majority  of  the  people,  but  of  all  the 
Greeks,  forget  the  past;  forget  any  griev- 
ances that  you  may  have,  and  ask  for  the 
assistance  of  Mr.  Venizelos  and  his  friends; 
I  have  the  firm  hope  that  they  will  give  it 
to  you  freely.  .    .    . 

...  I  beg  your  majesty  to  excuse  the 
frankness  of  my  language.  The  affection 
that  I  bear  for  you  compels  me  to  speak  to 
you  thus,  for  my  heart  bleeds  when  I  think 
what  you  were  and  of  what  is  going  to 
come.  It  is  my  duty  to  speak  to  you  plainly 
and  with  no  reticence;  it  is  my  duty  to  tell 
your  majesty  that  the  policy  which  has  so 
fatefully  brought  us  to  the  position  in 
which,  alas,  we  find  ourselves,  is  a  deadly 
policy,  and  one  of  which  I  fundamentally 
disapprove.  The  advice  that  I  venture  to 
give  you,  and  your  royal  act,  bringing  to 
pass  the  union  of  all,  are  all  that  can  now 
save  what  remains." 

A  useful  list  of  books  has  been  com- 
piled by  Prof.  Tom  Peete  Cross,  under 
the  title  "Bibliography  and  Methods  of 
English  Literary  History"  (University 
of  Chicago  Press).  Attention  is  chiefly 
directed  to  the  works  of  fundamental 
bibliographical  importance  —  just  the 
books  the  graduate  student  is  most  likely 
to  be  ignorant  of — but  the  blank  inter- 
leavings  give  room  for  the  amplification 
of  particular  subjects. 


18] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  34 


Drama 

"Mary  Broome  at  the  Neigh- 

borliood  Playhouse — The 

Theatre  Parisien 

MR.  ALLAN  MONKHOUSE'S  "Mary 
Broome,"  visible  for  a  season  on 
Saturday  and  Sunday  evenings  at  the 
Neighborhood  Playhouse,  is  an  enmesh- 
ing play.  It  is  not  a  serious,  not  an  ar- 
tistic, hardly  a  moral,  play;  and  I  chafe 
and  rebel  at  the  facility  of  my  entangle- 
ment. The  entanglement  remains,  how- 
ever; "Mary  Broome"  is  a  play  that  dogs 
you — not  to  say,  hounds  you — an  idle, 
impish,  saucy  play,  a  play  that  attracts, 
worries,  and  teases,  and  refuses  to  be 
sent  about  its  business  for  the  simple 
reason  that  its  business  is  to  pester  you. 
It  is  a  study  in  character,  and  its  own 
character  is  mirrored  in  that  of  its  pro- 
tagonist. 

Was  "Mary  Broome"  originally  a 
novel?  It  seems,  in  essence,  a  novel, 
with  two  vigorous  included  playlets,  the 
first  act  and  the  fourth.  In  Act  I,  the 
poetical  featherhead  and  rattlebrain, 
Leonard  Timbrell,  is  persuaded  to  marry 
the  housemaid  (significantly  named 
Broome)  whom  he  has  unconcernedly 
seduced.  In  Act  IV,  this  wife,  estranged 
by  Leonard's  indifference  to  their  child, 
runs  away  to  Canada  with  the  milkman. 
The  intervening  matter  is  as  mere  matter 
dramatically  pointless,  but  for  all  that, 
interest  is  penetrating.  The  marriage 
itself,  the  union  of  quicksilver  and  lead, 
with  its  comic  retribution  for  the  man 
and  its  indistinct  beatitude  for  the  girl, 
is  evocative  and  provocative  in  a  quite 
singular  degree.  The  means  by  which 
the  rupture  between  father  and  son  is 
brought  about  in  the  second  act  is  forced, 
almost  to  the  point  of  violence ;.  but  there 
is  the  happiest  combination  of  truth  and 
novelty  in  the  occasion  for  this  means, 
the  half-hour  adjournment  of  dinner,  just 
long  enough  to  put  a  razor-edge  on  every- 
body's nerves  and  everybody's  tongue. 

Leonard  Timbrell  is  the  centre  of  the 
play;  at  times  he  seems  both  centre  and 
circumference.  He  is  comic,  but  in  a 
play  that  means  something  a  comic  char- 
acter should  be  a  serious  enterprise  for 
his  creator.  In  this  sense  Mercutio  is 
serious  for  Shakespeare;  Harold  Skim- 
pole  (the  nearest  parallel  to  Leonard 
Timbrell)  is  serious  for  Dickens.  The 
diflSculty  with  Mr.  Monkhouse's  play,  for 
anybody  who  is  trying  to  respect  it,  is 
that  Leonard,  who  abounds  in  gay  an- 
tics, is  himself  nothing  but  a  gay  antic 
for  Mr.  Monkhou.se.  He  is  not  humanly 
real;  he  is  a  thread  on  which  wilfulness 
and  sauciness  are  mischievously  strung, 
and  that  the  question  between  modernity 
and  what  may  be  called  suburbanity  can 
be  seriously  raised  in  the  person  of  a 


man  who  is  at  bottom  mere  performer 
and  coxcomb  is  of  course  unthinkable. 
Mr.  Rudolph  Besier's  "Don"  is  the  se- 
rious antithesis  to  Mr.  Monkhouse's  pir- 
ouetting Leonard.  Self  in  youth  is  a 
powerful  intoxicant,  and  Leonard  Tim- 
brell has  drunk  deeply  of  that  vintage. 
One  particular  may  be  noted.  Leonard 
has  been  born  and  bred  in  his  father's 
house,  but  the  mutual  astonishment  be- 
tween himself  and  his  people  would  sug- 
gest that  he  had  been  born  and  bred  in 
Bagdad  and  had  arrived  in  London 
day  before  yesterday.  Mr.  Knoblock's 
"Faun,"  Sir  James  Barrie's  Lob,  could 
scarcely  be  less  acclimated. 

The  play  affects  a  seriousness  which 
it  does  not  possess,  and  its  teaching  is  in- 
determinate and  fluctuant.  The  author 
makes  points  for  or  against  Leonard  ac- 
cording to  convenience;  he  likes  Leonard 
on  the  whole,  but  he  likes  points  better. 
All  of  which  proves  that  there  is  a  great 
deal  of  Leonard  in  Mr.  Monkhouse.  At 
the  close  the  father  confesses  that  he 
has  been  a  fool.  Nothing  could  be  more 
inopportune  than  this  confession  as  a 
sequel  to  the  rap  on  the  knuckles  which 
Mr.  Monkhouse  himself  has  just  admin- 
istered to  Leonard  in  mild  reproof  of  his 
paternal  callousness.  Yet  the  author  of 
this  stupidity  is  capable  of  a  stroke  so 
excellent  and  so  touching  as  poor  Mary's 
simple-minded  outcry  in  the  first  act: 
"I  want  to  marry  somebody." 

The  performance  was  remarkably  good. 
Miss  Helen  Curry  as  Mary  Broome  was 
perfect.  This  may  or  not  mean  a  voca- 
tion for  Miss  Curry.  The  technical,  the 
vocal,  requirements  of  the  part  were  in- 
considerable, and  the  exquisite  Tightness 
of  key  which  constituted  its  beauty  might 
have  been,  so  to  speak,  inscribed  upon  the 
part  by  a  discerning  instructor.  Mr.  S. 
Bennet  Tobias  as  Leonard  Timbrell  was 
hardly  less  perfect  and  was  much  more 
demonstrably  able.  He  acted  Leonard 
with  what  might  be  called  an  exasperat- 
ing charm,  and  the  dregs  of  the  charac- 
ter, while  visible  enough  at  the  bottom, 
did  not  trouble  the  pellucid  surface.  He 
could  not  actualize  the  character  (the 
character  itself  being  a  sort  of  forgery), 
but  he  justified — he  authenticated — the 
temperament.  The  praise  for  that  vic- 
tory should  be  ample. 

The  double  bill  at  the  Theatre  Parisien 
opens  with  a  two-act  play  by  Pierre  Wolff 
and  Georges  Courteline,  entitled  "La 
Cruche,"  here  used  in  the  sense  of  dunce 
or  dullard.  A  girl  finds  refuge  from  a 
brutal  lover  in  the  protection  of  a  second 
man,  whose  chivalry  is  unpresuming. 
The  first  man  wins  her  back  by  an  offer 
of  marriage.  The  narrative  is  mild  al- 
most to  placidity,  and  even  the  fourth 
character,  a  jealous  woman,  does  not 
greatly  disturb  the  equanimity  of  its 
temper.  I  might  not  have  minded  the 
dearth  of  plot  in  a  more  serious  play, 
but  "La  Cruche"  is  very  light,  and  I  own 


to  some  hesitancy  about  plays  that  are 
plotless  and  thoughtless  at  the  same  time. 
Still,  I  followed  the  drama  with  pleasure, 
and  allowed  duly  for  the  difference  be- 
tween French  and  English  taste  in  the 
matter  in  question.  The  French  are 
noted  for  address.  It  follows  that  they 
can  interest  themselves  keenly  in  the 
"How"  of  things,  even  in  the  "How"  of 
a  not  markedly  exciting  or  unusual  trans- 
action. The  Anglo-Saxon  does  not  dally 
with  the  "How";  he  darts  unceremo- 
niously to  the  "What."  If  there  is  no 
"What,"  but  only  a  "How,"  as  in  "La 
Cruche,"  he  feels  unfed,  and  an  unfed 
Anglo-Saxon  is  a  person  to  be  reckoned 
with. 

Not  the  least  interesting  point  in  the 
play  for  an  American  was  the  entire  ab- 
sence on  everybody's  part  of  any  sense 
of  peculiarity  or  disadvantage  in  the 
original  position  of  the  girl,  Margot. 
True,  she  is  married  in  the  end,  but  this 
is  not  rehabilitation,  it  is  promotion.  A 
major  accepts  a  colonelcy  without  preju- 
dice to  the  respectability  of  majors.  The 
situations  and  conversation  are  seemly, 
and  Margot  is  refined.  The  French  can 
not  make  impurity  pure,  but  they  can 
make  it  as  limpid  as  purity. 

M.  Felix  Barre  was  excellent  in  his 
finely  shaded  portrayal  of  the  painter, 
Lavernie;  Mile.  Grattery  made  an  agree- 
able Margot;  M.  Lucien  Weber  retrieved 
by  skill  in  the  second  act  part  of  the 
credit  which  he  had  buzzed  and  sputtered 
away  in  Act  I.  The  operetta,  "La  Mu- 
sique  Adoucit  les  Coeurs,"  supplied  pre- 
cisely the  form  of  lightness  which  might 
have  been  expected  in  a  programme  in 
which  the  element  of  weight  was  repre- 
sented by  "La  Cruche." 

0.  W.  Firkins 

Massenet's  Memories 
and  Music 

My  Recollections.     By  Jules  Massenet.    Bos- 
ton :    Small,  Maynard  &  Company. 

TO  those  who  have  not  read  them  in 
the  original,  the  reminiscences  of 
Massenet  now  published  in  near-English 
form,  under  the  title  of  "My  Recollec- 
tions," will  have  something — a  great  deal, 
maybe — of  the  unquestioned  charm  which 
marked  so  much  of  the  composer's  gra- 
cious music.  But  no  one  should  approach 
these  careless  jottings  over-seriously  or 
hoping  to  find  in  them  lofty  theories  or 
daring  thoughts. 

Jules  Massenet.  He  hated  his  own  fore- 
name. He  was  a  man  of  moods,  caprices, 
fads,  and  whims — a  "fantastick,"  if  there 
was  one  in  the  world.  He  signed  just 
"Massenet,"  or  sometimes  "Mr.  Mas- 
senet," like  an  Englishman.  At  the  end 
of  his  career  he  seemed  too  erratic  to 
be  wholly  sane.  The  last  chapter  of  his 
(Continued  on  page  20) 


January  3,  1920] 


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(.Continued  from  page  18) 
memoirs  bears  the  heading  of  "Thoughts 
after  Death."  It  was  penned  (unless  the 
writer  is  a  dishonest  ghost)  from  a  dis- 
tant planet,  where  "there  are  no  news- 
papers, no  dinners,  no  sleepless  nights." 
Like  Swedenborg  (if  we  may  trust  that 
chapter)  Massenet  sat  in  at  his  own 
funeral.  Incidentally  he  declares  he 
heard  the  loud  sobbing  of  his  wife  and 
daughter;  the  lamentations  of  an  artist 
(perhaps  Lucy  Arbell)  exclaiming,  "Ah, 
believe  me,  I  loved  him  well.  I  have  al- 
ways had  such  great  success  in  his 
works !"  And,  as  they  bore  him  farther 
and  farther  from  the  Boulevards,  towards 
Egreville,  his  last  earthly  halting  place, 
he  knew  quite  well  that,  by  his  friends, 
he  would  be  forgotten. 

Throughout  his  life  he  had  had  many 
enemies.  Some  of  them  rivals  who  were 
jealous  of  his  vogue.  Some  of  them 
critics  who  affected  to  despise  his  work. 
He  had  been  jeered  at  and  lampooned 
time  and  again,  as  "Mademoiselle  Wag- 
ner," and  even,  I  have  heard,  as  "Marie 
Madeleine."  It  was  long  the  fashion 
among  those  who  worshipped  Wagner  to 
make  light  of  the  voluptuous  and  tender- 
ness of  Massenet's  style.  The  more  he 
protested  that  he  also  was  a  Wagnerite 
— and  a  devotee  besides  of  Berlioz — the 
more  they  mocked  at  him.  It  mattered 
little  to  the  fortunate  composer  who, 
from  his  entrance  at  the  Conservatoire 
of  Paris  to  his  death,  only  a  few  years 
ago,  was  the  spoiled  child  of  men — and 
women,  the  inventor  of  more  operas  and 
cantatas  and  song  cycles  and  tone  poems, 
than  any  who  envied  him. 

In  point  of  fact,  though  he  owed  much 
to  Wagner,  Jules  Massenet  was  not  of 
the  great  line  of  that  creator  of  music- 
drama.  He  would  have  resented  being 
reminded  of  the  truth.  But  he  was  closer 
far  to  Schumann  and  to  Gounod.  He 
had  the  sweetness  of  the  composer  of 
"Faust"  and  "Romeo"  and  "Mireille," 
with  the  romantic  grace  of  the  great 
German.  When  he  strained  his  talent 
(as  he  sometimes  did)  he  was  as  "grand" 
at  best  as  Meyerbeer.  But  he  delighted 
most  when  he  was  natural — devising  deli- 
cate and  often  exquisite  "Poemes,"  pic- 
turesque tone-poems,  and  graceful  operas. 

Not  all  the  sneering  of  the  Wagner- 
ites  can  spoil  the  tenderness  of  Mas- 
senet's "Werther,"  the  frail  beauty  of 
his  "Manon,"  the  charm  of  his  "Jongleur 
de  Notre-Dame,"  and  his  cantata, 
"Marie-Madeleine."  He  wrote  rubbish 
now  and  then — he  wrote  too  quickly. 
But  he  was  always  a  sincere  and  fine 
technician.  He  had  the  gift  of  melody 
and  great  mastery  of  harmony. 

He  was  as  it  were  a  link,  and  a  beguil- 
ing link,  between  Gounod  and  d'Indy, 
without  the  strength  of  the  last-named 
composer.  It  might  be  going  a  good  deal 
too  far  to  speak  of  him  as  a  genius.  Yet 
Gounod,  after  listening  to  his  cantata. 


"Eve,"  said  of  him  that  he  was  one  of 
the  "Elect"  of  heaven. 

It  was  to  Massenet  that  the  late  Oscar 
Hammerstein  turned  most  frequently 
when  he  was  looking  for  some  popular 
attraction  at  the  Manhattan  Opera 
House.  He  produced  "Herodiade," 
"Thais,"  "Griselidis,"  "Le  Jongleur"  and 
other  works,  which  proved  successful 
here  as  they  had  been  in  Paris.  But  the 
composer  never  crossed  the  Atlantic  seas, 
and  more  than  once  refused  the  offers 
made  him  to  direct  some  of  his  operas 
and  concert  works. 

Concerning  his  successes  and  his  fail- 
ures he  has  set  down  many  anecdotes  in 
"My  Recollections"  and  about  the  com- 
posers, singers,  and  managers  of  his 
time — from  Auber  to  Ambroise  Thomas, 
Liszt,  Delibes,  Gounod,  Bizet,  Berlioz, 
Duvernoy,  Carre,  Reyer,  Saint-Saens, 
Halanzier,  and  the  rest  of  his  contempo- 
raries. 

As  a  writer,  Massenet  has  but  little 
style,  and  what  little  he  can  boast  of  has 
been  shattered  by  his  translator,  H.  Vil- 
liers  Barnett,  who  is  said  to  have  been 
chosen  by  the  master  himself.  But,  as 
a  chronicle  and  record  of  the  musicians 
of  his  time,  these  recollections  have  their 
proper  place  and  value — despite  omis- 
sions, and  singular  inaccuracies  which 
distress  the  reader  in  Mr.  Barnett's  Eng- 
lish version. 

Charles  Henry  Meltzer 

Books  and  the  News 


The  Negro 


THERE  have  been  certain  recent  indi- 
cations that  this  perennial  problem 
may  at  any  time  again  become  acute. 
There  are  a  score  and  over  of  useful 
books,  by  white  people,  South  and  North, 
and  by  Negroes,  which  illuminate  the 
problem,  even  when  they  do  not  try  to 
solve  it. 

Benjamin  G.  Brawley's  "Short  History 
of  the  American  Negro"  (Macmillan, 
1913),  Booker  Washington's  "Story  of 
the  Negro"  (Doubleday,  1909),  and 
George  S.  Merriam's  "The  Negro  and  the 
Nation"  (Holt,  1906)  should  serve  for 
historical  information,  while  "The  Negro 
Year  Book"  (Negro  Year  Book  Pub.  Co.) 
is  a  reference  book  on  negro  activities. 

Two  admirable  books  by  Southern 
writers  are  Thomas  Nelson  Page's  "The 
Negro:  the  Southerner's  Problem" 
(Scribner,  1904),  and  Mrs.  L.  H.  Ham- 
mond's "In  Black  and  White"  (Revell, 
1914).  From  a  South  African  point  of 
view  is  Maurice  S.  Evans's  "Black  and 
White  in  the  Southern  States"  (Long- 
mans, 1915).  One  should  not  fail  to  see 
W.  E.  B.  Du  Bois's  "The  Souls  of  Black 
Folk"  (McClurg),  his  "The  Negro" 
(Holt,  1915),  Booker  Washington's  "The 
Future  of  the  American  Negro"  (Small, 


Maynard,  1900),  and  Kelly  Miller's  "An 
Appeal  to  Conscience"  (Macmillan,  1918). 
Similar  in  their  nature  are  Benjamin 
Brawley's  "Your  Negro  Neighbor"  (Mac- 
millan, 1918),  and  his  "The  Negro  in 
Literature  and  Art  in  the  United  States" 
(Duffleld,  1918). 

Professor  A.  B.  Hart's  valuable  study 
is  called  "The  Southern  South"  (Apple- 
ton,  1910).  The  problem  is  directly 
tackled  in  William  P.  Pickett's  "The  Ne- 
gro Problem"  (Putnam,  1909),  Edward 
Eggleston's  "The  Ultimate  Solution  of 
the  American  Negro  Problem"  (Badger, 
1913),  William  H.  Thomas's  "The  Ameri- 
can Negro"  (Macmillan,  1901),  and  John 
M.  Mecklin's  "Democracy  and  Race  Fric- 
tion; a  Study  in  Social  Ethics"  (Mac- 
millan, 1914).  A  legal  work,  perhaps 
more  useful  for  reference  than  for  con- 
tinued reading,  is  Gilbert  T.  Stephenson's 
"Race  Distinctions  in  American  Law" 
(Appleton,  1910).  William  J.  Edwards, 
in  "Twenty-Five  Years  in  the  Black 
Belt"  (Comhill  Co.,  1919),  describes  the 
Southern  Negro,  and  Mary  W.  Ovington's 
"Half  a  Man"  (Longmans,  1911)  treats 
the  status  of  the  Negro  in  New  York. 

W.  H.  Collins  is  the  author  of  "The 
Truth  About  Lynching  and  the  Negro 
in  the  South"  (Neale,  1918),  which  he 
describes  as  a  plea  "that  the  South  be 
made  safe  for  the  white  race."  The  au- 
thoritative work  on  lynching  is  James  E. 
Cutler's  "Lynch  Law"  (Longmans,  1905). 
Edmund  Lester  Pearson 

Books  Received 

FICTION 

Johnston,  Mary.  Michael  Forth.  Har- 
per.    $1.75  net. 

Ostrander,  Isabel.  Ashes  to  Ashes.  Mc- 
Bride.     $1.65  net. 

BIOGRAPHY  AND  HISTORY 

Barton,  George.  Celebrated  Spies  and 
Famous  Mysteries  of  the  Great  War.  Bos- 
ton:   Page.    $2    net. 

Glenconner,  Pamela.  Edward  Wyndham 
Tennant:    A  Memoir.    Lane.     $5  net. 

Palmer,  Frederick.  Our  Greatest  Battle. 
Dodd,  Mead.     $2.50. 

Von  Tirpitz,  Admiral.  My  Memoirs.  2 
volumes.    Dodd,  Mead.    $7.50. 

ESSAYS   AND    CRITICISM 
Holliday,  R.  C.     Broome  Street  Straws. 
Doran. 

Holliday,  R.  C.     Peeps  at  People.  Doran. 

GIFT  BOOKS 

Gibbons,  H.  D.    Paris  Vistas.  Century. 

GOVERNMENT  AND  ECONOMICS 

Clark,  N.  M.  Common  Sense  in  Labor 
Management.     Harper.     $4  net. 

Hollander,  J.  H.  American  Citizenship 
and  Economic  Welfare.  Johns  Hopkins 
Press.     $1.25. 

MISCELLANEOUS 

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$2  net. 

Derby,  Richard.  "Wade  in  Sanitary!" 
The  Story  of  a  Division  Surgeon  in  France. 
Putnam, 


THE  REVIEW 


•xt 


Vol.  2,  No.  35 


New  York,  Saturday,  January  10,  1920 


FIFTEEN  CENTS 


Contents 


Brief  Comment 

Editorial  Ariicles: 

The  Raid  on  the  Reds 

The  "Nation"  Will  Say 

Forgotten  Derelicts  of  the  War 
The  Case  of  Johns  Hopkins 
The  Problem  of  Russia 
The  Outlook  in  Europe 


22 

23 

24 

24 

25 
26 


Life  or  Death  For  the  Railroads?     By 

Thomas  F.  Woodlock  28 

Washington  Gossip  29 

The  Jazz  Journals.     By  W.  J.  Ghent         30 

Correspondence  32 

Book  Reviews: 

At  the  Front  in  Poetry  33 

An  Old  Republican  34 

Two  "Latest  Efforts"  36 

Business — and  Aristotle  36 

The  Run  of  the  Shelves  37 

Drama: 

On  the  London  Stage.  By  William 

Archer  38 

Books  and  the   News:     Profit-Sharing. 

By  Edmund  Lester  Pearson  40 

TT  may  be  invidious  to  single  out  Mr. 
Sherwood,  Democrat,  of  Ohio,  as 
conspicuously  silly,  in  a  Congress 
which  abounds  in  silliness ;  but  that  i^ 
the  natural  consequence  of  his  remark 
on  the  resolution  to  recognize  a  de 
facto  government  in  Ireland  happen- 
ing to  be  printed  conspicuously  in  the 
news  dispatches.  "This  resolution,  if 
adopted,  need  not  necessarily  disturb 
our  friendly  relations  with  Great 
Britain,"  such  is  Mr.  Sherwood's  sage 
opinion.  And  indeed  he  may  be 
right;  but  if  so,  it  is  for  the  reason 
that  Congressional  "resoluting"  on 
foreign  affairs — so  long  as  the  resolu- 
tion does  not  get  to  the  point  of 
Presidential  approval — has  come  to 
be  set  down,  not  only  at  home  but 
abroad,  as  pure  buncombe.  But  it  is 
cold  comfort  for  an  American  to 
think  that,  in  a  time  so  fraught  with 
momentous  issues,  he  must  feel  that 
these  fantastic  tricks  indulged  in  by 
the  national  legislature  are  rendered 
harmless  only  by  being  ridiculous. 


TfTHILE  the  nomination  campaign 
on  the  Democratic  side  has  not 
yet  even  begun  to  take  shape,  there 
is  at  least  one  candidacy  on  the  Re- 
publican side  which  is  rapidly  ap- 
proaching the  stage  of  thorough  or- 
ganization. Every  turn,  therefore,  in 
the  movement  in  behalf  of  General 
Wood  is  of  keen  public  interest.  Col. 
Edward  B.  Clark,  a  close  personal  and 
political  friend  who  expects  to  take  a 
prominent  part  in  the  management 
of  his  campaign  in  the  Middle  West, 
throws  doubt  on  the  recent  report 
that  General  Wood  intends  soon  to 
resign  his  commission.  Colonel  Clark 
says: 

I  suppose  he  will  be  governed  by  circum- 
stances. There  is  nothing  in  law,  tradition, 
precedent,  or  public  sentiment  to  require  that 
he  should  hand  in  his  resignation.  The  cases 
of  Zachary  Taylor,  Winfield  Scott,  George  B. 
McClellan,  U.  S.  Grant,  and  Winfield  S. 
Hancock  furnish  five  distinct  precedents  where 
the  candidates  were  army  officers  and  remained 
in  the  army  all  through  the  campaign. 

But  it  can  not  be  too  strongly  insisted 
that  the  demands  of  the  present  time 
are  wholly  different  from  those  of  the 
bygone  days  here  referred  to.  Even 
as  to  those  times,  it  is  worth  while  to 
remark,  for  example,  that  the  figure 
which  General  Hancock  cut  in  rela- 
tion to  the  comparatively  simple  issue 
of  the  tariff  is  a  memory  to  be  con- 
jured up  for  warning  rather  than  for 
example.  But  to-day  we  are  con- 
fronted not  only  with  a  ma§s  of  prob- 
lems novel  in  character  and  stupen- 
dous in  importance,  but  also  with  the 
outstanding  fact  of  profound  doubt 
and  division  concerning  them  within 
each  of  the  two  great  parties.  In  this 
situation  personal  qualities,  however 
desirable,  are  far  from  constituting  a 
sufficient  basis  for  the  acceptance  of 
any  man  as  the  leader  of  his  party 
in  the  approaching  campaign.  All 
signs  point  to  its  being,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  the  campaign  of  1860,  the 
most  important  and  critical  Presiden- 
tial contest  since  the  formation  of 
the  Union.    There  is  not  much  time 


to  spare,  between  now  and  the  meet- 
ing of  the  Republican  National  Con- 
vention, for  a  fair  exhibit  of  the 
temper  and  position  of  a  man  whose 
career,  like  that  of  General  Wood,  has 
lain  outside  the  main  currents  of 
politics.  Let  us  hope  that  he  will  come 
out  in  the  open  in  ample  time  for  the 
formation  of  a  sound  judgment  upon 
his  title  to  the  nomination. 

pONGRESSMAN-ELECT  Berger, 
^  who  is  bearing  the  red  banner  to 
Congress  or  to  jail — he  does  not  seem 
to  regard  the  distinction  as  impor- 
tant,— has  paused  in  New  York  long 
enough  to  say: 

I  opposed  the  war,  because  I  said  it  was  a 
commercial  war.  What  did  we  get  out  of  it? 
A  Constitution  on  the  way  to  becoming  a 
"scrap  of  paper,"  the  "flu,"  prohibition,  the 
high  cost  of  living,  and  government  by  in- 
junction. 

One  could  conclude  that,  as  a  com- 
mercial venture,  the  war  was  suffi- 
ciently a  failure  to  reconcile  even  Mr. 
Berger  to  it. 

fyHE  following  gem  of  misinforma- 
tion  is  from  the  New  Republic: 

Semenov  is  a  flashy  brigand,  vastly  inferior 
in  ability  and  infinitely  more  brutal  and  un- 
principled than  Pancho  Villa.  With  a  cos- 
mopolitan band  of  a  few  hundreds  of  cut- 
throats, Semenov  has  managed  to  pick  a  living 
out  of  the  ill-defended  settlements  around 
Lake  Baikal.    That  is  all  he  amounts  to. 

Without  attempting  a  brief  for  Seme- 
nov or  a  defense  of  all  of  his  acts,  it 
is  only  fair  to  say  that  for  many 
months  he  carried  on,  almost  alone, 
a  patriotic  struggle  against  the  Bol- 
sheviks of  Siberia,  with  a  little  army 
of  which  more  than  one-half  were 
Russian  officers  serving  as  privates. 
That  he  did  not  "pick  a  living  out  of 
the  ill-defended  settlements  around 
Lake  Baikal"  is  evident  from  the  fact 
that  he  has  not  been  in  that  neighbor- 
hood and  his  headquarters  is  several 
hundred  miles  from  it.  In  spite  of 
his  friction  with  the  Siberian  Gov- 
ernment and  with  the  American  Ex- 
peditionary Forces,  it  is  just  to  record 


22] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  35 


that  Semenov  was  chosen  Ataman  by 
the  Baikal  Cossacks  and  is  a  military 
leader  of  undoubted  ability. 

COUNT  Tolstoy  has  been  called  the 
spiritual  father  of  Bolshevism. 
But  for  his  teachings  the  Russian  peo- 
ple would  not  so  readily  have  accepted 
Lenin  and  Trotsky  as  its  saviors.  If 
this  is  true,  the  child  is  an  ungrateful 
monster.  What  it  owes  to  the  father 
it  repays  to  his  daughter,  the  Count- 
ess Alexandra  Lvovna  Tolstoy,  with 
persecution  and  imprisonment.  She 
is  charged  with  plotting  against  the 
Soviet  Government.  If  she  is  guilty 
of  that  crime,  it  only  proves  that 
there  can  be  little  left  of  her  father's 
teachings  in.  the  practice  of  the  Mos- 
cow dictatorship. 

IRISH  leaders  are  seldom  conspicu- 
ous for  moderation.  Their  emo- 
tional temperament  unfits  them  for 
the  quiet  consideration  of  their  op- 
ponents' views.  Colonel  Lynch  is  an 
exception  to  the  rule.  It  is  a  pleasure 
to  draw  attention  to  his  strong  dis- 
avowal of  the  Sinn  Fein  movement, 
which,  he  declared,  was  doomed  to 
failure  because  of  its  exclusive  reli- 
ance on  violence,  and  because  of  its 
religious  intolerance.  If  Irish  free- 
dom is  what  Sinn  Fein  is  striving  for, 
it  should  not  be  made  a  Roman  Cath- 
olic issue.  Colonel  Lynch  has  the 
fullest  right  to  speak  as  he  did. 
Though  himself  a  Roman  Catholic,  he 
fought  with  the  Calvinist  Boers 
against  Great  Britain,  realizing  that 
a  people's  claim  to  autonomy  is  not 
qualified  by  its  religious  creed.  "We 
disparage  our  cause  by  bigotry  and 
religious  fanaticism.  Take  out  the 
religious  element,  and  we  have  gone 
far  to  solve  the  problem."  The  Sinn 
Fein  leaders  might  well  take  the  les- 
son to  heart.  They  will  never  gain 
political  freedom  for  their  following 
at  the  cost  of  religious  freedom  for 
their  Protestant  compatriots. 

A  SUMMARY  of  industrial  condi- 
-^  tions  in  Belgium,  recently  given 
out  by  the  Guaranty  Trust  Company, 
is  highly  encouraging.  Belgian  coal 
production  has  now  reached  nearly 
ninety  per  cent,  of  the  rate  of  output 
for  1913,  and  the  coal  export  has 


served  appreciably  to  strengthen  Bel- 
gian exchange.  Receipts  from  both 
freight  and  passenger  traffic  on  Bel- 
gian railroads  for  thie  first  nine 
months  of  1919  exceed  the  fig- 
ures for  1913,  but  this  does  not  indi- 
cate an  actual  increase  in  business 
done,  as  both  passenger  and  freight 
tariffs  are  about  double  the  1913  level. 
Labor  conditions  have  been  rather 
better  in  Belgium  than  elsewhere,  as 
only  42,000  workers  were  involved 
in  strikes  during  the  first  six  months 
of  the  year,  for  which  alone  figures 
are  available.  Of  194  strikes,  108 
were  compromised  by  arbitration. 
Twenty-nine  ended  in  straight  victory 
for  the  workmen,  thirty-seven  for  the 
employers.  A  fifty-million-poundloan 
to  the  Belgian  Government  by  London 
capitalists  proves  that  British  finance 
holds  a  high  opinion  of  Belgian  stabil- 
ity. From  January  to  September  in- 
clusive, the  purchase  of  American 
goods  amounted  to  an  average  of  $37 
for  every  Belgian. 

'T'HE  •  week  beginning  January  17 
•■-  (Poor  Richard's  birthday)  is  to 
be  National  Thrift  Week.  Not  a  few 
of  us,  perhaps,  are  inclined  to  think 
that  we  may  as  well  make  up  our 
minds  this  year  to  about  fifty-two 
such  weeks.  But  we  have  only  to 
open  our  eyes  in  the  street  to  see  that 
there  are  multitudes  who  have  more, 
"more  than  they  ever  dreamed  of," 
and  spend  it  as  fast  as  they  get  it. 
If  things  are  high  now,  they  say, 
never  mind;  get  them  while  the  get- 
ting is  good ;  they'll  be  higher  by  and 
by.  Most  assuredly  they  will,  unless 
some  considerable  number  of  people 
who  have  the  money  in  hand  to  buy 
them  with  are  willing  to  forego  furs 
and  jewels  and  silk  shirts,  or  what- 
ever according  to  their  scale  of  living 
may  be  conveniently  symbolized  by 
these  things.  What  the  cheap  dollar 
buys  now  of  this  sort  of  merchandise 
will  not  be  worth  much  by  and  by. 
Louis  XV  spoke  of  a  deluge.  This 
side  of  a  deluge,  which  very  likely 
won't  come,  there  may  be  a  highly  un- 
comfortable succession  of  rainy  days. 
When  they  come,  the  cheap  dollar 
that  has  been  prudently  laid  aside 
will  bring  returns  that  are  worth 
waiting  for. 


The  Raid  on  the  Reds 

T^HE  sudden  descent  of  the  Depart-  J 
■*■  ment  of  Justice  on  thousands  of 
members  of  the  Communist  and  Com- 
munist Labor  parties  has  been  re- 
ceived with  enthusiastic  applause  in 
some  quarters,  and  with  gloomy  mis- 
giving in  other  quarters  equally  en- 
titled to  respect.  For  ourselves,  we 
are  frank  to  say  that  we  find  it  im- 
possible to  estimate  the  merits  of  the 
case.  Until  the  Government  places 
before  the  public  a  coherent  and  com- 
prehensive statement  of  the  nature 
of  its  own  proceedings,  it  is  impos- 
sible to  form  a  trustworthy  judgment. 
Up  to  the  present  time,  rumors  which 
it  is  difficult  to  trace  to  any  authorita- 
tive source,  and  scraps  of  information 
or  stray  expressions  of  feeling  coming 
from  one  official  or  another,  are  all 
that  we  have  to  go  upon. 

This  in  itself  is  a  defect  whose  seri- 
ousness it  would  be  difficult  to  over- 
state. Right  or  wrong,  judicious  or 
ill-advised,  the  result  of  careful 
thought  or  of  spectacular  zeal — 
whichever  of  these  designations  fits 
the  case,  certain  it  is  that  what  we 
are  witnessing  is  a  novel  and  extraor- 
dinary proceeding.  It  is  not  right 
that  the  country  should  look  on  agape, 
making  all  sorts  of  wild  guesses  as  to 
what  it  actually  is  and  wbat  it  means. 
Under  what  provisions  of  what 
statutes  is  the  Government  acting? 
To  what  extent,  if  at  all,  are  the  ar- 
rests being  made  on  the  ground  that 
we  are  still  formally  in  a  state  of 
war?  Are  the  persons  arrested  en- 
gaged in  actual  conspiracies,  and,  if 
so,  what  is  the  nature  of  these  con- 
spiracies? Is  the  Government  seek- 
ing to  catch  in  its  net  all  aliens  who 
entertain  revolutionary  opinions,  or 
only  those  who  are  connected  with 
agitations  directed  toward  immediate 
action?  Without  disclosing  any  ad- 
ministrative secrets  necessary  for  the 
successful  prosecution  of  its  work,  the 
Department  of  Justice  could  give  the 
American  people  adequate  informa- 
tion on  these  points.  And  not  only 
have  the  people  a  right  to  demand 
this  information,  but  in  the  absence 
of  it  the  harm  that  will  be  done  by 
unsettlement  of  the  public  mind,  and 
misinterpretation    of    the     Govern- 


January  10,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[23 


merit's  policy,  will  far  outweigh  the 
good  that  may  be  accomplished  by 
any  deportations  or  punishments 
which  may  result  from  the  raid. 

The  misgiving  which,  in  the  ab- 
sence of  a  clear  understanding,  the 
situation  naturally  arouses  is  accentu- 
ated by  a  statement  which  Attorney- 
General  Palmer  has  taken  occasion  to 
issue  in  relation  to  his  proposed  law 
against  "sedition."  Such  a  law  is 
necessary,  he  says,  "in  order  that  the 
Department  of  Justice  may  deal 
forcibly,  effectively,  and  quickly  with 
seditionists  who  are  American  citi- 
zens, but  who  are  seeking  to  injure 
or  destroy  the  Government."  He  as- 
serts that  "the  country's  response  to 
the  introduction  of  this  measure 
leaves  no  excuse  for  a  single  moment's 
unnecessary  delay  in  the  passage  of 
it."  This  would  be  absurd,  even  if 
"the  country's  response"  had  been  ten 
times  as  widespread  and  ten  times  as 
emphatic  as  there  is  any  evidence  of 
its  actually  having  been.  If  there  is 
any  measure  upon  which  the  mature 
and  conscientious  judgment  of  re- 
sponsible legislators  is  absolutely 
essential  it  is  a  measure  directed 
against  "sedition."  The  popular  im- 
pulse to  get  rid  of  what  is  offensive 
to  popular  feeling  can  not  be  accepted 
as  a  guide  in  such  a  matter.  It  must 
be  threshed  out  in  full  and  free  de- 
bate; and  upon  those  members  of 
Congress  whose  intelligence,  knowl- 
edge of  history,  and  grasp  on  funda- 
mental maxims  of  legislation  enable 
them  to  judge  of  the  actual,  and  not 
the  desired,  effect  of  such  a  measure 
rests  the  solemn  responsibility  of 
opposing  it  to  the  utmost  of  their 
power  if  they  regard  it  as  mischie- 
vous. The  burden  of  proof — first, 
that  any  measure  of  the  kind  is 
necessary,  and,  secondly  that  the  par- 
ticular measure  is  a  good  one — rests 
heavily  upon  its  advocates. 

We  trust  that,  when  the  facts  are 
fully  known,  it  will  turn  out  that  the 
Government  has  acted  well  in  making 
the  arrests.  If  it  has  not  taken  ad- 
vantage of  the  technicality  of  a  state 
of  war,  if  it  contemplates  only  the 
deportation  of  aliens  who  upon  a  rea- 
sonable interpretation  of  our  laws 
come  clearly  within  their  inhibitions, 
if  it  is  not  aiming  to  produce  a  state 


of  vague  terror  among  all  persons 
who  hold  radical  opinions,  then  what 
it  is  doing  is  not  only  justifiable,  but 
necessary  and  salutary.  The  notion 
that  a  country  is  in  duty  bound  to 
admit  or  retain  aliens  who  seek  to 
subvert  its  institutions  is  a  grotesque 
perversion  of  the  idea  of  the  right 
of  asylum.  Of  the  merits  of  an  in- 
surrection, or  even  a  conspiracy, 
directed  against  a  foreign  govern- 
ment, we  are  not  required  to  judge; 
but  when  a  foreigner  comes  over  to 
plot  against  our  own  government  or 
institutions,  it  is  our  business  to  look 
into  the  matter,  and  it  is  our  right 
and  our  duty  to  keep  him  out  or  put 
him  out,  if  we  think  his  presence 
sufficiently  detrimental  to  make  it 
worth  while. 

The  idea  that  nothing  short 
of  imminent  peril  to  the  nation  can 
justify  such  exclusion  or  expulsion 
has  no  basis  either  in  principle  or  in 
the  practice  of  liberal  governments. 
Moreover,  in  our  own  country  the 
question  is  of  dimensions  never  ap- 
proached in  any  of  the  older  civilized 
nations.  With  a  large  proportion  of 
our  population  consisting  of  recent 
immigrants  or  their  children,  the 
character  of  this  immigration,  and 
the  way  in  which  that  character  may 
be  affected  by  the  infusion  of  even  a 
few  thousand  active  and  determined 
agitators,  is  a  matter  of  vital  impor- 
tance to  our  national  well-being.  A 
great  deal  is  said  in  radical  quarters, 
and  in  some  quarters  that  are  not 
radical,  of  the  wave  of  hysteria  that 
is  alleged  to  be  sweeping  over  the 
country.  A  certain  amount  of  hys- 
teria there  undoubtedly  is,  but  the 
amount  of  it  is  grossly  exaggerated 
in  the  imagination  of  the  radicals. 
Very  few  people  aire  afraid  that  the 
country  may  go  to  pieces  to-morrow ; 
but  a  great  many  people  think  that 
alien  plotters  should  be  got  rid  of, 
even  if  their  capacity  for  mischief 
falls  infinitely  short  of  fatal  danger 
to  the  country.  In  fact,  the  radicals' 
outcry  over  hysteria  is  itself  about 
the  clearest  case  of  hysteria  in  sight. 

There  are  two  things  which  the 
situation  urgently  demands — first,  a 
clear  statement  of  the  Government's 
position  and  policy,  and  secondly, 
such  a  shaping  of  that  policy  as  will 


yield  a  maximum  of  direct  good  with 
a  minimum  of  accompanying  evil. 
What  is  wanted  is  swift  and  effective 
treatment  of  cases  which  everybody 
will  recognize  as  serious,  together 
with  a  prompt  and  generous  freeing 
of  all  others  from  distress  or  terror. 
Above  all,  it  should,  as  far  as  possible, 
be  made  plain  that  it  is  not  the  dis- 
semination of  objectionable  opinions 
in  lawful  ways  that  the  Government 
seeks  to  suppress ;  that  the  traditional 
rights  of  free  speech,  as  understood 
in  our  country  and  in  England,  are 
to  be  respected;  that  such  repression 
as  does  take  place  is  entered  upon 
from  a  sober  sense  of  duty  and  in  no 
spirit  of  sensationalism,  and  is  car- 
ried out  in  strict  accordance  with  a 
reasonable  view  of  the  law.  Unless 
this  spirit  is  made  manifest,  the  bene- 
fits of  the  move  will  be  more  than 
counterbalanced  by  the  resentment 
aroused  in  millions  of  breasts  over 
methods  which  a  free  people  can  rot 
but  regard  as  fraught  with  danger  to 
their  liberties. 

The  "Nation"  Will 
Say— 

rpHROUGH  the  kind  offices  of  .    i 
•'■    Oliver  Lodge  we  have  been  r 
in  possession  of  what  the  Nation     . 
a  forthcoming  issue,  will  say : 

"The  naturally  timid,  and  for  the 
moment  thoroughly  frightened,  offi- 
cials who  are  busily  weaving  the  last 
poor  shreds  of  democracy  into-  a 
gravecloth  for  themselves  and  the 
system  they  so  pitifully  represent, 
have  been  stampeded  by  the  clamors 
of  the  capitalistic  and  jingoistic  press 
into  the  very  sort  of  'direct  action' 
which  they  profess  so  much  ta 
deplore.  Could  anything  be  better  cal- 
culated to  hasten  the  coming  revolu- 
tion than  this  last  bit  of  melodra- 
matic emulation  of  the  methods 
employed  by  the  police  of  the  late  la- 
mented Czar?  Since  there  is  no  plot 
against  democratic  government  in 
America ;  since,  in  short,  there  is  no 
democratic  government  left  to  plot 
against,  it  is  necessary  to  invent  a 
plot.  A  Saint  Bartholomew's  Eve, 
spectacularly  staged  throughout  the 
country,  is  the  lamentable  result. 


24] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  35 


"We  hold  no  brief  for  the  Commu- 
nist party  or  the  Communist  Labor 
party.  If  their  members  engage  in 
violence  they  may  be  curbed  by  due 
process  of  law.  But  the  mere  advo- 
cacy of  violence,  or  the  violent  ad- 
vocacy of  anything  (they  amount  to 
the  same  thing),  does  not  warrant 
equally  violent  and  far  less  excusable 
suppression.  It  is  only  in  an  atmos- 
phere of  revolution  that  those  gen- 
erous impulses,  that  passionate  dedi- 
cation to  justice,  that  clear-eyed 
scrutiny  of  ideas,  as  a  result  of 
which  the  world  of  to-morrow  is 
born,  can  generate  themselves.  But 
fortunately  you  can  not  kill  an  aspira- 
tion by  deporting  helpless  foreigners. 
The  celestial  radiance  of  which  these 
have  caught  a  glimpse  will  shine  more 
brightly  than  ever  in  the  faces  of  the 
spiritual  brethren  whom  they  leave 
behind. 

"Most  of  all,  we  find  ourselves  op- 
posed to  this  disastrous  attempt  to 
distinguish  between  aliens  and  Amer- 
icans. In  undertaking  to  deport 
wholesale  those  who  have  not  sub- 
mitted to  a  hollow  ceremony  of  de- 
claring allegiance  to  a  form  of  gov- 
ernment which  has  in  any  true  sense 
ceased  to  exist,  we  are  drawing  off 
the  very  life  blood  of  the  country. 
The  ideals  of  Washington  and  of  Lin- 
coln, are  they  not  more  alive  to-day 
in  the  warm  heart  of  the  recent  im- 
migrant than  in  the  Prussianized 
'American'  who  in  their  name  com- 
mits a  deed  to  which  history  congrat- 
ulates herself  on  being  unable  to  fur- 
nish a  parallel  ?  Germania  capta  thus 
leads  her  captors  captive. 

"The  utter  folly  of  it  makes  the 
blood  boil!  If  Mr.  Palmer  and  his 
minions  wish  to  make  violent  revolu- 
tionists of  us  all,  they  have  found  the 
way.  The  blood  and  tears  which  they 
cause  to  be  shed,  instead  of  destroying, 
will  most  miraculously  quicken  the 
seeds  of  revolution.  What  might  have 
come  in  a  hundred  years  will  now 
come  in  ten.  What  might  have  come 
peacefully  will  now  come  as  it  may. 
Prophetic  voices  that  should  have 
been  given  careful  heed  are  stopped 
with  violence.  But  others  will  take 
up  the  cry.  For  one  that  is  silenced 
to-day  a  thousand  will  be  heard  to- 
morrow.   It  is  all -very  regrettable." 


Forgotten    Derelicts 
of  War 

"pESPONSES  continue  to  be  made 
•'-'-  to  appeals  in  behalf  of  stricken 
populations  in  the  Old  World.  One 
case,  however,  has  either  escaped  our 
attention  or  been  shunted  into  the 
background,  which  in  normal  times 
would  have  caused  a  shudder  of  hor- 
ror throughout  the  whole  civilized 
world.  This  is  the  case  of  the  Ger- 
man and  Austrian  prisoners  of 
war  in  Siberia,  numbering  perhaps 
140,000  at  the  beginning  of  winter, 
and  now  apparently  doomed  as  a 
whole  to  death  in  its  most  horrible 
and  repulsive  forms.  Most  of  these 
men-that-were  have  been  herded  in 
prison  camps  for  four  and  five  years, 
not  only  cut  off  from  their  families 
and  all  that  made  life  worth  while, 
but  short  of  food,  without  medical 
aid,  and  deprived  of  diversion.  In 
mental  and  moral  state  they  have 
been  reduced  to  the  level  of  animals. 

With  the  best  v;ill  in  the  world  the 
Siberian  government  could  do  little 
for  them ;  it  could  not  even  take  care 
of  its  own  millions  of  hapless  refu- 
gees pouring  in  from  European  Rus- 
sia. Time  after  time  Admiral  Kol- 
chak  begged  that  steps  be  taken  to 
repatriate  them,  but  no  help  came. 
To  picture  what  must  happen  to  them 
now,  after  the  collapse  of  Kolchak's 
Government,  and  in  the  rigors  of  a 
Siberian  winter,  is  to  call  forth  a 
nightmare  of  horror  from  which  the 
mind  recoils. 

Some  private  individuals  and  or- 
ganizations made  noble  efforts  to  do 
something  to  meet  the  situation,  but 
it  was  a  problem  that  transcended 
private  enterprise.  It  was  mani- 
festly impossible  to  raise  adequate 
funds  by  public  appeals,  even  if  time 
permitted.  It  was  a  task  to  be  un- 
dertaken by  Governments,  and  pre- 
eminently by  the  American  Govern- 
ment. It  meant  quick  decision,  prompt 
organization  and  an  appropriation  of 
perhaps  $5,000,000,  to  be  repaid 
eventually  by  the  home  Governments 
concerned.  The  effect  of  such  an 
act  on  the  part  of  America  would  have 
been  out  of  all  proportion  to  the 
cost.     The     responsibility     for     in- 


action rests  squarely  upon  our  De- 
partment of  State.  Plans  were  dis- 
cussed, memoranda  written,  and  the 
buck  was  passed  and  repassed,  but 
nothing  was  done.  It  is  the  old 
story  of  bureaucracy  over  again.  But 
Secretary  Lansing  must  sometimes 
spend  uncomfortable  moments  when 
it  is  borne  in  on  him  that  a  little  fear- 
less and  energetic  action  on  his  part 
would  have  spared  the  agony  and 
death  of  all  these  thousands  and  given 
happiness  to  other  thousands  be- 
reaved. 

The  Case  of  Johns 
Hopkins 

'yHE  exact  plan  upon  which  Mr. 
■*-  Rockefeller's  magnificent  gift  of 
fifty  million  dollars  is  to  be  devoted 
to  the  urgently  necessary  object  of 
raising  the  salaries  of  teachers  in 
colleges  and  universities  doubtless 
remains  to  be  determined.  It  has 
been  the  policy  of  the  General  Edu- 
cation Board,  says  Dr.  Wallace  But- 
trick,  its  president,  "to  make  contri- 
butions to  endowment  conditioned 
upon  the  raising  of  additional  sup- 
plementary sums  by  the  institutions 
aided."  How  closely  this  policy  will  be 
followed  in  the  present  extraordinary 
emergency  remains  to  be  seen,  but 
the  keen  judgment  which  the  board 
has  exercised  throughout  its  history 
may  be  counted  on  to  preside  over  its 
action  in  this  instance.  It  is  desir- 
able, however,  that  the  country  at 
large  should  appreciate  the  peculiar 
situation  of  one  university  that  has 
done  unique  service  to  the  cause  of 
American  education. 

Johns  Hopkins  University  was 
founded  a  little  more  than  forty 
years  ago.  Its  chief  energies  were 
concentrated  upon  what  in  this  coun- 
try had  theretofore  been  thought  of 
as  merely  an  undeveloped  annex  to 
the  main  body  of  a  university — the 
graduate  school.  What  Johns  Hop- 
kins really  did  was  to  establish  for 
the  first  time  in  America  a  true  uni- 
versity, so  far  as  regards  those  fields 
of  science  and  learning  which  lie  out- 
side the  professional  training  of  law- 
yers and  physicians.  It  is  impossible 
to  overestimate  the  stimulus  which 


January  10,  19-20] 


THE  REVIEW 


[25 


the  Baltimore  institution  thus  gave 
to  universities  all  over  the  country. 
From  Massachusetts  to  California, 
from  Wisconsin  to  Texas,  the  idea  of 
the  university  has  become  as  familiar 
in  America  as  it  was  unfamiliar  forty 
years  ago. 

Striking  as  was  this  achievement, 
it  is  a  singular  fact  that  when,  a 
dozen  years  after  the  opening  of 
Johns  Hopkins,  a  modest  special  en- 
dowment— half  a  million  dollars — 
enabled  it  to  open  a  medical  school, 
the  achievement  was  repeated.  It  is 
acknowledged  on  all  hands,  and  has 
been  acknowledged  by  no  one  more 
handsomely  than  by  President  Eliot 
of  Harvard,  that  the  Johns  Hopkins 
Medical  School  lifted  medical  educa- 
tion in  America  to  an  entirely  new 
plane.  Both  on  the  medical  side  and 
on  the  "philosophical"  side,  the  coun- 
try is  now  dotted  with  institutions 
that  are  carrying  on  as  a  matter  of 
course  the  kind  of  work  for  which 
Johns  Hopkins  set  the  example. 

But  the  peculiarity  to  which  we 
made  reference  at  the  outset  is  some- 
thing other  than  this.  Not  only  on 
account  of  its  comparative  newness, 
but  even  more  on  account  of  the  fact 
that  the  alumni  of  Johns  Hopkins  are 
in  the  main  men  whom  it  has  trained 
for  scientific  research,  for  teaching, 
and  for  the  practice  of  medicine,  it 
has  no  considerable  body  of  wealthy 
graduates  to  draw  upon  for  aid.  In 
comparison  with  Yale,  Harvard, 
Princeton  and  the  rest,  its  possibili- 
ties in  this  respect  are  pitifully  small. 
Confronted  with  the  present  extraor- 
dinary situation,  it  is  out  of  the  ques- 
tion for  it  to  make  the  kind  of  "drive" 
which  its  sister  universities  are  so 
successfully  carrying  on.  The  people 
of  Baltimore  have  on  various  occa- 
sions responded  handsomely  to  its 
call ;  but  its  service  has  been  a  na- 
tional, not  a  local,  service.  We  have 
no  doubt  that  all  this  will  be  duly 
considered  by  the  General  Education 
Board;  but  it  is  on  every  account 
earnestly  to  be  hoped  that  throughout 
the  country  there  will  be  found  men 
of  large  means  whose  intelligent  per- 
ception of  the  facts  will  lead  them  to 
give  generous  help  where  help  is  at 
once  so  urgently  needed  and  so 
abundantly  deserved. 


The  Problem  of  Russia 

^TiHE  problem  of  Russia  does  not 
■'•  stand  still,  and  he  who  would 
formulate  a  policy  to  solve  it  must 
needs  mount  it  on  wheels  to  keep  up 
with  the  rapidly  changing  situations. 
A  year  ago  prompt  assistance  to  the 
sound  and  loyal  forces  that  were 
struggling  to  restore  the  Russian  na- 
tional state  would  have  cut  the  cancer 
of  Bolshevism  out  of  Moscow  and 
saved  the  Russian  people  years  of 
suffering  and  degradation.  It  was 
not  necessary  to  send  troops  or  to 
interfere  in  Russia's  domestic  con- 
cerns. There  was  needed  only  a  uni- 
fied plan  and  concerted  action  in  sup- 
plying material  needs.  Instead,  we 
had  the  Prinkipo  proposal,  the  Bullitt 
Mission,  the  disgraceful  abandonment 
of  Odessa,  the  hampering  interven- 
tion in  Siberia,  and  other  demarches 
whose  stupidities  would  be  laughable 
did  they  not  bring  tragedy  in  their 
train. 

Now  a  new  situation  has  arisen,  a 
situation  that  we  must  face  squarely, 
not  letting  past  mistakes  blind  us  to 
present  exigencies.  The  national 
movements  against  the  Bolsheviks 
have  crumbled  or  are  crumbling. 
Kolchak's  army  has  practically  ceased 
to  exist.  Denikin,  with  his  volun- 
teers, of  whom  he  was  able  to  arm 
but  a  sixth,  swept  up  to  within  a 
hundred  and  twenty  miles  of  Moscow, 
and  now  he  is  pushed  back  to  the  sea 
and  faces  destruction.  A  brief  space 
may  see  the  whole  of  Russia  once 
more  dominated  by  the  Bolshevik 
autocracy,  this  time  disposing  of  an 
army  of  a  half  a  million  men,  dis- 
ciplined and  well-equipped. 

Viewing  the  Russian  situation  to- 
day, one  turns  involuntarily  to  the 
French  Revolution  for  analogies, 
dangerous  and  misleading  as  histori- 
cal analogies  frequently  are.  The 
parallelism  is  startling,  despite  the 
difference  in  time,  in  economic  condi- 
tions, in  race  and  psychology.  It  is 
of  course  unfair  to  compare  the  politi- 
cal i-evolution  in  France  with  the 
German-made  plot  to  disintegrate  the 
Russian  army  and  reduce  Russia  to 
chaos;  or  the  Girondin  vision  of 
bringing  the  blessings  of  liberty  to 
all  peoples,  with  the  internationalist 


Bolshevist  propaganda  to  overturn  all 
organized  governments.  But  the  re- 
sults were  the  same.  Then  as  now, 
divided  counsel  and  delay,  followed 
by  haphazard  and  ineffective  aid  to 
local  risings  and  movements,  brought 
about  the  organization  of  great  oppos- 
ing armies.  To  create  and  discipline 
these  armies  the  same  method  of 
terror  was  used,  though  on  an  in- 
finitely smaller  scale.  Civil  and  mili- 
tary leaders  sprang  from  the  prole- 
tariat. National  consciousness  was 
aroused  to  a  pitch  unknown  before. 

Will  the  coming  events  in  Russia 
continue  the  analogy  of  the  French 
Revolution?  In  two  respects  at  least 
the  probability  is  present.  When  in 
France  the  armies  of  the  Republic 
were  victorious  on  all  fronts  and  the 
necessity  for  the  Terror  had  ended, 
the  people  rose  against  the  authors  of 
the  Terror  and  took  swift  vengeance 
on  Robespierre  and  Saint- Just.  In 
Russia  to-day  the  Bolsheviks,  or  Com- 
munists, who  rule  with  an  iron  hand, 
are  few  in  number  and  are  the  object 
of  universal  hatred.  Even  granted 
the  inertia  and  resignation  of  the 
Russians,  it  is  unlikely  that  Lenin 
and  Trotsky  can  long  survive  the  con- 
clusion of  the  present  civil  war.  It 
would  not  be  surprising  if  the  next 
act  in  the  Russian  drama  would  be  a 
revolution  from  the  inside  that  would 
overthrow  the  gang  that  for  two 
years  has  tortured  and  misruled  Rus- 
sia and  expended  millions  of  Russian 
loot  in  debauching  the  ignorant  and 
susceptible  of  other  lands. 

The  next  phase,  as  in  France,  may 
possibly  be  the  emergence  of  a  dicta- 
tor and  the  development  of  a  new 
imperialism.  This  latter  indeed  is 
already  under  way  with  the  present 
leaders  and  is  becoming  more  and 
more  arrogant  and  threatening.  Here 
is  an  army  of  at  least  half  a  million, 
and  unlimited  reserves  to  draw  upon, 
freed  from  the  pressure  of  Kolchak 
and  Denikin,  ready  to  be  led  west- 
ward against  Poland.  It  is  like  a 
herd  that  has  cropped  the  herbage  to 
the  roots  and  must  seek  new  pasture. 
It  will  still  shout  the  slogans  of  the 
Revolution  as  in  1796,  but  it  will  have 
visions  of  plunder  and  its  leaders  will 
dream  dreams  of  conquest.  Lenin 
asserts  that  with  the  collapse  of  the 


26] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  35 


anti-Bolshevik  movements  and  civil 
war,  his  purpose  is  to  settle  down  to 
the  tasks  of  peace  and  the  reorganiza- 
tion of  Russia's  economic  life,  but  he 
can  not  expect  anyone  to  believe  him, 
for  he  has  by  terror  and  by  disrup- 
tion rendered  this  impossible  under 
his  regime.  Rather  there  looms  the 
spectre  of  a  bitter,  revengeful,  and 
despairing  Germany  making  common 
cause  with  a  movement  that  menaces 
the  very  foundations  of  her  enemies 
and  taskmasters. 

What  can  be  done  to  avert  the 
menace?  What  new  policy  can  be 
adopted  that  can  save  Europe?  First 
of  all,  there  is  the  question  of  the 
blockade.  It  is  likely  that  this  will 
be  lifted;  indeed,  if  Esthonia  makes 
peace  with  the  Soviet  Government  the 
blockade  can  hardly  be  maintained. 
The  blockade  really  served  its  pur- 
pose in  the  earlier  period  by  prevent- 
ing the  criminals  at  Moscow  from 
disposing  of  their  stolen  gold  and 
looted  property  to  supply  the  needs 
of  the  Red  Army  at  home  and  spread 
revolution  abroad.  But  the  blockade 
could  only  be  effective  as  auxiliary  to 
active  assistance  to  the  anti-Bolshevik 
forces,  and  when  this  was  withheld, 
it  ceased  to  have  a  sound  basis. 

It  is  hardly  thinkable  that  we  can 
recognize  the  present  Soviet  Govern- 
ment. Its  crimes  against  civilization 
are  too  heinous;  its  promises  of  re- 
form too  transparently  false.  Appar- 
ently, by  our  deportations  of  Russian 
Bolsheviks  and  our  official  statement 
regarding  them,  we  have  closed  the 
door  to  any  such  suggestion.  But  our 
policy  now  must  be  that  of  non-inter- 
ference. Those  who  from  the  begin- 
ning have  been  for  non-interference 
will  plume  themselves  on  their  su- 
perior wisdom  and  foresight.  But 
they  were  not  wise,  even  those  who 
were  honest,  for  interference  was  al- 
ways justifiable  while  the  Bolsheviks 
were  carrying  on  war  against  us  in 
our  own  country  and  when  real  assist- 
ance to  the  anti-Bolshevik  forces 
would  have  restored  a  friendly  Russia 
and  spared  untold  needless  sacrifices. 
The  present  situation  has  resulted, 
not  from  interference,  but  from  the 
lack  of  adequate  interference. 

If  the  present  tyrants  of  Moscow 
are  overthrown  from  within,  if  they 


are  supplanted  by  a  regime  that  rec- 
ognizes the  sanctity  of  agreements 
and  obligations,  that  secures  to  its 
people  the  rights  of  life  and  prop- 
erty, that  shows  good  faith  and 
honest  intention,  then  we  can  enter 
into  relations  with  it  and  join  whole- 
heartedly in  the  tasks  of  reconstruc- 
tion, carrying  out  our  oft-repeated 
pledges  of  friendship  to  the  Russian 
people.  But  if  the  present  regime 
continues,  threatening  to  destroy  the 
fruits  of  European  culture  and  to 
embroil  all  Asia,  then  we  must  gird 
up  our  loins  and  prepare  to  defend 
our  civilization  in  the  inevitable 
struggle. 

The  Outlook  in  Europe 

'T'HE  last  sun  of  the  old  year  set 
-'-  upon  a  Europe  little  brighter  for 
more  than  thirteen  months  of  armis- 
tice than  it  was  in  the  depth  of  the 
war.  Hunger,  labor  unrest,  race  an- 
tagonism, frontier  disputes,  are  ca- 
lamities more  keenly  felt  since  the 
stimulus  of  patriotic  warfare  has 
ceased  to  uphold  the  suffering  na- 
tions. 

For  a  short  while  it  seemed  as 
if  the  prospect  was  beginning  to 
brighten.  The  Germans,  we  were 
told,  would,  before  Christmas,  have 
signed  the  protocol  by  which  the 
treaty  would  be  put  into  effect,  and 
d'Annunzio  was  going  to  surrender 
Fiume  to  the  government  of  Signor 
Nitti.  But  neither  forecast  has  come 
true.  A  disparity  of  100,000  tons  of 
maritime  equipment  between  the  Ger- 
man figures  and  the  estimates  of  the 
Allies'  experts  is  responsible  for 
the  delay  in  the  former  case.  The 
sending  of  an  Allied  Naval  Com- 
mission to  Hamburg,  Danzig,  and 
Bremen  to  ascertain  the  facts  and  re- 
vise the  estimates,  if  proved  to  be  in- 
correct, shows  a  disposition  on  the 
part  of  the  Entente  to  admit  the  possi- 
bility of  a  mistake,  and  while  insisting 
on  the  payment  of  an  indemnity  for 
the  scuttled  fleet  of  Scapa  Flow,  to 
take  Germany's  basic  needs  into  ac- 
count. But  while  this  question  ap- 
pears in  a  fair  way  of  reaching  a 
solution,  other  causes  of  delay  are 
cropping  up.  Herr  Ebert  has  echoed 
Comrade  Noske's  protest  against  the 


Entente's  demand  for  the  surrender  of 
the  accused  German  officers,  and  will 
resign  the  Chancellorship  if  the  Allies 
insist  on  their  extradition,  and  the  al- 
leged presence  in  Upper  Silesia  of 
80,000  German  soldiers,  including 
large  numbers  of  Von  der  Goltz's 
men,  is  a  new  obstacle  in  the  way  of 
the  treaty's  coming  into  force,  as  the 
Supreme  Council  demands  their  re- 
moval before  the  20,000  allied  sol- 
diers occupy  the  plebiscite  area. 

The  expected  solution  of  the  Fiume 
tangle  has  also  suffered  a  setback. 
D'Annunzio  has  changed  his  mind 
since  the  recent  conference  in  Lon- 
don induced  him  to  enter  into  an 
agreement  with  Signor  Nitti  for  the 
surrender  of  Fiume.  He  deems  the 
guarantees  offered  him  by  the  Gov- 
ernment insufficient  to  warrant  his 
leaving,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the 
twice-held  plebiscite  on  the  question 
of  accepting  General  Badoglio's  pro- 
posals for  the  substitution  of  d'An- 
nunzio's  forces  by  Italian  regulars 
resulted  in  75  per  cent,  of  the  votes 
being  cast  in  favor  of  acceptance. 
However,  this  dwindling  of  his  fol- 
lowing and  the  increased  prestige  of 
Signor  Nitti,  both  at  home  and 
abroad,  are  indications  that  the  com- 
ing decision  lies  not  with  the  poet, 
but,  as  it  ought  to  do,  with  the  Italian 
Government.  The  Premier's  deter- 
mination to  come  to  a  settlement  with 
the  Jugo-Slavs  themselves  is  the 
wisest  move  he  could  make,  as  a  solu- 
tion of  the  problem  agreed  to  by  the 
two  interested  parties  is  less  likely  to 
meet  with  opposition  in  London  and 
Paris.  The  bad  impression  created  in 
Italy  by  the  sensational  speech  of  M. 
Clemenceau  has  given  some  justifica- 
tion to  those  pessimists  who  hold  that 
Italy  stands  isolated  and  can  not  rely 
on  the  willingness  of  England  and 
France  to  make  concessions  on  the 
Adriatic  question  vdthout  the  consent 
of  the  United  States'.  There  is,  in- 
deed, some  show  of  animosity  in 
Paris  towards  Italy,  which  may  have 
its  source  in  the  recent  revelation  of 
a  secret  Anglo-Italian  agreement 
which — in  exchange  for  Italy's  ap- 
proval of  the  so-called  Lloyd  George- 
Wilson  agreement  touching  the  divi- 
sion of  3,000,000  tons  of  German 
merchant    shipping — promises    Italy 


^^^ 


January  10,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[27 


full  compensation  in  kind  for  her 
losses  at  sea,  whereas  a  similar  re- 
payment for  the  loss  of  French  mer- 
chant shipping  has  been  refused  to 
France.  But  this  dissension,  which 
is  apt  to  disturb  the  good  relations 
between  France  and  England  rather 
than  those  between  France  and  Italy, 
proves  the  latter,  country's  isolation 
to  exist  only  in  the  fancy  of  Italian 
pessimists,  and  there  is  little  to  war- 
rant the  conclusion  that  England  and 
France  are  not  inclined  to  make  con- 
cessions without  the  consent  of  the 
United  States. 

On  the  contrary,  the  Entente  Pow- 
ers are  showing  a  firm  determina- 
tion to  continue  their  peace  trans- 
actions in  spite  of  Mr.  Polk's  depar- 
ture from  Paris  and  the  uncertainty 
as  to  America's  attitude.  The  new 
Hungarian  Government  of  Karl  Hus- 
zar  has  been  invited  to  send  a  peace 
delegation  to  Neuilly,  and  Lloyd 
George  stated  on  December  18  that 
"the  delay  in  the  peace-making  with 
Turkey  was  due  to  the  necessity  of 
knowing  what  the  United  States  in- 
tended to  do.  We  are  now  entitled  to 
say,"  he  added,  "that  we  have  waited 
up  to  the  very  minute  we  promised 
America,  and,  without  wishing  to 
deprive  America  of  the  honor  of  shar- 
ing in  the  guardianship  of  Christian 
communities,  the  Allies  have  decided 
to  make  peace  with  Turkey  at  the 
earliest  possible  moment."  This 
statement,  to  be  sure,  must  be  taken 
with  a  grain  of  salt:  America's  in- 
decision is  not  the  sole  cause  of  the 
delay,  but  serves  as  a  useful  pretext 
to  screen  the  fear  of  the  diplomats 
at  Paris  lest  the  broaching  of  the 
question  how  to  dispose  of  Constan- 
tinople may  lead  to  fresh  dissension 
between  the  Allied  Powers.  The 
French,  distrustful  of  a  British  man- 
date over  Turkey,  favor  a  plan  which 
would  leave  the  Turk  in  possession 
of  the  city  under  sufficient  guaran- 
tees for  the  freedom  of  navigation 
through  the  Straits,  and  Venizelos 
claims  a  mandate  over  the  city  for 
Greece,  which  would  find  little  favor 
in  Rome. 

In  their  Baltic  policy  the  Entente 
Powers  are  also  steering  a  course  con- 
trary to  the  one  which  the  American 
delegation  would  have  approved.  The 


latter's  standpoint  has  always  been 
opposed  to  the  dismemberment  of 
Russia  resulting  from  the  establish- 
ment of  independent  border  States, 
Poland  of  course  being  exempt  from 
this  American  ban.  The  Baltic  States 
with  their  great  seaports,  Narva  and 
Reval  in  Esthonia,  Riga,  Windau,  and 
Libau  in  Latvia,  are  the  lungs  through 
which  Russia  draws  her  breath 
from  the  sea.  That  accounts  for 
the  endeavors  of  Sasoitov  and  other 
leading  Russians  of  the  old  regime  in 
Paris  to  prevent  the  recognition  by 
the  Powers  of  these  provinces  as  in- 
dependent States.  France  and  Eng- 
land, especially  their  military  experts, 
are  of  a  different  opinion  from  the 
one  held  by  these  Russians  and  the 
American  delegates.  General  Foch, 
only  a  fortnight  ago,  was  for  charg- 
ing General  Niessel  with  a  political 
mission  to  the  Baltic  States  in  order 
to  solidify  them  against  the  Bolshe- 
viki  under  at  least  the  moral  encour- 
agement of  the  Allies.  The  Supreme 
Council,  however,  voted  to  refer  this 
matter  to  the  respective  Allied  Gov- 
ernments, which  meant  an  indefinite 
postponement,  and  meanwhile  one  of 
the  three  States  in  question,  after  a 
protracted  parley  at  Dorpat,  has 
signed  a  preliminary  armistice  with 
the  Russian  Soviet  Government.  The 
recent  successes  of.  Trotsky's  Reds 
and  the  chronic  hesitancy  in  the  pol- 
icy of  the  Entente  are  bound  to  make 
Esthonia  and  her  sisters  more  in- 
clined to  accept  peace  proposals  from 
Moscow  than  to  let  themselves  be 
used  for  the  protection  of  Europe  in 
the  manner  proposed  by  General 
Foch.  Poland  alone  seems  willing  to 
undertake  that  task;  and  she  is  better 
equipped  for  it  economically  since  the 
Supreme  Council  has  awarded  East 
Galicia  to  her  under  a  mandate  of 
twenty-five  years.  Politically,  how- 
ever, this  grant  may  have  a  weaken- 
ing effect  on  Poland,  as  it  creates 
within  her  borders  an  Ukrainian  irre- 
denta, and  a  feeling  of  hostility  to- 
wards Poland  among  her  Ukrainian 
neighbors. 

While  the  diplomats  in  Paris  are 
thus  contriving  means  to  keep  Bol- 
shevism in  .check,  hunger,  its  most 
powerful  ally,  is  rapidly  gaining 
ground  all  over  Eastern  and  Central 


Europe.  Litvinov  recently  admitted 
to  a  correspondent  of  the  Daily  Her- 
ald at  Copenhagen  that  Russia's  re- 
turn to  capitalism  is  unavoidable  un- 
less other  countries  are  converted  in 
time  to  the  communism  of  the  Soviets, 
an  unambiguous  call  to  arms  for  the 
radical  elements  which  are  respon- 
sible for  the  labor  unrest  in  the  cities 
of  Europe.  Some  twenty  millions  of 
people  in  the  larger  centres  of  Fin- 
land, Poland,  Austria  and  other  parts 
of  Central  Europe  are  staring  starva- 
tion in  the  face,  and  there  is  no  better 
soil  for  the  seeds  of  revolt  than  the 
despair  of  the  hungry  masses.  Speedy 
assistance  may  avert  a.  catastrophe, 
but  the  extent  of  the  misery  makes  all 
efforts  seem  vain.  For  the  relief 
of  Austria  alone,  $100,000,000  is  said 
to  be  needed.  One  can  understand  that, 
under  these  circumstances,  the  popu- 
lations of  the  Austrian  border  dis- 
tricts would  like  to  change  their  citi- 
zenship for  that  of  a  self-supporting 
adjoining  State.  Vorarlberg  wants 
to  be  incorporated  with  Switzerland, 
Western  Hungary  with  Hungary,  and 
similar  movements  for  secession  are 
on  foot  in  Salzburg  and  the  Tyrol. 
But  in  this  instance  the  right  of  self- 
determination  is  appealed  to  in  vain, 
for  the  Supreme  Council,  some  three 
weeks  ago,  communicated  to  Dr.  Ren- 
ner  its  decision  to  maintain  integrally 
the  territory  of  the  Republic  of  Aus- 
tria. Thus  the  makers  of  the  new 
Europe,  within  a  year  of  its  incom- 
plete organization,  are  called  upon  to 
protect  their  creation  against  the  ap- 
plication of  the  very  principle  on  the 
basis  of  which  they  refashioned  the 
map  of  Europe — a  bad  omen  for  the 
durability  of  their  work. 


THE  REVIEW 

A   weekly  journal  of  political  and 

general  discussion 

Published  by 

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Fabian  Franklin,  President 

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Cofyrighl,     1920,     in    the     United    States    of 
America 
Editors 
FABIAN  FRANKLIN 
HAROLD  de  WOLF  FULLER 


28] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  35 


Life  or  Death  for  the  Railroads? 


'T'HE  railroads  of  the  United  States 
■'■  are  to  be  returned  to  their  owners 
in  two  months.  They  have  been  in 
the  hands  of  the  Government  since 
December  31,  1917.  Under  Govern- 
ment management  they  have  failed  to 
earn  their  "rental"  by  well  over  half 
a  billion  dollars.  The  operating  def- 
icit, which  has  been  supplied  from  the 
public  funds,  is  estimated  at  some 
$550,000,000  for  1918  and  1919.  The 
ratio  of  operating  expense  to  gross 
earnings,  which  was  about  70  per 
cent,  in  1917,  was  in  1919  about  85 
per  cent.  The  railroads  owe  the  Gov- 
ernment a  considerable  sum  of  money 
for  additions,  betterment,  and  equip- 
ment made  under  Government  man- 
agement with  reference  mainly  to 
war  needs  rather  than  to  anything 
else.  Two-thirds  of  the  companies 
are  at  present  short  of  earning  their 
fixed  charges — excluding  dividends — 
and  in  some  notable  cases,  chiefly  in 
the  East,  the  business  of  certain  roads 
has  been  in  large  part  destroyed  by 
diversion  of  the  traffic  to  other  roads. 
The  physical  condition  of  roadbed 
and  equipment  is  generally  below 
standard.  As  things  stand  at  present 
it  is  not  in  the  least  degree  an  exag- 
geration to  say  that  the  Government, 
which  took  over  at  the  end  of  1917  a 
solvent  system  of  railroads  in  reason- 
ably good  physical  condition,  is  hand- 
ing it  back  to  owners  in  a  state  of 
physical  deterioration  and  financial 
insolvency.  For  correction  of  this 
condition  the  owners  must  look  to  the 
Conference  Committee  of  House  and 
Senate.  That  committee  has  before 
it  two  bills — the  Esch  bill,  which 
passed  the  House,  and  the  Cummins 
bill,  which  passed  the  Senate.  The 
purpose  of  both  bills  is  to  provide  for 
resumption  of  private  enterprise  in 
American  railroad  management. 

Between  these  two  bills  there  is  a 
difference  wide  as  the  poles.  Some 
weeks  ago,  in  the  pages  of  the  Review, 
I  pointed  out  a  fundamental  defect 
in  the  Cummins  bill,  which  was  that, 
while  providing  for  a  general  regional 
tariff  schedule,  the  rates  of  which 
were  fair,  from  the  shipper's  view- 
point, it  limited  the  right  of  individ- 


ual railroads  to  profits  earned  under 
that  schedule.  But  we  all  know  the 
reason  for  this  compromise  of  prin- 
ciple ;  it  was  made  to  satisfy  the  com- 
bined selfishness  and  ignorance  of 
what  politicians  commonly  suppose  to 
be  "the  people,"  so  as  to  make  them 
willing  to  allow  living  rates  to  the  re- 
gional group  as  a  whole.  It  was  be- 
lieved that,  under  the  Cummins  bill, 
which  laid  down  for  the  first  lime  in 
American  railroad  history  not  merely 
an  intelligent  and  sound  rule  of  rate- 
making,  but  tfie  only  intelligent  and 
sound  rule  for  rate-making  that  can 
be  laid  down,  and  also  provided  a 
concrete  rule  for  a  minimum  return 
on  capital  invested  in  the  railroad 
business,  the  regulating  authority 
would  have  behind  it  a  support  strong 
enough  to  give  it  the  courage  to  make, 
when  necessary,  increases  in  freight 
rates.  Therefore,  there  was  ground 
for  believing  that  the  Cummins  bill 
"principle" — if  in  its  mangled  state 
one  can  call  it  a  principle — would  at 
least  give  the  railroads  a  living  and 
would  enable  private  enterprise  to 
become  at  least  partially  effective. 

The  Esch  bill  may  be  summed  up 
in  a  word  as  the  perpetuation  of  the 
miserable  system  of  control  of  rail- 
roads which  in  1914,  when  the  war 
broke  out,  was  gradually  but  surely 
starving  the  last  sparks  of  life  from 
the  carcass.  It  reiterates  the  same 
ridiculous  statement  that  rates  are  to 
be  "fair  and  reasonable,"  but  is  very 
careful  to  avoid  laying  down  any  rule 
by  which  "fair  and  reasonable"  rates 
are  to  be  ascertained  and  put  into  ef- 
fect. It  places  on  the  back  of  the  In- 
terstate Commerce  Commission,  al- 
ready grotesquely  overloaded  with 
powers  which  it  does  not  and  cannot 
effectively  exercise,  yet  additional 
burdens  and  responsibilities.  About 
the  only  thing  that  the  bill  does  to 
clarify  the  rate  situation  is  in  the  di- 
rection of  limiting  the  power  of  indi- 
vidual States  to  hamper  the  making 
or  disturb  the  structure  of  interstate 
rates.  Under  the  Esch  bill  we  shall 
have  the  same  wearisome,  long  drawn 
out  machinery  of  "rate  cases"  with 
the  same  wretched  results.    We  shall 


have  the  Interstate  Commerce  Com- 
missioners continually  faced  with  the 
necessity  of  doing  a  most  unpopular 
thing  without  anyone  to  whom  they 
can  "pass  the  buck."  We  shall  have 
the  same  tiresome  and  futile  lectures 
on  the  past  misdeeds  of  railroad  men 
offered  as  a  reason  for  not  giving  the 
railroads  living  rates.  We  shall  have 
the  "New  Haven-Frisco-Rock  Island 
— Rock  Island-Frisco-New  Haven" 
Qhorus  chanted  from  time  to  time, 
with  an  occasional  variant  on  "C,  H. 
&  D."  Whoever  wants  an  "inside" 
view  of  interstate  commission  psy- 
chology may  read  with  profit  an  ar- 
ticle in  the  December  issue  of  the 
Atlantic  Monthly,  written  by  Judge 
Anderson,  late  of  the  commission. 
If  anyone,  after  reading  that  article, 
can  suppose  that  the  state  of  mind 
there  represented  will  ever  supply 
living  rates  for  the  railroads,  he  is 
possessed  of  more  imagination  and 
credulity  than  I  am. 

To  put  it  plainly  and  brutally,  if 
the  provisions  of  the  Esch  bill  govern 
in  the  shaping  of  legislation  for  the 
railroads,  it  will  mean  simply  that  the 
rope  is  once  more  around  their 
throats  and  that  final  strangulation 
is  a  matter  of  a  very  short  time. 

The  present  rate-tariffs  are  not  suf- 
ficient to  provide  a  living  for  the  rail- 
roads. The  director-general  some 
time  ago  freely  admitted  this.  He  ex- 
cused his  failure  to  advance  rates  on 
the  ground  that  it  would  only  tend  to 
drive  the  cost  of  living  to  yet  higher 
levels,  and  insisted  that  it  would  be 
the  duty  of  railroad  managers  to 
apply  for  increased  rates  as  soon  as 
they  regained  control  of  their  prop- 
erties. It  is  very  difficult  to  maintain 
one's  patience  when  offered  an  argu- 
ment of  this  sort.  An  advance  in 
freight  rates  next  April  will  be  just 
as  effective  in  advancing  the  "cost  of 
living"  as  it  would  have  been  last 
November.  Suppose  that  meantime 
the  Esch  bill  principle  of  "fair  and 
reasonable"  rates  becomes  the  law  of 
the  land  and  the  railroads  come  be- 
fore the  commission  with  a  request 
for  an  advance  in  freight  tariffs  large 
enough  to  make  the  companies  solvent 
and  enable  them  to  raise  new  capital 
so  badly  needed  for  improvements 
and  extensions — what  will  be  the  re- 


Januaiy  10,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[29 


suit?  Can  any  reasonable  man  be- 
lieve that  there  is  any  chance  of  their 
getting  it? 

And  if  they  do  not  get  it,  what  will 
be  the  result?  The  railroads  are,  to 
say  the  least,  in  relatively  poor  phys- 
ical condition;  their  forces  are  rela- 
tively disorganized  and  inefficient, 
and  their  working  capital  is  insuffi- 
cient. And  they  need  a  billion  of  dol- 
lars new  money  in  the  next  twelve 
months !  Their  chance  of  getting  this 
from  the  investing  public  is  about 
equal  to  Mr.  John  D.  Rockefeller's 
chance  of  getting  a  billion  dollars 
from  Congress  for  his  own  personal 
uses.  How  long  will  it  be  before  the 
present  obvious  anxiety  of  the  sav- 
ings banks,  life  insurance  companies, 
and  other  agencies  for  investing  the 
people's  money  will  express  itself  in 
an  agonized  cry  for  government  own- 
ership to  make  the  people's  money 
safe?  And  how  long  will  it  be  before 
government  ownership  arrives  as  mu- 


nicipal ownership  is  arriving  in  New 
York  City,  and  by  the  same  route  ? 

The  rate  question  is  the  heart  of  the 
matter.  Questions  of  labor,  questions 
of  security  issues,  questions  of  exten- 
sions, questions  of  combinations  are 
also  involved  and  are  of  tremendous 
importance.  But  all  these  are  subor- 
dinate to  the  question  of  rates  under 
any  scheme  of  private  enterprise  in 
the  conduct  of  transportation.  The 
Cummins  bill  contains  a  scientifically 
correct  rule  of  rate-making;  the 
Esch  bill  contains  no  such  rule. 
Under  the  Cummins  rule  private  en- 
terprise will  find  it  possible  to  func- 
tion in  railroad  transportation ;  under 
the  Esch  bill  it  will  be  impossible. 
The  Conference  Committee  must 
choose  one  or  the  other  of  the  "prin- 
ciples" represented  by  the  two  bills. 
Upon  its  choice  depends  the  future 
of  railroad  transportation  in  this 
country. 

Thomas  F.  Woodlock 


Washington  Gossip 


"WyHAT  is  to  be  the  future  orienta- 
"  tion  of  the  Republican  and 
Democratic  parties?  This  is  the  ques- 
tion that  meets  one  in  all  circles  in 
Washington,  once  one  has  traversed 
the  immediate  topics  of  the  Presi- 
dent's health,  the  return  of  the  rail- 
roads, the  settlement  of  the  coal 
strike,  and  the  possible  treaty  com- 
promise. 

Democratic  leaders  are  frankly  pes- 
simistic about  the  future,  although 
they  cherish  the  hope  that  Republican 
blunders  and  dissensions  between  ■ 
now  and  next  November  may  save  the 
situation  for  them.  While  realizing 
that  the  normal  line-up  in  two-party 
government  is  to  put  the  conserva- 
tives on  the  one  hand  and  the  radicals 
on  the  other,  neither  party  is  willing 
to  place  itself  in  either  of  these  two 
categories.  Both  parties  are  dodging 
the  i^sue  and  seeking  to  secure  sup- 
port from  both  elements  within  their 
ranks  as  previously  constituted. 

That  the  issue  can  not  be  entirely 
side-stepped,  however,  is  indicated  by 
the  views  of  a  prominent  and  thought- 
ful Democratic  leader,  frankly  ex- 
pressed.     According    to    him,    the 


Democratic  party  is  facing  the  dan- 
ger of  dissolution.  The  Gold  Demo- 
crats left  the  party  in  1896  and,  for 
the  most  part,  have  not  returned. 
Although  the  President  and  his  party 
had  yielded  all  possible  concessions  to 
Labor,  this  had  not  sufficed  to  keep 
Labor  from  turning  Socialistic.  With 
the  development  of  industry,  the 
South  was  becoming  conservative  and 
only  the  race  problem  preserved  the 
South  against  Republican  inroads. 
The  question  was  whether  the  Demo- 
cratic party  might  not  have  to  become 
frankly  radical. 

In  Washington  circles  it  is  felt  that 
Attorney-General  Palmer  and  ex-Sec- 
retary McAdoo  are  the  respective 
champions  of  the  two  opposing  ele- 
ments within  the  party.  Palmer,  by 
his  handling  of  the  coal  strike  and  by 
his  vigorous  campaign  against  the 
Reds,  is  appealing  to  the  conserva- 
tives. McAdoo  is  reported  to  have 
suggested  that  the  name  of  the  Demo- 
cratic party  might  well  be  changed  to 
the  American  Labor  Party,  and  his 
recent  astonishing  statement  concern- 
ing the  earnings  of  the  coal  operators 
during  the  war  is  looked  upon  as  a 


direct  appeal  for  radical  support.  The 
influence  of  President  Wilson  in  the 
situation  is  difficult  to  estimate.  On 
the  one  hand,  it  is  clear  that  his 
idealistic  appeals  in  the  past  have 
made  a  strong  impression  upon  the 
radical-liberals  and  many  consider 
them  as  provocative  of  social  unrest. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  is  claimed  by 
many  political  leaders  that  Wilson's 
popularity  has  greatly  declined  even 
among  radicals  and  he  would  no 
longer  be  an  asset  to  the  Democratic 
party  reconstructed  along  such  lines. 

Another  factor  that  may  upset 
these  calculations  is  the  growth  of  a 
boom  for  Herbert  Hoover  as  a  Demo- 
cratic candidate.  While  it  is  recog- 
nized that  Mr.  Hoover  has  nnver 
been  actively  identified  with  politics 
and  that  his  affiliations  have  been 
Republican  rather  than  Democratic, 
many  Democrats  believe  that  by  rea-' 
son  of  his  close  association  with  Mr. 
Wilson  and  his  administration,  he 
could  be  persuaded  to  accept  the 
nomination.  They  argue  that,  on  the 
one  hand,  he  would  appeal  strongly 
to  the  conservatives,  who  desire  above 
all  a  "business"  administration,  and, 
on  the  other,  would  attract  those  who 
earlier  followed  the  Wilsonian  "ideal- 
istic" lead.  Mr.  Hoover  is  outspo- 
kenly anti-Socialistic  and  his  technical 
and  administrative  training,  joined 
with  his  unequalled  knowledge  of 
the  international  economic  situation, 
would  make  him  an  extremely  strong 
candidate.  On  the  side  of  political 
theory,  however,  he  is  regarded  as  a 
man  whose  ideas  are  crude  and  un- 
developed. 

Equally  the  Republican  party  is 
trying  to  ride  two  horses.  There 
seems  to  be  a  feeling  among  many 
Republican  leaders  in  Washington 
that  they  are  sure  of  the  usual  con- 
servative support,  and  that  in  any 
case  it  only  remains  to  bring  back 
into  the  fold  the  Progressives  of  1912, 
no  matter  how  far  some  of  them  have 
developed  in  radical  theory.  Senator 
Johnson  of  California,  an  opportunist 
politician,  is  plainly  endeavoring  to 
get  aboard  the  band-wagon,  and 
Senator  Lodge  has  welcomed  his  ser- 
vices in  fighting  the  ratification  of  the 
unamended  covenant.  Another  indi- 
cation of  the  desire  to  capture  the 


30] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  35 


radical  vote  is  seen  in  the  appoint- 
ment of  Col.  Raymond  Robins  to  the 
Advisory  Committee  on  Platform. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  Robins  is  a 
gifted  orator  with  demagogic  power 
and  that  he  controls  a  considerable 
following,  but  many  Republicans  view 
this  departure  with  alarm  and  believe 
that  it  will  alienate  the  better  element 
in  the  party  without  securing  any 
appreciable  accretion  of  strength. 
There  is  no  gainsaying  the  fact  that 
th?  radicals  regard  the  Republican 
party  as  reactionary  and  that  they 
do  not  propose  to  be  taken  in  by  so 
palpable  a  trick  as  the  recognition  of 
such  men  as  Robins. 


The  undercurrent  of  opinion  in 
Washington  seems  to  be  that,  in  the 
absence  of  a  clear-cut  domestic  issue 
on  which  the  parties  can  line  up, 
both  Democrats  and  Republicans  will 
seek  to  avoid  the  radical-conservative 
line  of  demarcation.  It  is  felt  that  if 
the  Republicans  would  take  a  definite 
stand  as  the  liberal-conservative 
party  they  would  have  a  fighting 
chance  to  break  the  Solid  South  at 
the  next  election,  and  we  might  see 
the  whole  political  situation  turn 
back  again  into  the  traditional  two- 
party  system  of  Anglo-Saxon  de- 
mocracy. Courage,  however,  seems 
to  be  lacking  for  making  the  plunge. 


The  Jazz  Journals 


T^HE  jazz  of  the  orchestras  has 
•  ■■-  been  defined  as  a  "fantastic  riot 
of  accents."  It  is  a  callithumpian 
fanfare,  with  drawling,  crawling, 
sliding  notes  interrupted  by  out- 
bursts of  calculated  noise.  "It  seeks 
...  to  sweep  from  our  minds  all 
consideration  of  other  things  and  to 
focus  our  attention  upon  its  own  mad, 
whirling,  involved  self." 

The  jazz  of  the  instruments  has  its 
analogue  in  the  jazz  of  the  printed 
page  in  some  of  our  present-day 
"journals  of  opinion."  Let  us  but 
translate  this  print  to  an  auditive 
plane,  and  one  definition  will  do  for 
both.  True,  the  printed  species  has 
several  varieties:  there  is  the  oracu- 
lar jazz  of  one  periodical;  the  jere- 
miad jazz  of  another;  the  pietistic 
jazz  of  a  third,  the  explosive  jazz  of 
a  fourth.  And  then  there  is  the 
timid,  palpitant  jazz  of  a  fifth,  ex- 
pressing itself  in  relatively  subdued 
accents,  though  revealing  a  constant 
tone  of  wistfulness  for  the  Bolshevist 
abandon  of  its  rivals.  But  though 
each  has  its  distinctive  dominant 
chord,  all  run  close  to  type  in  their 
cadences  of  protest.  The  "fantastic 
riot  of  accents"  is  surcharged  with 
abysmal  grief  and  bitter  resentment. 
The  jazz  journals  overflow  with 
anathema.  Wretched  and  miserable 
beyond  words  is  this  planet  of  ours, 
with  themselves,  Mr.  Lenin,  Mr. 
Trotsky,  and  Mr.  Peters  as  the  only 
stars  of  hope  in  a  sky  perpetually 


overcast  and  lowering ;  and  if  good  is 
to  come  (which  at  best  is  doubtful), 
it  is  to  be  forwarded  mainly  by  the 
incessant  pouring  forth  of  a  stream 
of  fretful  and  railing  accusation. 

Ultra-modern  are  these  journals; 
and  though  their  choral  theme  is  old 
beyond  the  computation  of  years, 
their  tonal  gestures  must  be  of  the 
latest.  Liberal,  or  progressive,  or 
radical,  or  democratic,  they  call 
themselves  in  varying  degrees.  But 
their  message — what  is  it?  From 
what  central  idea  does  it  spring;  of 
what  formulated  creed  is  it  the  ex- 
pression ;  to  what  goal  of  social  wel- 
fare is  it  consciously  directed?  There 
is  no  answer.  The  "fantastic  riot  of 
accents"  yields  no  clue  to  its  own 
meaning.  It  is  incoherent;  its  parts 
are  incongruous ;  in  nothing  is  it  con- 
stant and  consistent  except  in  its  un- 
failing note  of  nagging  discord.  Have 
the  Allies,  in  a  particular  matter, 
done  thus  and  so?  The  fact  is  "sin- 
ister." Have  they  done  exactly  the 
opposite  thing?  The  fact  is  even 
more  "sinister;"  it  is  "shocking," 
alike  to  the  intelligence  and  the  sense 
of  decency  of  mankind.  Has  the 
President  failed  again?  Indubitably 
he  has,  whatever  he  did  or  said.  He 
would  equally  have  failed  had  he 
done  the  opposite.  Has  Mr.  Gompers 
done  this  or  that?  If  so,  he  has  but 
shown  again  his  innate,  inflexible  re- 
actionism  and  the  tyrannous  hold  he 
maintains  upon  the  labor  movement. 


Has  he  done  otherwise?  He  but  re- 
veals himself  once  more  in  his  an- 
cient character  of  an  unprincipled 
opportunist,  desperately  striving  to 
buttress  his  tottering  throne.  Does 
any  one,  anywhere  (other  than  a  Bol- 
shevist, an  I.  W.  W.,  a  pacifist  pro- 
German  or  something  of  the  sort), 
offer,  by  deed  or  word,  a  contribu- 
tion which  he  imagines  may  be  of 
some  use  to  the  mass  of  humanity? 
It  is  naught,  it  is  naught,  saith  the 
journal  of  jazz,  and  it  goeth  on  its 
way  reviling. 

Reaction,  of  course,  they  denounce ; 
and  most  that  they  disapprove  is 
plastered  with  that  name;  yet  they 
have  no  qualms  about  aiding,  often 
in  disingenuous  ways,  the  assault  of 
reactionism  upon  the  regular  trade 
unions.  They  advocate  the  unity  of 
labor;  and  yet  they  foster  the  agen- 
cies which  make  for  dual  unions,  they 
encourage  the  turbulent  local  in  its 
secession  from  its  international  par- 
ent, and  more  or  less  openly  they 
give  their  approval  to  the  outlaw 
strike.  Despite  their  professions, 
their  aim — in  so  far  as  they  are  con- 
scious of  an  aim  other  than  the  pro- 
duction of  jazz — is  the  disunity  of 
labor  as  labor  is  now  organized. 

One  and  all  they  clamor  against  the 
alleged  suppressions  and  falsifica- 
tions of  news  by  the  "capitalist" 
press.  Valid  opinion,  they  chorus, 
can  be  formed  only  when  the  facts 
are  impartially  recorded.  Yet,  one 
and  all,  they  habitually  practice  the 
thing  they  denounce  in  others;  they 
suppress  or  distort  the  fact  inimical 
to  the  view  they  present;  and  grant- 
ing the  accuracy  of  their  overdrawn 
indictment,  the  sincere  inquirer  may 
stiii  retort  that  they  themselves  d-^, 
with  a  fanatic  eagerness  and  accom- 
panied by  a  blare  of  pretentious  vir- 
tue, what  the  others  do  as  a  mere 
matter  of  course — an  incident  of  the 
day's  work. 

They  preach  tolerance;  and  broad 
tolerance  unquestionably  they* show 
for  some  things — for  pretense,  for 
fanaticism,  for  Jesuitry,  for  the  dou- 
ble-dealing of  the  revolutionists  who, 
along  with  an  exoteric  message  of 
peace  and  order,  put  forth  an  eso- 
teric message  of  sabotage  and  vio- 
lence.   But  for  the  rest — for  the  les- 


January  10,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[81 


sons  of  experience,  for  the  standards 
and  sanctions  which  have  knit  and 
held  the  social  fabric  together,  they 
reveal  an  intolerance  as  extreme  as 
that  of  a  mediaeval  inquisitor.  "Bour- 
geois" and  "banal"  and  "discarded" 
are  their  words  of  exorcism  for  ac- 
cepted things;  from  the  rubbish 
heaps  of  the  centuries  they  resurrect 
and  rehabilitate  the  old,  which  they 
label  the  new  and  the  wonderful. 
Their  tolerance  is  for  the  intolerable 
things  which  the  common  sense  of 
mankind  has  rejected. 

All  this,  with  orchestral  vehe- 
mence, they  sound  forth  as  the  tonal 
interpretation  of  Democracy;  the 
overture  to  the  New  Order,  the  Bet- 
ter Day.  Yet  it  is  nothing  of  the 
sort.  However  it  is  intended,  it  re- 
veals itself  as  merely  the  accompani- 
ment to  Reaction.  It  generates  the 
atmosphere  and  creates  the  environ- 
ment in  which  Reaction  flourishes.  It 
incites  mean  suspicions,  petty  antag- 
onisms, a  feverish  unrest ;  but  it  gives 
to  the  imagination  no  vision  of  a  goal 
and  it  prompts  the  mind  to  no  pur- 
poseful action. 

In  their  saner  days  none  knew  this 
better  than  the  party  Socialists. 
There  was  far  less  of  this  journalistic 
jazz  before  the  war — though  quite 
enough  for  all  reasonable  needs.  But 
what  there  was  of  it  drew  from  the 
Socialists  a  stream  of  ridicule  and 
denunciation.  Vague  and  formless, 
the  mere  ebullience  of  misdirected 
emotion  and  incoherent  thought,  it 
hampered,  they  said,  the  authentic 
campaign  for  the  emancipation  of  the 
workers  and  the  installation  of  the 
cooperative  commonwealth.  No  one 
profited  by  it,  they  further  said,  ex- 
cept the  reactionaries ;  and  often  they 
asserted  that  part  of  it  at  least  was 
j  financed  from  reactionary  sources. 
But  alas !  though  the  Socialists  rec- 
ognized one  phase  of  its  harmfulness, 
they  did  not  recognize  another — its 
infectiousness.  Fighting  it  as  an  epi- 
demic, they  neglected  to  immunize 
themselves. 

Its  infectiousness  no  one  need  deny. 
To  many  sorts  of  beings  it  makes  its 
appeal — but  particularly  to  those  who 
take  their  adventures  and  their 
achievements  by  way  of  the  imagina- 
tion.    It  reaches  for  the  libido;  and 


to  each  of  its  devotees  it  tumultu- 
ously  expresses  his  subconscious  self. 
It  assures  the  possession  of  the  fac- 
ulty denied  by  nature;  it  announces 
the  achievement  of  the  impossible 
deed,  the  realization  of  the  futile 
dream.  Under  its  spell  the  timid  find 
themselves  battling  at  the  last  ram- 
parts of  the  capitalist  fortress;  a 
lamb  of  the  coteries  sees  himself  a 
new  Lenin,  exalted  to  the  headship  of 
the  American  soviet  state;  and  an 
embryo  Peters  cons  his  "hanging 
list,"  long  ago  compiled,  and  sharp- 
ens his  snickersnee  for  immediate  ac- 
tion. 

"Your  journal  is  a  cup  of  clear 
water  in  a  parching  desert,"  writes 
an  entranced  being  to  the  chief  ex- 
ponent of  jeremiad  jazz.  "Your 
journal  is  both  an' inspiration  and  a 
guide,"  writes  another  to  the  oracu- 
lar one.  Well,  there  ai'e  such  people 
in  the  world;  and  gladly,  according 
to  the  Book,  must  we  suffer  them. 
What  they  like,  they  like  exceedingly ; 
discords  and  incongruities  are  to 
them  but  as  the  quiring  of  young- 
eyed  cherubim;  and  for  the  time  at 
least  no  Ephraim  was  ever  so  snugly 
roped  to  his  idols  as  are  these.  The 
"inspiration"  of  this  oracular  jour- 
nal may  be  conceded — the  testimony 
of  the  inspired  is  sufficient;  but  the 
matter  of  guidance  requires  a  word 
of  explanation.  At  various  times, 
and  on  various  pages  at  the  same 
time,  this  journal  advocated  peace  at 
any  price,  peace  at  half-price,  and 
peace  at  no  price ;  peace  without  vic- 
tory, peace  with  partial  victory,  and 
peace  with  overwhelming  victory. 
On  the  various  issues  of  the  war  as 
they  arose  it  took  almost  every  con- 
ceivable position,  with  occasional 
lapses  into  a  negation  of  all  attitude. 
It  has  both  favored  and  condemned 
the  League  of  Nations.  It  has  de- 
nounced jingoes,  nationalists,  and  re- 
actionaries, and  has  yet  joined  them 
in  a  common  cause.  For  a  time  it 
ponderously  assailed  the  American 
Socialists;  but  after  they  had  issued 
their  manifesto  declaring  the  war  the 
greatest  crime  in  history  and  pledg- 
ing themselves  to  obstruction  by 
every  means  in  their  power,  it  as- 
sailed the  Administration  for  not 
"cooperating"  with  them.    Guidance 


there  may  be  in  all  this;  but  a  pre- 
requisite for  the  recipient  is  an  ex- 
treme degree  of  "inspiration." 

In  these  mutations  and  contradic- 
tions there  may,  of  course,  be  method. 
The  oracle  must  needs  affect  omnis- 
cience; and  omniscience  must  needs 
justify  itself  to  its  following  by  con- 
stant self-certification.  "Has  such 
and  such  a  thing  happened?  Lo,  it 
was  predicted  in  these  pages  of  old 
time."  The  mad  world  may  go  as  it 
will;  the  course  of  history  may  be 
such  as  to  shatter  all  the  major  pro- 
nouncements of  this  journal;  yet 
somewhere  in  the  maze  of  its  ver- 
biage can  always  be  found  the  mate- 
rial out  of  which  to  make  a  trium- 
phant showing  of  foreknowledge  of 
the  event.  The  devotee  can  not  but  be 
duly  impressed;  and  if,  puzzled  by 
some  inharmony  of  pronouncement, 
•some  contradiction  of  terms  or  state- 
ment, he  permits  a  shade  of  dubiety 
to  cross  his  brow,  he  has  only  to 
consult  again  the  certification.  He 
knows  then  that  authority  has  spoken 
and  there  is  no  more  to  be  said. 

Jazz. journalism  is  a  development 
of  the  great  war.  It  had  some  spo- 
radic beginnings  before  the  peace 
was  broken;  but  it  has  flourished 
only  since  the  day  of  American  in- 
tervention, while  it  has  reached  its 
most  violent  stage  only  since  the  ar- 
mistice. It  is  peculiarly  a  product  of 
the  time.  It  grows  out  of  the  break- 
up of  former  conditions;  out  of  the 
wreck  of  old  opinions  and  the  eager 
hunt  for  new.  It  expresses  the  fever, 
the  uncertainty,  the  credulity,  the 
formless  Utopianism  of  a  part  of  the 
mass ;  the  fierce  zealotry  of  the  revo- 
lutionists (intensified  a  hundredfold 
by  the  triumph  of  Bolshevism)  and 
of  the  pacifists  (who  make  up  for 
their  abstention  from  physical  force 
by  an  intensification  of  hatefulnese)  ; 
and  it  expresses  no  less  the  love  of 
imposture  on  the  part  of  victim  as 
well  as  principal — a  thing  always 
heightened  during  troublous  times. 

Will  the  phenomenon  endure?  He 
is  a  pessimist  and  a  cynic  who  would 
say  yes.  With  the  passing  of  the  con- 
ditions which  have  brought  it  to  its 
present  absurd  stage,  it  must  itself 
pass  away. 

W.  J.  Ghent 


32] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  35 


Correspondence 

German  Despair 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

Several  letters  have  come  to  me  lately 
which  contain  interesting  revelations  of 
what  the  Germans  are  thinking  nowadays 
in  their  homes  and  private  lives.  These 
letters  come  from  the  north,  east,  and 
west  of  Germany  and  from  people  igno- 
rant of  each  other's  existence.  And  yet 
they  all  express  much  the  same  senti- 
ments, much  the  same  despair.  There  is 
only  one  brief  reference  to  the  high  cost 
of  living  and  only  the  following  sugges- 
tion of  any  wrongs  committed  by  Ger- 
many: "It  goes  without  saying  that 
also  on  our  side  much  happened  that 
should  not  have  happened;  war  is  war." 
One  of  my  correspondents  is  very 
bitter  toward  this  country  and  toward  the 
Allies  in  general,  reverting  only  a  few 
weeks  ago  to  the  language  of  August, 
1914,  and  italicizing  with  great  freedom:^ 

I  should  be  void  of  any  patriotic  feeling  if 
it  were  easy  for  me  to  write  so  soon  to  a 
citizen  of  thai  country  which,  or  whose  Presi- 
dent, gave  us  Germans  the  deathblow.  .  .  . 
Behind  all  the  beautiful  speeches  of  our  ene- 
mies there  hides  of  course  only  the  one  wish 
and  aim,  to  annihilate  Germany  root  and 
branch,  and  to  obliterate  the  Germans.  .  .  . 
And  since  they  could  never  have  conquered 
us  by  force  of  arms,  they  have  been  sending 
their  agents  for  years  to  spread  discontent 
among  our  people  apd  finally  among  our 
soldiers  too,  and  thereby  they  gained  what 
they  would  never  have  gained  in  honorable 
fashion. 

Another  correspondent  says: 

I  hope  that  sometime  better  days  will  come 
when  men  will  learn  again  the  meaning  of  a 
free  and  pure  humanity!  This  madness  of 
imperialism  must  cease.  I  can  say  in  this  con- 
nection that  great  hate  of  other  peoples  does 
not  exist  in  Germany,  although  we  ourselves 
have  surely  suflfered  more  than  others. 

The  attitude  of  the  middle  class  toward 
the  treaty  is  indicated  briefly  but  to  the 
point  in' one  sentence:  "Now  as  the  end 
of  it  all — far  worse  than  the  war — this 
peace!"  The  following  quotation  speci- 
fies: 

Surely,  in  the  whole  history  of  the  world 
such  degrading  terms  of  peace  have  never  been 
presented  to  a  people  as  these  to  us — when  we 
first  read  them  (I  have  never  been  able  to 
read  them  through)  we  thought  that  we  did 
not  see  aright  or  that  we  had  gone  crazy. 
.  .  .  Such  terms  of  peace  as  have  been  con- 
cocted to  destroy  a  whole  people  have  never 
before  been  offered  to  any  country  I 

The  most  significant  comments  of  all 
concern  the  effects  of  the  war  and  of  the 
blockade.     One  correspondent  says: 

Fortunately  we  have  come  through  the  last 
years  without  serious  illness  in  our  family, 
but  if  the  food  had  been  better,  my  boys  would 
have  grown  stronger  than  they  are.  ...  It 
has  been  a  sad  war  for  us  Germans ;  our  Ger- 
many that  stood  so  high  has  fallen  into 
wretched  ruins.  ...  I  am  often  glad  that  my 
dear  husband  (who  fell  in  the  war)  did  not 
have  to  go  through  these  times. 


Another  writes: 

Whoever  willed  the  war,  the  results  for  us 
are  in  any  case  such  that  my  generation  and 
the  next,  perhaps  the  third  generation  too, 
will  not  and  can  not  arrive  at  any  joy  in  lifel 
.  .  .  Although  I  have  not  actually  gone 
hungry,  my  health  did  not  improve  exactly 
during  the  years  of  insufficient  nourishment, 
and  all  the  excitement  has  had  an  effect  on  me. 
I  think  my  arteries  are  much  more  choked ; 
for  example,  my  eyes  have  become  far  weaker 
in  recent  times.  .  .  .  What  this  most  terrible 
of  wars  has  destroyed  in  respect  of  ideals,  that 
too  can  never  be  made  good. 

A  third: 

Thus  far  we  have  been  fortunate  in  the  way 
in  which  we  have  come  through  these  terrible 
years.  We  may  not  complain  personally,  but 
nevertheless  those  years  were  bad.  .  .  .  Only 
one  who  went  through  it  knows  what  the 
starvation  blockade  meant,  a  blockade  to  which 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  women,  old  men, 
and  children  succumbed.  .  .  .  The  recollection 
of  the  happy  times  up  to  1914  affects  us  like 
a  dream  of  great  blessings,  and  we  ask  our- 
selves in  vain :  did  all  that  have  to  be  ? 

It  is  impossible  to  read  these  letters 
— or  only  these  quotations  from  them — 
without  sensing  the  despair  and  agony 
that  are  now  at  work  in  Germany.  The 
letters  show  beyond  a  doubt  a  stunning 
realization  on  the  part  of  the  Germans 
that  they  are  a  crushed,  beaten  nation. 
In  this  realization  there  is  food  for  hope. 
As  all  of  Germany's  friends  and  enemies 
may  well  desire,  this  realization  may  be 
the  beginning  of  wisdom. 

George  M.  Priest 
New  York,  December  19 

A  French  Opinion  of  the 
A.  E.  F. 

(The  writer  of  the  following  letter,  a  nephew 
of  Taine,  is  a  French  author  of  repute  who 
has  published  several  notable  books  and  arti- 
cles on  the  recent  war.) 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review  : 

It  was  in  March,  1919,  four  months 
after  the  end  of  the  war,  that  I  saw  the 
American  battlefields.  I  went  over  the 
whole  of  the  Meuse-Argonne  fighting 
grounds.  Except  that  the  dead  had  been 
buried,  the  state  of  the  country  was  the 
same  as  if  the  battle  had  just  been 
fought,  and  everything  testified  to  the 
wonderful  tenacity  and  dash  of  the 
Americans. 

The  battle  began  on  September  26, 
1918.  It  was  only  after  a  few  days  that 
the  Germans  grasped  the  scope  of  the 
attack  east  of  the  Argonne,  which  in  con- 
junction with  the  French  was  to  reach 
the  Mezieres-Sedan  line  and  cut  the 
enemy's  source  of  supply.  The  resistance 
which  they  then  managed  to  put  up, 
gradually  increasing  to  the  right  of 
the  Americans,  compelled  the  attack, 
which  had  been  at  first  directed  south- 
north,  to  wheel  towards  the  east  in  the 
direction  of  the  Meuse.  On  November 
6,  the  object  of  the  tremendous  battle 
had  been  attained — the  enemy's  main  line 
of  communication  had  been  cut.  Of 
course  one  must  not   forget  what   the 


French,  who  took  some  part  in  the 
Meuse-Argonne  struggle,  and  what  the 
British  were  doing  on  the  other  part  of 
the  western  front.  But  it  was  enough 
to  see  the  American  battlefield,  enough  to 
realize  how  the  enemy,  fighting  for  their 
last  foothold,  had  desperately  defended 
every  yard  of  their  ground,  to  come  to 
the  conclusion  that  the  Germans  did  not 
stop  the  war  of  their  own  free  will,  as  I 
heard  it  often  said  in  Germany,  where  I 
was  some  months  ago.  They  had  to  beg 
for  an  armistice  to  avoid  disaster. 

It  is  generally  understood  in  France 
that  the  American  contribution  to  the 
war  was  absolutely  decisive.  Even  be- 
fore they  had  taken  an  important  part 
in  the  fighting,  their  fast  increasing 
numbers — they  were  coming  in  July  at 
the  rate  of  300,000  a  month — allowed 
Marshal  Foch  to  engage,  when  the 
French  counter-attack  began  on  July  15, 
1918,  all  his  French  reserves.  Nothing 
more  upset  the  German  calculations  than 
the  fact  that  the  French  lines  were  so 
thickly  manned.  Ludendorff  had  reck- 
oned on  the  exhaustion  of  our  reserves. 

But  of  course  the  American  help  was 
not  limited  to  that,  and  when  they  went 
in  for  their  big  fights — St.  Mihiel  and 
Meuse-Argonne — they  showed  a  pluck 
and  a  state  of  preparation  that  would 
have  honored  seasoned  warriors. 

Andre  Chevrillon 
Saint-Clovd,  Seine-et-Oise,  December  20 

Deflation  Through  Taxation 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

In  your  issue  of  November  29  you  con- 
tend, accurately  and  truthfully  as  it 
appears  to  me,  that  the  recent  sudden 
rise  in  prices  is  due  primarily  to  infla- 
tion of  currency  and  credit.  The  Review 
therefore  favors  the  reverse  policy  of  de- 
flation, but  seems  decidedly  at  a  loss  as 
to  how  such  a  policy  should  proceed. 

I  wish  to  suggest  one  method  of  re- 
lief: namely,  by  drastic  and  thorough- 
going taxation,  coupled  with  the  speediest 
possible  payment  of  the  public  debt. 
Surely,  prompt  and  steady  retirement  of 
all  outstanding  bonds  just  as  soon  as  it 
becomes  legal  to  pay  them  must  in  the 
nature  of  things  have  the  effect  of  nar- 
rowing the  range  of  credit  and  of  tight- 
ening and  hardening  the  money  market 
generally.    That  is,  it  would  be  deflation. 

Of  course,  as  a  Single-taxer,  I  do  not  be- 
lieve that  any  tax  can  in  strict  equity 
be  imposed  upon  any  other  form  of  prop- 
erty than  monopolized  land-value.  Still, 
it  may  be  frankly  admitted  that  a  tax, 
even  a  radical  tax,  on  inheritances  would 
cause  but  little  disturbance  to  industry 
and  to  business. 

Tax  land-monopoly  then  to  the  limit. 
Tax  inheritance  so  far  as  we  dare.  Pay 
the  public  debt.    And  deflate  credit. 

Malcolm  C.  Burke 
Washington,  D.  C,  December  5 


January  10,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[88 


Book  Reviews 

At  the  Front  in  Poetry 

Reynard  the  Fox.     The  Ghost  Heath  Run. 

By  John    Masefield.     New   York:     The 

Macmillan  Company. 
Pictures  of  the  Floating  World.    By  Amy 

Lowell.     New     York :       The     Macmillan 

Company. 
Dust  and  Light.     By  John   Hall   Wheelock. 

New   York :    Charles   Scribner's   Sons. 
Images.      By    Richard    Aldington.      London : 

The  Egotist,  Limited. 
Latin   Poems   of  the   Renaissance.     Trans- 
lated by  Richard  Aldington.   London :    The 

Egotist,  Limited. 
Choruses  from  Iphigeneia  in  Aulis  and  the 

HippoLYTUS  of  Euripides.    Translated  by 

H.  D.    London :     The  Egotist,  Limited. 

IN  Mr.  Masefield's  variously  remarkable 
"Reynard  the  Fox"  not  the  least  re- 
markable thing  is  the  sheer  knowledge 
and  the  control  of  knowledge.  In  knowl- 
edge, as  in  land,  to  02vn  is  one  thing; 
to  use  is  another.  Mr.  Masefield  in  this 
region  is  a  man  of  vast  possessions;  he 
cultivates  every  square  foot.  The  yield 
of  interest,  vigor,  poetry,  is  continuous. 
The  thing  is  almost  peculiar  to  our  time. 
Mr.  Masefield,  like  Browning,  Meredith, 
and  Kipling,  increases  the  load,  but  in- 
creases the  energy  with  the  load;  when 
he  adds  ball,  he  adds  powder.  The  re- 
sultant quality  might  almost  be  called 
explosiveness. 

The  poem  narrates  a  fox-hunt  in  some- 
thing like  twenty-five  hundred  lines  of 
octosyllabic  couplet  freely  limbered  in  the 
scurrying  parts  with  anapests.  The 
passage  I  quote  is  representative. 

At  Tencombe  Rings  near  the  manor  Linney, 
His  foot  made  the  great  black  stallion  whinny, 
And  the  stallion's  whinny  aroused  the  stable 
And    the   bloodhound    bitches    stretched    their 

cable, 
And    the    clink    of    the    bloodhound's    chain 

aroused 
The  sweet-breathed  kyne  as  they  chewed  and 

drowsed, 
And  the  stir  of  the  cattle  changed  the  dream 
Of  the  cat  in  the  loft  to  tense  green  gleam. 
The  red-wattled  black  cock  hot  from  Spain 
Crowed  from  his  perch  for  dawn  again, 
His  breast-pufft  hens,  one-legged  on  perch. 
Gurgled,  beak-down,  like  men  in  church. 
They  crooned  in  the  dark,  lifting  one  red  eye 
In  the  raftered  roost  as  the  fox  went  by. 

Mr.  Masefield  has  mastered  the  great 
art  in  poetry — to  surprise  us  with  the 
usual.  The  vividness  of  this  poem  is 
amazing.  It  is  not  the  highest  achieve- 
ment of  his  imagination — the  subject  is 
too  restricted;  but  largely  because  the 
subject  is  restricted,  it  is  possibly  the 
most  convincing  test  of  his  imagination. 
Here  there  are  no  competing  forces — no 
story,  no  drama,  no  character  or  passion 
in  the  ordinary  sense.  The  imagination 
is  stripped  and  therefore  you  can  test  its 
muscle;  The  average  rhymer,  the  aver- 
age poet,  must  feel  in  contact  with  this 
force  as  the  Roman  dandy  felt  when  he 
passed  his  slender,  shapely  fingers  over 


the   brawn   of   the   herculean    gladiator. 

The  continuity  of  the  marvel  is  a  sec- 
ond marvel.  Mr.  Masefield's  work  is 
packed  with  intensities.  He  responds  to 
every  summons.  He  enters  a  stable 
where  all  sorts  of  humble  and  menial 
things  are  doing,  and  not  a  thing  is 
done  in  that  stable  that  is  not  exciting 
to  Mr.  Masefield.  I  frankly  own  that  it 
would  rejoice  me  to  catch  him  in  a  pass- 
ing listlessness,  an  instant's  nonchalance; 
I  should  feel  it  a  sort  of  voucher  for  his 
enthusiasms.  The  rise  and  fall,  the  un- 
dulation, which  marks  all  human  experi- 
ence, all  human  excitement,  which  poetry 
doubly  recognizes  in  the  throb  of  pas- 
sion and  the  beat  of  rhythm,  is  scarcely 
perceptible  in  "Reynard  the  Fox."  Mr. 
Masefield  seems  almost  willing  to  expel 
the  unstressed  syllables  from  his  metre. 
He  writes:  "Moustache  clipped  tooth- 
brush-wise, and  jaws."  His  English  hates 
particles  like  Latin;  it  must  gorge  itself 
with  nouns  and  verbs.  It  is  all  wonder- 
ful, and  it  is  genuinely,  vitally  good;  but 
were  it  less  wonderful,  it  might  be  still 
better;  it  might  be  more  lifelike  if  it 
were  less  vital. 

Mr.  Masefield  is  passionate,  mystical, 
melancholy.  How  does  such  a  temper 
comport  itself  in  the  treatment  of  a 
Walter  Scott  or  Rudyard  Kipling  theme? 
The  temper  is  still  there,  still  discernible. 
The  passion  shows  itself  in  the  half- 
demoniac  quality  of  the  ride.  The  mys- 
ticism reveals  itself  in  our  final  sense  of 
something  phantasmagoric  in  the  whole 
event.  The  melancholy  shows  itself  in 
two  forms.  The  poet  describes  the  per- 
sons at  the  meet,  individualizing  after  a 
fashion  no  less  than  thirty-seven  people, 
and  granting  an  enlivening  stroke  or  two 
to  as  many  more.  The  strange  thing  is 
that  in  about  half  these  thirty-seven  per- 
sons, met  for  pastime  on  an  English 
countryside,  there  is  something  fell  or 
wry.  The  second  point  is  still  more  in- 
teresting. There  is  one  element  in  all 
this  blithe  excursion  which  answers  to 
Saul  Kame,  to  Johnny,  to  Dauber,  to  Nan, 
a  straining,  goaded,  passionate,  palpitat- 
ing thing.  That  thing  is  the  fox,  and 
on  the  fox  Mr.  Masefield's  temperament 
and  his  literary  instinct  inexorably  and 
inseparably  fasten.  One  sometimes  fan- 
cies that  in  this  chase  Mr.  Masefield's 
game  is  the  fox-hunter.  That  point, 
however,  is  not  clear.  What  one  may 
venture  to  suggest  is  that  fox-hunting 
in  England  would  cease  if  Englishmen 
could  be  brought  to  realize  the  mind  of  a 
fox  as  interpreted  by  Mr.  Masefield. 

In  the  binding  of  Miss  Lowell's  new 
book  there  are  two  colors.  The  back  is 
orange;  the  sides  are  lead-colored.  Each 
color  has  a  field  to  itself.  They  meet,  but 
do  not  blend;  their  meeting  is  a  concus- 
sion, neither  yields  a  jot  to  the  other, 
and  their  boundary  is  linear  and  absolute. 

After  the  binding,  take  the  book.  Read 
these  phrases :  "A  black  cat  amid  roses" ; 


"He  wore  a  coat  with  gold  and  red  maple 
leaves";  "I  saw  a  beetle  whose  wings 
were  of  black  lacquer  spotted  with  milk." 
These  colors  resemble  those  in  the  bind- 
ing. They  meet.  They  may  match- 
that  is,  they  may  help  each  other.  But 
whether  they  help  or  hinder,  they  never 
yield — they  never  blend.  Each  is  abso- 
lute; each  reserves  its  sovereignty.  If 
they  work  together,  it  is  not  a  fusion  of 
states,  but  a  concert  of  autocrats. 

The  reason  why  Miss  Lowell  and  her 
group  hate  sentimentality,  hate  senti- 
ment, hate  the  display,  perhaps  even  the 
avowal,  of  feeling,  becomes  gradually 
clear.  Take  sentiment  as  an  example  of 
the  group.  Its  office  is  to  blend,  and,  in 
blending,  it  blurs.  It  mellows,  it  min- 
gles; its  enemies  significantly  call  it 
"mushy."  It  removes  a  little  of  the  fact 
from  every  fact,  to  replace  it  by  an 
emanation  from  itself.  It  slubbers  the 
reality  with  prepossessions — at  its  worst, 
it  obliterates  the  reality;  obsei*vation  dis- 
appears, or  becomes  perfunctory. 

Against  the  habits  of  the  smaller  Vic- 
torians, Miss  Lowell  revolts.  "Give  us 
back  our  facts,"  she  cries,  "the  facts  that 
you  have  blurred  and  blinked."  As  the 
facts  that  interest  her  are  mainly  sense- 
impressions,  she  calls  them  images  and 
herself  an  imagist.  She  stands  for  the 
integrity  of  the  individual  perception;  if 
beauty  is  to  be  kept  at  all,  it  shall  be  an 
erect,  inflexible,  and  trenchant  beauty. 
Let  us  carry  geometry  into  art.  The 
theory,  whether  right  or  wrong,  is  enjoy- 
ably  robust,  and  a  certain  hardihood,  al- 
most hardness,  in  Miss  Lowell's  temper 
has  aided  her  in  giving  it  embodiment. 
We  are  helped  in  certain  undertakings 
by  our  faults,  as  we  are  obstructed  in 
others  by  our  virtues.  To  call  Miss 
Lowell,  as  a  person  among  persons,  un- 
feeling would  probably  be  slanderous, 
but  I  think  it  would  be  quite  just  to  call 
her  unfeeling  as  a  poet  among  poets. 
This  has  helped  her  to  give  a  special 
eminence  to  those  qualities  with  which 
the  presence  or  dominance  of  feeling 
naturally  interferes.  One  can  get  in  an 
oyster  shell  a  firmness  of  texture  and  a 
crispness  of  profile  which  are  not  to  be 
had  in  an  oyster;  but  it  does  not  follow 
inevitably  that  the  shell  is  the  higher 
formation  of  the  two. 

These  thoughts  enable  me  to  grasp 
more  clearly  than  ever  before  the  place 
of  free  verse  among  the  utensils  of  the 
school.  Lines  of  equal  length,  lines  of 
uniform  metre,  and  rhymed  lines  tend  to 
run  together,  and  the  running-together 
of  things  is  for  these  lovers  of  saliency 
the  unpardonable,  sin.  Divide  each  line 
from  its  neighbor  by  a  new  metre,  and 
its  separation,  its  distinction,  is  insured. 
If  we  look  at  a  series  of  equal  squares 
or  equal  circles,  the  tendency  to  group, 
to  mass,  to  assimilate,  is  almost  irresist- 
ible. But  if  we  look  at  a  mixed  series, 
showing  first  a  circle,  then  a  rhomb,  then 


34] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  35 


a  hexagon,  then  a  square,  and  so  on  in  a 
varying  and  unforeseeable  order,  there 
is  no  excuse,  no  chance,  for  the  relaxation 
of  attention.  Free  verse,  whether  right 
or  wrong,  or  both,  is  the  logical  instru- 
ment for  carrying  out  Miss  Lowell's  idea 
of  the  independence  and  sovereignty  of 
the  individual  perception. 

I  have  lingered  so  long  with  Miss 
Lowell  that  I  must  cut  short  my  parley 
with  her  latest  book.  Less  original  than 
"Can  Grande's  Castle,"  less  notable  in 
single  poems  than  some  earlier  volumes, 
it  is  easier  and  pleasanter  reading  than 
much  of  her  earlier  work.  I  count  272 
poems  on  257  pages.  This  carries  out 
the  principle.  The  more  poems,  the  more 
jutties,  friezes,  and  coigns  of  vantage, 
the  more  relief  and  separation,  in  a  word. 
I  have  another  reason  for  approving  this 
terseness.  I  am  easily  surfeited  with 
visual  images  in  which  I  cannot  trace  a 
per\-asive  feeling  or  detect  a  supporting 
thought.  An  unexplained  group  of  im- 
ages, if  it  be  single  or  concise,  allures 
me  by  its  mystery.  A  line  of  Hebrew 
script  stenciled  on  the  plate-glass  of  a 
Yiddish  restaurant  is  a  call  and  spur  to 
my  imagination.  But  to  run  my  eye 
down  line  after  line  of  Hebrew  script  in 
a  Talmud  folio  would  baffle  and  irk  me. 
So  I  am  moderately  attracted  when  Miss 
Lowell  writes : 

I  have  drunk  your  health 

In  the  red-lacquer  wine  cups, 

But  the  wind-bells  on  the  bronze  lanterns 

In  my  garden 

Are  corroded  and  fallen. 

But  a  page  of  this,  in  seeming  to  feed, 
would  merely  famish  me.  I  cannot  make 
a  meal  off  the  decorations  on  the  china. 

Some  things  in  Mr.  Wheelock's  new 
volume,  "Dust  and  Light,"  impress  me  as 
ornamental  and  labored;  the  dust  veils 
the  light.  In  "Earth,"  he  reaches  an  agree- 
able and  pellucid  simplicity,  and  when  he 
tells  us  that  earth's  beauty  flows  equally 

"Into  a  savior  or  a  rose," 
the  diction  is  aglow.  Even  here  the 
sentiment  does  not  quite  hold  me.  What 
is  a  piece  of  rock  to  me?  If  it  be  eight 
thousand  miles  thick,  so  much  the  worse. 
The  earth  is  dead.  I  am  of  the  party  of 
life.  Mr.  Wheelock,  too,  in  spite  of  him- 
self, is  finally  of  that  party.  He  calls 
the  earth  serene,  humble,  and  tender;  in 
other  words,  he  must  make  matter  spiri- 
tual, before  he  can  really  interest  him- 
self in  the  derivation  of  spirit  from  mat- 
ter. 

In  the  two  sequences,  "April  Lightning- 
and  "Be  Born  Again,"  Mr.  Wheelock  dis- 
closes a  much  more  original  and  remark- 
able personality.  He  is  mystic  and  sex- 
ualist,  like  many  persons;  but  the  great 
difference  between  him  and  the  tribe,  or 
crew,  of  his  associates  is  that  while  they 
are  mystics  by  way  of  being  sexualists, 
he  is  sexualist  by  way  of  being  mystic. 
The  ordinary  lover-mystic  goes  from  the 
chapel  to  the  couch;  Mr.  Wheelock  has 


an  oratory  in  his  bedchamber.  I  speak 
plainly;  Mr.  Wheelock  himself  is  plain. 
His  imagination  is  apparently  kindled 
and  liberated  at  the  very  point  at  which  we 
suppose  that  the  imagination  is  normally 
dispossessed  by  the  senses.  Other  poets 
write  prothalamia  and  epithalamia ;  what 
Mr.  Wheelock  writes  is  thalamia.  In  the 
beginnings  of  love,  its  shyness,  unfold- 
ings,  illusions,  variations,  he  takes  as 
poet  not  the  smallest  interest.  In  his 
love  there  is  no  spring,  and  its  summer 
is  all  August.  Culminations  attract  him, 
not  for  base  reasons,  but  because  in  them 
alone  does  his  imagination  complete  its 
bridal  with  the  universe. 

There  are  disenchantments,  naturally, 
which  the  poet  in  him  finds  hardly  less 
divine  than  the  enchantments.  Death 
becomes  the  sequel  of  love,  the  replace- 
ment of  love,  almost  the  equivalent  of 
love.  I  quote  one  sonnet  of  threnodic 
temper. 

The  large  day  of  the  everlasting  earth 
Draws  to  sublime  conclusion ;  in  the  mood 
Of  ancient  autumn,  awful  and  subdued, 

She  waits  the  death  that  is  the  door  to  birth— 

With  bounty  bowed  against  the  days  of  dearth, 
Holy    and    steadfast — but   dreer    leaves   are 

strewed 
Over  the  tomb  between  her  breasts,  and  rude 

Wail   the   huge   winds   that   mock   at   April's 
mirth. 

Lay  your  frail  arms  about  my  weariness. 

Bare  me  that  pale  and  patient  breast  again. 
Gather  me  to  you  in  one  deep  caress  1 

For  all  my  heart  is  breaking,  and  the  pain 
Of  life  is  on  me,  and  the  loneliness, — 

And  death  is  dark,  and  love  itself  is  vain. 

Mr.  Wheelock  is  an  obstructed  poet. 
There  are  occasions  and  themes  which 
remove  those  obstructions.  When  they 
arrive,  his  inspiration  declares  itself. 

My  hopes  of  Mr.  Richard  Aldington 
decline.  'The  "River,"  in  an  anthology,  had 
flung  over  me  the  light  mesh  of  its  deli- 
cate preciosity,  but  "Images"  has  set  me 
free.  There  are  things  here  indeed  which 
a  little  good-will  may  find  pretty,  things 
in  which  lovers  of  the  dusky  and  the 
rustling  may  even  detect  charm.  A. 
slight  veil  of  technical  originality,  free 
verse  and  the  like,  blurring  the  common- 
place and  hence  favoring  the  common- 
place, enwraps  the  volume.  Mr.  Alding- 
ton is  not  afraid  to  say  "damn" — we 
know  that  the  English  as  a  nation  are 
courageous.  I  am  not  disposed  to  com- 
ment on  this  practice  altogether  in  the 
spirit  of  Chaucer's  Parson,  "What  eyleth 
the  man  so  sinfully  to  swere?"  but  an- 
other criticism  seems  to  me  in  place. 
The  apology  for  profanity  is  spontaneity. 
Mr.  Aldington  swears  as  if  he  had  been 
twitted  with  his  inability  to  perform  the 
act,  and  had  invited  his  friends  and 
neighbors  to  be  present  at  the  refutation 
of  the  calumny.  I  like  him  best  in  two 
bitter  lines: 

The  bitterness,   the  misery,  the   wretchedness 

of  childhood 
Put  me  out  of  love  with  God. 

The  poets'  Translation  Series  has  been 


augmented  by  "Latin  Poems  of  the 
Renaissance,"  translated  by  Mr.  Alding- 
ton, and  "Choruses  from  the  Iphigeneia 
in  Aulis  and  the  Hippolytus  of  Euripides," 
translated  by  H.  D.  The  English  of  the 
two  books  is  only  a  shade  better  than  the 
competent,  uninspired  English  of  the 
average  careful  translation.  The  Latin 
poems  to  which  obscure  names  like  An- 
drea Navagero  and  Marc-Antonio  Flam- 
inio  are  prefixed,  are,  so  to  speak,  frosted 
with  ornament.  When  they  forsake  the 
two  great  temptations  to  ornament,  wo- 
man and  landscape,  and  betake  them- 
selves to  domesticities,  utilities,  or  an- 
tiquities, the  improvement  is  instantly 
perceptible.  As  for  the  choruses,  a  rapid 
comparison  of  one  or  two  from  the  "Hip- 
polytus" with  the  original  educed  some 
peculiarities.  H.  D.  is  translating 
choruses;  yet  lines  73-83,  which  are  ordi- 
nary iambics,  are  translated  with  the 
choruses  in  choric  metres,  and  of  these 
eleven  lines  three  are  silently  omitted. 
This  seems  an  inconsequent  proceeding, 
but  it  is  harmless  compared  with  the 
translation  in  the  same  passage  of  the 
achromatic  word,  6iiprET>»i,  by  a  phrase 
that  reeks  of  the  dye-vat,  "swirls  across." 
0.  W.  Firkins 

An  Old  Republican 

Clemenceau:  The  Man  and  His  Times.  By 
H.  M.  Hyndman.  New  York:  Frederick 
A.  Stokes  Company. 

OF  all  the  statesmen  who  guide  the 
destinies  of  nations  to-day  perhaps 
the  most  hateful  to  a  certain  school  of 
thinkers  is  the  veteran  Premier  of 
France,  Georges  Clemenceau.  To  the 
radical  internationalist  he  is  the  incarna- 
tion of  French  revanche  and  imperial- 
ism, the  implacable  enemy  of  the  new 
light  that  has  risen  in  Soviet  Russia, 
the  crafty  intriguer  who  has  thwarted 
idealistic  plans  for  a  new  world  founded 
on  fraternity  and  the  Fourteen  Points. 
It  may  be  surmised  that  Clemenceau  re- 
tains in  face  of  these  denunciations  the 
imperturbable  calm  of  Marjorie  Flem- 
ming's  pet  hen.  Yet  there  is  a  real  dan- 
ger that  this  incessant  denunciation  may 
wholly  distort  in  American  eyes  a  figure 
which  should  be  naturally  sympathetic 
and  appealing  as  the  very  incarnation  of 
Republican  France.  There  has  been  per- 
haps too  much  made  of  Clemenceau's 
nickname,  the  Tiger.  There  is  nothing 
of  the  tiger's  ferocity  or  blood-lust  in 
the  man  who  pleaded  for  the  pardon  of 
those  Communists  who  a  few  years  be- 
fore had  sought  his  life,  nor  can  the 
statesman  who  emerges  from  a  half  cen- 
tury of  French  politics  as  poor  as  when 
he  entered  be  thought  of  as  a  beast  of 
prey.  All  that  Clemenceau  has  in  com- 
mon with  the  tiger  is  his  fighting  spirit, 
a  quality  which  should  not  be  altogether 
repugnant  to  the  countrymen  of  Wash- 
ington, Grant,  and  Roosevelt. 
Against   all    such    misconception    and 


January  10,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[85 


misunderstanding  Mr.  Hyndman's  "Cle- 
menceau,  the  Man  and  His  Times"  should 
serve  as  an  admirable  antidote.  It  is 
all  the  more  valuable  because  the  author, 
old  friend  of  Clemenceau  as  he  is,  writes 
from  the  standpoint  of  an  advanced  So- 
cialist and  is  by  no  means  sparing  of  his 
criticism.  His  work  is  no  mere  enthu- 
siastic eulogy,  not  even  a  biography  in 
the  ordinary  sense,  but  a  detailed  pic- 
ture of  the  social  and  political  life  of 
France  from  the  time  of  the  second  Em- 
pire to  the  close  of  the  present  war, 
centred  upon  the  dominating  person- 
ality of  Clemenceau.  Mr.  Hyndman 
takes  great  pains  to  fill  in  the  back- 
ground; we  come  to  know  something  of 
his  hero's  friends  and  foes,  of  Thiers 
and  Gambetta,  Delcasse,  Jaures,  and 
Caillaux;  and  the  author  speaks  of 
Clemenceau  and  his  times  not  with  the 
air  of  a  student  who  has  compiled  his 
information  from  books,  but  with  the 
assurance  of  a  veteran  partisan  in  Eu- 
ropean politics. 

Georges  Benjamin  Clemenceau  was 
born  in  a  little  village  of  La  Vendee  in 
1841.  His  father,  the  descendant  of  an 
old  land-holding  family  in  that  province, 
was  a  true  type  of  the  men  who  guided 
the  Revolution,  a  materialist,  a  philan- 
thropist, and  an  aggressive  radical.  His 
protests  against  the  coup  d'etat  of  Na- 
poleon the  Little  earned  him  the  honor 
of  imprisonment  in  1851.  His  son  has 
inherited  and  developed  the  father's 
principles  and  it  is  not  without  interest 
to  note  that  the  first  record  we  have  of 
Clemenceau's  political  activity  is  his 
imprisonment  by  the  Imperial  Govern- 
ment for  a  too  enthusiastic  eulogy  in 
some  radical  journal  of  the  Republican 
revolution  of  1848.  Clemenceau's  early 
life  in  an  isolated  province  gave  him  a 
highly  valuable  understanding  of  the 
French  peasant.  "Rural  France,  the 
real  France,"  he  told  Mr.  Hyndman  who 
was  urging  him  to  throw  in  his  lot  with 
the  Socialists,  "is  and  will  always  remain 
individualist,  founded  on  property."  "I 
have  seen  the  peasants  close,"  he  added, 
"at  every  stage  of  existence  from  birth 
to  death  and  this  is  their  guiding  prin- 
ciple in  every  relation  of  life." 

But  Clemenceau  is  something  more 
than  a  mere  representative  of  rural 
France.  After  some  preliminary  train- 
ing he  went  to  Paris  to  complete  his 
studies  in  the  medical  profession,  and  ex- 
cept for  brief  intervals,  including  a  visit 
to  England  and  a  short  sojourn  in  this 
country,  where  he  taught  French  in  a 
girls'  school  and  married  one  of  his 
pupils,  he  has  lived  in  Paris  for  over 
half  a  century  and  knows  the  metropolis 
quite  as  well  as  he  knows  the  country. 
He  began  his  career  as  a  doctor  in  the 
workingmen's  quarter  of  Montmartre, 
and  by  his  energy,  generosity,  and  un- 
daunted republicanism  won  such  popu- 
larity among  his  neighbors  that  on  the 


fall  of  the  Empire  he  was  at  once  chosen 
Mayor  of  the  quarter  to  administer  the 
district  during  the  trying  days  of  the 
siege  of  Paris.  As  a  representative  of 
Paris  to  the  National  Assembly  at  Bor- 
deaux, he  voted  for  a  continuance  of  the 
war  and  is  the  last  living  representative 
of  the  signers  of  a  protest  against  the 
cession  of  Alsace-Lorraine.  He  was 
deeply  involved  in  the  troubles  of  the 
Commune.  Sympathizing  sincerely  with 
the  opposition  of  the  metropolis  to  the 
reactionary  policy  of  Thiers,  he  never- 
theless risked  his  life  in  vain  to  prevent 
the  murder  of  the  two  nationalist  gen- 
erals by  the  Paris  mob,  which  was  the 
direct  cause  of  the  bitter  war  between 
Paris  and  the  country.  His  counsels  of 
moderation  and  clemency  so  offended  the 
desperate  leaders  of  the  Commune  that 
an  order  for  his  arrest,  the  first  step 
to  his  judicial  murder,  was  issued.  He 
managed,  however,  to  escape  from  Paris 
and  went  on  a  tour  of  radical  propa- 
ganda in  the  provinces,  dogged  at  every 
step  by  emissaries  of  the  reactionary 
Government.-  In  1871  as  in  1917  Clemen- 
ceau spoke,  worked,  and  risked  his  life  in 
the  great  cause  of  national  unity. 

It  would  take  too  long  to  give  even  a 
brief  sketch  of  Clemenceau's  long  and 
illustrious  public  life.  It  falls  naturally 
into  two  parts,  his  career  as  a  caustic 
critic  and  occassional  wrecker  of  a 
succession  of  mediocre  bourgeois  ad- 
ministrations, and  his  own  work  as 
Minister  and  Premier  in  the  later  years 
of  his  life.  A  steadfast  champion  of 
radical  republicanism,  he  consistently  op- 
posed in  the  Chamber  and  in  the  press 
the  policy  of  colonial  imperialism  by 
which  Ferry  and  others  sought  to  divert 
attention  from  the  crying  needs  for 
social  reform  at  home.  He  helped  to 
wreck  the  attempt  of  Boulanger  to  es- 
tablish a  military  dictatorship,  exposed 
the  Panama  scandals,  and  joined  hands 
with  Zola  in  the  heroic  attempt  to  secure 
justice  for  Dreyfus.  A  combination  of 
Socialists  and  reactionaries  drove  him 
for  a  time  from  public  life  in  1893,  but 
after  a  brief  period  devoted  to  journal- 
ism and  to  authorship  he  was  returned 
to  the  Senate,  and  in  1906  became  for 
the  first  time  a  member  of  the  admin- 
istration, serving  as  Minister  of  the  In- 
terior under  Sarrien. 

Clemenceau's  career  as  Minister  and 
Premier  has  two  equally  important  as- 
pects. At  home  he  was  a  strong  advocate 
of  radical  legislation  for  the  benefit  of 
the  working-class.  Bitterly  as  he  was 
attacked  by  the  Socialist  party  he  was 
warmly  in  sympathy  with  most  of  their 
practical  aims.  "I  claim  to  be  a  Social- 
ist," he  said.  "Socialism  is  a  social  be- 
neficence in  action,  the  intervention  of 
all  on  behalf  of  the  victim  of  the  few." 
But  he  was  steadfastly  opposed  to  any 
of  the  outbreaks  of  class-warfare,  which 
destroyed  the  unity  of  the  nation.      He 


sent  troops  to  the  Lens  collieries  at  the 
time  of  a  great  strike  in  that  district, 
not  to  break  the  strike,  with  which  he 
was  largly  in  sympathy,  but  to  prevent 
rioting  and  disorder.  He  crushed  an  in- 
cipient rebellion  in  the  wine-growing 
district  of  the  South  by  a  prompt  dis- 
play of  force,  and  he  promptly  called  on 
the  army  to  furnish  engineers  when  a 
strike  of  the  electricians  of  Paris 
plunged  the  city  into  darkness.  "My  pro- 
gramme," he  said  in  memorable  words, 
"is  Social  Reform  under  the  law  against 
grievances  and  Social  Order  under  the 
law  against  revolutionists." 

In  his  foreign  policy  the  great  achieve- 
ment of  Clemenceau  was  the  establish- 
ment of  the  Entente  with  Great  Britain. 
Throughout  his  life  he  had  been  an  An- 
glophile. In  fact  during  the  period  of 
English  unpopularity  in  France  he  had 
more  than  once  been  accused  of  being 
a  hired  tool  of  Great  Britain.  But 
against  the  storm  of  German  aggression 
which,  from  1906,  was  gathering  on  the 
frontiers  the  one  sure  help  which  Cle- 
menceau recognized  was  the  power  of 
free  and  liberal  England.  He  had  long 
distrusted,  rightly  as  events  were  to 
show,  the  alliance  with  autocratic  Rus- 
sia, and  from  the  time  of  his  accession 
to  power  he  labored  in  conjunction  with 
Edward  VII  to  promote  that  informal 
but  binding  union  of  hearts  which  on 
the  outbreak  of  the  Great  War  was  to 
prove  the  salvation  of  Europe  and  the 
world. 

Clemenceau's  services  to  France  and 
the  world  since  1914  are  too  fresh  in  the 
minds  of  men  to  need  rehearsal.  It  is 
enough  to  say  that  from  the  very  begin- 
ing  he  urged  the  energetic  prosecution 
of  the  war  with  such  vehemence  that  his 
organ,  I'Homme  Libre,  was  repeatedly 
cut  to  pieces  and  frequently  suppressed 
by  a  timorous  censorship,  until  he  re- 
baptized  it  with  Gallic  irony  V Homme 
Enchaine.  He  was  recalled  to  power  in 
1917  because  all  that  was  best  and 
strong  in  France  recognized  that  he 
alone  of  public  men  possessed  the  en- 
ergy, courage,  and  resolution  to  crush 
the  dangerous  intrigues  for  a  German 
peace  which  a  succession  of  cowardly 
ministers  had  ignored  or  pandered  to. 
From  the  moment  that  Clemenceau  took 
the  helm  it  was  known  the  world  over 
that  there  would  be  no  faltering  or  com- 
promise with  foreign  enemies  or  traitors 
at  home.  His  repeated  visits  to  the 
trenches  and  cordial  relations  with  the 
military  gave  the  heroic  army  the  assur- 
ance it  desired  and  deserved,  that  the 
civil  government  would  support  it  to  the 
last.  He  risked  his  life  again  and  again 
in  exposed  sections  with  the  one  idea  of 
convincing  the  poilu  that  the  ruler  of 
France  was  ready  to  share  his  dangers. 
In  the  darkest  hours  of  the  German  drive 
his  faith  in  final  victory  was  unshaken, 
and  it  is  a  fitting  tribute  to  his  services 


36] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  35 


that  his  name  along  with  that  of  Foch 
should  by  unanimous  resolution  of  the 
Senate  be  enshrined  in  the  town  hall  of 
everj'  Commune  of  France  as  well  de- 
serving of  the  gratitude  of  the  country. 
T.  M.  PARROTT 

Two  "Latest  Ettbrts" 

The  Black  Drop.  By  Alice  Brown.  New 
York:    The  Macmillan  Company. 

The  Builders.  By  Ellen  Glasgow.  New 
York :   Doubleday,  Page  and  Company. 

THESE  novels,  like  so  much  of  our 
current  American  fiction,  are  serious- 
ly planned  and  earnestly  labored.    They 
mean  to  mean  something,  at  all  costs. 
What  they  lack  is  the  quality  no  effort 
can  achieve:  the  genial  quality  of  great 
story-telling,  the  effect  of  a  spontaneous 
pouring   forth,   of   energy   released   not 
without  pains,  but  without  pain.    This  is 
not  Miss  Brown's  fault,  or  Miss  Glas- 
gow's ;  but  there  it  is,  to  account  for  the 
qualified  mood  in  which  we  read  their 
work.    Never  with  them  do  we  quite  re- 
lax and  make  ourselves  at  ease.    Always 
between  us  and  the  story  we  feel  the 
story-teller  at  work,  with  rigid  hand  and 
knitted  brow.     .     .     .     Since  1914  there 
has  been  a  notable  increase  of  strain  in 
Miss  Brown's  fiction.    Her  peace  of  mind 
was  violated,  with  Belgium,  in  those  first 
days  of  August.    From  that  moment  her 
poise  deserts  her,  the  quiet  confidence  of 
the  well-bred  New  Englander.     She  is 
agitated,  excitable;  she  thinks  in  super- 
latives —  mourns,     execrates,     exults, 
prophesies.    She  speaks  for  thousands  of 
delicately  constituted  Americans  to  whom 
the  war  in  Europe  came  first  as  a  per- 
sonal outrage  and  almost  at  once  as  a 
personal  responsibility.     The  intolerable 
weight  was  there,   on  their  shoulders; 
their  only  safety  from  madness  lay  in 
taking  sides  once  for  all.     This  could 
not  be  merely  another  wanton  conflict  of 
national  greeds  and  ambitions,  could  not 
be  like  former  wars :  it  was  Armageddon, 
the  war,  a  crucial  and  final  trying  of 
conclusions  between  civilization  and  bar- 
barism, God  and  Satan,  right  and  wrong. 
You  were  saved  or  damned.     Neutrality 
was  an  unspeakable  fraud.    You  bitterly 
resented  America's  failure  to  leap  into 
the  struggle.    You  pictured  loyal  Amer- 
ica as  composed  of  a  magnanimous  ma- 
jority straining  towards  the  privilege  of 
battle  for  the  right,  and  a  timid  or  blind 
minority,    headed    by    the    Government, 
ignominiously  hanging  back.    And  even 
more  than  the  Administration  you  de- 
spised and  feared  the  disloyal  America, 
the    unknown    quantity    of    hyphenates, 
pro-Germans,  and  pacifists  who  were  all, 
consciously  or  unconsciously,  backing  up 
the  Hun. 

To  the  worst  of  these  categories  be- 
longs the  villain  of  "The  Black  Drop." 
Nor  is  villain  a  slovenly  term  for  him. 
It  is  the  amiable  contention  of  the  "new 


novelists"  that  no  man  born  of  woman  is 
either  devil  or  angel.    Charles  Tracy  is 
the  totally  bad  man  of  melodrama.    Scion 
of  an  old  and  honorable  New  England 
family,  there  is  the  taint  of  some  remote 
and  forgotten  inheritance  in  his  blood. 
A  marked  personal  charm  is  supposed  to 
conceal   his    true   character.      An   actor 
might  convince  us  of  this,  but  even  he 
would  have  a  tussle  with  the  lines.    On 
paper  Charles  Tracy  is  the  miscreant, 
the  black  and  slimy  soul  marked  from  the 
cradle;  we  instinctively  hiss  him  on  his 
first  appearance.     And  by  contrast  his 
Helen    is    the    radiantly    beautiful    and 
noble-hearted  damsel  of  black-and-white 
romance,      the     perfect      old-fashioned 
heroine.     She  lives   "married   in   name 
only"  throughout  our  acquaintance  with 
her,  and  when  Charles  has  been  discov- 
ered by  the  authorities   (as  the  gallery 
has  discovered  him  in  the  first  act)  and 
his  knavish  pro-German  profiteer  tricks 
are  put  a  stop  to,  and  he  vanishes,  sneer- 
ing, with  the  adventuress — when  he  is 
comfortably  out  of  the  way,  his  quondam 
Helen  remains  before  us  "unawakened," 
virginal,    wide-eyed,    her    one   plaintive 
note  echoing  to  the  last,  "Grandsir,  what 
is  love?"    If  you  believe  in  fairies,  good 
and  bad,  and  like  them  decked  with  the 
graces    of    a    considered    and    elaborate 
style,  here  is  your  entertainment;  though 
the  entertainer's  dabbling  in  realistic  de- 
tail doubtfully  waits  upon  illusion. 

Miss  Glasgow  is  a  novelist  who  has 
won  popularity  without  letting  herself  be 
drawn  into  hasty  production.  Like  Win- 
ston Churchill,  she  takes  two  or  three 
years  to  the  writing  of  a  novel — perhaps 
again  like  Mr.  Churchill  she  is  a  trifle 
too  solemn  over  the  business.  The  effort 
of  the  story-maker  sensibly  overweighs 
the  impulse  of  the  story-teller.  But  "The 
Builders"  is  less  heavy-handed  than  its 
predecessors.  Its  action  is  more  compact 
and  its  dialogue  shows  less  tendency  to 
run  to  seed.  Brave  Caroline  is  some- 
thing more  than  a  replica  of  the  con- 
ventional romantic  heroine.  Angelica  is 
a  mollusc-wife  none  too  delicately  drawn, 
but  "  with  a  difference."  And  the  other 
women,  Matty  Timberlake  the  dragon  of 
beneficence,  and  Mary  Blackburn  the 
Amazon  in  love,  are  excellent  variations 
from  the  familiar  types.  But  the  three 
men  of  the  story  are  hardly  more  than 
capable  "parts."  The  Allan  who  is  so 
easily  lured  from  his  Mary  by  the  first 
deliberate  glance  of  a  siren,  the  hand- 
some wastrel  Roane  who,  a  perfect  South- 
ern gentleman,  insults  women  with  so 
much  charm  and  such  comfortable  im- 
punity, are  figures  of  "the  screen."  As 
for  Robert  Blackburn,  who,  hopelessly 
wedded  to  the  mollusc-siren,  is  the 
natural  heaven-born  mate  for  brave  Caro- 
line, few  masculine  observers  will  have 
much  patience  with  him.  To  his  glory 
the  ancient  chord  of  honor,  duty,  and 
Southern   chivalry   is   twanged   without 


mercy.  The  weak  point  about  the  story 
is  that  its  effectiveness  all  hangs  on  our 
acceptance  of  Angelica.  Unless  we  be- 
lieve in  her  supreme  beauty  and  charm, 
unless  we  come  directly  under  her  spell, 
the  rest  is  naught.  Literature  is  full  of 
ruthless  and  irresistible  sirens;  what  one 
of  them  but  Shakespeare's  Cleopatra  has 
really  held  us  in  her  hands?  There  is 
little  subtlety  in  this  Angelica's  speech 
or  action,  and  for  her  physical  subtlety 
we  have  only  her  author's  word.  Why 
should  we  believe  that  not  only  the 
Roberts  and  the  Carolines,  but  all  of 
Richmond  (including  the  Blackburn 
family  doctor)  could  ever  have  been  be- 
fooled by  her?  Miss  Glasgow's  Angel- 
ica, like  Miss  Brown's  Charles  Tracy,  is 
a  rickety  axle  for  our  apple-cart. 

H.  W.  BOYNTON 

Business — and  Aristotle 

The  Turnover  op  Factory  Labor.  By 
Sumner  H.  Schlichter,  Ph.D.  With  an 
Introduction  by  John  R.  Commons. 
New  York :    D.  Appleton  and  Company. 

IF  the  fine  old  Greek  sage  Herakleitos, 
returning  to  earth,  were  to  visit  a 
modern  factory  he  would  find  there  a 
striking  exemplification  of  the  basic 
principle  of  his  philosophy — "everything 
flows."  Just  as  you  can  not  step  twice 
into  the  same  river,  so  you  can  not  enter 
twice  the  same  factory.  Even  the  walls, 
that  seem  so  enduring,  are  undergoing 
continual,  though  imperceptible  change; 
the  machinery  is  being  rapidly  worn  out 
and  replaced;  the  raw  material  passes 
•  swiftly  through  the  various  processes  of 
manufacture  and  then  out  into  the  mar- 
ket as  a  finished  product;  laborers  come 
and  go  in  an  ever-changing  stream;  and 
even  the  management  frequently  changes 
for  better  or  worse.  Of  course,  this 
external  flux,  in  that  it  follows  the  law 
of  being  and  becoming,  can  not  be  wholly 
bad ;  and  yet  instinctively  we  try  to  stay 
the  movement,  forgetting  that  change  is 
of  the  essence  of  life  and  that  things 
stable  and  inert  are  either  asleep  or 
dead.  Doubtless  Aristotle — for  we  are 
still  learning  from  the  ancients — would 
say  that  we  must  seek  the  golden  mean, 
which,  being  interpreted  in  times  of 
business  management,  implies  that  we 
should  adjust  the  flow  of  labor  some- 
where between  an  excessively  rapid  turn- 
over and  no  turnover  at  all. 

Amid  a  great  mass  of  statistics  Dr. 
Schlichter  mentions  a  number  of  inter- 
esting and  curious  facts.  The  tremendous 
increase  in  the  demand  for  labor  during 
the  war  has  greatly  increased  the  rate  of 
turnover,  as  men  are  scarce  and  jobs 
plentiful.  For  the  same  reason  both 
resignations  and  discharges  are  more 
numerous  in  times  of  prosperity  than  in 
times  of  depression,  when  men  are  anx- 
ious to  hold  their  jobs. 

The  psychologist,  at  least,  has  his 
innings  in  this  book,  for  the  author  de- 


January  10,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[37 


votes  the  latter  half  of  it  to  an  elaborate 
discussion  of  the  means  whereby  the 
rate  of  turnover  may  be  reduced;  so,  by 
a  somersault  of  its  own,  the  book  becomes 
a  manual  on  methods  of  handling  men. 
In  this  other  vast  field  are  many  by- 
paths, where  the  author  loves  to  linger, 
and  others  which  he  merely  points  out 
along  the  way.  He  discourses  on  sci- 
entific management,  hiring  and  firing, 
testing  of  candidates,  the  breaking-in  of 
new  workers,  the  training  of  foremen, 
the  need  of  an  employment  manager  or 
supervisor  of  labor,  the  desirability  of  a 
liberal  labor  policy  as  distinguished 
from  a  merely  enlightened  policy.  And 
yet  he  never  once  mentions  the  impor- 
tance of  tact  and  a  spirit  of  friendliness, 
without  which  the  best-laid  schemes  for 
the  scientific  management  of  men  must 
come  to  naught. 

Business  men  who  read  this  book  will 
wonder  how  they  have  managed  their 
affairs  in  the  past  without  an  efficiency 
expert,  and  how  they  will  be  able  to 
carry  on  during  the  next  twenty  years — 
if  they  live  so  long.  Verily,  times  and 
customs  change,  and  it  is  hard  for  the 
older  generation  to  learn  the  ways  of 
the  new.  Nevertheless,  they  must  do  it 
or  be  prepared  to  turn  over  the  manage- 
ment to  young  fellows  strong  in  theory 
and  self-confidence,  but  lacking  in  the 
seasoned  judgment  that  comes  from  long 
experience  of  victory  and  defeat.  Here 
again  the  principle  of  the  mean  applies, 
for  in  business  as  in  war  there  should 
be  variety  of  talent,  and  though  there 
must  be  changes  in  leadership,  there  is 
always  need  of  a  Nestor  or  a  Ulysses. 

The  Run  of  the  Shelves 

WE  have  enough  chemistry  in  our 
make-up  to  know  that  a  percolator  is 
something  besides  a  coffee-pot.  In  the 
chemical  laboratory,  as  we  remember 
from  ancient,  malodorous  days,  it  was 
the  name  for  a  comical  paper  filter  which 
we  used  to  separate  a  liquid  from  its 
sediment,  and  which  sometimes,  when  the 
instructor's  back  was  turned,  we  per- 
forated with  a  pencil  that  the  percolation 
might  be  more  expeditious — with  disas- 
trous results.  We  have  no  desire  to  punc- 
ture Mr.  Ellwood  Hendrick's  "Percolator 
Papers"  (Harpers) ;  they  run  lightly  and 
swiftly  enough  as  it  is.  But  we  should 
like  to  filter  one  part  of  their  composi- 
tion from  another.  The  metaphor  is 
mixed,  but  the  meaning  is  clear.  Where 
these  essays  take  the  form  of  light,  but 
not  trivial,  comment  on  the  ways  of  men 
and  the  accidents  of  life,  they  are  charm- 
ing; the  turn  of  thought  is  paradoxical 
enough  to  be  stimulating  and  the  style 
is  of  the  right  essay  flavor.  Such,  for 
example,  is  the  paper  called  rather  whim- 
sically CjH^OH,  which  is  no  pedantic 
treatise  on  the  composition  of  alcohol,  but 
a  very  human  document  on  the  probable 


effects  of  prohibition.  This  is  the  pure 
liquid  of  Mr.  Hendrick's  little  book, 
which  we  should  like  to  filter  off  from  the 
scientific  dregs.  For  Mr.  Hendrick  has 
a  theory,  which  does  not  amuse  us  in 
itself,  and  rather  mars  the  entertainment 
he  otherwise  has  to  offer.  He  calls  it 
"A  Plea  for  Materialism,"  and  preaches 
it  a  paper  of  that  name,  not  to  mention 
scattered  allusions  to  it  elsewhere.  Of 
course,  it  is  not  a  gross  materialism  born 
in  the  street,  but  the  offspring  of  a  pretty 
flirtation  between  the  laboratory  and  the 
church,  as  if  one  should  deck  out  in  spir- 
itual rags  Taine's  old  dictum  that  the 
emotions  are  merely  chemical  products 
like  sugar  and  vitriol.  "So,"  says  Mr. 
Hendrick,  "if  we  see  the  most  beautiful 
thing  in  the  world,  a  mother  turning  to 
her  child,  we  shall  find  our  vision  en- 
larged by  the  knowledge  that  she  is  act- 
ing in  conformance  with  unerring  physi- 
cal and  chemical  laws;  that  definite  re- 
actions take  place  within  her,"  etc.  We 
wonder.  The  thing  has  to  us  a  little  of 
that  ancient  smell  of  the  laboratory  in 
those  old  Victorian  days,  when  men 
thought  they  knew  a  great  deal  more 
than  they  really  did  know. 

La  Revue  Mondiale  surveys  the  field 
of  American  humor  with  the  following 
result:  "The  United  States  hails  in  the 
person  of  Don  Marquis  the  successor 
to  Mark  Twain,  Stephen  Crane,  Am- 
brose Bierce,  and  other  kings  of  Ameri- 
can humor  and  satire."  (By  all  means, 
add  Poe,  Lowell,  Josh  Billings,  and  any 
"autres"  you  can  think  of.  We  Ameri- 
cans never  do  things  by  halves.)  "A 
part  of  the  New  York  press  considers 
that  his  latest  volume,  'Prefaces,'  deserves 
to  be  placed  beside  La  Rochefoucauld, 
Voltaire,  Chamfort  .  .  .  Certain  critics 
even  speak  of  him  as  the  continuator  of 
Shakespeare  and  Renan."  (Where  are 
Euripides,  Lucian,  Cervantes,  Rabelais, 
and  Dean  Swift?)  "Alas!  we  have  not 
been  able  to  find  there  a  single  stroke  of 
humor  or  satire  which  could  entitle  this 
writer  to  a  place  above  the  humble  level 
of  those  journalists  who  struggle  to  pro- 
duce a  glimmer  of  wit  out  of  none  at 
all — malgre  son  absence  totale."  (Helas, 
once  again.  Though  we  are  not  sure  that 
the  assertion  could  be  maintained  by  the 
single  volume  "Prefaces,"  Don  Marquis 
is,  in  point  of  rarely  combined  wisdom 
and  cleverness,  about  the  best  we  have 
to  offer.  Evidently,  we  should  do  well 
not  to  offer  him  to  the  French.) 

Senator  J.  S.  McLennan  of  Canada  is 
the  author  of  a  history  of  the  town  of 
Louisbourg,  Cape  Breton,  a  work  hand- 
somely printed  and  bound,  and  issued 
under  the  title,  "Louisbourg  from  Its 
Foundation  to  Its  Fall,  1713-1758" 
(Macmillan).  In  the  course  of  his  nar- 
rative, he  has  occasion  to  refer  to  a 
Madame  Eurry  De  la  Perelle,  a  resident 


of  Louisbourg,  and  in  his  comment  upon 
her  presents  an  admirable  characteriza- 
tion of  the  peculiar  position  which  the 
town  occupies  in  the  history  of  America. 

Madame  Eurry  De  la  Purelle  came  to 
Louisbourg  when  it  was  founded  a  young 
woman  of  twenty.  Her  husband  was  the 
first  officer  who  died  in  the  new  settlement. 
She  lived  there  until  the  second  capture; 
her  three  sons  were  officers  in  the  troops. 
She  did  not  die  for  twenty-four  years  after 
the  demolition  of  the  town,  all  the  fortunes 
of  which  passed  before  her  eyes.  That  the 
life  of  a  town  should  fall  so  far  short  of 
that  of  one  of  its  people  suggests  the  in- 
stability of  the  unimportant.  Yet  against 
this  one  background,  with  this  unity  of 
space  and  time,  developed  events  which  dis- 
played the  genius,  administrative,  economic, 
military,  of  two  peoples.  The  two-score 
and  six  years  of  Louisbourg's  existence  show 
forth  causes  and  consequences  as  clearly  as  the 
colonial  history  of  two  centuries. 

This  comparatively  insignificant  town 
of  Cape  Breton,  or  Isle  Royale,  as  the 
French  called  the  island,  became  famous 
because  of  the  part  that  it  played  in  the 
half-century  struggle  between  France 
and  England  during  the  years  from  the 
Treaty  of  Utrecht  to  the  Treaty  of  Paris. 
It  held  a  strategic  position,  not  only  in  a 
military  sense,  but  in  a  commercial  sense 
also,  for  it  controlled  the  fi.shing  indus- 
try of  the  Newfoundland  banks  and  ad- 
joining waters.  It  was  the  central  point 
of  an  area  of  conflict,  and  because  of  its 
capture  by  the  New  Englanders  in  1745. 
its  return  to  France  by  the  Treaty  of 
Aix  la  Chapelle  in  1748,  its  recapture 
by  the  British  in  1758,  and  its  perma- 
nent cession  to  Great  Britain  in  1763, 
it  became  a  subject  of  romantic  interest 
at  the  time  and  has  remained  so  ever 
since.  Though  popular  attention  has 
been  drawn  largely  to  the  military  as- 
pects of  its  history,  the  town  deserves 
remembrance  quite  as  much  for  its  com- 
mercial significance,  since  commerce  was 
a  more  dominant  factor  in  the  eighteenth 
century  than  national  animosity  and  was 
the  starting  point  in  the  conflict  which 
ended  in  the  downfall  of  the  French 
colonial  empire  of  the  West.  This 
downfall  was  due,  as  Mr.  McLennan 
admirably  brings  out,  not  to  the  de- 
fects of  the  Frenchman  as  a  colonist 
or  colonial  administrator,  nor  to  any 
inferiority  in  the  strength  or  morale 
of  the  French  soldier  and  seaman,  but 
to  the  weakness  of  the  government  at 
home,  which  starved  the  French  navy  in 
money,  men  and  equipment,  at  the  very 
time  when  Great  Britain  was  lavishing 
the  resources  of  her  growing  wealth  on 
ships  and  service  at  sea.  The  fall  of 
Louisbourg  in  1745  and  1758  marks  the 
supremacy  of  British  sea  power  and  il- 
lustrates the  old  French  saying  which 
Great  Britain  made  her  own,  "Le  trident 
de  Neptune,  c'est  le  sceptre  du  Monde." 

The  title  of  "White  Shadows  in  the 
South  Seas"  is  suggestive  of  the  style 
of  this  volume  rather  than  of  its  subject 


38] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  35 


matter.  Frederick  O'Brien  spent  a  year 
living  with  the  remnant  of  natives  in 
the  Marquesas,  and  the  result  is  a  clever 
and  picturesque  book,  filled  almost  too 
full  of  dramatic  high  lights  and  descrip- 
tive diction  which  only  infrequently  falls 
into  the  sing-song  wordiness  of  senti- 
mentality. Tattooed  and  naive  savages, 
unearthly  scenery,  ancient  music,  and 
cannibalistic  customs — all  are  wreathed 
about  with  romance  and  glamour.  Al- 
ways there  runs  the  tragic  strain  of  the 
terrible  slaughter  and  extermination 
wrought  directly  by  conquering  white 
men,  and  indirectly  by  the  vices  and  dis- 
eases of  civilization.  And  yet  where  the 
book  should  be  powerful  it  is  weak, 
where  we  should  thrill  with  the  marvel, 
or  the  tragedy,  or  the  beauty  of  it  all, 
we  are  left  almost  unmoved.  The  writer 
has  lived  and  moved  among  the  most 
dramatic  scenes,  has  recorded  them  cor- 
rectly but  heartlessly,  photographically 
but  coldly.  As  in  certain  of  the  pictures, 
the  beauty  of  nudity  is  lost  by  the  so- 
phisticated photographer's  gallery  prop- 
erties, so  we  feel  that  the  opportunity 
for  a  great  book  has  slipped  away  from 
the  author,  who  has  given  time  and  la- 
bor, but  little  heart  or  soul  to  his  work. 

New  worlds — new  words.  The  war 
has  brought  a  host  of  such,  and  even 
outside  the  zone  of  hostilities  the  Eng- 
lish language  continues  to  demonstrate 
its  capacity  for  growth  by  borrowing 
foreign  words,  fashioning  new  ones  of 
its  own,  and  renovating  old  ones.  Prof.^ 
C.  Alphonso  Smith  in  "New  Words  Self-' 
Defined"  (Doubleday)  allows  some  of 
the  more  frequent  of  these  newcomers 
to  speak  for  themselves.  It  is  well  to 
get  them  on  record,  for  not  a  few  of 
them  will  sooner  or  later  be  forgotten 
and,  without  such  lexicographical  aids 
as  Professor  Smith  here  lays  the  foun- 
dation for,  will  exist  only  to  puzzle  fu- 
ture readers  of  the  written  page  of  these 
tremendous  days. 

Professor  Otto  Jespersen,  the  distin- 
guished professor  of  English,  at  the  Uni- 
versity of  Copenhagen,  Denmark,  writes : 

I  am  busy  with  a  book  on  the  development 
of  language.  Just  now  I  am  writing  the 
chapters  that  are  to  deal  with  the  influence 
of  children's  speech  on  the  evolution  of  lan- 
guage in  general,  and  I  find  that  it  would  be 
good  if  I  had  some  more  examples  of  those 
new  formations  of  words  in  which  children's 
speech  abounds  (such  as  flyable  =:  able  to  fly). 
I  have  a  great  many  examples  from  Danish, 
but  very  few  from  English,  and  as  I  write  in 
English  it  would  be  splendid  if  I  had  some 
more.  Those  who  have  written  on  this  lan- 
guage of  children  (O'Shea,  Sully,  etc.)  have 
paid  too  little  attention  to  most  of  the  things 
to  which  I,  as  a  linguist  or  philologist,  attach 
the  greatest  importance. 

If  any  reader  of  the  Review  has  ma- 
terial of  this  sort  in  his  possession  which 
he  cares  to  communicate  we  shall  see  that 
it  comes  into  Professor  Jespersen's  com'- 
petent  hands. 


Drama 


On  the  London  Stage 

OUR  best  dramatists  hibernated  dur- 
ing the  war,  and  have  not  yet  re- 
awakened. From  Mr.  Galsworthy,  Mr. 
Masefield,  Mr.  Granville  Barker  we  have 
heard  nothing  for  many  a  day.  Mr. 
Shaw  has  given  us  only  a  printed  play, 
"Heartbreak  House,"  which  may  be  de- 
scribed as  an  essay  in  mannerism  with 
little  or  no  substance  behind  it.  Mr. 
Sutro,  Mr.  Hichens,  Mr.  Somerset  Maug- 
ham, and  Mr.  Arnold  Bennett  have  the 
stage  to  themselves  for  the  moment ;  and 
though  their  plays  are  of  some  interest, 
none  of  them  can  be  said  to  have  notably 
enriched  our  dramatic  literature. 

Of  Mr.  Maugham's  irresistible  farce, 
"Home  and  Beauty,"  I  need  say  nothing, 
as  I  understand  it  has  repeated  in  New 
York  its  London  success.  "The  Voice 
from  the  Minaret,"  by  Mr.  Robert 
Hichens,  deals  tactfully  rather  than 
powerfully  with  a  theme  which  has  often 
been  treated  with  neither  tact  nor  power 
— that  of  a  clerical  Tannhauser  in  the 
Venusberg.  In  the  first  act,  Andrew 
Fabian  is  not  actually  a  clergyman,  but 
has  strong  spiritual  leanings,  when,  on 
his  way  to  Jerusalem,  he  meets  at  Da- 
mascus Lady  Caryll,  wife  of  an  Indian 
official,  who  is  on  her  way  to  England  to 
obtain  a  divorce  from  her  intolerable 
brute  of  a  husband.  She  does  not  go 
to  England ;  she  tarries  at  Damascus  with 
Andrew  Fabian.  Unfortunately  the  win- 
dow of  their  sitting-room  looks  straight 
out  upon  a  minaret  from  which  the  muez- 
zin, at  the  appropriate  intervals,  reminds 
the  faithful  of  their  religious  duties;  and 
Lady  Caryll  soon  perceives  that  the  re- 
minder is  not  lost  upon  her  lover.  She 
realizes  that  she  has  an  unconquerable 
rival  in  his  clerical  vocation;  so  one  fine 
day  she  quietly  takes  her  departure,  and 
returns  to  the  purgatory  of  her  life  in 
India.  Andrew  Fabian  completes  his 
journey  to  Jerusalem,  both  literally  ^nd 
spiritually,  and  becomes  a  clergyman  of 
the  Church  of  England.  He  is  on  the 
point  of  settling  down  into  humdrum  do- 
mesticity with  an  agreeable  young 
woman  who  appears  cut  out  for  a  clergy- 
man's wife,  when  Lady  Caryll  once  more 
appears  on  the  scene,  and  with  her  Sir 
Leslie  Caryll,  her  husband.  This  very 
unlovely  personage  divines  the  mystery 
of  Damascus,  and  is  on  the  point  of  mak- 
ing himself  openly  unpleasant,  to  the 
ruin  of  Fabian's  career,  when  his  oppor- 
tune decease  solves  the  difficulty.  The 
play  contains  some  interesting  scenes, 
and  has  none  of  that  sanctimonious  sen- 
suality which  is  so  offensive  in  many 
plays  of  similar  subject.  But  it  is  an 
ephemeral  production  which  will  scarcely 
be  remembered  after  it  has  served  its 
immediate  purpose. 


The  same  may  be  said  of  "The  Choice," 
by  Mr.  Alfred  Sutro,  which  is  having  a 
remarkable  success  at  Wyndham's  The- 
atre. It  is  an  effectively-told  sentimental 
anecdote.  It  shows  how  a  middle-aged 
Captain  of  Industry,  the  Right  Honor- 
able John  Ingleby  Cordways,  rashly  fell 
in  love  with  the  young  and  flighty  Lady 
Clarissa  Caerleon,  but  discovered  before 
the  fatal  knot  was  tied  an  incompatibility 
of  temper  which  would  have  been  disas- 
trous had  it  developed  six  months  later. 
The  rock  on  which  the  project  of  mar- 
riage splits  is  well  imagined.  Cordways 
has  dismissed  one  of  his  subordinates, 
because,  though  he  is  a  man  with  a  bril- 
liant war  record  and  with  many  fine 
qualities,  he  has  been  several  times  guilty 
of  drunkenness.  All  sorts  of  infiuences, 
public  and  private,  are  brought  to  bear 
upon  Cordways  to  induce  him  to  give  the 
culprit  another  chance,  but  he  is  inflex- 
ible. Then  the  man's  sweetheart  comes 
to  Lady  Clarissa  and  tells  her  the  piteous 
story;  and  she,  not  knowing  anything  of 
the  matter  or  of  all  that  it  has  come  to 
mean  for  Cordways,  rashly  pledges  her 
word  that  the  man  shall  be  reinstated. 
Result :  an  insoluble  conflict  of  will  with 
will — which,  we  are  told,  is  the  very 
essence  of  drama.  It  is  not  surprising, 
therefore,  that  the  scene  in  which  the 
misunderstanding  comes  to  a  head  proves 
to  be  a  very  strong  one.  Fortunately, 
though  the  conflict  is  insoluble,  the  en- 
gagement is  not;  and  there  is  the  less 
harm  done  as  Lady  Clarissa  has  another 
string  to  her  bow,  or  beau  to  her  string. 
Cordways,  the  stern,  strong  man,  is 
supposed  to  be  broken-hearted;  but  one 
fancies  that  if  he  had  really  cared  very 
much,  he  would  either  have  surrendered 
at  discretion  or  arrived  at  some  compro- 
mise. The  success  of  the  play  is  perhaps 
partly  due  to  Miss  Viola  Tree's  some- 
what ungainly  but  realistic  portraiture 
of  a  young  woman  of  the  ultra  smart 
set.  Mr.  Gerald  Du  Maurier,  too,  an 
actor  with  an  enormous  following,  has 
been  gifted  by  nature  with  a  jaw  which 
renders  him  the  ideal  representative  of 
the  strong  silent  man. 

When  Mr.  Arnold  Bennett  produces  a 
play,  the  critics  never  fail  to  tell  him 
that,  because  he  is  a  professional  novel- 
ist, he  is  necessarily  but  an  amateur  play- 
wright. As  the  author  of  two  of  the 
most  successful  plays  of  the  time,  "Mile- 
stones" and  "The  Great  Adventure,"  Mr. 
Bennett  can  afford  to  smile  at  this  su- 
perior attitude  on  the  part  of  his  men- 
tors. The  fact  is  that  the  skill  he  shows 
in  transmuting  a  novel  into  a  play  proves 
that  he  is  exceptionally  endowed  with  the 
dramatic  instinct.  "Sacred  and  Profane 
Love,"  adapted  from  an  early  novel  of 
the  same  title,  is  certainly  not  what  one 
would  call  a  well-built  play.  Its  second 
act  might  be  dropped  out  almost  entirely 
without  leaving  any  sensible  gap  in  the 
(Continued  on  page  40) 


January  10,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


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40] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  35 


(Continued  from  page  38) 
action.  But  each  individual  scene  is 
alive  and  moving;  and,  after  all,  a  dram- 
atist who  can  hold  the  interest  of  his 
audience  throughout  four  acts,  can 
scarcely  be  set  down  as  a  mere  bungler 
at  the  job. 

In  the  first  act,  a  young  girl,  Carlotta 
Peel,  intensely  devoted  to  music,  is 
thrown  by  chance  into  the  company  of  a 
great  pianist  whom  she  adores,  and,  in 
an  access  of  melomaniac  passion,  sur- 
renders herself  to  him.  The  night  over, 
she  deliberately  disappears  from  his  ken 
— and  from  that  of  the  audience — for 
seven  years.  During  this  time  she  has 
become  a  famous  novelist;  and  in  the 
second  act  we  find  her  on  the  verge  of 
becoming  involved  in  a  second  love  affair 
— with  her  publisher,  who  is  unhappily 
married.  But  at  the  end  of  the  act  she 
learns  that  the  pianist,  Emilio  Diaz,  of 
whom  she  has  heard  nothing  for  years,* 
has  become  a  morphinomaniac  and  is  liv- 
ing in  Paris  in  extreme  misery.  She 
leaves  her  publisher  to  settle  his  domes- 
tic troubles  as  best  he  may,  and  starts 
for  Paris  by  the  night  express.  She 
finds  Diaz  a  pitiable  wreck,  living  under 
the  most  degrading  conditions.  In  a 
scene  of  great  power,  she  takes  posses- 
sion of  him  and  carries  him  off,  and  in 
the  last  act  we  learn,  not  without  sur- 
prise and  some  skepticism,  that  she  has 
actually  reclaimed  him,  and  restored  not 
only  his  self-respect,  but  his  genius.  Ob- 
viously this  would  have  been  a  more  co- 
herent and  perhaps  more  convincing  play 
if  Mr.  Bennett  had  cut  out  the  second 
act,  with  the  episode  of  the  publisher, 
and  had  interposed  a  new  act,  between 
his  actual  third  and  fourth,  showing  us 
some  of  the  process  of  the  rescue  of  Diaz, 
and  (if  possible)  making  us  believe  in 
it.  His  omission  to  do  so  may  even 
awaken  some  doubt  as  to  whether  he  be- 
lieves in  it  himself.  Be  this  as  it  may, 
the  piece  is  a  vivid  and  arresting  one. 
Neither  of  the  two  leading  characters  is 
rendered  particularly  interesting.  Diaz 
in  particular,  though  played  by  an  actor 
of  ability  and  experience,  is  not  in  the 
least  credible  as  a  brilliant  and  fascinat- 
ing interpreter  of  Chopin;  and  if  we  do 
not  feel  that  Carlotta  loves  the  maestro 
rather  than  the  man,  much  of  our  sym- 
pathy for  her  is  sacrificed. 

The  Stage  Society  has  given  us  a  very 
creditable  performance  of  a  very  difficult 
play — Mr.  Herbert  Trench's  "Napoleon." 
It  is  a  perfect  example  of  a  play  for  the 
study  rather  than  the  stage ;  and  even  in 
the  study  it  demands  a  good  deal  of 
thinking  out.  The  story,  briefly  told,  is 
that  of  a  young  man,  half  English  and 
half  French  by  birth,  who,  at  the  time 
when  Napoleon  is  planning  an  invasion 
of  England,  sets  forth  to  teach  him  the 
error  of  his  ways,  and  to  bring  him  back 
to  the  idealisms  which  are  supposed  to 
have  inspired  his  Italian  campaigns.   The 


precise  doctrine  of  the  young  apostle 
does  not  emerge  very  distinctly.  It  seems 
to  be  something  to  the  effect  that  the 
family  is  the  basis  of  all  human  welfare 
— a  view  to  which  one  could  imagine  Na- 
poleon replying  that  it  was  precisely  in 
the  interests  of  several  millions  of 
French  families  that  he  proposed  to  in- 
vade England.  He  does  not  make  this 
retort — at  least,  I  don't  think  he  does, 
but  Napoleon's  ideas  are  not  much  more 
perspicuous  than  those  of  his  self-ap- 
pointed counsellor.  "Dreamer!  you  speak 
in  violent  foreshortenings,"  says  the  Em- 
peror at  one  point,  with  incontrovertible 
truth;  but  unfortunately  he  is  himself 
much  addicted  to  the  same  practice.  All 
this  bandying  of  ideas  is  hung  upon  a 
not  very  skilfully  spun  thread  of  nautico- 
military  melodrama.  In  the  upshot,  both 
the  apostle  and  his  brother  lose  their 
lives,  and  Napoleon,  after  spending 
twenty-four  hours  in  England,  sets  off 
for  St.  Helena,  via  Austerlitz,  Moscow, 
and  Waterloo.  The  production  was  a 
distinguished  succ&s  d'estime. 

An  offshoot  of  the  Stage  Society, 
happily  entitled  The  Phoenix,  has  recently 
come  into  existence,  with  the  object  of 
giving  performances  of  neglected  Eliza- 
bethan and  Restoration  masterpieces.  It 
has  taken  up  the  work,  in  fact,  of  the 
Elizabethan  Stage  Society,  started  some 
thirty  years  ago  by  that  amiable  enthu- 
siast, Mr.  William  Poel.  A  certain  sec- 
tion of  the  Stage  Society  has  of  late 
years  developed  an  enthusiasm  for  per- 
formiances  of  Restoration  comedies  with 
all  the  indecencies  religiously  retained; 
and  it  is  this  section  which  has  now  split 
off,  and  set  up  "on  its  own"  as  'The 
Phoenix.  I  venture  to  prophesy  that  the 
society  will  do  useful  work  (though  not 
exactly  "according  to  plan")  in  explod- 
ing the  great  Elizabethan-Restoration 
superstition.  It  has  raged  for  a  hundred 
years;  it  has  been  exaggerated  to  the 
point  of  absurdity  by  Swinburne,  in  his 
contention  that  "the  silver  age  of  Eng- 
lish drama  would  eclipse  the  golden  age 
of  dramatic  poetry  in  any  other  nation 
of  modem  times";  and  it  is  now  emi- 
nently desirable  that  we  should  return 
to  sanity. 

The  Phoenix  commenced  its  operations 
this  week  with  a  revival  of  Webster's 
"Duchess  of  Malfy,"  very  appropri- 
ately chosen  as  being  perhaps  the 
fetish-in-chief  of  the  Elizabethan  cult. 
Webster,  I  am  not  altogether  sorry  to 
say,  had  a  very  bad  press.  Criticism  has 
regained  sufficient  independence  of  judg- 
ment to  realize  the  absurdity  of  educated 
men  and  women  coming  together  sol- 
emnly to  sit  through  five  acts  of  clumsy, 
ill-constructed,  bloody  melodrama,  and  to 
listen  piously  to  language  which,  if  they 
repeated  it  in  the  street  outside,  would 
lead  to  their  prompt  appearance  in  the 
police  court.  There  is  some  undeniably 
good  writing  in  "The  Duchess  of  Malfy," 


but  why  should  we  sit  out  five  acts  of  arti- 
ficial and  sanguinary  extravagance  for 
the  sake  of  thirty  or  forty  fine  lines?  It 
may  be  interesting  to  note  that  the 
Duchess  was  played  with  great  charm, 
but  without  much  tragic  power,  by  Miss 
Cathleen  Nesbitt,  newly  returned  from 
New  York;  and  that  Mr.  William  Rea, 
who  has  now  played  Abraham  Lincoln  for 
350  nights,  lent  his  brogue  and  his  lugu- 
brious countenance  to  the  part  of  the 
villain  Bosola. 

William  Archer 
London,  November  24 

Books  and  the  News 

Profit-Sharing 

The  announcement,  a  few  days  ago,  of 
their  further  scheme  for  profit-sharing 
by  the  Messrs.  Ford,  suggests  some  ref- 
erences for  reading.  Perhaps  the  first 
book  is  "Profit  Sharing:  Its  Principles 
and  Practice"  (Harper,  1918),  by  Ar- 
thur W.  Burritt,  of  the  A.  W.  Burritt 
Co.,  President  Dennison,  of  the  Dennison 
Manufacturing  Co.;  Edwin  F.  Gay,  and 
others.  This  is  a  general  study ;  for  sta- 
tistics see  "Profit  Sharing  in  the  United 
States"  (Government  Printing  Office, 
1917,)  by  Boris  Emmet,  a  Bulletin  of 
the  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics, 
Whole  No.  208.  There  are  also  two  im- 
portant British  reports,  "Profit  Sharing 
and  Labor  Co-Partnership  in  the  United 
Kingdom,  1912,"  and  "Report  on  Profit 
Sharing  and  Labor  Co-Partnership 
Abroad,  1914,"  both  published  by  the 
Department  of  Labor  Statistics  of  Great 
Britain's  Board  of  Trade.  Another 
valuable  work  is  the  National  Civic  Fed- 
eration's "Profit  Sharing  By  American 
Employers"  (National  Civic  Federation, 
1916). 

An  older  book,  an  investigation  of  con- 
siderable length,  with  historical  details, 
is  Nicholas  P.  Gilman's  "Profit  Sharing 
Between  Employer  and  Employee" 
(Houghton,  1889),  while  the  same  au- 
thor, in  "A  Dividend  to  Labor"  (Hough- 
ton, 1899),  devotes  some  chapters  to  this 
subject.  Charles  R.  Fay's  "Co-partner- 
ship in  Industry"  (Putnam,  1913),  is  a 
brief  historical  sketch  taking  examples 
chiefly  from  England  and  France.  An- 
other brief  book,  citing  experiences  of 
employers  in  England,  Europe  and 
America,  is  Aneurin  Williams's  "Co- 
Partnership  and  Profit  Sharing"  (Holt, 
1913). 

"The  Ford  Plan"  (Anderson,  1915,  is 
a  pamphlet  by  Henry  Ford.  A.  H. 
Mackmurdo  discusses  the  topic  in 
"Pressing  Questions:  Profit  Sharing." 
(Lane,  1913) ;  Lord  Leverhulme's  "The 
Six-Hour  Day  and  Other  Industrial 
Questions"  (Holt,  1919),  contains  chap- 
ters on  "co-partnership"  or  profit-shar- 
ing. 

Edmund  Lester  Pearson 


THE  REVIEW 


Vol.  2,  No.  36 


New  York,  Saturday,  January  17,  1920 


FIFTEEN  CENTS 


41 


43 
44 
45 
46 

47 


Contents 

Brief  Comment 

Editorial  Articles: 

Mock-Hysteria 
The  Jackson-Day  Bombshell 
Turkey  and  the  Powers 
End  of  the  Steel  Strike 
"Two-Thirds  of  Both  Houses" 
Out  of  Their  Own  Mouths.    By  Jerome 

Landiield  48 

Can  We  Improve  Our  Public  Schools? 

By  Caspar  F.  Goodrich  50 

Correspondence  52 

A   Talk  with   Sir   George    Paish.     By 

Charles  Henry  Meltzer  53 

Mr.   P.   E.    More   and   the    Wits.     By 

Stuart   P.   Sherman  54 

Book  Reviews: 
Cooperating   with   Destiny  56 

The  I.  I.  I.  57 

Roses  and  Games  58 

Pointing   the   Way   to   a   League   of 

Nations  58 

Attic  Red-Figured  Vases  59 

The  Run  of  the  Shelves  60 

Contemporary  Painting  in  Washington     62 

Music : 

Henry  Krehbiel  and  Ernest  Newman 

Discuss  Music  62 

Drama : 
"A  Night's  Lodging"  at  the  Plymouth 
—■'The    Master    Builder"    at    the 
People's  House  65 

Books  and   the   News:   Socialism.     By 

Edmund  Lester  Pearson  65 

llyTR.  Bryan  has  never  been  deficient 
■'■'■'•  in  logic.  On  the  contrary,  every 
one  of  his  campaigns,  one  may  almost 
say  every  one  of  his  speeches,  is  an 
exhibition  of  logical  correctness.  He 
fixes  his  premises  well  in  his  mind, 
and  rams  the  conclusions  from  them 
into  the  minds  of  his  hearers  without 
trickery  or  fallacy  in  the  reasoning. 
He  is  a  wooden  thinker,  a  mechanical 
thinker,  but  not  a  loose  thinker.  Con- 
trary to  a  widely  prevalent  opinion, 
his  campaign  for  free  silver,  while  it 
rested  on  a  fundamentally  wrong 
basis,  manifested  a  very  high  degree 
of  genuine  debating  ability.  Accord- 
ingly, it  is  no  surprise  that  in  his 
Jackson-Day  speech  on  the  treaty  he 
made  a  calm  and  convincing  analysis 
of  the  situation.  His  habits  of  thought 
and  speech  are  in  diametrical  con- 
trast with  those  of  President  Wilson. 
Mr.  Wilson  exhorts,  but  does  not  de- 
bate; perhaps  he  is  so  sure  he  is 


right  that  he  is  too  proud  to  argue. 
Mr.  Bryan,  too,  is  always  sure  he  is 
right ;  but  in  his  case  the  consequence 
is  that  he  is  not  afraid  to  argue. 

pONGRESS  should  act  at  once  on 
^  Secretary  Glass's  recommenda- 
tion that  $150,000,000  be  appropri- 
ated for  immediate  use  in  rescuing 
the  starving  populations  of  Austria, 
Armenia,  Poland,  and  certain  other 
countries.  The  Grain  Corporation  is 
in  a  position  to  send  the  food  supplies 
the  moment  Congress  gives  the  word. 
Mr.  Hoover,  whose  recommendations 
are  always  based  on  knowledge  and 
foresight  as  well  as  on  right  feeling, 
urges  this  action  while  cautioning 
against  undiscriminating  extension 
of  credits  in  other  ways.  Usually  de- 
liberation is  a  virtue,  but  sometimes 
it  is  a  crime.  To  hesitate  or  delay, 
in  the  face  of  such  harrowing  need 
and  such  clear  opportunity,  would  be 
a  criminal  failure  of  duty. 

p  ERMANY,  Great  Britain,  France, 
^-^  Italy,  and  Japan,  besides  Belgium 
and  a  number  of  other  minor  Powers, 
affixed  their  signatures  last  Saturday 
to  the  document  that  formally  ends 
the  Great  War.  The  fourteen  months 
since  the  armistice  have  been  so  full 
of  trouble,  and  so  heavy  with  doubt 
and  danger,  that  the  moment  so  long 
awaited  was  far  from  being  one  of 
elation.  And  the  absence  of  the 
United  States  added  much  to  the  joy- 
lessness  of  the  occasion.  Not  the  least 
of  the  injuries  caused  by  our  delay 
in  entering  into  the  permanent  rela- 
tions of  peace  with  Germany,  and 
with  the  nations  associated  with  us 
in  the  treaty,  is  the  psychological 
eflfect  of  the  suspense.  The  world  is 
not  going  to  forget  the  war  the  mo- 
ment the  treaty  is  disposed  of;  but 
after  all,  there  are  other  things  about 
Germany  besides  the  great  crime  of 
1914,  and  we  must  get  to  thinking 
about  these  other  things  some  time. 


We  must,  sooner  or  later,  if  the  world 
is  not  to  be  an  inferno,  fall  again  into 
the  habit  of  dealing  with  Germans  as 
men — human  beings  with  faults  and 
virtues  like  our  own;  men  to  be 
treated  according  to  their  individual 
merits,  not  men  under  a  common  ban 
for  a  common  crime.  The  way  to  get 
back  to  that  frame  of  mind  is  not  to 
change  our  opinion  about  the  war, 
but  to  stop  thinking  about  the  war 
except  when  such  thinking  is  of  ne- 
cessity thrust  upon  us.  And  this  will 
never  happen  until  the  treaty  is  out 
of  the  way. 

T\R.  E.  J.  DILLON,  in  his  valuable 
^  history  of  "The  Peace  Confer- 
ence," vouches  for  the  truth  of  the 
story  of  how  the  Council  arrived  at 
its  decision  to  bring  the  ex-Kaiser  to 
trial :  "A  few  days  before  the  treaty 
was  signed  there  was  a  pause  in  the 
proceedings  of  the  Supreme  Council, 
during  which  the  Secretary  was 
searching  for  a  mislaid  document. 
Mr. 'George,  looking  up  casually  and 
without  addressing  anyone  in  partic- 
ular, remarked:  '1  suppose  none  of 
you  has  any  objection  to  the  Kaiser 
being  tried  in  London?'  M.  Clemen- 
ceau  shrugged  his  shoulders,  Mr.  Wil- 
son raised  his  hand,  and  the  matter 
was  assumed  to  be  settled.  Nothing 
more  was  said  or  written  on  the  sub- 
ject." Mr.  George  is  now  going 
through  the  familiar  experience  that 
the  decision  so  easily  taken  is  not  so 
easily  carried  into  effect,  and  he  no 
longer  supposes,  but  knows,  that 
among  the  English  there  is  a  strong 
objection  to  the  play  being  staged  in 
London.  It  will  have  taken  him  more 
time  than  a  lull  in  the  discussions  to 
decide  upon  a  solution  which  makes 
him  seem  true  to  his  word  while  ac- 
tually evading  its  fulfillment.  The 
ex-Kaiser,  we  are  now  told,  will  be 
summoned  to  trial  before  an  Allied 
Commission,  and  if  he  does  not  an- 
swer he  will  be  tried  in  his  absence. 


42] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  36 


No  pressure  will  be  brought  to  bear 
on  the  Netherlands  Government  for 
his  extradition.  Wilhelm  von  Hohen- 
zollern  will  be  left  chopping  wood  at 
Doom,  while  the  Allied  Commission 
hears  the  witnesses  and  reads  the  doc- 
uments which  are  to  establish  his 
guilt.  This  certainly  would  be  the 
wisest  course  to  take.  It  deprives  the 
accused  of  a  last  opportunity  to  play 
a  martyr's  part  on  the  world's  stage, 
while  giving  satisfaction  to  those  who 
wish  to  see  his  guilt  made  manifest 
and  put  on  record. 

"T>EFORE  long,  we  may  see  labor 
■'-'  hiring  capital,"  says  Sir  George 
Paish  in  an  interview  which  appears 
in  the  Review  to-day.  This  may  sound 
startling,  but  there  is  really  nothing 
strange,  or  even  new,  about  it.  For 
Sir  George  Paish  goes  on  to  say, 
"Groups  of  working  people  will  bor- 
row money  for  their  purposes  on  the 
best  terms  practicable."  Nothing 
would  be  more  desirable  than  such  a 
development,  and  nothing  would  be 
more  in  accordance  with  the  hopes — 
of  the  radicals  of  to-day  ? — no,  of  the 
"orthodox"  economists  of  half  a  cen- 
tury ago,  like  Mill  and  Cairnes.  Co- 
operation of  workingmen  in  produc- 
tion, participation  of  workingmen  in 
the  ownership  of  capital,  is  what  they 
looked  forward  to  as  the  best  hope  of 
the  masses.  And  if  the  money  that 
suddenly-enriched  workingmen  have 
been  spending  on  silk  shirts  or  the 
like  during  the  last  year  or  two  had 
been  turned  into  this  channel,  a  very 
substantial  beginning  of  such  co- 
operative enterprise  could  have  been 
made  by  this  time. 

CTUDENTS  of  the  slum  tenement 
^  problem  have  been  offered  a  fine 
stimulus  to  work  out  a  practicable  so- 
lution. Vincent  Astor,  Alfred  E. 
Marling,  and  others  have  provided  for 
prizes  aggregating  $6,000,  the  con- 
testants to  make  a  study  of  a  typical 
old  tenement  block  picked  for  the  pur- 
pose and  submit  detailed  plans  for  its 
remodeling.  The  plans  must  not  only 
conform  to  modern  progress  in  heat- 
ing, lighting,  sanitation,  ventilation, 
fire  protection,  privacy,  etc.,  but  must 
present  reasonable  evidence  that  the 
changes  provided  for  will  be  a  good 


business  investment  for  the  landlord. 
On  the  face  of  it,  this  seems  to  be  an 
unusually  intelligent  prize  undertak- 
ing. Entirely  apart  from  the  prizes, 
the  effort  will  be  well  worth  while  to 
every  contestant  who  enters  the  lists 
with  sufficient  preparation  to  warrant 
him  in  dealing  with  such  problems  of 
domestic  architecture  at  all.  The 
New  York  State  Reconstruction  Com- 
mission and  the  Joint  Legislative 
Committee  on  Housing  are  co-operat- 
ing in  the  movement. 

rpENANTS  in  New  York  apartment 
-'-  houses  were  startled,  a  few  days 
ago,  by  a  court  decision  apparently 
giving  the  right  to  dispossess  an  oc- 
cupant merely  because  the  landlord 
deemed  him  "undesirable,"  without 
the  necessity  of  alleging  and  proving 
any  specific  ground  of  undesirability. 
The  judge  has  now  stated  that  the  de- 
cision had  been  misunderstood,  and 
tenants  are  free  from  the  danger  of 
being  ejected  as  undesirable  merely 
because  there  is  someone  in  the  back- 
ground ready  to  pay  a  higher  rental. 
It  is  still  true,  however,  that  apart- 
ments in  New  York  are  quite  gener- 
ally held  under  leases  wholly  one- 
sided, giving  the  tenant  very  little 
power  to  enforce  even  the  rights 
which  his  contract,  on  its  face,  ap- 
pears to  secure.  The  Tribune  has 
well  suggested  that  a  standard  form 
of  contract  should  be  prescribed  by 
law,  covering  the  leasing  of  apart- 
ments for  residence  purposes,  for 
fixed  terms.  On  the  tenant's  side, 
the  standard  lease  should  make  sure 
the  constant  delivery,  in  full  measure, 
of  the  heat,  water,  elevator,  and  other 
forms  of  service  for  which  he  pays, 
or  give  a  speedy  and  inexpensive  road 
to  adequate  recompense  when  any 
part  of  such  service  fails.  To  the 
landlord,  it  should  secure  the  right  to 
enforce  the  proper  care  and  use  of 
the  apartments  leased,  and  to  receive 
reasonably  punctual  payment  there- 
for, but  not  unreasonably  pre-punc- 
tual.  And  in  the  interest  of  both 
owners  and  respectable  tenants,  there 
should  be  no  bar  to  the  speedy  dispos- 
session of  undesirable  occupants, 
subject  to  the  tenants'  right  to  de- 
mand the  presentation  of  proper  evi- 
dence. 


"WTHAT  purport  to  be  the  official 
"  statistics  of  the  French  Flying 
Corps  are  nothing  short  of  stagger- 
ing. In  the  whole  course  of  the  War 
the  losses  in  the  zone  of  military  op- 
erations were  1,945  pilots  and  ob- 
servers killed,  1,461  missing,  whose 
death  may  now  be  accepted  as  certain, 
and  2,922  wounded.  To  this  must 
be  added  1,927  pilots  and  observers 
killed  outside  the  zone  of  operations. 
In  view  of  the  care  exercised  by  the 
French  in  training  their  air  forces 
the  last  item  is  amazingly  high.  In 
round  numbers,  the  casualties  were 
eight  thousand  out  of  a  full  strength 
of  thirteen  thousand,  or  something 
over  sixty  per  cent.  The  stark  fig- 
ures, at  once  splendid  and  terrible, 
are  more  impressive  than  any  com- 
ment. 

1%/fR.  BERNARD  SHAW  was  pres- 
■^^■^  ent  at  the  great  fight  between 
Carpentier  and  Beckett,  and  has 
granted  the  London  Nation  the  priv- 
ilege of  printing  his  impressions. 
Why  should  a  paper  so  undauntedly 
pacifist  give  prominence  to  the  de- 
scription of  a  prize  fight,  and  why 
was  Mr.  Shaw  requested  to  write  it, 
who  confesses  not  having  attended  a 
boxingexhibition  in  thirty-five  years? 
Mr.  Shaw  has  not  abstained  for  thir- 
ty-five years  from  attending  a  boxing 
match  because  he  disapproves  of  the 
sport,  but  because  of  his  conviction 
that  the  English  are  congenitally  in- 
capable of  the  art.  But  Carpentier  is 
different.  His  display  "overawes  the 
spectators;  it  often  reduces  them  to 
absolute  silence."  Even  the  perspi- 
cacious Mr.  Shaw  does  not  know  what 
to  make  of  him.  At  his  first  entrance 
he  was  startled  by  the  apparition: 
"Nothing  less  than  Charles  XII,  the 
madman  of  the  North;"  but  during 
the  fight  he  recognizes  in  Carpentier 
"the  complete  Greek  athlete.  The  un- 
mistakable Greek  line  digs  a  trench 
across  his  forehead."  In  less  exciting 
moments  he  is  to  Mr.  Shaw  what  he 
is  to  others,  the  French  pugilist. 
What  golden  opportunity  was  here 
lost  to  his  disagreeing  wit!  If  Mr.; 
Shaw  had  only  known  that  Carpen- 
tier's  cradle  stood  in  Holland!  He 
could  have  startled  his  readers  with 
a  paradox  which  was  a  truth. 


January  17,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[48 


Mock- Hysteria 

rpHE  act  of  folly  with  which  the 
■'•  lower  house  of  the  New  York 
Legislature-  began  its  session  may 
prove  a  benefit  to  the  country.  We 
have  not  been  among  those  who  be- 
lieve that  the  nation  is  in  a  state  of 
hysteria  over  the  Red  danger ;  but  it 
is  quite  possible  for  a  mock-hysteria 
— a  thing  that  has  the  outward  marks 
of  hysteria,  although  it  has  no  real 
hold  on  the  patient — to  do  even  more 
harm  than  the  genuine  article.  And 
"it  is  time,"  as  the  hero  of  Tennyson's 
Maud  exclaims,  "it  is  time  that  old 
hysterical  mock-disease  should  die." 
The  prompt  and  well-weighed  con- 
demnation which  the  course  of  the 
New  York  Assembly  has  evoked  from 
high  Republican,  as  well  as  from 
Democratic,  sources,  should  have  a 
sobering  effect  in  more  directions 
than  one.  If  the  sharp  shock  which 
the  suspension  of  the  five  Socialist 
Assemblymen  gave  to  the  political 
and  juristic  instincts  of  men  like 
Judge  Hughes  and  Senator  Harding, 
the  scathing  rebuke  which  it  evoked 
from  an  organization  like  the  Young 
Republican  Club  of  New  York,  the 
condemnation  it  drew  from  papers 
like  the  New  York  Tribune,  the  ener- 
getic action  of  leading  members  of 
the  New  York  Bar  Association,  the 
prompt  cognizance  taken  of  the  situ- 
I  ation  by  the  New  York  City  Club 
'  and  Citizens  Union — if  this  re- 
markable movement  of  protest  shall 
serve  to  awaken  public  men,  in  both 
;  parties,  to  a  sober  sense  of  their  re- 
I  sponsibility  in  dealing  with  one  of  the 
gravest  of  possible  issues  in  a  Re- 
public, the  sensational  coup  at  Al- 
bany will  have  brought  about  a  sorely 
needed  improvement  in  the  temper  of 
our  dealings  with  the  problem  of  rev- 
olution. 

For  there  is  no  essential  difference 
between  the  way  in  which  Speaker 
Sweet  has  sought  to  deal  with  the 
I  presence  of  the  five  Socialist  Assem- 
blymen and  the  way  in  which  Attor- 
ney General  Palmer  has  been  con- 
ducting his  anti-sedition  crusade,  or 
in  which  Representative  Graham  and 
his  sub-committee  of  the  House  Ju- 
diciary Committee  have  been  drafting 
their  sedition  bill.     In  all  three  of 


these  instances,  there  may  be  real 
reason  for  the  substance  of  what  is 
being  done  or  proposed ;  that  is  a 
question  whose  merits  can  be  deter- 
mined only  by  close  and  careful  ex- 
amination. But  in  all  such  matters 
the  method  is  as  important  as  the 
substance;  and,  so  far  as  immediate 
effects  are  concerned,  the  method  is 
infinitely  more  important  than  the 
substance. 

When  Mr.  Palmer,  without  a 
word  of  authoritative  public  explana- 
tion, sweeps  thousands  of  members 
of  the  Communist  parties — big  and 
little,  ring-leaders  and  thoughtless 
or  ignorant  followers  alike — into  his 
dragnet,  he  arouses  a  maximum  of 
justifiable  resentment  with  a  mini- 
mum of  salutary  effect.  When  Mr. 
Graham  exhausts  the  possibilities 
of  the  dictionary  in  specifying  the 
greatest  conceivable  variety  of  acts 
which  he  proposes  shall  be  declared 
seditious  felonies ;  when  in  his  eager- 
ness he  actually  defines  some  of  these 
as  treason,  and,  though  he  had  been 
at  work  on  the  bill  for  months,  dis- 
covers only  after  its  text  had  been 
published  that  the  Constitution  (in 
one  of  its  most  familiar  provisions) 
forbids  any  such  definition  of  trea- 
son; when,  after  making  this  discov- 
ery, he  imagines  that  he  can  remedy 
the  difficulty  by  simply  substituting 
the  word  "sedition,"  or  the  word  "fel- 
ony," for  the  word  "treason,"  while 
yet  retaining  the  death  penalty  pre- 
scribed for  the  crime  so  labeled — 
when  such  things  as  these  are  done, 
we  are  in  the  presence  of  that  same 
phenomenon  of  the  creation  of  a  max- 
imum of  odium  with  a  minimum  of 
benefit.  And  precisely  that  is  true  of 
the  performance  at  Albany. 

Let  us  try  to  imagine  what  course 
would  have  been  taken  by  the  Chair- 
man of  a  legislative  body  confronting 
in  a  serious  spirit  the  serious  prob- 
lem presented  by  the  election  of  a 
group  of  men  whose  party  obligations 
were  such  as  to  make  their  exclusion, 
necessary  from  the  standpoint  of 
high  public  policy.  He  would  have 
sought,  first  of  all,  to  make  it  mani- 
fest that  he  realized  the  extraordi- 
nary character  of  the  proceeding 
which  he  was  about  to  recommend. 
He  would  have  taken  care  to  make  it 


impossible  to  charge  him  with  spring- 
ing a  sensational  surprise  upon  the 
men  against  whom  the  proceeding 
was  to  be  directed.  He  would  have 
made  it  plain  that  they  were  to  have 
all  the  benefits  of  the  presumption  of 
fitness  for  the  seats  to  which  they  had 
been  duly  elected  until  they  had  been 
deliberately  adjudged  unfit.  Above 
all,  so  far  from  asking  for  an  imme- 
diate judgment — even  such  provis- 
ional judgment  as  that  calling  for 
their  suspension  pending  investiga- 
tion— he  would  have  impressed  upon 
the  legislators  the  imperative  duty  of 
deliberate  consideration  of  so  vital 
a  question  before  action  of  any  kind 
was  taken  upon  it. 

Had  this  been  done,  how  different 
would  have  been  the  effect  on  the  pub- 
lic mind!  Fair-minded  men  might 
still  have  decided  against  the  pro- 
posed exclusion  either  as  being  a  vio- 
lation of  the  general  spirit  of  repre- 
sentative government,  or  as  being 
contrary  to  the  dictates  of  political 
wisdom;  but  they  would  have  felt 
that  a  case  had  been  put  before  them 
which  could  be  calmly  argued  upon 
its  intrinsic  merits.  Attention  would 
have  been  focused  upon  the  one  sub- 
stantial question  in  the  case:  have 
these  men  entered  into  an  obligation 
with  their  party  organization  which  is 
inconsistent  with  their  oath  of  office? 
As  it  is,  the  thought  of  the  public  is 
centred  on  the  crude  brutality  of 
the  onslaught,  to  the  exclusion  of  the 
question  whether  occasion  existed  for 
any  action  at  all  in  the  premises. 
Speaker  Sweet  may  make  all  the  dis- 
tinctions he  pleases  between  proscrip- 
tion of  opinion  and  exclusion  of  dis- 
loyalty; people  who  begin  by  siding 
with  the  Socialist  members  simply 
because  they  have  not  had  a  square 
deal  will  refuse  to  split  hairs  on  the 
subject. 

The  resolution  suspending  the  So- 
cialist Assemblymen  was  passed  with- 
out debate,  and  with  only  two  dissent- 
ing votes  besides  those  of  the  Social- 
ists themselves.  This  may  very  nat- 
urally be  pointed  to  as  evidence  of  a 
state  of  acute  hysteria.  Only  under 
the  influence  of  intense  excitement,  it 
may  be  said,  could  Republicans  and  ''^ 
Democrats  alike  have  been  swept  into 
such  sudden  action.    But  the  truth,  to 


44] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  36 


our  mind,  is  precisely  the  reverse  of 
this.  The  thing  was  done  with  the 
haste  of  a  mechanical  habit,  not  that 
of  intense  feeling.  We  have  fallen 
into  the  way  of  going  through  the  mo- 
tions of  hysterical  excitement  with- 
out the  least  evidence  of  experiencing 
the  excitement  itself.  The  rank  and 
file  of  the  legislators  were  as  much 
taken  by  surprise  as  were  the  Social- 
ist members.  The  thing  presented  it- 
self to  their  minds  as  a  question  of 
pronouncing  a  shibboleth  rather  than 
of  deciding  a  high  question  of  law  or 
of  public  policy.  The  doctrines  of  the 
Socialist  platform  are  abhorrent  to 
normal  Americans ;  and  what  the  leg- 
islators, with  no  time  for  reflection, 
thought  they  were  doing  was  simply 
to  express  this  abhorrence. 

The  appearance  of  hysteria  which 
we  encounter  in  so  many  ways  arises 
from  a  failure  to  distinguish  between 
the  mere  freeing  of  one's  mind  and 
the  taking  of  responsible  public  ac- 
tion. If  we  were  under  the  strain  of 
real  anxiety  over  an  immediately 
threatening  peril,  we  should  be  in- 
finitely more  careful  than  we  are  in 
deciding  upon  our  course  of  conduct. 
We  should  be  calculating  conse- 
quences, instead  of  merely  expressing 
desires.  There  might  be  a  greater 
amount  of  genuine  hysteria,  but  there 
would  be  incomparably  less  of  the 
mock  variety.  And  while  there  would 
be  vastly  less  of  spectacular  moves, 
either  legislative  or  executive,  there 
would  be  much  more  effective  defense 
against  the  actual  danger  of  revolu- 
tionary agitations.  Tp  deny  that  that 
danger  exists  is  as  foolish  as  to  lose 
one's  head  over  its  immediate  formi- 
dableness. 

The  Jackson -Day 
Bombshell 

TI/fR.  Wilson's  Jackson-Day  letter 
^^^  was  almost  universally  under- 
stood by  the  press  as  a  declaration 
against  the  settlement  of  the  treaty 
question  by  any  practicable  adjust- 
ment of  the  difference  between  the 
Democratic  and  Republican  position 
in  the  Senate.  Acting  upon  this  in- 
terpretation, the  three  leading  New 
York  papers  which  have  stood  by  the 


President  through  thick  and  thin 
promptly  expressed  their  emphatic 
disapproval  of  his  attitude.  The 
World,  the  Times,  and  the  Evening 
Post  were  all  equally  outspoken  in 
their  condemnation.  This  would  in 
itself  be  an  impressive  phenomenon; 
but  its  import  is  heightened  by  the 
fact,  which  no  reasonable  person  can 
dispute,  that  public  opinion  had  for 
weeks  been  manifestly  and  over- 
whelmingly displayed  to  the  same 
effect.  There  is  plenty  of  room  for 
doubt  as  to  what  the  country  thinks 
ideally  desirable  in  regard  to  the 
Covenant ;  there  is  no  room  whatever 
to  doubt  that  its  practical  wish  is 
for  an  immediate  ratification  of  the 
treaty  upon  such  terms  as  a  reason- 
ably conciliatory  spirit  on  the  two 
sides  in  the  Senate  is  capable  of 
bringing  about. 

If  this  popular  desire  were  opposed 
to  the  convictions  or  the  judgment  of 
the  Senators  themselves,  it  would  be 
their  duty  to  stand  out  against  it. 
But  it  is  quite  certain  that  the  senti- 
ment of  the  Senjjte  is  in  agreement 
with  this  wish  of  the  people.  As  Mr. 
McCumber  said,  in  a  speech  which  he 
made  in  New  York  at  the  very  mo- 
ment when  Mr.  Wilson's  manifesto 
was  being  read  in  Washington:  If 
the  President  would  say  to-morrow, 
"it  is  now  up  to  the  Senate,  as  a  co- 
ordinate branch  of  the  treaty-making 
power,  free  from  Executive  dictation 
or  pressure,  to  perform  its  function, 
and  up  to  each  Senator  to  exercise 
his  own  judgment,"  the  treaty  could 
be  put  through,  with  the  League  of 
Nations,  within  twenty-four  hours. 

It  now  looks  as  though  the  Demo- 
cratic Senators  were  going  to  per- 
form their  Constitutional  function 
without  waiting  for  the  President's 
permission.  The  spectacle  of  their 
paralysis  has  been  pitiful.  Ithasbeen 
all  the  more  pitiful  because  they  have 
bowed  to  the  President's  will  without 
even  knowing,  without  even  profess- 
ing to  know,  what  that  will  was. 
They  do  not  know  now.  They  are 
perfectly  justified  in  asserting,  as 
some  of  them  have  explicity  done, 
that  the  President's  Jackson-Day 
letter  does  not  clearly  shut  the  door 
to  compromise.  Its  language,  though 
arrogant  in  tone  and  giving  no  indi- 


cation that  he  recognizes  any  neces- 
sity of  yielding  an  inch  of  his  original 
position,  does  not  expressly  assert 
that  he  will  not  yield.  Only  when  the 
plain  question  of  yes  or  no  is  put  up 
to  him  through  the  adoption  of  a 
resolution  of  ratification  by  a  two- 
thirds'  vote  of  the  Senate  will  it  be 
possible  to  determine  what  his  answer 
will  be.  There  is  reason  to  hope  that 
the  Senate  will  at  last  shoulder  its 
share  of  the  task  and  thereby  compel 
the  President  squarely  to  shoulder 
his.  Not  until  that  is  done  shall  we 
know  whether  Mr.  Wilson  is  prepared 
to  take  upon  himself  the  awful  re- 
sponsibility of  preventing  our  coun- 
try from  bearing  its  part  in  the  effort 
of  the  nations  to  safeguard  peace, 
and  to  restore  prosperity,  in  a  war- 
racked  world. 

Never  has  the  President  given  a 
more  striking  illustration  of  the  pos- 
sibilities of  a  single-track  mind  than 
on  this  occasion.  Half  a  year  ago, 
when  the  treaty  was  first  presented 
to  the  Senate,  he  made  an  agonized 
plea  for  its  prompt  ratification  on  the 
ground  of  the  world's  desperate  need 
for  a  speedy  settlement.  Now  he  has 
so  completely  forgotten  that  need  that 
it  is  not  even  remotely  alluded  to  in 
his  letter.  But  the  country  has  not 
forgotten  it.  It  is  that  consideration, 
and  no  other,  that  has  led  men  of  all 
shades  of  opinion,  with  the  exception 
of  those  who  are  fundamentally 
opposed  to  any  compact  of  the  nature 
of  the  League  Covenant,  to  waive 
their  personal  opinions  and  prefer- 
ences. The  state  of  the  world  is 
neither  more  satisfactory  nor  more 
assured  than  it  was  six  months  ago.  : 
Almost  everything  we  hear  from  the  j 
other  side  of  the  water  indicates  the 
eagerness  of  European  nations  to 
accept  America's  participation  in  the  j 
League  on  any  reasonable  terms  upon 
which  it  can  be  had.  The  vague 
rumors  that  the  President  or  the 
State  Department  had  knowledge  of 
difficulties  that  would  be  set  up  by 
some  of  the  Allied  Powers  if  any  sub- 
stantial reservations  were  made,  have 
ceased  to  be  heard.  The  President 
makes  no  reference  to  anything  of 
the  kind ;  so  far  as  anybody  knows,  [ 
he  is  acting  solely  upon  his  own  per- 
sonal judgment,  with  no  more  counsel  I 


I 


January  17,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[45 


from  foreign  statesmen  than  from 
the  public  men  of  his  own  country — 
and  that  is  about  as  near  to  absolute 
zero  as  one  can  get. 

With  regard  to  the  President's  sug- 
gestion that  "if  there  is  any  doubt  as 
to  what  the  people  of  the  country 
think  on  this  vital  matter,"  the  next 
election  should  be  given  "the  form  of 
a  great  and  solemn  referendum"  upon 
it,  there  is  room  for  an  interesting 
conjecture.  As  a  reason  for  postpon- 
ing action  on  the  treaty,  the  sugges- 
tion is  absurd.  But  it  would  be 
entirely  possible  for  Mr.  Wilson,  in 
case  a  ratification  with  reservations 
were  presented  to  him,  to  take  the 
position  that  his  acceptance  of  that 
result  does  not  preclude  the  adoption 
of  the  referendum  proposal.  It  would 
be  a  bold,  but  not  a  reckless,  political 
stroke  for  him  to  say  that  he  takes 
half  a  loaf  not  as  a  substitute  for  a 
whole  one,  but  as  an  instalment.  He 
declares  that  he  knows  what  the  coun- 
try wants — it  wants  the  Covenant  as 
it  was  drawn,  and  a  whole-hearted 
execution  of  all  its  provisions.  If  this 
is  his  sincere  conviction,  the  way  is 
perfectly  open  for  him  to  act  upon  it 
without  placing  at  hazard  the  collapse 
of  all  that  has  been  accomplished,  and 
without  keeping  the  world  in  a  state 
of  intolerable  uncertainty  for  four- 
teen months. 

The  only  way  in  which,  in  any  case, 
the  referendum  could  be  effectually 
held  would  be  by  Mr.  Wilson  being 
himself  the  candidate  of  his  party  for 
the  Presidency.  With  the  treaty  un- 
ratified, this  would  be  a  monstrous 
and  wicked  gamble — a  game  of  double 
or  quits,  with  the  world's  peace  and 
happiness  as  the  stake.  But  with  the 
treaty  ratified  it  would  be  a  fair  and 
normal  contest  on  principles  and  poli- 
cies. The  issue  indeed  would  be  mo- 
mentous, but  the  contest  would  not  in 
itself  be  a  calamity.  Mr.  Wilson's 
triumph  would  be  accepted  by  the 
nation  as  conclusive,  no  matter  what 
subsidiary  causes  might  have  played 
their  part  in  the  contest.  If  he  really 
desires  that  solemn  referendum,  let 
him  insist  upon  it  by  all  means;  but 
let  him  not  demand  that  his  wish  be 
gratified  at  the  cost  of  untold  evil  and 
incalculable  danger  to  the  country 
and  to  all  the  world. 


Turkey  and  the  Powers 

'T'HE  dying  body  of  the  sick  man  has 
•*-  been  lying  on  the  operating  table 
ever  since,  by  signing  of  the  armis- 
tice, he  surrendered  it  to  the  mercy 
of  his  surgeons.  He  had  not  deserved 
any,  and,  until  recently,  could  not  ex- 
pect to  receive  it.  He  was  not  laid 
there  to  be  cured,  but  to  be  made 
harmless.  For  in  health  and  in  sick- 
ness he  acted  the  tyrant  over  the  fam- 
ily of  races  under  his  rule,  and  to 
maim  him  into  incapacity  for  evil  was 
a  duty  which  the  men  in  consultation 
round  the  patient  owed  to  humanity 
and  civilization. 

But  the  operation  was  postponed 
from  month  to  month.  The  United 
States  was  blamed  for  the  delay  by 
Mr.  Lloyd  George,  whose  words  to 
that  effect  we  quoted  last  week.  Ex- 
pectations roused  by  statements  of 
Mr.  Wilson  and  Colonel  House  gave 
the  Allied  diplomats  reason  to  hope 
that  the  acceptance  by  this  country  of 
a  mandate  for  Constantinople  and 
Armenia  would  free  them  from  the 
difficult  task  of  settling  the  disposal 
of  Turkey  ampng  themselves.  Amer- 
ica's aloofness,  however,  leaves  them 
no  other  choice  than  to  proceed  with- 
out her  assistance,  with  the  prospect 
of  disturbing  their  own  harmony  or, 
in  order  to  keep  that  in  tune,  of  re- 
storing the  patient  to  life.  Senti- 
ment, both  in  America  and  Europe,  is 
opposed  to  leaving  the  Turk  in  pos- 
session of  Constantinople  and  Thrace, 
but  sentiment  does  not  preside  at  the 
councils  of  diplomats.  Ideas  of  jus- 
tice and  honor  give  way  there  to  con- 
siderations of  interests,  and  the  clash 
of  these  may  result  in  serving  no 
one's  interest  but  the  Turk's. 

The  Porte  has  always  traded  on 
the  rivalry  between  the  Powers.  Fear 
and  distrust  of  Russia  made  England, 
in  1853,  fight  Turkey's  war  in  the 
Crimea,  and  caused  Disraeli,  in  spite 
of  Gladstone's  denunciation  of  Turk- 
ish horrors  in  Bulgaria,  to  plead  for 
the  criminal  at  the  Berlin  Conference 
of  1878.  This  policy  of  thwartingRus- 
sia  by  aiding  Turkey  had  the  addi- 
tional advantage  of  raising  England's 
prestige  in  India.  By  propagating 
the  notion  that  Constantinople  was 
the  Dar-ul-Islam,  the  seat  of  Moham- 


medanism, the  British  could  pose  as 
the  protectors  of  the  Caliphate.  His 
reputed  sanctity  is  actually  a  devel- 
opment of  recent  growth  in  India, 
and  is  now  an  obstacle  to  the  Eastern 
policy  of  the  very  Power  which  fa- 
vored its  spread.  For  the  situation 
in  the  near  East  has  changed.  Rus- 
sia no  longer  covets  the  city  that  con- 
trols the  straits  which  are  the  key  to 
the  Black  Sea.  To  oust  the  Turk 
from  Europe  would  not  be  playing 
Russia's  economic  game,  but  it  might 
cause  indignation  and  unrest  among 
the  Indian  Moslems  whom  England 
herself  has  taught  to  venerate  the  Ot- 
toman Sultan  as  ipso  facto  Caliph. 
And  discontent  in  India  must  be  pre- 
vented at  any  price,  as  the  new  Rus- 
sian danger  is  in  the  exploitation  of 
such  discontent  for  the  spread  of  Bol- 
shevism in  Asia. 

It  would  seem,  therefore,  that  Eng- 
land's safety  would  prescribe  to  her 
a  policy  that  would  concur  with  that 
of  the  Quai  d'Orsay.  For  reasons 
similar  to  those  which,  in  the  days  of 
the  Tsardom,  made  Great  Britain  an 
ally  of  Turkey  against  Russia,  the 
French  prefer  a  continuation  of  the 
Sultan's  rule  in  Constantinople  to  a 
British  mandate  for  the  city.  In 
spite,  however,  of  this  double  advan- 
tage of  placating  both  India  and 
France,  the  Government  in  London  is 
reported  to  favor  a  different  solution 
of  the  problem.  Two  years  ago  Mr. 
Lloyd  George  did  not  yet  contemplate 
expelling  the  Sultan  from  Europe.  On 
January  5,  1918,  he  declared:  "We 
are  not  fighting  to  deprive  Turkey  of 
its  capital  or  of  the  rich  and  re- 
nowned lands  of  Asia  Minor  and 
Thrace,  which  are  predominantly 
Turkish  in  race."  What  has  hap- 
pened since  then  to  make  the  British 
Prime  Minister  change  his  mind? 

Public  opinion  in  England  is  prob- 
ably responsible  for  this  volte  face. 
The  massacred  in  Armenia  and  the 
dead  of  Gallipoli  call  from  their 
graves,  and  the  prospect  of  a  Con- 
stantinople wrested  from  the  Asiatic 
usurper  makes  an  appeal  to  the 
popular  imagination  too  strong 
to  be  ignored  by  the  Government. 
Lloyd  George  will  have  to  find  a 
solution  that  is  a  compromise  be- 
tween   British    sentiment    and    the 


46] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  36 


practical  policy  of  Paris.  The  for- 
mer requires  that  it  shall  not  be 
Great  Britain,  the  latter  that  it  shall 
not  be  the  Turk,  who  in.  future  will 
control  the  bridge  between  Europe 
and  Asia.  If  Clio  were  an  arbiter 
at  the  Council  of  Paris,  she  would 
assign  the  mandate  for  Constan- 
tinople and  Turkish  Thrace  to  the 
one  nation  that  can  claim  it  with 
any  right  consecrated  by  the  past. 
But  Mr.  Venizelos  will  plead  in  vain. 
Italian  jealousy  will  oppose  a.  Greek 
mandate,  and  the  bitter  hatred  be- 
tween Bulgarians  and  Greeks,  which 
would  expose  Constantinople  under 
Greek  control  to  Bulgarian  raids  and 
invasions,  makes  that  solution  inad- 
visable. The  substitution  of  an  inter- 
national state  for  the  Sultan's  rule  in 
European  Turkey  seems,  under  these 
conditions,  the  only  possible  solution. 
It  is  better  to  charge  the  various  con- 
flicting interests  with  a  common  re- 
sponsibility for  the  future  of  the  city 
than  to  entrust  its  control  to  a  disin- 
terested outsider  who,  if  a  great 
Power,  will,  in  course  of  time,  by  his 
political  ascendancy  become  a  dan- 
gerous rival  of  the  others  in  the  eco- 
nomic field  as  well.  And  a  small 
Power,  as  a  mandatory  for  Constan- 
tinople, would  scarcely  escape  being 
made  the  dummy  of  either  France  or 
England,  or,  if  it  did  escape,  would  all 
the  same  be  suspected  of  being  one. 
Norway,  it  is  rumored,  will  be  offered 
the  mandate  for  Armenia.  A  similar 
responsibility  for  Constantinople  is 
evidently,  and  justly,  not  suggested  to 
her.  An  international  regime  such  as 
controls  the  navigation  on  the  Rhine 
and  the  Danube  is  doubtless  the  best 
that  can  be  devised  for  the  city  whose 
situation  on  the  Straits,  controlling 
navigation  between  the  Black  Sea  and 
the  Mediterranean,  makes  it  a  bone 
of  contention  between  the  Powers. 

The  Sultan's  loss  of  his  temporal 
power  over  Stamboul  and  European 
Turkey  need  not  involve  his  expulsion 
from  the  city.  If  the  veneration  of 
the  Moslem  in  India  for  the  Dar-ul- 
Islam  and  the  Caliphate  is  actually  as 
genuine  as  it  is  said  to  be,  it  would 
be  wise  policy  to  leave  the  Sultan  like 
the  Pope  in  Rome,  as  the  spiritual 
head  of  the  Sunnite  Mohammedan 
world,  in  the  holy  seat  of  Islam. 


End  of  the  Steel  Strike 

AT  its  begnning,  and  for  a  few 
weeks  thereafter,  the  steel  strke 
took  a  leading  place  in  the  news  col- 
umns of  the  dailies,  in  editorial  com- 
ment, and  in  the  thought  of  the 
masses.  Its  officially  declared  ending, 
last  week,  and  the  resignation  of 
William  Z.  Foster,  the  secretary  by 
whom  it  had  been  organized  and 
largely  directed,  drew  a  sensational 
headline  from  no  single  newspaper 
that  has  come  under  our  observation. 
To  all  intents  and  purposes,  as  a 
strike,  it  had  passed  out  of  existence 
long  before  its  demise  was  officially 
announced. 

In  truth,  the  germs  of  its  inevitable 
dissolution  were  visible  from  the 
start  to  competent  observers  from  the 
outside,  and  probably  to  many  of  the 
better  informed  labor  leaders  them- 
selves. Its  lurid  pictures  of  alleged 
conditions  in  the  steel  industry  were 
not  generally  believed,  indications 
pointed  to  different  aims  from  those 
openly  set  forth,  and  its  maragement 
was  largely  directed  by  men  dis- 
trusted because  of  known  revolution- 
ary beliefs  and  connections.  Under 
such  conditions,  its  appeals  for  popu- 
lar sympathy  and  support  were  futile. 
If  there  is  satisfaction  to  any  in  the 
belief  that  it  nevertheless  cost  the 
steel  interests  scores  of  millions  of 
dollars,  this  satisfaction  can  not  be 
denied.  It  was  a  costly  experience, 
nor  did  the  loss  and  inconvenience 
stop  with  the  manufacturers  and  im- 
mediate consumers  of  steel.  The  evil 
effects  of  such  an  interruption  in  any 
great  productive  industry  extend  in 
greater  or  less  measure  to  all.  In 
proportion  to  ability  to  stand  the  loss, 
perhaps  the  greatest  sufferers  were 
the  workmen  and  their  families. 

Are  there  any  gains  to  set  off 
against  this  loss?  If  not,  if  such  an 
experience  could  leave  a  country 
without  at  least  some  lessons  of  value 
for  the  future,  the  hope  of  progress 
would  be  small  indeed.  The  steel 
strike,  we  think,  has  helped  to  con- 
vince most  laborers  themselves  that 
no  strike  any  longer  holds  promise  of 
success  if  it  does  not  command  the 
moral  support  of  the  mass  of  citizens 
not  immediately  connected  with  either 


side  of  the  controversy.  This  is 
a  limitation  of  the  strike  imposed 
by  the  very  nature  of  free  society, 
and  the  sooner  labor  leaders  accept 
it  and  conduct  themselves  accord- 
ingly, the  less  likely  will  they  be 
called  upon  to  accept  limitations  of 
a  severer  nature  imposed  by  the 
law  of  the  State.  The  riot  of  striking 
which  has  marked  the  past  year  has 
strained  the  public  patience  to  the 
point  where  a  continuance  of  the 
nuisance  would  soon  make  it  impos- 
sible to  get  popular  sympathy  even 
for  justified  strikes. 

If  labor  leaders  will  not  take 
this  lesson  seriously  to  heart,  sub- 
stantial injury  to  their  legitimate 
interests  may  easily  be  the  result. 
There  is  danger  of  this  in  the  case  of 
the  steel  workers  themselves.  There 
has  been  great  improvement  in  their 
wages,  and  in  the  conditions  under 
which  they  work,  but  there  is  war- 
rant for  the  belief  that  a  satisfactory 
state  has  not  yet  been  reached.  It 
seems  probable,  though  exact  in- 
formation is  hard  to  obtain,  that  the 
twelve-hour  shift  is  far  more  com- 
mon than  is  consistent  with  the  in- 
terests of  the  workers  and  with  sound 
public  policy,  which  will  not  seek  in- 
creased production  at  the  cost  of  vital 
injury  to  the  manhood  which  pro- 
duces. It  must  not  be  forgotten,  of 
course,  that  for  four  hours  of  the 
twelve-hour  shift  the  workman  re- 
ceives "time  and  a  half"  in  wages,  a 
difference  which  may  easily  mean  to 
many  the  purchase  of  a  home  within 
a  few  years'  time,  or  a  good  savings 
account  against  the  mischances  of  the 
future.  The  question  is  whether  the 
opportunity  to  make  this  extra  money 
can  be  retained  without  compelling  to 
the  twelve-hour  shift  thousands  who 
do  not  desire  it,  and  to  whom  it  is  a 
great  evil  and  hardship.  But  the  mis- 
representations of  existing  conditions 
uttered  by  Foster  in  support  of  the 
strike  served  only  to  exasperate  em- 
ployers '  and  disinterested  citizens, 
and  to  take  their  thoughts  away  from 
the  existence  and  the  needed  solution 
of  such  problems. 

The  resignation  of  William  Z.  Fos-  I 
ter  may  indicate  that  another  needed 
lesson    has    been   at   least   partially 
learned.     His  good  American  name 


Januaiy  17,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[47 


does  not  alter  the  fact  that  he  had 
deeply  identified  himself  with  agita- 
tors and  ideas  wholly  alien  to  the 
Americanism  which  the  great  major- 
ity accept,  and  stand  ready  to  defend 
with  life  if  it  shall  be  seriously  as- 
saulted. Against  his  claim  to  have 
abandoned  these  offensive  ideas,  the 
public  could  only  place  his  former  as- 
sertion that  none  of  the  commonly  ac- 
cepted standards  of  moral  obligation 
must  be  allowed  to  stand  between  the 
social  revolutionist  and  his  object. 
The  man  who  has  thus  given  himself 
license  to  lie  if  he  chooses,  in  order  to 
promote  an  offensive  purpose,  is  not 
likely  to  convince  thinking  men,  by 
his  word  alone,  that  he  has  given  up 
that  purpose.  The  presence  of  Foster 
at  its  head  indissolubly  connected  the 
steel  strike,  in  the  minds  of  thou- 
sands, with  revolutionary  ideas,  per- 
sons, and  purposes,  thus  contributing 
heavily  to  its  unpopularity  and  injur- 
ing its  power  to  aid  in  the  removal 
of  such  genuine  causes  of  grievance 
as  may  exist.  The  American  Federa- 
tion of  Labor  and  minor  organiza- 
tions may  move  slowly  and  gently  in 
letting  down  a  few  objectionable  in- 
dividuals, but  the  coming  year  is 
pretty  likely  to  show  a  marked  reac- 
tion against  being  "bored  from  with- 
in" by  agitators  of  the  William  Z. 
Foster  type,  whether  they  have  pro- 
fessed conversion  or  not. 

But  the  very  facts  which  thus  made 
the  failure  of  the  steel  strike  inev- 
itable, also  estop  us  from  considering 
that  failure  as  a  final  settlement  of 
the  labor  problem  in  the  steel  indus- 
try. With  the  immediate  menace  to 
that  industry  removed,  it  becomes  the 
duty  of  the  heads  of  the  Steel  Cor- 
poration to  consider  the  underlying 
causes  of  labor  unrest  in  a  more 
fundamental  way  than  they  have 
yet  done.  The  Steel  Corporation's 
case,  by  its  magnitude  and  complexity, 
is,  to  be  sure,  in  a  class  by  itself,  and 
it  would  be  rash  to  make  any  specific 
recommendation  concerning  it.  But 
we  trust  that  the  problem  of  the  best 
practicable  relation  between  employer 
and  employed  will  receive,  at  the 
hands  of  Judge  Gary  and  his  associ- 
ates, that  earnest  and  intense  atten- 
tion which  its  vital  importance  de- 
serves. 


"Two-thirds  of  Both 
Houses" 

TN  a  case  in  which  Mr.  Root  is  act- 
•*-  ing  as  chief  counsel,  it  is  claimed 
that  the  Eighteenth  Amendment  is 
null  and  void  because  two-thirds  of 
the  members  of  Congress  did  not,  by 
joint  resolution  or  otherwise,  declare 
that  they  deemed  it  necessary.  The 
language  of  the  Constitution  on  the 
subject  is  as  follows:  "The  Congress, 
whenever  two-thirds  of  both  houses 
shall  deem  it  necessary,  shall  propose 
amendments  to  this  Constitution." 
Nothing  is  said  about  a  two-thirds 
vote ;  nothing  is  said  about  the  mem- 
bers present;  what  is  called  for  is 
"two-thirds  of  both  houses."  The 
objection  thus  raised  rests  on  no  fine- 
spun or  metaphysical  view ;  it  is  sim- 
ply a  question  of  fact.  It  was  not 
"two-thirds  of  both  houses,"  but  only 
two-thirds  of  the  members  voting, 
that  placed  the  Eighteenth  Amend- 
ment before  the  Legislatures  for  rat- 
ification. The  Supreme  Court,  when 
the  case  is  brought  before  it,  will 
have  to  pass  upon  the  question 
whether  two-thirds  of  the  members 
voting  are  to  be  regarded  as  two- 
thirds  of  the  house. 

The  point  derives  a  great  deal  of 
added  force  from  the  fact  that  in  the 
provision  of  the  Constitution  which 
refers  to  the  ratification  of  treaties, 
the  language  is  altogether  different. 
The  President,  it  says,  "shall  have 
power,  by  and  with  the  advice  and 
consent  of  the  Senate,  to  make  trea- 
ties, provided  two-thirds  of  the  sena- 
tors present  concur."  The  presump- 
tion is  very  strong  that  if  the  like  had 
been  the  intention  in  the  case  of  pro- 
posal of  amendments  to  the  Consti- 
tution the  language  would  have  so 
stated  with  the  same  clearness.  Fur- 
thermore, there  is  strong  inherent 
reason  for  a  distinction  between  the 
two  cases.  A  treaty,  generally  speak- 
ing, comes  up  as  part  of  the  ordinary 
business  of  the  nation;  an  amend- 
ment to  the  Constitution  makes  a  per- 
manent change,  possibly  a  change  of 
underlying  and  structural  impor- 
tance, in  the  frame  of  our  govern- 
ment. The  vote  of  two-thirds  of  the 
members  present  may  not  only  fall 


far  short  of  two-thirds  of  the  whole, 
but  may  conceivably  be  barely  more 
than  one-third  of  the  whole,  since  a 
majority  is  sufficient  for  a  quorum. 

If,  over  and  above  the  import  of 
the  words  themselves,  the  Supreme 
Court  should  feel  it  proper  to  take 
into  account  the  circumstances  of  the 
particular  vote  now  in  question,  this 
would  add  greatly  to  the  force  of  the 
contention  against  the  amendment. 
It  was  passed  by  Congress  at  a  time 
of  abnormal  tension,  in  the  midst  of 
the  greatest  of  wars,  and  when  the 
thought  of  the  nation  could  not  be 
effectively  directed  to  the  subject.  It 
had  been  promoted  by  a  propaganda 
organized  with  unprecedented  effi- 
ciency, which  never  for  a  moment  re- 
laxed its  pressure.  It  had  not  been 
an  issue — that  is,  not  openly  an 
issue — in  the  elections.  Every  cir- 
cumstance that  should  distinguish  the 
character  of  the  process  by  which  an 
amendment  is  adopted  was  absent. 
The  emotional  force  of  the  spirit  of 
sacrifice  evoked  by  the  war  was  cap- 
italized to  the  utmost  in  the  interest 
of  a  measure  which  was  not  to  go 
into  force  until  the  war  was  over, 
and  which  was  thereafter  to  affect 
the  lives  of  all  the  inhabitants  of  the 
nation  for  generation  after  genera- 
tion. If  there  ever  was  a  case  for 
insisting  upon  the  rigorous  fulfill- 
ment of  the  requirements  of  the  Con- 
stitution, surely  this  is  such  a  case. 
If  the  Constitution  is  to  be  subjected 
to  amendment  by  snap  judgment — 
and  above  all  to  amendment  of  a 
character  so  revolutionary  as  this — 
we  have  a  right  to  demand  that, 
however  much  the  spirit  of  our  or- 
ganic law  may  be  violated,  its  letter 
at  least  shall  be  strictly  observed. 


THE  RF.VIRW 

A  weekly  journal  of  political  and 

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Published  by 

The   National   VVeeklv   Coiipo«atio!< 

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Copyright,     1920,     in     the     United     Stales     of 
America 
Editors 
F.\BIAN   FRANKLIN 
HAROLD  DE   WOLF   FULLER 


48] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  36 


Out  of  Their  Own  Mouths 


THE  publication  by  the  State  De- 
partment of  a  "Memorandum  on 
Certain  Aspects  of  the  Bolshevist 
Movement  in  Russia"  is  a  departure 
of  unusual  importance.  It  is  obvious 
that  much  of  the  information  obtained 
by  the  Department  in  the  conduct  of 
its  work  is  private  and  confidential, 
and  delicate  negotiations  might  be 
jeopardized  by  making  it  common 
property;  but  the  more  the  public  is 
made  acquainted  with  the  fatts  the 
better.  The  State  Department  has 
better  sources  of  information  than 
other  agencies,  and  by  giving  out  to 
the  public  all  that  is  permissible  and 
consistent  with  the  public  interest  it 
not  only  forestalls  and  confounds 
those  who  deliberately  circulate  false 
information  for  their  own  purposes, 
but  establishes  a  sound  basis  for 
popular  support  of  its  policies.  This 
is  preeminently  the  case  with  the 
pamphlet  that  has  just  appeared. 
Complaint  has  been  made  that  its 
publication  was  delayed  some  three 
months  after  it  had  been  prepared  and 
printed,  and  that  this  delay  was  due 
to  uncertainty  as  to  the  attitude  of 
the  President.  But — better  late  than 
never;  for  the  clear  showing  in  its 
pages  puts  an  end  once  for  all  to  any 
talk  of  recognizing  the  autocracy  at 
Moscow  or  compromising  with  evil 
because  it  appears  triumphant. 

In  this  connection,  the  introduc- 
tion is  illuminating  and  shows  plainly 
the  conclusions  reached  by  the  State 
Department  after  its  examination  of 
the  Bolsheviks'  own  material. 

The  Russian  Division  of  the  State  Depart- 
ment has  prepared  from  original  sources  this 
brief  summary  of  what  appear  to  be  some  of 
the  fundamental  Bolshevist  principles,  methods, 
and  aims.  As  will  be  seen,  the  statements  are 
based  almost  entirely  on  translations  from 
the  Bolshevist  newspapers  in  the  files  of  the 
Department.  These  newspapers  are  the  of- 
ficial organs  of  the  All-Russian  Central  Ex- 
ecutive Committee  of  Soviets,  of  local  Soviet 
committees,  or  of  the  Russian  Communist 
Party  Bolsheviks  ... 

The  theoretical  "dictatorship  of  the  prole- 
tariat," acknowledged  to  be  the  rule  of  a 
minority,  with  a  definite  policy  of  preliminary 
destruction,  is  found  in  fact  to  have  degen- 
erated into  a  close  monopoly  of  power  by  a 
very  small  group,  who  use  the  most  opportun- 
istic and  tyrannical  methods,  including  "mass 
terror." 

While  existing  on  the  accumulated  wealth 
of  the  country,  the  Bolshevist  regime  has 
brought  about  a  complete  economic  collapse, 
with   consequent  famine  and  epidemic.    The 


claim  of  the  Bolsheviks  that  economic  isola- 
tion is  wholly  responsible  for  economic  chaos 
in  Soviet  Russia  cannot  be  sustained.  The 
Bolshevist  program  has  not  worked  and  Bol- 
shevism has  to  its  credit  no  constructive  ac- 
complishment. 

One  of  the  main  aims  of  the  Bolshevist  lead- 
ers from  the  very  beginning  has  been  to  make 
their  movement  a  world-wide  social  revolu- 
tion. They  incidentally  declare  that  success 
in  Russia  depends  on  the  development  of  cor- 
responding social  revolutions  in  all  other  coun- 
tries. Bolshevist  policies  and  tactics  are  sub- 
ordinated to  the  idea  of  the  international  pro- 
letarian revolution.  Apparent  compromises 
with  "bourgeois"  governments  or  countries 
have  proved  temporary  and  tactical. 

The  Memorandum  is  a  scholarly 
production  and  its  method  is  above 
criticism.  It  takes  up  in  turn  various 
phases  of  Bolshevik  rule,  including 
the  "dictatorship  of  the  proletariat," 
the  elections  to  Soviets,  the  Extraor- 
dinary Commissions,  mass  terror, 
class  discrimination  in  food  rations, 
the  Red  Army,  and  the  protests  of 
the  peasants,  and  in  regard  to  each 
quotes  verbatim  the  official  Bolshevik 
decrees  and  newspapers.  Similarly 
it  describes  the  economic  results  of 
Bolshevist  control,  showing  the  aban- 
donment of  announced  principles,  the 
policy  of  destruction,  the  issue  of 
billions  of  worthless  paper  money, 
the  disorganization  of  administrative 
machinery,  the  tyranny  over  labor, 
the  breakdown  of  transportation,  the 
distress  in  the  agricultural  districts, 
and  the  general  industrial  collapse. 
Finally,  there  is  set  forth  the  Bolshe- 
vist programme  of  world  revolution, 
in  which  frank  acknowledgment  is 
made  of  the  propaganda  carried  on 
throughout  the  world,  as  well  as 
cynical  disregard  of  any  treaties  or 
agreements  which  may  be  entered 
into.  Half  of  the  Memorandum  is 
devoted  to  translations  of  the  Bol- 
sheviks' own  decrees  and  documents 
— indisputable  and  complete  evidence. 
Among  the  quotations  from  the 
official  Bolshevik  papers,  some  are 
especially  striking.  A  man  in  the 
Province  of  Tambov  writes  to  Izvestia 
the  following,  which  is  pretty  good 
evidence  as  to  why  the  peasants  hate 
the  Bolshevik  Government: 

Help!  We  are  perishing!  At  the  time 
when  we  are  starving,  do  you  know  what  is 
going  on  in  the  villages?  Take,  for  instance, 
our  village,  Qlkhi.  Speculation  is  rife  there, 
especially  with  salt,  which  sells  at  40  rubles 
a  pound.  What  does  the  militia  do?  What 
do  the   Soviets   do?    When   it  is   reported  to 


them,  they  wave  their  hands  and  say,  "This 
is  a  normal  phenomenon."  Not  only  this,  but 
the  militiamen,  beginning  with  the  chief  and  in- 
cluding some  communists,  are  all  engaged  in 
brewing  their  own  alcohol,  which  sells  for  70 
rubles  a  bottle.  Nobody  who  is  in  close  touch 
with  the  militia  is  afraid  to  engage  in  this 
work.  Hunger  is  ahead  of  us,  but  neither  the 
citizens  nor  the  "authorities"  recognize  it.  The 
people's  judge  also  drinks,  and  if  one  wishes  to 
win  a  case  one  only  needs  to  treat  him  to  a 
drink.     We  live  in  a  terrible  filth. 

The  following  figures  given  out  by 
Rykov,  President  of  the  Supreme 
Soviet  of  National  Economy,  in  a 
statement  to  the  Moscow  Soviet  last 
March  and  published  in  the  Severnmja 
Kommuna,  express  more  clearly  the 
economic  ruin  wrought  by  the  incom- 
petence of  the  Soviet  authorities  than 
any  statement  made  by  their  adver- 
saries. 

We  have  100,000,000  puds  (1,650,000  tons)  of 
coal,  10,000,000  puds  of  grain,  and  several  mil- 
lion puds  of  fish  at  our  disposal  which  we  can 
not  move.  In  the  spring  a  part  will  spoil. 
Transport  is  impossible,  as  we  have  no  fuel, 
and  the  situation  in  regard  to  the  want  of  it  is 
that  2,000,000  puds  of  machine  oil  had  to 
be  used  as  substitute  for  want  of  liquid  fuel. 
Railroad  communication  will  have  to  be  re- 
duced, which  will  again  reflect  on  the  supply 
of  food.  We  have,  therefore,,  to  utilize 
transport  by  river  as  soon  as  navigation  is 
opened.  We  also  will  have  to  fight  with  the 
local  Soviets,  who  often  hide  their  stocks, 
as,  for  instance,  the  Yarovlav  Soviet  hiding 
500,000  puds  of  petroleum.  The  textile  indus- 
try is  also  in  a  critical  state ;  up  to  10,000,000 
puds  of  cotton  is  wanted  and  flax  is  scarce,  as 
the  peasants  spin  for  their  own  needs  or  use 
it  for  heating  purposes.  A  way  out  of  these 
difficulties  would  be  to  take  the  Caucasus  with 
its  supply  of  petroleum  and  to  increase  pro- 
ductiveness of  labor.  At  present  we  produce 
only  five  pairs  of  boots  for  100  people,  and 
however  so  many  Kerensky  rubles  we  would 
pay  to  workmen,  only  1  in  20  can  receive  a 
pair. 

The  same  paper  quoted  a  report 
made  by  Zinoviev  at  a  meeting  held  in 
connection  with  the  strike  at  Putilov 
factory  to  the  effect  that  from  August, 
1918,  to  February,  1919,  the  factory 
had  turned  out  only  five  locomotives, 
while  for  the  year  1918  the  factory 
had  cost  the  State  a  deficit  of  58,000,- 
000  rubles. 

This  Memorandum  of  the  State  De- 
partment will  serve  another  good  pur- 
pose. It  will  open  the  eyes  of  Amer- 
ica to  the  militant  danger  of  Bol- 
shevism. Hitherto  there  has  been  a 
tendency  to  regard  our  own  Bolshe- 
viks as  misguided  individuals,  mostly 
aliens  ignorant  of  or  out  of  sympathy 
with  our  democratic  institutions. 
Now  we  know  that  they  are  the  flying 
squadron  of  the  propaganda  army 
and  that  we  have  among  us  citizens 
invoking  for  these  agents  the  protec- 
tion   of   the    rights   of   free    speech 


January  17,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[49 


merely  as  a  smoke  screen  to  cover 
their  hostile  activities. 

The  Bolshevik  regime  in  Russia  has 
become  an  aggressive  imperialistic 
power,  disposing  of  a  large  military 
force  and  directing  also  a  vast  and 
well-trained  propagandist  army.  It 
is  no  longer  a  contest  of  ideas  that 
confronts  us — if  indeed  it  ever  was. 

These  imperialistic  aims  are  ex- 
pressed in  a  programme  for  world 
revolution,  and  the  extent  to  which 
any  government  could  count  upon 
their  good  faith  in  making  agreements 
or  treaties  is  made  clear  in  their  own 
singularly  frank  announcements. 
Thus  Trotsky  in  his  "Peace  Pro- 
gram," says : 

If  in  awaiting  the  imminent  proletarian  flood 
in  Enrope,  Russia  should  be  forced  to  con- 
chide  peace  with  the  present  day  Governments 
of  the  Central  Powers,  it  would  be  a  provi- 
sional, temporary,  and  transitory  peace,  with 
the  revision  of  which  the  European  Revolu- 
tion will  have  to  concern  itself  in  the  first  in- 
stance. Our  whole  policy  is  built  upon  the 
expectation  of  this  revolution. 

A  similar  attitude  is  disclosed  even 
more  strikingly  in  the  speech  made 
by  Zinoviev,  President  of  the  Petro- 
grad  Soviet,  last  February : 

We  are  willing  to  sign  an  unfavorable 
peace  with  the  Allies.  ...  It  would  only  mean 
that  we  should  put  no  trust  whatever  in  the 
bit  of  paper  we  should  sign.  We  should  use 
the  breathing  space  so  obtained  in  order  to 
gather  our  strength  in  order  that  the  mere  con- 
tinued existence  of  our  Government  would 
keep  up  the  world-wide  propaganda  which 
Soviet  Russia  has  been  carrying  on  for  more 
than  a  year. 

Lenin  himself,  however,  sets  forth 
the  whole  plan  with  singular  clarity 
and  characteristic  Bolshevik  logic  in 
his  proclamation  calling  the  Congress 
of  the  Communist  International : 

The  present  is  the  period  of  destruction  and 
crushing  of  the  capitalistic  system  of  the  whole 
world,  and  it  will  be  a  catastrophe  for  the 
whole  European  culture,  should  capitalism 
with  all  its  insoluble  contradictions  not  be 
done  away  with. 

The  aim  of  the  proletariat  must  now  be  im- 
mediately to  conquer  power.  To  conquer 
power  means  to  destroy  the  governmental 
apparatus  of  the  bourgeois  and  to  organize 
1  new  proletarian  governmental  apparatus. 

The  new  apparatus  of  the  Government  must 
'  xprcss  the  dictatorship  of  the  working  class 
I  and  in  certain  places  even  the  dictatorship 
'f  the  half-proletariat  in  the  villages,  that  is, 
the  peasant  proletariat),  that  is,  to  persist  in 
the  systematic  suppression  of  the  exploiting 
flasses  and  be  the  means  of  expropriating  them. 
\'o  false  bourgeois  democracy— this  treacher- 
ous form  of  the  power  of  a  financial  oligarchy — 
with  its  mere  external  equality— but  a  prole- 
tarian democracy  able  to  realize  the  freedom 
't  the  working  masses;  no  parliamentarism. 
'Ut  the  self-government  of  the  masses  through 
their  elected  organs;  no  capitalistic  bureau- 
cracy, but  governing  organs  which  have  been 


appointed  by  the  masses  themselves,  through 
the  real  participation  of  these  masses  in  the 
governing  of  the  country  and  the  socialistic 
work  of  reorganization— such  ought  to  be 
the  type  of  the  proletarian  state.  The  Soviet 
power  or  a  corresponding  organization  of  gov- 
ernment is  its  concrete  expression. 

The  dictatorship  of  the  proletariat  must  be 
the  occasion  for  the  immediate  expropriation 
of  capital  and  the  elimination  of  the  private 
right  of  owning  the  means  of  production, 
through  making  them  common  public  prop- 
erty. The  socialization  (meaning  doing  away 
with  private  property  and  making  it  the  prop- 
erty of  the  proletarian  state,  which  is  man- 
aged by  the  workers  on  a  socialistic  basis) 
of  the  large-scale  industries  and  the  central 
bodies  organized  by  the  same,  including  the 
banks,  the  confiscation  of  the  capitalistic  agri- 
cultural production,  the  monopolization  of 
large-scale  commerce,  the  socialization  of  the 
large  buildings  in  the  towns  and  in  the  coun- 
try; the  establishment  of  a  workmen's  gov- 
ernment and  the  concentration  of  the  econo- 
mic functions  in  the  hands  of  the  organs  of  the 
proletarian  dictatorship— are  the  most  essen- 
tial aims  of  the  day. 

In  order  to  protect  the  socialist  revolution 
against  external  and  internal  enemies,  and  to 
assist  the  fighting  proletariats  of  other  coun- 
tries, it  becomes  necessary  to  entirely  disarm 
the  bourgeoisie  and  its  agents  and  to  arm  the 
proletariat. 

The  world  situation  demands  immediate  and 
as  perfect  as  possible  relations  between  the 
dififerent  groups  of  the  revolutionary  prole- 
tariat and  a  complete  alliance  of  all  the  coun- 
tries in  which  the  rervolution  has  already  suc- 
ceeded. 

The  most  important  method  is  the  mass  ac- 
tion of  the  proletariat,  including  armed  strug- 
gle against  the  Government  power  of  capital- 
ists. 

The  destruction  of  State  authority  is  the 
^im  which  all  Socialists  have  set  for  them- 
selves, Marx  included  and  at  the  head;  with- 
out the  realization  of  this  aim  true  democra- 
tism, that  is,  equality  and  liberty,  cannot  be 
realized.  This  aim  can  be  realized  in  actual 
fact  only  by  a  Soviet  or  proletarian  democracy, 
for  by  bringing  into  constant  and  actual  par- 
ticipation in  the  administration  of  the  State 
the  mass  organizations  of  the  toilers,  it  be- 
gins immediately  to  prepare  for  the  complete 
decay  of  any  State. 

The  national  anti-Bolshevik  move- 
ments in  Russia  have  failed,  and  the 
spring  may  see  Poland  and  Rumania 
swept  by  the  Red  armies.  Then 
Europe  faces  another  war,  a  war  for 
which  the  Allies  are  ill-prepared,  a 
war  from  which  America  can  scarcely 
stand  aloof.  With  eastern  Europe 
in  revolution  and  all  Asia  ablaze,  we 
may  have  again  to  throw  our  forces 
into  a  struggle  that  is  a  greater 
menace  to  civilization  than  was  Ger- 
man imperialism. 

And  those  who  are  accounted 
statesmen  are  taking  no  wise  or  ade- 
quate measures  to  meet  the  menace. 
Mr.  Lloyd  George  seems  inclined  to 
come  to  terms  with  the  Soviet  Gov- 
ernment if  only  it  will  promise  to 
cease  its  campaigns  against  Persia, 
Afghanistan,  and  India,  hoping  at  the 
same  time  to  win  to  himself  the  pro- 


Bolshevik  labor  element  in  his  own 
country.      Of    course,    the    promise 
would  not  be  kept,  but  even  if  it  were, 
one  can  scarcely  picture  a  proud  and 
self-respecting  nation  buying  peace 
on  such  craven  terms.  M.  Clemenceau 
still  clings  to  the  cordon  sanitaire  and 
barrier-state  idea,  an  equally  ineffec- 
tual and  dangerous  plan.  It  is,  indeed, 
repugnant  to  think  of  egging  on  the 
weak  new  states  of  eastern  Europe, 
already    torn    with    long-continued 
warfare,  with  unstable  governments, 
and  disorganized  economic  life,  to  do 
our  fighting  for  us.     Furthermore, 
nothing  would  tend  more  to  consoli- 
date the  Bolshevik  power  and  rally 
to  it  Russian  national  feeling.   Every 
Russian  would  feel  that  these  coun- 
tries were  being  hired  for  the  task  and 
that  slices  of  Russia  would  be  the  price 
paid.    They  already  believe  that  the 
Allies,  and  especially  England,  cov- 
ertly desire  that  the  Russia  of  the 
future  shall  be  weakened  by  dismem- 
berment.    Lloyd  George  practically 
admitted  as  much  in  his  speech  of 
November  19. 

Our  situation  in  the  face  of  the  new 
menace  is  similar  to  what  it  was  when 
German  imperialism  threatened  the 
world.    The  same  forces  are  at  work 
to  blind  us  to  the  issues.    Bolshevik 
tools  and  dupes  are  among  us,  arous- 
ing feeling  against  Great  Britain  by 
false   tales  of  oppression   in   India, 
by  pleas  for  Egyptian  independence, 
by  Sinn  Fein  propaganda;  stirring 
up  animosity  against  Japan ;  inciting 
labor    troubles    and    class    hostility; 
and  camouflaging  all  their  multifari- 
ous   activities    under    the    cloak    of 
"liberalism."     We  have   let  go  the 
opportunity  to  act  in  time  to  save 
the  greater  sacrifices.     A  year  ago 
generous  aid  in  money  and  supplies 
to  the  loyal  Russian  forces  would  have 
eradicated  the  cancer  from  Moscow, 
without  the  need  of  sending  a  soldier. 
But  the  moral  issue  was  not  clear,  for 
our  people  listened  to  cunning  propa- 
gandists,  who  represented   Kolchak 
and  Denikin  as  reactionaries  and  re- 
storers of  Tsarism  and  diverted  atten- 
tion from  the  actual  tsarism  of  Lenin 
and  Trotsky.  The  opportunity  passed, 
and  millions  of  lives  have  already 
paid  the  price  of  delay. 

Jerome  Landfield 


50] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  36 


Can  We  Improve  Our  Public 

Schools? 


TT'OR  holding  the  views  on  the  sub- 
-'■  ject  of  education  which  are  ex- 
pressed in  this  article,  the  writer  has 
been  accused  of  heresy.  Granted  that 
a  plain  sailor  can  not  pretend  to  be 
an  authority  on  such  matters,  yet,  as 
the  onlookers  at  a  game  of  chess  often 
perceive  situations  and  possibilities 
that  escape  the  notice  of  the  players 
themselves,  he  has  reached  the  con- 
clusion that  in  some  respects  the  pres- 
ent scheme  of  public  education  is 
fairly  open  to  criticism.  It  is  in  the 
hope  that  his  humble  contribution  to 
the  discussion  of  an  important  topic 
may  prove  useful  that  he  offers  these 
random  observations,  if  only  as  a  man 
of  straw  to  be  knocked  down. 

To  begin  at  the  beginning — can 
anything  be  more  depressing  than  the 
sight  of  children,  some  of  them  tiny 
tots,  lugging  home  piles  of  text-books 
every  afternoon  that  the  next  day's 
lessons  may  be  learned  by  them  out  of 
school  hours,  or,  as  is  more  frequently 
the  case,  taught  them  by  their  par- 
ents? Why  should  such  a  practice  be 
tolerated?  What  are  teachers  for  if 
not  to  teach?  Why  should  parents 
be  called  upon  to  do  work  for  which 
teachers  are  paid,  thus  turning  the 
latter  into  mere  hearers  of  lessons? 
The  custom  seems  quite  universal  and 
encouraged,  or  at  least  not  discour- 
aged. Yet,  in  my  opinion,  thus  to  en- 
croach upon  a  child's  play  hours, 
which  should  be  devoted  to  healthy 
exercise,  is  little  less  than  a  crime. 
Never  do  my  eyes  fall  on  this  painful 
spectacle  but  I  say  to  myself,  "The 
school  that  child  attends  is  rotten." 
If  the  school  hours  are  adequate,  must 
we  not  believe  that  they  are  misused 
— wasted?  To  extend  them  is  un- 
thinkable. Going  a  step  farther,  I 
am  convinced  that  the  taking  home  of 
text-books  and  the  studying  there  of 
lessons  should  be  positively  prohibited 
to  boys  and  girls  under,  say,  thirteen 
years  of  age.  Their  health  and 
strength  and  growth  are  too  precious 
to  themselves  and  the  nation  to  be 
jeopardized.  Had  I  a  child  subjected 
to  this  merciless   regime,   I    should 


peremptorily  forbid  it  to  bring  any 
text-book  out  of  school. 

Still  another  step  along  this  icono- 
clastic road  which  I  am  inviting  my 
readers  to  tread  with  me;  why  any 
text-books  at  all  for  these  young 
scholars,  saving  only  history  and 
readers?  As  they  seem  unnecessary 
to  me,  I  am  led  to  wonder  whether 
schoolmasters  and  schoolmistresses 
do  not  follow  the  line  of  least  resist- 
ance and  assign  lessons  to  be  learned 
from  text-books  rather  than  do  the 
teaching  themselves.  It  is  distasteful 
to  suggest  that  they  should  choose 
upon  which  horn  of  the  dilemma  to 
impale  themselves,  laziness  or  incom- 
petence ;  therefore  some  other  reason 
must  exist  as  to  which  my  ignorance 
needs  enlightenment. 

Except  readers,  there  were  no  text- 
books at  Professor  Thomas's  school  in 
New  Haven,  which  I  attended  when  a 
youngster,  and  as,  in  my  belief,  no 
better  primary  school  ever  existed  on 
this  planet,  I  have  good  ground  for 
my  opinions.  Of  course,  I  must  admit 
that  he  was  an  extraordinary  master 
— his  Christian  name  should  have 
been  Deodato,  for  surely  never  was  a 
pedagogue  more  truly  God-given. 
When  his  school  closed  for  the  day  his 
scholars  were  absolutely  free.  What 
results  attended  his  system,  it  may  be 
asked.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  his  boys 
of  twelve  could  read  well,  write  well, 
indite  a  good  letter  in  accepted  form, 
both  business  and  personal;  spell  ex- 
cellently, draw  maps  from  memory, 
cipher  with  the  best.  They  knew 
their  history  thoroughly  as  far  as  he 
carried  them,  and  a  little  about  chem- 
istry and  mineralogy  as  well,  through 
practical  demonstrations;  many  of 
them  could  set  up  type,  and  they  did 
with  their  own  hands  make  out,  com- 
pose, and  print  the  weekly  school 
standing ;  all  could  keep  books  in 
double  entry.  The  secret  lay  in  that 
Professor  Thomas  did  nothing  him- 
self which  he  could  make  his  boys  do 
for  themselves.  Few  were  the  lessons 
he  heard  in  person  or  the  exercises  he 
corrected,  although  from  his  raised 


platform  he  supervised  all.  In  spell- 
ing, geography,  and  mental  arithme- 
tic, for  example,  the  boys  themselves 
conducted  the  quiz  after  the  manner 
of  the  good  old  New  England  spelling 
bee.  In  dictation  each  boy  pointed 
out  the  mistakes  on  some  other  boy's 
slate  (for  of  course  the  wasteful  pad 
had  no  place  in  this  model  school), 
and  was  marked  not  only  for  his  own 
errors,  but  for  those  also  which  he 
had  failed  to  note  on  the  slate  passed 
to  him. 

Under  Professor  Thomas,  scholars 
acquired  those  most  essential  of  all 
faculties,  mental  abstraction  and  the 
knowledge  of  how  to  study.  Do 
these  find  their  place  in  our  common 
schools  ?  I  greatly  fear  not,  yet  even 
after  the  lapse  of  many  years  they 
still  remain  with  me  as  priceless  pos- 
sessions. 

In  the  great  world  outside  the 
schoolroom  every  man  finds  himself 
working  under  the  inexorable  law  of 
rewards  and  penalties,  and  he  whose 
career  is  crowned  with  success  has 
won  more  of  the  former  and  incurred 
fewer  of  the  latter  than  his  fellows. 
What  rewards  do  our  schools  hold  out 
for  close  application  and  the  rapid  ac- 
complishment of  the  daily  task  ?  Ab- 
solutely none  except,  possibly,  the 
prizes  offered  at  the  end  of  the  term. 
To  expect  the  average  boy  to  work 
hard  over  his  books  during  what 
seems  to  him  an  eternity  that  he  may 
at  its  end  receive,  perchance,  a  book 
of  poetry,  is  mere  folly;  something 
more  immediate  and  appealing  to  his 
nature  is  required. 

Let  us  digress  a  moment  and  in- 
quire into  what  it  is  that  makes  prog- 
ress so  slow  in  our  schools.  Un- 
doubtedly the  cause  lies  in  the  fact 
that  the  so-called  dull  boys  hold  back 
their  brighter  comrades,  just  as  in  the 
navy  the  speed  of  the  slowest  ship  is 
that  of  the  squadron.  To  increase  the 
latter  the  former  must  be  increased. 
There  is  no  alternative.  I  do  not 
know  whether  the  expediting  of  the 
laggards  is  the  guiding  principle  in 
our  schools,  although  convinced  that 
it  ought  to  be ;  while  I  have  no  reason 
to  suppose  that  the  teaching  of  how 
to  study  is  recognized  as  the  most 
important  part  of  a  master's  duty. ; 
If  that  is  achieved  all  the  rest  of  edu- 


January  17,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[51 


cation  becomes  plain  sailing.  I  may 
be  a  heretic  in  holding  that  unless  a 
master  or  mistress  can  teach  how  to 
study  he  or  she  is  of  little  value.  This 
can  not  be  done  by  punishment,  as, 
for  instance,  "keeping  after  school." 
Experience  has  demonstrated  the  fu- 
tility of  such  a  procedure.  Why  not 
take  the  other  tack  and  try  the  virtue 
of  competition  and  rewards,  the  very 
basis  of  business  management? 

To  illustrate,  suppose  I  were  given 
a  free  hand  in  dealing  with  one  aver- 
age class.  I  would  first  see  to  it  that 
a  playground  for  pleasant  and  a  gym- 
nasium for  foul  weather  were  avail- 
able. I  would  then  address  my  boys 
somewhat  after  this  fashion; 

"I  have  a  stop-watch  here  by 
which  to  time  you  in  learning  a  cer- 
tain poem.  When  I  say  'go,'  open 
your  books  at  page  82  and  begin  to 
memorize  the  poem.  As  soon  as  any 
one  of  you  knows  it  perfectly,  let  him 
raise  his  hand.  At  my  nod,  he  can 
leave  the  schoolroom  and  play  outside 
until  the  bell  sounds  at  the  end  of  the 
hour,  when  of  course  he  must  return. 
Now  be  sure  that  you  do  know  the 
poem  perfectly.  I  have  someone 
waiting  outside  who  will  test  you  and 
send  you  back  if  you  do  not.  More- 
over, your  word  next  time  will  not  be 
fully  accepted;  you  will  have  to  pay 
for  your  error  by  remaining  in  your 
seat  for  a  while.  And  let  me  warn 
each  of  you  not  to  get  into  the  hafeit 
of  deceiving  himself.  The  one  per- 
son with  whom  you  must  always  be 
honest  is  your  own  self.  Now  for  the 
race— Go!"* 

I  would  note  the  exact  time  re- 
quired for  each  boy  to  do  the  task — 
thus  getting  a  measure  of  his  mental 
speed  and  self-honesty,  as  well  as  data 
upon  which  to  gauge  and  record  his 
progress  in  concentration.  It  is  to 
the  laggards,  thus  self  proclaimed, 
that  I  would  then  devote  all  possible 
attention,  helping  them  to  lubricate 
their  brain  mechanism  by  taking 
them  under  intensive  trainingthrough 
one  small  part  of  the  lesson  at  a  time. 
Eventually  I  should  be  in  a  position 
to  report  to  the  Superintendent  that 
Johnnie  Green,  for  example,  was  men- 

*I  have  taken  the  simplest  case,  that  of  pure 
memorizing.  The  reader  can  easily  extend 
the  idea  to  cover  more  complex  cases. 


tally  so  far  below  normal  that  he 
should  be  set  apart  and  not  be  kept 
in  the  class  to  hold  back  his  fellows — 
a  rank  injustice  to  them.  It  is  the 
best  pace  of  the  normal  or  average 
boy  which  should  be  accepted  for  the 
whole  class — not  that  of  the  cleverest 
or  of  the  dullest. 

Granted  that  some  boys  are 
brighter  than  others,  just  as  some 
machines  work  with  less  friction  and 
more  efficiency  than  others,  yet  I  feel 
strongly  that  very  often  the  so-called 
dull  scholar  merely  lacks  the  faculty 
of  abstraction  and  close  attention. 
He  will  confidently  assert  that  he  has 
devoted  the  whole  hour  to  his  lesson 
and  he  really  thinks  he  has  done  so. 
As  a  matter  of  fact  he  has  done  noth- 
ing of  the  sort.  His  mind  has  wan- 
dered from  the  text-book  pages  to 
dwell  upon  the  next  baseball  game, 
the  coming  of  the  circus,  etc.,  etc. 
He  longs  for  the  ending  of  the  school 
session  and  wishes  he  were  a  man 
with  this  horrid  confinement  and  re- 
pulsive study  behind  him.  The  con- 
sequence is  that  of  the  hour  allowed 
he  really  gives  but  a  fraction  to  his 
Soudy.  To  such  as  he  is  the  chance 
of  getting  out  of  doors  and  of  joining 
his  playmates  comes  like  manna  in 
the  wilderness,  furnishing  a  powerful 
incentive  to  stick  close  to  the  lesson. 
It  is  difficult  to  determine  in  advance 
how  much  time  he  would  in  this  way 
gain  for  his  sports,  but  I  am  sure  it 
would  prove  astonishingly  great. 

The  laws  of  physics  apply  here  as 
everywhere  else.  Exactly  the  same 
amount  of  mental  energy  is  expended 
by  each  boy  in  learning  any  given  les- 
son, the  difference  being  that  some 
work  with  the  minimum  of  friction 
and  without  stopping;  others  with 
undue  friction  or  intermittently.  It 
may  be  possible  to  lubricate  the  gears 
— as  to  this  I  can  only  hope — but  it  is 
eminently  practicable  to  keep  the 
wheels  moving  uninterruptedly.  Is 
not  this  worth  attempting?  And  is 
not  the  method  I  suggest  extremely 
promising?  So  entirely  convinced 
am  I  on  this  point  that  I  am  almost 
ready  to  engage  to  take  any  class, 
and,  after  a  few  months'  training, 
prove  that  the  hour  allotted  to  study 
could  be  reduced  possibly  to  twenty 
minutes  without  detriment.    If  I  am 


correct  in  my  forecast,  this  class 
could  eventually  have  its  tasks 
doubled  in  length  and  yet  have  twenty 
minutes  playtime  out  of  every  hour. 
Of  course  these  figures  are  only  hypo- 
thetical, but  I  have  seen  at  Professor 
Thomas's  school  such  extraordinary 
results  of  the  mental  concentration 
and  the  knowledge  of  how  to  study 
inculcated  there  that  I  can  not  think 
them  wildly  visionary. 

This  supposititious  class  would,  if 
I  am  right,  go  easily  and  thoroughly 
over  the  school  course  in  half  the  time 
now  allotted.  It  could  keep  up  its 
speed  in  the  grammar  and  high 
schools  and  be  prepared  for  college  at 
the  age  of  fourteen,  to  graduate  at 
eighteen,  then  to  enter  a  university 
and  go  out  into  the  world  at  twenty- 
one  equipped  at  once  to  undertake 
its  life  work. 

The  objection  will  be  raised  that 
boys  of  fourteen  are  too  young  to 
leave  home.  Quite  true,  if  they  go  to 
a  university  where  the  student  is  re- 
garded as  a  man  fully  competent  to 
take  care  of  himself.  What  I  have  in 
mind  is  a  small  college  exercising  su- 
pervision over  the  conduct,  habits,  and 
morals  of  its  charges.  That  I  myself 
went  to  the  Naval  Academy  at  four- 
teen years  of  age  and,  thanks  to  Pro- 
fessor Thomas,  went  through  the  four 
years'  curriculum  in  three  years, 
graduating  before  I  was  eighteen, 
shows  that  my  ideas  are  not  so  very 
chimerical  after  all,  since  I  was 
merely  an  average  lad,  except  in  this, 
that  under  dear  old  Professor  Thomas 
I  had  learned  how  to  study  and  how 
to  abstract  myself  from  my  sur- 
roundings. He  discarded  text-books, 
other  than  readers,  completely,  using 
wall  maps  and  similar  displays 
for  other  branches  such  as  spell- 
ing, arithmetic,  etc.  To  any  person 
really  anxious  to  learn  Professor 
Thomas's  system  in  detail  t'ne  invita- 
tion is  freely  extended  to  come  to  me 
for  a  conference.  A  private  school 
in  any  one  of  our  large  cities  would, 
I  am  convinced,  prove  a  gold  mine  if 
faithfully  conducted  on  his  lines.  Our 
public  schools  would,  I  fear,  not  con- 
sider such  a  tremendous  change,  im- 
peratively necessary  as  this  heretic 
thinks  it  to  be. 

Caspar  F.  Goodrich 


52] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  36 


Correspondence 

Mr.  Roscoe  and  the  Church 
of  England 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review  : 

In  his  article  on  "The  Established 
Church  of  England,"  in  the  Revieiv  of 
December  20,  Mr.  E.  S.  Roscoe  leaves  little 
unsaid  that  might  be  said  in  its  dis- 
praise. He  is,  indeed,  so  apparently  con- 
fident that  the  Church  of  England  is  a 
dead  thing  that  he  almost  persuades  one 
that  it  must  be  so.  If  he  is  to  be  credited, 
not  only  has  the  inefficiency  of  the 
Church  as  an  organized  body  "been  clear 
for  a  long  time  to  impartial  observers," 
but  it  is  even  recognized  by  the  Church 
itself.  Surely  a  parlous  state.  We  are 
also  reminded  that  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land has  been  out  of  touch  with  national 
feeling  in  England,  and  "never  more  so 
than  during  the  Great  War";  and  that 
it  is  "tolerated  good-naturedly  by  the 
nation  as  a  whole."  The  Church  is 
"characterized  by  lack  of  enthusiasm"; 
it  "produces  no  great  divines";  it  lacks 
both  "the  simple  emotionalism  of  the 
Nonconformist  Churches"  and  "the 
simple-minded  and  unquestioning  devo- 
tion of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  to  its 
faith  and  to  its  purpose";  it  "appeals 
now,  wholeheartedly,  neither  to  reason 
or  feeling;  it  has  neither  an  intellectual 
nor  an  emotional  influence."  A  most 
comprehensively  damning  indictment.  If 
all  this  were  true,  as  of  course  it  is  not, 
in  spite  of  Mr.  Roscoe's  contrary  belief, 
this  corporate  Esau  might  well  lament 
the  loss  of  both  a  birthright  and  any 
vestige  of  a  blessing. 

It  would  be  insulting  the  intelligence 
of  your  readers  to  attempt  to  tell  them 
what  the  Church  of  England  has  done 
in  the  past,  and  what  it  is  doing  to-day, 
in  the  general  cause  of  Christian  civili- 
zation, what  it  has  contributed  to  the 
education  of  England's  sons  and  daugh- 
ters, what  a  factor  it  has  been  in  the 
social  life  of  that  country,  how  its  mem- 
bers clerical  and  lay  did  their  part  in 
the  Great  War.  It  has  been  a  living 
force,  and  is  still  a  living  force,  in  Eng- 
land, as  it  has  been  and  still  is  throughout 
the  British  Empire,  and  as  the  sister 
church  has  been  and  is  in  the  United 
States.  It  does  seem  to  me  that  the 
Church  of  England,  or  the  Protestant 
Episcopal  Church,  stands  for  certain 
things  that  were  never  more  vitally  im- 
portant than  they  are  to-day.  It  stands 
for  broadmindedness,  for  tolerance  of 
the  views  of  others,  for  intelligent  patri- 
otism, for  the  reasonable  freedom  of  the 
individual,  for  self-control  rather  than 
control  by  the  state.  It  teaches  its  mem- 
bers to  be  charitable  in  the  broadest  and 
best  sense  of  the  word,  to  be  helpful  but 
not  meddlesome,  to  pray  but  not  in  the 


market-place,  to  be  good  citizens,  to  play 
the  game,  in  a  word  to  be  gentlemen  and 
gentlewomen.  Any  church  that  does 
these  things,  or  even  makes  an  honest 
attempt  to  do  these  things,  will  live. 

L.  J.  B. 
Ottawa,  Ont.,  Jammry  1 

Inviting  Revolution 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

Now,  as  always,  it  is  the  Reds  who  de- 
sire the  coming  of  the  "Social  Revolu- 
tion"; but  many  of  the  invitations  to  this 
festive  chaos  are  at  the  present  moment 
being  issued  by  the  Repressionists.  Un- 
depreciated Americanism  demands  that 
both  the  Reds  and  Repressionists  be  dealt 
with  as  enemies  of  the  Republic;  and  it 
is  the  task  of  the  much  abused  and  dis- 
credited Liberals  in  this  country  to  make 
the  demand  effective.  For  so  doing,  this 
party  of  orderly  progress  may  expect  to 
be  bitterly  attacked  by  both  sets  of  ex- 
tremists ;  but  it  may  also  confidently  hope 
to  avert  a  disastrous  social  upheaval. 
This  is  the  day  of  the  Liberal;  not  the 
day  of  his  prosperity  and  popularity,  but 
the  day  of  his  opportunity.  Liberalism 
alone  can  offer  adequate  backing  for  that 
salutary  doctrine — now,  unhappily,  in 
eclipse — which  requires  justice  for  those 
"to  whom  we  do  not  wish  to  be  just." 

The  Liberal  can  not  tolerate  the  use  of 
revolutionary  expedients  by  either  of  the 
parties  to  an  industrial  dispute,  nor  by 
the  Government  itself.  When  organized 
labor  prepares  to  compel  political  change 
by  means  of  a  general  strike,  the  Liberal, 
however  much  he  may  sympathize  with 
labor's  grievances,  must  needs  oppose 
this  method  of  redressing  them.  When 
organized  capital  presumes  to  use  as  one 
of  its  weapons  the  withdrawal,  in  certain 
districts,  of  the  ordinary  citizen  rights 
of  free  speech,  free  assemblage,  the  even- 
handed  public  justice,  the  Liberal  is 
driven  to  protest,  even  though  he  fears 
the  impending  tyranny  of  labor.  And 
similarly,  the  Liberal  is  bound  to  oppose 
in  every  lawful  way  any  action  by  the 
Government  in  which  it  seeks  to  guard 
the  general  welfare  by  discriminating, 
wittingly  or  unwittingly,  against  one  in- 
dustrial class  and  in  favor  of  another.  In 
each  of  these  cases  the  guiding  principle 
of  Liberalism  is  an  unflinching  adherence 
to  orderly  justice. 

It  would  be  superfluous  to  urge  so  ob- 
vious a  principle  as  this,  were  there  not 
in  the  social  chaos  of  to-day  many  and 
powerful  temptations  to  violate  it,  and 
a  widespread  yielding  to  these  tempta- 
tions. 

The  Liberal  whose  sympathies  incline 
toward  the  Reds  often  allows  himself  to 
drift  into  the  position  of  acquiescing  in 
revolution,  if  not  of  actually  inviting  it. 
He  may  be  skeptical  about  the  reality  of 
the  so-called  democracy  in  the  United 


States  to-day,  reasoning  somewhat  as 
follows : 

Our  democracy  is  political  only;  in  industry 
we  still  have  autocracy.  And  even  our  politi- 
cal democracy  is  more  apparent  than  real.  Are 
we  not  in  fact  under  a  minority  control,  thanks 
to  public  inertia,  indifference,  and  timidity, 
ignorance  and  mis-education ;  thanks  also  to 
plutocratic  pressure  on  newspapers  and  maga- 
zines, on  hired  brainpower  in  general,  and  on 
political  parties  and  officials?  Is  not  our  de- 
mocracy, after  all,  essentially  a  minority  dicta- 
tion in  the  interest  of  stability  and  the  capi- 
talist class?  W9uld  it  not  probably  involve 
more  of  gain  than  loss  if,  by  "direct  action," 
another  minority  dictatorship  were  substituted, 
in  the  interest  of  change,  perhaps  progress, 
rather  than  stability,  and  of  the  labor  class  in- 
stead of  the  capitalist? 

The  Liberal  who  answers  this  last  ques- 
tion in  the  affirmative  has  ceased  to  be  a 
Liberal.  He  has  become  a  Red.  By  hesi- 
tating to  give  it  a  negative  answer,  many 
Liberals  are  at  the  present  moment  in- 
viting revolution.  To  distrust  the  use 
of  unlawful  violence  as  a  means  to  prog- 
ress is  the  very  essence  of  Liberalism; 
and  the  demand  for  "direct  action"  is  a 
clear  call  to  unlawful  violence  against  our 
Governmental  institutions. 

The  Liberal  whose  sympathies  incline 
toward  the  Repressionists  is  in  an  equally 
perilous  predicament.  He  sincerely  be- 
lieves that  law  and  order  must  be  main- 
tained at  any  cost  in  these  unsteady 
times;  hence  he  finds  it  easy  to  condone 
the  "treat  'em  rough"  tactics  so  com- 
monly used  against  "undesirable  citi- 
zens." The  following  news  item  will 
illustrate: 

Cincinnati,  Nov.  18. — Three  hundred  mem- 
bers of  the  American  Legion,  led  by  their  offi- 
cers, raided  Iieadquartcrs  of  the  Socialist  party 
here  to-night.  Hundreds  of  pounds  of  litera- 
ture were  tlirown  to  the  street,  where  it  was 
burned. 

However  bitter  the  Liberal's  opposition 
to  Socialism  may  be,  and  however 
enthusiastic  his  support  of  the  American 
Legion,  his  plain  duty  is  to  condemn  this 
outrage  and  do  his  part  in  seeing  that  it 
receives  a  suitable  punishment.  To  do 
anything  else  is  to  fall  weakly  into  line 
with  those  who  are  inviting  revolution. 

The  Industrial  Workers  of  the  World 
provide  many  similar  illustrations.     Be- 
cause the  Liberal  abhors  the  I.  W.  W. 
and  all  its  works,  his  soul  rebels  against  : 
the  duty  of  shielding  its  members  from 
unlawful  violence.     Is  not  lawlessness  the 
very  cement  that  binds  them  together? 
Is  it  not  their  common  aim  to  overthrow  , 
in  an  unlawful  manner  the  basic  institu- 
tions of  modern  society?     What  right,  j 
therefore,  have  they  to  claim  the  protec-  i 
tion  of  the  law  or  equitable  treatment  in  | 
the  courts  ?     If  the  Liberal  be  intelligent,  ' 
arguments  such  as  these  proceed  from  i 
his  angry  heart,  not  from  his  cool  head. 
For  a  very  little  of  sober  reflection  can 
not  fail  to  convince  him  that  it  comports 
ill  with  the  dignity  of  a  great  people  to 
fight  crime  with  crime,  and  that  the  ulti- ; 
mate  safeguard  against  revolution  is  a 


January  17,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[58 


record  of  even-handed  justice  to  all.  And 
he  must  feel  grave  concern  as  he  reads 
the  bitter  arraignment  of  modem  society 
bj'  the  Reds,  and  knows  that  many  of 
their  charges  are  based  upon  fact.  Every 
crime  committed  against  a  Red,  whether 
by  a  court,  a  public  administrator,  or 
a  "law  and  order"  mob,  is  an  invitation 
to  revolution — an  invitation  that  thou- 
sands will  accept  and  other  thousands  se- 
riously ponder.  The  all-important  job  of 
the  Liberals  during  the  next  few  months 
is  to  lessen  the  number  of  such  invita- 
tions. 

Henry  W.  Lawrence,  Jr. 
Middlebury,  Vermont,  December  20 

A  Talk  With 

Sir  George  Paish 

AFTER  reading  of  Sir  George  Paish 
in  the  "yellows,"  one  might  be  par- 
doned for  imagining  that  expert  on 
finance  as  a  delusive,  wily,  rather  dan- 
gerous person.  Those  who  meet  him  face 
to  face,  and  exchange  views  with  him, 
will  be  surprised  to  find  that  he  is  just 
the  contrary. 

I  had  the  pleasure  of  a  long  and  serious 
talk  with  him  the  other  day,  when  he 
explained  to  me  some  features  of  his 
mission.  He  had  been  disconcerted  by 
the  comments  of  those  "yellows"  on  what 
they  fancy  he  is  trying  to  do  in  this 
country. 

"I  can  not  understand,"  he  remarked, 
"why  I  have  had  my  mission  so  misrepre- 
sented. On  my  arrival  I  supposed  I 
had  made  it  clear  that  I  had  come  here, 
not  to  arrange  an  enormous  loan  for  any 
government,  but  as  the  spokesman  of  a 
philanthropic  group,  the  Fight  the 
Famine  Council,  to  enlist  the  sympathies 
of  moneyed  men  and  others  in  the  United 
States  on  behalf  of  starving  Europe. 

"It  is  no  part  of  my  purpose  to  induce 
your  Government  to  lend  billions  of 
dollars  to  Great  Britain.  What  I  desire 
is  to  convince  you  of  the  urgent  need  of 
the  unhappy  peoples  over  there  who  have 
been  victims  of  the  war.  I  would  not  for 
a  moment  even  criticize  the  attitude  of 
your  public  men  or  anyone  at  all  here 
on  this  point.  But,  in  a  few  days,  I 
may  venture  to  reply  to  Mr.  Hoover  and 
some  others. 

"I  feel,  as  we  all  do  in  Europe,  that  the 
assistance  which  the  United  States  has 
rendered  the  Old  World  has  been  magnifi- 
cent. Nothing  could  have  been  finer 
than  the  way  in  which  your  armies 
fought  with  us,  or  than  the  way  in  which, 
at  a  most  crucial  time,  you  sent  us  food 
for  lack  of  which  we  must  have  perished. 

"I  am  here  to  try  to  show  you  the  need 
of  not  withholding  the  supplies  which 
you,  above  all,  can  assure  the  stricken 
nations.  All  that  we  ask  is  that  you 
should  go  on  exporting  what  you  raise  to 


Europe.  I  wish  to  show  how  you  can  do 
that  in  a  normal  way — not  by  extending 
credit  on  a  gigantic  scale  with  risk  of 
loss,  but  with  safety  to  yourselves,  with 
guarantees.  I  mean  guarantees  of  a 
responsible  Government." 

"What's  wrong  with  the  whole  world 
just  now.  Sir  George?" 

"The  world  has  been  disordered  by  an 
explosion.  It  must  be  brought  back  to 
its  normal  state.  I  do  not  doubt — indeed, 
I  have  never  doubted  that,  soon  or  late, 
the  United  States  will  realize  this  fact 
and  do  its  part  to  restore  order.  In  the 
long  run  I  have  never  known  America  to 
fail  in  doing  what  is  right.  Since  my 
arrival,  after  conferring  with  important 
business  men,  I  have  convinced  myself 
that  henceforward  business  interests 
here  will  see  that  their  future  lies  not 
only  in  the  development  of  domestic  trade 
but  also  in  the  expansion  of  foreign 
trade.  In  the  future,  I  believe,  this  coun- 
try and  Great  Britain  will  work  amicably 
together,  more  or  less  as  partners.  There 
will,  of  course,  be  friendly  competition. 
But  Great  Britain  will  not  try  to  get 
monopolies  of  trade  in  certain  countries 
— for  example,  in  the  Far  East.  And  the 
United  States  will,  I  believe,  be  equally 
generous. 

"The  war,  you  know,  has  taken  from 
us  two  great  fields  on  which  we  used  to 
draw  for  our  supplies — Russia  and 
Rumania.  This  country  is  to-day  the 
only  source  from  which  we  can  hope  to 
get  the  things  we  need  urgently. 

"It  was  most  fortunate  for  us  that,  at 
a  crisis  of  our  fate,  you  Americans  awoke 
to  a  new  consciousness  of  your  own  for- 
eign interests.  What  you  did  by  sending 
us  wheat  can  not  be  overestimated.  You 
know  what  happened.  The  normal  pro- 
duction of  wheat  and  so  on  here  increased 
enormously;  so  greatly  as  to  make  up 
all  the  deficit  in  production  on  our  side. 
When  it  again  sank,  owing  to  bad  har- 
vests, you  economized.  Had  you  not 
done  so,  we  might  have  been  ruined, 
though  I  believe  that  England  could  have 
starved  a  little  longer,  at  the  worst,  than 
Germany." 

As  to  Russia,  Sir  George  held  the 
opinion  that  it  would  be  advisable  and 
even  necessary  to  let  the  Russians  work 
out  their  own  fate  without  interference. 
There  seemed,  indeed,  to  be  no  possible 
alternative,  as  the  French  and  British 
soldiers  baulked  at  fighting  Russians. 
He  had  also  much  of  interest  to  say  as 
to  the  ferment  of  the  world  regarding 
social  issues. 

"I  have  had  occasion,"  he  remarked, 
"to  talk  with  soldiers  at  the  front.  I 
asked  one  group  of  men — about  seven 
hundred  Tommies — what  they  thought. 
In  answer,  I  was  asked  if  it  was  true 
that,  while  they  were  offering  up  their 
lives  to  serve  their  country,  the  profiteers 
at  home  were  growing  rich.  There  is  no 
doubt,  of  course,  that  while  the  late  war 


lasted,  outrageous  profits  were  made  by 
many  employers.  As  a  natural  conse- 
quence, the  working  people  insisted  on 
their  share  of  those  huge  profits.  So 
wages  were  put  up.  And  this  in  turn 
increased  the  cost  of  living.  The  cost  of 
living  must  be  gradually  reduced.  It  if« 
at  the  root  of  all  the  trouble  in  the  world 
The  workers  are  unhappy  because  they 
are  having  a  bad  time  of  it  at  home.  The 
women  understand  that  it  means  more 
to  their  men  folk  and  their  families  to 
lower  expenditure  than  to  get  higher 
wages.  A  great  portion  of  the  burden 
of  the  people  must  be  reduced  by  taking 
away  excessive  profits. 

"The  tendency  in  England,  as  I  see 
things,  is  towards  what  is  known  there 
now  as  Guild  Socialism — really  a  move- 
ment in  the  direction  of  cooperation  in 
production  and  distribution.  There  have 
been  efforts  to  attain  these  ends  in  Eng- 
land, due  to  the  initiative  of  broadminded 
employers.  But  we  may  see  the  attempt 
on  a  much  bigger  scale.  Between  capital 
and  organized  labor,  what  we  call  the 
middle  classes  (and  more  particularly 
the  professional  classes,  clerks  and  so 
on)  have  suffered  greatly.  It  is  but  fair 
that  they  should  be  considered  in  all 
social  re-adjustments.  I  do  not  know 
exactly  what  has  been  accomplished  so 
far  by  the  middle  class  unions  and 
leagues  in  England.  We  hear  much  less 
of  them  than  you  suppose.  Such  organi- 
zations are,  however,  badly  needed." 

And  then,  after  a  pause  for  thought, 
Sir  George  said  this  of  what  to  him 
seemed  an  impending  social  change  of 
vast  importance,  "In  times  past,  capital 
has  been  in  the  habit  of  hiring  labor. 
Before  long  we  may  see  labor  hiring 
capital.  Groups  of  working  people  will 
borrow  money  for  their  purposes  on  the 
best  terms  procurable.  And,  as  the  work- 
ing people  grow  in  intelligence,  the  terms 
on  which  they  will  be  able  to  raise  money 
will  grow  easier." 

"But  will  that  help  the  rest  of  the 
community?" 

"Yes,  in  the  end,  I  think  it  will.  The 
workers  will  not  be  able  to  dispense  with 
the  assistance  of  the  professionals,  whose 
interests  are  perhaps  nearer  to  their  own 
than  to  those  of  the  capitalists.  Eventu- 
ally all  classes  may  cooperate,  and  share 
the  profits  of  production  and  distribu- 
tion." 

In  quoting  Sir  George  Paish,  I  have 
not  always  tried  to  repeat  his  very  words. 
At  times  he  took  some  pains  to  make  it 
plain  that  he  was  not  nailing  himself 
down  to  rigid  prophecies,  but  merely 
formulating  views  with  which  he  sym- 
pathized. His  general  outlook  on  the 
future  seemed  optimistic.  Especially  as 
to  the  willingness  of  American  business 
men,  or  at  least  the  more  farsighted  of 
them,  to  do  their  share  in  restoring  peace 
and  order  to  a  distracted  world. 

Charles  Henry  Meltzer 


54] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  36 


Mr.  P.  E.  More  and  The  Wits 


IF  Mr.  Howells  is  the  dean  of  our  fiction, 
Mr.  More  is  the  bishop  of  our  criti- 
cism. His  classical  and  Oriental  schol- 
arship, his  reverence  for  tradition,  his 
reasoned  conservatism,  his  manner,  a 
little  austere  at  first  contact,  and  his 
style,  pure  and  severely  decorous,  all  be- 
come the  office.  By  the  serenity  of  his 
pleasure  in  letters  and  the  life  of  the 
mind  he  recalls  those  substantially  happy 
old  churchman-scholars  of  the  eighteenth 
centur>-,  Warton  and  Percy  and  Warbur- 
ton.  By  the  range  of  his  deep  and  difficult 
reading  he  suggests  Coleridge,  to  whose 
intellectual  dissoluteness,  however,  his 
intellectual  organization  and  concentra- 
tion are  antithetical.  By  his  aloofness 
from  the  spirit  of  the  hour  and  its  con- 
troversies he  reminds  one  of  Landor, 
striving  with  none,  because  none  is 
worth  his  strife.  By  his  touch  of  mystic 
ardor  and  his  sustained  moral  intensity 
and  philosophic  seriousness,  he  belongs 
with  Savonarola  and  the  great  French 
ecclesiastics  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
inspired  by  the  poignancy  of  a  Pascal  and 
the  weight  and  amplitude  of  a  Bossuet. 
One  may  visualize  him  in  these  later 
years,  since  his  retirement  from  editorial 
duties,  as  sitting  in  external  and  internal 
placidity  under  a  pallid  bust  of  Pallas  in 
a  commodious  library,  learnedly  annotat- 
ing in  fine  small  hand  an  interleaved 
edition  of  Plato,  or  poring  with  a  reading 
glass  over  the  Latin  folio  of  Origen,  or 
perhaps  quite  lost  to  the  world  in  the 
wide  wilderness  of  Leo  XIII's  Aquinas. 
Men  with  such  companions  are  less 
solitary  than  they  seem.  Upon  a  schol- 
arly leisure  so  austerely  industrious,  you 
and  I  would  not  lightly  venture  to  in- 
trude, even  though  we  had  heard  that 
after  a  week  with  St.  Augustine  Mr. 
More  enjoys  a  Saturday  evening  with 
Anna  Katharine  Green;  or  will  good-hu- 
moredly  meet  the  Princeton  pundits  and 
Bluestockings  at  a  rubber  of  bridge, 
bringing  to  the  solution  of  its  problems 
the  logical  rigor  of  Duns  Scotus  and  the 
transcendental  insight  of  Plotinus.  On 
another  night,  at  tea-time  or  after,  Sam- 
uel Johnson  would  not  hesitate  to  stumble 
in,  and,  stretching  his  great  legs  towards 
the  fire,  challenge  Henry  Holt's  views  of 
Patience  Worth  and  the  ouija  board,  or 
put  the  Princeton  Platonist  to  a  defense 
of  the  thesis,  somewhat  wearily  stoical, 
which  he  has  carved  in  tall  Greek  letters 
across  the  face  of  his  mantel  shelf — a 
thesis  of  which  this  is  the  gist:  "Man's 
affairs  are  really  of  small  consequence, 
but  one  must  act  as  if  they  were,  and 
this  is  a  burden."  Later  in  the  evening 
one  can  imagine  that  saturated  student 
of  Queen  Anne's  time,  Professor  Trent, 
completing  the  semicircle;  and  then  the 
three  of  them,  confirmed  Tories  all  three, 
joining  in  an  amiable  but  heated  alterca- 
tion on  the  merits  of  Milton  and  Defoe, 


or  more  harmoniously  discussing,  judg- 
ing and  gossiping  over  the  "wits"  of  tav- 
ern and  coffee-house  whom  Mr.  More  has 
gathered  into  his  latest  volume*:  first, 
Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  Halifax,  Mrs. 
Behn,  Swift,  Pope,  Lady  Mary,  Berkeley, 
the  Duke  of  Wharton,  Gray;  and  then, 
more  summarily,  those  golden  bugs,  those 
"decadent"  fellows,  who  wore  the  green 
carnation  and  sipped  absinthe  for  coffee 
between  the  reign  of  Wilde  and  the  reign 
of  G.  B.  Shaw. 

It  is  good  literary  talk — better  is  not 
to  be  heard  in  these  degenerate  days.  It 
is  talk  now  grave,  now  gay,  richly  allus- 
ive and  erudite  and  deliciously  seasoned 
with  malice — "at  every  word  a  reputa- 
tion dies."  For  the  host,  quoting  Samuel 
Butler,  has  given  his  guests  this  note: 
"There  is  nothing  that  provokes  and 
sharpens  wit  like  malice."  What  a  lurk- 
ing Whig  or  a  modern  Democrat  or  a 
Romanticist  would  miss,  if  he  were  eaves- 
dropping there,  is  a  clash  of  fundamental 
belief  and  theory.  Professor  Trent  may 
differ  tenaciously  on  a  nice  point,  such  as 
the  circumstantial  evidence  in  the  case 
of  Lady  Mary's  virtue.  But  as  to  the 
a  priori  evidence,  they  are  all  in  substan- 
tial agreement;  for  they  accept  with  a 
dreadful  Calvinistic  accord  man's  nat- 
ural predisposition  to  evil.  They  all  ap- 
plaud the  wits  for  saying  so  sovereignly 
well  those  infamous  things  about  human 
nature,  which,  alas,  every  now  and  then, 
human  nature  deserves  to  hear.  They  all 
speak  suspiciously  and  derogatively  of 
the  mobile  vulgus.  And  they  fail,  as 
nearly  every  militant  classicist  does,  to 
recognize  the  "grand  style"  in  Shake- 
speare, though,  as  Mr.  More's  favorite 
abomination,  Professor  Saintsbury,  truly 
says,  the  heretic  has  but  to  open  the  plays 
anywhere  and  read  fifty  lines,  and  the 
grand  style  will  smite  him  in  the  face 
"as  God's  glory  smote  Saint  Stephen." 
Mr.  More,  receding  from  the  position 
taken  in  the  second  series,  now  admits, 
indeed,  that  the  greater  plays  are  in  their 
substance  "profoundly  classic,"  which  is 
as  much  as  one  ever  extorts  from  a  de- 
fender of  the  Acropolis;  but  he  clings  to 
his  heresy  in  the  case  of  "Komeo  and 
Juliet,"  ranking  its  exquisite  symphonies 
of  meaning  and  music  below  the  ethical 
plain-song  of  the  "Hippolytus." 

We  are  interrupting  better  talk  than 
our  own.  "Stay,  stay,"  as  a  German  vis- 
itor exclaimed  on  another  occasion,  "Toe- 
tor  Shonson  is  going  to  say  something." 

"Sir,"  cries  the  Doctor  dashing  at 
"P.  E.  M."  with  brutal  downrightness, 
"in  your  essay  on  a  Bluestocking  of  the 
Restoration,  you  have  applied  a  vile 
phrase  to  Congreve.    You  have  done  an 


♦With  the  Wits.  Shelburne  Essays.  Tenth 
series.  By  Paul  Elmer  More.  Boston : 
Houghton  Miiiflin  Co. 


injustice  to  Congreve  by  coupling  him 
with  Wycherley  and  Mrs.  Behn  as  'wal- 
lowing contentedly  in  nastiness.'  A  critic 
should  exert  himself  to  distinguish  the 
colors  and  shades  of  iniqtlity.  Wycher- 
ley splashed  through  the  filth  of  his  time 
like  a  gross  wit.  Mrs.  Behn  dabbled  in 
it  like  a  prurient  and  truckling  wit. 
Swift,  indeed,  wallowed  in  it,  not  con- 
tentedly but  morosely,  truculently,  like  a 
mad  wit.  But  Congreve  picked  his  way 
through  it  disdainfully,  like  a  fastidious 
wit." 

"But  did  you  not,"  inquired  Mr.  More, 
"in  your  Lives  of  the  Poets  remark  that 
the  perusal  of  Congreve's  works  will 
make  no  man  better?" 

"True,"  retorts  the  Doctor,  "but  I  ac- 
knowledged that  I  knew  nothing  of  Con- 
greve's plays.  Years  had  passed  since  I 
had  read  them.  I  am  better  acquainted 
with  them  now.  Sir,  in  the  Elysian 
Fields,  Hazlitt,  Thackeray,  and  Meredith, 
your  best  judges  of  wit  and  the  beauties 
of  English  prose,  converse  with  the  mem- 
bers of  my  Literary  Club  in  the  language 
of  Congreve.  In  my  days  of  nature,  I 
did  him  at  least  the  justice  of  recording 
that  he  could  name  among  his  friends 
every  man  of  his  times,  Whig  and  Tory 
alike,  whom  wit  and  elegance  had  raised 
to  reputation.  A  man  who  wallows  in 
filth  does  not  win  universal  esteem.  No, 
sir;  Congreve  was  an  acute  critic,  a 
man  of  taste,  and  a  fine  gentleman,  a 
very  fine  gentleman.  In  your  next  edi- 
tion you  must  retrieve  your  blunder  of. 
representing  the  patrician  wit  of  the  Res 
toration  as  wallowing  in  nastiness." 

"I  will  make  a  note  of  it,"  says  Mr, 
More  with  an  audible  sigh  of  regrei 
For,  to  tell  the  plain  truth,  Mr.  Mor( 
values  the  writers  of  the  Restoratio: 
chiefly  for  their  wickedness.  It  is  such 
good  ammunition  to  use  on  the  humani- 
tarian enthusiasts  and  the  whitewashers 
of  human  nature.  He  can  forgive  Pope 
his  virulent  personal  satire,  but  not  his 
deistic  optimism.  He  praises  Swift  above 
Pope  for  his  consistent  adherence  to  the 
representation  of  his  fellows  as  "the  most 
pernicious  race  of  little  odious  vermin 
ever  suffered  to  crawl  upon  the  face  of 
the  earth."  He  requires,  or  thinks  he 
requires,  the  Yahoos  as  hideous  cary- 
atides to  uphold  the  towering  superstruc- 
ture of  his  aristocratic  political  and  so- 
cial philosophy. 

"Cheer  up.  More,"  interposes  Professor 
Trent  jocosely,  "don't  let  the  loss  of 
Congreve  shake  your  beautiful  faith  in 
human  depravity.  The  Doctor  allows 
that  Congreve  was  a  rare  bird,  a  very 
phoenix.  I'll  tell  you  a  Yahoo  friend  of 
Defoe's  that  you  can  put  in  his  place. 
Swift  knew  his  English  people.  For  my 
part,  give  me  the  Turks." 

A  belief  in  the  baseness  of  average  hu- 
man nature  is,  as  I  have  said,  something 
that  Mr.  More  requires  as  a  builder  re- 
quires a  basement,  not  expecting  to  live 


s- 

J 

1 


Jaruicary  17,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[55 


in  it.  Despite  his  profession  of  love  for 
Pope,  I  suspect  he  has  little  more  fellow- 
feeling  for  the  sad  wags  of  Anne's  time 
or  of  Victoria's  than  Milton  had  for  his 
kitchen-folk.  When  Professor  Trent  and 
Doctor  Johnson  grow  weary  of  impaling 
ghosts  on  epigrams  and  are  packed  off  to 
a  nightcap  and  to  bed,  one  can  fancy  "P. 
E.  M."  returning  to  the  library  to  recover 
possession  of  his  soul.  Extinguishing 
the  lights,  he  sinks  into  his  easy  chair, 
and  watches  for  a  time  the  flickers  of  his 
expiring  fire  fingering  the  dusky  folios, 
while  the  Princeton  chimes  announce 
the  midnight,  and  silence  envelops  that 
quaint  little  imitation-English  city,  striv- 
ing so  bravely,  amid  the  New  Jersey  oil- 
refineries,  to  be  a  home  of  lost  causes 
and  to  dream,  under  the  Cleveland  me- 
morial tower,  like  the  Oxford  of  1830. 
As  he  meditates  there  in  the  fitful  gloam- 
ing by  the  hearthside — Mr.  More  is  one 
of  the  last  of  the  meditative  men — the 
gossip  and  scandal  of  the  evening's  talk 
rise  from  his  mind  like  a  phantasmal 
smoke,  in  which  the  huge  illusory  bulk 
of  Johnson  appears  but  a  whirling  eddy 
in  knee-buckles  and  the  slighter  form  of 
Professor  Trent  but  a  momentary  shape 
in  frock  coat,  floating  wisp-like  heaven- 
wards. 

From  his  mood  of  recreative  dissipa- 
tion "P.  E.  M."  passes  into  his  mood  of 
critical  self-collection,  thence  into  his 
mood  of  philosophic  contemplation,  and 
so  to  his  mood  of  mystical  insight,  in 
which  space  and  time,  like  insubstantial 
figments  of  the  imagination,  dissolve  and 
mingle  with  the  smoke  and  the  Professor 
and  the  Doctor,  and  drift  up  the  flue  into 
night  and  nothingness.  "Such  stuff  as 
dreams  are  made  on,"  he  murmurs  in  a 
mood  like  that  in  which  Carlyle  saw 
through  the  transparent  body  of  Louis 
XVI  the  Merovingian  kings  wending  on 
their  ox-carts  into  eternity.  A  chill  per- 
vades the  still  air  of  the  study.  Into 
the  vacant  chairs  glide  one  by  one  the 
quiet  ghosts  of  Henry  More  the  Plato- 
nist,  and  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  for  whom 
Oblivion  scattered  her  poppy  in  vain,  and 
Cudworth  rising  from  his  tomb  in  "The 
True  Intellectual  System  of  the  Uni- 
verse," and  pale  John  Norris  of  Bemerton, 
wafted  hither  by  a  passion  of  loneliness 
from  his  dim  prison  in  "The  Theory  of 
an  Ideal  World."  There  is  no  sound  of 
greeting;  but  the  four  silent  figures 
commune  together  in  perfect  felicity  on 
That  Which  Endureth  Forever.  They 
speak  not  a  word,  yet  they  understand 
one  another  by  a  mere  interpenetration 
of  their  beings.  .  .  .  And  when 
the  Northern  Waggoner  has  set  his  sev- 
enfold team  behind  the  steadfast  star, 
and  Chaunticlere  warns  erring  spirits  to 
their  confines,  "P.  E.  M."  rouses  himself 
from  his  deep  trance,  and  says  to  him- 
self, softly  under  his  breath,  "Hodie 
vixi— to-day  I  have  lived!" 

After  two  cups  of  coffee  and  a  bit  of 


toast,  he  goes  to  his  desk  and,  without 
haste  or  rest,  sets  to  work  upon — what? 
A  man  who  keeps  such  company  and 
lives  such  an  internal  life  should  write 
his  memoirs,  a  new  Biographia  Literaria, 
a  philosophical  autobiography.  Such  a 
book  from  Mr.  More,  delivering  in  his 
pure  grave  style  a  continuous  narrative 
of  the  travels  and  voyages  of  his  spirit 
from  Shelburne,  New  Hampshire,  by  way 
of  India  to  ancient  Athens,  making  all 
ports  which  for  storm-tossed  sailors  trim 
their  lamps — such  a  narrative,  plangent 
through  all  its  reserves  with  nostalgia 
for  the  infinite,  would  be  of  unique  inter- 
est and  value  to  us,  complementing  the 
brave  venture  of  Henry  Adams,  and 
deepening  the  resonance  of  American  let- 
ters. 

But  Mr.  More,  returning  to  his  desk, 
either  continues  his  history  of  Neo-Pla- 
tonism,  which  I  wish  he  could  leave  to  a 
scholar  with  no  autobiography  to  write; 
or  else,  which  fills  me  with  malice,  he 
supplants  that  great  work  by  a  Shelburne 
essay  on  Aphra  Behn.  This  "pilgrim  of 
the  infinite"— what  has  Aphra  to  do  with 
him,  or  he  with  Aphra!  But  what  is  a 
Shelburne  essay?  It  is  generally  an  im- 
perfect, fragmentary  cross-section,  some- 
times only  the  outer  bark  of  a  cross-sec- 
tion, of  the  character  and  personality 
which  I  have  been  sketching.  It  is  criti- 
cism, it  is  history,  it  is  philosophy,  it  is 
morality,  it  is  religion,  it  is,  above  all,  a 
singularly  moving  poetry,  gushing  up 
from  deep,  intellectual,  and  moral  sub- 
strata, pure,  cold,  and  refreshing,  as 
water  of  a  spring  from  the  rocks  in  some 
high  mountain  hollow.  This  poetry  of 
ideas  was  abundant  in  the  first  and  the 
sixth  series  of  the  Shelburne  essays,  and 
was  nearly  continuous  in  some  of  the 
single  essays  like  The  Quest  of  a  Century 
in  the  third  series  and  Victorian  Litera- 
ture in  the  seventh.  By  its  compression 
of  serious  thought  and  deep  feeling  it 
produces  the  effect  of  one  speaking  be- 
tween life  and  death,  as  the  Apology  of 
Socrates  does.  There  is  a  pulse  in  the 
still  flow  of  it,  as  if  it  had  been  stirred 
once  and  forever  at  the  bottom  of  the 
human  heart.  It  is  for  this  poetry  that 
we  love  Mr.  More.  But  one  has  to  go  so 
far  for  it !  In  the  long  series,  it  is  so  in- 
termittent! There  is  so  much  territory 
through  which  it  does  not  flow. 

A  young  friend  of  mine  who  takes  his 
world  .through  his  pores,  little  expe- 
rienced in  literary  exploration,  unable  to 
discover  the  spring,  announced  to  me, 
after  a  brush  with  the  "wits,"  that  the 
essays  are  "dry."  He  is  mistaken.  A 
Shelburne  essay  is  not  infrequently,  how- 
ever, astonishingly  difficult.  Mr.  More 
has  not  attended  to  the  technique  of  in- 
gratiation  by  which  a  master  of  popu- 
larity plays  upon  an  unready  public  with 
his  personality,  flattering,  cajoling,  se- 
ducing it  to  accept  his  shadow  before  his 
substance   arrives.     He   takes    so   little 


pains,  I  will  not  say  to  be  liked,  but  to 
be  comprehended,  that  I  sometimes  won- 
der whether  he  ha.s  ever  broadly  consid- 
ered the  function  of  criticism — in  a  de- 
mocracy, as  different  as  ours  is  from  that 
in  Athens.  He  writes  as  if  unaware  that 
our  General  Reading  Public  is  innocent 
of  all  knowledge  of  the  best  that  has  been 
said  and  thought  in  the  world.  He  writes 
at  least  half  the  time  as  if  he  contem- 
plated an  audience  of  Coleridges,  John- 
sons, and  Casaubons. 

Let  me  illustrate.  Occasionally  he  will 
give  you  some  paragraphs  of  literary  his- 
tory as  plain  as  a  biographical  dictionary 
and  as  dry  as,  let  us  say  in  deference  to 
Mr.  Mencken,  as  dry  as  a  professor  of 
English.  But  of  a  sudden,  in  a  harmless- 
looking  essay,  say  that  on  the  eighteenth- 
century  dilettante,  William  Beckford, 
you,  if  a  plain  man,  stumble  and  lose  your 
footing  over  "the  law  of  autarkeia.  the 
perception  of  the  veritable  infinite  within 
harmonious  self-completeness  which  was 
the  great  gift  of  the  Greeks  to  civiliza- 
tion;" and  down  you  go  whirling  head- 
long into  the  bottomless  pitfall  and 
abyss  of  a  discussion  of  the  difference 
between  the  Oriental  and  the  Occidental 
sentiment  towards  the  infinite  and  to- 
wards personality,  while  Hinduism,  Sem- 
itism,  Alexandrianism,  Platonism,  and 
the  Gnostic  and  Manichean  heresies  rush 
past  you  with  the  flash  and  roar  of  the 
wheels  within  wheels  that  dazzled  Eze- 
kiel  when  the  heavens  were  opened  and 
he  saw  "visions  of  God" — and  "my 
word,"  as  Mr.  Drinkwater's  Lincoln  would 
say,  what  a  God!  You  are,  it  is  true, 
brought  out  of  that  headlong  plunge  into 
the  unfathomable,  as  a  skillful  sky-pilot 
brings  you  out  of  a  "nose-spin,"  or  as 
a  dentist  brings  you  out  of  the  gyrations 
of  a  nitrous  oxid  trance;  and  you  hear 
Mr.  More  at  your  side  quietly,  suavely, 
assuring  you  that  now  you  understand 
"why  Goethe  curtly  called  romanticism 
disease  and  classicism  health."  Maybe 
you  do;  but  it  is  not  by  reason  of  your 
ride  behind  him  on  the  Gnostic  night- 
mare. What  passed  in  that  flight  is  only 
a  shade  more  intelligible  to  you  than  a 
Chinese  incantation.  Your  education 
was  imperfect;  you  are  neither  a  Cole- 
ridge nor  a  Cudworth. 

"Perverse  as  it  seems  to  say  so,"  re- 
marked Matthew  Arnold  in  reply  to  Pro- 
fessor Newman's  charge  that  he  was  ig- 
norant, "I  sometimes  find  myself  wish- 
ing, when  dealing  with  these  matters  of 
poetical  criticism,  that  my  ignorance 
were  even  greater  than  it  is."  How  often 
one  wishes  that  Mr.  More  would  steal  an 
hour  from  the  study  of  Neo-Platonism  to 
meditate  on  that  paradoxical  utterance! 
How  often  one  wishes  that  Mr.  More's 
ignorance  were  far,  far  greater  than  it 
is.  With  many  of  Arnold's  fundamental 
intentions  in  criticism  he  is  profoundly 
sympathetic;  but  he  has  never,  as  it  ap- 
pears to  me,  felt  in  a  compelling  way  the 


56] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  36 


Englishman's  passion  for  diffusing  his 
ideas,  for  making  them  "prevail,"  for 
carrying  them  from  one  end  of  society 
to  the  other.  He  has  never  taken  ade- 
quately to  heart  Arnold's  true  and  mem- 
orable description  of  the  "great  men  of 
culture."  They  are  those,  he  declares, 
"who  have  labored  to  divest  knowledge 
of  all  that  was  harsh,  uncouth,  difficult, 
abstract,  professional,  exclusive;  to  hu- 
manize it,  to  make  it  efficient  outside  the 
clique  of  the  cultivated  and  learned,  yet 
still  remaining  the  best  knowledge  and 
thought  of  the  time,  and  a  true  source, 
therefore,  of  sweetness  and  light." 

When  I  ask  myself  why  "P.  E.  M."  has 
not  taken  these  words  more  obviously 
home,  why  he  writes  so  exclusively  for 
the  "clique  of  the  cultivated  and  learned," 
I  come  invariably  to  one  conclusion, 
namely,  that  his  interest  in  the  unculti- 
vated and  unlearned  is  horribly  chilly,  is 
not  much  livelier,  in  fact,  than  his  mas- 
ter Plato's  concern  for  the  Helots,  who 
are  silently  to  bear  on  their  shoulders  the 
burden  and  splendor  of  the  Athenian  Ke- 
public ;  is  not  much  warmer  than  his  mas- 
ter Burke's  concern  for  the  driver  of 
oxen,  the  carpenter,  and  work-master, 
who  are  not  to  be  sought  for  in  counsel 
but  are  "to  maintain  the  state  of  the 
world."  When  I  consider  how  rich  "P. 
E.  M."  is  in  the  very  wisdom  which  our 
democratic  populace  needs  and  vaguely 
desires,  and  when  I  observe  how  per- 
sistently he  repels  the  advances  of  the 
vulgar  by  flinging  a  handful  of  political 
and  social  icicles  in  their  faces,  I  wish 
from  the  bottom  of  my  heart  that  he 
had  loved  the  exclusive,  metaphysical, 
aristocratic  Plato  less,  and  the  hobnob- 
bing, inquisitive,  realistic,  democratic 
Socrates  more. 

If  Socrates  were  among  us  to-day,  I  am 
convinced  that  he  would  be  leader  of  the 
Democrats  in  the  House;  but  Plato,  I 
suspect,  would  be  a  member  of  the  Senate 
from  Massachusetts.  Having  Plato  as 
his  monitor,  Mr.  More  sides  politically 
and  socially  with  the  little  group  of 
Americans  who  hold  that  there  are  only 
half  a  dozen  great  families,  all  in  the 
Republican  party,  capable  of  governing 
and  guiding  the  destinies  of  the  United 
States.  Though  they  may  pass  without 
question  for  "good"  citizens,  distin- 
guished and  patriotic,  they  have  never 
accepted  one  characteristic  word  that 
Jefferson  wrote  into  the  political  Scrip- 
tures of  the  American  nation;  they  have 
never  felt  one  generous  throb  of  the  faith, 
regenerative  and  sustaining  and  uniting, 
which  Jefferson  poured  broadcast  upon 
the  spirit  of  the  American  people — faith 
in  the  sense  and  virtue  of  the  community 
and  in  the  sense  and  virtue  of  the 
majority  of  its  components. 

With  Socrates  as  his  guide  through 
the  modem  world,  "P.  E.  M."  might  have 
left  his  library  and  have  broken  from  the 
circle  of  his  Immortals,  to  stand  on  one 


leg  and  grow  wise  in  the  market-place. 
He  might  have  suppled  and  vulgarized 
his  tongue  to  chat  with  the  work-master 
and  carpenter  and  the  driver  of  oxen 
who  have  had  an  American  education  and 
have  fought  under  the  American  flag 
from  Verdun  to  Archangel  for,  as  they 
thought  or  hoped,  an  American  demo- 
cratic faith.  He  might  have  fallen  in 
with  the  young  carpenter,  cited  for  gal- 
lantry in  the  Argonne,  who  is  repairing 
my  roof;  or  with  another,  concealing  a 
Carnegie  medal,  who  built  me  a  tolerable 
bookcase  after  saving,  single-handed, 
seventeen  lives  in  a  fire.  He  might  have 
met  with  a  Northern  peasant  farmer  of 
my  acquaintance  who,  after  recounting 
the  hardships  of  his  winter  work  in  the 
absence  of  his  eldest  son,  said  to  me,  with 
a  smile  as  profoundly  philosophical  as 
anything  in  Epictetus:  "Well,  I  suppose 
that  is  what  we  are  here  for."  He  might 
have  read  the  halting,  ill-spelled  letters  of 
that  stalwart  eldest  son  who,  while  break- 
ing mules  for  the  Expeditionary  Force  in 
France,  wrote  to  his  old  mother  with  a 
filial  piety  as  beautiful  as  anything  that 
Mr.  More  commends  in  Pope. 

If  he  had  enjoyed  opportunities  such 
as  these — somehow  he  seems  always  to 
have  evaded  them — he  would  have  recog- 
nized with  dismay  that  Swift  and  the 
wits  have  coarsely  libeled  the  mobile  vul- 
gus  and  have  deceived  him  about  its  ca- 
pacities and  tendencies.  He  would  have 
discovered  in  the  average  man — along 
with  healthy  self-interest,  petty  vices, 
and  envy  enough  to  keep  him  stirring — 
courage,  fortitude,  sobriety,  kindness, 
honesty,  and  sound  practical  intelligence. 
If  he  could  have  pressed  critically  into  the 
matter,  he  would  have  discovered  some- 
thing even  more  surprising.  He  would 
have  learned  that  the  average  man  is,  like 
himself,  at  heart  a  mystic,  vaguely  hun- 
gering for  a  peace  that  diplomats  can  not 
give,  obscurely  seeking  the  permanent 
amid  the  transitory;  a  poor  swimmer 
struggling  for  a  rock  amid  the  flux  of 
waters,  a  lonely  pilgrim  longing  for  the 
shadow  of  a  mighty  rock  in  a  weary  land. 
And  if  "P.  E.  M."  had  a  bit  more  of  that 
natural  sympathy,  of  which  he  is  so  dis- 
trustful, he  would  have  perceived  that 
what  more  than  anything  else  to-day 
keeps  the  average  man  from  lapsing  into 
Yahooism  is  the  religion  of  democracy, 
consisting  of  a  little  bundle  of  general 
principles  which  make  him  respect  him- 
self and  his  neighbor;  a  bundle  of  prin- 
ciples kindled  in  crucial  times  by  an  in- 
tense emotion,  in  which  his  self-interest, 
his  petty  vices,  and  his  envy  are  consumed 
as  with  fire ;  and  he  sees  the  commonweal 
as  the  mighty  rock  in  the  shadow  of 
which  his  little  life  and  personality  are 
to  be  surrendered,  if  need  be,  as  things 
negligible  and  transitory. 

I  am  speaking  of  the  average  man  and 
traits  of  his  which  I  can  never  contem- 
plate, being  one  myself,  without  a  lift  of 


the  heart;  and  I  frankly  avow  that  it 
vexes  me  to  hear  this  emotion  which  does 
so  much  to  keep  us  average  men  from 
weariness,  and  from  the  devastating  cyni- 
cism of  the  wits,  and  the  horrid  ennuis 
of  the  great,  and  from  their  sense  that 
the  affairs  of  men  are  really  of  small  con- 
sequence— it  vexes  me  to  hear  this  emo- 
tion dismissed  as  fatuous  democratic 
self-complacency. 

But  even  as  I  write  these  words,  I 
seem  to  hear  Mr.  More,  in  an  accent 
slightly  eighteenth  century,  exclaiming 
not  without  asperity,  yet  rather  in  pity 
than  in  anger:  "Sir,  I  perceive  that  you 
are  a  vile  Whig !" 

To  which  I  reply,  not  without  anima- 
tion yet  more  in  affection  than  in  malice, 
"Sir,  I  perceive  that  you  are  a  stubborn 
Tory." 

"Sir,"  says  Mr.  More,  "I  am  obliged 
to  lean  a  bit  backward  to  counterbalance 
the  vileness  of  your  Whiggery." 

"And  Sir,"  I  conclude,  "I  am  obliged 
to  lean  a  bit  forward  to  counterbalance 
the  stubbornness  of  your  Toryism." 

Stuart  P.  Sherman 

Book  Reviews 

Co-operating  with  Destiny 

Ideals  of  America.  Analyses  of  the  guiding 
motives  of  contemporary  American  life 
by  leaders  in  various  fields  of  thought  and 
action.  Prepared  for  the  City  Club  of 
Chicago,  1916-1919.  Chicago:  A.  C.  Mc- 
Clurg  &  Co. 

THE  reviewer  wolfed  a  mouthful  of 
books  from  the  shelf  behind  the  edi- 
tor's desk  and  trotted  off  to  the  smoking- 
car  before  he  dropped  his  prey  to  sniff 
at  it  and  see  what  he  had  caught.  He 
slipped  inside  the  first  red  cover,  labelled 
"Ideals  of  America,"  and  splashed  into 
the  following: 

An  era  ended  in  July,  1914.  A  civilization 
reached  its  conclusion.  We  are  now  far 
enough  away  to  begin  to  see  its  affairs  in  per- 
spective. Nineteen  hundred  and  fourteen  is 
detached  from  the  present.  The  year  so  recent 
has  begun  to  take  its  place  with  1896,  1861, 
and  even  with  1775.  This  almost  immediate 
past  is  already  becoming  as  alien  to  us  as  are 
the  epochs  we  have  learned  through  the  written 
chronicles  of  the  past.  What  is  ahead  we  can 
not  say  with  assuredness,  although  the  rude 
outlines  of  the  future  are  visible  now  to  the 
clear-eyed  as  objects  perceived  in  the  semi- 
light  of  approaching  dawn.  At  such  a  season 
of  transition  it  is,  accordingly,  especially  valu- 
able to  attempt  to  take  stock  so  that  thereby 
we  may  cooperate  with  destiny  in  achieving  a 
more  satisfactory  society. 
As  he  came  up  gasping  and  began  to 
search  his  mental  pockets,  the  train  boy 
thrust  a  pictorial  cover  under  his  nose, 
announcing  "Mutt  and  Jeff — all  the  latest 
Mutt  and  Jeff  pictures  in  a  book."  The; 
reviewer  took  a  good  look  at  the  familiar 
figures  with  a  comfortable  feeling  as  of 
firm  ground  after  quicksand.  Here  at 
least  was  something  from  that  utterly 
alien  past  whose  curve  registered  noth- 


Januaiy  17,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[57 


ing  of  the  late  seismic  disturbance.  As 
they  were  before  Sarajevo,  so  are  they 
after  Versailles.  He  opened  the  red 
cover  and  ventured  in  again  arm  in  arm 
with  Mutt  and  Jeff  to  steady  him  over 
the  quaking  surface  of  the  morass. 

By  conscious  efforts  towards  clarifying  and 
organizing  our  thought  and  feeUngs  can  the 
high,  but  hazy,  ill-defined  .  and  ill-adjusted 
moral  conceptions,  which  admittedly  feature 
our  life,  be  composed  into  the  symbol  of  a  fit 
creative  purpose  for  to-morrow?  .  .  .  Can 
we  as  Americans  justify  our  occupation  of  a 
continent  by  unfolding  and  pursuing  a  benefi- 
cent, an  upbuilding  ideal,  outbidding  disrup- 
tive motives  and  matching  the  inciting  chal- 
lenge and  resources  of  our  day? 

From  the  corner  of  his  eye  the  reviewer 
saw  Mutt  with  a  bent  forefinger  pressed 
against  the  dome  of  his  forehead,  above 
which  hung  a  radio-active  question-mark 
registering  "I  don't  get  you." 

If  the  task  thus  crudely  hinted  at  can 
be  successfully  prosecuted,  if  a  more 
worthy,  adequate,  and  dynamic  objective 
for  our  social  life — 

"Say,"  interrupts  Mutt,  "Wot  fell's  a 
dynamic  objective?" 

"I  know,"  says  Jeff,  "It's  droppin  G. 
I.'s  on  an  ammunition  dump." 

"How  am  I  gonna  cooperate  with 
destiny?"  pursues  Mutt. 

"Let's  ask  the  Perfesser,"  suggests 
Jeff. 

There  follows  a  "symposium,"  a  Greek 
banquet  of  codfish  and  baked  beans,  a 
white-pine  Parthenon  with  a  steeple 
overlooking  the  culture  of  onions  and 
tobacco. 

Same  old  Mutt  and  Jeff.  They  keep 
their  hair  on  (what  there  is  of  it). 
And  the  fact  that  their  familiar 
attitudes  express  so  readily  these  in- 
expressibly new  phases  of  life  "casts 
an  oblique  light"  on  the  newness 
and  on  us.  In  Mutt's  well-known  pose 
we  see  ourselves,  a  static  pose  to  express 
the  dynamic,  an  attitude  of  tense  for- 
ward straining  in  expectation  of  any- 
thing but  the  familiar,  when  suddenly  the 
familiar  hits  us  from  behind,  and  over 
we  go  on  our  noses.  At  the  promise  of 
something  new  we  shut  our  eyes  and 
open  our  minds  wide.  Common-sense  flies 
out;  does  anything  better  fly  in?  The 
professor  does  his  part  to  supply  us 
with  something  to  make  us  wise — if  only 
we  could  shut  our  minds  on  it  and  hold 
it  when  we  get  it. 

In  turn  the  professors  come  forward. 
There  is  one  each  for  politics,  law,  labor, 
science,  education,  society,  business, 
music,  religion,  philosophy,  literature, 
and  things  in  general  (Human  Pro- 
gress). For  the  most  part  they  speak 
well  and  reason  soundly.  But  the  re- 
viewer has  to  snuggle  close  to  Mutt  and 
Jeff  to  keep  from  dizziness,  as  ideals 
wheel  across  the  zenith  like  the  spokes 
of  the  Aurora  Borealis,  and  flash  from 
hilltop  to  hilltop.  The  three  find  them- 
selves in  a  rather  flimsy  wagon  at  the 
switching  tail  of  a  free-lance  comet.    Far 


below,  the  world  they  have  left  "spins 
like  a  fretful  midge."  They  would  be 
glad  to  hitch  their  wagon  to  a  star,  just 
one  star,  friendly  and  fixed.  Jeff  has 
much  ado  to  keep  his  hair  on,  and  the 
glow  of  Mutt's  radiolite  question-mark 
outdoes  the  pale  moon.  The  reviewer  is 
ready  to  go  into  the  hands  of  a  moral  and 
spiritual  receiver.  In  the  matter  of 
ideals,  he  thought  he  had  assets  enough 
for  his  modest  business,  but  this  board 
of  examiners  exhibits  his  liabilities  in  a 
light  that  spells  bankruptcy,  and  he  be- 
gins to  wonder  what  percentage  his 
assets  would  represent  amongst  this 
army  of  creditors.  Jeff  dodges  a  switch 
of  the  comet's  tail  and  shouts  in  the 
reviewer's  ear,  "Say,  I  ain't  strong  for 
this  cooperating  with  destiny — me  for 
old-fashioned  competition!" 

The  I.  I.  I. 

Bulletin  de  L'Institut  Intermediaire  Inter- 
national. Publication  Trimestrielle.  Haar- 
lem (Pays-Bas)  :  H.  D.  Tjeenk  Willink  & 
Fils;  La  Haye:    Martinus  Nijhoil. 

THESE  are  not  the  initials  of  a  new 
political  party  for  the  cult  of  self  as 
an  offset  to  a  rife  and  flabby  communism. 
They  stand  for  the  name  of  an  institute 
whose  aims  are  purely  altruistic.  The 
"Institut  Intermediaire  International," 
though  the  study  of  world  politics  is  an 
indispensable  part  of  its  activity,  does 
not  hold  a  brief  for  any  political  pro- 
gramme in  particular.  It  is  intended  as 
an  international  clearing-house  of  in- 
formation on  all  matters  of  international 
interest,  connected  with  politics,  eco- 
nomics, and  statistics.  It  wishes  to  act 
as  an  intermediary  between  peoplp  who, 
ignorant  of  each  other's  language  and 
living  in  different  parts  of  the  globe, 
have  no  other  means  of  getting  into  con- 
tact together.  Some  one  in  China  wish- 
ing to  be  informed  concerning  a  certain 
law  obtaining  in  Spain,  an  Englishman 
desirous  of  some  economic  data  about 
Russia,  a  South  African  journalist  anx- 
ious to  gather  material  for  an  article 
on  the  Swedish  Constitution,  an  Ameri- 
can professor  intending  to  lecture  on 
the  history  of  the  international  conven- 
tions and  treaties  regulating  the  naviga- 
tion on  the  Danube  and  the  Rhine,  will 
all,  without  any  charge  being  made,  find 
information  they  are  in  search  of  at 
the  "Institut  Intermediaire"  in  The 
Hague.  The  initiative  was  taken  by 
some  prominent  Hollanders,  and  the 
present  organization  is  controlled  and 
financed  by  exclusively  Dutch  intellect 
and  capital.  Jonkheer  J.  Loudon,  late 
Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs,  and  at 
present  Minister  Plenipotentiary  in 
Paris,  is  the  honorary  president  of  the 
Institute,  and  on  its  executive  board  sit 
such  eminent  authorities  on  International 
Law  as  Dr.  B.  C.  J.  Loder  and  Jonkheer 
Dr.  W.  J.  M.  van  Eysinga. 


In  addition  to  its  work  of  information, 
the  Institute  publishes  a  series  of  mono- 
graphs on  questions  of  international  in- 
terest, and  a  quarterly  bulletin  which  has 
just  entered  on  its  second  year. 

The  first  four  numbers  contain  a 
wealth  of  information,  which  makes  one 
look  forward  to  their  sequels  of  the  cur- 
rent year.  In  a  long  contribution,  run- 
ning through  all  the  four  numbers,  an 
admirable  survey  is  given  of  the  genesis 
of  the  peace  in  the  form  of  summaries  of 
diplomatic  document.s,  official  notes,  im- 
portant editorials  and  magazine  articles. 
Recent  documents  relating  to  Zionism 
are  published  by  Mr.  Fischer,  the  ques- 
tion of  the  dissolution  of  the  Austro- 
Hungarian  monetary  system  is  discussed 
by  Dr.  de  Roo  de  la  Faille.  Highly 
interesting  is  a  summary  of  the  regula- 
tions and  efforts  for  the  resumption  of 
economic  relations  between  the  countries 
made  during  the  first  half  of  the  year 
1919.  Lavivers  will  find  useful  informa- 
tion in  an  extensive  collection  of  juris- 
prudence of  the  Prize  Courts  in  the 
various  belligerent  countries,  and  in  a 
number  of  articles  by  Dutch,  Swiss,  and 
Norwegian  financial  experts  on  the  fiscal 
legislation  in  their  respective  countries 
relating  to  the  question  of  double  im- 
position. 

Each  issue  of  the  bulletin  contains  a 
selection  of  the  most  important  questions 
which  have  been  addressed  to  the  Insti- 
tute during  the  past  three  months. 

One  of  these  was  to  enquire  whether 
legal  regulations  exist  in  France  concern- 
ing the  possession,  the  purchase,  and  the 
sale  of  rural  or  other  immovable  posses- 
sions by  foreigners  domiciliated  in  that 
country.  The  answer,  supplied  by  the 
Institute's  French  correspondent,  M. 
James  Paul  Govare,  Avocat  a  la  Cour 
d'Appel,  Paris,  denied  the  existence  of 
any  such  provisions  with  a  special  view 
to  foreigners,  but  referred  to  certain  re- 
strictions contained  in  the  peace  treaty 
which  tend  to  derogate  from  this  legal 
equality  between  native  and  foreign  resi- 
dents. Another  question  was  for  a  list 
of  articles  directed  against  the  League 
of  Nations,  and  the  enquirer  received 
from  the  Institute  about  fifty  cuttings 
from  daily  papers  and  numbers  of  the 
New  Republic,  the  Ne%o  Europe,  the 
Arbitrator,  and  the  Nation.  "What  is  the 
legal  status,"  runs  another  question,  "of 
a  person  of  German  birth,  residing  and 
domiciled  in  Belgium  since  1878,  who  has 
lost  his  German  nationality  according  to 
articles  16  and  following  of  the  German 
law  of  June  1,  1870,  a  loss  confirmed  by 
an  "Entlassungsurkunde"  of  1899,  passed 
by  the  Government  of  the  Grand  Duchy 
of  Baden?"  In  a  lengthy  reply  the  en- 
quirer had  it  explained  to  him  that  he 
could  not  claim  Belgian  citizenship  on 
the  ground  of  his  long  residence  in  that 
country.  He  had  to  be  satisfied  with 
being  "heimatlos." 


58] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  36 


The  importance  of  an  institute  of  this 
nature  is  self-evident.  A  more  correct 
knowledge  of  the  laws  of  foreign  coun- 
tries is  a  safeguard  against  international 
misunderstandings  and  thus  contributes, 
indirectly,  to  the  "rapprochement"  be- 
tween the  nations.  That  Holland  has 
taken  the  initiative  in  such  an  enterprise 
of  world-wide  importance  is  a  guarantee 
that  the  ideals  which  Hugo  Grotius 
preached  to  an  uncomprehending  age  are 
still  revered  by  his  compatriots  in  these 
more  internationally  minded  days. 

Roses  and  Games 

Pink  Roses.   By  Gilbert  Cannan.   New  York : 
George  H.   Doran  Company. 

THE  pink  roses  are  artificial  roses  on 
the  hat  of  one  of  those  professionally 
pretty  ladies  who  have  recently  drifted 
into  the  foreground  of  British  fiction. 
They  dawn,  in  our  first  chapter,  upon  the 
vision  of  the  languidly  dissatisfied  young 
gentleman,  Trevor  Mathew.  They  be- 
come and  remain  for  him  a  symbol,  as,  in 
another  way,  a  certain  real  pink  rosebud 
is  to  become  later  on.  Trevor  Mathew, 
just  out  of  Oxford,  has  been  ready 
enough  to  become  a  hero  with  his  two 
chums,  Hardman  and  Peto,  in  the  first 
days  of  the  war.  A  "systolic  murmur" 
turns  up  to  disqualify  him.  Hardman  is 
killed  pretty  promptly,  and  Peto  sent 
back  a  hopeless  cripple.  This  is  distress- 
ing for  Trevor,  and  helps  open  his  eyes 
to  what  is  really  going  on  in  the  world. 
It  is  borne  in  upon  him  that  the  war  is 
an  abominable  and  unendurable  sacrifice 
of  Hardmans  and  Petos  and  the  sacred 
youth  they  represent.  He  is  supposed  to 
be  "in  articles,"  but  how  can  a  chap 
study  law  with  all  that  sort  of  thing 
going  on  over  there?  What's  the  good  of 
work,  what's  the  good  of  anything? 
"Nothing  went  on  except  the  war,  and 
that  went  on  and  on.  Nothing  that 
happened  in  it  had  any  significance." 
The  old  world  had  been  destroyed  and 
nobody  knew  how  to  dream  even  of  a 
new  one.  "Men  died  for  liberty,  but 
liberty  disappeared  because  life  as  it  had 
been  planned  and  dreamed  had  died." 
Most  unpleasant  for  Trevor,  all  this,  and 
he  is  about  to  take  it  quite  hard,  when 
the  damsel  with  pink  roses  in  her  hat 
winks  at  him  one  evening  from  a  neigh- 
boring bench  in  Hyde  Park.  She  with- 
draws demurely  to  a  cafe,  whither  cur 
young  friend  Trevor  enchantedly  fol- 
lows her.  She  and  her  pink  roses  vaguely 
symbolize  for  him  youth  and  pleasure 
and  release  from  responsibility.  His 
good  and  nice  looks  attract  the  lady,  who 
is  at  a  loose  end.  They,  as  it  were,  take 
each  other  on.  Like  Mr.  Bennett's  pretty 
lady,  this  Cora  makes  a  sentimental  point 
of  "being  good  to"  the  war-worn  male 
as  an  institution.  For  a  time,  according 
to  Mr.  Cannan,  she  is  the  best  thing  that 
could  have  happened  to  the  distraught 


Trevor.  Later,  as  she  develops  a  con- 
suming passion  for  him,  the  relation  be- 
comes less  comfortable  from  his  point  of 
view.  She  even  dreams  of  achieving 
marriage  and  respectability  with  him. 
However,  he  steers  clear  of  this  without 
much  trouble,  and  they  presently  tire  of 
each  other  sufficiently  to  drift  apart  with- 
out anything  resembling  anguish  on 
either  side.  They  have  both,  we  gather, 
gained  by  the  relation.  Cora  has  added 
new  charms  to  her  professional  equip- 
ment, and  Trevor  has  been  safely  tided 
over  a  perilous  time  of  crisis.  Now  he  is 
qualified  for  a  true  union  with  the  mate 
who  has  also  (for  his  sake  eventually) 
been  passing  through  her  little  appren- 
ticeship at  love. 

The  reader  of  this  note  may  perceive 
that,  stripped  of  Mr.  Cannan's  decorative 
gloss  or,  if  you  will,  imaginative  inter- 
pretation, this  is  pretty  much  the  same 
old  story— the  youth  just  out  of  Oxford 
who  in  the  course  of  a  few  months  in 
London  not  only  runs  the  gamut  of  sex, 
but  becomes  the  mouthpiece  of  whatever 
"philosophy  of  life"  his  author  may 
chance  to  be  swearing  by  at  the  moment. 
Trevor  Mathew  is  quite  a  talkative  little 
prophet  from  first  to  last,  however 
negligible  a  little  man.  We  must  confess 
that  apart  from  his  megaphonic  function, 
he  is  much  the  same  at  the  end  of  our 
acquaintance  as  at  the  beginning,  a 
flabby,  selfish,  and  rather  fatuous  dabbler 
at  life.  As  for  the  "philosophy"  he  rep- 
resents, it  is  difficult  to  put  one's  finger 
on.  The  main  thing  is  to  disbelieve  in 
anything  other  people  incline  to  agree 
about,  especially  other  people  struggling 
under  the  disadvantages  of  maturity  and 
experience.  I  am  young;  a  lot  of  us  are 
young;  and  the  world  is  in  a  horrible 
mess,  and  youth  is  all  right,  so  it  must 
be  the  fault  of  the  old  fellows.  This  war 
is  the  old  man's  war  fought  by  the  young. 
But  it  won't  happen  again  because  age 
has  at  last  over-reached  itself.  It  has 
destroyed  the  ancient  illusions  and  in- 
hibitions— smashed  the  checkerboard  on 
which  its  own  game  was  played.  Now  is 
the  world  to  be  remoulded  to  youth's 
desire.  Alas,  our  young  Trevor  does  not 
much  care  what  he  says  or  thinks,  so 
long  as  it  is  clever  and  exciting.  For 
days  after  the  news  of  the  Russian  revo- 
lution his  life  is  "one  long  chant  of  pure 
idealism" ;  but  this  does  not  prevent  him 
from  slipping  complacently,  at  this  very 
time,  into  his  snug  berth  as  an  heredi- 
tary pillar- of  the  law  "up  North."  The 
law,  he  decides  comfortably,  "does  some- 
how prevent  the  rogues  and  the  dear 
bourgeois  innocents  who  want  their  ten 
per  cent,  from  having  things  their  own 
way.  That  and  our  folly  make  us  what 
we  are.  We  can  get  along  without  revo- 
lutions." Still,  we  see  that  without  sacri- 
ficing any  personal  advantage  from  soci- 
ety as  at  present  constituted,  he  loves 
the  idea  that  something  altogether  new, 


and  probably  inconvenient,  is  about  to 
happen  to  a  great  many  other  people, 
the  old,  the  stodgy,  the  respectable,  and 
all  in  authority.  He  and  the  still  yourger 
oracle,  Leslie,  settle  it  between  them. 
Says  Leslie: 

"They  think  we're  awfully  young,  but 
we  do  know — all  the  things  that  people 
like  my  father  have  pretended  not  to 
know.  We've  got  to  know,  because  some- 
thing's hurting  us  all  the  time  and  we've 
got  to  find  a  way  out.  You  know  what 
I  mean.  Evolution,  and  all  that.  .  .  . 
Well,  it's  as  if  things  were  rushing  away 
from  you  at  about  a  million  miles  an 
hour,  and  all  the  things  you'd  been  told 
were  important  turned  out  to  be  nothing 
at  all,  and  as  if  when  you  tried  to  play 
the  game  according  to  the  rules  it  turned 
crazy  because  the  game  was  a  new  game, 
and  the  rules  were  old  rules." 

"Why,  that's  the  war,"  cried  Trevor, 
beginning  to  grasp  what  the  boy  was 
driving  at. 

"That's  it.  We  aren't  playing  the  old 
game  any  more.  Nothing  that  my  father 
did  can  ever  be  done  by  me  because  I'm 
a  different  being,  something  quite  new. 
So  are  you.  So  is  Ruth.  I  can  tell  them, 
the  new  people,  as  soon  as  I  see  them, 
and  I  can't  make  out  why  the  old  game 
goes  on." 

"You  see,"  said  Trevor,  "we  are  not 
allowed  to  say  that  it  is  a  new  game 
because  the  old  people  want  us  to  say 
that  it  is  better.  But  we  don't  say  any- 
thing of  the  kind.  We  only  say  that 
it's  new.  Whether  it  is  better  or  not 
remains  to  be  proved.  .  .  .  But  the 
people  who  are  the  first  to  play  the  new 
game  will  have  a  lovely  time." 

The  italics  are  mine:  a  not  unmeaning 
bit  of  commentary  in  themselves,  per- 
haps, on  Trevor,  his  author,  and  their 
new  game. 

H.  W.  BOYNTON 

Pointing  the  Way  to  a 

League  of  Nations 

Judicial    Settlement   of   Controversies    Be- 
tween   States   of   the   American    Union. 
Cases  decided  in  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United    States.      Edited    and    collected    by 
James  Brown    Scott,    A.M.,    J.U.D.,    LL.D. 
2  Vols.     Carnegie  Endowment  for  Interna- 
tional Peace.     New  York:    Oxford  Univer- 
sity Press. 
THESE  ponderous  quartos  cover  even 
a  broader  field  than  is  indicated  by 
the  title,  which  in  turn  does  not  disclose 
the  real  purpose  of  the  editor.    No  inter- 
state controversy  is  involved  in  most  of 
the   earlier  cases   reprinted.     The  first 
case,  indeed,  does  not  present  a  decision 
of  a   Federal   Court,  but  of   the   State 
Court  of  Pennsylvania.  It  does  deal,  how- 
ever, with  the  legal  status  of  the  United 
Colonies,    after    their    separation    from 
Great  Britain,  and  before  the  adoption 
of  the  Constitution,  and  it  declares  a  doc- 


January  17,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[59 


trine,  which  has  been  accepted  by  Fed- 
eral Courts,  that  the  Colonies  became  a 
body  corporate  from  the  moment  of  their 
association  as  the  United  States  (Respub- 
lica  V.  Sweers,  1  Dallas  41,  A.  D.  1779). 

The  second  case  (Ware  v.  Hylton,  3 
Dallas,  199,  A.  D.  1796),  which  is  from 
a  Federal  Court,  decides  that  upon  sep- 
aration from  the  Mother  Country  each 
Colony  became  a  sovereign  and  independ- 
ent State,  with  the  "right  to  govern 
itself  by  its  own  authority  and  its  own 
laws,  without  any  control  from  any  other 
power  upon  earth."  Then  follow  cases 
showing  the  nature  of  "The  Union  of  the 
States  under  the  Constitution"  and  the 
relations  of  the  Federal  Government  to 
the  Territories  of  the  Union. 

Thus  far  we  have  no  trace  of  inter- 
state controversies,  but  we  get  a  hint  of 
the  editor's  prime  purpose,  which  is  to 
show  how  sovereign  and  independent 
States  have  voluntarily  associated  them- 
selves under  a  polity  which  binds  them 
to  submit  their  controversies  to  judicial 
determination  rather  than  to  the  arbitra- 
ment of  war.  This  purpose  is  further 
disclosed  when  the  editor  inscribes  the 
collection  of  the  "Justices  of  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States,  as  contain- 
ing the  contribution  of  that  court  to  the 
Judicial  Settlement  of  International  Dis- 
putes." 

An  important  part  of  that  contribu- 
tion is  found  in  a  group  of  cases  which 
establish  the  distinction  between  jus- 
ticiable questions  and  those  which  are 
merely  political.  Many  boundary  dis- 
putes have  arisen  between  the  States. 
From  one  point  of  view  the  question  of 
State  or  National  boundary  is  a  political 
one.  Accordingly,  the  Supreme  Court 
has  refused  to  inquire  into  the  accuracy 
of  the  decision  of  the  political  depart- 
ment of  government  that  certain  terri- 
tory belongs  to  a  specified  nation  (Will- 
iams V.  Suffolk  Ins.  Co.,  13  Pet.  415). 
From  another  point  of  view,  the  ques- 
tion of  boundary  may  be  one  of  property 
and  involve  the  determination  of  facts  by 
a  court.  In  such  cases  the  question  of 
sovereignty  is  subordinate  to  that  of 
property  (Virginia  v.  West  Va.,  11  Wal- 
lace 39).  Which  of  two  opposing  gov- 
ernments in  a  State  is  the  legitimate  one 
is  for  the  political  and  not  the  judicial 
department  of  government  (Luther  v. 
Borden,  7  Howard  1) .  Whether  the  form 
of  government  in  a  State  is  republican 
is  a  political  question,  with  which  the 
courts  will  have  nothing  to  do  (Pacific 
Telephone  Co.  v.  Oregon,  223  U.  S.  118). 
Proclamation  of  blockade  by  the  Presi- 
dent is  conclusive  evidence  of  a  state  of 
war,  and  courts  will  not  entertain  an  in- 
quiry as  to  whether  a  state  of  war  in  fact 
existed     (The  Prize  Cases,  2  Black  635). 

This  distinction  between  inter-state 
controversies  which  are  determinable  by 


the  application  of  established  legal 
rules  and  those  which  involve  only  or 
mainly  considerations  of  policy  has  been 
made  clear  by  a  long  line  of  Supreme 
Court  decisions.  This  distinction,  the 
editor  believes,  will  be  found  helpful  in 
determining  whether  a  particular  inter- 
national dispute  falls  within  the  justici- 
able or  non-justiciable  class. 

The  greater  part  of  the  collection  con- 
sists of  cases  in  which  serious  contro- 
versies between  States  have  been  ad- 
justed. For  example,  the  boundary  be- 
tween Nebraska  and  Iowa  is  in  part  a 
varying  line,  because  of  the  shifting 
course  of  the  Missouri  River,  which  sep- 
arates the  States.  Under  the  decision 
of  the  Supreme  Court,  each  State  ap- 
points a  Commission  by  which  from  time 
to  time  a  compact  is  made  as  to  the  tem- 
porary boundary.  In  case  either  State 
failed  to  comply  with  the  decision  the 
Court  would  appoint  an  official  to  locate 
such  boundary.  Thus  is  removed  all  pos- 
sibility of  hostile  action  by  either  State. 

The  most  notable  inter-state  dispute, 
the  most  prolonged  as  well  as  the  most 
ably  contested,  arose  from  the  efforts  of 
Virginia  to  recover  from  West  Virginia 
a  proportion  of  the  public  debt  of  the 
former.  Upon  the  organization  of  West 
Virginia  it  agreed  to  assume  a  stipulated 
part  of  the  debt  of  Virginia  as  it  stood 
on  January  1,  1861.  It  did  not  perform 
its  agreement,  and  Virginia  sought  to 
enforce  its  claim  by  suit.  All  sorts  of 
defenses  were  interposed  by  the  debtor 
State,  some  of  them  purely  technical, 
some  of  them  dilatory,  some  of  them 
going  to  the  merits  of  the  claim.  The 
case  was  presented  to  the  Supreme  Court 
many  times  and  the  opinions  appear  in 
nearly  a  dozen  different  volumes  of  the 
reports.  Technicalities  were  swept  aside 
by  the  Court,  dilatory  pleas  were  un- 
heeded. Attention  was  repeatedly  called 
to  the  fact  that  the  litigation  was  not 
between  individuals  but  between  political 
sovereignties  and  therefore  possessed  a 
quasi-international  character.  Decision 
was  to  be  based  not  upon  technicalities, 
but  upon  the  actual  merits  of  the  con- 
troversy. Nor  was  it  to  be  doubted  that 
these  States  would  perform  their  obliga- 
tions, once  these  had  been  announced  by 
the  Court.  In  fact,  this  protracted  liti- 
gation was  brought  to  a  close  without 
the  employment  of  legal  process  to  en- 
force final  judgment.  The  appeal  of  the 
Supreme  Court  to  West  Virginia's  sense 
of  honor  sufficed.  That  State  has  passed 
an  "Act  providing  for  payment  of  West 
Virginia's  part  of  the  public  debt  of  the 
Commonwealth  of  Virginia  prior  to  Jan- 
uary 1,  1861,  as  ascertained  by  the  judg- 
ment of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States  and  adjusted  by  the  two  States" 
(Chapter  10,  Extraordinary  Session 
1919). 


No  one  can  read  the  record  of  these 
and  of  similar  decisions  without  wishing 
to  study  the  editor's  conclusion  that 
"as  a  result  of  argument,  debate  and  de- 
cision, practice  has  been  settled  and  pro- 
cedure adopted  in  the  light  of  experi- 
ence, which  is  as  applicable  to  States  of 
the  Society  of  Nations  as  to  States  of 
the  American  Union."  Most  readers. 
probably,  will  agree  with  the  editor  in 
the  further  statement  that  the  Supreme 
Court,  in  its  judgment  of  disputes  be- 
tween States,  has  shown  itself  "a  proto- 
type of  that  tribunal  which  they  would 
like  to  see  created  by  the  Society  of  Na- 
tions, 'accessible  to  all  in  the  midst  of 
the  independent  Powers.' " 

We  cannot  take  leave  of  these  volumes 
without  calling  attention  to  the  fact  that 
they  contain  a  variety  of  intere.sting  ma- 
terial not  suggested  by  their  title.  The 
Articles  of  Colonial  Confederation,  The 
Constitution  of  the  United  States,  part 
of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  aru 
reprinted,  as  are  a  number  of  cases  from 
the  Privy  Council  and  English  Equity 
reports.  These  decisions  have  served  as 
precedents  not  only  in  boundary  contro- 
versies, but  one  of  them  is  certainly  the 
fountain  head  of  the  doctrine  of  judicial 
control  over  the  constitutionality  of  leg- 
islative acts.  This  is  followed  by  the 
reproduction  of  various  Colonial  ca.ses  of 
a  similar  character  which  are  often  re- 
ferred to  but  are  not  accessible  to  most 
readers. 

Attic  Red-Figured  Vases 

A  Handbook  of  Attic  Red-Figured  Vases. 
Signed  by  or  Attributed  to  the  Various 
Masters  of  the  Sixth  and  Fifth  Centuries, 
B.  C.  Two  Volumes.  By  Joseph  Clark 
Hoppin.  Cambridge:  Harvard  University 
Press. 

THESE  two  fine  volumes  represent  an 
immense  labor  and  a  great  confi- 
dence. They  rest  upon  the  conviction 
that  all  Attic  red-figured  vases  can  be 
classified  by  their  artists.  This  cata- 
logue makes  that  ambition  a  fact,  in- 
corporating, besides  the  investigations  of 
Beazley  and  Furtwangler,  a  host  of 
minor  researches. 

The  plan  of  the  catalogue  is  alpha- 
betical. In  the  first  instance  artists' 
signatures  are  considered,  next  potters' 
signatures,  finally  stylistic  groups  not 
confirmed  by  signatures.  The  latter  nat- 
urally predominate.  Thus  the  cata- 
logue begins  with  "The  Achilles 
Painter"  and  ends  with  the  "Painter 
of  the  Yale  Oinochoe."  In  the  single 
list  you  will  find  Andokides,  Brygos, 
Phintias,  The  Bowdoin  Kylix  Painter, 
etc.,  each  in  its  alphabetical  place.  Under 
each  artist  the  arrangement  is  alpha- 
betical by  places. 

Though  Dr.  Hoppin  is  accomplished 
in  this  game  of  attributions,  he  wisely 


60] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  36 


brings  no  new  ascriptions  of  his  own 
into  the  catalogue.  When  one  vase  is 
ascribed  to  several  masters,  as  often  be- 
falls, he  serves  as  arbiter,  referring  to 
the  piece,  however,  under  every  master 
to  whom  it  has  been  assigned.  Thus 
the  brief  entries  carry  with  them  a 
generous  amount  of  bibliography.  Be- 
sides the  general  index,  which  is  chiefly 
of  artists  and  subjects,  there  is  a  mu- 
seum index  in  which  Boston  looks  im- 
pressive even  among  the  European  capi- 
tals, an  index  of  inscriptions,  one  of 
graffiti,  and  one  of  publications.  Every- 
thing is  most  convenient,  and  despite 
the  inevitable  ambiguity  of  such  pro- 
visional names  as  The  Niobid  Painter, 
the  student  should  from  one  list  or  an- 
other be  able  to  locate  in  the  catalogue 
any  given  vase.  Here  we  may  protest 
against  the  multiplication  of  fanciful 
names.  Where  the  stylistic  group  centres 
upon  a  vase  in  a  great  museum  the 
name  of  the  museum  should  be  the  catch- 
word. Thus,  Louvre  Niobid  Painter  is 
much  better  than  Niobid  Painter.  In 
this  matter  the  author  had  to  take  mat- 
ters as  he  found  them. 

The  plan  of  illustration  is  to  repro- 
duce in  small  working  cuts  all  signed 
vases  and  no  others.  It  would  have  con- 
siderably added  to  the  value  of  the  cata- 
logue to  reproduce  the  most  representa- 
tive example  of  each  unsigned  stylistic 
group,  but  it  would  have  also  added  to 
bulk  and  expense.  As  it  is,  the  student 
will  do  well  to  take  Dr.  Hoppin's  ad- 
vice to  use  the  best  reproductions  and 
then  go  slow  on  attributions. 

In  the  nature  of  the  case,  no  catalogue 
of  world-wide  scope  can  be  complete. 
Doubtless  many  additions  will  promptly 
be  made  to  the  upwards  of  four  thou- 
sand vases  listed  by  Dr.  Hoppin.  We 
happen  to  know  of  a  score  in  the  uni- 
versity and  private  collections  of  Prince- 
ton, New  Jersey,  and  a  couple  in  the  Cen- 
tury Club,  New  York,  and  we  have  less 
certain  report  of  a  few  at  Williams  Col- 
lege. Such  minor  omissions  should 
merely  encourage  Dr.  Hoppin's  colleagues 
to  report  all  scattered  pieces  which  have 
escaped  his  notice.  His  catalogue  will 
be  indispensable  to  the  special  student 
of  Greek  vase  painting,  and  occasionally 
useful  to  all  students  of  graphic  design. 
It  is  a  well-conceived  and  conscientious- 
ly executed  piece  of  minute  scholarship, 
one  of  the  most  important  contributions 
to  classical  archaeology  which  has  been 
made  in  America. 

One  may  envy  the  painting  classes 
that  heard  such  talks  as  are  gathered 
in  Charles  H.  Woodbury's  "Painting  and 
the  Personal  Equation"  (Houghton  Mif- 
flin Co.).  His  counsels  abound  in  mother 
wit,  and  are  blessedly  free  from  the  jar- 
gon of  the  studio.  He  advocates  a  modi- 
fied naturalism.  The  greater  color  re- 
lations of  a  picture  should  be  observed 
in  nature,  for  the  rest  the  artist  is  free. 


No  forms  of  conventional  and  decorative 
design  are  considered.  We  are  really 
talking  about  open-air  sketching  and  its 
pictorial  derivatives.  Within  this  limi- 
tation, the  book  is  full  of  sound  thinking 
energetically  expressed.  "Originality 
does  not  mean  that  you  are  superior  to 
law,  but  rather  that  you  are  keener  than 
others  to  discriminate  between  law  and 
custom.  A  picture  must  be  based  on 
the  great  considerations  of  color  values; 
acquaint  yourselves  with  these  for  they 
are  the  law,  and  beyond  them  all  else  is 
custom  to  be  followed  or  broken  as  it 
seems  to  you  best."  On  the  ever-urgent 
issue  of  technic  we  have  the  following 
golden  words:  "The  actual  manipula- 
tion of  the  brush  is  a  skilful  matter, 
and  yet  it  requires  more  intelligence  than 
manual  dexterity.  Art  is  psychology, 
not  science,  and  there  ever  must  be  one 
unknown  factor,  the  personal  equation. 
You  must  know  what  you  see,  why  you 
see,  and  what  is  worth  seeing."  Here 
may  naturally  follow  Mr.  Woodbury's 
excellent  variation  on  Merimee's  famous 
definition  of  art.  "Art  is  subtle  exagger- 
ation, not  carried  to  the  grotesque. 
It  is  dangerous  ground,  of  course,  but 
let  us  take  it  as  one  of  the  perils  of 
the  profession."  A  final  quotation  may 
suggest  the  quality  of  a  book  which 
should  be  read  in  its  entirety.  "In  the 
final  analysis,  art  is  the  search  for  order 
and  it  has  the  significance  of  a  basic 
human  instinct.  Art,  science,  philoso- 
phy, psychology,  all  are  seeking  the  laws 
that  assign  us  our  place  in  the  universe 
and  help  us  to  fill  it  understandingly. 
It  is  not  the  thirst  for  knowledge  that 
drives  us,  but  rather  the  instinct  to 
escape  from  chaos.  We  do  not  know 
where  we  are  going,  but  we  do  know 
what  we  are  leaving  behind  us.  Wherever 
the  tendency  arises  to  deny  order, 
whether  it  be  in  the  arts  or  the  art  of 
living,  there  comes  degeneracy." 

The  Run  of  the  Shelves 

THE  "Silver  Age"  (Scott  and  Seltzer) 
is  the  agreeable  title  of  a  rather  non- 
descript volume  of  stories  and  sketches 
by  Mr.  Temple  Scott.  More  specifically, 
it  is  the  title  of  the  not  unpleasing  open- 
ing sketch,  dealing  with  a  man's  passage 
into  that  period  of  life  when  young  peo- 
ple, even  his  own  children,  value  him 
chiefly  as  a  convenience  or  an  antiquity. 
Mr.  Scott's  observation  is  rather  good. 
His  sentiment,  on  the  other  hand,  is 
watery,  and  a  certain  sponginess  is  the 
inevitable  and  unprofitable  result  of  its 
copious  diffusion  through  such  dilatory 
narratives  as  "Reb  Yankel"  and  the 
"Lady  and  the  Singing-bird."  In  "New 
York  at  Twilight,"  in  which  he  declares 
that  the  true  and  great  New  York  comes 
out  in  the  dusky  interval  between  the 
avidities  of  its  daytime  and  the  relaxa- 


tions of  its  nights,  he  shows  an  advance 
in  substance  which  is  pretty  nearly 
counterpoised  by  a  retreat  in  style.  He 
is  capable,  at  the  longest  intervals,  of 
cumulative  epigram.  For  instance,  he 
has  this  to  say  of  the  commercial  side 
of  art  in  New  York  City:  "The  artist 
toadied  the  dealer,  the  dealer  toadied  the 
critic,  the  critic  toadied  the  editor,  the 
editor  toadied  the  advertiser." 

It  would  be  pleasant  to  speak  only 
praise  of  Mr.  Gamaliel  Bradford's  "Por- 
traits of  American  Women"  (Houghton 
Mifflin) ;  for  it  is  a  nice  thing  to  turn 
out  these  volumes  of  what  the  author 
has  called  "psychographs" — or  something 
of  the  sort — and  wears  the  appearance 
of  disseminating  culture.  But  we  can't 
help  feeling  that  Mr.  Bradford  has  the 
fear  of  the  editor  of  the  popularized  At- 
lantic Monthly  in  his  eyes,  and  writes 
down  a  little  to  the  flattering  editorial 
opinion  that  magazine  readers  need  to  be 
titillated.  Mr.  Bradford's  portrait  of 
Emily  Dickinson,  for  instance,  ought  to 
be  interesting,  and  is  in  fact  mildly  so; 
but  there  is  a  kind  of  jump  in  his  reflec- 
tions on  human  life  which  bothers  us. 
Much  more  important  is  the  essay  on 
Sarah  Alden  Ripley,  for  here  the  author 
has  had  access  to  private  papers  and 
gives  us  information  about  a  character 
unique  in  its  way.  A  private  scholar  of 
whom  Professor  Child  could  say:  "The 
most  learned  woman  I  have  ever  known, 
the  most  diversely  learned  perhaps  of 
her  time,  and  not  inferior  in  this  respect, 
I  venture  to  say,  to  any  woman  of  any 
age"^ — such  a  woman,  scholar  at  once 
and  very  human,  ought  to  be  better 
known,  and  we  are  grateful  to  Mr.  Brad- 
ford for  telling  her  life.  We  should  have 
been  more  grateful  if  he  had  quoted  more 
freely  from  her  letters.  Other  essays  deal 
with  Abigail  Adams,  Mary  Lyon,  Har- 
riet Beecher  Stowe,  Margaret  Fuller 
Ossoli,  Louisa  May  Alcott,  and  Frances 
Elizabeth  Willard. 

The  poet-laureate.  Dr.  Robert  Bridges, 
dumb  through  the  war,  has  at  last 
spoken,  but  through  prose,  and  not 
through  poetry.  The  year  before  the 
War  broke  out  he  was  busy  founding  a 
society  to  combat  what  he  regards  as 
the  dangerous  influences  at  work  in  de- 
grading the  language,  and  widening  the 
gulf  between  ourselves  and  the  sonorous 
speech  of  Shakespeare  and  Milton.  It 
is  called  the  Society  for  Pure  English; 
not,  however,  to  convey  the  idea  that 
words  of  foreign  origin  are  impurities 
in  English,  but  rather  assuming  that 
they  are  not.  Professor  Henry  Bradley, 
editor  of  the  great  Oxford  Dictionary, 
and  Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  were  with  him 
in  the  project  from  the  beginning;  and 
over  a  hundred  rank  as  original  mem- 
bers, including  the  Right  Honorable 
Arthur  H.  Balfour  and  Mrs.  Humphry  i 


January  17,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[(51 


Ward.  The  first  of  its  publications  has 
just  come  from  the  Clarendon  Press,  in 
the  shape  of  a  Tract  on  English  Homo- 
phones by  Dr.  Bridges.  An  Englishman 
from  one  of  the  southern  counties,  him- 
self, he  makes  it  a  particular  grievance 
that  the  careless  treatment  of  the  con- 
sonant r  is  leading  to  the  blurring  of  the 
distinction  between  such  words  as  shore 
and  sure,  oar,  ore  and  awe.  A  Phonetic 
Dictionary  of  the  English  Language,  the 
joint  work  of  an  Englishman  and  a 
Prussian,  has  been  published  in  London 
to  register  this  habit  of  speech.  This 
work  of  Michaelis  and  Jones,  now  in  its 
second  edition,  gives  the  poet-laureate 
no  little  concern.  With  the  prestige  of 
coming  from  the  British  capital,  and  of 
being  compiled  by  the  lecturer  on  Pho- 
netics at  University  College,  London,  it 
may  work,  he  fears,  no  little  harm. 

To  most  minds  the  word  desert  means 
the  opposite  of  all  that  is  pleasing.   Sand 
and  snakes  and  thirst  and  cactus— what 
else  is  there  to  write  about?  Some  years 
ago  George  Wharton  James  wrote  two 
big  volumes   on   the   "Wonders   of  the 
Colorado  Desert."     Many  other  authors 
have  discoursed  eloquently  on  its  lures. 
The  latest  of  them  is  J.  Smeaton  Chase, 
the     author     already      of      "Yosemite 
Trails"  and  "California  Coast  Trails," 
and  now  of  "California  Desert  Trails" 
(Houghton  Mifflin).    He  goes  so  far  as 
to  say  that  the  desert's  hold  upon  those 
who  have  fallen  under  its  spell  is  deeper 
and  more  enduring  than  is  the  charm  of 
forest   or   sea   or   mountain.      He   also 
ventures  an  explanation  of  this  fact,  if 
fact  it  is.     In  olden  times  man  was  en- 
I  gaged  in  a  perpetual  struggle  with  the 
I  inexorable  forces  of  nature.    While  this 
struggle  lasted,   the  vast  and  the  wild 
raised  no  thrills  but  those  of  dislike  and 
fear.    But  now,  after  centuries  of  ease 
and  home  comforts,  the  desolate,  gaunt, 
and  dreadful  in  nature  attract  us  by  the 
law  of  contrast;  "the  risk  is,  indeed,  that 
they  may  run  to  overvaluation."     Per- 
haps, the  author  thinks,  even  the  pranks 
of  those  funny  fellows,  the  "futurists," 
"cubists,"    and    "vorticists,"    in    poetry, 
music,  and  the  other  arts,  might  be  ex- 
plained by  this  clue:   "Civilization  has 
got   on   their   nerves,    and   they   simply 
have  to  scream." 

Mr.  Chase's  book  is  not  "a  scream." 
There  are,  indeed,  exciting  episodes  a- 
plenty  in  its  pages,  and  he  often  dwells 
on  the  ugly,  repellent  side  of  the  desert 
—the  torturing  sun,  the  constant  risk 
of  a  horrible  death  by  thirst,  the  fre- 
quently befouled  water  holes  on  which 
the  traveler's  life  depends,  the  monot- 
ony, the  sand  storrhs,  the  rattlers,  the 
mosquitoes,  and  a  number  of  other 
things  undesirable;  but  for  the  most 
part  he  writes  about  the  features  that 
help  to  explain  the  puzzling  allurement 
of  the  desert  to  those  who  know  it  well 


— the  sea  of  sand,  with  dunes  perpet- 
ually reshaped  by  the  terrific  blasts  of 
the  wind;  the  oases  of  date  palms;  the 
terrestrial  "moonscapes";  the  myste- 
rious mountains  with  their  hidden  min- 
eral treasures  that  have  lured  so  many 
men  to  death;  the  bracing  night  air; 
the  annual  spring  episode  with  its  won- 
derful blossoms  of  divers  species  of  cac- 
tus; and,  above  all,  the  marvelous  color. 
In  the  field  of  color  effects,  the  author 
boldly  claims,  the  desert  is  supreme;  his 
descriptions  affect  one  the  same  way  as 
Nansen's  of  the  aurora  borealis. 

With  the  human  inhabitants  of  the 
desert  Mr.  Chase  was,  on  the  whole, 
impressed  favorably.  Hospitality  was 
freely  offered  and  he  liked  the  home  life 
of  the  Mexicans  on  both  sides  of  the 
border,  for  the  Colorado  Desert,  concern- 
ing which  he  writes,  lies  in  California. 
When  this  desert  was  labelled,  in  1853, 
there  was  as  yet  no  State  of  Colorado. 
Winter  and  Spring  are  the  time  to  visit 
this  desert;  the  necessary  equipment  is 
described  by  the  author — and  don't  for- 
get a  mosquito  net.  A  ferryman,  on 
being  asked  how  he  endured  these  tor- 
mentors, answered:  "Why,  there's  no 
more  blood  in  me,  you  see.  They  got 
the  last  out  of  me  about  1910 ;  so  they've 
quit  coming  around." 

In     "The     Heritage     of     India"     a 

succession  of  volumes  is  projected 
dealing  with  the  Sanscrit  and  Pali  lit' 
eratures;  with  the  different  vernacular 
literatures  both  in  histories  and  illustra- 
tive volumes  of  selections ;  with  the  philo- 
sophical systems;  with  the  fine  arts  and 
music;  and  with  biographies.  Alto- 
gether, between  thirty  and  forty  volumes 
are  now  in  sight,  all  written  to  foster 
in  the  Indian  student  class  a  feeling  for 
their  ancient  heritage  and  to  put  before 
them  in  a  healthy  way  its  treasures  of 
knowledge,  wisdom,  and  beauty.  The 
books  are  to  be  cheap  and  non-technical; 
but  they  must  also  be  scholarly  and  sym- 
pathetic. The  second  in  the  series  has 
just  appeared,  a  short  study  by  James 
M.  MacPhail,  of  the  life  and  times  of 
Asoka  as  king,  missionary,  and  scribe, 
with  the  early  history  of  Buddhism  and 
with  Asoka's  place  in  history  (Oxford 
University  Press).  It  is  an  admirable 
little  volume,  full,  interesting,  and  care- 
ful. A  second  volume  has  also  just  ap- 
peared in  "The  Religious  Life  of  India 
Series,"  and  fifteen  more  are  in  prepara- 
tion. It  is  a  study  of  the  Ahmadiya 
movement,  by  the  late  H.  A.  Walter  and 
issued  by  the  same  publishers.  This,  by 
the  nature  of  the  case,  had  to  be  a  much 
more  elaborate  book  and  is  one  of  more 
immediate  modern  interest.  The  Ahma- 
diya sect  has  been  widely  rejected  by 
Moslems  as  in  essential  heresy  with 
Islam;  yet  it  may  be  said  to  represent 
Islam  officially  in  England  by  its  mission 


to  Christians  at  Woking  and  by  its  Eng- 
lish monthly,  the  Review  of  Religions, 
On  one  side  the  sect  is  intensely  and  con- 
servatively Moslem,  as  opposed  to  the  re- 
formed Islam  centred  at  Aligarh  in  In- 
dia; but  on  another  it  has  combined  with 
Islam  much  Christian  and  Hindu  doc- 
trine. The  founder,  Ghulam  Ahmad, 
claimed  to  be  not  only  the  Moslem  Mahdi, 
come  in  a  peaceful  form,  but  also  Jesus 
in  his  second  coming  and  an  avatar  of 
Krishna;  and  his  followers,  since  his 
death,  now  regard  him  as  having  ful- 
filled the  prophecies  in  all  religions  of  a 
great  spiritual  leader  to  come.  They 
would,  therefore,  unite  all  religions  by 
fulfilling  in  one  figure  all  their  eschato- 
logical  hopes.  On  another  side  the 
founder  is  a  figure  of  great  psychological 
intere.st,  a  mediumistic  prophet  of  the 
most  primitive  pathological  type,  a  Mo- 
hammed without  the  genius  and  sim- 
plicity of  the  author  of  Islam,  yet  living 
under  modern  conditions  and  in  contact 
with  critical  attitudes  which  he  tried  to 
use  and  only  half  understood.  When  he 
brings  forth  wonderful  things  from  the 
Encyclopaedia  Biblica  he  helps  us  to  un- 
derstand Mohammed's  crazy  syncreti.sms 
from  the  theology  of  the  Greek  Church 
and  the  mythology  of  Zoroastrianism. 
Mr.  Walter's  book  can,  therefore,  be 
heartily  commended  to  students  of  re- 
ligious psychology  and  history,  as  well  as 
to  specialists  in  Islam. 

The  latest  issue  of  the  "Cahiers  Bri- 
tanniques  et  Americains,"  the  series  of 
brochures  which  M.  Georges-Bazile  pub- 
lishes in  Paris  (13  Quai  de  Conti),  has 
just  arrived  in  this  country  and  is  de- 
voted to  a  translation  of  some  of  Presi- 
dent Wilson's  literary  essays.  The 
pamphlet  opens  with  an  Introduction  by 
Mr.  Theodore  Stanton,  in  which  it  is 
pointed  out  for  the  first  time,  we  believe, 
that  the  President  descends  from  the 
Rev.  Robert  Woodrow,  the  distinguished 
Scottish  Presbyterian  clergyman  and 
historian  of  the  seventeenth  century,  one 
of  whose  sons  emigrated  to  this  country, 
bringing  with  him  a  queer  old  manu- 
script volume  belonging  to  his  father, 
which  is  now  deposited  in  one  of  the 
libraries  of  the  University  of  New  Jer- 
sey, at  New  Brunswick.  Its  mates,  a 
score  in  number,  are  to  be  found  in  the 
Advocates'  Librar>'  at  Glasgow,  where 
Robert  Woodrow  spent  most  of  his  life. 

"Roget's  Thesaurus,"  as  the  "The- 
saurus of  English  Words  and  Phrases 
by  the  physician  Peter  Mark  Roget  is 
commonly  called,  has  been  issued  in  two 
compact  little  volumes  in  Everyman  s 
Librarv  (Dutton).  Arranged  on  philo- 
sophical rather  than  alphabetical  prin- 
ciples, the  work  has  long  proved  useful 
to  writers,  not  only  in  suggesting  a  word, 
but  also,  sometimes,  an  idea. 


62] 


TPIE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  36 


Contemporary  Paint- 
ing in  Washington 

WHATEVER  may  be  true  of  other 
phases  of  our  national  life,  Ameri- 
can painting,  to  judge  from  the  current 
presentation  of  it  at  the  Corcoran  Gal- 
lerj',  has  not  yet  become  fully  aware  of 
our  participation  in  the  late  war.  While 
the  mere  titles  of  a  half  dozen  or  more 
canvases  designedly  echo  the  event,  only 
three  or  four  possess  any  genuine  pic- 
torial connection  with  it.  Both  George 
Luks"  "Czecho-Slovak  Chieftain"  and 
Henrj-  Reuterdahl's  "The  Destroyer 
Patrol"  may  be  considered  only  addi- 
tional reasons  for  lamenting  that  calam- 
ity. But  John  C.  Johansen's  "The  Daily 
Conference,"  fresh  from  Paris,  is  inter- 
esting. George  Bellows'  already  widely 
known  "The  Murder  of  Edith  Cavell," 
while  theatrically  powerful,  is  not  a 
truly  great  work  of  art.  This  brief 
summarj'  fairly  indicates  the  minor  role 
played  by  the  avowedly  "war"  pictures 
in  the  Corcoran's  extraordinary  exhibi- 
tion. 

On  the  whole,  the  unimportance  of 
such  work  in  its  present  surroundings  is 
not  a  matter  for  regret.  It  is  a  profound 
satisfaction  again  to  see  a  representative 
collection  of  paintings  the  vitality  of 
which  arises  not  from  the  heart-breaking 
strain  of  war  or  the  spasms  of  artificial 
"movements"  but  from  artistic  health 
and  sanity.  Whether  the  very  evident 
aliveness  of  our  present-day  painting,  to- 
gether with  certain  marked  changes  on 
the  part  of  individual  painters,  are  indi- 
rectly due  to  the  war,  to  its  natural  tend- 
ency to  rouse  men  out  of  routine — this 
is  a  question  that  might  be  very  prettily 
argued  on  both  sides.  But,  however  it 
has  come  about,  American  painting,  as 
set  forth  in  Washington  this  month,  is 
full  of  life  and  significance.  It  gives 
adequate  ground  for  pride  in  the  visible 
accomplishment  of  our  painters  and 
affords  a  basis  for  speculation  as  to  the 
future. 

True,  the  older  men  are  passing. 
Weir's  death  after  his  two  paintings  had 
been  placed  on  the  walls  of  the  Corcoran 
lends  emphasis  to  this  sobering  thought. 
And  to  stand  in  the  presence  of  such 
work  as  that  by  which  both  Weir  and 
Thayer  are  represented  is  to  wonder  if 
their  equals  can  be  found  among  the 
younger  men  even  when  the  younger 
shall  have  become  the  elder.  For  the 
former's  "The  Sisters"  and  the  latter's 
"Boy  and  Angel"  have  in  them  certain 
qualities  of  spirit  higher  than  all  possible 
technical  accomplishment;  and  it  is  these 
subtle  higher  values  that  one  misses 
when  studying  the  mass  of  proficient 
paintings  now  being  produced.  But  such 
qualities  come  by  endowment  and  not  by 
acquisition.    It  would  be  as  unreasonable 


to  expect  them  to  prevail  throughout  a 
whole  generation  of  painters  as  it  would 
be  to  ask  nothing  but  masterpieces  in  a 
contemporary  show.  And  even  were 
these  two  works  of  the  first  rank  absent, 
the  Corcoran's  exhibition  would  remain 
remarkable  for  its  high  level  of  accom- 
plishment. 

Sargent's  "Portrait  of  John  D.  Rocke- 
feller" and  Melchers'  "MacPherson  and 
MacDonald"  are  both  familiar  to  other 
sections  of  the  American  public;  but  the 
latter's  "At  Home"  is  the  newest  example 
of  his  extraordinary  capacity  for  sur- 
mounting technical  difficulties.  Indeed, 
there  is  no  lack  of  capable,  and  in  some 
instances  distinguished,  figure-painting 
in  this  exhibit,  ranging  in  style  from 
Paxton's  characteristic  "Girl  Sewing"  to 
the  calculated  modernity  of  Norwood 
MacGilvary's  "The  Self." 

However,  as  to  be  expected  of  any  rep- 
resentative collection  of  native  work,  it  is 
in  landscape  that  our  school's  ability  is 
especially  noteworthy.  For  it  is  in  this 
field  that  its  talent  for  brilliant  tran- 
scription has  freest  play.  Frank  Swift 
Chase,  in  his  "Edge  of  a  Forest," 
achieves  individuality  without  eccentric- 
ity. Charles  C.  Curran's  "After  the 
Storm"  is  decidedly  more  decorative  than 
his  painting  which  won  a  prize  at  the 
last  Academy.  Jonas  Lie's  two  masterly 
water  scenes  call  for  admiration.  It  is 
a  pleasure  to  note  a  more  spirited  sense 
of  color  in  Robert  Spencer's  capable 
work.  Charles  H.  Davis'  "The  Sunny 
Hillside,"  to  which  was  awarded  the  sec- 
ond prize,  is  a  decided  departure  from 
his  accustomed  manner.  But  at  once  the 
most  eminent  and  the  most  marked  in- 
stance of  change  is  afforded  by  the  three 
canvases  of  Edward  W.  Redfield ;  and  the 
"bravura"  of  these  spring  songs  is  de- 
lightful. The  most  striking  single  piece 
of  landscape  here  shown,  a  painting  that 
would  be  remarkable  in  any  exhibition, 
is  Gardner  Symons'  "Where  Waters  Flow 
and  Long  Shadows  Lie";  it  will  add 
strength  to  even  the  Corcoran's  strong 
permanent  collection  of  American  work. 
Faithfulness  to  surface  facts  can  not  be 
claimed  for  Charles  Rosen's  "Old  Wil- 
low," designed  as  it  is  to  attract  attention 
at  the  expense  of  its  neighbors;  and  to 
the  conservatively  minded  it  will  seem  a 
good  omen  that  the  majority  of  our  land- 
scape painters  do  not  rely  on  such  forced 
mannerisms  in  attaining  decorative  and 
emotional  quality. 

In  conclusion,  this  article  can  only  add 
its  note  to  the  chorus  of  praise  for  the 
exhibition  as  a  whole.  It  combines  a 
high  excellence  sometimes  attained  in 
smaller  shows  with  a  comprehensiveness 
attained  in  no  other  regularly  recurring 
assemblage  of  native  painting.  The 
radical  element  of  our  school  plays  its 
due  part  in  the  ensemble,  but  no  more 
than  its  due  part.  The  predominating 
conservatism  of  the  school  has  its  recog- 


nition in  the  proportional  representation 
here  accorded  to  it.  The  thing  worthy  of 
note  in  this  connection,  however,  is  that 
this  predominating  conservatism  does 
not  involve  unthinking  repetition  of 
ancient  formulas.  Of  course,  this  may 
in  a  measure  be  true  of  a  painter  here 
and  there ;  such  individuals,  like  the  poor, 
we  have  always  with  us.  But  this  con- 
temporary exhibition  as  a  whole  is  ses- 
■  thetically  sane  and  unquestionably  vigor- 
ous. That  this  should  be  true  of  our 
painting  in  the  particular  stress  of  cir- 
cumstances now  prevailing  is  the  most 
encouraging  thing  one  could  be  privileged 
to  chronicle. 

The  eminent  degree  of  success  with 
which  the  policy  of  the  Corcoran  Gallery 
has  met  warrants  the  hope  that  "The 
William  A.  Clark  Prizes"  may  be  made 
permanent.  A  real  tradition  of  quality 
and  comprehensiveness  has  been  firmly 
established  by  this  latest  of  the  series 
begun  in  1907;  and  with  the  prestige  of 
such  a  tradition  to  live  up  to,  the  per- 
manence of  these  awards  could  not  fail 
to  have  a  satisfactory  effect  on  American 
painting.  Were  former  Senator  Clark 
to  perpetuate  the  prizes  now  so  promi- 
nently associated  with  his  name,  he  would 
ensure  not  only  the  worthiest  possible 
form  of  remembrance  for  himself,  but 
also  for  the  Corcoran  Gallery  such  an 
influential  role  in  our  art  as  is  not 
held  by  any  other  existing  institution. 
Virgil  Barker 


Music 


Henry  Krehbiel  and  Ernest 
Newman  Discuss  Music 

More  Chapters  of  Opera.  By  Henry  Kreh- 
biel.    New  York :  Henry  Holt  and  Company. 

A  Musical  Motley.  By  Ernest  Newman. 
New  York :    John  Lane  Company. 

IN  the  latest  of  his  chronicles  of  New 
York  opera  Mr.  Krehbiel  deals  spe- 
cifically with  the  period  extending  from 
1908  to  1918.  We  may  disagree  with 
Mr.  Krehbiel's  views  on  opera.  But  as  a 
chronicler,  we  admit  he  has  no  rival.  Not 
many  men  alive  would  have  the  patience 
he  has  shown  in  noting  down  year  after 
year  all  that  takes  place  in  all  the  New 
York  opera  seasons.  And  yet,  if  no  one 
had  his  diligence  and  patience,  where 
should  we  go  for  our  musical  re- 
minders— where  should  we  find  out  when 
this  opera  was  first  sung,  or  where  that 
singer  first  enthralled  the  New  York 
public?  To  the  recorder,  as  a  recorder, 
of  these  "Chapters"  we  owe  all  our 
gratitude.  To  the  critic  who  has  ana- 
lyzed and  made  his  comments  we  owe 
only  truth. 

On  many  points,   if  time  and  space 
allowed,  it  would  be  a  pleasure  to  fight 
Mr.    Krehbiel   strenuously.      For,   as  a 
(Continued  on  page  64) 


January  17,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[68 


The 

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engineers  manufactured  a  tele- 
phone a  model  of  which  is  still 
in  existence. 

Both  Professor  Crocker  and 
Dr.  Wheeler  manufactured 
batteries  for  telephone  and 
telegraph. 


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"Some  Diversions  of  a  Man  of  Letters"  is  a  collection  of  essays 
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usual  path  and  represent,  in  fact,  diversions  from  the  themes  on  which 
he  has  principally  addressed  the  public.  .Among  the  contents  are: 
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(Continued  from  page  62) 
critic,  he  is  sometimes  narrow;  swayed 
by  harsh  puritan  moralities  and  codes; 
too  apt  to  damn  things  that  are  new. 
His  inability  to  sympathize  with  the  best 
achievements  of  the  French  Modern 
School  is  almost  exasperating.  His  ful- 
minations  against  certain  gifted  artists 
who  offend  him  ethically — not  aesthetically 
— stir  one  to  anger,  and  now  and  then 
to  pity.  But  at  his  narrowest  (as,  for 
example,  in  his  onslaughts  on  Mary 
Garden)  he  does  not  justify  a  doubt  as 
to  his  honesty.  And  that  seems  but  to 
aggravate  his  want  of  charity,  his  failure 
to  allow  for  the  faiths  and  convictions 
of  others. 

The  decade  of  which  Mr.  Krehbiel  tells 
us  in  his  new  "Chapters"  saw  many  very 
important  shifts  and  changes  in  the  New 
York  opera  world;  the  last  phases  of 
the  war  between  Mr.  Hammerstein,  at 
the  Manhattan,  and  Mr.  Gatti-Casazza, 
at  the  Metropolitan;  the  withdrawal 
from  the  stage  of  such  charming  singers 
as  Marcella  Sembrich  and  Emma  Eames; 
the  regretted  deaths  of  Lillian  Nordica 
and  Putnam  Griswold;  the  rise  and  exit 
of  that  great  artist  and  conductor,  Tos- 
canini;  the  elimination  from  the  opera 
field  of  poor  Mr.  Hammerstein;  the  slow 
and  grudging,  but  still  steady  concessions 
of  the  Metropolitan  management  to  the 
demand  that  opera  should  be  made  more 
understandable  to  its  devotees,  by  being 
sung  to  them  in  clear,  good  English;  and 
the  invasion  of  New  York  by  the  late 
Maestro  Campanini  with  the  Chicago 
opera  company. 

Regarding  the  vexed  question  of  opera 
in  Engli-sh,  Mr.  Krehbiel  wobbles.  He 
has  at  various  times  held  various  views 
upon  this  all  vital  subject.  Long  years 
ago,  he  seemed  to  favor  English.  Then, 
by  aloofness  and  by  more  than  coldness, 
he  seemed  to  discourage  it.  And  now  he 
has,  apparently,  come  back  to  his, old 
faith.  For  is  not  his  own  English  version 
of  Wagner's  "Parsifal"  soon  to  be  sung 
here  at  the  Metropolitan? 

We  owe  thanks  to  Mr.  Krehbiel  for  his 
statistics.  They  throw  a  flood  of  rather 
startling  and  distressing   light  on  the 


allotment  of  rewards  in  opera.  In  the 
second  year  of  Mr.  Heinrich  Conried's 
consulship,  according  to  our  recorder,  the 
sums  expended  on  the  Metropolitan 
"artists"  (i.  e.,  singers)  and  staff  totalled 
$544,153.11.  In  the  same  season  the 
amount  paid  to  composers  and  others 
(presumably  publishers  and  copyists)  for 
"music  and  royalties"  was  $3,499.67. 
Since  then  the  cost  of  opera  has  increased 
greatly.  But  the  composers  are  still 
treated  almost  shamefully,  while  their 
interpreters  have  princely  fortunes 
heaped  on  them. 

Mr.  Ernest  Newman,  the  English 
critic,  in  a  most  interesting  \?olume  of 
reprinted  essays,  writes  brightly  and  in- 
cisively of  singers,  critics,  composers, 
amateurs,  and  mock-critics.  His  method 
may  perhaps  be  best  described  as  the 
antithesis  of  Mr.  Krehbiel's.  He  knows 
much  more  of  music  than  most  men  do. 
But  he  is  far  too  sane  to  pose  as  one 
omniscient.  I  am  not  sure  that  he  would 
keep  from  smiling  if  he  got  hold  of  one 
of  those  new  "Chapters"  in  which  our 
Henry  E.  upholds  the  dignity  and  glory 
of  his  calling.  The  pose  pontifical  would 
never  suit  the  true-born  Englishman.  To 
make  his  points  he  affects  the  cap  and  bells. 

The  articles  included  in  "A  Musical 
Motley"  are  of  the  most  diverse  char- 
acter. They  range  from  grave  to  gay, 
from  wise  to  trivial.  In  taste,  thank 
Heaven,  their  author  is  eclectic;  quite 
broad  enough  to  enjoy  all  schools  and 
styles. 

He  is  not  too  dignified  to  shrink  from 
quips  and  anecdotes.  He  is  not  too 
hampered  by  unnecessary  reverence  to 
speak  freely  of  the  highest  gods  of  art. 
To  him  the  Slavs,  Tschaikowsky  and 
Rachmaninov  and  Chopin,  are  "Weary 
Willies,"  with  a  tempering  dash  of 
Werther. 

Nor  is  he  more  respectful  to  his  own 
guild.  He  pokes  fun  at  musical  criticism, 
though,  incidentally,  he  mocks  at  those 
who  scorn  it.  "The  profession  of 
musical  critic,"  he  explains  in  one  of 
three  "Open  Letters"  to  a  young,  ardent 
critic,  "is  the  easiest  in  the  world.  It 
is  perhaps  the  only  profession  that  can 


be  practised  by  the  man  in  the  streets 
with  as  much  assurance  as  by  the  man 
who  has  given  his  life  to  it.  .  .  .  The 
butcher,  the  baker,  and  the  candlestick 
maker  are  all  more  competent  to  speak 
authoritatively  on  music  than  the 
critic.  .  .  .  However,  if  you  don't  take 
it  too  seriously,  you  may  get  a  lot  of 
fun  out  of  it."  After  which  he  lays  down 
the  rules  for  "safety  first"  in  criti- 
cism. 

He  darts  nimbly  and  alertly  from 
Andre  Wormser  and  his  fascinating  pan- 
tomime scores  to  Debussy,  Brahms,  Mous- 
sorgsky,  d'Indy,  and  Wagner.  He  de- 
clines to  rank  the  classics  as  supermen 
and  even  ventures  to  suggest  that  the 
most  famous  master  of  them  all  may 
have  made  errors.  He  goes  so  far  in 
this  iconoclastic  strain  in  his  "Putting 
the  Classics  in  their  Place,"  as  to  declare 
that  even  old  music  by  the  great  com- 
posers might  be  improved  upon  by 
modern  re-constructors. 

The  Dryasdusts  of  music  may  be  hor- 
rified— they  must  be  pained — if  they  dig 
into  Mr.  Newman's  essay  on  "The  Elastic 
Language"- — otherwise  harmony.  What 
may  pass  muster  in  the  schools  as  laws 
of  harmony,  he  says,  is  really  nothing 
but  the  teaching  of  harmonic  analysis. 
To  Mr.  Newman  there  are  no  rules  and 
no  grammar  for  that  art  or  science.  "It 
is  because  harmony  is  not  only  a  lan- 
guage but  the  most  elastic  of  languages 
that  it  can  not  be  taught."  And,  "just 
as  a  poet  could  weave  the  subtlest  rhyth- 
mical patterns  without  ever  having  even 
heard  of  the  terms  dactyl  and  spondee, 
so  a  born  musician  can  write  abstruse 
harmony  without  being  able  to  name  a 
number  of  the  chords  that  he  uses  in- 
stinctively." All  this  is  most  upsetting 
to  the  Dryasdusts. 

One  article  on  the  "Nonsense  Music" 
of  Satie  and  other  modernists  of  a  fan- 
tastic turn  has  special  value  to  explorers 
of  such  offshoots  from  the  beaten  track 
of  music.  But  almost  everything  in  this 
delightful  "Medley"  will  bear  reading, 
both  by  musicians  and  by  laymen  who 
love  music. 

C.  H.  M. 


January  17,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[65 


Drama 

"A  Night's  Lodging"  at  the 

Plymouth— "The  Master 

Builder' '  at  the  People's 

House 

THE  subject  of  the  Gorki  play  which 
Mr.  Arthur  Hopkins  now  offers  to  the 
public  in  special  matinees  at  the  Ply- 
mouth is  a  place — a  slum — or  rather  that 
region  of  the  human  spirit  which  finds 
in  the  place  in  question  its  adequate  and 
vivid  symbol.'  Its  hero  is  everybody — 
that  dusky  personage  who  seems  to 
occupy  the  halfway  point  between  the 
substance  of  somebody  and  the  vacuum 
of  nobody.  Particular  fates  count  for 
naught  or  little  in  this  sombre  atmos- 
phere in  which  catastrophes  seem  inci- 
dental and  little  speeches  almost  cata- 
clysmic. A  consumptive  woman  dies,  but 
it  matters  little  to  us.  What  really 
leaves  its  mark  upon  our  souls  is  the 
capmaker's  undisturbed  comment :  "Well, 
we've  done  with  that  coughing  at  last." 
When  the  actor  hangs  himself,  the  point 
is  not  that  a  man  has  ended  his  own  life, 
but  that  the  gambler  says:  "He's  spoilt 
our  song,  the  fool."  In  point  of  sheer 
horror  and  grimness,  the  place  in  which 
such  deeds  are  possible  is  as  nothing  in 
comparison  with  the  place  in  which  such 
words  are  possible.  Gorki's  play  is  a 
symptomatic  play — in  other  words,  a  play 
in  which  the  subject  is  a  condition,  and 
the  acts  and  words  alike  are  measured 
by  their  value  as  interpreters  of  that 
condition. 

Gorki's  play,  read  in  English,  is  not  a 
great  drama.  A  great  slum-play  should 
show  us  the  terror,  or  the  pity,  or  the 
t  intensity  of  life.  Gorki's  play  is  rather 
sordid  than  terrible  or  touching  or  vital, 
and,  even  more  than  it  is  sordid,  it  is 
harsh.  Here  is  a  group  of  persons  in 
whom  misfortune  and  degradation  have 
evolved  a  self -protective  hardness,  a  shell 
or  carapace,  which  is  at  once  impervious 
and  rasping.  It  is  human  nature  petri- 
fied. The  evangelist  Luka,  who  is  vague- 
ly fraternal  and  indistinctly  consoling, 
rather  weakens  the  robustness  of  the 
piece,  but  the  fashion  in  which  he  drifts 
in  and  drifts  out  suggests  pointedly 
enough  that  the  conscience  is  the  only 
transient  in  the  lodging  house. 

The  play  is  undramatic  in  the  closet; 
it  has  no  unfolding  action.  On  the  stage 
it  remains  undramatic,  but  it  becomes, 
to  a  quite  unforeseen  and  astonishing 
degree,  theatrical.  As  read,  it  leaves  be- 
hind it  an  impression  of  congestion  and 
squalor.  This  effect  is  greatly  softened 
in  representation ;  on  the  stage  there  was 
space  and  darkness;  the  space  liberated 
and  the  darkness  cloaked.  The  original- 
ity of  the  setting,  which  on  the  printed 


page  had  been  largely  neutralized  by  its 
meanness,  now  revealed  itself  to  the  im- 
agination in  the  power  of  its  novelty 
and  the  vividness  of  its  release.  I  had 
a  sense  of  departure  from  the  world.  The 
speeches  uttered  had  often  the  strange 
effect  of  aerolites  projected  into  the  void 
of  space,  and  while  this  impression  was 
far  from  continuous,  the  intervals  were 
partly  filled  by  the  exhilaration  of  watch- 
ing in  the  murk  for  the  outleap  of  these 
meteorites.  There  were  drawbacks  un- 
doubtedly. The  story  of  Pepel  and  the 
two  sisters  was  too  big  and  powerful 
for  the  frame,  and,  while  it  did  not 
finally  get  out,  in  its  struggle  to  get  out 
the  frame  was  very  nearly  cracked. 
Again,  the  fourth  act  on  the  stage  is 
superfluous  and  intolerable.  There  is  a 
story  and  a  study  in  the  play.  By  the 
end  of  Act  III  the  story  is  ended  and 
the  study  is  complete.  Extension  beyond 
those  limits  is  disastrous. 

The  acting  of  a  fragmentary  play  is 
of  course  fragmentary,  but  the  sugges- 
tiveness  and  poignancy  of  many  of  these 
fragments  was  an  honor  to  the  cast.  I 
was  astonished  at  the  evident  sympathy 
of  American  actors  for  these  Russian 
parts,  at  the  meat,  the  salt,  which  they 
unmistakably  found  in  the  lines.  The 
merit  was  general  rather  than  particu- 
lar; nearly  every  actor  had  his  lustrous 
moment;  if  I  paused  on  any  one  part,  it 
should  be  on  Mr.  Dinehart's  rendering  of 
the  thief  Pepel.  There  was  one  serious 
error.  Paroxysms  are  out  of  place  in 
this  Gorki  play,  which  is  pitched  in  a 
key  of  stoicism  that  borders  the  cour- 
ageous on  one  side  and  includes  the 
brutal  on  the  other.  Yet  paroxysms  of 
the  worst  kind — describable  by  a  line 
from  Mr.  Masefield's  latest  poem,  "a 
swearing  screech,  like  tearing  sacking," 
were  scattered  broadcast  through  the 
play.  Frenzy  and  Russia  appear  to  have 
been  inseparable  ideas  in  the  mind  of  the 
supervisor  of  the  performance.  The 
emphasis  I  am  constrained  to  give  to  this 
objection  only  heightens  the  pleasure 
with  which  I  felicitate  Mr.  Hopkins  on 
the  intelligent  fulfillment  of  a  gallant 
design. 

On  Christmas  night  I  saw  at  the 
Workmen's  Theatre  in  the  People's  House 
a  presentation  of  Ibsen's  "Master 
Builder"  by  the  English  actors,  Mr.  Leigh 
Lovel  and  Miss  Octavia  Kenmore.  The 
performance  was  called  a  dramatic  re- 
cital, but  differed  from  a  regular  per- 
formance only  in  the  use  of  an  unvarying 
and  doubtfully  appropriate  "set"  for  the 
three  acts.  Mr.  Level's  Solness  was 
ashen  and,  nevertheless,  by  an  odd 
anomaly,  was  made  capricious  and  sple- 
netic almost  to  the  verge  of  hysteria. 
There  was  a  brief  period  in  the  last  half 
of  the  first  act  when  Miss  Kenmore's 
Hilda  Wangel  filled  expectation  to  the 
brim,  with  a  beauty  and  measure  in  cer- 
tain   passages    hardly    rivaled    in    my 


memories  of  New  York.  But  when  the 
second  act  began  I  saw  that  what  Miss 
Kenmore  had  grasped  and  rendered  so 
delightfully  was  not  the  real  Hilda,  the 
whole  Hilda,  but  only  a  single  mood  or 
phase — what  might  be  called  the  rapt 
Hilda.  Her  Hilda  as  a  whole  took  its  cue 
from  the  alpenstock.  What  we  saw  was 
a  hardy,  sturdy,  upright  little  Swiss  girl, 
finely  indignant  with  Solness  for  his  im- 
moral treatment  of  Ragnar,  and  shocked 
as  any  other  school-taught  and  church- 
bred  girl  would  have  been  at  the  disaster 
to  which  her  urgencies  drove  the  half- 
unwilling  Solness.  As  the  last  curtain 
descends,  Hilda  is  on  the  earth  in  an 
anguish  of  sorrow  and  remorse,  and  the 
attitude  is  prostration  for  Ibsen's  Hilda 
in  a  double  sense. 

0.  W.  Firkins 

Books  and  the  News 

Socialism 

HERE  again  is  a  subject  about  which 
the  books  alone  fill  shelf  after  shelf 
in  any  large  library.  The  profound 
student  views  with  contempt  an  en- 
deavor to  name  a  few,  or  brief,  books 
for  the  general  reader.  But  the  busy 
man  will  not  scorn  the  suggestion  of  a 
few  titles,  nor  even  the  intimation  that 
there  are  one  or  two  books  which  may 
give  the  beginner  a  general  survey  of 
the  field.  As  with  Prohibition,  and  other 
proposals  for  changes  in  the  existing 
laws,  the  advocates  of  the  change  have 
had  the  most  active  pens,  and  the  dif- 
ferent varieties  of  Socialists  have  out- 
written  their  opponents  in  quantity,  at 
least. 

The  conscientious  Socialist,  or  the 
reader  who  aspires  to  a  citation  for  con- 
spicuous gallantry,  will,  it  may  be,  boldly 
attempt  the  three  volumes  of  the  great 
Bible  of  the  Socialists:  Karl  Marx's 
"Capital;  A  Critique  of  Political  Econ- 
omy" (Kerr,  1908).  Less  ambitious 
souls  will  content  themselves  with  read- 
ing one  of  his  defenders,  Louis  B. 
Boudin's  "The  Theoretical  System  of 
Karl  Marx"  (Kerr,  1918)  and  one  of 
his  opponents,  Albert  E.  F.  Schaffle's 
"The  Quintessence  of  Socialism"  (Scrib- 
ner,  1892).  With  these  books  should  be 
named  Thomas  Kirkup's  "History  of 
Socialism"  (Macmillan,  1913),  an  un- 
biased work,  emphasizing  English  So- 
cialism. 

Have  you  time  or  inclination  for  but 
one  book,  and  that  a  short  one,  of  less 
than  one  hundred  and  fity  pages?  My 
suggestion  is  Ira  B.  Cross's  "Essentials 
of  Socialism"  (Macmillian,  1912),  which 
is  an  attempt  to  tell  what  Socialism  is, 
and  fairly  to  state  the  arguments  for  and 
against  it.  There  is  a  good  bibliography 
in  it. 

Now,  for  the  advocates  of  Socialism: 
{Continued  on  page  68) 


6(5] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  36 


'WINTER'S  FOR  BOOKS" 

The  books  advertised  in  this  issue  have  been  specially  selected 
by  a  group  of  book  publishers  as  likely  to  meet  the  needs  and 
tastes  of  readers  at  this  time. 

Offered  during  the  newly  created  Midwinter  Book  Season, 
many  of  these  books  are  brand  new;  all  are  believed  to  be 
worthy  of  discriminating  attention. 


The  small  ornamental  device  that  is 
found  on  the  title-page  or  elsewhere  in 
almost  ever\'  book  printed  to-day  is  the 
sur\'ival  of  a  quaint  old  custom  that  dates 
back  to  the  time  before  printing  was  dis- 
covered. These  devices,  generally  called 
colophons,  have  come  to  be  known  merely 
as  the  trademark  of  various  publishing 
houses,  and  have  outlived  any  former 
purpose.  Many  of  them,  however,  have 
individually  a  history  quite  as  interesting 
as  that  of  old  coats  of  arms,  or  old  book- 
plates. 

The  term  colophon  has  been  in  use  for 
several  centuries,  but  with  the  years  its 
meaning  has  gradually  changed  until  the 
original  significance  has  been  lost.  One 
of  the  "seven  ancient  towns"  which 
"claimed  Homer  dead,"  yet  had  spumed 
him  when  through  their  streets  "he 
begg'd  his  bread,"  was  the  Ionian  city 
Colophon,  famed  for  the  rich  aristocracy 
that  ruled  it  and  for  the  dashing  cavalry 
that  won  its  battles.  It  was  said  that  the 
final  charge  of  the  Colophon  troop  of 
cavaln,'  always  proved  "the  finishing 
stroke"  in  rendering  victory  decisive. 
Whether  or  not  this  is  the  correct 
etymology  of  the  term,  the  word  "colo- 
phon" was  later  applied  to  "the  finishing 
stroke"  given  to  old  manuscripts  and 
printed  books.  In  the  early  days  this 
term  was  applied  to  the  paragraphs  ap- 
pended to  the  manuscript  or  book  by  the 
scribe  or  printer.  Title-pages  were  then 
unk-nown.  and  books  often  appeared 
without  clue  to  the  date  or  place  of  issue, 
the  printer,  or  even  the  author,  unless 
this  information  was  added  by  some  en- 
terprising pnnt»"r  with  an  eye  to  making 


history  and  to  securing  future  business. 
Frequently  he  asked  heavenly  blessing  on 
his  work  and  invoked  the  prayers  of  his 
readers. 

At  the  end  of  one  old  manuscript 
written  in  1338  and,  of  course,  in  Latin) 
the  copyist  added  a  very  full  note,  wind- 
ing up  with  a  verse  which  may  be  freely 
translated  as  follows: 
"Let  this  book  prove  the  writer  free  of 

evil ; 
May  Jesus  bless  and  save  him  from  the 

devil." 
These  notes  sometimes  contained  praise 
of  the  workmanship  of  the  book,  or  of 
the  art  of  printing,  of  the  town  where 
the  book  was  issued,  or  the  great  man  for 
whom  it  was  written.  Later  the  printer 
often  added  his  own  coat  of  arms  or  that 
of  his  patron.  In  this  way  colophons 
first  took  on  an  ornamental  aspect,  and 
ceased  to  be  for  information  only.  As 
the  title-page  became  customary,  the 
practice  of  appending  a  final  paragraph 
or  colophon  gradually  lost  its  usefulness 
and  a  purely  ornamental  device  was 
added  as  "the  finishing  stroke."  In  mod- 
ern times  the  colophon  of  a  well-known 
publisher  is  no  doubt  as  effective  a  stroke 
as  we  need  to  make  his  book  worth  read- 
ing and  worth  keeping. 


place  design  in  the  exhibit  of  the  Press 
at  the  Panama-Pacific  Exposition  in  San 
Francisco.  It  suggests  a  frosty  night 
without  a  roaring  fire  within,  a  com- 
fortable bench,  and  a  good  book — as 
cheery  an  argument  for  midwinter  read- 
ing as  we  have  seen. 


The  Association  Press  has  been  using 
since  October,  1916.  the  Triangle  colo- 
phon designed  by  William  J.  Colby  and 
drawn  by  John  Butler.  The  Association 
Press  is  the  Publication  Department  of 
the  International  Committee  of  Young 
Men's  Christian  Associations.  The 
Triangle  is  the  adopted  insignia  of  the 
threefold  idea  of  the  Y.  M.  C.  A. — Spirit 
— Mind — Body.  The  phrase  below  the 
Triangle.  "The  Mark  of  a  Book  Written 
to  Meet  a  Need,"  was  added  in  1919. 
"It  helps,"  says  Mr.  Colby,  "to  define  the 
meaning  of  'Books  with  Purpose,'  as  we 
aim  to  publish  only  books  for  which  there 
is  a  distinct  human  need."  The  initials 
stand  for  .Association  Press. 


The  colophon  of  the  Abingdon  Press 
as  shown  here,  was  adapted  from'  a  fire- 


Since  1911  books  issued  by  the  Atlantic 
Monthly  Press  have  borne  a  colophon 
drawn  by  Bruce  Rogers  from  a  classic 
design.  It  shows  a  Neptune  figure,  with 
the  familiar  trident  and  dolphin,  and  i 
said  to  represent  "Father  .Atlantic — th-. 
American  Neptune." 

(To  be  continued) 


Attractive  offerings  are  made  during  the  Midwinter  Book  Season. 


Januaiy  17,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[67 


Abraham  Lincoln 

As  A  Man  of  Letters 

By  Luther  Emerson  Robinson,  A.  M. 

Professor  of  English,  Monmouth  College 


TN  the  wealth  of  Lincoln  literature  there  is 
-*-  nothing  else  like  Professor  Robinson's  book. 
It  has  a  human  quality.  .  .  .  The  author  ap- 
proaches his  subject  with  a  ripe  equipment  and 
writes  with  a  loving  understanding.  .  .  .  The 
generous  appendix  embraces  all  of  Lincoln's  most 
famous  addresses,  letters  and  state  papers. 


So  far  as  we  know,  this  is  the  first  book  to  study 
Lincoln  in  the  capacity  of  a  man  of  letters.  The 
study  is  interesting  and  the  analysis  closely  reasoned 
and  convincing. — The  Outlook. 

Professor  Robinson's  study  is  an  excellent  presen- 
tation of  the  chief  material  upon  which  Lincoln's 
claim  to  a  place  in  literature  is  based. — -The  Continent. 

Professor  Robinson  shows  us  with  a  very  keen  and 
delicate  touch  how  the  great  experiences  of  Lincoln's 
life  reacted  on  his  written  words  until  finally,  we 
have  from  him  at  least  two  of  the  masterpieces  of 
literature.  The  new  Lincoln  book  should  find  a  large 
field  for  itself. — U.  S.  Artillery  Journal. 


A  Book  for  Every  American's  Library 


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To  be  followed  shortly  by  a  companion  volume : — 


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The  two  volumes  together  cover  very  fully  the  "Labor 
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Studies  of  bird  life  which  take  the  reader  through 
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VERSE:    Inclusive  Edition, 
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ALL  of  Kipling's  verse — the  songs  that  for 
decades  have  been  the  marching  tunes  and  ex- 
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thews, "the  greatest  poetry  of  our  generation." 
Among  them  is  "Great-Heart,"  that  magnificent 
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68] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  36 


(Continued  from  page  65) 
William  E.  Waiting's  "The  Larger  As- 
pects of  Socialism"  (Macmillan,  1913), 
•The  Socialism  of  Today"  (Holt,  1916), 
by  Walling,  Phelps  Stokes,  and  others  (a 
source  book  with  documents),  Jessie  W. 
Hughan's  "American  Socialism  of  the 
Present  Day"  (Lane,  1911),  and  H.  G. 
Wells's  "New  Worlds  for  Old"  (1908). 
John  Spargo's  "Socialism"  (Macmillan, 
1918)  was  written  before  he  resigned 
from  the  Socialist  party,  and  represents 
his  pre-war  views.  Another  by  Mr. 
Spargo  and  similar  in  circumstances  of 
publication  is  "Social  Democracy  Ex- 
plained" (Harper,  1918),  while  his 
"Americanism  and  Social  Democracy" 
(Harper,  1918)  consists  of  essays  on  the 
situation  since  the  outbreak  of  the  war. 
An  able  presentation  of  the  case 
against  Socialism  is  Oscar  Douglas  Skel- 
ton's  "Socialism:  A  Critical  Analysis" 
(Houghton,  1911).  The  view  of  the 
Church  of  Rome  is  given  in  Father 
Vaughan's  "Socialism  from  the  Christian 
Standpoint"  (Macmillan,  1912). 

Edmund  Lester  Pearson 

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THE  FLOWof  VALUE 

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and  a  relativity  of  profit.  He  makes  plain  the  relation 
between  production  and  consumption,  the  relation  be- 
tween the  employer  and  the  employee,  and  clarifies  the 
long-standing  dispute  as  to  the  quantity  theory  of 
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serve  human  welfare  and  promote  human  progress. 

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THE  REVIEW 


c1 


Vol.  2,  No.  37 


New  York,  Saturday,  January  24,  1920 


IIl'TEEN  CENTS 


Contents 


Brief  Comment 


69 


Editorial  Articles: 
The  World's  Economic  Restoration        71 
The  New  Policy  Toward  Russia  72 

Admiral  Sims's  Memorandum  74 

The  Father  of  Victory  75 

President  Butler  on  the  Classics  76 

Moscow's  Campaign  of  Poison.    By  Ex- 
aminer 77 
The  Government  of  India  Act.    By  A.  J.   . 

Barnouw  80 

Correspondence  82 

Book  Reviews: 
The  Tragedy  of  von  Tirpitz  84 

Sensitivism  85 

Hard-Boiled  Poetry  85 

The  Art  of  the  Etcher  87 

The  Run  of  the  Shelves  87 

Our  American  Shoe  Men  89 

Drama: 
French  Plays — Carlo  Liten  and  "Les 
Bleus  de  1' Amour."    By  O.  W.  Fir- 
kins 90 
Music : 
The  Chicago  Opera  Season — "Zaza"  at 
the  Metropolitan.  By  Charles  Henry 
Meltzer  92 
Reginald  de  Koven                                     92 
Books  and  the  News:  The  Theatre.  By 
Edmund  Lester  Pearson  94 


WrHAT  answer  the  Navy  Depart- 
"  ment  will  make  to  Admiral 
Sims's  charges,  it  is  entirely  too  early 
to  forecast.  But  it  is  of  the  first 
importance  that  the  public  should 
understand  from  the  start  the  exact 
character  of  the  simplest  of  those 
charges,  and  the  one  that  has  at- 
tracted the  greatest  amount  of  atten- 
tion. Admiral  Sims  does  not  say,  as 
many  of  the  newspaper  defenses  of 
the  Navy  Department  represent,  that 
the  Department  was  half-hearted  in 
its  conduct  of  operations  throughout 
the  war.  So  far  as  this  aspect  of  the 
matter  is  concerned,  the  stress  is  all 
on  delay — on  the  precious  time  that 
was  lost  in  the  early  period  of  the 
war.  Admiral  Sims's  express  state- 
ment on  the  point  is  as  follows : 

13.  For  some  reason,  which  has  never  been 
explained,  the  Navy  Department,  during  the 
first  six  months  of  the  war,  failed  to  put  into 
actual  practice  a  whole-hearted  policy  of  co- 
operation with  the  Allies — a  policy  required  for 


the  winning  of  the  war  with  the  least  pos- 
sible delay.     (The  italics  are  ours.) 

It  is  no  answer  to  this  charge,  nor 
to  the  detailed  statements  to  similar 
effect,  that  we  did  ultimately  do 
splendid  service  in  cooperation  with 
the  British  Navy.  Still  less  does  Sec- 
retary Daniels's  own  statement,  in 
rebuttal  of  Admiral  Sims,  that  the 
primary  duty  of  the  American  Navy 
was  to  safeguard  the  transports  that 
carried  our  boys  overseas  have  any 
bearing  upon  this  issue.  We  did  not 
begin  to  transport  troops  in  any  con- 
siderable numbers  until  long  after 
the  period  during  which  the  half- 
heartedness  of  which  Admiral  Sims 
so  bitterly  complains  was  exhibited. 
The  Navy  Department  should  have, 
and  will  have,  a  fair  hearing  for  its 
side  of  the  case.  But  it  must  meet 
specific  allegations  with  specific  facts. 
We  all  know  that  the  war  was  won, 
and  that  the  American  Navy  played 
a  great  pait  in  winning  it.  But  the 
facts  of  1917  must  stand  on  their 
own  bottom,  and  can  not  be  shut  out 
from  view  by  merely  pointing  to  the 
victory  of  1918. 

"TF  the  Senate  ratifies  the  treaty, 


I 


subject  to  the  proposed  reserva- 
tions," says  the  New  Republic,  "he 
[President  Wilson]  will  not  have  ac- 
complished any  of  the  constructive 
political  objects  which  he  sought  to 
accomplish  when  he  proposed  the 
entrance  of  this  country  into  the 
war."  Whatever  objects  Mr.  Wilson 
may,  in  his  own  mind,  have  "sought 
to  accomplish,"  he  did  not  "propose" 
them  to  the  Congress  or  to  the  people 
of  the  United  States.  The  clear  im- 
plication of  the  New  Republic's  state- 
ment is  that  unless  these  "construc- 
tive political  objects"  were  to  be  the 
sure  result  of  the  war,  we  were  not 
justified  in  standing  with  the  other 
free  peoples  of  the  world  in  their 
resistance  to  the  German  militarist 
autocracy,  even  after  the   outrages 


committed  by  it  upon  our  own  rights 
had  passed  the  limits  of  endurance. 
That  this  is  the  real  mental  attitude 
of  the  semi-Bolshevist  intellectual 
coterie  in  this  country,  there  is 
abundant  reason  to  believe;  but  they 
are  very  careful  to  avoid  any  frank 
expression  of  it. 

OPEAKER  Sweet  has  not  mended 
^his  case  by  the  announcement 
that  he  is  going  to  rest  it  on  specific 
facts  which  are  said  to  have  been  dis- 
covered in  relation  to  the  personal 
conduct  of  the  five  Socialist  Assem- 
blymen. When  he  summoned  them 
to  the  bar  of  the  House  and  asked  for 
their  immediate  suspension,  he  put 
the  proposal  on  no  such  grounds.  If 
he  had  done  so,  everybody  would  at 
once  have  seen  the  impropriety  of 
passing  sentence  of  suspension  be- 
fore the  facts  were  investigated.  If 
he  has  a  good  case,  he  has  horribly 
muddled  it;  and  whether  he  has  a 
good  case  or  not,  he  has  done  the 
Socialist  cause  a  service  which  only 
the  prompt  and  sincere  repudiation  of 
his  position  by  leading  citizens,  by 
public  organizations,  and  by  the  press, 
has  prevented  from  being  of  the 
most  signal  advantage  to  it. 

IvrOT  a  campaign  of  education,  but 
-'-*  what  is  much  better,  a  natural 
process  of  education,  is  what  the 
American  people  are  in  these  days  go- 
ing through  upon  the  subject  of  free 
speech.  During  a  number  of  years 
past — for  the  period  dates  far  back 
of  the  war — the  issue  has  been 
clouded  by  irrelevancies.  Many  good 
people  were  stirred  up  to  indignation 
over  supposed  violations  of  the  right 
of  free  speech  which  were  really 
nothing  more  than  the  assertion  of 
common  sense  and  decency  as  against 
obstreperous  antics.  On  the  other 
hand,  many  were  so  incensed  by  the 
Bouck  White  type  of  thing  that  they 
thoughtlessly  went  to  extremes  in  the 


70] 


THE  KKVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  37 


advocacy  of  repression.  The  case  of 
the  Rev.  Percy  Grant  is  one  of  the 
things  that  should  help  to  clarify  gen- 
eral thought  on  the  question.  To  in- 
terfere with  his  freedom  to  say  what 
he  thinks  about  the  deportations,  or 
about  socialism,  would  be  an  outrage, 
and  we  believe  that  nearly  all  men  of 
sense  recognize  this,  or  will  soon  rec- 
ognize it.  Upon  those  who  do  not, 
it  is  extremely  desirable  to  impress  a 
realization  of  the  stupidity  of  any 
such  suppression  from  the  standpoint 
of  i>olicy.  It  is  not  only  that  such 
persecution  breeds  a  hundred  advo- 
vates  to  one  that  it  suppresses;  the 
worst  of  it  is  that  once  it  becomes 
understood  that  radical  clergymen 
will  be  gagged,  the  value  of  what  con- 
servative clergymen  may  say  will 
be  reduced  to  very  near  zero. 

TT  was  not  surprising  that  Mayor 
•*■  Hylan  should  start  the  sale  of 
"bonds"  to  finance  the  propaganda  of 
the  "Irish  Republic"  by  officially  ad- 
mitting De  Valera  to  the  freedom  of 
the  city.  It  was  only  natural  that 
Assemblyman  Edward  J.  Flynn 
should  introduce  a  resolution  at  Al- 
bany indorsing  the  sale  of  these 
"bonds."  But  that  the  Assembly 
should  actually  pass  that  resolution, 
as  it  promptly  proceeded  to  do,  will 
be  a  shock  to  citizens  who  have 
thought  of  that  body  as,  on  the  whole, 
possessing  in  a  fair  degree  the  sense 
of  official  responsibility. 

TN  a  letter  sent  to  Lord  Curzon,  the 
-*■  two  representatives  of  the  Sinn 
Feiners  at  Paris  denounced  the 
League  of  Nations  as  "a  monument 
of  English  hypocrisy,  entombing  the 
liberties  of  millions  of  men  in  Ire- 
land, Egypt,  Dutch  South  Africa, 
Persia,  India,  and  the  Far  East." 
However  that  may  be,  these  British 
tombs  can  not  be  so  bad  as  the  cata- 
combs of  ancient  Rome.  There  is  no 
subterranean  wail  in  the  voice  of 
General  Jannie  Smuts,  and  when- 
ever he  raises  it  in  his  South  African 
grave  it  sounds  much  more  like  a 
message  from  Sir  Robert  Cecil  than 
an  echo  of  the  sentiments  of  De  Va- 
lera. The  other  millions  entombed  to 
which  the  letter  refers  are  the  same 
that  are  promised  excavation  by  the 


heralds  of  Bolshevism.  Sinn  Fein  is 
one  of  the  many  forces,  now  astir  all 
over  the  world,  that  work  indirectly 
for  the  spread  of  that  plague  by  its 
agitation  against  the  chief  hygienic 
organization,  the  British  Empire. 

rpHE  Zionist  organization  of  Amer- 
■*■  ica  is  planning  a  campaign  to 
raise  $10,000,000  for  immediate  work 
in  Palestine.  Land  for  the  new  im- 
migrants will  have  to  be  purchased, 
and  be  made  habitable  by  the  de- 
velopment on  a  large  scale  of  natural 
resources.  Work  already  in  progress 
in  Palestine  must  be  maintained  and 
developed,  such  as  the  Hebrew  edu- 
cational system,  public  welfare  work, 
extermination  of  malaria,  and  im- 
provement of  housing  conditions. 
Funds  are  also  needed  for  the  work 
which  is  being  done  for  Palestine  in 
the  United  States.  The  organization 
does  not  limit  its  appeal  to  Jews  only, 
and  it  is  justified  in  trusting  to  a  gen- 
erous response  from  outside  by  the 
fact  that  among  the  members  of  the 
National  Advisory  Committee  of  the 
Palestine  Restoration  Fund  are  some 
of  the  leading  Christians  of  the  land. 

CTRANGE  news  it  is  which  the 
^  Vienna  correspondent  of  the 
Frankfurter  Zeitung  has  reported  to 
his  paper.  If  we  are  to  believe  him, 
an  offensive  and  defensive  alliance 
has  been  concluded  between  Austria 
and  Czecho-Slovakia.  There  is  at  this 
moment  only  one  enemy  that  jeopar- 
dizes the  very  existence  of  the  Aus- 
trian people,  and  the  only  way  effect- 
ively to  fight  that  enemy  is  by  an 
economic  union  with  Czecho-Slovakia. 
The  visit  of  Mr.  Benes,  the  Czech 
Foreign  Minister,  to  Paris,  just  a 
month  ago,  coinciding  with  Dr.  Ren- 
ner's  presence  at  the  French  capital, 
and  the  latter's  subsequent  departure 
for  Prague,  were  generally  believed 
to  prognosticate  an  understanding  be- 
tween the  two  republics,  under  which 
Czecho-Slovakia  would  come  to  the 
economic  rescue  of  starving  Austria. 
But  we  fail  to  see  why  a  military 
alliance  should  be  contemplated  by 
a  country  that  is  in  danger  of  soon 
having  not  a  soldier  left  physically 
fit  for  service,  nor  a  child  alive  for 
whose  sake  it  needs  to  be  saved. 


/GOVERNMENT  by  the  people  is 
^-^  progressing.  The  New  York 
Tribune  offers  an  opportunity  to  the 
plainest  citizen  to  help  write  the  Re- 
publican platform,  and  holds  out  as  a 
further  inducement  the  offer  of  vary- 
ing quantities  of  perfectly  good  48- 
cent  dollars  to  be  awarded  to  those 
who  submit  the  best  planks.  The 
project  is  wholly  commendable.  Even 
if  the  platform  resulting  from  this 
sort  of  communal  composition  is  not 
the  one  that  is  finally  adopted,  it  can- 
not fail  to  have  its  influence.  But 
its  chief  value  appears  in  the  prob- 
able effect  on  the  amateur  plank- 
makers  themselves.  They  must 
sharpen  their  wits  as  well  as  their 
pens  against  a  time,  soon  to  come, 
when  no  citizen  unfurnished  with  his 
plank  can  venture  out  without  risk 
of  ostracism. 

■W/"ITH  a  Presidential  election  in 
"  the  offing,  one  of  the  things  we 
ought  to  be  thinking  about  is  public 
economy.  And  the  thing  that  would 
enable  us  to  think  clearly  about  it  is 
a  budget  system,  for  it  would  give  us, 
for  the  first  time,  an  accurate  pic- 
ture of  what  the  Government  was 
trying  to  do  with  our  money. 

When  you  take  out  of  productive 
industry  some  $5,000,000,000  a  year 
in  taxes,  everybody  is  hit.  The  big 
man  and  the  little  man  have  to  help 
pay  the  bill.  Now,  so  far  as  any  por- 
tion of  this  $5,000,000,000  represents 
wasted  effort,  duplication  or  overlap- 
ping of  endeavor,  or  unwise  ventures 
on  the  part  of  the  Government,  a 
budget  system  will  at  least  uncover 
the  facts. 

What  we  want  is  a  business  sys- 
tem in  Washington.  Unless  all  pres- 
ent signs  fail,  the  Select  Committee 
on  the  Budget  of  the  Senate  will  pass 
a  bill  which  will  go  to  conference. 
The  result  of  that  conference  will 
probably  be  a  compromise  bill  which 
will  set  up  a  fairly  good  budget  sys- 
tem. It  will  not  provide  for  a  com- 
plete system,  for  that  will  come  only 
after  our  people  are  sufficiently 
aroused  to  demand  the  necessary  re- 
forms in  the  rules  of  Conrgess.  When 
high-minded,  public-spirited  men  like 
Taft,  Butler,  and  scores  of  others,  go 
to  Washington  to  add  the  weight  of 


January  24,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[71 


their  judgment  and  experience  in 
favor  of  establishing  a  sound  budget 
system,  the  least  the  individual  citi- 
zen can  do  is  to  tell  his  representa- 
tives in  Congress  to  push  through 
now  real  budgetary  reforms. 

THERE  are  books  enough.  How  to 
get  them  distributed  is  the  prob- 
lem— how  to  get  them  into  hands 
that  grope  blindly  for  them  and  in 
vain,  hands  that  have  never  yet 
sensed  the  comfortable  heft  of  a 
book.  The  war  taught  us  that  we 
were  not  so  literate  a  people  as  we 
thought  we  were.  But  the  war  also 
brought  literature  to  many  who  had 
been  deprived  of  it.  America  was 
equal  to  the  occasion,  and  the  soldier 
and  the  sailor  were  liberally  fur- 
nished with  books.  America's  four 
million  in  arms  read  greedily;  read 
for  entertainment,  finding  relief  from 
dull  routine  and  relaxation  after 
strenuous  endeavor ;  read,  too,  for  in- 
struction in  the  highly  technical  mat- 
ter in  which  they  were  suddenly 
called  upon  to  excel.  Most  of  them 
are  once  more  plain  citizens.  But 
they  do  not  propose  to  do  without  the 
pleasure  and  utility  of  books. 

i~\F  the  many  forms  of  energy  that 
^-^  were  organized  for  war  purposes 
none  has  a  fairer  field  in  time  of 
peace,  a  clearer  call  to  continue  its 
I  work,   than    the    American    Library 
I  Association.    If  it  was  the  generosity 
j  of  the  American  people  that  provided 
\  the  funds,  it  was  the  A.  L.  A.  that  got 
I  the  books  into  the  hands  of  the  boys. 
This  group  of  some  few  thousand  or- 
ganized librarians  has,  now  that  the 
war  is  over,  vast  stores  of  books  on 
hand ;  and,  more  than  that,  it  has 
j  some  very  definite  notions  of  what  to 
do  with  them,  and  an  organization  to 
carry  out  their  plans.    The  wiser  use 
(of  our  growing  flood  of  books  and 
journals,  and  the  wider  spread   of 
igood  books  and  journals,  is  the  gist 
I  of  the  programme  it  has  set  before 
itself. 

It  proposes  to  keep  the  navy  and 
the  merchant  marine  supplied  with 
books.  In  the  Coast  Guard  and 
Lighthouse  service  there  are  some 
9,000  men  to  whom  books  spell  all  the 
difference  between  life  and  mere  dull 


existence.  There  are  service  men  still 
in  hospitals,  or  taking  the  first  halting 
steps  in  civil  life,  to  whom  books  are 
bread  and  more  than  bread.  There 
is  the  blinded  veteran  with  his  deli- 
cate exploring  finger,  who  if  he  can 
get  the  right  sort  of  books  can  re- 
cover some  great  part  of  the  light 
that  has  been  lost  to  him.  So  much 
is  largely  a  continuation  of  the  A.  L. 
A.'s  war  work.  There  are  to  be  met, 
besides,  the  conditions  which  sent  so 
many  illiterates  before  the  Draft 
Boards.  There  are  rural  and  moun- 
tain communities,  logging  camps  and 
mining  camps,  oil  towns,  industrial 
plants,  which  through  their  country 
libraries  and  other  agencies  can  be 
furnished  with  the  books  they  so  des- 
perately need.  The  enlarged  pro- 
gramme of  the  A.  L.  A.  deserves  the 
same  hearty  support'that  it  received 
in  war-time. 

TT  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  Federal 
Prohibition  commissars  will  go 
about  the  stern  business  of  adminis- 
tering the  law  without  adding  to  its 
horrors  by  expatiating  on  the  ethical 
aspects  of  the  matter.  Said  one  of 
them  the  other  night,  addressing  a 
huge  assemblage  of  clergymen :  "The 
passions,  the  appetites,  and  the  de- 
sires of  men  made  it  necessary  for 
the  promulgation  of  the  Ten  Com- 
mandments." No  doubt  if  our  Pro- 
hibition friends  had  been  present 
when  that  desirable  piece  of  legisla- 
tion was  promulgated  they  would 
have  seen  to  it  that  it  was  accom- 
panied by  an  adequate  enforcement 
act.  As  it  is,  for  a  good  deal  more 
than  half  of  the  Ten  Commandments 
there  is  now  no  external  compulsion 
whatever.  "Yet,"  as  the  commissar 
says,  "they  still  stand  and  are  obeyed 
by  the  great  mass  of  the  American- 
people."  Temperance,  which  is  the 
only  ethical  aspect  of  prohibition, 
has  also  been  held  a  cardinal  virtue, 
and  its  obverse,  gluttony,  a  deadly 
sin.  For  most  people  the  one  has 
not  been  perhaps  the  most  difficult  of 
the  virtues  nor  the  other  the  most 
tempting  of  vices.  But  with  our  new 
idea  of  "making  it  easy  to  be  good" 
we  may  end  by  making  it  so  darned 
easy  to  be  good  that  nobody  will  take 
any  interest  in  it. 


The  World's  Economic 
Restoration 

TN  line  with  efforts  that  have  been 
-*■  made,  from  time  to  time,  for  many 
months  past,  but  more  impressive 
than  any  that  has  preceded  it,  is  the 
statement  and  appeal  issued  last  week 
by  eminent  public  men  and  financiers 
of  the  United  States,  Great  Britain, 
and  the  neutral  nations  of  Europe. 
It  recommends,  so  far  as  this  country 
is  concerned, 

that  the  Chamber  of  Commerce  of  the  United 
States  designate  representatives  of  commerce 
and  finance  to  meet  forthwith  (the  matter  be- 
ing of  the  greatest  urgency)  with  those  of 
other  countries  chiefly  concerned,  which  Should 
include  the  United  Kingdom  and  the  British 
dominions,  France,  Belgium,  Italy,  Japan,  Ger- 
many, Austria,  the  neutral  countries  of  Europe, 
the  United  States  and  the  chief  exporting 
countries  of  South  America,  for  the  purpose 
of  examining  the  situation  briefly  set  forth 
below  and  to  recommend  upon  the  basis  of 
authentic  information  what  action  in  the  vari- 
ous countries  is  advisable  among  the  peoples 
interested  in  reviving  and  maintaining  inter- 
national commerce. 

The  statement  which  accompanies 
this  recommendation  does  more  than 
merely  "set  forth  the  situation."  It 
points  out  the  defects  of  policy  which 
must  be  removed,  as  a  condition  pre- 
cedent to  the  possibility  of  any  rem- 
edy; and,  while  not  going  into  details, 
it  lays  down  the  principles  which 
should  guide  remedial  effort  when 
that  condition  has  been  fulfilled. 

In  the  very  first  line  the  memoran- 
dum justly  places  the  disorganization 
of  the  monetary  medium.  The  memo- 
randum opens  with  these  words : 

The  war  has  left  to  conqueror  and  con- 
quered alike  the  problem  of  finding  means 
effectively  to  arrest  and  counteract  the  centin- 
uous  growth  in  the  volume  of  outstanding 
money  and  of  Government  obligations  and 
its  concomitant,  the  constant  increase  of  prices. 

Unless  this  process  is  stopped,  "the 
depreciation  of  money,  it  is  to  be 
feared,  will  continue,  wiping  out  the 
savings  of  the  past  and  leading  to  a 
gradual  but  persistent  spreading  of 
bankruptcy  and  anarchy  in  Europe." 
Before  a  country  can  be  brought 
within  the  scope  of  any  large  scheme 
for  the  supply  of  credit,  it  must 
"bring  its  current  expenditure  within 
the  compass  of  its  receipts  from  tax- 
ation and  other  regular  income."  So 
far  as  Germany  and  Austria  are  con- 
cerned, it  will  be  the  duty  of  their 
conquerors  to  see  to  it  that  this  con- 
dition shall  not  be  made  impossible 


72] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  37 


of  fulfillment  by  the  burden  of  the 
indemnity.  They  must  be  required 
to  do  all  that  the  most  drastic  prac- 
ticable taxation  can  effect;  but  to 
press  them  to  the  point  of  insolvency, 
or  of  a  disastrous  lowering  of  the 
standard  of  living,  would  be  ruinous 
to  conquerors  as  well  as  conquered. 

With  these  necessary  conditions 
supposed  to  be  fulfilled,  the  memoran- 
dum sets  forth  the  general  character 
of  the  international  cooperation 
through  which  the  supply  of  the  nec- 
essary credits  may  be  obtained.  It 
must  come  chiefly  from  "those  coun- 
tries where  the  trade  balance  and 
the  exchanges  are  favorable" ;  it  must 
be  furnished  only  "so  far  as  it  is  ab- 
solutely necessary  to  restore  produc- 
tive processes,"  and  thus  not  obvi- 
ate the  necessity  of  those  efforts  and 
sacrifices  on  the  part  of  the  people  of 
the  borrowing  country  which  are 
essential  to  the  restoration  of  equili- 
brium ;  so  far  as  possible,  the  assist- 
ance should  leave  "national  and 
international  trade  free  from  the 
restrictive  control  of  governments"; 
the  loans  offered  to  the  public  should 
be  on  such  terms  as  to  "attract  the  real 
savings  of  the  individual,  otherwise 
inflation  [in  the  lending  country] 
would  be  increased" ;  and  the  borrow- 
ing country  must  give  such  preferred 
standing,  and  such  guarantees,  to  the 
loans  as  will  provide  the  best  availa- 
ble security. 

In  all  this,  there  is  nothing  novel; 
but  the  circumstance  that  it  accords 
with  the  views  previously  expressed 
by  so  many  leading  financiers  and 
publicists  does  not  detract  from  its 
value.  The  importance  of  the  pro- 
posal arises,  indeed,  from  the  fact 
that,  backed  by  the  weight  of  its  sign- 
ers, and  coming  at  a  time  when  all  the 
world  is  ready  to  recognize  the  ur- 
gency of  the  need,  it  is  to  be  hoped 
that  the  appeal  will  result  in  accom- 
plishing at  last  that  concerted  action 
which  individual  exhortations  to  the 
same  effect  have  failed  to  bring 
about.  By  far  the  largest  share  in 
the  great  work  of  financial  and  in- 
dustrial restoration  of  Europe  must 
fall  upon  the  United  States,  and  the 
one  thing  needful  is  that  a  plan  shall 
be  matured  which  will  draw  out  for 
the  purpose  the  enormous,  the  incom- 


parable, resources  of  our  country. 
That  this  should  be  done  by  voluntary 
investment,  and  not  by  governmental 
benevolence,  is  essential  to  sound  pro- 
gress ;  and  in  order  to  draw  out  that 
investment,  it  is  necessary  that  a 
plan  for  establishing  credits  upon  a 
solid  basis,  and  directing  the  credits 
to  the  right  ends,  shall  be  formulated. 

While  it  is  with  the  restoration  of 
normal  conditions  in  Europe  that  the 
memorandum  is  concerned,  it  would 
be  well  for  us  to  take  to  ourselves 
one  very  important  part  of  its  mes- 
sage. "The  continuous  growth  of 
outstanding  money  and  of  Govern- 
ment obligations,  and  its  concomi- 
tant, the  constant  increase  of  prices," 
is  a  phenomenon  which  has  been  just 
as  manifest  in  this  country  as  in  Eu- 
rope. It  is  a  thousand  pities  that, 
six  months  ago,  when  the  Govern- 
ment first  turned  its  attention  to  the 
general  question  of  high  prices — or 
"high  cost  of  living" — it  directed  pub- 
lic interest  to  matters  which,  in  this 
respect,  are  of  quite  negligible  magni- 
tude, instead  of  clearly  recognizing 
the  dominant  part  which  expansion 
of  the  monetary  medium — both  by 
bank  credits  and  by  the  actual  issue 
of  circulating  notes — has  played  in 
the  raising  of  the  price-level.  If 
"profiteering,"  and  hoarding  by  spec- 
ulators, have  been  anything  more 
than  mere  natural  accompaniments 
of  a  rise  of  prices  which  would  have 
taken  place  just  the  same  in  their 
absence,  they  have  at  most  been  fac- 
tors of  utterly  insignificant  impor- 
tance. Slack  production  has,  of  course, 
contributed  a  large  share,  but  even 
that  has  been  a  minor  cause  in  com- 
parison with  the  expansion  of  the 
monetary  medium. 

One  reason  for  the  failure  to  ap- 
preciate the  truth  of  this  matter  has 
been  the  extremely  unusual  relation 
between  the  state  of  the  currency  in 
our  own  country  and  the  value  of 
gold.  In  ordinary  times,  any  expan- 
sion in  the  volume  of  the  monetary 
medium  in  our  country,  beyond  the 
increase  in  the  volume  of  its  produc- 
tive activity,  would  tend  to  drive  gold 
out  of  the  country,  and  this  would 
check  or  prevent  the  rise  of  prices 
that  the  expansion  would  otherwise 
produce.     There  might  be  a  consid- 


erable temporary  disturbance,  but 
the  level  of  prices  would  not  be  per- 
manently raised,  except  to  the  ex- 
tent that  the  entire  level  of  prices  in 
the  gold-standard  world  was  raised, 
which  would  be  no  great  matter.  But 
in  these  times  we  are  ourselves  the 
only  one  of  the  great  commercial  na- 
tions of  the  world  that  maintains  the 
gold  standard;  no  common  level  of 
gold  prices  is  maintained  between 
the  United  States  and  England  or 
France,  because  prices  in  England 
and  France  are  not  gold  prices.  It  is 
upon  our  own  domestic  policy — not 
exclusively,  but  almost  exclusively — 
that  the  purchasing  power  of  the  dol- 
lar depends.  If  we  flood  the  country 
with  dollars,  we  raise  the  level  of 
prices,  and  there  is  in  our  relations 
with  foreign  countries  little  to  coun- 
teract the  effect.  The  policy  of  re- 
striction of  credits  upon  which  the 
Federal  Reserve  Board  recently  en- 
tered is  usually  thought  of  as  merely 
a  means  of  checking  speculation ;  but 
to  the  public  its  effect  upon  the  gen- 
eral level  of  commodity-prices  is  of 
incomparably  greater  importance.  If 
this  were  generally  recognized,  more 
vigorous  prosecution  of  that  policy — 
a  policy  of  contraction,  to  be  sure, 
which  is  always  fraught  with  trouble 
and  has  unavoidable  drawbacks — 
would  be  demanded  by  public  opinion. 

The    New    Policy 
Toward  Russia 

A   CERTAIN  brilliant  and  resource- 
■^^  ful,  if  not  entirely  practical,  pro- 
fessor at  one  of  our  Eastern  univer- 
sities was  about  to  close  his  house  for 
the  summer.    Warned  by  his  wife  to 
safeguard  against  mice  some  cases  of 
personal  effects  stored  in  the  attic, 
he  took  somewhat  original  measures 
which    he    described  to  his  friends 
naively  and  with  great  satisfaction 
"I     purchased     several     pounds    o: 
cheese,  cut  it  into  small  pieces,  anc 
spread  it  over  the  floor.    Of  course  n( 
intelligent  and  self-respecting  mousi 
will  attack  the  cases  in  preference  ti 
this  dainty  food."    Similar  considers 
tions  seem  to  have  actuated  Mr,  Lloyi 
George  in  the  formulation  of  the  ne\ 
Russian  policy  that  has  just  been  aiij 


Januaiy  24,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[78 


nounced  by  the  Supreme  Council  at 
Paris.  It  remains  to  be  seen  whether 
as  a  result  the  Bolsheviki  will  be  dis- 
suaded from  continuing  their  cam- 
paign against  Persia,  Afghanistan, 
and  India,  the  menace  of  which  is 
uppermost  in  British  minds  to-day. 

The  announcement  is  typically 
Lloyd-Georgian,  and  is  primarily  in- 
tended to  meet  domestic  political  con- 
ditions in  England.  No  one  knows 
better  than  the  Welshman  the  incon- 
gruity of  proposing  to  deal  through 
the  Russian  Cooperatives  and  at  the 
same  time  to  maintain  the  attitude 
of  uncompromising  hostility  to  the 
Bolshevik  power.  But  by  proclaiming 
both  these  policies  at  the  same  time, 
he  hopes  to  mollify  the  radical  labor 
element  with  a  promise  of  lifting  the 
blockade,  and  reassure  the  more  sta- 
ble elements  that  realize  the  militant 
danger  of  Bolshevism  in  arms. 

The  lifting  of  the  blockade  was, 
however,  well-nigh  unavoidable.  As 
we  pointed  out  two  weeks  ago,  the 
blockade  of  Soviet  Russia  had  a  rea- 
sonable basis  only  as  auxiliary  to  a 
general  support  of  the  loyal  and  pa- 
triotic forces  in  Russia  in  their  strug- 
gle to  overthrow  the  Bolshevik  tyr- 
anny. Such  aid  was  never  given  in 
season  or  in  adequate  measure,  and 
the  national  movements  collapsed. 
Now,  to  be  sure,  the  Bolsheviki  are 
at  war  with  the  civilized  governments 
of  the  world.  Some  of  the  methods 
by  which  they  carry  on  this  warfare 
are  clearly  set  forth  in  an  article  in 
our  present  issue.  Besides  this,  the 
Bolsheviki  have  in  the  field  a  large 
army  which  presents  a  definite  mili- 
tary threat  to  Europe.  A  continu- 
ance of  the  blockade  would  be  mor- 
ally justifiable;  the  question  is 
whether  it  is  calculated  to  attain  the 
desired  end. 

The  blockade  never  starved  the 
women  and  children  of  Russia.  Star- 
vation in  the  cities  of  Russia  was  due 
to  the  incompetence,  graft,  and  crazy 
economic  experiments  of  the  Bolshe- 
viki themselves,  as  Mr.  Hoover,  with 
his  customary  clearness  and  economic 
insight,  has  shown.  Why  this  is  so  is 
evident.  The  peasants  in  the  country 
have  food,  but  not  for  the  cities. 
The  Bolsheviki,  having  told  the  peas- 
ants to  seize  all  the  land,  proceeded  to 


socialize  it  and  proposed  to  take  for 
the  state  all  food-stocks  that  exceeded 
thirty  pounds  per  month  per  capita. 
Then  they  tried  to  buy  the  grain 
with  worthless  paper  money.  They 
had  no  manufactured  goods  to  ex- 
change for  it,  since  they  had  de- 
stroyed industrial  production.  So 
they  turned  to  forced  requisitions, 
which  Red  Guards  carried  out  with 
ruthless  brutality.  But  even  when 
they  procured  food  in  these  raids,  it 
could  not  be  brought  to  the  cities  in 
adequate  quantities,  for  the  transpor- 
tation systems  had  broken  down  and 
they  were  incompetent  to  put  them  in 
order.  Turn  over  the  management 
of  the  railroads  entering  New  York 
to  a  committee  of  soap-box  orators 
and  I.  W.  W.,  and  see  what  would 
happen  to  our  food  supply. 

The  lifting  of  the  blockade  will  not 
save  the  people  of  Russia  from  starv- 
ing, but,  as  Mr.  Hoover  wisely  ob- 
serves, it  will  expose  to  all  the  world 
the  failure  of  the  Bolshevik  theory 
and  practice.  "The  greatest  blow 
they  can  receive,"  he  says,  "is  to 
have  such  an  exposure  of  the  com- 
plete foolishness  of  their  industrial 
system  to  their  people.  Moreover,  a 
lifting  of  the  blockade  will  allow  the 
real  truth  of  the  horror  of  Bolshevik 
rule  to  come  out  of  Russia."  The 
blockade  has  furnished  most  potent 
propaganda  material  to  the  Bolshe- 
viki and  their  sympathizers,  for  they 
have  been  wont  to  allege  that  but  for 
this  their  communistic  experiments 
would  have  succeeded. 

In  its  announcement  of  the  lifting 
of  the  blockade,  the  Supreme  Council 
displays  neither  cleverness  nor  wis- 
dom. Among  the  Bolsheviki  it  can 
not  but  cause  contemptuous  amuse- 
ment. It  proposes  to  give  import 
facilities  to  the  Russian  Cooperative 
organizations  while  maintaining  its 
previous  policies  toward  the  Soviet 
Government!  Do  the  Allied  states- 
men take  the  Bolshevik  leaders  for 
children  when  they  propose  thus 
openly  a  measure  avowedly  directed 
toward  undermining  them  at  home? 
Do  they  think  for  a  moment  that 
Lenin  and  Trotsky  would  permit  this 
trading  to  take  place  independently 
of  their  control  or  fail  lio  turn  it  to 
their  own   political  advantage?     If 


80,  they  utterly  misunderstand  the  in- 
ternal conditions  in  Russia  and  un- 
derestimate the  shrewdness  of  the 
Commissars — who,  incidentally,  have 
outplayed  them  at  almost  every  point. 

The  Cooperative  referred  to  in  the 
announcement  is  of  course  the  Cen- 
tral Union  of  Consumers'  Codpera- 
tives,  whose  existence  under  the  So- 
viet regime  was  full  of  vicissitudes. 
These  Cooperatives  flourished  exceed- 
ingly during  the  war,  when  prices  of 
their  stocks  mounted  skyward  and 
private  means  of  distribution  fell 
down.  Because  of  its  large  and  wide- 
spread membership,  the  Bolsheviki 
did  not  dare  lay  hands  on  the  Coop- 
erative system  at  first,  but  after 
they  had  consolidated  their  power 
they  undertook  to  legislate  it  out 
of  existence  by  nationalizing  all  do- 
mestic trade.  As  usual  their  crazy 
experiment  failed,  and  they  had  to 
fall  back  upon  the  Cooperatives.  This 
time,  however,  they  seized  the  Mos- 
cow Narodny  Bank,  the  bank  of  the 
Cooperatives,  and  made  it  a  branch 
of  their  State  Bank,  and  proceeded  to 
issue  decrees  concerning  membership 
and  management  of  the  Cooperatives. 
The  country  units  have  managed  to 
retain  some  slight  vestige  of  their 
former  independence,  but  the  Coop- 
eratives of  the  cities  lost  all  freedom 
of  action.  The  Cooperatives  of  each 
province  are  largely  under  the  control 
of  the  provincial  Commissars. 

To  trade  with  the  Cooperatives  to- 
day, as  proposed  in  the  announce- 
ment of  the  Supreme  Council,  is  to 
deal  with  the  Soviet  Government.  In 
any  case,  goods  can  only  be  trans- 
ported by  the  Bolsheviki  on  their 
railroads,  and  in  practice  it  will  be 
the  Soviet  that  will  buy  goods  and 
then  trade  them  to  the  peasants  in 
return  for  food  for  the  cities.  It  is 
the  Soviet  alone  that  can  deliver  gold 
or  raw  materials  for  export.  Pos- 
sibly the  fact  that  these  goods  will 
have  been  stolen  or  confiscated  from 
private  owners  may  seem  like  an  un- 
important technicality  to  the  covet- 
ous foreigner.  The  gold  reserve  of 
Rumania,  amounting  to  $125,000,000, 
was  removed  to  Moscow  for  safe- 
keeping when  the  Germans  occupied 
Bucharest,  and  besides  this  the  Bol- 
sheviki have  in  their  possession  com- 


74] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  37 


paratively  little,  consisting  of  their 
plunder  from  banks  and  individuals. 
If  this  gold  is  accepted  by  foreign 
merchants,  a  serious  international 
question  will  be  raised,  to  say  noth- 
ing of  the  fact  that  it  means  recog- 
nition of  the  Bolshevik  Government. 

It  may  well  happen  that  in  spite 
of  the  temporary  political  and  ma- 
terial service  that  the  lifting  of  the 
blockade  may  render  to  the  Soviet 
Government,  its  deeper  effect  will  be 
to  strengthen  the  forces  in  Russia 
that  are  making  for  its  overthrow 
from  within.  Certainly  the  opening 
up  of  Russia  to  the  outside  world 
must  in  a  large  measure  put  an  end  to 
the  horrible  methods  of  terror  by 
which  that  Government  has  main- 
tained its  savage  rule,  and  once  this 
terror  is  relaxed,  there  will  be  an 
overwhelming  demand  for  deliver- 
ance from  its  authors. 

Finally  it  must  be  borne  in  mind 
that  the  military  menace  of  the  Red 
armies  is  still  with  us.  A  peace  with 
the  Bolsheviki  is  for  them  but  a 
breathing  space  in  which  to  carry  on 
their  propaganda  the  more  inten- 
sively. For  them  to  stand  still  or 
compromise  is  to  be  lost.  To  counter 
their  propaganda,  we  are  as  children, 
with  our  deportations  and  anti-radi- 
cal legislation;  they  can  give  us  big 
odds  and  win  with  ease.  Only  the 
hard  facts  of  experience  will  open  the 
eyes  of  their  dupes.  Just  now  the 
gravest  danger  is  that  a  military 
struggle  against  them  may  be  trans- 
lated into  a  war  against  Russia,  unit- 
ing all  the  Russian  national  elements 
and  forces  against  the  world. 

If  such  a  climax  should  crown  the 
past  two  years  of  blunders  in  policy, 
then  will  Allied  diplomacy  indeed  be 
.  bankrupt.  To  avert  such  a  catastro- 
phe a  positive,  unequivocal  policy 
must  be  stated.  It  must  be  made 
clear  to  the  Russian  people  that  while 
the  Allied  and  Associated  nations  are 
uncompromising  enemies  of  Bolshe- 
vism, they  will  welcome  every  oppor- 
tunity to  aid  Russia  materially;  that 
they  contemplate  no  policy  that 
means  its  dismemberment;  and  that 
they  look  forward  to  hearty  coopera- 
tion with  the  Russian  nation  when  it 
shall  have  thrown  off  the  incubus  of 
the  Bolshevist  despotism. 


Admiral  Sims's 
Memorandum 

A  "MEMO"  is  the  simplest  and  most 
^  informal  type  of  military  letter. 
It  is  usually  informational  and  needs 
no  answer.  Admiral  Sims's  "Memo" 
on  "Certain  Naval  Lessons  of  the 
Great  War"  occupies  five  columns  of 
print,  every  word  of  which  is  of  im- 
port to  every  American.  It  is  the 
duty  of  Congress  to  force  the  most 
explicit  answers  to  the  questions 
raised  in  this  most  important  docu- 
ment. Although  Admiral  Sims  re- 
veals the  fact  that  he  was  constantly 
hampered  in  his  work  as  high  naval 
commander  abroad,  inadequately  sup- 
ported, disregarded,  unfairly  dis- 
trusted, there  is  no  trace  of  personal 
resentment  in  his  indictment  of  our 
naval  administration.  He  writes 
with  dignity,  detachment,  and  au- 
thority. Expressions  of  opinion  are 
as  few  as  they  are  weighty.  The 
emphasis  is  on  facts. 

Late  in  March,  1917,  with  war  not 
yet  declared  but  certain.  Admiral 
Sims  was  sent  to  England  incognito 
with  a  single  aide.  In  lieu  of  the 
customary  written  orders,  he  received 
instructions  which  are  described  by 
him  as  follows: 

Brief  orders  were  delivered  to  me  verbally 
in  Washington.  No  formal  instructions  or 
statement  of  the  Navy  Department's  plans  or 
policy  were  received  at  that  time,  though  I 
received   the    following   explicit    admonition : 

'"Don't  let  the  British  pull  the  wool  over 
your  eyes.  It  is  none  of  our  business  pulling 
their  chestnuts  out  of  the  fire.  We  would  as 
soon  fight  the  British  as  the  Germans." 

On  arriving  in  England,  Admiral 
Sims  found  that  the  submarines  were 
in  a  way  to  starve  out  England  in- 
side the  year.  Accordingly  he  recom- 
mended an  immediate  concentration 
of  all  available  fighting  forces  in  the 
real  theatre  of  the  naval  war.  The 
Navy  Department  promised  four  de- 
stroyers. Admiral  Sims  appealed  to 
Ambassador  Page,  and  the  number 
was  raised  to  sixteen.  In  April,  1917, 
the  British  Admiralty  requested  that 
the  American  fighting  fleet  should 
guard  the  English  Channel.  Trans- 
mitted to  Washington  by  Admiral 
Sims,  the  request  never  received  the 
courtesy  of  a  reply.  Meanwhile  our 
battle  fleet,  Qhough  ready  for  action, 
was  performing  no  military  service 


1 


of  any  sort.  In  July,  1917,  Admiral 
Sims  recommended  that  four  coal- 
burning  battleships  should  be  as- 
signed to  the  British  great  fleet.  This 
modest  request  was  honored  only  in 
November,  after  Admiral  Benson  had 
verified  in  England  the  information 
he  had  possessed  for  many  months 
through  Admiral  Sims.  Soon  after 
his  arrival  Admiral  Sims  requested 
that  all  available  tugs  be  sent  over. 
They  were  wanted  to  salvage  ships 
which  the  submarines  had  crippled 
without  sinking.  None  were  sent, 
though  at  the  time  dozens  of  Navy 
tugs  were  tied  up  idly  at  the  wharves 
of  Norfolk,  Philadelphia,  Brooklyn, 
Newport,  and  Boston. 

From  this  state  of  things  two  in- 
ferences are  to  be  drawn.  First,  that 
the  Department  grudged  a  whole- 
hearted and  effective  aid  in  the  war, 
adhering  still  to  the  hope  of  "peace 
without  victory ;"  next,  that  there  was 
no  strategic  plan  at  Washington,  but 
merely  a  welter  of  smaller  purposes. 
For  three  years  of  world-wide  war- 
fare, and  with  constant  dangerous 
friction  with  Germany,  President 
Wilson  and  his  war  lords  held  to  the 
theory  that  our  national  policy  was 
to  set  a  good  example  to  the  world 
by  neglecting  our  obvious  military 
interests.  The  result  was  that  in  the 
hurry  of  belated  preparation,  two 
lives  were  lost  where  one  would  have 
sufficed,  two  men  were  wounded 
where  one  would  have  sufficed,  and 
more  than  two  dollars  were  spent 
where  one  would  have  sufficed.  With 
the  ultimate  value  to  humanity  of  a 
policy  not  without  its  own  idealism 
history  must  some  day  reckon.  Its 
immediate  and  practical  result  may 
be  simply  expressed  in  the  form  of  a 
commercial  statement: 

Wilson,  Baker  &  Daniels,  Ltd. 
In  Ac.  with  the  American   People. 

Credit : — By  any  mora!  good  accomplished  by 
neglecting  a  reasonable  military  prepared- 
ness in  1915-16. 

Debit : — To  35,000  Americans  killed  unneces- 
sarily. 

To   160,000  Americans  wounded  unneces- 
sarily. 
To   $10,000,000,000   spent  unnecessarily. 

However  this  account  be  balanced, 
the  Navy  merely  suffered  with  the 
rest.  Its  case  was  not  special.  Ad- 
miral  Sims  in  noting  the  vacillation  m 
and  absence  of  naval  counsels  at 
Washington  is  not  indulging  in  retro- 


January  24,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[75 


spective  recriminations,  nor  are  we. 
He  is  pointing  a  solemn  lesson  for 
future  use. 

So  far  Admiral  Sims's  letter  merely 
gives  a  new  emphasis  to  familiar 
facts.  There  is  another  and  more 
startling  side  to  his  revelations  which 
no  loyal  American  can  consider  with- 
out a  sense  of  shame.  It  appears  that 
having  appointed  him  to  high  com- 
mand, the  powers-that-be  regretted 
their  action.  Not  daring  to  take  the 
straightforward  course  of  relieving 
him,  they  attempted  to  make  his  posi- 
tion impossible  and  force  him  out. 
In  so  doing  they  imperilled  the  effi- 
ciency of  our  naval  effort  abroad. 
Sustained  by  a  high  sense  of  duty,  he 
achieved  the  impossible — stuck  to  his 
post,  and,  under  heavy  disadvantages, 
did  his  work.  This  is  our  allegation, 
not  his,  but  the  facts  are  plainly  to 
be  read  between  the  lines.  Let  us  con- 
sider the  bare  facts. 

In  April,  1917,  Admiral  Sims  was 
ordered  abroad  with  a  staff  of  one 
aide.     Repeated  requests  for  a  suit- 
able   administrative    staff   were    re- 
fused on  the  ground  that  no  officers 
were  available.  Meanwhile  competent 
and  willing  officers  were  on  fifty  idle 
ships.    In  July,  now  Commander  in 
Chief  for  the   European   campaign, 
and    his    aide    exhausted,    he    was 
allotted  three  officers.     Such  a  staff 
the   young   lieutenants   commanding 
at  sub-bases  like  Block  Island,  Nev; 
Bedford,    and    Nantucket    were    al- 
lowed  for   their   flotillas   of  half  a 
dozen  patrol  boats.    In  vain  Admiral 
Sims  requested  the  staff  customarily 
allowed  to  the  commander  of  a  squad- 
ron of  destroyers.     Facing  adminis- 
trative disaster,  he  finally  adopted  the 
desperate  but  only  expedient  of  re- 
cruiting his  staff  by  depleting  his  line. 
Eventually  he  thus  combed  out  of  his 
ships   two   hundred    officers   with   a 
thousand  enlisted  men  and  civilians. 
Meanwhile  his  destroyers  and  scout 
patrol  boats  sailed  their  arduous  sta- 
tions short-handed.   To  make  matters 
more  difficult,  he  was  denied  the  usual 
right  of  enlisting  competent  Ameri- 
cans abroad  and  of  awarding  tem- 
porary promotion  to  his  own  officers. 
As  an  additional  humiliation,  he  was 
not  permitted  to  select  his  personal 
aides.    Among  the  British  and  in  his 


own  command  his  authority  was  by 
so  much  diminished. 

From  these  deplorable  but  neces- 
sary exposures  the  accomplishment 
of  the  professional  Navy  emerges  in 
a  brighter  light.  In  spite  of  certain 
incompetence  and  probable  malice  at 
Washington,  it  splendidly  did  its  task. 
That  so  perilous  and  discreditable  a 
chapter  should  not  be  repeated  is 
Admiral  Sims's  chief  concern.  In  fix- 
ing the  responsibility  where  it  be- 
longs, between  Secretary  Daniels  and 
Admiral  Benson,  Admiral  Sims  has 
deserved  well  of  the  Navy  and  the 
Republic.  Now  let  the  complete  cor- 
respondence between  Admiral  Sims 
and  his  superiors  be  published,  and 
let  Congress  fearlessly  probe  the 
whole  matter  to  the  bottom. 

The  Father  of  Victory 

TjtTE  sincerely  regret  that  M.  Clem- 
^    enceau's  exit  from  the  political 
stage  had  its  impressiveness  marred 
by  a  final  discomfiture  to .  which  he 
exposed  himself  by  drawing  a  wrong 
conclusion  from  his  popularity.    The 
unexampled  success  which  crowned 
his  tenure  of  office  had  silenced,  for 
the  time  being,   his  many  political 
opponents   among  Roman   Catholics 
and  Radicals.     The  people's  unani- 
mous recognition  of  his  great  service 
t'^  the  country  was  no  guarantee  of  as 
complete  a  consensus  on  his  eligibility 
for  the  Presidency.   Different  capaci- 
ties from  those  which  made  him  an 
eminent  leader  in  the  onset  towards 
victory  are  needed  for  the  representa- 
tive  figure    at   the   highest   post   of 
honor.    Neither  his  temperament  nor 
the  power  which  his  popularity  se- 
cures  him   would   have    let   him   be 
satisfied  with  the  mere  glory  of  that 
dignity.  Fear  of  his  influence,  greater 
than  tradition  has  sanctioned,  on  the 
Government's  conduct  of  affairs  dic- 
tated to  the  majority  of  Senators  and 
Deputies    their   adverse    vote.      The 
painful   dilemma   was   not   of   their 
choosing.    We  should  do  them  an  in- 
justice by  believing  their  motive  to 
have  been  personal  enmity.  They  had 
to  decide  between  honoring  the  man 
and  serving  the  country,  as  in  their 
eyes  the  two  were  irreconcilable.  And 
M.   Clemenceau   will   have   been  the 


first  to  admit  that,  such  being  their 
opinion,  they  chose  the  better  of  the 
two. 

For  in  his  long,  eventful  life  the 
one  motive  which  actuated  his  every 
word  and  act  was  France  and  the 
glory  of  France..  In  a  political  atmos- 
phere  replete   with   self-seeking  in- 
trigue, he  moved  invulnerable,  thanks 
to  a  proverbial  integrity.    "What  is 
this  talk,"  he  said  one  day,  "about 
my  having  overthrown  so  many  Gov- 
ernments?   It  was  always  the  same 
Government  —  with    only    different 
names."    The  paradox  gives  a  char- 
acteristic description  of  the  man.  The 
Cabinets  he  ousted  from  power  were 
all  one  to  him  in  that  they  ruled  to 
the  detriment  of  France.     Personal 
consideraions    had   no   weight   with 
him.    Old 'friends  lost  his  friendship 
if  France  was  no  longer  served  by 
them  in  the  way  he  considered  best 
for  her.    It  was  on  M.  Clemenceau's 
recommendation  that  M.  Freycinet, 
in  1886,  fixed  his  choice  on  General 
Boulanger  for  Minister  of  War  in  his 
Cabinet.     But   it   was    Clemenceau, 
again,  who  two  years  later,  when  the 
General    aspired   to   a   dictatorship, 
was  foremost  among  those  who  op- 
posed him,  and  after  the  sensational 
scene  in  the  Chamber,  in  which  Bou- 
langer had  called  Premier  Floquet  "a 
■  damned  liar  and  an  impudent  pedant," 
Clemenceau,  as  Floquet's  witness,  took 
his  challenge  to  the  insulter.    In  the 
same  way  he  challenged,  on  behalf  of 
France,  the  strong  and  the  unscrupu- 
lous who  loved  her  less  than  them- 
selves.   A  disturber  of  peace,  people 
called  him.     "Why  can  you  not  let 
the  country  rest?"  he  was  asked  by 
an  interruption  in  the  Chamber.  "Be- 
cause there  is  no  rest  for  free  na- 
tions," he  retorted.  "Rest  is  good  for 
monarchies.     The  nation  is  a  living 
organism,  and  life  knows  no  rest." 

His  own  life  has  been  a  vivid  illus- 
tration of  that  maxim.  And  it  seemed 
as  if,  with  the  increase  of  his  years, 
his  energy  grew  in  intensity.  The 
youthful  elan  which  inspired  his  in- 
domitable nature  rekindled  the  fire 
of  enthusiasm  in  whose  steeling 
flames  the  country  has  always  re- 
covered strength  to  overcome  its 
vicissitudes.  By  grace  of  that  spirit 
in  him  he  had  become  the  savior  of 


76] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  37 


his  country.  It  owes  him  a  debt  of 
gratitude  too  great  to  be  adequately 
expressed  by  its  conferring  on  him 
even  the  highest  dignity  that  a 
Frenchman  can  win.  Ambition,  "that 
last  infirmity  of  noble  mind,"  is  in 
this  man  of  impetyous  energy  a 
symptom  only  of  his  restlessness, 
which,  in  his  own  words,  is  life  itself. 
Until  his  dying  hour,  to  live,  with 
him,  will  be  to  aspire.  But  the  nation 
knows  better  than  he  that  the  highest 
he  could  aspire  to  is  already  his. 
History  will  add  many  more  names 
to  the  list  of  Presidents  of  the  French 
Republic,  but  one  Frenchman  only 
will  be  remembered  in  her  record  as 
the  Father  of  Victory. 

President  Butler  on 
the  Classics 

THE  paragraphs  of  President  But- 
ler's Annual  Report  which  deal 
with  classical  studies  in  Columbia 
University  are  interesting  rather  for 
certain  suggestions  which  they  con- 
vey than  for  their  statement  of  facts. 
We  are  all  aware,  of  course,  that  the 
proportion  of  students  taking  Latin 
and  Greek  under  a  purely  elective 
regime  is  comparatively  small.  Our 
chief  concern  lies  not  with  the  fact, 
but  with  the  underlying  reason.  Dr. 
Parkin,  in  discussing  the  Rhodes 
Scholarships,  has  pointed  out  that  the 
surprisingly  high  ratio  of  failures  on 
the  part  of  American  students  to  pass 
the  Oxford  University  entrance  tests 
holds  good  for  the  more  modern  sub- 
jects as  well  as  for  the  classical  lan- 
guages. "May  it  not  be  true,"  Dr. 
Butler  asks,  "that  the  American 
student  resents  the  demand  for  the 
close  and  long-continued  application 
necessary  to  an  accurate  knowledge 
of  any  difficult  subject?" 

In  the  matter  of  the  classics,  it  is 
a  fair  question  how  far  the  responsi- 
bility for  numerical  loss  rests  pri- 
marily with  the  r.tudent.  In  a  country 
town  in  the  Middle  West,  a  few  years 
ago,  the  study  of  Latin  was  saved, 
against  an  iconoclastic  superintend- 
ent, by  the  insistent  demand  of  boys 
and  girls  determined  to  study  it.  A 
few  years  ago  a  State  Normal  College 
west  of  the  Alleghenies  had  a  strong 
department  of  Greek,  wholly  on  the 


elective  basis,  and  the  Greek  play 
which  it  presented  each  year  was  one 
of  the  most  distinguished  events  of 
the  college  calendar.  The  department 
died,  not  from  loss  of  interest,  but 
by  peremptory  edict  of  a  new  Presi- 
dent who,  during  the  summer  vaca- 
tion, before  he  had  ever  met  the  col- 
lege in  session,  countermanded  the 
order  for  Greek  text-books  and  an- 
nounced that  the  study  would  be 
dropped,  as  "unpractical."  On  the 
other  hand,  from  within  a  few  miles 
of  Columbia  University  comes  the  re- 
port that  a  class  in  Greek  has  been 
organized  in  a  New  Jersey  high 
school,  at  the  urgent  request  of  stu- 
dents desiring  to  enroll.  Opposition 
to  classical  study  in  the  public  schools 
comes  far  more  from  educational 
theorists  than  from  pupils,  or  par- 
ents, in  search  of  the  "practical." 
Fought  by  "modernists"  on  every 
hand,  and  a  requirement  for  gradua- 
tion almost  nowhere,  Latin  still  has  a 
very  strong  hold  in  the  high  schools 
in  all  parts  of  the  country.  If  a  fair 
proportion  of  students  who  have  car- 
ried it  successfully  through  the  usual 
four  preparatory  years  were  to  con- 
tinue it  in  college,  there  would  be  no 
talk  of  the  decadence  of  Latin.  In 
view  of  this  fact,  it  may  be  questioned 
whether  any  great  share  of  the  loss 
•  that  occurs  just  at  the  point  of  en- 
trance to  college  is  due,  as  President 
Butler  suggests,  to  an  aversion  of  the 
American  student  to  "the  close  and 
long-continued  application  necessary 
to  an  accurate  knowledge  of  any  diffi- 
cult subject."  Something  must  be 
granted  to  this  influence,  no  doubt, 
nor  can  an  unrestricted  elective  sys- 
tem ever  free  itself  from  the  charge 
of  encouraging  such  an  aversion.  But 
there  are  other  influences  at  work 
which  tend  to  deprive  classical  studies 
of  an  even  chance  in  the  mind  of  a 
freshman  making  up  his  schedule. 
Thus  the  faculty  representatives  of 
the  newer  subjects,  as  Dr.  Butler  says, 
often  insist  on  programmes  which 
make  it  difficult  for  the  student  to 
take  an  extended  course  in  classical 
studies. 

President  Butler  makes  it  evident 
that  his  own  desire  is  for  the  building 
up  and  continued  maintenance  of 
strong    departments    of   Greek    and 


Latin  in  Columbia.  Towards  that  end 
he  suggests  an  increased  striving  on 
the  part  of  teachers  for  a  readier 
power  of  sight  translation ;  the  bring- 
ing of  the  student  more  closely  into 
touch  with  ancient  ideas  and  ideals; 
political,  moral,  and  social  relation- 
ships ;  and  the  development  of  courses 
having  to  do  with  Greek  and  Roman 
customs,  and  Greek  and  Roman  art, 
architecture,  etc.  Friends  of  broad 
educational  ideals  will  hope  that  this 
declaration  of  interest  will  be  fol- 
lowed by  a  duly  liberal  financial 
policy  in  providing  the  material 
equipment  required  to  carry  out,  with 
the  fullest  degree  of  success,  the  im- 
provements in  method  suggested  in 
this  report. 

Dr.  Butler  quotes  and  accepts  Gil- 
bert Murray's  statement  that  the 
study  of  the  present  alone  isolates, 
while  the  study  of  far  distant  times, 
if  they  be  really  great,  sets  the  stu- 
dent free.  In  every  specialist  walk  of 
life,  there  are  men  to-day  of  the  high- 
est competence  and  reputation  who 
do  not  hesitate  to  assert  that  their 
calling  is  suffering  from  the  failure 
of  its  devotees  to  broaden  their  men- 
tal vision,  and  their  range  of  human 
interest,  by  studies  of  this  kind.  "I 
am  going  to  be  a  scientist,  and  there- 
fore will  not  elect  any  studies  in  the 
classical  departments,"  is  a  very  gen- 
eral attitude  of  mind  among  incoming 
freshmen  to-day.  "My  life  as  a  scien- 
tist will  necessarily  tend  to  narrow 
my  range  of  interests  unduly,  and 
therefore  I  will  guard  against  the 
danger  in  advance  by  including  a 
fair  amount  of  the  study  of  the  great 
civilizations  of  the  past  in  my  course," 
would  represent  a  far  more  promis- 
ing state  of  mind. 


THE  REVIEW 

A  weekly  journal  of  political  and 

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Copyright,     1920,     in     the     United     States     of 
America 
Editors 
FABIAN  FRANKLIN 
HAROLD  DE  WOLF  FULLER 


Janiiiirv  2i,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[77 


Moscow's  Campaign  of  Poison 


A  FEW  months  ago  the  Executive 
Committee  of  the  Bolshevik  Gov- 
ernment in  Moscow  sent  to  its  agents 
everywhere  abroad  a  confidential 
circular  of  which  the  following  is  a 
translation : 

GENERAL  INSTRUCTIONS 
The  revolutionary  work  of  the  Com- 
munist Party. 

The  work  of  Bolshevist  organizations 
in  foreign  countries  is  regulated  as  fol- 
lows: 

1.  In  the  domain  of  international  re- 
lations. 

(a)  Assist  all  chauvinistic  measures 
and  foster  all  international  discords. 

(b)  Stir  up  agitation  that  may  serve 
to  bring  on  industrial  conflict. 

(c)  Try  to  assassinate  the  represen- 
tatives of  foreign  countries. 

(Thanks  to  these  methods  interior  dis- 
cords and  coups  d'etat  will  occur,  such 
agitation  working  to  the  advantage  of 
the  Social  Democratic  party.) 

2.  In  the  domain  of  internal  politics. 

(a)  Compromise  by  every  possible 
means  the  influential  men  of  the  country; 
attack  people  in  office;  stir  up  anti-gov- 
eramental   agitation. 

(b)  Instigate  general  and  particular 
strikes;  injure  machinery  and  boilers  in 
factories;  spread  propaganda  literature. 

(Thanks  to  these  methods  destruction 
of  governments  and  the  seizure  of  power 
will  be  facilitated.) 

3.  In  the  economic  sphere. 

(a)  Induce  and  sustain  railroad 
strikes;  destroy  bridges  and  tracks;  do 
everything  possible  to  disorganize  trans- 
port. 

(b)  Interfere  with  and  prevent  if 
possible  the  transport  of  food  supplies 
into  the  cities;  provoke  financial 
troubles ;  flood  the  markets  with  counter- 
feit banknotes;  appoint  everywhere  spe- 
jcial  committees  for  this  work. 

I  (In  this  way  total  economic  disorgani- 
!!ation  will  bring  its  inevitable  catas- 
Itrophe  and  the  resulting  revolution 
iigainst  the  government  will  have  the 
'sympathy  of  the  masses.) 
,    4.    In  the  military  sphere. 

(a)  Carry  on  intensive  propaganda 
jimong  the  troops.  Cause  misunder- 
standings between  officers  and  soldiers. 

ncite  the  soldiers  to  assassination  of 
he  higher  officers. 

(b)  Blow  up  arsenals,  bridges,  tracks, 
owder-magazines.  Prevent  the  delivery 
f  supplies  of  raw  material  to  factories 
nd  mills. 

(Thus  the  complete  destruction  of  the 
rmy  will  be  accomplished  and  the  sol- 
iers  will  adopt  the  programme  of  the 
jcial  democratic  workers.) 


A  later  circular  issued  as  Cam- 
paign Order  No.  4,  again  for  secret 
distribution  in  foreign  countries,  de- 
fines the  methods  to  be  pursued 
among  the  agricultural  classes.  "It  is 
necessary  to  find  out  everything  pos- 
sible about  the  living  conditions  of 
the  farmers ;  it  is  urgently  necessary 
to  know  all  those  who  are  in  debt  or 
find  difficult  the  payment  of  their 
rent.  It  is  important  to  assist  them, 
discreetly  and  prudently,  and  at  the 
same  time  to  explain  to  them  that 
only  revolution  will  put  them  on  their 
feet.  In  this  work,  as  in  all  others, 
it  is  necessary  to  work  principally  on 
the  feelings  of  the  women,  and  beyond 
this  conversations  should  be  carried 
on  principally  with  young  people,  who 
are  more  susceptible  to  revolutionary 
influences." 

These  are  merely  samples  of  the 
secret  orders  that  flow  out  from  the 
poison  spring  in  Moscow.  It  takes 
no  very  careful  study  of  them  to  see 
that  they  represent  no  "great  con- 
structive force,"  as  is  claimed  by  our 
American  parlor  bolshevists.  It  is 
clear  that  their  authors  care  nothing 
for  the  interests  of  the  proletariat,  as 
is  urged  by  certain  sentimental  Amer- 
ican paper-radicals  and  by  the  still 
undeported  representative  of  Lenin 
in  New  York.  Ideas  such  as  these 
orders  contain  are  brutal  and  brutal- 
izing; they  are  false  and  propagate 
falsehood ;  they  point  to  suffering  and 
misery  as  an  end  to  be  sought.  They 
are  purely  destructive  in  intent  and 
give  not  even  a  hint  of  a  constructive 
future.  Tear  down;  destroy;  create 
economic  chaos;  cause  famine  and 
cold;  kill  your  fellow  men — and  to 
what  end?  To  bring  about  revolu- 
tion! But  surely  modern  man  has 
sufficient  mental  and  moral  stature 
to  realize  that  revolution  is  not  an 
end  to  be  desired ;  that  it  is  endurable 
only  as  a  last  resort  to  secure  a  great 
gain  to  civilization  which  is  not 
otherwise  obtainable.  The  danger  of 
these  circulars  is  that  they  are  not 
intended  to  fall  into  the  hands  of 
those  who  have  attained  well-bal- 
anced mental  and  moral  growth.  They 
are    not    intended    to    educate    the 


masses  or  to  be  read  by  the  intel- 
lectual, but  to  instruct  the  dark  and 
secret  agents  of  destruction,  all  of 
them  queerly  abnormal  people  who 
have  their  prototypes  in  Russia — 
Lenin,  a  great  force,  an  idealist  who 
can  not  understand  that  ideals  can 
be  realized  only  through  imperfect 
human  agents  and  that  realization 
before  humanity  is  perfect  must  de- 
stroy their  original  purity,  a  man 
with  a  vision  that  reality  has  dimmed 
and  necessity  brutalized;  Chicherin, 
a  man  of  the  upper  classes,  who  has 
twice  been  confined  in  an  insane 
asylum,  who  is  incapable  of  thinking 
straight;  Trotsky,  intellectually  pow- 
erful along  the  narrow  path  of  his 
enthusiasm,  morally  a  monster ;  Zino- 
viev,  a  man  of  little  mental  and  no 
moral  capacity,  but  with  an  enthusi- 
asm that  borders  on  madness  and 
that  makes  his  commonplace  words 
ffame ;  and  the  others,  inevitably  most 
numerous,  who  may  better  be  name- 
less, who  are  of  varying  capacity  and 
are  Bolsheviks  for  sordid  hope  of 
plunder  or  of  power.  Into  the  hands 
of  men  similar  to  these  the  instruc- 
tions are  carried  by  highly  paid 
agents,  and  the  instructions  are 
passed  on  to  the  rank  and  file,  not  as 
they  came,  but  in  the  form  of  specific 
orders  to  cause  a  strike  here,  to  de- 
stroy there  a  factory,  or  to  assassinate 
a  man  of  influence  and  integrity. 
There  are  few  crimes  so  dastardly 
that  an  excuse  for  them  can  not  be 
found  in  some  generally-worded  in- 
struction, but  the  character  of  the 
specific  deed  is  usually  a  reflection  of 
the  personality  of  the  agent  who 
issues  the  final  order. 

These  circulars,  as  has  been  noted 
above,  are  not  in  any  sense  propa- 
ganda. They  are  orders,  issued  to 
chosen  individuals  and  not  intended 
to  be  seen  by  others ;  but  such  orders 
can  not  be  carried  out  in  a  country 
where  the  ground  has  not  been  pre- 
pared by  propaganda.  Even  in  Rus- 
sia itself,  where  the  vast  proportion 
of  the  population  shivers  under  the 
rule  of  an  autocratic  and  blood- 
thirsty minority,  the  Bolshevist 
regime  could  not  retain  power  if  it 
admitted  the  truth.  If  it  lies  at  home, 
why  should  it  be  truthful  abroad? 
On  November  8,  Zinoviev  said  in  a 


78] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  37 


speech  in  Petrograd,  "The  White 
Army  was  followed  by  an  American 
mission  which  pretended  to  feed  our 
children  in  Gatchina,  but  the  first 
thing  it  did  was  to  rob  the  orphan 
asylum.  When  Gatchina  was  cap- 
tured a  Jewish  pogrom  took  place 
and  the  population  received  only  a 
few  herrings."  This  is  a  good  ex- 
ample of  Bolshevist  defensive  propa- 
ganda within  the  borders  of  Russia. 
The  truth  was  that  there  was  no  po- 
grom in  Gatchina  and  that  the  Amer- 
ican Relief  Administration  under- 
took immediately,  and  continued  until 
the  retreat  of,  the  White  Army,  the 
daily  feeding  of  three  thousand 
starved  children.  In  Russia  the  truth 
can  be  and  is  suppressed.  Along  the 
borders  of  Russia  it  can  be  and  is 
partially  suppressed,  but  this  sup- 
pression becomes  more  difficult  as 
operations  must  be  carried  on  further 
from  the  centre.  Hence,  the  further 
propaganda  is  carried  from  Moscow 
the  more  subtle  it  must  become  to 
be  effective.  Half  truths  and  clev- 
erly manipulated  whole  truths  must 
be  substituted  for  lies,  propaganda 
must  be  attuned  to  the  instincts,  sen- 
timents and  desires  of  those  to  whom 
it  is  addressed,  with  the  purpose  of 
preparing  as  large  a  field  as  possible 
in  which  the  seed  of  the  definite 
orders  may  flourish  and  bear  its  red 
fruit.  Propaganda  in  different  coun- 
tries, therefore,  varies  widely  in 
method  and  arguments  employed; 
whereas  the  instructions  vary  almost 
not  at  all. 

Twice,  so  far,  this  subtly  prepared 
propaganda  has  made  possible  the 
carrying  out  of  the  orders.  In  Hun- 
gary, which  is  essentially  a  conserva- 
tive country,  Bolshevist  propaganda 
was  confined  almost  entirely  to  Buda- 
pest, because  only  in  that  city  was 
there  a  nucleus  of  industrial  workers 
— always  more  accessible  to  any  form 
of  propaganda  because  concentrated 
— and  because  the  capital  was  the 
heart  of  the  country.  Supplies  were 
short  and  therefore  the  opening  of  an 
avenue  to  "the  limitless  food  stocks 
of  Russia"  was  harped  on  continu- 
ously. The  Karolyi  Government  made 
just  enough  half-hearted  reforms  in 
land  tenure  and  in  the  education  of 
workingmen  to  a  knowledge  of  their 


due  and  of  their  potential  power,  to 
arouse  the  instincts  of  acquisition 
without  recompense — in  plain  Eng- 
lish, "plunder" — but  it  was  too  weak 
to  carry  its  reforms  through  to  their 
logical  conclusion.  A  peasant  one 
day  appeared  at  the  ticket  window  of 
a  local  station  and  said  to  the  ticket 
agent,  the  only  visible  government 
official,  "I  have  come  for  my  share." 
"Your  share  of  what?"  the  agent  de- 
manded. "My  share  of  the  money," 
the  peasant  aifswered.  "Is  not  Hun- 
gary now  a  republic  and  in  a  republic 
do  not  all  share  alike?"  The  com- 
munists said  to  this  man  and  others 
like  him,  "If  you  put  us  in  power 
this  belief  of  yours  will  come  true. 
We  will  divide  among  you  the  prop- 
erty of  the  rich."  But,  in  spite  of 
ignorance  and  hunger,  the  Bolsheviks 
could  never  have  gained  the  power  in 
Hungary  had  they  not  appealed  to 
the  strongest  passion  of  all,  the  in- 
stinct of  nationalism,  which  is  really 
the  negation  of  all  Bolshevist  prin- 
ciples. When  bordering  states  en- 
croached more  and  more  on  the 
boundaries  defined  by  the  torms  of 
the  armistice,  and  when  it  was  clear 
that  Karolyi  could  not  get  the  ex- 
pected support  from  the  Allies,  the 
Bolsheviks  seized  the  Government  as 
champions  of  nationalism.  Bela  Kun 
was  tolerated  because  he  promised  to 
drive  out  the  invaders.  When  he 
failed  in  this  and  began  to  preach 
communist  doctrines,  the  people 
drove  him  out.  This  Hungarian  epi- 
sode is  an  interesting  example  of 
Bolshevist  propaganda,  because  it 
succeeded  by  an  appeal  to  local  pas- 
sions through  promises  that  were 
wholly  false  and  based  on  principles 
wholly  contrary  to  the  dogmas  of 
communism.  It  proves  that  the  means 
are  never  considered  so  long  as  they 
seem  to  make  possible  the  carrying 
out  of  the  orders. 

In  Bavaria,  as  in  Hungary,  Bolshe- 
vist propaganda  made  possible  the 
temporary  establishment  of  a  com- 
munist Government.  In  Munich,  as 
in  Budapest,  war-weariness  and  hun- 
ger prepared  the  ground.  In  Bavaria 
propaganda  pointed  to  the  insincerity 
and  the  failures  of  the  German  Social- 
Democratic  Government.  It  played  on 
the  fact  that,  although  the  war  was 


over,  living  conditions  were  growing 
worse  instead  of  better,  and  insinu- 
ated that  the  Entente  intended  treach- 
erously to  destroy  Germany  through 
starvation,  since  it  had  been  unable 
to  obtain  a  real  military  decision.  It 
again  appealed  to  narrowly  national- 
istic feelings,  already  irritated  by  the 
obviously  centralizing  tendencies  of 
Weimar,  by  pointing  out  the  danger 
of  a  bitter  military  domination  of 
Bavaria  by  Prussia,  by  saying  that 
communism  would  mean  the  complete 
severance  of  Bavaria  from  the  Ger- 
man realm  and  consequent  freedom 
from  the  State's  share  of  the  German 
war  debt.  Outside  of  the  cities  no 
one  was  convinced  by  these  argu- 
ments, and  Bavaria,  being  more  gen- 
erally intelligent  than  Hungary  and 
far  more  accessible  to  information 
from  outside,  tolerated  its  Bolshevist. 
Government  for  only  a  few  days. 

In  Switzerland  radical  propaganda 
has  two  distinct  phases :  that  actually 
directed  against  the  Federation  and 
that  sent  into  Switzerland  or  manu- 
factured in  Switzerland  for  purposes 
of  foreign  distribution.  Except  in 
Basel  and  Zurich,  industrial  centres, 
the  extreme  Socialist  following  is 
small  and,  with  the  restoration  of 
something  approaching  normal  eco- 
nomic conditions,  it  will  still  further 
decrease,  unless  communism  should 
gain  temporary  sway  in  surrounding 
countries.  The  increase  of  the  num- 
ber of  seats  gained  by  the  Socialists 
in  the  recent  elections  is  not  an  indi- 
cation of  party  growth  but  is  the 
natural  result  of  a  change  in  the  elec- 
tion laws.  The  Socialist  party  itself 
defeated  by  an  overwhelming  popular 
vote  the  proposal  to  join  the  Third, 
or  Moscow,  International.  Among  the 
Swiss  themselves  propaganda  clever- 
ly accentuates  every  misunderstand- 
ing between  federal  and  cantonal 
authority;  it  aims  at  creating  jeal- 
ousies between  the  French,  German, 
and  Italian  speaking  populations  of 
the  various  cantons;  it  suggests  to 
the  townspeople  that  the  farmers  and 
dairymen  are  withholding  food,  and 
to  the  countryfolk  that  the  towns  are 
trying  to  force  the  sale  of  foodstuffs 
at  prices  ruinous  to  the  producers. 
All  this  has  had  little  effect,  however, 
and  when  orders  were  issued  to  turn 


Januaiy  24,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


the  Basel  strikes  into  an  insurrection, 
failure  was  immediate  and  complete. 
Switzerland  has,  on  the  other  hand, 
been  less  successful  in  its  endeavor 
to  prevent  the  country  from  becom- 
ing a  centre  for  the  distribution  of 
propaganda.  In  spite  of  drastic  laws 
and  thorough  inspection  at  the  fron- 
tiers, quantities  of  literature  are 
brought  in,  and  quantities,  printed  in 
Switzerland,  are  sent  out  into  France 
and  Italy.  It  is  also  only  fair  to 
Switzerland  to  admit  that  much 
literature  with  the  imprint  of  Basel 
or  Berne  was  actually  printed  in  Ger- 
many. (This  was  recently  proved  in 
the  case  of  a  pamphlet  intended  to 
create  disturbances  in  Alsace.) 

A  keener  edge  is  put  on  propa- 
ganda  in   France   by  references  to 
Germany  intended  to  incite  national- 
istic feelings  or  to  irritate  by  com- 
parisons.     For  example,  this  from 
another    order    that    was    probably 
actually  prepared  in  Germany :  "It  is 
essential  to  make  clear  to  our  com- 
rades, especially  to  those  who  have 
had  only  a  little  instruction,  that  the 
victory  of  the  Entente,  that  is,  the 
victory  of  imperialism  and  capitalism, 
places  the  Latin  worker  in  a  position 
inferior  to  the  German."     It  is  fair 
to  say,  however,  that  although  this 
sort  of  thing  may  appeal  to  some  few 
people    in    France— and    the    recent 
elections  seem  to  emphasize  the  nar- 
rowness of  the  appeal— the  country 
ias  a  whole  is  too  well  aware  of  the 
continuing  German  danger,  too  con- 
scious that  it  is  the  negation  of  those 
principles  for  which  France  has  suf- 
fered so  bitterly,  to  be  seriously  af- 
fected now.     Only  if  France  should 
lose  the  cordial  support  of  England 
and  America,  might  it  be  willing  to 
experiment  with  another  revolution. 
Bolshevist  propaganda  in  Germany 
is  exceedingly  difficult  to  estimate. 
How  much  of  this  propaganda,  how 
many  of  the  secret  orders  come  from 
Russia,  and  what  proportion  origi- 
lates    in    the    German    communist 
3arty?    It  seems  clear  that  the  Ger- 
nan  Reds  are  less  formally  under 
)rders  from   Moscow  than   are  the 
^eds  of  the  smaller  adjoining  coun- 
ries,  also  that  their  association  is 
lore  intimate.     It  is  the  expressed 
'Pmion  of  Moscow  that  Germany,  in 


[79 


securing  a  Socialist  Government,  has 
progressed  further  than  other  coun- 
tries, and  that  the  benefits  resulting 
from    this    modified    Socialism    will 
make  the  people  demand  more  and 
more.     Lenin  knows,  also,  that  the 
Germans    consider    themselves    the 
"original  Socialists"  and  that  obvi- 
ous interference  from  outside  would 
offend  their  pride  of  proprietorship 
of  the  idea.    He  can,  therefore,  only 
point  out  that  it  is  the  Independent 
Socialists  who  hold  fast  to  the  doc- 
trines of  Marx  in  their  pristine  pur- 
ity.   This  party  was  and  is  the  hope 
of  the  Bolsheviks.    Under  the  leader- 
ship of  Hugo  Haase,  it  proved  im- 
possible to  lure  the  Independents  as 
a  party  to  the  extreme  left.     After 
Haase    was    killed,    the    extremists 
gained  control,  and  during  its  recent 
convention  the  Independent  Socialist 
party  went  over  bag  and  baggage 
to    the    communists.      This    action 
establishes    in    Germany    a    strong, 
recognized  Bolshevist  bloc,  a  party- 
grouping  pledged  to  the  Third  Inter- 
national    and     having     the     closest 
affiliation    with    Moscow,    a    group 
believing  in  direct  action  and  in  the 
dictatorship  of  the  proletariat  on  the 
Russian  model. 

The  probable  effect  on  Germany 
need  not  be  discussed  here  except  to 
note  that  the  political  situation  be- 
comes more  explosive  and  that  at  the 
same  time  the  more  conservative,  re- 
constructive parties  have  exchanged 
for  a  hidden  and  secretive  foe,  one 
who  must  in  the  future  fight  in  the 
open.     There  is  probably  no  formal 
or    binding   understanding    between 
the  Berlin  and  the  Moscow  Govern- 
ments.    When  the  German  Govern- 
ment wishes  to  communicate  with  the 
Soviet  it  does  so  through  a  group 
of    former    German    prisoners    con- 
verted to  Bolshevism  and  now  living 
in  Moscow.     These  men  are  a  con- 
venient medium  because  they  have 
no    recognized    diplomatic    standing 
and  can  be  repudiated  if  need  arises ; 
but  they  are   sufficiently  official  to 
satisfy  the  Soviet.      Through  them 
Lenin  corresponds  with  the  German 
Government,  but  how  far  that  Gov- 
ernment consciously  plays  into  his 
hands  and  how  far  it  is  his  dupe  is 
an  open  question.    Germany  is  obvi- 


ously trying  to  steer  a  middle  course 
that  will  leave  it  the  friend  of  Rus- 
sia, whatever  the  outcome  of  the  Rus- 
sian internal  struggle.    When  a  gov- 
ernment is  as  weak  as  is  the  present 
German  Government,  a  middle  course 
is   generally    not   actually   this    but 
rather  an  erratic  veering  from  one 
side  to  the  other  of  the  stream.    So 
the  German  ship  of  state  sails  in 
meaningless  zigzags  because  there  is 
no  competent  helmsman.  Its  captains 
—for  they  are  many  and  all  inefficient 
—publicly  refused  to  comply  with  the 
Entente  request  for  a  blockade  of 
Soviet  Russia.  At  the  same  time  they 
supported  the  formation  of  an  Army 
in  Courland  to  attack  Soviet  Russia 
and    then    permitted    that    army- 
stated,  of  course,  to  be  insubordinate 
—to  attack  the  Letts  at  a  moment 
when    the    attack    necessitated    the 
withdrawal  of  Esthonian  forces  from 
the   anti-Bolshevist   front   of  Yude- 
nitch,  just  when  the  situation  was 
critical  for  the  Soviet.    German  offi- 
cers in  the  Ukraine  assisted  Petlul-a 
to  attack  the  rear  of  Denikin  just  as 
Denikin  was  driving  the  Bolsheviks 
back  on  Moscow.  There  are  two  really 
strong  groups  in  Germany,  the  reac- 
tionaries and  the  communists.     On 
international  policy  they  are  at  op- 
posite poles,  but  so  far  as  Russia  is 
concerned  it  is  often  expedient  for 
them  to  unite.  The  communists  want 
to  aid  the  Soviet  on  principle;  the 
reactionaries  are  willing  to  aid  the 
Soviet  whenever  there  seems  a  chance 
that  forces  of  law,  order,  and  democ- 
racy, favorable  to  the  Entente,  may 
definitely  secure  peace  and  stability 
for  the  country.    Between  these  two 
forces   the   German   Government   is 
helpless  and  bewildered.     In  propa- 
ganda, also,  the  two  extremes  co- 
operate.   The  communists  freely  re- 
ceive,   manufacture,    and    distribute 
their  propaganda  in  Germany,  where 
the     reactionaries    feel     themselves 
strong  enough  to  combat  it ;  and  the 
reactionaries  assist  the  communists 
in  their  distribution  of  propaganda 
and  secret  orders  abroad,  because  it 
is  in  the  interest  of  all  Germans  to 
cause   industrial    unrest   in    foreign 
countries. 

In  the  United  States,  as  well  as  in 
Europe,  this  propaganda  is  active. 


80] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  37 


Even  the  orders  of  the  Soviet  reach 
our  radical  chiefs  and  are  interpreted 
as  seems  expedient  at  the  moment. 
Last  summer  a  circular  was  issued 
giving  a  detailed  programme  of  dis- 
orders in  this  country.  A  steel  strike 
was  to  take  place  in  October;  this 
was  to  be  followed  by  a  coal  strike  in 
November    and    a    sudden    railroad 
strike  in   December.      The  circular 
stated    frankly   that   this   series   6f 
strikes  would  cause  such   suffering 
and    consequent    disorders    that    by 
Februarj-  the  country  would  be  ripe 
for  insurrection  against  a  "capitalist 
government"  unable  to  prevent  such 
deplorable  conditions.     The  circular 
•was  not  dictated  by  Moscow,  because 
the  Russians  are  willing  to  leave  de- 
tails to  their  lieutenants,  but  it  might 
well  have  been,  because  it  contained 
nothing  whatever  beyond  the  purely 
destructive  philosophy  of  the  Soviet. 
In  the  way  of  Bolshevist  propaganda 
the  United  States  suffers  from  an 
influx   of   Russian    ideas   sedulously 
propagated  by  German  agents.    Our 
pro-Bolsheviks  disclaim  the  accusa- 
tion   of    pro-Germanism,    but    how 
many  of  them  can  be  found  who  did 
not  hinder  recruiting,  who  did  not 
condone — or  deny,  as  being  more  con- 
venient— the    German    atrocities    in 
Belgium?  Forwaerte,  the  mouthpiece 
of  the  German  Government,  recently 
stated  that  it  was  important  for  Ger- 
many to  destroy  competition  by  creat- 
ing industrial  unrest  abroad,  "espe- 
cially   in   England   and   the   United 
States."    Lenin  said  a  few  days  ago 
that  the  communist  system  could  not 
at  this  time  be  permanently  estab- 
lished in  a  largely  agricultural  coun- 
try  like   Russia,   but  that   its   real 
future    lay    in    the    more    educated, 
highly  industrial  nations  of  the  west. 
The  Soviet  admits  that  it  wants  peace 
primarily  so  as  to  be  able  to  send  its 
propagandists  freely  to  all  parts  of 
the  world. 

We  in  America  are  too  prone  to 
sigh  with  relief  when  a  few  Reds  are 
arrested,  and  perhaps  deported,  and 
to  think  that  this  is  sufficient.  A  few 
individuals  are  of  little  enough  im- 
portance in  the  face  of  a  determined 
propaganda,  carried  on  with  Russian 
fanaticism  and  German  thorough- 
ness; a  propaganda  that  is  insidious. 


cleverly  compounded  of  truth  and 
lies,  fashioned  to  make  its  s  ecial 
appeal  wherever  there  is  sentim  atal- 
ity  or  distress.  To  save  itself  and  to 
save  civilization  the  American  Gov- 
ernment must  steer  a  firm  course  be- 
tween reaction  and  capitulation.  It 
must  not  be  a  zigzag  middle  course 
like  that  of  the  German  Government, 
but  straight,  with  the  pilot  eternally 
vigilant,  with  its  route  carefully 
charted,  with  its  aim  so  clearly  de- 
fined that  all  the  people  may  approve 
and  support  it  in  every  crisis. 

The    Bolsheviks    have    one    great 
argument.    It  is  this :  "The  war  has 
cost   the    world    over   two   hundred 
billion  dollars.  Perhaps  five  per  cent, 
of  this  amount  has  been  paid  for. 
The  rest  of  the  war  was  fought  on 
credit.    It  will  take  the  world,  espe- 
cially the  poor  people  of  the  world,  a 
hundred  years  to  pay  off  this  enor- 
mous debt.    This  means  sorrow,  suf- 
fering, incessant  labor.     Bolshevism 
will  wipe  all  debts  from  the  slate. 
The  world  can  begin  afresh  a  new, 
finer  life  of  justice."    What  wonder 
that  this  appeals,  that  there  are  Bol- 
shevist agents  in  all  lands  who  can 
elaborate  these  themes !  And  only  the 
man  who  thinks  on  a  groundwork  of 
robust  intelligence  understands  that 
the  plan,  if  carried  out,  would  lead 
the  world  back  to  the  times  of  the 
cave-dwellers,  that  with  the  crash  of 
credit  would  come  also  the  crash  of 
civilization  with  all  that  it  has  given 
us  of  good  as  well  as  of  bad — the  end 
of  education,  of  art,  of  literature,  of 
everything  that  makes  life  attractive 
to  rich  or  poor. 

I  went  into  a  bookshop  the  other 
day  to  get  a  magazine.  It  was  one  of 
those  little  highbrow  bookshops  that 
have  recently  sprung  up  in  our  cities, 
the  kind  that  has  nothing  for  the 
tired  business  man,  that  deals  only 
in  books  with  a  moral — generally  a 
very  bad  moral.  I  asked  for  the 
Review.  The  polished  proprietor  re- 
gretted that  he  did  not  keep  it.  He 
offered  me  the  New  Republic  but  I 
told  him  that  I  was  tired  of  Bolshevist 
propaganda.  He  looked  a  little  disap- 
pointed and  offered  me  the  World  To- 
morrow, a  journal,  as  he  pointed  out, 
that  is  working  for  a  Christian  world. 
I  took  it  because  I  had  never  heard 


of  it.  The  first  article  I  read  was  a 
defense  of  Bolshevism — in  a  journal 
working  for  a  Christian  world! — a 
defense  of  a  system  which  prohibits 
the  Bible  because  the  Bible  dares  to 
speak  of  God  as  a  being  superior  to 
man.  This  was  a  trivial  thing  but 
deeply  suggestive.  We  Americans 
must  defend  ourselves  not  only 
against  the  blatant  propaganda  of  the 
yellow  press  but  against  the  far  more 
insidious  propaganda  of  the  highbrow 
bookshop.  Russian  fanaticism,  Ger- 
man thoroughness,  working  together, 
the  one  actuated  by  idealism  gone 
stark  mad,  the  other  by  selfish  ma- 
terialism ! 

Examiner 

The  Government  of. 
India  Act 

Now   that   a  semblance   of  peace 
has    superseded    the    European 
state  of  war,  the  attention  of  the 
world  is  turning  towards  that  part 
of  the  globe  the  control  of  which  was 
the  deeper-lying  cause  of  the  conflict. 
Germany's  support  of  Austria  in  the 
Balkans  was  dictated  by  the  wish  to 
secure  for  herself  a  firmly  guarded 
corridor  to  Constantinople  and  Asia 
Minor  through  which  Berlin  was  to 
launch  its  trains  for  the  far-off  goal : 
Bagdad.    Once  in  control  of  that  Bal- 
kan route  and  with  Turkey  reduced 
to  a  vassal  state,  she  saw  the  way 
open,  via  Bagdad,  into  Persia  and 
India,  for  German  enterprise  and  po- 
litical   expansion.     And    while   thus 
stretching  one  tentacle  across  Tur- 
key and  Persia  towards  Great  Brit- 
ain's Asiatic  possessions,  she  hoped 
to   lay   another   on   the    Netherland 
East  Indies  by  forcing  the  kingdom 
of  Holland  to  become  merged  in  the 
super-state  of  Middle-Europe.  Fried- 
rich  Naumann,  in  estimating  the  fu- 
ture   area    of    that   economic   state, 
arrived  at  an  extent  of  about  9.3  rail- 
lion  square  kilometres,  "if  we  claim 
all  European  and  Asiatic  Turkey  and 
venture  to  count  in,  to  a,  it  is  true, 
somewhat  arbitrary  extent,  the  over- 
seas    possessions     of     neighboring 
states  which  have  not  yet  joined  us." 
Thus,  in  the  last  resort,  the  world 
war   was   a   struggle   between   Ger-| 


January  24,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[81 


many  and  England  for  the  economic 
control  of  India. 

The  danger,  though  averted  by 
England's  victory,  has  during  its 
long  imminence  aggrandized  another 
since  long  astir  vi^ithin.  The  intel- 
lectual elite  of  the  native  population 
did  not  withhold  its  support  from  the 
Government,  but  it  reckoned  on  a 
fair  return  for  its  loyalty  in  exten- 
sion of  its  share  in  the  government 
of  the  country.  The  danger  was  not 
in  the  necessity  of  complying  with 
that  request,  but  in  the  unrest  which 
insistence  upon  it  aroused  among 
the  totally  ignorant  and  politically 
immature  masses,  which  echoed  with 
less  patience  and  no  comprehension 
of  the  difficulties  involved  in  the  de- 
mands of  their  political  leaders. 

The  Government  of  India  Act  is 
intended  to  meet  these  wishes  for 
home  rule.  It  is  not  extorted  from 
the  Government,  as  the  tendency  to- 
wards granting  the  native  element 
political  responsibility  was  manifest 
before  1914.  In  the  Netherland  East 
Indies,  whose  native  population  could 
not  base  its  claim  of  self-rule  on  any 
deserving  role  played  in  the  war,  the 
Dutch  Government  has  anticipated 
the  British  by  the  introduction  of  a 
transitional  form  of  administration. 
The  war  has  only  in  so  far  influenced 
the  legislative  procedure  as  it  has 
accelerated  its  course. 

It  would  require  much  space  to 
give  a  detailed  comparison  of  the  dif- 
ferent ways  in  which  the  British  and 
the  Netherland  Governments  intend 
to  inaugurate  a  democratic  form  of 
colonial  administration.  The  Dutch 
plan  is,  obviously,  modelled  on  the 
parliamentary  system  at  home;  the 
British  one  has  no  counterpart  in  do- 
mestic institutions  and  seems  an  orig- 
inal attempt  to  initiate  self-rule  by 
setting  up  a  dual  form  of  administra- 
tion, nicknamed  Dyarchy  by  its  op- 
ponents. 

The  Hollanders  have  created  a 
People's  Council  (Volksraad),  the 
majority  of  which  is  appointed  by 
the  Government,  the  native  minority 
being  elected  by  an  extremely  limited 
electorate,  the  members  of  the  provin- 
cial and  local  councils,  who  themselves 
are  mostly  appointed  by  the  Govern- 
ment.    This  "Volksraad"  is  one  day 


to  become  the  legislative  power  of 
Indonesia,  but  in  its  probation  pe- 
riod it  is  entrusted  with  only  an  ad- 
visory function.  It  is  consulted  on 
the  budget  and  appropriation  bills, 
on  the  negotiation  of  loans,  the  im- 
posing of  military  duties,  and  on  all 
questions  on  which  the  Governor- 
General  deems  it  desirable  to  hear 
the  Council.  The  former,  in  draw- 
ing up  the  provisional  budget,  is 
obliged  to  abide  by  the  Council's  ad- 
vice; it  is  only  the  Minister  of  Colo- 
nies and  the  Parliament  at  home 
which,  in  the  last  resort,  may  disre- 
gard it. 

This  primitive  frame-work  for  the 
construction  of  a  central  autono- 
mous government  of  the  future  is  a 
copy,  on  a  larger  scale,  of  the  provin- 
cial and  local  councils  inaugurated 
in  1903  with  a  view  to  turning 
the  provinces  and  the  larger  local 
communities  into  semi-autonomous 
organisms.  In  these,  as  in  the  Volks- 
raad, there  are  appointed  and  elected 
members  whose  function  is  limited 
to  the  control  of  the  budget  and  ap- 
propriations. It  is  in  these  local 
councils,  first  of  all,  that  the  native 
will  be  educated  to  the  knowledge  of 
political  administration  and  a  sense 
of  his  personal  responsibility  for  the 
conduct  of  affairs  which  is  involved 
in  his  new  right  to  control  them. 

The  Government  of  India  Act, 
which  has  recently  passed  through 
the  two  Houses  of  Parliament,  is  a 
much  more  radical  scheme  in  so  far 
as  it  gives  the  native  element,  at  the 
outset,  an  active  part  in  the  adminis- 
tration. It  splits  the  Government  in 
each  province  into  two  sections:  on 
the  one  hand,  the  Governor  with  his 
official  colleagues  in  executive  council, 
on  the  other,  the  Governor  with  Min- 
isters drawn  from  the  legislative  as- 
sembly. To  the  former  will  be  re- 
served the  administration  of  the 
heavier  duties  of  the  state,  such  as 
the  maintenance  of  law  and  order, 
and  those  functions  which  require  a 
great  deal  of  technical  knowledge 
from  the  functionaries,  such  as  the 
administration  of  universities,  in- 
dustries, harbors,  land  revenue,  for- 
ests, irrigation.  To  the  other  section 
will  be  transferred  the  remaining 
duties,  such  as  the  control  of  local 


bodies,  primary  education,  sanita- 
tion, agriculture,  excise,  roads,  and 
bridges.  The  Governor  will  be  the 
link  between  the  two  sections  of  his 
Government,  and  has  the  difficult 
task  devolved  on  him  of  seeing  to  it 
that  the  two,  while  each  remains  fully 
responsible  within  its  own  sphere, 
shall  collaborate  with  a  common  pur- 
pose and  an  harmonious  policy.  After 
a  ten  years'  trial,  a  parliamentary 
committee  will  go  out  to  India  and 
advise  on  the  success  of  the  experi- 
ment. If  its  report  is  favorable,  fur- 
ther subjects  will  be  transferred  to 
Ministers.  And  so  the  process  will 
go  on  until  full  responsible  govern- 
ment is  established,  the  official  half 
of  the  administration  disappears,  and 
the  transitional  system  of  dualism  is 
superseded  by  a  unified  popular  ad- 
ministration. The  Act  further  pro- 
vides for  a  two-chamber  system  of 
legislature  at  Delhi,  and  abolishes  the 
maximum  of  eight,  and  most  of  the 
statutory  qualifications,  for  the  Vice- 
roy's executive  council,  with  a  view 
to  a  larger  appointment  of  Indian 
members. 

The  success  of  these  reforms  de- 
pends largely  on  the  attitude  of  the 
native  intellectual  leaders.  On  their 
side,  there  must  be  an  earnest  will  and 
endeavor  to  cooperate  with  the  Eu- 
ropean officials  in  the  task  of  educat- 
ing their  own  people  to  a  clear  sense 
of  what  this  incipient  measure  of 
autonomy  involves.  Criticism  of  the 
new  course,  both  in  Holland  apd  in 
England,  is  chiefly  based  on  a  disbe- 
lief in  the  necessary  support  from 
that  side.  The  masses  are  ignorant 
and  wholly  incapable  of  realizing  that 
reforms  of  this  nature  can  not  be 
brought  about  with  the  miraculous 
swiftness  of  an  Arabian  Night  meta- 
morphosis. Ambitious  leaders  can 
acquire  an  easy  popularity  by  refus- 
ing to  remind  their  followers  of  the 
necessity  of  a  probation  period.  In 
both  the  Netherland  and  British 
Colonies  there  are  extremists  who 
clamor  for  a  speedy  and  complete 
surrender  of  the  Government  to  the 
Indians. 

"Insulinde,"  a  strong  organization 
of  radical  nationalists  in  Java,  has 
much  in  common  with  the  left  wing 
of    the    British  Indian  Home  Rule 


82] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  37 


League,  which  condemned  the 
Chelmsford-Montagu  reform  scheme 
before  it  could  even  have  taken  cog- 
nizance of  its  bearings.  In  the  In- 
dian National  Congress  held  in  Delhi 
in  December,  1918,  where  the  Ex- 
tremists were  all-powerful,  great  im- 
patience was  displayed  at  speeches  in 
English,  and  the  tone  of  the  discus- 
sions was  one  of  defiance.  The  mod- 
erates, who  realize  that  an  immediate 
assumption  of  full  responsibility  of 
government  would  lead  to  chaos,  have 
their  own  organization  in  the  Na- 
tional Liberal  League,  a  political 
counterpart  of  the  Javanese  "Boedi 
Oetomo"  (Noble  Aspiration).  But 
neither  group  has  such  a  strong  hold 
on  the  masses  as  have  the  extremists 
of  the  Home  Rule  League  and  Insul- 
inde.  Both  are  always  more  likely  to 
veer  round  towards  radicalism  under 
pressure  from  below  than  the  radi- 
cals are  to  be  brought  to  moderation. 
The  British  Indian  leaders  made  a 
move  in  the  direction  of  the  extrem- 
ists' views  when,  in  reply  to  Lord 
Chelmsford's  statement  that  "we 
have  carried  the  advance  right  up  to 
the  line  beyond  which  our  principles 
forbid  us  to  go,"  they  declared  the 
proposed  reforms  to  be  "an  irreduci- 
ble minimum." 

The  Mohammedan  population  of 
British  India,  organized  in  the  All 
India  Moslem  League,  had  a  twofold 
reason  for  opposing  the  scheme.  In 
the  first  place,  they  were  afraid  of 
Hin(}u  domination  after  the  reforms 
had  been  introduced,  and,  secondly, 
the  "Young"  Mohammedan  elements 
saw  in  opposing  them  a  welcome 
means  of  wreaking  vengeance  on 
Great  Britain  for  the  humiliation  of 
Turkey  and  the  Sultanate.  Loyalty 
to  the  Caliph  thus  made  them  allies 
of  the  Hindu  Home  Rule  Leaguers, 
the  very  party  whose  domination  they 
feared.  In  the  Malay  Archipelago, 
with  its  preponderantly  Mohamme- 
dan population,  the  "Sarekat  Islam" 
(Islamic  Union)  is  not  withheld  by 
any  fear  of  Hinduism  from  giving 
its  support,  though  by  no  means  un- 
qualified support,  to  the  Netherland 
Government's  reform  programme. 
The  British  Colonial  Government, 
therefore,  is  faced  with  a  more  diffi- 
cult task,  the  problem  how  to  edu- 


cate the  people  to  autonomy  being 
crossed  by  the  no  less  difficult  ques- 
tion how  to  do  this  without  sharpen- 
ing religious  jealousies.  The  distinc- 
tions of  caste  are  an  additional  cause 
of  trouble  to  the  Government  at 
Delhi.  The  Non-Brahmin  Commun- 
ity of  Southern  India  feared,  as  a 
consequence  of  the  proposed  reforms, 
a  reimposition,  with  all  its  ancient 
weight,  of  the  yoke  of  the  Brahmins, 
whose  ambitions  are  voiced  by  the 
Home  Rule  League. 

These  are  the  conflicting  forces — 
race  hatred,  religious  intolerance, 
caste  antagonism — which  have  to  be 
reconciled  by  one  system  of  legisla- 
tive reform.  It  is  only  natural  that 
many  English  at  home  and  in  India, 
realizing  that  no  law,  however  per- 
fect, could  ever  successfully  cope  with 
that  task,  are  anxiously  inquiring 
whether  the  continuance  of  the  old 
bureaucratic  system  would  not  have 
been  preferable  to  this  democratic 
departure,  which,  if  it  fails  to  answer 
the  natives'  expectations,  will  cause 
more  discontent  and  unrest  than  the 
approved  administration  is  responsi- 
ble for.  The  riots  of  Amritsar  and 
Ahmedabad,  the  culmination  of  a 
long  campaign  of  discontent  and  race 
hatred,  are  ominous  symptoms  of 
what  will  happen  if  disappointed 
illusions  should  look  towards  Soviet 
Russia  for  their  realization. 

However,  it  would  have  been  wrong 
policy,  unworthy  of  the  British  Em- 
pire, either  to  give  in  to  the  wildest 
demands  of  native  demagogues  in 
order  to  take  the  wind  out  of  the  Bol- 
shevist sails,  or  to  refuse  to  the  Mod- 
erates the  inch  they  justly  claim  from 
a  fear  lest  the  extremists  should  take 
an  ell.  To  admit  a  fear  of  having 
one's  justice  abused  is  only  a  confes- 
sion of  weakness.  It  requires  less 
strength  and  courage  to  deny  a  just 
demand  than,  having  granted  it,  to 
stem  any  attempt  to  take  undue  ad- 
vantage of  the  concession.  It  was  not 
fear,  but  rather  self-reliance,  which, 
in  the  course  of  the  debate  on  the 
second  reading,  made  Mr.  Montagu, 
the  father  of  the  Act,  tell  the  House 
of  Commons  that  "You  dare  not  and 
ought  not  to  do  less  than  we  propose 
in  this  Bill." 

A.  J.  Barnouw 


Correspondence 

What  Shall  We  Do  to  Be 
Saved  ? 


To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

The  present  political  outlook  is  cer- 
tainly not  encouraging.  Both  of  the 
great  parties  are  so  deficient  in  real 
leadership  as  to  make  them  appear  al- 
most hopeless.  All  of  the  bungling  of 
the  party  in  power  is  met  by  equal,  if 
not  worse,  bungling  by  the  opposition. 

Even  citizens  who  were  ardent  sup- 
porters of  the  Democratic  party  are 
greatly  dissatisfied  with  its  conduct  of 
affairs.  It  has  shown  great  faults  and 
shortcomings  in  handling  larger  matters, 
and  at  every  point  where  the  administra- 
tion of  affairs  touches  the  individual  it 
has  been  bungling  and  stupid  beyond  be- 
lief, and  constantly  irritating.  The  policy 
almost  appears  to  be  to  make  it  as  hard 
as  possible  for  the  individual  to  live  with 
his  Government. 

If  one  may  judge  from  the  talk  of  the 
average  man,  regardless  of  political 
affiliations,  the  country  is  eagerly  and 
impatiently  awaiting  the  opportunity  for 
a  change.  But  where  can  we  look  for 
improvement?  Certainly  not  to  the  Re- 
publican party,  unless  some  miraculous 
change  shall  take  place  in  its  leadership, 
and  there  is  at  present  no  evidence  in 
sight  of  any  tendency  in  that  direc- 
tion. 

Thoughtful  citizens  are  in  a  great 
dilemma.    What  shall  we  do  to  be  saved? 

I  have  been  able  to  see  but  one  hope, 
and  that  is  to  nominate  Herbert  Hoover 
on  an  Independent  ticket.  Mr.  Hoover, 
it  seems  to  me,  could  unite  the  conscience 
and  intelligence  of  the  country,  and 
could  draw  enough  votes  from  both  par- 
ties to  be  sure  of  an  election ;  and,  if 
elected,  would  be  free  to  draw  upon  the 
best  and  most  capable  elements  of  both 
parties  for  the  support  of  his  Adminis- 
tration. Mr.  Hoover  seems  to  be  the 
one  man  in  sight  who  would  be  likely  to 
give  our  present  problems  the  sane  con- 
sideration which  they  need;  he  is  the 
one  man  in  the  public  eye  whose  every 
word  and  act  has  been  thoroughly  sane; 
who  commands  the  respect  and  admira- 
tion of  the  entire  world,  and  who  has 
to  his  credit  what  is  perhaps  the  great- 
est piece  of  administrative  work  in  his- 
tory. 

I  was  an  ardent  supporter  of  Mr. 
Wilson  in  his  first  campaign,  and  should 
have  voted  for  Hughes  at  the  last  elec- 
tion, had  his  conduct  during  the  cam- 
paign permitted  it.  As  it  was,  I  re- 
frained from  voting,  for  the  first  time 
in  my  life  in  a  Presidential  election. 

M.  L. 
Philadelphia,  January  16 


January  24,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[88 


No  Pilot  at  the  Wheel 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

For  several  months  our  country  has 
had  a  chief  executive  in  name  only;  is 
it  not  time  that  we  provided  ourselves 
with  one  in  fact?  Since  the  President 
was  struck  down  in  the  early  fall  he 
has  seen  almost  no  one  but  his  wife,  his 
doctor,  and  his  private  secretary.  We  do 
not  know  the  nature  of  his  affliction.  We 
do  not  know  what  reports  of  the  state  of 
the  nation  are  made  to  him.  But  we 
do  know  beyond  all  doubt  that  the  coun- 
try is  entering  upon  a  critical  period  of 
its  history  which  even  threatens  the 
stability  of  its  form  of  government;  the 
ship  of  state  meanwhile  is  drifting 
through  these  perilous  waters  with  no 
one  at  the  wheel.  Dr.  Grayson  tells  us 
the  President  is  progressing  steadily. 
We  all  hope  that  he  is;  but  let  us  not 
delude  ourselves  into  thinking  that  he  is 
likely  ever  to  recover  completely  from  his 
stroke.  ■  Rest  and  freedom  from  strain 
of  all  kinds  may  in  time  bring  back  the 
semblance  of  normal  health,  but  nothing 
can  restore  the  vigor  of  mind  and  body 
needed  to  meet  the  coming  struggle.  Let 
us  consider  frankly :  can  the  Government 
continue  much  longer  without  a  chief? 
,1,  for  one,  doubt  it.  The  Constitution 
provides  for  such  an  emergency.  Let  us 
avail  ourselves  of  this  provision. 
I  Francis  Rogers 

'New  York,  January  6 

Queries  Concerning  the 
"Social  Unit" 

jTo  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

!    The  article  "The  Social  Unit  at  Cin- 

pinnati,"  and  your  remarks  thereon,  are 

'ertainly  thought-provoking.     I  find  one 

)r  two  matters  of  rather  fundamental 

mportance  on  which  Mrs.  Tiffany  gives 

!io  information.     Is  the  Social  Unit  a 

epresentative   government,    or    do    the 

'oters  have  direct  control?     That  is,  do 

he  seven  members   of  each   "Council" 

lave  a  fixed  term  of  office,  or  are  they, 

ike  the  Soviet  delegates,  bound  by  threat 

'f  "recall"  to  carry  out  the  behests  of 

^heir  constituents  ?    And  have  those  who 

sit  on  the  Central  Citizens'  Council"  a 

'  xed  term  of  office,  giving  them  a  reason- 

ble  freedom  to  use  their  own  (presum- 

bly)  expert  knowledge,  or  are  they  bound 

y  threat  of  "recall"  to  carry  out  the 

olicies  of  the  "Councils"  that  elected 

|hem?    And  the  same  question  may  be 

flised  in  regard  to  the   "Occupational 

iouncils."  If  the  latter  alternative  is  the 

me  one,  the  Social  Unit  is  not  repre- 

'Jntative  government,  and  is  against  the 

hole  spirit  of  our  political  order.    We 

1  not  mean  to  govern  directly  by  the 

aople;   we— in  theory   at   least — select 

)ecially  qualified  men  to  govern  us,  and 


agree  to  abide  by  their  judgment, 
making  them,  of  course,  responsible 
in  the  end  to  the  people.  Ours 
is  a  compromise-system  between  rule  by 
the  expert  and  pure  democracy,  or  rule 
by  the  people;  and  its  virtue  lies  in  this 
compromise  character.  But  if  the  So- 
cial Unit  gives  no  independent  power  to 
its  elected  Councils,  then  it  would  seem 
to  be  uncompromising,  unqualified  de- 
mocracy, and  essentially  like  the  Soviets 
— omitting  the  class-war  and  murderous 
methods.  And  if  that  is  the  case,  it 
would  be  potentially  a  thing  of  evil;  for 
it  would  kill  the  very  spirit  of  leadership 
and  independent  thought  which  it  pro- 
fesses to  foster.  We  hear  much  of  com- 
munity spirit,  community  organization, 
and  the  like,  in  these  days,  and  we  must 
beware  lest  these  things  become  a  fad 
and  fashion,  blindly  accepted  because  of 
their  humanitarian  or  democratic  color. 
Let  us  have,  as  you  put  it,  "a  careful 
study  of  possible  tendencies  and  pur- 
poses." And  accordingly  I  (and  doubt- 
less many  others)  would  be  glad  to  be 
informed  on  the  above  points. 

WiLMON  H.Sheldon 
Hanover,  N.  H.,  January  9 

Intervention  in  Mexico 

To  the  Editors  of  THE  Review: 

One  of  the  most  puissant — and  vener- 
able— arguments  against  American  in- 
tervention in  Mexico  is  that  the  rest  of 
the  Latin-American  nations  will  say:  "I 
told  you  so.  See !  The  Monroe  Doctrine 
is  a  sham;  the  Americans  are  hypo- 
crites." 

And  yet,  when  we  intervened  in  Cuba, 
they  said  the  same  thing.  When  we 
withdrew  from  Cuba,  they  were  dumb- 
founded. They  could  not  understand 
American  altruism,  or,  better,  enlight- 
ened self-interest.  There  must  be  some 
hidden  motive  for  such  an  extraordinary 
phenomenon. 

Our  second  intervention  (to  restore 
order)  explained  the  whole  situation. 
Of  course  it  was  a  grab  game,  cunningly 
camouflaged  by  a  temporary  retirement. 
"I  told  you  so,"  again. 

Our  final  retirement  from  Cuba  prob- 
ably has  never  been  understood  by  the 
Latin-American  mind.  That  a  powerful 
nation  should  voluntarily  and  in  accord- 
ance with  its  word  of  honor  relinquish 
conquest  was  to  them,  and  many  other 
nations,  it  must  be  confessed,  inconceiv- 
able. Yet  it  is  an  historical  fact.  The 
United  States  did  retire  from  Cuba  after 
assisting  her  to  self  government,  did 
intervene  to  restore  order,  and  after 
order  was  restored,  did  retire  and  leave 
the  Cubans  to  govern  themselves  so  long 
as  they  should  refrain  from  revolutions. 
We  insisted  that  ballots  rather  than 
bullets  should  decide  who  was  to  be  the 
next  President  in  Cuba.    Voild,  tout! 

Expressed  in  the  crudest  terms  the 


attitude  of  the  United  States  towards 
Cuba  has  been  about  this:  "You  have 
our  best  wishes.  Go  ahead  and  govern 
yourselves.  We  will  guard  you  against 
outside  interference.  We  look  to  you  to 
be  decent  in  internal  affairs.  If  you 
start  a  roughhouse,  we  shall  turn  the 
hose  on  you.    Adids,  amigos." 

We  intervened  in  Cuba  because  the 
political  conditions  of  our  next  door 
neighbor  were  an  intolerable  nuisance. 
We  abated  the  nuisance  and  then  re- 
tired, retaining  the  right  to  abate  a 
similar  nuisance  should  occasion  require. 
Those  are  the  plain  historical  facts. 

Since  the  days  of  Porfirio  Diaz  politi- 
cal conditions  in  Mexico  have  been  a 
nuisance  which  we  have  tolerated  for 
the  sufl!icient  reason  that  we  have  been 
otherwise  occupied.  International  obli- 
gations have  been  openly  and  flagrantly 
disregarded,  contracts  broken  with  the 
most  sinister  disregard  of  alien  rights, 
systematic  persecution  of  American  na- 
tionals fomented.  As  far  back  as  1907 
and  1909  when  I  was  living  in  Mexico  I 
could  see  the  German  machinations 
against  American  trade,  American  con- 
cessions, and  American  citizens. 

Shibboleths  and  formulas  have  a  tre- 
mendous effect  on  the  human  mind.  But, 
after  all,  a  formula  expresses,  often  im- 
perfectly, public  opinion  or  aspiration 
formed  on  existing  conditions.  But  con- 
ditions in  this  world  are  constantly 
changing,  and  the  formula  of  yesterday 
does  not  always  fit  the  conditions  of  to- 
day. In  strict  accordance  with  our 
ancient  and  favorite  political  formulas, 
what  right  had  we  to  impose  the  Piatt 
Amendment  on  the  Cubans?  What  right 
to  interfere  and  restore  and  compel  law 
and  order  in  the  affairs  of  San  Domingo 
and  Hayti?    Clearly  none  at  all. 

And  thus  doubtless  we  shall  sooner  or 
later  be  compelled  to  ignore  ancient  for- 
mulas and  to  interfere  in  Mexico  to  re- 
store order  and  respect  for  international 
obligations.  The  task  of  control  of  the 
country  will  be  enormous,  and  recon- 
struction still  more  difficult.  A  fanatical 
crew  akin  to  our  ante-bellum  pacifists 
will  raise  a  howl  and  will  invoke  ancient 
gods.  But  in  the  end  Mexico  will  be  in 
the  condition  of  Cuba,  peaceful,  prosper- 
ous, and  self-governing.  It  will  be  worth 
the  price.  In  the  beginning  the  Latin- 
Americans  will  raise  their  eyebrows,  will 
shrug  their  shoulders  and  say,  "I  told 
you  so.  The  Yankees  are  hypocrites ;  the 
Monroe  Doctrine  is  a  camouflage  for  ag- 
gression." But  when  we  go  out  of 
Mexico  without  confiscation  of  territory, 
the  Latin-American  perhaps  will  begin 
to  understand  that  the  United  States 
really  means  what  we  say  and  that  there 
is  no  hypocrisy  about  us.  The  lesson  to 
the  rest  of  the  world  will  be  of  incalcu- 
lable value  in  international  affairs. 

E.  L.  G.  Morse 
Chicago,  III,  December  26,  1919 


84] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  37 


Book  Reviews 

The  Tragedy  of  von  Tirpitz 

My  Memoirs.  By  Grand  Admiral  von  Tirpitz. 
In  tTo  volumes.  New  York:  Dodd.  Mead 
&  Company. 

THE  bright  red  dress  of  these  volumes 
was  not  appropriately  chosen.     The 
color  belongs  not  to  the  mood  or  the 
words  of  Admiral  von  Tirpitz,  sitting  in 
sorrow  at  Zabelsberg  and  penning  the 
recollections  of  a  disappointed  life,  as  it 
looks  through  the  clouds  of  the  past  five 
years     A  better  dress  would  have  been 
the  twilight  gloom  of  an  overcast  sea, 
with  a  bedraggled  German   flag  for  a 
cover  design,   flapping  on   a  mast-head 
peering  out  of  the  brine  of  Scapa  Flow, 
over  the  grave  of  a  German  dreadnought. 
In  the  first  fifteen  chapters,  the  author 
traces  his   own  history   from   boyhood, 
through  the  Naval  Cadets'  Institute,  to 
officer's  rank  in  the  navy,  and  on  through 
increasingly  responsible  commands,  with 
growing  influence,  until  at  the  outbreak 
of  the  war,   in   1914,  he  was  not  only 
Grand  Admiral  of  the  German  navy,  but 
more  than   any    other   single   man   the 
creator  of  that  navy  as  it  then  stood.    He 
had  developed  the  torpedo  arm,  and  he 
had  been  the  most  powerful  factor  in  the 
victorv  of  the  "battle  fleet"  policy  over 
that  of  a  fleet  of  cruisers.    Back  in  the 
'eighties,  he  had  been  in  close  touch  with 
his  kinsman  Caprivi,  then  at  the  head 
of  the  Admiralty,  whose  constant  state 
of  mind  he  sums  up  in  the  words,  "Next 
year  we  shall  have  a  war  on  two  fronts. 
And  thev  had  planned  together  how  von 
Tirpitz  was  to  run  a  torpedo  division 
into  Cherbourg  the  moment  war  was  de- 
clared,  to  be  followed   at  once  by  the 
battle   fleet    and    a   bombardment.      By 
training  and  temperament  he  was  fully 
prepared  to  be  a  leader  in  actual  war. 
And  at  last  "the  war,"  always  lying 
as  a  possibility  just  under  the  horizon, 
loomed  up  into  view.    From  that  moment 
on,  von  Tirpitz  sees  in  the  official  con- 
duct of  his  country  little  but  a  continued 
succession  of  deadly  blunders.    The  war, 
he  thinks,  could  and  should  have  been 
avoided.     Germany  had  all  but  reached, 
without  war,  the  point  where  it  would 
have  required  no  war  to  establish  and 
maintain  her  supremacy— in  other  words, 
though  he  is  careful  not  to  put  it  in 
just  that  form,  the  point  where  she  could 
have  dominated  the  world  by  making  it 
prohibitively  dangerous  for  any  nation, 
or  feasible  combination  of  nations,   to 
challenge  her  power.    The  superman  was 
just  about  to  have  his  superiority  gen- 
erally admitted.    And  just  at  that  point, 
the  superman  began  the  four-year  series 
of  blunders  and  follies  and  general  in- 
efficiency which  finally  saw  the  German 
army  hastening  back  to,  and  over,  the 
Bhine,  with  the  Allied  forces  at  its  heels, 


the  HohenzoUern  dynasty  shattered,  the 
Emperor  an  exile,  and  the  fleet,  the  pride 
of  the  Grand  Admiral's  life,  wallowing 
beneath  the  waves  of  Scapa  Flow,  sunk 
in  bitterness  and  littleness  of  spirit,  by 
its  own  commanders. 

Though  holding  that  Germany  blun- 
dered into  a  war  which  by  wise  diplo- 
macy she  could  have  averted,  he  is  still 
quite  sure  that  the  guilt  of  bringing  on 
the  war  belongs  elsewhere.     "The  com- 
plete absence  of  instinct  with  which  the 
Chancellor  proceeded"  was  not  so  grave 
an  oif  ense  against  international  morality, 
in  his  view,  as  "the  vagueness  of  Eng- 
land's   attitude    during    the    crisis,"    a 
vagueness   persisted   in  by   the  British 
Cabinet,  "though  it  was  well  aware  of 
Bethmann's  love  of  peace  and  his  whole 
nature."     Of  course  this  means  that  if 
England  had  made  it  certain  that  she 
\vould  be  a  participant,  Germany  would 
have  avoided  the  conflict.    But  did  any- 
body outside  of  Germany  doubt,  during 
those  days  of  crisis,  that  if  the  storm 
was  allowed  to  break  England  was  sure 
to    be    there?      The    judgment    of    wn 
Tirpitz    against    England    is    that    "the 
ca^lia  rcmota  of  the  world  war  lies,  ac- 
cording to  the  judgment  of  all  honest 
observers  of  European  events— the  Bel- 
gian Ambassador,   for   example— in   the 
English    policy    of    encirclement  'which 
originated    in    the    'nineties    in    trade 
jealousy,     then     hid     behind     pretexts 
(Transvaal,   Navy),   poisoned  the  press 
of  the  world,  linked  up  all  the  anti-Ger- 
man forces  in  the  world,  and  created  a 
tense  atmosphere  in  which  the  slightest 
mistake  could  cause  a  most  terrible  ex- 
plosion."    All  this,  if  true,  would  prove 
a  very  high  degree  of  efficiency  in  that 
nation  which  the  superminds  of  Berlin 
had  so  often  pictured  as  hopelessly  effete. 
But  the  war  once  irrevocably  let  loose. 
Admiral  von  Tirpitz  is  sure  that  the  one 
and  only  correct  policy  required  an  im- 
mediate attack,  in  full  force,  upon  the 
British  fleet.    Delay  meant  loss  of  pres- 
tige to  the  navy  outside,  loss  of  morale 
within,    and    steady    gain    in    relative 
strength  to  the  British.     Furthermore, 
is  not  the  history  of  naval  warfare  full 
of   instances   in  which  the  lesser  fleet, 
better     managed,     has     conquered     the 
greater?     But  from  start  to  finish  his 
advice  was  not  taken,  he  could  not  get 
the  confidence  of  authorities  higher  up, 
he  had  no  freedom  of  action,  not  even 
the  poor  privilege  of  resigning  his  official 
station  and  taking  his  humiliation  and 
chagrin  out  of  the  public  gaze.     "Here 
I  sit  and  do  nothing!"  he  wails  again  and 
again,  all  the  more  bitterly  because  of 
his    unshakable   confidence    in   his   own 
ability  to  make  things  go  better.     "Has 
Ingenohl   the    genius    of    a   conqueror? 
Pohl  certainly  hasn't.     .     .     .  Obviously 
the   Kaiser    is   prejudiced    against    me. 
Apropos  of  which  I  feel,  where  these 
questions  are  concerned,  that  I  have  more 


in  my  little  finger  than  Pohl  in  his  whole 

anatomy."  ^  4.  n  . 

The   submarine  warfare  was   fatally 
mismanaged,  he  thinks,  at  every  point. 
It  was  a  bad  blunder  to  shock  America 
with  such  an  act  as  the  sinking  of  the 
Lusitania  at  the  start.    American  opinion 
should  have  been  worked  up  gradually 
to  the  point  where  it  could  have  stom- 
ached such  strong  food  without  revulsion. 
But,  the  blunder  once  made,  there  should 
have  been  no  drawing  back,  or  even  ap- 
parent admission  that  any  real  wrong 
had   been   committed.      The   submarine 
campaign  should  have  begun  with  some- 
thing which  it  could  really  accomplish, 
such    as   the  blockade   of   the   Thames, 
which  he  officially  advised.    But  "I  was 
not  consulted  at  all"  he  says,  "the  cam- 
paign being  started  over  my  head  and 
against  my  will,  and  in  a  form  which 
did  not  promise  success."     The  ground 
yielded  to  Wilson  in  the  Sussex  note  was 
the  beginning  of  German  capitulation; 
"from  the  time  of  this  decision  we  went 
downhill."    And  when  the  submarine  was 
again   taken   up  with  vigor,   it  was  ar 
equal  blunder,  for  it  ivas  then  too  late. 

The  Admiral  sees  little  but  gloom  ai 
he  peers  into  Germany's  future.     He  ii 
unable  to  "shake  off  the  fear  that  Ger 
many  has  lost  her  last  chance  of  risinj 
to  the  rank  of  a  great  power."    At  an; 
rate,  she  must  first  "come  to  her  sense 
and  recognize  her  old  traditions  and  th 
forces  which  made  her  great."     But  h 
can   not   believe   that   this   can   happe 
under  a  republican  government.      "Ou 
breakdown  is  not  due  to  any  defects  i 
our  old  state  system,  but  to  the  inad( 
quacy  of  the  persons  who  tried  to  ru 
it."    But  those  inadequate  persons— an 
they   appear  to  have  been   all  but  tl 
Admiral  himself,  in  his  own  judgment- 
were  brought  to  their  positions  by  tl 
normal  working  of  that  old  state  sy 
tern;  so  there  you  are.     Human  natu 
evolves  a  race  of  supermen,  and  organiz 
them  into  a  superstate,  only  to  tear  tl 
latter  down  through  the  blundering  i 
efficiency  of  the  former. 

These  volumes  are  intensely  interes 

ing,  mistaken  to  the  point  of  absurdi 

sometimes  in  judging  of  outside  mattei 

but  richly  profitable  as  a  study  of  t 

state  of  mind  that  plunged  Germany  in 

a  war  which  that  same  state  of  mi 

made  it  impossible  that  the  world  shoi 

ever  allow  her  to  win.     The  tragedy 

von  Tirpitz,  doomed  to  see  his  own  li: 

work,  without  fruition,  sink  in  dishor 

beneath   the   brine   of    Scapa   Flow, 

merely  a  replica  in  little  of  the  m( 

stupendous  tragedy  of  modern  Hohenz 

lernism.     Fame  and  fortune  await  \ 

dramatist  who  has  the  genius  and  co 

age  to  break  away  from  present  drama 

habit,  and  put  either  the  lesser  or  ' 

greater  of  these  two  tragedies  into 

form  which  Aeschylus  or  Sophocles  wo 

have  chosen. 


January  24,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[85 


Sensitivism 

Ecstasy  :  A  Study  ok  Happiness.  By  Louis 
Couperus.  Translated  by  Alexander  Teix- 
eira  do  Mattos.  New  York:  Dodd,  Mead 
and  Compan\'. 

September.  By  Frank  Swinnerton.  New  York : 
George  H.  Doran  Company. 

"T?CSTASY"  considerably  antedates 
Hi  the  four  "Books  of  the  Small  Souls," 
by  Couperus,  which  have  recently  been 
rendered  into  English  by  Mr.  de  Mat- 
tos. It  is  the  third  of  his  novels,  written 
in  the  early  nineties  when  he  was  con- 
sciously one  of  a  school  of  Dutch  novel- 
ists who  styled  themselves  "sensitivists." 
An  English  (or  English-writing)  critic 
of  the  time  defined  this  "sensitivism"  of 
theirs  as  "a  development  of  impression- 
ism grafted  upon  naturalism."  Stepping 
delicately  away  from  this  slough  of 
-isms,  after  a  hasty  acknowledgment  of 
its  depth,  let  us  look  at  our  small  res- 
cued object.  It  belongs  to  the  period  of 
languid-intense  ingenuities,  of  over-ripe 
ffistheticism  to  which  the  term  "deca- 
dence" attached  itself.  Holland,  like 
France  and  England,  was  bored  with  the 
usual  thing,  the  ordered  tempestuous- 
ness  of  the  romantic  mode  as  well  as  the 
ordered  beauty  of  the  classic  mode. 
There  remained  the  relatively  unex- 
ploited  beauties  of  dubiety,  ugliness,  and 
decay,  flickeringly  illumined,  in  default 
of  any  constant  star,  by  phosphorescent 
gleams  of  emotional  and  temperamental 
yearning  towards  the  unattainable.  Cou- 
perus' people  impress  us  first  with  their 
unescapable  fellow-humanity.  Dutch  in 
name  and  tongue  and  habitat,  they  are 
in  substance,  in  their  real  being, 
strangely  familiar.  Friends?  neighbors? 
Cousin  this  or  that?  Why,  ourselves! 
Ourselves  ingeniously  denuded  and  ex- 
posed to  minor  but  persistent  torments, 
suffering  subtly  but  intensely;  creatures 
held  in  life  as  in  a  cage,  by  ties  of  blood, 
social  convention,  personal  habit.  Selves 
by  no  means  despicable,  yet  rarely  able 
either  to  seize  a  bold  happiness  or  to 
rise  above  plaintiveness  and  self-devour- 
ing melancholy  to  the  higher  tragic 
plane.  "Small  Souls" — such  are  the 
beings  by  whom,  in  Couperus'  eyes,  the 
modern  world — that  is,  the  end-of-the- 
century  world — was  peopled. 

In  "Ecstasy"  he  has  not  yet  developed 
the  later  formula  whereby  his  sensitiv- 
ism, though  it  never  leaves  the  scene, 
does  yield  the  foreground  to  a  realism 
less  feverish  and  somewhat  more  robust. 
There  is  a  brooding  plaintiveness  in  all 
of  Couperus'  work.  The  only  happiness 
he  can  apprehend  is  a  happiness  of  illu- 
sion; and  it  is  of  this  kind  of  happiness 
that  the  present  novel  is  a  study.  It  is 
a  story  of  two  persons.  The  woman  is 
by  chance  a  widow  with  two  children, 
but  still  "unawakened;"  a  girl  dreaming 
contentedly  enough  of  she  knows  not 
what:  "It  was  the  dreaming  of  one  on 
whose  brain  lay  no  obsession  either  of 


happiness  or  of  grief,  the  dreaming  of 
a  mind  filled  with  peaceful  light;  a  wide, 
still,  grey  Nirvana,  in  which  all  the 
trouble  of  thinking  flows  away  and  the 
thoughts  merely  wander  back  over  form- 
er impressions,  taking  them  here  and 
there,  without  selecting."  She  languidly 
cares  for  her  children,  reads  a  little, 
keeps  a  diary  in  which  are  luxuriously 
recorded  her  tiny  emotional  and  aesthetic 
reactions.  But  day-dreaming  is  her 
chosen  state:  "I  only  feel  myself  alive 
when  I  am  doing  nothing,"  she  confesses, 
with  a  tolerable  degree  of  complacency. 
Now,  of  course,  all  a  young  woman  in 
this  mood  needs  is,  as  it  were,  the  jolt 
of  love.  Our  Cecile  gets  it  at  the  hands 
of  the  masterful  Quaerts.  In  their 
matching  of  egotism,  active  and  passive, 
he  wins,  hands  down.  For  him,  over- 
experienced  in  carnal  love,  a  spiritual 
passion  chances  to  be  in  order;  poor 
Cecile  is  to  be  both  its  object  and  its 
victim.  She  takes  too  literally  his  pro- 
testations of  disinterested  idealism,  and 
throws  away  the  real  man  in  order  to 
keep  the  empty  phantom  of  his  worship. 
All  this  in  a  strain  of  well-nigh  excru- 
ciating sensibility,  or  should  we  say  sen- 
sitivity?— a  sensibility  refined  and  intel- 
lectualized  to  the  point  of  deliberate 
self-torture. 

Henry  James's  method  (bred  of  the 
same  period)  was  akin  to  this,  though 
so  much  cooler  emotionally  and  keener 
intellectually;  and  so,  in  some  of  his 
work,  at  least,  is  the  method,  the  more 
characteristic  process,  at  least,  of  one  of 
England's  newest  among  "new  novel- 
ists," Frank  Swinnerton.  It  achieved  its 
own  kind  of  perfection  in  "Nocturne," 
which  seemed  to  sustain  its  extraordi- 
nary pitch  and  vibrancy  without  effort. 
In  "September,"  with  its  larger  scale 
and  necessarily  more  variable  mood,  the 
effect  is  less  certain.  Here  are  a  well- 
bred  English  pair,  fifteen  years  married, 
no .  longer  lovers,  and  not  yet  content 
with  wedded  friendship.  It  is  the  peril- 
ous "mid-channel"  phase  so  often  inter- 
preted in  recent  drama  and  fiction.  Are 
youth  and  its  happiness  really  past,  or 
may  not  one  more  taste  of  it  be  some- 
how snatched,  even  now,  from  unchari- 
table time?  The  husband  is  a  natural 
philanderer,  and  the  discovery  of  his  pas- 
sion, at  forty-nine,  for  a  young  girl, 
arouses  contemptuous  pity  rather  than 
any  more  poignant  emotion  in  the  wife. 
It  is  with  her  discovery  that  she  her- 
self is  capable  of  a  similar  lapse,  or  re- 
awakening, that  we  are  chiefly  con- 
cerned. At  thirty-eight,  with  her  beauty 
only  beginning  to  fade,  she  is  a  natural 
object  for  chivalrous  adoration  on  the 
part  of  an  imaginative  youth  of  twenty- 
six.  What  happens  in  the  end  to  these 
four  people  is  by  no  means  astonishing 
or  even  novel,  as  fact  and  fiction  go. 
The  real  action  takes  place  in  the  heart 
and  mind  of  the  wife  Marian.     In  her 


person,  as  it  were,  a  person  concealing 
beneath  its  notably  calm  and  even  cold 
surface  a  temperament  of  extreme  sensi- 
tiveness, we  suffer  the  quivering  torments 
of  a  passion  acknowledged  and  cher- 
ished, yet  never  revealing  itself  even  to 
its  object.  And  we  seem  to  share  her 
heroic  yet  inevitable  sacrifice  to  youth  and 
its  rightful  emoluments.  Mr.  Swinner- 
ton's  sensitivism,  if  the  term  may  prop- 
erly be  applied  to  him,  is  on  the  side 
of  the  angels.  Unlike  many  of  his  con- 
temporaries, he  does  not  throw  decency 
overboard  because  hypocrites  exist,  or 
exalt  impulse  over  principle.  This  is  a 
study  of  character  triumphing  over  tem- 
perament. His  concluding  sentences, 
with  their  frank  didacticism,  would  be 
unimaginable  from  a  Cannan  or  a  Mac- 
kenzie : 

Marian  was  now  very  composed  and  reso- 
lute, and  entirely  mistress  of  herself,  as  she 
had  always  been  and  as  she  always  would  be. 
She  had  been  able  to  feel  sympathy  and  under- 
standing because  she  had  the  power  to  give 
inexhaustibly;  but  her  reward  thenceforward 
was  to  lie  in  the  love  and  trust  of  her  fellows 
rather  than  in  any  satisfaction  of  her  own 
passion  for  happy  experience.  If  Marian  could 
have  prayed  for  a  gift,  she  would  have  de- 
manded joy  in  her  life.  Instead,  nature  had 
given  her  as  compensation  the  strength  and 
courage  to  endure  her  own  pain  and  the  ability 
to  imagine  and  soften  the  distress  of  others. 
If  it  is  not  the  first  of  gifts  it  is  among  those 
most  rarely  bestowed  upon  poor  mortals,  and 
is  without  price. 

H.  W.  BOYNTON 

Hard-Boiled  Poetry 

Yanks.  .A..  E.  F.  Verse.  Originally  published 
in  the  Stars  and  Stripes,  the  official  news- 
paper of  the  American  Expeditionary 
Forces.    New  York :  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons. 

TVTAR  brings  out  the  distinction  be- 
W  tween  "rare"  poetry  and  poetry 
hard-boiled.  Rare  poetry  is  precious.  Of 
hard-boiled  poetry  the  quality  is  not 
strained  nor  the  diction  restrained,  and 
it  falls  pitilessly  on  the  just  and  on  the 
unjust.  It  is  the  poetry  of  the  hard- 
boiled  guy,  who  accepts  only  that  which 
expresses  his  own  moods  and  experience 
in  his  own  phrase.  Since  as  a  rule  he 
does  not  swagger  gracefully  (he  is  apt 
to  be  muscle-bound),  such  sentiment  as 
it  has  is  usually  without  glamor  or  ro- 
mance. It  is  the  iron  ration  of  literature, 
warranted  to  withstand  any  climate  and 
all  the  exigencies  of  war  and  for  the  time 
being  to  sustain  emotional  life.  It  has 
no  pride  of  birth  nor  consciousness  of 
its  heritage.  Mr.  Kipling  achieves  it;  it 
eludes  Mr.  Serviss  as  an  ideal;  but  for 
the  most  part  it  emanates  from  men  who 
normally  scoff  at  the  very  name  of  poetry, 
which  they  give  to  everything  they  dis- 
like in  literature  and  then  kick  it  about 
the  floor— in  contradistinction  to  the  op- 
posite party  who  give  the  name  poetry 
to  whatsoever  they  love  and  discard  all 
else.  In  time  of  peace,  we  have  it  in 
cowboy  songs,  railroad  songs,  sailor 
chanteys   and   all   such,   but,   like  eggs 


86] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  37 


cooked  in  the  crater  of  the  volcano,  it  is 
at  its  best  when  it  tastes  like — war. 

"Yanks"  is  a  collection  of  the  hard- 
boiled  poetry  of  the  war,  and  as  such  it 
is  distinguished  from  other  anthologies 
of  war  poetrj'.  To  the  young  veteran 
the  first  pleasure  of  the  book  will  be  that 
of  the  fireside  return  to  the  memory  of 
hardship.  "Forsan  et  haec  olim  memi- 
nisse  juvabit"  was  a  frequent  mood  in 
the  A.  E.  F.,  usually  expressing  itself 
in  the  form  of  allusions  to  future  ses- 
sions about  the  cracker  barrel  and  the 
stove  of  the  comer  store,  or  in  rocking- 
chairs  on  the  veranda  "when  we  join 
the  Soldiers'  Home — A-h-h-men-n !"  In 
these  verses  the  "soldier  come  from  the 
war"  greets  old  friends  who  were  with 
him  in  the  thick  of  it.  He  recalls  where 
he  met  them  last,  not  long  ago,  to  be 
sure,  but  still  distant  enough  in  time  and 
space  to  have  become  part  and  parcel  of 
his  sentimental  past.  He  recalls  the  day 
when  the  Stars  and  Stripes  came  into 
camp.  He  always  tried  to  reach  the 
Y.  M.  C.  A.  hut  in  time  to  get  one,  and 
turned  first  to  about  page  7  for  Wall- 
gren's  comics,  then  to  page  4  for  the 
"Army  Poets" — then  it  would  be  "Say, 
fellows,  listen  to  this: 

Rations  ?  Oo-la-Ia !  and  how  we  love  the  man 
Who  learned   how   to   intern   our  chow   in   a 

cold  and  clammy  can.  .   .    . 
Mess  kits  flown  the  coop,  cups  gone  up  the 

spout ; 
Use  your  thumbs  for  issue  forks,  and  pass  the 

bull  about. 

Here  it  is  now  on  page  121 — and  here's 
the  one  Bill  had  pasted  up  in  his  bunk; 
and  here's  the  one  Mac  always  sprung 
when  you  tried  to  graft  anything  off 
him;  and  here's  the  one  Blondy  wrote 
and  would  never  have  sent  in  if  we 
hadn't  told  him  it  had  the  others  skun 
a  mile — and  look  at  it  now!  He  finds 
many  old  favorites,  but  looks  for  others 
in  vain.  Where  is  that  profound  truth 
about  a  chance  meeting  with  a  poilu 
which  ended 

rie  left  at  last  with  a  gay  "Bon  chancel" 
And  all  the  cigarettes  I  had? 

There  were  some  little  gasps  in  free 
verse  that  one  would  not  willingly  let  die : 

An'  she   (She's  my  girl) 
An'  she  said 

And  a  wail  about 

Sick  of  the  smell  of  billets, 

Sick  of  the  chow. 

Want  to   leave  France  and  put  on  long 

pants. 
Want  to  go  now ! 

Of  course  the  editors  could  not  print  all, 
but  if  they  could  have  taken  a  plebiscite 
of  the  readers  of  "The  Army  Poets" 
column  as  a  basis  for  their  selection, 
they  might  have  made  the  book  even 
more  interesting  than  it  is  to  both  reader 
and  student. 

The  mood  of  "Yanks"  is  the  mood 
of  the  A.  E.  F.,  serious  of  deed  and  light 
of  speech.  Sentiment  where  it  occurs  is 
first  of  all  sincere,  then  broken  across  by 


a  flash  of  realism  or  of  humor.  The 
bugler  who  can  no  longer  blow  taps  since 
he  played  his  buddy  off  ends  his  con- 
fession with  a  pun; 

I  can't  blow  taps  no  more  .    .    .  but  say  I 

I   tapped  a  German   skull   the  other  day, 

And  that  squares  me! 

It  shows  again  in  "Me — an'  War  Goin' 
on—" 

Me,   that  ain't  a   poet,   growin'   poetic  .    .   . 
Me- — a-murmurin'  a  prayer  for  Maggie, 
An'  stoppin'  to  laugh  at  Slim, 
.^n'  shoutin'  "To  the  right  of  the  road  for  the 

Swoi-zant-canze !" 
Them  babies  that  raise  such  hell  up  the  line, 
An'  marchin', 
."Vn'  marchin'  by  night. 
An'  sleepin'  by  day, 
An'  France, 
An'  red  wine,  ' 
An'  me  thinkin'  o'  home; 
Me — a-leadin'  a  column, — 
An'  war  goin'  on  I 

which  gives  us  also  the  rarer  mood  in 
which  the  conscious  artist  has  stepped 
outside  the  man  and  each  wonders  at 
the  other.  Again  we  find  the  artist 
conscious  but  not  self-conscious,  his 
mood  truly  lyric,  and  the  product  any- 
thing but  ballad-like: 

The  wise  years  saw  him  go  from  them. 

Untaught  by  them,  yet  wise ; 
He  had  but  romped  with  the  hoyden  years, 

Unwitting  how  time  flies ; 
Whose  laughter  glooms  to  wistfulness 

At  swift,  undreamt  good-byes. 

We  with  the  war  ahead, 

You  who  have  held  the  line, 
Laughing,  have  broken  bread, 

And  taken  wine. 

If  these  are  not  hard-boiled,  neither  are 
they  so  rare  as  one  might  suppose,  nor 
specially  significant.  A  body  of  men  like 
our  army  overseas  has  its  lyric  poets, 
and  its  scholars  as  well;  he  who  writes 
of  "The  Old  Overseas  Cap"  seems  to 
know  his  Marlowe  no  less  than  his 
Homer:  Helen  went  a.  w.  o.  1.  to  Paris, 
and 

Shipping  boards  gave  no  trouble  with  quarrels 

or  slips: 
The   beauty   of   Helen   had   launched   all   the 

ships. 

But  most  of  this  verse  is  like  folk-lore 
in  that  it  is  lyrically  anonymous,  express- 
ing none  but  communal  feelings  in  the 
communal  phrase.  There  is  little  of  the 
"hero  stuff,"  nothing  of  pomp  and  cir- 
cumstance. For  the  most  part  it  is  rou- 
tine turned  into  literature.  The  dough- 
boy finds  himself  in 

A  world  of 

Hizzing  (sic)  bullets, 

And   mustard  gas. 

And  cold,  sleepless  nights, 

And  no   food  for  days, 

And  huns  who  cried 

"Kamerad !" 

(When  their  ammunition  was  gone), 

And  filthy  clothes, 

And  cooties. 

And  cooties, 

And  cooties. 

There  he  expresses  in  racy  idiom  his  re- 
action to  the  things  that  are  real  to  him : 


reveille,  pie,  mud,  the  girl  at  home, 
camions,  corn-willy,  mother,  the  "8-40" 
train,  R.  T.  0.,  kid  sister,  the  bugler, 
the  guns,  the  censor,  the  campaign  hat, 
the  little  towns,  the  orphans  of  France. 
For  the  most  part,  it  was  the  folk  who 
made  the  poetry  of  the  army  in  France, 
and  if  students  of  balladry  do  not  collect 
and  study  the  product  they  miss  their 
opportunity.  The  editors  of  the  Stars 
and  Stripes  sifted  it  first  for  the  news- 
paper, and  now  again  for  the  book,  and 
for  the  general  reader  it  is  better  so. 
But  the  student  of  American  popular 
poetry  would  find  in  the  heap  of  chaff 
much  to  interest  him.  These  pieces  are 
homeless,  nameless,  parentless  waifs  and 
strays  that  drifted  through  camps  and 
trenches.  A  few  of  them  have  found 
their  way  into  print,  many  circulated 
in  manuscript,  others,  especially  the 
"high-kilted"  ones,  lived  in  memory  and 
passed  by  word  of  mouth,  and  the  col- 
lector gathered  them  as  best  he  could 
from  oral  rendition.  Songs  of  the  vari- 
ous branches  of  the  service  are  fairly 
well-known : 

The   Ordnance,   the   Ordnance,   we   play   with 

T.  N.  T. 
Dynamite  is  our  delight,  we  take  it  with  our 

tea; 
We  play  baseball  with  hand  grenades,  and  cans 

full  of  H.  E. 
We  all  drink  nitro-glycerine  when  we  go  on 

a  spree. 
There  are  those  which  celebrate  the  vari- 
ous organizations,  as  that  of  "The  Shock- 
ing 144th,"  which  declares  that  when 
the  news  of  its  arrival  in  the  trenches 
reached  Berlin 

All    the    Reichstag   tore   their   whiskers — 
"Mein  Gott !  the  beans  are  spilled  I" 

More  of  the  true  ballad  is  in  "The 
Koamer's  Romance  in  France,"  unsophisti- 
cated, though  with  occasional  journalistic 
turn  of  phrase,  as,  in  speaking  of  the 
heroine. 

We    need   not    describe    her   beauty,    for    her 

looks  were  rare  to  find, 
As  her  eyes  reflected  loveliness  were  smiling 

as  they  shined. 
Her  appearance   favored  America's   type,   for 

not  many  years  before 
She  had  resided  there  and  journeyed  here  in 

the  early  days  of  war. 

As  an  example  of  such  sentiment  as  hard- 
boiled  poetry  allows  itself,  we  have  the 
lyric  burst  which  ends 

Just  kindly  remember  wherever  you  roam 
That   Shakespeare  was   right,   kid,   there's   no 

place  hke  home. 
or 

Why  keep  me  feeling  lonesome,  why  keep  me 

feeling  blue, 
When  you  know  that  the  thing  that  will  cheer 

me  up  is  only  a  line  from  you? 

Probably  none  exceeded  in  popularity 
that  which  described  how 

With  vigorous  hop  we  go  over  the  top 
In  the  terrible  Battle  of  Paris  .   .   . 

But   say,   on   the   square,   I'd   rather  be   there 
On  the  Somme,  on  the  Marne,  or  at  Arras ; 

For  with  vin  blanc  a  snootful  itis  hard  to  be 
neutral 
In  the  famous  Battle  of  Paris. 


Jamian-  24,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[87 


From  veterans  of  the  battle  this  senti- 
ment receives  hearty  endorsement ; 

Why   six   months   here   with   conscience   clear 

would  surely  rate  the  Legion ; 
Eight  months  or  so  the  D.  S.  C.   for  fighting 

in  this  region. 
Of  medals  known   for  war  alone  you've  seen 

the  great  selection ; 
If  we  survive  the  female  drive  we'll  rate  the 

whole  collection. 
All  was  grist  that  came  to  the  mill,  from 
the  medical  officer's  prescription, 

"Here's  a  cure  for  all  your  ills, 
(Iodine  and  C.  C.  pills). 
Just  take  this  and  you'll  feel  fine 
(C.  C.  pills  and  iodine)." 
down  to  the  discharge  papers : 

As  Willy-with-the-Wallops. 

As  Boy-that-Took-a-Chance, 
You  put  a  dozen  scallops 

In  Kaiser  Billy's  pants   .    .    . 
And  so  we  do  not  need  you, 

'Tis  sad,  hut  even  so ; 
It  cost  a  lot  to  feed  you, 

And  we  must  let  you  go. 
So,  knowing  this  condition. 
And  with  a  silent  sob, 
We  hand  you  our  permission 
To  hustle  for  a  job. 
In  such  as  these,  there  is  little  of  high 
seriousness,  but  they  ring  true,  and  that  is 
what  they  have  in  common  with  the  best 
of  the  verses  in  "Yanks."     It  is  fitting 
to  close  with  lines  from  Pvt.  Baukhage's 
"November  Eleventh,"  the  last  poem  in 
the  volume. 

We  stood  up  and  we  didn't  say  a  word ; 

It  felt  just  like  when  you  have  dropped  your 

pack 
After  a  hike,  and  straightened  up  your  back 
And  seem  just  twice  as  light  as  any  bird.  .  .   . 

If  you  had  listened  then  I  guess  you'd  heard 
A  sort  of  sigh  from  everybody  there. 
But  all  we  did  was  stand  and  stare  and  stare. 
Just  stare  and   stand  and  never   say  a  word. 

Though  this  stands  above  the  level  we 
may  accept  it  as  true  to  type,  for  unde- 
niably it  is  hard-boiled,  and  beyond  ques- 
tion it  is  poetry. 

Robert  P.  Utter 

The  Art  of  the  Etcher 

Etchers  and  Etching.  Chapters  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  art,  together  with  technical  ex- 
planations of  modern  artistic  methods.  By 
Joseph  Pennell.  (The  Graphic  Arts 
Series.)     New  York :    The  Macmillan  Co. 

"TO"  PENNELL  is  nothing  if  not  al- 
,1  ways  interesting,  instructive,  stim- 
ulating— and  combative.  These  qualities 
are  in  evidence  whether  he  is  engaged  in 
a  newspaper  controversy  or  writing  a 
book  of  technical  and  historical  instruc- 
tion such  as  the  present  one.  Aggres- 
siveness in  the  service  of  one's  beliefs 
may  be  an  exceedingly  useful  quality, 
and  it  often  is  with  Mr.  Pennell.  But  it 
may  also  engender  a  temperamental 
habit,  with  a  suspicion  of  querulousness, 
which  runs  to  the  facile  picking  out  of 
minor  errors  (as  in  the  remark  re  W.  C. 
Brownell  on  page  6)  and  to  a  disconcert- 
ing want  of  coherence,  of  balance.  And 
the  obvious  is  at  times  stated  with  the 
aplomb  of  a  challenge. 


Our  author  tells  us  that  he  has  often 
been'  criticised  for  making  statements 
strongly,  but  that  if  one  writes  "what 
one  knows  and  believes,  one  cannot 
write  too  strongly."  Quite  true,  and 
that's  just  why,  when  all  is  said,  one 
would  not  have  missed  reading  the  his- 
torical portion  of  this  book.  But  writ- 
ing strongly  is  different  from  proving  a 
point  by  a  downright  inconsistency.  In 
one  place,  Diirer's  "Cannon"  and  Rem- 
brandt's "Three  Trees"  are  contrasted  in 
order  to  make  a  comparison  between 
etching  and  engraving.  Mr.  Pennell 
hastens  to  admit  that  "some  say  The 
Cannon  is  etched,  not  engraved."  But  he 
continues:  "To  me  it  looks  like  an  en- 
graving. Feels  like  it."  Then,  on  page 
145,  comes  the  serene  statement:  "The 
Cannon  is  said  to  be  engraved,  but  I 
have  the  courage  to  doubt  it — the  line  is 
so  vital,  so  superb."  Of  course,  the  mat- 
ter is  really  of  no  consequence,  and  the 
Dlirer  plate  will  be  enjoyed  one  way  or 
the  other. 

Elision  of  names  from  the  list  of 
etchers  worthy  of  a  place  in  the  book 
has  been  practised  to  a  point  described 
in  a  statement  overheard:  "There  is  no 
god  but  Jim,  and  Joe  is  his  prophet." 
However,  the  author's  iconoclasm  usually 
has  some  basis  of  reason,  even  if  not 
fundamental.  One  cheerfully  under- 
scores objection  to  the  over-rating  of 
artists  of  the  past  whose  chief  distinc- 
tion is  their  antiquity.  But  to-day,  also, 
etching  is  to  more  than  one  an  all  too 
facile  affair.  Here,  too,  to  use  Whis- 
tler's phrase,  art  is  "chucked  under  the 
chin"  by  the  passing  artist-gallant. 
That's  the  trouble  with  not  a  little  etch- 
ing to-day.  Such  passing  flirtation  will 
not  disclose  the  finer  nature  of  etchir<^ 
to  the  artist. 

Mr.  Pennell's  preface  is  a  true  over- 
ture; it  sounds  the  keynote  of  the  opus 
that  follows.  One  notes,  with  satisfac- 
tion, the  admonition  to  the  student  to 
start  "by  looking  at  good  art  intelli- 
gently." That  is  the  best  sort  of  advice. 
Good  hand-books  are  necessary  for  him 
who  looks  for  guidance  in  the  appreci- 
ation of  etching.  They  help  him  "get 
there"  (if  they  are  the  right  kind),  as 
the  guide-book  does  the  traveler.  But 
the  ultimately  necessary  thing  is  to 
see  for  oneself.  Montaigne's  dictum  is 
applicable  here,  too:  "A  mere  bookish 
learning  is  a  poor,  paltry  learning."  In 
a  postscript  to  the  preface,  written  at 
the  end  of  the  four  years  during  which 
publication  was  held  up  by  the  war,  Mr. 
Pennell  states  a  fact  which  many  do  not 
yet  realize — that  new  inspiration  in  art 
is  not  to  be  hoped  for  from  the  war. 

It  was  to  be  expected  that  so  very  able 
a  craftsman  would  lay  due  stress  on  the 
qualities  of  the  medium,  on  the  funda- 
mental necessity,  for  the  artist,  of  un- 
derstanding its  limits  and  possibilities. 
"A  work  of  graphic  art,"  said  Bracque- 


mond,  "must  bear  on  its  face,  undis- 
guised, the  character  of  the  technique 
by  which  it  was  produced."  That  is  a 
truth  which  well  bears  repetition,  and 
Mr.  Pennell's  inevitable  insistence  on  it 
naturally  leads  to  the  second  and  rather 
more  important  part  of  his  book.  In 
that  he  places  the  rich  fruit  of  his 
knowledge  and  experience  before  the 
etcher,  offering  him  a  technical  guide  of 
real  value.  Processes  and  tools  (ground- 
ing, re-grounding,  needles,  biting,  print- 
ing, ink,  paper),  allied  processes  such  as 
aquatint,  sand-paper  method,  mezzotint, 
monotypes,  are  described  in  a  practical 
and  helpful  manner,  illuminated  by  the 
author's  illustrations.  There  are  divert- 
ing whacks,  aside,  at  the  "system"  of 
trials  and  states,  as  also  at  cataloguers 
and  curators  and  other  little  things  that 
get  in  Mr.  Pennell's  way. 

The  proofreading  has  apparently  been 
carefully  done,  and  the  book  does  not 
show  the  typographical  errors  which 
marked  both  editions  of  the  very  useful 
volume  on  "Lithography"  in  this  same 
series. 

As  a  piece  of  book-making  the  volume 
bears  evidence  of  great  care,  and  the 
reproduction  of  the  prints  (the  photo- 
gravures are  all  carefully  credited  to 
F.  A.  Ringler  &  Co.)  is  exceedingly  well 
done — an  American  achievement  that 
need  not  fear  European  competition,  and 
that  fills  one  with  a  pardonable  satisfac- 
tion. 


The  Run  of  the  Shelves 

MISS  DOROTHY  SCARBOROUGH  is 
a  porcher.  "Porcher"  is  a  new 
word.  Why  should  not  the  English  lan- 
guage put  forth  a  new  tendril,  particu- 
larly when  it  is  engaged  in  the  vine-like 
function  of  twining  ornamentally  around 
porches?  Miss  Scarborough  divides  her 
time  between  New  York  and  Virginia. 
If  any  one  complains  that  New  York  is 
uncomfortable  and  'Virginia  unexciting, 
the  answer  is  plain :  Miss  Scarborough's 
comfort  in  New  York  is  to  idolize  Vir- 
ginia, and  her  excitement  in  Virginia  is 
to  abominate  New  York.  She  has  writ- 
ten a  book.  The  instant  disquiet  which 
that  solemnity  called  a  book  awakens  in 
all  right-minded  people  is  allayed  by  the 
publishers  (G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons  of  that 
City  of  Destruction,  New  York)  in  a 
note  which  affirms  that  the  book  is  a 
"book  of  whimsy,"  and  that  the  author 
"loafs."  Other  comforts  await  us  in  the 
"Foreword."  It  makes  one's  mouth 
water  to  be  told  that,  the  book  has  been 
"written  with  tongue  acheek."  It  breaks 
every  rule  of  "unity,  coherence,  and  con- 
tinuity," as  all  books  that  have  virtue 
enough  to  be  wicked  should  do.  Rules 
are  like  those  paper-filled  hoops  in  the 
circus  whose  only  end  and  aim  is  to  show 
the  dash  and  grace  of  the  equestrienne 


88] 


THE  REVIEW 


as  she  plunges  headlong  through  their 
ruptured  tissue. 

Miss  Scarborough  is  the  most  amiable 
of  women.     She  has   angers   now   and 
then,  but  they  are  only  the  irresistible 
little  rages  of  a  golden-hearted  person 
whose  slumbers  on  the  porch  have  been 
interrupted  by  love-parleys  on  the  part 
of     inconsiderate    young    people.     She 
loves  Virginia  (its  beauty  "wrings"  her 
heart);  she  loves  landscape;   she  loves 
birds;  she  loves  even  reptiles,  at  which 
word  the  shy  reviewer  lifts  his  head  m 
proud  reciprocation  of  her  smile;   she 
loves  negroes;  she  loves  negro  songs,  and 
their  pleasant,  glistening  lines  strew  her 
pages  like  streaks  of  maple  syrup  on  the 
hot  cakes,  smoking  from  the  griddle  of 
which  this  toothsome  book  undoubtedly 
consists.     Speaking  of  eating— but  who 
can  speak  of  eating  but  Miss  Scarbor- 
ough?    She  eats  on  the  porch  where, 
amid  other  viands,  she  "devours  the  dew- 
washed  morning."     "The  joyous  birds 
slip  singing  down  (her)  throat,"  like  Gi- 
rondists singing  on  the  way  to  execu- 
tion.   She  recommends  that  the  inspira- 
tion of  poets  should  be  gastric,  and  her 
playfulness  on  the  nourishment  of  corpses 
is  simply  irresistible.    "The  city  person 
is  dead  when  he  eats,  and  a  corpse  never 
does   properly   assimilate  his  victuals.' 
But  this  is  not  enough.     As  if  to  add 
the  last  touch  of  diabolic  completeness 
to  her  equipment  for  the  bewitchment 
and  bedevilment  of  her  kind,  she  eats 
slices  of  tvatermelon  in  her  bath. 

The  examples  already  given  suffice  to 
prove  that  Miss  Scarborough  is  the  jol- 
liest   person  left    on    this    woe-begone 
planet.     Her  book   is   a   "joyous,   irre- 
sponsible jumble"  of  things  she  likes, 
and  she  has  frisks  and  pirouettes  that 
are  inimitable.     "Lucia  is  the  kind  of 
girl   for   whom   everybody   likes   to   do 
things— particularly     trousered     every- 
body."    Such  archness  and  such  discre- 
tion!   "If  either  of  you  saw  my  ankles," 
said   the  agreeable    Miss   Mowcher    to 
James  Steerforth  and  David  Copperfield, 
as  she  jumped  upon  the  table,  "I'll  go 
home  and  destroy  myself."    It  is  impos- 
sible to  take  leave  of  a  volume  that  has 
all  but  made  farewells  impossible  without 
reiterating  that  it  is  the  rosiest,  coziest, 
raciest,  laziest,  craziest,   sunniest,  fun- 
niest,  gypsiest,   tipsiest  book   that   the 
bounty  of   destiny  has   ever   permitted 
the  author  of  this  note  to  meet. 


The  difficulty  with  which  books  are 
published  in  our  time  is  remarkable. 
Hardly  less  remarkable  is  the  ease  with 
which  they  are  published.  On  our  table 
is  a  book  by  Mr.  Robert  Cortes  Holliday, 
entitled  "Broome  Street  Straws,"  to 
which  the  publishers  (George  H.  Doran 
Company)  have  been  generous  in  the 
accessories  of  thick  paper,  wide  mar- 
gins, and  large  print.  The  author  of 
these  stories,  sketches,  and  critiques,  is 


far  from  a  stupid  or  brainless  person. 
Like  many  of  us,  he  is  bright  when  he 
is  lucky;  and,  again  like  many  of  us,  he 
is  lucky  sometimes  and  unlucky  often. 
The  point  is  that  he  is  like  the  rest  of 
us    and  why  he  should  be  lifted  to  the 
rank  of  an  accredited  entertainer  or  in- 
structor by  the  enshrinement  m  a  book 
of  his  casual  and  fleeting  journalism  is 
a  mystery  which  possibly  only  cashiers 
could  solve.  As  journalism  these  sketches 
were  flanked  by  work  from  other  hands, 
and  they  are  the  sort    of    sketches  to 
which  the  neighborhood  of  other  work  is 
valuable.    The  hazards  of  continuity  are 
great.    Why  give  us  unmixed  Holliday .' 
There  is  good  sketch-work  in  the  "Ro- 
mance of  Destiny,"  and  respectable,  if 
rather  desultory,  criticism  in  "Tarking- 
tonapolis."     There     are     also     gayeties 
which  amuse  without  surprising  us,  and 
serious  critical  dicta,  like  those  on  Mr. 
Belloc  and  0.   Henry,    which    surprise 
without  amusing  us.    Mr.  Belloc  writes 
the  "best  English  now  going  in  Eng- 
land" ;  0.  Henry's  failure  was  "amazing. 
The  two  assertions  may  keep  each  other 
in  countenance. 

Mr    Holliday  calls  Mr.  Stephen  Lea- 
cock  a  "rotten  bad  critic."    We  pass  the 
discourtesy,  more  regrettable  perhaps  on 
Mr  Holliday's  account  than  on  Mr.  Lea- 
cock's.     We   pass   "rotten"    merely    as 
slang  without  objection,  since  that  ob- 
jection would  be  received  by  slang-users 
as  inverted  homage.    But  we  should  like 
to  point  out  that  "rotten"  in  the  collo- 
quial sense  is  slang  decaying,  slang  worn 
out,  and  as  such  should  be  obnoxious  to 
lovers  of  novelty  in  its  own  field.    Slang 
is   the   repudiation  of   antiquity;    it   is 
often  singularly  blind  to  its  own  age.    A 
man  may  wear  a  circus  suit,  if  he  likes, 
instead  of  the  ordinary  street  costume, 
but  a  circus  suit  is  the  very  last  costume 
in  which  one  can  afford  to  be  visibly 
threadbare  and  dingy. 


"L'Amiral  de  Grasse"   (Paris:  Pierre 
Tequi)    is  interesting  for  two  reasons. 
The  first,   because   it  was   Admiral   de 
Grasse  who  contributed  largely  to  the 
success  at  Yorktown,  and  the  second  be- 
cause it  brings  out  the  little-known  fact 
that  the  Count's  four  daughters  fled  to 
America  at  the  time  of  the  Terror,  mar- 
ried here,  and,  according  to  the  list  at 
the  end  of  this  volume,  have  left  over 
two  score  descendants    in    the    United 
States,   among   whom   are  members   of 
such  well-known  families  as  the  Living- 
stons and  Schuylers.    The  following  un- 
published letter  from  the  author.  Canon 
Max  Caron,  of  Versailles,  gives  evidence 
that  the  old  dislike  for  Lafayette  still 
exists  in  conservative  circles  in  France. 
Here  is  how  I  happened  to  write  this  life 
of    the    great    sailor.     During    a    number    ot 
years  chance,  or  Providence  rather,  caused  me 
to    spend    my    two-months'    vacation    in    the 
Chateau  de  Tilly,  which  belonged  to  the  Ad- 
miral, and  where  he   spent  his  closing  years. 


In  the  church  of  the  village  of  Til  y  was  de- 
oosited  as  was  asked  in  his  will,  the  Counts 
heart  So,  naturally,  I  was  led  to  examine 
into  the  career  of  this  man,  as  everything  in 
the  chateau  and  the  church  spoke  to  me  of 
him  And  the  result  was  that  I  arrived  at 
this  conclusion— that  it  is  much  more  to  Ad- 
miral de  Grasse  than  to  General  Lafayette 
that  the  United  States  owe  their  liberty.  And 
vet  everybody  celebrates  the  latter  and  nobody 
speaks  of  the  former!  The  real  truth  lies 
here— the  then  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs 
Vergennes,  conceived  the  thought  of  an  armed 
intervention  on  the  part  of  France  in  aid  of 
the  insurgent  Americans;  Louis  XVI  tar- 
nished the  means  and  Count  de  Grasse  car- 
ried out  the  plan.  If  I  have  succeeded  m 
proving  this,  as  I  think  I  have,  I  have  done 
a  good  thing  for  my  country  and  for  America. 

It  may  be  the  vogue  of  the  rhymed 
advertisement— those  little  verses  about 
somebody's  soup  and  somebody  else's 
cough  lozenges  which  so  delightfully 
sing  themselves  into  one's  memory— 
that  has  led  Mr.  Emile  Berliner  to  put 
forth  in  the  interest  of  hygienic  im- 
provement some  illustrated  "Health  Jin- 
gles" under  the  title  of  "Muddy  Jim" : 

A  naughty  lad  was  Muddy  Jim, 

He  hated  soap  and  water, 
Nice  little  girls  wouldn't  speak  to  him, 

Tho'  he  wished  and  thought  they  ought  to. 

Jim,  it  appears,  was  rather  too— too  Bol- 
shevik in  his  personal  habits.  But  to  our 
thinking  the  treatment  which  the  nice 
little  girls  meted  out  to  Jim  was  pre- 
cisely calculated  to  confirm  him  in  his 
evil  tendencies.  Their  behavior  will  in 
all  probability  goad  him  on  to  violence. 
Further  on  in  the  book,  germs  are  held 
up  to  scorn  and  derision.  Very  danger- 
ous. Who  can  say  what  harm  germs  may 
be  capable  of  if  they  are  treated  in  this 
contumelious  fashion?  Then  comes  a 
picture  of  a  trim  housemaid  sweeping 
a  room.  Why  put  such  absurd  notions 
into  a  child's  head?  It  leads  to  things 
like  this : 

Mother,  will  you  tell  me  why 
We  are  told  to  "swat  the  fly"? 
Yes,  my  dear,  because  it  brings 
Dirt,  disease,  and  filthy  things. 

How  much  better  to  tell  the  child  that  flies 
should  be  reasoned  with,  not  "swatted"? 
Indeed,  we  are  quite  prepared  to  find 
near  the  end  of  the  book  a  column 
of  smart-looking  soldiers  following  the 
American  flag.  This  is  the  sort  of  result 
such  misguided  propaganda  inevitably 
leads  to.  Or,  last  picture  of  all,  accom- 
panied by  an  apparently  innocent  verse 
in  praise  of  sleep,  behold  the  fairy.  Cap- 
italism, lulling  a  child-like  society  into 
forgetfulness  of  its  wrongs.  We  are 
hopeful  that  so  reactionary  a  volume  will 
be  suppressed  before  it  has  the  effect  of 
bringing  in  the  revolution. 


For  those  who  like  literature  written 
in  the  "Spearmint"  dialect  the  first  pari 
of  Ring  W.  Lardner's  "Own  Your  Owr 
Home"  (Bobbs  Merrill)  is  funny.  Thert 
is  an  unfailing  source  of  humor,  if  oti( 
chooses  to  look  at  it  that  way,  in  th( 


Fanuary  24,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[89 


ribulations  that  beset  the  man  who  pays 
he  bills  and  does  the  worrying  inciden- 
al  to  the  building  of  a  house.  And 
lere  the  language  helps.    But  the  latter 


part  of  the  story  recounting  the  efforts 
of  a  detective  to  break  into  society  are 
not  very  funny.  All,  however,  of  Fon- 
taine Fox's  little  illustrations  are. 


Our  American  Shoe  Men 


{By  a  Staff  Correspondent) 

WE  produce  like  gods  and  distribute 
like  brutes,"  says  an  English 
s^riter,  with  whom  I  do  not  agree,  for  I 
hink  that  we  do  neither.  Rather,  I 
hink,  our  organization  for  distribution, 
vlthough  less  consciously  developed  than 
;hat  of  production,  is  on  the  whole  quite 
IS  good  through  its  being  a  survival  of 
nyriads  of  individual  instances  of  the 
jxercise  of  common  sense  in  the  adapta- 
ion  of  means  to  an  end. 

But  we  must  all  agree  that  the  problem 
)f  distribution  is  well  up-stage  and 
learing  the  spotlight.  It  is  not  surpris- 
ng,  therefore,  that  a  gathering  of  retail 
iierchants  like  that  of  the  National  Con- 
•ention  of  Shoe  Dealers  at  Boston  last 
veek  drew  to  the  big  hall  of  Mechanics' 
building  a  considerable  number  who 
vere  not  of  the  calling. 

One  must  become  a  little  accustomed 
0  the  convention  jazz  of  electric  lights, 
if  badges,  and  of  the  clatter  of  group- 
ngs  and  greetings  before  it  is  possible 
'  eally  to  take  notice,  for  this  visible  glare 
!nd  audible  clamor  is  not  the  conven- 
ion. 

They  are  not  themselves  so  par- 
icularly  well-shod,  these  shoe  dealers — 
pparently  all  that  is  shoe  .selling  is  not 
old. 

There  is  a  programme,  of  course, 
eard  throughout  by  earnest  souls,  and 
ireated  with  the  utmost  respect  by  all: 
liey  take  their  programmes  seriously, 
lese  conventions  of  American  business 
len,  but  a  little  stiffly,  somewhat  as  the 
ewiy  rich  take  their  evenings  at  a 
eethoven  concert.  There  are  thought- 
i\  papers,  thoughtfully  discussed,  but 
le  programme  is  not  it. 
I  One  might  judge  from  all  the  boom- 
jig  of  localities  by  patriotic  sons  that 
lie  next  year's  meeting  place  was  the 
rime  object  of  the  convention.  Or, 
jjain,  one  might  think  that  the  election 
l'  next  year's  officers  was  the  principal 
iterest.  These  certainly  had  their 
lace  in  the  sun,  but  were  not  it. 
The  palpable  effort  of  manufacturers 
create  a  nice,  optimistic  buying  spirit 
inong  these  kings  of  the  fitting  parlor, 
ho  hold  our  feet  if  not  our  fates  in 
e  hollow  of  their  hands,  was  also  suf- 
iiently  in  evidence — but  still  was  not  it. 
JThe  something  that  was  the  spirit  of 
lis  convention  refuses  to  admit  that 
•'y  of  these  brass-band  elements  are 
JDre  than  adventitious.  Slowly  it  takes 
^irm  in  our  minds  as  a  message  ■ — a  mes- 
*.?e  gathered  from  impalpable  things, 
hm  the  general  atmosphere  of  integ- 


jf 


rity,  from  the  careful  explanations  of 
the  processes  of  shoe-making  and  shoe- 
machine  making,  of  methods  of  jobbing 
and  of  retailing — a  message  to  the  Amer- 
ican people  that  American  business  is 
sound  at  the  core,  and  that  it  may  be 
counted  on  to  meet  its  problems  with 
courage,  honesty,  and  good  sense. 

Now,  shoe  manufacturing  and  selling 
happens  to  be  one  of  the  most  highly  or- 
ganized of  American  industries.  No- 
where have  the  triumphs  of  American 
inventive  genius  been  greater,  American 
superiority  of  method  and  process  more 
manifest,  and  nowhere  are  the  manifold 
phases  of  industry  more  finely  correlated 
— shoe-machine  making  with  shoe  man- 
ufacturing, shoe  manufacturing  with 
jobbing,  jobbing  with  retailing.  And, 
very  significantly,  a  subject  prominently 
discussed  at  this  convention  was  that  of 
possible  closer  relations  between  the  re- 
tailers of  different  industries;  that  is  to 
say,  more  and  better  organization. 

There  has  been,  and  is,  a  persistent 
group  of  agitators  in  American  life  who 
would  convince  us  that  all  of  this  organi- 
zation is  bad,  that  it  defies  law,  fosters 
an  insatiate  corporate  greed,  and  ex- 
ploits the  public.  The  facts  do  not  seem 
to  bear  out  this  contention. 

War  prices,  and  (what  is  worse)  post- 
war prices  that  have  given  us  our  new 
swear-word,  profiteering   (we  may  soon 

be  writing  p g,   as  we  write  d — n; 

•for  we  are  enunciating  it  with  increasing 
sulphurosity),  are  the  results  of  factors 
too  numerous  and  too  complicated  to  be 
glibly  ascribed  to  this  or  that  single 
cause.  Admitting  that  the  term  infla- 
tion covers  most  of  the  underlying  sin, 
there  is  still  a  goodly  portion  from 
Adam's  fall  in  other  forces,  and  in  none 
more  certainly  than  in  the  disorganiza- 
tion of  business  that  has  resulted  from 
the  sudden  entry  and  sudden  departure 
of  governments  as  customers. 

Regular  profits  are  lucrative — more 
so  in  the  long  run  than  irregular  ones — 
but  they  tend  toward  a  perpetual  paring 
down  of  excrescences.  The  regular  or- 
ganization of  business  automatically 
tends  to  increase  service,  reduce  costs, 
limit  margins  of  profit.  It  is  in  the 
state  of  disorganization  that  speculation 
flourishes,  and  with  it  that  sister  of  un- 
certainty, our  prcfane  friend,  profiteer- 
ing. A  return  to  normal  organization 
carries  with  it  a  quick  death  to  specu- 
lation, and  a  rapid  return  to  normal 
service  and  prices. 

And  after  all,  what  but  organization 
do  our  overheated  uplifters  and  social- 
ists desire?    Surely,  that,  and  that  only, 


but  with  this  important  difference: 
They  desire  a  form  of  organization 
drawn  up  on  paper  (by  themselves,  of 
course),  an  artificial  rule-of-three  or- 
ganization to  replace  one  which  has 
grown  up  through  the  generations  of 
our  free  industrial  life.  That  is  as  if 
we  should  cut  down  all  our  growing  fir 
trees  and  replace  them  with  those  little 
made-in-Germany  Christmas  trees  of 
waxed  paper  and  wires — how  regular 
their  branches,  and  how  very  green  their 
leaves!  But  I  am  sure  that  America 
will  always  prefer  the  free-growing 
type  that  has  its  roots  in  our  own  soil 
and  is  not  German-made,  nor  grown  in 
the  hotbeds  of  European  discontent,  and 
whose  branches  are  always  moist  with 
the  sap  of  new  growth  and  healthy  vigor. 

Of  this  higher  type  of  organization 
the  shoe  industry  of  America  is  an  ef- 
fective example.  A  clerical  gentleman 
once  differentiated  two  denominations  of 
Christians  by  saying  that  the  one  car- 
ried on  its  national  concerns  in  the  spirit 
of  a  village  parish  while  the  other  car- 
ried on  its  village  parishes  in  a  national 
spirit.  The  shoe  industry  is  of  this  lat- 
ter type — largely,  I  suppose,  because  of 
the  permeating  influence  of  that  great 
industrial  organization  by  which  its 
shoe-making  machinery  is  manufactured, 
leased,  kept  in  order  and  always  abreast 
of  the  inventive  skill  of  the  age.  Out 
of  this  continuing  relation  a  spirit  has 
developed  that  creates  a  living  organism 
rather  than  a  paper-made  organization. 
Before  we  go  to  displacing  this  growth 
of  years,  with  its  silent  but  effective  dis- 
ciplines, let  us  be  very  sure  that  we 
understand  and  appreciate  it.  Possibly 
We  may  come  to  the  conclusion  that  it  is 
as  much  better  than  anything  we  could 
sit  down  and  draw  up  on  paper  as  the 
Constitution  of  England  is  better  than 
More's  Utopia. 

But  we  are  arrived  at  ladies'  night, 
and  the  motor  sight-seeing  tours;  the 
place  for  the  next  annual  meeting  is  se- 
lected; the  officers  for  the  coming  year 
are  all  chosen;  the  jaded  hotel  clerks  and 
bell-boys  are  listless  and  lazy;  only  the 
bill-clerk  is  very  busy  and  very  smiling, 
and  the  home-going  is  near.  The  con- 
vention is  over,  but  we  have  learned  a 
lesson.  We  have  sat  in  with  five  thou- 
sand as  sensible,  as  brave,  as  honest- 
souled  business  men  as  the  world  ever 
bred  and — blow  hot,  blow  cold— we  are 
not  to  be  panic-stricken  by  the  rantings 
of  the  business-baiting  press.  And  shoes 
will  come  down  in  price?  Well,  these 
men  no  more  than  others  can  re-create 
in  a  day  the  wastes  of  war,  or  set  at 
naught  the  effects  of  world-wide  infla- 
tion; but  this  much  in  all  soberness  may 
be  said — the  organization  of  the  shoe  in- 
dustry in  America  is  such  as  to  give  rea- 
son to  believe  that  it  will  be  among  the 
first  to  pass  on  to  the  public  the  benefits 
of  bettering  conditions. 


90] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  37 


Drama 

French   Plays— Carlo  Liten 
and  "LesBleus del' Amour" 

NEW  YORK  has  not  yet  awaked  to  the 
value    of    the    five-week    season    of 
French  and  Belgian  plays  which  M.  Carlo 
Liten  is  producing  in  the  original  tongue 
at  the  Lenox  Little  Theatre  at  52-54  East 
78th  Street.    The  repertory  ranges  from 
Verhaeren's   "Cloitre,"   which  has  bulk 
and     significance,     through     Richepm's 
"Flibustier"  which  has  bulk  (in  modera- 
tion) without  significance,  and  Maeter- 
linck's  "L'Intruse,"   which   has   signifi- 
cance without  bulk,  to  Halevy's  "L'Ete 
de   la   Saint    Martin,"    which   possesses 
neither  bulk  nor  significance.    All  these 
plays,  I  hasten  to  add,  have  a  place  in 
literature;  I  restrict  the  term  "signifi- 
cant" to  works  that  illuminate  the  march 
of  tendency.     Personally,  I  should  have 
thanked  M.   Liten   if  he  had  given  us 
either  six  full-length  and  full-strength 
classic  masterpieces  or  six  modern  plays 
of    the    originality    and    distinction    of 
Verhaeren's  "Cloitre." 

"Le  Cloitre"  is  a  play  which,  in  the 
process  of  gestation,  seems  to  have  un- 
dergone something  akin  to  a  change  of 
species.    The  feeling  which  I  expressed 
some  time  ago  stays  with  me  to  this 
hour:  that  this  play  is  a  comedy  which 
has  been   seized   and   carried   off  by   a 
tragedy  or  melodrama.     The  comedy  is 
the  more  valuable,  even  the  more  inter- 
esting, of  the  two;  but  the  tragedy  or 
melodrama  has  the  physical  force  on  its 
side,  and  the  spectator  is  caught  up  and 
swept  along  in  its  train.     It  is  as  if  a 
man  were  looking  at  some  fine  etchings 
when  a  conflagration,  breaking  out  in  the 
next  street,  lit  up  his  windows  with  its 
feverish  glare.    He  might  sincerely  pre- 
fer the  etchings,  but  against  his  will  his 
eyes  would  be  held  by  the  conflagration. 
"Comedy"  in  this  case  must  be  taken 
in  a  rather  special  sense— the  sense  of  a 
play,   not   humorous,   but   satirical,    and 
tending  only  by  accident  to  a  catastrophic 
issue.    Verhaeren  has  painted  a  worldly 
cloister;  he  has  charged  it  with  the  con- 
tentions,  jealousies,    ambitions,   master- 
ships, proper,  though  not  peculiar,  to  the 
world.    The  world  is,  after  all,  an  emana- 
tion from  our  hearts,  and  the  cloister, 
in  shutting  the  world  out,  shuts  the  heart 
in.    Verhaeren  has  done  this  thing  in  a 
high   way.     His   severity  is   respectful; 
his  exposure  is  considerate.    These  men 
have  behind  them  a  lofty  past  symbolized 
in  a  noble  dwelling,  and  the  dignity  which 
has  forsaken  their  aims  still  clings  to 
their  manners.     Respect  does  not  stop 
here.     The  ancient  high  spirit  persists 
in  a  young  brother  called  Mark,  a  recluse 
from  the  world  within  the  cloister  no 


less  absolutely  than  from  the  world  with- 
out. In  Dom  Mark's  voice,  insisting  that 
civil  crime  shall  answer  to  the  civil  law, 
the  cloister  judges  and  condemns  its  own 
sophistications.  As  Spenser,  following 
Du  Bellay,  said,  "Only  Rome  o'er  Rome 
hath  victory." 

So  much  for  the  high  comedy— the 
satire.  An  upheaval  throws  the  play  out 
of  balance.  One  of  its  elements,  which 
is.  or  should  be,  merely  illustrative  or 
instrumental,  mutinies,  as  it  were,  and 
draws  to  itself  the  mastery  and  head- 
ship of  the  play.  One  of  the  monks  in 
this  cloister  is  a  parricide,  who  has  al- 
lowed an  innocent  man  to  be  executed 
in  his  place.  The  interest  of  his  .remorse 
and  confession,  though  cheap  beside  that 
of  the  satire,  is  insistent  and  overwhelm- 
ing; Verhaeren  himself  is  subject  to  its 
deflecting  force.  There  is  in  his  own 
eloquence  a  streaming  quality,  a  quality 
suggestive  of  flame  in  wind,  to  which 
the  appeal  of  convulsive  terror  and  re- 
morse is  irresistible. 

The  other  plays  may  be  treated  more 
briefly.     Edmond  Rostand  is  captivating 
in  the  one-act  piece,  "Les  deux  Pierrots," 
which  means  a  gay  and  a  sad  Pierrot 
who  agree  only  as  to  the  desirability  of 
Columbine.    The  smile  and  the  tear  have 
each  its  gleam,  and  Rostand  could  catch 
gleams  anywhere.    The  one-act  play  "Le 
Caprice"    shows    Alfred    de    Musset    at 
once  in  his  most  virtuous  and  his  most 
frivolous  mood.    Was  virtue  a  levity  for 
Alfred    de    Musset?      "Polypheme,"    in 
two  acts,  by  Albert  Samain,  is  one  of 
those  neo-classic  pieces  which  give  more 
pleasure  to  Frenchmen  than  to  Anglo- 
Saxons.     The  climate   of   Versailles   is 
more   auspicious    for   these   things;    in 
Windsor    Park    or    Central    Park,    the' 
classic  deities  shiver. 

The  company  is  able.    M.  Liten's  con- 
trol of  an  exquisitely  modulated  voice 
is  absolute.     Tone  is  fitted  to  feeling, 
like  word  to  meaning,  like  glove  to  hand. 
An  objector  in  an  acrid  moment  might 
grumble  that  the  whole  process  resembled 
a  trying-on  of  gloves ;  but  even  that  pro- 
cess has  its  witchery  when  the  hand  is 
shapely  and  the  glove  delicate.    The  point 
of  the  criticism  would  lie  in  the  implica- 
tion that  M.  Liten  is  a  student  of  emo- 
tions rather  than  of  characters.    So  far 
as   I    could   judge    (the   pursuit   of   the 
hurrying  French  tongue  by  the  laggard 
American  ear  is  a  race  between  hare  and 
tortoise)  he  was  even  better  in  the  reci- 
tation of  lyrics  than  in  the  impersonation 
of  men.    His  Balthazar  was  an  affair  of 
vivid  culminations  and  passive  intervals. 
His    Polypheme,    strong   in    its   look   of 
ravage  and  desolation,  was  almost  too 
mobile,  in  mind  and  voice,  for  a  Cyclops. 
Mile.   Yvonne   Garrick   of  the   Comedie 
Frangaise  quite  conquered  me  in  two  of 
her  three  roles;  she  made  laughter  ex- 
quisite in  Pierrot,  and  her  Galatea  was 
an  embodied  April.     M.  Andre  Chotin's 


portrayal  of  Dom  Mark  had  the  single- 
ness and  purity  of  a  star. 

M.  Romain  Coolus  is  a  playwright  who, 
in  "Une  Femme  passa,"  showed  ability 
and  even  conscience.  In  "Les  Bleus  de 
I'Amour,"  a  recent  offering  at  the  The- 
atre Parisien,  the  conscience  absents 
itself,  and  the  ability  is— unobtrusive, 
touched  with  unconcern.  M.  Coolus  is 
not  testing  his  rivets ;  he  is  not  tighten- 
ing his  knots.  Comic  virtue  is  evident 
in  certain  passages,  and  the  wit  is  redo- 
lent of  Paris.  It  is  an  idle,  shifting, 
strolling  life  which  the  three  acts  repre- 
sent, and  the  temper  of  M.  Coolus  is  for 
the  moment  in  exact  harmony  with  his 
theme. 

This  assertion  may  seem  questionable 
in  the  light  of  the  fact  that  the  play 
centres  in  a  French  countess  who,  child- 
less herself,  may  be  briefly  classified  aa 
an    amateur   of    eugenics.      The   family 
must  be  continued;  her  niece  must  marry 
her  nephew;  the  marriage  must  be  pro- 
ductive.    Sureties  must  be  obtained  be- 
forehand for  the  fertility  of  a  younj 
man  who  is  a  rougher  Hippolytus,  de 
lighting   in  the  chase   and   ignorant  ol 
women.    When  this  young  man  decline 
to  respond  to  various  suggestions  of  hi: 
aunt,  the  last  of  which  is  that  he  shal 
seduce  her  own  maid,   she  contrives  i 
plan  for  sending  him  to  Paris  under  th 
escort  of  an  actress  of  doubtful  reputa 
tion,  whom,  in  the  furtherance  of  thes 
amiable  projects,  she  invites  to  her  ow 
lunch-table. 

The    American    observer    of    Frenc 

manners  is  prepared  for  much,  but  h 

is   unable   to   view,   with   perfect   equf 

nimity,  this  interest  of  highborn  Frencl 

women    in   what    Mr.    Chesterton    one 

pointedly    called     the     "human     stud, 

There  was  a  time  when  French  coui 

tesses  were  the  exemplars  of  breeding  i 

another  sense.     These  are  grave  depa 

tures,  and  the  only  excuse  for  departur( 

is — arrivals.    One  should  go  all  the  wa 

The  countess  refuses  to  make  prelim 

nary  tests  of  the  fertility  of  her  niec 

I   submit  that  a  woman  who  sacrific 

convention  to  science  in  the  case  of  tl 

male,  but  allows  convention  to  super.se( 

science  in  the  more  uncertain  and  ther 

fore  more  important  case  of  the  femal 

is  neither  a  genuine  French  countess  n 

an  honest  stockbreeder.    Taken  serious! 

the  countess's  plan  becomes  farcical; 

M.  Coolus,  on  the  other  hand,  propoun 

it  as  a  mere  joke,  I  am  lucky  or  unlucl 

in  an  ancestry  and  training  which  obli 

me  to  take  that  joke   rather  serious 

It   is   impossible  for  me  to  view  it 

a  whimsicality  among  other  whimsica 

ties.     I  can  not  laugh  at  it  between  r 

laugh  at  the  rusticities  of  a  provinc 

hunter  and  my  laugh  at  the  polite  acerl 

ties  of  a  submissively  protesting  stewa; 

This  matter  is  for  me  a  strong  liqu^ 

a  sort  of  wood  alcohol,  which,  if  serv 

(Continued  on  page  92) 


January  24,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[91 


l&lit^hiliiiib&EM0iTii 

Niag-ara's  Rival  Jot  '|A»^j  Dependable  P<>~t-"'.j 


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Purchases  may  be  made  by  Mail 


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cA  Group  of  World-Famed  Tlays  Interesting  to 
Every  Lover  of  Drama. 

BENAVENTE  is  the  latest  great  writer  to 
be  recognized  as  a  world  figure.  "His  im- 
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most  living  dramatist  is  more  closely  akin  U> 
Shaw,  both  as  a  thinker  and  a  dramatic  crafts- 
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Dial.  "It  would,  however,  be  grossly  unfair 
even  to  infer  that  Jacinto  Benavente  is  ai; 
imitator  of  Shaw." 

Two  series  of  his  plays  have  been  brought  out 
with  translations  and  introductions  by  John  Oarrett 
Underbill. 

First  Series 
His  Widow's  Husband 
La     Malquerida     (produced    in    New 

York  as  "The  Passion  Flower"') 
The  Evil   Doers  of  Good 
The   Bonds  of  Interest.      $2.00 


Second  Series 
No    Smoking 
Princess  Bebe 
Autumnal  Roses 
The  Governor's  Wife.     ?i.oo 


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THE  REVIEW 


(Continued  from  page   90)   ^ 
at  all,  can  not  be  properly  served  on 
the  same  tray  with  the  lemonade  and  the 

^"riiTeVresence  of  other  material  and  the 
light  and  tripping  gait  of  the  perform- 
ance relieve  these  crudities  m  some  de- 
cree.    The  acting  was  generally  satis- 
factory      M.    Gustave    Degreziane    as 
SiJIJd    was    happy    in    a    smile    tha 
avowed  and  disavowed  a  thousand  errors , 
M  Andre  Franky  was  a  good  woodsman; 
and  M.  Robert  Casadesus  brought  dex- 
terity and  moderation  to  the  portrayal  of 
the  crabbed  steward.  Bjgo^ne.  ^^^^^^ 


Music 

The  Chicago  Opera  Season— 
•  'Zaza' '  at  the  MetropoHtan 


THE  death  of  the  distinguished  man- 
ager of  the  Chicago  Opera  Associ- 
ation, Maestro  Cleofonte  Campanmi,  will 
not  iA  any  way  prevent  the  execution  of 
til  Sans  he  had  made.  Under  the  man- 
agement of  Mr.  Herbert  Johnson  an 
American,  and  with  the  artistic  aid  of 
Maestro  Marinazzi,  formerly  of  the 
Scala,  on  Monday  next  the  smgers 
and  musicians  of  the  company  will  begin 
another  season  at  the  Lexington-a  sea- 
son which,  at  least  in  some  respects,  bids 
fair  to  be  of  quite  unusual  brilliancy. 

For  the  first  night  we  are  to  have  a 
ereat  revival  of  Bellini's  "Norma.      In 
days  gone  by  this  "Norma"  was  as  pop- 
Sir  as  "Carmen,"  "Faust,"  and  "Lohen- 
grin" were  later.     Those  who  imagine 
that  its  former  spell  is  gone  may  be  as- 
tonished (as  I  was  one  night  in  Venice, 
a  few  years  ago)   to  find  that,  rightly 
sung,  with  such  an  artist  as  Raisa  in  the 
title  part,  it  can  still  thrill  one.     Few 
singers  have  the  qualities  required  for 
the  chief  role  in  "Norma,"  which  calls, 
not  for  the  graces  and  embellishments  ot 
the  coloratura  style,  but  for  sustained 
and  lovely  singing  and  great  dignity. 

Of  the  three  novelties  announced  tor 
the  first  crowded  week  at  the  Lexington, 
one  is  the  "Madame  Chrysantheme     of 
Andr6  Messager.  The  story  which  Pierre 
Loti  told  so  cruelly  forms  the  foundation 
of  the  libretto.     It  was  invented  long 
before  the  "Madama  Butterfly"  we  love 
80  well.     And  Messager  was  younger-- 
at  his  best,  indeed— when  he  composed 
his  score.    The  part  of  the  poor,  touch- 
ing little  heroine,  the  forsaken  Geisha 
girl,  will  be   interpreted,   in  the  right 
way,    the    Japanese    way,    by    Tamaki 

Hard  on  the  heels  of  "Madame  Chrys- 
antheme" will  come  another  long- 
awaited  work— "L'Heure  Espagnole,  of 
which  the  translated  title  should  be 
"Spanish  Time,"  of  Ravel,  best  known 


here  by  his  popular  concert  works,  and 
more   especially   by   his   "Sheherazade" 

°^A  sad  significance  attaches  to  the 
promise  of  the  third  novelty  amiounced 
for  the  first  week,  the  "Rip  Van  Winkle 
of  the  late  Reginald  de  Koven.  This 
"Rip  Van  Winkle,"  like  the  operetta  of 
Lecocq,  is  said  to  take  liberties  with  the 
legend  That  may  not  matter  much, 
though,  if  the  English  words  and  Amer- 
ican plot  devised  for  the  libretto  by 
Percy  MacKaye  prove  to  be  suited  to  the 
purposes  of  opera. 

Besides  all  these  new  works  we  shall 
have"Pelleaset  Melisande."  "Paghacci, 
"L'Amore  dei  Tre  Re"  (with  Mary  Gar- 
den, for  the  first  time  here  as  the  ro- 
mantic heroine),  "Un  Ballo  m  Mas- 
chera,"  and  "Madama  Butterfly.  The 
Metropolitan  will  have  to  guard  its  lau- 
rels if  this  programme  is  carried  out. 

Among  the  other  works  we  may  expect 
in   the   succeeding   month   of   opera   at 
the  Lexington  may  or  may  not  be  Mon- 
temezzi's   latest   effort    (with   d  Annun- 
zio's  book)    "La   Nave,"   Camille  dEr- 
langer's     "Aphrodite,"      Halevy  s       La 
Juive  "  Meyerbeer's  "L'Af ricaine,    Mas- 
senet's "Herodiade,"  "Le  Jongleur."  and 
"Thais "       Carpentier's       ever-welcome 
"Louise."  Verdi's   "Falstaff."   Ambroise 
Thomas's   "Hamlet."   Gounod's     Faust 
and  "Romeo  et  Juliette,"  Bizet  s     Car- 
men "  Leroux's  "Le  Chemineau."  Henri 
Fevrier's  "Monna  Vanna"  and  two  new 
ballets  by  American  composers,  the  "Bou- 
dour"  of  the  critic,  Felix  Borowski,  and 
"The  Birthday  of  the  Infanta"    (after 
Oscar  Wilde)  of  John  Alden  Carpenter. 
To  interpret  this  startling  and  exact- 
ing repertory  the  Chicago  company  will 
bring    us    far-famed    singers.    Among 
them  will  be  those  two  admirable  bari- 
tones, Titta  Ruffo,  long  a  god  of  the 
Italians,  and  Carlo  Galeffi.  who  is  said 
to  rival  him;  Edward  Johnson,  an  Amer- 
ican tenor  who.  under  the  stage  name 
of  Giovanni,  has  become  popular  at  the 
Scala;   that  master  of  bel  canto,  Ales- 
sandro  Bonci,  whom  some  have  ranked 
above  the  great  Caruso;  Mary  Garden,  m 
her   own   field   still    unequalled;     Rosa 
Raisa,    of   the  full   and   mighty   tones; 
Galli-Curci,  the  best  coloratura  soprano 
living,  and  Alessandro  Dolci,  an  enga- 
ging tenor. 

The  most  recent  addition  to  the  reper- 
tory of  the  Metropolitan  is  the  "Zaza' 
of  Leoncavallo  (who,  with  no  small  skill, 
adapted  the  libretto  from  the  once  well- 
knovra  play  produced  by  Mr.  Belasco). 
This  "Zaza,"  though  it  has  no  great  im- 
portance, will  appeal  to  those  who  love 
life    and    movement,    wit    and    humor, 
on  the  stage,  varied  by  pathos  and  occa- 
sional violent  outbursts.     The  composer 
has,    in   a   humble   way,    made   use    of 
music  as  a  handmaid  of  drama  and  com- 
edy on  the  "Falstaff"  plan.    In  his  first 
act  (which,  by  long  odds,  is  the  best)  he 


has  the  deftness  which  delights  us  in  the 
"Segreto  di  Susanna"  of  Wolf-Ferrari. 
His  second  act  is  rather  tame  and  color- 
less The  third  and  fourth  acts  both  con- 
tain effective  episodes.  But  nowhere  does 
this  work  approach  the  level  reached,  at 
times,  in  "Pagliacci." 

The  appeal  of  "Zaza"  will  be  made  here 
by  the  play  (for  it  is  really  a  good  play— 
of  a  bad  kind,  maybe— set  cleverly  to 
music).     The  plot  is  largely  an  unvar- 
nished tale  of  harlotry.    And  in  the  cen- 
tre of  it  stands  the  striking  figure  of 
the  painted  "heroine."     She  is  an  "ar- 
tist" of  the  vulgar  music  halls,  a  crea- 
ture of  whims,  of  passionate  freaks  and 
impulses.    As  an  exponent  of  this  mere- 
tricious drab   (she  is  that  or  nothing) 
Geraldine     Farrar     fairly     took     ones 
breath   away.     She   was   as  contenting 
(or  distressing)  in  her  stormy  moods  as 
in  her  courtesan  coquetries   (which  lef 
little  to  the  imagination) .    In  the  much 
talked-of  scene  for  Zaza  and  the  chih 
of  Dufresne,  her  lover,  she  awoke  need 
less  sympathy.    Her  attitudes  and  pose 
were  audacious— now  and  then,  mdeec 
too  audacious  for  the  opera  boards.  Am 
when  the  chance  occurred,  she  sang  me 

lifluously. 

Charles  Henry  Meltzer 


Reginald  de  Koven 

THE   sudden  passing  of  Reginald  ( 
Koven,  a  few  days  ago,  came  as 
shock  to  those  who  liked  him  as  a  ma 
and  to  a  host  whom  he  had  pleased  : 
a  composer  of  light  songs  and  operas, 
was  my  privilege  in  other  days  to  sha 
with    him,    as    dramatic    critic    of    t 
World,  the  work  of  chronicling  the  d 
ings  of  the  stage.    His  field  was  mus 
In  later  years  I  helped  him  in  his  fight 
a  long,  hard  fight— for  the  employme 
of  our  English  tongue  in  opera.   Both 
the  theatre  and  in  the  press-room  '  R< 
gie"  de  Koven,  as  we  called  him,  h 
warm  friends.  . 

Neither  as  critic  nor  as  musician  did 
pretend  to  be  a  futurist,  or  even  a  m- 
ernist.  To  him  the  Schoenbergs,  J 
Stravinskys,  and  the  Regers  of  th 
restless  times  were  puzzling  prob  ei 
To  him  good  music  meant  above  all  ' 
thing— melody.  ,  .  .     , 

It  is  chiefly  as  a  writer  of  tunt 
songs  that  most  will  think  of  him. 

His  most  successful  work  was    Ko 

Hood  "     The  production  of  that  cha 

ing  comic  opera,  in  1890,  did  more  t 

vastly  more  ambitious  efforts  to  impi 

the  public  taste.    By  "Robin  Hood,   v 

its  old  English  flavor,  he  may  live  h 

for  some  time  to  come;  not  by  his    i 

terbury   Pilgrims."   his    one    claini 

fame  as  a  composer  of  "grand    oper 

Toward  the  end  of  his  career.    Keg 

de  Koven  was  a  persistent  advocat 

the  creation  in  this  country  of  that  m 

(Continued  on  page  94) 


January  24,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[98 


"Winter's 
for  Books" 

— The  Review 

"Winter  evenings- 
the  world  shut  out— 
with  less  of  ceremony 
the    gentle    Shake- 
speare enters." 

We  think  of  Charles 
Lamb  as  a  man  im- 
mersed in  books  every 
month  of  the  year. 
Yet  winter  was  his 
real  time  for  reading,— 
"the  world  shut  out." 

In  warmer  weather 
he  makes  this  note: 
"Walked  sixteen 
miles  yesterday.  I 
can't  read  much  in 
summer  time." 


EDWARD  T.  DEVINE 
Associate  Editor  of  the  Survey 

Will  lecture  on  the  following  subjects: 

THE  THREE  R'S 

Reaction:  Res'olution:  Reconstruction 

INDUSTRIAL  AND  SOCIAL  UNREST 
Remedies  and  Proposals 

AMERICANIZATION 
True  and  False 


For  dates  and  terms  address  Miss   Brandt, 
Room  1204,  112  E.  Nineteenth  St.,  New  York 


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IS  A 


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94] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  37 


(Continued  from  page  92) 
needed  institution,  a  National  Conserv- 
ator>'-     For  ^^^^  ^^^  ^^^^'^  things  we 
owe  him  thanks. 

Though  he  was  not,  in  any  sense,  a 
great  musician,  he  had  his  place  in  the 
wide  field  of  music.  His  death,  soon 
after  the  production  of  his  "Rip  Van 
Winkle"  by  the  Chicago  Opera  Com- 
pany, has  left  the  world  a  little  poorer 
for  his  loss. 

C.  H.  M. 

Books  and  the  News 

The  Theatre 

IN  the  middle  of  the  theatrical  season  it 
may  be  pleasant  to  see  some  sugges- 
tions for  reading  about  the  theatre — 
criticism,  general  information,  and  rec- 
ollections of  the  always  golden  past. 
These  books  are  mainly  about  the  Amer- 
ican stage. 

To  begin  with  memories  of  older  days, 
Mj^rj'  C.  Crawford's  "The  Romance  of 
the  American  Theatre"  (Little,  1913) 
will  be  found  interesting,  as  will  the 
volumes  by  two  veterans,  J.  R.  Towse's 
"Sixty  Years  of  the  Theatre;  An  Old 
Critic's  Memories"  (Funk,  1916),  and 
William  Winter's  "The  Wallet  of  Time" 
(Moffat,  1913).  The  alliterative  title 
of   "The  Diary   of  a  Daly   Debutante" 


(Duffield,  1910)  ought  to  be  attractive; 
it  is  by  Dora  Knowlton  Ranous.  Those 
to  whom  the  names  of  William  Warren 
and  Annie  Clarke  mean  anything  will  be 
glad  to  be  reminded  of  Kate  Ryan's  "Old 
Boston  Museum  Days"  (Little,  1915). 

For   general   criticism   and    comment 
there    is    Richard    Burton's    "The    New 
American  Drama"   (Crowell,  1913),  not 
light  reading;  and,  for  contrast,  George 
J.    Nathan's    "Comedians    AH"    (Knopf, 
1919),  which  may  be  named  as  a  sample 
of  his  books  about  the  stage,  in  all  of 
which  there  is  a  little  meat  and  a  great 
deal  of  tabasco  sauce.    Despite  Mr.  Na- 
than, the  leading  American  writers  on 
the  technique  of  the  drama  are  Brander 
Matthews   and   George   P.   Baker.      The 
former's   newest  volume   is   "The   Prin- 
ciples of  Playmaking"  (Scribner,  1919). 
Prof.     Baker's     "Dramatic     Technique" 
(Houghton)  appeared  last  year.   Gordon 
Craig  writes  essays  on  all  kinds  of  the- 
atrical     subjects      in      "The      Theatre 
Advancing"     (Little,     1919).     Another, 
by    Mr.    Craig,    "upon    a    special    sub- 
ject,  is   "On  the  Art  of  the  Theatre" 
(Browne's    Bookstore).     Walter    Prich- 
ard  Eaton's  "Plays  and  Players"  (Stew- 
art   &    Kidd,    1916)    has    some    general 
essays  on  the  theatre,  as  well  as  com- 
ments upon  certain  plays.    Ludwig  Lew- 
isohn  in  "The  Modem  Drama;  An  Es- 
say in  Interpretation"  (Huebsch,  1915), 


Archibald  Henderson  in  "The  Changing 
Drama"  (Holt,  1914),  A.  B.  Walkley  in 
"Drama  and  Life"  (Brentano,  1908), 
and  Clayton  Hamilton  in  "Problems  of 
the  Playwright"  (Holt,  1917)  deal  in 
all  manner  of  subjects  about  the  theatre, 
but  chiefly  in  dramatic  criticism.  It  is 
hardly  necessary  to  remind  the  read- 
er of  James  Huneker's  "Iconoclasts" 
(Scribner,  1905),  a  book  about  great  con- 
temporary figures  among  dramatists. 

Persons  interested  in  special  develop- 
ments in  the  theatre  will  find  these  de- 
scribed in  Thomas  H.  Dickinson's  "The 
Insurgent  Theatre"  (Huebsch,  1917), 
with  its  essays  on  the  little  theatres,  the 
"dramatic  laboratories,"  etc.,  in  Con- 
stance Mackay's  "The  Little  Theatre  in 
the  United  States"  (Holt,  1917),  Percy 
Mackaye's  "The  Civic  Theatre"  (Kenner- 
ley,  1912),  Alice  M.  Herts's  "The  Chil- 
dren's Educational  Theatre"  (Harper, 
1911),  and  Huntley  Carter's  "The  The- 
atre of  Max  Reinhardt"  (Palmer,  1914), 
David  Belasco's  "The  Theatre  Througl 
Its  Stage  Door"  (Harper,  1909)  is  va^ 
ried  and  entertaining.  Montrose  J 
Moses  in  "The  American  Dramatist' 
(Little,  1911)  has  written  a  book  of  ref 
erence  that  is  also  readable,  with  its 
chapters  on  early  playwriting  in  th( 
United  States  and  discussions  of  th( 
work  of  the  present. 

Edmund  Lester  Pearson 


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c^i, 


THE  REVIEW 


Vol.  2,  No.  38 


New  York,  Saturday,  January  31,  1920 


FIFTEEN  CENTS 


Contents 


Brief  Comment 


95 


Editorial  Articles: 
Hoover  98 

New   York's   "Town  Meeting   Hall"       99 
Holland   and   the   ex-Kaiser  100 

Still  Fumbling  with  Russia  101 

A  Glimmer  of   Hope  for  Ireland.-    By 

Herbert  L.  Stewart  102 

Can  Germany  Recover?     By   Dr.   Paul 

Rohrbach  104 

Correspondence  105 

Cooperating     with     the     Cooperatives. 

By  Jerome  Landfield  107 

Book  Reviews: 

Beneficent  Results  of  a  Wicked  War  108 

Kipling — First  and  Last  Impressions    109 

Folks  and  Folk  111 

Beyond  the  Fields  We  Know  111 

The  Run  of  the  Shelves  112 

The  New  French  President.    By  Othon 

Guerlac  113 

Einstein  and  the  Man  in  the  Street.  By 

Arthur  Gordon  Webster  114 

Music : 
The    New    York    Opera    War — Hints 
to  Librettists.     By  Charles  Henry 
Meltzer  115 

Books  and  the  News: 
Spiritism.  By  Edmund  Lester  Pearson  118 

jTN  the  public  mind,  as  distinguished 
*-  from  the  schemes  and  combina- 
tions of  political  managers,  the  two 
'names  that  are  far  and  away  fore- 
most in  the  Presidential  field  at  this 
time  are  those  of  General  Wood  and 
Mr.  Hoover.     In  this  circumstance 
;here  is  ground  for  genuine  comfort, 
iit  a  time  when  comfort  in  the  con- 
;emplation  of  our  political  state  is  a 
/ery  scarce  article  indeed.  For,  what- 
ever else  may  be  said  about  either  of 
hese  candidacies,  they  both  rest  fun- 
lamentally  on  great  and  rare  achieve- 
nent.    It  was  General  Wood's  admi- 
■able  work  in  the  regeneration   of 
Juba  that  was  the  basis  of  his  subse- 
Kuent  career,  as  well  as  the  primary 
iause   of  his   high   place   in   public 
fsteem.    And  his  hold  on  that  place 
jvas  signally  confirmed  by  the  invalu- 
'ble  part  which  his  foresight,  energy, 
nd  efficiency  played  in  giving  the 


country  some  degree  of  preparedness 
for  its  entry  into  the  great  war.  Mr. 
Hoover's  emergence  as  a  possible 
candidate  for  the  Presidency  arises 
still  more  distinctly  from  the  exertion 
of  splendid  administrative  powers  in 
momentous  work  successfully  accom- 
plished. In  contrast  with  the  night- 
mare of  political  impotence  exhibited 
by  both  parties  at  Washington,  these 
things  shine  out  with  special  lustre, 
and  it  must  be  a  solace  to  all  patriotic 
Americans  to  think  that  they  are  ade- 
quately appreciated  by  the  nation. 
That  both  the  men  were  from  the 
outset  staunch  supporters  of  the 
Allied  cause  in  Europe  is  an  addi- 
tional reason  for  satisfaction,  and  one 
by  no  means  without  importance  in 
its  bearing  upon  the  future. 

"pETTER  late  than  never  is  the 
■'-'  thought  that  comes  uppermost 
when  one  has  read  the  sober,  concise, 
and  straightforward  statement  made 
by  the  Secretary  of  Labor  on  the  sub- 
ject of  deportations  of  members  of 
the  Communist  Party  of  America.  If 
such  a  statement  had  been  made  by 
Attorney  General  Palmer  at  the  time 
of  the  recent  wholesale  arrests,  a 
great  deal  of  mischief  would  have 
been  averted.  The  worst  of  the  raid- 
ing business,  when  it  is  conducted  in 
a  sensational  way,  is  that  nobody 
knows  where  it  is  going  to  end.  With 
no  definite  indication  of  the  legal 
basis  of  the  proceeding,  and  with 
many  outward  signs  of  high-handed- 
ness and  lack  of  discrimination,  it 
encourages  both  the  extremists  who 
favor  a  policy  of  ruthless  repression 
and  the  opposite  kind  of  extremists 
who  acclaim  it  as  proof  of  the  accusa- 
tion, which  they  have  long  been  mak- 
ing, that  we  are  already  guilty  of 
oppression  that  puts  America  into 
the  class  of  the  Russia  of  the  Tsars. 
Secretary  Wilson's  statement  shows 
that  the  proceeding  against  the  mem- 


bers of  the  Communist  party  was 
strictly  in  accordance  with  the  law, 
and  it  gives  everyone  the  means  of 
knowing  what  he  must  do  to  avoid 
coming  into  collision  with  the  law. 
Nevertheless,  the  question  remains 
whether  the  best  judgment  was  exer- 
cised in  the  application  of  the  law, 
and  also  to  what  extent,  in  the  prose- 
cution of  the  cases,  administrative 
discretion  should  temper  its  execu- 
tion. No  statute  of  this  nature  is  in 
practice  carried  out  with  literal  ex- 
actness. The  matter  is  one  of  polit- 
ical expediency  quite  as  much  as  of 
law.  If  enough  is  done  to  serve  for 
warning  and  prevention,  the  purpose 
of  the  legislation  is  achieved. 

CEVERAL  weeks  ago,  we  referred 
^  to  "definite  and  serious  charges 
of  misconduct"  made  by  Harvey's 
Weekly  against  Norman  Hapgood, 
late  Minister  to  Denmark.  Shortly 
after  that,  Mr.  Hapgood  replied  to  the 
charges  in  a  full  and  straightforward 
statement  of  the  facts  in  the  case. 
The  rejoinder  to  this  statement  made 
by  Harvey's  Weekly  fails  to  sustain 
the  charges  either  by  adducing  any 
substantial  evidence  of  its  own,  or  by 
pointing  out  any  untruthfulness  in 
Mr.  Hapgood's  statement.  The  sinis- 
ter interpretation  which  it  seeks  to 
put  on  the  facts  admitted  by  him  we 
see  no  reason  whatever  for  accepting. 

"T  BELIEVE,"  says  George  Wash- 
-*-  ington,  in  a  statement  which  ac- 
companies an  editorial  in  a  New  York 
newspaper  pouring  forth  its  denunci- 
ation of  our  "iniquitous  treaty"  for 
many  reasons  that  are  vague,  but  one 
that  is  explicitly  stated  ("because  it 
refused  self-determination  to  peo- 
ples"), "I  believe  it  is  the  sincere 
wish  of  United  America  to  have  noth- 
ing to  do  with  the  political  intrigues 
or  squabbles  of  European  nations." 
The  credo,  just  as  it  is  stated,  is  as 


96] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  38 


good  to-day  as  on  the  day  it  was 
uttered;  but  it  does  not  seem  to 
occur  to  the  newspaper  in  question 
that  if  there  is  a  single  situation  in 
Europe  which  at  the  moment  deserves 
to  be  described  as  a  squabble  it  is 
precisely  that  Irish  business  into 
which  some  more  or  less  American 
noses  are  so  fond  of  obtruding  them- 
selves. On  the  other  hand,  it  is  absurd 
to  pretend  that  everything  that  hap- 
pens in  Europe  is  by  definition  "polit- 
ical intrigues  and  squabbles"  with 
which  we  have  no  concern — the  war 
and  its  consequences,  for  example. 

TF  American  statesmen  knew  Bol- 
■*•  shevik  Russia  as  well  as  Bolshevik 
statesmen  know  America,  how  simple 
it  would  be  to  set  everything  to 
rights !  Look  at  this  admirable  state- 
ment, in  a  note  sent  by  Commissar 
for  Foreign  Affairs  Chicherin  to 
President  Wilson  October  24,  1918: 

In  your  country,  Mr.  President,  the  banks 
and  the  industries  are  in  the  hands  of  such  a 
small  group  of  capitahsts  that,  as  your  personal 
friend.  Colonel  Robins,  assured  us,  the  arrest 
of  twenty  heads  of  capitalistic  cliques  and  the 
transfer  of  control,  which  by  characteristic 
capitalistic  methods  they  have  come  to  possess, 
into  the  hands  of  the  masses  of  the  world  is 
all  that  would  be  required  to  destroy  the  prin- 
cipal source  of  new  wars. 

Just  how  much  of  the  merit  of  this 
wonderful  summary  of  American  eco- 
nomic conditions  is  to  be  ascribed  to 
Chicherin  and  how  much  to  Ray- 
mond Robins,  it  is  impossible  to  say. 
The  prosperity,  not  only  of  a  jest, 
but  also  of  other  interesting  com- 
munications, lies  in  the  ear  of  him 
who  hears  it.  But  while  in  this 
instance  the  ear  was  a  good  one,  it 
is  safe  to  say  that  the  tongue  did  its 
fair  share.  After  breathing  for  a 
year  or  two  the  stifling  atmosphere 
of  America,  Colonel  Robins  will 
doubtless  feel  that  it  is  impossible  he 
should  ever  have  said  anything  like 
what  Chicherin  states  that  he  did; 
but  to  appeal  from  Philip  drunk  to 
Philip  sober  is  not  always  a  conclu- 
sive way  of  arriving  at  the  truth. 

TJANS  VORST,  well  known  for  his 

"■  excellent  contributions  on  Rus- 
sian affairs  to  the  Berliner  Tageblatt, 
has  published  in  that  paper  extracts 
from  a  letter  written  to  him  by  a 
professor  in  the  University  of  Tomsk 
who  belongs  to  the  party  of  the  Men- 


sheviki  (i.  c.  Minority  Socialists), 
adherents  of  the  so-called  Plekhanov 
group.  This  man's  testimony  to  the 
high  character  and  patriotism  of 
Kolchak  is  worth  quoting  as,  coming 
from  that  side,  it  forms  a  strong 
refutation  of  the  slander  of  which 
the  Admiral  has  been  the  victim  both 
in  Europe  and  this  country.  The 
Siberian  professor  says: 

The  Government  of  Kolchak  has  rendered 
extraordinary  services  to  Russia,  whatever  the 
revolutionaries  and  their  hangers-on  may  say 
of  him.  He  had  to  work  under  the  most  try- 
ing circumstances  and  absolute  lack  of  money 
and  personnel.  His  Government  has  made  no 
few  mistakes  and  often  veered  to  the  Right — 
but  on  the  whole  it  has  steered  the  course  of  a 
democratic  government  which  wishes  to  re- 
unite the  divided  parts  of  Russia  and  establish 
law  and  order  in  the  place  of  Bolshevist 
tyranny.  All  the  talk  of  the  reactionary  tend- 
encies of  Kolchak's  Government  is  down- 
right slander.  Kolchak  was  perfectly  loyal 
and  his  Government  recognized  its  chief  duty 
to  be  the  reunion  of  Russia  and  the  convocation 
of  the  legislative  assembly. 

"WTE  print  in  other  columns  cor- 
"  respondence  from  Berlin  by 
Dr.  Paul  Rohrbach,  a  well-knovni 
writer  on  German  politics  and,  before 
the  war,  a  prominent  advocate  of 
Germany's  economic  and  colonial  ex- 
pansion. We  are  glad  to  give  him 
this  opportunity  of  stating  his  coun- 
try's present  case,  which  must  afford 
bitter  reflection  to  a  man  who  had 
dreamed  of  quite  a  different  future. 
But  we  can  not  help  feeling  that  his 
appeal  for  material  aid  and  mitiga- 
tion of  the  peace  terms  would  have 
impressed  us  more  if  the  writer 
could  have  assured  us  that,  even  more 
than  by  their  physical  sufferings,  the 
Germans  are  tormented  by  the  con- 
sciousness that,  but  for  the  crime 
against  civilization  to  which  they 
were  parties,  Germany  and  the  rest 
of  Europe  might  now  be  enjoying  the 
continuance  of  old-time  prosperity. 

TT  is  difficult  to  define  the  full  bear- 
■■-  ing  of  the  Pyrrhic  victory  by 
which  M.  Millerand  obtained  the 
Chamber's  vote  of  confidence  in  the 
entire  Cabinet.  Leon  Daudet's  attack 
on  Jules  Steeg,  the  new  Minister  of 
the  Interior,  was  obviously  a  prelimi- 
nary skirmish  by  which  the  opposi- 
tion meant  to  test  the  strength  of  the 
new  Government  and,  perhaps,  to  as- 
certain on  what  auxiliary  forces  they 
could  reckon  for  the  full  onset  that 


is  to  follow.  It  is  a  very  heterogene- 
ous group  by  which  the  Millerand 
Cabinet  is  challenged.  There  are  first 
of  all  the  Socialist  members  whc 
naturally  will  join  any  opposition 
against  a  Government  formed  by  the 
Bloc  National.  By  helping  to  defeat 
it  they  would  take  revenge  for  theii 
recent  discomfiture  at  the  polls.  The 
extreme  Right,  as  whose  spokesman 
Leon  Daudet  led  the  attack,  will  not 
be  withheld  from  repeating  the 
assault  by  fear  of  playing  into  the 
Socialists'  hands.  The  latter  are  toe 
few  in  number  in  the  new  Chamber 
as  compared  with  the  representatior 
of  the  Bloc,  to  derive  any  substantia' 
gain  from  the  overthrow  of  the 
Cabinet.  These  two  extremes  are 
strengthened  by  several  deputies  oj 
the  Bloc  National,  who  owe  the  n^w 
Premier  a  grudge  for  not  having 
offered  them  or  their  friends  a  place 
in  the  Government. 

'T'HE  personal  element  has  always 
■'-  been  a  strong  factor  in  Frencl 
politics,  and  now  that  the  Germar 
danger  is  past  it  reasserts  itself  wit! 
fresh  vigor.  The  Frenchman's  in 
terest  in  the  contest  of  parties  ii 
stimulated  by  his  realistic  tendencj 
to  transpose  the  clash  of  abstraci 
principles  into  a  conflict  betweer 
ambitious  politicians.  The  present 
crisis  is  a  case  in  point.  Behind  the 
opposition  looms  the  powerful  figure 
of  Briand,  who,  if  he  succeeds  ir 
ousting  Millerand,  will  be  the  chiel 
gainer.  It  was  Briand  who  manipu 
lated  the  election  of  Paul  Deschane 
to  the  Presidency,  and  in  the  eveni 
of  the  fall  of  the  present  Cabinet 
Briand  will  be  charged  by  the  new 
President  with  the  formation  of  « 
new  one.  It  would,  therefore,  have 
availed  Millerand  but  little  if  he  hac 
waived  insistence  on  M.  Steeg's  beinj 
excluded  from  the  vote  of  confidence 
in  the  Government.  The  attack  or 
the  Minister  of  the  Interior  was  onlj 
a  means  to  an  end,  and  the  end  is 
the  ousting  of  M.  Millerand  himself 
The  latter's  position  is  the  more  pre 
carious  as  he  has  no  definite  pro 
gramme  to  offer  on  which  a  stronj 
majority  of  the  Chamber  could  h 
brought  to  agree.  The  cement  of  th' 
Bloc  National  is  a  negative  formula 


Jami.ary  31,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[97 


There  is  no  unity  of  design  between 
its  various  fractions  as  to  the  best 
plan  for  the  economic  reconstruction 
of  the  country.  The  financial  policy 
to  be  adopted  will  be  the  supreme 
test  of  the  Cabinet's  vitality.  The 
new  Minister  of  Finance,  Frangois- 
Marcel,  has  denounced  the  work  of 
his  predecessor,  M.  Klotz,  as  "inco- 
herent and  altogether  incapable  of 
meeting  the  present  needs  of  France." 
But  he  will  soon  find  out  the  diificulty 
of  steering  a  course  which  must  not 
only  meet  the  needs  of  France  but 
must  also  meet  with  the  approval  of 
such  an  incoherent  body  as  the  Bloc 
National. 

nnHE  Ohio  State  Bar  Association,  in 
■'■  annual  session  at  Dayton  last 
week,  listened  to  a  very  vigorous  dis- 
cussion, by  Hon.  John  A.  McMahon, 
of  the  attitude  of  labor  organizations 
towards  what  they  are  pleased  to  call 
"government  by  injunction."  The 
speaker  showed  that  the  injunction 

1  is  an  ancient  familiar   remedy,   de- 

!  veloped  as  a  means  of  enabling  courts 
of  equity  to  protect  citizens  in  their 
legal  rights.  "Its  area  of  jurisdiction 
is  as  wide  as  that  of  human  rights 
invaded  by  unscrupulous  men."  It 
has  been  a  very  common  resort  of 
the  poor  and  the  weak  against  at- 
tempts at  ruthless  encroachments  by 

I  wealth  and  power.  Only  a  small  per- 
centage of  the  cases  of  its  use  have 
had  anything  to  do  with  labor  con- 

j  troversies.  In  no  case  has  a  court  as- 

'  sumed  the  authority  to  enjoin  strikers 
simply  as  strikers,  but  only  as  partic- 

I  ular  circumstances  involved  them  in 
the  illegal  infraction  of  the  legal  rights 
of  others.   "There  is  no  recorde^jj  case 

I  where  workingmen  have  been  com- 
pelled to  return  to  work  by  the  order 
of  any  court."  While  admitting  that 
individual  judges  might  err  in  the 
discretion  necessary  to  the  use  of 
such  a  means,  the  speaker  argued 
very  earnestly  that  the  injunction  is 
a  bulwark  of  human  right  and  justice 
which  we  can  not  afford  to  weaken. 
In  the  Ohio  campaign  for  the  adop- 
tion of  a  long  series  of  amendments 
to  the  state  constitution,  in  1912,  a 
Iproposition  was  submitted  separately 
which  limited  the  use  of  the  injunc- 
tion, in  cases  involving  the  employ- 


ment of  labor,  merely  to  the  protec- 
tion of  physical  property  from  vio- 
lence. It  was  defeated  by  over  six- 
teen thousand  votes  in  the  State,  and 
through  a  campaign  of  education  led 
by  Mr.  McMahon  it  was  beaten  by 
more  than  eleven  thousand  in  the 
counties  containing  the  great  manu- 
facturing centres  of  the  Miami 
Valley. 

'T'HE  slogan  "1919  has  been  the 
-*-  radicals'  year,  1920  belongs  to  the 
sane  thinkers"  may  represent  only 
a  pious  hope,  but  it  is  a  hope  worth 
holding  up  before  men  as  one 
that  is  at  least  possible  of  realiza- 
tion. Some  recent  publicity  of  the 
McGraw-Hill  publications,  appearing 
under  the  above  caption,  suggests 
large  possibilities  in  the  use  of  ad- 
vertising space  for  the  purpose  of 
teaching  the  fundamental  economic 
truths  in  a  plain  and  forceful  way. 
The  plain  citizen  may  be  pardoned  if 
he  feels  that  in  his  economic  diet  he 
must  perforce  choose  between  some 
pretty  raw  east  wind  and  a  simoom 
that  may  be  heating  but  is  not  sus- 
taining. Like  plant  foods  in  the 
ground,  economic  truth  exists  in 
abundance,  but  for  most  mortals  it 
is  not  in  "available"  form.  In  such 
a  possible  campaign  of  education, 
quite  as  important  as  explaining  what 
is  true,  would  be  the  effective  dem- 
onstration of  what  is  not  true,  or 
is  characterized  by  the  possession  of 
a  mere  dangerous  fraction  of  the 
truth.  Indeed,  it  is  the  things  that 
seem  to  be  true  that  are  the  chief 
source  of  danger.  The  things  that 
are  palpably  false  will  be  seen 
through,  sooner  or  later,  by  even  the 
plainest  citizen.  But  he  needs  to  be 
put  on  his  guard  against  the  mischief- 
breeding  half-truths  and  possible 
falsehoods  with  which  he  is  con- 
stantly confronted. 

THE  plan  for  a  general  final  exami- 
nation of  candidates  for  degrees 
at  Harvard  is  connected  by  President 
Lowell,  in  his  annual  report,  with  the 
feeling  that  the  individual  student, 
rather  than  the  individual  course  of 
study,  should  be  treated  as  the  unit 
in  education.  The  general  examina- 
tion is  to  cover  the  field  in  which  the 


student  has  "concentrated,"  a  tech- 
nical term  in  Harvard  which  happily 
avoids  some  of  the  suggestions  of  the 
more  common  word  "specialized,"  or 
of  the  ill  sounding  "majored."  The 
system  begins  with  the  present  Fresh- 
man class,  but  is  not  obligatory  on 
any  department  against  its  will.  All 
departments  except  those  of  mathe- 
matics and  the  natural  sciences  have 
so  far  voted  to  make  the  experiment. 
Perhaps  the  greatest  advantage  of 
these  examinations  will  be  their  in- 
fluence in  extending  and  systematiz- 
ing the  student's  collateral  reading, 
which  examinations  in  single  courses 
can  not  control,  and  which,  with  the 
multiplicity  of  present-day  college 
distractions,  is  taken  for  granted  far 
oftener  than  done. 

'T'HE  suggested  unionization  of  col- 
•*•    lege  and  university  teachers  is 
discussed  by   President  Lovejoy,   of 
the  Association  of  University  Profes- 
sors, in  his  recently  printed  annual 
message  to  the  Association.    He  gives 
three  very  forcible  reasons  for  oppos- 
ing the  scheme.    In  the  first  place,  it 
is  certain  that  a  large  part  of  the  pro- 
fession would  refuse  to  join  an  organ- 
ization affiliated  with  the  American 
Federation  of  Labor.  Again,  the  trade- 
union  usually  is,  and  is  generally  un- 
derstood to  be,  preponderantly  eco- 
nomic in  its  aims  and  methods.    It  is 
not  wise  that  the  professional  organ- 
ization of  university  teachers  and  in- 
vestigators should  exist,  in  fact  or 
in  popular  opinion,  primarily  for  the 
purpose  of  increasing  the  salaries  of 
its  members,  or  that  its  characteris- 
tic business  should  be  the  application 
of  economic  pressure  for  such  ends. 
Rather,  its  first  concern  should  be  to 
enable  its  members  to  discharge  their 
distinctive  function  in  the  economy 
of  modern  society  with  the  highest 
possible   degree   of  competency   and 
serviceableness.    Finally,  that  part  of 
the  profession  which  is  engaged  in 
teaching  the  "social  sciences"  should 
avoid,  in  the  interest  of  a  suitable  de- 
tachment, entangling  alliances  with 
any  of  the  purely  economic  groups 
now  struggling  to  retain  or  increase 
their  share  of  the  "social  dividend." 
There  is  little  ground  to  apprehend 
much  dissent  from  this  reasoning. 


98] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  38 


Hoover 

THE  New  York  World's  courageous 
declaration  in  favor  of  Hoover 
for  President  has  awakened  an  enthu- 
siastic response.  It  would  be  impos- 
sible, we  believe,  to  find  any  parallel 
to  the  announcement,  by  a  newspaper 
generally  acknowledged  to  be  the 
most  powerful  organ  of  its  party  in 
the  country,  that  it  will  support  a 
particular  man  whether  he  be  nomi- 
nated by  the  Democrats  or  by  the 
Republicans  or  by  an  independent 
movement,  provided  only  that  the 
platform  on  which  he  stands  is  sound 
in  its  fundamental  character.  And 
the  applause  that  the  World  has 
received  has  come  from  Democrats 
even  more  than  from  Republicans, 
though  there  has  been  a  great  deal 
from  both. 

It  is  being  widely  asserted  that  the 
Hoover  boom,  to  which  the  World's 
announcement  has  given  so  sudden 
an  impetus,  has  been  industriously 
fostered  by  strong  political  and  other 
interests.  To  attempt  to  determine 
the  facts  as  to  this  aspect  of  it  would 
be  a  futile  undertaking.  But  what- 
ever may  be  the  truth  as  to  the  exist- 
ence of  any  factor  of  this  kind  in  the 
case,  there  is  no  question  at  all  as  to 
the  existence  of  another  factor  so 
powerful  as  of  itself  to  account  for 
the  spread  of  the  Hoover  idea — a 
factor  without  which  the  machina- 
tions of  politicians  and  cliques  would 
have  been  impotent  to  produce  it. 

Without  urging  of  any  sort,  the 
thoughts  of  thousands  of  citizens 
have  turned  to  Hoover  as  the  man 
who  possesses  in  a  unique  degree 
qualifications  singularly  suited  to  the 
needs  of  an  extraordinary  situation. 
People  turn  to  him  after  much  the 
same  fashion  as  in  other  days  repub- 
lics in  time  of  stress  were  wont  to 
turn  to  "the  man  on  horseback"  as 
the  only  possible  "savior  of  society." 
A  republic  threatened  with  imme- 
diate and  possibly  fatal  convulsion  is 
prone  to  overlook  all  other  considera- 
tions in  the  presence  of  the  overmas- 
tering need  of  safety.  In  such  a  situ- 
ation the  one  strong  man  whose  name 
is  a  synonym  for  safety — and  he  is  very 
apt  to  be  "the  man  on  horseback" — 
outclasses  all  competitors.    Our  coun- 


try is  in  no  such  plight.  Neither  the 
evils  with  which  we  are  already  con- 
tending, nor  the  evils  that  we  appre- 
hend, forebode  any  sudden  convul- 
sion or  overturn.  But  they  are  of  a 
seriousness  unexampled  in  our  his- 
tory; and  nowhere  is  there  any  sign 
that  they  will  be  vigorously  and  ef- 
fectively grappled  with.  The  pro- 
found economic  disturbance  brought 
on  by  the  war  enormously  aggravated 
all  forms  of  social  unrest ;  and  to-day, 
fifteen  months  after  the  armistice, 
our  reasons  for  anxiety  as  to  this  sit- 
uation are  not  less,  but  far  greater, 
than  they  were  when  the  clash  of 
arms  came  to  an  end.  To  do  what 
can  be  done  for  the  betterment  of 
these  conditions  is  the  one  supreme 
need  of  the  moment;  and  it  requires 
nothing  more  to  explain  the  underly- 
ing cause  of  the  Hoover  boom.  For 
Hoover  is  the  one  man  whose  achieve- 
ments and  character  mark- him  out  as 
signally  qualified  to  meet  that  need. 

The  great  foundation  for  this  belief 
in  his  achievements  and  his  character 
is  his  work  in  the  rescue  of  Belgium. 
A  private  citizen,  a  man  not  thereto- 
fore connected  with  any  great  philan- 
thropic enterprise,  he  undertook  a 
task  before  which  all  the  world 
shrank  appalled,  and  he  achieved  it. 
Not  only  on  the  economic  side,  but  on 
its  manifold  human  sides,  he  grap- 
pled with  all  the  difficulties  of  an 
unexampled  situation  and  overcame 
them.  To  awaken  his  countrymen  to 
a  duty  of  which  they  were  slow  to 
appreciate  the  magnitude,  to  enlist 
and  to  retain  the  devoted  cooperation 
of  the  ablest  assistants,  to  institute 
methods  which  brought  to  devastated 
Belgium  the  maximum  of  assistance 
with  the  minimum  of  pauperization — 
these  were  the  aspects  of  his  work 
which  soon  became  apparent,  and 
which  excited  the  admiration  and 
gratitude  of  all  the  world.  It  was 
only  later  that  we  came  to  understand 
by  what  combination  of  firmness  and 
tact,  of  vigilance  and  foresight,  he 
succeeded  in  maintaining  livable  rela- 
tions with  the  German  authorities, 
while  yielding  nothing  of  the  prin- 
ciple that  every  ounce  of  the  help  that 
he  provided  for  the  Belgians,  and  of 
the  self-help  which  he  made  possible 
to  them,  was  to  count  for  their  good 


and  not  for  that  of  their  conquerors. 
History  records  no  more  splendid 
example  of  the  consecration  of  great 
powers  to  the  service  at  once  of 
humanity  and  of  liberty. 

Mr.  Hoover's  work  in  Belgium  was^ 
followed,  when  our  country  went  into 
the  war,  by  administrative  work  on  a 
still  greater  scale,  for  which  he  was 
chosen  by  President  Wilson  because 
of  the  preeminent  ability  and  energy 
which  he  had  exhibited.  In  the  exe- 
cution of  these  tasks  he  has  mani- 
fested the  same  quality  of  practical 
insight  combined  with  breath  of  vis- 
ion, as  well  as  that  perfect  command 
of  detail,  and  that  genius  for  organi- 
zation, which  were  essential  to  the 
success  of  his  work  in  Belgium.  And 
he  has  never  lost  sight  of  the  human 
elements  without  which  even  tha 
highest  organization  is  incapable  of 
achieving  great  ends.  He  did  not 
underestimate,  as  many  men  of  the 
merely  engineering  instinct  might 
have  done,  the  immense  potentialities 
of  voluntary  cooperation  at  a  time 
when  a  whole  people  are  deeply 
stirred  to  a  sense  of  patriotic  duty. 
Nor  has  he  failed,  at  each  of  several 
notable  conjunctures,  to  say  a  ring- 
ing word  that  has  had  conclusive 
potency.  Without  in  the  least  coun- 
tenancing preposterous  notions  of  the 
punishment  to  be  inflicted  upon  Ger- 
many, such  as  were  fomented  by 
Lloyd  George  in  his  electioneering 
campaign  after  the  armistice,  he  put 
his  foot  down  firmly  when  senti- 
mental pleas  for  the  relief  of  the 
Germans  were  filling  the  air  while 
our  undivided  attention  was  required 
for  the  rescue  of  populations  that  had 
been  crushed  in  the  mire  by  the  Ger- 
man power;  and  when  the  downfall 
of  Bela  Kun  was  followed  by  what 
looked  like  a  recrudescence  of  the 
Hapsburg  idea,  a  few  forthright 
words  from  Hoover  gave  what  was 
generally  regarded  as  the  coup  de 
grace  to  that  unfortunate  project. 
Preeminently  a  man  that  "does 
things,"  Mr.  Hoover  is  not  much  of 
a  talker;  but  when  he  does  speak  he 
hits  the  mark. 

To  a  man  of  this  type  it  is  natural 
that  the  country  should  turn  when  it 
stands  in  crying  need  of  relief  from 
evils  in  which  the  economic  and  the 


January  31,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[99 


human  elements  are  equally  involved. 
We  are  not  going  to  straighten  out 
the  troubles  between  labor  and  capi- 
tal either  by  an  appeal  to  lofty  gen- 
eralities or  by  the  application  of 
merely  economic  remedies.  We  are 
not  going  to  deal  successfully  with 
the  grievances  that  have  arisen  from 
the  enormous  advance  of  prices  by 
exhorting  men  to  be  more  high- 
minded  or  unselfish,  nor  can  we  do 
so  by  looking  hither  and  thither  for 
means  of  artificial  legal  restraint 
upon  the  processes  of  business.  In 
so  far  as  anything  can  be  done  by 
the  Government  for  either  of  these 
ends,  its  action  must  be  animated  by 
just  that  combination  of  broad-mind- 
edness and  practicality  which,  in  the 
fields  in  which  he  has  thus  far  been 
engaged,  Mr.  Hoover  has  so  signally 
exhibited.  Accordingly  we  believe  it 
to  be  true  that  his  advocates  will  be 
found  in  about  equal  proportions 
among  those  who  are  adherents  of 
Mr.  Wilson  because  of  the  loftiness 
of  his  idealism,  and  among  those 
who  oppose  and  condemn  Mr.  Wilson 
because  of  the  disastrous  vagueness 
of  that  same  idealism.  Men  of  the 
latter  class  are  ready  to  welcome  with 
profound  relief  a  change  from  glam- 
orous generalities  to  concrete  help- 
fulness; and  we  feel  quite  sure  that 
by  this  time  even  men  of  the  former 
class,  whether  they  admit  it  to  them- 
selves or  not,  have  had  a  surfeit  of 
rainbow-chasing. 

So  much  for  the  case  in  favor  of 
Mr.  Hoover  as  a  possible  President 
of  the  United  States.  But  strong  as 
it  is,  it  is  very  far  from  being  an 
adequate  case.  Before  we  can  as 
sober  citizens  of  a  self-governing 
nation  declare  that  he  is  our  man, 
we  must  know  much  more  about  the 
kind  of  President  Mr.  Hoover  is  likely 
to  make.  It  has  been  announced  by 
a  friend  of  Mr.  Hoover's  that  a  state- 
ment will  soon  be  forthcoming,  in 
which  he  will  lay  down  his  views  on 
the  issues  of  the  time.  This  may  go 
far  towards  determining  the  inherent 
merits  of  his  candidacy,  even  if  it 
still  leaves  wide  open  the  question  of 
his  possible  nomination  by  either 
party.  In  the  meanwhile,  it  is  proper 
to  point  out  some  of  the  vital  consid- 
erations, other  than  those  involved  !n 


his  personal  ability  and  character, 
which  must  be  taken  into  account  by 
the  nation. 

The  term  of  the  next  President  will 
begin  not  to-morrow,  but  more  than 
a  year  hence;  it  will  end  more  than 
five  years  hence.  During  these  five 
years  great  national  concerns  will  be 
affected,  other  than  those  which  at 
this  moment  are  pressing  so  heavily 
upon  us.  The  ship  of  state  is  in 
stormy  waters,  but,  whoever  is  Pres- 
ident, she  will  right  herself.  She  is 
not  going  on  the  rocks.  It  is  ex- 
tremely important  that  we  should  get 
through  with  as  little  injury  as  pos- 
sible, but  we  are  not  reduced  to  the 
necessity  of  electing  a  merely  emer- 
gency President.  In  the  main,  the 
salvation  of  the  country  from  the 
immediate  evils  in  the  contemplation 
of  which  we  are  now  absorbed  must 
come  from  the  sound  sense  and  the 
fundamental  virtues  of  the  people 
themselves.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
political  and  economic  structure  of 
the  country  may  undergo  very  great 
changes,  even  in  the  course  of  a  few 
years,  through  the  action  of  those 
whom  the  people  choose  to  carry  on 
their  Government. 

Even  before  the  advent  of  Presi- 
dent Wilson,  the  presidency  had  grad- 
ually come  to  be  a  political  force  so 
dominant  as,  in  the  hands  of  a  strong 
man,  to  overshadow  all  other  factors. 
Whatever  other  issues  there  may  be 
in  the  presidential  campaign,  one 
issue  is  bound  to  run  through  it, 
whether  explicitly  formulated  or  not. 
We  are  either  going  to  stand  by  the 
fundamental  principles  of  the  Amer- 
ican political  and  economic  system,  or 
we  are  going  to  drift  away  from  them. 
It  may  or  may  not  be  that  Mr.  Hoover 
has  profound  or  well-defined  convic- 
tions on  these  principles;  it  may  or 
may  not  be  that  he  realizes  the  essen- 
tial importance  of  surrounding  him- 
self with  men  who  are  devoted  to 
them.  We  can  not  afford  to  be  saved 
by  a  wonder-worker,  a  superman. 
We  want  to  get  the  benefit  that  such 
a  man  is  capable  of  conferring  on  us 
in  a  time  of  great  and  extraordinary 
need,  but  we  do  not  want  to  pur- 
chase those  benefits  at  the  sacrifice 
of  the  permanent  character  of  our 
institutions.     In   a    word,    we    must 


know  what  the  election  of  Hoover 
would  mean  politically,  before  we  can 
decide  whether  he  is  the  man  that 
we  ought  to  have  for  President. 

New    York's    "Town 
Meeting  Hall" 

npHE  League  for  Political  Education 
•*■  was  founded  twenty-five  years 
ago  by  a  little  group  of  public-spirited 
women,  of  whom  the  late  Mrs.  Henry 
M.  Sanders  was  the  leader.  Its 
growth  has  been  quiet,  unobtrusive, 
and  steady.  It  is  now  to  have  a  cen- 
trally located  building,  of  ample  di- 
mensions and  suited  to  varied  uses. 
If  the  tributes  paid  to  its  past  by  men 
of  such  diverse  views  as  Bishop 
Burch  on  the  one  hand  and  Rabbi 
Wise  on  the  other  may  be  accepted  as 
a  token  of  the  future  that  lies  before 
it,  the  civic  and  social  activities  which 
are  to  be  centred  in  the  new  building 
will  in  the  years  to  come  exercise  an 
important  influence,  which  will  be 
felt  not  only  in  New  York  but 
throughout  the  nation. 

Not  the  least  of  the  reasons  for 
such  an  anticipation  is  that  feature 
in  its  history  and  purposes  which  was 
especially  dwelt  upon  by  Mr.  Robert 
Erskine  Ely,  to  whose  energy  and 
devotion  as  its  administrator  the 
other  speakers  ascribed  the  chief 
share  in  its  success.  It  has  relied  for 
its  growth  not  upon  the  munificence 
of  a  few  individuals,  but  upon  the 
hearty  cooperation  of  many  hundreds, 
each  of  whom  gave  his  or  her  help 
without  the  special  urging  of  any- 
thing like  an  organized  "drive."  By 
way  of  emphasizing  the  point,  Mr. 
Ely  declared  that  if  the  $1,250,000 
needed  for  the  new  building,  whose 
corner-stone  was  laid  last  Saturday, 
were  to  be  offered  to  him  in  a  single 
check,  he  would  feel  obliged  to  de- 
cline the  gift.  In  the  new  career  now 
opening  for  the  institution,  it  should, 
and  probably  will — like  the  City 
Club  of  New  York — have  imitators 
throughout  the  country,  and  it  is 
important  that  these  should  be  in- 
spired by  the  same  idea  of  self-help 
and  spontaneous  cooperation. 

Of  the  building  the  most  conspicu- 
ous feature  will  be  what  is  formally 


100] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  38 


called  the  "Civic  Auditorium,"  but 
what  is  by  preference  referred  to  as 
the  "Town  Meeting  Hall."  The 
friends  of  the  project  love  to  think  of 
it  as  offering  in  some  measure  a 
revival  of  the  New  England  town 
meeting.  The  town  meeting,  how- 
ever, as  everybody  knows,  can  play 
no  such  part  in  a  world-city  of  six 
million  inhabitants  of  the  utmost  con- 
ceivable heterogeneity  as  it  did  in 
the  New  England  town  of  six  hun- 
dred, or  six  thousand,  transplanted 
Englishmen.  Indeed,  as  we  under- 
stand it,  there  are  two  quite  distinct 
objects  for  which  the  Civic  Audito- 
rium is  to  be  established.  The  regu- 
larly planned  lectures  and  discussions, 
under  the  auspices  of  the  League  for 
Political  Education,  will  there  have 
access  to  large  audiences,  instead  of 
the  comparatively  small  ones  which 
they  have  hitherto  reached;  but  dur- 
ing the  greater  part  of  every  week 
the  hall  will  be  available  for  public 
meetings  of  miscellaneous  character. 
The  League  will  do  well  to  keep 
clearly  in  mind,  and  to  keep  clearly 
before  the  public,  the  distinction  be- 
tween these  two  functions.  The  prin- 
ciple of  free  speech  has  its  bearing 
on  both,  and  the  principle  of  intelli- 
gent speech  has  its  bearing  on  both. 
But  the  emphasis  on  freedom  and  the 
emphasis  on  intelligence  should  be 
different  in  the  two.  It  will  be  a 
great  thing  to  have  a  recognized 
centre  where  opinions  and  sentiments 
of  almost  every  possible  shade  can 
find  vent  without  the  sponsorship  of 
any  organization;  and  accordingly 
the  League  should  be  as  sparing  as 
possible  of  any  censorship  of  the  pur- 
poses for  which  its  hall  may  be  used 
as  a  place  of  general  assembly.  On  the 
other  hand,  a  League  for  Political 
Education  is  bound  by  its  very  title 
to  see  to  it  that  the  matter  which  is 
presented  under  its  own  auspices  shall 
be  educative.  There  is  a  superstition 
of  free  speech,  just  as  there  is  a 
superstition  of  bigotry.  It  may  be 
right  to  let  wild  or  ignorant  people 
talk  nonsense,  but  it  is  silly  to  suppose 
that  such  talking  is  educative,  or 
that  it  is  sure  to  be  harmless.  The 
views  set  forth  by  speakers  for  a 
League  of  Political  Education  need 
not  be  in  accord  with  what  the  offi- 


cers of  the  League  think  just  or 
desirable,  but  they  must  fulfill  one 
condition — that  of  being  the  result  of 
sober  and  competent  thought.  To  be 
a  lecturer  for  such  an  association  is 
not  a  natural  right,  but  an  acquired 
privilege.  Undoubtedly,  it  has  been 
upon  this  principle  that  the  League 
has  proceeded 'in  the  past;  but  once 
it  gets  into  the  limelight  in  its  larger 
sphere  of  operations  it  will  be  likely 
to  meet  with  much  sophomoric  criti- 
cism if  it  continues  to  adhere  to  it. 

Another  of  the  uses  to  which  the 
building  is  to  be  put  appeals  to  us 
perhaps  even  more  strongly.  It  will 
house  a  club  for  men  and  women,  to 
which  admission  will  be  easy,  and  of 
which  the  annual  membership  fee  is 
to  be  only  fifteen  dollars.  There  ought 
to  be  a  score  of  such  clubs  in  New 
York,  and  every  city  should  have  one 
or  more  of  them.  To  a  large  class 
of  women  especially  it  would  supply 
something  the  absence  of  which  it  is 
pitiful  to  contemplate  when  one  thinks 
how  easily  it  might  be  provided. 
There  are  in  New  York  tens  of  thou- 
sands of  women  living  solitary  lives 
of  hard  work,  women  of  education 
and  refinement,  whose  life  would  be 
transformed  by  the  mere  possibility 
of  such  human  contact  as  a  club  of 
this  kind  would  furnish.  In  many 
cases  the  effect  of  this  contact  would 
be  to  open  opportunities  for  civic  or 
social  usefulness  which  these  women 
would  eagerly  welcome,  and  from 
that  standpoint  alone  the  existence  of 
the  club  would  be  more  than  justified. 
But  it  is  the  benefit  to  the  individuals 
themselves — men  as  well  as  women, 
but  women  most  because  they  need  it 
most — to  which  we  attach  the  highest 
value.  The  civic  or  public  side  will 
be  peculiar  to  such  a  club  as  is  to  be 
housed  in  the  League's  building;  but 
if  this  should  prove  a  success,  lesser 
clubs,  clubs  of  a  neighborhood  char- 
acter, ought  to  find  their  cue  in  it. 
Without  any  aspiration  for  larger  re- 
sults, such  clubs  would  do  their  share 
in  filling  a  need  not  less  acute  than 
that  for  social  or  political  reform — 
the  need  of  a  livable  life  for  thousands 
of  individual  men  and  women  op- 
pressed by  the  utter  bareness  and 
unfriendliness  of  their  social  sur- 
roundings. 


Holland  and  the  ex- 
Kaiser 

TN  its  note  to  the  Netherlands  Gov- 
-*-  ernment  demanding  the  extradi- 
tion of  the  ex-Kaiser,  the  Supreme 
Council  expressed  the  opinion  that 
"Holland  would  not  fulfill  her  inter- 
national duty  if  she  refused  to  asso- 
ciate herself  with  the  Entente  Powers, 
within  the  limit  of  her  ability,  to 
pursue,  or  at  least  not  to  impede,  the 
punishment  of  crimes  committed." 
The  Council  has  thus,  in  anticipation, 
condemned  Queen  Wilhelmina  and 
her  Government  as  lacking  in  duty 
to  the  rest  of  the  world.  It  seems 
open  to  doubt  whether  it  is  in  accord- 
ance with  that  high  international 
policy  in  whose  name  the  demand  for 
extradition  was  made  to  force,  by 
the  threat  of  a  stigma,  the  Kingdom 
into  fulfilling  its  alleged  duty.  A  com- 
pliance with  the  request,  since  that 
menace  was  made,  would,  whether 
justly  or  not,  have  been  explained  as 
due  to  Holland's  fear  of  the  conse- 
quences of  a  refusal.  Holland  was 
thus  given  only  the  choice  between 
fulfilling  a  new-sprung  duty  without 
receiving  credit  for  her  moral  sense 
and  satisfying  her  own  conscience  by 
a  strict  adherence  to  the  laws  of  the 
kingdom  and  national  tradition. 

The  decision,  though  thus  facili- 
tated for  Holland  by  the  threat  of 
the  Powers,  would  not  have  fallen 
out  otherwise  if  they  had  simply 
appealed  to  her  "respect  for  law  and 
love  of  justice."  It  is  on  these  very 
principles  that  Queen  Wilhelmina  has 
based  her  refusal ;  respect,  indeed,  for 
the  laws  of  the  kingdom  and  love  of 
that  justice  which  is  embodied  in  na- 
tional tradition.  Those  two  were  the 
only  principles  by  which  her  Govern- 
ment could  let  itself  be  guided,  as  no 
international  law  exists  on  which  the 
demand  of  the  Powers  could  be  based. 
There  is  greater  force  in  that  argu- 
ment than  in  the  plea,  put  forward 
by  French  editors  and  politicians, 
that  the  demand  is  founded  on  a  new 
moral  law  which,  by  its  application 
to  the  ex-Kaiser's  case,  would  be 
carried  out  of  the  sphere  of  theory 
into  that  of  international  practice. 
THe    prestige    of   the    International 


Janiiaiy  31,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[101 


Code  of  Law  would  suffer  from  this 
novel  mode  of  enactment,  contrary  to 
the  juristic  principles  of  all  civilized 
countries.  Taking  this  point  of  view, 
which  seems  to  us  unimpeachable,  the 
Government  of  the  Queen  declared 
that  "if  in  the  future  there  should  be 
instituted  by  the  society  of  nations 
an  international  jurisdiction,  com- 
petent to  judge  in  case  of  war  deeds, 
qualified  as  crimes  and  submitted  to 
its  jurisdiction  by  statute  antedating 
the  acts  committed,  it  would  be  fit  for 
Holland  to  associate  herself  with  the 
new  regime." 

The  Dutch  press  seems  to  be  unani- 
mous in  its  approval  of  the  Govern- 
ment's attitude.  We  should  wrong 
the  Hollanders  if  we  ascribed  their 
satisfaction  to  any  love  for  the  exile 
of  Amerongen  or  to  a  wish  to  con- 
done the  many  crimes  committed  in 
his  name.  If  they  could,  without 
prejudice  to  their  national  honor,  get 
rid  of  the  intruder,  they  would  gladly 
see  the  last  of  him.  Those  who  re- 
fuse the  Kaiser's  extradition  would 
be  more  glad  of  a  justifiable  reason 
for  delivering  him  than  the  Allied 
Governments  probably  would  be  of 
receiving  him  at  their  hands.  The 
Dutch  reply  must  have  brought  a 
sense  of  relief  to  the  Cabinets  in 
Paris  and  London.  The  fear  lest  the 
failure  to  enforce  one  provision  of 
the  Treaty  of  Versailles  should  in- 
validate others  has  small  basis.  It  is 
not  the  German  Government  which 
raises  the  obstacle,  but  a  Power  which 
can,  and  does,  claim  as  a  reason  for 
refusing  the  Council's  demand  that 
it  is  not  a  party  to  that  treaty. 

The  two  parties  chiefly  concerned 
have  good  cause,  therefore,  to  thank 
Queen  Wilhelmina's  Government  for 
its  decision:  the  Entente  Powers, 
which  are  barred  from  the  dubious 
honor  of  establishing  a  new  interna- 
tional law  which  would  set  up  the 
accuser  as  judge  in  his  own  case,  and 
the  Dutch  nation,  which  has  the  satis- 
faction of  seeing  its  respect  for  law 
and  tradition  prevail  over  its  aversion 
to  the  guest  who,  little  to  his  honor, 
abuses  that  feeling  for  his  own  safety. 
It  is  only  the  ex-Kaiser  himself  who, 
j  if  he  were  the  man  he  has  so  long 
pretended  to  be,  should  regret  a  con- 
clusion which  prevents  him  fro^-"  ris- 


ing out  of  his  present  obscurity  into 
the  full  glare  of  the  world's  stage, 
to  make  his  exit  as  a  martyr. 

Still  Fumbling  with 
Russia 

A  NNOUNCEMENTS  in  recent  offi- 
-^  cial  Soviet  Government  newspa- 
pers, as  well  as  from  the  Soviet 
authorities  themselves,  confirm  the 
statement  made  in  our  last  week's 
issue  that  the  Russian  Cooperative 
organizations  were  under  control  of 
the  Soviet  Government,  and  that  to 
trade  with  the  Cooperatives  as  pro- 
posed in  the  announcement  of  the 
Supreme  Council  is  to  deal  with  the 
Soviet  Government. 

The  real  meaning  and  intent  of  the 
announcement  are  still  far  from 
clear.  Three  possible  explanations 
have  been  suggested.  The  first  is  that 
Alexander  Berkenheim,  sometime  rep- 
resentative of  the  Central  Union  of 
Consumers'  Cooperatives,  had  taken 
in  the  Supreme  Council  and  led  them 
to  believe  that  it  was  possible  to  deal 
with  the  Russian  people  through  the 
Cooperatives  independently  of  the 
Soviet  Government;  in  other  words, 
that  it  was  possible  "to  go  over  the 
heads  of  the  Government  to  the  peo- 
ple." The  cryptic  remark  in  the  an- 
nouncement concerning  "the  report 
of  a  committee  appointed  to  consider 
the  reopening  of  certain  trade  rela- 
tions with  the  Russian  people"  may 
refer  to  Berkenheim  and  his  assist- 
ant, Krovopuskov.  The  latter  has 
now  admitted  that  the  Cooperatives 
are  completely  controlled  by  the 
Soviet  Government.  A  second  view 
is  that  the  announcement  is  a  scarcely 
veiled  proposal  to  enter  into  negotia- 
tions with  and  recognize  the  Soviet 
Government.  This,  however,  seems 
unlikely  in  view  of  the  categorical 
statement  that  the  arrangement  im- 
plies no  change  in  the  policies  of  the 
Allied  Governments  toward  the  Soviet 
Government,  and  also  because  the 
proposal  has  been  coldly  received  by 
the  Soviet  authorities.  A  third  sup- 
position is  that  Lloyd  George  put 
forth,  for  its  political  eifect  upon  the 
radical  labor  element  in  England  and 
elsewhere,  a  proposal  of  which  he 


knew  well  that  nothing  would  come 
in  practice,  but  for  the  failure  of 
which  he  could  place  the  blame  on 
the  Soviet  Government  itself. 

In  connection  with  this,  it  is  in- 
teresting to  note  that  the  pro-Bolshe- 
vist press  charges  a  British  i51ot  to 
secure  a  favorable  trade  position,  re- 
gardless of  what  develops  in  Russia, 
and  to  exclude  America  from  similar 
opportunities.  Attention  is  called  to 
the  fact  that  the  action  at  Paris  was 
taken  after  America  had  burned  her 
bridges  behind  her  by  the  deportation 
of  the  Russian  "Reds"  and  by  the 
publication  of  the  State  Department 
memorandum  on  Bolshevism.  Mean- 
while the  Allied  policy  toward  Soviet 
Russia  is  a  mass  of  inconsistencies 
and  contradictions.  Side  by  side  with 
the  proposal  to  trade  with  the  Rus- 
sian people  comes  the  recognition  of 
the  independence  of  Georgia  and 
Azerbaijan  and  the  promise  of  assist- 
ance to  Poland  in  her  struggle  against 
the  Bolsheviks.  It  must  be  reiterated 
that  the  announced  policy  of  placing 
a  "barbed-wire  fence"  around  Bol- 
shevik Russia  is  fraught  with  great 
danger.  Any  proposal  that  threatens 
the  unity  and  integrity  of  Russia 
tends  to  unite  patriotic  anti-Bolshevik 
Russians  under  the  Bolshevik  banner 
for  the  defense  of  the  unity  of  their 
country,  and  discourages  those  forces 
which  are  making  for  revoljition  from 
within.  Nothing  could  be  more  dis- 
astrous to  Europe  than  to  have  the 
war  against  Bolshevism  transformed 
into  a  war  against  Russia. 


THE  REVIEW 

A  weekly  journal  of  political  and 

general  discussion 

Published  by 

The   National   Weekly   Corporation 

140  Nassau  Street,  New  York 

Fabian  Franklin,  President 

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Copyright,  1920,  in  the  United  States  of 
America 

Editors 

FABIAN  FRANKLIN 

HAROLD  DE   WOLF   FULLER 


102] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  38 


A  Glimmer  of  Hope  for  Ireland 


TT  would  be  premature  to  express 
-'•  more  than  a  tentative  judgment 
upon  the  new  proposals  about  Ire- 
land until  we  have  the  full  text  of  the 
Government  bill.  So  far  we  have  only 
an  outline  of  its  broad  principle,  and 
there  are  immensely  important  mat- 
ters of  detail  which  one  still  eagerly 
awaits.  But  some  salient  points  at 
least  are  clear. 

Full  recognition  is  to  be  granted  to 
the  claim  that  Ulster,  no  less  than  the 
rest  of  Ireland,  shall  "determine  her- 
self." Mr.  Lloyd  George  insists  that 
no  plan  is  admissible  which  does  not 
rest  on  general  consent,  though  his 
recommendations  clearly  imply  that 
this  consent  may  be  the  outcome 
rather  than  the  prerequisite  of  a  well- 
conceived  reform.  He  has  in  mind 
Gladstone's  central  doctrine  that  pop- 
ular sympathy  must  in  the  end  be  en- 
listed by  any  constitution  which  is  to 
succeed,  and  he  will  not  limit  the 
scope  of  this  rule  to  one  part  of  the 
island  only.  Whatever  the  causes, 
reasonable  or  unreasonable,  which 
divorce  public  feeling  from  the  ad- 
ministration, he  realizes  that  these 
must  be  considered,  and,  so  far  as 
possible,  removed.  The  obstacles 
which  have  their  root  in  reason  will, 
of  covii-5c,  be  more  manageable  than 
those  which  spring  from  unreason, 
and  Mr.  Lloyd  George's  many 
speeches  on  Home  Rule  bills  in  the 
past  leave  us  in  no  doubt  that  for  him 
"Ulster"  has  been  the  seat  of  the 
more  irrational  obstinacy.  But  this, 
too,  he  is  anxious  to  meet  and  to  rec- 
oncile. The  new  scheme  assumes 
that  it  is  the  melancholy  discord 
among  Irishmen  themselves  which 
now  stands  in  the  way  of  settlement, 
and  that  circumstances  exclude  the 
hope  of  overcoming  this  conflict  by 
the  mechanical  imposition  of  a  com- 
mon legislative  assembly.  Hence  it 
is  proposed  to  divide  the  country,  at 
least  for  a  time,  into  two  areas,  giv- 
ing to  each  a  provincial  legislature, 
and  setting  up  besides  a  federal 
council  to  form,  for  certain  carefully 
defined  purposes,  a  connecting  link 
between  the  two.  The  temporary 
character  of  this  arrangement  is  em- 


phasized by  the  provision  which  the 
bill  is  to  include  for  bringing  the  two 
provinces  in  the  end  more  intimately 
together.  It  is  to  be  within  the  power 
of  the  provincial  legislatures  them- 
selves, ivithout  further  reference  to 
the  Imperial  Parliament,  to  decree 
their  own  fusion  into  a  single  House. 

Thus  the  bill  makes  room  for  the 
simultaneous  acceptance  of  two  prin- 
ciples hitherto  deemed  irreconcilable. 
It  removes  all  ground  of  complaint 
on  the  part  of  "Ulster"  that  she  is  be- 
ing coerced,  and  it  entrusts  to  Irish- 
men alone — uncontrolled  by  outsiders 
— the  next  step  to  a  complete  na- 
tional unity.  No  doubt  the  Ulster- 
men  will  protest  that  their  chief 
weapon  is  to  be  forced  from  their 
hands  when  they  are  deprived  of  the 
power  of  appeal  to  English,  Scottish, 
and  Welsh  support.  On  the  other 
side  the  southern  folk  may  feel 
aggrieved  that  for  the  purpose  of  the 
next  negotiation,  which  can  not  be 
far  distant,  thirty  per  cent,  of  voters 
in  the  north  is  to  be  held  equivalent 
to  seventy  per  cent,  in  the  south. 
But  on  the  whole  the  plan  seems  a 
remarkable  feat  of  ingenuity. 

The  self-determination  which  is 
here  acknowledged  is  something  very 
different  from  that  which  to  certain 
dreamers  seems  to  imply  an  inde- 
pendent IrishRepublic.  Constitutional 
nationalists,  like  the  writer  of  this 
article,  must  welcome  the  unambigu- 
ous terms  in  which  Mr.  Lloyd  George 
bids  defiance  to  any  such  proposal. 
That  in  this  respect,  if  in  no  other, 
they  can  join  hands  with  even  the 
most  inveterate  Ulster  opponent  is 
among  the  tokens,  still  too  few,  of  a 
possible  reconciliation. 

If  Sir  Edward  Carson  and  his 
friends  acquiesce  in  the  new  policy, 
they  will  have  to  abandon  some 
of  their  most  cherished  arguments. 
They  used  to  say,  for  example, 
that  they  had  comparatively  little 
fear  for  the  interest  of  the  "Planta- 
tion Counties"  under  Home  Rule,  for 
these  would  be  well  able  to  look  after 
themselves,  and  that  their  chief 
anxiety  was  for  their  scattered 
brethren  so  hopelessly  outnumbered 


in  Leinster,  Munster,  and  Connaught. 
These  last,  to  use  the  old  Ulster 
phrase,  are  to  be  "thrown  to  the 
wolves."  But  the  southern  and  west- 
ern Unionists  have,  ever  since  the 
1916  Convention,  voluntarily  aban- 
doned their  would-be  protectors,  and 
have  distressingly  avowed  that  the 
wolves  have  for  them  no  terror  at  all ! 
Again,  it  used  to  be  a  Unionist  con- 
tention that  "Ulster"  means  the 
whole  geographical  entity  of  nine 
counties — an  idea  obviously  in  the  in- 
terest of  those  who  urged  it,  so  long 
as  the  northern  province  was  ex- 
pected to  remain  in  parliamentary 
union  with  Great  Britain.  Will  this 
view  be  retained  when  the  fate  of 
the  northern  province  is  to  be  decided 
by  its  own  inhabitants  alone?  Will 
Sir  Edward  Carson  agree  to  have  an 
autonomous  province  which  contains 
some  fifty  per  cent,  of  Home  Rulers? 
Or  will  he  devise  a  new  zigzag 
boundary  line,  in  utter  neglect  of  that 
geography  about  which  we  once  heard 
so  much,  and  cutting  out  an  irregular 
but  homogeneous  area  of  his  own 
pledged  supporters?  Some  humorist 
has  already  suggested  "Carsonshire" 
as  a  name  for  the  strange  province 
that  would  thus  be  created.  But  to 
accept  this  would  be  to  introduce  a 
permanent  hindrance  to  the  amalga- 
mation that  the  bill  contemplates.  We 
must  wait  to  see  how  this  very  essen- 
tial point  is  determined  when  the  full 
text  of  the  measure  is  before  us.  On 
the  principle  of  division  the  Prime 
Minister's  introductory  statement 
was  far  from  definite.  He  spoke  of 
tracing  out  "homogeneous  areas," 
and  there  was  more  than  a  hint  that 
homogeneity  was  to  be  determined 
by  religion.  But  we  must  wait  to  see 
whether  he  really  meant  so  disas- 
trous a  scheme  of  cleavage. 

Meantime  we  have  much  reason  to 
hail  some  features  of  unusually  rich 
promise  in  the  plan  as  we  have  so  far 
been  allowed  to  know  it.  First  of  all, 
it  is  much  to  have  resolutely  faced 
the  problem  of  the  Irish  schism,  how- 
ever we  may  have  to  deplore  its 
existence,  and  with  whatever  san- 
guine hope  we  may  anticipate  its  ex- 
tinction. Such  extinction  will  be  best 
promoted  by  talking  less  of  the 
grounds  of  variance  in  the  past,  and 


January  31,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[103 


setting  the  discordant  parties  to  work 
together,  even  under  some  disagree- 
able limits,  in  their  own  house  with  a 
common  responsibility  for  the  pres- 
ent. The  late  Mr.  John  Redmond 
once  declared  in  ever-memorable 
words  that  almost  any  compromise 
should  be  welcomed  which  did  not 
shut  out  the  future  chance  of  a  really 
united  Ireland.  He  was  willing  to 
accept  even  the  plan  of  a  local  option 
by  counties  for  a  period  of  six  years, 
after  which  the  whole  problem  might 
be  reopened,  though  he  well  knew 
that  at  least  four  counties  were  cer- 
tain to  separate  themselves  from  the 
rest.  Things  have  moved  fast  and 
far  since  that  statesmanlike  conces- 
sion was  defeated  of  its  purpose.  But 
the  granting  to  "Ulster"  of  a  legisla- 
tive exclusion,  until  such  time  as 
Ulstermen  shall  themselves  decide  to 
come  in,  is  in  exactly  the  same  spirit 
of  far-sighted  conciliation. 

It  is  much,  too,  that  the  new  bill 
will  withdraw  the  ultimate  settlement 
of  Irish  internal  difference  from  the 
corrupting  influence  of  party  politics 
across    the    Channel.      Perhaps    the 
deepest  source  of  the  long  difficulty 
has  been  the  fact  that  Ireland  has 
been  the   obvious  and  habitual  tool 
for  rival  ambitions  to  exploit  in  in- 
terests  quite   apart   from   her   own. 
Long  before  this  her  domestic  feud 
night  have  been  composed  if  it  had 
lot  served  the  turn   of  second-rate 
ooliticians  elsewhere  to  intensify  it. 
Jnder  this  bill  she  will  be  exposed 
0  that  risk  no  longer.    And  to  those 
vho  fear  that  the  first  step  of  the 
outhern  province  as  now  dominated 
ly  Sinn  Fein  would  be  to  declare  an 
ndependent  republic  the  simple  reply 
3  that  the  powers  of  the  new  legis- 
itures  will  be  defined  by  the  statute 
/hich  creates  them,  and  that  a  revo- 
itionary  move  of  this  sort  is  as  easily 
rohibited  as  a  corresponding  move 
f-if  such  were  conceivable — by  Gn- 
jirio  or  Nova  Scotia.    To  all,  except 
n  the  one   hand  the   irreconcilable 
inn  Fein,  and  on  the  other  the  no 
ss  irreconcilable  Ulster   Covenant- 
I's,  Mr.  Lloyd  George's  plan  is  full 
'"  fresh  possibilities  for  good. 
The  smart  critics  say  that  previous 
ills  satisfied  somebody,  but  that  this 
11  will  satisfy  nobody,  and  they  take 


for  granted  that  herein  lies  its  suffi- 
cient condemnation.  But  is  this  a 
defect  ?  Is  it  not  rather  a  conspicuous 
merit,  without  which  one  would  doubt 
that  a  settlement  was  in  sight? 

It  is  safe  to  guess  that  not  one, 
even  among  the  sub-committee  re- 
sponsible for  drawing  up  the  provi- 
sions, is  satisfied  with  every  clause 
of  them,  and  it  is  certain  that  Irish- 
men of  all  parties  both  at  home  and 
abroad  can  see  much  to  justify  their 
own  discontent.  One  can  understand 
how  English  critics  hate  to  see  self- 
government  inaugurated  at  a  moment 
of  such  intense  passion  between 
classes,  when  the  voice  of  moderate 
men  is  drowned  in  clamor,  and  when 
the  apostles  of  violence  hold  so  great 
a  part  of  Ireland  in  their  grip.  One 
can  appreciate,  too,  how  all  genuine 
Irishmen  revolt  against  an  arrange- 
ment which  will  even  for  a  time 
divide  their  kindred  into  hostile 
camps,  revive  old  memories  that 
should  long  since  have  been  allowed 
to  die,  and  oflficially  acknowledge  the 
wretched  doctrine  of  "two  nations." 
Still  deeper  must  be  the  disgust  of 
all  who  remember  how  needless  and 
artificial  are  these  hindrances,  how 
political  manoeuvering  for  place  and 
power  has  found  its  ready  instrument 
in  envenoming  a  wound  that  had  al- 
most healed,  how  many  chances  were 
m,issed  for  a  settlement  that  promised 
well,  so  that  the  only  chance  still 
open  is  for  a  settlement  that  promises 
indifferently.  Speaking  as  an  Irish- 
man to  my  compatriots  I  would  say 
that  if  we  are  mere  disputants, 
wrangling  about  "who  is  to  blame," 
we  shall  find  it  easy  to  dwell  upon  a 
dozen  grounds  for  discontent  with 
either  this  bill  or  any  other  bill  that 
the  wit  of  man  can  now  devise. 

But  we  have  something  better  to 
do  than  to  recapitulate  our  case 
against  the  coercions  and  postpone- 
ments, the  stupid  misunderstandings, 
the  wilful  chicaneries,  the  Carsonism 
that  inspired  Sinn  Fein,  and  the  Sinn 
Fein  that  stooped  to  take  its  model 
from  Carsonism.  These  matters  will 
belong  to  history,  and  we  leave  it  in 
confidence  to  the  historians  to  do 
stern  justice.  It  is  for  living  Irish- 
men to  take  their  own  decisions  for 
the  future  in  the  light  of  the  present. 


The  cool-headed  are  always  a  small 
group,  but  it  would  be  idle  to  deny 
that  they  are  dissatisfied  too.  What 
dissatisfies  them  is  not,  however,  the 
fault  of  the  proposed  bill,  but  the 
lamentable  circumstance  that  a  better 
bill  is  not,  in  the  light  of  the  whole 
situation,  at  present  practicable.  We 
must  not  blame  the  unfairness  of 
Ministers  when  the  trouble  lies  in 
the  desperate  nature  of  the  business 
they  are  trying  to  mend,  and,  even  if 
we  believe  that  some  of  them  have 
themselves  to  thank  for  their  diffi- 
culties, let  us  give  them  the  credit 
of  rising  to  a  task  which  they  have  at 
length,  though  slowly,  come  to  appre- 
ciate. Nothing  is  settled  by  invoking 
"self-determination"  until  one  has 
defined  the  area  that  can  be  called  a 
national  self.' 

Mr.  Lloyd  George  has  come  to  un- 
derstand the  truth  of  that  old  saying 
of  Mirabeau  that  for  men  dealing 
with  a  national  crisis  there  must 
often  be  a  bold  "swallowing  of  for- 
mulas." But  in  the  present  proposal 
about  Ireland  the  formula  of  self-de- 
termination is  being  sanely  though 
not  slavishly  kept  in  view. 

Not  by  pleasing  those  who  think 
that  they  are  not  "self-determined" 
until  they  have  got  all  they  either 
asked  or  wished,  not  by  deferring  for- 
ever to  those  who  refuse  to  see  the 
need  for  a  generous  programme  of 
give  and  take,  not  by  taking  seriously 
those  who  have  sworn  in  advance  a 
"Covenant"  about  what  "under  no 
circumstances"  they  will  accept,  will 
this  problem  be  guided  to  a  solution. 
What  Ministers  seem  at  last  to  real- 
ize is  that  they  have  been  led  to  the 
present  situation  in  part  at  least 
through  their  long  delays,  their  dex- 
terous chopping  and  changing,  in  the 
vain  hope  that  extremists  can  be 
cajoled  into  combining.  The  new 
scheme  is  not  for  the  complete  satis- 
fying of  anyone,  but  for  the  estab- 
lishment of  an  order  with  which  all 
reasonable  men  should,  at  least  for 
the  time,  be  satisfied.  If  Mr.  Lloyd 
George  will  only  preserve  an  impar- 
tial courage  towards  all  the  violent 
alike,  whether  they  are  his  own  elec- 
toral friends  or  foes,  there  is  a  glim- 
mering of  hope. 

Herbert  L.  Stewart 


104] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  38 


Can  Germany  Recover? 


THE  other  day  I  received  a  number  of 
the  Japan  Financial  and  Economic 
Monthly,  a  periodical  edited  by  Japanese 
but  written  in  English.  The  editors  had 
asked  several  leading  politicians  and 
strategists  for  their  opinion  as  to  the 
future  of  Germany.  The  answers  all 
agreed  in  asserting  that  Germany's 
power  of  economic  recuperation  is  not 
broken,  and  that  she  is  destined  to  make 
rapid  progress  in  social  developments  by 
which  she  will  recover  her  former  posi- 
tion among  the  nations.  These  Japanese 
prophets  evinced  a  common  tendency  to 
reckon  on  this  expected  revival  of  Ger- 
many as  a  trump  card  which  Japan  can 
play  out  against  the  Anglo-Saxon  na- 
tions. Dr.  Misao  Kanbe,  a  professor  in 
the  University  of  Kyoto,  expressed  him- 
self thus:  "Germany  is  bound  to  create 
a  new  civilization,  which  will  compete 
with  the  Anglo-Saxon  world  and  its  capi- 
talistic system."  The  Marquis  Okuma, 
who  was  Prime  Minister  in  the  Cabinet 
which  declared  war  on  Germany,  is  of 
opinion  that  Germany,  when  peace  has 
been  concluded,  will  doubtless  resume 
her  economic  life-and-death  struggle 
with  all  the  nations  of  the  world.  Espe- 
cially the  English  and  Americans  will 
experience  that." 

Similar  statements  are  made  by  Japa- 
nese residing  in  Germany.  They  are  not 
to  be  shaken  in  their  belief  that  the  Ger- 
man nation  will  recover  its  strength  and 
fix  on  a  conscious  policy  for  international 
reconstruction.  Every  foreigner  who 
visits  Germany  is  anxious  to  find  out 
what  are  the  real  political  intentions  of 
Germanjf,_of  the  Government,  and  of  the 
leading  personalities  among  the  nation. 
In  the  press  of  the  Entente  countries, 
especially  of  France,  there  is  a  great 
deal  of  talk  about  German  plans  and 
purposes  against  which  the  Allies  should 
be  on  their  guard.  A  French  General  in 
the  Baltic  region  recently  said  to  a  Swed- 
ish interviewer  that  the  refusal  of  the 
German  troops  to  evacuate  the  Baltic 
Provinces  had  convinced  him  of  the  exist- 
ence of  a  Russo-German  conspiracy 
against  the  peace  of  the  world! 

To  those  who  know  the  actual  condi- 
tions in  Germany,  who  have  lived 
through  the  Revolution  and  have 
watched  its  further  development,  such 
notions  seem  either  bitter  irony  or,  if 
they  are  not,  they  afford  an  illustration 
of  the  levity  with  which  lack  of  knowl- 
edge forms  its  opinions.  Is  it  at  all  pos- 
sible that  Germany  will  again  become  an 
economic  force  in  the  world?  If  the 
Peace  Terms  of  Versailles  are  not  altered 
in  any  way  and  Germany  is  left  without 
aid  in  her  present  state  of  distress,  there 
is  no  chance  of  her  economic  recovery. 
In  that  case  Germany's  political  bank- 
ruptcy   is    inevitable,    bringing    in    its 


train  private  bankruptcy  and  a  terrible 
proletarisation  of  the  whole  nation. 

It  is  impossible  for  the  German  nation 
to  maintain  its  life  on  the  territory  left 
to  it  by  the  peace  of  Versailles.  Before 
the  war  about  one-tenth  of  the  necessary 
bread-corn  had  to  be  imported,  and  a 
similar  proportion  of  meat  had  to  come 
from  abroad. 

It  would  seem  as  if,  with  increased 
economy,  the  nation  would  be  able  to 
live  on  the  products  of  its  own  soil  and 
land.  But  the  experience  of  the  war  has 
shown  that  this  is  not  possible.  First 
of  all,  the  maximum  produce  of  agricul- 
ture, in  spite  of  German  kali,  could  not 
be  maintained  without  a  large  supply  of 
mineral  manures  from  abroad.  Manu- 
factured inventions  can  only  partly  re- 
place them,  as  there  are  no  substitutes 
for  phosphates,  only  for  nitrogen.  In 
the  second  place,  agriculture  needs  a 
large  stock  of  cattle  and  horses  for  ma- 
nuring and  team-work.  But  our  live 
stock  has  been  reduced  by  the  war,  and 
the  prevailing  dearth  of  fodder  precludes 
its  extension.  Thirdly,  German  stock- 
raising,  before  the  war  a  flourishing 
trade,  depended  largely  on  foodstuffs  im- 
ported from  abroad,  especially  all  kinds 
of  so-called  "Kraftfutter,"  residues  of 
oil-refining  and  such  like.  With  the  ces- 
sation of  their  import,  the  cattle  dete- 
riorated and  produced  less  milk.  With- 
out this  foreign  food  the  stock  can  not 
be  maintained  in  sufficient  numbers. 
And  lastly,  Germany  could  only  remain 
self-supporting  as  long  as  the  eastern 
provinces  produced  more  corn  than  they 
consumed  themselves.  Of  these  gran- 
aries Germany  has  lost  two  almost  en- 
tirely, Posen  and  West  Prussia,  and 
large  parts  of  Silesia  and  East  Prussia 
will  also,  probably,  be  taken  from  her. 
The  result,  in  the  present  and  the  fu- 
ture, is  such  a  large  shortage  of  home- 
produced  foodstuffs  that,  even  with  the 
utmost  economy,  Germany  can  not  pos- 
sibly subsist  on  her  own  output. 

There  are  three  possibilities  left  to 
her:  imports  from  abroad,  emigration 
of  the  population  surplus  for  which  no 
food  can  be  provided,  and  gradual  reduc- 
tion of  the  number  of  inhabitants  by 
hunger  and  suffering.  By  a  fair  esti- 
mate, Germany,  after  the  cession  of  the 
territory  required  by  the  treaty,  will 
contain  a  little  less  than  60.  million 
people.  Before  the  war  this  number  was 
67  millions,  and,  if  peace  had  been  main- 
tained, it  would  now  have  risen  to  over 
71  millions.  It  is  difficult  to  make  a  guess 
at  the  number  which  Germany,  reduced 
in  size,  will  be  able  to  maintain  on  her 
own  resources;  probably  no  more  than 
40-45  millions.  How  will  Germany  pay 
for  the  foodstuffs  which  must  be  im- 
ported if  the  other  15  or  20  millions  are 


to  be  kept  alive?  She  has  no  raw  mate- 
rials to  export  in  return,  except  kali, 
part  of  which  comes  from  Alsace,  now 
ceded  to  France.  Manufactures  are  the 
only  means  of  payment  left  to  her.  But 
in  order  to  engage  in  manufacture  Ger- 
many needs  raw  materials:  wool  and 
cotton,  metals,  wood,  caoutchouc,  hides, 
etc.  Without  these  supplies,  Germany's 
economic  life  is  paralyzed.  The  only 
great  industry  which,  in  that  case,  could 
still  subsist  is  the  steel  industry;  all 
other  industrial  concerns  would  amount 
to  very  little.  And  even  the  steel  indus- 
try will  be  doomed  if  the  mines  in 
Silesia  and  Poland  are  to  be  ceded  to 
Poland. 

It  is  clear,  therefore,  that  Germany, 
of  her  own  power,  is  not  able  to  recover 
economically  so  as  to  keep  the  nation 
from  starving.  First  of  all,  raw  mate- 
rials must  be  obtained  from  abroad,  so 
that  the  industries  can  start  afresh. 
That  can  only  be  done  on  credit,  as  the 
German  mark  has  lost  all  purchasing 
power.  The  scarcity  of  raw  materials 
for  all  industries,  on  the  other  hand, 
forces  prices  to  a  fabulous  height,  and 
the  buyers  of  such  scanty  products  of 
manufacture  as  are  on  the  market  are 
mostly  not  Germans,  but  foreigners,  who, 
in  consequence  of  the  abnormally  high 
purchasing  power  of  the  dollar,  can  buy 
Germany  empty  at  little  expense.  Half 
a  year  ago  the  price  of  a  beautiful  China 
dinner  service  was  M.  1500,  of  a  foun- 
tain pen,  M.  30;  of  a  small  electric  cook- 
ing apparatus,  M.  50.  To-day  these  prices 
have  gone  up  to  M.  3800,  M.  70,  and 
M.  120.  When  you  inquire  into  the 
cause  of  this  rise,  the  salesman  will  tell 
you  that  the  material  is  growing  scarce 
and  that  the  foreigners  pay  any  price, 
as  at  the  present  exchange  rate  the  most 
exorbitant  charges  seem  still  cheap  to 
them. 

The  general  aversion  to  work  which 
came  as  a  natural  reaction  after  the 
hardships  and  deprivations  of  the  war, 
and  as  a  consequence  of  the  new  revolu- 
tionary "Liberty,"  lasted  for  about  eight 
months.  In  the  early  autumn  of  1919  the 
will  to  work  began  to  come  back  to  the 
people.  To-day  the  majority  are  willing 
to  exert  themselves;  only  a  terroristic 
minority  opposes  the  return  to  labor, 
wishing  to  continue  the  revolutionary 
movement  to  the  point  of  anarchy.  But 
how  shall  the  people  be  set  to  work  with- 
out raw  materials,  and  without  sufficient 
food  to  make  the  masses  physically  fit 
for  the  task?  The  rich  can  afford  to  pay 
five  or  six  times  the  price  they  formerly 
used  to  spend  on  the  necessaries  of  life, 
but  the  masses  can  only  subsist  if  the 
State,  by  paying  the  surplus  on  bread 
and  meat  prices,  keeps  them  down  at  a 
normal  level.  How  long  will  that  last? 
There  is  still  a  small  reserve  stock  of 
foodstuffs,  especially  of  those  suppliec 
>>v  America  at  a  time  when  the  Germai 


January  31,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[105 


mark  had  not  yet  abnormally  depreciated. 
But  in  March  or  April  a  severe  crisis  is 
to  be  expected.  The  scarcity  of  milk  is 
the  gravest  calamity.  Berlin,  before  the 
war,  consumed  a  million  liters  of  milk 
a  day.  At  present  it  receives  a  daily 
supply  of  only  150,000  liters,  as  a  great 
number  of  cows  have  had  to  be  slaugh- 
tered and  the  rest  yield  less  milk  than 
before.  American  powdered  milk  is  sold 
at  M.  10  a  packet,  a  price  which  only 
few  people  can  pay.  The  children,  the 
sick,  and  the  old  people  are  the  chief 
sufferers.  The  Entente  insists  on  the 
j  surrender  by  Germany  of  140,000  more 
i  milch-cows,  which  means,  at  their  pres- 
ent abnormally  low  yield,  a  daily  loss  of 
about  one  million  liters. 

Is  it  possible  to  organize  the  emigra- 
tion of  15  million  Germans  within  a  suf- 
ficiently short  period  to  prevent  a  grave 
crisis  of  unemployment  and  starvation  in 
the  coming  years?  The  question  implies 
its  own  denial.  Germany  is  still  in  a 
somewhat  better  condition  than  Austria. 
There  hunger  scourges  the  country,  and 
people  are  dying  in  masses.  The  mor- 
tality figures  of  last  year  in  Vienna 
reveal  a  terrible  scene  of  suffering.  The 
death  rate  is  twice  what  it  was  in  peace 
time,  and  child  mortality  has  risen  by 
300  per  cent.  In  the  clinics  at  Vienna 
new-born  children  are  frozen  to  death, 
as  the  hospitals  can  not  be  heated.  The 
price  of  firewood  is  prohibitive:  two 
pounds  of  wet  wood,  which  does  not  even 
burn,  cost  154  to  2  kronen.  Since  the 
beginning  of  the  cold  season  90  per  cent, 
of  the  Viennese  population  have  not  had 
a  coal  or  a  log  on  the  hearth.  The  few 
pounds  that  can  be  procured  are  used  for 
cooking  the  dinner,  if  food  can  be  found. 
The  people  are  shivering  in  their  houses 
until  they  can  creep  into  bed.  Jewelry, 
furniture,  etc.,  are  sold  to  get  money 
for  food.  The  birth  of  a  child  means 
fresh  terror.  A  sick  child  is  a  doomed 
child.  A  well-known  Viennese  physician, 
a  well-to-do  man,  lost  last  winter  three 
children  who  all  died  of  hunger-grippe; 
i.  e.,  they  were  so  weakened  by  hunger 
that  their  constitutions  could  not  offer 
any  resistance  to  the  disease.  A  fourth 
child  remained  alive,  thanks  to  a  few 
weeks'  visit,  in  the  preceding  summer, 
at  the  house  of  some  kindly  people  in 
Switzerland  who  let  it  eat  its  fill. 

But  even  worse  than  in  Vienna  is  the 
sondition  of  the  German  districts  of 
Bohemia.  The  reporter  of  a  Hamburg 
paper,  who,  in  an  automobile  of  the 
Hoover  Commission,  made  a  tour  through 
;he  "German  Hell,"  as  the  "Bohmisch- 
sachsische  Erzgebirge"  is  now  called, 
?ave  the  following  description  of  his 
ixperience:  "I  saw  the  interpreter  of 
he  American  Mission  sob  at  the  sight 
lit  the  babies;  I  saw  an  American  hos- 
lital- nurse,  whose  nerves  had  been 
lardened  by  a  five  years'  lazaret  service, 
rop  unconscious  in  the  presence  of  the 


starved  skeleton  of  an  old  woman ;  I  saw 
children  of  a  year  old  who  weighed  less 
than  at  their  birth;  and  I  visited  some 
large  communities  where  90  per  cent,  of 
the  children  were  rachitic  and  do  not 
learn  to  walk  until  they  are  three  years 
old."  Conditions  as  bad  as  these  are  as 
yet  found  only  in  a  few  parts  of  Ger- 
many. But  they  are  indications  of  what 
will  happen,  if  Germany  is  to  be  left 
without  raw  materials  for  her  industries 
and  the  food  supply  from  her  own  soil 
remains  insufficient  to  feed  the  nation. 
The  scarcity  of  both  will  have  a  paralyz- 
ing effect  on  German  initiative  and  Ger- 
man hope. 

It  is,  therefore,  quite  out  of  the  ques- 
tion that  Germany  could  plan  an  active 
economic  campaign  abroad,  as  without 
foreign  support  she  can  not  even  avoid 
a  domestic  catastrophe.  That  support 
must  be  given  in  the  form  of  an  imme- 
diate supply  of  raw  materials  and  food- 
stuffs, and  by  a  mitigation  of  those  terms 
of  the  Peace  of  Versailles  which,  apart 
from  the  present  acute  distress,  tend  to 
paralyze  the  country's  vitality.  First 
among  these  are  the  uncertainty  as  to 
the  amount  which  Germany  will  have  to 
pay,  and  the  possibility  that  any  Entente 
Power  which  should  remain  lastingly 
hostile  to  the  German  people  may  inter- 
fere in  Germany's  economic  life  with 
negative,  obstructive,  and  confiscatory 
measures  in  carrying  out  the  provisions 
of  the  treaty. 

Bolshevism  has  little  chance  of  thriv- 
ing in  Germany.  It  could  only  gain 
ascendancy  if  distress  and  despair  rose 
to  such  a  height  as  is  unavoidable  in  the 
event  of  national  labor  being  left  with- 
out the  means  of  recovery.  The  Gov- 
ernment can  remain  in  control  of  the 
industrial  masses  only  as  long  as  it  can 
secure  them  employment  and  a  living 
wage,  and  if  it  possesses  the  means  to 
keep  a  sufficiently  large  military  force. 
German  militarism  is  done  for  in  con- 
sequence of  the  experiences  and  hard- 
ships of  the  war.  The  parties  which  are 
trying  to  revive  the  monarchical  military 
aspirations  of  former  days  are  actuated 
by  the  hope  that  such  bitter  need  and 
unrest  may  develop  as  to  cause  the 
people,  in  their  despair,  to  wish  for  a 
return  of  the  old  order.  Neither  is  there 
any  truth  in  the  rumor  that  the  Govern- 
ment is  planning  an  alliance  with  Russia 
and  a  common  Russo-German  policy 
against  western  Europe.  Such  suspi- 
cions overestimate  the  energy  and  capac- 
ities of  the  men  who  are  now  at  the  head 
of  the  Government.  The  armed  forces 
which  Germany  needs — and  she  needs 
more  than  the  Entente  will  allow  her — 
are  wanted  as  a  safeguard  against  inter- 
nal anarchical  crises,  which  are  unavoid- 
able if  aid  from  abroad  and  mitigation  of 
the  peace  terms  are  refused. 

Dr.  Paul  Rohrbach 
Berlin,  December  23,  1919 


Correspondence 

"Two-thirds  of  Both 
Houses" 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

In  your  issue  of  the  17th  inst.  under 
the  caption  of  "Two-Thirds  of  Both 
Houses,"  you  well  say  with  reference  to 
the  vote  upon  the  so-called  Eighteenth 
Amendment : 

The  objection  thus  raised  rests  on  no  fine- 
spun or  metaphysical  view ;  it  is  simply  a  ques- 
tion of  fact.  It  was  not  "two-thirds  of  both 
houses,"  but  only  two-thirds  of  the  members 
voting,  that  placed  the  Eighteenth  Amendment 
before  the  Legislatures  for  ratification.  The 
Supreme  Court,  when  the  case  is  brought 
before  it,  will  have  to  pass  upon  the  question 
whether  two-thirds  of  the  members  voting  are 
to  be  regarded  as  two-thirds  of  the  House. 

But  this  question  has  been  before  the 
United  States  Supreme  Court.  It  is  true 
it  has  not  been  before  it  with  reference 
to  the  requisites  to  initiating  a  proposed 
constitutional  amendment,  but  in  con- 
nection with  the  provision  relative  to 
the  passage  of  a  bill  over  the  presidential 
veto,  which  is: 

If  after  such  reconsideration  two-thirds  of 
that  house  (i.  e.,  the  place  of  origin)  shall 
agree  to  pass  the  bill,  it  shall  be  sent  together 
with  the  objections  to  the  other  house,  by 
which  it  shall  likewise  be  reconsidered,  and  if 
approved  by  two-thirds  of  that  house,  it  shall 
become  a  law. 

The  opinion  in  Missouri  Pacific  Ry. 
Co.  V.  Kansas,  248  U.  S.  276,  involving 
the  so-called  Webb-Kenyon  Law  with 
respect  to  inter-state  traffic  in  liquor, 
handed  down  January  7,  1919,  by  the 
Court  (with  the  same  personnel  as  at 
present)   interpreted  this  provision. 

In  ruling  against  the  contc«t!on  that 
"two-thirds"  as  thus  used  means  two- 
thirds  of  the  entire  membership,  the 
Court  prefaced  its  decision  with  the  fol- 
lowing language  (p.  279) : 

In  view,  however,  of  the  importance  of  the 
subject,  and  with  the  purpose  not  to  leave 
unnoticed  the  grave  misconceptions  involved 
in  the  arguments  by  which  the  proposition 
relied  upon  is  sought  to  be  supported,  we  come 
briefly  to  dispose  of  the  subject, 

and  supported  its  conclusions  by  analogy 
to  the  practice  on  constitutional  amend- 
ments, saying  (p.  281) : 

The  identity  between  the  provision  of 
Article  V  of  the  Constitution  giving  the  power 
by  a  two-thirds  vote  to  submit  amendments 
and  the  requirement  we  are  considering  as  to 
the  two-thirds  vote  necessary  to  override  a 
veto  make  the  practice  as  to  the  one  applicable 
to  the  other. 

As  regards  that  practice.  Chief  Justice 
White  said  (p.  283) : 

The  settled  rule,  however,  was  so  clearly  and 
aptly  stated  by  the  Speaker,  Mr.  Reed,  in  the 
House,  on  the  passage  in  1898  of  the  amend- 
ment to  the  Constitution  providing  for  the 
election  of  Senators  by  vote  of  the  people, 
that  we  quote  it  .  .  .  "The  question 
is  one  that  has  been  so  often  decided  that  it 
seems  hardly  necessary  to  dwell  upon  it.    The 


106] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  38 


provision  of  the  Constitution  says  'two-thirds 
of  both  houses.'  What  constitutes  a  House? 
A  quorum  of  the  membership,  a  majority,  one- 
half  and  one  more.  That  is  all  that  is  neces- 
sar>-  to  constitute  a  House  to  do  all  the  busi- 
ness that  comes  before  the  House." 

Now  that  somewhat  similar  language 
of  the  Constitution  is  before  the  Supreme 
Court  for  construction,  it  is  necessary, 
if  we  are  to  reach  a  different  result,  to 
overcome  the  dictum  of  that  tribunal  in 
the  course  of  its  reasoning  to  sustain  the 
validity  of  the  Webb-Kenyon  Act.  More- 
over, the  ruling  of  Speaker  Reed  has  to 
be  disapproved,  and — what  then  is  to 
come  of  the  constitutional  change  with 
respect  to  the  popular  election  of  sena- 
tors? 

The  difficulty  seems  to  have  arisen 
from  the  fact  that  there  is  some  uncer- 
tainty as  to  how  many  of  the  Congress 
voted  in  favor  of  the  first  ten  amend- 
ments to  the  Constitution — The  Bill  of 
Rights — a  most  important  feature  of  that 
instrument,  itself  appealed  to  for  the 
overthrow  of  the  Eighteenth  Amendment, 
as  violative  of  due  process  of  law  and  the 
reserved  rights  of  the  States  and  those 
of  the  peoples  of  the  States.  These 
amendments  were  passed  by  the  vote  of 
two-thirds  of  those  present — non  constat, 
however,  but  that  this  vote  was  equiva- 
lent to  two-thirds  of  the  entire  member- 
ship of  both  houses. 

The  question  first  arose  when  the 
Twelfth  Amendment,  providing  for  a 
change  in  the  method  of  electing  the 
President  and  Vice-President,  was  under 
consideration.  In  the  House  the  Fed- 
eralists objected  to  it  as  unconstitutional 
because  instead  of  two-thirds  the  vote  of 
the  entire  Senate,  it  had  obtained  the 
vote  of  only  two-thirds  of  those  present; 
but  the  S^neaker  ruled  against  the  objec- 
tion on  the  precedent  set  in  the  case  of 
the  first  ten  amendments  (Ames,  pp.  79, 
295).  The  question  arose  next  in  1861 
when  the  so-called  Corwin  amendment, 
which  sought  to  temporize  with  slavery, 
came  up  in  the  Senate,  and  the  Chair's 
ruling  that  two-thirds  of  those  present 
was  sufficient  was  sustained  by  that 
body  (Ames,  p.  295).  It  did  not  arise  in 
Congress  again  until  the  amendment 
which  is  the  subject  of  the  obiter 
remarks  of  the  Supreme  Court  in  the 
case  of  Missouri  Pacific  Ry.  Co.  v. 
Kansas,  which  has  been  previously 
referred  to. 

Here  then  are  two  structural  features 
of  our  Constitution  initiated  admittedly 
by  less  than  a  two-thirds  vote  of  the 
membership  of  both  houses,  though  of 
course  by  not  less  than  two-thirds  of 
those  present — so  that  the  decision  of 
the  validity  of  the  Eighteenth  Amend- 
ment may  involve  the  present  method  of 
choosing  the  President,  the  Vice-Presi- 
dent and  the  Senate. 

Benjamin  Tuska 
NcJ  York,  January  22 


Col.  Lynch' s  Catholicism 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

I  wonder  if  you  have  good  authority 
for  saying  that  Col.  Arthur  Lynch  is  a 
Roman  Catholic.  Such  is  not  the  impres- 
sion that  I  get  from  a  striking  chapter 
in  his  book,  viz.,  "Priests  in  Politics."  I 
spoke  with  him  on  Saturday  night  at  the 
Economic  Club  of  Portland,  Me.,  and  we 
both  hammered  the  priests  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  Roman  Catholic  Bishop  of 
Portland,  Dr.  Walsh. 

I  feel  very  strongly  that  you  are  mis- 
taken. 

George  L.  Fox 
New  Haven,  Conn.,  January  11 

[There  have  been  good  Roman  Catho- 
lics in  all  ages  who  were  not  afraid  of 
hammering  the  priests.  Colonel  Lynch's 
hostility  to  priestcraft  is  no  disproof  of 
our  statement,  which  was  based  on  words 
spoken  by  Colonel  Lynch  himself  in  the 
course  of  the  address  we  referred  to: 
"Remember,"  he  said,  "I  am  not  a  Prot- 
estant, but  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that 
some  of  the  most  glorious  leaders  of 
Irish  freedom  have  been  Protestants." 
It  seems  to  us  that  if  Colonel  Lynch  was 
a  Jew  or  an  atheist  he  would  not  have 
used  the  negative  phrase,  which  sug- 
gests Catholicism  as  its  alternative. 
—Eds.  The  Review.] 

An   English   University   for 
New  Jersey 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

At  New  Brunswick,  New  Jersey,  a 
great  educational  transformation  is  now 
under  way  and  the  foundation  is  being 
laid  of  what,  in  a  few  years,  is  destined 
to  be  one  of  the  largest  and  most  bril- 
liant of  our  Eastern  university  centres. 
The  humanities  are  well  intrenched  at 
New  Brunswick  in  that  venerable  insti- 
tution, Rutgers  College,  whose  birth  oc- 
curred ten  years  before  the  American 
Revolution,  whose  history  has  been  wor- 
thy of  the  best  of  those  fine  old  Colonial 
colleges,  and  whose  present  activities  are 
so  admirably  directed  by  Dr.  Demarest. 
Schools  of  civil,  electrical,  and  mechan- 
ical engineering  represent  creditably  the 
scientific  side  of  learning.  Agriculture 
is  well  looked  after  by  the  State  Experi- 
ment Station  and  Agricultural  College, 
with  Dr.  Jacob  G.  Lipman  of  Cornell  at 
their  head.  The  new  woman  is  not  for- 
gotten, for  there  is  a  very  successful 
State  College  for  Women,  with  Mrs. 
Douglass,  of  Barnard  College,  as  dean, 
and  there  is  even  a  long-established 
Theological  Seminary  with  an  admirable 
library,  under  the  able  management  of 
Dr.  John  C.  VanDyke. 

The  movement  to  coordinate  these 
more  or  less  separate  schools  and  to  bind 
them  together  as  a  university  runs  the 


risk  of  repeating  in  New  Jersey  the  same 
mistake  that  was  made  in  Massachu- 
setts and  in  Connecticut,  when  two  mod- 
est colleges  were  made  to  do  duty  for  a 
great  university  organization,  and  what 
should  have  been  called,  and  really  made. 
New  Haven  University  and  Cambridge 
University,  leaving  Harvard  and  Yale 
Colleges  parts  of  a  larger  whole,  had  to 
cope  with  a  situation  they  were  never  in- 
tended to  meet. 

What  will  make  this  course  all  the 
more  inexcusable  if  it  is  finally  entered 
upon  at  New  Brunswick,  springs  from 
the  fact  that  Rutgers  College,  which 
some  would  expand  into  Rutgers  Univer- 
sity, is  not  the  original  name  of  the  in- 
stitution. For  half  a  century  it  bore 
that  of  Queen's  College,  in  honor  of  the 
consort  of  George  III,  who  granted 
the  first  charter,  and  continued  to  be 
known  as  such  down  to  1825,  notwith- 
standing our  two  wars  with  England. 

Nor  is  this  sentimental  reason  alone 
opposed  to  the  proposed  course.  Ever 
since  the  Civil  War  the  Rutgers  trustees 
have  been  coquetting  with  the  Legisla- 
ture at  Trenton,  until  the  college  has 
been  officially  pronounced  both  the  State 
College  and  the  State  University.  It  is, 
therefore,  fully  in  the  power  of  the  board 
to  develop  a  university  on  the  lines  it 
sees  fit,  without  returning  to  Trenton 
for  authority. 

If  there  ever  was  a  form  of  university 
more    suited    to    our    genius    and    our 
ways,    it    is    precisely    that    of    Oxford 
and  Cambridge,  the  only  system  known 
to  John  Harvard,  Elihu  Yale,  Theodore 
Frelinghuysen,  and  the  other  promoters 
and  founders  of  the  early  Colonial  col- 
leges, who,  I  feel  sure,  would  be  the  first 
to  protest  against  the  abortive  fashion  in 
which  their  creations  were  treated  to- 
wards the  end  of  the  second  third  of  the 
nineteenth  century.    And  now  we  see  the 
authorities    of    Rutgers    hesitating    and 
groping,  and  perhaps  about  to  let  slip 
the  almost  unique  occasion  of  giving  us 
in  America  at  least  one  institution  of 
superior  culture  moving  on  the  fine  old 
English  lines  laid  down  by  Oxford  and 
Cambridge,  where  a  group  of  rich  and 
independent  colleges  and  halls,  each  with 
its   own   governing  body,   its   buildings, 
its  library,  its  teachers,  and  its  students, 
come  together  through  their  heads,  and 
form  the  university  which  meets  the  out- 
side world  with  united  front,  but  which, 
within  its  own  academic  circle,  never  in- 
terferes with  the  entity  of  each  of  its 
component     parts.     How     much     more 
American  is  this  plan  than  our  present 
doubly    autocratic    form    of    university 
government,  with  its  board  of  business 
men  trustees  and  its  all-powerful  presi- 
dent, which  has  so  often  belittled  and 
even  disgraced  our  educational  world! 
Theodore  Stanton 
New  Brunsivick,  N.  J., 

December  29,  1919 


January  31,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[107 


Cooperating  with  the 
Cooperatives 

A  LITTLE  knowledge  is  a  dangerous 
thing — especially  when  formulating 
foreign  policy.  The  truth  of  this  must 
have  been  borne  in  on  Mr.  Lloyd  George 
by  the  developments  of  the  week  follow- 
ing the  announcement  of  the  Supreme 
Council  at  Paris  with  reference  to  the 
Russian  blockade.  To  be  sure,  those 
who  are  wont  to  attribute  to  the  Premier 
a  Machiavellian  subtlety  of  design  will 
see  in  these  developments  the  working 
out  of  a  deep-laid  plan  to  manoeuvre  the 
Allies  into  the  position  of  recognizing 
the  Soviet  Government,  for  the  purpose 
of  satisfying  the  desires  of  radical  labor 
and  of  meeting  the  insistent  demands  of 
British  commercial  interests.  But  when 
one  recalls  his  Bryanic  gaffes  in  recent 
speeches,  such  as  confusing  Novgorod 
(in  western  Russia)  and  Nizhni  Nov- 
gorod (on  the  Volga)  and  his  allusion 
to  General  "Kharkov"  (a  large  city  in 
south  Russia),  one  is  forced  to  the  con- 
clusion that  his  opportunist  policy  is 
due,  not  to  knowledge  of  Russia,  but  to 
the  lack  of  it.  Indeed,  the  latest  news 
indicates  that  Alexander  Berkenheim, 
sometime  foreign  representative  of  the 
Central  Union  of  Consumers'  Coopera- 
tives, was  successful  in  imposing  on 
him  an  utterly  false  view  of  the  present 
status  of  these  Cooperatives  in  Russia,  a 
view  which  he  grasped  as  a  straw  when 
faced  with  the  necessity  of  meeting  the 
crisis  at  Paris  presented  by  the  Bolshe- 
vik military  danger. 

Mr.  Lloyd  George  is  not  alone  in  his 
confusion  of  mind  concerning  the  Coop- 
erative movement  in  Russia.  The  public 
generally  has  but  a  vague  idea  of  the 
social  and  economic  significance  of  this 
development.  The  tendency  indeed  has 
been  to  draw  unjustifiable  generaliza- 
tions from  insufficient  data. 

First,  it  must  be  understood  that  there 
are  three  distinct  kinds  of  Cooperative 
societies  in  Russia,  each  with  its  own 
origin  and  course  of  development.  In 
recent  years  these  have  tended  to  draw 
together,  and  the  great  Cooperative  con- 
gresses have  brought  about  a  certain 
unity  and  community  of  action,  but  in 
some  vital  features  they  remain  differ- 
ent and  separate.  These  three  classes 
are  the  Producers'  Cooperatives,  the  So- 
cieties of  Mutual  Credit,  and  the  Con- 
sumers' Cooperatives. 

The  Producers'  Cooperatives  are  a 
peculiarly  Russian  institution,  having 
originated  in  the  artel,  or  primitive 
guild,  which  dates  back  to  the  Middle 
Ages.  In  the  artel  a  group  of  work- 
men— fishermen,  woodworkers,  weavers, 
;  blacksmiths,  or  other  artisans — would 
band  themselves  together  for  a  particu- 
lar task  or  for  a  special  industrial  under- 


taking, select  their  own  foreman,  carry 
on  their  work,  and  then  divide  the  pro- 
ceeds of  their  labor.  They  might  work 
for  themselves  or  on  a  contract.  They 
might  even  borrow  capital.  Naturally, 
under  serfdom  this  institution  did  not 
have  much  opportunity  to  develop  on  a 
large  scale;  still,  it  persisted.  But  in 
1865,  Mr.  Nicholas  Vereshchagin,  a 
brother  of  the  famous  artist,  who  had 
devoted  his  life  to  agriculture  and  espe- 
cially to  the  development  of  the  dairy 
industry,  established  on  his  estate  a 
small  cooperative  creamery,  a  sort  of 
model  artel.  This  may  be  said  to  be  the 
beginning  of  the  modern  Producers' 
Cooperatives.  The  idea  did  not  meet 
with  rapid  success,  but  it  was  kept  alive, 
and  a  generation  later  suddenly  took  a 
fresh  start  and  made  tremendous  strides. 
The  present  century  has  seen  it  grow  in 
the  province  of  Vologda  and  in  western 
Siberia  until  now  it  constitutes  an  enor- 
mous undertaking.  To-day,  the  Union 
of  Siberian  Creamery  Associations  oper- 
ates some  2,380  cooperative  creameries, 
conducts  more  than  2,000  stores,  ware- 
houses, repair-shops,  etc.,  produces  over 
50,000  tons  of  butter  a  year,  and  handles 
millions  of  dollars'  worth  of  other  prod- 
uce for  its  members.  These  latter  num- 
ber over  3,000,000.  Hundreds  of  other 
Producers'  Cooperatives  sprang  up,  in- 
cluding flax-growers,  tar-producers,  poul- 
try-raisers, and  numerous  craftsmen's 
organizations.  Slightly  different,  yet  in 
harmony  with  the  movement  and  based 
upon  the  same  folk  institution,  were 
agricultural  cooperative  societies  which 
started  in  the  late  sixties,  and  which 
began  to  receive  special  government 
encouragement  at  the  end  of  the  last 
century.  The  Consumers'  Cooperatives 
had  two  strong  points  in  their  favor.  In 
the  first  place  they  were  not  an  artificial 
creation,  but  grew  out  of  a  natural  Rus- 
sian institution.  In  the  second  place 
they  had  in  general  good  management, 
since  they  were  usually  run  by  men  who 
had  been  developed  from  the  ranks,  and 
who  were  therefore  men  of  practical  expe- 
rience. This  to  a  large  extent  accounts 
for  their  stability  and  substantial  success. 
Credit  Cooperation  may  be  dealt  with 
very  briefly,  despite  its  importance.  The 
idea  of  mutual  associations  of  small  cred- 
it came  from  Germany,  and  was  first 
introduced  into  Russia  in  the  sixties.  Its 
purpose  was  the  encouragement  of  peas- 
ant agriculture,  and  its  first  task  was 
the  education  of  the  people  to  an  under- 
standing of  the  benefits  of  cooperation 
in  credit.  Later  the  Government,  which 
was  in  general  suspicious  of  all  such 
movements,  recognized  its  value  and 
issued  laws  establishing  model  charters 
and  bringing  to  its  assistance  the  sup- 
port of  the  State  Bank.  Out  of  the 
mutual  credit  movement  grew  the  organ- 
ization in  1912  of  the  Moscow  Narodny 
(People's)  Bank,  which  became  the  cen- 


tral institution  for  financing  all  cooper- 
ative undertakings. 

The  Consumers'  Cooperative  movement 
followed  the  other  two.  While  it  was 
based  on  the  principles  of  the  Rochdale 
system,  there  were  two  conditions  par- 
ticularly favorable  to  its  spread  in  Rus- 
sia. The  first  was  the  tendency  towards 
cooperation  in  production  as  mentioned 
above.  The  second  was  the  extreme  sim- 
plicity of  the  peasants'  wants,  which 
limited  the  stocks  required  in  coopera- 
tive stores  to  comparatively  few  articles. 
The  demand  for  increasing  facilities  for 
distribution,  especially  after  the  famine 
of  1891,  gave  great  impetus  to  the  ex- 
pansion of  the  Consumers'  Cooperatives, 
and  in  1897  the  Government  issued  a 
model  constitution  and  by-laws  for  the 
organization  of  these  cooperative  so- 
cieties. In  1898,  as  a  result  of  the  first 
congress  of  consumers'  societies,  held  at 
Nizhni  Novgorod,  there  was  founded  the 
Moscow  Union  of  Consumers'  Societies, 
and  this  in  turn  was,  in  1916,  reorgan- 
ized into  the  Central  Union  of  Consum- 
ers' Societies,  familiarly  termed  the 
"Centrosoyuz." 

Up  to  the  time  of  the  war,  the  develop- 
ment of  these  societies  had  been  normal 
and  steady,  but  with  the  breakdown  of 
private  means  of  distribution  under  the 
strain  of  war  conditions  and  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  eager  demand  for  manufac- 
tured goods  of  all  kinds,  the  Consumers' 
Cooperatives  took  a  sudden  spurt  for- 
ward and  increased  by  thousands.  This 
growth  was  abnormal,  and  with  it  came 
many  irregularities  and  abuses.  Two  of 
these  are  noteworthy,  the  lack  of  expe- 
rienced and  competent  management,  and 
the  use  of  some  of  these  cooperative 
societies  for  purposes  of  speculation  and 
profiteering  by  the  men  who  eained  con- 
trol of  them.  So,  for  example,  manu- 
facturers who  had  patriotically  taken 
measures  to  prevent  profiteering  in  the 
products  of  their  factories  and  who,  for 
this  reason,  sold  almost  their  whole  out- 
put to  the  Cooperatives,  began  to  find 
that  the  managers  of  the  latter  were 
frequently  turning  over  invoices  of  goods 
directly  to  speculators  at  50  per  cent,  to 
100  per  cent,  profit.  In  the  hands  of 
clever  and  unscrupulous  manipulators, 
these  Cooperatives  had  departed  far 
from  the  principles  of  mutual  cooperation 
for  the  benefit  of  all  their  members. 

When  the  Bolsheviki  came  into  power, 
they  were  confronted  with  the  fact  that 
these  Cooperatives  represented  a  mem- 
bership running  into  millions,  and  they 
hesitated  at  first  to  take  steps,  in  accord- 
ance with  their  programme,  calculated  to 
antagonize  them.  It  must  be  borne  in 
mind  that  the  peasant  population  of  Rus- 
sia is  not  at  all  Socialistic  and  that 
the  Cooperative  movement  was  based 
on  a  purely  capitalistic  foundation, 
its  object  being  merely  to  eliminate  the 
middleman   between   the  producer   and 


108] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  38 


consumer.  After  the  Bolsheviki  had  con- 
solidated their  authority  and  acquired  a 
military  force  to  carry  out  their  will, 
they  attempted  to  put  into  effect  their 
programme  of  the  nationalization  of 
trade.  In  the  cities,  the  Soviet  stores 
took  the  place  of  the  Cooperatives,  but 
in  the  country  their  attempted  organiza- 
tion fell  down,  and  they  were  obliged  to 
come  back  to  the  Cooperatives.  They 
did  not  do  so,  however,  without  taking 
steps  to  turn  these  organizations  to  their 
own  purposes,  or  at  least  to  exercise  a 
careful  supervision  over  them.  In  De- 
cember, 1918,  they  seized  the  Moscow 
Narodny  Bank  and  made  it  a  division  of 
their  State  Bank.  Fresh  decrees  were 
issued  with  reference  to  membership  in 
the  Cooperatives,  and  gradually,  although 
the  Cooperatives  in  the  country  districts 
continued  to  do  everything  possible  to 
supply  local  needs  and.  keep  up  the  past 
traditions  of  the  movement,  they  fell 
more  and  more  under  the  direction  of 
Commissars,  until,  a  couple  of  months 
ago,  the  official  Bolshevik  press  an- 
nounced with  satisfaction  that  the  Coop- 
eratives were  entirely  in  Bolshevik  hands 
and  had  become  a  Bolshevik  institution. 
Considerable  mystery  surrounds  the 
mission  of  Alexander  Berkenheim,  one 
of  the  officials  of  the  Centrosoyuz,  who 
was  suddenly  released  from  a  Bolshevik 
prison  in  Moscow  last  year  and  permitted 
to  go  abroad  as  a  representative  of  the 
Centrosoyuz.  In  this  country  he  made 
overtures  both  to  the  Government  and 
to  business  men,  proposing  to  ship  in 
goods  to  be  distributed  by  the  Coop- 
eratives independently  of  the  Soviet 
Government.  He  was  unable  to  give  any 
guarantees  that  such  goods  would  not  be 
taken  over  by  the  Soviet  Government 
and  used  fSr  its  own  purposes  to  the  det- 
riment of  the  civilian  population,  and  the 
State  Department  refused  to  grant  him 
permits  for  shipments  to  Bolshevik  Rus- 
sia. In  many  circles  there  was  a  strong 
suspicion  that  he  had  an  understanding 
of  some  sort  with  the  Soviet  authorities, 
who  saw  in  his  proposal  a  strong  lever 
with  which  to  force  the  lifting  of  the 
blockade. 

Later  he  went  to  England,  where  now 
he  seems  to.  have  had  more  success.  It 
looks  as  if  his  interviews  with  Mr.  Lloyd 
George  and  with  English  business  men, 
greedy  for  Russian  trade,  had  resulted 
in  bringing  about  the  announcement  of 
the  Supreme  Council  at  Paris.  The  most 
remarkable  feature  of  this  is  that,  within 
a  week  after  this  announcement  was 
issued,  Berkenheim  and  his  assistant, 
Krovopuskov,  were  constrained  to  admit 
the  falsity  of  their  earlier  claims  that 
it  was  possible  to  do  business  with  the 
Cooperatives  independently  of  the  Soviet 
Government.  It  is  impossible  to  say 
what  the  result  will  be.  To  be  sure,  the 
final  paragraph  of  the  announcement  of 
the   Supreme   Council   states   definitely 


that  no  change  in  policy  towards  the 
Soviet  Government  is  implied,  but  the 
hopes  held  out  for  the  opening  of  Russia 
to  trade  have  so  whetted  the  appetite  of 
businessmen  that  the  announcement  may 
prove  but  the  opening  wedge  to  recog- 
nition of  the  Bolshevik  regime.  In  this 
connection,  it  must  be  pointed  out  that 
the  statement  issued  by  the  authorities 
at  Moscow  places  the  Supreme  Council 
between  the  horns  of  a  serious  dilemma. 
To  Russians,  even  those  who  are  most 
strongly  anti-Bolshevik,  it  displays  a 
dignity  and  assurance  that  appeals  to 
their  national  pride  at  a  time  when  they 
are    smarting    under    the   contemptuous 


and  even  insulting  treatment  accorded  to 
them  by  the  Allies.  They  believe  that 
England  and  France  are  both  interested 
in  dismembering  and  weakening  Russia, 
and  they  see  in  the  despatch  of  British 
war  ships  to  the  Black  Sea  a  plan  to 
destroy  the  remainder  of  the  Russian 
fleet  under  cover  of  the  excuse  of  war 
with  the  Bolshevik  forces.  Two  years 
of  Allied  diplomatic  blundering  have  led 
to  a  menacing  impasse,  and  it  would 
seem  that  only  some  startling  change 
within  Russia  itself  could  serve  to  avert 
a  catastrophe. 


Jerome  Landfield 


Book  Reviews 


Beneficent  Results  of  a 
Wicked  War 

After  the  Whirlwind.  By  Charles  Edward 
Russell.  New  York :  George  H.  Doran 
Company. 

THE  behavior  of  the  Socialists  of  the 
world  during  the  great  war  was  in 
some  respects  surprising  and  disap- 
pointing to  themselves  and  to  those  who 
trusted  in  them,  although  it  was  not  very 
different  from  what  their  wiser  leaders 
had  expected,  and  their  keener  critics  had 
often  predicted.  For  years  they  had  done 
lip-service  to  internationalism,  but  when 
the  storm  burst  this  superstructure 
went  by  the  board  and  they  were  carried 
along  with  their  compatriots  upon  the 
tide  of  nationalism  toward  the  rocks  and 
shoals  which  they  had  detected  so  cleverly 
and  charted  with  so  much  care.  The 
German  Socialists  were  especially  disap- 
pointing, because  they  were  so  numerous 
— more  than  forty  per  cent,  of  the  pop- 
ulation, according  to  some  estimates — 
and  because  of  their  loud  professions  of 
pacifism  and  their  fervent  appeals  to  the 
solidarity  of  the  proletariat  in  all  coun- 
tries. Yet  they  voted  for  the  extraordi- 
nary war  credit  of  April,  1913;  and  in 
July  and  August,  1914,  instead  of  declar- 
ing a  general  strike,  they  were  almost,  if 
not  quite,  as  keen  for  war  as  the  ignorant 
masses  who  made  no  pretensions  to 
pacifism.  Only  a  few  fanatics,  like  Karl 
Liebknecht,  tried  to  oppose  the  gen- 
eral movement  and  prophesied  disaster, 
no  matter  whether  Germany  lost  or  won 
the  war. 

Oddly  enough,  socialism  was  taken 
more  seriously  in  other  countries,  and  it 
almost  looks  as  though  it  had  been  a  part 
of  German  propaganda — a  disease  more 
virulent  abroad  than  in  the  country  of 
its  origin.  However  that  may  be,  many 
Socialists  in  the  Allied  countries  opposed 
the  war,  and  if  their  advice  had  been 
taken,  Germany  would  have  dominated 
the  world,  with  a  faint  hope  of  social 
revolution  as  the  only    consolation    of 


those  who  still  believed  in  liberty  and 
democracy.  Certainly,  Socialists  in  Italy 
came  near  delivering  that  country  into 
the  hands  of  the  Austrians;  Russian 
Socialists  dealt  a  staggering  blow  to  the 
Allies;  and  if  the  majority  of  American 
Socialists  had  had  their  way,  the  United 
States  would  not  have  entered  the  war, 
or,  after  going  in,  would  have  carried 
it  on  in  a  half-hearted  way. 

Needless  to  say,  Charles  Edward  Rus- 
sell was  not  of  the  majority  faction 
in  the  Socialist  Party.  Together  with 
Charlotte  Perkins  Gilman,  William  Eng- 
lish Walling,  William  L.  Stoddard,  Upton 
Sinclair,  William  J.  Ghent,  J.  G.  Phelps 
Stokes,  and  others,  he  signed  a  protest 
against  the  official  action  of  the  Socialist 
Party  with  respect  to  war  and  national 
defense,  which  was  published  in  the  New 
York  Call  on  March  24,  1917.  This  docu- 
ment stated  that  Socialists  do  not  con- 
demn defensive  war,  but  realize  that,  as 
Hillquit  says,  it  would  be  foolish  and 
futile  to  preach  complete  disarmament  to 
any  nation  while  its  neighbors  and  rivals 
are  armed,  and  that  each  nation  must  be 
prepared  to  defend  its  integrity  and  inde- 
pendence against  the  rest  of  the  world. 
Here  are  a  few  of  the  sentences  of  this 
fine  manifesto: 

We  feel  that  the  present  opposition  of  the 
Socialist  Party  to  national  defence  is  contrary 
to  the  interests  of  democracy  and  contrary  to 
the  hitherto  accepted  views  of  the  interna- 
tional Socialist  movement.  We  are  for  peace, 
but  not  at  any  cost;  and  believe  that  the  sacri- 
fice of  integrity  and  of  general  public  and 
private  self-respect  is  too  high  a  price  to  pay 
for  it.  Although  as  a  nation  we  are  politically 
free,  yet  we  are  but  a  part  of  the  social  world, 
and  as  such  we  are  glad  that  the  isolation  of 
our  country  is  past.  To  refuse  to  resist  in- 
ternational crime  is  to  be  unworthy  of  the 
name  of  Socialist.  It  is  our  present  duty  to 
the  cause  of  Internationalism  to  support  our 
Government  in  any  sacrifice  it  requires  in  de- 
fence of  those  principles  of  international  law 
and  order  which  are  essential  alike  to  Social- 
ism and  to  civilization. 

Apparently,  the  minority  Socialists  of 
the  United  States  and  the  majority  of 
German  Socialists  were  in  the  same  boat 


January  31,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[109 


in  that  they  temporarily  abandoned  their 
internationalism.  But  if,  as  Mr.  Russell 
believes,  the  German  Socialists,  deluded  by 
their  masters,  were  waging  an  unright- 
eous war,  while  the  Socialists  of  America 
were  defending  the  liberties  of  the  world, 
the  latter  were  the  true  champions  of 
internationalism,  and  the  former  had  de- 
nied the  faith.  Yet  Mr.  Russell  does  not 
blame  them  very  much  for  their  betrayal 
of  democracy;  nor  does  he  blame  the 
German  people  as  a  whole  for  blindly  fol- 
lowing their  unscrupulous  leaders,  but 
he  does  affirm  that  the  German  Govern- 
ment was  the  real  culprit,  and  that  it 
did  not  represent  the  German  people.  It 
is,  of  course,  quite  "unscientific"  to 
blame  anybody,  but  Mr.  Russell  does  not 
pose  as  a  "scientific"  Socialist  and  does 
not  say  much  about  economic  determin- 
ism. Yet  he  injects  a  little  of  that  into 
his  explanation  of  the  war  in  that  he 
mentions  the  enormous  growth  of  Ger- 
many's population  since  1870,  her  need 
of  colonies  as  sources  of  raw  materials, 
her  desire  for  seaports  on  the  Atlantic, 
and  the  tendency  toward  expansion  of 
the  Empire  in  Europe  by  the  annexation 
of  the  small  neighboring  states.  He  ven- 
tures, too,  upon  a  sweeping  generaliza- 
tion in  saying  that  the  theory  of  Ger- 
man supremacy  was  no  more  than  the 
logical  ultimate  of  the  theory  of  compe- 
tition endorsed  and  practised  by  all 
nations. 

There  were,  then,  according  to  Mr. 
Russell,  at  least  two  villains  in  the  play — 
the  mediaeval  monarchy  of  Germany, 
with  its  aristocracy  and  its  militarism, 
and  the  competitive  economic  system 
that  served  to  choke  the  spiritual  life 
and  exalt  the  material — the  former  play- 
ing a  conspicuous  and  magnificent  role, 
the  latter  skulking  in  the  background  as 
the  evil  genius,  suggesting,  if  not  con- 
trolling, the  whole  performance.  A  third 
influence,  subsidiary  but  not  less  potent, 
was  the  military  success  of  Germany  in 
'66  and  '70,  which  gave  the  whole  Ger- 
man people  a  feeling  of  superiority,  a 
desire  for  power,  and  a  belief  in  manifest 
destiny  that  could  find  complete  satisfac- 
tion in  nothing  less  than  world  dominion. 
:The  very  character  of  the  people  seems 
jto  have  changed;  they  acquiesced  grimly 
Iwhile  their  Government  prepared  relent- 
lessly for  the  Day;  and  when  the  time 
was  ripe  a  pretext  was  found  and  the 
dance  of  death  began. 

It  is  not  easy  to  follow  Mr.  Russell's 

argument  because  of  his  florid  style  and 

his   frequent    digressions    and    exhorta- 

pons,  but  such  appears  to  be  his  concep- 

ion  of  the  tangled  skein  of  world  affairs, 

which  now,  after  the  whirlwind,  proceeds 

;o  untangle  itself  in  miraculous  fashion. 

Germany  has  been  defeated,   and  now, 

;hastened  and  subdued,  her  people  have 

•enounced  their  vain  ambitions,  thrown 

iff  their  evil  institutions,  reformed  their 

deals,  and  the  world  has  nothing  more 


to  fear  from  them.  No  republic  is  a  men- 
ace to  the  world's  peace,  nor  could  be,  for 
secret  plottings  are  impossible  when  the 
people  rule.  Of  course,  some  remnants 
of  capitalism  are  still  there,  but  these  will 
presently  pass  away  in  Germany  and  in 
all  other  countries.  In  France,  Great 
Britain,  and  the  United  States,  the  Gov- 
ernments took  control  of  the  railways  in 
order  to  win  the  war,  managed  them  with 
marvelous  efficiency  and  economy,  and 
will  never  restore  them  to  private  own- 
ership. The  income  tax  in  various  coun- 
tries is  such  a  heavy  charge  on  great 
incomes  that  private  enterprise  is  dis- 
couraged and  the  Governments  will  have 
to  take  up  the  burden  of  saving  and 
investment  which  capitalists  are  laying 
down.  The  laborers,  who  have  played  so 
noble  a  part  in  the  war,  will  not  relin- 
quish their  power,  nor  will  they  patiently 
accept  a  lower  standard  of  living.  The 
shop-steward  movement  in  Great  Britain 
is  an  omen  of  a  new  day  for  labor  in  all 
countries,  when  labor  will  be  consulted 
on  all  matters,  and  even  be  represented 
on  the  directorate  of  every  industrial 
corporation.  If  the  Federal  Reserve 
Board  can  supply  part  of  our  banking 
needs,  it  can  supply  them  all,  and  if  the 
Government  can  lend  to  farmers,  it  can 
lend  to  merchants,  manufacturers,  and 
wage-earners.  The  remarkable  success  of 
the  American  Government  in  the  conduct 
of  the  war  gives  reason  to  think  that  it 
can  carry  on  all  important  industries  far 
better  than  private  owners,  and  when 
this  is  fully  realized  "the  industrial  sys- 
tem that  has  cursed  mankind  and 
blighted  so  many  millions  of  lives  will 
pass  away  with  the  other  anomalies  of 
the  dead  old  Night." 

Mr.  Russell  must  wish  that  he  had 
been  more  cautious  in  his  prophecies ;  for 
already  some  of  his  predictions  have  been 
refuted  by  the  logic  of  events,  and  others 
appear  to  have  but  slight  foundation  of 
fact.  His  thesis  that  most  of  the  ills 
that  flesh  is  heir  to  are  to  be  attributed 
to  capitalism  must  seem  strange  to  the 
historian  who  finds  evidence  of  human 
misery  long  before  the  advent  of  Cap- 
italism, and  knows  that  the  most 
wretched  people  in  the  world  to-day  are 
not  those  who  live  in  the  most  civilized 
or  capitalistic  countries.  Similarly,  Mr. 
Russell's  glorification  of  governmental 
efficiency  must  surprise  himself  as  he 
considers  his  own  observation  and  expe- 
rience of  enormous  waste  incurred  dur- 
ing the  war — a  waste  which  was  probably 
justified  by  the  absolute  necessity  of  win- 
ning the  war  at  any  cost  of  life  or  prop- 
erty, but  which  would  bring  speedy  ruin 
to  industrial  enterprise  in  time  of  peace. 
Efficiency,  as  has  been  often  pointed 
out,  is  not  to  be  defined  in  terms  of 
service  only,  but  as  the  rendering  of 
a  maximum  of  service  at  a  minimum 
of  cost. 

J.  E.  Le  Rossignol 


Kipling— First  and  Last 
Impressions 

RuDYARD  Kipling's  Verse,  Inclusive  Edition, 
1885-1919.  New  York:  Doubleday,  Page 
and  Company. 

ABOUT  thirty  years  ago  a  young 
Anglo-Indian  poet  surprised  the 
English-speaking  world  with  a  new 
brand  of  lyric  energy.  In  power  he  had 
often  been  matched  and  overmatched, 
but  in  sheer  force  it  was  hard  to  name 
his  equal.  Men  had  to  brace  or  arm 
themselves  to  listen;  he  aroused  a  con- 
sternation which  turned  into  delight  or 
recoil  according  to  the  stoutness  of  the 
temper  which  received  the  impact  of  his 
blows.  That  he  was  a  poet  it  seemed 
hard  to  question.  His  subjects  might 
disquiet;  his  diction  might  amaze;  but 
lyricism  is  the  heart  of  poetry,  and  speed 
is  almost  the  heart  of  lyricism,  and  lyric 
speed  was  the  essence  and  distinction  of 
Mr.  Kipling's  verse.  His  knowledge  was 
great,  it  was  practical  and  technical  to 
an  extraordinary  and  disconcerting  de- 
gree ;  and  the  weight  of  his  knowledge  in 
relation  to  the  energy  of  his  movement 
made  a  powerful  locomotive  drawing  a 
heavy  goods  train  seem  the  precise  and 
lively  image  of  his  genius.  "This  knowl- 
edge had  its  novel  and  special  field;  his 
filiation  to  England  by  race,  to  India  by 
birth,  gave  him  a  divided  loyalty  which 
he  could  solidify  only  by  making  himself 
a  citizen  and  votary  of  the  British 
Empire. 

There  are  several  first  impressions  of 
Mr.  Kipling  which  later  experience 
wholly  or  partly  confutes.  First  of  all 
comes  the  idea  that  he  is  a  poet  of  things. 
Now  Mr.  Kipling  is  the  poet  of  humanity 
in  the  gripe  of  things,  but  tht  thing 
by  itself  and  for  itself  harcflj'  figures 
in  his  verse.  At  most,  you  will  find  a 
bell-buoy  or  a  coastwise  light  taking 
form  as  an  active — almost  a  living — part 
of  the  wardership  and  stewardship  of 
the  earth-belting  British  Empire.  Go 
with  him  into  the  engine-room  of  a 
steamship  in  the  famous  "McAndrew's 
Hymn."  He  knows  the  apparatus  like 
a  mechanic,  and  his  sole  aim  at  first  is 
apparently  to  deafen  and  dizzy  you  with 
the  uproar  of  his  technicalities;  but  this 
is  appearance  only;  he  is  not  studying 
that  engine,  he  is  dredging  the  soul  of 
its  engineer.  The  British  Empire  itself 
is  valuable  to  him  chiefly  as  a  whetstone 
for  British  human  nature. 

The  second  partly  misleading  thing  in 
Mr.  Kipling  is  the  seeming  imperiousness 
which  consorts  so  well  at  the  first  glance 
with  the  task  of  the  lyrist  of  empire. 
The  word  "peremptory"  comprehends 
much  of  the  surface  man.  The  call  to 
verse  was  peremptory,  the  nature  of  that 
verse  is  peremptory,  its  themes  are 
peremptory  necessities,  and  the  gospel 
it  enforces  is  peremptory  in  a  superla- 
tive degree.    But  all  this  is  half  illusion. 


110] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  38 


No  man  seems  freer  from  the  littleness 
of  dictatorship.  This  imperiousness  is 
sometimes  associated  with  a  high  and 
proud  humility  of  which  the  august 
"Recessional"  is  the  deathless  witness 
and  example.  But  his  disposition  is 
evinced  most  clearly  in  his  choice  of  a 
protagonist  for  his  verse.  That  choice 
fixed  itself,  not  on  royalty  or  premier- 
ship or  martial  fame  or  domination  in 
any  form,  but  on  Tommy  Atkins,  private, 
butt,  drudge,  and  underling,  shoved  from 
land  to  land,  till  the  enemy's  ball  and  the 
friend's  spade  insure  him  an  abiding 
rest.  To  this  humility  the  high-mettled 
Kipling  bows  himself.  Energy,  in  God's 
name,  but  energy  in  obedience — not 
Prometheus  defying  Jove,  but  Hercules 
serving  Eurystheus  in  mighty  labors — 
is  the  ideal  of  the  singer  of  the  "White 
Man's  Burden." 

A  third  possible  impression — and  this 
time  an  entirely  mistaken  impression — 
in  regard  to  Mr.  Kipling  is  that  he  is  an 
egotist.  The  literary  evidence  points  to 
the  conclusion  that  no  man  living  is 
more  self-forgetful.  Lyrics,  among  all 
forms  of  literature,  are  the  occasion,  the 
excuse,  almost  the  justification,  of  ego- 
tism. Yet  here  is  a  man  who  has  written 
seven  hundred  and  seventy  pages  of 
lyrics  in  which  it  is  actually  rather  diffi- 
cult to  find  a  poem  which  is  strictly  per- 
sonal or  individual  in  its  theme.  It  is 
always  the -other  man's  feeling,  or  the 
feeling  that  he  shares  with  the  other 
man,  that  provides  the  inspiration  and 
incentive  for  his  verse.  Mr.  Kipling 
loved  and  married  in  America;  we  can 
well  believe  that  "never  man  sighed  truer 
breath."  Yet  who  can  point  out  the 
pioem  in  which  that  experience  has 
shaped  or  tinged  the  verse?  At  long 
intervals,  iKi  some  literary  context  most 
commonly,  a  dedication  or  an  ode  "To 
the  True  Romance,"  an  allusion  to  him- 
self or  a  personal  note  sparingly  reveals 
itself.  After  all,  why  not?  In  his  broad 
outlook  upon  the  English  race  through- 
out the  "Seven  Seas,"  even  Rudyard  Kip- 
ling deserves  a  passing  glance. 

The  fourth  possible  impression  in  re- 
gard to  Mr.  Kipling  is  that  his  view  of 
life  is  blithe  and  heartening.  He  writes 
poems  of  adventure,  and  adventure  sets 
our  hearts  aglow.  He  writes  military 
verse,  and  military  verse  takes  its  key- 
note from  the  bugle.  Yet  if  we  discrimi- 
nate Mr.  Kipling's  words  from  his  voice, 
I  think  we  shall  find  that  the  voice  alone 
is  cheerful ;  the  words  are  sad.  What  is 
the  most  buoyant  of  his  volumes,  the 
volume  that  one  would  instinctively  select 
if  one  sought  to  enliven  a  programme  or 
a  party?  "Barrack-Room  Ballads,"  un- 
doubtedly. What  is  the  first  of  "Bar- 
rack-Room Ballads?"  "Danny  Deever" — 
the  story  of  a  heart-chilling  hanging. 
What  is  the  best  of  them?  "Gunga  Din" 
— the  story  of  an  Indian  water-carrier, 
reviled  by  those  he  loyally  serves,  shot 


finally  upon  the  battlefield.  What  is  an- 
other of  the  best  ?  "Tommy" — a  picture 
of  British  ingratitude  and  injustice  to 
the  private  soldier.  The  "Song  of  the 
Banjo"  should  be  a  cheerful  poem;  it 
has  a  line  that  sears  itself  into  the 
memory:  "And  the  thoughts  that  burn 
like  iron  if  you  think."  In  the  picture 
of  army  life,  the  facts  are  black,  unless 
you  presuppose  the  heroic  temper  in  the 
spectator.  Mr.  Kipling  treats  them  with 
a  certain  blitheness  only  because  his 
temper  is  heroic.  His  philosophy  is  sup- 
posed to  be  superficial.  In  some  respects 
the  charge  is  just,  but  it  remains  true 
that  Mr.  Kipling  from  his  earliest  youth 
had  grasped  a  basic  principle  of  life  and 
conduct  which  many  people  do  not  learn 
until  middle  or  old  age  and  which  many 
more  die  without  learning.  That  truth 
may  be  phrased  thus:  Life  as  datum,  as 
mere  material,  is  hard  and  raw,  and  the 
only  means  of  extracting  from  it  such 
happiness  as  it  is  capable  of  yielding  is  to 
relate  ourselves  to  that  hardness  and 
rawness  in  some  efficient,  counteractive 
way.  Pessimism  plus  heroism  equals  op- 
timism— that  is  the  formula  for  Mr.  Kip- 
ling, if  you  concede  that  he  is  optimistic 
at  all.  It  is  this  that  removes  the  boyish- 
ness from  his  notion  of  empire.  Empire 
is  not  booty;  empire  is  debt.  Possession 
is  the  call  to  toil  and  sacrifice. 

The  last  of  the  possible  mistakes  in  re- 
lation to  Mr.  Kipling  is  a  mistake  that 
has  almost  ceased  to  be  possible;  I  have 
in  mind  the  notion  that  he  is  immoral. 
At  first  sight,  the  breakneck  pace  had 
every  appearance  of  a  runaway;  a  little 
time  showed  that  the  driver  kept  his  seat 
and  his  self-possession.  In  "Depart- 
mental Ditties,"  he  reveled  in  cynicism. 
In  early  days  Mr.  LeGallienne  deplored 
his  militancy.  The  Nation  called  his 
"Truce  of  the  Bear"  his  "retrocessional." 
When  his  soldier  in  "Mandalay"  cried 
out:  "Ship  me  somewhere  east  of  Suez, 
where  the  best  is  like  the  worst,"  we 
forgot  that  the  dropped  scruples  in  the 
poem  might  pertain  to  Mr.  Kipling  as 
little  as  its  dropped  h's.  The  poet  doubt- 
less errs  in  particular  moral  judgments 
like  the  rest  of  us,  but  in  spirit  he  is  the 
most  moral  of  beings,  since  the  subordi- 
nation of  desires  to  necessities  is  not 
only  his  doctrine  but  his  instinct.  The 
cynicism  was  passing  and  partial;  his 
calmness  in  the  face  of  certain  sexual 
misdemeanors  was  simply  a  part  of  that 
English  good  sense  which  views  the  in- 
evitable— anywhere — with  calmness.  In 
his  political  opinions  he  may  be  some- 
times partial  and  narrow,  vehement  and 
extreme;  that  will  affect  the  soundness 
of  his  teaching,  but  will  not  threaten  his 
place  as  the  prophet  and  singer  of  re- 
sponsibility. Mr.  Kipling  is  effectually 
west  of  Suez,  and  the  call  of  Mandalay 
finds  no  response  in  the  steadfastness  of 
his  maturity. 

Three  things  have  made  Mr.  Kipling. 


The  first  is  that  simple,  primal  force, 
that  Viking  or  Berserker  energy,  which 
made  the  man  and  all  his  words  projec- 
tiles. The  second  was  the  consecration 
which  this  half-barbaric  force  received 
from  its  combination  with  sympathies 
and  aspirations,  which,  if  earthy  in  their 
content,  were  beautiful  in  their  disinter- 
estedness. The  third  was  the  circum- 
stance— almost  the  accident — which  sup- 
plied a  novel  field  for  the  exercise  of 
these  capacities.  That  circumstance  was 
Mr.  Kipling's  birth,  the  division  of  loy- 
alty between  England  and  India  with  its 
resulting  concentration  of  loyalty  on  the 
union  and  conflux  of  these  powers  in  the 
British  Empire. 

The  collected  edition  of  Mr.  Kipling's 
verse  will  do  nothing  to  dispel  the  pre- 
valent impression  that  his  power  as  poet 
has  materially  abated.  After  1893,  the 
fertility  shrinks,  the  range  contracts, 
and  the  force  dwindles.  The  descent  has 
almost  the  gradation  and  regularity  of  a 
terrace.  I  know  of  no  body  of  verse  in 
which  a  date  comes  so  close  to  being  an 
estimate  as  the  poetry  of  Mr.  Kipling 
after  the  "Seven  Seas."  There  is  tactics 
— possibly  there  is  tact — in  an  editorial 
arrangement  which  throws  poems  of  all 
dates  indiscriminately  into  one  recep- 
tacle. One  is  reminded  of  those  early 
formations  in  the  late  war  in  which 
Americans,  supposedly  weak,  were  set 
side  by  side  with  tried  French  and 
British  troops  who  might  cover  and  sus- 
tain their  inadequacy.  The  Americans 
hardly  needed  that  defense;  some  pro- 
tection, some  convoy  or  escort,  is  un- 
doubtedly needed  for  the  later  poems  of 
Mr.  Kipling.  Of  course  the  inferiority 
is  only  comparative.  Mr.  Kipling  to-day 
does  not  write  like  a  dull  man;  he  writes 
like  other  bright  men.  It  is  so  much 
easier  to  be  bright  than  to  be  Kipling. 

I  do  not  understand  this  falling-off 
quite  so  clearly  as  I  like  to  understand 
things,  but  one  or  two  conjectures  may 
be  risked.  Mr.  Kipling  is  humanist,  not 
materialist;  yet  the  forms  of  humanity 
which  appeal  to  him  find  their  settings 
and  promptings  in  a  world  of  ardent 
physical  endeavor.  Now  it  is  easier  to 
write  about  Thor  and  Vulcan  at  twenty- 
five  than  at  fifty.  Again,  his  helpless- 
ness in  the  hands  of  Nature,  which  gave 
his  earlier  works  almost  the  validity  of 
a  natural  force,  took  from  him  all  ca- 
pacity to  adapt,  to  modify,  to  re-create 
himself.  He  uttered  nothing  but  finali- 
ties; that  was  his  strength;  but  it  in- 
volved the  disadvantage  that  these  finali- 
ties for  other  people  were  ultimata  for 
himself.  He  had  spoken  out  with  rare 
freedom  and  abundance  in  his  marvelous 
youth;  and  in  later  years,  no  new  India, 
no  new  Tommy,  appeared  to  replenish 
the  declining  store  of  his  incentives.  But 
the  main  point  is  always  the  sum  of 
worth  in  his  entire  product,  not  the  dis- 
tribution of  that  value  through  the  sue- 


Januan'  31,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[111 


cessive  periods  of  his  life.  If  one  feels 
age  in  the  newer  verses,  the  youth  of 
the  elder  ones  is  unimpaired.  I  can  not 
but  feel  that  there  is  much  in  this  volume 
which  will  lastingly  interest  our  time, 
and  that  there  are  parts  of  it  which  the 
centuries  will  treasure. 

0.  W.  Firkins 

Folks  and  Folk 

Dust  of  New  York.     By  Konrad  Bercovici. 

New  York :    Boni  and  Liveright. 
Their    Son  :     The    Necklace.     By    Eduardo 

Zamacois.     Translated    by    George    Allan 

England.    New  York :  Boni  and  Liveright. 
Lo,  AND  Behold  Ye!    By  Seumas  MacManus. 

New  York :  Frederick  A.  Stokes  Company. 
Seldwyla    Folks  ;     Three    Singular   Tales. 

By    Gottfried     Keller.      Translations    by 

Wolf  Von  Schierbrand,  Ph.D. 

IN  "Dust  of  New  York,"  by  Konrad 
Bercovici,  we  are  aware  of  an  ex- 
traordinary "saturation"  in  the  color  and 
atmosphere  of  polyglot  New  York.  In 
its  topography  he  is  especially  learned. 
"The  map  of  Europe  is  reproduced  in 
New  York  by  the  different  nationalities 
living  there;  each  nationality  having  as 
neighbor  the  same  that  it  has  in  Europe. 
Thus,  the  Greeks,  Turks,  Syrians,  and 
Italians  are  close  neighbors  in  Europe, 
and  also  here.  The  same  thing  applies  to 
the  Russians,  who  are  neighbors  with 
the  Rumanians,  the  Poles,  the  Austrians, 
and  the  Germans.  And  one  must  not 
think,"  pursues  our  commentator,  "that 
love  attracts  them.  They  hate  one  an- 
other as  whole-heartedly  as  only  neigh- 
bors can  hate  one  another.  Perhaps  this 
mutual  hatred  attracts  them:  Hatred  is 
not  as  bad  as  we  have  been  taught  to 
think.  One  can,  and  generally  does,  love 
lower  than  himself,  but  no  one  hates 
lower  than  himself."  These,  after  all, 
are  surface  facts,  from  which  we  pass 
to  subtler  matters  of  racial  contact  and 
admixture: 

Walk  through  Grand  Street  from  Third 
Avenue  to  Clinton  Street,  which  is  not  a  long 
distance,  and  you  have  the  types  of  the  whole 
world  before  you.  They  are  not  in  concen- 
trated form;  they  are  diluted.  But  if  you 
analyze,  even  hurriedly,  you  will  soon  be  able 
to  know  the  components  of  each  one  of  them. 
...  A  remote  Tartar  ancestor  of  one  of  the 
push-cart  peddlers  is  plainly  seen  in  the  small 
sunken  black  eyes.  In  another  the  straight 
line  of  the  back  of  the  head  tells  you  that  liis 
mother,  or  his  grandmother,  had  lived  once 
in  Hungary.  In  another  one  the  Slav  type, 
the  flat  fleshy  nose,  is  mixed  with  the  Wal- 
lachian  strong  chin.  Some  Teuton  blood  calls 
out  through  the  heavy  cast  of  an  otherwise 
typical  Austrian  Jew.  A  Spanish  grandee,  as 
if  come  out  from  a  page  of  Cervantes,  is  sell- 
ing shoe  laces  and  cuff  buttons.  And  a  Moroc- 
I  can  prince,  ill  at  ease  in  European  garb,  is 
1  offering  to  the  passerby  some  new  Burbankian 
fig-plum-orange  combination. 

Out  of  such  materials  the  tales  in  this 
book  are  wrought.  The  striking  and 
somewhat  pathetic  thing  about  them  is 
that  they  are  wrought  over-cleverly  ac- 
cording to  the  current  fashion  of  the 


American  "short  story."'  Strange  portent 
of  that  literary  melting-pot,  the  Ameri- 
can magazine,  when  names  like  Achmed 
Abdullah  and  Konrad  Bercovici  stand 
among  the  most  skilful  practitioners  of 
the  "0.  Henry"  method!  Here  are  the 
snappy  introductions  and  the  punchy 
endings  of  that  great  original,  the  but- 
tonholing manner  and  the  sentimental- 
cynical  philosophy.  Unluckily  for  the 
present  teller  of  tales,  something  in  him 
scorns  the  facile  "happy  ending"  of 
Anglo-American  prescription;  and  we 
have  the  anomaly  of  a  Saturday  Eve- 
ning Post  style  and  a  Continental  pre- 
occupation with  fact  and  with  type  at 
the  expense  of  situations  and  endings 
as  such. 

With  two  tales  by  Eduardo  Zamacois, 
still  another  leader  of  the  new  Spanish 
literary  movement  is  introduced  to  Eng- 
lish readers,  a  fresh  prophet  of  the 
resurgimiento  for  us  to  put  alongside 
Blasco-Ibanez  and  Baroja  and  Benavente. 
"This  man,"  says  the  translator,  "is  a 
human  dynamo,  a  revitalizing  force  in 
Spanish  life  and  letters,  an  artist  who 
is  more  than  a  mere  artist;  he  is  a  man 
with  a  message,  a  philosophy  and  a 
vision."  Rather  oddly,  we  hear  in  the 
next  breath  that  to  his  present  in- 
terpreter, "Zamacois  seems  a  Spanish 
Guy  de  Maupassant."  In  these  exhibits, 
certainly,  one  finds  more  of  the  detached 
irony  of  the  French  story-teller  than  of 
philosophy  or  vision.  "Their  Son"  and 
"The  Necklace"  are  vivid  and  sardonic 
studies  in  minor  tragedy,  the  overthrow 
of  simple  goodness  or  youthfiil  idealism 
by  the  malice  of  fate.  That  goodness 
and  idealism  may  be  their  own  ultimate 
justification,  and  reward  is  not,  at  least, 
denied. 

We  may  step  back  with  frank  relief, 
however,  into  the  safe  and  comfortable 
zone  of  the  folk-tale  as  rendered  by  Mr. 
MacManus.  The  author  of  "Ballads  of 
a  Country  Boy"  has  had  his  honorable 
place  in  the  poetic  renascence  of  Ireland. 
But  his  most  distinctive  work  is  the 
series  of  volumes  of  folk-stories,  of  which 
"Lo,  and  Behold  Ye!"  is  the  latest.  There 
we  breathe  clear  of  the  somewhat  musky 
symbolism  which  has  so  often  hung  about 
the  "Neo-Celtic"  muse,  and  are  at  home 
with  the  quaint  and  hearty  humor  of  the 
Irish  peasant  who  lives  in  the  present 
without  forgetting  the  past.  Here  once 
more  is  the  chronicle,  Hibernically  fla- 
vored, of  those  deathless  matters  with 
which  folk-fancy  has  always  busied  it- 
self; the  triumph  of  cunning,  the  tri- 
umph of  brawn,  the  triumph  of  young 
love  and  of  clean  blood,  the  overthrow  of 
witches  and  dragons  and  giants  and  cruel 
kings;  the  fulfillment  of  prophecies  and 
the  voidance  of  unholy  maledictions.  But 
as  the  story-teller  brings  them  to  us 
fresh  from  his  own  sources,  we  forget 
their  hoary  age,  or  dimly  welcome  it  as 
a  sign  of  old  beloved  intimacy;  and  taste 


again  with  relish  the  dish  with  which 
our  literary  feast  long  since  began.  I 
have  just  read  these  tales  to  a  boy  of 
eight  years,  and  don't  know  which  of 
us  enjoyed  them  most. 

Something  of  the  same  quality,  though 
in  more  sophisticated  form,  belongs  to 
the  "Seldwyla  Folks"  of  Gottfried  Keller. 
"The  Three  Decent  Combmakers"  may 
be  recognized  as  the  story  of  the  clever 
apprentice  who  outwits  his  fellows  and 
marries  the  heiress;  and  "Dietegen"  as 
the  tale  of  the  foundling  who  after  many 
vicissitudes  becomes  master  in  the 
strange  place  of  his  adoption.  "Romeo 
and  Juliet  of  the  Village,"  with  its  (in 
the  conventional  sense)  unhappy  ending, 
is  upon  less  stable  ground — the  least 
effective  of  the  three  tales,  as  it  happens, 
tedious  in  structure  and  relatively  crude 
at  least  in  its  English  form.  Keller's 
work  appears  belatedly  in  English.  He 
was  a  German-Swiss  poet  and  story- 
teller born  in  1819  and  educated  in  Ger- 
many; author  of  several  didactic  novels, 
much  verse,  and  "Die  Leute  von  Seld- 
wyla," a  series  in  two  volumes  of  whimsi- 
cal studies  of  Swiss  life  from  which  the 
three  stories  here  translated  are  taken. 
They  belong  to  their  century.  If  the 
deliberate  and  demure  humor  of  "The 
Three  Decent  Combmakers"  seems 
vaguely  familiar,  it  is  perhaps  because 
of  a  certain  kinship  with  our  own  liter- 
ary humor  of  that  period — the  humor, 
say,  of  the  Sleepy  Hollow  Irving  and  the 
Tanglewood  Tales  Hawthorne.  The  trans- 
lator rather  goes  out  of  his  way  to  insist 
that  Keller  was  a  Swiss  and  not  a  Ger- 
man writer.  But  though  we  may  take  it 
on  his  word  that  there  is  a  strong  Helve- 
tian twist  to  the  original  text,  its  genius 
is  clearly  Teutonic,  as  was  ty^ 'oreeding 
of  the  author.  He  is,  at  air' events,  a 
writer  who  should  be  known  to  readers 
who  are  extending  rapidly,  thanks  to  the 
new  enterprise  of  our  publishers,  their 
hitherto  provincial  or  purely  racial 
knowledge  of  the  world's  treasures  of 
imaginative  fiction. 

H.   W.   BOYNTON 

Beyond  the  Fields  We  Know 

Tales  of  Three  Hemispheres.  By  Lord  Dun- 
sany.    Boston :  John  W.  Luce  &  Company. 

IN  the  two  hemispheres  we  know  more 
or  less  about.  Lord  Dunsany  pretends 
now  and  then  to  set  his  story.  But  Lis 
heart  is  in  the  Third  Hemisphere — the 
Hemisphere  at  the  Back  of  the  Map, 
which  lies  beyond  the  Fields  We  Know. 
And,  indeed,  even  when  we  think  for  a 
moment  that  we  are  in  the  high  wolds 
beyond  Wiltshire,  or  looking  out  on  the 
Tuileries  gardens,  or  checked  short  for 
a  peep  at  the  cloud-capped  tower  of  the 
Woolworth  Building,  we  are  pretty  sure 
to  be  in,  before  long,  for  a  meeting  with 
the  Old  Gods,  the  gods  whom  Time  has 
put  to  sleep.    It  is  as  well  for  the  world 


112] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  38 


to  maintain  an  ambassador  to  these 
courts;  the  old  gods  wake  up  now  and 
then. 

Most  assuredly  Lord  Dunsany  gets  an 
effect ;  and  an  effect  quite  different  from 
that  wrought  upon  us  by  realms  longer 
familiar  that  yet  seem  to  brighten,  dim 
and  distant,  on  the  horizons  which  he 
casts  about  us.     Sindibad  sailed  here- 
abouts,  but   did   not   quite   venture   to 
touch  on  these  shores.     Somewhere  be- 
tween here  and  there  lies  the  land  of  the 
Prester   John.    Was    it — sometimes   we 
think  it  was — amid  the  desolate  walls  of 
Balclutha  that  we  heard  that  note  be- 
fore?    Or  was  it  struck  from  the  dul- 
cimer by  the  narrow  fingers  of  an  Abys- 
sinian maid,  when  our  hearts  were  hun- 
gry for  Mount  Abora?    Certainly,  some- 
thing very  like  it  was  a  bit  away  to  the 
left  when  we  took  the  Thirty-Mile  Ride 
to  the  brushwood  pile— thetimeThey  were 
after  us,  you  remember?    When  we  ven- 
tured into  the  Hall  of  Eblis  by  the  side 
of  young  Vathek,  or  were  with  Shibli 
Bagarag  when  he  shaved  Shagpat,  the 
son  of  Shimpoor,  the  son  of  Shoolpi,  the 
son  of  ShuUum,  as  it  is  written  by  one 
who,  for  all  he  said  he  was  making  an 
Arabian  Entertainment,  had  surely  been 
aforetime  a  mabinog  to  one  of  his  own 
Welsh  bards — 

But  it  is  useless  to  attempt  a  defini- 
tion of  the  Land  of  Dreams.     You  slip 
into  it  as  into  an  habitual  garment,  or 
not  at  all.    "It  was  evident,"  says  Lord 
Dunsany,   "that  he  had  been   drinking 
bak."  Quite  obvious,  indeed.  It  could  not 
have  seemed  a  bit  more  natural  if  we  had 
been  assured  that  he  had  been  drinking 
Woldery   wine   itself.    We   should  have 
known   it  anyway,  without  being  told. 
Driftinp-^fcjAn  the  Yann,  drinking  on 
occasion  Uie  captain's  yellow  wine  "which 
he  kept  apart  among  his  sacred  things," 
listening  to  the  prayers  of  the  sailors  and 
to  their  pleasant  talk  about  fair  Belzoond 
and  the  little  neighboring  cities  of  Durl 
and  Duz,  touching  at  Mandaroon,  Per- 
dondaris   (here  you  may  read,  in  addi- 
tion, of  the  destruction  of  Perdondarls 
and  how  it  was  avenged),  and  so  to  Bar- 
wul-Yann,  the  Gate  of  Yann,  one  does 
not  need,  reading  this,  to  have  drifted 
in  the  flesh  down  the  Irrawaddy,  stum- 
bling upon  jungle  fowl  among  the  ruins 
of  Amarapura,  viewing  the  spacious  tem- 
ples of  Pagan  and  the  twin  towns  of 
Minbu  and  Magwe,  in  order  to  cry,  "Yea, 
even  so  it  all  is."    To  say  that  the  Yann 
is  not  the  Irrawaddy  is  to  be  somewhat 
on  the  way  toward  saying  what  it  is. 

Whoso  does  not  already  move  about 
in  this  world  of  dreams  with  certain 
step  and  welcoming  eye  will  not  find  his 
way  thither  for  all  Lord  Dunsany's  tell- 
ing. Whoso  makes  too  much  of  a  little 
matter  of  allegorical  grit  will  not  rightly 
enjoy  his  dish  of  strawberries  and 
cream.  Of  such,  the  cat  who  dwells 
on  the  other  side  of  Go-by  Street  may 


well  ask:  "What  does  he  know  about 
anything?"  and  answer,  after  a  little 
pause,  "Nothing."  Very  likely  the  cat 
will  say  that  in  either  case.  But  one 
who  cares  not  at  all  for  these  things, 
let  him  go  fetch  down  high  prices,  or 
find  out  the  truth  about  Russia,  or  catch 
a  falling  star,  as  he  chooses— and  can. 

The  Run  of  the  Shelves 

THE  cover  of  Donald  Hankey's  little 
book,  the  "Cross"  (Dutton),  is  a  very 
pretty,  but  a  pale,  almost  a  pallid,  blue. 
It  is  sky-color  attenuated.    That  phrase 
is  exactly  descriptive  of  the  quality  of 
the  contents  of  the  book.    The  best  words 
it  contains,  the  only  words  that  come 
home  to  us,  are  the  following  on  a  fly- 
leaf: Donald  Hankey,  Born  at  Brighton, 
1884,  Enlisted  August,  1914.  Killed  in 
Action  October  12,  1916.     However,  let 
no  one  suppose  that  there  is  anything 
wrong  or  silly  or  even  positively  weak 
in  the  book.     It  is  serene  and  humane; 
it  is  sound  after  a  fashion;  its  sincerity 
is  incontestable.    But  its  soundness  does 
not  make  it  strong.     Its  sincerity  does 
not  make  it  strong.    The  ratification  of 
that   sincerity   by    its   author's    gallant 
death  in  battle  does  not  make  it  strong. 
It  is  a  book  that  will  comfort  and  sustain 
the  predisposed,  but  the  problem  of  the 
world,  which  it  attempts  to  solve,  arises 
very  largely  out  of  the  increasing  rarity 
of  the  predisposition.     The  book  which 
is  very,  very  short,  urges  its  readers  to 
follow  the  self-sacrificing  example  of  a 
man  who,  among  other  instances  of  self- 
forgetfulness,    preached    to    his    fellow- 
Galileans  for  nothing.     The  book  itself 
costs  seventy-five  cents. 

"The  Book  of  a  Naturalist,"  a  pot- 
pourri of  articles,  some  carefully,  some 
casually  written,  and  many  years  apart, 
adds  little  to  Mr.  W.  H.  Hudson's  lit- 
erary fame  and  detracts  considerably 
from  our  estimate  of  him  as  a  naturalist. 
The  themes  vary  from  cheap,  bourgeois 
anecdotes,  such  as  "The  Heron  as  a 
Table-bird,"  to  the  exquisite  essay  on 
the  "Serpent  in  Literature."  We  revel 
in  the  diction  of  his  chapters  on  snakes, 
but  we  lament  the  logic  of  his  explana- 
tion of  the  forked  tongue,  which  he 
claims  renders  its  owner  visible  to  ap- 
proaching enemies,  and  invisible  to  the 
prey  which  the  snake  is  stalking. 

The  fifty-odd  pages  of  uncompromising 
attack  on  the  domestic  dog  is  likely  to 
invite  attention.  Hudson  writes,  "The 
dog's  affection  for  his  master  .  .  . 
is  in  reality  a  very  small  and  a  very  low 
thing,"  and  again  elsewhere,  "I  have  a 
friendly  feeling  toward  pigs  generally, 
and  consider  them  the  most  intelligent 
of  beasts,  not  excepting  the  elephant  and 
the  anthropoid  ape — the  dog  is  not  to  be 
mentioned  in  this  connection."  Sentiment 
entirely  aside,  these  are  not  the  words 


of  a  sincere  naturalist,  but  a  statement 
of  false  psychology.     Judged  as  an  un- 
corrected assemblage  of  various  news- 
paper and  magazine  articles  it  is  far  in- 
ferior to  similar  volumes  by  Ray  Lan- 
cester,  Arthur  Thompson,  and  Harting. 
Hudson   describes   in    inimitable   lan- 
guage the  museum  something  that  was 
a  snake;  that  "spiral-shaped,  rigid,  cylin- 
drical piece  of  clay-colored  gutta-percha, 
no   longer  capable   of   exciting   strange 
emotions  in  us— the  unsightly  dropped 
coil  of  a  spirit  that  was  fiery  and  cold." 
And  then  the  living  serpent,  "not  seen 
distinctly  as  in  a  museum  or  laboratory, 
dead  on  a  table,  but  in  an  atmosphere 
and  surroundings  that  take  something 
from  and  add  something  to  it;  seen  at 
first  as  a  chance  disposition    of    dead 
leaves    or    twigs    or    pebbles    on    the 
ground— a  handful  of  Nature's  mottled 
riffraff  blown  or  thrown  fortuitously  to- 
gether so  as  to  form  a  peculiar  pattern; 
all  at  once,  as  by  a  flash,  it  is  seen  to  be  no 
dead  leaves  or  twigs  or  grass,  but  a  liv- 
ing, active  coil,  a  serpent  lifting  its  flat 
arrowy    head,    vibrating    a    glistening 
forked  tongue,  hissing  with  dangerous 
fury ;  and  in  another  moment  it  has  van- 
ished into  the  thicket,  and  is  nothing 
but  a  memory — merely  a  thread  of  bril- 
liant color  woven  into  the  ever-changing 
varicolored     embroidery      of      Nature's 
mantle,  seen  vividly  for  an  instant,  then 
changing  to  dull  grey  and  fading  from 
sight."    This  is  magnificent,  but  no  man 
has  a  right  to  belittle  the  plodding  scien- 
tist and  exalt  the  field  naturalist  who  has 
not  submitted  every  ward  to  the  censor- 
ship of  their  mutual  goddess.    No  poetry 
of  Maeterlinck  or  phrase  of  Fabre  was 
ever  the  worse  for  truth. 

The  man  who  can  not  laugh  more  than 
once  in  reading  Oliver  Herford's  "This 
Giddy  World"  (Doran),  and  who  doesn't 
chuckle  all  the  time  that  he  isn't  laugh- 
ing, is  fit  for  treason,  spoils,  and  strata- 
gems. He  does  not  deserve  to  be  reck- 
oned a  member  of  "the  most  moral  and 
patriotic  people  in  the  world,  [whose] 
army  is  second  to  none  in  bravery,  and 
won  the  World  War."  As  a  work  on 
geography  it  is  as  accurate  and  authen- 
tic as  it  is  amusing.  The  only  error 
we  discover  is  a  reference  to  Lief 
Ericsen.  We  seem  to  recall  a  verse  in 
which  that  hardy  navigator  (Ericson,  by 
the  way)  protests  that  he'd 

Just  as  lief  you  called  it  Leif. 

With  this  trifling  reservation  the  treat- 
ise can  be  heartily  recommended. 

"The  Burgess  Bird  Book  for  Children," 
by  Thornton  W.  Burgess  (Little,  Brown), 
is  a  very  clever,  delicately  executed  book 
of  birds.  The  author  has  encased  a  re- 
markable amount  of  nutritious  funda- 
mental fact  in  a  sugar-coating  of  hu- 
manized wood-folk,  which  ought  to  give 


January  31,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[113 


pleasure  to  hosts  of  children.  Brer  Rab- 
bit—here alias  Peter  Rabbit— is  the 
chief  character,  who  by  his  love  of  gossip 
and  his  friendship  and  interest  in  all 
the  birds  of  the  field  and  the  woods  is 
made  to  serve  as  a  most  engaging  inter- 
preter or  interlocutor.  One  reads  easily 
through  page  after  page  of  amusing  dia- 
logue between  Peter  and  Jennie  Wren, 
or  Winsome  Bluebird,  or  Creaker  Grackle, 
or  Butcher  Shrike,  or  Plunger  Osprey, 
without  realizing  that  there  is  being  con- 
veyed a  host  of  facts  which  deal  with  mi- 
gration, molt,  food,  nesting,  song,  color- 
ing, and  instincts  which,  if  presented 
as  bare  facts,  would  only  repel  childish 
readers.  It  is  certain  that  many  an  older 
person  will  read  this  book  on  the  sly,  for 
it  has  not  a  little  of  the  charm  of  "The 
Wind  in  the  Willows"  and  the  "Jungle 
Books,"  and  higher  praise  could  not  be 
paid.  There  is  a  wealth  of  colored  illus- 
trations by  Mr.  Fuertes,  and  a  fair  index 
with  scientific  names  for  accurate  identi- 
fication. 

"Un  Soldat  de  France"  (Paris:  Plon- 
Nourrit)  is  composed  of  the  letters  writ- 
ten from  the  front  by  a  young  French 
surgeon,  and  is  interesting  as  another 
example  of  the  intellectual  superiority  of 
the  youth  of  France,  one  of  the  few 
agreeable  revelations  of  the  recent  war. 
Most  of  these  letters  are  addressed  to  the 
father  of  the  writer  and  perhaps  the  most 
remarkable  of  them,  as  it  is  surely  the 
most  touching,  is  the  one  in  which  this 
young  man,  not  yet  twenty-three,  offers 
his  friendship  to  his  father,  a  curious 
example  of  a  psychological  and  mental 
state  that  only  such  a  war  as  this  last  one 
could  produce;  and  all  this  goes  to  prove 
once  more  that  Professor  Rollo  Walter 
Brown  in  his  "How  the  French  Boy 
Learns  to  Write"  is  quite  within  the 
truth  in  his  general  conclusion  that  the 
French  lad's  pen  is  facile  princeps  when 
compared  with  that  of  his  American 
comrade. 

Captain  Ernest  Peixotto,  one  of  the 
official  artists  of  the  A.  E.  F.,  was  close 
to  the  fighting  at  Chateau-Thierry,  St. 
Mihiel,  and  the  Argonne,  and  observed 
also  our  occupation  of  the  middle  Rhine. 
His  diary  and  sketches  constitute  a 
sober  personal  record  which  is  perpetu- 
ited  in  a  well-made  book,  "At  the 
American  Front"  (Scribners).  There 
are  thrilling  touches,  and  even  a  thrill- 
ing chapter— that  which  describes  the 
spectacular  assault  on  the  Montfaucon, 
but  in  general  the  narrative,  and  the 
illustrations  as  well,  singularly  repeat 
the  quiet  and  not  too  colorful  method  of 
Mr.  Peixotto's  well-known  sketches  of 
travel.  We  have  the  accurate  and  re- 
strained observations  of  a  veteran  trav- 
eler, and  should  be  grateful  for  so 
much.  For  the  romantic  flavor  of  our 
military  effort,  one  must  look  elsewhere. 


The  Society  for  Pure  English,  which 
was  just  getting   under  way  when   the 
war    broke    out,    has    now    resumed    its 
activities.      Its     membership     includes 
some  of  the  most  distinguished  British 
men  and  women  of  letters  and  students 
of  literature.     Among  them  are  enough 
philologists     of    standing,     like     Henry 
Bradley,  W.  A.  Craigie,  Sir  James  Mur- 
ray, H.  C.  K.  Wyld,  and  Joseph  Wright, 
to    give    color    to    the    hope    that    the 
Society's  tracts,  which  will  be  published 
by  the  Oxford  University  Press,  will  not 
be  wholly  dedicated  to  enthusiasms  like 
those  of  Sir  Robert  Bridges  or  pedant- 
ries like  those  of  the  Fowlers.     Indeed, 
the  aims  of  the  Society,  as  set  forth  in 
the  prospectus,  are  modest  and  sensible. 
Such   matters   as   the   naturalization   of 
foreign  words,  native  word-coinage,  the 
"regeneration"  of  neglected  elements  in 
the  vocabulary,  the  protection  of  tradi- 
tional speech-cadences  from  the  assaults 
of  ignorant  pedantry,  are  among  those 
to  which  it  will  give  attention.    No  doubt 
the  pamphlets  issued  by  the  Society  will 
be  of  unequal  value,  but  eventually  its 
work,  if  it  is  carried  on  in  the  spirit  sug- 
gested by  the  prospectus,   should  grow 
into  very  great  usefulness.    Applications 
for  membership  may  be  sent  to  the  Hon- 
orary Secretary,  Mr.  L.  Pearsall  Smith, 
11  St.  Leonards  Terrace,  London,  S.  W.  3. 

Anyone  who  buys  for  his  children  a 
copy  of  Jean  Henri  Fabre's  "Field,  Forest 
and  Farm"  (Century)  is  likely  to  be  first 
disappointed   and  then   greatly   puzzled. 
He  will   be   disappointed   at  finding   its 
vocabulary   far   beyond   the   reading   of 
any  child  to  whom  the   form  would  be 
acceptable,   and   he   will   be   puzzled   to 
guess   for  whom  it  is   intended.     Like 
others  of  the  series,  it  represents  "Uncle 
Paul"  imparting  to  his  nephews  informa- 
tion about  nature  and  its  processes.    But 
of  what  age  are  the  nephews  to  whom 
he  delivers  such  observations  as  this  on 
sap:    .    .    .    "It    is    not    yet    a    nutri- 
tive fluid  for  the  plant;   it  becomes  so 
in  the  foliage  by  a  double  process.    First, 
on  being  distributed  to  the  leaves,  which 
furnish  a  vast  surface  for  evaporation, 
it   exhales   its  superabundant  water   in 
the  form  of  vapor  and  thus  concentrates 
its  usable  ingredients?"     If  this  repre- 
sents their  working  vocabulary,  they  are 
too  old  to  be  lured  by  a  form  of  dialogue 
as    palpably    didactic    as    anything    in 
"Sandford    and    Merton"    or    the    Rollo 
books.    If  in  French  the  book  is  accept- 
able to  children,  as  it  comes  to  us  it  is 
only  half  translated,   for  no   one  could 
read  it  to  a  child  without  ransacking  his 
mind,  and  his  dictionaries,  for  intelligible 
circumlocutions  for  fully  half  the  words 
and  phrases  in  it.    If  he  is  wise  he  will 
keep  it  as  a  source  of  information  for 
himself  to  deal  out  to  the  children  in 
the  presence  of  the  facts  and  the  actual 
questions. 


The   New   French 
President 

SOME  twenty-five  years  ago,  when  M. 
Poincare  was  still  writing  in  the 
newspapers,  besides  being  a  lawyer  and 
a  Cabinet  Minister,  he  said  of  M.  Paul 
Deschanel  that  he  was  a  man  about 
whom  one  might  prophesy  not  that  he 
would  some  day  become  a  minister,  but 
that  he  surely  would  be  elected  to  the 
French  Academy.  This  prophecy  was 
verified  a  long  time  ago.  M.  Deschanel 
has  never  been  in  any  cabinet,  but  he  has 
been  a  member  of  the  French  Academy 
for  the  last  twenty  years,  and  now  he  suc- 
ceeds M.  Poincare  as  President  of  the 
Republic,  a  circumstance,  by  the  way, 
that  M.  Poincare  did  not  and  could  not 
foresee. 

The  reason  of  M.  Poincare's  emphasis 
on  the  French  Academy  is  because  of  M. 
Deschanel's  literary  accomplishments, 
his  singularly  elegant  oratory,  the  finish 
of  his  style  and,  taken  all  in  all,  the  tone 
of  distinction  and  refinement  that  char- 
acterizes all  his  parliamentary  manifes- 
tations since  the  first  time  he  entered 
the  Chamber  of  Deputies,  some  thirty- 
five  years  since. 

His  political  enemies  used  to  make  fun 
of  this  dandy  of  politics  who  dressed  his 
person  as  well  as  he  dressed  his  speeches 
and  whose  eloquence  seemed  to  attract 
to  the  galleries  of  the  Palais  Bourbon  all 
the  pretty  ladies  of  Paris.     They  called 
him  the  "Delaunay  of  the  Chamber  of 
Deputies,"  Delaunay  being  at  that  date 
the  popular  matinee  idol  of  the  Theatre 
Frangais.    They  accused  him  of  fastidi- 
ousness in  the  preparation  of  Mf>  orations, 
which  they  found    a    bit   R,l  polished. 
They  prophesied  that  he  could  not  keep 
on    repeating    the    oratorical    successes 
which  he  scored  every  time  he  took  the 
floor.    They  were  mistaken.    M.  Descha- 
nel repeated  them  often,  or  at  least  as 
often  as  he  chose  to  speak.     He  spoke 
only  when  he  had  something  important 
to  say,  and  that  was  about  once  or  twice 
a  year.     And  each  one  of  his  orations 
was  notable  for  its  power  and  literary 
charm.     The  training  he  received  from 
his  father,  one  of  the  distinguished  writ- 
ers on  literature  of  the  19th  century,  his 
association  with  the  Journal  des  Debats, 
one   of   the   most   scholarly   and   distin- 
guished French  newspapers,  and  his  nat- 
ural talent  and  taste  for  good  style  gave 
him  immediately  a  prominence  univer- 
sally acknowledged  as  one  of  the  leading 
men  of  the  French  Parliament. 

In  the  early  part  of  his  career,  be- 
tween 1885  and  the  nineties,  he  was  sat- 
isfied with  discussing  on  the  floor  ques- 
tions of  a  nature  that  could  not  rouse 
party  passions.  His  maiden  speech  on 
June  28,  1886,  is  still  remembered  by 
old  parliament-' rians.     it  dealt  with  the 


114] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  38 


tariff.  The  fanners  wanted  a  tax  of  6 
francs  on  wheat,  and  he  treated  this 
arid  topic  with  such  imagination  and 
brilliancy  that  he  left  the  Chamber  both 
delighted  and  surprised.  A  year  later 
we  find  him,  with  the  same  success, 
treating  the  Naval  appropriations  and 
the  problems  of  France's  protectorate 
over  the  Christians  in  Syria. 

Gradually,  however,  he  approached 
questions  of  a  more  contentious  nature. 
After  the  moderate  party  had  been  de- 
prived of  its  great  leaders,  Gambetta, 
Jules  Ferrj',  and  also  M.  Ribot,  tempo- 
rarily out  of  Parliament,  the  younger 
men  had  to  take  their  place  and  carry 
on  the  fight  against  radicalism,  which 
was  growing  stronger  every  day,  and 
Socialism,  which  was  just  then  making 
its  entrance  into  Parliament  with  Paul 
Lafargue,  Jules  Guesde,  and  Vaillant, 
soon  joined  by  Jaures,  Viviani,  and  Mil- 
lerand.  Among  these  young  men  the 
most  prominent  were  Jonnart,  Barthou, 
Poincare,  and  Deschanel.  While  the 
first  three  accepted  cabinet  positions  in 
various  ministries,  Deschanel,  for  rea- 
sons best  known  to  himself,  remained  in 
the  ranks  to  fight  the  battles  of  the  mod- 
erate party. 

He  resented  the  injustice  and  the  un- 
fairness of  the  extreme  left,  led  by  Clem- 
enceau  and  Pelletan,  against  the  great 
leaders  of  his  party;  so  he  decided  to 
give  radicalism  a  little  bit  of  its  own 
medicine  in  the  form  of  aggressive  criti- 
cisms and  virulent  denunciations. 

Three  times,  in  November,  1895,  in 
April,  1896,  and  again  in  November  of 
the  same  year,  under  the  Bourgeois  and 
Meline  ministries,  he  attacked  the  radi- 
cal party  with  a  sharp,  incisive,  and  pet- 
ulant or<itc.ry,  very  different  from  his 
earlie  v^raife  academic  style,  and  one 
which  was  quite  as  much  of  a  revelation 
as  his  first  manner. 

His  talent  had  matured.  His  knowl- 
edge of  political  and  economic  science 
had  been  increased  by  continuous  study, 
wide  curiosity,  and  even  a  trip  to  the 
United  States,  from  which  he  brought 
many  observations  often  used  in  his 
speeches.  He  was  one  of  the  best- 
equipped  members  of  the  House,  and  to 
many  of  his  colleagues  whose  knowledge 
hardly  extends  beyond  local  issues,  his 
orations  were  as  good  as  a  university 
course  in  political  science.  Hence  when 
he  had  to  carry  on  controversies  with 
the  Socialists,  he  could  not  be  satisfied 
with  feeble  platitudes  and  old-fashioned 
arguments.  He  had  to  argue  against 
scholarly  and  well-informed  Marxists 
like  Paul  Lafargue  and  Jules  Guesde, 
crafty  parliamentarians,  powerful  and 
passionate  orators  like  Jaures,  and  clever 
debaters  like  Millerand,  Viviani,  and  a 
half  dozen  others. 

Nothing  has  shovra  more  strikingly 
the  openness  of  mind  of  that  opportunist 
and  conservative  spokesman  than  the  way 


in  which  he  had  not  merely  grasped  the 
abstruse  metaphysics  of  Karl  Marx's 
"Capital"  and  the  rest  of  modern  Social- 
istic literature,  but  also  accepted  some 
of  their  legitimate  claims,  while  fighting 
their  doctrines  in  a  spirit  of  fairness 
and,  sometimes,  of  sympathy,  that  many 
of  them  readily  acknowledged. 

His  colleagues  had  come  to  look  upon 
him  as  a  man  of  keen  intelligence,  with 
a  broad  mind  and  a  heart  open  to  any 
appeal.  That  is  why  he  shared  the 
Speakership  of  the  House  with  only  one 
man  during  the  first  years  of  this  cen- 
tury. When  Henry  Brisson  died,  Descha- 
nel was  the  only  possible  candidate.  He 
has  filled  his  position  with  tact,  impar- 
tiality, and  common  sense.  In  a  House 
that  is  often  unruly  and  still  oftener 
intolerant,  he  has  stood  for  freedom  of 
speech  and  for  fair  treatment  of  all. 
When  a  House  has  finished  its  career,  no 
one  knows  better  than  Deschanel  how 
to  praise  its  accomplishments;  and  like- 
wise when  the  House  reconvenes,  he 
knows,  without  offending  his  colleagues, 
how  to  give  them  sound  advice.  His 
very  duties  as  a  president  of  the  House 
have  prepared  him  and  made  him  more 
fit  for  his  part  as  President  of  the 
Republic. 

The  restricted  body  by  which  the 
President  is  chosen  has  one  advantage: 
it  knows  exactly  what  is  needed  in  the 
position  to  be  filled  and  who  best  fits 
the  requirements.  The  presidency  is 
never  given  as  a  reward  for  services  to 
a  man  who,  whatever  his  other  merits, 
has  neither  the  temperament  nor  the 
special  equipment  required  to  perform 
its  duties.  A  soldier  without  political 
experience  or  elementary  knowledge  of 
public  affairs,  a  public  man  who  has  been 
all  his  life  a  fighter  and  a  polemist,  would 
be  equally  out  of  place  in  the  presiden- 
tial position. 

The  President  in  France  must  forget 
that  he  was  once  the  man  of  a  party ;  he 
must  become  an  impartial  arbiter  of  all 
parties.  That  will  be  easy  for  Deschanel, 
who  was  elected  by  men  of  all  groups 
and  supported  especially  by  those  men 
whose  doctrines  are  furthest  from  his 
own,  the  Socialists  and  the  radicals. 
Since  the  President  has  many  social  and 
diplomatic  duties,  it  is  as  well  that  he 
should  be  a  man  of  pleasing  presence,  of 
distinction  and  charm  of  manner,  of 
impeccable  speech  and  sound  views. 
M.  Deschanel  will  have  the  distinction 
of  being  perhaps  the  best-looking  of  the 
French  Presidents. 

Although  elected  as  a  conservative  Re- 
publican, M.  Deschanel  is  a  staunch  and 
almost  fanatic  Republican.  He  has  no 
patience  with  those  who  speak  ill  of  the 
parliamentary  regime.  He  knows  and 
has  often  said  that  with  all  its  defects 
it  is  the  only  guarantee  of  popular  lib- 
erties. He  rebukes  the  idle  and  foolish 
critics  who  always  slander  the  Assem- 


blies that  they  elect.  During  the  war,  in 
particular,  he  has  rendered  frequent  and 
just  homage  to  the  work  of  supervision 
of  the  committees  and  their  delegates  at 
the  front.  To  this  man,  whose  father 
was  an  exile  for  his  republican  faith,  the 
French  Republic  is  something  more  than 
a  form  of  government,  it  is  almost  a 
religion.  He  worships  his  country  and 
he  worships  the  republic. 

After  the  proclamation  of  the  vote 
that  made  him  President,  some  one  said 
that  this  election  shows  the  continuity 
of  the  French  Republic  and  the  conti- 
nuity of  the  ideals  for  which  this  war 
was  fought.  No  other  member  of  either 
House  would  have  been  more  worthy 
than  Paul  Deschanel,  not  only  to  sym- 
bolize but  to  assure  the  continuity  of 
the  best  traditions  of  the  Third  Republic. 
Othon  Guerlac 

Einstein  and  the  Man 
in  the  Street 

WHEN  I  was  asked  to  write  an  article 
explaining  the  principle  of  rela- 
tivity to  the  man  in  the  street  I  felt  very 
much  like  quoting  the  words  of  Faust : 

So  soil  ich  denn  mit  sauerem  Schweiss 
Euch  lehren  was  ich  selbst  nicht  weiss? 

I  do  not  entirely  understand  the  principle 
of  relativity  and  it  is  impossible  for  the 
man  in  the  street  to  understand  it.  The 
explanations  that  I  have  seen  in  the  daily 
papers  do  not  in  the  least  explain  why 
rays  of  light  should  be  bent  by  gravita- 
tional attraction,  and  yet  I  am  disposed 
to  make  the  attempt  to  throw  a  little 
light  upon  it  without  any  mathematics 
and  even  without  any  diagrams.  This 
is  certainly  no  light  task. 

Everybody  knows  that  light  takes  a 
certain  length  of  time  to  travel,  like 
sound  or  waves  on  the  surface  of  still 
water,  and  whereas  sound  travels  only 
about  1,100  feet  per  second,  light  is 
known  to  travel  with  a  velocity  of  about 
186,000  miles  per  second.  Thus  the  delay 
caused  in  the  case  of  a  luminous  signal 
of  any  sort,  between  its  time  of  starting 
from  any  point  and  of  arriving  at  an- 
other, is  noticeable  only  when  the  dis- 
tances concerned  are  very  great,  such 
as  are  celestial  distances.  In  order  to 
explain  the  finite  delay  in  the  arrival 
of  light  the  notion  of  the  luminiferous 
ether  was  invented  to  denote  the  medium 
in  which  the  light  existed  between 
the  time  of  its  emission  at  the  source 
and  its  reception  by  the  eye.  The 
late  Lord  Salisbury  wittily  said  that 
the  noun  "ether"  was  invented  to  be  the 
subject  to  the  verb  "to  undulate."  If  we 
drop  a  stone  upon  the  surface  of  a  pond 
we  see  a  system  of  waves  spreading  out 
in  the  form  of  a  circle  of  ever  increasing 
diameter.  If  we  fire  a  pistol  we  similarly 
have  a  wave  of  sound  which  spreads  out 


Januaiy  31,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[115 


in  the  form  of  a  sphere  of  continually 
increasing  diameter  and  nobody  hears 
the  sound  until  this  sphere  has  grown 
large  enough  to  reach  his  ear.  Similarly 
with  light.  The  light  spreads  out  in  the 
form  of  a  spherical  wave  and  nobody  sees 
the  light  until  the  sphere  has  reached 
the  eye.  The  case  of  the  wave  on  water 
is  simpler  insofar  as  a  plane  contains 
only  two  dimensions,  length  and  breath, 
so  that  the  position  of  a  point  is  deter- 
mined by  giving  its  distances,  say  north 
and  south  from  a  given  parallel  and  east 
and  west  from  a  given  meridian.  With 
the  sound  and  light  wave,  however,  the 
spreading  is  in  three-dimensional  space, 
and  we  require  to  fix  the  position  of  a 
point  not  two  of  these  so-called  coordi- 
nate distances  but  three,  the  third  being 
the  distance  above  or  below  some  horizon- 
tal floor  plane.  I  think  it  is  pretty  evi- 
dent that  if  we  consider  a  circular  cone 
with  its  axis  vertical  and  cause  it  to  rise 
through  the  level  surface  of  the  water, 
if  its  point  rises  with  uniform  velocity 
it  will  intersect  the  surface  of  the  water 
in  a  circle,  the  radius  of  which  increases 
with  a  uniform  velocity,  thus  constitut- 
ing a  circular  wave.  The  height  of  the 
vertex  of  the  cone  above  the  floor  plane 
of  the  water  is  then  a  measure  of  the 
time;  so  that  if  we  were  dealing  with 
space  of  only  two  dimensions  the  time 
would  be  the  third  dimension  for  that 
space,  as  far  as  wave  motions  were  con- 
sidered. Beings  living  in  the  plane  would 
have  the  same  diflJiculty  in  imagining  a 
third  dimension  that  we  do  for  a  fourth. 
Now  it  is  somewhat  more  difficult  when 
we  are  dealing  with  three-dimensional 
space  to  think  of  time  as  a  fourth.  But 
by  a  certain  extension  of  the  imagina- 
tion we  are  able  to  do  it.  In  this  sense 
the  time  is  measured  by  the  increase  of 
radius  of  a  spherical  light  or  sound  wave 
proceeding  from  a  point.  I  do  not  say 
that  this  is  all  there  is  to  the  question  of 
time  as  the  fourth  dimension,  but  it  is 
sufficient  for  our  purpose  here. 

Let  us  now  come  to  some  of  the  physi- 
cal consequences  of  the  notion  of  the 
ether  as  a  substance  which  bears  the 
light  waves.  It  is,  I  think,  very  evident 
that  if  waves  of  sound  go  along  with 
respect  to  the  still  air  at  a  speed  of  1,100 
feet  per  second,  then,  if  the  air  is  moving 
forward  in  the  form  of  a  wind,  the  waves 
are  carried  along  so  much  faster  by  the 
amount  of  the  velocity  of  the  wind.  If 
one  is  in  a  train  moving  towards  a  sound- 
ing whistle  the  waves  proceeding  from 
the  whistle  are  encountered  faster  than 
if  one  were  standing  still  and  the  pitch 
of  the  whistle  accordingly  rises.  The 
same  thing  would  be  true  if  we  were 
standing  still  and  the  whistle  together 
with  the  air  were  coming  towards  us 
with  a  velocity  of  their  own.  I  may  in 
this  case  leave  the  whistle  out  of  account 
and  simply  speak  of  the  waves  that  are 
borne  along  by  the  air. 


Now  the  earth  is  going  along  through 
space  at  a  great  rate,  moving  in  its  or- 
bit around  the  sun  with  an  average  veloc- 
ity of  about  19  miles  per  second,  which, 
to  be  sure,  is  only  about  one  ten-thou- 
sandth of  the  velocity  of  light,  but  still 
is  very  fast  compared  with  ordinary 
speeds.  If,  then,  ether  acts  like  air  and 
stands  still  in  space,  we  shall  have  the 
effect  of  a  sort  of  ether  wind  blowing 
against  us  with  a  speed  of  19  miles  per 
second.  Such  an  effect  was  looked  for 
about  30  years  ago  by  the  American 
physicists  Michelson  and  Morley;  the 
former,  who  is  now  Professor  of  Physics 
at  the  University  of  Chicago,  has  since 
obtained  the  Nobel  Prize  for  this  and 
his  other  optical  researches.  The  result 
of  the  experiment  was  negative;  that  is 
to  say,  the  ether  did  not  appear  to  be 
in  motion  with  respect  to  the  earth.  This 
was  the  beginning  of  the  whole  trouble 
and  eventually  led  up  to  the  invention 
of  the  principle  of  relativity  in  1905  by 
Einstein,  a  young  Swiss  mathematical 
physicist  who  is  now  situated  in  Berlin, 
belonging  to  that  talented  race  that  is 
responsible  for  so  much  of  our  troubles, 
intellectual  and  other. 

Suppose  again  that  we  are  moving 
along  above  the  surface  of  still  water  and 
at  a  certain  time  we  drop  a  stone  into 
it  giving  rise  to  a  circular  wave  as  be- 
fore, only  that  now  we  move  ahead.  It 
is  very  obvious  that  at  any  subsequent 
time  we  are  nearer  to  that  part  of  the 
wave  front  that  is  ahead  of  us  and  which 
we  are  trying  to  catch  up  with  than  the 
part  that  is  behind  us  which  we  are  mov- 
ing away  from.  Thus  the  velocity  of  the 
wave  with  respect  to  us  is  not  the  same 
in  all  directions. 

The  first  question  raised  by  Einstein 
is  that  of  a  criterion  for  the  simultaneity 
of  two  events.  If  these  events  take  place 
at  the  same  place  there  is  no  difficulty. 
The  clock  must  tell  the  same  time  for 
each  of  them.  But  suppose  they  take 
place  in  places  a  long  way  apart.  The 
only  way  that  an  observer  situated  where 
one  of  these  events  takes  place  can  tell 
when  the  other  takes  place  is  by  the 
reception  of  some  sort  of  signal,  which 
must  travel  with  the  velocity  of  light. 
In  order  to  set  two  clocks  so  that  they 
shall  correctly  indicate  the  time  we  may 
suppose  that  a  signal  is  given  when  the 
first  clock  shows  twelve  o'clock,  and  if 
the  second  clock  is,  we  will  say,  186,000 
miles  away,  when  the  signal  reaches  there 
the  clock  must  show  twelve  o'clock  plus 
one  second,  and  if  the  signal  is  then  re- 
flected back  it  must  arrive  at  the  first 
clock  when  that  clock  marks  twelve 
o'clock  and  two  seconds.  If,  then,  the 
second  clock  shows  a  time  which  is  half- 
way between  those  shown  by  the  first 
clock  on  the  departure  of  the  signal  and 
the  reception  of  the  reflected  signal,  the 
clocks  are  correctly  set.  But  if  the  clocks 
are  in  motion,  this  will  not  be  the  case, 


because,  as  we  have  just  shown,  the  ve- 
locity of  the  wave  that  is  catching  up  will 
be  different  from  that  of  the  wave  which 
is  coming  back.  Consequently  clocks  in 
motion  have  a  different  criterion  for 
simultaneity  from  what  they  would  have 
if  at  rest. 

Now,  Einstein's  first  postulate  is,  say- 
ing nothing  about  the  ether,  which  we 
need  henceforth  not  mention,  that  the 
velocity  of  light  is  the  same  in  all  direc- 
tions, irrespective  of  the  velocity  with 
which  the  source  of  light  is  moving.  The 
principle  of  relativity  may  then  be  stated 
by  saying  that  it  is  impossible  by  the 
observation  of  any  natural  phenomenon 
to  determine  anything  more  than  the 
relative  velocity  of  two  points,  the  abso- 
lute velocity  being  entirely  unknown.  It 
is  well  known  that  this  is  true  in  me- 
chanics. For  instance,  it  is  quite  im- 
possible to  tell  in  a  sleeping  car  which 
way  the  car  is  traveling  as  long  as  the 
velocity  is  unchanged,  despite  the  fancies 
of  particular  passengers  who  wish  their 
berths  made  up  with  the  head  facing  for- 
wards or  back.  This  is  well  shown  in 
the  case  of  persons  passing  through  the 
Broad  Street  station  in  Philadelphia  in 
the  night  who  come  out  facing  the  other 
way  without  any  knowledge  of  it.  It  is 
when  the  speed  of  the  train  is  changing 
or  is  experiencing  an  acceleration  that 
we  are  able  to  tell  the  direction  of  the 
change  by  means  of  the  pressures  be- 
ween  ourselves  and  other  objects. 

Now,  although  this  dynamical  principle 
of  relativity  has  been  known  since  the 
days  of  Newton,  it  was  not  supposed  that 
phenomena  such  as  the  propagation  of 
light  or  of  electrical  disturbances  would 
be  similarly  independent  of  absolute  ve- 
locity. Yet  this  is  what  Einstein  pro- 
poses. '*/ 

In  order  to  explain  the  Michelson- 
Morley  result  Professor  Lorentz,  the  cele- 
brated Dutch  physicist,  following  a  sug- 
gestion thrown  out  by  FitzGerald  in  Ire- 
land, suggested  that  all  bodies  in  motion 
experienced  a  shortening  in  the  direction 
parallel  to  that  of  the  motion,  and  thus 
that  the  light  traveling  in  the  direction 
of  the  motion  of  the  earth  in  Michelson's 
and  Morley's  apparatus  had  a  different 
distance  to  go  from  that  going  in  a  direc- 
tion at  right  angles  to  the  motion  of  the 
earth.  Thus  the  result  was  satisfactorily 
explained.  But  this  result  was  carried 
much  farther  by  Einstein,  who  assumes 
that  there  is  a  fundamental  relation  be- 
tween time  and  space,  such  that,  to  put 
it  simply,  no  one  can  tell  what  time  it 
is  until  he  knows  where  he  is  and  he  can 
not  tell  where  he  is  until  he  knows  when 
he  is.  The  difficulty  of  measuring  the 
length  of  an  object  such  as  a  bar  in  mo- 
tion will  be  seen  to  arise  from  the  fact 
that  both  ends  must  be  compared  with 
the  ends  of  a  fixed  bar  at  the  same  time; 
for  if  we  measure  the  coincidence  of  one 
end  at  one  time  and  of  the  other  at  an- 


116] 


THE  llEA^EW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  38 


other,  obviously  we  do  not  get  the  same 
length  as  if  both  were  measured  at  once. 
Consequently,  the  question  of  length  is 
seen  to  be  connected  with  the  question  of 
time. 

These  considerations  were  thus  intro- 
duced by  Einstein  in  1905.  As  will  be 
easily  seen,  they  say  nothing  whatever 
about  gravitation,  and  since  then  the 
whole  theory  has  been  remodeled.  Ein- 
stein now  introduces  a  new  postulate  hav- 
ing to  do  with  accelerated  motion,  which 
I  may  illustrate  by  the  motion  of  an  ele- 
vator. If  we  stand  in  an  elevator  which 
starts  up  or  goes  upwards  faster  and 
faster,  our  feet  press  harder  upon  the 
floor  and  we  should  weigh  more  upon  a 
pair  of  scales.  It  is  obviously  impos- 
sible to  distinguish  the  effect  of  a  sud- 
den increase  in  the  pull  due  to  the  attrac- 
tion of  the  earth  from  the  acceleration  of 
the  elevator,  our  so-called  frame  of  ref- 
erence. Einstein's  new  postulate,  then, 
is  that  it  is  impossible  to  distinguish  the 
effect  of  a  gravitational  field  or  region 
where  attraction  takes  place  from  an 
acceleration  of  our  frame  of  reference. 
But  this  is  not  all. 

A  set  of  waves  possesses  energy;  that 
is,  the  power  to  do  work.  We  know  that 
waves  of  the  sea  may  knock  down  a 
breakwater  or  cut  away  a  cliff.  Waves 
of  sound  may  cause  a  phonograph  needle 
to  dig  up  wax.  Waves  of  light  were  pre- 
dicted by  Maxwell  fifty  years  ago  to 
exert  pressure,  which  was  experimentally 
demonstrated  in  this  country  by  Nichols 
and  Hull  and  in  Russia  by  Lebedeff.  But 
how  can  transverse  waves,  where  the 
motion  is  at  right  angles  to  the  direction 
of  propagation,  as  is  supposed  to  be  the 
case  with  light,  exert  a  pressure  in  the 
directifliipf  propagation?  Lord  Ray- 
leir'  >f^3  this  by  an  analogy.  Sup- 
pose that  we  have  a  ring  sliding  on  a 
violin  string  which  is  vibrating  trans- 
versely. In  order  to  prevent  the  ring 
from  being  pushed  along  by  the  vibra- 
tions it  will  be  necessary  to  hold  it  still, 
so  that  the  transverse  vibrations  push 
the  ring  along  endwise.  In  order  to  stop 
a  set  of  waves  and  reflect  them  back, 
then,  it  is  necessary  to  oppose  a  force, 
exactly  as  it  would  be  to  stop  a  ball,  or 
make  it  reflect  back.  The  waves  act, 
then,  as  if  they  had  inertia.  In  other 
words,  a  beam  of  light  acts  on  a  mirror 
just  as  a  stream  of  bullets  from  a  ma- 
chine gun  acts  on  a  target.  We  are  ac- 
cordingly led  to  the  notion  that  a  beam 
of  light  possesses  mass,  using  that  term 
in  the  sense  of  inertia.  But  all  ordinary 
mass  has  weight;  that  is  to  say,  is  pulled 
by  gravitational  forces  that  have  their 
origin  in  other  mass. 

Einstein  now  makes  the  further  as- 
sumption that  everything  that  has  mass 
or  inertia  has  gravitational  mass,  and 
that  therefore  a  beam  of  light  is  acted 
upon  by  gravitation.  He  is  thus  able  to 
show  that  a  beam  of  light  passing  near 


the  sun  or  other  celestial  body  would  be 
bent.  This  is  a  very  extraordinary  pre- 
diction. The  amount  of  bending  even 
in  the  case  of  such  a  strongly  attracting 
body  as  the  sun  is  very  small.  A  beam  of 
light  that  just  grazes  the  sun  would  be 
bent  by  a  very  small  amount,  one  and 
three-quarters  seconds,  of  angle,  and  such 
an  observation  can  be  made  only  at  the 
time  of  a  total  solar  eclipse  when  the 
light  of  a  star  can  be  seen  passing  close 
to  the  edge  of  the  sun  when  the  sun  is 
dark.  In  the  eclipse  that  took  place  last 
spring  such  observations  were  actually 
made.  On  photographing  the  light  of 
the  same  stars  at  the  moment  of  the 
eclipse  and  at  another  time  when  the  sun 
was  not  there,  a  displacement  was  ob- 
served of  the  order  of  that  predicted  by 
Einstein.  This  was  hailed  by  the  Eng- 
lish astronomers  and  physicists,  includ- 
ing Sir  Joseph  Thomson,  the  President 
of  the  London  Royal  Society,  as  an  ex- 
traordinary confirmation  of  the  principle 
of  relativity.  When  observed,  the  effect 
is  extremely  small.  If  we  look  at  a  let- 
ter an  inch  in  height  at  a  distance  of 
about  three  miles  from  our  eye,  it  sub- 
tends an  angle  of  one  second.  Obviously, 
a  powerful  telescope  must  be  used,  and 
when  the  effect  is  so  very  small  one  may 
be  pardoned  a  certain  skepticism  if  one 
refuses  to  overturn  one's  preconceived 
ideas  of  the  independence  of  t'me  and 
space.  Nevertheless,  other  phenomena, 
both  celestial  and  terrestrial,  have  seemed 
to  point  in  the  same  direction.  It  may 
be  asked  whether  the  ray  of  light  is  not 
bent  by  ordinary  refraction  in  passing 
through  the  attenuated  gases  of  the  solar 
corona  which  we  know  extends  to  sev- 
eral diameters  beyond  the  sun's  disk.  Un- 
doubtedly the  English  astronomers  have 
taken  care  of  this. 

Whether  we  believe  it  or  not,  the  more 
closely  we  examine  the  principle  of  rela- 
tivity the  more  we  must  believe  that  it 
is  a  very  wonderful  conception,  incapable 
of  being  appreciated  in  its  consequences 
without  profound  mathematical  appa- 
ratus, and  involving  at  least  four  assump- 
tions which  I  have  in  a  very  rough  way 
attempted  to  describe :  First,  that  of  the 
constancy  of  the  velocity  of  light  with 
respect  to  all  directions  and  to  any  sys- 
tem moving  with  any  velocity  whatever 
with  respect  to  any  other  system ;  second, 
a  relation  between  time  and  distance  such 
that  either  of  two  bodies  seems  shortened 
in  the  direction  of  their  relative  motion 
by  an  observer  attached  to  the  other; 
third,  that  it  is  impossible  to  distinguish 
a  gravitational  field  from  the  accelera- 
tion of  the  frame  of  reference;  and 
fourth,  that  everything  that  has  mass,  as 
determined  by  inertia,  has  mass  of  the 
sort  determined  by  weight  or  attracta- 
bility. 

This  is  the  best  that  I  am  able  to  do 
for  the  man  in  the  street. 

Arthur  Gordon  Webster 


Music 

The  New  York  Opera  War — 
Hints  to  Librettists 

AGAIN  we  are  in  the  throes  of  an 
opera  war.  Managers  are  pitted 
against  managers,  millions  against  mil- 
lions, and  singers  against  singers.  The 
crowd,  night  after  night,  packs  two 
vast  opera  houses.  "The  excitement 
of  the  fight  is  far  more  evident  at 
the  Lexington  than  at  the  Metropolitan, 
which  affects  unconsciousness  of  its  Mid- 
Western  rivals. 

The  more  such  wars  we  see,  the  more 
we  like  them.  If  they  could  last  five 
months,  and  not  five  little  weeks,  we 
should  not  grumble.  For,  if  competition 
is  the  soul  of  trade,  in  emulation  lies  the 
spur  to  art.  The  Metropolitan  needs 
many  spurs.  Left  to  itself  it  sticks  in 
ruts — and  sleeps. 

And  while  the  larger  houses  strive  and 
strain,  the  struggle  at  the  Park  goes  on. 
The  fight  there  is,  however,  strictly 
limited.  Its  aim  is  to  build  up  a  per- 
manent home  for  opera  of  the  light  and 
lyric  kinds,  sung,  not  by  foreigners,  in 
foreign  tongues,  but  by  Americans  in 
their  own  English  idiom. 

If  they  had  done  no  more  than  that  this 
year  and  last,  the  American  singers  at 
the  Park  would  have  accomplished  a  good 
deal  for  art  by  proving  that  the  English 
tongue  in  opera  may  be  plain  and  musi- 
cal. But,  incidentally,  they  have  done 
something  more.  They  have  shown  what 
good  librettos  mean  in  opera.  Not  in 
the  obsolescent  kind  of  opera,  which  was 
merely  a  vehicle  for  the  display  of  virtu- 
osity, but  in  those  modern  works  which 
are  really  plays  with  music. 

The  demonstration  I  refer  to  has  been 
made  by  the  revival,  at  the  Park,  of 
Gilbert  and  Sullivan's  delightful  comic 
operas.  Week  after  week  large  audiences 
have  filled  the  theatre,  not  only  to  hear 
Sullivan's  airs  and  glees,  but,  just  as 
surely,  to  enjoy  the  quips  and  quirks  of 
Gilbert's  text.  We  have  been  told,  by 
those  who  disbelieve  in  English  as  an 
operatic  medium,  that  the  success  of  the 
joint  authors  of  "The  Mikado,"  "Pa- 
tience," "The  Pirates,"  "Pinafore,"  and 
"Ruddigore"  was  a  phenomenon  unique 
and  unrepeatable.  But,  both  before  and 
since  the  partnership  of  Gilbert  and  Sul- 
livan, there  have  been  other  unions, 
possibly  as  fortunate. 

Of  these  the  most  remarkable  was  that 
which  long  linked  Offenbach  with  Henri 
Meilhac  and  Ludovic  Halevy,  all  three 
imbued  with  the  same  spirit  of  mad 
levity.  In  Italy,  again,  for  years  the 
triumphs  of  the  operatic  "Veritists"  were 
chiefly  due  to  the  great  skill  of  two 
^Continued  on  page  118) 


Januaiy  31,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[117 


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LOS  ANGELES  TIMES:     "Will  form  the  keystone  to  the 

arch  of  Roosevelt's  literary  fame." 
OUTLOOK:     "The  reader  will  lay  down  this  book  with  a 
knowledge  that  he  has  been  privileged  to  have  had  in 
his  hands   a  great  biographical  document.     We   do  not 
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BOSTON  TRANSCRIPT:    "Many  books  have  been  written 
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118] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  38 


(Continued  from  page  116) 
librettists  —  the  romantic  dramatist, 
Giuseppe  Giacosa,  and  Luigi  Illica.  An- 
other even  more  apparent  proof  of  what 
librettos  mean  in  opera  is  found  in  what 
Arrigo  BoTto  did  for  Verdi.  And,  to 
come  nearer  to  our  day,  I  might  quote 
Maeterlinck,  who  inspired  Dukas  and 
Debussy  with  his  dream  plays. 

Some  years  ago,  before  the  production 
of  "Francesca  da  Rimini,"  in  Paris,  I 
asked  the  late  Maestro  Campanini  what 
he  thought  of  Zandonai's  latest  work.  "I 
have  no  opinion  on  the  subject  yet," 
said  the  conductor;  "I  have  not  read  the 
libretto." 

The  success  or  failure  of  the  new 
works  now  being  sung  at  the  Lexington 
Opera  House  will,  to  a  large  extent 
(much  larger  than  some  think),  depend 
on  whether  their  composers  had,  or  had 
not,  good  librettos.  If  "L'Heure  Espag- 
nole,"  to  name  one  work,  should  not  be 
liked,  Laparra,  the  composer  of  the  score, 
will  have  himself  to  blame.  For,  like 
Charpentier,  Wolf-Ferrari,  and  Dukas, 
he  now  insists  on  writing  his  own  words 
in  opera.  The  example  was  set  long 
ago  by  Wagner.  As  time  runs  on,  it 
may  be  widely  followed. 

For  those  born  librettists  who  inspire 
great  lyric  dramas  grow  rarer  and  rarer. 
And  in  some  places  they  are  sadly 
scorned.  I  do  not  speak  now  of  the 
Broadway  hacks,  who  grind  out  dull 
rubbish  by  the  yard  for  "comic"  operas, 
but  of  the  few  and  well-intentioned  men 
and  women  who  have  tried  their  hands 
here  at  the  invention  of  ambitious  opera 
"books."  Among  them,  I  may  mention 
Bryan  Hooker,  who  devised  the  words  for 
"Mona,"  and  Percy  MacKaye,  who  twice 
collaborated  with  Reginald  de  Koven. 
Both  did  their  best,  but  from  the  same 
wrong  standpoint,  and  in  the  instances 
of  "Mona"  and  of  "The  Canterbury 
Pilgrims,"  both  good  reading  plays,  both 
failed,  and  why?  Because  the  method 
each  preferred  was  purely  '"literary," 
appealing  chiefly  to  the  brain  and  eye, 
but  disdaining  the  much  more  important 
ear,  which  must  be  courted  by  the  man 
who  writes  for  opera. 

All  good — all  great — librettists  know 
that  truth.  Boito,  Gilbert,  Meilhac, 
Halevy,  and,  to  add  three  to  the  exclu- 
sive list,  Barber  and  Carre,  who  assisted 
Gounod,  and  Henri  Cain,  who  has  signed 
many  opera  books,  respected  it  relig- 
iously. So,  though  at  times  their  verses 
may  seem  trite  or  tame,  what  they  in- 
vented was  at  least  quite  clear.  The 
most  absurdly  intricate  of  Gilbert's  pat- 
ter songs  is  understandable,  provided  it 
is  sung  by  well-trained  singers.  While 
when,  forsaking  "light  for  serious  art, 
Meilhac  and  Halevy  made  a  libretto  out 
of  Merimee's  "Carmen,"  they  gave  us 
what  still  seems  a  little  masterpiece, 
melodic,  graceful,  vivid,  full  of  life, 
poetic,   humorous,   tragic — always   sing- 


able. Boito  rivaled  them  in  his  "Fal- 
stafT"  libretto,  and  now  and  then  in  his 
arrangement  of  "Othello."  Here  we 
have  models. 

Charles  Henry  Meltzer 

Books  and  the  News 

Spiritism 

THE  word  "Spiritism"  seems  almost 
to  have  displaced  the  older  one, 
"Spiritualism,"  but  if  it  ordinarily  indi- 
cates bias  either  towards  or  against  the 
belief,  it  is  not  so  used  here.  Persons 
who  work  in  libraries  and  book-shops 
can  not  doubt  the  extraordinary  interest 
in  the  subject,  and  the  lectures  of  M. 
Maeterlinck  and  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  are 
increasing  that  interest. 

Books  about  it  are  mostly  written  by 
convinced  believers,  who  seem,  to  skep- 
tics or  agnostics,  pathetically  credulous; 
or  by  disbelievers,  whose  skepticism  ap- 
pears to  the  convert  to  be  a  resolute 
refusal  to  open  their  minds  to  the  truth. 
If  there  is  in  the  world  a  person  abso- 
lutely without  prejudice  upon  this  sub- 
ject, he  will  seek  long  to  discover  any 
book  reflecting  his  state  of  mind.  The 
most  determined  opponents  are  those 
who  find  the  belief  disturbing  to  ortho- 
dox religion. 

Sir  Arthur  Conan  Doyle,  a  believer, 
says  that  as  a  course  of  reading  "for 
an  intelligent  agnostic  who  knew  noth- 
ing about  psychic  science,"  he  would  sug- 
gest the  writings  of  J.  Arthur  Hill.  Two 
of  these  are  "Spiritualism;  its  History, 
Phenomena  and  Doctrine"  (Doran,  1919) 
and  "Psychical  Investigations"  (Cassell, 
1917).  Sir  A.  C.  Doyle's  own  writings 
are:  "The  New  Revelation"  and  "The 
Vital  Message"  (Doran,  1918-19).  It  is 
hardly  necessary  to  name  Sir  Oliver 
Lodge's  "Raymond"  (Doran,  1916)  and 
"The  Survival  of  Man"  (Moffat,  1909). 
James  H.  Hyslop's  "Contact  with  the 
Other  World"  (Century)  is  a  compila- 
tion from  his  years  of  experience,  his 
studies  and  conclusions.  Hereward  Car- 
rington's  "Modern  Psychical  Phenom- 
ena" (Dodd,  1919)  is  one  of  many  books 
by  this  author;  its  evidence  about  "spirit 
photography"  must  be  overwhelming  if 
it  convinces  any  who  have  known  the 
mischances  of  the  amateur  photographer 
and  the  surprises  of  the  developing  room. 
Basil  King's  "Abolishing  of  Death" 
(Cosmopolitan  Book  Corp.,  1919)  and 
Sir  W.  T.  Barrett's  "On  the  Threshold 
of  the  Unseen"  (Dutton,  1917)  are 
friendly  to  the  investigations. 

Two  important  studies  from,  it  is  said, 
a  scientific  point  of  view,  are  W.  J.  Craw- 
ford's "The  Reality  of  Psychic  Phe- 
nomena" (Watkins,  1916)  and  his  "Ex- 
periments in  Psychical  Science"  (Dut- 
ton, 1919).  An  extensive  and  extremely 
interesting  historical  work  is  Frank 
Podmore's  "Modem  Spiritualism ;  a  His- 


tory and  a  Criticism"  (2  vols.,  Scribner, 
1902).  Theodore  Flournoy's  "Spiritism 
and  Psychology"  (Harper,  1911),  Emile 
Boirac's  "The  Psychology  of  the  Future" 
(Stokes,  1918),  Hamlin  Garland's  "The 
Shadow  World"  (Harper,  1908),  and 
Samuel  McComb's  "The  Future  Life  in 
the  Light  of  Modern  Inquiry"  (Dodd, 
1919)  offer  a  variety  of  treatments  of 
the  topic. 

Johan  Liljencrants  in  "Spiritism  and 
Religion"  (Devin,  1918)  and  D.  I.  Lans- 
lots  in  "Spiritism  Unveiled"  (Herder, 
1913)  pay  the  compliments  of  the  Church 
of  Rome  to  the  whole  subject,  while  J. 
G.  Raupert's  "The  New  Black  Magic" 
(Devin),  from  much  the  same  point  of 
view,  admits  the  manifestations  and 
seems  to  class  them  with  devil-worship. 

"Some  Revelations  as  to  'Raymond' " 
(Dutton,  1918),  by  "A  Plain  Citizen," 
is  discriminating  and  by  no  means  en- 
tirely hostile.  It  should  be  read  with  Sir 
Oliver  Lodge's  "Raymond."  For  an  out- 
and-out  opponent  of  spiritism,  try  Ed- 
ward Clodd's  "The  Question"  (Richards, 
1917). 

Edmund  Lester  Pearson 

Books  Received 

ESSAYS  AND  CRITICISM 
Ben  Jonson's   Every  Man  in  His  Humour. 
Edited  by  Percy  Simpson.     Oxford  University 
Press. 

RELIGION  AND  PHILOSOPHY 
Fort,   Charles.     The  Book  of  the  Damned. 
Boni  &  Liveright. 

Living  Waters  or  Messages  of  Joy.  Intro- 
duction by  Dwight  Goddard.  Brentano's. 
$1.50  net. 

Randall,  J.  H.  The  Spirit  of  the  New  Phil- 
osophy.    Brentano's.    $1.75. 

BIOGRAPHY  AND  HISTORY 
Beamish,  R.  J.,  and  March,  F.  A.    America's 
Part  in  the  World  War.    Introduction  by  Gen. 
John  J.  Pershing.    Winston.    $3.00  net. 

Goddard,  Dwight,  and  Borel,  Henri.  Lao- 
tze's  Tao  and  Wu  Wei.     Brentano's.    $1.25. 

Simonds,  F.  H.  History  of  the  World  War, 
in  five  volumes.  Volume  IV — America  and 
Russia.    Doubleday,  Page. 

GOVERNMENT  AND  ECONOMICS 

Bullard,  Arthur.  The  Russian  Pendulum. 
Macmillan.    $2.00. 

Cheng,  Sih-Gung  Modern  China :  A  Polit- 
ical  Study.     Oxford  University   Press. 

Drake,  P.  H.  Democracy  Made  Safe.  Bos- 
ton:   Four  Seas.    $1.25  net. 

Gompers,  Samuel.  Labor  and  the  Common 
Welfare.     Edited  by  Hayes  Robbins.    Dutton. 

Harrison,  Marie.  The  Stolen  Lands :  A 
Study  in  Alsace-Lorraine.    Dutton.    $2.00  net. 

Hillis,  N.  D.  Rebuilding  Europe  in  the  Face 
of  World-Wide  Bolshevism.  Revell.  $1.50  net. 

Huang,  Feng-Hua.  Public  Debts  in  China. 
Columbia  University  Studies.  Longmans, 
Green. 

McKenzie,  F.  A,  Korea's  Fight  for  Free- 
dom.   Revell.    $2.00. 

Thomas,  H.  C.  The  Return  of  the  Demo- 
cratic Party  to  Power  in  1884.  Columbia  Uni- 
versity Studies.    Longmans,  Green. 

TRAVEL  AND   DESCRIPTION 
Marcosson,  I.  F.     Adventures  in  Interview- 
ing.    Lane.    $4.00  net. 

Mills,  E.  A.  The  Adventures  of  a  Nature 
Guide.    Doubleday,  Page. 


THE  REVIEW 


Vol.  2,  No.  39 


New  York,  Saturday,  February  7,  1920 


FIFTEEN  CENTS 


Contents 


Brief  Comment  119 

Editoriat  Articles: 
The  Issues  in  the  Fight  at  Albany       121 
America  and  the  Plight  of  Europe       123 
Mr.  Gompers  vs.  the  Bolshevists  124 

What  Are  Colleges  For?  125 

Abolishing    the    Political    State.     By 

W.  J.  Ghent  126 

The  Human  Cost  of  Living.    By  David 

Harold  Colcord  127 

The  Lady  of  the  Violets.   By  Mary  C. 

Francis  129 

Correspondence  130 

Book  Reviews: 
France  and  Her  Colonies  131 

The  Old  and  the  New  132 

On  Our  Way  132 

New  Psychic  Faculties  133 

The  Run  of  the  Shelves  134 

Music : 
Four  Operas  New  to  New  York.    By 
Charles  Henry  Meltzer  136 

Drama : 
The   "Power    of    Darkness"   at   the 
Garrick.     By    O.    W.    Firkins  137 

Books  and  the  News: 
Boys'    Books.    By  Edmimd    Lester 
Pearson  138 


YISCOUNT  GREY'S  letter  to  the 
'  London  Times  on  America's  posi- 
tion in  relation  to  the  treaty  recalls 
vividly  to  mind  the  impression  made 
by  the  British  White  Book  published 
in  the  opening  weeks  of  the  great 
war.  The  same  lucidity,  the  same  fair- 
ness, the  same  grasp  of  the  actual 
needs  of  a  crucial  situation,  which 
'  marked     his     communications     and 
statements  as  Foreign  Minister,  char- 
acterize his  analysis  of  the  present 
difficulty.    It  is  not  too  much  to  say 
that  the  convincingness  of  the  case 
presented  in  the  White  Book  was  a 
decisive  factor  in  shaping  American 
opinion  and  sentiment  in  1914,  and 
j  was  thus  in  a  perfectly  true  sense 
one  of  the  most  powerful  elements  in 
,  the  winning  of  the  war  against  Ger- 
j  many.   While  of  course  no  such  com- 
manding importance  can  be  attached 
to  this  plain  though  most  weighty 
I  utterance,  it  has  the  same  kind  of 
merit,  and  bids  fair  to  produce,  in 
its    degree,    an    equally    wholesome 
effect. 


'T'HE  signal  importance  of  Lord 
■*•  Grey's  letter  lies  not  in  its  argu- 
ments or  explanations,  admirable  as 
these  are,  but  in  the  peculiarly  timely 
aid  it  brings  to  the  prospects  of  rati- 
fication. It  had  begun  to  seem  as 
though  nothing  could  be  injected  into 
the  situation  which  would  have  po- 
tency to  break  the  spell  of  inaction. 
The  time  for  effective  argument  with- 
in the  Senate  had  passed  months  ago. 
The  possibilities  of  negotiation  based 
on  mutual  good  will  seemed  likewise 
exhausted.  Now  comes  this  new  force, 
directed  not  to  the  dicussion  of  minu- 
tiae, but  to  the  allaying  of  controversy 
and  to  the  impressive  assertion  at  once 
of  the  supreme  need  and  the  entire 
practicability  of  an  immediate  settle- 
ment. There  is  every  reason  to  be- 
lieve that  Lord  Grey's  communication 
has  the  sanction  of  the  British  Gov- 
ernment, although  of  course  he  was 
careful  to  say  that  it  represented  only 
his  own  personal  opinion  as  a  private 
individual.  But  viewed  even  in  this 
latter  light  it  would,  apart  from  its 
inherent  merit,  carry  extraordinary 
weight.  For  it  must  not  be  forgotten 
that  Lord  Grey  was  one  of  the  earliest 
and  one  of  the  most  ardent  advocates 
of  a  genuine  League  of  Nations  as  the 
only  hope  of  the  world  after  the  close 
of  the  great  war.  Coming  from  such 
a  source,  the  conviction  expressed  by 
him  that  without  America  the  League 
would  be  a  failure,  and  that  with 
America  in  it,  in  spite  of  the  limita- 
tions set  by  the  reservations,  it  holds 
out  the  promise  of  achieving  its  great 
ends,  must  go  far  towards  settling 
the  doubts  of  fairminded  men. 

TLLUMINATING  as  Lord  Grey's 
■■-  analysis  must  be  to  most  Europeans 
and  to  many  Americans,  it  does  no 
more  than  set  forth  in  admirable 
form  what  has  long  been  recognized 
by  thinking  people  in  this  country 
who  have  not  been  blinded  by  partisan 


prejudice,  or  by  the  intensity  of  their 
devotion  to  President  Wilson.  Some 
of  these  latter  are  now  urging  that 
Lord  Grey  was  precluded  from  saying 
what  he  really  thought  about  the 
motives  that  lay  behind  the  opposi- 
tion to  unreserved  acceptance  of  the 
Covenant,  because  to  offend  the  Re- 
publican leaders  would  be  to  defeat 
the  object  of  his  letter.  But  these 
same  people  made  no  such  allowance 
when  they  pointed  the  finger  of  scorn 
at  every  American  protester  as  flying 
in  the  face  of  the  laudation  of  Presi- 
dent Wilson  and  his  programme 
which  European  statesmen  were 
uttering  last  Spring.  Surely  those 
men  were  under  much  heavier  bonds 
to  keep  well  with  Mr.  Wilson  than 
Lord  Grey  is  to  keep  well  with  Sena- 
tor Lodge. 

"DEPUBLICAN  leaders  must  bear 
■*-*■  the  responsibility  for  the  failure 
of  Congress  to  carrry  out  Secretary 
Glass's  well-considered  recommenda- 
tion for  the  relief  of  starving  popu- 
lations in  Austria,  Armenia,  Poland, 
and  other  countries.  Guilt  would  be 
a  better  word  than  responsibility,  for 
we  can  not  regard  it  as  other  than  a 
crime  to  fail  in  such  a  duty.  Mr. 
Glass  has  abundantly  shown  that  he 
is  no  sentimentalist  in  such  matters. 
His  recommendation,  and  the  state- 
ment made  by  Assistant  Secretary 
Davis  before  the  House  Ways  and 
Means  Committee,  went  carefully 
into  particulars  both  as  to  the  des- 
perate need  and  as  to  the  means  by 
which  relief  could  be  safely  and 
properly  applied.  President  Wilson 
has  written  an  urgent  and  moving 
letter  in  support  of  Mr.  Glass's 
recommendation.  No  decent  reason 
has  been  given  for  not  providing 
through  the  United  States  Grain 
Corporation  the  $150,000,000  credit 
proposed.  It  now  appears  that  $50,- 
000,000  is  the  utmost  that  Congress 


120] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  39 


will  sanction,  and  the  Republican 
Steering  Committee  in  the  House 
sought  to  prevent  the  giving  of  any 
aid  at  all.  It  is  a  spectacle  of  which 
our  country,  overflowing  with  abun- 
dance while  millions  in  other  lands 
are  suffering  the  agonies  of  famine 
in  the  depth  of  winter,  has  reason 
to  be  profoundly  ashamed. 

WE  can  go  far  enough  with  the 
New  Republic  and  The  Nation 
to  agree  that  the  way  to  combat  Bol- 
shevism and  other  dangerous  teach- 
ings is  to  let  them  say  their  worst, 
and  refute  it  by  convincing  argument 
on  the  other  side.  Of  course  their 
statement  of  the  method  implies  their 
own  intention  to  use  it,  and  we  await 
with  unbounded  eagerness  the  forth- 
coming of  the  argument  which  we 
assume  that  the  editors  of  these  pa- 
pers are  busily  preparing.  If  its 
solidity  and  lucidity,  reach  and  grasp, 
comprehensiveness  and  impermeabil- 
ity, shall  prove  at  all  commensurate 
with  the  length  of  its  period  of  in- 
cubation, it  will  certainly  be  one  of 
the  most  effective  logical  assaults  on 
error  of  all  history.  But  life  is  short, 
and  hope  deferred  maketh  the  heart 
sick.  Feeling  so  sure  of  the  effect 
of  this  impending  attack,  we  are  all 
the  more  distressed  to  be  so  unsure 
of  the  time  when  the  signal  to  advance 
is  to  be  sounded. 

IN  the  dispute  over  the  Rev.  Percy 
Stickney  Grant,  which  has  at- 
tracted nation-wide  attention,  it  is 
essential  to  distinguish  between  two 
entirely  different  points.  How  meet- 
ings should  be  conducted  within  the 
walls  of  an  Episcopal  church — and, 
for  that  matter,  whether  meetings 
for  controversial  discussion  or  polit- 
ical propaganda  should  be  held  there 
at  all — is  a  matter  of  church  policy, 
of  no  special  importance  to  the  gen- 
eral public,  unless  the  thing  assumes 
a  character  that  makes  it  something 
like  a  public  scandal.  This  may  have 
been  true  of  Dr.  Grant's  "forum"  in 
the  Church  of  the  Ascension  at  New 
York;  at  all  events,  the  matter  ap- 
pears now  to  have  been  settled  by  an 
arrangement  accepted  by  him  and  by 
his  bishop.  But  when  we  referred  to 
the  case  of  Dr.  Grant,  in  a  recent 


issue,  as  bearing  on  the  principle  of 
free  speech,  we  were  not  in  the  least 
referring,  either  expressly  or  by  im- 
plication, to  the  doings  in  his  forum, 
but  solely  to  his  own  expression  of 
his  own  opinions.  We  are  glad  to 
observe  that  nothing  whatever  has 
come  of  this  part  of  the  charges 
against  him;  and  we  trust  that  the 
reason  they  were  not  pressed  is  that, 
when  time  was  given  for  sober  second 
thought,  it  was  recognized  that  to 
suppress  the  opinions  of  a  clergyman, 
or  to  discipline  him  for  uttering  them, 
is  utterly  wrong  from  the  standpoint 
of  policy  as  well  as  from  that  of 
principle. 

SENSATION  mongers  are  extract- 
ing a  wholly  unwarranted  amount 
of  gloom  out  of  the  answer^  to  a  ques- 
tionnaire recently  distributed  among 
farmers  by  some  officer  of  the  Post 
Office  Department.  No  one  will  be 
frightened,  however,  who  knows 
something  of  farmers  and  also  some- 
thing of  the  tricky  habits,  tendencies, 
and  temperament  of  the  "question- 
naire," as  a  means  of  collecting  mis- 
leading information.  Of  course  the 
farmers  are  finding  it  hard  to  get 
laborers,  and  still  harder  to  get  them 
to  labor.  Of  course  they  are  dissatis- 
fied with  the  gap  between  the  selling 
price  of  their  products  to  the  city 
consumer  and  the  amount  that  comes 
back  to  the  farm.  Of  course  it  nettles 
them  when  ill-informed  critics  throw 
the  blame  for  exorbitant  food  prices 
wholly  upon  them.  Of  course  a  cer- 
tain proportion  of  them  grow  weary 
of  the  struggle  with  these  difficulties 
and  feel  inclined  to  give  it  up,  even 
though  they  may  be  making  a  good 
living.  All  these  complaints  mean 
something  about  actual  conditions, 
for  which  farmers  themselves,  as  well 
as  others,  are  seeking  and  will  con- 
tinue to  seek  suitable  remedies.  But 
the  last  thing  in  the  world  that  they 
mean  is  that  we  are  suddenly  to  be 
faced  with  a  wholesale  forsaking  of 
the  soil,  and  a  disastrous  slump  in 
food  production. 

pARTY  leaders  at  Washington  will 
■*-  make  a  most  serious  mistake  if 
they  fail  to  favor  a  fairly  liberal  pro- 
vision for  the  development  of  the  Air 


Service.  Aviation  is  in  its  infancy, 
and  it  is  intolerable  that  America 
should  be  hopelessly  handicapped  in 
the  effort  to  have  her  share  in  the 
enormous  advances  which  air  naviga- 
tion is  certain  to  record  during  the 
next  few  years.  Because  of  the  delay 
and  uncertainty  in  Congress,  many 
of  the  very  best  men  in  the  service 
are  leaving  it  for  other  occupations, 
and  only  long  training  will  fit  others 
to  take  their  places.  Apparently  there 
are  too  many  men  in  Congress  who 
have  not  yet  learned  that  real  econ- 
omy does  not  consist  merely  in  par- 
ing down  the  total  of  appropria- 
tions. 

TN  dealing  with  various  revolution- 
■*-  ary  movements,  the  New  Republic 
has  frequently  drawn  comparisons 
between  the  "Red  Terror"  and  the 
"White  Terror."  For  the  former  it 
has  great  sympathy;  for  the  latter 
it  can  find  no  excuse.  In  its  own 
words,  "revolution  releases  the  hot 
passions  of  the  young,  counter-revo- 
lution the  cold  hatred  of  the  old." 
Of  course,  no  attention  is  paid  to  the 
fact  that  the  Red  Terror  is  the  over- 
turn of  all  law  and  order  and  the 
venting  of  the  passions  of  the  mob 
and  the  criminal  elements;  or  that 
the  so-called  White  Terror,  however 
wrong  and  deplorable,  springs  pri- 
marily from  the  impulse  to  punish 
those  guilty  of  the  crimes. 

In  putting  forward  its  emotional 
appeal  along  this  line  in  a  recent 
issue,  the  New  Republic  assumes  that 
the  "Lasko"  mentioned  in  the  press 
despatches  as  among  those  recently 
sentenced  to  death  by  the  present 
Hungarian  Government,  is  Latzko, 
the  author  of  "Men  in  War,"  and 
presumes  that  the  reason  for  his  ex- 
ecution was  his  exposure  of  the  rot- 
tenness of  the  Austrian  military 
command  and  the  shameless  profit- 
eering and  exploitation  at  home  by 
the  Austrian  bureaucracy.  The  New 
Republic  asks:  "Must  he  be  slain 
now  because  certain  senile  Hungarian 
bureaucrats  tremble  overmuch  for 
their  privileges  and  property?" 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  "Lasko" 
mentioned  is  almost  certainly  Laszlo, 
who,  when  Bolshevism  broke  out  in 
Hungary,  gave  the  order  that  all  the 


February  7,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[121 


imprisoned  criminals  should  be  re- 
leased. As  political  Commissar  of  all 
the  revolutionary  tribunals,  he  was 
responsible  for  these  so-called  courts 
of  justice,  and  he  was  condemned  to 
death  for  having  deliberately  insti- 
gated the  murder  of  Dr.  Joseph 
Stenczel  and  his  companions  on  the 
ground  that  they  were  counter-revo- 
lutionists. What  is  interesting  is  the 
slant  of  mind  that  leads  to  such  con- 
clusions as  the  one  here  noted. 

npHE  mere  threat  at  this  time  of  a 
■■■  strike  by  the  stationary  heating- 
plant  operators  is  so  surpassingly 
ghoulish  (even  ghouls  do  not  them- 
selves destroy  the  unfortunates  on 
whom  they  fatten)  that  a  community 
in  which  such  a  thing  is  possible  can 
not  afford  to  lose  a  day  in  taking 
stock  of  its  resources  to  meet  it.  If 
it  is  impossible  for  the  plain  citizens 
of  a  city  like  New  York  to  mine 
their  own  coal  and  produce  their  own 
vegetables  and  milk,  it  is  not  impos- 
sible for  them  to  fire  their  own  boil- 
ers and  generate  the  heat  without 
which  life  at  this  juncture  would  be 
intolerable.  Modern  society  has  been 
a  bit  heedless  in  allowing  the  speciali- 
zation of  industry  to  reach  the  point 
where  the  men  engaged  in  almost  any 
branch  of  it  can  under  certain  condi- 
tions presume  to  regard  their  services 
as  indispensable.  Here  is  an  oppor- 
!  tunity  to  demonstrate,  by  means  of  a 
little  good  will  and  a  little  organiza- 
tion on  the  part  of  the  public,  that 
there  is  a  sharp  difference  between 
the  indispensability  of  an  industry 
and  the  indispensability  of  the  par- 
ticular individuals  who  engage  in  it. 
It  would  not  be  long  before  threats 
of  such  indescribable  savagery  as 
that  which  has  recently  been  held 
over  us  would  become  a  thing  of  the 
past.  Meanwhile,  the  public  may  have 
been  put  in  a  position  to  discern  a 
little  more  clearly  the  issues  that  are 
joined  between  closed  shop  and  open 
shop. 

''C'EW  cities  of  Europe  have  suffered 
as  much  during  the  war  as  has 
the  once  prosperous  city  of  Lille.  Of 
every  hundred  men  mobilized  from 
Lille  in  1914,  only  forty-three  re- 
turned home  to  find  their  native  place 


a  scene  of  desolation.  Out  of  157  fac- 
tories in  operation  in  Lille  in  1914, 
only  seven  or  eight  are  now  working, 
the  plants  of  the  other  mills  having 
either  been  carried  off  to  Germany  or 
struck  down,  mangled,  and  ruined 
where  they  stood.  The  agricultural 
districts  round  about  have  been  laid 
waste,  and  will  not  be  able,  for  years 
to  come,  to  yield  any  harvest  to  speak 
of.  Food  and  milk  are,  consequently, 
scarce  in  Lille.  Nine  out  of  ten  chil- 
dren show  signs  of  consumption,  ac- 
cording to  Colonel  Mygatt  of  the  Red 
Cross.  The  hospitals  of  the  city  are 
crowded  with  them,  and  the  funds  are 
lacking  for  proper  attention  to  their 
needs.  The  Abbe  Ernest  Dimnet,  a 
well-known  French  scholar  and  es- 
sayist, has  come  to  this  country  to 
make  an  appeal  on  behalf  of  the  suf- 
fering population  of  Lille.  He  asks 
for  $100,000,  necessary  to  help  the 
two  Children's  Hospitals,  Saint  An- 
toine  and  Saint  Anne.  Five  hundred 
dollars  pays  for  a  bed,  fifty  for  the 
medicine  daily  required  in  the  clinics, 
one  dollar  keeps  a  child  in  the  hospital 
for  two  days.  Gifts  sent  to  the  Abbe 
Ernest  Dimnet,  in  care  of  the  Review, 
will  be  forwarded  to  him. 

TT  is  not  entirely  clear  whether  the 
-■-  prize  of  100,000  francs  is  offered 
by  the  French  Academy  of  Sciences 
for  the  best  plan  of  communicating 
with  another  planet  or  for  the  actual 
achievement  of  inter-planetary  con- 
versation. On  the  latter  supposition 
it  is  probable  that  the  prize  money, 
if  put  out  at  interest,  will  amount  to 
a  goodly  sum  before  it  can  be 
awarded.  Most  of  what  we  hear  con- 
cerning the  planet  which  we  happen 
to  inhabit  tends  to  confirm  a  belief 
that  any  other  planet  that  values  its 
self-respect  and  peace  of  mind  will 
refuse  either  to  initiate  or  to  respond 
to  any  efforts  to  establish  a  more  inti- 
mate acquaintance  with  us.  As  a 
rather  bright  little  planet  with  a 
faithful  moon  at  heel,  we  dare  say  this 
world  holds  a  respectable  position 
among  its  fellows  in  the  firmament, 
but  for  our  part  we  love  the  rest  of 
the  universe  too  much  to  subject  it  to 
the  disenchantment  which  a  diminu- 
tion of  distance  would  inevitably 
produce. 


The   Issues  in   the 
Fight  at  Albany 

jVrOTHING  that  has  been  disclosed, 
■^*  or  that  can  be  disclosed,  in  the 
hearings  at  Albany  concerning  the 
Socialist  Assemblymen  can  make  the 
proceedings  against  them  right.  If 
we  have  reached  a  point  at  which  the 
method  of  procedure  in  such  a  case 
is  a  matter  of  indifference  to  us,  we 
have  already  gone  a  long  way  towards 
the  repudiation  of  our  political  insti- 
tutions. The  masterly  presentation 
of  the  case  in  the  brief  prepared  by 
a  committee  of  the  Bar  Association  of 
the  City  of  New  York  leaves  nothing 
to  be  desired  in  point  of  overwhelm- 
ing convincingness.  We  can  think  of 
no  better  service  to  public  education 
in  the  fundamentals  of  representative 
government  than  would  be  furnished 
by  the  printing  of  a  million  copies  of 
that  brief  and  their  broadcast  distri- 
bution among  the  people. 

The  central  point  made  in  that 
brief — and  amply  buttressed  by  argu- 
ments and  citations  which  we  can 
not  attempt  to  reproduce — is  that, 
whether  or  not  the  five  Socialist 
Assemblymen  might,  upon  investiga- 
tion, be  found  to  be  subject  to  expul- 
sion, there  was  absolutely  no  warrant 
for  their  suspension.  It  is  a  mistake, 
and  a  very  grave  one,  to  imagine  that 
this  is  a  mere  technicality.  The  qual- 
ifications for  membership  in  the  Leg- 
islature are  specifically  laid  down  in 
the  Constitution  of  the  State,  and  the 
Assembly  has  no  power  to  add  to 
them.  It  is  the  sole  judge  of  the 
question  whether  those  Constitutional 
qualifications  have  been  fulfilled,  but 
if  they  have,  the  person  elected  is 
entitled  to  his  seat.  In  spite  of  his 
having  been  seated,  he  may  be  ex- 
pelled for  cause;  but  when  so  ex- 
pelled, his  seat  becomes  vacant  and 
his  constituency  thus  has  a  fresh 
chance  to  fill  it.  A  suspension,  on 
the  other  hand,  operates  during  the 
entire  time  of  its  continuance  not 
only  to  deprive  the  member  of  his 
seat,  but  to  deprive  his  constituency 
of  representation ;  and  in  the  present 
instance  all  this  was  done  at  a  mo- 
ment's notice  and  without  the  faintest 
pretense  at  any  establishment  of  the 


122] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  39 


charge.  The  only  way  to  undo  that 
wrong  would  have  been  to  rescind  the 
suspension  as  soon  as  its  true  charac- 
ter had  been  exposed.  The  members 
of  the  Assembly  who  endeavored  to 
accomplish  this  in  spite  of  their  hasty 
vote  in  the  first  instance  are  deserv- 
ing of  unstinted  commendation. 

Important  as  this  point  is,  we 
must  turn  away  from  it  and  consider 
the  issues  that  have  actually  been 
brought  out,  as  though  bearing  on  the 
expulsion  of  the  Socialist  members. 
In  the  confused  mass  of  facts,  asser- 
tions, and  accusations  that  have  been 
brought  before  the  Judiciary  Com- 
mittee three  distinct  threads  are  dis- 
cernible. The  case  against  the  So- 
cialist members  rests  in  part  upon 
obligations  alleged  to  have  been  as- 
sumed by  them,  as  members  of  the 
Socialist  party,  that  were  inconsistent 
with  their  oath  of  office.  It  rests  in 
part  upon  inferences  drawn  from 
declarations  of  that  party  and  its 
members,  and  from  declarations  by 
other  parties  or  bodies  with  which 
that  party  is  alleged  to  be  virtually 
identified.  And  finally  it  rests  upon 
utterances  of  opinion  or  purpose 
by  the  accused  members  themselves. 

Of  these  three  elements,  as  pre- 
sented, the  first  has  most  force.  Yet 
even  here  the  burden  of  proof  on  the 
prosecution  to  show  the  substantial 
character  of  the  alleged  obligations, 
and  their  inconsistency  with  the  possi- 
bility of  a  faithful  discharge  of  duty 
by  the  accused,  is  very  great;  and, 
so  far  as  we  can  judge,  it  has  not  by 
any  means  been  met.  For  instance, 
the  mere  existence  in  the  Constitution 
of  the  Socialist  party  of  a  requirement 
that  the  members  elected  shall  sign 
in  advance  a  form  of  resignation  of 
their  office  to  be  used  when  the  party 
thinks  fit,  is  certainly  no  ground  for 
expulsion  if  the  members  in  question 
have  not  actually  signed  it ;  and  even 
if  they  have,  it  is  very  doubtful 
whether  anything  more  could  be  re- 
quired of  them  than  a  revocation  of 
that  signature.  It  may  be  very  wrong 
— and  indeed  it  is  very  wrong — for 
any  man  to  sign  such  a  paper ;  but  it 
is  not  a  crime,  it  does  not  argue  moral 
turpitude,  and  its  existence  in  the 
past  can  hardly  be  regarded  as  a  dis- 
qualification for  the  future. 


What  on  the  face  of  it  looks  more 
serious  is  a  clause  in  the  Socialist 
party  Constitution  which  binds  all 
members  elected  to  office  to  vote 
against  all  appropriations  for  mili- 
tary purposes.  Yet  upon  a  moment's 
consideration  it  will  be  clear  that  this, 
taken  in  itself,  is  even  less  a  disquali- 
fication than  the  provision  that  we 
have  just  been  discussing;  for  clearly 
it  would  be  absurd  to  exclude  from  all 
legislative  bodies  any  person  who  is 
on  principle  opposed  to  war,  and  who 
will  accordingly  vcte  against  every 
appropriation  designed  to  make  war 
possible.  Whenever  a  majority  of 
the  people  of  the  country  are  of  this 
mind  they  have  a  right  to  have  their 
way.  The  one  thing  that  does  give 
a  substantial  basis  to  this  count  in 
the  indictment  is  the  circumstance 
that  the  State  Constitution  requires 
the  State  to  maintain  a  militia  of  at 
least  10,000  men.  It  may  fairly  be 
argued  that  the  anti-militarist  pro- 
vision in  the  Socialist  party  Consti- 
tution is  thus  in  express  conflict  with 
the  Constitution  of  the  State;  but  it 
would  surely  be  a  grossly  strained 
view  which  should  regard  a  member 
of  the  Legislature  as  liable  to  expul- 
sion because  some  one  of  a  multitude 
of  provisions  in  his  party's  platform 
or  Constitution  runs  counter  to  some 
one  point  in  the  State  Constitution. 
Would  it  not  have  been  absurd,  in  the 
days  before  the  Civil  War,  to  expel 
from  Northern  Legislatures  every 
person  who  was  avowedly  opposed  to 
the  enforcement  of  the  Fugitive  Slave 
Law,  or  of  the  provision  of  the 
United  States  Constitution  upon 
which  it  was  based?  Would  it  not 
be  absurd  to  expel  from  every  State 
Legislature  to-day  every  man  who 
might  be  avowedly  opposed  to  the 
enactment  of  any  State  law  enforcing 
the  Eighteenth  Amendment  to  the 
United  States  Constitution? 

We  come  now  to  the  general  atti- 
tude of  the  Socialist  party,  and  espe- 
cially to  its  more  or  less  direct  asso- 
ciation with  the  attitude  of  Commu- 
nist parties  in  our  own  country,  and 
of  the  Russian  Bolshevists.  Nothing 
is  more  certain  than  that  within  the 
Socialist  party,  as  within  every  other, 
there  exist  all  shades  of  conviction, 
opinion,  and  purpose.    It  is  perfectly 


easy  to  point  to  extreme  expressions 
in  party  declarations  even  within  the 
Socialist  party  itself,  and  it  is  true 
that  some  of  these  imply  great  sym- 
pathy with  the  purposes  of  Commu- 
nist parties  and  of  the  Bolshevist 
regime  in  Russia.  But  to  hold  any 
one  individual  responsible  for  every- 
thing even  in  his  party's  platform, 
not  to  speak  of  less  authoritative  dec- 
larations, would  be  monstrous.  To 
what  excess  this  sort  of  thing  has 
gone  in  the  line  of  attack  pursued  by 
the  prosecution,  is  sufficiently  shown 
in  this  deliberate  statement  by  Mr. 
Stanchfield : 

My  argument  runs  along  this  line:  that 
every  declaration,  every  speech,  every  state- 
ment of  every  man  who  is  affiliated  or  belongs 
to  that  party,  is  bound  by  the  speeches,  the 
sentiments,  the  writings,  the  books,  the  publi- 
cations of  every  other  man  affiliated  with  that 
association,  whether  they  were  present  at  the 
time  when  it  was  uttered  or  whether  they  were 
absent. 

In  its  bearing  on  the  decision  of 
the  Assembly,  the  third  element  of 
the  case — the  utterances  of  the  ac- 
cused men  themselves — is  likely  to 
play  less  of  a  part  than  the  other  two ; 
but  from  a  broader  point  of  view  it 
is  of  the  greatest  interest  of  all.  No 
speech  or  other  expression  of  any  of 
the  five  Socialist  Assemblymen  has 
been  put  in  evidence  that  constitutes 
anything  like  direct  advocacy  of  vio- 
lent or  lawless  methods  of  bringing 
about  the  political  and  social  revolu- 
tion which  the  programme  of  the 
Socialist  party  undoubtedly  contem- 
plates. Stray  expressions,  of  which 
the  language  is  violent  or  extreme, 
have  indeed  been  cited,  but  to  these 
no  sensible  person  attaches  any  great 
importance.  What  is  regarded  as  im- 
portant is  the  evidence  of  sympathy 
with  Bolshevism,  either  Russian  or 
other,  and  expressions  of  opinion  to 
the  general  effect  that  unless  a  radical 
change  is  brought  about  peacefully  it 
will  some  day  or  other  be  brought 
about  by  force.  These  things  are 
very  offensive  to  all  of  us  who  are 
attached  to  the  existing  institutions 
of  the  country,  who  take  pride  in  its 
past,  and  who  look  forward  to  a  fu- 
ture that  shall  be  a  worthy  continu- 
ance of  that  past.  But  it  is  every 
man's  right  in  a  free  country  to  de-| 
clare  that  he  is  dissatisfied  with  its 
institutions,  and  that  he  proposes  to 


February  7,  1920} 


THE  REVIEW 


[128 


do  his  utmost  by  lawful  means  to 
change  or  even  to  abolish  them.  Nor 
can  he,  without  violation  of  the  fun- 
damental principles  of  free  speech,  be 
debarred  from  expressing  his  sym- 
pathy with  people  in  other  countries 
who  resort  to  lawless  or  bloody  means 
to  accomplish  objects  which,  as  ob- 
jects, he  holds  to  be  desirable. 
Thousands  of  patriotic,  loyal,  and 
law-abiding  Americans  regarded  as- 
sassination and  bomb-throwing  as 
justifiable  means  of  attempting  the  de- 
struction of  the  Czarist  despotism  in 
Russia,  throughout  the  long  period  of 
revolutionary  agitation  in  that  coun- 
try. It  is  true  that  sympathy  with 
the  Russian  Bolshevists  tends  to  en- 
courage Bolshevist  plotting  in  this 
country ;  but  it  is  also  true  that  sym- 
pathy with  Russian  revolutionaries  in 
the  Nineteenth  Century  tended  to  en- 
courage such  assassinations  as  those 
of  President  Garfield  and  President 
McKinley. 

If  we  are  to  preserve  freedom  of 
opinion,  we  must  be  prepared  to 
maintain  it  in  spite  of  its  drawbacks. 
.  We  must  not  erect  it  into  a  supersti- 
tion; there  is  an  essential  difference 
between  the  free  utterance  of  opinion 
and  two  other  things  which  are  often 
confounded  with  it — freedom  to  in- 
cite to  lawless  actions,  and  freedom 
to  disseminate  opinions  in  ways  that 
are  in  themselves  disorderly  or  inde- 
cent. Nothing  of  this  kind  is  even 
alleged  against  the  accused  Assembly- 
men. If  they  really  do  sympathize 
with  Lenin  and  Trotsky,  surely  no 
one  can  feel  a  greater  abhorrence  for 
their  position  than  does  the  Review. 
But  we  have  not  reached  the  point 
where,  for  the  sake  of  preserving  our 
traditions  of  freedom  and  law,  we  are 
prepared  to  sacrifice  one  of  the  great- 
est of  those  traditions  themselves. 
Americans  are  familiar  with  the  fact 
that  the  most  splendid  intellects  in 
the  British  Parliament  at  the  time  of 
our  Revolution  were  undaunted  cham- 
pions of  the  American  cause;  but  it 
would  be  well  if  at  this  time  they  re- 
called the  fact  that  one  of  the  fore- 
most of  them  championed  also  the 
cause  of  the  French  Revolution.  His 
advocacy  of  it  caused  a  tragic  sever- 
ance of  friendship  between  him  and 
his  great  intellectual  leader;  but  his- 


tory does  not  record  that  Edmund 
Burke's  profound  abhorrence  of 
Jacobinism  led  him  to  entertain  any 
notion  that  Charles  James  Fox  ought 
to  be  expelled  from  the  House  of 
Commons.  It  would  be  sad  indeed  if 
the  America  of  the  Twentieth  Cen- 
tury should  show  itself  more  intol- 
erant than  the  England  of  George  the 
Third. 

America  and  the  Plight 
of  Europe 

OECRETARY  GLASS,  like  Mr. 
^  Hoover,  regards  the  European 
situation  from  an  austere  and  logical 
standpoint.  In  his  letter  of  January 
28  to  the  Chamber  of  Commerce  of 
the  United  States  he  sets  forth  the 
fundamentals  which  must  guide  the 
world  if  it  is  to  resume  the  paths  of 
economic  blessedness.  While  admit- 
ting the  logic  in  both  the  Glass  and 
the  Hoover  statements,  the  average 
man  can  not  fail  to  have  some  reser- 
vation on  the  point  of  their  generosity 
and  sympathy  towards  Europe.  A 
carping  critic  might  even  question 
the  good  taste  involved  in  lecturing 
our  Allies  at  a  time  when  they  are 
confronted  by  heavy  responsibilities 
as  a  result  of  their  long  fight  to  pre- 
serve the  civilization  of  the  world. 
It  may  be  true  that  the  people  of 
Europe  are  indulging  in  widespread 
extravagance;  it  may  be  that  their 
statesmen  are  not  imposing  taxation 
as  heavily  as  we  think  they  should. 
But  still  one  may  be  permitted  to 
ask  if  it  is  our  place  to  assert  and 
declare  ?  Would  not  the  limit  of  good 
taste  be  reached  were  our  statesmen 
courteously  to  suggest? 

Much  has  been  written  on  the  pres- 
ent disorganization  of  the  exchanges. 
It  requires  no  reiteration  to  bring 
home  the  dangers  of  this  situation: 
exports  from  the  United  States  valued 
at  nearly  eight  billion  dollars  during 
the  calendar  year  1919,  against  cor- 
responding imports  valued  at  just 
under  four  billion  dollars,  leav- 
ing a  balance  due  us  for  the  year 
of  approximately  four  billion  dollars 
which  our  debtors  can  not  promptly 
pay  either  in  gold  or  goods.  All  this 
is  very  simple.  It  is  easy  to  declaim 
about  it.  But  we  must  not  forget  that 


the  unprecedented  disorganization  of 
the  world's  economic  machinery  in- 
volves readjustments  which  can  not 
be  made  at  once. 

The  fundamental  considerations  re- 
lating to  the  problem  are  absolutely 
simple;  the  trouble  lies  in  the  intri- 
cacy of  the  practical  application  of 
those  fundamentals.  There  is  and 
can  be  only  one  solution  of  the  pres- 
ent international  financial  difficulties, 
namely,  an  increase  in  production  and 
an  increase  in  saving  on  the  part  of 
the  people  of  every  country  of  the 
world.  This  necessity  can  not  be 
obviated  by  any  economic  scheme 
which  human  ingenuity  can  de- 
vise. In  proportion  as  the  world 
shall  work  and  save,  just  in  that  pro- 
portion can  budgets  be  equalized  and 
inflation  reduced.  This  remedy  is 
simple  and  unspectacular;  but  the 
world  will  not  believe  in  it  promptly, 
nor  set  about  practising  it  with  vigor 
and  persistence  until  many  hard  days 
have  come  upon  us.  Offer  a  man  a 
spectacular  stock  and  paint  a  picture 
of  affluence — his  face  lights  up  and 
you  have  his  attention,  and  perhaps 
his  money.  Tell  him  to  tighten  his 
belt  and  get  down  to  work,  ten  hours, 
twelve  hours  a  day  for  an  emergency 
period — he  will  turn  away  from  your 
gloomy  counsel  and  seek  pleasanter 
pastures. 

However,  it  is  clear  that  the  Ameri- 
can business  public  are  getting  much 
education  in  the  more  practical  fea- 
tures of  foreign  finance.  We  are  de- 
veloping some  real  international 
bankers.  We  may  still  be  able  to  take 
up  our  share  of  the  foreign  trade 
which  we  shall  be  so  eager  for  in  the 
days  to  come.  The  cost  of  living  in 
America  may  be  lowered  temporarily 
by  a  decline  in  exports  from  the 
United  States  at  this  time;  but  we 
shall  do  well  to  look  forward  to  the 
time  when  the  foreign  countries 
which  are  now  calling  to  us  because 
of  their  necessities  of  reconstruction 
will  be  the  object  of  our  earnest  solici- 
tation as  a  necessary  outlet  for  our 
important  exportable  surplus.  These 
markets  may  not  always  be  friendly 
if  we  do  not  cultivate  them  now. 
There  is  more  to  foreign  trade  than 
mere  facts  and  figures. 

The  letter  of  Secretary  Glass,  to- 


124] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  39 


gether  with  the  pages  on  interna- 
tional finance  in  his  last  Annual  Re- 
port, the  letter  of  Mr.  Hoover,  and 
the  memorial  recently  submitted  to 
the  Government  and  to  the  Chamber 
of  Commerce  of  the  United  States 
suggesting  an  international  financial 
conference,  form  part  of  the  common 
law  on  the  new  international  situa- 
tion. Their  conclusions  may  be  over- 
ruled by  later  experience;  they  may 
be  confirmed  by  subsequent  develop- 
ments. But  the  main  thing  required 
is  continued  clear  thinking  and  a 
minimum  of  dogmatism.  Even  the 
greatest  minds  can  afford  to  be 
humble  in  the  presence  of  debts 
measured  in  units  of  scores  of  bil- 
lions. 

What  the  future  holds  no  one  can 
say.  It  may  be  that  private  credit 
resources  can  be  mobilized  to  meet 
the  needs  of  European  reconstruc- 
tion. This  does  not  mean  bank  credits ; 
for  the  banks  must  keep  their  assets 
liquid  to  pay  their  depositors  on  de- 
mand. Does  private  action  involve 
the  sale  of  bonds  to  private  investors? 
Will  they  buy?  Is  it  sound  to  ask 
them  to  buy  ?  Will  they  come  forward 
with  sufficient  funds  without  positive 
governmental  sanction?  Can  the 
large  investor  be  expected  to  respond 
under  our  present  system  of  super- 
taxes on  large  incomes?  Should  the 
American  people,  who  have  a  stake 
in  the  foreign  situation  represented 
by  Government  loans  of  nearly  ten 
billion  dollars,  and  private  loans  to 
foreign  Governments  and  municipali- 
ties of  a  billion  and  a  half,  and  com- 
mercial credits  of  two  billions  more, 
lend  more  to  make  safe  the  great 
sums  already  advanced?  Has  the 
Government  a  direct  obligation  of 
leadership  in  this  situation? 

In  answering  these  questions,  there 
is  no  room  for  self-assurance  and 
finality.  Admittedly,  the  only  remedy 
is  the  remedy  of  work  and  thrift. 
Debts  must  ultimately  be  paid  with 
earned  money,  not  promised  money. 
If  we  will  have  patience  a  little  longer 
we  may  see  whether  or  not  this  fun- 
damental moral  as  well  as  economic 
principle  is  going  to  prevail.  Such 
emergency  measures  as  may  be 
needed  meanwhile  can  at  best  be  but 
temporary.     With  patience  and  co- 


operation, with  the  return  of  peace 
and  a  working  understanding  among 
the  great  nations  of  the  world,  we 
shall  make  progress. 

Meanwhile  millions  will  starve  who 
could  be  saved  from  starvation  if  the 
tone  of  the  Treasury  letter  is  adopted 
by  the  people  of  America.  It  is  very 
easy  to  carry  over  an  aggressively 
asserted  policy  of  governmental 
laissez-faire  into  a  do-nothing  private 
policy.  America  still  has  a  heart, 
despite  the  more  preponderant  men- 
tality of  some  of  its  public  men.  And 
if  there  ever  were  human  facts  to 
touch  the  heart  of  America,  they  exist 
to-day  in  the  starving  areas  of 
Europe.  Nor  is  it  clear  that  our 
part  in  the  work  of  rescue  should 
be  confined  to  the  alleviation  of  im- 
mediate suffering. 

And  so  we  come  back  to  our  start- 
ing point.  A  world  situation  of  ter- 
rible complexity  confronts  us.  The 
strongest  men  in  America  are  study- 
ing it  from  day  to  day,  here  and 
abroad.  The  answer  is  not  clear. 
There  never  will  be  one  all-inclusive 
answer.  Meanwhile  let  us  keep  work- 
ing at  this — and  at  other  things — 
with  a  good  courage;  and  let  us  be- 
ware of  those  who  talk  to  us  in  tones 
of  mastery  and  full  knowledge  of  a 
problem  which  passes  the  understand- 
ing of  any  single  human  mind. 

Mr.   Gompers  vs.   the 
Bolshevists 

"D  Y  judgment  and  temperament,  Mr. 
-'-'  Gompers  belongs  with  the  group 
of  conservative  labor  leaders  repre- 
sented at  its  best  by  the  late  John 
Mitchell.  At  heart  a  good  American, 
devoted  to  American  institutions,  he 
realizes  that  no  class  would  lose  more 
by  their  subversion  than  that  of  the 
man  who  must  make  his  living  by  the 
work  of  his  own  hands.  The  men 
over  whom  he  has  presided  as  head 
of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor 
have  both  their  extremist  and  their 
conservative  elements,  just  as  have 
other  classes.  While  Mr.  Gompers' 
record  is  by  no  means  perfect  as  to 
his  attitude  toward  lawless  tenden- 
cies in  labor  organizations,  he  has 
given    ample    evidence    of    essential 


soundness  on  questions  clearly  involv- 
ing the  fundamentals  of  American 
institutions. 

Fresh  proof  of  this  is  furnished  by 
his  emphatic  utterances  of  the  past 
week  in  the  editorial  columns  of  the 
American  Federationist.  "We  know 
about  Russia,"  he  says.  "We  know 
about  Bolshevism.  We  know  the  pit- 
eous story  of  cruelty  and  intolerance, 
and  we  know  the  autocratic  concept 
that  underlies  the  minority  dictator- 
ship which  is  hailed  to  the  world  by 
its  dupes  and  advocates  as  the  most 
perfect  state  of  society  yet  devised. 
We  know  about  it,  and  we  condemn 
it,  completely,  finally,  and  for  all 
time."  There  is  no  mental  confusion 
in  those  words.  Not  often  is  con- 
demnation of  a  great  wrong  more 
lucidly  and  forcibly  uttered. 

Mr.  Gompers  is  aware  of  the  propa- 
ganda streaming  in  from  Russia,  but 
he  regards  the  danger  from  that 
source  as  comparatively  limited.  The 
greater  peril  is  from  sources  not  dis- 
credited by  known  or  presumptive 
connection  with  the  Russian  pay-rolls. 
"It  is  doubtful,"  he  says,  "whether 
those  publications  issued  more  or  less 
directly  by  Russian  Bolshevist  agents 
have  as  great  an  effect  in  America  as 
those  publications  which  style  them- 
selves liberal,  and  which  like  to  be 
known  as  journals  of  opinion,  such 
as  the  Nation,  the  Dial,  and  the  New 
Republic.  In  the  same  class  with 
these  are  a  number  of  newspaper  and 
magazine  writers  who  within  the  last 
two  years  have  become  more  or  less 
known  as  writers  on  the  Bolshevist 
question."  In  these  journals  and 
writers  of  the  "parlor  Bolshevist" 
group,  men  and  women  who  habitu- 
ally preface  their  apologies  for  Bol- 
shevists with  a  denial  of  personal  be- 
lief in  Bolshevism,  Mr.  Gompers 
finds  "an  air  of  tolerance,  under  the 
guise  of  which,  however,  support  of 
the  Bolshevist  experiment  has  been 
at  least  generous."  He  can  not  ac- 
cept the  claim  of  these  journals  of 
opinion  that  we  are  not  yet  suffi- 
ciently informed  as  to  what  is  going 
on  in  Russia,  and  should  suspend  our 
judgment  on  Bolshevism  for  the  pres- 
ent, awaiting  further  information. 
This  plea,  in  his  view,  "is  a  last  des- 
perate attempt  to  win  favor  from  the ! 


February  7,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[125 


American  people  for  a  system  of  gov- 
ernment which,  by  the  confession  of 
its  own  advocates  and  defenders,  is 
foreign  to  every  concept  of  the  Amer- 
ican Republic." 

Mr.  Gompers  is  under  severe  pres- 
sure at  the  hands  of  revolutionary 
agitators  who  care  nothing  for  Amer- 
ican labor,  but  much  for  a  possible 
opportunity  to  use  the  enormous 
power  of  the  American  Federation  of 
Labor  for  destructive  purposes.  "Bor- 
ing from  within"  has  been  no  mere 
newspaper  phrase  for  him,  but  a  very 
real  and  painful  process,  not  simply 
undermining  his  influence  with  the 
Federation,  about  which  he  is  old 
enough  not  to  feel  much  personal  con- 
cern, but  endangering  the  vital  wel- 
fare of  the  American  laborer.  His 
fight  against  this  insidious  influence 
is  no  sudden  impulse,  but  springs 
from  a  clear  conception  of  the  dan- 
ger that  threatens  and  a  firm  deter- 
mination to  meet  it  with  all  the  re- 
sources and  energy  at  his  command. 
To  free  organized  labor  from  its  revo- 
lutionary parasites  would  be  the 
greatest  possible  service  that  he  could 
render. 

It  will  be  unfortunate  for  the  em- 
ployers of  labor,  unfortunate  for  the 
consumers  of  the  products  of  labor, 
unfortunate  for  sober-minded  citizens 
of  whatever  class,  if  they  do  not  real- 
ize that  in  this  struggle  the  enemies 
of  Samuel  Gompers  are  their  enemies. 
J  Whether  he  has  always  been  right 
i  in  the  past  is  not  now  an  important 
j  question.  His  victory  over  the  revo- 
'  lutionary  forces  seeking  to  work 
his  destruction  will  do  more  than  any 
other  one  thing  now  attainable  to 
keep  the  pathway  open  to  a  sane  and 
just  settlement  of  labor  problems. 
No  right-minded  employer  of  labor, 
at  such  a  crisis,  should  put  ammuni- 
tion into  the  hands  of  the  enemy  by 
refusing  or  delaying  any  practicable 
and  reasonable  adjustment  of  griev- 
ances pending  in  his  own  portion  of 
the  labor  field.  The  employer  who  in 
a  time  like  this  shows  himself  deaf 
or  arrogant  towards  reasonable  de- 
mands for  amelioration  does  the  one 
thing  which  is  needed,  in  the  mind  of 
the  laborer,  to  give  the  falsehoods  of 
Bolshevism  a  dangerous  semblance  of 
truth. 


What  Are  Colleges 
For? 

'T'HERE  has  been  some  fear  lest  the 
-*•  war  should  result  in  an  unfor- 
tunate narrowing  of  the  educational 
aims  of  our  colleges  and  universities. 
The  work  of  the  scientific  specialist 
in  war  service  was  so  brilliant  in  it- 
self, and  lent  itself  so  readily  to  news- 
paper publicity,  that  education  along 
the  lines  of  narrowly  applied  science 
seemed  to  many  about  the  only  thing 
worth  while.  The  annual  report  of 
the  President  of  Columbia,  noticed  in 
these  columns  a  week  or  two  ago, 
proved  that  no  such  idea  is  dominant 
there.  And  the  trend  of  the  Harvard 
report,  by  President  Lowell,  now  be- 
fore us,  shows  that  Harvard,  too,  has 
passed  the  point  of  danger. 

President  Lowell  takes  direct  issue 
with  the  view  that  the  education  of 
our  young  men  should  be  "in  the 
immediate  problems  of  the  day."  It 
is  not  the  problems  of  to-day,  but  of 
the  future,  with  which  the  college 
student  of  to-day  will  have  to  deal, 
"and  these  are  as  little  known  and 
foreseen  by  us,"  he  says,  "as  the 
questions  now  pressing  were  by  our 
fathers,  or  theirs  by  an  earlier  gen- 
eration." To  give  the  youth  of  to-day 
the  ability  to  deal  wisely  with  the  un- 
foreseen problems  of  the  future,  Pres- 
ident Lowell  is  not  afraid  to  say,  as 
Harvard  presidents  of  generations 
long  gone  were  wont  to  say,  that  "we 
must  lay  a  foundation  large  and  solid. 
We  must  train  our  students  to  think 
clearly."  They  must  learn  breadth 
and  tolerance  from  the  study  of  past 
experience,  and  profundity  from 
communion  with  the  thoughts  of 
great  men,  thereby  enabling  them- 
selves to  distinguish  the  superficial 
or  ephemeral  from  the  fundamental 
and  enduring.  This,  he  holds,  is  the 
true  meaning  of  the  humanities,  the 
study  of  what  man  has  thought  and 
done,  not  excluding  what  he  is  now 
thinking  and  doing,  but  not  keeping 
the  eye  so  closely  upon  the  latter  as 
to  lose  sight  of  the  whole. 

President  Lowell  does  not  regard 
the  obligation  of  a  college  to  its 
undergraduates  as  limited  "to  offer- 
ing them  an  opportunity    for    self- 


improvement  which  they  make  take, 
neglect,  or  use  in  any  way  they 
please."  The  responsibility  of  the  col- 
lege is  fulfilled  only  by  positively 
encouraging  the  student  to  take  ad- 
vantage of  his  opportunity,  and  to 
develop  his  capacity  for  a  useful  and 
fruitful  life.  It  is  this  feeling  that 
has  led  to  a  system  of  distribution 
and  concentration  of  studies  in  the 
student's  individual  course,  under 
rules  which  place  a  very  material  re- 
striction upon  the  freedom  of  "elec- 
tion" previously  existing  in  Harvard. 
And  to  the  same  principle  of  college 
responsibility  for  the  student's  proper 
development.  President  Lowell  refers 
the  Harvard  plan  of  requiring  all 
freshmen  to  reside  in  the  college  dor- 
mitories. In  this  way,  he  thinks,  can 
be  established  a  consciousness  among 
the  students  that  they  are  bound 
together  by  common  ties,  and  have 
common  sentiments,  aspirations,  and 
interests.  In  the  esprit  de  corps  thus 
attained  he  hopes  to  find  a  line  of 
practical  approach  for  the  moral 
influence  which  the  undergraduate 
needs.  While  unwilling  to  make  dor- 
mitory residence  a  positive  require- 
ment beyond  the  freshman  year,  he 
would  be  glad  to  see  college  dormi- 
tories so  equipped  and  managed  as  to 
attract  all  students.  Against  the  pri- 
vately owned  dormitory  he  raises  the 
objection  that  it  inevitably  aims  to 
gather  those  who  can  pay  well,  and 
thus  tends  to  segregate  the  students 
on  the  basis  of  wealth. 


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to  Messrs.  G.  P.  Putnam's  Son»,  Ltd.,  24,  Bed- 
ford St.,  Strand,  London.  W.  C.  2,  England. 
Copyriffkt,  1920,  in  the  United  States  of 
America 

Editors 

FABIAN  FRANKLIN 

HAROLD  DE  WOLF  FULLER 

Associate  Editors 

Harry  Morgan  Avres     O.  W.  Firkins 

A.  J.  Barnouw  W.  H.  Johnson 

Jerome  Landfielo 


126] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  39 


Abolishing  the  Political  State 


BOLSHEVISM,  however  detestable, 
■'-'  has  taught  us  much  that  it  is 
needful  to  know — much  that  will  be 
of  incomputable  value  in  our  task  of 
remaking  the  world.  It  has  brought 
vividly  to  our  forgetful  minds  the 
eternal  proneness  of  a  part  of  man- 
kind, under  the  impulse  of  a  fanatical 
creed  or  ideal,  to  inflict  upon  others 
the  most  savage  cruelty.  It  has  given 
us  an  illuminating  example  of  the 
reflexes  of  that  cruelty  upon  the 
minds  and  temperaments  of  other 
fanatics  in  other  lands — particularly 
this  land  of  ours.  It  has  shown  us 
again — what  our  optimism  or  our 
complacency  has  caused  us  to  ignore 
— that  Jesuitry  and  hypocrisy  are 
monopolized  by  no  age  or  sect;  that 
they  flourish  now  and  here  as  they 
did  in  Victorian  England  or  mediaeval 
Rome  or  ancient  Egypt ;  and  that  the 
self-righteous  may  still  vociferously 
proffer,  in  the  name  of  democracy, 
liberty,  and  justice,  unctuous  excuses 
for  tyranny,  repression,  and  robbery. 
Its  lessons  are  many,  and  all  of  them 
useful.  One  lesson,  not  the  least  in 
importance,  may  be  drawn  from  the 
contrast  between  the  industrial  Gov- 
ernment of  revolutionary  theory  and 
the  industrial  Government  of  revo- 
lutionary fact. 

The  term  "industrial  Government" 
is  used  in  two  very  different  senses. 
It  may  mean  either  a  Government 
the  functions  of  which  are  predomi- 
nantly industrial  (if  there  is  such 
a  thing)  or  a  Government  which, 
whether  predominantly  industrial  or 
political,  is  in  the  hands  of  the  work- 
ing class.  It  is  the  former  meaning 
with  which  I  am  here  concerned ;  and 
the  question  comes,  "Is  there  such  a 
thing  as  this  industrial  Government 
— Government  which  within  consti- 
tutional limits  is  sovereign  and  yet 
which  deals  only  or  mainly  with  in- 
dustrial questions?"  The  first  So- 
cialists of  the  Marxian  school  said 
that  there  would  be  such  a  thing  with 
the  triumph  of  Socialism.  The  capi- 
talist state  of  a  half-century  ago  they 
regarded  as  wholly  political,  even 
though  it  had  already  begun  to  enact 
social  legislation.     This  state,  they 


said,  would  pass  away;  and  in  its 
place  would  come  something  they  re- 
fused to  call  a  state,  but  a  corporate 
entity  concerned  only  with  the  ad- 
ministration of  industrial  affairs. 
Frederick  Engels,  the  lifelong  com- 
panion and  disciple  of  Marx,  in  his 
answer  to  Eugen  Duhring,  wrote  as 
follows:  "As  soon  as  there  is  no 
longer  any  class  in  society  to  be  held 
in  subjection,  there  is  nothing  more 
to  repress,  nothing  requiring  a  spe- 
cial repressing  power,  the  state."  In 
another  place  he  wrote  to  the  effect 
that  with  the  triumph  of  Socialism 
the  government  of  human  beings 
would  end  and  the.  administration  of 
things  would  begin. 

August  Bebel,  in  his  book  on 
"Woman,"  has  the  following : 

"As  the  relations  of  master  and 
servant  disappear  with  the  abolition 
of  the  present  system  of  property, 
the  political  expression  of  the  rela- 
tionship ceases  to  have  any  meaning. 
The  state  expires  with  the  expiration 
of  the  ruling  class." 

This  concept  of  the  disappearance 
of  the  political  state  and  its  succession 
by  a  power  administering  industrial 
affairs  solely  (because  there  would 
be  no  other  affairs)  was  for  a  con- 
siderable time  a  commonplace  in  So- 
cialist and  ultra-radical  thought.  But 
it  failed  to  convince  many,  even 
among  those  who  accepted  it.  It  had 
its  origin  in  Germany;  and  it  came 
to  be  regarded  by  the  moderates  as 
merely  an  expression  of  the  bitter 
reaction  against  the  Prussianism  of  a 
half-century  ago.  As  the  great  na- 
tions developed  their  policy  of  social 
legislation  the  moderates  came  to  a 
new  concept.  It  was  seen  that  the 
state  was  not  necessarily  wholly  polit- 
ical, not  necessarily  capitalistic ;  that 
it  could  change  with  changing  times, 
and  that  though  it  could  fit  itself  so 
admirably  to  Prussian  autocracy  it 
might  also  fit  itself  to  democracy  and 
Socialism.  As  much  as  fifteen  years 
ago  Marxian  Socialists  in  the  United 
States  were  writing  and  speaking  of 
the  Socialist  state.  Socialists  gener- 
ally, both  in  this  country  and  in  Eu- 
rope, had  reached  the  position  that 


the  state  was  not  to  be  abolished  but 
to  be  transformed;  and  this  concept 
steadily  gained  ground,  at  least  until 
the  Socialist  party  became  tinctured 
with  Bolshevism.  Socialism  would 
conquer  the  capitalist  power  at  the 
ballot  box,  take  over  the  state,  con- 
tinue those  of  its  functions  which 
were  socially  useful  and  add  new 
functions.  If  by  political  functions 
are  meant,  in  the  main,  those  in 
which  individuals  are  dealt  with  as 
citizens,  and  by  industrial  functions 
those  in  which  individuals  are  dealt 
with  as  producers  and  consumers, 
there  was  nothing  to  show  that  the 
Socialist  state  would  be  any  less  polit- 
ical than  the  capitalist  state.  The 
fundamental  relationship  between 
individual  and  state  was  political,  and 
no  matter  how  far  the  state  went  in 
directing  the  control  of  industry,  the 
primacy  of  the  political  relationship 
would  be  unaffected. 

But  the  ultra-radicals  would  have 
none  of  all  this.  With  communist 
anarchists,  I.  W.  W.'s,  S.  L.  P.'s,  Bol- 
sheviks, as  well  as  with  a  strong 
minority  of  doctrinaires  in  the  regu- 
lar Socialist  movement,  the  Engels 
concept  and  formula  persisted.  In  the 
years  just  before  the  war  it  found 
expression  in  a  rebellious  movement 
in  the  American  party,  and  in  a  simi- 
lar movement  in  the  German  Social 
Democracy,  led  by  Anton  Pannekoek, 
which  advocated  direct  action,  and 
which,  fashioning  a  phrase,  "the 
cretinism  of  parliaments,"  rejected 
representative  Government  as  use- 
less to  the  working  class  and  pro- 
posed the  "industrialization  of  soci- 
ety." It  has  also  powerfully  affected 
the  speculative  divagations  of  an  ex- 
ceedingly highbrow  school,  copiously 
represented  in  some  of  our  "journals 
of  opinion,"  which  proffers  a  system 
so  far  unnamed,  but  which  may  fit- 
tingly be  called  the  "Federationism 
of  Experimental  Allegiances." 

Perhaps  even  an  I.  W.  W.  or  an 
F.  E.  A.  would  admit  that  any  work- 
ing-class administration  supreme  in 
authority  would  have  to  deal  with 
such  problems  as  sanitation,  schools, 
parks,  and  playgrounds,  nationaliza- 
tion, the  franchise,  elections,  and  re- 
lations with  other  nations  or  societies. 
He  might  also  admit,  especially  since 


February  7,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[127 


Lenin  has  said  that  the  main  business 
of  a  proletarian  regime  is  to  crush 
out  opposition,  that  such  an  adminis- 
tration would  have  to  deal  with  the 
problems  of  penal  codes,  prisons, 
police,  detectives,  and  the  conscrip- 
tion of  armies.  It  is  hard  for  the 
ordinary  person  to  see  how  the  mere 
calling  of  these  problems  by  the  term 
"industrial"  would  alter  their  char- 
acter— equally  hard  to  see  how  in  any 
order  of  society  they  would  be  other 
than  the  same  sort  of  problems  that 
they  are  to-day.  More  difficult  yet  is 
to  imagine  them  vanishing,  or  settling 
themselves  automatically,  through  the 
mere  transformation  of  capitalism 
into  organized  cooperation. 

Argument,  however,  is  unneces- 
sary ;  for  in  Soviet  Russia  we  have  a 
striking  test  of  the  theory.  From  the 
Bolsheviki  one  might  reasonably  ex- 
pect some  approaches  to  this  type  of 
Government.  They  have  the  power, 
backed  by  the  bayonet  and  the  food 
decree,  to  enforce  compliance.  They 
have  formally  and  bitterly  repudiated 
modern  Socialism,  and  they  claim 
direct  inheritance  from  Marx  and 
Engels,  with  a  doctrine  uncorrupted 
by  compromises  with  bourgeois 
thought.  In  Sovdepia  therefore,  if 
anywhere,  should  the  observant  look 
for  the  wiping  out  of  political  Gov- 
ernment. 

But  he  will  look  in  vain.  Soviet 
Russia  has  become  the  most  rigorous 
political  Government  on  earth.  The 
"administration  of  things"  has  brok- 
en down  at  a  thousand  points,  but 
the  "government  of  human  beings" 
has  been  extended  and  intensified  to 
a  degree  heretofore  inconceivable. 
The  latest  refugees  are  unani- 
mous in  their  testimony  that  not  a 
day  passes  without  the  issue  of  new 
decrees.  There  must  be  the  registra- 
tion of  this,  the  surrender  of  that, 
payments  must  be  made  so  and  so, 
information  must  be  given  at  such  a 
place,  in  this  or  that  manner,  and 
with  a  stated  frequency.  On  top  of 
the  denial  or  manipulation  of  the 
franchise  and  the  suppression  of 
speech,  press,  and  assemblage,  there 
is  thus  laid  on  the  citizen  the  further 
tyranny  of  guidance  by  decree.  Every 
movement  of  the  individual  is  under 
executive  direction ;  and  not  to  know 


the  prohibitions,  or  knowing,  to  vio- 
late the  least  of  them,  is  to  land  one- 
self in  jail, 

"The  state  expires  with  the  expira- 
tion of  the  ruling  class,"  wrote  Rebel. 
"As  soon  as  there  is  no  longer  any 
class  in  society  to  be  held  in  subjec- 
tion— there  is  nothing  more  to  re- 
press, nothing  requiring  a  special  re- 
pressing power,  the  state."  Well,  it 
would  appear  that  the  bourgeoisie  as 
a  ruling  class  has  expired.  But  the 
rest  of  the  formula  does  not  follow. 
The  state,  instead  of  expiring,  waxes 
constantly  more  autocratic;  it  re- 
presses, with  a  brutal  hand,  those 
who  disagree  with  it;  and  this  re- 
pression is  not  of  a  class,  but  of 
dissident  individuals  of  the  same 
class  (or  mixture  of  classes)  as  that 
of  the  rulers.  The  bourgeoisie  has 
indeed  suffered;  but  the  greater 
weight   of   Bolshevik   brutality   has 


fallen  upon  the  Social  Democrats  and 
the  Socialist  Revolutionists.  The 
abolition  of  the  bourgeoisie  has  not 
abolished  the  political  state;  it  baa 
resulted  in  a  political  tyranny  which 
would  be  impossible  under  capitalism. 
All  dogmas  are  to  be  viewed  with 
suspicion.  This  one,  the  dogma  of 
the  disappearance  of  the  political 
state  by  reason  of  the  expropriation 
of  capital,  never  had  the  slightest 
logical  basis;  it  was  an  assumption 
arising  out  of  a  hatred  of  Bismarck- 
ism  ;  it  was  sweeping,  audacious,  and 
"revolutionary,"  and  it  captivated 
thousands  of  zealots  who  took  it  as 
an  expression  of  prophetic  wisdom. 
More  reasonable  beings  sought  to 
show  its  fallaciousness,  but  the 
zealots  refused  to  listen.  At  the  first 
touch  of  reality  it  has  exploded  and 
left  not  a  wrack  behind. 

W.  J.  Ghent 


The  Human  Cost  of  Living 


/^UR  industries  kill  and  maim  over 
^-^  1,600  persons  daily — half  as 
many  as  were  killed  on  the  Union 
side  at  Gettysburg.  Every  six  months 
our  industrial  casualty  list  exceeds  the 
fatalities  of  the  United  States  in  the 
Great  War.  In  fact,  it  has  been  esti- 
mated that  the  hazards  of  modern 
industry  are  equal  to  those  that  were 
found  in  the  trenches  on  the  Western 
Front.  The  only  difference  lies  in 
the  manner  in  which  we  sense  the 
carnage:  bunch  the  list  to  represent 
the  human  sacrifice  necessary  to  gain 
an  objective  in  battle  or  to  record  the 
effect  of  a  great  catastrophe  and  we 
are  horrified ;  scatter  it  among  ten 
thousand  manufacturing  plants  over 
a  period  of  six  months  and  it  scarcely 
causes  a  ripple  on  the  surface  of  one's 
interest. 

When  one  thinks  of  an  industrial 
hazard,  it  is  of  the  engineer  on  the 
Twentieth  Century  Limited  swaying 
in  his  engine,  plowing  into  the  night 
at  seventy  miles  an  hour.  One  doesn't 
think  of  the  marble-cutter  at  the 
corner  shop  unromantically  hammer- 
ing hour  by  hour  at  the  dusty  stone — 
inhaling  a  powder  that  brings  prema- 
ture death. 

The  tremendous  facts  of  experience 


are  accepted  and  commonplace.  We 
dress,  shave,  eat,  walk,  ride,  work, 
play,  and  write  checks  to  discharge 
our  obligations.  They  are  ours  if  we 
pay  for  them.  But  is  there  any 
medium  of  exchange  and  measure  of 
value  that  pays  for  the  human  risks 
that  are  assumed  in  constructing  the 
accepted  things  of  our  lives?  Will  a 
dollar  pay  for  the  steel  of  a  jack- 
knife  which  was  forged  from  a  heat 
that  burned  alive  three  laborers  when 
the  ladle  tilted  and  spilled?  The 
human  cost  of  living  in  civilized 
society ! 

Let  us  follow  John  Brown,  of 
Detroit,  as  he  is  about  to  turn 
in,  and  see  what  a  debt  to  his 
brethren  of  industry  he  is  accumulat- 
ing. What  is  the  human  cost  of  John 
Brown's  right  to  live? 

John  starts  to  go  to  bed  at  10  P.  M. 
He  snaps  out  the  light.  John,  fifty 
years  ago,  would  have  blown  out  a 
chimney-smoked  lamp  or  snuffed  a 
candle.  It  isn't  necessary  to  dwell  on 
the  comparative  comforts  of  oil  lamps 
and  a  system  of  indirect  lighting — 
John  has  never  known  the  inconven- 
ience of  the  former,  neither  has  he 
realized  the  value  of  the  latter;  he 
accepts  the  electric  light  as  his  herit- 


128] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  39 


age,  paying  for  it  at  so  much  per 
kilowatt-hour.  It  might  interest 
John  to  know  that  Edison,  Westing- 
house,  and  Tesla  devoted  a  major  por- 
tion of  their  lives  to  perfecting  his 
lights.  Hundreds  of  experimenters 
and  testers  were  killed  from  electric 
shock  before  the  alternating  current 
was  made  safe.  To-day,  the  testing 
of  generators,  motors,  transformers, 
and  switchboards  is  a  dangerous  oc- 
cupation. Central  station  operation 
takes  its  toll  in  lives  every  year. 
Even  John  knows  of  at  least  one  line- 
man who  has  met  death  repairing  a 
live  wire.  Electricity  to-day  is  com- 
paratively safe,  but  it  has  taken  forty 
years  of  human  sacrifice  to  make  it 
safe  enough  so  that  John  may  snap 
out  his  light  and  go  to  bed  without  a 
twinge  of  conscience.  Seventy  per 
cent,  of  all  the  fatal  accidents  in  1917 
were  caused  by  electric  shock,  John. 

Just  a  moment,  John,  before  you  go 
to  bed !  It  takes  coal  or  water  power 
to  generate  electric  current.  Coal 
mining  is  highly  dangerous.  Perhaps 
the  current  you  burned  in  the  last 
hour  was  generated  from  coal  dug 
from  the  bowels  of  a  Pennsylvania 
mountain  that  recently  caved  in, 
burying  ten  miners  alive.  Of  course, 
they  didn't  risk  their  lives  for  you — 
they  were  after  the  tonnage — but 
whether  they  realized  it  or  not,  they 
were  serving  you,  John,  as  faithfully 
and  as  courageously  as  your  brother 
did  in  the  trenches. 

The  coal  that  generated  the  steam 
that  turned  the  turbine  that  sped  the 
armature  that  created  the  1600  volts 
that  were  stepped  down  to  110  volts 
that  entered  your  house  through  a 
safety  switch  and  insulated  wire  that 
burned  in  a  filament  enclosed  in  a 
vacuum  globe — that  coal  has  another 
story.  It  was  carried  out  of  the  mine 
on  electric  cars.  Sometimes  sparks 
from  the  wire  ignited  methane  gas 
in  the  mine  and  blew  the  miner  to 
fragments.  It  is  loaded  on  cars  and 
hauled  to  Detroit.  Think  of  the  men 
that  have  been  killed  and  injured  in 
the  steam-railroad  service  getting 
coal  from  Pittsburgh  to  Detroit! 
Think  of  George  Westinghouse  and 
forty-five  years  of  tireless  devotion 
to  the  air  brake  that  has  made  freight 
trains  a  mile  in  length  safe!     The 


coal  was  fed  into  the  furnaces  at  the 
central  station  by  automatic  stokers 
— they  are  made  of  iron  and  steel. 
Need  I  tell  that  story?  Need  I  tell 
the  story  of  the  thousands  of  girls 
that  sit,  day  in  and  day  out,  winding 
the  coils  for  the  generators,  or  the 
story  of  the  men  with  fingers  gone 
and  feet  crushed  that  have  built  the 
transformers?  John,  you  couldn't 
pay  for  one  kilowatt-hour  of  your 
current  even  though  you  were  the 
richest  man  in  Detroit. 

Go  on  to  bed  and  sleep — while  the 
globe  of  the  electric  light  cools  and 
the  carbon  filament  becomes  gray.  If 
you  thought  of  the  hours  of  life  that 
were  taken  from  the  men  that  blew 
the  glass  for  the  small  bulbs  of  your 
lights — in  the  intense  heat  of  the 
glass  oven — you  could  not  sleep. 

John,  when  your  house  was  built, 
the  men  who  did  the  work  assumed  a 
risk  for  you.  Climbing  round  on  lad- 
ders and  scaffolding  isn't  the  safest 
occupation  in  the  world.  Ladder 
casualties  cost  Ohio  in  compensation 
last  year  $49,574.  If  all  of  the  metal 
products  that  went  into  your  house 
came  from  Pennsylvania  in  1918,  you 
can  figure  that  you,  with  all  other 
customers  who  bought  the  metal, 
were  responsible  for  6,218  burns  and 
scalds.  In  fact,  the  total  number  of 
burns  and  scalds  in  all  Pennsylvania 
industries  in  1918  was  12,394.  Burns 
and  scalds  are  not  confined  to  any 
particular  class  of  accidents,  but 
cover  every  phase  of  industrial  effort. 

Modern  industrial  practice  has  pro- 
moted the  traveling  crane  to  first 
place  as  a  mechanical  conveyor,  with 
an  increasing  danger  to  the  working- 
man.  Parts  weaken  with  rough  usage 
and  constant  impact,  gears  become 
worn,  outside  cranes  are  subject  to 
pressure  under  high  winds,  foot- 
walks  beneath  the  cranes  are  danger- 
ous, flying  hooks  strike  workingmen, 
chains  part,  castings  break  loose  and 
fall,  operators  inadvertently  throw 
switches  and  start  cranes  with  a  re- 
pairman on  the  track,  heat  from 
spilled  metal  below  cooks  operators, 
and  dynamic  brakes  fail  to  function. 
It  costs  in  human  life,  John,  to  move 
the  material  that  goes  into  your 
house. 

We  have  followed  John  Brown  of 


Detroit  from  the  electric-light  switch 
to  his  bed.  Already  we  find  an  in- 
dictment of  John's  indifference  that 
is  staggering.  We  have  selected  one 
of  the  simplest  devices  that  contribute 
to  John's  comfort  and  find  that  thou- 
sands of  lives  have  been  sacrificed  to 
achieve  this  sole  modern  convenience, 
the  electric  light.  To  continue  to 
follow  John  on  the  morrow  about  his 
home,  on  the  city  street,  in  the  office 
building,  at  the  hotel,  on  the  surface 
car  and  in  the  theatre,  measuring  the 
"human  cost"  en  route  would  drive 
John  mad. 

The  whole  conception  is  depressing 
in  one  sense,  but  in  another  highly 
stimulating.  For  it  makes  one  feel 
that  the  drudgery  and  monotony  of 
our  day's  work  is  not  in  vain,  that 
the  mite  that  we  can  do  before  we 
die  to  pay  our  debt  to  the  civilization 
of  yesterday  is  all  too  small.  It  is  a 
dominant  thread  in  the  warp  and 
woof  of  industrial  relationship  that 
relieves  us  of  the  pressure  of  crass 
materialism.  After  all,  those  who 
have  contributed  most  to  even  our 
material  comfort  and  well-being  are 
very  real  heroes.  The  service  of  the 
men  who  have  worked  in  the  pit  and 
the  mine,  in  the  machine-shop  and  on 
the  wharves,  in  our  offices  and  places 
of  tremendous  responsibility — ^the 
captains  and  privates  of  industry — 
these  are  heroes  indeed. 

And  yet,  industries  kill  and  maim 
1,600  persons  daily!  In  a  sense  one 
can  understand  why  our  employees 
are  crying  aloud  for  a  new  industrial 
relationship — this  carnage  must  be 
stopped !  But  I  doubt  if  it  is  humanly 
possible  to  do  more  than  our  great 
industrial  organizations  like  the 
United  States  Steel  Corporation,  the 
General  Electric  Company,  the  East- 
man Kodak  Company,  or  any  one  of 
a  hundred  others  are  doing  to-day. 
The  fight  that  the  National  Safety 
Council,  the  National  Electric  Light 
Association,  and  a  score  of  safety- 
device  companies,  like  the  Square  D 
Company  of  Detroit,  are  making  to  | 
protect  human  life  is  bearing  fruit.  ; 
They  are  dealing  with  "things  as  they  I 
are."  ' 

Even  so,   our  industrial  accident 
rate  is  disgraceful.     Undoubtedly  it  ' 
provides  great  ammunition  for  the 


February  7,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[129 


Reds,  the  I.  W.  W.'s,  and  Bolsheviks, 
and  it  takes  a  rather  comprehensive 
understanding  of  the  tremendous  dif- 
ficulties of  our  accident  problem  to 
make  one  discount  their  ranting.  To 
condemn  the  present  economic  order 
that  has  endured  for  centuries,  and 
has  at  any  rate  worked,  because  its 
present    complexity    has    so    hidden 


the  elements  that  we  see  only  the 
driftwood  of  its  progress,  is  super- 
ficial and  unjust. 

Theoretically,  the  alternative — the 
nightmare— the  Soviet  Government 
— is  a  very  beautifully  conceived  plan. 
I  think  there  are  no  industrial  acci- 
dents in  Soviet  industry. 

David  Hakold  Colcord 


The  Lady  of  the  Violets 


AFTER  all,  the  East  Side  begins  at 
Fifth  Avenue,   and  somewhere  be- 
tween the  cool  green-bordered  spaces  of 
the    Park    and    the    somewhat    leaden 
waters  of  the  East  River  there  dwells 
a  fair  proportion  of  the  two  per  cent, 
of  the  population  which  is  said  to  own 
sixty  per  cent,  of  the  country's  wealth, 
and   a   rather   large  proportion   of  the 
remaining   percentages    of    wealth    and 
population.    Wealth,  it  may  be  observed 
in  passing,  is  somewhat  more  in  evidence 
on  the  Avenue  of  Palaces,  and  population 
on  the  cluttered  sidewalks  and  crowded 
fire-escapes  nearer  the  river. 
Eastward  one  goes — Madison,  severely 
i   correct  and   a  trifle  depressing;   Park, 
magnificent  duplex  apartments  towering 
heavenward  at  dizzying  rates;  Lexington, 
a  respectable  shadow  of  former  greatness. 
Lexington  is  the  social  Rubicon.    Beyond 
.  lies  the  proletariat.     But  as  the  mantle 
^   of  equal  franchise  has  now  fallen  upon 
all  alike,  one  may  encounter  the  mistress 
of  a  palace  on  the  Avenue  presiding  over 
a  drawing-room   discussion   of  politics, 
and  within  the  hour  run   into  a  little 
woman  on  Avenue  A,  her  big  dark  eyes 
glowing  under  a  shawl,  also  discussing 
I  politics,  and  both  are  voters. 
j      Voters   both.      For   the   Lady   of   the 
I  Violets  has  voted,  many  of  her,  and  will 
do  so  again  in  increasing  numbers   in 
this  Presidential  year,  quite  unmindful 
of  the  threat  reiterated  in  two  exhilarat- 
ing suffrage   campaigns— "I   don't   care 
if  you  do  force  it  on  us,  I  will  never, 
never  vote,"  and  later  modified  to  "Oh, 
now  Pve  got  to  vote  whether  I  want  to 
or  not.    What !     Well,  of  course  I  don't 
have  to,   but  you   don't   suppose   we're 
going   to    let   you    run    everything,    do 
you?" 

And  vote  they  did,  and  not  only  that, 
but  campaigned  vigorously  and  with  well-  ' 
defined  partisan  adherence,  which  indi- 
cated at  least  certain  inherited  proclivi- 
ties. And  it  is  a  fact  that  many  poten- 
tial executive  types  lurk  behind  the 
fronts  of  the  palaces,  waiting  only  the 
Ignition  spark  to  leap  into  new  but  con- 
genial activities.  No  wonder  that  one 
candidate  addressed  his  drawing-room 
audiences  as  "my  only  hope,"  and,  judg- 
ing by  the  fact  that  he  was  elected,  there 
may  have  been   something    in   it.     Of 


course  one  has  a  suspicion— just  a  tiny 
little  suspicion— that  some  of  the  Violet 
Lady's  enthusiasm  was  due  chiefly  to 
the  fact  that  certain  candidates  were 
practically  "favorite  sons"  of  the  Ave- 
nue, as  indicated  by  the  fair  citizen  who 
triumphantly  declared  that  she  had 
voted  for  that  dear  Mr.  Blank,  and 
hadn't  put  another  solitary  mark  on  her 
ballot!  But  only  a  mere  carper  would 
carp  at  such  a  trifle;  rather  one  notes 
the  whirlwind  of  interest,  the  Belgian 
King  and  Queen  to  be  entertained,  a 
battalion  of  the  all-important  debutantes, 
and  politics;  and  politics  ran  a  dead  heat 
with  the  other  two  and  landed  in  front 
of  the  field  on  election  day. 

Gone  indeed  are  the  dear  dead  classic 
days  of  the  hetaerae,  whose  intellectual 
and  political  companionship  consoled 
their  patrician  friends  beyond  the  nar- 
row confines  of  domesticity.  Politics  has 
landed  plump  in  the  bosom  of  the  family. 
Voter  Pere,  Voter  Mere,  sons  and  daugh- 
ters, and  incautious  males  are  likely  to  be 
confronted  by  a  buxom  mother,  of  the 
politically  overnourished  type,  oozing 
"welfare"  bills  at  every  pore,  a  number 
of  said  bills  being  doomed  to  be  passed 
at  one  session  of  the  Assembly  only  to 
be  repudiated  by  their  sponsors  before 
the  next  at  stormy  club  meetings  that 
almost  wreck  the  organization. 

Naturally,  one  observes  a  few  trifling 
elisions  amid  all  this  fervor.     For  ex- 
ample, an  examination  of  the  primary 
lists   with   a  high-powered   magnifying 
glass  reveals  scarcely  more  than  a  trace 
of  that  soulful  devotion  known  chiefly 
to  the  hard-boiled  "regulars"  who  vote 
at  the  primaries  even  if  they  have  to  be 
carried   there.     Primaries   are   a   trifle 
tiresome,  don't  you  think,  and,  anyhow, 
nobody  is  ever  really  elected  at  them. 
But   the   onward   movement   now   flows 
freely  along  the  Avenue  and  its  lesser 
satellites,  and  it  is  a  matter  of  steadily 
increasing  record  that  the  Lady  of  the 
Violets,  inspired  perhaps  by  what  Mrs. 
Siddons  called  a  "desperate  tranquillity" 
that    always    came    to    her    before    her 
greatest  efforts,  glides  lightly  through 
the  ordeal,  and  is  acclaimed  to  a  waiting 
world  in  the  morning  press  as  having 
"voted  like  veterans." 
But,  with  democracy  itself  in  the  melt 


ing  pot,  there  are  strange  digressions 
beyond  party  lines.  Take,  for  example,  a 
section  of  a  city,  "communityized"  be- 
yond all  resemblance  to  Jeffersonian  de- 
mocracy,  and   functioning  as  a   "unit" 
vaguely  but  disturbingly  suggesting  cer- 
tain  familiar  features  of  the  Soviet,  not 
the  least  insistent  of  which  is  the  frank 
acknowledgment  that  the  ultimate  mis- 
sion of  the  "unit"  is  political  control. 
Somehow  all  roads  seem  to  lead  to  the 
ballot  box  sooner  or  later.     Thus  it  is 
that  while  all  the  older,  well-known  lead- 
ers and  the  great  majority  of  the  rank 
and  file  of  women  citizens  are  taking 
their  politics  straight,  many  others  on 
the  hither  side  of  the  Rubicon  are  sip- 
ping daintily,  with  a  little  near-Bolshe- 
vism on  the  side.    Anything,  so  it  isn't 
regular    Plymouth-Rock-Pilgrim-Father- 
and-Mother  stuff.    For  imagine  the  polit- 
ical darkness  of  one  who  has  never  had 
a  block  head  worker— no,  that  should  be 
head  block  worker— a  head  block  worker 
call  and  ask  more  questions   than  the 
income  tax  commissioner  and  the  census 
man  put  together,  to  the  end  that  the 
Chairman  of  the  Central  Advisory  Coun- 
cil may  tell  you  how  to  do  all  the  things 
you  have  always  known  how  to  do  all 
your  life.     The  most  terrifying  part  is 
that  you   are  airily   informed  that  we 
know  all  about  you  anyway!     A  false 
dawn  of  liberty  indeed,  a  mockery  of  the 
decent  privacies  that  protect  the  initia- 
tive of   individuality   in   the  organized 
channels  of  government. 

Yet  the  sinister  propaganda  goes  on 
in  myriad  forms,  questionable  publica- 
tions financed,   dubious   doctrines  mur- 
mured  softly,   now  and   then   a  multi- 
millionaire pledging  the  support  of  his 
fortune  to  ultra-radicalism  as  lightly  as 
a  Roman  noble  flung  priceless  pearls  into 
a  flagon  of  wine— and  we  are  only  deport- 
ing aliens !    Fortunately,  clear  voices  are 
raised  in  the  strident  chaos.     Some  of 
them  are  women's  voices.    It  seems  some- 
thing more  than  a  mere  chance  that  next 
June  in  the  city  of  Madrid,  old  Madrid, 
erstwhile  citadel  of  mediaevalism,  there 
will  meet  in  conference  the  International 
Suffrage   Alliance,    delegates   from   our 
own  seventeen  millions  of  enfranchised 
women  leading  the  representation  of  one 
hundred  millions  of  women  who  are  func- 
tioning politically,  at  least  to  some  extent, 
in  their  respective  countries.    And  there 
is  an  unmistakable  unity  of  design  be- 
hind it.    It  means  that  the  spirit  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  mellowed  by  the  interven- 
ing centuries,  has  met  with  the  advanc- 
ing,   conquering    spirit    of    the   Anglo- 
Saxon,  firmly  establishing  the  rights  of 
men  and  women  in  constitutional  govern- 
ment.   And  the  Lady  of  the  Violets  will 
be  there,  a  champion  of  law  and  order. 
The  Red  army  can  not  make  permanent 
headway  against  the  massed  sanity  of 
the  world. 

Mary  C.  Francis 


130] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  39 


Correspondence 

Radical  or  Conservative— a 
Perverse  Dilemma 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

In  these  days  of  social,  economic,  and 
political  unrest,  our  estimate  of  social 
forces,  tendencies,  and  aspirations  readily 
becomes  confused  with  extraneous  and 
often  wholly  irrelevant  considerations. 
Thus  we  observe  that  the  concepts,  radi- 
calism and  conservatism,  are  well  on  the 
way  toward  replacing  most  other  con- 
cepts involving  social  attitudes.  Now, 
radicalism  and  conservatism,  when  looked 
at  from  the  standpoint  of  their  relation 
to  civilization  and  to  society,  represent 
two  inherent  and  equally  basic  charac- 
teristics of  the  social  organism.  Con- 
servatism, the  guardian  of  the  old  and 
established,  is  of  the  very  essence  of 
civilization ;  were  it  not  for  conservatism, 
the  fluidity  of  civilization  would  result 
in  inevitable  self-annihilation.  Radical- 
ism, on  the  other  hand,  is  but  the  limit- 
ing concept  which  includes  all  that  stands 
for  change,  for  progress,  for  reform,  for 
creativeness.  The  conservative  and  the 
radical  thus  representing  functions  in- 
herent in  the  very  nature  of  society,  have 
both  their  legitimate  places,  but  the  very 
legitimacy  of  these  activities  imposes 
upon  their  representatives  the  duty  and 
the  burden  of  knowing  whereof  they- 
speak,  of  a  thorough  and  searching 
familiarity  with  that  society  of  which 
they  constitute  themselves  the  guardians 
and  the  directors. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  ignorance, 
narrow-mindedness,  snobbishness,  and  a 
selfish  detachment  from  the  vital  prob- 
lems of  the  hour  which  transform  the 
conservative  into  a  reactionary,  who  is 
a  menace  and  a  nuisance,  a  burden  and  a 
drag  upon  society.  The  same  is  true  of 
the  radical.  It  is  ignorance,  crudeness 
of  attitude,  superficiality  of  concrete 
background,  lack  of  social  experience, 
hazy  idealism,  which  transform  him 
into  that  "red"  and  dangerous  individual 
whose  intentions,  idealistic  though  they 
may  be,  are  shattered  on  the  rock  of 
incompetence  and  fanaticism.  Knowledge 
about  society,  saturation  with  the  values 
of  civilization,  from  which  alone  can 
spring  a  deep-rooted  humanitarianism 
and  an  idealism  steeped  in  the  realities 
of  life,  these  are  the  prerequisites  which 
the  conservative  and  radical  stand  equally 
in  need  of.  It  is,  therefore,  best  fitting 
that  at  this  time,  when  reconstruction 
of  the  very  foundations  of  our  civiliza- 
tion is  at  hand,  a  body  of  scholars, 
idealists  and  humanitarians,  should  find 
themselves  united  in  the  common  pur- 
pose of  making  society  and  civilization 
the  object  of  their  study,  their  discus- 
sions, and  their  teachings.     Such  is  the 


source   from   which    springs   The   New 
School  for  Social  Research. 

From  the  standpoint  represented  at 
the  New  School,  radicalism  and  con- 
servatism are  but  two  among  many  con- 
cepts applicable  to  tendencies  of  indi- 
viduals as  well  as  groups  in  society. 
Neither  of  these  concepts  can  claim  to 
describe  in  any  adequate  way  the  aims, 
ideals,  or  methods  of  the  New  School. 
What  it  aspires  to  is  to  know  and  under- 
stand, and  to  impart  to  others  the  knowl- 
edge and  understanding  of  the  static  and 
dynamic  factors  which  hold  and  move 
that  intricate  fabric  of  actions,  motives, 
ideas,  and  emotions  which  is  our  civiliza- 
tion. It  seems  thus  both  inaccurate  and 
unjust  to  estimate,  as  has  often  been 
done,  the  significance  of  this  new  enter- 
prise in  terms  of  what  is  but  a  perverse 
dilemma — radicalism  and  conservatism. 
The  School  is  neifjer  radical  nor  con- 
servative; but  it  wants  to  help  the  radical 
to  guide  and  inspire  social  change  rather 
than  to  fulminate  and  destroy,  and  it 
wants  to  teach  the  conservative  wisely 
to  safeguard  the  stability  of  essential 
principles  and  basic  structures  rather 
than  stubbornly  to  hang  on  to  antiquated 
ideas  and  institutions  whose  usefulness 
is  no  longer  actual. 

A.   A.    GOLDENWEISER 

The   Neiv   School  for  Social   Research, 
New  York,  Janiuiry  22 

"Life  or  Death  for  the 
Railroads?" 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

I  have  been  charmed  by  the  interesting 
experiment  Mr.  Woodlock  attempts  in 
last  week's  Review  in  discussing  the 
railroads.  In  one  column,  to  discredit 
government  operation,  he  declares  that 
the  Government  took  over  "a  solvent  sys- 
tem in  reasonably  good  physical  condi- 
tion." In  the  adjoining  column,  when 
another  purpose  was  in  his  mind,  he  as- 
serts that  when  the  Government  took 
over  the  railroads  they  were  a  "carcass," 
from  which  the  Government  "was  grad- 
ually but  surely  starving  the  last  sparks 
of  life." 

I  believe  the  public  is  disposed  to  deal 
justly  with  the  railroads,  being  fair- 
minded  and  having  recovered  from  the 
entirely  natural  but  disastrous  reaction 
from  the  period  when  railroads  con- 
trolled politics  and  grossly  abused  their 
control.  But  its  state  of  mind  will  hardly 
be  improved  when  its  friends  get  their 
wires  crossed  so  badly  as  Mr.  Woodlock 
allowed  his  to  become. 

Stillman  H,  Bingham 
Dvluth,  Minn.,  January  14 

[The  first  of  the  sentences  to  which  our 
correspondent  refers  was: 

As  things  stand  at  present  it  is  not  in  the 
least  degree  an  exaggeration  to  say  that  the 


Government,  which  took  over  at  the  end  of 
1917  a  solvent  system  of  railroads  in  reason- 
ably good  physical  condition,  is  handing  it 
back  to  owners  in  a  state  of  physical  deteriora- 
tion and  financial  insolvency. 

The  second  was : 

The  Esch  bill  may  be  summed  up  in  a  word 
as  the  perpetuation  of  the  miserable  system  of 
control  of  railroads  which  in  1914,  when  the 
war  broke  out,  was  gradually  but  surely  starv- 
ing the  last  sparks  of  life  from  the  carcass. 

There  is  no  real  contradiction  between 
the  two  statements,  though  the  pictur- 
esque emphasis  of  the  language  in  the 
second  may  be  open  to  objection.  The 
"life"  that  Mr.  Woodlock  had  in  mind, 
and  of  which  the  "sparks"  were  being 
"gradually  but  surely"  extinguished,  was 
the  life  of  enterprise,  that  kind  of  life 
which  means  the  attraction  of  new  cap- 
ital and  the  continuation  of  progress. 
Such  a  process  of  injury  may  go  on  for 
a  long  time  without  bringing  about 
"financial  insolvency,"  and  without  re- 
ducing the  "physical  condition"  of  the 
roads  below  the  point  where  it  may  still 
be  described  as  "reasonably  good." — Eds. 
The  Review.] 

Confiscation  by  Amendment 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review  : 

At  a  public  meeting  in  Yonkers  on  the 
evening  of  January  11,  Professor  Scott 
Nearing,  a  well-known  Socialist,  who  had 
been  advocating  the  nationalization  of 
private  property,  was  asked  by  one  of 
his  audience:  "How  do  you  propose  to 
take  property  away  from  its  owners?" 
His  answer  was:  "In  the  same  way  that 
the  property  of  the  brewers  and  distil- 
lers was  taken,  by  constitutional  amend- 
ment. The  prohibitionists  have  shown 
us  the  way  by  which  property  can  be 
taken  for  public  purposes  without  com- 
pensation to  the  owners." 

This  frank  admission  that  the  Social- 
ists purpose  amending  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States  so  as  to  enable  them 
to  confiscate  private  property  without 
compensation,  should  arouse  the  Amer- 
ican people  to  a  realization  of  the  mo- 
mentous issues  involved  in  the  question 
of  the  validity  of  the  Eighteenth  Amend- 
ment, soon  to  be  argued  before  the  Su- 
preme Court  of  the  United  States.  As 
is  clearly  shown  in  the  pleadings  filed 
in  the  test  suit  brought  by  us,  if  the 
Eighteenth  Amendment  is  held  to  be 
valid  it  will  be  in  the  power  of  180  mem- 
bers of  Congress,  86  less  than  a  majority 
of  both  Houses,  to  submit  radical  and 
revolutionary  amendments  to  the  State 
Legislatures.  These  amendments  can  be 
ratified  by  a  bare  majority  of  a  quorum 
of  the  members  of  36  Legislatures,  less 
than  2,800  members  being  necessary  to 
ratify.  Thus  less  than  3,000  men  can 
amend  the  Constitution  so  as  to  confis- 
cate the  entire  property  interests  of  the 
country,  even  though  the  subjects  of  the 


February  7,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[181 


amendments  were  never  submitted  to  the 
people  of  the  several  States. 

Article  5  of  the  Federal  Constitution 
provides  that  private  property  shall  not 
be  taken  for  a  public  purpose  without 
just  compensation.  If  the  Supreme  Court 
decides  that  an  amendment  destroying 
property  values  of  $1,000,000,000  is 
valid,  an  amendment  confiscating  the 
railroads  or  steel  industries  would  be 
equally  valid. 

The  American  people  should  know  that 
a  decision  sustaining  the  validity  of  the 
Eighteenth  Amendment  opens  the  way 
for  Socialism,  Communism,  or  Syndical- 
ism to  abolish  the  right  to  private  prop- 
erty, the  basis  of  all  civilized  society,  by 
the  action  of  less  than  3,000  persons. 

E.   J.   SHRrVER 
Chairman    Executive    Committee,    The 

Vigilance  League 
New  York,  January  19 

Public  Schools  and  the 
Colleges 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

I  have  read  with  great  interest  the 
comment  in  your  issue  of  December  27 
on  the  good  showing  made  at  the  colleges 
by  boys  from  the  public  schools  as  com- 
pared with  boys  from  the  private  schools. 

You  rightly  observe  that  this  does  not 
mean  better  training  at  public  than  at 
private  schools,  but  it  is  because  of  the 
process  of  "sharp  selection"  on  account 
of  "natural  ability"  and  "inclination  to 
study."  The  boys  at  the  private  schools 
lack  this  incentive,  feeling  that  they  will 
get  to  college  anyhow. 

There  is  something  fundamentally 
wrong  with  such  a  situation,  and  in 
order  to  make  our  colleges  a  more  vital 
factor  in  American  life,  some  attempt 
should  be  made  to  improve  conditions. 

Theoretically,  the  colleges  should  be  a 
part  of  our  system  of  free  public  educa- 
tion, and  as  it  would  be  desirable  to  have 
only  a  comparatively  small  percentage  of 
our  youths  sent  to  college,  those  who  do 
go  should  be  chosen  by  reason  of  their 
"natural  ability"  and  "inclination  to 
study,"  and  not  because  of  the  financial 
standing  of  their  parents. 

In  the  words  of  C.  R.  Mann,  Chairman 
of  the  Advisory  Board  of  the  Committee 
on  Education  and  Special  Training  of  the 
War  Department,  when  speaking  of  the 
methods  of  selection  being  put  into  prac- 
tice in  the  college  S.  A.  T.  C.  units 
towards  the  close  of  the  war,  "As  these 
methods  come  more  and  more  into  gen- 
eral use  and  as  they  are  perfected,  the 
schools  will  gradually  achieve  a  system 
in  which  ability,  rather  than  financial 
competency,  will  be  the  entrance  require- 
ments for  higher  education." 

Unfortunately,  political  conditions  at 
present  preclude  the  idea  of  having  our 


colleges  managed  by  the  State,  but  still 
a  start  could  be  made  by  properly  di- 
rected effort.  Why  not  point  out  to 
public  benefactors  the  chance  to  form 
and  endow  an  educational  foundation  to 
assist  in  the  matter?  Such  a  body  need 
not  undertake  to  establish  colleges,  but 
having  made  arrangements  with  certain 
colleges  in  various  parts  of  the  country, 
it  could  then  provide  free  scholarships 
in  such  colleges  to  those  worthy  of  them ; 
that  is  to  say,  to  those  who  qualify  by 
passing  the  required  tests. 

Here,  indeed,  would  be  real  equality  of 
opportunity  in  education  which  at  the 
present  time  does  not  exist. 

Walter  H.  Buck 
Baltimore,  Md.,  January  5 


jThe    "Cahiers  de 
Quinzaine" 


la 


[The  author  of  the  following  letter,  a  young 
French  officer,  is  the  eldest  son  of  the  poet 
and  essayist,  Charles  Peguy,  who  was  killed  at 
the  battle  of  the  Marne,  and  who  edited  dur- 
ing a  long  term  of  years  what  was  known  as 
"Cahiers  de  la  Quinzaine,"  a  series  of  pam- 
phlets and  volumes,  which  appeared  from  1900 
to  the  breaking  out  of  the  war,  forming  a  col- 
lection of  about  230  separate  publications,  from 
writers  known  and  unknown.] 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

I  have  only  just  been  discharged  from 
the  army.  Demobilization  has  been  very 
slow  here  in  France  on  account  of  the  bad 
temper  shown  by  the  Germans  in  carry- 
ing out  the  disarmament  clauses  of  the 
treaty.  All  my  spare  time  from  military 
duties  was  devoted  to  trying  to  complete 
a  set  or  two  of  the  "Cahiers,"  not  an 
easy  task,  as  none  of  my  father's  friends 
are  disposed  to  sell  their  sets,  even  at  a 
high  price.  The  fact  is  that  only  some  of 
his  very  oldest  friends  really  have  com- 
plete sets,  most  of  them  lacking  the  first 
and  second  series,  which  appeared  during 
1900  and  1901,  and  embraced  contribu- 
tions from  Romain  Rolland,  Jerome  and 
Jean  Tharaud,  and  other  writers  who 
have  since  become  known.  These  two 
series  were  printed  in  a  very  limited  edi- 
tion, and  it  is  now  almost  impossible  to 
find  copies  of  some  of  the  issues.  I  have 
succeeded,  however,  in  discovering  iso- 
lated copies  in  out  of  the  way  places  in 
France  and  have  bought  them  at  a  high 
price,  so  that  I  have  finally  brought  to- 
gether two  complete  sets  of  the  "Ca- 
hiers." But  unless  I  can  soon  find  a  pur- 
chaser, I  shall  be  obliged  to  sell  them  at 
a  loss,  the  high  exchange  just  now  being 
the  only  way  in  which  I  can  make  any 
profit  out  of  the  bargain.  In  this  affair 
I  have  used  up  all  the  money  I  saved  on 
my  army  pay,  and  if  I  can  not  find  a 
buyer  in  America,  I  shall  have  to  sell 
them  at  a  loss  so  as  to  get  money  to  go 
on  with  my  studies. 

Marcel  Peguy 
18  rue  Flatters,  Paris,  December  20 


Book  Reviews 

France  and  Her  Colonies 

Notre  Force  Future.  Par  Jean  Dybowsld, 
Inspecteur  General  de  I'Agriculture  Colo- 
niale.  Paris:  Payot  &  Cie.  New  York: 
Brentano.     1919. 

FEW  Americans  are  more  than  dimly 
aware  of  the  fact  that  France  con- 
trols a  colonial  territory  of  about  ten 
times  her  oven  area,  and  inhabited  by 
native  races  surpassing  her  own  popula- 
tion by  one-third.  Indeed,  the  author 
of  this  volume  insists  that  even  French- 
men themselves  are  not  wide-awake  to 
the  fact  and  its  present  significance.  It 
is  the  purpose  of  his  pages  to  show  what 
this  significance  is,  and  how  its  rich 
possibilities  may  be  realized.  In  brief, 
his  thesis  is  that  the  colonies  of  France 
are  admirably  adapted,  by  conditions  of 
soil  and  climate,  to  render  just  the  com- 
plementary aid  to  home  production  which 
is  needed  to  lift  the  country  out  of  the 
troubles  brought  on  by  the  war  and  en- 
sure a  prosperous  future.  He  sees,  of 
course,  that  France  is  in  no  position  to 
send  out  colonies  en  masse.  But  the  na- 
tive population  already  on  the  ground 
renders  this  unnecessary.  France  has 
already  demonstrated  her  ability  to  get 
the  confidence  of  the  native,  and  start 
him  on  the  upward  path  in  many  fields 
of  productive  efficiency.  The  effective 
presence  on  the  battle  front  of  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  her  colonial  troops  left 
no  room  for  doubt  on  that  point.  To  their 
successful  use  in  the  development  of  colo- 
nial agriculture,  on  a  large  and  remu- 
nerative scale,  two  things  are  fundamen- 
tally essential,  and  these  are  simply 
humane  treatment  and  intelligent  direc- 
tion. 

For  the  too-well-known  method  of  com- 
mercial exploitation  of  colonial  territory 
by  the  virtual  enslavement  of  the  native, 
he  has  nothing  but  unmitigated  condem- 
nation. No  possible  temporary  financial 
gain  can  counterbalance  the  probability 
of  disaster  towards  which  that  path 
leads,  under  modern  conditions  of  world- 
wide public  sentiment.  The  native  must 
not  be  forced,  but  must  be  led  to  labor 
by  the  assurance  that  he  shall  have  his 
share  in  the  fruits  of  that  labor,  and 
that  his  life  shall  thus  be  made  happier 
and  more  secure.  Very  careful  attention 
is  given  to  the  necessity  of  intelligent 
direction,  if  colonial  possibilities  are  to 
be  realized.  Conditions  in  the  colonies 
are  widely  different  from  those  of  France 
itself,  and  the  successful  farmer  of  the 
homeland  is  still  in  need  of  special 
knowledge  and  adaptability  in  order  to 
repeat  that  success  in  Madagascar,  Cam- 
bodia, or  along  the  valley  of  the  Niger. 
A  system  of  special  education  for  such 
work  had  already  been  inaugurated  be- 
fore the  war,  and  M.  Dybowski  insists 


132] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  Xo.  39 


that  this  must  be  greatly  developed  and 
strengthened  as  rapidly  as  possible.  He 
also  gives  warning  to  the  people  of 
France  that  if  the  colonial  source  of  aid 
in  time  of  need  is  to  be  made  available, 
it  must  not  be  hampered  by  home  jeal- 
ousy of  colonial  competition.  If  the  coco 
palms  of  the  provinces  can  make  a  cheap 
and  healthful  addition  to  the  expensive 
and  insufficient  butter  supply  of  France, 
her  legislators  must  not  put  a  handicap 
on  it  through  fear  of  the  vote  of  the 
French  dairyman. 

M.  Dybowski  writes  from  a  point  of 
view  attained  by  a  thorough  scientific 
study  of  agriculture,  in  both  theory  and 
practice,  and  by  many  years  of  official 
connection  with  its  application  to  the 
French  colonies,  all  of  which  he  has  stud- 
ied in  detail  on  the  ground.  The  book 
should  have  a  wide  and  deep  influence  in 
France,  and  is  well  worth  the  attention 
of  American  readers  especially  con- 
cerned with  the  intelligent  development 
of  agriculture. 

The  Old  and  the  New 

The  Life  and  Letters  of  Lady  Dorothy 
Nevill.  By  her  Son,  Ralph  Nevill.  New 
York :  E.  P.  Button  &  Co. 

IF  you  took  a  cross  section,  so  to  speak, 
of  the  high-stepping  eighteenth  cen- 
tury and  set  it  down  in  the  sober  circle 
of  the  nineteenth,  you  would  have  some- 
thing  comparable   to   the   life   of   this 
descendant  of  the  Walpoles  and  friend 
of  all  the  great  Victorian  families.    Lady 
Dorothy's  relations  to  the  world  were 
already  pretty  well  known  from  her  own 
memoirs,  but  this  biography  by  her  son 
tells  things  about  her  which  naturally 
she  he.-self  would  not  say,  and  it  adds 
to  the  piquancy  of  the  setting  by  show- 
ing the  social  relics  of  a  past  age  as  they 
appeared  to  one  coming  upon  the  scene 
still  a  generation  later.     Mr.  Nevill,  we 
may  hint,  is  not  much  of  a  writer :  he  Is 
not  always  clear  when  it  comes  to  trac- 
ing the  vast  family  ramifications  which 
no  doubt  seem  simple  enough  to  him  but 
to  the  outside  barbarian  are  about  as 
complicated  as  Kant's  categories;  he  has 
an  imperfect  sense  of  order  and  construc- 
tion, but  as  a  compensation  he  knew  and 
understood  his  mother,  and  he  is  familiar 
with  her  world  with  all  its  scandals  and 
eccentricities  and  humors  and  decorums 
and  magnanimities  and  condescensions, 
and  he  makes  it  real  and  vivid  to  the 
reader — which  is  no  small  part  of  author- 
ship, after  all. 

As  for  reviewing  such  a  work,  made  up 
as  it  is  of  patches  and  pieces,  there  is 
nothing  to  do  but  gather  together  a  few 
samples;  it  is  a  case  where  the  house 
may  be  known  from  its  bricks.  Coming 
to  the  book  as  this  reviewer  does  with 
a  strong  predilection  for  the  oddities  and 
originals  of  Horace  Walpole's  gallery,  he 
confesses  that  he  has  been  particularly 


delighted  by  the  portrait  of  such  a  mon- 
ster of  egotism  as  the  Lord  Clanricarde, 
whom  Lady  Dorothy  used  to  meet  at 
Christie's  and  found  highly  to  her  taste 
— or  to  one  of  her  tastes.  In  his  youth 
this  scion  of  the  nobility  had  been  poor, 
and  while  an  attache  to  Sir  John  Hudson 
at  Turin  saved  money  by  arranging  with 
the  custodian  of  an  arch  to  sleep  in  the 
small  chamber  where  the  pails  and 
brooms  were  kept.  He  did  his  own  tailor- 
ing, it  was  said;  and  still  in  his  old  age 
you  could  detect  his  handiwork  by  the 
rough  stitching  which  held  together  a 
yawning  coat  or  a  battered  hat.  For 
release  from  poverty  only  left  him  a 
miser.  At  home  his  greatest  gastronomic 
extravagance  was  a  couple  of  eggs,  about 
the  size  of  which  he  was  very  particular, 
keeping  in  the  kitchen  an  old  hard-boiled 
egg  to  show  his  servant  the  minimum  he 
would  accept.  As  a  smoker  his  habits 
were  incredible.  A  cigar,  he  thought, 
was  never  at  its  best  until  the  third  time 
of  smoking.  To  indulge  in  this  refine- 
ment of  luxury  he  would  cut  off  the  end 
when  about  an  inch  had  gone  and  put  the 
remainder  away;  at  the  second  time  of 
smoking  he  would  cut  off  another  inch, 
and  keep  the  stump  as  a  bonne  bouche 
for  some  special  occasion. 

Yet  with  all  his  stinginess  and  slovenli- 
ness Clanricarde  had  his  touches  of  mag- 
nificence, even  of  coquetry.  Though  his 
tie  might  be  secured  about  his  neck  by 
a  piece  of  old  tape,  you  would  see  in  it 
a  family  jewel  of  great  price.  A  favorite 
scarf-pin  was  a  large  diamond,  at  the 
back  of  which  he  would  insert  bits  of 
paper  colored  by  himself  from  a  child's 
paint-box  so  as  to  obtain  various  eifects. 
Though,  too,  his  manners  in  general  were 
almost  brutal — it  might  almost  have  been 
said  of  him,  as  it  was  actually  said 
of  one  of  his  tribe,  that  he  made  it  a 
rule  to  decline  to  be  introduced  to  people 
he  did  not  already  know — yet  withal  he 
was  unmistakably  a  gentleman  by  the 
secret  signs,  and  could  at  will  be  very 
gracious.  His  talk  was  a  repository  of 
all  dead  and  living  scandals,  but  he  spoke 
with  the  accent  of  a  philosopher.  He 
lives  imbedded  in  Mr.  Nevill's  pages; 
imagine,  if  you  dare,  how  he  would  have 
tricked  himself  out  in  the  letters  of  the 
present  biographer's  ancestral  cousin, 
Horace  Walpole! 

We  do  not  forget  that  we  are  review- 
ing the  life  of  Lady  Dorothy  Nevill, 
and  not  that  of  Lord  Clanricarde;  but 
such,  in  part,  was  the  atmosphere  in 
which  she  lived —  the  eighteenth  century, 
still  refusing  to  die,  was  all  about  her. 
Nor  would  we  have  it  supposed  that  this 
Whiggish  society  was  entirely  eccentric 
or  egotistic;  prouder  names  still  resound 
through  these  pages — Chesterfields  and 
Churchills  and  all  the  rest  of  the  clan — 
some  of  them  still  doing  large  things, 
some  of  them  courtly  in  their  lives,  some 
of  them  serving  the  state  with  a  true 


and  noble  devotion;  better  men  and 
women  than  the  Clanricardes,  though  not 
necessarily  so  amusing  to  read  about. 

And  by  the  side  of  these  inheritors 
of  renown  and — as  some  would  say,  but 
never  this  reviewer — of  infamy,  Lady 
Dorothy  lived  much  in  the  pulsing  life 
of  her  own  century  and  its  needs  and 
achievements.  The  Darwins  and  Tenny- 
sons  and  Chamberlains,  half  the  famous 
names  in  science,  poetry,  art,  statesman- 
ship, are  sprinkled  over  these  pages ;  and 
the  bearers  of  them  came  to  their  hostess 
to  consult  her  about  the  newest  things 
that  were  stirring  in  the  world.  This 
contrast  of  the  new  and  the  old  is  one 
of  the  charms  of  the  record,  and  these 
divided,  but  never  conflicting,  interests 
were  what  made  Lady  Dorothy  so  signi- 
ficant and  so  loved  a  figure  in  the  society 
that  has  just  passed  away. 

Mr.  Nevill's  work  is  not  perfect  or  im- 
portant; but  it  is  entertaining,  and  it 
has  some  meaning  for  those  whose  out- 
look is  wider  than  the  circle  of  this 
weltering  twentieth  century. 


On  Our  Way 


Youth  Goes  Seeking.  By  Oscar  Graeve.  New 
York:  Dodd,  Mead  and  Company. 

The  World  of  Wonderful  Reality.  By  E. 
Temple  Thurston.  New  York:  D.  Apple- 
ton  and  Company. 

A  Woman's  Man.  By  Marjorie  Patterson. 
New  York:  George  H.  Doran  Company. 

LIFE  as  a  quest,  we  are  always  saying, 
is  the  root  theme  of  all  serious  fic- 
tion; and  the  favorite  story  the  world 
over  is  that  of  youth  which  goeth  seek- 
ing.    What  it  seeks,  and  how,  remain 
questions  which  the  story-tellers  are  free 
to  answer  in  a  thousand  ways.     Salva- 
tion,  service,  happiness,   fame — any  or 
all    of    these    are    among    the    common 
objects  of  adventure.    But  an  adventure 
it  must  be.     If  we  except  the  merely 
acquisitive  industrious  apprentices  and 
Rockefellers  of  all  ages  and  grades,  youth 
does  not  choose  to  climb  from  surety  to 
surety.     Its  primary  impulse  is  less  to 
build  upon  known  good  than  to  escape 
from     known     discomfort     or    tedium. 
Therefore,  the  romance  of  youth  invari- 
ably begins  with  a  violent  dash  of  escape 
from  dullness  and  smugness  and  routine, 
and  fares  on  to  the  heroic-pathetic  at- 
tempt at  blazing  an  altogether  new  path 
to  the  stars,  or  at  least  to  the  given 
stripling's  own  private  star.     We  must 
find  the  outlet  first  of  all,  whether  to 
physical  adventure,  or  the  adventure  of 
getting  on,  or  the  adventure  of  art,  or 
the  adventure  of  free  relations,  social 
and  sexual  and  (as  it  were)  intellectual. 
Bohemia!    However  age  may  laugh  at 
it,    or   even   deny    it   altogether,   youth 
knows  better.    A  poor  thing,  but  youth's 
own.      Riddled    with    conventions    and 
shams?     They  are  at  least  the  conven- 
tions and  shams  youth  itself  has  chosen 


February  7,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[183 


for  its  make-believe.  If  liberty  and  license 
are  not  the  same  thing,  we  have  only  Age's 
word  for  it:  Let's  see  for  ourselves!  .  .  . 
So  reasons  the  Henry  Baker  of  "Youth 
Goes  Seeking":  a  complete  type  of  the 
essentially  decent  young  fellow  who  longs 
passionately  to  be  something  more  than 
a  cog  in  the  wooden  machine  of  respecta- 
bility and  success.  He  lives  with  an 
uncle  in  Brooklyn,  that  dull  and  dominat- 
ing elderly  codger  who  in  current  fiction 
still  represents  the  "Victorian"  attitude. 
He  has  a  "fat  sonorous  voice" ;  he  bullies 
and  blusters;  he  is  grossly  thick  of  wit 
and  sympathy.  Henry's  schooling  means 
something  to  Henry,  and  he  wants  to  go 
to  college.  Not  if  the  uncle  knows  it. 
Henry  is  to  come  into  business  with 
him,  and,  if  he  is  good,  to  succeed  him 
some  day.  Poor  Henry  is  not  interested 
in  the  manufacture  of  leather  belting; 
but  he  knocks  under.  He  shows  some 
ability  in  the  business.  Unluckily,  he 
has  brought  to  it  certain  modern  notions 
about  the  relation  of  employer  and 
laborer  —  "unsettled  ideas  —  dangerous 
ideas,"  cries  the  fusty  old  uncle.  Henry 
is  strong  enough  to  have  some  of  these 
ideas  tried  out — with  small  success.  At 
twenty-five  he  is  disillusioned  of  his 
roles  as  industrious  apprentice  and  be- 
nevolent employer,  and  quite  ready  to 
cut  loose  and  "see  life."  This  means 
throwing  up  his  job  and  flitting  across 
the  river  to  the  purlieus  of  Greenwich 
Village.  There  he  shares  a  satisfactorily 
shabby  room  with  his  boy-friend  Bert, 
now  a  proudly  Bohemian  newspaperman ; 
and  is  presently  engaged  in  those  serio- 
comic feasts  and  love-feasts  which  are 
known  to  be  the  staples  of  life  in  all 
Bohemians.  Ann  Corcoran,  the  special 
partner  of  his  freedom,  is  a  well-drawn 
portrait  of  the  modern  virgin  who,  after 
much  display  of  independence,  sells  her 
cold  beauty  to  an  old  rich  man.  Henry 
has  not  failed  to  make  modern  youth's 
impassioned  appeal  to  her:  "I  shall  not 
interfere  with  your  work,"  he  pleads. 
"Marry  me  and  things  will  go  on  just 
as  they  are — just  as  they  are.  You  will 
retain  your  freedom — all  of  it.  I  shall 
only  ask  that  I  may  creep  up  the  back 
stairs  to  you  once  in  a  great  while  and 
offer  you  my  love,  dear — my  heart  to 
do  with  it  as  you  will — to  send  it  back 
empty  if  you  wish,  but  happy  with  the 
glimpse  of  you — the  look  of  you."  Now 
Ann  is  properly  touched  by  this  worm- 
like devotion,  but  foresees  that  his  view 
of  the  future  is  probably  not  so  clear  as 
it  might  be:  he  will  be  asking  something 
more  of  her  some  day.  There  ensue 
certain  emotional  incidents  which,  ap- 
parently, reveal  to  Ann  that  she  loves 
Henry  and  to  Henry  that  he  does  not 
love  Ann ;  and  Ann  goes  off  with  her  old 
rich  man,  leaving  Henry  to  marry  the 
Sadie  whom  he  has  taken  off  the  streets, 
and  whom  in  due  season  the  now 
chastened  and  enlightened  uncle  and  aunt 


are  to  take  to  their  bosoms  and  their 
Brooklyn  mansion  as  Henry's  fitting 
mate!  Thus  confusedly  and  ardently 
youth  in  the  person  of  the  author  in- 
terprets or  reflects  the  muddle  of  youth. 

"The  World  of  Wonderful  Reality" 
culminates  in  an  analogous  situation — 
the  hero  being  disillusioned  of  his  senti- 
ment for  the  damsel  of  higher  degree 
who,  for  her  part,  is  revolted  by  the  actu- 
alities of  his  Bohemian  existence  and 
not  unwillingly  obeys  the  mandate  of 
her  father.  (The  father  is  a  close  run- 
ning-mate for  Henry's  uncle  in  his  un- 
regenerate  state.)  And  we  leave  him, 
our  more  or  less  hero,  on  the  way  to  a 
permanent  and  satisfactory  relation  with 
a  former  mistress — a  virtuous  semi-pro- 
fessional pretty  lady  whom  we  are  by 
no  means  to  look  down  on  because  she 
chances  to  have  served  her  fellow-men 
somewhat  indiscriminately  before  "the 
right  man"  turned  up.  Far  from  us  are 
the  days  when  women  might  conveniently 
be  classified  as  the  good  and  the  bad,  the 
upright  and  the  fallen.  Now  that  we 
recognize  them  as  the  bond  and  the  free 
or,  in  our  weaker  moments,  as  the  ador- 
able and  the  tiresome,  there  is  no  marvel 
in  our  cheerful  acceptance  of  heroines 
from  all  regions  of  the  half-world  and 
the  nether  world,  ranging  from  the 
professionally  expert  pretty  ladies  of 
Messrs.  Bennett  and  Cannan  to  the 
Sadies  and  Ambers  and  Sylvia  Scarletts 
who  are  capable  of  deviating  into  virtue 
on  occasion  for  the  sake  of  the  "right 
man.  .  .  ."  "The  World  of  Wonderful 
Reality"  is  a  sort  of  sequel  to  that  "City 
of  Beautiful  Nonsense"  which  won  a 
large  sentimental  public  some  ten  years 
ago.  Perhaps  Mr.  Thurston  has  been 
clever  in  estimating  the  swift  change 
that  has  come  about  since  then  in  senti- 
mental fashions;  so  that  the  Ambers 
may  now  safely  be  set  in  the  foreground 
at  the  expense  of  the  too-virtuous  Jills 
whom,  a  decade  since,  we  adored  without 
shame. 

"A  Woman's  Man"  may  therefore  be 
held  a  reactionary  document  since, 
though  the  good  woman  of  the  tale  re- 
mains throughout  her  life  the  victim  of 
the  "fallen"  or  semi-professional  one, 
virtue  does  in  the  end  receive  its  post- 
humous reward.  Mr.  Thurston's  Jill  is 
made  morally  shabby  and  even  ridicu- 
lous, with  all  her  technical  purity;  while 
the  socially  frail  Amber  triumphs 
through  her  essential  virtue,  in  the 
larger  sense  of  the  word.  But  the  "wom- 
an's man"  who  has  spent  so  many  of  his 
years  philandering  and  worse,  casting 
away  his  work  and  his  true  love  and  his 
peace  of  mind  for  a  Parisian  vampire, 
does  come  at  last  to  realize  that  all  that 
has  been  good  in  his  work  as  well  as  in 
his  life,  has  sprung  from  the  quiet  un- 
felt  influence  of  the  wife  who  is  now 
dead.  This  is  a  novel  of  much  higher 
type   and   quality   than   the  two   with 


which  it  is  here  rather  ineptly  brack- 
eted. Upon  a  theme  which  might  be 
rated  as  among  the  most  hackneyed  in 
fiction,  and  which  is  certainly  among  the 
most  precarious,  the  author  haa  built  a 
story  of  surprising  dignity,  both  in  sub- 
stance and  in  form. 

H.   W.   BOYNTON 

New  Psychic  Faculties 

The    Mystery    of    Space.     By    Robert    T. 
Browne.    New  York:  E.  P.  Dutton  &  Co. 

THE  sub-title  of  this  book  informB 
the  reader  that:  "It  is  a  study  of 
the  hyper-space  movement  in  the  light 
of  the  evolution  of  new  psychic  faculties 
and  an  inquiry  into  the  genesis  and  es- 
sential nature  of  space."  This  is  a  large 
programme  and,  because  of  the  wide- 
spread interest  in  psychic  phenomena 
and  the  endeavor  to  materialize  the  spirit 
by  giving  it  a  domicile  in  a  hyper-space 
of  four  dimensions,  it  is  expedient  to 
examine  the  author's  thesis  with  some 
care. 

It  is  excessively  irritating  that  writers 
on  this  subject  either  choose  or  are 
forced  to  employ  a  vocabulary  and  a 
style  which  are  repellent  to  the  reader, 
and  to  mix  the  significant  and  insignifi- 
cant into  an  almost  inextricable  tangle. 
Careful  and  prolonged  searching  brings 
forth  the  fact  that  Mr.  Browne  has  a 
definite  and  interesting  thesis.  The 
guiding  forces  of  man  are  the  intellect 
and  the  intuition,  which  correspond  to 
the  mind  and  the  spirit.  The  intellect 
receives  its  information  from  the  senses 
and  is  cognizant  of  space  phenomena  in 
three  dimensions;  in  this  realm  of  the 
tangible  there  is  "but  one  true  divining 
rod  and  that  is  mathematics.  By  day 
and  by  night  it  points  unerringly,  so 
long  as  it  leads  through  materiality;  but 
falteringly,  blindly,  fatally,  when  that 
way  veers  into  the  territory  of  vitality 
and  spirituality."  Because  the  Euclid- 
ean geometry  of  three  dimensions  is 
not  comprehensive  enough  to  include  the 
territory  of  the  spirit,  it  must  be  incom- 
plete, and  so  there  has  slowly  and 
gropingly  grown  up  the  geometry  of 
hyper-space,  which  has  no  counterpart  in 
reality  and  can  not  be  appreciated  by  the 
senses. 

The  writer  first  reviews  the  growth  of 
non-Euclidean  geometry  and  concludes 
truly  that  attempts  to  connect  it  with 
reality  are  impossible  and  even  absurd. 
But,  because  we  can  develop  logically 
unreal  conclusions  from  unreal  postu- 
lates, Mr.  Browne  assumes  that  there 
is  a  supersensible  faculty  dormant  in 
man  which  can  appreciate  new  kinds  of 
phenomena  that  require  hyper-space  for 
their  setting.  This  faculty  is  the  intui- 
tion of  the  spirit,  and  mathematics  will 
not  answer  the  needs  of  its  expression. 

We  must,  of  course,  next  bring  in 
evolution.    During  the  long  ages  of  the 


134] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  39 


past  the  soul  of  man  became  entangled 
in  corporeality;  so  far  as  spirituality  is 
concerned,  this  process  was  an  involu- 
tion; the  spirit  became  progressively 
enwrapped  in  layers  of  thought  until  it 
was  almost  smothered  by  the  evolution 
of  the  material  world.  We  have  now 
reached  the  state  of  evolution  of  materi- 
ality when  the  spirit,  guided  by  intuition, 
is  slowly  evolving  and  shedding  its  wrap- 
pings. The  historical  record  of  this 
process  began  with  Geminos  of  Rhodes 
(B.  C.  70),  who  first  expressed  a  doubt 
as  to  the  finality  of  Euclid.  And  the 
history  of  the  evolution  of  the  spirit 
coincides  with  the  development  of  the 
non-Euclidean  geometry  of  hyper-space. 
Mr.  Browne,  in  this  review,  is  quite  sane 
and  evidently  agrees  with  Carus,  whom 
he  quotes  as  saying:  "Metageometri- 
cians  are  a  hot-headed  race  and  display 
sometimes  all  the  characteristics  of  sec- 
tarian fanatics."  But,  although  mathe- 
matics fails  when  it  attempts  to  express 
the  intangible,  the  fact  that  mathe- 
matics can  develop  logically  dream- 
universes  which  exist  only  in  the  mind 
of  the  mathematician,  induces  the  author 
to  agree  with  Professor  Keyser,  the  high 
priest  of  the  worship  of  Mathesis,  who 
says:  "Certainly  there  is  naught  of 
absurdity  in  supposing  that  under  suit- 
able stimulation  the  human  mind  may, 
in  the  course  of  time,  speedily  develop 
a  spatial  intuition  of  four  or  more 
dimensions." 

This  stimulation  of  the  human  mind 
is  to  come  from  the  clairvoyant,  and  Mr. 
Browne  has  himself  been  able  to  range 
pretty  freely  in  this  spirit  world  of 
hyper-space.  He  surmises  that,  as  the 
heart  dominates  the  body,  so  the  pineal 
gland  and  the  pituitary  body  are  the 
seat  of  the  spirit:  "Those  gifted  with 
the  inner  vision  can  observe  the  'pulsat- 
ing aura'  in  each  [of  these  bodies],  a 
movement  which  is  not  unlike  the  pulsa- 
tions of  the  heart  and  which  never  ceases 
throughout  life.  In  the  development  of 
clairvoyance  it  is  known  that  this  mo- 
tion becomes  intensified,  the  auric  vibra- 
tions becoming  stronger  and  more  pro- 
nounced." As  this  supposed  excitation 
of  the  pituitary  body  is  accompanied  by 
deep  breathing,  the  simple-minded  may 
suppose  that  this  psychic  and  pulsating 
aura  is  merely  the  sensation  of  floating 
produced  by  super-oxydation  of  the 
blood.  Thus,  deep  breathing  will  evolve 
a  new  and  a  better  man  and  as  a  conse- 
quence "a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth." 

So  much  for  the  argument.  But  why 
should  an  author  go  out  of  his  way  to  fill 
a  book  with  barbarous  words,  unnatural 
derivations,  and  hsrper-logomania?  As 
an  example,  consider  this  statement 
(p.  213) :  "Monopyknons  are  the  qui- 
escent, unawakened,  though  potential 
and  archetypal  principles  peculiar  to  the 
monopyknotic  period  of  space-genesis, 
which  are  ultimately  to  become,  on  the 


physical  plane,  singularities  of  life  of 
whatsoever  kind."  It  is  some  drain  on 
the  intellectual  mind  to  go  through  a 
long  book  bristling  with  the  following 
diet,  however  nutritive  it  may  be  to  the 
intuitional  spirit:  "As  soon  as  he  can 
resolve  the  nebulosity  of  his  conscious- 
ness into  the  conceptual  'star-forms'  of 
definite  ideas  and  notions,  he  sits  down 
to  the  feast  which  he  finds  provided  by 
super-foetated  hypotheses  fabricated  in 
the  deeps  of  mind  and  logical  actualities 
unperturbed  and  unmindful  of  the  weal 
of  perceptual  space  in  its  homogeneity 
of  form  and  dimensionality."  Apparently 
these  choice  spirits,  accustomed  to  the 
psychical,  expand  and  revel  in  such  misti- 
ness that  it  fills  them  with  lovely  illu- 
sions; but  there  are  other  simple  souls 
who  surmise  that  if  there  were  any  real 
message  from  the  psychic  world,  they 
could  ascertain  it  without  descending,  on 
the  one  hand,  to  crude  rappings  and  in- 
fantile babblings,  and  without  soaring, 
on  the  other,  into  regions  of  esoteric 
verbalism. 

Louis  T.  More 

The  Run  of  the  Shelves 

SIR  ARTHUR  CONAN  DOYLE,  in 
the  "Vital  Message"  (Doran),  makes 
much  of  the  "etheric  body."  A  second 
body  is  clearly  a  first  need  of  spiritual- 
ism. The  hardship  of  that  cult  has  been 
the  reconciling  of  its  own  craving  for 
manifestations  with  the  unruly  fact  that 
the  source  of  those  manifestations,  the 
body,  had  been  sealed  up  in  a  coffer 
underground  or  turned  to  ash  and  vapor 
in  a  crematory.  Body  was  out  of  reach, 
and  soul,  however  willing  to  speak,  was 
a  Helen  Kellar  before  education.  A  sec- 
ondary body  is  remedial  on  both  points. 
It  allows  the  grave  or  the  urn  its  vails, 
yet  it  leaves  an  invaluable  bodily  residue 
which  can  be  seen,  heard,  and  even — so 
cunning  is  our  epoch — photographed. 
What  is  this  second  body?  Ether  per- 
vades the  primary  body  much  as,  we  may 
suppose,  air  pervades  water.  The  second 
body,  apparently,  is  a  print  of  the  normal 
body  in  ether.  Inside  a  body,  ether  is 
known  as  "bound  ether."  One  might 
surmise  that  on  its  release  from  the 
human  frame  at  death  this  ether  would 
disperse,  like  the  unbound  copy  of  Sir 
Arthur's  book,  already  disintegrating, 
which  his  publishers  have  forwarded  to 
the  Review.  One  might  go  on,  and  para- 
phrase the  "Merchant  of  Venice"  in  a 
tiny  catechism  for  Sir  Arthur.  Hath 
an  etheric  body  eyes?-  Hath  it  "hands, 
organs,  dimensions,  senses,  affections, 
passions  ?  Fed  with  the  same  food,  hurt 
with  the  same  weapons,  subject  to  the 
same  diseases,  healed  by  the  same  means, 
warmed  and  cooled  by  the  same  winter 
and  summer,  as  a  Christian  is?"  To 
these  questions  Sir  Arthur's  answers  are 


inadequate  and  curious.  In  the  "Coming 
World"  there  are  games  and  sports, 
which  point  to  active,  not  merely  phan- 
tasmic,  muscles;  there  is  no  birth,  but 
growth  to  maturity;  there  are  no  acts 
of  sex,  but  there  is  sublimated  marriage ; 
there  is  no  food  and  drink  "in  the  grosser 
sense,"  but  there  "seem  to  be  pleasures 
of  taste"  (page  96) ;  there  is  even  a  very 
meagre  supply  of  inoffensive  alcohol  and 
tobacco  (page  91).  Indeed  the  whole 
future  world  is  singularly  inoffensive; 
it  is  Paradise  for  the  maiden  aunt. 

Many  men  in  our  time  believe  that 
Christ  raised  Lazarus  from  the  dead; 
many  men  believe  that  Christianity  has 
"broken  down":  the  man  who  believes 
in  both  these  propositions  is  a  rarity,  and 
Sir  Arthur  Conan  Doyle  is  that  man. 
The  reason  is  that  both  beliefs  are  profit- 
able to  spiritualism  in  a  way,  the  one 
by  confirming  its  possibility,  the  other 
by  enduing  it  with  a  vocation,  the  curing 
of  a  stricken  world,  which  grows  worse 
and  worse,  as  he  thinks,  under  the  senile 
leechcraft  of  institutional  Christianity. 
His  book  is  very  curious  in  another  point. 
In  his  spiritualism  the  "ism"  seems  often 
to  have  expelled  the  "spirit,"  as  if  the 
etheric  body  had  made  superfluities  of 
the  old  body  and  the  old  soul  alike.  Yet 
in  his  first  chapter  on  the  "Two  Needful 
Readjustments,"  he  writes  of  the  present 
world  with  a  moral  incisiveness  and 
courageous  fervor  which  make  us 
tolerate  even  his  tolerance  for  "exuda- 
tions," and  forgive  him  a  picture  of  the 
blessed  dead  which  seems  almost  modeled 
on  the  order,  the  quietness,  and  the 
tameness  of  a  cemetery. 

The  new  "Memoirs  of  the  American 
Academy  at  Rome"  (New  York:  Uni- 
versity Press  Association)  should  be 
welcomed  by  many  who  will  never  rise 
to  the  height  of  reading  these  erudite 
disquisitions.  The  fine  folios  are  made 
by  the  Institute  Grafico,  at  Bergamo, 
and  compare  advantageously  in  appear- 
ance with  the  Prussian  and  Austrian 
Jahrbiicher.  It  is  possible  really  to  study 
from  such  large  cuts  as  these.  The  pub- 
lication marks  a  step  forward  in  Ameri- 
can scholarship.  Libraries  must,  of 
course,  have  it,  and  bibliophiles  who  are 
innocent  of  archaeology  ought  to  welcome 
it  to  their  shelves.  It  will  help  give  char- 
acter to  any  Ibrary.  The  first  volume, 
though  bearing  the  imprint  1918,  is  is- 
sued as  of  1915-1916.  The  leading  paper 
is  a  most  ingenious,  but  not  wholly  con- 
vincing reconstruction  of  the  Reorganiza- 
tion of  the  Roman  Priesthoods,  by  late 
Director  Carter.  He  endeavors  to  un- 
ravel the  odd  discrepancies  between  pres- 
tige and  actual  power  as  possessed  by 
the  Roman  magistracy  and  priesthood. 
E.  K.  Rand  and  George  Howe  make  a 
most  exhaustive  study  of  the  Vatican 
Livy  and  the  Script  of  Tours.  The  Livy 
was  a  hurry-up  job  and  well  organized, 


February  7,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[135 


the  folios  being  distributed  to  many- 
scribes  whose  names  are  endorsed  on  the 
sheets.  The  peculiarities  of  these  scriv- 
eners are  carefully  analyzed,  and  beauti- 
ful sheets  of  their  handwriting  are  repro- 
duced. Handwriting  has  sadly  run  down 
since  the  ninth  century.  To  study  the 
Aqua  Triana  and  the  Mills  on  the  Ja- 
niculum,  Messrs.  A.  W.  van  Buren  and 
G.  K.  Stevens  had  merely  to  go  down 
in  the  cellar  in  the  Villa  Aurelia,  the 
Academy's  home.  The  aqueduct  of  Tra- 
jan passes  through  the  site,  and  the  mill 
emplacements  and  sluices  were  uncovered 
during  building.  G.  Dinsmore  Curtis 
makes  a  very  minute  study  of  Ancient 
Granulated  Jewelry  of  the  VII  Century 
and  Earlier — naturally  B.C.  The  method 
of  applying  small  granules  of  gold  remains 
a  bit  mysterious,  but  the  results  are 
charming,  and  are  illustrated  by  rare 
pieces  chosen  from  many  museums.  Bar- 
tolomeo  Caporali,  a  Perugian  painter  of 
the  end  of  the  15th  century,  is  the  theme 
of  Mr.  Stanley  Lothrop,  who  has  just 
been  translated  to  the  directorship  of  the 
Louis  Tiffany  Art  Foundation.  The  ar- 
ticle is  cautious  and  clean  cut.  The 
plates,  many  of  slightly  known  pictures, 
are  welcome  to  investigators  in  the  Um- 
brian  field. 

Capita  Desecta  and  Marble  Coiffures  is 
a  topic  that  might  interest  both  the  great 
'  Casaubon  and  Mme.  de  Pompadour.  Mr. 
John  R.  Crawford  treats  it  discretely  and 
with  great  thoroughness.  Heads  in  two 
sections,  generally  with  a  removable 
crown,  have  been  explained  by  Gauckler 
as  signifying  a  Syrian  rite  of  internal 
anointment.  Headachy  people  might 
wish  such  salving  the  brain  possible. 
Mr.  Crawford,  for  excellent  reasons,  re- 
jects the  religious  explanation  and  finds 
that  a  sectioned  head  is  merely  one  started 
on  too  small  a  block  and  finished  from 
another  piece.  Thus  American  common- 
sense  rebuts  German  mysticism.  Marble 
coiffures  explain  themselves,  at  least,  to 
any  woman  archaeologist.  It  is  an  ob- 
vious means  of  keeping  a  portrait  statue 
up  to  date.  No  Flavian  lady  could  bear 
to  have  her  bust  behind  the  times.  The 
concluding  article,  and  one  of  the  most 
generally  interesting,  is  by  Eugene  S. 
McCartney  on  The  Military  Indebtedness 
of  Early  Rome  to  Etruria.  He  finds  that 
all  the  effective  weapons  of  offense  and 
defense,  even  the  famous  short-sword, 
were  taken  from  the  Etruscans,  has  ob- 
servations on  Roman  mounted  infantry 
which  are  novel,  and  substantiates  his 
case  with  many  cuts.  Not  merely  a  clas- 
sicist but  any  fighting  man  with  a  linger- 
ing memory  of  his  school  Latin  could 
page  over  the  article  with  pleasure. 
These  papers  by  the  American  School  of 
Classical  Studies,  for  some  years  feder- 
ated with  the  Academy,  are  the  work 
of  professors  and  fellows  who  plainly  are 
making  good  use  of  their  exceptional 
opportunities. 


Mr.  Oliver  M.  Sayler  went  to  Russia 
in  the  fall  of  1917  to  study  the  latest 
developments  in  the  Russian  theatre  and 
found  himself  in  the  midst  of  the  larger 
drama  of  Revolution.  He  spent  some 
four  months  in  Moscow,  paid  a  short 
visit  to  Petrograd,  and  returned  via 
Siberia.  On  his  return  he  has  proceeded 
to  waste  some  three  hundred  pages  of 
print  on  a  banal  account  of  his  personal 
experiences,  "Russia  White  or  Red," 
(Little,  Brown) ,  varied  by  political  obser- 
vations that  are  not  only  superficial  but 
often  viciously  misleading  and  false.  He 
came  into  close  contact  with  the  Czecho- 
slovaks as  they  were  making  their  way 
across  Siberia,  and  had  every  opportunity 
to  learn  the  details  of  the  agreement  be- 
tween Masaryk  and  Trotsky  whereby 
they  were  guaranteed  a  safe  and  un- 
molested passage.  Yet  he  repeats  the 
Bolshevik  slander  against  them  that  they 
allowed  themselves  to  be  used  for  the 
purpose  of  bringing  about  intervention, 
the  slander  which  is  employed  in  the 
attempt  to  justify  Trotsky's  treachery  in 
attacking  them  unawares.  Similarly,  he 
circulates  the  lies  about  Kolchak  that  at 
one  time  were  current  among  the  Bol- 
shevik sympathizers  in  Vladivostok  and 
which  were  used  in  this  country  to  under- 
mine the  Russian  national  movement  in 
Siberia.  In  the  chaos  in  Russia  he  sees 
only  a  struggle  between  Capitalism  and 
Socialism.  Some  at  least  of  his  ideas  he 
seems  to  have  picked  up  from  association 
with  the  I.  W.  W.,  Wilfrid  Humphries, 
a  Y.  M.  C.  A.  man  in  Russia  who  after- 
wards came  to  America  to  carry  on  Bol- 
shevik propaganda. 

There  is  something  piquant,  tantaliz- 
ing, fetching,  in  the  thought  of  a  great 
dog,  with  vagrant  habits  and  very  mas- 
culine tastes,  made  free  of  the  society 
of  a  girls'  college;  and  of  this  Miss 
Katharine  Lee  Bates  has  taken  advantage 
in  her  story  of  "Sigurd,  our  Golden  Col- 
lie" (Button).  The  author  is  a  professor 
at  Wellesley,  a  scholar,  a  poet  of  parts 
(all  which  we  knew  before),  and  a  lover 
of  dogs  (which  we  did  not  know).  And 
there  is  this  mingling  of  traits  in  her 
present  book:  you  never  can  tell  when 
some  waggish  drollery  or  some  naughty 
escapade  of  her  four-footed  friend  will 
set  her  off  in  search  of  quaint  literary 
allusions  or  cause  her  to  protest  from 
the  sedate  stronghold  of  her  profession. 
And  indeed  we  like  her  writing  best 
when  it  is  most  bookish.  That  is  its 
note.  We  have  other  books  on  our 
shelves  aplenty  in  which  the  canine  hero 
plays  a  more  tragic  or  pathetic  or  even 
humorous  role,  but  none  in  which  he  is 
more  humanly  literate  than  Miss  Bates's 
Sigurd  of  the  golden  fleece.  And  this 
pleases  us;  for  we  know,  as  only  a  re- 
viewer can  know,  the  capacity  of  the 
animal  for  letters.  Once  we  ourselves 
owned  a  young  collie  who  was  not  only 


learned  but  critical.  This  is  our  secret 
never  before  divulged.  If  a  parcel  of 
books  sent  for  review  was  left  overnight 
on  the  floor,  this  discerning  friend  would 
infallibly  rend  and  gnaw  the  worthless 
volumes  and  leave  the  worthy  untouched 
for  our  consideration,  thereby  saving  us 
much  labor  of  reading.  We  wish  Sigurd 
might  have  been  tried  by  such  a  test. 

Mr.  Isaac  M.  Marcosson's  "Adventures 
in  Interviewing"  (John  Lane)  is  a  book 
of  many  limitations.  This  sentence  be- 
gins a  chapter:  "The  great  war,  which 
was  invested  with  an  unparalleled  in- 
human interest  by  the  enemy,  was  at  the 
same  time  rich  with  an  almost  incompa- 
rable human  interest."  The  sinking  of 
the  Lusitania  lies  outside  of  human  in- 
terest. He  has  this  to  say  about  silent 
generals:  "Their  silence  is  in  strange 
contrast  witTi  the  mighty  din  of  battle 
they  let  loose."  Generals  are  illogical  in 
not  roaring  with  their  own  cannon.  Mr. 
Marcosson  would  clearly  be  surprised  to 
discover  a  fisherman  whose  wit  was  dry, 
an  aviator  whose  manner  was  not  flut- 
tered, and  a  vagabond  whose  conversa- 
tion was  not  rambling. 

Mr.  Marcosson  has  evolved  a  substitute 
for  English  with  which  his  own  satis- 
faction appears  to  be  complete.  His  mix- 
ture of  metaphors  surprises  people  who 
thought  that  the  sins  of  their  contem- 
poraries in  that  particular  had  hardened 
them  against  surprise.  The  mind  of 
David  Graham  Phillips  was  an  "un- 
plumbed  field."  To  "launch  his  flow  of 
talk"  is  another  phrase,  a  feat  before 
which  literature  and  seamanship  stand 
agape.  Mr.  Marcosson  is  not  even  an 
observer,  he  sees  only  the  most  obvious 
features  in  a  man's  face  and  the  most 
conspicuous  qualities  in  his  mind.  His 
acquaintance  with  great  men  is  unlimited, 
and  his  knowledge  of  them  straightened 
to  the  last  degree. 

Nevertheless  Mr.  Marcosson's  book  is 
interesting,  and  the  fact  that  a  book 
so  reduced  and  mulcted  should  be  in- 
teresting is  more  interesting  than  its 
contents.  He  sees  little,  but  he  sees 
clearly;  and,  again,  he  writes  barba- 
rously, but  he  writes  clearly.  His  self- 
.  confidence  is  unconquerable,  and  there  is 
a  youthful  happiness  in  his  work  and 
himself  which  mollifies  the  justly  dis- 
contented reader.  Little  as  he  gets  from 
the  conferences,  he  feels  and  conveys  the 
dramatic  excitement  of  wresting  the  in- 
terview from  its  protesting  and  retreating 
subject.  Lloyd  George,  Woodrow  Wilson, 
Sir  Douglas  Haig,  Marshal  Foch,  Lord 
NorthclifFe,  General  Pershing,  Sir  James 
Barrie,  the  list  expands  indefinitely.  He 
has  outmanoeuvred  all  the  statesmen ;  he 
has  outgeneraled  all  the  commanders-in- 
chief.  Where  the  great  men  have  all 
succumbed,  the  reader  is  hardly  proof 
against  the  subtle  self-flattery  of  includ- 
ing himself  in  the  general  capitulation. 


136] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  39 


Music 

Four   Operas   New  to  New 
York 

IT  would  be  very  hard,  if  not  impos- 
sible, to  find  a  precedent  for  last 
week's  wild  activities  in  our  rival  opera 
houses.  Within  six  days  we  heard  four 
works,  unknown  here.  Nor  was  this  all. 
For  of  the  works  performed,  two  were  by 
Americans. 

The  offerings  of  the  visiting  Chicago 
Company  at  the  Lexington  were  widely 
varied,  including  as  they  did  the  "Ma- 
dame Chrysantheme"  of  Andr6  Messager, 
the  "Rip  Van  Winkle"  of  Reginald  de 
Koven,  and  the  "L'Heure  Espagnole"  of 
Maurice  Ravel  (of  which  last  week,  by 
a  slip  of  mine,  the  invention  was  attrib- 
uted to  Laparra). 

At  the  Metropolitan  we  had  one  nov- 
elty, an  important  one,  the  "Cleopatra's 
Night"  of  Henry  Hadley. 

Before  going  into  all  these  works  in 
detail,  let  me  record  the  brilliant  opening 
of  the  Chicago  artists'  season — not  with 
the  promised  "Norma"  revival,  which  was 
postponed  in  consequence  of  Rosa  Raisa's 
illness,  but  with  a  really  wonderful  and 
memorable  performance  of  "L'Amore  dei 
Tre  Re."  "The  work  of  Montemezzi  has 
been  heard  often  at  the  Metropolitan, 
where  the  four  most  prominent  figures  in 
the  poignant  story  of  Sem  Benelli  were 
originally  interpreted  by  Lucrezia  Bori 
(Flora),  Amato  (Manfredo),  Ferrari- 
Fontana  (Avito),  and  Didur  (Archi- 
baldo) .  At  the  Lexington  the  Flora  was 
Mary  Garden,  who  gave  us  a  new  reading 
of  the  part — not  quite  in  keeping,  if  you 
will,  with  the  intentions  of  Sem  Benelli, 
who  had  conceived  his  heroine  as  a  girl 
wife,  racked  with  passion,  but  far  more 
tragical,  and  (with  submission  to  some 
oversensitive  critics)  neither  outrageous 
and  indecent,  nor  "impossible."  Once 
only  in  her  long  and  bright  career,  when 
she  "created"  Melisande  (for  she  really 
aided  Maeterlinck  theatrically  in  the  cre- 
ation of  that  character),  had  Miss  Garden 
reached  such  heights  as  in  the  second  act 
of  Montemezzi's  opera.  Her  struggle 
with  her  husband's  blind  old  father,  as 
he  strangles  her,  her  dying  spasms,  the 
limp  swaying  of  her  arms  as  Archibaldo 
bore  her  away  filled  one  with  terror,  but 
they,  quite  as  much,  amazed  by  their 
stark    realism. 

Almost  as  fine  in  their  contrasted 
styles  were  the  Avito  of  the  new  Amer- 
ican tenor,  Edward  Johnson,  a  singing- 
actor  with  a  good  lyric  voice  and  ro- 
mantic qualities;  the  Manfredo  of  Bak- 
lanoff,  picturesque  and  histrionically  ad- 
mirable; and  the  Archibaldo  of  Lazzari, 
which  did  justice  to  a  grim  and  psy- 
chologically enigmatical  character.  Of 
equal  if  not  even  more  importance  was 


the  successful  first  appearance,  as  con- 
ductor, of  Maestro  Marinuzzi,  who, 
though  handicapped  by  a  too  strident 
orchestra  in  the  second  act — with  its 
Wagnerian  sweep  and  breadth  and  tonal 
eloquence  —  deserved  all  the  applause 
with  which  the  audience  saw  fit  to  honor 
him. 

"Madame  Chrysantheme"  (which  ante- 
dates "Madama  Butterfly")  is  an  operatic 
setting  of  Pierre  Loti's  cruel  tale.  If, 
like  the  book,  it  lacks  dramatic  force, 
the  fault  is  due  rather  to  the  librettist 
than  to  the  composer.  The  story  could 
(and  should)  have  been  compressed  into 
three  acts.  As  it  stands,  it  is  in  four 
acts,  with  a  prologue  and  an  epilogue. 
Much  time  is  spent  on  suggesting  local 
"atmosphere,"  on  the  portrayal  of  quaint 
Nippon  types  and  customs.  Pierre  Loti 
deals  more  lightly  than  the  librettists  of 
Puccini's  opera  with  the  marriage  of  a 
beguiling  little  Geisha  and  her  desertion 
later  on  by  her  sailor  "husband."  And, 
in  his  treatment  of  the  tale,  the  com- 
poser rarely  hints  at  deeper  things  than 
pathos.  The  heroine  doubtless  knew  that, 
though  a  bride,  she  was  so  only  in  a 
vague,  Pickwickian  sense.  Her  anguish 
when  her  lieutenant  sails  away,  while 
touching,  is  not  tragical.  Her  emotions, 
like  the  love  of  her  French  husband, 
seem  somewhat  shallow. 

To  illustrate  the  plot  and  express  the 
characters  in  this  frankly  cynical  ro- 
mance of  life  in  Nippon,  Andre  Mes- 
sager has  invented  gracious  music.  He 
has  a  dainty  touch,  which  suits  his  frag- 
ile theme.  He  has  charm  and  sentiment. 
And  while,  at  times,  he  reminds  one 
slightly  of  Massenet,  he  does  not  pla- 
giarize. 

Three  episodes  in  "Madame  Chrysan- 
theme" delighted  me :  the  long  narrative, 
or  soliloquy,  of  the  lieutenant  ("Oui,  c'est 
bien  lui,  c'est  bien  le  pays"),  and  the 
Breton  Serenade  in  honor  of  the  bride 
(both  in  the  second  act),  and  the  en- 
chanting ballet  in  the  following  act,  a 
ballet  planned  as  the  chief  feature  of  a 
festival,  which  seems  informed  with 
genuine  Oriental  poetry.  The  score, 
from  end  to  end,  is  very  delicate.  And 
if  it  now  and  then  does  grow  a  bit  mo- 
notonous, blame  the  librettist.  Tamaki 
Miura's  thin  and  brittle  voice  failed  to 
express  the  varied  music  of  Chrysan- 
theme. But,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
tenor,  Charles  Fontaine,  and  the  baritone, 
our  old  favorite.  Hector  Dufranne,  were 
wholly  satisfying. 

From  this  ruthless  idyl,  with  its  ten- 
der glow  and  charm,  we  passed  next  day 
to  that  brilliant  epigram  in  music, 
"L'Heure  Espagnole,"  an  ironic  com- 
ment by  a  most  gifted  artist  on  the  old 
theme  of  what,  in  some  countries,  is 
called  love.  Technically,  there  is  no  par- 
allel to  Ravel's  score.  But  "L'Heure 
Espagnole,"  despite  its  sparkle  and  its 
wit — ^yes,  musical  wit — ^will  probably  be 


cavir.re   to   the   general    run    of   opera- 
goers. 

1  should  be  glad  if  I  could  say  that  in 
"Rip  Van  Winkle"  the  late  Reginald  de 
Koven  and  his  librettist,  Percy  Mac- 
Kaye,  had  turned  out  an  effective  lyric 
opera.  It  may  seem  ungracious,  and  it  is 
surely  unpleasant  to  have  to  speak 
rather  unkindly  of  this  work.  But  truth 
is  truth,  and  it  would  do  no  good  to  pre- 
tend that,  in  this  "American  folk  opera" 
(so  called),  Reginald  de  Koven  and  his 
associate  had  done  good  service  to  their 
respective  arts.  The  libretto  is  far- 
fetched beyond  belief,  though  the  story 
as  related  is  sweet  and  pretty.  The  addi- 
tion of  the  village  maiden,  Peterkee,  to 
the  characters  we  had  met  already  in  the 
legend  has  its  dramatic  value.  But  the 
words  which  Mr.  MacKaye  has  given 
his  characters  are  for  singing  purposes 
so  preposterous  that  they  provoke  one  to 
derision.  To  express  the  fancies  and 
emotions  of  Dutch  rustics  in  the  Cats- 
kills  the  librettist  employs  jargon  of 
his  own.  He  takes  liberties  with  com- 
mon sense  and  English.  His  choruses 
and  songs  are  sometimes  unsingable.  It 
would  be  easy,  even  if  it  might  be 
tedious,  to  sustain  these  statements  by 
voluminous  quotation.  I  will  content 
myself  with  two  extracts.  Imagine,  if 
you  can,  a  group  of  Dutchmen,  smoking 
and  drinking,  as  they  sing  such  stuff  as 
this: 

Puff  of  cloud  from  pipe  of  clay, 
Drone  of  song  from  drowsy  fountain, 

All  we  dream  on  fades  away 
Far  upon  the  summer  mountain. 

Imagine  this,  sung  by  a  group  of  villa- 
gers: 

Up   spoke   Nancy,   spanking  Nancy, 

Says,  "My  feet  are  far  too  dancy, 

Dancy,  O !" 

Imagine,  if  you  please,  old  Hendrik's 
crew  employing  the  slang  of  Broadway. 
And  this  at  the  instigation  of  an  "intel- 
lectual." There  are  passages,  a  few,  in 
which  the  librettist  more  or  less  redeems 
himself,  as,  for  example,  in  the  closing 
chorus  and,  chiefly,  in  a  romantic  ballad 
sung  by  Peterkee  ("Wait,  wait,  my  own, 
till  our  ship  comes  in").  But,  good  or 
bad — and  some  were  pathetically  bad — 
not  fifty  of  the  words  at  most  were 
heard.  The  composer,  though  for  years 
he  had  been  an  advocate  of  the  use  of 
English  speech  in  opera,  had  seen  to 
that.  He  had  killed  his  own  melodies, 
which,  when  not  "reminiscent,"  were 
curiously  uninspired,  and  he  had  drowned 
the  voices  in  orchestration  of  the  most 
turbulent  kind.  What  he  had  not  done 
to  destroy  his  songs  was  supplied  by  the 
conductor,  Mr.  Smallens.  And  even  had 
the  composer  shown  more  discretion  in 
his  accompaniments  to  the  trite  cho- 
ruses and  airs  and  dances  which  suc- 
ceeded one  another  with  inadequate 
pauses,  the  singers  in  the  cast,  with  the 
exceptions    of    Hector    Dufranne    (the 


February  7,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[137 


Hendrik  Hudson)  and,  at  moments, 
Baklanoff  (the  Rip  Van  Winkle),  both 
foreigners,  would  have  been  unintelli- 
gible. For  they  had  not  been  taught  the 
art  of  enunciation.  The  repeated  waltz- 
rhythms  in  "Rip  Van  Winkle"  seemed 
rather  incongruous.  The  music  here  and 
there  recalled  Puccini.  The  most  tuneful 
songs  (there  were  some  in  the  third  act) 
harked  back  to  "Robin  Hood,"  by  which, 
I  think,  Reginald  de  Koven  will  be  best 
remembered. 

In  the  "Cleopatra's  Night,"  of  Henry 
Hadley,  inspired  by  a  libretto  of  Alice 
Leal  Pollock  (founded,  of  course,  on 
Theophile  Gautier's  admirable  short 
story,  "Une  Nuit  de  Cleopatre"),  the 
Metropolitan  last  week  produced  what  I 
believe  to  be  the  most  nearly  successful, 
the  most  workmanlike,  the  most  tech- 
nically skillful  effort  by  an  American  to 
create  a  real  "grand"  opera.  The  work 
is  in  two  long  and  dramatic  scenes,  or 
acts,  abounding  in  interest,  well  put 
together,  and  uncommonly  effective.  The 
first  act  shows  how  the  bold  hunter, 
Mei'amoun,  courts  Cleopatra,  and,  as  the 
Queen  of  Egypt  waits  for  Antony,  makes 
offer  of  his  life  for  one  night  of  love. 
In  the  second  act,  which  is  innocuous,  we 
get  hints— no  more  than  hints — of  what 
came  later.  The  opera  ends  with  Meia- 
moun's  suicide,  and,  as  the  curtain  falls, 
Cleopatra  halts  awhile  to  take  leave  of 
her  dead  lover,  ere  she  moves  on  to  meet 
her  living  Roman  lover. 

Here  we  have  all  the  required  ele- 
ments of  a  short,  striking,  and  impress- 
ive lyric  drama.  Miss  Pollock's  words 
are,  in  the  main,  well  chosen;  while  in 
setting  them  to  music  Mr.  Hadley  has 
convinced  us  that  he  knows  everything 
his  forerunners  had  invented.  The  one 
thing  he  has  not  shown  is  his  ability 
to  create  new  music.  For,  though  tech- 
nically excellent  at  most  points,  neither 
in  his  melody  nor  in  his  harmony  is  he 
original.  There  are  episodes  in  this 
opera  which  Saint-Saens  might  not  dis- 
own. There  are  others  of  which  Richard 
Strauss  might  be  the  author.  There  are 
more,  again,  for  which  Wagner  might 
stand  godfather.  And  once,  at  least,  we 
are  reminded  of  a  lighter  work. 

But,  as  a  whole,  this  opera  charms  and 
holds  the  attention.  It  is  an  opera, 
though  so  sadly  unoriginal.  Mr.  Hadley 
has  now  proved  that  it  is  possible  for 
an  American  to  master  the  secrets  of 
the  art  of  composing  operas.  He  was 
greatly  helped  in  the  interpretation  of 
his  work  by  Orville  Harrold's  clear,  dra- 
matic, and  flawless  rendering  of  Miss 
Pollock's  words.  Frances  Alda  also  sang 
her  part  clearly  and,  if  not  quite  Egyp- 
tian, was  alluring.  The  stage  settings 
of  the  work,  by  the  young  American, 
Norman  Bel-Geddes,  were  distractingly 
beautiful,  even  if  they  were  not  wholly 
jjlausible. 

Charles  Henry  Meltzer 


Drama 


The 


Tower  of  Darkness"  at 
the  Garrick 


THE  "Power  of  Darkness,"  that 
scourge  which  the  later  and  harsher 
Tolstoi  devised  for  humanity,  is  offered 
to  New  York  by  the  Theatre  Guild.  The 
acting  was  competent,  but  generally 
featureless,  and  of  the  excellent  settings 
I  have  only  one  thing  to  say,  that  they 
showed  a  skill  which  the  actors,  and  the 
author  himself,  if  alive,  might  have 
copied  with  profit,  in  conveying  the  effect 
of  the  intolerable  or  the  repulsive  by 
symbols  which  were  themselves  tolerable 
or  attractive.  One  of  the  great  secrets 
of  art  in  this  kind  is  to  enlighten  and 
to  lighten  simultaneously. 

From  this  chronicle  of  blood  and  lusts 
among  Russian  peasants  I  select  two 
points  which  may  exemplify  its  quality. 
A  wife  poisons  her  husband  that  she 
may  enjoy  his  property  with  the  com- 
panion of  her  adulterous  love.  This  lover, 
who  becomes  her  husband,  strangles  and 
buries  in  the  cellar  the  new-born  child 
of  his  unhallowed  commerce  with  a  sec- 
ond woman.  The  blackness  of  these 
crimes  of  passion  and  interest  looks 
white  beside  the  dispassionate — and  in 
a  sense  disinterested — savagery  of  the 
mature  woman  who  is  the  prompter  of 
the  first  crime  and  the  abettor,  if  not 
the  inspirer,  of  the  second.  To  this 
moral  abasement  Toltoi  has  added  the 
brutish  in  intellect,  the  raw  in  manners. 
It  was  curious  that  a  theme  which  was 
the  almost  unexampled  combination  of 
the  low  in  morals,  in  brains,  and  in 
manners  should  have  found  in  its  author 
an  almost  unexampled  combination  of 
the  highest  things  in  conscience,  in  intel- 
lect, and  in  social  station.  Let  us  be 
clear  on  two  points.  To  that  power  of 
brain,  that  depth  of  conscience,  which 
called  itself  Tolstoi,  no  latitude  of  theme 
must  be  denied.  But  the  obligation  is 
equally  clear;  the  pain  which  he  bids  us 
suffer  must  be  instrumental  to  our  plea- 
sure or  our  good. 

In  the  "Power  of  Darkness,"  is  the 
darkness  powerful?  Is  the  crime  im- 
pressive? There  is  crime  enough,  the 
spectator  may  observe.  Precisely :  there 
is  more  than  enough.  Art  has  two  ways 
of  handling  crime:  it  may  magnify  or 
multiply.  Shakespeare  has  tried  both 
methods  in  "Macbeth,"  with  the  instruc- 
tive result  that  our  horror  of  crime  is 
much  more  vivid  in  the  second  act  after 
the  enlargement  of  the  Duncan  case  than 
at  the  conclusion  of  the  play  when,  by 
an  accumulation  of  horrors,  our  possets 
have  been  drugged.  Crime  is  powerful 
in  the  unit:  to  augment  cases  is  to  re- 
duce the  unit  and  to  acknowledge  its 
inadequacy.     In   the   "Power   of   Dark- 


ness," the  effect  of  massing  crimes  and 
loosely  grouping  them  with  less  impor- 
tant things  is  to  diminish,  to  confound, 
to  slur. 

There  is  another  infirmity  in  the 
Tolstoian  portrayal.  We,  the  spectators, 
might  possibly  succeed  in  imagining  our- 
selves as  bad  as  the  people  on  the  stage, 
possibly  as  imbecile,  possibly  as  coarse; 
but  to  do  what  Tolstoi  asks,  to  imagine 
ourselves  to  be  all  three  at  once,  is  to 
overtax  our  imagination  and  our  humil- 
ity. What  follows?  The  thing  is  not 
taken  in;  it  remains  foreign,  aloof,  spec- 
tacular—true perhaps  in  Mars,  in 
Saturn,  in  Russia,  that  nearing  and  re- 
ceding Russia,  of  our  time  always  closer 
in  its  impact  and  remoter  in  its  quality. 
To  us  the  life  is  strange,  and  it  is  a 
life  so  limited,  so  abject,  that  every  oc- 
currence, birth,  death,  betrothal,  mar- 
riage, combat,  loses  stature  and  meaning 
in  its  narrowing  vicinity.  Crime  shrinks 
with  the  rest.  The  horror  of  murder  is 
proportioned  to  the  largeness  and  the 
dignity  of  human  life,  and  a  social  condi- 
tion which  is  destructive  of  that  large- 
ness and  inimical  to  that  dignity  must 
result  in  the  diminution  of  the  horror. 
The  less  there  is  to  ravage,  the  less 
terror  in  devastation.  The  "Power  of 
Darkness"  is  so  far  from  erring  on  the 
side  of  poignancy  that  it  errs  on  the 
opposite  side.  I  felt  no  laceration;  my 
mind  was  divided  between  two  quite 
different  feelings,  wrath  at  the  attempted 
butchery  of  my  feelings,  and  shame  at 
my  own  callousness.  It  was  wicked,  it 
was  impious,  to  sit  before  those  horrors 
and  to  be  conscious  mainly  of  a  mild 
weariness  to  which  the  high  points  of 
atrocity  supplied  a  mild  relief.  To  all 
appearances,  the  audience  felt  as  I  did. 

So  much  for  the  appeal  of  the  "Power 
of  Darkness"  to  the  imagination.  What 
is  its  appeal  to  the  reason  ?  Every  crime 
has  a  place  in  an  individual  experience 
and  a  place  in  a  social  order.  A  drama 
may  instruct  us  by  showing  either  its 
fitness  in  that  individual  experience  or 
its  dependence  on  that  social  order.  The 
success  of  the  "Power  of  Darkness"  in 
the  first  of  these  tasks  is  respectable 
without  being  in  the  least  distinguished. 
Nothing  happens  in  the  play  that  we 
peremptorily  decline  to  believe.  The 
downward  limit  for  human  possibility 
is  very  low  and  very  dim,  and  we  see 
nothing  that  absolutely  contravenes  our 
notion  of  this  limit.  Still,  as  a  justifica- 
tion of  conduct  by  motive,  it  is  not  com- 
parable with  other  products  of  the  same 
hand,  with  "Anna  Karenina,"  for  ex- 
ample. Take  the  last  great  fact  of 
Nikita's  remorse  and  confession,  which 
comes  to  auditors  of  this  drama  like  the 
sight  of  day  to  imprisoned  miners.  Our 
faith  in  this  change  is  simply  part  of  our 
vague  general  faith  in  the  possibility  of 
moral  overturn ;  it  is  independent  of  any- 
thing that  Tolstoi  has  told  us  of  Nikita. 


138] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  39 


The  truth  is  that  a  profound  and  minute 
psychologist  like  Tolstoi  puts  himself 
under  a  grave  twofold  disadvantage, 
when,  in  choosing  a  form  like  drama 
where  speech  is  omnipotent,  he  chooses 
at  the  same  time  characters  that  are 
semi-articulate. 

Let  us  turn  to  the  second  possibility. 
Tolstoi  might  have  performed  a  high 
social  service  by  showing  in  a  debased 
society  conditions  not  themselves  crimi- 
nal which  are  procreative  of  crime.  In 
this  point  the  "Power  of  Darkness"  is  a 
blank.  Not  the  slightest  attempt  is  made 
to  explain  why  this  particular  community, 
to  which  labor,  religion,  and  marriage 
have  supplied  the  normal  defenses, 
should  have  left  the  normal  community 
far  behind  in  the  rankness  of  its  butch- 
ery and  fornication.  With  somewhat 
different  tasks,  Hauptmann  did  far  better 
in  the  "Weavers,"  Brieux  far  better  in 
the  "Red  Robe."  In  one  place,  indeed, 
an  allusion  is  made  by  Mitritch  (success- 
fully acted  by  Mr.  Erskine  Sanford)  to 
the  failure  to  provide  education  for 
women.  But  the  allusion  is  pointless  on 
the  side  of  women,  since  the  chief  active 
malefactor  in  the  play  is  a  man,  Nikita, 
and  pointless  on  the  side  of  education, 
since  the  embodiment  of  moral  perfec- 
tion in  the  drama,  the  peasant,  Akim,  is 
a  person  so  unschooled  that  even  when 
he  talks  wisdom  he  talks  drivel. 

I  regard  the  "Power  of  Darkness"  as 
a  weak  play  and  a  weak  tract.  With  a 
series  of  events  with  which  even  in- 
competence could  have  done  something, 
genius  has  failed  to  do  much.  I  have 
strong  doubts  whether  the  exposition  of 
the  cloaca  in  human  nature  is  justifiable 
except  in  so  far  as  it  fortifies  the  indi- 
vidual conscience  or  arms  society  with 
prophylactics.  The  "Power  of  Darkness" 
accomplishes  neither  of  these  ends.  For 
the  redemption  of  human  nature,  if  re- 
demption be  practicable,  two  things  are 
necessary,  faith  and  knowledge;  and  the 
thing  that  prevents,  or  postpones,  that 
deliverance  is  the  separation  of  these  two 
requirements,  a  separation  that  keeps 
faith  ignorant  and  knowledge  cynical. 
Books  that  sap  our  faith  more  effectually 
than  they  recruit  our  knowledge  destroy 
faster  than  they  upbuild.  I  do  not  forget 
Akim  or  Nikita's  final  conversion  when 
I  say  that  if  the  representations  in  the 
"Power  of  Darkness"  are  truths,  they 
are  truths  which  it  is  recreancy  to  be- 
lieve and  treason  to  utter. 

0.  W.  Firkins 

Books  and  the  News 

Boys'  Books 

WILL  the  boys  of  to-day  read  the 
books  which  their  fathers  and 
uncles  read,  twenty-five,  thirty,  or  forty 
years  ago?  Some  of  the  publishers 
believe    they    will — as    when    Scribners 


issue  "The  Last  of  the  Mohicans,"  with 
its  fine  colored  illustrations  by  Mr. 
Wyeth.  If  they  will  read  that,  they  will 
read  others  of  a  later  epoch:  the  books 
themselves  will  please  the  boys,  and  the 
pursuit  of  them  will  bring  joy  to  the 
fathers  and  uncles.  Recently  I  delighted 
in  arousing  envy  in  a  group  of  venerable 
persons  (forty  years  old,  plus  or  minus), 
by  producing  a  "Tom  Sav^yer,"  with 
the  old  illustrations,  which  I  had  just 
bought. 

"That's  the  very  blue  cover  that  mine 
had!    Say,  where  did  you  get  it?" 

So  when  you  introduce  the  Boy  Scout 
of  1920  to  "Tom  Sawyer,"  to  "Huckle- 
berry Finn,"  and  to  that  dramatic  and 
thrilling  story,  "The  Prince  and  the 
Pauper,"  try  to  get  copies  with  the  old 
pictures.  You  must  haunt  second-hand 
dealers  a  little;  but  do  not  insist  on  first 
editions,  unless  you  wish  to  pajf  fancy 
prices.  With  these  goes  Aldrich's  "The 
Story  of  a  Bad  Boy,"  and  this  has  been 
adorned  by  A.  B.  Frost's  drawings. 
Another  writer  who  entertained  boys 
when  Grover  Cleveland  was  in  his  first 
term,  is  Frank  Stockton.  I  know  a  se- 
nile gentleman — about  the  age  of  the 
group  mentioned  above — who  chuckled 
all  day,  recently,  when  he  picked  up  a 
copy  of  "The  Floating  Prince,"  by  Stock- 
ton. "There's  the  picture,"  said  he,  "of 
the  Reformed  Pirate  knitting  tidies 
that  I  used  to  see  in  St.  Nicholas,  or 
somewhere."  But  "The  Floating  Prince" 
is  for  boys  under  ten — or  over  thirty- 
nine — the  ones  in  between  may  not  like 
it.  "A  Jolly  Fellowship"  is  another  of 
Stockton's  inimitable  books. 

"Alice's  Adventures  in  Wonderland" 
and  its  sister-volume,  "Through  the  Look- 
ing-Glass,"  go  without  saying;  but  not  as 
many  as  should,  know  Charles  E.  Carryl's 
"Davy  and  the  Goblin,"  despite  a  few  of 
its  persistent  advocates.  Jules  Verne's 
"The  Mysterious  Island"  has  also  been 
illustrated  by  Mr.  Wyeth;  a  boy  will 
enjoy  it  more  if  he  has  already  read 
"Twenty  Thousand  Leagues  Under  the 
Sea."  My  impression  that  Louisa  Al- 
cott's  "Jack  and  Jill"  is  an  amusing  tale, 
which  a  boy  will  not  scorn,  is  based  upon 
a  recollection  which  has  not  been  re- 
freshed for  at  least  twenty-five  years. 

"If  this  don't  fetch  the  kids,"  wrote 
Stevenson  of  "Treasure  Island,"  "why, 
they  have  gone  rotten  since  my  day." 
And  his  remark  I  would  echo  about 
Mayne  Reid's  "Rifle  Rangers"  and 
"Scalp  Hunters" — but  they  may  not  be 
easy  to  find.  However,  this  article  is 
intended  to  furnish  good  sport  for  book- 
hunting  elders.  They  certainly  can  find 
J.  T.  Trowbridge's  two  Civil  War  stories : 
"The  Three  Scouts"  and  "Cudjo's  Cave." 
As  for  Stevenson  himself,  I  would  pass 
over  the  ones  so  often  recommended, 
and  suggest  "St.  Ives"  and  "The 
Wrecker" — even  if  a  boy  has  to  skip  all 
chapters  of  the  latter  to  Chapter  XXII. 


We  grown-ups  are  apt  to  insist  upon  a 
literary  finish,  to  which  boys  are  usually 
insensible.  So  we  smugly  inform  them 
that  they  miist  like  "Kim"  and  "The 
Jungle  Book,"  when,  perhaps,  the  straight 
adventure  of  Kipling's  "The  Naulahka" 
will  please  them  better.  My  enjoyment 
of  Dickens  was  deferred  for  five  years, 
because  it  was  proclaimed  to  me  that  I 
must  begin  with  "Oliver  Twist."  Now, 
I  would  experiment  with  "A  Tale  of 
Two  Cities"  and  see  how  it  worked.  If 
the  boy  seemed  bored,  there  are  the  two 
excellent  historical  novels  by  Conan 
Doyle:  "Micah  Clarke"  and  "The  White 
Company."  If  he  remained  torpid,  I 
would  administer  "  King  Solomon's 
Mines,"  and  see  him  wake  up,  or  myself 
give  up.  How  I  hated  the  superior  per- 
sons who  said  that  Rider  Haggard  had 
"no  literary  merit" — how  I  still  hate 
them!  For  two  other  stories  of  adven- 
ture, Janvier's  "In  the  Sargasso  Sea" 
and  Clark  Russell's  "List,  Ye  Lands- 
men !"  For  humor,  Lucretia  Hale's  "Pe- 
terkin  Papers."  For  American  history, 
Roosevelt  and  Lodge's  "Hero  Tales  From 
American  History."  For  a  book  telling 
how  to  make  a  hundred  un-useful  and 
delightful  things:  "The  American  Boy's 
Handy  Book,"  by  Dan  Beard.  I  some- 
times see  the  author  on  the  street,  and 
long  to  stop  him  and  tell  him  how  much 
string,  and  gunpowder,  and  glue,  and 
buckshot,  and  how  many  fishhooks  and 
eels'  ears  and  other  things  I  employed  in 
trying  to  follow  his  recipes — and  what 
a  good  time  I  had. 

Edmund  Lester  Pearson 


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(^Continued  on  page  140) 


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i 


THE  REVIEW 


rol.  2,  No.  40 


New  York,  Saturday,  February  14,  1920 


FIFTEEN  CENTS 


Contents 


5rief  Comment 


141 


Editorial  Articles: 
Article  X  143 

A  B  C  of  the  Exchange  Question         145 
Labor  in  Politics  146 

America  and  the  English  Tradition     147 
President  Wilson's  Japan.     By  Charles 

Hodges  149 

The    "New    Republic's"    Exhilaration. 

By  Jerome  Landfield  150 

Correspondence  151 

How   the    Soviet    Came   to   a    Russian 

Village  153 

The    Unreconstructed    Professor.      By 

Philo  M.  Buck,  Jr.  154 

Book  Reviews: 
A  Carthaginian  Peace?  155 

Education  in  a  Democracy  157 

Between  Worlds  158 

The  Art  of  the  Greek  Ceramists  159 

The  Run  of  the  Shelves  159 

Drama: 
Jacinto     Benavente:      Theatre     and 
Library.     By  O.  W.  Firkins  161 

Music: 
Mary     Garden     and     "Louise" — The 
Concert  Season.    By  Charles  Henry 
Meltzer  162 

Books  and  the  News: 
Health.    By  Edmund  Lester  Pearson     164 


T  AM  willing  to  be  a  candidate,  pro- 
I  •■■  vided  I  can  do  so  honestly — this 
'  sums  up  the  spirit  of  Mr.  Hoover's 
statement.  But  it  contains  other  mat- 
ter, and  very  pertinent  matter.  It  dis- 
poses unmistakably  of  the  idea  of 
an  independent  candidacy.  It  takes 
ground  clearly  against  "any  form  of 
socialism,  whether  it  be  nationaliza- 
tion of  industry  or  other  destruction 
of  individual  initiative."  The  mean- 
ing of  its  protest  against  any  en- 
deavor "to  set  aside  our  Constitu- 
tional guarantees  for  free  speech  or 
free  representation"  must  be  plain  to 
the  most  careless  of  wayfaring  men  in 
these  days  of  Speaker  Sweet  at  Al- 
bany and  wild  sedition  bills  at  Wash- 
ington. It  does  not  define  "those 
constructive  economic  policies  that 
will  get  us  down  from  the  unsound 
economic  practices  which  of  necessity 
grew  out  of  the  war,"  but  Mr.  Hoov- 
er's record  is  ample  guarantee  that 
in    making    reference    to    them    he 


pledges  himself,  far  more  distinctly 
than  most  men  could  by  elaborately 
specific  promises,  to  substantial 
achievement  in  case  he  gets  the  chance 
for  it.  To  our  mind,  the  statement 
is  far  from  colorless.  It  does  not  go 
into  details,  but  it  furnishes  just  that 
assurance  as  to  fundamentals  which 
liberal  conservatives  in  either  party 
require. 

! 

■pjISAPPOINTMENT  has  been  ex- 
-■^  pressed  in  some  quarters  over 
Mr.  Hoover's  failure  to  lay  out  a 
definite  programme — ^to  write,  so  to 
say,  the  platform  upon  which  he  is 
willing  to  stand.  At  the  bottom  of  this 
disappointment  lies  the  feeling  that 
if  Mr.  Hoover  is  to  be  regarded  as 
a  Presidential  possibility,  he  ought 
to  supply  the  leadership  which,  it 
must  be  admitted,  is  at  present  pain- 
fully lacking  in  both  parties.  But 
that  is  not  at  all  Mr.  Hoover's  role. 
He  shows  eminent  good  sense  in 
standing  aside  until  the  issues  de- 
velop themselves,  within  the  recog- 
nized party  councils,  to  a  far  greater 
extent  than  they  have  done  as  yet. 
To  attempt  to  lay  them  down,  of  his 
own  motion,  would  be  to  overstep 
the  bounds  of  his  claim,  great  as  it  is, 
upon  public  attention  and  regard. 
The  consequence  of  this  restraint  may 
be  either  to  help  or  to  hurt  his 
chances  of  nomination,  but  that  is  not 
his  primary  concern.  Let  him  be 
himself — neither  more  nor  less — and 
let  the  situation  develop.  In  any  case, 
the  chance  of  his  nomination  by  the 
Democrats  rests  on  the  slimness  of 
their  chances  with  any  other  candi- 
date. And  the  chance  of  his  nomina- 
tion by  the  Republicans — pretty  near 
zero  at  present,  owing  to  the  advanced 
state  of  organization  of  some  other 
booms — seems  to  rest  entirely  on  its 
affording  the  best  solution  of  a 
quite  possible  deadlock  at  the  Repub- 
lican Convention. 


npHE  Legal  Adviser  of  the  American 
Peace  Commission,  Mr.  David 
Hunter  Miller,  has  made  a  charge 
against  Mr.  John  Maynard  Keynes's 
discussion  of  the  Treaty  of  Versailles 
which,  if  well  founded,  would  go  far 
to  destroy  its  standing.  The  charge 
is  nothing  less  than  that  "in  Mr. 
Keynes's  chief  point  of  attack  he  has 
completely  misinterpreted  the  terms 
of  the  treaty."  Specifically,  what  Mr. 
Miller  asserts  is 

that  instead  of  an  indemnity  of  $40,000,000,000 
laid  upon  Germany,  as  claimed  by  Mr.  Keynes, 
with  annual  payments  of  nearly  $4,000,000,000, 
the  indemnity  of  the  treaty  amounts  to  ap- 
proximately $14,000,000,000;  that  this  sum  can- 
not be  added  to  except  by  a  unanimous  deter- 
mination of  the  Reparation  Commission  (com- 
posed of  representatives  of  the  United  States, 
Great  Britain,  France,  Italy  and  Belgium), 
that  Germany  is  in  equity  able  to  pay  more, 
and  that  before  any  such  determination,  evi- 
dence and  argument  on  behalf  of  Germany 
must  be  heard.    (The  italics  are  Mr.  Miller's.) 

But  Mr.  Miller  goes  on  to  explain  that 
he  means  by  "the  indemnity"  not  the 
total  obligation  assessed  against  Ger- 
many for  reparations,  but  only  so 
much  of  that  obligation  as  is  covered 
by  payments  specifically  called  for  in 
the  treaty.  In  other  words,  Mr.  Miller 
does  not  deny  that  the  big  indebted- 
ness spoken  of  by  Mr.  Keynes  will 
actually  hang  over  Germany  until 
such  time  as  it  is  either  paid,  or  re- 
mitted by  the  Reparation  Commis- 
sion; he  only  points  out  that  actual 
payment  of  that  full  amount,  or  of 
anything  beyond  the  smaller  figure 
he  mentions,  can  not  be  demanded 
except  by  unanimous  action  of  the 
Reparation  Commission.  Such  action 
Mr.  Miller  regards  as  so  unlikely 
that  he  declares  again  and  again, 
in  one  form  of  words  and  another, 
that  "the  debt,  so  far  as  it  is  not  to  be 
paid,  either  principal  or  interest,  is  a 
figment  of  the  imagination;  it  is  the 
payment  that  matters,  and  nothing 
else."  But  whether  this  be  a  correct 
opinion  or  not,  it  is,  after  all,  nothing 
but  an  opinion;  and  to  charge  Mr. 
Keynes  with  having  "completely  mis- 


142] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  40 


interpreted  the  terms  of  the  treaty" 
because  he  does  not  share  Mr.  Miller's 
opinion  as  to  the  unimportance  of  one 
of  the  most  conspicuous  of  those 
terms  is  a  flagrant  injustice. 

■W/"E  ourselves  are  far  from  shar- 
"  ing  Mr.  Keynes's  view  of  the 
enormities  of  the  treaty.  His  book 
bears  many  marks  of  extreme  bias, 
and  of  being  the  work  of  a  bril- 
liant and  not  too  scrupulous  special 
pleader.  But  he  commits  neither  the 
error  charged  by  Mr.  Miller,  nor,  so 
far  as  we  have  been  able  to  discover, 
is  he  guilty  of  misstatements  of  such 
gross  character  upon  any  point.  As 
to  the  particular  point  in  question,  he 
recognizes  quite  as  clearly  as  Mr. 
Miller  the  distinction  between  the 
theoretical  indebtedness  and  the 
actual  payments.  The  difference  be- 
tween Mr.  Miller's  view  and  Mr.  Key- 
nes's is  that,  while  Miller  regards  the 
theoretical  indebtedness  as  virtually 
non-existent  because  payment  will  not 
be  demanded,  Keynes  regards  it  as  an 
incubus  upon  Germany  because  pay- 
ment may  be  demanded.  It  is  all  a 
question  of  opinion,  or  rather  of  em- 
phasis. The  one  thing  certain,  to 
our  mind,  is  that,  whether  the  incu- 
bus be  real  or  imaginary,  it  is  a  thing 
which  the  people  upon  whom  it 
presses  can  not  fail  to  regard  as  a 
terrible  grievance,  and  therefore  that 
the  sooner  it  is  removed  the  better. 

rpHE  oft-repeated  conflict  between 
■'•  mob  violence  and  law  broke  out 
again  the  other  day,  at  Lexington, 
Kentucky,  and  the  law  won.  A  negro 
had  already  been  tried  for  murder 
and  found  guilty,  within  less  than  a 
week  after  commission  of  the  crime. 
Almost  at  the  moment  when  sentence 
of  death  was  being  pronounced,  a  mob 
assailed  the  Court  House  and  at- 
tempted to  wrest  the  prisoner  from 
the  hands  of  the  law.  In  contempt 
of  due  warning  the  mob  pressed  on, 
and  a  moment  later  four  of  its  mem- 
bers lay  dead  before  the  Court  House 
door,  with  seventeen  others  wounded. 
Lawless  violence  had  had  its  fitting 
answer.  The  mob  fell  back,  aware 
for  once  that  the  majesty  of  the  law 
had  the  facilities  and  the  spirit  neces- 
sary to  defend  itself.     There  were 


threats  of  a  larger  mob  from  sur- 
rounding districts,  but  Governor 
Morrow  promptly  called  for  troops 
from  Camp  Taylor  in  suflticient  num- 
bers to  repel  any  possible  assault. 
In  thus  protecting  a  man  already  sen- 
tenced to  death,  the  Kentucky  authori- 
ties were  protecting  law  itself,  a  cause 
far  more  vital  to  progress  in  civiliza- 
tion than  the  life  of  any  man.  There 
will  be  not  merely  fewer  lynchings 
in  Kentucky  because  of  Monday's 
lesson  at  Lexington,  but  less  indul- 
gence in  all  forms  of  lawless  violence. 
It  is  not  likely  that  any  other  com- 
munity in  Kentucky  will  soon  feel 
disposed  to  invite  a  repetition  of  the 
lesson.  The  men  who  make  up  a  mob 
may  have  no  regard  for  the  life  of  a 
mere  prisoner,  but  they  do  have  some 
concern  for  their  own. 

MR.  MUNSEY  had  an  opportunity  to  make 
the  Herald  a  recorder  of  all  currents  of 
opinion,  to  build  up  a  great  clientele  by  an 
unassailable  reputation  for  scrupulous  accu- 
racy and  fair-play,  by  presenting  the  liberal 
and  radical  point  of  view  as  well  as  the  con- 
servative, by  printing  sober  facts  in  clear-cut, 
honest,  and  intelligent  fashion. — The  Nation, 
Feb.  7,  1920,  p.  166. 

The  arbitrary  arrests  of  individuals  on 
trumped-up  charges,  the  breaking  ui  or  sur- 
veillance of  public  meetings,  the  censorship 
of  mail  and  of  the  press,  the  maintenance  of 
an  army  of  Government  spies  and  secret  agents, 
the  ousting  from  office  of  persons  duly  elected 
according  to  law  because  of  membership  in 
a  political  party  which  the  Government  has 
put  under  the  ban,  the  torturing  of  prisoners, 
and  the  wresting  of  justice  by  administrative 
officials  and  the  courts,  have  reached  a  point 
where  little  more  is  needed  to  precipitate  a 
rcvplution. — The  Nation,  Feb.  7,  1920,  p.   164. 

The  italics  are  ours;  beyond  this, 
we  refrain  from  painting  the  lily. 

PREMIER  NITTI,  in  addressing 
•*-  the  Chamber  of  Deputies  on 
Saturday,  declared  that  if  Italy  is 
to  emerge  successfully  from  her 
present  troubles  her  press  and  politi- 
cians must  assume  a  more  friendly 
and  respectful  attitude  towards 
the  outside  world,  and  must  not 
leave  the  interests  of  international 
peace  out  of  consideration  in  their 
eagerness  for  the  realization  of 
Italian  aspirations.  He  challenged 
the  position  of  "nationalists"  who  in- 
sist that  Italy  has  gained  nothing 
from  the  war  unless  its  entire  later 
Adriatic  programme  is  conceded. 
"We  must  remember,"  he  said,  "that 
almost  all  Italians  who  desired  war 
asked  only  for  Trent  and  Trieste.    It 


is  therefore  a  mistake  to  say  that 
nothing  was  obtained,  when  these 
terms  are  more  than  satisfied."  The 
Premier  pointed  out  clearly  that  the 
financial  aid  which  Italy  so  sorely 
needs  from  without  will  not  come  un- 
less her  people  assume  a  friendly  atti- 
tude, give  up  the  things  that  militate 
against  peace  and  a  broader  humanity 
in  foreign  relations,  and  convince 
possible  investors  that  the  money  de- 
sired is  to  be  spent  in  reconstruction. 

TN  case  the  Adriatic  settlement 
■*•  should  revert  to  the  terms  of  the 
Compact  of  London,  which  would  re- 
quire the  abandonment  of  the  Italian 
claim  to  Fiume,  he  made  it  plain  that 
he  would  consider  himself  in  honor 
bound  to  secure  the  evacuation  of  the 
city  by  d'Annunzio,  "even  by  force  if 
necessary."  He  emphasized,  however, 
his  earnest  desire  to  come  to  a 
friendly  agreement  with  the  Jugo- 
slavs, and  rebuked  as  criminal  those 
who  arouse  antagonism  by  referring 
to  the  Adriatic  as  "an  Italian  lake." 
Press  reports  indicate  that  Premier 
Nitti  had  been  subjected  to  a  severe 
fire  of  newspaper  criticism  for  some 
days  before  this  speech,  and  that  his 
enemies  were  rather  gleefully  expect- 
ing to  demand  a  vote  on  his  foreign 
policy  and  secure  his  downfall.  His 
plea  for  an  attitude  of  moderation, 
however,  in  the  interest  of  peace  and 
material  reconstruction,  had  so  visi- 
bly favorable  an  eff'ect  on  the  Chamber 
that  no  opponent  dared  to  risk  defeat 
by  asking  a  vote. 

fyHE  fact  that  the  Central  Union  of 
■*-  Cooperatives  of  Russia  has  come 
entirely  under  control  of  the  Soviet 
Government  and  is  now  but  a  branch 
of  their  system  of  nationalized  distri- 
bution, was  made  clear  in  the  col- 
umns of  the  Review  a  fortnight  ago. 
The  Supreme  Council  of  Paris  has 
just  ascertained  this  with  apparent 
surprise,  and  finds  that  the  proposal 
contained  in  its  earlier  announce- 
ment concerning  the  blockade  is  nul- 
lified by  the  necessity  of  dealing  with 
the  Soviet  Government.  This  raises 
the  question  whether,  in  ignorance  of 
what  was  patent  to  other  observers, 
they  were  taken  in  by  Alexander 
Berkenheim  and  his  associates,  claim- 


February  14,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[148 


ing  to  represent  the  Cooperatives,  or 
whether  the  policy  that  was  recently 
announced  had  a  less  ingenuous  origin 
and  motive. 

SIR  VINCENT  MEREDITH,  BART., 
President  of  the  Bank  of  Mon- 
treal, advised  a  liberal  immigration 
policy  in  his  recent  address  at  the  an- 
nual meeting  of  the  shareholders  of 
the  Bank.  He  has  no  fear  of  another 
war  in  this  generation,  and  there- 
fore sees  no  necessity  that  the  comb- 
ing of  applicants  be  made  too  fine. 
With  a  good  influx  of  farmers,  do- 
mestic servants,  artisans,  and  laborers 
he  foresees  substantial  improvement 
in  economic  conditions  as  afl'ected  by 
the  war.  The  western  provinces,  he 
thinks,  will  draw  many  farmers  from 
the  United  States,  "attracted  by  the 
superior  productivity  of  the  soil  and 
its  comparative  cheapness."  The  Al- 
lied nations  of  Europe,  and  the  Scan- 
dinavian countries,  will  add  mate- 
rially to  the  number.  But  to  immi- 
gration must  be  added  harder  work, 
greater  efficiency,  increased  produc- 
tion and  thrift,  if  the  desired  results 
are  to  come.  He  gives  emphatic  warn- 
ing that  unless  Canada  shall  speedily 
reduce  or  abandon  penalizing  taxes  on 
what  are  called  excess  business  profits, 
she  will  not  be  able  to  meet  trade  com- 
-petition  not  similarly  encumbered.  He 
favors  government  assistance  in  ar- 
ranging long-term  credits  for  export 
sales,  but  would  not  throw  the  whole 
burden  upon  the  public.  The  export- 
ers who  reap  the  profits  must  as  a 
matter  of  course  assume  a  due  pro- 
portion of  the  risks. 

CIR  VINCENT  closed  his  address 
*--^  with  a  handsome  tribute  to  the 
Prince  of  Wales,  whose  visit  to 
Canada  had  "rendered  a  great  and 
memorable  service  to  the  Empire  in 
strengthening  the  Throne  in  the  af- 
fection and  confidence  of  the  people, 
and  by  drawing  still  closer  the  ties 
which  bind  the  commonwealth  of  na- 
tions over  which  he  is  destined  to 
reign."  There  is  food  in  this  sen- 
tence for  a  class  of  Americans  who 
can  not  understand  why  the  British 
people  do  not  cast  royalty  out  of  their 
Constitution  altogether  and  substi- 
tute an  executive  head  elected  by  the 


people.  The  fact  that  any  close  ap- 
proximation to  democratic  freedom 
is  now  secure  anywhere  is  largely  due 
to  those  ties  of  affection  and  confi- 
dence which  bind  together  the  "com- 
monwealth of  nations"  (note  care- 
fully Sir  Vincent's  term)  over  which 
the  Prince  of  Wales  is  destined  one 
day  to  "reign,"  not  as  a  monarch, 
with  vast  powers  of  possible  oppres- 
sion in  his  hand,  but  more  than  any- 
thing else  as  just  that  connecting  tie 
which  made  the  great  "common- 
wealth of  nations"  called  the  British 
Empire  a  whole-hearted  unit  against 
German  ambitions  inimical  to  world 
freedom. 

pRAWLING  about  among  drifts 
^^  that  leave  the  snows  of  yesteryear 
simply  nowhere,  one  must  perforce 
content  oneself  by  scanning  the  pa- 
pers for  what  assurances  there  may 
be  that  spring  is  not  far  behind.  In 
the  vocal  forests  of  newsprint — haunt, 
once,  of  the  breezes  and  the  nesting 
bird — is  there  no  stir,  no  hint  of 
promise?  Yes,  here  it  is.  "Baseball 
practice  at  Columbia  begins  this 
week."  All  this,  and  even  more: 
"Baseball  magnates  assemble  at  Chi- 
cago." But  what  is  there  that  over- 
casts the  fair  face  of  hope?  More 
repression?  More  prohibition  ?  "Freak 
pitching  must  go.  The  spitball,  the 
emery  ball,  the  shine  ball,  the  licorice 
ball — pitchers  who  are  addicted  to 
their  use  must  be  registered  and  may 
be  granted  a  year  to  taper  off — no 
longer — while  those  who  are  not  offi- 
cially recognized  'addicts'  will  be  sub- 
jected to  a  thumping  penalty  for  the 
first  offense."  Must  it  always  be 
so?  Has  the  pitcher  always  "got" 
a  little  something  more  than  the 
batter  can  manage  ?  Our  throwers  of 
the  intellectual  spitball,  our  heavers 
of  the  economic  emery  ball,  our  toss- 
ers  of  the  artistic  shine  ball,  isn't  the 
poor  old  world  at  bat  capable  of 
knocking  them  over  the  fence  and  out 
of  the  box?  A  plague  on  these  har- 
nessing restraints,  imposed  with  a 
view  to  fattening  the  poor  old  world's 
intellectual  batting  average!  What 
the  world  needs  is  better  batting 
ability  at  the  intellectual  plate.  When 
that  comes  about  it  will  be  spring 
indeed. 


Article  X 

'pHE  question  of  Article  X  has 
■*-  been  central  throughout  all  these 
months  of  dreary  controversy.  Many 
weeks  ago  it  seemed  as  though  noth- 
ing further  that  could  be  said  about 
it  was  capable  of  being  either  inter- 
esting or  instructive  to  the  public. 
But  within  the  last  week  or  two,  as 
the  struggle  over  the  Treaty  has 
seemed  again  to  be  approaching  a 
possible  decision,  the  subject  has  ac- 
quired renewed  interest  for  a  peculiar 
reason.  The  merits  of  the  various 
proposed  reservations  relating  to  Ar- 
ticle X  have  all  along  turned  partly 
on  the  question  of  language  and  tone, 
and  partly  on  the  question  of  sub- 
stance; the  new  development  has 
been  a  tendency  on  the  part  of  the 
President's  supporters  to  take  the 
view  that  language  and  tone  are  the 
only  thing  involved,  the  substance 
being  practically  negligible.  Nothing 
could  be  more  gratifying  than  this  to 
the  Review,  in  so  far  as  it  indicates 
willingness  to  come  to  a  practicable 
agreement ;  nevertheless,  in  the  inter- 
est of  truth  and  clear  thinking,  it 
seems  desirable  at  this  juncture  to 
point  out  the  degree  in  which  such  a 
view  is  true  and  in  which  it  is  false. 
The  view  we  refer  to  may  be  found 
stated  in  its  most  extreme  form  in 
the  New  York  Evening  Post  of  Feb- 
ruary 7: 

We  have  read  the  article  and  the  Lodge 
reservation  and  the  numerous  proposed  sub- 
stitutes, and  the  differences  between  the  origi- 
nal text  and  all  the  proposed  modifications 
are  differences  in  language  and  manners,  and 
not  in  the  essential  meaning.  The  Lodge  res- 
ervation cannot  knife  the  heart  of  Article  X. 
Under  the  League  of  Nations  this  country  is 
bound  to  be  interested  in  territorial  changes 
in  Europe.  When  such  changes  shock  the 
conscience  of  this  country  it  will  take  the 
matter  under  advisement.  When  Congress 
finds  there  is  sufficient  cause  for  active  inter- 
vention, it  will  so  vote.  President  Wilson 
meant  this  in  the  original  article,  and  Lodge 
means  this  in  his  reservation,  and  the  substi- 
tute proposals  mean  this.  The  difference  is 
that  Mr.  Wilson  phrased  his  meaning  gen- 
erously and  Lodge  prefers  to  be  surly  and 
spiteful. 

If  this  were  a  correct  statement  of  the 
case,  it  would  be  even  more  shocking 
than  it  is  to  think  of  the  prolonged 
delay  which  has  kept  the  settlement 
in  abeyance  while  all  the  world  has 
been  suffering  for  want  of  it.  But 
the  difference  between  the  unreserved 
acceptance  of  Article  X  and  its  ac- 


144] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  40 


ceptance  with  the  Lodge  reservation 
is  much  more  than  a  difference  "in 
language  and  manners."  Between 
the  Lodge  reservation  and  that  pro- 
posed many  months  ago  by  the  Re- 
publican "mild  reservationists"  the 
difference  is  indeed  only  one  "in  lan- 
guage and  manners."  Even  this  dif- 
ference, to  be  sure,  is  important.  It 
is  a  thousand  pities  that  that  reserva- 
tion was  not  accepted  at  the  time  by 
the  President  and  his  party,  for  there 
is  good  reason  to  believe  that  such 
acceptance  would  have  resulted,  while 
the  interest  of  the  public  was  fresh, 
in  speedy  ratification.  There  was 
nothing  bad  about  the  "language  and 
manners"  of  that  proposed  reserva- 
tion ;  and  if  no  question  of  substance 
enters  into  the  matter  at  all,  it  is  dif- 
ficult to  see  any  respectable  excuse 
for  the  Democrats'  failure  to  agree 
to  it.  But  there  is  a  question  of  sub- 
stance; whichever  side  was  right  or 
wrong,  it  is  at  least  true  of  both  par- 
ties to  the  contest  that  they  were  fight- 
ing over  something  and  not  over 
nothing. 

In  point  of  fact,  there  are  two  quite 
distinct  purposes  served  by  the 
reservation  relating  to  Article  X, 
whether  worded  in  the  objectionable 
way  which  Senator  Lodge  has  pre- 
ferred, or  in  the  excellent  form  pro- 
posed by  the  mild  reservationists.  It 
has  become  fashionable  of  late  to 
speak  of  it  as  merely  drawing  pointed 
attention  to  the  dual  character  of  our 
Government,  the  separation  of  legis- 
lative and  executive  powers.  This  in 
itself  is  a  substantial  thing;  for, 
though  it  might  be  said  to  be  what 
everyone  might  easily  infer  for  him- 
self from  a  knowledge  of  the  United 
States  Constitution,  the  express  state- 
ment of  it  constitutes  a  caveat  which 
our  associates  in  the  treaty  could  not 
be  expected  to  take  into  adequate  ac- 
count by  such  mere  inference.  But 
there  is  much  more  to  the  matter 
than  this. 

What  the  reservation  does,  above  all 
else,  is  to  place  the  moral  obligation 
of  the  engagement  in  Article  X  upon 
a  different  footing.  When  Mr.  Wil- 
son declared  that  the  reservation  "cut 
the  heart  out  of  the  Covenant"  he 
doubtless  meant  that  it  destroyed  the 
moral  obligation  of  Article  X.     In 


his  colloquy  at  the  White  House  with 
the  Foreign  Relations  Committee,  he 
endeavored  to  make  the  most  of  the 
difference  between  a  legal  obligation 
and  a  moral  obligation,  but  he  did  not 
attempt  to  deny  the  binding  force  of 
the  obligation  as  a  moral  one.  Now 
the  very  thing  which  honest  advocates 
of  the  reservation,  of  all  shades,  sin- 
cerely desire  is  to  lessen  the  force  of 
the  moral  obligation.  They  believe 
that  the  duty  which  Article  X  in  its 
terms  imposes  upon  the  country  is  one 
that  ought  not  to  be  accepted  without 
qualification.  They  want  to  make  it 
impossible  for  our  country  to  be 
charged  with  bad  faith  in  case  it 
refuses  to  do,  in  any  given  instance, 
what  Article  X  contemplates  shall  be 
done  for  the  preservation  of  the  "ter- 
ritorial integrity  and  existing  politi- 
cal independence  of  all  members  of 
the  League."  So  far  from  making  no 
substantial  difference,  it  transforms 
what  on  its  face  is  an  unqualified  ob- 
ligation into  what  on  its  face  is  no 
obligation ;  for  an  engagement  which 
does  not  come  into  force  in  any  given 
case  until,  or  unless,  Congress  de- 
cides that  it  is  one  that  the  country 
desires  to  assume  is  not,  in  any  ordi- 
nary sense  of  the  word,  an  engage- 
ment at  all. 

In  spite  of  all  this,  however,  the 
reservation  is  not  to  be  regarded  as 
wiping  out  the  moral  obligation  alto- 
gether. If  we  wished  to  do  that,  the 
only  honest  course  would  be  to  reject 
Article  X  outright,  or  at  least  that 
part  of  it  which  involves  the  possi- 
bility of  war.  What  remains  of  the 
obligation,  under  the  reservation,  is 
difficult  to  define ;  but  something  does 
remain.  We  continue  to  be  a  party 
to  the  arrangement,  and  therefore 
may  justly  be  regarded  as  intending 
to  carry  out  its  essential  purpose.  In 
any  case  which  may  arise,  there  will 
be  a  strong  presumption  that  we 
ought  to  do  our  share  with  the  rest. 
The  burden  of  proof  will  be  upon 
those  who  oppose  such  action.  If 
the  League  of  Nations  becomes  an 
effective  reality,  our  membership  in 
it  will  come  to  imply  more  and  more 
strongly  the  assuming  of  any  duties 
or  burdens  it  calls  for,  unless  fair 
and  convincing  reasons  can  be  ad- 
duced against  our  doing  so.     In  a 


word,  Article  X,  as  qualified  by  the 
reservation,  will  leave  Congress  a 
free  agent — ^that  is,  not  only  free  to 
exercise  its  Constitutional  powers, 
which  is  a  matter  of  course,  but  free 
in  a  moral  sense — and  yet  will  com- 
mit the  nation  to  the  carrying  out  of 
the  Article's  purpose  unless  a  sound 
case  to  the  contrary  can  be  estab- 
lished. 

The  nature  of  this  effect  of  the  res- 
ervation may  perhaps  be  best  brought 
out  by  a  comparison  with  the  situ- 
ation of  other  Governments.  In  re- 
gard to  the  character  of  an  obliga- 
tion like  that  of  Article  X,  no  such 
absolute  difference  exists  between  our 
country  and  others  as  is  frequently 
asserted.  Whatever  may  be  true  in 
regard  to  a  declaration  of  war,  the 
power  to  carry  on  war  is  dependent 
in  any  parliamentary  country  upon 
the  voting  of  supplies  by  the  parlia- 
ment. But  if  the  British  House  of 
Commons,  for  example,  were  to  re- 
fuse to  vote  supplies  in  pursuance  of 
the  obligation  of  a  treaty,  it  would 
be  guilty  of  a  breach  of  faith  and  a 
violation  of  the  national  honor.  If 
Britain  desired  to  retain  the  same 
degree  of  freedom  in  regard  to  Ar- 
ticle X  as  the  reservation  contem- 
plates for  this  country,  she  would 
have  to  make  a  reservation  of  similar 
character.  America,  in  making  it, 
differentiates  herself  from  the  other 
countries  not  merely  to  the  extent 
necessary  under  her  Constitution,  but 
to  the  extent  she  thinks  justified  by 
her  wholly  different  position  in  the 
world — her  wholly  different  relation 
to  European  complexities — and  by 
the  character  of  her  national  tradi- 
tion. We  believe  that  it  is  wise  for 
her  to  do  so.  The  most  weighty  con- 
sideration which  in  the  early  days  of 
the  controversy  was  urged  against 
such  a  course  has  been  removed. 
There  is  no  longer  any  practical 
doubt  that  our  ratification  of  the 
treaty,  with  the  reservation,  will  be 
accepted  without  remonstrance  by  the 
other  Powers.  To  accomplish  thai 
ratification  speedily — ^with  the  lan- 
guage of  the  reservation  improved  ill 
possible,  but  with  its  substance  prej 
served — is  now  more  clearly  thai' 
ever  the  thing  supremely  to  be  dej 
sired. 


I 


I 


February  14,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[145 


ABC  of  the  Exchange 
Question 

nnHE  violent  fall  in  sterling  ex- 
■'■  change  has  not  only  produced  a 
profound  effect  in  Wall  Street  but 
has  intensely  stirred  the  interest  of 
the  public  at  large.  The  question  of 
why  this  particular  fall  took  place 
and  why  it  took  place  at  this  particu- 
lar time  involves  a  thousand  com- 
plexities and  doubts.  But  on  the 
essential  character  of  the  situation 
there  is  no  reason  why  the  general 
public  should  not  have  a  fairly  clear 
understanding,  and  indeed  it  is  of 
great  importance  that  the  vital  ele- 
ments of  it  be  clearly  grasped  by  all 
intelligent  persons. 

The  first  thing  to  be  apprehended 
is  that  there  is  not  in  the  nature  of 
things  any  reason  why,  under  exist- 
ing conditions,  the  value  of  the  pound 
sterling — what  may  be  called  its 
normal  value,  the  value  it  may  be 
expected  to  have  in  the  absence  of  any 
particular  condition  as  regards  ex- 
ports and  imports,  debits  and  credits 
— should  be  anything  like  the  par 
value  of  the  pound  as  it  stood  before 
the  war.  The  name  pound  sterling 
means  to-day  a  totally  different  thing 
from  what  it  did  then.  It  then  signi- 
fied either  a  gold  coin  containing  4.86 
times  as  much  gold  as  is  contained  in 
a  United  States  gold  dollar,  or  paper 
currency  exchangeable  on  demand  at 
London  for  that  amount  of  gold.  It 
now  means  simply  paper  money  to 
which  the  old  name  continues  to  be 
attached,  but  which  has  no  present 
relation  to  any  specified  quantity  of 
gold.  If  the  inflation  of  the  British 
currency,  and  of  banking  credits 
which  serve  to  swell  the  British 
monetary  medium,  had  gone  to  a  suffi- 
ciently high  point,  the  command  which 
a  unit  of  that  currency  possessed  over 
gold,  or  over  any  commodity,  would 
have  gone  down  to  as  low  a  point  as 
you  may  choose  to  name.  The  differ- 
ence between  the  depreciation  of  the 
pound  sterling  and  the  depreciation 
of  the  mark  is  a  difference  only  in 
degree,  not  in  kind.  ^ 

Obvious  as  this  is,  it  is  necessary 
to  insist  upon  it  in  order  to  clear  up 
misapprehensions  which  are  widely 


current,  even  in  some  very  important 
quarters.  That  an  increase  of  ex- 
ports from,  or  a  diminution  of  im- 
ports into,  a  country  against  which 
exchange  is  far  below  what  is  called 
par  has  a  tendency  to  raise  that  ex- 
change is  true  enough;  but  it  is  a 
mistake  to  suppose  that  this  process 
has  any  power  to  restore  that  S0|- 
called  par,  when  the  currency  in  ques- 
tion is  paper  not  redeemable  in  gold. 
There  is  not  in  any  true  sense  any 
assignable  par  of  exchange  between 
the  present  so-called  pound  sterling 
and  the  United  States  dollar.  When 
the  pound  and  the  dollar  each  meant 
a  certain  definite  amount  of  gold,  the 
ratio  between  these  two  amounts  was 
a  true  par  of  exchange  between  them. 
Fluctuations  in  the  rate  of  exchange 
on  the  market  were  caused  by  the 
immediate  demand  for  the  one  or  the 
other  being  greater  or  less  than  the 
immediate  supply  on  the  market.  If 
payments  due  from  New  York  to 
London  exceeded  those  due  from  Lon- 
don to  New  York,  the  pound  stood 
above  par ;  in  the  reverse  case  it  stood 
below  par.  The  reason  for  this  was 
that  these  opposing  credits  and  debits 
could  be  exchanged  against  each 
other  here  in  New  York  so  far  as 
the  lesser  of  the  two  quantities  went, 
but  to  cover  the  remainder  an  actual 
shipment  of  gold  was,  on  the  face  of 
things,  required,  and  this  involved  an 
appreciable  amount  of  expense  and 
delay.  The  difference  necessary,  how- 
ever, to  cover  this  disadvantage  was 
small,  and  accordingly  the  deviation 
from  par  never  went  beyond  a  small 
margin  one  way  or  the  other.  The 
extreme  quotations  thus  normally 
possible  were  known  as  the  gold-ex- 
port and  gold-import  points.  When, 
either  through  the  transfer  of  gold 
or  through  the  export  or  import  of 
commodities  or  securities,  a  sufficient 
readjustment  had  taken  place,  ex- 
change was  restored  to  par. 

In  existing  conditions  it  continues 
true  that  an  increase  of  current  obli- 
gations due  from  America  to  Eng- 
land, or  a  diminution  of  current  obli- 
gations due  from  England  to  America, 
tends  to  raise  sterling  exchange,  and 
vice  versa.  But  the  point  of  equili- 
brium is  no  longer  4.86.  There  is 
no  reason  why  it  should  be.    Nor  is 


there  any  definite  figure  that  takes 
the  place  of  the  old  par.  There  is, 
however,  a  ratio  between  the  paper 
pound  and  the  dollar  which,  although 
it  can  not  be  definitely  evaluated, 
should  be  regarded  as  representing 
in  fact  a  point  of  equilibrium  or 
parity.  The  simplicity  of  the  old  com- 
parison— so  many  grains  of  gold  in 
the  pound,  so  many  grains  of  gold  in 
the  dollar — is  gone ;  but  comparisons 
of  a  substantial,  though  irregular,  na- 
ture are  still  possible.  The  index- 
number,  recording  as  it  does  the 
average  price-level  of  a  large  number 
of  representative  commodities,  might 
be  supposed  to  be  a  satisfactory  way 
of  making  this  comparison.  If  it 
were,  something  like  the  old  sim- 
plicity would  be  reintroduced  into  the 
question.    But  unfortunately  it  is  not. 

Apart  from  any  question  of  the 
trustworthiness  of  the  index-number 
as  a  measure  of  the  general  purchas- 
ing power  of  the  currency  unit  in  a 
given  country,  another  consideration, 
far  more  important,  interferes  with 
its  application  to  the  present  purpose. 
It  is  only  those  commodities  which 
are  capable  of  playing  an  important 
part  in  international  trade  that  enter 
effectively  into  the  determination  of 
the  relative  values  of  the  monetary 
unit  of  two  different  countries.  Iron, 
or  copper,  or  zinc,  or  wool,  or  cotton, 
and  manufactures  of  many  kinds 
can  play  a  part  in  that  determination 
roughly  similar  to  that  which  gold 
itself  plays  when  both  the  countries 
are  on  the  gold  standard.  Obviously, 
however,  no  clear  rule  can  be  given 
for  merging  the  prices  of  these  things 
into  a  single  figure  which  would  take 
the  place  of  the  gold  unit.  Some  kind 
of  index-number  might  be  constructed 
out  of  them,  but  in  doing  so  account 
would  have  to  be  taken  of  highly 
complex  considerations  in  regard  to 
freights,  tariffs,  and  other  circum- 
stances; and  at  best  it  would  be  a 
very  uncertain  guide. 

In  spite  of  all  this,  however,  the 
currency  units  of  any  two  countries, 
for  example  the  pound  and  the  dollar, 
do  each  of  them  represent  a  certain 
amount  of  purchasing  power  over 
commodities  that  can  be  exported  and 
imported  on  a  large  scale.  And  the 
ratio  of  these  two  amounts  of  pur- 


146] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  40 


chasing  power  (allowance  made  for 
freiorhts,  tariffs,  etc.)  should  be  re- 
garded as  constituting  a  theoretical 
par  of  exchange  between  them.  The 
figure  is  indeterminable,  and,  indeed, 
in  a  great  measure  indefinite.  Yet  in 
a  substantial  sense  it  exists;  and  it 
tends  to  be  realized  in  practice  in  the 
same  manner,  though  infinitely  less 
accurately  and  effectively,  as  does  the 
regular  par  of  exchange  between  cur- 
rencies both  embodying  the  gold 
standard.  Deviations  from  it  tend 
to  be  corrected  by  exports  and  im- 
ports of  commodities — much  more 
slowly  and  irregularly  and  uncer- 
tainly, yet  in  principle  after  the  same 
fashion  as  deviations  from  the  regu- 
lar par  of  exchange  are  corrected  by 
the  export  or  import  of  gold.  It  is 
possible,  for  example,  that  the  pound 
sterling  to-day  has,  roughly  speaking, 
in  this  way  the  same  purchasing 
power  as  three  and  a  half  dollars ;  if 
so,  3.50  should  be  regarded  as  the 
theoretical  par  of  exchange  to-day, 
and  any  deviation  from  it,  up  or 
down,  as  a  fluctuation,  though  the 
fluctuations  may  be  very  wide  and 
be  a  long  time  in  getting  corrected. 
In  a  word,  and  waiving  all  complexi- 
ties, the  point  is  that  if  the  fall  in 
sterling  exchange  is  greater  than  is 
justified  by  the  fall  in  the  purchasing 
power  of  the  pound,  as  compared  with 
that  of  the  dollar,  over  commodities 
of  international  importance,  this  will 
stimulate  exports  from  England,  or 
restrict  exports  from  the  United 
States,  and  thus  tend  to  restore  equi- 
librium at  the  theoretical  ratio.  Any- 
body can  see  that  if  pig-iron  could  be 
bought  in  England  at  a  price  which, 
with  freight  and  tariff  added,  would 
make  it  cost  here  five  pounds  sterling 
a  ton,  and  if  the  American  price  was 
twenty-five  dollars  a  ton,  this  state  of 
things  could  not  long  continue  with 
sterling  exchange  at  3.30. 

In  a  country  in  which  there  is  an 
open  market  for  gold,  as  there  is  now 
at  London,  one  might  be  tempted  to 
dispose  of  the  question  by  referring 
simply  to  the  premium  on  gold 
— or,  what  is  the  same  thing, 
the  discount  on  paper — as  the  true 
determinant  of  the  par  of  exchange. 
But  this  would  be,  essentially,  to  mis- 
take effect  for  cause.    The  premium 


on  gold,  though  to  some  extent 
affected  by  other  factors,  is  in  the 
main  determined  by  the  state  of  for- 
eign exchange,  and  not  vice  versa. 
Obviously,  it  would  be  impossible, 
except  by  way  of  temporary  fluctua- 
tion, that  a  paper  pound  should  be 
worth  much  more  or  much  less  gold 
in  London  than  in  New  York  at  any 
given  time,  provided  there  is  a  free 
market  for  gold  at  London;  and  the 
gold  it  is  worth  in  New  York  is  only 
another  name  for  the  rate  of  ex- 
change. 

We  must  content  ourselves  with 
just  one  more  remark  on  these  ele- 
mentary matters.  Nothing  is  more 
common  than  to  hear  it  said  that  a 
low  rate  of  exchange  on  a  given  coun- 
try stimulates  exports.  Understood 
as  it  usually  is,  the  statement  is  ex- 
tremely misleading.  It  is  not  the 
absolute  level  of  exchange,  but  its 
relative  level  as  compared  with 
the  effective  level  of  prices  (of  which 
we  have  been  speaking  above)  that 
operates  upon  exports  either  as  a 
stimulus  or  as  a  check.  Exchange  on 
Germany,  for  example,  is  depressed 
far  more  than  prices  in  Germany 
have  risen ;  and  so  long  as  this  con- 
tinues to  be  the  case,  it  operates  as  a 
great  stimulus  to  exports.  But  the 
mere  fact  that  mark  exchange  is 
vastly  below  what  mark  exchange 
used  to  be  when  the  mark  meant  a 
certain  amount  of  gold  has  nothing 
whatever  to  do  with  the  case.  In  that 
sense,  mark  exchange  might  continue 
low  for  a  hundred  years  without 
affecting  exports  or  imports  in  the 
slightest  degree.  If  the  level  of  prices 
in  Germany  were  as  high  as  the  rate 
of  exchange  was  low,  her  international 
trade  would  go  on  exactly  the  same 
as  though  there  had  never  been  any 
monetary  disturbance — exactly  the 
same,  that  is,  except  for  the  damaging 
effect  that  uncertainty  and  fluctua- 
tions always  exert  upon  trade,  which 
effect,  however,  is  just  as  likely  to 
cut  one  way  as  the  other. 

We  have  made  no  attempt  to  touch 
upon  the  question  of  remedies,  a  ques- 
tion which  will  long  exercise  the  high- 
est powers  of  the  best  minds  in  this 
country  and  in  Europe.  The  one  re- 
mark upon  which  we  shall  venture 
in  this  direction  is  that,  while  every 


possible  stress  should  be  laid  upon  the 
need  of  increased  production  and 
frugality,  it  would  be  mere  blindness 
to  imagine  that  these,  of  themselves, 
are  capable  of  restoring  normal  con- 
ditions in  the  currencies  of  the  world. 
The  gold  standard  has  ceased  to  exist 
in  all  the  leading  countries  of  Europe. 
In  some  of  them — most  important  of 
all,  Germany — the  departure  has 
been  so  great  that  return  by  any 
normal  process  is  impossible.  But 
even  in  the  countries  whose  condition 
in  this  regard  is  best,  restoration  will 
be  possible  only  through  the  firm  and 
consistent  direction  of  governmental 
and  banking  policy  toward  that  end. 
Deflation  is  not  only  a  painful,  but 
unfortunately  also  a  dangerous  pro- 
cess. But  it  has  to  be  effected; 
perhaps  very  slowly,  yet  certainly 
through  the  pursuance  of  a  definite 
public  policy,  over  and  above  any 
efforts  that  may  be  made  by  indi- 
viduals. That  this  fact  is  becoming 
more  and  more  thoroughly  recognized 
is  the  one  encouraging  feature  of  the 
situation. 

Labor  in  Politics 

'T'HE  policy  of  organized  labor  in 
-*■  the  United  States  has  hitherto 
been  steadily  opposed  to  the  forma- 
tion of  a  distinct  labor  party.  In  this 
it  has  stood  in  sharp  contrast  with 
that  of  organized  labor  in  England. 
For  this  difference  thoughtful  Amer- 
icans have  generally  felt  that  there 
was  a  fundamental  reason.  The 
American  workingman,  the  typical 
American  workingman,  does  not  ha- 
bitually think  of  himself  as  a  mem- 
ber of  a  distinctly  separate  class  in 
the  community.  That  there  are  class 
distinctions  in  our  country,  it  would 
be  idle  to  deny ;  but  the  psychology  of 
them  is  radically  different  from  that 
of  class  distinctions  in  the  Old  World. 
Not  only  has  democracy  been  so  real 
and  pervasive  an  element  in  Amer- 
ican life  and  American  ways  of 
thinking  as  to  preclude  a  deep-rooted 
class  feeling,  but  the  actual  advance 
of  thousands  from  the  ranks  of  the 
manual  tpilers  to  positions  of  impor- 
tance or  affluence  has  been  so  familiar 
a  phenomenon  as  to  make  the  possi- 
bility a  real   thing  in  every  man's 


February  14,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[147 


thoughts.  Accordingly,  it  has  not 
been  merely  a  calculation  of  expe- 
diency, but  the  operation  of  instinc- 
tive and  habitual  feelings,  that  has 
militated  against  the  segregation  of 
American  workingmen  into  a  class 
party. 

The  proclamation  issued  this  week 
by  the  American  Federation  of  Labor 
does  not  ostensibly  abandon  this  po- 
sition. It  does  not  abandon  it  at  all 
so  far  as  the  form  of  organization  is 
concerned.  Not  only  does  it  not  pro- 
pose the  formation  of  a  labor  party, 
or  the  adhesion  of  the  Federation  to 
any  labor  party  already  formed,  but 
it  maps  out  a  course  irreconcilable 
with  any  such  programme.  Never- 
theless, if  the  proclamation  means  all 
that  it  seems  to  portend,  it  marks  a 
departure  in  the  direction  of  class 
segregation  quite  as  radical,  and  quite 
as  momentous,  as  would  be  the  cre- 
ation of  a  new  party.  If  the  pro- 
gramme it  lays  down  is  to  be  sys- 
tematically and  consistently  carried 
out,  that  great  body  of  workingmen 
which  constitutes  the  Federation  of 
Labor  will  henceforth  play,  in  Amer- 
ican politics,  the  part  not  of  individ- 
ual American  citizens,  but  of  a  con- 
solidated class. 

That  programme  is  tersely  summed 
up  in  this  sentence  in  the  proclama- 
tion: 

The  American  Federation  of  Labor  an- 
nounces its  determination  to  apply  every  legit- 
imate means  and  all  of  the  power  at  its  com- 
mand to  accomplish  the  defeat  of  labor's  ene- 
mies who  aspire  for  public  office,  whether 
they  be  candidates  for  President,  for  Con- 
gress, for  State  Legislatures  or  any  other 
office. 

"Every  legitimate  means"  may,  to  be 
sure,  signify  little  or  much;  but,  in- 
terpreted in  the  light  of  other  state- 
ments in  the  proclamation,  it  has  an 
ominous  sound.  It  is  at  least  con- 
ceivable that  what  the  Federation 
leaders  have  in  mind  is  to  take  a  leaf 
out  of  the  Anti-Saloon  League's  book. 
The  systematic  blacklisting  which 
was  the  heart  of  that  organization's 
activities  sufficed  to  give  the  League 
the  balance  of  power  in  a  sufficient 
number  of  Legislative  and  Congres- 
sional districts  to  bring  about  its 
astonishing  and  revolutionary  vic- 
tory. And  it  is  to  balance  of  power 
that  the  Federation's  proclamation 
explicitly  points.    Whether  it  will  be 


able,  or  even  whether  it  desires,  to 
wield  the  possible  voting  power  of 
the  Federation's  members  in  the 
ruthless  and  effective  way  which  the 
Anti-Saloon  League  found  so  success- 
ful, it  may  be  premature  to  discuss. 
But  that  this  possibility  has  to  be 
considered  is  evident.  The  absence  of 
any  such  determined  effort  in  the 
past,  and  the  failure  of  such  efforts 
as  have  been  made  in  this  direction, 
throw  little  light  upon  the  possibili- 
ties that  lie  before  us  now. 

It  is  none  too  early  to  warn  both 
the  public  and  the  labor  people  of  the 
profound  and  far-reaching  conse- 
quences which  the  adoption  of  such 
a  policy  would  entail.  It  would  mean 
a  class  situation  not  less  serious,  but 
far  more  serious,  than  that  which 
would  be  brought  about  by  the  mar- 
shaling of  organized  labor  into  a 
separate  political  party.  With  a  sepa- 
rate party,  unfortunate  as  might  be 
its  identification  with  a  class,  the 
other  parties  could  reckon  on  fair 
and  manly  terms.  It  would  be  a  ques- 
tion of  matching  one  set  of  forces, 
one  aggregation  of  citizens,  against 
another.  But  the  balance-of-power 
programme,  in  its  fulness,  means  sys- 
tematic intimidation.  It  means,  un- 
less counteracted  by  a  corresponding 
combination  of  opposing  purpose, 
that  no  man  in  either  of  the  great 
parties  could  call  his  soul  his  own 
except  at  the  risk  of  political  anni- 
hilation. 

This  condition  of  things  would  be 
intolerable ;  and  although  it  would 
undoubtedly  lead  to  the  adoption  of  a 
remedy,  the  remedy  would  be  almost 
as  bad  as  the  disease.  If  the  Federa- 
tion's announcement  means  the  worst 
that  it  is  apparently  capable  of  mean- 
ing, we  are  about  to  enter  upon  one 
of  the  most  sinister  chapters  of  our 
political  history.  Let  us  hope  that, 
whatever  may  be  at  present  in  the 
minds  of  the  Federation's  officers,  the 
true  significance  of  any  programme 
of  organized  intimidation  by  a  class 
— the  disaster  which  it  portends,  in 
the  first  instance  to  us  all,  but  finally 
and  most  heavily  to  the  very  class 
that  undertakes  it — will  be  brought 
home  to  the  labor  leaders  in  time  to 
prevent  the  launching  of  any  such 
rash  and  ill-omened  enterprise. 


America    and    the 
English  Tradition 

'T'HE  recently  established  chair  in 
-*■  the  history,  literature,  and  insti- 
tutions of  the  United  States  which  is 
to  be  shared  among  the  several  uni- 
versities of  Great  Britain,  is  quite 
different  from  the  exchange  profes- 
sorships of  sometimes  unhappy  mem- 
ory. It  is  not  at  all  the  idea  to  carry 
over  one  of  our  professors  each  year 
and  indoctrinate  him  with  the  true 
culture  at  its  source.  The  occupant 
of  the  chair  will  be,  if  the  announced 
intention  is  carried  out,  quite  as  often 
British  as  American,  and  quite  as 
likely  a  public  man  as  a  professor. 
The  chief  object  is  to  bring  to  Eng- 
land a  better  knowledge  of  the  United 
States,  and  a  purpose  more  laudable 
can  scarcely  be  imagined.  Peace  and 
prosperity  will  endure  in  the  world 
in  some  very  precise  relation  to  the 
extent  to  which  England  succeeds  in 
understanding  us. 

It  is  not  an  illusion  to  suppose  that 
our  understanding  of  the  British  is  on 
the  whole  better  than  theirs  of  us. 
The  British  Empire  is  a  large  and 
comparatively  simple  fact,  now  con- 
spicuously before  the  world  for  a  long 
time.  The  United  States  was,  in 
British  eyes,  until  recently,  a  compar- 
atively insignificant  fact,  yet  vastly 
more  complicated  than  they  imag- 
ined. Each,  of  course,  perfectly  knew 
the  faults  of  the  other,  assessed  with 
an  unerring  cousinly  eye.  The  Amer- 
ican bragged  in  a  nasal  whine,  the 
Briton  patronized  in  a  throaty  burble. 
Whoever  among  the  struggling  na- 
tions of  the  world  might  win,  Eng- 
land saw  to  it  that  she  never  lost; 
your  Yankee  was  content  with  the 
more  ignoble  triumphs  of  merchan- 
dising, willing  to  cheapen  life  if  he 
could  only  add  to  his  dollars.  But 
the  excellence  of  English  political  in- 
stitutions and  methods,  the  charm  of 
English  life,  the  tremendous  power  of 
the  Empire  for  promoting  freedom 
and  civilization  in  the  world,  these 
are  things  which  Americans  have 
long  recognized  and  in  a  way  under- 
stood. Anything  like  an  equivalent 
British  appreciation  of  America  in 
the  large  seems  confined  to  a  very 


148] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  Xo.  40 


few  honorable  exceptions  among 
them.  Admiration  for  Niagara, 
which  is  half  British  anyway,  or  en- 
thusiasm for  the  "Wild  West"— 
your  better-class  Englishman  always 
thrills  to  the  frontier — is  no  step 
at  all  toward  rightly  appreciating 
America. 

To  no  inconsiderable  extent  this  is 
America's  own  fault.  She  does  not 
present  to  the  world  a  record  that  is 
easily  read.  It  is  obvious,  for  in- 
stance— and  so  obvious  that  it  is  not 
often  enough  stated — that  America 
has  and  will  continue  to  have  a  fun- 
damentally English  civilization.  Eng- 
lish law  is  the  basis  of  her  law.  Eng- 
lish speech  is  her  speech,  and  if  with 
a  difference,  it  is  a  difference  that  the 
philologist,  all  things  considered, 
finds  amazingly  small.  English  lit- 
erature is  her  literature — Chaucer 
and  Shakespeare  hers  because  her 
blood  then  coursed  indistinguishably 
through  the  English  heart  they  knew 
so  well;  Milton,  Dryden,  and  the 
Queen  Anne  men  hers,  because  she 
was  still  a  part  of  England ;  the  later 
men  hers  by  virtue  of  affectionate  ac- 
quaintanceship and  a  generous  and 
not  inconsiderable  rivalry.  English 
history,  in  short,  is  her  history.  The 
struggles  of  the  thirteenth  century 
through  which  law  and  parliament 
came  into  being,  the  struggles  of  the 
seventeenth  century  through  which 
law  and  parliament  came  to  rule,  are 
America's  struggles  upon  which  she 
can  look  back  with  the  satisfaction 
that  some  things  that  have  been  done 
in  the  world  need  never  be  undone  or 
done  over  again,  whatever  the  room 
for  improvement  may  still  be.  Ameri- 
cans, no  less  than  British,  recognize 
that  independence  was  largely  an  ac- 
cidental result  of  a  war  which  sprang 
out  of  a  false  theory  of  economics, 
but  whose  conclusion  carried  with  it 
a  lesson  in  the  management  of  empire 
which  subsequent  history  shows  the 
British  to  have  learned  thoroughly 
and  for  the  benefit  of  all  concerned. 
American  independence,  however, 
once  established,  pointed  a  way  to 
democratic  freedom  which  England 
hastened  to  follow.  This  we  know. 
And  yet — 

And  yet  we  allow  these  obvious  and 
fundamental    considerations    to    be- 


come marvellously  obscured.  We  al- 
low England's  failure  to  solve  an  in- 
soluble Irish  problem  to  arouse  in  us 
an  attitude  of  mind  possibly  excus- 
able in  some  Irishmen,  but  wholly  in- 
excusable in  any  American.  We  allow 
a  sentimental  regard  for  some  immi- 
grant from  Eastern  Europe,  who 
comes  to  us  with  a  philosophy  born  of 
conditions  that  in  English-speaking 
lands  ceased  to  be  centuries  ago,  to 
make  us  pretend  to  see  in  him  the  true 
expression  of  America's  traditional 
ideals.  We  allow  ourselves  to  be  far 
too  easy  with  the  phrase,  "He  is  not 
pro-German,  he  is  merely  anti-Brit- 
ish." Why  are  they  anti-British  ?  Why 
should  they  be  permitted  to  make  it 
falsely  appear  that  recognition  of  the 
English  basis  of  America  involves  ap- 
proval of  everything  that  England  in 
her  long  history  may  or  may  not  have 
done  ?  Why  should  they  be  allowed  to 
pretend  that  disapproval  of  some  par- 
ticular act  of  England  justifies  repu- 
diation of  most  of  the  things  by  vir- 
tue of  which  we  are  what  we  are? 
America  from  the  first  has  been  part 
of  the  great  English  experiment — 
great  because  it  is  capable  of  learning 
from  experience. 

The  world  has  put  a  big  investment 
in  blood  and  treasure,  and  all  that 
they  imply,  into  the  education  of 
England.  It  is  satisfied — the  world's 
response  to  Germany's  insolent  chal- 
lenge is  the  proof  of  it — that  its  pains 
have  been  well  bestowed.  England 
is  more  nearly  fit  than  any  other  na- 
tion to  wield  the  power  that  is  hers. 
That  is  not  to  deny  the  peculiar  vir- 
tues of  other  nations;  indeed,  these 
virtues  have  largely  contributed  to 
the  result.  Italy  has  educated  her; 
France  has  educated  her;  we  have 
done  something;  and  Germany.  In 
result,  she  is  not  perfect — the  Eng- 
lish would  perhaps  least  of  all  assert 
that — but  she  has  learned  a  great 
deal  and  held  herself  steady  while  she 
learned  it.  It  is  a  bigger  job  than  the 
world  cares  to  undertake  to  teach  any 
other  nation  so  much.  Nor  would  it 
be  at  all  likely  to  succeed  so  well.  For 
what  England  has  to  offer  the  world 
in  return  is  not  simply  her  institu- 
tions ;  it  is  not  merely  a  formula  for 
the  effective  discharge  of  police  duty 
throughout  the  world ;  it  is  the  Eng- 


lish freeman,  whether  he  hail  from 
Canada,  Australia,  Africa,  or  the  ut- 
termost isles  of  the  sea. 

A  most  adaptable  fellow,  this  free- 
man, doing  all  sorts  of  work  every- 
where, and  with  tremendous  powers 
of  assimilation.  Consider  him  in  his 
origins.  He  began  by  assimilating 
fully  his  own  weight  in  Danes,  while 
remaining  an  English  freeman.  He 
then  perforce  accepted  a  Norman 
king,  as  he  had  accepted  a  Danish 
one,  hoping,  as  always,  that  the  king 
would  not  trouble  him  too  much.  But 
when  Norman  William,  who  was  very 
ill-informed  about  the  breed,  killed 
off  most  of  his  natural  leaders  and 
harried  the  rest  into  villeiny,  how  did 
he  manage  in  a  small  matter  of  two 
hundred  years  or  so  to  make  an  Eng- 
lish gentleman  not  only  of  himself  but 
of  all  the  rag-tag  of  adventurers  who 
had  come  over  with  William  and  since  ? 
How  did  he  contrive,  out  of  a  band  of 
exiles  fleeing  from  an  Egypt  of  eccle- 
siastical tyranny,  broken  younger 
sons,  artisans  out  of  a  job,  specula- 
tors, bondmen,  Swedes,  Dutchmen, 
and  what  not,  to  make  America?  Is 
he  one  likely  to  lose  his  bearings  when 
in  his  America  the  age-old  problem 
again  heaves  in  view?  This  is  a  job 
he  has  been  working  at  pretty  suc- 
cessfully for  more  than  a  thousand 
years.  Grant  him  a  moment  to  real- 
ize himself  afresh  in  the  face  of  it. 
Don't  expect  him  to  stop  and  give  a 
coherent  explanation  of  what  he  is 
doing.  He  wouldn't  be  the  true  son 
of  the  English  tradition  that  he  is 
if  he  could  do  that.  Perhaps  the 
occupants  of  the  new  chair  can  do 
something  of  the  sort  for  him. 


THE  REVIEW 

A  weekly  jaurnal  tf  political  and 

general  discussion 

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Copyright,     1920,     in     the     United     States     of 
America 
Editors 
FABIAN  FRANKLIN 
HAROLD  DE   WOLF  FULLER 

Associate  Editors 
Harry  Morgan  Ayres     O.  W.  Firkins 
A.  J.  Barnouw  W.  H.  Johnson 

Jerque  Landfikld 


Febrtuary  14,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[149 


President  Wilson's  Japan 


JAPANESE  statesmen,  on  the  many 
occasions  when  the  purpose  of  the 
Mikado's  land  is  under  scrutiny,  are 
fond  of  declaring :  "So  desu  ka!" — to 
the  accompaniment  of  that  succulent 
intake  of  the  breath  we  all  know — 
"Our  country  is  so  misunderstood." 

With  Mr.  Wilson's  pax  Japonica 
now  well  under  way,  one  can  not  but 
wonder  what  President  Wilson's 
Japan  really  was  when  the  triumvi- 
rate at  Paris  underwrote  a  Japanese 
primacy  in  the  East.  Mr.  Wilson 
would,  doubtless,  agree  with  me  that, 
now  that  he  is  finally  grappling  with 
the  situation  in  the  Pacific,  the  State 
Department,  his  Minister  at  Peking, 
even  the  Ambassador  in  Tokio,  are 
showing  an  irritating  blindness  to  the 
picture  he  has  so  carefully  drawn  for 
himself. 

His  decision  at  Paris  was  not  at 
bottom  dictated  by  those  disconcert- 
ing secret  agreements  made  between 
Japan  and  the  Allies  in  1917  for  the 
purpose,  as  the  President  remarked 
several  times,  of  bringing  that  East- 
ern Power  into  the  European  strug- 
gle— Japan  having  as  a  matter  of  fact 
quite  voluntarily  declared  war  on 
Germany  August  23,  1914.  It  was 
not  prompted  by  a  desire  to  abet  an 
injustice  to  China.  Even  the  pressure 
of  Fiume  was  but  a  contributing  in- 
cident. If  the  President  had  not 
visualized  a  Japan  through  the  kindly 
light  furnished  by  the  suave  Marquis 
Saionji,  the  candid  Viscount  Chinda, 
and  colored  by  the  pleasant  memories 
at  Washington  of  Ambassador  Ishii, 
the  thing  could  not  possibly  have 
happened.  In  the  settlement  of  the 
Far  Eastern  imbroglio,  he  moved 
with  a  sureness  which  so  baffled  many 
of  us  that  we  never  grasped  the  main 
consideration  in  the  case:  just  what 
kind  of  Japan  President  Wilson's 
was. 

Behind  all  President  Wilson's 
idealism  lies  a  curtain  of  Calvinistic 
doctrine  against  which  he  projects 
his  every  act.  To  international  rela- 
tions he  brings  the  relentless  austerity 
of  the  Covenanter.  For  him  the  state 
is  an  aggregation  of  individuals  actu- 
ated by  a  sifting  of  good  and  evil,  and 


predestined  to  be  convinced  in  the 
end  by  an  appeal  to  their  virtuous 
instincts.  The  President  sought  in 
the  legalities  of  the  Covenant  a  deity 
who  should  hold  up  before  the  na- 
tions a  vivid  picture  of  the  Judgment 
Day.  And,  as  a  picture,  it  is  not  with- 
out inspiration  for  the  high-minded. 
Practical  European  statesmen,  how- 
ever, looked  to  the  League  of  Nations 
mainly  for  a  way  in  which  to  settle 
in  chancery  international  difficulties; 
and  it  was  they  who  really  held  the 
scales. 

During  President  Wilson's  first  ad- 
ministration, I  had  a  long,  frank  talk 
with  his  newly  appointed  Ambas- 
sador to  Japan,  in  which  I  seemed  to 
be  hearing  the  President  himself  lay 
down  the  why  and  the  wherefore  of 
his  Far  Eastern  purposes.  Ambas- 
sador Morris,  like  the  President, 
knew  little  about  the  intricacies  of 
the  situation;  but  that  seemed  of 
slight  importance.  The  Ambassador 
was  a  personal  emissary  of  the  White 
House,  one  felt,  a  missionary  of  the 
new  diplomacy.  He  was  the  ex- 
ponent of  a  formula  which  would  re- 
solve the  tangled  skein  of  Sino- 
Japanese  relations  just  as  readily  as 
harmonize  our  purposes  on  the  Pa- 
cific, or  open  the  closing  door  in  China, 
or  settle  difficulties  with  Mexico.  It 
had  the  fascination  which  benevolent 
intentions  in  foreign  fields  always 
possess  for  Americans.  On  our  side, 
it  was  a  plan  of  action  which 
eschewed  suspicion  of  the  other 
party.  It  freely  imputed  to  all  sin- 
cerity of  purpose.  It  reflected  an 
abiding  faith  in  the  necessity  of  dem- 
onstrating our  own  disinterested- 
ness at  any  cost.  Japan — if  she 
had  ever  infringed  our  interests,  or 
contemplated  such  a  thing — would 
turn  over  a  new  leaf  if  we  took  no 
stand  which  could  alienate  her 
friendship. 

Many  things  have  happened  since 
then.  Ambassador  Morris,  one  takes 
it  after  seeing  him  in  Tokio,  is  no 
longer  under  any  illusions  as  to  the 
prevailing  tendency  of  the  real  Japan 
in  China  or  in  Siberia.  But  the  force 
of  these  initial  convictions  remains 


with  the  White  House.  The  Presi- 
dent's Japan  is  a  nation  whose  eyes 
have  been  opened  to  the  futility  of 
military  challenge  and  which  there- 
fore has  magnanimously  abandoned 
a  vision  of  empire  in  the  East ;  not  a 
Japan  reaching  for  the  trappings  of 
world-power  on  the  continent  of  East 
Asia  by  devious  roads,  covering, 
under  their  properly  worded  phrases, 
the  same  old  rail-and-iron  policies. 
Yet  there  was  that  Paul  Page  Whit- 
ham  report  on  the  neutralization  of 
China's  railways — I  was  in  Peking 
when  it  was  being  prepared — which 
the  Senate  Foreign  Relations  Com- 
mittee could  not  see,  showing  another 
Japan;  a  Japan  which  needed  only 
"the  economic  rights"  in  Shantung 
awarded  her  at  the  Peace  Conference 
to  menace  the  security  of  China,  as  this 
expert  survey  pointed  out.  It  must 
also  have  pointed  out  to  the  Presi- 
dent, by  word,  by  picture,  and  by 
maps,  that  his  Consortium  scheme 
should  include  the  communications 
Japan  held  so  jealously  in  North 
China  if  this  great  plan  of  coopera- 
tive action  to  eliminate  international 
competition  and  preserve  China's  in- 
tegrity is  to  have  a  chance  of  suc- 
cess. 

Then,  there  was  a  masterly  memo- 
randum of  the  American  Minister  to 
China,  remarkable  for  its  lucid 
brevity,  the  most  penetrating  exposi- 
tion of  the  Far  Eastern  crisis  which 
has  been  written.  With  great  skill, 
it  is  understood,  President  Wilson's 
own  spokesman  in  China  bared  for 
him  the  structure  of  Japan's  pur- 
poses, laid  down  the  lines  of  effective 
settlement,  and  measured  the  danger 
impending  from  the  wrong  solution 
of  the  difficulties.  Yet  another  report 
which  the  President  ought  to  have 
seen  was  an  intimate  investigation 
of  Japan  as  she  really  conducted  her- 
self from  the  beginning  of  her  occu- 
pation of  Shantung.  From  an  unim- 
peachable source,  it,  too,  was  a  picture 
not  appropriate  to  the  President's 
Japan;  hence  it  fared  badly  in  the 
Presidential  councils  when  in  due 
time  it  came  against  the  phantasma- 
goric Japan  with  which  the  White 
House  preferred  to  deal.  These  are  over 
and  above  the  deluge  of  illuminating 
dispatches  and  reports  of  the  same 


150] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  40 


tenor  coming  in  as  department  rout- 
ine— from  our  shrewd  representative 
at  Tsingtao,  the  Peking  Legation,  our 
intelligence  services.  Indeed,  one 
wonders  if  there  does  not  exist  a  kind 
of  censorship  among  the  officials 
closest  to  the  President,  whose  con- 
cern it  is  to  see  that  he  is  not  antag- 
onized by  the  obtruding  realities  so 
counter  to  his  own  views  of  the  sit- 
uation. 

In  any  case,  Viscount  Ishii's  state- 
ments of  what  his  Government  hoped 
to  do  impressed  the  President  more 
than  the  State  Department  reports  of 
what  Japan  was  doing.  He  preferred 
to  build  up  his  policy  on  the  Hara 
Ministry's  professions  of  liberalism 
rather  than  confront  Japan's  actual 
government  of  minority  rule  and 
star-chamber  politics — attempts  to 
enfranchise  more  than  5  per  cent,  of 
the  population  thwarted  by  the  polit- 
ical interests;  the  popular  house  of 
the  Diet  a  chamber  of  protest  having 
no  effectual  control  over  the  purse; 
the  House  of  Peers  packed  in  the 
interest  of  the  old  regime ;  the  main- 
spring of  administration  vested  in  an 
irresponsible  Cabinet  designated  by 
the  Mikado,  behind  which  stands  an 
extra-legal  council  of  advisors  hold- 
ing the  final  decisions  of  Japan  and 
really  exercising  the  imperial  pre- 
rogatives. Admittedly,  in  Japan  there 
is  the  fabric  of  a  true  liberalism,  as 
Premier  Hara  and  his  fellow  Minis- 
ters have  taken  care  to  impress  upon 
President  Wilson,  but  events  have 
shown  that  the  White  House  has 
come  face  to  face  with  only  the  vested 
interests  which  are  dictating  Japan's 
moves. 

It  was  President  Wilson's  misfor- 
tune to  come  to  the  Paris  Conference 
with  his  own  Japan  in  mind.  It  was 
by  such  a  picture  that  he  was  actu- 
ated when  he  talked  over  Japan's 
terms  of  settlement  with  Saionji  and 
his  associates ;  and,  for  reasons  which 
need  not  be  gone  into  here,  the  Japa- 
nese delegation  did  not  disillusion 
him.  Even  the  Consortium  so  ably 
broached  in  Peking  by  the  American 
Minister — at  the  time  of  the  armistice 
Japan  was  quite  willing  to  come  in — 
was  already  settled  as  to  principle  in 
those  May  days  of  last  year.  But,  to- 
day,   the    White    House    policy    has 


failed — failed  because  President  Wil- 
son's Japan  was  a  wraith.  The  Con- 
sortium, which  was  to  have  pooled 
the  international  danger  points  in 
China's  development,  equitably  pro- 
tecting the  legitimate  interests  of 
every  Power,  has  been  deadlocked  by 
the  firm  hand  of  the  controlling  ele- 
ments in  Japan;  it  has  been  vetoed 
by  the  forces  that  brought  Japan  the 
prestige  of  the  Chinese  War  in  1894, 
the  diplomatic  assaults  on  China  since 
1915,  the  undermining  of  her  allies 
in  Siberia  to-day.  The  real  Japan  has 
contemptuously  called  a  halt  to  the 
merry  game  its  marionettes  played  at 
the  Peace  Conference  when  they  as- 
sented to  the  Consortium  scheme  to 
facilitate  the  President's  approval  of 
the  Shantung  settlement. 


The  test  of  President  Wilson's 
Japan  was  not  the  Peace  Conference, 
but  the  aftermath.  The  actual  mak- 
ers of  Japan's  master-policy  are  far- 
sighted  military  leaders  who  see 
things  as  they  are,  calculating  states- 
men of  the  old  order,  and  the  heads 
of  the  great  business  enterprises 
which  came  to  have  a  vested  interest 
in  the  governance  of  Japan  since  the 
Meiji  restoration.  There  is  nothing 
visionary  about  them;  they  have 
merely  weighed  the  new  diplomacy 
of  President  Wilson  and  found  it 
wanting.  The  rejection  of  the  Con- 
sortium was  the  first  manifestation 
of  their  conviction  that  the  old  di- 
plomacy might  still  dominate  the 
world — at  all  events  in  the  East. 
Charles  Hodges 


The  "New  Republic's"  Exhilaration 


THE  New  Republic  feels  that  the  an- 
nouncement of  the  Supreme  Economic 
Council  concerning  the  blockade  of  Soviet 
Russia  is  the  most  exhilarating  piece  of 
news  which  has  come  out  of  Europe 
since  the  signing  of  the  armistice. 
Judging  by  the  article  in  its  columns 
inspired  by  this  news,  it  may  be  con- 
ceded that  the  degree  of  exhilaration  was 
unlimited.  Exhilaration  indeed  has  car- 
ried the  New  Republic  far  beyond  the 
bounds  of  reality  and  fact. 

So,  for  example,  under  the  influence  of 
this  exhilaration,  the  New  Republic  con- 
siders the  blockade  an  atrocity,  "the  last 
abominable  remnant  of  the  policy  of  eco- 
nomic terrorism,  with  which  the  Allied 
Governments  have  made  the  peoples  of 
Eastern  Europe  pay  in  hunger,  sickness, 
depression,  and  actual  starvation  for  the 
sins  of  their  rulers."  According  to  the 
pious  hope  of  the  Neiv  Republic,  the  dis- 
tracted souls  of  the  democratic  nations 
can  now  "resume  contact  with  the  spirit- 
ual impulses  of  genuine  democracy." 

One  need  not  be  a  defender  of  the  ex- 
pediency or  effectiveness  of  the  Russian 
blockade  as  a  military  measure  of  de- 
fense, at  a  time  when  the  German-led 
hordes  of  the  Red  armies  threatened  to 
engulf  the  new  states  of  Eastern  Europe, 
in  order  to  point  out  that  the  blockade  did 
not  starve  Russia.  Russia  is  one  of  the 
greatest  food-producing  countries  in  the 
world,  and  its  isolation  during  the  war 
tended  to  accumulate  rather  than  dis- 
perse food  supplies.  Furthermore,  the 
blockade  in  reality  affected  only  a  small 
corner  of  Russia,  namely,  the  region  oi' 
Petrograd. 

In  order  to  reveal  the  entire  fal- 
sity of  the  assumption  made  above,  it  is 
worth  while  to  reiterate  the  causes  of  the 


starvation  which  is  decimating  the  larger 
Russian  cities  and  industrial  centres. 
The  main  and  all-inclusive  cause  is  the 
incompetence  of  the  Bolshevik  authori- 
ties—  their  stupidly  impractical  pro- 
gramme, their  terrorism  and  graft,  and 
their  inability  to  organize  production. 
In  the  first  place,  as  a  political  dodge, 
they  told  the  peasants  to  seize  the  land. 
Next,  they  proceeded  to  socialize  the  land 
and  attempted  to  tell  the  peasant  that 
he  was  merely  a  tenant  of  the  state,  and 
that  anything  he  produced  above  a  lim- 
ited amount  for  his  own  consumption 
belonged  to  the  state.  In  this  way,  they 
successfully  alienated  the  peasant  popu- 
lation and  cut  down  food  production. 
Then,  they  attempted  to  make  the  peas- 
ant accept  worthless  paper  money  in  pay- 
ment for  food,  and  this  failed.  Had 
they  been  able  to  produce  any  of  the 
simple  articles  of  which  the  peasant  stood 
in  need,  he  would  have  gladly  furnished 
food  in  exchange,  but  instead  they  sent 
detachments  of  Red  Guards  into  the 
country  districts  to  requisition  grain  by 
force.  This  not  only  did  not  succeed,  but 
it  aroused  a  hatred  so  great  that  to-day 
a  Commissar  or  a  Red  Guard  dare  not  go 
among  the  peasants  without  military  pro- 
tection. Transportation  was,  of  course, 
in  a  bad  state  as  a  result  of  war  condi- 
tions, but  instead  of  improving  it  and 
making  the  necessary  repairs,  the  Bol- 
sheviks completed  its  disorganization 
and  ruin.  The  life  of  the  cities  depends 
upon  transportation,  and  they  could  not 
be  supplied  even  if  food  were  forthcom- 
ing from  the  country  districts.  All  this 
is  not  due  to  the  blockade.  To  be  sure, 
the  Bolsheviks,  in  return  for  stolen  gold 
and  confiscated  property,  might  have  ob- 
tained a  certain  amount  of  machinery, 


February  14,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[161 


tools,  and  manufactured  goods  if  there 
had  been  no  blockade;  but  these  would 
have  been  of  little  use,  as  they  were  un- 
able to  employ  what  they  already  had  or 
to  utilize  their  own  abundant  resources 
for  repairing  or  creating  equipment. 

Thus,  the  charge  that  the  blockade  was 
an  atrocity  whereby  the  Russian  people 
were  starved  falls  to  the  ground  as  the 
baseless  falsehood  of  Bolshevist  sym- 
pathizers. The  real  blockade  of  Petro- 
grad  was  Bolshevik  incompetence,  Bol- 
shevik food  control,  and  Bolshevik 
graft. 

When  the  New  Republic  turns  to  a  con- 
sideration of  the  political  aspects  of  the 
Russian  Revolution,  it  proceeds  on  still 
weaker  hypotheses.  It  parades  before 
us  again  the  old  theory  that  all  would 
have  been  well  if  the  Allies  had  satisfied 
the  "Revolutionary  democracy"  by  a 
joint  definition  of  war  aims  as  a  neces- 
sary preliminary  condition  of  a  general 
settlement.  There  is  no  question  that 
the  Russian  people  were  terribly  war- 
weary,  and  above  all  things  wished  peace. 
It  was  the  promise  of  making  peace, 
more  than  anything  else,  that  gave  the 
Bolsheviks  their  victory.  But  to  talk 
about  the  interest  of  the  Russians  in 
"war  aims"  is  the  merest  drivel.  A  few 
thousand  of  the  revolutionary  intelli- 
gentsia in  Petrograd  and  Moscow 
talked  about  war  aims  and  split  into  a 
dozen  parties  in  their  discussion.  But 
99  per  cent,  of  the  Russian  people  knew 
nothing  whatever  of  the  subject.  To  the 
few  of  them  that  caught  up  the  slogan 
"no  annexations  and  no  indemnities," 
its  words  signified  anneksia  i  kontribut- 
sia,  which  they  believed  to  be  two  prov- 
inces that  France  and  Germany  were 
fighting  over.  When  the  agitators  told 
the  crowds  that  Miliukov  was  striving 
for  the  Straits  (Prolivi),  they  were  led 
to  believe  that  this  was  a  demand  to  pour 
out  {prolivat)  their  blood!  The  idea 
that  the  failure  of  the  Allies  to  an- 
nounce their  war  aims  had  any  effect 
on  Russian  public  opinion  and  its  support 
of  the  war,  assumes  that  the  inchoate 
millions  of  Russian  peasants  had  a  pub- 
lic opinion  or  that  it  could  be  informed 
on  these  points. 

The  article  in  question  is  so  replete 
with  misstatements  and  false  insinua- 
tions that  space  does  not  suffice  to  take 
them  up  in  detail,  but  some  of  them  are 
so  glaring  that  they  ought  not  to  be 
overlooked  even  in  this  period  of  loose 
assertion  and  glib  generalization.  Here 
is  an  example:  "As  a  consequence  of 
their  [the  Allies']  persistent  hostility  to 
the  needs,  the  scruples,  the  interests  and 
the  feelings  of  the  Russian  people,  they 
finally  convinced  the  Revolutionary  de- 
mocracy that  its  safety  depended  on  the 
seizure  of  all  power  by  the  Soviets." 
We  have  heard  many  explanations  of  the 
Bolsheviks'  rise  to  power,  and  we  know 
something  of  the  methods  employed  by 


Lenin  and  Trotsky  and  their  collabora- 
tors, but  this  is  a  new  one.  Considering 
the  struggle  which  the  Mensheviks  and 
the  Socialist  Revolutionaries  carried  on, 
and  are  still  carrying  on,  against  the  Bol- 
shevik autocracy,  this  explanation  seems 
far-fetched,  even  for  the  Revolutionary 
democracy  of  the  New  Republic. 

The  New  Republic  is  surprised  that, 
because  the  Soviet  Government  signed 
the  peace  of  Brest-Litovsk,  the  Allies 
subsequently  treated  Soviet  Russia  as 
the  military  associate  of  Germany.  Ap- 
parently, the  fact  that  from  this  time 
von  Mirbach  played  a  predominant  part 
in  the  Bolshevik  policies,  and  that  Ger- 
man officers  organized  and  led  the  Red 
forces,  is  overlooked  as  of  no  importance. 
Cunningly  devised  is  the  following  dis- 
tortion of  seeming  fact:  "They  contin- 
ued to  propagate  the  myth  that  the  vast 
mass  of  the  Russian  people  were  op- 
posed to  peace,  and  would  welcome  the 
intervention  of  a  rescuing  Japanese  or 
American  army."  Of  course,  the  vast 
mass  of  the  Russian  people  were  not  op- 
posed to  peace,  but  on  the  other  hand 
the  abortive  risings  against  the  Bol- 
shevik tyranny,  and  the  piteous  calls  for 
help,  showed  clearly  enough  how  welcome 
active  assistance  would  have  been  in  their 
struggle  against  their  oppressors.  When 
that  help  did  not  come,  or  came  only  in 
driblets,  the  people  lost  faith  in  the 
promises  of  their  rescuers.  The  terrible 
fate  of  Yaroslavl,  whose  inhabitants, 
having  trusted  in  promises,  rose  en 
masse  when  they  heard  of  the  landing 
at  Archangel,  was  enough  to  blast  the 
hopes  which  the  Russian  people  placed  in 
their  allies. 

Here  is  another  gem  of  sinuous  mis- 
statement :  "The  Omsk  Government  was 
established  under  protection  of  the  Czecho- 
slovaks and  the  Allied  army,  and  in  the 
south  of  Russia  Denikin  organized  with  a 
larger  measure  of  native  Russian  assist- 
ance another  center  of  anti-Bolshevist 
military  and  political  power."  The  Omsk 
Government  under  Admiral  Kolchak  was 
established,  not  under  the  protection  of 
the  Czecho-Slovaks,  but  as  a  means  of 
saving  Siberia  from  the  Bolsheviks  at 
the  very  moment  when  the  Czecho-Slo- 
vaks, learning  of  the  armistice,  decided 
to  withdraw.  This  is  merely  another  of 
the  persistent  lies  concerning  the  Czecho- 
slovaks which  have  from  time  to  time 
received  publicity.  As  a  r.:atter  of  fact, 
the  revolution  which  placed  Kolchak  in 
power  took  place  on  November  18,  1918, 
and  from  the  1st  of  December,  no  Cze- 
cho-Slovaks took  part  in  the  fighting 
against  the  Bolsheviks.  As  for  Denikin, 
his  organization  of  the  Volunteer  Army 
in  South  Russia  took  place  entirely  with- 
out Allied  aid,  and  assistance  was  given 
him  only  after  he  had  won  through  to 
the  Black  Sea  subsequent  to  the  armis- 
tice. In  neither  case  was  there  the 
slightest  basis  for  the  assertion  made  by 


the  New  Republic  that  these  movements 
implied  the  "dictatorship  of  their  former 
rulers."  But  if  the  New  Republic  really 
believed  this,  how  could  it  view  with  ap- 
proval the  proposal  that  would  have  per- 
mitted these  anti-Bolshevik  factions  to 
keep  control  of  "practically  the  whole  of 
Siberia  and  a  large  part  of  Southern 
Russia?"  The  fact  is  that  no  proposal 
of  any  kind  could  be  so  hateful  to  the 
Russian  people  as  one  that  would  mean 
the  dismemberment  of  Russia  in  this 
way.  The  slanders  against  Kolchak  and 
Denikin  would  seem  to  have  been  suffl- 
ciently  exposed  already  to  prevent,  at 
this  late  date,  such  a  statement  as  that 
"they  were  unable  with  the  weapons  of 
terrorism  and  starvation  to  crush  out  the 
invincible  refusal  of  the  Russian  people 
to  take  back  their  former  rulers  at  the 
bidding  of  foreign  statesmen."  The  real 
tragedy  of  all  this  mass  of  falsehood  and 
twaddle  is  that  self-styled  "liberals" 
should  have  exerted  their  great  efforts, 
in  the  name  of  self-determination,  in  be- 
half of  a  system  that  is  crushing  all 
democracy  out  of  the  Russian  people  and 
which  they  are  helpless  to  resist,  and  that 
these  "liberals"  are  thereby  promoting  re- 
action in  its  most  tyrannical  form. 

Jerome  Landfield 

Correspondence 

Government  by  Subterfuge 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

Occasionally  a  Federal  judge  speaks  the 
truth  in  such  direct  and  forcible  lan- 
guage that  it  ought  to  reach  others  than 
these  who  read  the  reports.  An  instance 
in  point  is  the  opinion  of  Judge  George 
M.  Bourquin  (United  States  District 
Judge,  District  of  Montana)  in  United 
States  v.  Parsons,  261  Fed.  223,  a  de- 
cision rendered  on  October  16,  1919. 
Referring  to  the  "Harrison  Drug  Act" 
(38  Stat.,  785)  he  said: 

The  act  is  ostensibly  a  revenue  measure, 
and  within  limits  the  courts  must  recognize 
it  as  such.  At  the  same  time  any  one  with 
sense  enough  to  be  at  large  without  a  keeper 
knows  the  revenue  feature,  which  possibly 
returns  cents  for  dollars  spent  in  administra- 
tion, is  but  a  fiction  and  device  to  enable  Con- 
gress, otherwise  disabled,  to  suppress  opium 
traffic  and  use,  to  hinder  and  obstruct  such 
traffic  and  use  so  far  as  may  be  done  incidental 
to  exercise  of  revenue  power.  It  is  one  of 
many  like  and  regrettable  devices  to  evade 
constitutional  limitations,  to  impose  duties  of 
the  States  upon  the  United  States,  and  to  vest 
the  latter  with  non-delegated  and  reserved 
police  power  of  the  former. 

To  the  writer,  the  foregoing  seems 
sound  and  encouraging.  Either  the  peo- 
ple desire  that  the  police  power  shall  be 
exercised  by  the  Federal  Government  or 
they  do  not;  if  they  do,  there  should  be 
no  difficulty  in  obtaining  a  Constitutional 
amendment  to  that  effect. 

H.  T.  Newcomb 
Neiv  York,  February  3 


152] 


THE  RE  VIE  ^V 


[Vol.  2,  No.  40 


Freedom  of  Opinion 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

I  am  glad  that  you  will  not  let  the 
New  Republic  have  the  last  word  on 
Freedom  of  Opinion.  But  I  regret  that 
the  fashion  in  journals  of  opinion  seems 
to  encourage  length  rather  than  con- 
ciseness in  discussing  such  a  capital 
matter.  Yet  on  such  a  topic,  a  careful 
Bummary  worthy  of  good  old-fashioned 
italics  might  be  worth  more,  possibly, 
than  even  your  brilliant  lengthiness.  I 
modestly  propose  this : 

Expression  of  opinion  in  America  is 
and  should  be  free  in  criticism  and  sug- 
gestion  up    to    the    point    of    remarks 
(which    includes    propaganda)     subver- 
sive of  our  national  idea  of  government 
and  our  constituted  form  of  government. 
Americans    have    always     recognized 
that  our  Government  is  an  experiment. 
We  are  dedicated  to  an  idea,  which  is 
hedged  about  with  the  majesty  of  the 
law  and  the  courts,  and  articulated  by 
the  machinery  of  a  truly  representative 
government.    Opinions  amounting  to  de- 
structive  criticism   of   evils   grown    up 
within  it,  or  to  constructive  fashioning 
of  it  to  meet  new  conditions,  are  wanted ; 
they  are  a  sign  of  health  in  the  body 
politic.    Mr.  Palmer,  at  one  extreme,  de- 
vises poorly  when  he  would  legislate  to 
ostracize  the  critic  of  a  law;   without 
criticism  how  can  laws  be  bettered  ?  The 
New  Republic   and   the  Nation   at   the 
other  extreme  seem  to  divorce  a  man, 
while  expressing  opinion,  from  any  sense 
of  loyalty  to  the  Government,  or  even  to 
its  fundamental  idea.  They  may  be  dedi- 
cated solely  to  the  truth,  and  very  good 
if  they  are,  but  being  by  the  Govern- 
ment protected  physically,  mentally,  and 
morally  (I  can  hear  them  hoot  at  that) 
they  ought  to  see  that  loyalty,  not  to 
every  detail  but  to  the  fundamentals  of 
our  Government  must  be  preliminary  to 
expressing  their  free  opinion.     That  is 
all  we  ask  of  the  citizen  who  earns  his 
living  in  business.     A  devoted  follower 
of   their   pages    recently   told    me    that 
nothing  in  our  form  of  government  was 
worth  preserving.    I  do  not  blame  either 
journal   for  that  opinion.     But   to   my 
mind  that  is  treasonable  utterance — am 
I  benighted  to  think  so?     And  that  is 
just  where,  in  any  social  organism,  opin- 
ion need  not  expect  freedom  to  circulate 
in  print  or  get  a  license  to  hold  meetings. 

Merrill  F.  Clarke 
New  York  City,  January  9 

More  and  Better  Reading 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

I  have  just  been  informed  by  a  repre- 
sentative of  the  Review  of  the  publisher's 
campaign  to  encourage,  through  their 
"Mid-Winter  Book  Season,"  more  and 
better  reading.  May  I  express  my 
hearty  approval? 


Never  has  our  country  more  needed  to 
remember  the  warning  of  the  Chinese 
sage  that  to  read  without  thinking  is 
futile,  but  to  think  without  reading  is 
dangerous.  To  encourage  reading  and 
thinking  is  a  task  in  which  editors,  pub- 
lishers, and  librarians  may  well  work 
together,  and  the  American  Library  As- 
sociation, at  present  engaged  in  a  cam- 
paign to  promote  the  use  of  libraries 
and  to  encourage  thoughtful  reading,  is 
delighted  that  you,  too,  are  contributing 
to  the  same  end. 

Carl  H.  Milam 
Director  American  Library  Association 
New  York,  December  26,  1919 

Germans  in  Disguise 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

We  see  much  in  certain  publications 
in  reference  to  the  alleged  growth  of 
"liberal  sentiment"  in  this  country.  The 
reelection  of  Victor  Berger,  after  his 
conviction  for  violation  of  our  sedition 
laws,  is  often  spoken  of  as  showing  the 
growth  of  "liberal"  views.  It  does  not 
seem  to  be  generally  known  that  the  dis- 
trict that  cast  24,000  votes  for  Berger  is 
largely  German  in  its  population,  and 
that  rampant  pro-Germanism  was  only 
held  in  check  there  during  the  war  by 
the  well-known  determination  of  both 
State  and  National  authorities  to  sup- 
press treason  at  all  costs. 

James  Mann,  who  appears  to  be  Ber- 
ger's  best  friend  in  the  House,  also  comes 
from  a  district  where  the  Germans  are 
very  numerous.  Nearly  every  member 
of  the  House  that  voted  to  seat  Berger 
comes  from  a  district  where  Germans, 
still  unreconciled  to  the  participation  of 
this  country  in  the  war,  are  numerous. 

I  am  fully  aware  that  a  large  propor- 
tion of  the  German  population  of  the 
United  States  was  loyal  during  the  war, 
and  many  of  them  active  in  war  work. 
These  proved  themselves  real  Ameri- 
cans, and  to  them  is  due  our  heartiest 
approval  for  the  manner  in  which  they 
stood  by  their  adopted  country.  But,  in 
certain  sections,  there  were  and  are  large 
numbers  of  Germans  who  have  used 
every  means  possible  (without  endanger- 
ing their  carcasses)  to  work  against 
American  institutions,  since  the  country 
failed  to  respond  to  the  German  demand 
for  an  embargo  on  arms  and  munitions 
to  the  Allies.  To  this  origin  may  be 
traced  their  support  of  any  and  all  sorts 
of  radical  and  socialistic  movements,  and 
activities  of  other  sorts. 

Men  who  were  known  to  have  not  the 
smallest  sympathy  for  socialistic  ideas 
until  this  country  seemed  likely  to  war 
with  Germany,  have  lately  supported  the 
Socialist  and  Communist  parties.  It  was 
the  same  way  with  the  growth  of  the 
pacifist  movement.  The  most  active  and 
aggressive  pacifists  the  writer  came  in 


contact  with  during  the  war  were  men 
who  had  no  leaning  toward  such  ideas 
prior  to  the  talk  of  America  going  into 
the  war.  Not  a  few  of  them  have  quickly 
forgotten  their  abhorrence  of  all  war 
within  the  last  fifteen  months,  and  would 
willingly  have  this  country  go  to  war 
with  Japan  or  England  over  some  tech- 
nicality that  could  be  handled  much  bet- 
ter by  diplomatic  negotiations.  Were 
they  pacifists,  or  unprincipled  fakers? 

Where  do  our  so-called  intellectual  pub- 
lications, which  are  now  so  violently  con- 
demning every  effort  to  rid  our  country 
of  radical  plotters  and  alleged  workers 
who  never  work,  get  their  supporters? 
One  can  now  see  them  at  news- 
stands in  certain  North  Chicago  districts 
where  hardly  a  copy  was  displayed  prior 
to  about  three  years  ago.  Wherever  you 
see  them  you  may  look  for  numerous 
German  patrons.  I  have  been  observing 
this  for  more  than  a  year.  Many  of  the 
buyers  are  among  the  wealthy  classes 
who  have  no  sympathy  with  socialism  or 
radicalism,  except  as  they  may  serve  the 
purpose  of  trouble-makers  for  the  coun- 
try of  their  adoption. 

Edw.  Gorman 
Secretary  St.  Paul  Typothetae 
St.  Paul,  Minn.,  Jantuiry  31 

Intangible  Advantages 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

Your  "Defense   of   Property"   in  the 
issue  of  January  3  is  a  fine  statement 
of  truth,  and  an  aid  to  clear  thinking. 
The    intangible    advantages    of    various 
arrangements   are   often   too   little   con- 
sidered.    I  hope  you  will  continue  the 
discussion    of    such,    and    carry    it    into 
somewhat  narrower  fields,  also.  To  cite 
but  one  instance,  you  might  discuss  the 
intangible  advantages,   if  there  be  any, 
of  public  or  private  ownership  and  opera- 
tion of  road  services,  including  those  of 
pipes  and  wires.     It  seems  certain  that 
continued   competition    is    impracticable 
there — in  gas  and  telephones  to  say  the 
least.   Maybe  we  should  obtain  a  greater 
aggregate  of  adventure,  of  responsibility, 
of  self-reliance,  and  of  education  by  the 
consequences  of  our  own  mistakes,  by 
conducting    telephones    and    gas    plants 
through  our  Governments  than  by  hav- 
ing regulated  corporations  as  scapegoats 
for  real  or  imaginary  faults.    Maybe  the 
election  of  governments  to  conduct  these 
services  is  the  nearest  available  counter- 
part,  in  the  field  of  monopoly,   of  the 
citizen's  private  choice   in  the  field  ol 
competition — his  choice  of  his  own  car- 
penter, grocer,  and  shoe  manufacturer 
I  am  not  arguing  for  immediate,  or  evei 
ultimate,    public   ownership   and    opera 
tion,  I  am  only  suggesting  a  question  fo: 
your  able  pen. 

J.  De  L.  Verplanck 
Walbrook,  Md.,  Janiuiry  23 


I 


February  14,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[158 


How  the  Soviet  Came  to  a  Russian  Village 


ALTHOUGH  the  story  of  the  origin 
of  the  Soviet  in  Russia  as  a  govern- 
mental institution  has  been  frequently- 
set  forth,  there  still  remains  considerable 
confusion  in  America  in  regard  to  it.  In 
some  quarters,  especially  in  those  which 
have  swallowed  without  question  the 
tales  of  Col.  Raymond  Robins  and  other 
purveyors  of  misinformation,  there  still 
persists  the  false  idea  that  the  Soviet 
is  a  natural  Russian  political  institution 
that  had  its  origin  in  the  peasant  com- 
mune. Upon  this  baseless  assumption 
there  has  been  built  up  the  whole  fiction 
of  the  Soviet  system  as  a  democratic  rep- 
resentative form  of  government,  for  the 
time  being  in  possession  of  the  Bolshe- 
viki,  a  political  party. 

So  many  false  conclusions  with  refer- 
ence to  the  Russian  problems  have  been 
drawn  from  this  erroneous  assumption 
that  it  is  important  to  make  clear,  first, 
that  the  Soviet,  in  the  present  use  of 
the  term,  originated  in  1905  in  the  self- 
appointed  workingmen's  committees  that 
ran  the  affairs  of  Petrograd  and  Mos- 
cow during  the  short  period  of  prole- 
tariat control;  secondly,  that  following 
this  example,  in  the  Revolution  of  March, 
1917,  Soviets  were  again  instituted  by 
the  workingmen  and  similarly  by  the  sol- 
diers, but  that  these  were  not  regarded 
at  that  time  as  governing  bodies  but  as 
councils  to  protect  the  interests  of  their 
clients  before  the  Provisional  Govern- 
ment; and  thirdly,  that  the  Soviets  were 
later  extended  to  the  peasants,  who  had 
never  before  known  of  such  an  institu- 
tion. 

Kerensky  and  his  Government  fostered 
this  extension  of  the  Soviet  system 
among  the  peasants  to  a  certain  extent 
as  a  means  of  "deepening  the  Revolution," 
that  is,  with  the  idea  of  preventing  coun- 
ter-revolution, and  also  for  the  purpose 
of  creating  through  the  peasants  a  coun- 
terpoise to  the  workingmen's  and  sol- 
diers' Soviets.  But  the  manner  in  which 
the  Bolsheviks  completed  this  work  of 
bringing  the  Soviets  to  the  peasant  vil- 
lages throws  still  greater  light  upon  the 
character  of  this  institution  and  its  rela- 
tion to  Russian  life.  A  view  of  this  is 
sufficient  to  show  how  unjustifiable  is 
the  assumption  that  the  Soviet  is  a  nat- 
ural democratic  peasant  institution,  the 
assumption  from  which  so  many  false 
conclusions  have  been  drawn.  An  eye- 
witness account  of  a  typical  example  of 
the  institution  of  a  Soviet  in  a  Russian 
village  will  give  a  clearer  picture  of 
conditions  in  Russia  than  volumes  of 
discussion  based  upon  the  so-called  Soviet 
Constitution  and  the  tales  of  Bolshevist 
apologists.  The  following  is  such  an  au- 
thentic description  with  reference  to  a 
village  in  the  Province  of  Perm : 

The   village   of   Karagai   is   situated   in   the 


Okliansk  district  of  the  Province  of  Perm. 
Like  most  North  Russian  villages,  Karagai 
consists  of  a  few  very  wide  streets,  unpaved, 
and  never  cleaned,  frightfully  muddy  in  wet 
weather  and  horribly  dusty  in  dry  weather. 
It  consists  of  140  such  homesteads,  besides  a 
few  shops,  a  smithy,  a  carpenter's  workshop, 
a  church,  a  school,  and  a  little  hospital  that 
served  a  tract  of  country  nearly  as  big  as 
Wales. 

In  the  middle  of  June,  1918,  a  company  of 
about  150  of  the  Workmen's  and  Peasants' 
Red  Army  came  to  this  village.  The  com- 
pany was  composed  of  Russians,  Moldavians, 
Austrians,  and  Chinamen ;  in  its  ranks  were 
sailors  and  soldiers  who,  after  attempting  to 
"fraternize"  with  the  Germans,  had  sought 
safety  in  flight ;  prisoners-of-war  who  did  not 
wish  to  return  to  their  native  countries ;  work- 
ingmen who  had  found  looting  more  to  their 
taste  than  working,  and  foreign  adventurers 
who  had  joined  in  hopes  of  getting  something 
for  nothing.  Every  man  was  armed  with 
rifle,  bayonet,  revolver,  and  bombs ;  some  car- 
ried swords  in  addition,  and  the  company 
possessed  a  machine-gun. 

This  motley  company  streamed  into  the  vil- 
lage in  requisitioned  country  carts  or  mounted 
upon  requisitioned  peasants'  horses,  and  bil- 
leted themselves  upon  the  inhabitants. 

They  then  sent  out  into  all  the  neighboring 
hamlets  a  verbal  notice  to  all  adult  males  to 
attend  a  mass-meeting  at  Karagai  on  the  fol- 
lowing day,  after  which  they  ate  and  drank — 
especially  the  latter — most  liberally  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  villagers;  and,  having  posted 
sentries,  went  to  sleep. 

Early  the  next  morning  they  set  up  their 
machine-gun  on  a  bit  of  rising  ground  that 
dominated  the  village  green,  and  posted  them- 
selves round  the  green,  in  the  middle  of  which 
was  a  modest  little  monument  commemorating 
the  liberation  of  the  serfs  by  the  Emperor 
Alexander  II.  This  they  demolished.  When 
the  men  of  the  village  and  surrounding  hamlets 
had  assembled  to  the  number  of  1,000  or  per- 
haps 1,500,  the  meeting  was  opened.  The  three 
Commissars,  who  were  the  leaders  of  this  com- 
pany of  the  Workmen's  and  Peasants'  Red 
Army,  made  speeches.  These  were  followed  by 
others  of  the  company,  each  of  whom  repeated 
what  his  predecessor  had  said,  though  he  used 
the  high-sounding  and  stereotyped  phrases  in 
a  different  order,  or  laid  more  emphasis  than 
another  had  done  upon  some  particular  catch- 
word. If  any  of  the  peasants  attempted  to 
speak,  he  was  promptly  cautioned  to  hold  his 
tongue,  to  listen  and  learn. 

As  soon  as  these  speeches  were  ended,  vot- 
ing was  ordered.  Every  free  citizen  of  the 
"Russian  Federated  Soviet  Republic"  was  to 
record  his  vote,  whether  he  wished  to  or  not. 
A  line  of  soldiers  was  formed  across  the  vil- 
lage green.  The  peasants  were  told  that  to 
go  to  this  side  of  the  line  was  to  vote  for  Bol- 
shevism, while  to  go  to  that  side  of  it  was  to 
vote  against  Bolshevism. 

Two  peasants  promptly  moved  to  that  side 
of  the  line,  declaring  they  would  not  vote  for 
those  who  denied  them  the  right  of  expressing 
their  opinions. 

At  this  a  halt  was  called,  and  these  two  men 
were  at  once  arrested  as  enemies  of  the  People 
and  shot.  Their  yet  quivering  bodies  were 
tumbled  into  a  hastily-dug  shallow  hole,  and 
then  "voting"  was  resumed,  with  the  result 
that  the  whole  adult  male  population  of  the 
district  recorded  a  unanimous  vote  for  the 
Bolshevists,  as  was  some  time  later  duly 
made  known  in  Bolshevist  newspapers,  both 
in  the  capital  of  that  province  and  in  Petro- 
grad. 

Bolshevist  rule  and  authority  having  been 
established  at  Karagai  in  such  tragic  manner, 
the  now  thoroughly  cowed  peasants  were  or- 


dered to  elect  certain  committees  for  the 
proper  control  of  all  local  affairs.  The  elec- 
tions took  place  under  the  supervision  of  the 
Provincial  Committee,  as  the  three  Commis- 
sars called  themselves,  and  under  the  rifles  of 
the  rabble  that  supported  it.  There  was  no 
pretense  of  anything  like  free  expression  of 
opinion  nor  of  ballot. 

In  moody  silence  the  peasants  cast  their 
votes  for  whoever  seemed  to  find  most  favor 
in  the  eyes  of  the  gang  of  armed  ruffians  who 
stood  around  them  on  the  village  green,  where 
the  two  luckless  anti-Bolshevists  had  been  so 
summarily  shot  and  buried. 

If  the  Bolshevists  disapproved  of  a  candi- 
date they  simply  disallowed  his  candidature. 
If  any  elected  man  failed  to  meet  with  their 
approbation  they  cancelled  his  return  and  or- 
dered a  new  "election."  In  this  way  was 
secured  a  return  of  the  most  disreputable  and 
unprincipled  men  of  the  neighborhood. 

The  committees  thus  elected  were  many  in 
number  and  various  in  function.  There  was 
the  Committee  of  War,  the  Committee  of 
Public  Education,  the  Committee  of  Sanita- 
tion and  Public  Health,  the  Committee  of  the 
Poor,  the  Committee  of  Land,  the  Committee 
of  Forests  and  Natural  Resources,  and  many 
others.  Their  name  was  legion,  so  to  speak, 
and  wherever  one  turned  or  whatever  one 
wished  to  do  one  was  confronted  by  some 
committee. 

Supreme  power  was  vested  in  the  Executive 
Committee,  or  "Ispolkom,"  whose  business  it 
was  to  examine  the  decisions  of  all  other  com- 
mittees and  to  allow  or  disallow  their  meas- 
ures. The  "Ispolkom"  was  vested  with  the 
power  of  life  and  death  over  all  persons  re- 
siding within,  or  traveling  through,  its  dis- 
trict. Its  powers  were  boundless  within  its 
district,  and,  as  the  result  showed,  were  most 
arbitrarily  wielded.  Its  members  always  went 
about  armed. 

If  at  any  time  a  committeeman  became  ob- 
noxious to  the  "Ispolkom,"  he  was  at  once 
removed  and  another  man  was  appointed  in 
his  place.  Thus  in  the  course  of  a  few  weeks 
all  these  committees  became  highly  paid  tools 
in  the  hands  of  the  "Ispolkom."  The  money 
for  the  salaries  was  raised  by  "contributions." 

Committeemen,  who  were  perfectly  illit- 
erate, received  250  and  300  rubles  a  month. 
The  village  postmaster,  who  had  formerly 
been  an  elementary  school  teacher,  became 
president  and  secretary  of  several  committees 
and  drew  no  less  than  3,000  rubles  per  month. 
The  president  of  the  Committee  of  Public 
■  Education  was  utterly  illiterate,  unacquainted 
even  with  the  letters  of  the  alphabet  Com- 
mitteemen received,  in  addition  to  salary,  a 
monthly  allowance  for  traveling  expenses. 
This  allowance  they  pocketed,  with  the  knowl- 
edge and  approval  of  the  "Ispolkom,"  and 
compelled  those  of  their  fellow-villagers  who 
were  not  members  of  the  committee  to  drive 
them  about  the  country  free  of  charge. 

As  soon  as  all  these  committees  had  been 
elected  and  their  powers  and  duties  explained 
to  them  a  local  Soviet,  consisting  of  represent- 
atives of  all  the  committees,  was  formed. 

From  this  it  will  be  readily  seen  why 
the  mass  of  the  Russian  peasants  hate 
and  detest  Bolshevik  rule,  while  at  the 
same  time  they  are  unable  to  throw  it  ofif. 
Hundreds  of  insurrections  have  taken 
place  all  over  Russia,  only  to  end  in  ruth- 
less repression  and  fearful  torture  and 
bloodshed.  It  is  under  this  tyranny  that 
the  Russian  people  are  still  crouching 
and  it  is  no  wonder  that  there  has  re- 
sulted an  animosity  between  the  country 
districts  and  cities. 


154] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  40 


The  Unreconstructed 
Professor 

A  GREAT  deal  has  been  said  and  writ- 
ten of  late  on  the  professor,  not  a 
little  of  it  professor-contributed.  We 
read  of  his  meagre  salary  in  these  days 
of  luxurious  spenders,  of  labor  barons, 
and  factory  ritters.  We  read  of  ice- 
wagon  drivers  in  Chicago  who  purchase 
sables  and  diamonds,  and  contrast  with 
them  the  sad  fate  of  those  whose  sole 
traflftc  is  in  learning.  So  far  has  this 
plea  for  financial  justice  to  the  professor 
gone  that  many  who  once  gloried  in  the 
robe  of  dignity  of  the  learned  profession 
which  sent  out  no  monthly  statements 
now  feel  that  it  is  no  more  than  a  shred 
upon  which  the  veriest  of  muckraking 
journalists  may  wipe  their  pens. 

And  not  a  little,  too,  has  been  said  and 
written  concerning  the  duty  of  the  pro- 
fessor in  the  present  crisis  to  inculcate 
in  his  classes  the  proper  tenets  of  "Amer- 
icanism," whatever  that  term  may  de- 
note; to  promote  "patriotism,"  though  it 
would  be  difficult  to  find  fifty  senators 
who  could  give  fewer  than  fifty  answers 
as  to  the  demands  patriotism  now  makes 
upon  us;  and  to  combat  the  threatened 
orgies  of  militant  Soviets,  though,  here 
again,  just  what  form  this  danger  is 
now  assuming  is  not  a  little  matter  of 
doubt — at  least  to  some  college  profes- 
sors. 

Indeed  and  of  a  truth  the  college  pro- 
fessor, like  the  dog,  has  his  day;  and  it 
has  come  to  him  in  the  press,  in  the 
forum,  and  even  on  the  street.  He  is 
pitied  for  his  unpretentious  income,  he 
is  exhorted  to  play  the  man  right  val- 
iantly, for  upon  him,  he  is  assured,  rests 
the  future  of  the  country.  But  all  this 
unaccustomed  publicity  has  made  him 
nervous  and  self-conscious;  for  the  first 
time  in  his  life  he  is  playing  in  the  spot- 
light, and  like  an  unschooled  girl  he 
shrinks  from  the  glare. 

There  is  something  paradoxical  in  the 
position  of  the  average  college  professor. 
The  new  position  in  which  he  is  finding 
himself  causes  not  a  little  searching  of 
soul.  He  envies  his  colleague  in  the 
technical  and  professional  schools,  whose 
work  is  so  clearly  cut  out  for  him  that 
a  wayfaring  man,  though  a  fool,  can  not 
err  therein.  The  efficiency  of  a  profes- 
sor of  surgery  may  be  gauged  to  a  nicety 
by  even  a  layman  by  the  skill  with  which 
his  students  amputate  a  limb  or  perform 
a  delicate  laparotomy;  the  professor  of 
engineering  can  be  judged  at  a  glance 
by  the  bridges  or  aqueducts  of  his 
classes;  even  a  professor  of  law  may  be 
seen  winning  immortality  for  himself  by 
the  successful  pleading  of  his  horde  of 
young  lawyers.  "By  their  fruits  shall 
ye  know  them,"  for  here  the  sequence  of 
seed  and  fruit  is  close  and  unmistakable. 


But  how  shall  we  judge  the  efficiency  of 
a  professor  of  Ancient  Languages  or  of 
History?  People  are  demanding  that  the 
graduates  of  our  colleges  be  trained  for 
their  less  easily  gauged  efficiency  as  citi- 
zens; and  the  professor  of  Latin  and  the 
public,  too,  are  asking.  What  connection  is 
there  between  a  mastery  of  the  classics 
and  "one  hundred  per  cent.  American- 
ism," or  how  can  a  careful  study  of 
Mediaeval  History  so  bulwark  the  coun- 
try that  in  these  days  of  peace  and  dur- 
ing the  next  war  the  eyes  of  the  Govern- 
ment will  not  need  the  club  of  the  act 
restraining  malcontents  and  Red  Radi- 
cals or  the  spectacles  of  an  Espionage 
Act  ?  There  is  a  pertinency  in  these  ques- 
tions; but  this  very  pertinency  does  not 
make  the  college  professor  any  the  more 
confident  or  his  state  of  mind  any  less 
paradoxical. 

Nor  is  his  confidence  in  himself  or 
his  profession  restored  by  the  blare  of 
drums  and  trumpets  now  accompanying 
the  "drives"  the  country  over  to  raise 
millions  of  dollars  to  cushion  the  hard 
academic  chairs.  The  fact  that  the  public 
is  gladly  contributing  to  the  cause  is  to 
him  an  argument,  either  that  people  still 
blindly  trust  in  the  efficacy  of  an  aca- 
demic training  to  citizenship,  or  that 
they  have  so  acquired  the  "drive"  habit 
that  they  would  pour  out  their  money  for 
any  cause  from  simplified  spelling  to 
starched  linen  for  the  South  Sea  Island- 
ers. While  on  general  principles  he  be- 
lieves that  his  salary  should  enable  him 
to  buy  an  automobile,  like  his  brick-lay- 
ing or  coal-mining  neighbor,  he  yet  won- 
ders if,  like  his  neighbor,  he  has  an  ade- 
quate and  tangible  quid  pro  quo  to  offer 
in  exchange. 

Nor  is  he  helped  in  the  hours  of  his 
agonized  musings  by  the  attitude  of  his 
classes  toward  him  or  toward  his  work. 
It  might  have  been  expected,  after 
the  nervous  tension  of  the  war  and  the 
cry  of  increasing  efficiency,  that  young 
collegians  would  take  up  the  cry  and 
apply  their  hearts  with  more  energy  to 
acquiring  wisdom.  Even  the  professor 
of  Greek  would  not  have  been  disap- 
pointed if  his  class  had  at  least  discov- 
ered a  positive  content  in  Xenophon  or 
Plato  and  have  agonized  a  little  over  the 
Greek  aorist.  But  as  a  whole. the  col- 
legian still  remains  much  as  he  was 
before  war  was  declared.  There  is  the 
same  whole-souled  abandon  to  athletics 
and  the  social  amenities  of  "college  life," 
and  a  tacit  understanding,  in  which  the 
professor  has  almost  come  to  participate, 
that  studies,  at  least  of  an  untechnical 
kind,  are  more  or  less  an  irrelevant  rea- 
son for  bringing  so  many  congenial 
young  souls  together.  They  take  up 
some  time,  are  a  source  of  occasional  an- 
noyances, to  be  sure,  but  parents  and 
public  must  be  propitiated  by  a  small 
sacrifice  on  the  altar  of  learning. 

For  the  young  of  our  colleges  are  only 


to  the  slightest  degree  moved  by  the 
forces  that  are  aroused  to-day.  It  is  a 
curious  phenomenon  that  in  democratic 
America  the  young  men  and  young 
women  of  our  colleges  and  universities 
should  be  the  last  to  feel  the  potency  of 
the  influences  that  so  charge  our  social 
and  political  atmosphere.  Though  in 
Europe  the  ideas  that  are  threatening  a 
general  revolution,  that  have  accom- 
plished more  than  one  revolution,  origi- 
nated with  the  youth  of  the  universities ; 
here  it  is  the  very  youth  of  the  univer- 
sities who  are  practically  immune  to  the 
contagion.  They  at  least  accept  life  as 
it  was,  or  as  it  is,  confident  and  un- 
thinking, optimists  without  a  philosoph- 
ical creed.  How  can  a  college  professor 
take  his  work  seriously  when  even  his 
classes  can  not  regard  his  work  except 
as  an  irrelevant  eddy  on  life's  swiftly 
moving  stream? 

It  might  seem  to  serve  to  restore  the 
slipping  confidence  of  college  professors, 
to  quote  for  them  Milton's  famous  son- 
net, "They  also  serve  who  only  stand  and 
wait."  But  it  is  a  little  paradoxical  to 
be  told  to  wait,  and  in  the  same  breath 
to  have  added  that  the  nation  looks  to 
these  same  professors  for  a  new  race 
of  citizens  "one  hundred  per  cent.  Amer- 
ican." 

****** 

The  old  ideals  of  learning  perhaps 
were  never  more  succinctly  worded  than 
by  Ben  Jonson — "learning,  well  used, 
can  instruct  to  good  life,  inform  man- 
ners, and  no  less  persuade  and  lead  men." 
And  this  he  wrote  in  times  not  so  dif- 
ferent from  our  own,  a  day  of  recon- 
struction, when  political  and  religious  i 
radicalism  and  anarchy  were  threaten- 
ing the  foundations  of  established  so- 
ciety. Then,  as  now,  there  was  alternate 
trust  in  and  revolt  from  the  established 
universities;  witness  Milton's  effort  to 
start  a  practical  school  wherein  every- 
thing was  to  be  taught  from  Syriac  to 
horsemanship  and  farming,  in  order  that 
all  graduates  might  have  "an  universal 
insight  into  things."  It  is  curious  that 
then,  as  now,  the  chief  emphasis  was  laid( 
upon  a  study  of  political  institutions,  "to 
know  the  beginning,  end,  and  reasons  of 
political  societies,  that  they  may  not,  in 
a  dangerous  fit  of  the  commonwealth,  bei 
such  poor,  shaken,  uncertain  reeds,  of- 
such  a  tottering  conscience  as  many  of 
our  great  councillors  have  lately  shown 
themselves,  but  steadfast  pillars  of  the 
state."  This  was  not  written  of  ouri 
Senate  after  the  political  fiascos  of  1919, 
but  in  1644;  and  it  is  in  the  same  pam- 
phlet that  Milton  describes  the  usual  cur- 
riculum for  students  in  even  universities 
as  an  "asinine  feast  of  sow-thistles  and 
brambles  which  is  commonly  set  befon' 
them  as  all  the  food  and  entertainment  o1 
their  tenderest  and  most  docile  age." 

The  truth  is  that  the  state  of  mind  o: 
the  average  college  professor  to-day  ha; 


I 


February  14,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[155 


abundant  analogies  in  the  history  of 
every  social  and  political  crisis.  The 
moment  men's  minds  are  brought  sharply 
against  serious  problems  of  reconstruc- 
tion, with  the  threat  of  possible  revolu- 
tion in  the  offing,  they  turn  at  once  to 
education  as  the  sovereign  remedy  or  in- 
oculation against  disaster.  And  it  is 
because  he  feels  the  insistent  demand  of 
the  many  that  such  liberal  education  as 
is  saved  to-day  be  turned  to  the  practical 
uses  of  citizenship  and  "Americaniza- 
tion," that  the  professor's  heart  is  heavy 
with  misgiving;  for  his  realm  is  all 
knowledge,  and  his  heart  recoils  at  the 
difficulty,  nay,  the  impossibility  of  turn- 
ing the  imparting  of  knowledge,  the  in- 
struction to  good  life,  and  the  enforcing 
of  manners,  into  a  propaganda. 

Not  that  the  college  professor,  in  his 
desire  to  distinguish  between  the  service 
of  God  and  the  service  of  Mammon,  would 
classify  the  attempt  to  twist  courses  in 
History  or  Political  Science  into  courses 
in  Patriotism  as  a  species  of  devil  wor- 
ship— far  from  it;  but  any  such  attempt 
at  best  would  perform  only  a  left-hand 
service  to  truth.  Scientific  accuracy, 
truth,  right,  and  logical  judgments  based 
upon  correctly  drawn  inferences,  these 
are  the  goals  of  all  real  scholarship.  If 
in  the  study  of  history  and  political  in- 
stitutions there  comes  to  the  student  a 
pride  in  the  stability,  the  justice,  the 
adaptability  of  the  American  Constitution 
and  the  American  people,  it  is  well  and 
good,  and  a  certain  rational  basis  for  a 
scholarly  patriotism  has  been  soundly 
laid.  And  it  is  undoubtedly  true  that 
many  instructors  have,  by  thoroughly  sci- 
entific approaches,  drawn  classes  to  ap- 
preciate to  the  utmost  the  virtues  and 
responsibilities  of  American  citizenship. 
But  the  results  have  been  achieved  as  a 
by-product.  One  is  not  inspired  to  pa- 
triotism merely  by  studying  constitu- 
tional law  or  the  economics  of  American 
industry,  though  both  are  essential  to  a 
scholarly  appreciation  of  the  duties  of 
American  citizenship.  The  truth  is  that 
patriotism,  Americanization,  citizenship, 
are  delicate  terms  with  a  thousand- of 
emotional  connotations.  Though  potent, 
they  are  as  undefinable  as  the  laws  of 
filial  affection  and  filial  dutif ulness.  And 
it  is  precisely  because  into  the  rational 
process  of  imparting  knowledge  and 
grounding  judgment  there  have  been 
thrust  these  emotional  and  poetic  aims 
that  the  average  professor  stands  before 
his  task  amazed  and  mightily  perplexed. 

The  easiest  and,  perhaps,  after  all,  the 
most  logical  way  out  of  the  difficulty  is 
to  "saw  wood,"  to  keep  the  old  and  tra- 
ditional ideals  of  a  liberal  culture  well  to 
the  front.  For  even  the  Greek  aorist, 
though  now  sadly  neglected,  has  its  use 
in  unlocking  the  human  nature  in  Sopho- 
cles and  Plato;  and  this,  rightly  handled, 
will  throw  floods  of  light  upon  our  prob- 
lems of  political  and  social  unrest  to-day. 


It  will  be  folly  in  these  treacherous  times 
to  forget  that  the  study  of  the  past  is 
significant  only  as  a  light  for  the  study 
of  the  present — to  this  extent  all  liberal 
culture  in  the  humanities  is  essentially  of 
the  utmost  practical  value.  And  if  the 
college  professor,  through  his  liberal 
studies,  can  see  and  understand  the  pres- 
ent, the  problem  of  reconstruction  in 
education  ought  once  for  all  to  be  solved ; 
or  perhaps,  better,  there  would  be  no 
problem  of  reconstruction  in  education  to 
solve.  Perhaps  in  this  last  sentence  lies 
the  hint  for  the  solution  of  all  the  col- 
lege professors'  perplexities.  Perhaps 
by  this  hint  we  may  come  to  that  educa- 
tion which  is  "complete  and  generous," 
and  will  "fit  a  man  to  perform  justly, 
skillfully,  and  magnanimously  all  the  of- 
fices, both  private  and  public,  of  peace 
and  war."  We  have  been  tested  success- 
fully in  war — the  harder  test  is  now 
upon  us. 

Philo  M.  Buck,  Jr. 


Book  Reviews 


A  Carthaginian  Peace 


? 


The  Economic  Consequences  of  the  Peace. 
By  J.  M.  Keynes.  New  York :  Harcourt, 
Brace   and  Howe. 

NO  book  since  the  armistice  has  pro- 
duced an  effect  comparable  to  that 
which  has  resulted  from  the  publication 
of  Mr.  Keynes's  volume.  Many,  and 
among  them  persons  high  in  authority 
in  the  political  and  economic  world,  re- 
gard it  as  dealing  a  staggering  blow  to 
the  Treaty  of  Versailles,  and  confidently 
predict  that  the  author's  searching  analy- 
sis and  clear-cut  deductions  will  force  a 
thorough  and  basic  revision  of  that  all- 
important  document. 

The  experience  and  position  of  Mr. 
Keynes  give  weight  to  his  analysis  and 
deductions.  He  is  a  comparatively  young 
man,  only  thirty-seven  years  of  age.  He 
is  a  Fellow  of  King's  College,  Cambridge, 
and  a  C.  B.  For  the  past  fourteen  years 
he  has  been  connected  with  the  British 
civil  service,  first  in  the  India  Office  and 
later  in  the  Treasury.  During  the  war 
he  was  in  charge  of  the  British  finan- 
cial relations  with  the  Allied  Pow- 
ers, and  in  this  connection  accompanied 
Lord  Reading  to  Washington  in  1917  as 
financial  adviser.  At  the  Peace  Confer- 
ence, he  was  the  chief  representative  of 
the  British  Treasury  and  a  member  of 
the  Supreme  Economic  Council.  While 
his  name  has  not  hitherto  been  well 
known  to  the  general  public,  he  is  not  a 
stranger  to  the  leading  financiers,  nor 
to  those  who  follow  current  writings  on 
economic  subjects. 

In  estimating  the  value  of  the  present 
sensational  arraignment  of  the  work  of 
the  Peace  Council,  it  must  be  borne  in 
mind  that  Mr.  Keynes  is  a  left-wing  Lib- 


eral, and  by  nature  has  a  little  of  that 
slant  of  mind  which  we  are  accustomed 
in  America  to  associate  with  the  theo- 
retical humanitarianism  and  interna- 
tionalism of  the  New  Republic  school.  It 
is  not  to  be  inferred  that  this  influences 
the  technical  accuracy  of  his  expert  work 
in  the  field  of  economics.  Here  he  has 
his  feet  firmly  on  the  ground,  even 
though  the  conclusions  he  draws  from 
the  figures  that  he  presents  may  be 
questionable.  On  the  other  hand,  when 
he  deals  with  political  and  social  prob- 
lems, he  is  less  certain  of  his  ground 
and  displays  an  attitude  of  mind  indica- 
tive of  the  slant  above  referred  to. 

By  way  of  introduction  he  makes  a 
rapid  survey  of  the  general  economic  sit- 
uation of  Europe  before  the  war,  and 
lays  especial  emphasis  upon  the  delicate 
balancing  of  the  economic  interdepen- 
dence upon  which  the  existence  of  Eu- 
rope's millions  depended.  In  most  of 
this  he  travels  well-beaten  paths,  for  few 
people  have  failed  to  realize  the  signifi- 
cance of  the  industrial  development  that 
changed  whole  peoples  from  self-con- 
tained units,  able  to  feed  themselves 
from  their  own  agricultural  production, 
into  cogs  in  a  complicated  machine  that 
absorbed  imported  raw  materials  and  in 
turn  distributed  manufactured  articles 
at  a  margin  that  provided  foodstuffs 
from  abroad.  To  this  he  adds  some  in- 
teresting comments  as  to  the  relation  of 
the  psychology  of  society  to  the  accumu- 
lation of  immense  amounts  of  fixed 
capital,  that  capital  which  played  a  pre- 
dominant part  in  the  organization  and 
operation  of  the  economic  machine  itself. 
He  is  jiot  alone  in  calling  attention  to  the 
fact  that  it  was  the  inequality  of  the 
distribution  of  wealth  and  the  tendency 
of  the  rich  to  save  the  acquisitions  of 
their  new  wealth,  instead  of  spending 
them  on  their  own  enjoyments,  that 
made  possible  the  building  up  of  the 
great  accumulations  of  capital  which  dis- 
tinguish our  present  age.  It  is  his 
conclusion,  however,  that  the  war  has 
disclosed  to  all  the  possibility  of  con- 
sumption and  to  many  the  vanity  of  ab- 
stinence. From  this  he  deduces  fur- 
ther the  inevitability  of  revolutionary 
changes  in  the  capitalistic  system  and 
that  the  war  settlement  must  take  these 
into  account  if  civilization  is  to  preserve 
its  gains.  From  this  standpoint  he  finds 
thr.t  the  Treaty  of  Versailles  is  not  only 
immoral,  in  tliat  it  violated  the  condi- 
tions upon  which  the  armistice  was  en- 
tered into,  but  destructive,  in  that  its 
execution  would  preclude  the  restoration 
of  healthy  economic  life. 

Mr.  Keynes's  account  of  the  interplay 
of  ideas  and  personalities  in  the  Peace 
Conference  is  full  of  interest,  and,  on 
the  whole  it  only  tends  to  confirm  judg- 
ments already  formed  on  this  side  of  the 
Atlantic.  He  pictures  M.  Clemenceau  aa 
the  disillusioned  and  even  cynical  realist 


156] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  40 


who  devoted  all  the  force  of  his  strong 
personality  to  safeguarding  the  future  of 
France  by  the  crippling  of  her  peren- 
nial adversary.  Bismarckian  in  his  esti- 
mate of  men  and  national  interests,  he 
had  no  faith  in  the  possibility  of  the 
moral  reformation  of  the  Germans  or  in 
a  new  and  altruistic  world  order.  Even 
on  this  basis,  however,  his  vision  was 
limited  by  his  ignorance  of  European 
affairs  outside  his  own  country.  A  simi- 
lar ignorance  handicapped  Lloyd  George, 
who  furthermore  placed  the  exigencies  of 
domestic  politics  ahead  of  considerations 
of  international  welfare.  Indeed,  the 
author  attributes  what  he  terms  the  un- 
justifiable reparation  exactions,  as  well 
as  the  demands  for  the  punishment  of 
those  responsible  for  atrocities,  to  the 
necessity  of  putting  more  "ginger"  into 
Lloyd  George's  Parliamentary  campaign 
in  December,  1918.  Unwarranted  prom- 
ises had  to  be  made  to  stimulate  support 
for  the  Coalition  party. 

The  author's  estimate  of  President 
Wilson  and  his  part  in  the  Peace  Confer- 
ence is  an  illuminating  feature  of  the 
book.  To  begin  with,  he  lays  emphasis 
upon  the  prestige  of  moral  leadership 
with  which  the  President  came  to  Eu- 
rope, a  leadership,  however,  concerning 
which  Mr.  Keynes  was  somewhat  disil- 
lusioned after  coming  into  personal  con- 
tact with  Mr.  Wilson.  He  sized  up  the 
President  as  a  man  who  was  not  a  hero 
or  a  prophet,  not  even  a  philosopher,  but 
generously  intentioned,  with  many  of  the 
weaknesses  of  human  beings,  and  lacking 
that  dominating  intellectual  equipment 
which  would  have  been  necessary  to  cope 
with  the  subtle  and  strong  personalities 
that  he  had  to  face  in  the  Council.  He 
analyzed  him  at  first  glance  as  a  man 
whose  temperament  was  not  that  of  the 
student  or  the  scholar  and  who  had  not 
much  even  of  that  culture  of  the  world 
which  marked  Clemenceau  and  Balfour. 
He  found  the  President  insensitive  to  his 
surroundings  even  in  the  external 
sense;  incapable  of  judging  character, 
motive,  and  subconscious  impulse  in  the 
men  with  whom  he  was  dealing.  The 
clue  to  his  character  Mr.  Keynes  discov- 
ered in  a  temperament  and  habit  of 
thought  which  were  theological  rather 
than  intellectual,  and  which  were  fur- 
ther handicapped  by  a  surprising  lack  of 
information  in  regard  to  European  con- 
ditions, and  in  a  mind  that  was  slow  and 
unadaptable.  His  adversaries,  on  the 
other  hand,  realized  that  their  chief  prob- 
lem was  to  convince  the  President  that 
all  the  settlements  they  desired,  no  mat- 
ter how  selfish  and  brutal,  were  in  accord 
with  the  President's  sentimental  and 
moral  concepts  as  expressed  in  his  Four- 
teen Points  and  his  subsequent  addresses. 
How  well  they  succeeded  in  this  was 
shown  by  the  difficulty  which  they  found 
in  changing  the  President  on  some  of 
the  points  on  which  they  had  previously 


convinced    him.     As    Mr.    Keynes    ex- 
presses it : 

To  his  horror,  Mr.  Lloyd  George,  desiring 
at  the  last  moment  all  the  moderation  he 
dared,  discovered  that  he  could  not  in  five 
days  persuade  the  President  in  error  in  what 
it  had  taken  five  months  to  prove  to  him  to 
be  just  and  right.  After  all,  it  was  harder  to 
de-bamboozle  this  old  Presbyterian  than  it  had 
been  to  bamboozle  him ;  for  the  former  in- 
volved his  belief  in  and  respect  for  himself. 
Thus,  in  the  last  act  the  President  stood  for 
stubbornness  and  a  refusal  of  conciliations. 

The  author  feels  that  the  Treaty  of 
Versailles  in  its  exactions  is  dishonor- 
able in  that  it  fails  to  conform  with  the 
conditions  undertaken  with  Germany  at 
the  signing  of  the  Armistice,  namely, 
that  it  should  be  based  upon  the  Four- 
teen Points  and  the  subsequent  ad- 
dresses of  the  President.  For  this  point 
of  view  Mr.  Keynes  has  much  to  justify 
him,  though  it  should  also  be  pointed  out 
that  he  fails  to  take  account  of  the 
vagueness  and  the  manifest  inapplica- 
bility of  the  code  embodied  in  Mr.  Wil- 
son's generalizations.  After  all,  no  states- 
man versed  in  the  practical  affairs 
concerned  in  a  general  European  settle- 
ment could  take  these  sweeping  enounce- 
ments  of  purpose  as  a  definitive  practical 
formula. 

The  heaviest  artillery  of  the  book 
bears  on  the  subject  of  reparations.  This 
is  discussed  in  almost  every  possible  as- 
pect, and  the  presentation  is  uudeniably 
powerful.  Upon  one  point,  which  in- 
volves no  intricacy,  the  author's  empha- 
sis, however  great,  is  no  greater  than  the 
case  demands.  He  brings  out  -  with 
startling  impressiveness  what  every  man 
of  sense  must  recognize,  even  without 
the  aid  of  the  specific  arguments  he  mar- 
shals, the  absolute  necessity  of  giving 
Germany  a  genuine  chance  to  restore  her 
producing  power  and  her  commercial 
activity.  It  is  preposterous  to  ask  her 
to  pay  heavy  indemnities,  in  addition  to 
shouldering  the  inevitably  heavy  burden 
of  recreating  normal  conditions,  and  at 
the  same  time  cut  her  off  from  the  requi- 
site access  to  raw  materials  and  to  the 
opportunities  of  international  trade.  On 
this  point  at  least,  all  reasonable  men 
should  be  in  agreement. 

It  is  on  the  subject  of  the  amount  of 
the  reparations  that  there  is  grave  rea- 
son to  doubt  the  soundness  of  Mr. 
Keynes's  view.  The  subject  naturally 
raises  three  questions.  The  first  of  these 
is,  What  is  the  total  amount  of  Ger- 
many's obligation  under  the  terms  of 
the  Treaty,  (a)  as  actually  drawn,  (6)  as 
it  should  have  been  drawn  according 
to  the  armistice  agreement?  In  Mr. 
Keynes's  judgment  the  amount  assessed 
against  Germany  in  the  actual  Treaty  will 
prove  to  be  about  40  billions  of  dollars, 
while  the  extreme  limit  of  what  a  proper 
interpretation  of  the  armistice  agree- 
ment would  have  allowed  is  15  billions, 
10  billions  being  his  own  estimate  for  the 


latter  sum.  The  basis  of  his  computation 
is,  of  course,  too  complex  to  enter  into 
here;  and  the  point  is  not  of  the  first 
importance  for  practical  purposes.  The 
second  question  is  whether  a  definite 
sum,  and  this  a  sum  not  greater  than 
what  Germany  might  reasonably  be  ex- 
pected to  pay,  should  not  have  been  fixed 
in  the  Treaty  as  the  limit  of  her  obligation. 
On  this  point  we  are  emphatically  in 
agreement  with  Mr.  Keynes's  opinion. 
It  is,  however,  to  the  third  question  that 
Mr.  Keynes  devotes  the  most  elaborate 
and  searching  inquiry — the  question  how 
much  Germany  will  find  herself  able  to 
pay;  and  it  is  upon  this  question  that, 
in  spite  of  his  impressive  marshaling  of 
facts  and  figures,  we  see  very  strong 
reason  to  doubt  the  correctness  of  his 
conclusion. 

To  justify  this  doubt  it  is  not  neces- 
sary to  pick  flaws  in  Mr.  Keynes's  figures 
or  statements  of  fact,  although  many 
detailed  criticisms  might  be  advanced. 
The  objection  we  have  chiefly  in  mind 
is  a  very  simple  one.  However  great  the 
force  of  the  particular  items  adduced  by 
Mr.  Keynes — the  apparent  limitations  of 
Germany's  producing  power,  the  gravity 
of  the  new  difficulties  under  which  she 
labors,  the  diminution  of  her  man-power 
through  the  casualties  of  the  war,  the 
obstacles  which  her  rivals  are  likely  to 
put  in  the  way  of  the  extension  of  her 
trade,  etc. — however  impressive  these 
items  are,  the  sharpest  test  of  his  argu- 
ment relates  to  what  he  says  about  the 
limits  of  Germany's  "surplus  produc- 
tivity"; which  he  estimates  on  the  basis 
of  what  it  was  before  the  war, 
and  brings  down  to  the  small  sum  of 
$500,000,000  by  various  considerations 
into  whose  validity  we  need  not  inquire. 
In  regard  to  those  other  items,  shrewd 
men  will  recognize  that  there  are  all  sorts 
of  unknown  possibilities  of  development 
in  a  great  number  of  particular  indus- 
tries which  may  upset  the  figures;  but 
most  men  feel  that  there  is  a  kind  of 
fatal  finality  about  "surplus  productiv- 
ity." But  by  "surplus  productivity"  is 
meant  the  annual  excess  of  production 
over  consumption;  and  this  can  be  in- 
creased by  reduction  in  the  amount  con- 
sumed as  well  as  by  increase  in  the 
amount  produced.  Mr.  Keynes  does  not 
overlook  this  point  altogether;  but  he 
gives  it  merely  a  sidelong  glance,  and  the 
few  words  he  devotes  to  it  involve  a  fun- 
damental error.  He  assumes  that  any 
encroachment  beyond  the  line  of  "surplus 
productivity"  would  necessarily  mean  a 
"lowering  of  the  standard  of  life  and 
comfort."  But  in  normal  times  this  is 
by  no  means  the  case.  The  surplus  pro- 
ductivity of  Germany  before  the  war, 
estimated  at  upwards  of  two  billions  of 
dollars,  was  a  surplus  of  production  over 
an  amount  of  consumption  which  in- 
cluded a  vast  quantity  of  luxuries;  and 
the  surplus  could  have  been   increased 


February  14,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[157 


very  much  by  diminishing  the  consump- 
tion of  those  luxuries.  The  same  thing 
will  presumably  be  true  in  Germany 
again,  not  many  years  hence.  And  under 
present-day  practice  in  taxation,  hun- 
dreds of  millions  of  dollars  might  an- 
nually be  taken  for  the  payment  of  in- 
demnities with  no  other  effect  than  the 
cutting  down  of  expenditure  on  luxu- 
ries, and,  therefore,  with  no  appreciable 
lowering  of  the  standard  of  living  for  the 
masses.  In  fact,  the  "surplus  productiv- 
ity" argument,  when  examined,  has  verj' 
little  force.  Accordingly,  while  Mr. 
Keynes  is  unquestionably  right  in  saying 
that  the  30  or  40  billion  dollars  which 
constitutes  the  total  of  Germany's  obli- 
gations contemplated  in  the  treaty  is  be- 
yond her  ability  to  pay,  we  do  not  find 
that  he  has  made  out  a  case  as  to  her 
inability  to  meet  the  requirements  of 
interest  and  sinking  fund  on  the  15  bil- 
lion dollars  which  is  all  that  is  definitely 
imposed  upon  her. 

Before  leaving  this  part  of  the  book, 
we  can  not  forbear  to  draw  attention  to 
a  point  which  seems  to  us  to  have  an 
important  bearing  upon  the  trustworthi- 
ness of  Mr.  Keynes  as  a  guide  in  these 
high  matters.  The  settlement  which  he 
thinks  ought  to  have  been  made,  and 
which  he  formally  proposes  as  a  substi- 
tute for  the  actual  one  is  as  follows 
(p.  260)  : 

(1)  The  amount  of  the  payment  to  be 
made  by  Germany  in  respect  of  reparation 
and  the  cost  of  the  armies  of  occupation 
might  be  fixed  at  $10,000,000,000. 

(2)  The  surrender  of  merchant  ships  and 
submarine  cables  under  the  Treaty,  of  war 
material  under  the  armistice,  of  State  property 
in  ceded  territory,  of  claims  against  such  ter- 
ritory in  respect  of  public  debt,  and  of  Ger- 
many's claims  against  her  former  Allies  should 
be  reckoned  as  worth  the  lump  sum  of  $2,500,- 
000,000  without  any  attempt  being  made  to 
evaluate  them   item  by  item. 

(3)  The  balance  of  $7,500,000,000  should  not 
carry  interest  pending  its  payment,  and  should 
be  paid  by  Germany  in  thirty  annual  instal- 
ments of  $250,000,000,  beginning  in  1923. 

We  have  no  quarrel  with  Mr.  Keynes 
for  thinking — whether  he  be  right  or 
wrong — that  this  would,  for  one  reason 
or  another,  be  a  wise  settlement.  But  we 
do  not  see  how  it  is  possible  for  any  man 
of  training,  not  to  speak  of  an  expert 
economist  such  as  he  is,  to  represent 
$2,500,000,000  in  ships,  etc.,  plus  thirty 
annual  payments  of  $250,000,000  each, 
as  constituting  a  total  of  $10,000,000,000. 
This  is  not  the  first  place  where  he  men- 
tions this  total.  At  page  135,  for  ex- 
ample, he  says  that  "it  would  have  been 
a  wise  and  just  act  to  have  asked 
the  German  Government  at  the  peace 
negotiations  to  agree  to  a  sum  of 
$10,000,000,000  in  final  settlement  with- 
out further  examination  of  particulars." 
Thirty  annual  payments  of  $250,000,000 
have  a  present  value,  not  of  $7,500,000,000, 
but  of  $3,850,000,000  (interest  being 
reckoned  at  five  per  cent.) .    If  it  is  legit- 


imate to  spread  the  total  over  thirty  years, 
it  is  legitimate  to  spread  it  over  a  hun- 
dred ;  but  the  present  value  of  those  hun- 
dred payments  would  be  only  a  shade  more 
than  $1,500,000,000.  Of  course  no  one 
knows  this  better  than  Mr.  Keynes;  and 
only  an  extreme  bias  in  favor  of  the 
result  he  desired  could  possibly  have  led 
him  to  make  a  statement  which,  while 
misleading  no  competent  person,  was  cal- 
culated to  make  a  superficial  impression 
that  the  figure  he  was  proposing  ran 
high  into  the  billions. 

When  Mr.  Keynes  concludes  his  ar- 
raignment of -the  injustice  and  impracti- 
cability of  the  Treaty  in  its  reparation 
exactions,  and  his  warning  as  to  the 
menace  which  it  presents  for  the  future 
of  European  civilization,  he  turns  in  a 
final  chapter  to  the  subject  of  remedies. 
His  suggestions  are  four:  The  revision 
of  the  Treaty;  the  cancellation  of  inter- 
Ally  indebtedness;  an  international  loan 
and  the  reform  of  the  currency;  and  the 
opening  of  new  relations  with  Russia. 
There  can  be  little  doubt  that  changes 
and  revisions  in  the  Treaty  will  be  neces- 
sary and  that  they  will  be  made  with 
greater  ease  as  war  passions  are  mollified 
by  time,  and  the  desperate  economic  situ- 
ation in  Central  Europe  insistently 
demands  treatment.  The  proposal  to  can- 
cel inter-Allied  war  indebtedness,  desir- 
able as  that  might  be,  seems  scarcely 
within  the  bounds  of  practical  politics 
in  this  imperfect  world  of  ours.  One  can 
scarcely  see  members  of  Congress  in 
Washington  proposing  to  abrogate  ten 
billions  of  war  loans.  A  great  interna- 
tional loan  will  probably  be  found  neces- 
sary, and  may  be  engineered  if  the  lead- 
ing financiers  and  statesmen  of  the  world 
can  agree  upon  the  conditions  of  making 
it  and  of  utilizing  it.  The  manner  in 
which  he  proposes  the  fourth  of  his  rem- 
edies, the  opening  of  Russia,  shows  again 
the  slant  of  mind  earlier  referred  to. 
That  the  resources  in  food  and  raw  ma- 
terials .which  Russia  can  furnish  to  Eu- 
rope are  indispensable  to  European  re- 
construction is  too  well  known  to  require 
discussion.  But  such  production  and  ex- 
portation, in  the  presence  of  the  existing 
Bolshevik  regime  in  Russia,  are  not 
within  the  bounds  of  possibility.  Forces 
are  working  within  Russia  towards  the 
overthrow  of  this  impossible  system. 
How  soon  they  will  achieve  success  we  do 
not  know,  but  it  is  out  of  the  question 
to  base  any  hopes  upon  the  solution  of 
the  diflSculties  of  Europe  from  the  direc- 
tion of  Russia  until  this  eventuates.  That 
Germans  must  have  an  opportunity  to 
participate  in  the  development  of  Rus- 
sian resources  goes  without  saying.  This 
is  a  matter  which  is  beyond  the  control 
of  the  Allied  Powers  or  the  Reparation 
Commission.  In  fact,  the  restoration  of 
normal  conditions  in  Europe  waits  on  the 
solution  of  the  Russian  problem,  and  Mr. 
Keynes's  inclusion  of  this  in  his  list  of 


remedies  is  based  on  fact,  even  though 
his  interpretation  may  be  subject  to 
serious  criticism. 


Education  in  a  Democracy 

A  Lover  of  the  Chaik.    By  Sherlock  Bronson 
Gass.    Boston  :    Marshall  Jones  Company. 

MR.  GASS  turns  over  from  many 
angles  the  leading  problems  of  edu- 
cation in  a  democracy,  and  the  wider 
problem  of  democracy  itself.  The  mat- 
ter is  generally  cast  in  dialogues,  with 
the  disillusioned  scholar  described  in  the 
title  as  arbitrator.  Despite  a  certain 
crabbedness  and  inflexibility  of  literary 
form,  the  book  is  a  notable  one.  It  is 
thought  through,  and  has  flights  of  grave 
eloquence.  As  a  survey  and  estimate  of 
modern  society,  as  offering  a  tenacious 
criticism  which  is  ever  tinged  with 
human  sympathy,  the  book  is  a  true  land- 
mark. On  the  side  of  education  the 
author  has  no  difficulty  in  showing  that 
the  present  lurch  towards  vocational 
training  in  the  public  schools  is  really 
not  democratic  at  all.  It  assumes  that  a 
child  is  to  be  fitted  for  a  place  in  which 
he  shall  stay — anr  aristocratic  assump- 
tion. Democratic  training  would  look 
towards  stimulating  the  individual  to 
wisdom  and  magnanimity,  and  thus  to- 
wards producing  an  ever  more  enlight- 
ened and  generous  majority  opinion. 
Democracy  can  remain  valid  only  on  con- 
dition of  an  unsparing  criticism  of  its 
ideas  and  processes,  and  withal  on  con- 
dition that  something  of  private  conven- 
ience and  prosperity  shall  be  sacrificed  to 
the  right  conduct  of  public  interests. 
Without  willingness  to  forego  obvious 
utilities,  democracy  perishes,  for  "De- 
mocracy is  at  bottom  only  a  faith  in  the 
nobility  of  the  people." 

At  this  point  enter  the  economic  hu- 
manitarian. Mr.  Gass  hits  him  off  in 
his  numerous  species  with  telling  humor. 
Your  humanitarian  preaches  not  sacri- 
fice, but  material  prosperity  for  the  un- 
fortunate. The  common  denominator  is 
social  sympathy.  Assure  people  that 
they  are  abused,  impute  merit  to  them 
for  this  cause,  promise  them  what  they 
want — such  is  the  nearest  approach  to 
a  programme.  This  sort  of  socialism  ia 
merely  an  inverted  form  of  aristocracy. 
There  is  no  faith  in  the  people,  and  no 
method  of  training  them  politically. 
Somebody  is  to  know  what  is  good  for 
them,  and  these  somebodies,  having  no 
common  idea,  all  differ.  Moreover,  social 
compunction  is  often  really  a  tribute  to 
Mammon. 

Every  age  has  its  own  way  of  feeling  the 
raw  edge  of  life,  and  this  is  our  way.  It's 
a  matter  of  reactions.  When  tyranny's  the 
thing  the  poets  climb  down  and  are  shocked 
and  join  the  revolution.  There's  the  Eight- 
eenth Century  in  France.  When  it's  hardened 
tradition  and  sophistication,  when  convention, 
title,  and  rank  are  in  the  saddle,  it's  neglected 


158] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  40 


individuality  and  merit  that  cry  out :  "There's 
the  Eighteenth  Century  in  England."  And  now 
wealth's  the  thing,  and  poverty  fills  us  with 
horror. 

The  book  closes  with  an  autobiograph- 
ical fragment  which  is  its  best  literary 
feature  and  has  the  advantage  of  bring- 
ing the  various  problems  involved  to  a 
moral  focus.  We  recall  nothing  that  re- 
veals so  fully  the  aimlessness  of  the  mod- 
em college,  caught  between  vocation- 
alism  and  fading  ideals  of  humane  edu- 
cation, as  the  record  of  the  author's  col- 
lege days.  His  life,  ironically  that  of  a 
college  professor,  soon  resolves  itself 
into  the  old  but  ever  urgent  dilemma 
between  the  active  and  contemplative  life. 
He  gives  the  former  a  fair  trial  in  set- 
tlement work,  and  nearly  succumbs  to  its 
warm  appeal.  Finally,  he  withdraws  to 
his  chair,  at  last  without  irony.  Human- 
itarian activity  has  built  up  no  stand- 
ards and  furnished  no  ideas.  He  will 
henceforth  devote  himself  to  the  great 
intangibles  upon  which,  after  all,  civil- 
ization rests. 

For  in  realizing  that  the  spiritual  structure, 
the  humanizing  product  of  men's  thought  and 
wisdom,  kept  its  tenuous  life  so  precariously, 
and  had  its  life  at  all  only  in  men's  minds,  he 
saw  how  supreme  was  the  value  of  those  men 
who  shut  themselves — perforce,  to-day,  alas — 
aloof  from  the  world,  mastered  the  records  of 
the  past,  wrote  their  new  volumes,  taught,  or 
perhaps  merely  preserved  by  their  example 
the  tradition  of  the  love  of  learning. 

Amid  a  thousand  hustling  and  profes- 
sionally hopeful  books  on  education  and 
politics  this  one,  with  its  quiet  and  whim- 
sical seriousness,  is  rather  likely  to  be 
overlooked.  To  overlook  it,  however,  is  a 
serious  reader's  loss. 


Between  Worlds 

Michael  Forth.     By  Mary  Johnston.     New 

York :    Harper  and  Brothers. 
OlTTLAND.    By  Mary  Austin.   New  York :  Boni 

and  Liveright. 

WHAT  is  "the  truth  about"  Miss 
Johnston?  Is  she  too  deep  for  us, 
or  has  she  a  showy  opalescence  of  surface 
that  baffles  the  eye?  Her  work  appears 
to  have  three  chief  phases.  There  were 
her  early  costume  romances,  "To  Have 
and  To  Hold,"  "Audrey,"  and  so  on 
which  launched  her  on  the  way  to  what 
looked  like  a  safe  popularity.  They  had 
the  right  blend  of  colorful  phrase,  hectic 
emotion,  and  red-blooded  action  (perhaps 
that  label  was  still  to  appear) ;  and  their 
none  too  unconscious  "literary"  touch  of 
style  did  them  no  harm  with  the  audience 
of  that  day,  which  had  not  yet  learned 
on  the  highest  authority,  as  we  have,  to 
despise  style.  Miss  Johnston  seemed  to 
have  a  sure  thing,  and  perhaps  some 
critics,  after  the  notorious  habit  of  their 
envious  tribe,  twitted  her  on  the  fact. 
At  all  events,  she  soon  withdrew  from  it 
into  regions  where  she  was  safe  enough 
from  the  approval  of  the  vulgar  populace. 


Her  second  phase  was  the  heavy-his- 
torical, in  which  she  entreated  with  in- 
dubitable zeal  and  ingenuity,  but  quite 
dubitable  effect,  certain  dramatic  world- 
episodes.  Why,  when  they  were  so 
earnestly  conceived  and  zealously  ex- 
ecuted, did  not  these  books  get  hold  of 
us  more?  Why,  especially,  did  the  two 
Civil  War  novels,  "The  Long  Roll"  and 
"Cease  Firing,"  fall  so  dull  and  flat  upon 
our  consciousness?  Here,  surely,  in 
these  responsible  and  dignified  efforts  to 
interpret  the  unforgotten  tragedy,  the 
writer's  serious  and  somewhat  portentous 
manner  might  justify  itself.  A  South- 
erner, the  kinswoman  of  a  great  South- 
ern general,  she  might  reveal  the  'sixties 
as  they  had  not  been  revealed  before. 
But  these  books  were  heavy,  turgid,  over- 
strained— dull.  One  wearied  of  their 
insistent  pressure  upon  the  nerves  and 
the  emotions.  At  best,  one  "waded" 
through  these  carefully,  even  prayerfully 
written  records.  There  was  no  pleasure 
in  them  to  atone  for  their  interminable 
high  flown  yet  melancholy  drone. 

The  third  phase  set  in  some  years 
since,  and  is  still  "on":  a  mystical 
rhapsodic  phase  which  interprets  the 
world  in  terms  of  some  circumambient 
and  fluid  superworld  which  knows  not 
time  or  space  or  stability,  but  unites  all 
men  and  all  things  in  a  kind  of  golden 
sempiternal  flux.  Life  is  continuous;  the 
soul  of  our  grandam  has  more  or  less 
its  will  of  us.  We  live  many  lives  in 
the  flesh;  we  toddle,  in  each  new  ex- 
istence, down  a  predestined  and  vaguely 
familiar  path.  If  the  hopeful  reader 
delve  patiently  enough  in  "Michael 
Forth"  he  may  unearth  the  not  very 
satisfactory  love-story  of  two  young 
Southerners  of  our  own  day,  a  Michael 
and  his  Miriam.  They  are  ancient 
mates,  we  gather,  and  seem  a  good  deal 
more  excited  in  chasing  back  their  in- 
timations of  a  joint  immortality  than  in 
living  and  loving  through  the  incidental 
present.  We  savor  a  sort  of  psychical 
joke  when  Miriam  dies — it  matters  so 
little  to  their  real  union.  A  joke  on 
death  or,  perhaps,  on  the  misguided 
myriads  who  are  so  dull  as  to  be  de- 
pressed by  death.  Michael  does  admit 
that  her  departure  has  done  something 
to  him :  "The  T  posited  itself  in  a  realm 
somewhat  nearer  to  the  all.  It  tented 
there."  The  old  campground!  .  .  . 
"Miriam  was  there,  profoundly,  deeply, 
truly  there."  Not  only  profoundly,  but 
deeply.  ...  I  have  no  wish  to  mock  at 
this  evidently  earnest  dreamer.  But  it 
is  fair  and  friendly  to  caution  her  that 
there  is  an  accent  of  psychic  hysteria 
about  all  of  her  recent  work.  Perhaps  the 
only  safe  way  to  be  a  Swami  is  to  keep 
one's  tongue  firmly  in  one's  cheek,  or 
at  least  to  be  able  to  laugh  at  those  who 
overdo  the  ecstatic.  If  Miss  Johnston 
is  capable  of  laughter,  there  is  nothing 
in  her  books  to  show  it :  the  utmost  one 


might  postulate  would  be  a  pale  and 
trembling  smile,  directed  patiently  yet 
encouragingly  towards  the  eternal 
heavens.  Page  after  page  here,  chapter 
after  chapter  of  supra-liminal  prophecy, 
dim  and  continuous :  yes,  a  word  of  warn- 
ing is  in  order  that  this  way  lies,  if  not 
madness,  at  least  a  form  of  mental  dis- 
integration. One  paragraph  may  be 
quoted  as  a  fair  sample  of  the  oracle's 
utterance : 

The  sea  ran  round  the  world.  The  fluid  air 
was  not  here  nor  there,  it  flowed  far  and  near. 
...  I  sat  upon  the  deck  of  the  Zeus  and  hs- 
tened  to  Ransome  the  traveler — but  also  I  was 
away  from  this — all  around  and  all  through. 
.  .  .  Flowing  mind  that  was  also  Ransome's 
mind,  as  it  was  Miriam's  mind,  and  others  and 
others  in  incalculable  numbers — the  host  of 
mind.  .  .  .  Strong  was  the  rapture !  Thought 
there  had  great  voice — God  voice.  It  sank 
away,  but  its  shadow,  its  echo,  lingering, 
clothed  itself  in  words  from  an  ancient  dia- 
logue between  man  and  man — between  the 
individual  and  the  Generic  Consciousness. 

One  may  confess  an  unregenerate  im- 
pulse,  when   people  talk   or   write   like 
this,  to  make  the  specification  "the  Vir- 
ginian" did  on  a  famous  occasion: 
"When  you  say  that,  smile!" 

Mrs.  Austin's  "Outland"  is  a  less  pre- 
tentious and  more  intelligible  adventure 
between  worlds:  a  fantasy  vividly  con- 
ceived and  gracefully  and  consistently 
developed.  The  idea  seems  familiar 
enough,  yet  we  are  able  to  recall  nothing 
quite  like  it.  Algernon  Blackwood  and 
others  have  told  tales  of  contact  between 
modern  men  and  the  living  gods  of  na- 
ture. Pan  or  some  lesser  one.  Another 
British  novelist  (John  Buchan,  was  it?) 
has  recently  told  a  striking  story  of  the 
survival  of  a  mysterious  race  among  the 
far  mountains  of  Scotland  who  are  sup- 
posed to  be  a  remnant  of  the  ancient 
Picts,  living  in  remote  fastnesses  of  the 
hills  and  now  and  then  wreaking  their 
malice  upon  the  luckless  shepherds  or 
travelers  through  that  ill-omened  region. 
This  is  in  a  way  analogous  to  Mrs. 
Austin's  idea,  since  her  "Outliers"  also 
represent  the  survival  of  a  primitive 
race;  but  in  her  narrative  the  element 
of  horror,  usually  dominant  in  this  gen- 
eral order  of  fiction,  has  almost  no  place. 
And  her  primal  folk  are  given  no  historic 
name  or  habitat.  The  scene  happens  to 
be  California,  in  a  stretch  of  wooded 
country,  not  many  hours'  journey  from 
city  or  sea  or  fashionable  resort.  The 
man  is  a  literal-minded  professor  in  a 
nearby  university;  the  woman  a  teacher 
who  has  retired  to  her  lodge  in  the 
chosen  (and  accessible)  wilderness  in 
order  to  be  an  author  at  leisure.  The 
man  is  the  woman's  staid  and  unimpas- 
sioned  suitor.  He  thinks  they  ought  to 
marry  because  they  are  good  companions 
and  because  they  are  not  in  love.  She 
can  not  marry  him  on  those  terms;  nor 
can  she  be  happy  without  him.  She  can 
not  write,  he  will  not  woo,  and  matters 
are  at  a  deadlock  when  a  dim  trail  into 


February  14,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[159 


the  wood  leads  the  woman  among  a 
strange,  though  not  unfriendly,  folk.  The 
man  blunders  after  her,  and  the  rest  of 
the  story,  which  shall  not  be  butchered 
in  any  sentence  or  two  of  abstract,  deals 
with  their  adventures  among  this  people 
of  primitive  and  endearing  character; 
and  with  what  they  learn  of  themselves 
through  that  experience.  It  is  the  kind 
of  story  which  can  not  be  told  with  any 
amount  of  merely  mechanical  ingenuity 
and  be  anything  less  than  offensive;  Mrs. 
Austin  has  felt  and  conveyed  the  charm 
of  a  delicate  and  original  fancy. 

H.  W.  BOYNTON 

The  Art  of  the  Greek 
Ceramists 

A  Handbook  of  Greek  Vase  Painting.  By 
Mary  A.  B.  Herford.  Manchester  Uni- 
versity Press.  New  York:  Longmans, 
Green  &  Co. 

MISS  HERFORD  tells  us  that  in  this 
brief  account  of  the  Greek  ceram- 
ists and  their  art  she  aimed  to  produce 
a  book  primarily  for  "non-specialist" 
readers,  and  also  one  that  might  prove 
useful  to  students  as  an  introduction  to 
more  technical  works  or  to  the  study  of 
other  branches  of  Greek  art.  A  double 
purpose  of  this  kind  is  admittedly  diffi- 
cult to  carry  out.  There  is  always  dan- 
ger of  falling  between  two  stools  and 
satisfying  neither  group  of  readers; 
and  this  danger  Miss  Herford  has  not 
entirely  escaped.  Her  earlier  chapters, 
on  the  potter  and  his  craft,  the  shapes 
and  the  uses  of  Greek  vases,  will  hardly 
make  a  strong  appeal  to  the  general 
reader,  especially  the  decidedly  technical 
distinctions  between  the  diiterent  va- 
rieties of  amphorae,  hydrise,  and  other 
forms.  The  "non-specialist"  is  likely  to 
be  somewhat  upset  when,  after  working 
through  this  dry  material,  he  finds  in 
later  pages  references  to  a  number  of 
less  common  shapes  which  are  not  in- 
cluded in  the  chapter  on  forms,  and  are 
either  not  described  at  all  or  only  inade- 
quately described  in  the  connections  in 
which  they  appear.  One  wonders,  too, 
whether  the  general  reader  will  readily 
catch  the  meaning  of  various  undefined 
technical  terms,  such  as  "Kleinmeister," 
"matt"  colors,  and  "Phaleron  ware," 
and  whether  it  would  not  be  well  to  ex- 
plain, when  the  word  first  appears 
(p.  14),  that  the  "Karameikos"  was  the 
potters'  quarter  in  ancient  Athens, 
rather  than  on  its  second  appearance 
(p.  18).  It  is  true  that  the  definition 
is  given  in  the  Index,  but  as  the  Index, 
in  general,  is  not  treated  as  a  glossary, 
the  reader  can  hardly  be  blamed  if  he 
fails  to  find  this  means  of  answering  his 
question. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  student  of  art 
and  archaeology,  trained,  presumably,  to 
demand  exactness  in  the  use  of  terms, 
may  well  be  puzzled  to  find  the  aryballos 


described  as  similar  to  "small  pear- 
shaped  vases  without  foot"  (p.  41),  after 
it  has  been  described  and  pictured  (pp. 
30  and  31)  as  a  siib-class  of  the  leky- 
thos,  with  a  "low  ring-foot."  It  may  ir- 
ritate him,  after  he  has  been  told  that 
vases  with  the  name  Leagros  should  be 
assigned  to  the  decade  beginning  about 
510  (p.  78),  to  read  three  pages  later 
that  Leagros  is  "the  hero  of  the  last  dec- 
ade of  the  fifth  century";  and  if  he  is 
familiar  with  his  classics,  the  numerous 
small  errors  in  the  accentuation  of 
Greek  words  may  weaken  his  confidence 
in  the  writer's  accuracy  in  other  mat- 
ters. 

In  this  respect,  our  assumed  student 
reader  would  do  Miss  Herford  an  in- 
justice. In  general,  her  statements  of 
fact  are  accurate,  and  show,  especially 
in  the  second,  or  historical,  part  of  the 
book,  that  she  is  conversant  with  recent 
discussions  and  theories.  She  writes 
pleasantly  and  vividly  of  the  vase-paint- 
er's craft,  and  enlivens  her  text  with 
frequent  and  appropriate  references  to 
Greek  literature  and  to  ancient  and  mod- 
ern works  of  art.  Some  of  these  allu- 
sions, such  as  the  comparison  of  the 
work  of  Assteas  to  that  of  Blake,  are 
decidedly  original  and  interesting.  The 
illustrations — made,  for  the  most  part, 
from  photographs — are  well  chosen  and 
excellently  reproduced.  The  book,  there- 
fore, may  confidently  be  expected  to 
make  the  Greek  vases  more  generally  ap- 
preciated than  they  now  are.  But  one 
leaves  it  with  the  feeling  that  a  better 
popular  account  could  be  written,  that 
the  writing  of  such  livres  de  vtdgarisa- 
tion  is  still  among  the  things  which 
"they  order  better  in  France." 

The  Run  of  the  Shelves 

THE  claims  of  James  Whitcomb  Riley 
are  recalled  to  mind  by  Mr.  Marcus 
Dickey's  new  book,  the  "Youth  of  James 
Whitcomb  Riley"  (Bobbs-Merrill  Com- 
pany), in  which  four  hundred  pages  of 
record  and  rhapsody  are  lavished  on  the 
poet's  youth  alone.  The  Review  will  not 
re-try  the  case.  At  most,  it  may  venture 
a  word  on  the  principles  that  should 
govern  the  award.  In  the  homeliness  of 
Riley's  dialect  there  is  neither  accusation 
nor  amnesty.  It  fixes  nothing.  So  far 
as  the  court  of  criticism  goes,  the  dispen- 
sation from  standard  English,  which  is 
cheerfully  granted  in  the  Riley  case,  is 
not  a  dispensation  from  literature;  it  is 
not  a  dispensation  from  sense  or  art  or 
style.  There  are  various  ways  of  being 
rough  as  of  being  smooth,  and  literature 
in  both  forms  recognizes  only  the  best 
ways.  What  posterity  may  wish  in  re- 
gard to  Riley,  if  it  makes  him  the  sub- 
ject of  a  wish,  is  not  that  he  had  been 
less  of  a  ploughman  and  more  of  a  cava- 
lier, but  that  he  had  been  more  of  a 


ploughman  and  less  of  a  loafer.  Even 
in  his  own  furrow  Riley  is  an  uneven 
workman,  an  inconstant  toiler.  In  the 
very  same  poem,  between  firmnesses  he 
is  flabby;  between  tensions  he  is  nerve- 
less. He  was  doubtless  zealous  in  his  art 
after  a  fashion,  but  it  is  easier  to  be 
zealous  than  to  be  steady.  It  is  easier 
in  a  way  to  give  one's  life  to  art  than 
to  give  half-an-hour  to  the  subjugation 
of  a  rebellious  line.  Riley's  half-hours 
were  too  precious  to  be  thrown  away 
upon  niceties;  he  had  six  volumes  to 
write. 

Men  are  sometimes  vindicated  by  the 
quality  of  their  detractors;  they  are 
sometimes  arraigned  by  the  nature  of 
their  eulogists.  Mr.  Dickey's  book  is  a 
sincere,  generous,  loyal  book;  its  good- 
nature is  so  sunny,  and  so  unlike  in 
its  comprehensiveness,  that  it  exhorts  a 
sort  of  unwilling  return  from  the  doubt- 
ing or  contentious  reader.  Nevertheless, 
it  is  little  short  of  a  menace  to  Riley's 
fame.  It  is  prolix  and  vacuous;  in  na- 
ture, by  the  by,  the  greatest  amplitudes 
are  voids.  It  is  gushing  and  florid; 
around  springs  one  expects  to  find  blos- 
toms.  Mr.  Dickey  quotes  very  freely 
from  Riley.  He  quotes  indiscriminately, 
or  rather  he  seems  to  be  guided  by  a 
perverse  dexterity  to  the  wrong  quota- 
tion. If  he  quotes  from  Longfellow's 
"Morituri  Salutamus,"  for  example,  he 
is  guided  past  the  imaginative  line,  "So 
many  ghosts  are  in  the  wooded  plain," 
past  the  glowing  metaphor. 

How  far  the  gulf-stream  of  our  youth  may 

flow 
Into  the  arctic  regions  of  our  lives, 

to  settle  down  upon  perhaps  the  two 
most  arid  and  lustreless  lines  in  the 
whole  poem. 

Study  yourself;  and  most  of  all  note  well 
Wherein   kind  nature  meant   you  to  excel. 

The  effect  of  the  application  of  a  talent 
so  fatally  inspired  as  this  to  a  faculty 
so  portentously  unsure  as  Riley's  may 
readily  be  guessed. 

This  is  not  all.  The  havoc  which  Mr. 
Dickey's  adoration  is  to  work  in  the 
reputation  of  his  idol  is  still  incomplete. 
This  book  is  curious,  and  in  its  way  valu- 
able, in  its  picture  of  a  bygone  literary 
taste,  a  taste  juvenile  from  the  outset 
and  juvenile  to-day  in  its  very  senility, 
like  Mrs.  Skewton  in  "Dombey  and  Son." 
The  cult  was  showy,  facile,  smartish, 
not  so  bad  in  its  avowedly  ornamental 
and  sentimental  passages,  though  these 
were  bad  enough,  as  in  the  plasters  of 
ornament  and  sentiment  which  it  was 
pleased  to  apply  to  passages  which  were 
in  substance  plain  and  practical.  Riley 
undoubtedly  had  close  afllliations  with 
this  cult,  and  the  unwilling  and  uncon- 
scious wrong  which  this  book  does  to  its 
idolized  subject  is  to  present  Riley  al- 
most exclusively  in  the  clutch  of  these 
affiliations.     If  a  man  is  half,  and  only 


160] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  40 


half,  a  fop,  he  is  lost  if  he  allows  him- 
self to  be  decoyed  into  a  group-picture 
in  which  the  other  participants  are  fops. 
Riley  was  half  a  twaddler;  the  neigh- 
borhood of  twaddlers  is  his  bane.  Mr. 
Dickey's  book  scarcely  permits  him  a 
moment's  release  from  that  compromis- 
ing fellowship.  A  manlier  taste  in  his 
biographer  would  have  acted  as  sum- 
mons and  incentive  to  the  manlier  Riley 
to  emerge  from  his  retirement.  Riley 
found  his  vocation  in  the  portrayal  of 
humble  life  in  his  native  Indiana.  One 
can  not  help  fancying  that  part  of  the 
virtue  of  this  step  lay  in  the  fact  that 
the  return  to  his  people  was  the  exodus 
from  his  class.  That  exodus  is  in  a 
■ense  revoked  in  Mr.  Dickey. 

Dr.  Trevor  H.  Davies'  "Spiritual  Voices 
in  Modern  Literature"  (George  H.  Doran 
Company)    is   a   book   the   contents    of 
which  transpire  in  the  very  title.     The 
reader  infers  that  Dr.  Davies  is  a  clergy- 
man of  the  English  Church  in  Canada; 
■  that  the  point  remains  to  the  last  an  in- 
ference   is    a   just    indication    of    some 
breadth  in  his  theology.     He  is  a  well- 
bred  and  (comparatively  speaking)  well- 
read  clergyman,  writing  a  colorless,  but 
limpid   and   fluid   English,   not   a  close 
reasoner,   but  so   partial   to   order   and 
classification  that  his  book  is  almost  tiled 
with  subdivisions.    He  wishes  to  find  in 
modem    literature    a    reenforcement    to 
modern    Christianity,    and    the   original 
feature  in  an  unoriginal  book  is  his  addi- 
tion of  the  names  of  John  Masefield  and 
of  Ibsen   (in  "Peer  Gynt")   to  a  list  in 
which     the    appearance    of    Tennyson, 
Browning,     Wordsworth,     Ruskin,     and 
James  Smetham,  is  entirely  normal  and 
intelligible.     The   appropriation   of   Mi. 
Masefield  by  the  church  is  hardly  spoli- 
ation, though  it  is  interesting  as  a  mark 
of  the  effacenient  of  the  last  echo  of  the 
hue  and  cry  which  greeted  the  appear- 
ance of  the  "Everlasting  Mercy"  not  so 
very  many  years  ago.     That  poem  was 
essentially   Christian,   and    if    its   blas- 
phemies  and    ribaldries   were   meant   to 
ward  off  the  pietists,  it  is  interesting  to 
note  that  the  period  of  their  efficiency 
is  past.     The  case  of  Ibsen  is  very  dif- 
ferent.    It    is    undoubtedly    true    that 
"Peer  Gynt"  is  a  condemnation  of  half- 
heartedness,  and  that  half-heartedness  is 
the  bane  of  modern  Christianity.    But  it 
must  be  remembered  that  Ibsen,  through 
the  mouth  of  Brand,  represented  the  God 
of  orthodox  Norway  as  a  bald  old  man  with 
skullcap  and  glasses,  and  it  is  unlikely 
that  he  would  have  been  cordially  respon- 
sive to  the  distinction  that  Dr.  Davies 
might  draw,  possibly  with  justice,  be- 
tween   orthodox    Canada    and    orthodox 
Norway.     Dr.  Davies,  at  variance  with 
Ibsen  on  the  main  point,  desires  to  profit 
by    Ibsen's    authority    on    a    secondary 
question  on  which   their   agreement   is 
decided.     Of  course,  any  side  is  quite 


right  in  availing  itself  of  a  friendly 
particular  in  the  testimony  of  a 
generally  unfriendly  witness.  But  in 
the  special  case  where  that  witness  is 
cited  as  an  authority,  a  distinct  prob- 
lem arises.  His  general  unfriendliness 
becomes  a  fact  which  it  is  unfair  to 
withhold  and  impolitic  to  confess. 

The  Harvard  art  department  have  put 
their  heads   together  and   produced   an 
admirable    catalogue    raisonne    entitled 
"Collection  of  Mediaeval  and  Renaissance 
Paintings,"  and  the  Harvard  University 
Press   has  given  the  handsome  quarto 
every  advantage  of  fine  presswork  and 
illustration.    Over  sixty  pictures  are  re- 
produced, most  of  them  being    of    the 
primitive  Italian  schools.    These  pictures 
have  been  collected  with  the  end  of  illus- 
trating the  courses  in  the  history  of  art. 
The  pictures  are  so  representative  that 
the  editors  have  been  able  to  build  a  suc- 
cinct history  of  primitive  European  paint- 
ing around  the  nucleus  afforded  by  the 
Fogg  Art  Museum.     The  brief  chapters 
on   the  several  schools  are  competently 
done.    That  on  Byzantine  painting  is  the 
best  short  account  available  in  English. 
Especially  good  also  are  the  color  de- 
scriptions,    which     are     clear     without 
tediousness  or  over-elaboration.  The  edi- 
tors record  such  pictures  by  artists  rep- 
resented in  this  catalogue  as  are  in  other 
American    collections.      Bibliographical 
features  are  pretty  full  and  sensibly  pre- 
sented.   Where  the  editors  deserve  high 
praise  is  in  their  correct  and  scrupulous 
conception  of  their  task.     The  business 
of  a  catalogue  is  to  present  the  actual 
state  of  knowledge  about  the  objects  cat- 
alogued,  and  not   the   floating   mass   of 
conjecture.    A    cataloguer    should    not 
make  new  attributions  for  disputed  pic- 
tures, but  arbitrate  existing  attributions, 
and  he  should  accept  none  that  can  not 
measurably  be  proved.     So    evident    a 
counsel  of  probity  should  not  need  to  be 
urged,  but  when  one  recalls  such  wild 
work  as  was  made  in  the  official  cata- 
logue of  the  Jarves  Collection  at  Yale, 
the  scholarly  conservatism  of  the  Har- 
vard editors  appears   in  a  very  favor- 
able light.     They  know  how  to   reject 
flattering  attributions  even  when  offered 
by     incautious     distinguished     experts, 
they  query  attributions  which  most  gal- 
lery  officials   would  welcome  with   open 
arms.     In  short,  the  catalogue  is  a  re- 
markable exhibit  of  the  New  England 
conscience,  and  withal  taste,  as  applied 
to  the  often  charlatanistic  field  of  con- 
noisseurship.    Such  a  work  will  not  soon 
go  out  of  date.    This  catalogue  should  be 
immensely  valuable  as  an  adjunct  to  in- 
struction  at    Harvard,     and     it    should 
serve  widely  as  an  example.    It  is  a  fit- 
ting crown  to  the  remarkable  work  of 
building  the  Fogg  Museum  up  from  al- 
most nothing — and  in  only  about  fifteen 
years— to   its   present   estate   of   impor- 


tance. The  interest  of  the  collection 
may  be  judged  from  a  mere  enumeration 
of  some  of  the  Sienese  masters  on  the 
walls.  There  are  fine  and  certain  exam- 
ples of  Simone  Martini,  Ambrogio  Lo- 
renzetti,  Andrea  Vanni,  Taddeo  Bartoli, 
Sassetta,  Matteo  di  Giovanni,  Benvenuto 
da  Siena,  and  Girolamo  di  Benvenuto. 
These  may  not  be  on  household  lists  of 
the  world's  ten  greatest  painters,  but 
they  offer  so  many  pure  delights  to  such 
as  know  how  to  love  aright  the  pictorial 
poetry  of  the  City  of  the  Virgin. 

"Father  Duffy's  Story"  (Doran)  is  the 
regimental  history  of  the  69th  New  York 
Regiment,  which  bore  its  official  designa- 
tion, the  165th  Infantry,  impatiently  as 
an  alias.    Th«  book  begins  with  the  re- 
turn of  the  regiment  from  the  Mexican 
Border,  and  ends  with  its  return  after 
service  overseas  with  the  Rainbow  Di- 
vision  bearing  nine  new   furls   on   the 
regimental    flagstaff    for    actions    from 
Luneville  to  the  Argonne,  followed  by  a 
period    of    comparative    rest    with    the 
Army  of  Occupation  on  the  Rhine.     It 
follows  one  thread  faithfully  through  the 
intricate  pattern  of  the  war.     It  is  not 
so  much  history  as  one  of  the  sources 
of  history,  a  first-hand  document  by  one 
who  had  and  used  well  every  opportunity 
to  see  and  know  what  was  going  on  not 
only    in   trenches    and    dugouts,    but   at 
headquarters,  and  in  the  minds  of  the 
men.      Father   Duffy    is   priest,    soldier, 
scholar,  man  of  the  world,  and  man  of 
action;  he  is  quite  as  at  home  in  French 
city,  French  village,  front  line  trench, 
headquarters  mess,  or  observation  post 
as  in  his  own  parish  in  the  Bronx.     In- 
deed, wherever  he  is  he  is  in  his  own 
parish;    colonels    came    and    went,    but 
Father  Duffy  took  his  parish  to  war  and 
brought  it  back.     He  is  always   in  the 
very  heart  of  it,  and  to  every  man  in  the 
regiment  he  is  father,  mentor,  and  friend 
— we  see  it  half  the  time  as  a  militarized 
parish,  and  half  as  parochial  regiment. 
We  see  it,  its  members,  and  all  its  ac- 
tions,   in   all   human   and   all   humorous 
aspects  no  less  than  heroic  and  historical. 
The  regiment  stands   out  as   against  a 
white  screen,  without  background  of  the 
war  as  a  whole,  and  without  visualization 
of  scene.    But  the  tale  does  not  profess 
to  be  a  work  of  art.    A  glimpse  of  what 
we  might  have  had  if  Joyce  Kilmer  had 
written  it  we  get  in  the  appendix.  Father 
Duffy  wisely  did  not  attempt  to  continue 
Kilmer's    narrative;     his    work    stands 
sturdily  on  its  own  feet,  and  deeply  as 
we  may  regret  Kilmer's  relinquishment 
of  the  task,   we  may   be   grateful   for 
Father  Duffy's  assumption   of  it.     The  ' 
book  holds  interest  in  every  page;  even  < 
those    which    in    the    author's    phrase  ■ 
"bristle  with  names"  have  the  same  in- 
terest   that    every    town    and    camp    in 
France  had  a  few  months  ago;  you  are- 
likely  to  come  upon  someone  you  know 
in  any  one  of  them. 


1-ebniaiy  14,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[161 


Drama 

Jacinto  Benavente:  Theatre 
and  Library 

BENAVENTE'S  "La  Malquerida,"  or 
the  "Passion  Flower,"  as  it  is  orna- 
mentally and  inexactly  named  in  the 
current  presentation  at  the  Greenwich 
Village  Theatre,  is  a  play  which  bears 
perusal  with  difficulty  and  reperusal 
even  less.  Dramas  abound  in  disguises; 
in  the  "Passion  Flower,"  we  have  drama 
itself  in  disguise,  one  play  masking  as 
another.  The  result  is  unlucky  in  two 
ways;  the  initial,  or  covering  play  has 
no  room  to  culminate;  the  final  and  ac- 
tual play  has  no  time  to  unfold.  The 
first  play  is  the  tale  of  a  young  man, 
shot  on  the  eve  of  his  marriage,  and  of 
a  former  rival  who  is  accused  of  the 
crime,  acquitted,  and  pursued  after  hia 
acquittal  by  the  unslaked  vengeance  of 
the  victim's  fiery  kinsfolk.  This  drama, 
exciting,  traditional,  and  superficial,  is 
drawn  aside  like  an  Elizabethan  traverse 
to  reveal  a  drama  of  quite  another  kind, 
brooding,  internal,  sinister,  deadly.  Its 
persons  are  three,  stepfather,  step- 
daughter, and  mother,  and  the  element 
which  makes  this  simple  grouping  dy- 
namic— I  had  almost  written  dynamitic 
— is  the  reciprocal,  though  up  to  the 
last  moment  unconfessed,  passion,  of 
stepfather  and  stepdaughter  for  each 
other.  The  link  between  the  nominal 
and  the  actual  play  is  simple;  the  step- 
father in  the  second  is,  through  jeal- 
ousy of  the  girl's  betrothed,  the 
prompter  of  the  assassination  in  the 
first. 

Let  us  turn  now  to  the  conduct  of  the 
major  play.  I  will  dwell  no  more  on  the 
fact  that  this  play  spends  an  act  and  a 
half  in  haunting  its  own  outskirts.  Nor 
will  I  enlarge  on  the  uncomeliness  of  the 
theme.  Tragedy  is  tragedy;  no  one  ex- 
pects an  earthquake  to  be  polite.  What 
is  Benavente's  handling  of  these  mate- 
rials? My  answer  is  emphatic.  I  can 
scarcely  name  another  play  by  a  tried 
and  deft  hand  in  which  the  disposition 
of  the  materials  is  so  inept.  The  situ- 
ation is  not  developed;  it  is  scarcely 
even  revealed.  I  might  almost  say  that 
the  real  drama  is  compressed — not  to 
say  crushed — into  five  terminal  minutes. 
The  march  of  events  in  these  minutes  is 
of  a  dizzying,  a  blinding,  rapidity.  A 
drama's  business  is  to  make  us  see. 
"Why  did  the  man  (the  stepfather) 
kill  his  wife?,"  I  was  asked  by  my  com- 
panion in  the  theatre.  I  had  read  the 
play  not  ten  hours  before;  I  had  seen 
the  act  not  ten  minutes  befo.e;  yet  the 
question  halted,  almost  thwarted,  me. 
The  last  few  minutes  are  revolutionary, 
but  to  make  the  confusion  still  worse — 


the  last  few  seconds  undo  the  work  of 
the  last  few  minutes. 

The  fault  lies  largely  in  the  nullity  of 
the  characters.  The  girl  Acacia,  hating 
her  mother  because  she  loves  her  step- 
father, and  at  the  same  time  hating  her 
stepfather  because  she  loves  her  mother, 
is  a  conception  astonishing  enough;  but 
in  the  execution  she  dwindles  into  little 
more  than  an  average  rebel  and  vixen. 
With  the  stepfather  the  failure  is  no  less 
clear.  He  is  a  good  man  who  commits  a 
murder.  In  our  country  this  would  call 
for  explanations;  Benavente  offers  none. 
For  him,  apparently,  a  little  murder  now 
and  then  is  only  human;  Americans  are 
too  inquisitive.  The  mother,  though 
fairly  comprehensible,  is  unindividual 
and  uninteresting.  The  trouble  with  all 
three  persons  is  that  they  are  half-sav- 
ages; yet,  since  they  are  likewise  half- 
commonplace,  their  interest  as  savages 
is  incomplete. 

These  objections  occurred  to  me  in 
the  reading  of  the  play.  My  experience 
at  the  Greenwich  Village  Theatre  the 
other  night  was  a  very  curious  mixture 
of  indorsement  and  refutation  of  these 
views.  Nearly  every  objection  was  con- 
firmed by  the  testimony  of  the  boards, 
yet  the  despair  of  the  play  which  those 
objections  had  bred  was  almost  entirely 
reversed.  The  play  itself  as  a  work  of 
art,  as  the  rationalization  of  a  train  of 
events,  was  utterly  defenseless;  it  was 
blind  and  lurching;  it  reeled  from  point 
to  point.  Yet  the  play  held  the  audience; 
it  held  the  critics;  and  the  final  curtain 
fell  upon  the  vivid  general  sense  that 
the  night  was  memorable  in  the  present 
theatrical  season  in  New  York.  This 
was  partly  due  to  the  unusual  merit  of 
the  acting,  but  it  sprang  likewise  from 
the  atmosphere  of  tense  expectation— 
the  atmosphere  of  a  powder-mill — which 
was  generated  by  the  play  itself. 

Miss  Nance  O'Neil  seems  predestined 
to  parts  in  which  something  passionate 
and  savage  finds  sudden  issue  through 
a  rift  in  the  ordered  circumstance  of  a 
subdued  and  peaceful  life.  Her  Rai- 
munda  is  a  sister  of  her  Odette  in  the 
"Lily,"  of  her  penetrating  and  unfor- 
gettable Monna  Vanna.  Raimunda  as 
an  individual  is  far  less  salient  than 
Monna  Vanna,  and  it  is  partly  for  this 
reason  that  Miss  O'Neil's  acting  of  the 
part,  fine  as  it  is,  may  be  classified  as  su- 
perb melodrama.  Her  voice  alone  is  an 
endowment.  There  is  a  brocade  in  its 
texture  which  can  give  distinction  to 
commonplaces,  can  exalt  them  without 
inflating  them.  But  its  efficacy  goes 
much  further.  Its  depth  and  gravity 
supplies  to  those  moments  of  passionate 
abandonment  in  which  she  delights  pre- 
cisely the  chastening  and  corrective 
background  which  midnight  furnishes  to 
conflagration.  The  part  is  extensive  and 
exacting,  but  it  leaves  no  dent  or  mark 
on  the  amplitude  of  her  resources.    Her 


Raimunda  is  something  of  a  wilderness, 
but  a  wilderness  is  the  place  for  novelty 
and  fascination. 

Mr.  Charles  Waldron  as  Esteban, 
while  rather  too  human  and  manly  for 
his  part,  gave  a  clear  and  touching  pic- 
ture of  the  man  whose  nature  has  been 
cleft  in  twain  and  of  the  effort  of  the 
broken  pieces  to  rejoin  and  re-annex 
each  other.  Mr.  Robert  Fischer's  Tic 
Eusebio  was  perhaps  the  most  finely 
imagined  of  all  the  parts,  and  Mr.  Ed- 
win Beryl  fitted  snugly  into  the  tiny 
part  of  Faustino.  The  Angelus  was 
tolled  in  Act  I,  and  in  Acts  II  and  III 
there  was  a  lovely  and  benign  setting 
that  impressed  me  like  an  unceasing  toll- 
ing of  the  Angelus. 

I  take  this  opportunity  to  say  a  word 
or  two  on  a  recent  translation  of  four 
of  Benavente's  plays  by  Mr.  John  Gar- 
rett Underbill  (Charles  Scribner's 
Sons).  "No  Smoking"  is  a  one-act  play, 
in  which  moderation  is  apparent  in  the 
merit  of  the  anecdote  and  the  skill  of 
the  telling.  "Autumnal  Roses"  is  a 
loosely  woven  story  of  family  and  fash- 
ionable life  in  which  the  autumnal  roses 
represent  the  belated  domestic  peace 
which  unlimited  patience  and  forgiveness 
secure  to  exemplary  wives.  The  trouble 
with  these  roses  is  that  they  are  stem- 
less,  the  play  offers  them  neither  root 
nor  stalk.  The  "Governor's  Wife,"  in 
three  acts,  is  a  comprehensive  and  parti- 
colored satire  on  town  life  in  a  Spanish 
province.  Its  detail  and  its  changeful- 
ness  give  one  the  sense  of  running  up 
and  down  any  number  of  twisting  lanes 
and  alleys  in  some  unswept  Spanish  town 
in  the  distant  hope  of  final  emergence 
into  a  spacious  and  practicable  thorough- 
fare. 'The  only  play  in  the  volume  that 
interests  me  is  "Princess  Bebe,"  a  study 
of  the  errant  and  peccant  offshoots  of 
modern  royalty  in  that  stringency  of 
conditions  which  makes  life  vacuous 
within  the  palace  and  desolate  without. 
The  psychic  insight  and  the  force  of  the 
reasoning  in  this  work  are  truly  re- 
markable, but  the  drama  slumbers  while 
the  characters  talk,  and  auditors  might 
slumber  with  the  drama. 

Mr.  Underbill  is  bent  on  clarity  and 
disapproves  the  "interlinear"  transla- 
tion. He  usually  understands  the  text, 
but  in  the  interest  of  an  imaginary 
clearness,  he  abounds  in  verbal  altera- 
tions, which,  to  say  the  least,  are  fussy 
and  meddlesome.  I  refer  the  curious 
reader  to  the  comparison  of  Princess 
Helena's  last  speech  on  page  119,  and  the 
whole  dialogue  between  Gonzalo  and  Is- 
abel, on  pages  221-229,  with  their  re- 
spective originals  in  the  "Teatro"  (v.  10, 
p.  165;  V.  11,  pp.  9-23).  Mr.  Underbill 
wants  to  write  between  the  lines;  the 
reader  would  be  grateful  for  the  oppor- 
tunity to  read  between  them. 

0.  W.  Firkins 


162] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  40 


Music 

Mary  Garden  and  "Louise" 
—The  Concert  Season 

I  WONDER  who  conceived  that  "Music 
Week."  The  same  bright  mind,  per- 
haps, which  devised  the  "Blue  Bird 
Week."  The  idea,  in  each  case,  seemed 
so  "pretty,  pretty,"  that  we  must  surely 
have  owed  it  to  a  woman's  brain. 
But  did  we  need  to  intensify  our  music 
production?  It  pleased  some  thousands 
to  get  opera  gratis,  just  for  a  change,  at 
the  Manhattan.  It  might  have  delighted 
more  to  have  Caruso  sing  to  them,  on 
the  same  terms.  Apart  from  that  one 
free  performance  at  the  Manhattan, 
though,  what  good  came  of  the  "Music 
Week"  campaign?  The  dealers  may 
have  sold  a  few  more  pianos,  or  pianolas, 
and  gramophones.  And  then?  What 
then? 

The  critics  (who  are  in  a  class  apart) 
have  long  been  praying  for  less  music, 
not  for  more.  And  they  are  doing  the 
same  thing,  I  read,  in  London.  They 
have  found  it  hard  to  cope  with  two  big 
opera  houses,  three  symphony  orches- 
tras, and  recitals  beyond  counting.  They 
did  not  clamor  for  more  shows  and  con- 
certs, even  heralded  by  silvery  carillons. 
If  we  could  weed  out  half  the  recitals 
of  each  season,  the  higher  cause  of  music 
might  not  suffer. 

For  art,  you  see,  implies  a  wise  selec- 
tion. And  art  is  poorly  served  by  poor 
recitals,  nor  is  it  greatly  helped  by  spurts 
of  interest.  If  the  dear  people  who  con- 
ceived that  "Music  Week"  had  been 
really  in  earnest,  they  would  have  turned 
their  attention  to  more  permanent 
things.  They  would  have  joined  the 
ranks  of  those  who  for  years  past  have 
tried  to  induce  Congress  to  give  us  a 
National  Conservatory,  and,  as  a  corol- 
lary, at  least  one  National  opera  house. 
Without  them,  we  shall  never  build  up 
music.  Without  them,  we  shall  con- 
continue  to  be  what  we  are — vassals  of 
foreigners  in  music,  in  our  concert 
rooms,  and  especially  in  our  opera 
houses. 

We  should  have  music  in  our  homes 
and  public  schools.  We  should  eventually 
have  not  only  a  great  National  Conser- 
vatory (preferably  in  New  York  or  Chi- 
cago, not  in  Washington)  but  also 
allied  State  conservatories.  As  an  ex- 
ample, we  should  have  a  National  opera 
house.  But  this  should  be  but  one  of 
fifty  houses  for  the  production  of  Amer- 
ican lyric  drama,  in  which  the  operas  of 
the  world,  including  our  world,  should 
be  interpreted  in  English,  by  Americans. 
The  reception  given  to  "Cleopatra's 
Night,"  at  the  Metropolitan,  proves,  if 
we  needed  proof,  that  operatically  we 
are  moving,  slowly  but  surely.    The  per- 


formance of  Frederick  Converse's  First 
Symphony,  by  the  Boston  orchestra, 
gave  hope,  and  more  than  hope,  in  other 
ways.  And  now  I  hear  that  the  First 
Symphony  of  Louis  Gruenberg — an 
American,  like  Mr.  Converse  and  Mr. 
Hadley — has  been  accepted  by  three 
symphony  societies.  A  few  more  facts 
like  these  might  turn  our  composers  from 
the  "comic"  opera  field,  and  prompt  them 
to  create  good,  honest  music. 

There  is  a  tendency  to  sneer  at  our 
composers,  to  discourage  their  young 
gropings  after  art.  And  against  this 
tendency  it  is  high  time  to  fight.  French 
opera  was  not  made  in  a  day,  nor  was 
the  Wagnerian  form  of  art  named  music- 
drama  invented  without  many  search- 
ings.  Our  composers  are  just  shaking 
off  their  swaddling  clothes.  They  should 
be  encouraged  in  their  struggles,  not 
discouraged.  Some  day  we  shall  yet 
have  good  American  operas,  American 
symphonies,  and  American  tone-poems. 
But  not  unless  we  stimulate  their  cre- 
ation. 

La  critique  est  facile,  et  I'art  est  diffi- 
cile. It  is  very  easy  to  point  out  the 
plagiarisms  of  Mr.  Hadley.  We  might 
do  better  to  extol  the  ingenuity,  of  which, 
in  his  "Cleopatra's  Night"  and  other 
works,  he  has  given  evidence,  the  intelli- 
gence with  which  he  has  mastered  the 
principles  of  opera,  the  art  with  which 
he  has,  to  be  sure,  not  invented  a  new 
orchestration,  but  assimilated  and  at 
times  developed  the  inventions  of  his 
forerunners. 

Some  day  we  may  have  an  equivalent, 
not  merely  imitative,  of  the  "Louise" 
which  was  revived,  to  our  great  joy,  last 
week  at  the  Lexington.  It  is  quite  pos- 
sible to  find  a  theme  on  our  East  Side 
no  less  dramatic  in  its  way,  and  no  less 
poignant,  than  the  one  used  by  Charpen- 
tier.  New  York  is  full  of  "heroines"  like 
Louise — weak,  wayward  girls,  rebellious 
against  fathers,  scornful  of  mothers  and 
intent  on  pleasure.  The  voice  of  our 
great  city  calls  to  them  as  beguilingly 
as  that  of  Paris  called  to  Louise.  The 
end  is  often  here  as  in  Montmartre,  a 
domestic  tragedy.  We  have  not,  heaven 
be  praised,  such  men  as  Julien.  But  we 
have  Bolshevists  and  other  kinds  of  reb- 
els, as  potent  in  their  appeal  to  the  young 
Grand  Street  dressmakers  as  that 
French  phrase-monger  and  fifth-rate 
poet. 

In  the  character  of  Louise,  Mary  Gar- 
den, who  is  nothing  if  not  "personal," 
again  fascinated  us  by  the  intensity, 
even  if  she  grieved  the  sensitive  by  the 
perversity,  of  her  interpretation  of 
Charpentier's  work  girl.  Miss  Garden 
sang  the  only  air  {"Depuis  le  jour") 
allowed  her  by  the  composer,  with  a 
beauty  of  expression,  a  flawlessness  of 
intonation,  and  a  warmth  of  feeling, 
which  should  have  dismayed  those  crit- 
ics who  persist  in  telling  us  that  "she 


can  not  sing."  Her  rendering  of  that 
song  was  full  of  ecstasy,  the  outpouring 
of  a  woman  drunk  with  love.  The  epi- 
sode at  the  opening  of  Charpentier's 
third  act  in  "Louise,"  beginning  with 
that  wonderful  air  and  continued  in  the 
later  scene  for  Louise  and  Julien,  to  my 
mind  at  least  is  the  most  untrammeled, 
the  most  masterly,  the  most  beautiful 
love  rhapsody  since  "Tristan  and  Isolde." 
But  why,  when  from  that  scene,  as  in 
the  first  act  of  Charpentier's  love  ro- 
mance, we  learn  that  Louise  was  intended 
by  the  composer-librettists  to  be  an  echo, 
not  an  inspirer,  of  her  lover,  does  Miss 
Garden  more  or  less  distort  the  signifi- 
cance of  the  character  by  making  it  so 
dominant?  The  centre  of  the  opera  is 
the  father  of  Louise  and  not  the  daugh- 
ter, a  father  modelled  on  Charpentier's 
father.  Perhaps  because  she  can  not 
help  herself.  She  is  swayed  and  run 
away  with  by  her  temperament. 

The  Mother  in  "Louise"  of  Maria 
Claessens  restored  the  right  meaning  of 
that  part.  You  must  know  France  and 
the  traditions  of  the  French  to  under- 
stand (as  few  here  do)  that,  in  this 
mother,  we  should  not  seek  a  virago,  or 
an  unfeeling  woman,  but  a  good,  honest, 
although  rather  narrow  soul,  hampered 
by  conventions  if  you  will,  yet  really 
striving  to  protect  a  willful  child  against 
a  lover  whom  she  believes  to  be  a  peril 
to  her.  Mme.  Claessens  sang  her  music 
with  fine  taste  and,  at  the  close  of  the 
third  act,  was  most  pathetic.  The  Father 
of  that  excellent  bass-baritone.  Hector 
Dufranne,  was,  as  it  has  always  been, 
impeccable  in  its  sincerity.  And  the 
orchestra,  under  the  leadership  of  Mr, 
Charlier,  almost  redeemed  itself  from 
the  distressing  faults  which  shamed  it 
when  it  attempted  Verdi's  "Falstaff." 

It  was  a  mistake  for  the  Chicago  Opera 
Company  to  revive  that  masterpiece  with 
a  baritone  so  utterly  unsuited  to  the 
title-part  as  Giacomo  Rimini,  a  soprano — 
an  admirable  soprano — like  Rosa  Raisa, 
bai'ely  recovered  from  an  illness,  as 
Mrs.  Ford,  and  inadequate  artists  in 
some  other  roles.  Above  all,  it  was 
wrong  to  expose  so  fine  and  eloquent  a 
work  to  absolute  shipwreck  by  perform- 
ing it  without  long  and  close  rehearsal. 
The  one  singer  in  the  cast  who  achieved 
success  was  Desire  Defrere,  whose  inter- 
pretation of  the  part  of  Ford  surprised 
the  disheartened  audience  by  its  artistry. 
What  Mr.  Rimini  did  not  know  of  the  fat 
Knight  would  have  filled  volumes. 

The  reappearance  of  that  master  of  the 
sweet  art  of  song,  Alessandro  Bonci, 
gave  joy  to  thousands  who  attended  the 
revivals  of  "Un  Ballo  in  Maschera"  and'S 
even  more  antiquated  works  at  the  Lex- 
ington. There  is  still  room  here  for  the 
old  "hurdy  gurdy"  operas  when  they  are 
dignified  by  singers  such  as  Bonci. 
{Continued  on  page  164) 


'ebruary  14,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[163 


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164] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  40 


(Continued  from  page  162) 

And  now  a  word  about  the  concert 
season,  with  its  three  local  and  its  visit- 
ing symphony  orchestras,  its  countless 
recitals  and  its  choral  societies.  It  has 
been  crowded — far  too  crowded  for  the 
critics,  who  have  had  on  many  days  to 
attend  a  recital  and  a  concert  in  one 
afternoon,  and  round  out  their  day  by 
listening  to  two  operas. 

The  New  York  Symphony,  the  Phil- 
harmonic, and  the  New  Symphony  So- 
cieties have,  in  the  main,  kept  very 
closely  to  safe  lines.  The  "Eroica"  and 
the  Fifth  Symphony  of  Beethoven  have 
had  due  honor.  The  admired  "Unfin- 
ished" of  Schubert,  the  "Pathetique"  of 
Tschaikowsky,  and  other  stand-bys  have 
not  been  neglected.  One  work  of  prom- 
ise, a  symphony  by  John  Alden  Carpen- 
ter, of  Chicago,  has  had  a  hearing.  The 
"Pagan  Poem"  of  Charles  Martin  Loeflf- 
ler  (by  adoption  a  New  Englander, 
though  born  an  j^lsatian)  has  been  re- 
vised, besides  the  "Salome"  of  that  ver- 
satile New  Yorker,  Henry  Hadley,  and 
other  efforts  by  less-known  Americans. 

Of  the  last  three  works  I  have  named, 
"Pagan  Poem"  seems  by  far  the  best. 
If  the  composer  of  that  beautiful  tone 
poem  had  checked  himself  when  he  had 
told  his  tale,  he  would  have  given  us  an 
uncommonly  fine  example  of  orchestral 
music;  not  possibly  at  all  points  quite 
original  (for  Loeffler  is  impressed  by 
French  and  German  influences,  and  more 
especially  by  the  Debussy  spell),  but 
really  vital  and  informed  with  poetry. 
It  is  amazing  that  the  imaginative  works 
of  Loeffler  are  so  seldom  played  here  by 
the  societies  of  which  Mr.  Walter  Dam- 
rosch,  W.  Stransky,  and  Mr.  Bodanzky 
are  the  directing  minds.  In  France  and 
elsewhere  they  are  valued  highly. 

At  the  first  concert  of  the  well-drilled 
Schola  Cantorum,  under  the  conductor- 
ship  of  that  industrious  student  of  the 
old  and  new  in  art,  W.  Kurt  Schindler, 
Mozart's  "Requiem"  and  Handel's  "Ode 
to  St.  Cecilia"  were,  sometime  ago,  at 
last  restored  to  us.  They  had  been 
slighted,  as  they  never  should  have  been, 
in  favor  of  "The  Messiah"  and  "Elijah," 
which  even  those  to  whom  they  seem 
most  precious  would  not  much  miss,  for 
at  least  a  year  or  so. 

Of  recitals  there  has  been  no  end. 
Violinists,  pianists,  'cellists,  singers, 
harpists,  of  all  merits  and  demerits, 
have  insisted  on  their  right  to  self-pos- 
session. They  have  sung  to  us  and 
played  and  gone  their  ways.  And  some, 
not  many,  have  left  memories  in  their 
trail,  enchanting  memories.  For  ex- 
ample, Kreisler,  who  to-day  stands  at  the 
head  of  the  great  fiddlers  of  the  world, 
the  worthy  successor  of  Ysaye  and  Wil- 
helmj,  unequaled  as  to  the  purity  of  his 
tone,  his  breadth  and  feeling  by  anyone 
just  now  before  the  public.  His  perform- 
ance of  the  Beethoven  concerts  a  few 


weeks  ago  gave  the  full  measure  of  his 
satisfying  artistry.  His  rendering  of  one 
marvelous  cadenza  almost  won  pardon 
from  the  despisers  of  cadenzas,  among 
whom  I  count  myself. 

Then  came  the  pianist,  Guiomar  No- 
vaes,  who,  by  the  beauty  of  her  art,  her 
romantic  fervor,  and  her  impeccable 
technique,  reminds  one  strangely  of  that 
flaming  light  of  music,  the  once,  to  some 
of  us,  incomparable  Carreiio. 

We  have  heard  other  gifted  pian- 
ists this  season — Gabrilowitch,  Profiew, 
Moiseiwitch,  Rachmaninoff,  and  more. 
We  have  heard  violinists  of  unquestioned 
gifts.  But,  of  them  all,  two  have  shone 
as  the  stars:  Fritz  Kreisler  and  that' 
siren,  Guiomar  Novaes. 

Charles  Henry  Meltzer 


Books  and  the  News 

Health 

The  books  written  for  laymen  on  the 
subject  of  health  are  of  two  kinds :  hand- 
books of  specific  information,  and  the 
more  general  discussions  which  include 
such  allied  subjects  as  the  mental  atti- 
tude towards  bodily  welfare. 

Among  the  former,  the  "American  Red 
Cross  Textbook  on  Elementary  Hygiene 
and  Home  Care  of  the  Sick"  (Blakiston, 
1917),  by  Jane  N.  Delano,  is  brief  and 
gives  references  to  further  reading; 
"How  to  Live;  Rules  for  Healthful  Liv- 
ing" (Funk,  1916),  by  Irving  Fisher  and 
Eugene  Lyman  Fisk,  M.D.,  is  a  publica- 
tion of  the  Life  Extension  Institute; 
"Good  Health;  How  to  Get  it  and  How  to 
Keep  it"  (Appleton,  1917),  by  Alvah  H. 
Doty,  is  another  brief  book;  there  is  also 
"How  to  Prevent  Sickness"  (Harper, 
1918),  by  G.  L.  Howe.  More  specific  in 
their  subjects  are  "The  Cause  and  Cure 
of  Colds"  (McClurg,  1910),  by  W.  S. 
Sadler;  "Mrs.  Rorer's  Diet  for  the  Sick" 
(Arnold,  1914),  by  Sarah  T.  Rorer;  and 
Dudley  A.  Sargent's  "Health,  Strength 
and  Power"  (Caldwell,  1904),  which  is 
about  gymnasium  exercises. 

Annie  Payson  Call's  "Nerves  and  Com- 
mon Sense"  (Little,  1916)  is  one  of  a 
number  of  books  by  this  writer.  E.  M. 
Bishop's  "Daily  Ways  to  Health" 
(Huebsch,  1912)  is  well  recommended; 
and  so  is  Henry  D.  Chapin's  "Health 
First"  (Century,  1917).  Hollis  God- 
frey's "The  Health  of  the  City"  (Hough- 
ton, 1910)  contains  ten  chapters  on  con- 
ditions which  make  for  health  or  disease 
in  the  city;  it  is  an  important  and  in- 
teresting work,  but  is  a  study  of  the 
community  rather  than  a  manual  to  be 
used  as  a  guide  to  personal  health.  It 
has  references  to  further  reading. 

Woods  Hutchinson's  writings  are  so 
readable  that  he  has  suffered  the  penalty 
of  popularity,  and  been  suspected   (un- 


fairly, I  believe)  of  superficiality  by  those 
who  believe  that  only  bitter  medicine  is 
valuable.  His  "Handbook  of  Health" 
(Houghton,  1911),  "Exercise  and  Health" 
(Outing,  1911),  "Instinct  and  Health" 
(Dodd,  1908)  (also  published  as  "Health 
and  Common  Sense"),  and  "Civilization 
and  Health"  (Houghton,  1914),  contain 
chapters  upon  many  topics  of  interest. 
Of  those  books  which  treat  the  topic 
generally,  Luther  H.  Gulick's  "The  Effi- 
cient Life"  (Doubleday,  1913)  is  good, 
and  Richard  C.  Cabot's  "What  Men  Live 
By"  (Houghton,  1914)  has  always  been 
in  high  favor. 

Many  experts  will  doubtless  recall  the 
man  in  Jerome's  story,  who  reading  too 
muah  on  the  subject,  concluded  that  he 
had  every  disease  from  ague  to  zymosis 
(except  housemaid's  knee),  and  they  will 
endorse  the  prescription  given  by  his 
medical  friend,  which  is  still  (with  cer- 
tain reservations  in  accord  with  our  new 
purity)  sound  advice  for  most  men:  "1 
lb.  beefsteak  with  1  pt.  bitter  beer  every 
6  hours ;  1  ten-mile  walk  every  morning ; 
1  bed  at  11  sharp  every  night;  and  don't 
stuff  up  your  head  with  things  you  dont 
understand." 

Edmund  Lester  Pearson 

Books  Received 

FICTION 

Baxter,  Arthur  Beverly.  The  Blower  of 
Bubbles.     Appleton.     $1.75  net. 

Bindloss,  Harold.  Wyndham's  Pal.  Stokes, 
$1.75  net. 

Cournos,  John.     The  Mask.     Doran. 

Holdsworth,  Ethel.  The  Taming  of  Nan. 
Dutton.     $1.90  net. 

Howard,  Keble.  The  Peculiar  Major. 
Doran. 

Merrick,  Leonard.  The  Worldlings.  Dut- 
ton.   $1.75  net. 

Oppenheim,  E.  P.  The  Great  Impersona- 
tion.    Little,  Brown.     $1.75  net. 

DRAMA  AND   MUSIC 
Hornblow,  Arthur.    A  History  of  the  The- 
atre   in    America.      2    volumes.      Lippincott. 
$10.00  net. 

Tassin,  Algernon.  The  Craft  of  the  Tor- 
toise.   Boni  &  Liveright.    $1.50  net. 

POETRY 

Allen,  W.  F.  Monographs.  Boston :  Four 
Seas.    $1.25  net. 

Roth,  Samuel.  Europe :  A  Book  for  Amer- 
ica.    Boni  &  Liveright.     $1.25. 

Whitin,  C.  B.  Wounded  Words.  Boston: 
Four  Seas.    $1.00  net. 

SCIENCE 

Bishop,  E.  S.  The  Narcotic  Drug  Problem. 
Macmillan.     $1.50. 

Hill,  H.  W.  Sanitation  for  Public  Health 
Nurses.     Macmillan.    $1.35. 

Hopkins,  U.  M.  The  Outlook  for  Research 
and  Invention.     D.  Van  Nostrand  Co. 

Walsh,  James  J.  Health  Through  Will 
Power.     Little,  Brown.     $1.50  net. 

Wood,  Frederic  J.  The  Turnpikes  of  New 
England.     Marshall  Jones. 

LITERATURE 

Foster,  B.  O.  Livy,  13  volumes:  Books  I 
and   2.      Loeb   Classical   Library.      Putnams. 

Ker,  Walter  C.  A.  Martial's  Epigrams.  Two 
volumes.  Book  i.  Loeb  Classical  Library. 
Putnams. 


THE  REVIEW 


/6r 


Vol.  2,  No.  41 


New  York,  Saturday,  February  21,   1920 


FIFTEEN  CENTS 


Contents 


Brief  Comment  165 

Editorial  Articles: 

The   President  168 

Prices   and   the   Gold   Standard  169 

Limitation  of  the  Right  to  Strike         170 

The   Church  and  the   World's  Need     172 

The  Problem  of  Fiume.    By  Geographer  173 

Aliens  and  the  Political  Party  System. 

By  John   Spargo  175 

Poetry : 

"Louvain    Is    a    Dull,    Uninteresting 
Town  .  .  ."    By  Robert  Withington  177 
The  President's  Secretary.  By  Spectator  177 
Correspondence  179 

Book  Reviews: 

An    American    Inquiry    into    British 

Labor    Conditions  180 

Blake   Outdone  181 

I       "Appassionata"  182 

Doubles  and  Such  183 

The    Run    of    the    Shelves  183 

Old  King's.     By  Archibald  MacMechan  185 

'i   Drama : 

I       Eugene    O'Neill— The    Theatre    Pari- 

sien.    By  O.  W.  Firkins.  185 

Music : 
At  the  Lexington— "The  Blue  Bird" — 
Caruso's  Indisposition.     By  Charles 
Henry    Meltzer  186 

Books  and  the   News: 
Education.     By  Edmund  Lester  Pear- 
son 188 


ly/TR.  LANSING  might,  and  prob- 
ably  would,  have  done  well  to  re- 
sign long  ago.  Mr.  Wilson  might, 
and  probably  would,  have  done  well 
to  request  his  resignation  long  ago. 
The  relation  between  the  President 
and  his  Secretary  of  State  was  ab- 
normal. Mr.  Lansing  submerged  his 
individuality,  and  yet  on  some  vital 
matters  avowedly  differed   radically 

I  in  opinion  from  his  chief.  That  he 
acted,  however,  with  scrupulous  loy- 
alty,   both    before    and    during    the 

i  President's  illness,  is  too  clear  for 
dispute.  The  very  conduct  for  which 
the  President  so  harshly,  so  unreason- 
: !  ably,  and  so  ungenerously  censures 
him — the  calling  of  the  Cabinet  con- 
ferences— was  evidently  inspired  by 

I  the  desire  to  make  possible  the  con- 
tinuance of  the  President's  hold  on 
authority  during  an  interval  in  which 

I  his  inability  actually  to  fulfill  its  re- 
sponsibilities was  manifest.  The 
country  has  shown  straight  common 


sense  in  resting  its  rebuke  of  the 
President  upon  the  manner  of  his 
dismissal  of  the  Secretary,  and  not 
at  all  upon  the  mere  fact  of  parting 
with  him.  For  this  last  the  simple 
fact  of  want  of  harmony  would  have 
furnished  an  all-sufficient  reason. 

T  IKE  the  jaded  epicure  who  finds 
•*^  in  the  long-forgotten  savor  of  a 
dish  of  pork  and  beans  a  zest  which 
the  high-flown  arts  of  French  chefs 
had  long  ceased  to  purvey,  the  coun- 
try, surfeited  with  idealism  souffle, 
listens  to  the  old-fashioned  Democrat 
talk  of  Vice  President  Marshall  with 
a  good  deal  of  relish.  His  letter  is  not 
a  masterpiece,  but  neither  does  it  pre- 
tend to  be  a  masterpiece.  It  has  some 
of  the  customary  faults  of  the  old- 
time  party  pronouncements,  but  it 
has  some  virtues  of  its  own.  It  winds 
up  with  an  honest  expression  of  Mr. 
Marshall's  state  of  mind,  which  be- 
longs to  this  particular  time  and  no 
other,  for  at  no  previous  time  has 
there  been  occasion  for  just  such  an 
expression : 

If  a  faith  of  this  kind  appeals  to  the  Demo- 
crats of  Indiana,  I  desire  to  go  as  a  delegate 
at  large  to  the  convention  at  San  Francisco 
to  advocate  this  kind  of  a  platform,  and  to 
ascertain  whether  everything  that  made  the 
Republic  great  was  right  or  wrong. 

COME  of  the  points  made  by  Mr. 
^  Marshall  are  worthy  of  special 
note.  In  the  first  place,  he  comes  out 
as  emphatically  as  did  Mr.  Hoover 
the  other  day  against  the  submer- 
gence of  the  individual — the  substitu- 
tion of  all  sorts  of  schemes  of  sociali- 
zation for  that  self-reliance  which 
has  been  the  very  foundation-stone 
of  American  character.  "Legislative 
efforts,"  he  says,  "to  produce  justice 
and  good  order  in  society  by  listening 
and  acceding  to  the  demands  of  per- 
sons and  classes  will,  in  the  hour  of 
peace,  produce  failure."  Secondly, 
he  declares  that  "this  is  still  a  federa- 
tion of  States,  demanding  that  the 


States  discharge  the  duties  of  local 
self-government";  and,  although  the 
historical  accuracy  of  this  statement 
may  be  challenged,  now  that  the 
Eighteenth  Amendment  has  been 
sand-blasted  into  the  Constitution,  it 
is  sound  in  spirit  and  purpose.  A  less 
fundamental  but  not  less  urgent  issue 
is  touched  upon  when  Mr.  Marshall 
includes  in  his  programme  the  elec- 
tion of 

an  executive  pledged  to  discharge  the  count- 
less officials  and  innumerable  agents  made 
necessary  by  the  war  and  to  administer  public 
affairs  along  economic  lines  even  to  the  point 
of  the  veto  of  every  bill  carrying  not  only 
unnecessary  and  ill-advised  appropriations,  but 
appropriations  for  the  benefit  of  a  few  citizens 
rather  than  for  the  common  good. 

All  in  all,  though  the  letter  is  marred 
by  some  see-sawing  and  some  pad- 
ding, it  bears  out  the  idea,  so  well 
expressed  at  its  close,  that  the  biggest 
issue  to-day  is  "whether  everything 
that  made  the  Republic  great  was 
right  or  wrong." 

TN  two  respects  the  demand  for 
^  the  surrender  of  the  German  war 
criminals  differed  distinctly  from 
that  for  the  extradition  of  Wilhelm 
von  Hohenzollern.  It  was  based  on 
an  accusation  of  specific  crimes,  and 
the  Entente's  right  to  enforce  its 
execution  results  from  the  ratification 
of  the  Treaty  of  Versailles  by  the 
German  National  Assembly.  The 
legal  grounds  on  which  Queen  Wil- 
helmina  based  her  negative  reply  to 
the  note  of  the  Allied  Powers  offered, 
consequently,  no  support  to  the  Ger- 
man Government  for  its  refusal. 

Nevertheless,  the  Allied  Powers 
have  acted  with  wisdom  and  dignity 
in  acceding  to  that  refusal.  The  con- 
cession is  coupled  with  the  require- 
ment that  the  German  Government 
shall  carry  out  in  good  faith  its  dec- 
laration of  readiness  to  bring  to  trial 
the  men  accused  of  high  crimes 
against  the  laws  of  war  and  the  es- 
tablished usages  of  civilized  nations. 


166] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  41 


The  difficulty  is  by  no  means  at  an 
end ;  it  will  be  no  easy  matter  to  pro- 
cure a  genuine  trial  of  high  German 
officers  by  their  own  countrymen,  and 
a  judgment  in  accordance  with  the 
evidence.  The  Allied  Powers  dis- 
tinctly reserve  the  right  to  enforce 
the  terms  of  the  treaty  in  the  event 
of  the  trials  proving  to  be  a  mere 
pretence.  But  it  was  evident  that  in- 
sistence on  the  surrender  of  hundreds 
of  leading  German  military  men,  to 
be  tried  by  enemy  judges  in  an  enemy 
country,  would  have  meant  a  convul- 
sion whose  consequences  threatened 
to  be  ruinous  to  the  whole  world. 
The  solution  arrived  at  represents 
the  nearest  approach  which  was  pos- 
sible to  the  reconcilement  of  justice 
with  necessity. 

'C'OUR  weeks  ago,  when  Secretary 
■'-  Glass,  Mr.  Hoover,  the  President, 
and  others  were  urging  upon  Con- 
gress the  provision  of  $150,000,000 
for  immediate  use  in  rescuing  the 
starving  populations  of  Armenia, 
Austria,  and  other  countries,  the 
Review  said:  "To  hesitate  or  delay, 
in  the  face  of  such  harrowing  need 
and  such  clear  opportunity,  would  be 
a  criminal  failure  of  duty."  The 
House  Committee  to  which  the  matter 
was  referred  haggled  over  it  a  while 
and  then  cut  down  the  proposed 
amount  to  $50,000,000.  And  now 
Washington  press  reports  tell  us  that 
it  is  doubtful  whether  the  measure 
thus  crippled  will  be  passed  at  all.  We 
can  only  add  that  what  we  formerly 
stated  would  be  a  criminal  failure 
of  duty  has  now  become  a  criminal 
failure  of  duty.  The  leaders  of  the 
majority  in  Congress  should  take 
warning  in  time  that  the  next  election 
will  not  turn  wholly  upon  the  polit- 
ical crimes  and  blunders  of  their 
opponents.  The  utter  callousness  of 
Congress  to  the  terrible  conditions 
which  this  measure  aims  to  relieve 
misrepresents  both  the  humane  feel- 
ing and  the  sound  judgment  of  the 
American  people. 

IF  the  American  Legion  is  to  be- 
come an  instrument  for  extorting 
money  from  Congress — and  the  sad 
thing  is  that  Congress  is  only  too 
willing  to  be  bludgeoned  in  this  way 


— then  it  would  have  been  better  if 
the  Legion  had  never  come  into  be- 
ing. The  men  charged  with  the  re- 
sponsibility of  its  organization  must 
have  been  perfectly  aware  of  how 
things  were  going.  It  can  not  be  sup- 
posed that  they  liked  the  prospect. 
But  they  chose  to  sponsor  an  organi- 
zation which  they  hoped  in  part  to 
control  to  good  ends,  rather  than  that 
there  should  be  no  organization  at 
all,  or  one  which  was  openly  and 
shamelessly  devoted  to  the  raiding  of 
the  Treasury.  It  is  by  no  means  cer- 
tain that  their  choice  was  a  wise  one. 
Having  made  it,  the  leaders  should 
throw  all  the  influence  they  possess, 
as  they  did  very  effectively  when  the 
question  was  one  of  mob  violence,  to 
the  diversion  of  the  Legion's  energies 
into  other  channels.  If  the  Legion 
wants  something  to  do,  let  it  concern 
itself  with  the  scandalously  lagging 
business  of  re-educating  disabled 
soldiers.  Within  the  Legion  itself 
there  should  be  a  fight  to  the  finish 
on  this  question  of  "bonuses,"  and 
it  should  be  made  now.  Not  until 
such  a  fight  has  been  made,  no  matter 
what  its  outcome,  can  the  public  see 
plainly  where  the  Legion  stands,  and 
effectively  reckon  with  its  power 
both  for  good  and  evil. 

/~\FFICIAL  warning  has  been  given 
^^  that  Canada  takes  very  serious 
exception  to  the  Lenroot  reservation. 
N.  W.  Rowell,  Acting  Secretary  of 
State  for  External  Affairs  and  Presi- 
dent of  the  Privy  Council,  states  ex- 
plicitly that  Canada  can  not  and  will 
not  give  her  assent  to  any  impair- 
ment of  her  status  and  voting  rights 
under  the  Treaty.  He  calls  attention 
to  the  fact  that  Canada's  contribu- 
tion to  the  common  cause  in  the  war 
was  not  levied  upon  her  from  across 
the  Atlantic  but  was  the  voluntary 
action  of  a  self-governing  Common- 
wealth. A  due  regard  for  the  sacri- 
fice of  lives  and  substance  thus 
willingly  and  independently  made 
renders  it  inconceivable,  he  thinks, 
that  any  Government  in  Canada 
could  be  so  false  to  both  living  and 
dead  as  to  consent  to  her  elimination 
as  a  voting  member  in  the  League 
Assembly.  The  clause  in  the  League 
covenant   which   provides   for   such 


membership  was,  of  course,  a  recogni- 
tion of  the  large  measure  of  inde- 
pendent self-government  which  has 
been  so  widely  given  to  the  outlying 
parts  of  the  British  Empire  as 
rapidly  as  they  have  seemed  equal  to 
the  responsibility.  This  privilege  of 
independent  representation  in  the 
League  Assembly,  as  distinguished 
from  the  Council,  involves  no  danger 
to  the  interests  of  the  United  States, 
as  has  been  amply  shown  since  the 
subject  has  been  under  public  discus- 
sion. The  Senate  will  make  a  very 
serious  mistake  if  it  gives  just 
oflFense  to  Canadian  self-respect  and 
national  feeling  by  insisting  upon  a 
reservation  which  is  not  required  by 
any  legitimate  American  interest. 

1YTR.   WILSON'S  memorandum  on 
the   Dalmatian   question  chiefly 
raised  the  thought — Why  of  all  out- 
standing issues  is  Italy's  claim  unfit 
to  be  compromised  ?  The  very  terms  of 
the  peace  treaty  are  constantly  being 
readjusted.    Compromise  is  possible 
with   Germany — nay,   with  the  un- 
speakable Turk.     Why  should  self- 
determination  with  all  its  "i"s  dotted 
and    "t"s    crossed    be    reserved   for 
Italy?     Against  Mr.  Wilson's  oddlj; 
inflexible  devotion  to  that  principle 
of    self-determination     which    else^ 
where  he  has  yielded,  we  have  to  se- 
certain    common-sense   facts.     Ital;i 
has  suffered  frightfully  through  thj 
war.    Her  deaths  and  casualties  weri 
proportionately    as    great    as    Engi 
land's,    her    financial    sacrifice    fa  I 
greater.      She    sees    England    an 
France  dividing  Arabia  and  Afric 
under  mandates.     She  receives  onl 
what  would  have  been  allotted  he 
had  she  preserved  neutrality.  Perhaj 
Italy  ought  to  be  satisfied  with  tl 
sense  of  duty  done,  but  so  long  i 
France,  England,  Japan,  and  recent 
hostile    Croatia    and    Dalmatia,    g 
every  hearing  and  every  concessi( 
from  the  Supreme  Council,  while  si 
gets  none,  Italy  is  going  to  be  di 
contented.     And  an  alienated  Ita' 
means  a  crippled  League  of  Natioi. 
These   are   facts   that   should  mas 
Italy's  claim  seem  negotiable.    Th' 
look  more  impressive  than  a  tar' 
and  vehement  assertion  of  the  pu 
dogma  of  self-determination. 


February  21,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[167 


A  STRANGE  rumor  has  come  out 
of  Moscow  concerning  the  death 
of  Kalinin,  one  of  the  Bolshevik  Com- 
missars, which  was  reported  by  the 
Soviet  wireless  a  fortnight  ago.  Ac- 
cording to  this  unconfirmed  rumor, 
Kalinin,  who  was  considered  a  very- 
energetic  and  capable  man,  and  not  a 
Bolshevik  by  tradition,  was  elected 
President  of  the  Council  of  People's 
Commissars  in  place  of  Lenin,  who 
was  chosen  Vice  President,  and  there- 
upon the  Lenin  faction  put  Kalinin 
out  of  the  way  by  poisoning  him. 

Wild  as  this  rumor  is,  it  can  not 
fail  to  draw  attention  to  certain  al- 
most inevitable  developments  within 
the  Soviet  policy.  In  revolutionary 
times,  strong  and  vigorous  men  spring 
from  obscurity  to  positions  of  re- 
sponsibility and  power.  It  is  natural 
that  these  new  men,  conscious  of  their 
ability  to  administer  large  affairs  and 
direct  men,  should  become  impatient 
of  the  authority  of  the  doctrinaires 
in  whose  hands  power  has  remained 
since  the  November  Revolution.  To 
these  newly  emerging  men  of  affairs, 
Lenin,  Bukharin,  Chicherin,  and  the 
rest  must  seem  like  old  fogies  and 
doctrinaires,  tied  to  an  unworkable 
programme.  It  would  not  be  strange, 
therefore,  if,  in  view  of  the  numerical 
inferiority  of  the  convinced  Commu- 
nists, and  the  growth  of  new  classes 
within  the  Soviet  organization,  there 
were  taking  place  to-day  a  struggle 
the  outcome  of  which  will  be  great 
changes  in  the  structure  and  prin- 
ciples of  the  Russian  Government. 

A  SPECIFIC  knowledge  of  the 
-^*-  American  form  of  Government  as 
a  requirement  for  a  college  degree  is 
the  aim  of  a  nation-wide  campaign 
just  announced  by  the  National  Se- 
curity League.  Instruction  in  Ameri- 
can history,  including  drill  in  the 
Constitution,  used  to  be  a  part  of  the 
curriculum  of  most  colleges,  and  if 
it  has  recently  been  slighted,  it  ought 
certainly  to  be  jacked  up.  Method 
is  everything  in  these  matters.  We 
want  no  more,  for  example,  of  the 
partisan  teaching  of  history  which 
for  so  long  fostered  anti-British  feel- 
ing. True,  American  youths  should 
still  glow  with  pride  when  they  read 
how  our  forefathers  rebuffed  a  tyran- 


nical old  English  king,  but  it  is  not 
sportsmanlike  to  keep  picking  on  a 
bully  whom  you  have  trounced  and 
who  has  made  amends.  Our  schools 
and  colleges  ought  normally  to  en- 
gender patriotism,  but  only  as  a  by- 
product. Any  tendency  in  peace  times 
to  shout  "America  first"  would  be  not 
so  different  from  that  strident  chorus, 
"Deutschland  iiber  Alles." 

A  SIR  OLIVER  for  a  "Pussyfoot" 
-^  Johnson — which  country  is  the 
gainer  by  this  exchange  of  pro- 
fessors? The  one  peddles  a  substi- 
tute for  what  the  other  takes  away 
from  us.  England  is  fortunate  in 
having  tasted  of  the  substitute  be- 
fore there  was  nothing  else  to  taste, 
and  is  not  likely  to  put  herself  in  a 
position  to  get  a  craving  for  it. 

T  AW  as  a  shackle  on  the  progress 
of  justice,  powerless  or  unwilling 
to  correct  its  own  anachronisms  and 
inequities,  is  a  favorite  theme  with 
the  type  of  mind  which  imagines  that 
the  first  condition  of  progress  for  the 
train  of  civilization  is  to  tear  up  the 
track.  Organizations  of  lawyers 
themselves,  however,  are  busily  at 
work  trying  to  bring  law  and  legal 
procedure  into  harmony  with  im- 
proved conceptions  of  human  justice. 
The  New  York  State  Bar  Associa- 
tion has  just  issued  a  pamphlet  of  ex- 
tracts from  the  Annual  Report  of  its 
Committee  on  Law  Reform,  suggest- 
ing various  changes  either  in  legisla- 
tion or  in  rules  of  procedure,  all  in- 
tended to  bring  legal  relief  more 
simply,  speedily,  and  cheaply  within 
the  reach  of  the  citizen.  As  the  rec- 
ommendations adopted  are  all  clearly 
of  this  beneficent  type,  and  were 
made  without  serious  opposition,  one 
must  certainly  acquit  the  New  York 
State  Bar  Association  of  any  disposi- 
tion to  maintain  traditional  injustice 
merely  because  it  is  traditional,  or 
because  the  shrewd  lawyer  can  use 
it  for  his  own  gain.  The  type  of 
lawyer  who  to-day  dominates  such 
organizations  is  neither  the  Bourbon 
nor  the  shyster. 

TN  addition  to  various  specific  re- 
-*-  forms  suggested,  which  we  need 
not  stop  to  enumerate  here,  the  Asso- 


ciation passed  a  general  resolution, 
urging  all  bar  associations,  State  or 
local,  to  exert  themselves  systematic- 
ally to  procure  the  elimination  from 
the  law  in  their  respective  States  of 
any  anachronistic  features  impeding 
the  proper  administration  of  justice 
and  thwarting  those  rights  in  which 
the  citizen  should  be  secure.  It  was 
further  recommended  to  all  bar  asso- 
ciations to  take  steps  for  a  systematic 
study  of  actual  conditions  in  the  ad- 
ministration of  justice,  as  affected  by 
anachronistic  legal  institutions,  rules 
and  documents.  And  the  New  York 
Association  set  the  example  by  im- 
mediately providing  for  a  committee 
of  its  own  membership  to  take  up 
this  task.  The  Association  appeals  to 
the  press  for  aid  in  calling  attention 
to  this  sensible  step  towards  legal 
progress.  It  is  a  matter  of  vital  in- 
terest to  every  citizen,  and  it  is  to 
be  hoped  that  this  interest  will  find 
such  clear  and  general  expression  as 
to  insure  reasonably  prompt  and 
thorough  action. 

nPHE  professors  in  the  University 
■'-  of  Washington  have  taken  the 
trouble  to  prepare  their  case  in  detail. 
The  substance  of  the  pamphlet  em- 
bodying the  report  of  the  Association 
of  Instructors  is  familiar  enough,  but 
the  figures  are  presented  in  a  form 
which  should  command  wide  atten- 
tion. Briefly,  living  costs  have  in- 
creased about  100  per  cent.,  while 
the  average  increase  in  salaries, 
arriving  from  ordinary  promotions 
on  grounds  of  seniority,  is  less  dur- 
ing the  last  five  years,  and  less  by  a 
good  deal,  than  the  normal  increase 
during  the  years  preceding  the  war. 
According  to  the  family  budgets  of 
teachers  of  all  ranks  not  a  single 
faculty  family  is  operating  without 
a  serious  deficit.  If  increases  to  the 
teaching  staff  were  to  be  made  equal 
to  the  advanced  wage  scales  in  other 
occupations,  something  like  100  per 
cent,  would  be  necessary.  The  pro- 
fessors are  content  to  ask  for  a 
modest  50  per  cent.  The  State  Legis- 
lature, when  it  meets  in  1921,  can 
hardly  fail  to  see  the  force  of  the 
figures  here  presented.  The  average 
of  salaries  in  the  University  of  Wash- 
ington is  43  per  cent,  below  the  aver- 


168] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  41 


age  for  28  other  institutions,  and  a 
full  30  per  cent,  below  the  average 
for  the  same  institutions  in  1912-13. 
Until  the  Legislature  takes  action, 
however,  the  Washington  professors 
will  presumably  live  as  they  can — on 
their  expectations. 

The  President 

TN  his  letters  of  dismissal  to  Mr. 
■"■  Lansing,  President  Wilson  has 
made  a  glaring  exhibition  of  the 
worst  qualities  of  his  mind  and  char- 
acter. For  imperious  arrogance  and 
for  intellectual  irresponsibility  alike, 
they  represent  an  attitude  to  which 
it  would  be  difficult  to  find  anything 
like  a  parallel  in  our  political  annals. 
Mr.  Wilson  rarely  condescends  to 
justify  by  specific  argument  any  posi- 
tion that  he  chooses  to  take;  in  this 
instance  he  has  assigned  for  his 
course  a  reason  which  nothing  but 
contempt  for  the  opinions  of  his  fel- 
low-citizens could  possibly  have  led 
any  normal  man  to  put  forward.  In 
the  painful  situation  which  has  thus 
arisen,  there  is  some  comfort  in  the 
thought  that  the  country  has  unani- 
mously dismissed  as  absurd  his 
charge  that  the  informal  Cabinet 
meetings  which  were  held  during  his 
illness  constituted  a  usurpation  of 
power  or  a  violation  of  the  spirit  of 
our  Constitutional  Government.  His 
right  to  call  for  the  Secretary's  resig- 
nation on  general  grounds  is  undis- 
puted, and  no  fault  would  have  been 
found  if  he  had  done  so.  As  it  is,  a 
wave  of  indignation  has  swept  the 
country  with  little  distinction  of 
party.  The  one  thing  lacking  has  been 
the  assertion  by  the  other  members  of 
the  Cabinet,  with  the  exception  of  Mr. 
Lane,  of  the  position  which  the  clear 
requirements  of  manhood  and  self-re- 
spect called  upon  them  to  assume. 

That  the  President's  real  reason 
for  dismissing  his  Secretary  of  State 
was  not  the  one  which  he  assigns  as 
the  determining  cause  of  his  action  is 
doubtless  true  enough.  Other  causes 
are  mentioned  in  the  correspondence 
itself;  and  moreover  they  have  been 
perfectly  well  known  to  the  public 
for  many  months.  Rumors  abound 
also  of  special  causes  for  the  Presi- 
dent's displeasure   which   have   not 


come  to  the  knowledge  of  the  public. 
But  to  delve  seriously  into  these 
things  would  be  a  process  not  only 
futile  but  humiliating.  We  have  not 
yet  reached  the  point  where  it  should 
be  regarded  as  incumbent  upon 
American  citizens  to  endeavor,  like 
the  subjects  of  some  Oriental  despot, 
to  surmise  the  secret  thoughts  that 
inspire  the  conduct  of  their  ruler. 

It  would  be  an  injustice  to  Mr.  Wil- 
son to  treat  this  particular  perform- 
ance as  a  fair  example  of  his  usual 
conduct.  His  physical  condition,  to- 
gether with  the  terrible  disappoint- 
ments which  during  the  past  half- 
year  he  has  suffered,  is  unquestion- 
ably responsible  for  the  utter  lack  of 
judgment  and  restraint  which  he  has 
in  this  instance  exhibited.  But  it 
would  be  an  injustice  to  the  truth  not 
to  recognize  that  his  attitude  in  this 
matter  is  merely  an  exaggeration  of 
that  which  he  has  repeatedly  and  per 
sistently  manifested  in  the  past.  His 
attitude  toward  the  United  States 
Senate  in  the  matter  of  the  Treaty 
has  shown  in  only  less  extreme  form 
the  same  spirit.  Had  it  not  actually 
happened,  it  would  seem  incredible 
that  any  man  with  the  clear  necessity 
before  him  of  gaining  the  good  will 
of  a  body  without  which  he  was 
powerless  to  effect  his  great  purpose, 
could  have  used  the  language  he  did  in 
his  speech  of  March  4,  1919,  on  the 
eve  of  his  return  to  France.  "Gentle- 
men on  this  side,"  he  said,  "will  find 
the  covenant  not  only  in  it,  but  so 
many  threads  of  the  treaty  tied  to 
the  covenant  that  you  can  not  dissect 
the  covenant  from  the  treaty  without 
destroying  the  whole  vital  structure." 
Thus  to  add  contemptuous  defiance  to 
persistent  ignoring  of  his  associates 
in  the  treaty-making  power  was  to 
flaunt  in  their  faces  the  kind  of  arro- 
gance to  which  it  is  not  in  human  na- 
ture to  submit,  and  which  has  had 
consequences  tragic  to  himself,  to  his 
country,  and  to  the  world. 

In  saying  all  this,  we  are  proceed- 
ing on  the  assumption  that  the  Presi- 
dent's mind,  however  disturbed  by  his 
illness  and  by  the  terrific  strain  under 
which  he  had  so  long  labored,  is  not 
in  any  definite  sense  impaired.  This 
latter  possibility  can  not,  indeed,  be 
ignored.     Recent  assurances  of  the 


most  emphatic  kind  from  physicians 
in  close  attendance  upon  the  Presi- 
dent are  to  the  effect  that  his  mind 
is  absolutely  sound.  Opinions  of  the 
opposite  kind  are  expressed  by  some 
others.  But  the  country  must  act  on 
the  one  assumption  or  the  other.  For 
five  months,  in  the  face  of  almost 
impenetrable  secrecy  as  to  the  facts 
in  the  case,  newspapers  and  public 
men  of  both  parties  have  forborne  to 
press  the  question.  They  have  acted 
on  the  supposition  that  Mr.  Wilson 
is  still  clothed  with  all  the  powers  and 
responsibilities  of  his  great  office. 
Whatever  was  necessary  to  be  done 
in  order  that  the  Government  should 
function  during  his  partial  or  com- 
plete inability  to  attend  to  the  busi- 
ness of  the  Presidency  has  been  done, 
and  no  more.  If  this  state  of  things 
is  to  come  to  an  end,  well  and  good. 
But  there  is  at  present  no  sign  of  the 
relinquishment  by  Mr.  Wilson  of  any 
portion  of  his  authority.  On  the  con- 
trary, he  has  never  asserted  it  more 
aggressively  or  more  dictatorially 
than  within  the  last  week.  No  con- 
sideration for  his  personal  feelings, 
or  for  lamentable  developments 
which  may  yet  take  place,  but  which 
at  present  can  be  only  matters  of  . 
conjecture,  can  be  allowed  to  stand 
in  the  way  of  that  truthful  criticism 
to  which  the  acts  of  the  head  of  a 
republic  must  be  subjected  in  a  time 
like  this  if  the  republic  is  to  be  safe. 
So  far  as  the  Revieiv  is  concerned, 
its  readers  need  hardly  be  told  that 
it  has  studiously  refrained  from  all 
avoidable  fault-finding.  Not  only  dur- 
ing Mr.  Wilson's  illness,  but  in  the 
preceding  months,  its  anxiety  to 
promote  the  possibility  of  a  concilia- 
tory settlement  between  the  Presi- 
dent and  the  Senate  had  caused  it  to 
put  as  little  stress  as  possible  upon 
the  faults  of  either  side.  It  has  never 
aspersed  the  motives  either  of  the 
President  or  of  the  great  bulk  of  the 
Republican  opposition.  But  a  time 
comes  when  there  must  be  plain 
speaking.  In  the  temper  and  method 
now  displayed  by  Mr.  Wilson  there  is 
the  greatest  possible  danger  to  our 
domestic  welfare  and  to  our  interna- 
tional relations.  If  that  temper  and 
method  are  the  manifestation  of  a 
mind  in  sound  condition,  they  call  for 


February  21,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[169 


stern  and  unsparing  rebuke;  if  the 
mind  is  not  in  sound  condition,  the 
country  has  a  right  to  know  it  and 
to  be  relieved  of  the  danger  which 
it  implies.  The  former  must  be 
assumed  to  be  the  fact  until  the  con- 
trary is  established ;  and  however  dis- 
agreeable the  necessity  under  all  the 
circumstances,  it  is  the  duty  of  the 
press  to  speak  the  words  which  the 
situation  demands. 

Prices  and  the  Gold 
Standard 

DURING  the  campaign  of  1896  ad- 
vocates of  the  gold  standard, 
though  absolutely  right  in  their  stand 
for  sound  money,  were  frequently 
very  far  from  right  in  the  reasons 
they  assigned  for  it.  Nothing  was 
more  common  than  for  them  to  at- 
tempt to  settle  the  whole  question  by 
referring  to  the  gold  dollar  as  an  ab- 
solute standard  of  value.  You  might 
as  well,  they  said,  have  two  different 
yardsticks  to  measure  length  as  have 
two  different  dollars  to  measure 
value.  The  gold  dollar  was  a  fixed 
and  unvarying  measure  of  value ;  the 
silver  dollar  was  just  whatever  it 
might  happen  to  be,  and  at  the  time 
was  about  half  of  the  real  thing.  If 
the  price  of  wheat  had  been  cut  in 
two,  that  showed  nothing  whatever 
about  a  change  of  value  in  the  gold 
dollar — it  only  showed  that  the  value 
of  wheat  had  fallen ;  and  so  on  all 
round. 

For  this  view  there  was  not  the 
slightest  countenance  in  any  accred- 
ited doctrine  of  political  economy. 
The  great  majority  of  competent  econ- 
omists were,  to  be  sure,  opposed  to 
bimetallism;  and  almost  without  ex- 
ception they  were  opposed  to  the 
Bryan  programme.  But  in  neither 
position  did  they  rest  the  case  on  any 
assumed  perfection  of  the  gold  unit 
as  an  unvarying  standard  of  value. 
They  were  opposed  to  international 
bimetallism  because  they  did  not 
think  it  would  work  out  practically 
to  maintain  the  parity  of  gold  with 
silver  at  a  fixed  ratio ;  and  they  were 
opposed  to  Bryan's  programme  of 
"16  to  1  without  asking  the  aid  or 
consent  of  any  foreign  nation,"  be- 


cause this  would  mean  a  debasement 
of  the  actual  currency  of  our  country 
— the  currency  upon  which  all  busi- 
ness transactions,  all  contracts  and 
debts,  had  been  based  for  many  years. 
But  Mr.  Bryan  was  entirely  right  in 
asserting  that  the  value  of  that  cur- 
rency— the  value  of  the  gold  dollar — 
had  greatly  risen  in  the  course  of 
those  years,  and  that  this  rise  of 
value  had,  in  large  part  at  least,  been 
caused  by  the  demonetization  of  sil- 
ver in  this  and  other  countries,  since 
that  demonetization  had  greatly  les- 
sened the  aggregate  volume  of  the 
monetary  medium  in  the  chief  com- 
mercial nations  of  the  world. 

We  are  now  in  precisely  the  op- 
posite condition,  and  are  accordingly 
witnessing  precisely  the  opposite 
phenomenon.  The  high  purchasing 
power  of  gold,  a  quarter  of  a  century 
ago,  was  due  to  the  fact  that  the 
volume  of  the  monetary  medium — 
the  effective  monetary  medium,  com- 
prising gold,  circulating  substitutes 
(whether  silver  or  paper)  kept  on  a 
par  with  gold,  and  bank  credits — 
had  not  kept  pace  with  the  volume 
of  business,  as  measured  in  commodi- 
ties and  services;  and  in  the  same 
way  the  low  purchasing  power  of 
gold  in  this  country  to-day  is  due  to 
the  fact  that  the  volume  of  the  effec- 
tive monetary  medium  has  increased 
vastly  more  than  the  volume  of  busi- 
ness, as  measured  in  commodities  and 
services.  If,  comparing  with  five 
years  ago,  twice  as  many  dollars  are 
available  to-day  to  pay  for  other 
things — for  wool  and  cotton  and  iron, 
for  bread  and  meat  and  candy,  for 
clothing  and  furniture  and  gim- 
cracks,  for  skilled  and  unskilled  labor, 
and  professional  services — and  if  the 
quantity  of  those  things  available  for 
purchase  has  not  increased,  then  on 
the  average  twice  as  many  dollars 
will  be  paid  for  each  of  these  various 
things ;  though  of  course,  for  a  multi- 
tude of  special  reasons,  there  will  be 
great  deviations  (up  and  down) 
from  this  average  ratio. 

A  word  as  to  the  way  in  which  this 
is  brought  about  may  be  helpful,  for 
some  very  intelligent  persons  experi- 
ence a  certain  difficulty  in  seeing  it. 
Merely  because  I  have  more  dollars, 
they  ask,  why  should  I  pay  a  higher 


price  for  what  I  want?  But  the  reason 
is  very  plain.  Anybody  who  has  more 
dollars  than  he  had  before  wishes  to 
do  something  with  the  extra  dollars; 
he  wishes  either  to  spend  them  or  to 
save  them.    Now  if  the  things  to  be 
bought  for  the  dollars  are  no  more 
abundant    than    they    were    before, 
then,  at  the  old  scale  of  prices,  he 
would  be  getting  more  of  the  things 
than  he  got  before,  and  somebody  else 
would  have  to  go  without.     Accord- 
ingly somebody — either  he  or  some- 
body else — will  pay  a  higher  price 
rather  than  forgo  the  satisfaction  of 
his  desires ;  and  in  this  competition  of 
purchasers  prices  are  raised.    Nor  is 
the  case  different  if  he  prefers  to  save 
instead  of  spending.     People  do  not 
in  our  time  put  their  extra  money 
into  a  stocking.    They  invest  it  so  as 
to  draw  interest.  But  to  invest  means, 
directly  or  indirectly,  to  engage  in 
some  form  of  production  or  trade; 
and  this,  in  turn,  means  to  buy  either 
commodities  or  labor  needed  for  the 
carrying  on  of  that  production  or 
trade.  Thus  the  extra  money  is  put  to 
just  the  same  kind  of  use  as  the  old 
money — the  purchase  of  commodities 
or  services.     And  if  the  aggregate 
quantity  of  those  commodities  and 
services  remains  the  same  while  the 
number  of  dollars  available  for  the 
purchase  of  them  is  doubled,  the  aver- 
age price  of  them  will  be  doubled  also. 
But,  although  theory  plainly  indi- 
cates that  this  will  happen,  and  al- 
though the  fact  that  it  has  happened 
is  not  the  basis  of  the  theory  but  only 
a  fresh  confirmation  of  it,  there  ex- 
ists in  some  quarters  a  curious  dis- 
position to  deny  that  the  high  prices 
are  caused  by  the  superabundance  of 
dollars.    It  is  difficult  to  account  for 
this  state  of  mind ;  but  we  have  little 
doubt  that  it  is  partly  to  be  accounted 
for  by  a  persistence  of  the  delusion 
— not  clearly  acknowledged  indeed, 
and  in  large  part  altogether  unrecog- 
nized,  yet   operating   by   a   sort   of 
subconscious  habit — the  delusion  we 
referred  to  at  the  beginning  of  this 
article,  that  gold  is  a  fixed  standard 
of  value.     These   opponents  of  the 
quantity  theory  of  money  are  apt  to 
devote  a  great  deal  of  energy  to  prov- 
ing  what    nobody   denies — that  the 
currency  of  the  United  States  to-day 


170] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  41 


is,  all  of  it,  as  good  as  gold;  that, 
measured  in  gold,  the  dollar  has  not 
depreciated.  They  are  quite  in  the 
right,  too,  in  pointing  out  the  differ- 
ence— which,  however,  is  also  one 
that  nobody  denies — between  our 
currency  and  that  of  England,  or 
France,  or  Italy,  where  the  current 
money  is  not  exchangeable  at  its  face 
value  for  gold.  But  after  all  this  is 
admitted,  we  still  have  the  fact  that 
the  monetary  medium  of  this  country 
is  vastly  greater  in  volume  than  it  was 
before  the  war,  and  that  the  volume 
of  business  to  be  done  with  it — as 
measured  in  commodities  and  serv- 
ices— is  but  little  greater  than  it 
was  then;  and  that  in  this  state  of 
things  the  purchasing  power  of  the 
dollar  must  of  necessity  go  down  just 
as  it  has  done.  And  we  have  yet  to 
see  any  argument  advanced  to  show 
how  any  other  result  could  follow 
from  these  data. 

It  may  be  instructive  to  take  a 
glance  at  two  recent  illustrations  of 
this  attitude  toward  the  quantity 
theory  of  money.  In  an  article  in 
Scribner's  Magazine,  Mr.  A.  D.  Noyes 
says: 

Economically  speaking,  there  is  no  other 
way  to  measure  depreciation  of  a  currency  ex- 
cept by  ascertaining  whether  and  how  nearly 
it  can  be  exchanged,  dollar  for  dollar,  for 
gold  coin.  People  who  say  (and  one  hears  it 
said  pretty  frequently)  that  the  currency  is 
depreciated  in  relation  to  commodities,  are 
merely  juggling  with  words.  If  the  simple 
fact  of  the  recent  advance  in  prices  is  to  be 
accepted  as  meaning  that  our  currency  is  de- 
preciated, then,  in  case  of  a  world-wide  har- 
vest failure  in  an  ordinary  year — a  failure 
which  had  put  up  prices  on  the  average,  say, 
5  or  10  per  cent — one  would  be  driven  to  the 
inference  that  the  currency  had  even  then 
depreciated  by  that  percentage.  The  conclu- 
sion could  not  be  escaped  on  such  a  line  of 
reasoning,  even  if  that  currency  consisted  of 
nothing  but  gold  coin.  But  this  is  to  involve 
the  whole  discussion  in  meaningless  absurdi- 
ties. It  is  the  kind  of  reasoning  which  would 
first  say  that  prices  have  risen  because  the 
purchasing  power  of  money  is  less,  and  would 
then  turn  about  and  say  that  the  purchasing 
power  of  money  is  less  because  prices  have 
risen. 

But  the  quantity  theory  of  money 
perfectly  recognizes  that  high  prices 
are  quite  as  capable  of  being  brought 
about  by  diminution  of  productivity 
(failure  of  a  harvest,  for  example) 
as  by  increase  of  the  monetary 
medium.  In  so  far  as  productivity 
has  diminished  in  these  last  years,  it 
accounts  for  the  rise  of  prices.  How 
serious  that  diminution  has  been,  no- 
body knows.     But  everybody  knows 


that  there  has  been  enormous  increase 
in  the  monetary  medium ;  and  all  that 
the  quantity  theory  says  is  that  this 
increase  has  caused  a  corresponding 
rise  of  prices.  As  for  the  "meaning- 
less absurdities,"  however,  of  which 
Mr.  Noyes  gives  so  curious  an  illus- 
tration, they  exist  only  in  his  own 
mind.  If  anybody  says  "that  prices 
have  risen  because  the  purchasing 
power  of  money  is  less"  and  also  "that 
the  purchasing  power  of  money  is  less 
because  prices  have  risen"  he  is  not 
in  either  case  speaking  of  causation 
at  all.  The  two  things  are  simply 
referred  to  (assuming  that  the  vol- 
ume of  commodities,  etc.,  has  not 
changed)  as  different  names  for  the 
same  thing.  It  is  a  matter  of  defini- 
tion, not  of  causation.  One  may,  we 
fancy,  say  that  strychnine  is  a  deadly 
poison  because  swallowing  a  small 
amount  of  strychnine  will  kill  a  man, 
and  also  that  swallowing  a  small 
amount  of  strychnine  will  kill  a  man 
because  strychnine  is  a  deadly  poison, 
without  being  accused  of  dealing  in 
meaningless  absurdities.  Neither 
statement,  to  be  sure,  explains  any- 
thing. But  neither  of  the  statements 
cited  by  Mr.  Noyes  professes  to  ex- 
plain anything.  The  cause  of  high 
prices,  as  stated  by  the  quantity 
theory,  is  not  that  "the  purchasing 
power  of  money  is  less"  (which  is 
only  another  name  for  high  prices) 
but  that  the  quantity  of  money  is 
greater. 

The  other  illustration  we  have  in 
mind  is  an  interview  with  Prof.  J. 
Laurence  Laughlin,  prominently  fea- 
tured on  the  first  page  of  a  New 
York  newspaper.  "Production  Costs 
Make  H.  C.  of  L.,"  says  the  big  head- 
line; and  the  article  bears  out  the 
headline.  Mr.  Laughlin's  idea  is  that 
the  prices  of  commodities  are  high 
because,  under  the  pressure  of  war 
need,  high  wages  were  paid  to  work- 
ingmen  both  in  manufactures  and 
agriculture  in  order  to  stimulate 
production,  and  that  this  had  the 
effect  of  raising  the  prices  of  all  com- 
modities. But  this  is  only  another 
way  of  saying  that  the  first  thing  that 
rose  in  price  was  labor,  and  that  other 
things  followed  suit — which  may  be 
perfectly  true,  but  has  absolutely 
nothing  to  do  with  the  question  of 


the  relation  between  prices  and  the 
supply  of  money.  If  commodities  had 
risen  first,  and  wages  had  risen  after- 
wards in  order  to  meet  the  increased 
cost  of  living,  the  thing  that  made  the 
rise  possible  all  round  would  still  have 
been  the  same — the  increased  supply 
of  money.  As  a  matter  of  fact — and 
indeed  of  notorious  fact — the  events 
have  taken  place  sometimes  in  one 
order  and  sometimes  in  the  other. 
The  new  supply  of  money  may  flow 
in  the  first  instance  to  any  one  of  a 
hundred  different  points;  but  to  in- 
sist that  because  it  flowed  first  to  one 
point  rather  than  another,  therefore 
the  flow  of  money  had  nothing  to  do 
with  the  case,  is  suggestive  of  the 
logic  of  Alice  in  Wonderland  rather 
than  of  the  reasoning  of  political 
economy. 

All  this  may  sound  somewhat  like  a 
kindergarten  lesson  in  economics ;  but 
unfortunately  great  errors  in  national 
policy  on  the  subject  of  money  have 
again  and  again,  in  our  own  country 
and  in  others,  been  caused  by  failure 
clearly  to  grasp  the  simplest  teach- 
ings of  economic  logic. 

Limitation  of  the 
Right  to  Strike 

A  CONFERENCE  of  representa- 
-^  tives  of  four  large  farmers'  or- 
ganizations, in  session  at  Washington 
the  other  day,  declared  against  the 
tying  up  of  the  country's  transporta- 
tion service  by  a  railway  strike,  in 
the  following  terms: 

Those  who  believe  that  labor  has  an  in- 
herent right  to  organize  a  strike  believe  that 
such  organizations  have  a  right  to  starve  the 
people  of  the  cities  to  death,  on  the  one  hand, 
and  to  destroy  the  property  of  the  farmers  on 
the  other.  No  such  right  has  ever  existed, 
and  no  such  right  exists  now. 

These  men  were  dealing  with  a  con- 
crete situation.  Their  judgment,  how- 
ever, rests  upon  the  belief,  if  they 
were  to  put  it  abstractly,  that  a  pos- 
sible action,  not  wrong  in  itself,  may 
involve  the  probability  of  such  dis- 
astrous results  that  organized  society 
can  not  grant  the  existence  of  an  un- 
qualified right  to  commit  that  action. 
The  bitter  suffering  caused  in  Kansas 
by  the  coal  strike  of  last  November 
led  the  Legislature  of  that  State  to 
embody  such  a  belief  in  an  Industrial 


February  21,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[171 


Court  law,  which  went  into  effect 
about  three  weeks  ago.  This  law  com- 
pels no  man  to  labor  against  his  will, 
but  does  forbid  the  organization  and 
calling  of  strikes  in  industries  neces- 
sary to  the  production  and  distribu- 
tion of  the  primal  requisites  of  life — 
food,  fuel,  and  clothing.  It  equally 
forbids  the  arbitrary  closing  of  such 
industries  by  the  employers,  as  a 
means  of  enforcing  their  point  of 
view  in  labor  disputes.  The  court 
which  it  establishes  has  large  power 
to  deal  with  any  real  injustice  which 
can  be  shown,  either  in  wages  or  in 
the  conditions  of  health,  comfort,  etc., 
under  which  labor  must  be  per- 
formed. The  law  thus  recognizes  that 
in  putting  a  curb  upon  the  right  to 
strike,  the  State  assumes  the  obliga- 
tion to  protect  labor  against  any 
harm  to  its  legitimate  interests  which 
this  curb  might  entail. 

The  incident  of  the  Boston  police- 
men brought  home  to  the  public 
mind  the  fact  that  to  certain  classes 
of  public  employees  the  right  to  strike 
can  not  be  granted  with  safety  to  the 
vital  interests  of  the  people.  But  the 
multiplicity  of  strikes  during  the  past 
year,  and  the  circumstances  sur- 
rounding some  of  the  more  conspicu- 
ous of  them,  have  suggested  to  many 
the  need  of  limitations  in  a  wider 
field.  The  coal  strike  was  called  at  a 
time  when  every  day  it  lasted  struck 
at  the  life  of  helpless  thousands  of 
invalids,  aged  people,  women,  and 
children,  besides  paralyzing  indus- 
tries in  all  parts  of  the  land.  New 
York  City  has  been  threatened  with 
a  strike  of  engineers  and  firemen 
which  would  have  shut  off  the  heat 
supply  from  hotels  and  apartment 
houses  at  the  height  of  an  epidemic 
of  influenza  and  pneumonia,  at  the 
risk  of  hundreds,  perhaps  thousands, 
of  human  lives.  This  peculiarly 
brutal  threat  ended  with  the  granting 
of  the  increase  of  wages  asked.  But 
it  has  had  the  effect  of  spreading  and 
deepening  the  conviction  that  civi- 
lized society  must  find  some  way  to 
save  itself  from  facing  the  possibility, 
every  now  and  then,  of  a  slaughter  of 
helpless  citizens  by  wholesale  as  a 
mere  incident  of  a  difference  of  opin- 
ion between  laborers  and  their  em- 
ployers.   In  other  words,  there  must 


be  some  limitation  of  the  right  to 
strike,  in  any  case  where  the  exercise 
of  that  right  recklessly  endangers  the 
life  and  health  of  the  community. 

There  are  but  three  possible 
sources  of  limitation  to  the  right. 
The  first  is  spontaneous  self-re- 
straint, on  the  part  of  labor  leaders 
and  the  organizations  which  so  gen- 
erally follow  their  direction.  The 
second  is  an  enlightened  public  opin- 
ion so  deeply  felt  and  emphatically 
expressed  that  labor  leaders  and  or- 
ganizations tempted  to  reckless  ac- 
tion will  see  at  once  a  force  against 
which  they  can  not  struggle  with 
hope  of  success.  Finally,  there  is  the 
possible  limitation  of  statute  law, 
executed  through  special  industrial 
courts  or  the  ordinary  tribunals  and 
duly  fortified  with  penalties. 

Unquestionably  the  restraint  spring- 
ing from  good  sense  and  right  feeling 
on  the  part  of  labor  leaders  them- 
selves is  the  most  desirable.  And  the 
conduct  of  the  great  railway  Brother- 
hoods, through  a  considerable  portion 
of  their  history,  shows  that  such  re- 
straint is  not  an  impossibility.  It  can 
be  a  reasonably  safe  reliance,  how- 
ever, only  so  far  as  organized  labor 
keeps  itself  free  from  control  by  the 
lawless,  destructive,  and  wholly  un- 
American  influences  which  have  re- 
cently been  trying  to  master  it,  and 
which  are  as  regardless  of  the  life 
of  the  innocent  citizen  as  of  the  real 
interests  of  the  genuine  laborer  him- 
self. Of  course,  successful  restraint 
along  this  line  requires  an  equal  dis- 
play of  good  sense  and  right  feeling 
on  the  part  of  employers  too,  and 
not  of  labor  leaders  alone. 

In  the  absence  of  a  positive  will  on 
the  part  of  labor  leaders  to  reduce 
strikes  to  the  minimum,  and  espe- 
cially a  will  to  avoid  any  strike  which 
ruthlessly  endangers  the  life  and 
health  of  innocent  parties,  public 
opinion  may  enforce  a  substantial 
limitation,  but  only  if  it  is  clear  and 
unified  in  its  convictions,  if  it  makes 
itself  audible  and  intelligible,  and  is 
persistent  in  its  purpose.  Both  in 
the  coal  strike  and  the  steel  strike 
public  opinion  was  the  decisive  factor 
in  bringing  them  to  a  fairly  speedy 
end ;  and  if  the  heating  strike  in  New 
York  City  had  been  allowed  to  get 


under  way  there  is  no  doubt  that  the 
wrath  of  the  suffering  community 
would  have  been  manifested  in  a  suf- 
ficiently impressive  way.  On  the 
whole,  there  is  evidence  that  public 
opinion  is  becoming  so  generally  en- 
lightened and  aroused  that  it  may 
soon  be  in  position,  if  wisely  con- 
centrated and  led,  to  enforce  a  very 
real  restraint  upon  the  present  ten- 
dency to  reckless,  and  we  may  seri- 
ously add  murderous,  abuse  of  the 
right  to  strike.  But  to  be  permanently 
effective,  it  must  of  course  be  equally 
severe  towards  offenses  from  either 
side. 

It  will  be  well  for  society,  and  espe- 
cially for  the  cause  of  labor,  if  from 
these  voluntary  sources  shall  come 
the  moral  restraint,  rather  than  legal, 
that  is  needed  to  prevent  the  recur- 
rence of  such  intolerable  perils  as 
have  threatened  the  American  people 
now  several  times  within  the  past  six 
months.  The  mass  of  the  American 
people  naturally  sympathize  with  the 
laborer  in  his  desire  for  an  adequate 
wage  and  for  proper  working  condi- 
tions ;  but  with  the  spirit  which  would 
recklessly  endanger  the  life  and 
health  of  untold  thousands,  merely 
in  order  to  hasten  some  step  in  this 
direction,  no  American  worthy  the 
name  can  have  any  sympathy  what- 
soever. Every  recurrence  of  this 
peril  makes  the  demand  for  effective 
limitation  of  such  abuses  more  gen- 
eral and  more  insistent.  And  the  de- 
mand will  not  finally  accept  denial. 
If  reasonable  limitation  can  not  come 
from  labor  itself,  either  through  the 
spontaneous  stirring  of  humane  and 
manly  feeling  in  the  hearts  of  labor 
leaders,  or  through  a  common-sense 
appreciation  of  the  wisdom  of  yield- 
ing to  public  opinion,  then  the  third 
source  of  relief,  to  which  Kansas  has 
already  resorted,  alone  remains. 
Public  opinion,  thwarted  in  its  desire 
for  milder  means,  will  at  last  feel 
obliged  to  put  itself  into  the  form  of 
statute  law,  and  to  insist  upon  the 
enforcement  of  that  law.  For  it  has 
reached  the  point  where  it  can  no 
longer  tolerate  wholesale  intimida- 
tion of  the  community  by  threats 
against  its  very  life,  as  a  mere  corol- 
lary of  the  right  of  labor  to  accelerate 
the  betterment  of  its  condition. 


172] 


rilE   REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  Xo.  41 


The  Church  and  the 
World's  Need 

'T'HE  church  has  been  very  much 
-'•  under  fire  since  1914.  From  the 
moment  it  acquiesced  in  war,  even  a 
defensive  war,  it  was  to  our  senti- 
mental radicals  but  a  broken  reed. 
What  must  it  do  to  be  saved  ?  It  must 
use  its  organization  to  enforce  a  new 
order  of  humanity  based  on  the  prin- 
ciple, "love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself." 
Of  any  other  spirituality,  of  the  wor- 
ship of  God,  they  have  nothing  to  say. 
Such  mystic  elements  as  their  reli- 
gion contains  are  to  be  found  in  the 
new  relation  which  they  would  estab- 
lish of  man  to  man.  The  brotherhood 
of  man  is  the  heart  of  their  desire. 
By  means  of  it,  not  only  will  the  less 
fortunately  placed  members  of  soci- 
ety be  guaranteed  equal  sympathy, 
equal  opportunity  with  others,  but 
there  will  be  a  new  heaven  and  a  new 
earth.  For  this  ideal  they  are  show- 
ing a  fervor,  it  must  be  admitted, 
not  unlike  that  displayed  by  the  early 
Christians.  But  how  can  the  church 
help  to  realize  it? 

The  church,  it  seems,  has  without 
protest  permitted  all  life  outside  its 
walls  to  become  secularized.  It  has 
withheld  its  authority  when  con- 
fronted by  the  authority  of  the  vested 
interests,  whether  governmental  or 
civil.  The  moral  order  has  none  of 
the  efficiency  which  characterizes  the 
physical  order  under  the  State.  The 
church  is  now  urged  to  have  its  say 
as  to  the  status,  for  example,  of  prop- 
erty, which  should  be  administered 
solely  in  the  interest  of  society.  They 
also  urge  the  church  to  interest  it- 
self in  "industrial  democracy."  If 
they  meant  by  it  only  an  improved 
relation  between  capital  and  labor, 
both  as  to  the  working  conditions 
and  the  control  of  industry,  the 
appeal  would  be  strong  to  the  right- 
minded.  Unfortunately,  the  propo- 
nents of  industrial  democracy  are 
much  in  the  company  of  radical  So- 
cialists, and  in  the  minds  of  these  the 
industrial  democracy  hoped  for  is  to 
replace  our  political  democracy.  As 
Mr.  W.  J.  Ghent,  one  of  the  ablest  of 
non-revolutionary  Socialists,  has  re- 
cently  pointed    out    in    the    Review, 


the  Bolsheviks  have  had  the  best 
chance  in  the  world  to  substitute  in- 
dustrial for  political  control,  and  yet 
politics  is  about  the  whole  thing  in 
the  Russian  regime. 

The  radicals  of  this  school  are  care- 
ful to  point  out  that  their  friendli- 
ness towards  the  plain  people  of  all 
nations  is  prompted  only  by  the 
Christian  spirit,  and  that  in  labor 
unionism,  Socialism,  and  Bolshevism 
it  is  not  political  creeds  which  inter- 
est them,  but  the  fine  democratic  fel- 
lowship that  has  been  instituted  by 
these  systems.  They  do  not  definitely 
say  that  they  wish  to  overthrow  capi- 
talism, even  though  to  them  capital- 
ism is  not  a  pretty  thing.  They  are 
merely  suggesting  apparently  inno- 
cent ways  by  which  the  church  can 
more  and  more  put  its  finger  on  the 
pulse  of  humanity. 

But  the  church  may  well  hesitate 
when  it  is  asked  to  preach,  not  merely 
principles  and  attitudes  of  mind  and 
spirit,  but  a  definite  scheme  of  eco- 
nomic policy.  It  is  true  that  the 
Catholic  church  has  set  up  elaborate 
industrial  bureaus,  but  that  church 
has  fortified  itself  against  the  danger 
of  being  swamped  by  too  much  of 
this  activity,  by  means  of  compulsory 
attendance  at  church  service,  as  well 
as  by  a  body  of  doctrine  utterly 
opposed  to  Socialism.  For  the 
Protestant  church  the  risk  will  be 
much  greater.  The  recent  history  of 
education  in  this  country  should  fur- 
nish an  instructive  analogy.  Ameri- 
can colleges,  not  so  long  ago,  used  to 
think  it  proper  to  train  the  mind  in 
channels  which  did  not  lead  directly 
to  useful  pursuits  in  life  outside. 
They  were  great  intellectual  reser- 
voirs upon  which  we  drew  in  prepa- 
ration for  little  in  particular  but 
much  in  general.  And  it  was  sup- 
posed that  this  general  knowledge, 
and  the  habits  of  thought  set  up, 
would  give  one  a  real  advantage  in 
the  struggle  of  life.  Then  came  the 
demand  for  the  practical,  by  means 
of  very  special  courses  preparing  for 
this,  that,  and  the  other  occupation. 
That  this  system  is  without  beneficial 
results,  no  one  would  say ;  but  that  it 
made  dangerous  inroads  upon  the  es- 
sential culture  of  the  college  is  evi- 
dent from  the  sudden  halt  called  by 


certain  institutions.  Will  not  the 
church  be  in  similar  danger  if  it 
hearkens  too  much  to  anybody  who 
asks  it  to  arbitrate  the  quarrels  of 
industrial  life  and  to  agitate  for  a 
definite  platform  of  public  policy? 

In  social-welfare  work  most 
churches  have  all  along  engaged,  and 
there  is  no  reason  why  that  should 
not  be  extended  to  meet  the  needs  of 
these  troublous  days.  But  the  main 
function  of  the  church  still  remains 
what  it  has  been  in  the  past — to  serve 
as  a  rallying-place  and  guide  of  the 
spirit.  Its  opportunities  as  such 
were  never  greater.  The  presence  of 
a  heightened  religious  feeling  as  an 
aftermath  of  the  war  is  abundant  the 
world  over.  It  is  merely  waiting  to 
be  organized  and  directed.  Let  the 
church  beware  of  adopting  the  lay- 
man's methods  of  molding  and  trans- 
muting it.  For  the  present  danger 
to  civilization  would  only  be  aug- 
mented by  the  kind  of  cooperation  by 
the  clergy  which  radical  spokesmen 
are  bidding  them  undertake.  The 
clergy  would  be  flirting  with  revolu- 
tion in  spite  of  themselves,  and  if  it 
came,  politics  ^vould,  as  in  Russia, 
swallow  up  both  industry  and  reli- 
gion. 

The  problem  of  the  clergy  is  that 
of  all  liberals  to-day — to  discover 
foundation-stones  upon  whicn  to 
build  up  the  progress  of  the  prssent. 
And  one  of  the  solidest  of  these  is 
the  tradition  of  the  church  as  a  house 
of  worship  and  of  spiritual  refresh- 
ment. Christ  drove  the  money- 
changers out  of  the  Temple,  not  be- 
cause they  were  money-changers,  but 
because  the  Temple  was  profaned  by 
their  transactions. 


THE  REVIKW 

A   weekly  journal  of  political  and 

general  discussion 

Published  by 

The   National   Weekly    Corporation 

140  Nassau  Street,  New   York 

Fabian  Franklin,  President 

Harold   de    Wolf    Fuller,    Treasurer 


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ford   St.,   Strand,   London,   W.   C.   2,   England. 
Copyright,     1920,     in     the     United     States     of 
America 
Editors 
FABIAN  FRANKLIN 
HAROLD  DE  WOLF   FULLER 
Associate  Editors 
Harry  Morgan  Ayres     O.  W.  Firkins 
A.  J.  Barnouw  W.  H.  Johnson 

Jerome  Landfield 


I 


February  21,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[173 


The  Problem  of  Fiume 


FEW  other  cities  on  the  shores  of 
the  Mediterranean  occupy  so  stra- 
tegic a  position  as  Fiume.  The  pos- 
sessor of  this  port  holds  the  key  to 
the  economic  and  political  develop- 
ment of  a  vast  hinterland  lying  to  the 
north  and  east,  and  in  case  of  war 
would  exercise  a  military  control  no 
less  far  reaching  and  effective.  That 
this  must  be  the  case  will  become 
readily  apparent  if  we  examine  the 
topographic  features  of  the  Adriatic 
coast. 

Between  the  interior  valleys  of  the 
Balkan  peninsula  and  the  Adriatic 
shore  stand  the  Dinaric  Alps,  a  broad 
belt  of  wild,  mountainous  land.  To 
bring  to  the  reader  a  mental  picture 
of  this  region  and  a  vivid  conception 
of  its  significance  in  the  present 
crisis,  I  can  not  do  better  than  quote 
a  description  of  these  mountains 
which  appeared  in  a  book  on  military 
geography  published  before  the 
Fiume  controversy  began  to  trouble 
Europe : 

The  broad  belt  of  mountains  lying  between 
the  Morava-Vardar  depression  and  the  Adri- 
atic shore  is  one  of  the  most  imposing  topo- 
graphic barriers   in   Europe.    .    .    . 

.  .  .  Included  in  the  mountainous  belt 
arc  ranges  high  enough  to  carry  snow  caps 
until  the  month  of  August,  and  the  name 
"Albania"  is  believed  by  some  to  have  its 
origin  in  the  snowy  appearance  of  that  wild 
region.  It  is  said  that  the  "Accursed  Moun- 
tains" of  northern  Albania  and  eastern  Mon- 
tenegro include  some  of  the  least  explored 
lands  of  all.  of  Europe.  .  .  .  Among  the 
rocks  involved  in  the  mountain  building, 
limestone  is  a  conspicuous  element,  and  its 
soluble  nature  has  imposed  a  peculiarly  for- 
bidding aspect  on  the  topography.  Most  of 
the  rainfall  passes  underground  through  sink- 
holts  and  smaller  solution  cavities  and  then 
finds  its  way  through  subterranean  channels 
to  a  few  principal  rivers,  lakes,  or  tho  sea. 
-■Xs  a  consequence  much  of  the  mountain  coun- 
try is  dry  and  barren,  springs'  are  far  apart, 
and  the  open  water  courses  difficult  of  access 
because  deeply  intrenched  in  rock-walled 
gorges.  The  "gaunt,  naked  rocks  of  the  cruel 
karst  country"  arc  not  only  themselves  of  little 
value  to  mankind,  but  they  render  inacces- 
sible and,  therefore,  comparatively  useless, 
many  excellent  harbors  on  the  east  coast  of 
the  .'\driatic. 

A  map  representing  the  topog- 
raphy of  this  region  shows  that  the 
mountainous  belt  is  narrowest  oppo- 
site Fiume,  and  broadens  rapidly  to 
the  southward.  This  broader  and 
more  inaccessible  part  of  the  barrier, 
from  the  head  of  the  Adriatic  near 
Fiume    to    its  mouth  at  Valona,  is 


crossed  by  but  two  (or  possibly  now 
by  three)  lines  of  rail,  all  of  them 
narrow  gauge,  two  of  them  in  part 
cogwheel  mountain-climbing  tracks, 
only  one  connecting  directly  with  the 
central  valley  of  Serbia,  and  none  of 
them  capable  of  serving  the  commer- 
cial needs  of  the  interior.  It  is  no 
mere  accident  that  the  first  standard 
gauge  railway  to  cross  the  barrier 
does  so  at  the  point  where  the  moun- 
tain belt  is  narrowest,  opposite 
Fiume. 

The  conditions  which  make  rail 
traffic  across  the  mountain  barrier 
difficult  and  expensive  are  unchang- 
ing conditions.  No  standard  gauge 
railway  can  ever  be  constructed  in 
this  region  without  involving  steep 
gradients,  much  tunneling,  great  ini- 
tial outlay  and  heavy  continuing 
overhead  expense.  If  constructed, 
every  car  of  freight  which  crosses  by 
it  must  pay  a  heavy  charge,  not  only 
because  of  the  high  cost  of  transpor- 
tation under  the  conditions  just  de- 
scribed, but  also  because  there  will 
be  little  local  freight  to  help  pay  that 
cost,  given  the  sparsely  inhabited  and 
unproductive  character  of  the  barren 
karst.  Geographic  conditions  have 
made  Fiume,  situated  at  the  head  of 
a  sea  which  brings  cheap  water  trans- 
portation into  the  very  heart  of  Eu- 
rope and  opposite  the  narrowest  part 
of  the  mountain  barrier,  the  inevi- 
table economic  outlet  for  all  the 
northern  portion  of  the  Balkan  pen- 
insula. 

If  the  reader  will  examine  a  map 
showing  the  railway  situation,  he  will 
observe  another  very  striking  and 
significant  fact.  Almost  the  entire 
standard  gauge  railway  system  of  the 
new  Jugoslav  State  is  concentrated  in 
its  northern  part,  in  the  latitude  of 
Fiume.  This  is  because  the  broad, 
fertile,  and  productive  river  plains  of 
the  country  are  largely  limited  to  that 
region,  because  nearly  two-thirds  of 
the  population  dwells  on  those  plains 
or  in  valleys  tributary  to  them,  and 
because  railway  construction  and  op- 
eration are  comparatively  easy  and 
cheap,  and  there  is  a  volume  of  both 
local  and  long  distance  traffic  large 


enough  easily  to  pay  haulage  costs. 
Thus  it  comes  to  pass  that  the  eco- 
nomic life  of  the  Jugoslav  nation  is  in 
a  peculiar  degree  concentrated  in  the 
north  of  the  country,  and  that  the 
great  system  of  standard  gauge  rail- 
ways upon  which  that  economic  life 
depends  has  its  one  and  only  feasible 
outlet  to  the  sea  at  Fiume.  The 
power  which  holds  Fiume  holds  the 
life  of  a  whole  nation  at  its  mercy. 

But  it  is  not  only  Jugoslavia  which 
has  a  vital  interest  in  the  fate  of 
Fiume.  A  whole  vast  hinterland  to 
the  north  and  east,  including  Austria 
and  Hungary,  and  to  some  extent 
Czechoslovakia  and  parts  of  the 
newly  enlarged  Rumania,  finds  in  this 
port  a  most  important  outlet  to  the 
sea.  And  all  the  outside  world  which 
desires  to  trade  with  central  and 
southeastern  Europe  via  the  Mediter- 
ranean route  is  vitally  concerned  in 
the  solution  of  the  Fiume  dispute.  If 
the  frontier  between  Italy  and  Jugo- 
slavia be  drawn  as  described  in  the 
President's  famous  public  statement 
of  last  April,  the  two  great  Adriatic 
ports  are  assigned  one  to  Italy  and 
one  to  Jugoslavia.  The  Italian  port, 
Trieste,  could  then  supply  the  hinter- 
land (Austria,  Southern  Germany, 
Czechoslovakia,  Hungary)  by  a  line 
of  rail  which  does  not  have  to  cross 
the  territory  of  Jugoslavia;  and  the 
Jugoslav  port,  Fiume,  could  supply 
that  same  great  hinterland  by  a  line 
of  rail  which  does  not  touch  on  Ital- 
ian territory.  In  other  words,  there 
would  be  absolute  freedom  of  com- 
merce resulting  naturally  from  a 
choice  of  ports  served  by  a  choice 
of  routes,  both  ports  and  routes 
being  secure  from  possible  inter- 
ference or  the  annoying  restric- 
tions of  a  jealous  neighbor.  It  would 
be  to  the  interest  of  each  country  to 
improve  its  port  and  railway  facili- 
ties, to  establish  the  most  convenient 
train  service,  and  to  charge  the  low- 
est tariffs  compatible  with  a  reason- 
able profit,  in  order  to  attract  to  its 
port  the  largest  possible  volume  of 
business.  Not  only  Europe,  but  all 
the  world  would  profit  enormously 
from  such  an  equitable  distribution 
of  economic  advantages.  Conversely, 
not  only  Europe,  but  all  the  world 
must  suffer  enormously  if  the  Adri- 


174] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  41 


atic  settlement  leaves  both  these  ports 
in  the  hands  of  a  single  power,  or  es- 
tablishes conditions  which  must  ulti- 
mately result  in  such  one-power  con- 
trol, or  gives  to  a  single  power  the 
control  of  both  railways  leading 
northward  from  the  two  ports. 

What  economic  interest  has  Italy 
in  Fiume?  Even  if  one  granted 
Italy's  demand  that  a  solid  block  of 
more  than  half  a  million  Jugoslavs 
be  placed  under  her  rule  in  order  to 
carry  her  frontier  far  enough  east- 
ward to  take  in  the  few  thousand 
Italians  of  Fiume,  who  form  a  tiny 
racial  island  isolated  in  the  midst  of 
a  Slavic  sea,  the  port  would  remain  at 
the  most  remote  corner  of  Italian  ter- 
ritory. Nearer  the  Italian  peninsula 
would  be  the  port  of  Trieste,  which 
Italian  commerce  certainly  would  not 
pass  by  in  order  to  reach  a  more 
remote  and  less  serviceable  port. 
Italy's  economic  interest  in  the  trade 
of  Fiume  is  negligible,  whereas  that 
of  Jugoslavia  and  the  rest  of  the  hin- 
terland is  tremendous  in  quantity  and 
vital  in  character. 

Let  us  next  look  at  the  problem 
from  the  standpoint  of  the  welfare  of 
Fiume  itself  and  its  inhabitants. 
There  was  no  natural  harbor  at 
Fiume,  for  the  city  lies  at  the  base  of 
a  steep  and  straight  mountain  wall, 
and  the  shore  slopes  off  rapidly  to 
deep  water.  Consequently,  an  artifi- 
cial harbor  had  to  be  constructed  by 
building  moles  in  water  over  100  feet 
deep,  and  sometimes  reaching  depths 
of  140  feet  or  more.  For  such  a 
costly  enterprise  Government  support 
was  essential,  and  it  is  estimated  that 
between  1871  and  1913  the  Hunga- 
rian Government  spent  75,000,000  kr. 
in  port  improvements.  Before  the 
war  the  quay  length  was  already  in- 
sufficient for  the  actual  traffic,  and 
future  plans  provided  for  the  build- 
ing of  a  great  mole  farther  out  to  sea 
in  still  deeper  water.  To  pay  for 
such  a  gigantic  undertaking  out  of 
port  charges  would  be  impracticable ; 
and  the  attempt  to  do  so  would  raise 
charges  so  high  as  to  drive  trade  to 
Trieste  and  elsewhere.  More  than 
ever  must  Government  support  be 
forthcoming. 

What  Government  will  furnish  the 
capital?     Will  Italy,  in  her  difficult 


financial  situation,  expend  huge  sums 
to  develop  an  artificial  port  to  com- 
pete with  her  better  favored  and 
more  accessible  port  of  Trieste?  The 
inhabitants  of  Fiume  know  full  well 
that  Italy  can  not,  even  if  she  would, 
afford  the  luxury  of  two  peripheral 
ports  where  one  will  serve.  They 
know  that,  after  struggling  for 
months  at  the  Peace  Conference  to 
gain  additional  hinterland  for  Trieste 
on  the  ground  that  it  was  impossible 
to  have  one  of  her  chief  ports  within 
12  or  15  miles  of  an  alien  frontier, 
Italy  will  not  commit  the  folly  of  ex- 
pending her  millions  in  developing  a 
port  through  one  of  the  very  basins 
of  which  (Port  Baross)  would  pass, 
according  to  the  Italian  proposal,  the 
selfsame  alien  frontier,  and  where 
an  advance  of  a  few  thousand  yards, 
instead  of  twelve  or  fifteen  miles, 
might  deliver  the  entire  port  into 
enemy  hands.  They  know,  further, 
that  neither  Jugoslavia  nor  any  other 
hinterland  country  can  be  expected 
to  provide  capital  for  developing  an 
Italian  port. 

One  may  ask :  "Can  not  some  other 
port  serve  the  needs  of  Jugoslavia 
equally  well?"  Sebenico  and  Spalato 
have  natural  advantages  superior  to 
those  with  which  Fiume  was  origi- 
nally endowed,  and  are  situated  near 
the  centre  of  the  Jugoslav  coast.  But 
immediately  behind  these  two  ports 
lies  the  great  mountain  barrier  de- 
scribed in  the  first  part  of  this  article, 
and  presenting,  as  we  have  seen,  an 
unchanging  obstacle  in  the  way  of 
free  commercial  intercourse.  The 
economic  life  of  the  Jugoslav  people 
can  never  find  an  effective  outlet 
through  any  of  the  ports  south  of  the 
latitude  of  Fiume;  for  there  alone  is 
the  barrier  narrow  and  the  economic 
life  of  Jugoslavia  concentrated. 

But  there  is  a  landlocked  bay  at 
Buccari,  only  a  few  miles  from  Fiume. 
Periodically  Buccari  is  presented  to 
the  world  as  an  excellent  substitute 
for  Fiume.  Thus,  when  the  Amer- 
ican press  on  November  25  reported 
that  President  Wilson  had  rejected 
Italy's  latest  demands  regarding 
Fiume  and  published  at  the  same 
time  an  appeal  from  the  Italian  Pre- 
mier urging  the  American  people  to 
support  Italy  in  its  controversy  with 


the  American  Government,  there  ap- 
peared on  the  same  day,  "from  a 
trustworthy  official  source,"  a  well- 
timed  and  adroit  statement  to  the  ef- 
fect that  the  communication  pre- 
sented to  the  American  Department 
of  State  by  the  Italian  Ambassador 
at  Washington  contained  among  other 
things,  the  following  observation  and 
proposal : 

As  the  President  has  shown  a  disposition 
toward  the  outlet  to  the  Adriatic  for  Jugo- 
slavia and  desired  Fiume  to  go  to  it  in  order 
to  procure  such  an  outlet  for  the  Jugoslavs, 
the  Italian  Government  proposed  the  follow- 
ing concession  on  its  part: 

Italy  would  build  a  port  at  Buccari  for 
Jugoslavia ;  while  the  port  was  being  con- 
structed and  until  its  completion  the  Jugo- 
slavs would  receive  special  privileges  and 
guarantees  at  Fiume. 

Now  it  is  difficult  to  believe  that 
the  terms  submitted  by  the  Italian 
Government  contained  any  such  prop- 
osition. The  Italian  Government  is 
well  aware  that  it  could  not  build  a 
port  at  Buccari.  The  bay  of  Buccari 
is  admirably  landlocked,  but  it  is  com- 
pletely surrounded  by  high  cliffs 
which  descend  abruptly  into  the 
water.  There  is  no  room  at  the  shore 
for  port  installations.  Road  and 
trails  must  zigzag  up  the  steep 
slopes  to  reach  the  outside  world,  and 
the  railroad  is  inaccessible  on  the 
heights  above.  The  entrance  to  the 
bay  is  rather  dangerous,  and  sailing 
directions  warn  against  trying  to 
enter  when  the  strong  wind  known 
as  the  Bora  is  blowing.  In  the  bay 
itself  the  Bora  descends  from  the 
heights  with  such  fury  that  the  an- 
chorage is  not  considered  a  desirable 
one.  The  bay  is  entirely  too  small  to 
serve  the  suggested  purpose.  The 
present  port  works  at  Fiume  are 
longer  and  the  proposed  improve- 
ments are  broader  than  the  maximum 
length  and  breadth  of  the  bay  of  Buc- 
cari. When  Italian  sources  launched 
the  Buccari  propaganda  at  Paris,  it 
was  effectively  exploded  by  the  emi- 
nent French  geographer,  Emmanuel 
de  Martonne  of  the  Sorbonne.  Chol- 
noky,  the  leading  Hungarian  geogra- 
pher, in  a  scientific  description  of  the 
Croatian  region  written  before  the 
present  dispute,  says :  "On  the  coast 
no  bays  suitable  for  modern  shipping 
are  open.  The  bay  of  Buccari  is 
closed  like  a  lake,  but  it  is  very  small, 
and  it  has  no  shores  suitable  for  com- 


February  21,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[175 


merce.  The  steep  cliffs  descend  ab- 
ruptly into  the  green  water  of  the 
little  bay."  If  any  further  demon- 
stration of  the  absurd  character  of 
the  Buccari  proposal  is  required, 
it  is  found  in  the  fact  that  notwith- 
standing the  location  of  the  land- 
locked bay  at  the  very  doors  of  Fiume, 
and  the  passage  of  the  railway  within 
less  than  a  mile  of  its  shores,  the 
Hungarian  Government  spent  many 
millions  in  constructing  a  purely  arti- 
ficial harbor  on  the  open  coast 
close  by. 

There  is  no  escape  from  the  conclu- 
sion that  Nature  has  made  of  Fiume 
the  only  practicable  outlet  for  the 
economic  life  of  an  entire  nation. 
If  Italy  can  not  afford  to  have  one 
(Trieste)  of  her  several  important 
ports  located  within  12  or  15  miles 
of  her  frontier  even  when  there  is  a 
mountain  barrier  between  port  and 
potential  enemy,  certainly  Jugoslavia 
can  not  afford  to  have  her  one  and 
only  important  port  located  practi- 
cally within  Italian  territory,  with 
only  the  breadth  of  a  city  street  be- 
tween port  works  and  an  alien  neigh- 
bor. Even  if  open  hostilities  could 
be  avoided,  endless  friction  would  be 
inevitable;  and  neither  private  nor 
Government  capital  could  ever  be  in- 
duced to  expend  the  millions  neces- 
sary to  develop  a  port  so  absurdly  and 
so  dangerously  circumstanced. 

It  is  clear  that  America,  in  asso- 
ciation with  France  and  Great  Brit- 
ain, has  made  the  most  sweeping  con- 
cessions to  Italian  demands.  All  of 
the  proposed  new  Italian  boundaries 
lie  in  regions  peopled  by  alien  races. 
Both  the  natural  geographic  frontier 
and  the  strategic  frontier  have  been 
passed  in  order  to  assure  to  Italy 
special  advantages  upon  which  she 
insisted.  On  the  north  a  solid  block 
of  over  two  hundred  thousand  Ty- 
rolese  patriots  and  on  the  east  an- 
other solid  block  of  between  three  and 
four  hundred  thousand  Jugoslavs 
have  been  placed  under  Italian  rule, 
for  reasons  in  which  neither  the  prin- 
ciple of  nationality  nor  the  right  of 
self-determination  could  play  any 
part.  Italy  is  assured  such  absolute 
strategic  control  of  the  Adriatic  Sea 
that  not  a  ship  can  move  in  its  waters 
without  her  consent,  for  she  has  been 


offered  the  three  keys  to  the  naval 
domination  of  that  nearly  closed  sea : 
Pola,  Valona,  and  possession  of  some 
central  group  of  the  Dalmatian  is- 
lands. Whereas  the  Treaty  of  London 
assigned  her  but  a  part  of  Albania, 
and  that  only  in  certain  eventualities, 
she  has  now  been  offered  a  mandate 
over  all  Albania. 

If,  in  addition  to  all  these  conces- 
sions, the  American  Government  has 


been  unable  to  concede  Italy's  de- 
mands concerning  Fiume,  it  is  prob- 
ably because  of  a  fear  that  the  terms 
of  the  settlement  upon  which  Italy 
insists  would  imperil  the  security  of 
the  only  port  of  a  new  nation,  and 
hence  impose  upon  that  nation  a 
measure  of  economic  subjection  the 
ultimate  political  consequences  of 
which  would  prove  disastrous. 

A  Geographer 


Aliens  and  the  Political  Party  System 


[While  we  are  happy  to  give  to  Mr.  Sparge 
the  use  of  our  columns  to  make  a  point  by 
which  he  sets  much  store,  we  do  not  think  that 
the  point  affects  the  validity  of  the  charge 
preferred  at  Albany  that  the  present  organ- 
ization of  the  Socialist  party  makes  possible 
the  dictation  of  its  policy  by  its  alien  mem- 
bership.] 

A  MONG  the  several  important 
■^^  issues  raised  by  the  trial  of  the 
Socialist  legislators  in  Albany,  none 
is  of  greater  interest  or  importance, 
perhaps,  than  that  of  the  relation  of 
aliens  to  our  political  party  system. 
It  will  be  recalled  that  witnesses  for 
the  prosecution  brought  out  the  fact 
that  the  Socialist  party  of  America, 
a  dues-paying  organization,  admitted 
into  its  membership  the  following 
classes  of  non-citizens:  (1)  minors, 
the  age  qualification  being  set  at 
eighteen  years;  (2)  women,  regard- 
less of  the  suffrage  laws;  (3)  aliens 
of  every  kind. 

The  representatives  of  the  Socialist 
party  made  no  attempt  to  disprove 
this  charge;  indeed,  they  could  not 
do  so  had  they  so  desired.  Evidence 
was  adduced  to  show  that  the  local 
and  State  organizations  composed,  in 
part  at  least,  of  these  three  classes 
of  non-citizens,  are  by  party  constitu- 
tion given  the  right  to  control  the 
actions  of  the  party's  elected  repre- 
sentatives and  that  in  practice  they 
do  so.  It  was  clearly  shown  that  it 
was  entirely  possible  for  a  repre- 
sentative of  the  party  in  public  office 
to  be  subject  to  the  control  of  a 
majority  composed  in  large  part,  or 
even  exclusively,  of  non-citizens.  It 
is  possible  for  such  control  to  be  ex- 
ercised by  aliens  entirely  unfamiliar 
with  the  language  of  the  country,  or 
with  its  political  and  social  institu- 
tions. 


Of  course,  this  opens  up  a  very 
serious  matter.  Truly  it  is  an  aston- 
ishing condition  that  in  a  country 
based  upon  representative  democratic 
government  it  is  possible  for  public 
officials  who  have  been  elected  by  the 
votes  of  their  fellow  citizens  to  be 
subject  to  direction  by  a  relatively 
small  number  of  persons,  a  majority 
of  whom  are  not  themselves  qualified 
to  vote.  It  would  be  difficult  to  con- 
ceive of  anything  more  anomalous 
than  this:  On  the  one  hand,  we  say 
to  certain  people,  "You  are  not  quali- 
fied to  share  in  the  selection  of  our 
public  ofl!icials,"  while  on  the  other 
hand  we  say  to  them,  "You  are  com- 
petent to  share  in  the  direction  and 
instruction  of  our  public  officials." 

As  a  result  of  the  manner  in  which 
this  anomalous  condition  has  been 
brought  to  the  attention  of  the  public 
during  the  trial,  a  great  many  news- 
papers throughout  the  country  have 
made  the  very  natural  suggestion  that 
it  should  be  made  unlawful  for  a  polit- 
ical party  organization  to  include  in 
its  membership  any  class  of  people 
not  entitled  under  our  laws  to  exer- 
cise all  the  rights  and  prerogatives  of 
citizenship.  Various  legislators  have 
intimated  their  intention  of  introduc- 
ing legislative  measures  to  this  effect, 
and  there  is  undoubtedly  a  very  large 
public  sentiment  in  favor  of  such  a 
proceeding.  At  first  blush,  there 
would  seem  to  be  no  worthy  objection 
to  such  a  proposal.  We  shall  do  well, 
however,  to  proceed  with  very  great 
caution  in  dealing  with  a  problem 
which  is  far  from  being  as  simple  as 
its  first  appearance  indicates. 

I  am  assuming  for  the  purpose  of 
this  discussion  that  our  immigration 


176] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  41 


policy  is  to  continue  without  any  very 
serious  fundamental  change ;  that  we 
shall  continue  to  receive  large  masses 
of  immigrant  workers  from  various 
European  countries.  As  in  the  past, 
these  foreign  workers  and  their 
families  will  come  to  us  speaking  lan- 
guages other  than  our  own,  quite  un- 
familiar with  our  political  history 
and  institutions,  each  racial  and  na- 
tional group  bringing  its  own  peculiar 
psychology  and  experience.  Among 
those  who  come,  there  will  be,  as 
there  have  been  in  the  past,  aggres- 
sive, alert,  and  capable  minorities — 
those  who  in  the  countries  from 
which  they  come  have  taken  part  in 
political  and  economic  movements. 
Among  these  will  be  many  Socialists 
and  labor  unionists.  A  very  serious 
question  immediately  presents  itself 
to  the  thoughtful  student  of  American 
problems,  namely,  whether  such  a  law 
or  rule  as  that  contemplated  would 
have  the  effect  of  retarding  the  Amer- 
icanization of  these  groups;  whether 
it  would  tend  to  prevent  their  rapid 
assimilation  into  our  American  polit- 
ical life  and  to  prolong  the  period 
during  which  they  remain  aliens,  un- 
naturalized and  unassimilated.  In 
other  words,  it  is  worth  while  asking 
whether  the  practice  of  the  Socialist 
party,  which  is  admittedly  illogical 
and  apparently  indefensible,  is  not, 
pragmatically  considered,  really  cal- 
culated to  hasten  the  Americaniza- 
tion of  the  discontented  alien  worker, 
whose  discontent  may  so  easily  prove 
a  danger  to  our  free  institutions. 

I  do  not  want  to  dogmatize  upon 
this  important  question  in  order  to 
express  a  thoughtful  judgment  con- 
cerning it,  but  from  my  observation 
during  many  years'  activity  in  the 
Socialist  party  I  am  quite  certain  that 
we  must  be  careful  to  avoid  hasty 
action  along  the  lines  now  suggested 
in  so  many  quarters.  During  the  next 
couple  of  decades,  tremendous  issues 
will  have  to  be  solved  in  the  various 
countries  from  which  the  bulk  of  our 
immigration  comes.  The  strife  will 
be  very  bitter  and  very  keen,  and  it 
is  quite  unthinkable  that  the  masses 
of  immigrants  coming  to  this  country 
will  be  wholly  immune  and  unaffected, 
or  that  they  will  leave  behind  them  all 
their  interests  and  feelings  upon  the 


great  issues  involved  when  they  enter 
the  United  States. 

I  can  imagine  nothing  more  unde- 
sirable than  that  Socialists  coming 
from  Russia,  Poland,  Italy,  or  Hun- 
gary, for  example,  should  be  encour- 
aged to  form  in  this  country  branches 
of  the  Socialist  party  of  the  European 
countries  from  which  they  come.  Yet 
that  would  be  the  almost  inevitable 
result,  I  fear,  of  any  change  in  our 
laws  which  forbade  their  admission 
into  the  organized  Socialist  movement 
of  this  country.  They  would  be  almost 
certain,  I  think,  to  continue  to  be 
members  of  the  parties  in  the  various 
countries  of  their  origin,  and  would 
give  their  allegiance  and  their  moral 
and  material  support  to  those  parties. 

From  this  would  result  evils  which 
are  by  no  means  to  be  lightly  set 
aside:  In  the  first  place,  they  would 
form,  either  openly  or  secretly, 
branches  of  parties  in  Russia,  Poland, 
Italy,  Hungary,  and  so  on.  Every 
disturbance  in  any  one  of  those  coun- 
tries would  be  reflected  in  the  organi- 
zations of  that  nationality  here,  and, 
as  a  result,  our  working  class  would 
be  subject  to  unrest,  having  little  or 
nothing  to  do  with  our  own  political 
and  industrial  conditions.  Thus,  in 
every  industrial  centre  in  the  United 
States  where  there  were  large  Polish 
organizations  in  1915  we  found  the 
bitter  controversy  in  the  working- 
men's  movement  of  Poland  seriously 
disturbing  the  Polish  workingmen's 
organizations  here. 

Secondly,  these  organized  groups 
of  emigres  might  very  easily  involve 
the  nation  in  embarrassing  difficulties 
with  the  Governments  of  foreign  na- 
tions. 

In  the  third  place,  the  mere  fact 
that  they  preserved  organic  connec- 
tion with  the  movements  abroad 
would  form  a  strong  bond  of  con- 
tinued allegiance  to  the  mother  coun- 
tries and  would  tend  to  defer  their 
assimilation  as  Americans.  Their 
financial  support  would  give  the  offi- 
cials and  agents  a  vested  interest  in 
keeping  them  attached  to  foreign 
branches  of  the  party  and  preventing 
them  from  turning  that  support  to  a 
purely  American  party. 

In  suggesting  these  rather  serious 
objections,   I    am   not   guided   by   a 


priori  reasoning,  but  by  very  definite 
and  concrete  facts.  It  is  not  as  well 
known  as  it  ought  to  be  that  the 
Socialist  party  by  its  free  admission 
of  aliens  to  membership  has  done 
much  to  break  up  just  such  organiza- 
tions as  I  have  described,  with  all 
their  dangerous  entanglements.  Much 
has  been  said  concerning  the  presence 
in  the  Socialist  party  of  federations 
of  foreign-speaking  branches,  very 
largely  composed  of  aliens.  There  are, 
or  were,  in  the  party  Polish,  Russian, 
Jewish,  Scandinavian,  Finnish,  South 
Slavic  (Jugoslav),  and  Czecho- 
slovak federations.  That  some  of 
these  federations  have  exercised  a 
dangerous  influence  on  the  Socialist 
party  has  been  generally  recognized. 
Nevertheless,  it  may  be  doubted 
whether  it  was  anything  like  as  great 
as  the  evil  influence  they  would  have 
exerted  outside  of  the  party,  as  com- 
ponent parts  of  European  move- 
ments. 

I  am  inclined  to  think  that  the  So- 
cialist party  has,  in  this  way,  rendered 
the  nation  a  very  great  service.  It 
has  required  a  long  struggle,  and  I 
recall  the  great  satisfaction  with 
which  it  was  accomplished  in  the  case 
of  Polish  Socialists  in  America,  for 
example.  In  a  long  conversation  with 
Daszynski,  the  brilliant  leader  of  the 
Socialist  party  of  Poland,  during  his 
visit  to  this  country  a  few  years  ago, 
I  went  over  this  whole  matter,  and 
found  him  in  entire  agreement.  Cer- 
tain Russian  Socialist  groups  have 
created  a  similar  problem. 

I  submit  that  the  questions  here 
raised  are  of  very  fundamental  im- 
portance and  must  be  seriously  con- 
sidered before  any  legislation  is 
passed  bearing  upon  the  subject  of 
the  right  of  aliens  to  membership  in 
a  political  party.  Because  it  is  a 
political  party,  and  as  such  is  under 
the  necessity  of  getting  votes,  the 
Socialist  party  naturally  uses  every 
possible  effort  to  compel  its  members 
to  become  citizens.  This  statement 
is  based,  not  upon  hearsay,  but  upon 
definite  personal  knowledge.  The 
alien  who  is  admitted  to  membership 
is  urged  to  become  naturalized  as 
soon  as  possible.  It  is  a  common 
occurrence  for  applications  to  be  re- 
jected because  the   applicants  have 


Fehniiuv  21,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[177 


lived  for  a  considerable  time  in  this 
country  without  taking  out  "first 
papers."  In  most  large  cities  natu- 
ralization classes  have  been  held  to 
prepare  applicants  for  citizenship. 
It  is  only  just  and  fair,  when  the 
Socialist  party  is  being  so  critically 
examined,  that  the  truth  upon  a  mat- 
ter of  such  fundamental  importance 
should  be  made  widely  known. 

John  Spargo 


The  President's  Secretary 


Poetry 


"Louvain  Is  a  Dull,  Unin- 
teresting Town.  .  ." 

"Louvain      is      a      dull,      uninteresting 

town  .  .  ." 
Thus    Baedeker,    before   the   War.      Ay, 

dull! 
Dull   flames   from   burning   manuscripts 

annul 
The  Past;   and  dull  gray   smoke  drifts 

slowly  down 
The   broad    main    street;    and    dull    fat 

Prussians  scowl 
At  hearing  the  dull  moans  of  burghers 

shot. 
At  seeing  the  dull  eyes  of  corpses,  not 
A  moment  dead  .  .  .   There,  like  a  stupid 

owl, 
A  mother,  quick  with  child,  looks  dazed 

about. 
Nor     sees     the     soldiers — Swaggering, 

rough  of  speech, 
They  spike  her  on  their  knives  (one  way 

to  teach!) 
And,    laughing,    jerk    the    jagged    saw- 
teeth out. 
To  her   dull   wonder   .    .    .      Here,   gray 

Landsturm  slouch 
Against  the  station,  guarding  a  dull  herd 
Of  citizens,  who  stare,  without  a  word. 
Agape  at  hell,  and  listen,  as  they  crouch 
In  the  great  square — a  huddled,  wildered 

crowd — 
To  fire,  and  guns,  and  shrieks  .  .  .     and 

see  their  shroud. 

Long  since  have  the  ashes  whitened, 

And  the  dead  have  long  been  at  peace, 
And  the  town  which  bore  up,  unfright- 
ened. 

Has  witnessed  the  Great  Release. 
But  the  scar  of  her  sorrow  is  tender. 

And  the  light  in  her  eyes  is  veiled, 
Though  with  courage  bred  of  the  blood 
she  shed. 

And  of  men  who  never  quailed. 
She  faces  the  future  serenely. 

No  coward,  and  not  cowed — 

This  "dull,  uninteresting  town" 
Has  made  a  nation  proud ! 

Robert  Withington 


WHEN  President  Wilson  fell  ill,  and 
all  the  news  from  his  bedside, 
which  had  become  the  seat  of  govern- 
ment, had  to  be  screened  through  Mr. 
Joseph  Patrick  Tumulty,  the  importance 
of  the  office  of  secretary  to  the  President 
was  thrown  into  high  relief.  It  is  a 
matter  of  public  concern  who  fills  the 
job.  Mr.  Wilson  has  altered  during  his 
tenure  of  the  White  House  many  Wash- 
ington values  that  had  come  to  be  ac- 
cepted as  permanent.  He  has  pared 
down  the  stature  of  many  public  and 
official  figures.  No  figure  or  personality 
of  consequence  in  the  Washington 
scheme  of  things  as  it  existed  prior  to 
Mr.  Wilson's  arrival  has  been  so  obliter- 
ated, blurred  in  outline,  reduced  in  value, 
and  decreased  in  functioning  capacity  as 
that  of  secretary  to  the  President.  No 
picture  in  the  Washington  gallery  has 
offered  less  resistance  to  the  effacing 
sponge  than  Mr.  Tumulty.  He  and  the 
President  between  them  have  made  the 
secretaryship  conform  to  the  geometrical 
definition  of  a  point:  occupying  a  posi- 
tion in  space  but  without  dimensions. 

At  the  present  juncture  this  is  an  un- 
relieved misfortune.  It  has  given  rise 
to  many  honest  apprehensions  and  much 
concern.  There  have  been  persons  at 
Washington  in  office  and  authority,  in- 
cluding many  Senators,  who  have  been 
quick  to  cast  doubt  and  suspicion  upon 
every  statement  or  utterance  or  paper 
that  has  come  from  the  White  House  in 
Mr.  Wilson's  name  since  he  became  ill. 
The  personality  and  authority  of  the 
secretary  to  the  President  and  the  im- 
pression he  had  made  upon  Washington 
have  not  been  such  as  to  still  these  tales. 

Colonel  House  has  been  the  chief  per- 
sonal agent  of  the  President  for  the  past 
seven  years.  He  has  been  entrusted 
with  more  important  tasks  and  missions 
by  Mr.  Wilson  than  any  other  man  in  the 
United  States.  Now  it  is  currently  be- 
lieved in  Washington,  and  has  been 
asserted  as  a  fact  in  newspapers,  cham- 
pions of  the  administration,  that  Mr. 
Wilson  does  not  know  that  Colonel  House 
has  returned  from  Europe  and  from  his 
activities  and  duties  on  the  Supreme 
War  Council  at  Paris.  If  that  important 
and  essential  piece  of  news  has  not 
reached  the  President,  his  secretary 
must  take  the  responsibility. 

Since  Mr.  Wilson  was  unable  to  trans- 
act public  business  in  his  office,  it  fol- 
lows that  his  only  channel  of  news  of 
what  was  going  on  in  the  world  that 
affected  his  responsibilities  and  his  du- 
ties as  President  was  through  his  secre- 
tary. It  is  equally  true  that  the  only 
source  of  news  Congress,  the  executive 
officials  of  the  Government,  and  the  pub- 
lic had  of  Mr.  Wilson's  condition,  his 
decisions,   his  desires,   and  his  pttitude 


of  mind  on  the  several  immediate,  press- 
ing public  problems  that  came  to  a  head 
since  last  September  waa  through  Mr. 
Tumulty. 

When  Mr.  Wilson  collapsed  on  his  re- 
turn to  Washington  after  his  break- 
down on  his  Western  trip,  the  whole 
world  was  concerned  and  alarmed.  The 
President  had  in  his  hands  the  strings 
of  control  of  events  in  the  making  that 
affected  the  destinies  and  literally  the 
lives  of  millions  of  people  at  home  and 
abroad.  It  was  not  curiosity  about  an 
eminent  figure  but  sheer,  vital,  absorb- 
ing self-interest  that  made  a  startled 
and  apprehensive  world  turn  to  the 
White  House  for  exact,  truthful,  trust- 
worthy news  of  the  patient,  what  ailed 
him,  how  sick  he  really  was,  and  whether 
he  would  get  well  again. 

There  are  officials  of  the  Government 
at  Washington,  the  Vice-President,  the 
members  of  the  Cabinet,  who  would  have 
been  charged  with  new  and  complex  and 
difficult  duties  in  the  event  of  Mr.  Wil- 
son's incapacity,  and  who  were  not  told 
in  the  beginning  anything  beyond  the 
bulletins  given  out  for  publication  in  the 
newspapers.  And  these  bulletins  were 
written  in  such  language  as  to  give  rise 
to  the  gravest  forebodings.  Their  tone 
and  their  phraseology  were  such  as  are 
always  reserved  to  give  warning  that 
hope  has  been  given  up. 

A  clumsy,  forbidding  mystery  was 
made  out  of  the  President's  illness,  in 
which  sinister  rumors  bred  like  maggots. 
There  was  lacking  an  articulate  voice  at 
the  White  House,  a  spokesman  with 
enough  vision  and  understanding  to  per- 
ceive his  obligations,  not  only  to  the 
President,  but  to  the  whole  people,  and 
to  tell  the  whole  truth  simply  and  sin- 
cerely in  a  way  that  would  command 
respect  and  instant  acceptance.  There 
should  be  no  more  question  about  the 
authenticity,  validity,  and  scrupulous 
accuracy  of  a  "White  House  statement" 
than  there  is  about  a  Supreme  Court  de- 
cision. 

One  great  burden  Mr.  Wilson  long  ago 
took  off  Mr.  Tumulty.  The  secretary  no 
longer  has  to  winnow  out  of  an  eager, 
pressing  horde  the  few  persons  whose 
business  is  of  sufficient  importance  to 
merit  a  personal  interview  with  the  Ex- 
ecutive. When  Mr.  Wilson  came  to 
Washington,  he  declared  that  he  in- 
tended to  keep  his  office  door  wide  open 
and  see  everybody.  After  a  brief  trial 
this  procedure  was  abandoned.  The 
office  door  was  closed,  and  Mr.  Wilson 
began  to  see  nobody  except  such  few 
persons  as  he  sent  for.  It  used  to  be 
that  a  secretary  was  largely  measured 
by  his  tact  and  skill  and  intuition  in 
letting  in  to  the  President  only  those 
persons  whose  affairs  justified  invasion 


178] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  41 


of  the  Executive's  time.  Men  have 
sought  an  appointment  with  the  Presi- 
dent to  ask  if  he  would  allow  them  to 
test  a  toy  motor-boat  in  the  basin  of  the 
fountain  at  the  rear  of  the  White  House. 

One  fine  spring  morning  two  Congress- 
men asked  Mr.  Taft's  Secretary  for  an 
appointment  to  present  a  delegation  to 
the  President.  The  request  was  granted. 
On  the  day  appointed,  the  two  Congress- 
men appeared  with  more  than  two  thou- 
sand men  and  women.  They  simply 
overran  the  White  House  offices  and 
grounds.  Mr.  Taft,  with  great  good 
nature,  shook  hands  with  about  five 
hundred  before  giving  up  the  job.  His 
whole  schedule  of  appointments  for  the 
day  was  hopelessly  disarranged.  A  great 
many  other  persons  suffered  inconven- 
iences. The  two  Congressmen  could  not 
be  made  to  see  that  they  had  imposed 
i,'„  upon  the  President  or  upon  those  others 
who  had  engagements  with  Mr.  Taft. 
Of  course,  Mr.  Tumulty  never  has  that 
problem  to  face.  There  are  no  more 
White  House  visitors  in  the  old  sense. 

The  Secretary  to  the  President  can 
not  bluff  his  way  through.  He,  like  the 
President,  soon  comes  to  be  known  for 
what  he  is.  His  value,  his  fibre,  his 
quality  are  searchingly  appraised.  His 
relations  with  his  chief  quickly  emerge. 
If  the  President  trusts  him,  relies  upon 
him,  gives  him  responsibilities,  or  is 
guided  by  him  in  any  degree,  a  good 
many  people  soon  come  to  know  it.  I 
think  a  summary  of  the  Washington  ver- 
dict on  the  relations  between  Mr.  Wilson 
and  Mr.  Tumulty  would  be,  "The  Presi- 
dent is  fond  of  Joe."  But  that  Mr. 
Tumulty  has  ever  been  a  counsellor,  or 
even  a  trusted  confidant,  there  is  noth- 
ing to  show.  The  relation  between  the 
two  men  had  become  fixed  at  Trenton, 
before  Mr.  Wilson  came  to  Washington, 
and  neither  was  prepared  to  make  the 
change  when  it  became  necessary  greatly 
to  enlarge  and  radically  increase  the 
power  and  discretion  enjoyed  by  the 
Secretary. 

The  job  of  secretary  to  the  President 
has  been  made,  and  should  be,  as  im- 
portant as  that  of  a  Cabinet  officer.  A 
present-day  secretary  should  be  more 
than  a  mere  sublimated  stenographer. 
The  office  has  no  statutory  definition. 
One  secretary  may  be  a  good  stenog- 
rapher, another  a  politician,  another  a 
social  leader,  another  a  nonentity,  an- 
other a  chump.  All  these  different  varie- 
ties have  flourished  their  brief  day  in 
Washington.  The  office  has  greatly  and 
visibly  increased  in  power,  prestige,  and 
importance  in  recent  years — until  the 
present  administration — as  new  burdens 
have  been  thrown  upon  the  President 
and  as  the  conception  of  the  powers  of 
the  office  of  the  President  itself  has  been 
enlarged. 

There  have  been  twenty-seven  differ- 
ent Presidents  of  the  United  States,  and 


all  of  them  had  one  or  more  private 
secretaries,  but  the  list  of  men  to  whom 
the  office  has  proved  a  "stepping-etone" 
to  further  honors  and  an  enlarged  sphere 
of  life  is  a  short  one.  John  Hay,  John 
G.  Nicolay,  Horace  Porter,  Daniel  La- 
mont,  George  Bruce  Cortelyou,  and 
William  Loeb,  Jr.,  are  names  that  stand 
out  from  the  list  of  those  who  have  held 
the  office.  The  others  fell  back  into 
oblivion,  or  never  emerged  from  it,  even 
while  they  were  in  the  White  House,  and 
their  subsequent  activities  and  exploits 
are  unrecorded. 

The  enlarged  dimensions  of  the  office 
of  secretary  to  the  President  were 
marked  out  by  Daniel  Lamont  when  he 
came  to  Washington  as  the  President's 
secretary  in  the  first  Cleveland  adminis- 
tration. He  had  been  Governor  Cleve- 
land's secretary  at  Albany,  just  as  Mr. 
Tumulty  had  been  Governor  Wilson's 
secretary  at  Trenton.  Here  the  parallel 
abruptly  ends.  In  Mr.  Cleveland's  second 
administration  Mr.  Lamont  was  Secre- 
tary of  War.  During  his  tenure  of 
office  as  Secretary  to  the  President,  Mr. 
Lamont  to  some  extent  piade  it  an  added 
Cabinet  position.  His  personal  influence 
with  Mr.  Cleveland  was  on  a  par  with 
that  of  any  one  of  the  seven  counsellors 
provided  by  law. 

After  Lamont  comes  Cortelyou,  who 
was  confidential  stenographer  to  Grover 
Cleveland,  secretary  to  McKinley  and  to 
Roosevelt,  Chairman  of  the  Republican 
National  Committee,  Postmaster  Gen- 
eral, Secretary  of  Commerce  and  Labor, 
and  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  in  the 
Roosevelt  Cabinet.  Mr.  Cortelyou  was 
very  nearly  the  ideal  secretary  to  the 
President.  He  had  political  sagacity  and 
experience.  He  knew  public  men,  he 
was  a  competent  executive,  and  could 
dispose  of  an  enormous  amount  of  rou- 
tine business  without  hitch  or  flurry. 
He  had  an  intimate  and  detailed  knowl- 
edge of  the  processes  of  government,  was 
careful  and  cautious  to  a  degree,  had  a 
manner  that  inspired  confidence,  and  was 
always  the  master  of  himself  and  of 
circumstances.  There  were  never  "un- 
fortunate slips"  when  Mr.  Cortelyou  was 
in  the  White  House  executive  offices. 
Everything  ran  as  smoothly  as  an  eight- 
day  clock. 

Loeb,  who  succeeded  Cortelyou  when 
that  efficient  private  secretary  went  into 
the  Cabinet,  left  a  mixed  impression  in 
Washington.  While  he  was  secretary  to 
Roosevelt,  the  newspapers  continually 
blossomed  with  the  headlines  "Loeb 
Takes  the  Blame."  It  would  have  been 
the  same  had  an  archangel  held  the  post. 
One  of  the  chief  duties  of  a  secretary 
to  the  President  is  to  take  the  blame 
when  the  President  does  anything  rash 
or  unpopular.  When  the  secretary  does 
anything  clever,  he  must  be  equally  quick 
in  seeing  that  the  full  popular  credit  falls 
to  his  chief.    No  man  had  a  more  faith- 


ful and  devoted  servant,  or  a  more  loyal 
and  untiring  assistant  than  Roosevelt 
had  in  Loeb.  Though  Loeb  customarily 
figured  in  the  newspapers  as  a  sacrificial 
goat,  he  was  a  competent  man  in  the 
post  and  did  not  allow  the  dimensions  of 
the  office  to  shrink  during  his  incum- 
bency. He  had  many  and  curious  adven- 
tures. 

The  line  of  Presidential  secretaries 
begins  with  Tobias  Lear  and  Lawrence 
Lewis,  who  served  under  Washington. 
In  the  beginning  and  even  down  to  Gar- 
field's time,  our  Presidents  seem  to  have 
had  a  fondness  for  bestowing  the  secre- 
taryship upon  young  kinsmen.  Law- 
rence Lewis  was  Washington's  "sister 
Betty's  son."  The  letter  is  preserved  in 
which  the  young  man  accepted  the  post; 
it  runs  in  quaintly  formal  terms: 

Fauquier  Co., 
July  24,  1797. 
My  dear  Sir : 

I  return  you  my  sincere  thanks  for  the  kind 
invitation  I  received  when  last  at  Mount  Ver- 
non to  make  it  my  home,  and  that  whilst  there 
my  services  would  be  acceptable.  This  invita- 
tion was  the  more  pleasing  to  me  from  a  de- 
sire of  being  serviceable  to  you  and  from  a 
hope  in  fulfilling  those  duties  assigned  me  I 
should  derive  some  improvement  by  them. 

Untutored  in  almost  every  branch  of  busi- 
ness, I  can  only  promise  a  ready  and  willing 
obedience  to  any  instruction  or  command  you 
may  please  to  give.  I  should  have  been  with 
you  ere  this,  but  for  the  unavoidable  deten- 
tion by  my  servant's  running  away,  and  that 
at  a  time  when  I  was  nearly  ready  for  my  de- 
parture. I  have  been  ever  since  in  pursuit  of 
him  without  success.  The  uncertainty  of  get- 
ting a  servant  or  my  runaway  will  probably 
detain  me  until  2Sth  of  August,  but  not  a 
moment  longer  than  is  unavoidable. 

With  sincere  regard  for  my  Aunt,  and 
family 

I  remain,  your  affectionate  Nephew, 
Lawrence  Lewis. 
Gen.  George  Washington. 

Presidents  from  Washington  to  Mc- 
Kinley had  private  secretaries.  When 
John  Addison  Porter  came  to  Washing- 
ton in  1897  to  serve  William  McKinley 
in  that  capacity,  he  assumed  the  title 
of  secretary  to  the  President.  The 
next  year  Congress  dropped  the  old  title 
and  appropriated  money  to  pay  the  salary 
of  a  secretary  to  the  President.  The  job 
sadly  needs  to  be  restored  to  its  old 
dimensions  and  authority.  Its  rehabili- 
tation should  be  one  of  the  pleasantest 
tasks  that  will  confront  Mr.  Wilson's 
successor. 

But  Mr.  Tumulty  is  not  to  blame.  He 
has  been  cast  for  a  role  he  was  not  quali- 
fied to  play.  His  previous  experience  had 
not  given  him  the  outlook  or  developed 
the  capacities  that  a  secretary  to  the 
President  must  have.  Mr.  Wilson  has 
got  along  without  a  Cabinet,  but  he 
should  have  permitted  himself  a  secre- 
tary. A  really  good  one  can  do  so  very 
much  indeed  to  make  the  home  bright 
and  happy. 

Spectator 


February  21,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[179 


Correspondence 

Amending  the  Amendments 

To  the  Editors  of  Thk  Review  : 

The  legislatures  of  many  States  West 
and  North,  with  apparently  no  more  con- 
sideration than  they  gave  to  the  Prohibi- 
tion Amendment,  have  been  voting  to 
ratify  the  Woman  Suffrage  Amendment, 
even  including  States  like  Maine  and 
Ohio  where  the  voters  rejected  State  suf- 
frage on  referendum,  and  other  as  yet 
non-suffrage  States  like  Massachusetts, 
Kentucky,  and  New  Hampshire. 

But  in  the  South  the  States  of  the 
black  belt,  Virginia,  North  Carolina, 
South  Carolina,  Georgia,  Florida,  Missis- 
sippi, Alabama,  and  Louisiana,  have  all 
either  negatively  or  affirmatively  lined 
squarely  up  against  the  Suffrage  Amend- 
ment evidently  through  fear  that  its 
enforcement  would  involve  the  enforce- 
ment of  the  Fifteenth  Amendment  and 
the  return  of  reconstruction  conditions 
and  negro  domination  in  the  South,  while 
Maryland,  a  ninth  State,  seems  about  to 
vote  against  the  Suffrage  Amendment  in 
a  resolution  attacking  its  validity  on 
States'  Rights  grounds  similar  to  those 
alleged  by  Rhode  Island  against  Con- 
stitutional Prohibition. 

Among  the  States  unrecorded,  in  none 
of  which  (except  Tennessee  where  Presi- 
dential suffrage  was  granted)  the  women 
now  vote,  and  which  may  be  considered 
as  possible  negatives,  are  Connecticut, 
Vermont,  Delaware,  West  Virginia,  and 
Tennessee.  Four  of  these  (or  three  of 
these,  plus  a  negative  referendum  in 
Ohio)  would  defeat  the  Amendment. 

This  leaves  out  of  account  Oklahoma, 
a  suffrage  State  but  with  strong  Southern 
connections,  and  Washington,  a  suffrage 
State,  where  the  Governer  refuses  to 
call  a  special  session  and  where,  if  he  did, 
a  referendum  could  be  invoked  under  the 
precedent  set  by  the  State  Supreme  Court 
when  they  sustained  the  referendum 
there  on  Constitutional  Prohibition.     It 

f~|  does  not  necessarily  follow  that  the  elect- 
'  orate  of  a  suffrage  State  where  the 
women  are  enfranchised  would  certainly 
vote  to  force  the  people  of  unwilling 
States  to  do  likewise.  The  Ohio  vote  by 
referendum  on  Prohibition  indicated 
such  a  possibility.  The  principle  of 
Home  Rule  under  our  Constitutional 
form  of  government  seems  to  appeal 
more  strongly  to  the  electors  than  it  does 
to  the  members  of  the  State  Legislatures. 
In  view  of  the  above,  there  seems  no 
likelihood  of  the  Amendment's  passage 
before  the  Presidential  election.  A 
working  arrangement  between  Rhode 
Island,  Connecticut,  and  New  Jersey,  on 
f  ■  the  one  hand,  and  Maryland,  Louisiana, 
•  "  and,  say,  Virginia,  on  the  other  hand, 
might   yet    bring    the    defeat    of   both 


Amendments  and  save  the  Constitution 
and  Home  Rule.  Stranger  things  have 
happened  in  politics  before  this. 

Incidentally  the  people  of  Ohio  invoked 
the  referendum  on  Constitutional  Suf- 
frage as  they  did  on  Prohibition.  The 
case  involving  the  legality  of  their  action 
in  so  doing  is  set  for  argument  before 
the  Supreme  Court  on  March  1.  This 
case  may  incidentally  determine  the  legal 
effect  of  the  other  nine  or  ten  referen- 
dums  invoked  on  Constitutional  Prohi- 
bition, and  the  question  whether,  until 
these  referendums  are  held,  the  Prohibi- 
tion Amendment  has  in  fact  been  rat- 
ified by  the  required  thirty-six  States. 
If  the  referendums  are  sustained,  rescis- 
sions in  Maryland,  New  York,  Massachu- 
setts, and  other  States  on  Constitutional 
Prohibition  will  clearly  be  in  order. 

Optimist 
New  York,  Fehrimry  11 

The  Russian  Problem 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

You  may  be  right  about  the  world's 
Russian  problem,  but  there  are  two  im- 
portant questions  about  it  you  have  not 
discussed : 

1.  If  foreign  nations  had  given  sub- 
stantial aid  to  Kolchak,  would  not  Lenin 
and  Trotsky  have  turned  "patriots"  and 
have  succeeded  in  rousing  the  fury  of 
the  peasants  against  him  as  an  alleged 
"traitor  to  his  country,"  a  "tool  of  the 
foreigner,"  a  man  "bought  by  foreign 
capitalists"  and  the  like? 

2.  Is  it  not  expedient  for  the  world  to 
let  the  Bolsheviki  somewhere  work  out 
their  system  to  ruin,  to  a  reductio  ad 
absurdum  so  plain  that  even  the  fools  of 
the  world  will  understand  its  folly? 

J.  De  Lancey  Verplanck 
Walhrook,  Md.,  February  5 

The  Noise  of  Worms 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

Sometimes  the  occupants  of  the  back 
seat  now  reserved  for  the  humble  Hel- 
lenist are  forced  to  sit  up  and  take  no- 
tice of  what  goes  on  upon  the  stage. 
Possibly  it  is  difficult  to  imagine  that 
an  ultra-modem  poem,  appallingly  free 
and  new  as  the  newest  convention  in  auc- 
tion bridge,  would  strike  a  responsive 
chord,  but  such  is  the  case;  and  yet — 
well,  I'm  not  very  clear  on  the  matter, 
at  that.  Perhaps  I  am  not,  after  all,  vi- 
brating in  exact  assonance  with  the 
author. 

However,-  to  come  to  the  point.  The 
poem  is  the  seventh  (mystic  number! 
sacred  to  the  Maiden  Athena,  unbegot- 
ten  and  herself  the  mother  of  none)  and 
last  of  a  group  contributed  by  Mr.  E.  E. 
Cummings  to  the  January  Dial,  begin- 
ning with  the  address: 

O  distinct 

Lady  of  my  unkempt  adoration 


two  lines  I  greatly  admire;  they  slip  so 
easily  from  the  tongue.  The  poet  im- 
plores the  aforesaid  Distinct  Lady,  in 
verses  wholly  innocent  of  punctuation, 
to  accept  his  fragile  certain  song,  which 
has  the  virtue  of  concerning  itself  with 
the  "Nothing  and  which  lives"  rather 
than  with  the  "many  things  and  which 
die";  the  song  being  "taken,"  after 
taking,  the  Distinct  Lady  and  her  un- 
kempt adorer  are  to  amuse  themselves 
observing  together  the  perfect  gesticu- 
lation of  the  "accurate  strenuous  lips  of 
incorruptible  Nothing"  behind  the  car- 
nival of  life 

where  to  a  normal 
melody  of  probable  violins  dance 
the  square  virtues  with  the  oblong  sins 

This  latter  is  what  struck  my  eye,  for 
to  the  Neo-Pythagoreans  the  virtues 
were  square  and  the  sins  oblong.  Does 
not  Nicomachus  of  Gerasa  tell  us  that 
"the  ancients  of  Pythagoras'  group  and 
his  successors  saw  the  Other  and  Other- 
ness fundamentally  in  the  Dyad,  and  the 
Same  and  Sameness  in  the  Monad?"  And, 
of  course,  the  universe  has  a  numerical 
pattern,  with  virtue  falling  in  the  same 
line  as  Sameness,  and  vice  on  the  side  of 
Otherness,  Infinity,  and  Infiniteness 
(that  is  why  it  is  so  attractive).  Now 
out  of  the  Monad  come  the  squares  and 
out  of  the  Dyad  the  oblongs;  so  there 
you  have  it,  square  virtues  and  oblong 
sins.  Unfortunately,  there  is  no  mention 
of  probable  violins  in  any  of  the  Pytha- 
gorean sources;  the  nearest  thing  is 
Pythagoras'  monochord,  on  which  he  used 
to  practise  the  section  of  the  canon,  but 
it  is  not  related  that  he  played  jazz  for 
the  oblong  sins  thereon.  We  shall,  for 
the  present  at  any  rate,  have  to  waive 
the  probable  violins. 

One  other  matter.  The  poet  admits 
that  he  has 

been  true 
only  to  the  noise  of  worms 
in  the  eligible  day 
under  the  unaccountable  sun 

This  is  a  serious  indictment.  But  would 
a  true  Pythagorean  call  the  sun  unac- 
countable? They  had  some  reverence  for 
Heraclitus,  and  he  remarked  that  "the 
sun  will  not  exceed  his  measures;  if  he 
does,  the  Erinyes,  the  auxiliaries  of  Jus- 
tice, will  find  him  out."  No;  the  sun 
was  held  strictly  accountable,  and  it  was 
no  small  matter  to  be  pursued  by  the 
heavenly  Department  of  Justice. 

And  the  "the  noise  of  worms."  Homer, 
Sophocles,  Plato,  and  the  rest  tell  me 
nothing  about  this  important  matter. 
May  they  be  forgiven.  Moreover,  a  biol- 
ogist friend  tells  me  worms  don't  make 
any  noise.  A  chemist,  however,  thinks 
it  may  be  a  reference  to  the  common 
herd.  Maybe  so.  But  since  it  may  be 
presumptuous  in  me  to  turn  to  these  high 
matters,  I  will  sign  myself 

A  Noisy  Worm 
Ann  Arbor,  Mich.,  February  7 


180] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  41 


Book  Reviews 

An  American   Inquiry  into 
British  Labor  Conditions 

The  Labor  Situation  in  Great  Britain  and 
France.  The  Commission  on  Foreign  In- 
quiry of  the  National  Civic  Federation. 
New  York:    E.  P.  Dutton  and  Company. 

THE  labor  situation  in  the  United 
States,  though  far  from  ideal,  is 
probably  more  nearly  so  than  that  of  any 
other  country,  yet  we  are  continually 
looking  abroad  for  light  to  shine  upon 
our  dark  places.  It  is  not  our  fault, 
surely,  if  we  find  foreigners  groping  in 
obscurity  as  dense  as  our  own,  with  little 
illumination  to  spare,  and  that  of  a  kind 
that  loses  its  potency  when  transmitted. 
The  light  of  reason,  evidently,  is  best 
generated  at  home  and  reveals  most  when 
shining  upon  familiar  objects.  Of 
course,  if  Great  Britain,  France,  and 
other  countries  are  industrially  in  ad- 
vance of  the  United  States,  and  we  are 
traveling  the  same  road,  their  experience 
may  be  of  great  value  by  way  of  warning 
and  example;  but  if  their  conditions  are 
different  and  their  path  of  progress  di- 
verges from  ours,  the  best  we  can  do  is 
to  compare  notes  and  consider  sugges- 
tions, while  working  out  our  problems 
in  our  own  way. 

Such  is,  in  effect,  the  conclusion 
reached  by  the  commissioners  of  the 
National  Civic  Federation  after  spend- 
ing four  months — February  to  June, 
1919 — in  Great  Britain,  with  a  side  trip 
of  three  weeks  to  France,  during  which 
they  interviewed  innumerable  people. 
They  read  diligently  in  publications  of 
every  kind,  and  did  their  best  to  get,  not 
a  mass  of  undigested  facts,  but  general 
impressions  of  conditions  and  such  an  in- 
sight into  the  trend  of  events  as  might 
suggest  measures  for  the  direction  and 
control  of  affairs  on  this  side  of  the  At- 
lantic. The  Commission  was  composed 
of  representative  citizens,  including 
Charles  Mayer  (shipping),  chairman; 
Charles  S.  Barrett  (farmer) ;  Albert  F. 
Bemis  (textile  manufacturer) ;  J.  Grant 
Forbes  (contracting  engineer) ;  James 
W.  Sullivan  (typographical  trade  union- 
ist) ;  Andrew  Parker  Nevin  (attorney- 
at-law) ;  E.  A.  Quarles,  secretary.  The 
report  is  in  three  parts:  the  first,  by 
Mr.  Nevin,  from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
public;  the  second,  by  Mr.  Sullivan,  as  a 
representative  of  the  American  Federa- 
tion of  Labor;  the  third,  by  Mr.  Bemis, 
from  an  employer's  point  of  view. 

Mr.  Nevin,  who  sketches  the  situation 
in  broad  lines,  is  much  impressed  by  the 
complex  network  of  labor  organizations 
in  Great  Britain,  the  difficulty  of  ascer- 
taining the  character,  scope,  and  purpose 
of  the  various  groupings,  and  the  elusive 


reactions  of  public  opinion  to  their  pro- 
posals and  activities.  Yet  it  is  possible 
to  distinguish  two  main  groups:  Those 
who  favor  maintaining  the  existing  sys- 
tem with  a  minimum  of  state  interven- 
tion, and  those  who  would  gradually 
substitute  national  control  and  adminis- 
tration of  industry  in  place  of  the  pres- 
ent capitalistic  system.  Although  Bol- 
shevism scarcely  exists  in  Great  Britain, 
and  Socialism  of  the  school  of  Webb,  Mc- 
Donald, and  Snowden  is  at  a  discount, 
labor  demands  a  new  status,  not  merely 
improvement  in  regard  to  wages  and  con- 
ditions, but  recognition  such  as  it  re- 
ceived during  the  war,  when  the  "classes" 
felt  their  dependence  upon  the  "masses" 
and  it  was  generally  understood  that 
Britons  of  every  rank  and  station  must 
stand  or  fall  together.  Yet  the  employ- 
ers point  out  the  fact  that  every  right 
involves  a  correlative  obligation,  and 
they  insist  that  labor  must  set  its  face 
against  ca'canny,  sabotage,  and  every 
other  restriction  of  production,  and  work 
for  the  speedy  rehabilitation  of  industry. 
In  this  attitude  they  are  strongly  sup- 
ported by  the  Government,  and  when,  in 
last  summer's  coal  troubles,  the  more  rad- 
ical labor  leaders  struck  at  the  founda- 
tion of  the  nation's  prosperity,  they 
found  the  public  dead  against  them,  and 
even  the  "Triple  Alliance,"  on  which 
they  had  counted,  could  not  be  brought 
into  action. 

Thus  radicalism  induces  reaction,  even 
as  reaction  causes  radicalism,  and  in  try- 
ing to  avoid  both  extremes  the  British 
are  taking  their  usual  middle  ground, 
the  Government  with  the  Whitley  Coun- 
cils, and  the  more  progressive  employers 
with  proposals  for  practical  cooperation 
in  industry  and  a  new  morale  based  upon 
mutuality  of  effort  and  reciprocity  of 
benefits.    Lord  Leverhulme  says: 

To-day's  programme  must  go  deeper  than 
mere  attempt  to  prevent  strikes  and  disputes ; 
it  must  include  the  placing  of  employer  and 
employee  on  the  footing  of  equal  opportuni- 
ties, and  of  sharing  the  profits  of  trade  and 
commerce  between  all  the  three  elements  nec- 
essary for  production,  viz.,  Capital,  Manage- 
ment, and  Labor.  The  tool-user  must  become 
joint  owner  of  the  tools  he  wields. 

Mr.  Bemis,  in  presenting  an  employer's 
impressions,  says  that  British  employers 
find  it  hard  to  take  the  ideal  middle 
ground  because  the  workers  frequently 
break  their  agreements  and  because  of 
the  tendency  of  the  unions  to  fall  under 
the  leadership  of  men  of  glib  tongue 
and  extreme  views.  Then,  too,  various 
economic  fallacies  have  been  imposed 
upon  society  through  the  joint  efforts  of 
labor  monopoly  and  idealists  who  have 
had  no  experience  in  practical  affairs. 
Among  these  are  the  minimum  wage,  the 
eight-hour  day,  the  limitation  of  profit- 
eering to  capital,  and  the  idea  that  indus- 
try can  dispense  with  the  accumulation 
of  capital.     In  view  of  such  ignorance 


there  is  urgent  need  of  the  education  of 
all  classes  in  the  principles  of  economics. 
Certainly,  this  is  a  most  promising  field 
for  economists  to  cultivate,  and  their 
association  with  hard-headed  business 
men  and  hard-handed  laborers  should  be 
most  beneficial  to  all  concerned. 

While  economists  and  business  men 
are  getting  into  closer  touch  with  the 
wage-earners,  a  number  of  labor  leaders, 
like  Mr.  Sullivan,  have  acquired  a  con- 
siderable knowledge  of  economic  theory 
and  the  principles  of  business  manage- 
ment, and  a  rapprochement  is  taking 
place  between  the  several  points  of  view, 
which  augurs  well  for  the  industrial  re- 
lations of  the  future.  Mr.  Sullivan  thinks 
that  British  trade  unionism  is  distinctly 
inferior  to  the  American  system,  because 
of  the  multiplicity  of  organizations  and 
the  lack  of  centralized  authority.  Sec- 
tionalism prevails;  the  unions  are  not 
coextensive  with  the  crafts;  there  is 
little  union  shop  solidarity,  and  no  com- 
plete national  jurisdiction.  The  local 
unions  represent  living  districts  rather 
than  working  districts,  and  for  general 
proposals  or  appeals  there  is  no  straight 
line,  as  in  the  United  States,  from  every 
member  on  through  his  local  and  national 
union  to  the  supreme  court — the  Amer- 
ican Federation  of  Labor.  Great  Britain 
has  not  one  but  four  separate  major  or- 
ganizations, differing  in  type  and  pur- 
pose: The  Trade  Union  Congress,  the 
General  Federation  of  Trade  Unions,  the 
Cooperative  Union,  and  the  British  Labor 
Party. 

This  lack  of  unity  and  control  has 
given  rise  to  certain  phases  of  the  Brit- 
ish labor  movement  which  some  Amer- 
ican observers  have  hailed  as  precursors 
of  a  new  social  order,  but  which  Mr.  Sul- 
livan regards  as  symptoms  of  weakness 
that  are  likely  to  be  less  prominent  as 
the  British  system  conforms  more 
closely  to  the  American  model.  Among 
these  are  the  shop-steward  movement, 
the  Whitley  councils,  and  the  leadership 
of  politicians  and  Socialists.  The  shop 
stewards  became  prominent  during  the 
war  because  of  the  lack  of  shop  unity  of 
organization  and  the  difficulty  of  ob- 
taining speedy  decisions  through  branch 
unions  organized  by  living  areas.  These 
shop  stewards,  many  of  them  youthful 
agitators  imbued  with  Socialistic  theo- 
ries, drifted  away  from  union  control, 
but  as  soon  as  the  armistice  came  the 
regular  officials  asserted  their  authority, 
which  was  confirmed  by  a  formal  agree- 
ment on  May  20,  1919.  Thus,  the  mass 
of  the  workers  in  the  engineering  trades 
have  repudiated  both  their  irregular 
leaders  and  their  insurrectional  tactics. 
Similarly,  the  Parliamentary  Committee 
of  the  Trade  Union  Congress  has  de- 
clared that  it  can  not  accept  the  Whitley 
Councils  as  a  substitute  for  trade  union 
organization;  and  in  the  Parliamentary 
elections  of  December,  1918,  the  Socialist 


February  21,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[181 


1 

m 


leaders  were  defeated — all  of  which 
shows,  as  Mr.  Sullivan  believes,  the 
growing  power  of  regular  conservative 
unionism,  and  the  decline  of  syndical- 
ism. Socialism,  and  excessive  govern- 
mental intervention. 

The  distinguished  commissioners  of 
the  National  Civic  Federation  are  evi- 
dently well  pleased  with  their  investiga- 
tions in  Great  Britain  and  France,  inas- 
much as  they  have  confirmed  the  opinion 
with  which  they  probably  set  out,  to-wit, 
that  labor  conditions  in  the  United  States 
are  comparatively  satisfactory,  that  our 
country  has  little  to  learn  from  foreign 
experience,  and  might  have  something 
of  our  own  to  communicate,  if  foreigners 
would  seek  it  in  a  humble  and  teachable 
spirit.  In  this  respect  they  present  a 
strong  contrast  to  another  group  of  in- 
vestigators, who  have  painted  the  Brit- 
ish labor  landscape  couleur  de  rose  as 
they  see  it  in  the  dawn  of  a  better  and 
brighter  day.  Both  groups  of  observers 
are  good  men  and  true,  but  it  is  strange 
to  find  them  differing  so  widely  in  regard 
to  the  facts  which  they  select  and  the 
conclusions  which  they  draw.  Perhaps 
they  should  have  a  consultation,  to  which 
they  might  invite  one  or  more  profes- 
sional economists. 

J.  E.  Le  Rossignol 


Blake  Outdone 

Wii.UAM  Blake,  the  Man.    By  Charles  Gard- 
ner.    Nev/  York :     E.   P.   Duttoii  and  Co. 

SINCE  Swinburne  set  the  pace  with  his 
high-stepping,  fire-snorting,  apoca- 
lyptic eulogy  of  Blake,  there  has  been  a 
kind  of  fury  among  our  critical  folk  to 
imitate  or  surpass  him.  It  can  not  be 
said  that  the  latest  comer  is  entirely 
free  from  this  vacuous  enthusiasm;  but 
in  general  his  Pegasus  is  under  some  re- 
straint; his  style  at  least  is  always 
definite,  and  his  reflections  are  some- 
times wise;  above  all  he  does  more  than 
any  of  his  predecessors,  we  think,  to  set 
forth  the  intellectual  milieu  in  which 
Blake  thought  his  thoughts  and  saw  his 
visions,  and  this  must  be  reckoned  the 
peculiar  merit,  no  small  merit  indeed, 
of  the  book. 

This  historic  sense  is  particularly 
noticeable  in  Mr.  Gardner's  association 
of  Blake  with  Wesley  and  Whitefield 
and  the  Methodist  movement  generally. 
Like  those  religious  revivalists,  Blake 
was  seeking  an  escape  into  the  sort  of 
enthusiasm  which  to  Paley  and  the  typ- 
ical Anglican  seemed  fraught  with 
danger;  as  the  Methodists  demanded  a 
mysterious  conversion  which  should  put 
the  soul  into  immediate  contact  with 
things  divine,  clothing  it  with  the  gar- 
ment of  Christ's  righteousness  in  place 
of  the  "filthy  rags"  of  its  own  morality, 
so  Blake  desired  a  sudden  and  overwhelm- 


ing illumination  which  should  bum  away 
the  formal  conventions  of  poetry.  As 
Whitefield  had  pungent  things  to  say  of 
worldly  respectability,  so  Blake  thun- 
dered in  the  index  against  all  those  who 
took  reason  and  habit  for  their  law.  It 
is  quite  in  character  that  he  should  have 
been  indignant  when  Samuel  Foote  ap- 
plied the  customary  epithet  "hypocrite" 
to  Whitefield.  Blake,  of  course,  did  not 
follow  the  doctrine  of  the  new  birth  as 
bound  up  with  the  revivalists'  peculiar 
theological  tenets,  but  in  a  way  it  is 
true  that  he  was,  and  is,  the  Methodist 
of  verse,  and  that  his  special  appeal  is 
to  what  may  be  called  the  Methbdistic 
state  of  imaginative  culture — though 
Mr.  Gardner,  who  starts  the  comparison, 
would  revolt  from  its  logical  conclusion. 
Still  more  clarifying  is  Mr.  Gardner's 
analysis  of  the  relation  of  Blake  to  Swed- 
enborg.  After  several  pages  in  which 
the  influence  of -the  Lutheran  mystic  on 
the  English  visionary  is  discussed,  the 
point  of  divergence,  from  which  pro- 
ceeded the  body  of  Blake's  symbolical 
writings,  is  thus  stated: 

Now  Blake,  being  a  visionary,  knew  that 
vision  depended  on  will,  and  he  learnt  further 
from  Swedenborg  that  it  depended  also  on 
state,  and  so,  as  a  man's  state  changed,  his 
vision  changed  also.  Blake's  state  was  the 
imagination  of  the  poetic  genius  (Los), 
Swedenborg's  the  dry  logical  faculty  of  the 
unassisted  reason  (Urizen),  and  as  Blake 
looked  at  Swedenborg's  heaven  and  hell,  he 
saw  them  approaching  one  to  the  other  and 
finally  with  an  impetuous  rush  locked  in  a 
marital  embrace. 

This  is  the  most  significant  vision  of  modern 
times,  after  which  it  is  easy  to  judge  Sweden- 
borg. He  had  given  for  life,  theology;  for 
beauty,  ashes;  and  instead  of  emancipating 
the  modern  world  he  condemned  it  to  the 
appalling  tedium  of  an  everlasting  Sunday 
School.  The  doctrine  of  the  New  Jerusalem 
was  not  half  so  beautiful  as  that  of  the  Old 
Jerusalem.  Christ  come  again  in  Glory  was 
stripped  of  that  beauty  that  men  had  per- 
ceived in  His  first  lowly  coming.  Blake's  in- 
dictment of  Swedenborg  was  severe.  It  was 
also  an  indictment  of  the  whole  of  protestant 
theology.  The  magnificent  fruit  of  Sweden- 
borg's action  and  reaction,  attraction  and  re- 
pulsion for  Blake  was  "The  Marriage  of 
Heaven   and   Hell."  .  .  . 

Heaven,  then,  consists  of  the  passive  obeyers 
of  reason,  the  religious,  the  good;  hell  of  the 
active  obeyers  of  Energy,  the  irreligious,  the 
evil.  Here  let  it  be  well  marked  and  remem- 
bered that  by  the  religious  Blake  always  meant 
those  who  repress  their  energies  or  passions 
until  they  become  passive  enough  for  them 
to  obey  reason. 

Blake  henceforth  belonged  definitely  to 
the  band  of  rebels  who  were  bringing  in 
a  transvaluation  of  all  values,  wherein  the 
old  hell  was  to  be  converted  into  the  new 
heaven.  But  here  again  Mr.  Gardner 
keeps  an  eye  on  the  differences  as  well 
as  on  the  resemblances.  "Blake,"  he 
says,  "sympathized  with  all  these  rebels 
in  their  political  aspirations;  but  where- 
as their  watchword  was  reason,  and 
their  revolt  was  in  the  name  of  reason, 
he  believed  that  reason  carried  one  very 
little  way,  and  that  the  elemental  deeps 


of  life  and  passion  that  lie  far  under 
reason  must  be  stirred  and  aroused  if  the 
work  of  rebellion  was  to  bring  forth 
lasting  fruit."  For  the  Age  of  Reason, 
then,  which  was  the  ideal  of  Godwin  and 
Paine  and  Holcroft  and  Mary  Wollstone- 
craft,  he  would  introduce  the  age  of  the 
spontaneous  imagination,  and  for  the 
rights  of  political  "liberty"  he  would  de- 
mand freedom  of  the  passions.  "What 
was  left  for  Blake?  The  sex  question 
had  never  been  dragged  out  into  the 
light.  The  subject  was  unclean.  Sexual 
morality  consisted  in  repression.  No- 
where as  here  does  repression  breed  such 
poisonous  fruits.  Was  not  sex  a  part 
of  that  vital  fire  and  passion  in  which 
Blake  believed  with  his  whole  heart? 
Was  it  not  true  that  whatsoever  lives  is 
holy?  Must  not  there  be  liberty  for  the 
sexual  instinct  if  it  was  to  be  kept  clean? 
For  the  next  ten  years  Blake  became 
the  advocate  of  bodily  liberty,  indistin- 
guishable from   free-love." 

Mr.  Gardner  deserves  full  credit  for 
his  skill  in  showing  Blake's  place  in  the 
currents  of  his  age,  but  when  it  comes 
to  Mr.  Gardner's  own  place  the  account 
is  rather  mixed;  in  fact,  a  more  amaz- 
ingly confused  thinker  you  will  scarcely 
meet  outside  of  Alice's  Wonderland. 
Though  in  a  perfunctory  way  he  calls  at- 
tention to  Blake's  surrender  of  free-love 
theories  for  a  humdrum  loyalty  to  his 
wife,  as  on  the  whole  rather  the  decent 
thing  as  the  world  goes,  yet  it  must  be 
clear  enough  that  the  critic's  keener  sym- 
pathy is  with  the  insurgence  against 
"repression"  formulated  in  the  "Heaven 
and  Hell,"  as  indeed  there  is  the  true  and 
dynamic  Blake.  So  it  was  that  the  Eng- 
lish visionary  "anticipated  much  of  the 
better  side  of  Nietzsche's  teaching";  and, 
although  Mr.  Gardner  does  not  emit  the 
ominous  name,  he  presents  Blake  as  a 
pretty  thorough  Freudian  in  doctrine, 
and  exults  in  him  as  such.  We  let  that 
pass;  this  is  not  the  place  to  show  that 
the  evil  consequences  of  the  so-called 
Freudian  "repression"  are  not  at  all  the 
results  of  restraint,  or  repression  if  you 
choose,  but  of  lack  of  restraint  in  the 
imagination,  where  character  really  be- 
gins. The  astonishing  thing  about  Mr. 
Gardner  is  not  that  he  should  have  been 
gulled  by  the  current  theories  of  self- 
control,  but  that  he  should  have  fathered 
these  upon  what  he  regards  as  Catholic 
Christianity.  He  seems  to  see  no  in- 
compatibility between  the  doctrines  of 
Freud  and  of  Jesus  Christ.  For  him 
Christ  is  chiefly  notable  as  a  law-breaker, 
and  the  story  of  the  woman  taken  in 
adultery  is  a  lesson  in  free-love.  He 
reads  the  Gospel  as  Blake  read  it,  and 
thinks  he  reads  it  as  a  good  Catholic. 
We  should  like  to  hear  Cardinal  Gib- 
bons' opinion  of  a  Freudian  Savior  of 
mankind. 

But  the  confusion  does  not  end  here. 
Our  reader  will  gasp,  but  it  must  out. 


182] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  41 


Having  combined  Freud  and  Christ,  the 
critic  proceeds  to  complete  his  trinity  by 
adding  the  name  of  Samuel  Johnson. 
Oh  yes,  he  sees  the  differences  between 
Johnson  and  Blake: 

The  truth  is  that  Blake  was  not  a  great 
thinker,  still  less  a  system-builder.  He  ought 
to  have  found  the  best  Christian  system  while 
young  and  kept  to  it.  Then  he  could  have 
lived  his  life  of  vision  within  coherent  bounds. 
Clear,  sharp  dogma,  like  outline  in  art,  would 
have  given  rest  to  his  mind,  substance  to  his 
visions,  and  saved  him  from  the  waste  of  pour- 
ing out  a  torrent  of  incoherent  sayings  con- 
taining scraps  of  gnosticism,  theosophy,  rosi- 
crucianism,  and  almost  every  heresy  under  the 
sun.  The  master-mind  in  his  youth  who  could 
have  given  him  a  sound  system  was  Dr.  John- 
son, and  he  would  not  listen  to  him.  How 
should  the  arch-rebel  pay  any  attention  to  the 
arch-conservator?  Dr.  Johnson  said  many 
foolish  things  about  things  of  no  great  im- 
portance :  he  was  wise  in  great  matters. 

You  will  say  that  our  critic  is  talking 
very  good  sense.  He  is,  and  he  says 
other  very  sensible  things — which  is  an- 
other element  of  his  strange  confused- 
ness — and  then,  having  said  them,  he 
adds:  "Eventually  Blake  subscribed  to 
the  same  creed  as  Dr.  Johnson!"  And 
so  we  have,  as  the  ideal  which  Mr.  Gard- 
ner brings  to  his  criticism  of  Blake,  a 
trinity  of  Freud  and  the  Christ  of  Rome 
and  Dr.  Johnson;  "that  surely  is  a  mar- 
velous unanimity  for  such  diverse 
minds." 


''Appassionata' 


Impressions  That  Remained.  Memoirs  by 
Ethel  Smyth.  2  Vols.  Longmans,  Green 
&  Co. 

MUSIC-LOVERS  may  recall  the  per- 
formance of  "Der  Wald"  in  the 
Metropolitan  Opera  House  in  March, 
1903.  It  was  the  work  of  an  English- 
woman who  is  recognized  on  the  Conti- 
nent, and  even  in  her  own  country,  as 
a  remarkable  composer  of  virile  and  im- 
aginative music.  Durham  University 
has  conferred  on  her  the  degree  of  Doc- 
tor of  Music,  honoris  causa,  a  most  un- 
usual mark  of  distinction.  Her  three-act 
opera,  "The  Wreckers,"  has  met  with 
great  success  at  Prague,  and  elsewhere. 
Specht,  the  Viennese  critic,  ranks  her 
as  easily  first  among  all  women  compos- 
ers. She  has  been  the  Tyrtaeus  of  the 
feminist  movement  in  England,  and  has 
fought  in  the  foremost  ranks  of  the 
combatants  for  the  vote. 

Now  she  has  published  her  memoirs, 
which  give  the  key  to  the  woman  behind 
these  activities.  They  read  like  a  first- 
class  novel  in  the  first  person  singular. 
The  setting  is  familiar.  The  heroine  is 
one  of  an  old-fashioned  English  family 
of  eight.  Her  father  is  a  typical  British 
officer,  handsome,  limited,  conservative, 
doing  his  "dooty"  consistently  in  what- 
ever state  of  life  into  which  it  pleased 
God  to  call  him.     Her  mother  is  half 


French,  clever,  musical,  temperamental. 
There  is  a  strong  Irish  strain  in  the 
blood.  The  other  children  find  their  natu- 
ral spheres,  the  girls  in  marriage,  the 
boys  in  the  army;  but  Ethel  develops  a 
talent  for  music.  Her  unusual  gifts  are 
recognized  by  a  friend  of  the  family. 
Colonel  Ewing,  composer  of  "Jerusalem 
the  Golden."  At  the  age  of  twelve,  she 
makes  up  her  mind  to  follow  music  as 
a  career.  Here  she  encounters  the  John 
Bull  conservatism  of  her  father,  who 
would  almost  as  soon  see  a  daughter  of 
his  go  on  the  streets  as  start  off  by  her- 
self to  study  her  chosen  profession  in 
foreign  parts.  But  Ethel  has  a  will  of 
her  own;  she  bides  her  time,  and  in  the 
end,  by  dint  of  suffragette  tactics,  she 
overcomes  the  paternal  opposition  to  her 
long-cherished  plan.  Full  of  joy,  hope, 
and  youthful  enthusiasm,  she  sets  out 
for  Leipzig  in  the  summer  of  1877. 

The  Germany  she  soon  learned  to  know 
and  love  was  the  old  Fatherland  of  little 
States  and  little  cities,  simple,  old-fash- 
ioned, provincial  in  life  and  standards. 
At  once  she  made  friends  with  the  most 
desirable  members  of  an  intensely  mu- 
sical set.  Here  was  the  atmosphere  for 
which  she  pined  in  England.  Music  was 
the  element  she  lived  in,  the  air  she 
breathed,  her  daily  food.  Her  musical 
friends,  Livia  Frege,  Lili  Wach  (Men- 
delssohn's youngest  daughter),  and  Elis- 
abeth von  Herzogenberg  were  certainly 
women  of  unusual  talent,  character  and 
charm;  their  portraits  attest  the  truth 
of  their  English  friend's  descriptions; 
and  they  all  returned  her  adoring  devo- 
tion. For  there  is  nothing  tepid  about 
Dr.  Ethel  Smyth  or  her  memoirs,  nor 
will  they  be  understood  by  tepid  people. 
As  a  child  she  made  a  list  of  a  hundred 
"passions" — girls  and  women  to  whom 
she  would  have  proposed  had  she  been 
a  man.  So  it  was  throughout  her  life. 
Extremes  rule  her.  To  her  everyone  is 
angel  or  devil.  When  her  dearest  woman 
friend,  "Lisl,"  refuses  to  write  to  her 
any  more,  she  wonders  that  she  did  not 
go  mad.  Later  she  hates  her.  She 
"swarms"  for  her  friends;  she  blackens 
the  character  of  her  enemies.  Now  she 
is  a  "freethinker;"  now  she  is  "High 
Church;"  now  she  can  listen  for  an  hour 
and  a  half  to  a  Scottish  sermon.  Her 
physical  organization  corresponds  to  this 
temperament.  She  is  the  athlete  of  the 
family,  a  dancer,  a  tennis-player,  a  bold 
rider.  Her  German  friends  call  her 
Lebensteufel;  her  family,  "Stormy  Pe- 
trel." The  doctor  gives  her  up,  more  than 
once,  and  she  "makes  one  of  her  usual 
lightning  recoveries." 

The  crisis  to  which  this  temperament 
works  up  seems  borrowed  from  "Die 
Wahlverwandtschaften."  Her  greatest 
friend,  "Lisl,"  as  she  calls  Elisabeth  von 
Herzogenberg,  a  childless  woman,  be- 
comes her  second  mother,  writes  the  ten- 
derest  letters,   nurses  her  with  almost 


more  than  maternal  solicitude  during  a 
severe  illness.  For  seven  years  the  Her- 
zogenbergs'  house  is  practically  her 
home.  But  "Lisl"  has  a  sister,  Julia,  al- 
most as  beautiful  in  person,  but  very  dif- 
ferent in  character.  She  is  as  "modem" 
and  "advanced"  as  "Lisl"  is  traditional 
and  conservative.  Julia  is  married  to 
Henry  Brewster,  who  is  half  French,  half 
American,  handsome,  attractive,  a  gen- 
ius, "one  of  the  Wise  Men  of  the  World," 
as  Miss  Smyth  describes  him,  and — 
eleven  years  younger  than  his  wife.  For 
them  "marriage  is  but  a  ceremonial 
toy,"  a  superstitious  performance  in  a 
church  which  they  comply  with  humor- 
ously for  the  sake  of  their  friends.  They 
regard  their  relation  as  a  "friendship," 
dissoluble  by  consent  at  any  time,  when 
either  partner  meets  a  more  magnetic  af- 
finity. Ethel  visits  the  pair  in  their 
"ivory  tower"  in  Florence,  and  proves 
to  be  the  foreordained  mate  of  "H.  B." 
The  conventional  triangle  is  now  com- 
plete. On  discovering  their  feelings, 
these  three  remarkable  persons  face  the 
situation  frankly  and  discuss  the  rela- 
tions involved.  The  wife  believes  the 
feelings  of  the  other  two  to  be  imagi- 
nary; the  man  in  the  case  remains  neu- 
tral, apparently;  but  Ethel  cuts  the  knot 
by  going  away.  Then,  although  she  con- 
fides the  whole  story  to  "Lisl"  at  once, 
and  is  not  blamed  by  her  bosom  friend 
for  her  part  in  the  tangled  relations, 
"Lisl"  soon  ceases  to  write.  When 
Ethel  implores  her  to  give  the  reasons 
for  her  silence,  she  gives  them  plainly. 
"The  scales  fell  from  my  eyes  and  I 
suddenly  saw  myself  not  as  coadjutator 
(sic!)  in  a  noble  reading  of  Destiny,  but 
simply  as  the  thief  of  some  one  else's 
goods."  These  two  friends  never  saw 
each  other  again.  The  silence  remained 
unbroken.  No  jilted  lover  could  suffer 
more  than  this  woman  because  another 
woman  broke  off  intercourse  with  her. 
She  names  the  period  of  their  estrange- 
ment "In  the  Desert." 

These  confessions,  put  forth  without 
the  usual  canting  excuses,  will  be  very 
differently  judged  by  different  natures. 
Mrs.  Candid,  Mrs.  Grundy,  Mr.  Worldly 
Wiseman,  Sir  Benjamin  Backbite  will  do 
after  their  kind.  Lovers  of  gossip  and 
scandal  will  fasten  on  the  indiscretions 
of  the  book.  Readers  of  finer  mould, 
while  regretting  the  cruel  necessity 
which  drove  the  writer  to  do  public  pen- 
ance in  the  market  place,  will  believe  and 
condone.  No  one  can  fail  to  be  drawn 
by  the  record  of  that  vanished  Germany, 
the  writer's  spiritual  home,  and  the  un- 
conscious delineation  of  her  own  char- 
acter by  a  woman  of  genius.  The  psy- 
chologist will  study  these  fascinating 
pages  for  data  of  the  artistic  tempera- 
ment, its  force,  its  egotism,  its  limita- 
tions, of  which  it  is  not  itself  aware. 
But  no  one  who  begins  the  book  can  lay 
it  aside  until  he  reaches  the  end. 


February  21,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[183 


Doubles  and  Such 

The  Worldlings.  By  Leonard  Merrick.  New 
York:  Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 

The  Carrington's  of  High  Hill.  By  Marion 
Harland.  New  York:  Charles  Scribner's 
Sons.  .  ^.l 

THE  writer  of  the  introduction  of  this 
newest  volume  in  the  limited  edition 
of  Merrick's  works  does  his  best  not  to 
be  left  altogether  behind  by  his  distin- 
guished colleagues  in  the  rather  odd  busi- 
ness of  introducing  one  of  their  most 
distinguished  colleagues  to  the  world. 
Mr.  Neil  Munro  has  done  his  best,  one 
may  be  sure,  to  persuade  himself  that 
"The  Worldings"  is  a  fine  sample  of 
Merrick.  "It  has  in  it,"  he  says,  "almost 
every  element  of  Merrick's  attractiveness 
as  a  tale-teller,  save  perhaps  his  humour, 
here  kept  severely  in  restraint  as  a 
quality  out  of  key  in  a  story  founded  on 
'one  of  the  passionate  cruces  of  life,  where 
duty  and  inclination  come  nobly  to  the 
grapple.' "  But  the  truth  is,  a  Merrick 
without  his  humor  would  be  like  a  col- 
orless sunset  or  an  odorless  onion — you 
might  as  well  call  it  something  else. 
Merrick  may  have  taken  demure  satis- 
faction in  turning  out  a  romantic  shocker 
without  betraying  by  the  quiver  of  an 
eyelid  that  the  author  was  conscious  of 
its  limitations.  But  for  a  few  opening 
bits  of  description  of  life  at  the  South 
African  diamond  fields,  which  are  said 
to  be  remarkably  realistic,  the  story  is 
.melodramatic  stuff  and  nonsense. 

But  this  is  to  say  that  it  deals  in  the 
l6ss  perishable  materials   of  deliberate 
make-believe.     The  pauper  suddenly  en- 
riched, the  peasant  whose  physical  double 
is  a  prince  and  who  is  destined  to  play 
the  princely  part,  the  long-lost  son,  the 
criminal  nobly  (if  vainly)  offering  him- 
self to  justice — what  older  or  better  mat- 
ter for  romance  can  be  found — romance, 
at  least,  of  the  mechanical  sort?     Our 
hero-villain's  second  intention,  of  course, 
is  sufficient.     It  proves  him  to  be  the 
fine  fellow  he  has  seemed,  and  altogether 
worthy  of  the  heroine   (he  has  already 
married  her,  to  be  sure,  in  this  instance) 
— the  heroine  who  doesn't  care  whether 
his  name  is  Philip  or  Maurice  so  long  as 
He  remains  Him.  .  .  .   "The  Worldlings" 
was    written,    it    appears,     soon    after 
"Cynthia"    and    "The    Actor-Manager," 
wherein  Merrick  kept  as  close  to  reality 
as  might  be  without  imperiling  his  status 
as  a  story-teller — which,  unlike  many  of 
his    contemporaries,    he    never    permits 
himself  to  forget.     Mechanical  romance 
offered  a  restful  field  for  the  moment. 
His  own  romantic  field  he  was  to  discover 
later  on,  in  company  with  the  questing 
Conrad  and  the  sportive  Tricotrin.     On 
the  whole,  we  miss  the  feeling  that  most 
of  these  collected  volumes  have  given  us 
— of  having  been  in  contact  with  some- 
thing very   nearly  perfect   in   its   kind. 
The  mechanism  is  not  sufficiently  con- 


cealed; and  the  suspicion  persists  that 
for  once  this  skillful  and  little  rewarded 
artist  may  have  let  himself  down  to  a 
pot-boiler  and  have  put  no  more  effort 
into  it  than  he  felt  such  work  demanded. 
The    Maurice-Philip   person    is    a   good 
enough  puppet,  the  action  is  strung  upon 
a  good  enough  plot.  It  is  all  good  enough, 
and  barely  good  enough,  for  its  purpose. 
To  the  better  sort  of  mechanical  ro- 
mance belongs   also   "The   Carrington's 
of  High  Hill."    As  a  tale  of  the  South 
of  Mrs.   Terhune's   own  girlhood,    it  is 
full  of  what  majf  as  well  be  called  real- 
ism, the  honest  portrayal,  however  col- 
ored by  memory  and  temperament,  of 
a   vanished   social   and   political    estate. 
The  author  retains  an  inherited  rever- 
ence for  the  "old-school"  manners  and 
standards  with  whose  outward  appear- 
ance, fiction,  and  the  stage  have  made  us 
overfamiliar  as  with  something  quaint, 
that  is,  both  lovable  and  more  or  less 
absurd.     Therefore  her  types  have  life, 
recognizable  as  they  are;  the  Southern 
aristocrat  in  his  stately  home;  the  great 
lady  of  the  old  regime  who  is  absolute 
ruler  of  her  little  world;   the  faithful 
retainers,  and  so  on.    And  therefore  her 
plot,  with  all  its  elaboration,  stands  up 
as  well  as  a  plot  may  which  is  so  patently 
worked  out  according  to  formula.     The 
pride  of  the  Carrington's  gives  a  certain 
plausibility  to  the  mystery  which   sur- 
rounds the  family  skeleton  in  its  closet. 
Its  existence  is  denied  and  its  where- 
abouts known  only  to  one  person;  but 
its  bones  may  be  heard  faintly  rattling, 
almost   from   the  first  moment   of  our 
setting  foot  on   High   Hill.     Paul  Car- 
rington,  twenty  years  since,  has  brought 
to  his  Virginian  home  a  beautiful  bride 
from  New  Orleans.     She  is  a  belle  and 
a  flirt  and  worse.    She  sets  the  neighbor- 
hood   by    the   ears,    openly    antagonizes 
Madam   Carrington,   and   flaunts   off   to 
New  Orleans,  where  she  presently  dies. 
So,   at  least,   it  is  understood   at  High 
Hill,  as  well  it  may  be,  since  her  body  is 
supposed  to  have  been  brought  back  and 
buried  there.    But  she  has  really  eloped 
with    another   man.      For   many   years 
Paul  Carrington  carries  the  burden  of 
the  secret:   not   even   his   lady   mother 
knows.    A  perfectly  fitting  mate  for  him 
is  at  hand;  but  of  course  he  cannot  think 
of  her.    Then  comes  private  news  of  the 
runaway  wife's  death,  and  the  way  seems 
smoothed   for  happiness   and   peace   at 
High  Hill,  after  all.     But  this  is  not  to 
be  too   readily  permitted  by   the  plot- 
maker.     With  the  aid  of  a  confusion  of 
identities  (turning  partly  upon  physical 
likeness  increased  by,  as  it  were,  a  forged 
strawberry-mark),   a  tense  situation   is 
brought    about.      Of    course    it    is    the 
wicked  wife  herself  who  has  turned  up, 
intending  malice.     But  after  two  false 
alarms,   death   does  really   take  her   in 
time  to  prevent  the  worst.    And  now  the 
tables  are  turned,  for  it  is  Madam  Car- 


rington who  holds  the  key  to  the  real 
skeleton-closet,  and  it  is  her  son  whose 
later  happiness  she  resolves,  must  and 
shall  be  founded  in  a  way,  on  false 
premises.  Neither  he  nor  his  second 
bride  nor  the  daughter  of  the  guilty 
woman  may  ever  know  the  depths  into 
which  she  would  have  plunged  them.  "No 
other  excepting  ourselves,"  cries  Madam 
Carrington,  "must  ever  know  this  story. 
It  is  as  unbelievable  as  it  is  monstrous 
and  revolting.  If  known  it  would  take 
rank  with  county  legends  for  a  century 
to  come.  I  will  not  have  my  son's  name 
blackened  by  the  tale.  .  .  ."  So  in  a 
fine  flurry  of  family  pride,  triumphant 
virtue,  and  impeccable  manners  the  tale 
comes  properly  to  a  close. 

H.  W.  BOYNTON 

The  Run  of  the  Shelves 

THE  results  of  forty  years  of  immer- 
,  _  sion  in  all  branches  of  occult  research 
have  been  given  to  the  world  by  Mrs. 
Violet  Tweedale  in  "Ghosts  I  Have  Seen" 
(Frederick  A.  Stokes  Company).  Ac- 
cording to  the  paper  jacket,  Mrs.  Twee- 
dale  "vouches  for  the  truth  of  whatever 
she  narrates."  We  had  long  waited  for 
the  disappearance  of  uncertainty  from 
this  troubled  theme.  The  evidence  is 
plentiful  almost  to  satiety,  and  Mrs. 
Tweedale's  security  and  content  are  so 
inflections  that  the  book  affects  one  like 
a  picnic  in  the  unseen  world.  The  style, 
even  in  horrors,  is  cosy;  Mrs.  Tweedale 
is  perhaps  the  first  writer  on  record  to 
handle  themes  of  this  kind  purringly. 
Hers  is  a  mind  which  colloquies  with 
Browning,  the  production  of  several 
novels,  acquaintance  with  countesses  and 
duchesses  by  the  score,  war-work,  arrest 
in  Austria  have  left  engagingly,  or — if 
one's  temper  be  morose — enragingly  in- 
fantine. Spiritualism  is  a  field  in  which, 
ordinarily,  the  believer's  faith  is  hateful 
to  the  skeptic  and  the  skeptic's  unfaith 
provoking  to  the  believer.  Mrs.  Twee- 
dale's  faith  can  smile  at  the  adversary. 

Mrs.  Tweedale  has  met  scores  of 
spirits,  but  the  motives  which  give  ra- 
tionality to  the  meetings  of  living  men, 
the  exchange  of  services,  of  news,  of 
sympathy,  are  practically  never  found 
in  these  encounters.  The  evident  fond- 
ness of  spirits  for  Mrs.  Tweedale's  com- 
pany has  not  smoothed  the  way  for  even 
two  minutes  of  rational  intercourse.  If 
communications  be  genuine,  they  are 
almost  certainly  fifty  years  old,  and  when 
we  reflect  that  both  the  dead  man  and 
the  living  often  belong  to  a  race  which 
has  perfected  in  the  interval  the  ocean- 
cable,  the  telephone,  and  wireless  teleg- 
raphy, the  backwardness  in  the  psychic 
field  remains  remarkable.  Moreover,  we 
may  suppose  that  a  ghost,  like  a  man, 
may  be  gauged  by  his  power  to  con- 
tribute to  our  prosperity  or  pleasure,  and 


184] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  41 


the  failure  of  Mrs.  Tweedale's  ghosts 
to  do  anything  that  would  make  a  human 
being  in  their  place  attractive  or  useful 
is  conspicuous.  Indeed,  a  human  being, 
behaving  as  they  do,  would  be  subject 
to  arrest  for  trespass  or  vagrancy  at 
the  hands  of  the  nearest  constable.  They 
may  have  reserves  of  rationality  which 
differ  totally  from  ours,  and  so  may 
lunatics — a  possibility  which  has  not  pre- 
vented the  erection  of  asylums.  The 
notion  of  playfulness  which  obtains 
among  ghosts  may  be  inferred  from  the 
fact  that  Mrs.  Tweedale  attributes  the 
mysterious  appearance  of  a  swarm  of 
gray  moths  on  her  bed  to  a  practical 
joke  carried  out  by  a  magician  in  the 
spirit  world. 

Mr.  Charles  Fort  has,  after  twelve 
years  of  patient  research,  finished  his 
"Book  of  the  Damned"  and  Messrs.  Boni 
and  Liveright  have  published  it.  With 
enormous  industry  the  author  has  col- 
lected accounts  from  newspapers,  scien- 
tific reviews,  books,  personal  statements, 
gossip,  and  traditions  of  all  the  things, 
commonplace  or  weird,  which  have  fallen 
on  the  earth.  "Things  that,  without  the 
formidable  mass  of  evidence  adduced, 
would  be  incredible,  support  the  author's 
argument";  thus,  the  publishers.  Ap- 
parently there  is  a  persistent  and  tre- 
mendous dropping  from  the  sky  of  all 
sorts  of  animal,  mineral,  and  vegetable 
things.  It  is  Mr.  Fort's  purpose  to  prove 
that  these  missiles  are  hurled  at  us  by 
the  inhabitants  of  other  planets  who  take 
this  method  of  letting  us  know  of  their 
existence.  The  reader  will  probably  sup- 
pose that  the  "Damned"  is  Mr.  Fort. 
The  "Damned,"  however,  prove  to  be 
this  "procession  of  data"  and  the  au- 
thor's ingenious  hypothesis  which  Dog- 
matic Science  has  excluded  from  the 
kingdom  of  heaven.  It  is  a  curious  col- 
lection which  may  tend  to  increase  the 
placidity  of  a  scholar's  postprandial  pipe. 

It  is  a  cosmopolitan  group  of  artists 
that  Martin  Birnbaum  passes  in  review 
in  "Introductions"  (Frederic  Fairchild 
Sherman).  Aubrey  Beardsley,  Charles 
Conder,  Charles  Ricketts,  Charles  H. 
Shannon,  and  John  Flaxman  are  British, 
as  is  by  recent  adoption  Edmund  Dulac. 
Paul  Manship,  Albert  Sterner,  and 
Robert  Blum  are  Americans.  Leon 
Bakst  and  Maurice  Sterne  are  born  Rus- 
sians. Jules  Pascin  is  a  Bulgarian,  Kay 
Nielsen  a  Dane,  Elfe  Nadleman  a  Pole, 
and  Alfred  Stevens  by  birth  a  Belgian. 
These  essays  were  originally  written  as 
leaflets  for  so  many  exhibitions  conducted 
by  Mr.  Birnbaum.  The  task  was  that 
of  aesthetic  toastmastership.  To  be  grace- 
ful, informing,  and  readily  understood 
was  the  problem.  The  author  has  solved 
it  with  sure  literary  tact  and  offers  as 
well  a  fine  criticism  which  was  not  in 
the   bond.     With   a   few   exceptions   he 


deals  with  eccentric  forms  of  art.  Gen- 
erally he  has  kept  his  perspective  in  a 
criticism  that  readily  leads  to  loose 
superlatives.  It  seems  to  us  that  he 
gives  Bakst,  Dulac,  and  Pascin  more  than 
their  due  of  praise.  But  in  the  main  he 
keeps  his  proportions,  writing  in  a 
valediction  which  is  in  itself  a  criticism 
of  the  most  comprehensive  kind,  "We 
need  something  to  liberate  us  from  the 
tyranny  of  our  more  or  less  ugly  mode 
in  art."  Perhaps  the  best  of  the  brief 
essays  is  the  Conder.  It  has  the  dainti- 
ness of  its  subject.  Of»most  importance 
is  the  elaborate  essay  on  John  Flaxman's 
classical  drawings.  It  reveals  noble  and 
very  able  qualities  of  draughtsmanship 
which  are  obscured  in  the  familiar  en- 
gravings. The  essay  is  so  good  that  one 
could  wish  that  Mr.  Birnbaum  might 
oftener  let  himself  out.  It  is  a  pleasure 
to  come  in  touch  with  the  newer  move- 
ments under  a  guide  who  eschews  jargon 
and  keeps  his  head.  The  book  is  beauti- 
fully printed  in  a  limited  edition,  fully 
illustrated,  and  bound  in  neat  cartridge 
boards. 

"Pres  des  Combattants"  (Paris: 
Hachette)  would  be  an  interesting  war 
book  whether  or  no,  because  of  its  author, 
M.  Andre  Chevrillon,  who  always  adorns 
whatever  he  touches.  The  fact  that  it 
has  to  do  with  the  western  front  even 
before  we  came  into  the  struggle  may 
militate  against  it  at  this  rather  late 
day.  We  refer  to  it  mainly  on  account 
of  its  dedication,  which  runs  as  follows: 

En  pieux  souvenir  de  I'ami  qui  congut  tout 
le  sacrifice  et  qui  I'accomplit,  Raymond 
Aynard,  engage  volontaire,  tue  a  Tennem!, 
a   Renneville   pres   Verdun,   Mars,    1916. 

The  following  extract  from  a  private 
letter  throws  more  light  on  the  calvary 
of  Raymond  Aynard  and  offers  another 
example  of  the  greatness  of  soul  of  so 
many  of  the  elite  in  the  recent  war: 

My  friend  was  a  French  diplomat  who  held 
an  important  post  in  Egypt,  where  he  was 
Commissairc  Frangais  de  la  Dette  Egyptienne. 
He  was  fifty  years  old.  a  married  man,  the 
father  of  four  young  children,  and  though 
the  authorities  at  our  Foreign  Office  insisted 
on  his  staying  at  his  post  where  he  was 
useful  even  in  time  of  war,  he  thought 
that  he  could  be  easily  replaced  there  and 
was  not  satified  till  he  was  allowed  to  come 
to  France  and  enlist.  On  account  of  his  age, 
he  was  set  to  the  teaching  and  preparation 
of  young  recruits  somewhere  near  Lyons. 
(He  had  reached  a  certain  ranl< — sergeant,  I 
believe — thirty  years  before  when  doing  his 
military  service.)  This  did  not  satisfy  him. 
and  he  had  no  rest  till  he  succeeded  in  being 
sent  to  the  front  as  lieutenant  attached  to  a 
divisionary  staff.  But  even  this  was  not 
enough  for  him,  and  finally  he  managed  to  be 
sent  nearer  Verdun  at  the  head  of  a  com- 
pany. This  was  in  February  or  March,  1916, 
a  few  days  after  the  terrible  German  push, 
which,  at  first  successful,  had  begun.  He 
now  saw  what  was  coming  for  him,  and  on 
the  morning  of  the  day  of  his  death  he  said 
to  another  officer  who  miraculously  escaped 
the  same  fate :  "Les  Boches  ne  m'auront  pas 
vivant."  His  idea  of  military  duty  was  very 
stern  and  he   didn't  believe   in   allowing   one- 


self to  be  made  a  prisoner.  His  body  re- 
mained some  time  in  "no  man's  land." 
Finally  he  was  found  by  a  German  officer, 
who  sent  to  Mme.  Aynard  a  beautiful  poem 
that  he  had  found  in  my  poor  friend's  pocket- 
book — a  poem  which  expressed  his  idea  of 
duty  and  his  acceptance  of   sacrifice. 

For  children  up  to  fourteen  years  the 
staff  of  life  is  not  bread,  but  milk.  Even 
adults  can  get  along  better  without 
bread — especially  white  bread — than 
without  milk  and  the  other  dairy  prod- 
ucts, butter  and  cheese.  It  is  therefore 
a  matter  of  extreme  importance  to  check 
the  tendency  to  use  substitutes  for  milk 
which  prevails  because  of  its  high  price. 
High  price  or  low,  the  consumption  of 
milk  should  not  be  cut  down.  Mr.  Fred- 
erikson,  who  is  a  graduate  of  the  Royal 
Danish  Agricultural  College,  and  has 
had  forty  years  of  experience,  frankly 
declares,  in  his  Story  of  Milk  (Macmil- 
lan),  that,  compared  with  the  cost  of 
other  food,  milk  has  remained  remark- 
ably cheap.  "Milk  and  its  products 
should  be  used  to  a  much  greater  extent 
than  heretofore,"  he  says,  "not  only  as 
a  drink,  but  in  the  daily  cookery," 
where  it  partly  takes  the  place  of  meat, 
and  thus  justifies  our  outlay  for  it. 

While  the  amount  of  milk  for  various 
uses  produced  in  the  United  States  in 
1917  was  over  84,000,000,000  pounds, 
this  is  only  a  fraction  of  what  it  should 
be.  Increasing  the  number  of  cows  is 
one  way,  but  a  better  way  is  to  improva 
the  cows.  A  good  Holstein  yields  7,000 
to  10,000  pounds  of  milk  a  year,  but  the 
best  Holstein  yields  up  to  30,000 — nearly 
46,000  pounds.  A  Jersey  has  been  known 
to  yield  her  own  weight  of  butter — 900 
pounds  in  one  year! 

In  less  than  two  hundred  pages  Mr 
Frederikson  tells  all  about  dairy  cattle, 
composition  of  milk,  control  of  bacteria, 
pasteurization,  cream  and  ice-cream, 
butter  and  buttermilk,  condensed  and 
evaporated  milk.  Fifty  pages  are  de- 
voted to  American  and  European  cheese- 
making. 

Sales  management,  as  distinct  from 
salesmanship,  is  now  being  taught  at  a 
dozen  colleges  and  universities,  notably 
Dartmouth,  which  has  a  "professor  of 
marketing,"  and  New  York  University. 
The  curricula  of  many  high  schools  in- 
clude the  subject.  For  this  specialized 
subject  a  text-book  has  just  appeared 
under  the  title  "Modern  Salesmanship" 
(Appleton)  by  J.  George  Frederick, 
President  of  the  Business  Bourse  and  a 
Governor  of  the  New  York  Sales  Man- 
agers Club.  The  book,  with  its  thirty- 
four  chapters  and  382  pages,  is  the  first 
of  its  kind  to  appear  with  the  imprint 
of  a  book  publisher,  and  is  already  in 
use  as  a  college  text-book.  The  treat- 
ment of  the  subject  is  complete  and  com- 
petent and  based  on  a  wide  experience  of 
actual  conditions. 


February  21,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[185 


Old  King's 

CAN  New  York  have  any  concern  in 
hearing  that  a  little  college  was 
burnt  to  the  ground  the  other  day  in 
Nova  Scotia?  If  New  York  ever  thinks 
of  its  past,  the  news  should  recall  a 
vivid  page  in   its  history. 

Seventeen-eighty-three  was  a  great 
year  for  the  Thirteen  Colonies.  The 
long,  dragging,  uncertain  war  for  inde- 
pendence was  won.  Peace  had  come  at 
last,  with  honor.  The  treaty  was  signed. 
It  only  remained  to  sweep  out  the  odds 
and  ends  of  the  long  campaigning  from 
the  country.  King  George's  redcoats 
were  gathered  together  in  New  York, 
and,  with  them,  thousands  of  native 
Americans,  who  had  fought  on  the  los- 
ing side,  or  sympathized  with  it,  un- 
desirable citizens  awaiting  deportation. 
These  were  the  hated  Tories. 

All  that  year  the  little  eighteenth-cen- 
tury town  at  the  foot  of  Manhattan 
island  was  busy  despatching  transports, 
slow,  comfortless  sailing  vessels,  loaded 
to  the  gunwale  with  homeless  refugees. 
Some  went  to  Britain,  some  to  the  West 
Indies,  but  most  were  bound  for  the 
nearest  colony  which  had  not  joined  the 
Thirteen  in  throwing  off  the  yoke — Nova 
Scotia.  That  year,  twenty-five  thousand 
men,  women,  and  children,  whose  fault 
was  loyalty  to  their  king,  were  dumped 
in  the  northern  wilderness,  which  the 
jeering  whig  journalists  nicknamed  with 
justice  "Nova  Scarcity."  At  once  those 
exiled  Americans  manifested  the  national 
energy.  They  split  the  old  province  in 
two,  and  carved  out  a  separate  Govern- 
ment of  their  own.  They  built  their 
capital  at  the  mouth  of  a  great  river, 
and  organized  it  on  the  model  of  the 
city  which  had  cast  them  out,  as  it  is 
this  day.  They  built  another  city — since 
vanished — of  ten  thousand  inhabitants, 
wherein,  on  election  day,  King  Street  was 
so  crowded  that  one  might  have  walked 
on  the  heads  of  the  multitude.  They 
founded  soon  after  a  monthly  magazine, 
a  college,  and  a  bishop's  see.  The  college 
is  the  subject  of  my  story. 

On  the  frieze  of  Columbia's  cathedral- 
like library  a  stately  inscription  pro- 
claims orbi  et  urhi,  that  the  metropolitan 
university  springs  from  King's  College 
founded  "when  loyalty  no  harm  meant," 
in  the  reign  of  King  George  the  Second, 
otherwise  Dapper  George,  the  fat  little 
fighting  German  monarch  (he  could 
swear  fluently  in  English)  who  charged 
on  foot  with  his  troops  at  Dettingen.  The 
visitor  to  Columbia  will  also  note  the 
motif  of  the  king's  crown  appearing  fre- 
quently in  the  decoration  of  that  repub- 
lican seat  of  learning,  and  will  not  be 
surprised  to  learn  that  the  oldest  society 
in  the  university  perpetuates  in  its  name 
the  same  reminiscence  of  its  monarchical 
past. 


In  "Nova  Scarcity"  those  exiled  New 
York  Tories  founded  a  second  King's 
College,  and  fortified  it  with  a  royal 
charter  under  the  sign  manual  of  George 
the  Third.  They  would  not  plant  their 
seminary  for  ingenuous  youth  in  the 
wicked  capital,  where  the  business  of 
half  of  the  town  was  to  make  rum,  and 
the  business  of  the  other  half  was  to 
drink  it,  where  a  full  brigade  of  troops 
always  lay  in  garrison,  where  a  squadron 
of  the  King's  ships  was  always  stationed, 
where  soldiers  and  sailors  spent  their 
pay  and  prize-money  in  the  fearless  old 
fashion,  and  Princes  of  the  Blood  led 
the  dance.  They  pitched  on  a  beautiful 
site  in  the  innocent  country  some  forty 
miles  away,  outside  the  pretty  hamlet  of 
Windsor.  Every  visitor  to-day  approves 
the  wisdom  of  their  choice.  The  rolling 
country  has  the  look  of  an  English  shire. 
Here  two  tidal  rivers  join  their  waters; 
and  twice  a  day  they  fill  with  "Fundy's 
orange  tide."  A  fort  stood  on  Block- 
house Hill,  and  was  still  a  military  post. 
About  were  several  gentlemen's  estates 
with  their  tenantry.  It  was  a  most  de- 
sirable spot  for  a  college;  and  there,  on 
a  hill  facing  south,  the  Tories  built  their 
Tory  college,  the  first  planted  outside 
the  British  Isles  in  what  is  to-day  the 
British  Empire.  That  is  its  pride.  For 
a  century  or  more,  it  stood  on  the  hill 
with  its  "bays"  and  its  central  pillared 
portico  amid  its  tall  guardian  elms,  in 
simple  dignity. 

As  far  as  possible  the  founders  made 
a  little  Oxford  of  it.  Residence,  chapel, 
subscription  to  the  Thirty-Nine  Articles 
were  compulsory.  The  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury  was  Visitor.  Though  it  is 
not  recorded  that  he  ever  discharged  his 
function,  Tom  Moore  visited  it  in  1804, 
and  left  a  memento  of  his  visit,  a  Lucian 
with  an  inscription.  Kingsmen  were  for- 
bidden to  frequent  the  mass,  or  any  dis- 
senting meeting-house,  or  conventicle, 
lest  they  should  imbibe  irreligious  or  re- 
publican principles.  William  Cochran, 
who  had  been  professor  of  Latin  and 
Greek  at  King's  College,  New  York,  could 
not  be  made  president;  he  was  but  a 
graduate  of  Trinity  College,  Dublin,  and 
the  Governors  desired  an  Oxford  man. 
Thus  "old  King's"  came  into  being,  the 
child  of  a  still  older  American  "King's" 
in  order  to  promote  "classical  learning, 
divinity,  and  belles  lettres."  For  a  cen- 
tury and  more  it  has  kept  its  antique 
standard  flying  valiantly,  despite  many  a 
storm. 

Time  enriched  the  little  college.  It 
educated  the  scions  of  provincial  gentry. 
Here  Haliburton  studied,  the  creator  of 
"Sam  Slick,"  and  Colonel  Jack  Inglis  of 
the  Rifles,  who  held  Lucknow  through 
the  Great  Mutiny,  and  Fenwick  Williams, 
whose  defense  of  Kars  in  the  Crimean 
War  was  the  admiration  of  all  profes- 
sional soldiers.  A  Gothic  library  was  built, 
which  also  served  as  a  hall  for  Convoca- 


tion—Encuenia,  with  the  proceedings  in 
Latin.  A  picturesque  little  chapel  was 
erected  in  memory  of  a  beloved  teacher. 
A  library  was  gathered;  and  it  is  a 
library  which  might  make  the  wealthiest 
biblomaniac's  mouth  water  for  its  in- 
cunabula. Aldines  and  Elzevirs,  ex- 
amples from  the  presses  of  Plantin, 
Fraben,  Etienne,  editionen  principes  of 
Plato  and  Aristotle,  the  "Speculum  Vit« 
Humanae"  of  1471,  the  Jenson  Bible  of 
1476  are  among  the  treasures  of  "old 
King's." 

Thus  was  an  institution  of  learning 
planted,  and  thus  did  it  grow,  fulfilling- 
into  destiny  as  an  oasis  in  the  desert,  a 
light  in  darkness.  As  the  years  passed, 
memory  and  association  endeared  it  to 
many  men.  Its  housing  became  sacred 
and  venerable.  The  time-honored  walla 
were  a  landmark  on  which  all  eyes  rested 
with  pleasure. 

Now  calamity  has  befallen  "old 
King's";  the  main  building  is  a  pile  of 
ashes.  Only  the  tall  old  chimneys  remain 
standing. 

Archibald  MacMecham 

Drama 

Eugene   O'Neill-The 
Theatre   Parisien 

MR.  EUGENE  O'NEILL  achieved  a 
measure  of  reputation  some  months 
ago  by  a  volume  of  rude  seafaring,  one- 
act  plays  in  which  grimness  was  qualified 
by  literature.  In  "Beyond  the  Horizon," 
now  shown  to  the  public  at  the  Morosco 
in  the  diffidence  of  special  matinees,  Mr^ 
O'Neill  has  essayed  a  three-act  play.  The 
step  from  one  act  to  three  in  playmaking 
is  a  long  one,  and  Mr.  O'Neill  has  slipped 
— has  even  fallen — in  the  undertaking. 
It  is  not  merely  that  he  views  the  three 
acts  as  a  sum  in  addition,  though  that 
error  would  be  grave  enough,  but  that 
he  does  not  tax  himself  to  make  the  items 
in  the  sum  dramatic.  He  has  not  only 
failed  to  give  us  a  three-act  play  or  three 
one-act  plays;  he  has  failed  to  give  us 
even  a  one-act  play  with  excess  baggage. 
The  main  situation  is  time-worn,  but  still 
vigorous — two  brothers  and  a  woman. 
Will  it  be  believed  that  from  the  first 
word  of  the  play  to  the  last  there  is  not 
a  vestige  of  conflict  between  the  two 
brothers,  and  that  the  passion  of  the 
younger  brother  is  completely  and  finally 
cured  in  the  interval  between  the  first 
and  second  acts?  This  removal  of  the 
combustibles  at  the  very  moment  when 
we  are  prepared  to  kindle  the  fire  is  an 
act  of  self-denial  hardly  matchable  in 
drama.  Indeed,  the  characteristic  of  Mr. 
O'Neill's  play,  which  does  no  justice  to 
his  faculty,  seems  less  the  mere  absence 
of  drama  than  a  fear  of  drama,  a  hos- 
tility to  drama,  a  vigilance  and  persist- 


186] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  41 


ence  in  the  closure  of  every  loophole  by 
which  that  disturbing  and  incendiary 
force  might  creep  into  his  play. 

It  is  time  to  be  a  little  more  particular. 
Of  two  farmer's  boys,  Robert  and  An- 
drew Mayo,  Andrew  has  been  destined 
to  husbandrj'  and  to  Ruth  Atkins,  Robert 
to  poetry  and  the  sea.  Ruth  finally 
chooses  Robert,  and  a  reversal  of  the  old 
assignment  sends  Andrew  to  the  mast 
and  Robert  to  the  furrows.  Furrows  to 
dreamers  are  but  ruts,  and,  like  ruts, 
they  are  unproductive.  Labors  and 
losses  multiplj'.  Nothing  encourages  love 
for  a  man  of  affairs  like  marriage  with 
a  dreamer.  Ruth  tells  her  husband  that 
she  loves  Andrew.  A  response  on  An- 
drew's part  would  create  a  dramatic  situ- 
ation; Mr.  O'Neill  has  carefully  averted 
that  response.  The  disclosure  of  Ruth's 
passion  to  Andrew  would  be  in  itself 
dramatic;  Mr.  O'Neill  is  vigilant  to  pre- 
vent that  disclosure.  Andrew  returns 
in  the  middle  of  Act  II  to  do — exactly 
nothing.  He  returns  in  the  middle  of 
Act  III  to  repeat  the  achievement.  A 
fortune  which  he  has  promptly  and  point- 
lessly  accumulated  in  the  interval  has 
been  promptly  and  pointlessly  lost.  Mean- 
while Robert  and  the  farm  have  laid 
each  other  waste.  His  child  and  his 
mother  die;  he  dies  himself  after  a  long 
detail  of  symptoms,  corporal  and  mental, 
in  the  third  act,  which  might  have  in- 
struction for  an  audience  of  medical 
students  or  nerve  specialists. 

It  will  be  seen  that  some  of  this  ma- 
terial is  touching.  It  would  have  moved 
me  strongly  in  a  real  play;  even  in  "Be- 
yond the  Horizon"  it  did  not  leave  me 
quite  unmoved.  The  public,  as  "John 
Ferguson"  showed,  is  keenly  sensitive 
to  domesticity  in  strong,  primitive  situa- 
tions, defecated  of  the  odor  of  flannels 
and  of  cookery.  Mr.  O'Neill's  attitude, 
however,  is  ambiguous,  or,  perhaps,  two- 
fold. It  is  difficult  to  pardon  the  sen- 
timental and  the  brutal  in  the  same  per- 
son; Mr.  O'Neill  subjects  me  to  that 
difficulty.  I  call  him  sentimental  in  the 
old-fashioned  prettiness  of  the  relation 
between  brother  and  brother  and  father 
and  child,  though  I  personally  enjoyed 
both  those  relations,  and  I  call  him  brutal 
when  he  allows  a  generous  man,  on  almost 
no  discoverable  ground,  to  say  "God 
damn  you"  to  a  widow  beside  her  hus- 
band's body  not  two  minutes  after  his 
death.  One  should  be  north  wind  and 
zephyr  at  the  same  time. 

The  actors  were  drawn  from  the  casts 
of  the  "Storm"  and  "For  the  Defense," 
and  the  performance  gained  vastly  by 
their  evident,  and  to  my  mind,  rather 
astonishing,  sympathy  with  their  parts. 
Mr.  Edward  Arnold  won  our  affection 
as  Andrew  Mayo.  The  hesitating  va- 
cancy of  Mr.  Richard  Bennett's  smile 
as  Robert  Mayo  sometimes  nearly  undid 
for  me  the  influence  of  his  finely  sympa- 
thetic voice.    He  flattened  Robert  Mayo 


too  much,  yet  the  picture  as  a  whole 
was  not  unmoving,  and  the  pathology  in 
Act  III  was  adroit.  Miss  Helen  Mac- 
Kellar's  Ruth  Atkins  impresses  me  more 
and  more  as  sound,  sound  in  the  f  eatheri- 
ness  of  Act  I,  sound,  again,  in  the  second 
act,  in  the  small  raspingness  which 
makes  frail  women  deadly,  soundest  of 
all  in  the  apathy  of  Act  III  with  its 
alternate  stripes  of  petulance  and  com- 
passion. Miss  Louise  Closser  Hale's  por- 
trayal of  the  termagant  was  brilliant; 
in  this  subdued  play  its  brilliancy  was 
almost  glaring.  Miss  Mary  Jeffery  as 
Mrs.  Mayo  had  supernal  moments  in 
Act  I. 

I  was  actually  disappointed  to  read  the 
words  "Farewell  Week"  on  the  pro- 
gramme of  the  Theatre  Parisien  for 
Tuesday  night,  February  10.  I  have 
a  pleasure  in  French  plays  and  French 
actors  which  is  almost  independent  of 
their  merit;  in  being  French,  they  have 
obliged  the  world.  Not  that  merit  has 
been  lacking  in  the  Theatre  Parisien. 
The  acting,  in  particular,  has  impressed 
me  as  supple,  swift,  and  joyous;  I  could 
hardly  have  asked  for  anything  better 
than  the  rendering  of  "Le  Coeur  a  ses 
Raisons,"  a  one-act  comedy  by  de  Flers 
and  Cailavet,  on  Tuesday  night.  The 
concurrence,  or  consentience,  of  their 
acting  is  a  pleasure  to  Americans.  Pos- 
sibly the  American  spectator  feels  it  even 
more  than  the  French;  it  is  the  foreigner 
who  sees  a  race  as  an  ensemble. 

The  managers  of  the  Theatre  Parisien 
should  be  conversant  with  the  taste  of 
their  public.  The  public,  however,  is 
largely  feminine  in  its  quality  as  in  its 
make-up,  and  remains  in  a  fashion  a 
mystery  to  the  managers  as  a  woman 
remains  a  mystery  to  her  husband.  This 
remark  is  incidental;  what  I  am  trying 
to  say  is  that,  if  the  taste  of  the  Theatre 
Parisien's  public  has  been  correctly 
divined  by  its  servants,  that  taste  is  very 
narrow  and  somewhat  trivial.  I  say 
nothing  of  tragedy  or  the  classics,  but 
a  public  for  whom  "Le  Demi-monde"  and 
"L'Aventuriere,"  and  "Le  Flibustier," 
"La  Princesse  Lointaine"  are  too  sub- 
stantial is  not  a  public  to  which  we  shall 
feel  obliged  to  explain  our  own  indiffer- 
ence to  Mr.  Shaw  and  Mr.  Barker.  The 
Theatre  Parisien  presents  only  love- 
comedies  in  that  lightest  and  gayest  form 
in  which  love  is  reduced  to  bagatelle, 
almost  to  gimcrack. 

The  plays  are  literary  in  a  sense,  but 
they  cling  to  the  border  of  literature; 
they  are  the  fringe  on  its  skirt,  not  al- 
ways undefiled  by  the  dust  of  the  pave- 
ment. Even  on  literary  grounds  some 
of  the  selections  are  doubtful.  Is  French 
workmanship  in  operettas  so  un-French 
that  one  must  really  accept,  in  "Le 
Poilu,"  a  two-act  piece  in  which  the  tie 
between  the  acts  is  weak  by  comparison 
with  like  ties  in  "Buddies"  or  "My  Golden 
Girl"?     A  comedy  of  intrigue  lives  and 


moves  in  the  suppleness  of  its  articula- 
tions. What  shall  we  say  of  the  mal- 
adresse  of  M.  Paul  Gavault,  who  in  "Ma 
Tante  d'Honfleur,"  allows  a  visitor  at  a 
country  house  to  describe  herself  falsely 
as  the  wife  of  another  visitor  without 
securing  in  advance  either  his  absence 
or  his  complicity  ?  The  comedy  is  doubt- 
less amusing  enough,  and  for  every  kind 
of  dramatic  offense  a  laugh  is  amnesty 
on  Broadway.  We  looked  to  the  French 
colony  in  our  midst  to  teach  us  something 
better  than  the  power  of  our  own  ex- 
ample. 

O.  W.  Firkins 

Music 

At  the  Lexington—  'The 

Blue  Bird"— Caruso's 

Indisposition 

wriTH  Titta  Ruffo,  Bonci,  Galeffi, 
W  Raisa,  and  Galli-Curci  in  the  casts 
of  the  Chicago  Opera  Company,  great 
singing  has  been  heard  lately  at  the 
Lexington.  At  times  the  singers  have 
excelled  themselves  and  stirred  audiences 
as  they  are  very  rarely  stirred  here. 

Titta  Ruffo,  with  the  "Drinking  Song" 
in  Ambroise  Thomas's  highly  un-Shake- 
spearean  "Hamlet,"  amazed  them  by  his 
vocal  virtuosity.  His  power,  his  tones, 
and,  more  than  all,  his  breath  control — 
which  allows  him  to  hold  notes  almost 
indefinitely — were,  in  their  way,  as  re- 
markable as  Bond's  more  delicate  graces. 
Rosa  Raisa,  though  less  finished  in  her 
art,  thrilled  all  who  heard  her. 

The  only  novelty  (or,  rather,  semi- 
novelty),  with  the  exception  of  a  ballet 
by  Felix  Borowski,  the  Chicago  critic, 
which  has  been  added  to  the  repertory 
at  the  Lexington,  is  "Hamlet,"  a  work  on 
which  I  do  not  care  to  linger.  It  is  a 
futile  effort  to  achieve  the  impossible 
and,  but  for  the  "Drinking  Song"  (a 
gross  offense  to  Shakespeare  and 
Ophelia's  "Mad  Scene")  it  would  long 
years  ago  have  been  lost  in  forgetfulness. 

Before  these  lines  get  into  print,  the 
English  version  of  Wagner's  "consecra- 
tional  festival  play,"  the  revived  "Parsi- 
fal," will  have  been  presented  at  the 
Metropolitan,  where,  let  us  hope,  with 
the  new  words  of  Mr.  Krehbiel,  it  will 
have  reconquered  the  high  place  to  which 
the  sublimity  of  its  theme  and  the  beauty 
of  the  music  entitle  it. 

Meanwhile,  may  I,  though  late,  say  a 
word  about  Albert  Wolff  and  his  arrange- 
ment of  "The  Blue  Bird"? 

Of  all  the  dramas  which  we  owe  to 
Maurice  Maeterlinck,  this  "L'Oiseau 
Bleu"  to  me  seems  the  least  surely  suited 
to  the  opera  stage.  Unless  you  know  the 
work  by  heart  (as  many  do),  and  can 
follow  all  the  ins  and  out  of  Maeter- 
(Continued  on  page  188) 


February  21,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[187 


ii0^@iKigBJi^Mil(E^^ 


Niag"ara's  Rival  yo/- 


Dependable  Pd 


Built  To 
Last! 

In  1 898  a  Crocker- Wheeler 
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ing press  for  the  New  York 
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Although  used  continuously  for 
22  years,  this  C-W  motor  is  still 
in  use  and  is  giving  as  good  ser- 
vice as  when  first  purchased. 

Quality  does  pay  in  the  long 
run ! 


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Ampere,  N.  J. 


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Just  Published 

Modes  and  Morals 

By  Katharine  Fullerton  Gerould 

"Katharine  Fullerton  Gerould  is  a  name  that 
will  soon  rank  high  in  the  hall  of  fame  of  Ameri- 
can literatMre — of  any  literature  which  demands 
power  and  sincerity,  which  demands  themes  that 
are  largely  human  and  the  ability  to  present  them 
strongly." — The  Bookman. 

Mrs.  Gerould,  already  well  known  as  the  author  of  some 
of  the  most  notable  short  stories  of  the  last  decade,  has  also 
achieved  a  remarkable  recognition  as  an  essayist  on  condi- 
tions and  questions  of  the  day.  This  volume  collects  for 
the  first  time  a  number  of  her  extremely  clever  papers.  The 
contents  are : 

Miss  Alcott's  New  England 
The  Sensual  Ear 
British  Novelists,  Ltd. 
The  Remarkable  Rightness 
of  Rudyard  Kipling 
"The  book  is  as  charming  as 
it  is  clever,  as  wise  as  it  is 
witty." — Brander  Matthews  in 
The  New  York  Times.        $1.75 


The  New  Simplicity 
Dress  and  the  Woman 
Caviare  on  Principle 
The  Extirpation  of  Culture 
Fashions  in  Men 
The  Newest  Woman 
Tabu  and  Temperament 
The  Boundaries  of  Truth 


Theodore   Roosevelt's  Autobiography 

This  is  a  new  edition  of  the  immortal  autobiography  of 
the  great  man — perhaps  the  best  source  of  all  to  turn  to  for 
an  understanding  of  his  remarkable  qualities  and  his  amazing 
career.  Illustrated.    $5.00 


CHARLES 

FIFTH  AVTE 


SCRIBNER'SSONS 

AT  48'J'ST.  NEW  YORK 


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188] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  41 


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(Continued  from  page  186) 
linck's  dialogue  in  the  French  original, 
it  is  bewildering  to  the  listener  and  spec- 
tator. The  eternal  wanderings  of  the 
characters  in  pursuit  of  happiness  are 
undramatic.  There  are  few  climaxes  of 
interest  in  the  story.  As  for  the  some- 
what childish  dialogue  of  the  Belgian,  it 
loses  its  effect  when  poorly  sung.  And 
of  the  artists  who  take  part  in  the 
performance,  only  six — Flora  Perini 
(Light),  Florence  Eastman  (Mother 
Love),  Leon  Rothier  (Father  Time  and 
Gaffer  Tyl),  Louise  Berat  (Granny  Tyl), 
Raymonde  Delaunois  (Tyltyl),  and  Paolo 
Ananian  (Daddy  Tyl),  are  clearly  au- 
dible. 

As  for  the  music,  although  not  a  great 
achievement — for  only  at  moments  has 
it  real  originality — it  gives  much  prom- 
ise and  is  distinguished  by  unusually 
true  scholarship.  The  disjointed  words 
and  vagaries  of  the  libretto  do  not  allow 
the  composer  honest  opportunities  for 
music — except  at  one  point,  in  the  "Fare- 
well," in  the  last  act.  Mr.  Wolff,  who 
was  quite  conscious  of  this  fact,  has  done 
his  utmost  to  atone  for  what  is  lacking 
in  the  play  itself  by  means  of  connect- 
ing intermezzos  and  introductions,  of 
which  two  are  masterly.  But  the  chief 
beauty  of  his  work — and  the  one  episode 
which,  I  believe,  will  live  long  after  the 
Bachian  interlude  and  other  passages  in 
this  "Blue  Bird"  have  been  forgotten — 
is  the  composer's  setting  of  that  "Fare- 
well" scene.  It  has  a  poetic  glow,  a 
charm  and  grace  which  haunt  me  still. 
And,  with  submission  to  some  critics 
who  have  whistled  Mr.  Wolff's  score 
down  the  wind,  it  seems  quite  original. 
The  man  who  could  invent  the  exquisite 
music  which  accompanies  that  scene 
should  have  a  future. 

"Owing  to  a  slight  cold,  Enrico  Caruso 
was  unable  to  appear  last  night  at  the 
Metropolitan." 

This  brief  announcement  in  the  daily 
newspapers  set  many  thinking.  The 
Italian  tenor  means  so  much  to  the 
Metropolitan  that,  if  (which  heaven  for- 
bid) he  vanished  even  for  a  month  or 
two  from  that  institution,  its  prestige 


might   (and  would)   be  gravely  compro- 
mised. 

We  know,  of  course,  that,  once  in  the 
history  of  the  Metropolitan,  Caruso  had 
to  take  a  lengthy  rest.  We  know  that, 
notwithstanding  that  sad  fact,  the  opera 
house  kept  open.  But  the  announcement 
I  have  quoted,  none  the  less,  meant  more 
to  some — and  particularly  to  the  rich 
backers  of  the  Metropolitan — than  a  tem- 
porary embarrassment. 

Suppose  (for,  after  all,  such  things 
may  happen)  the  chief  "star,"  the  very 
pivot  of  the  great  opera  house,  dropped 
out  some  day?  His  health  is  marvelous. 
His  vitality  is  exceptional.  But  other 
tenors  in  the  past  have  failed  quite  sud- 
denly, Duprez,  for  instance.  Cou'd  Mar- 
tinelli  or  our  own  Orville  Harrold  step 
like  a  god  from  the  machine  to  replace 
the  "star  of  stars"?  Would  spoilt  sub- 
scribers, used  to  hearing  Caruso  twice 
each  week,  accept  either  of  those  artists 
as  permanent  substitutes?  And  even  if 
they  did,  what  would  it  prove? 

There  are  some  of  us  who  think,  and 
very  rightly,  that  a  great  institution  like 
the  Metropolitan  should  not  depend  too 
much  upon  one  singer.  They  hold  that 
there  should  always  be  another  "star,"  of 
equal  magnitude,  as  an  alternative.  They 
go  so  far,  indeed,  as  to  pretend  that  the 
most  wealthy  lyric  theatre  in  the  world 
should  have  alternatives  for  every  "star" 
— that  it  should  not  be  necessary  to  post- 
pone a  performance  of  "Samson  et 
Dalila"  because  Caruso  was  ill,  or  to  de- 
prive us  of  "Carmen"  because  Geraldine 
Farrar  had  the  "flu." 

But  where,  you  ask,  shall  we  find  the 
alternatives?  Well,  there  are  more  than 
three  or  four  who  could  replace  Miss 
Farrar  easily  at  a  pinch.  In  Caruso's 
case,  I  admit,  the  case  seems  harder.  No 
singer  in  the  world  has  quite  Caruso's 
voice  just  now.  But  there  are  singers  no 
less  fine  and  even  finer.  For  example, 
Bonci.  And  there  are  artists  vastly 
greater. 

To  name  one,  off-hand,  there  is  Lucien 
Muratore,  who  has  had  many  triumphs 
with  the  Chicago  company.  Though  he 
has    not    Caruso's    round    and    luscious 


voice,  he  has  far  more  than  the  Italian's 
art  and  style.  He  is  romantic  to  a  fault, 
and  creates  illusions  in  such  characters 
as  Samson,  Prinzevalle,  Faust,  and  des 
Grieux.  His  merit  is,  some  say,  the  only 
explanation  of  his  strange  ostracism  by 
the  Metropolitan.  But  this,  of  course 
may  not  be  wholly  true. 

Charles  Henry  Meltzer 


Books  and  the  News 

Education 

A  CORRESPONDENT  suggests  that 
education  is  always  a  timely  subject, 
and  that  there  are  many  parents  to  whom 
it  suddenly  becomes  a  practical  problem. 
They  care  nothing  about  the  fads  nor 
the  quarrels  of  the  schoolmen;  they  do 
wish  to  formulate  some  ideas  about  the 
theories  and  practice  of  education.  What 
does  it  mean  to  be  educated?  What 
should  the  young  get  from  school  and 
college?  What  are  the  soundest  ideas 
about  educational  methods  to-day? 

The  books,  pamphlets,  and  articles  upon 
the  subject  are  endless  in  number;  the 
disagreements  of  its  doctors  acrimonious. 
Here  are  a  few  titles  of  books. 

Upon  the  theory  of  education :  Herbert 
Spencer's  "Education :  Intellectual,  Moral 
and  Physical"  (Appleton,  1900),  which, 
together  with  John  Dewey's  "Democracy 
and  Education"  (Macmillan,  1916)  and 
Nicholas  Murray  Butler's  "Meaning  of 
Education"  (Scribner,  1915),  offer  the 
(Continued  on  page  189) 


EDWARD   T.   DEVINE 
Associate  Editor  of  the  Survey 

Will  lecture  on  the  following  subjects: 

THE  THREE  R'S 
Reaction :    Revolution :    Reconstruction 

INDUSTRIAL  AND  SOCIAL  UNREST 
Remedies  and  Proposals 

AMERICANIZATION 
True  and  False 


For  dates  and  terms  address  Miss  Brandt, 
Room  1204,  1  '-2  E.  Nineteenth  St.,  New  York 


February  21,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[189 


reader  general  comment  upon  the  philos- 
ophy of  the  subject.  There  should  also 
be  mentioned  Charles  Hanford  Hender- 
son's "What  is  it  to  be  Educated?" 
(Houghton,  1914).  A  recent  book,  Ell- 
wood  P.  Cubberley's  "Public  Education 
in  the  United  States"  (Houghton,  1919), 
is  a  text-book  upon  present  problems,  but 
is  also  partly  historical.  For  a  brief  his- 
tory of  education,  Paul  Monroe's  "Brief 
Course  in  the  History  of  Education" 
(Macmillan,  1907). 

For  an  explanation  of  modern  methods 
in  elementary  schools,  John  and  Evelyn 
Dewey's  "Schools  of  To-morrow"  (But- 
ton, 1916),  Mrs.  Dorothy  Canfield  Fisher 
describes  the  Montessori  methods  in  "A 
Montessori  Mother"  (Holt,  1912),  and 
these  methods  are  subjected  to  examina- 
tion in  William  H.  Kilpatrick's  "The 
Montessori  System  Explained"  (Hough- 
ton, 1914).  On  the  subject  of  the  kinder-, 
garten,  see  Susan  E.  Blow's  "Letters  to 
a  Mother  on  the  Philosophy  of  Froebel" 
(Appleton,  1899).  Ella  F.  Lynch's  "Edu- 
cating the  Child  at  Home"  (Harper, 
1914)  relates  to  the  same  period  in  life. 
So  do  Henry  S.  Curtis's  "Educating 
through  Play"  (Macmillan,  1915)  and 
Barbara  S.  Morgan's  "The  Backward 
Child"   (Putnam,  1914). 

For  two  books  about  vocational  educa- 
tion, there  are  Joseph  S.  Taylor's  "Hand- 
book of  Vocational  Education"  (Mac- 
millan, 1914)   and  J.  A.  Lapp  and  C.  H. 


Mote's  "Learning  to  Earn"  (Bobbs, 
1915).  For  commercial  education,  Joseph 
Kahn  and  J.  J.  Klein's  "Principles  and 
Methods  in  Commercial  Education" 
(Macmillan,  1914).  Of  the  numerous 
books  upon  health  in  relation  to  the 
schools,  Francis  W.  and  Jesse  D.  Burks 
have  written  "Health  and  the  School" 
(Appleton,  1913).  Upon  the  public 
schools,  consult  S.  T.  Dutton  and  David 
Sneddon's  "Administration  of  Public 
Education  in  the  United  States"  (Mac- 
millan, 1912).  For  the  high  school, 
Irving  King's  "High  School  Age"  (Bobbs, 
1914).  For  the  country  school,  J.  D. 
Eggleston  and  R.  W.  Bruere's  "The  Work 
of  the  Rural  School"  (Harper,  1913). 
For  the  college — for  those  about  to  go  to 
college,  Frederick  P.  Keppel's  "The  Un- 
dergraduate and  his  College"  (Houghton, 
1917)  and  Charles  F.  Thwing's  "The 
American  College"  (Piatt,  1914).  Many 
of  these  books  contain  references  to 
further  reading  in  their  special  fields. 
Edmund  Lester  Pearson 

Books  Received 


FICTION 
Clemence.      Legen<l. 


Macmillan. 


Dane, 
$1.50. 

Ganz,  Marie,  and  Ferber,  Nat  J.  Rebels 
Into  Anarchy — and  Out  .'^gain.  Dodd,  Mead. 
$2.00. 

MacFarlan,  Alexander.  The  Inscrutable 
Lovers.    Dodd,  Mead. 


Nathan,  Robert.  Peter  Kindred.  Duffield. 
$2.00  net. 

Newton,  Alma.  A  Jewel  in  the  Sand.  Duf- 
field.   $1.35. 

Wade,  Horace  Atkisson.  In  the  Shadow 
of  Great  Peril.    Chicago:     Reilly  &  Lee. 

BIOGRAPHY  AND  HISTORY 
Howe,  M.  A.  DeWolfc.    George  von  Len- 

gerke  Meyer:  His  Life  and  Public  Services. 

Dodd,  Mead. 
Webster,  Nesta  H.    The  French  Revolution. 

Dutton.     $8.00  net. 

EDUCATION 

Immigration  and  Americanization..  Se- 
lected Readings.  Compiled  and  edited  by 
Philip  Davis,  assisted  by  Bertha  Schwartz. 
Ginn. 

Studenskey,  Paul.  Teachers'  Pension 
Systems  in  the  United  States.  Appleton. 
$3.00  net. 

ESSAYS  AND  CRITICISM 
Gerould,  K.  F.    Modes  and  Morals.     Scrib- 
ner.    $1.75  net. 

LITERATURE 

Bazalgette,  Leon.  Walt  Whitman.  Dou- 
l)leday,  Page. 

Hamilton,  Eriiest.  Elizabethan  Ulster. 
Dutton.    $6.00  net. 

MUSIC 

Bispham,  David.  A  Quaker  Singer's  Rec- 
ollections.   Macmillan.    $4.00. 

POETRY  AND  DRAMA 
Guiterman,  Arthur.     Ballads  of  Old  New 

York.     Harper.    $1.50  net. 

Palmer,    William    Kimberly    and    Panes, 

Ernest.     American  Nights.     New  Era  Pub. 

Co. 
Winter  Sports  Verse.    Chosen  by  Haynes, 

W..   and   H.irrison,   J.   L.     Introduction   by 

W.  P.  Eaton.    Duffield. 


STUDIES  IN  SPANISH 
AMERICAN  LITERATURE 

By  Isaac  Goldberg,  'Ph.  D. 

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"The   Eyes   of  the    World  Are    Tamed  on    Rastia." 

THE  COSSACKS: 

Their    History  and   Country 

By  Caplam  W.  "P.  Cresson 

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[Vol.  2,  No.  41 


{Continued  from  February  14) 
In  an  edition  of  Horace  printed  in 
Milan  by  Zarotto  in  1474,  there  is  a 
printer's  note  or  colophon  which  rather 
quaintly  approximates  the  use  of  the 
modern  colophon  as  a  guarantee  of  high 
purpose  and  quality.  "All  the  works  of 
Quintus  Horatius  Flaccus,  carefully  cor- 
rected, and  by  Antonio  Zarotto  elegantly 
and  faithfully  imprinted,  March  16, 
1474;  whoever  buys  this  will  never  be 
sorr>'." 

In  a  much  wider  sense,  the  university 
presses  of  the  country  were  founded  for 
the  purpose  of  publishing  the  kind  of 
books  whose  readers  would  "never  be 
sorry"  for  having  acquired  them.  Most 
of  these  presses  have  adopted  as  colo- 
phons the  devices  and  mottoes  of  the 
universities  with  which  they  are  con- 
nected. 


rwr\ 


motto  of  the  University,  designed  by 
Pierre  de  Chaignon  la  Rose.  The 
phoenix  rising  from  the  flames  is  signifi- 
cant of  the  rise  of  Chicago  from  the 
ashes  of  1871.  At  the  time  of  the 
World's  Fair  it  was  used  on  banner, 
cornice,  and  tower,  and  the  "I  Will" 
figure  of  the  city  bears  it  as  a  crown. 
Above  this  symbol  of  immortality,  youth, 
vigor,  and  aspiration  is  the  Latin  inscrip- 
tion "Crescat  scientia;  vita  excolatur" — 
"Let  human  knowledge  grow  from  more 
to  more ;  and  so  be  human  life  enriched." 


the  dates  respectively  of  the  original 
charter  of  King's  College  and  of  the  m- 
corporation  of  the  Press,  with  the  motto 
"In  litteris  libcrtas."  This  imprint  has 
been  used  in  the  books  of  the  Press  since 
the  beginning  of  its  activities  in  1893. 

A  variation  of  the  imprint  is  used  on 
magazines  published  by  the  Press  but 
with  the  same  details. 


The  official  seal  of  Harvard  Univer- 
sity with  its  courageous  one-word  motto 
—VERITAS— is  found  on  the  books  is- 
sued by  the  Harvard  University  Press. 
No  apology,  no  boasting :  a  simple  prom- 
ise, "Truth."  None  of  the  hesitancy  of 
one  old  Italian  printer  who  published  an 
edition  of  Virgil  containing  some  poems 
later  found  to  be  spurious  works.  "You 
ask  why  these  poems,  though  obscene, 
are  printed?  Excuse  them:  they  were 
writ  by  Virgil." 


The  University  of  Chicago  Press  has 
used  since  1912  the  coat  of  arms  and  the 


The  imprint  used  on  the  publications 
of  the  Columbia  University  Press  con- 
sists of  a  crown,  representing  the  crown 
of  King's  College,  above  an  open  book 
bearing  upon  its  pages  "Columbia  Uni- 
versity Press"  and  the  dates  "1754-1893," 


The  University  of  Illinois  Press  uses  an 
{Continued  on  page  IV) 


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invite  your  attention  to  these  recent  issues 

The  French  Revolution 

A  STUDY  IN  DEMOCRACY  by  NESTA  H.  WEB- 
STER, Author  of  "The  Chevalier  de  Boufflers,    etc  ?8.oo. 

The  <;t>ectator  calls  it:     "A  veritable  revelation  to  those  who  know  the 
Revolution  only  from  Carlyle's  brilliant  but  profoundly  m.slead.ng  pages. 

Elizabethan  Ulster 

By  ERNEST  HAMILTON,  Author  of  "The  Soul  of 
Ulster,"  etc.  *''-°" 

A  Lace  Guide 

By  GERTRUDE  WHITING.  With  a  Comparative 
Sampler  of  145  Bobbin  Lace  Grounds  and  fillings,  and 
the  most  complete  bibliography  of  lace  in  print.      *15.U0 

War  Time  Financial  Problems 

By  HARTLEY  WITHERS,  Author  of  "The  Meaning 
of  Money,"  "Poverty  and  Waste,"  etc.,  etc.  $2.50 

Birds  in  Town  and  Village 

By  W  H  HUDSON.  Papers  on  bird  friendship  that  are 
filled  with  the  charm  of  that  fine  personality  which  re- 
vealed itself  in  "Far  Away  and  Long  Ago.  *4.00 

A  Little  Garden  the  Year  Round 

Wherein  much  Joy  was  found.  Experience  gained  and 
Profit,  Spiritual  as  well  as  Mundane,  derived  without 
Loss  of  Prestige  in  a  Practical  Neighborhood.  By 
GARDNER  TEALL.  'Z-SO 


A  Literary  ''Find 


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In  the  Shadow  of  Great  Peril 

By  Horace  A.  Wade-  Age  11 
America's    Youngest    Author 

With   a    Preface    by   George    Ada 


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A  Wonder  of  a  Story 
for  Every  Man  Who 
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from  Beginning  to  End 

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THE  REVIEW 


H' 


Vol.  2,  No.  42 


New  York,  Saturday,  February  28,  1920 


Fll-TEEN  CENTS 


Contents 


Brief  Comment  191 

Editorial  Articles: 
Hillquit  on  the  Socialist  Programme    193 
Profiteer-Hunting  and  Political  Econ- 
omy 194 
Agriculture,  the  Basic  Industry  196 
Outwitting  Winter                                      196 
A  Lamentable  Failure                               197 
The  "Student-Hour"  and  College  Effi- 
ciency                                                        198 
Pre-War     American     Diplomacy.       By 

Lindsay  Rogers  199 

What  Must  the  World  Do  To  Be  Fed? 

By   Thomas   H.   Dickinson  200 

The  Uncult.    By  Weare  Holbrook  201 

Correspondence  202 

Book  Reviews: 
The    Interpreter    of    American     Na- 
tionalism 204 
Disentangling  Socialism  from  Bolshe- 
vism 206 
Recent  Books  on  Mexican  Problems  206 
Mr.  Bullard  on  Russia  207 
Proletarian  Comedy  207 
Ancient  Architecture  208 
The  Run  of  the  Shelves  208 
Winter  Mist.    By  Robert  P.     Utter        210 
George    Soures,    an    Athenian    Satirist. 

By  Aristides  E.  Phoutrides  211 

Music : 
"Parsifal"  in  English    at  the  Metro- 
politan.   By  Charles  Henry  Meltzer  212 
Drama: 
"Letty"  and  "His  House  in  Order" — 
Ibsen  in  England.     By  O.  W.  Fir- 
kins 213 
Books  and  the  News: 
Recent   Books.     By  Edmund  Lester 
Pearson                                                  214 


'T'HE  Esch-Cummins  railroad  bill 
■*■  reported  out  of  Conference  Com- 
I  mittee  has  passed  both  Houses  by 
substantial  majorities,  and  was  put 
through  the  Senate  with  extraordi- 
nary promptness.  In  the  all-impor- 
tant matter  of  rate-making  it  is  not 
so  good  a  bill  as  the  Cummins  bill, 
but  in  the  matter  of  labor  disputes 
it  is  an  improvement  upon  the  latter. 
The  much-debated  Section  6  of  the 
Cummins  bill  has  been  modified  so 
as  to  widen  the  field  within  which 
the  Interstate  Commerce  Commission 
may  exercise  its  discretion.  The  re- 
turn of  51/2  per  cent,  upon  aggregate 
property  value  is  made  contingent 
upon  "efiicient  and  economical"  man- 
agement by  the  companies — of  which 


the  Commission  is  presumably  to  be 
the  judge.  Thus  an  ample  opportunity 
is  reserved  for  Mr.  Clifford  Thome's 
ingenious  sophistries  and  for  a  new 
series  of  "happy  thoughts"  similar  to 
those  advanced  in  the  1913  Eastern 
rate  case  by  Mr.  Brandeis.  Neverthe- 
less, Senator  Cummins  is  to  be  con- 
gratulated upon  a  notable  victory  in 
that  the  bill  clearly  recognizes  the 
only  correct  principle  of  rate-making, 
namely,  that  based  on  the  "regional 
tariff"  as  applied  to  the  "regional 
group."  This  is  the  greatest  single 
forward  step  in  the  history  of  Ameri- 
can railroad  legislation,  and  it  is  of 
immense  value.  It  may  indeed  be  con- 
sidered as  cheaply  purchased  at  the 
cost  of  partial  confiscation  of  the 
profits  of  individual  railroads,  inde- 
fensible as  such  confiscation  is  upon 
any  grounds  other  than  those  of  pure 
expediency.  Let  us  hope  that  the 
Interstate  Commerce  Commission  will 
make  good  use  of  the  shelter  that  it 
affords  them  against  popular  resent- 
ment when  they  are  obliged  to  do  the 
unpopular  thing. 

npHE  provisions  of  the  bill  which 
■'■  deal  with  labor  disputes  in  the 
railroad  industry  are  not,  at  first 
sight,  very  imposing.  Yet,  whether 
by  accident  or  design,  they  follow  a 
principle  which  is  perhaps  the  sound- 
est and  most  effective  that  can  be 
applied  in  matters  of  this  kind.  That 
principle  is — publicity.  Elaborate 
machinery  is  provided  for  inquiry 
into  the  facts,  when  disputes  arise 
between  managements  and  employees, 
and  for  decision  by  a  tripartite  board 
upon  the  facts.  Enforcement  of  the 
decision  is  left  to  public  opinion. 
There  is  no  interference  whatever 
with  the  right  to  strike,  much  less 
the  right  to  organize,  but  means  are 
provided  whereby  the  public  is  in- 
formed as  to  the  facts.  Nearly  thirty 
years   ago   Charles   Francis   Adams 


proposed  a  similar  plan  of  dealing 
with  all  industrial  disputes  which 
were  of  sufficient  importance  to  affect 
the  public  convenience  or  safety.  He 
suggested  that  in  all  such  cases  there 
should  be  appointed  by  the  Governor 
a  commission  of  inquiry  with  full 
power  to  secure  evidence  and  that  a 
report  on  the  facts  of  the  case  should 
be  made  as  promptly  as  possible 
to  the  Governor,  who  should  make  it 
public.  No  more  thoroughly  demo- 
cratic principle  could  be  imagined, 
nor  one  more  directly  effective  in  its 
results,  and  the  Esch-Cummins  bill  is 
in  accord  with  it.  It  is  perhaps  not 
surprising  that  the  representatives  of 
organized  labor  do  not  like  it,  for  it 
threatens  the  very  foundations  of  the 
oligarchy  which  they  have  contrived 
to  establish.  Moreover,  it  points  the 
way  to  yet  further  establishment  of 
genuinely  democratic  control  by  the 
community  over  its  various  constit- 
uent elements.  Application  of  the 
publicity  principle  to  labor-union  elec- 
tions, strike  votes,  and  so  forth,  sug- 
gests many  important  possibilities. 

TT  may  help  to  clarify  the  contro- 
versy  over  Fiume  and  the  Adriatic 
islands  if  we  perceive  that  the  Four- 
teen Points  and  their  attendant  ideal- 
ism are  in  no  wise  involved.  The  is- 
sue is  simply  whether  Jugoslavia 
should  or  should  not  possess  a  valua- 
ble and  much-desired  outlet  to  the 
sea.  The  issue  is  one  of  commercial 
strategy  and  expediency.  Moreover, 
Fourteen-pointism  has  counted  for  al- 
most nothing  in  the  entire  Italian 
settlement.  Italy  takes  the  Trentino, 
with  a  large  German  population,  in 
spite  of  self-determination,  in  order 
to  set  her  northern  boundary  on  the 
watershed  of  the  Alps.  That  is,  the 
Supreme  Council  acted  under  the  old 
theory  of  military,  strategic,  boun- 
daries. We  say  this  merely  to  show 
that  the  entire  problem  of  the  Italian 


102] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  42 


settlement  was  too  complicated  to  fit 
into  the  neat  categories  of  the  new 
political  idealism.  A  strict  applica- 
tion of  the  principle  of  racial  self- 
determination  would  have  allotted  to 
Italy  all  the  Eastern  ports  and  islands 
of  the  Adriatic.  Paradoxically,  the 
Pact  of  London  was  more  nearly  in 
accord  with  the  Fourteen  Points  than 
any  subsequent  proposal  has  been.  It 
g&\e  Italy  virtually  ail  of  the  Italian- 
speaking  littoral.  Mr.  Wilson's  in- 
flexibility against  Italy's  claims  to 
Fiume  rests  really  on  a  new  dogma, 
that  an  inland  nation  must  not  be 
bottled  up.  Bohemia  must  boast  her 
seaports ;  Shakespeare  was  right.  Mr. 
Wilson's  stand,  furthermore,  is  baaed 
on  the  assumption  that  a  nation  is 
bottled  up  unless  she  owns  her  own 
seaports.  This  strikes  us  as  a  false 
view  and  fraught  with  trouble-mak- 
ing possibilities.  If  every  inland 
country  is  entitled  to  the  fee  simple 
of  a  corridor  to  the  sea,  the  League 
of  Nations  will  have  its  hands  full. 

TN  common  sense  and  morals,  all 
■*•  that  a  nation  which  happens  to  be 
shut  off  from  the  sea  can  claim  is 
that  she  have  proper  consideration 
from  the  nations  whose  ports  she 
u.sos.  In  practice,  Germany,  with 
limited  facilities  on  the  North  Sea, 
used  Rotterdam  as  advantageously  as 
she  did  her  own  ports.  It  is  gen- 
erally simply  good  business  for  the 
possessors  of  exceptional  port  facili- 
ties to  share  them  as  widely  as  pos- 
sible. We  might  come  near  reality, 
and  even  morality,  in  the  matter  of 
Fiume  if  we  judged  that  the  City,  be- 
ing Italian,  should  belong  to  Italy,  but 
that  Italy  should  be  most  solemnly 
bound  to  maintain  Fiume  aS  a  free 
port  and  not  to  discriminate  against 
shippers  from  the  old  Austrian  do- 
minions. Such,  approximately,  was 
the  proposal  that  Mr.  Wilson  has 
blocked.  For  many  years  to  come, 
Fiume  is  a  necessary  outlet  for  the 
Austrian  Hinterland.  Hence  all  these 
interests  should  be  scrupulously  safe- 
guarded. But  to  insist  that  because 
the  port  of  Fiume  is  a  necessary  con- 
venience for  Jugoslavia  it  should  be- 
long to  it,  is  really  a  very  German 
-argument  and  below  Mr.  Wilson's 
controversial    form.      Admiral    von 


Tirpitz  would  not  have  argued  other- 
wise about  Rotterdam.  Rightly  or 
wrongly,  Fiume  has  become  the  sym- 
bol of  Irredentism.  If  this  Italian 
city  goes  into  alien  hands,  Italy  will 
enter  with  no  heart  into  the  League. 
If  the  case  were  clearly  covered  by  a 
moral  principle,  there  might  be  a 
chance  of  persuading  her  to  neces- 
sary self-sacrifice.  But  on  the  point 
of  morality,  her  own  plea  under  self- 
determination  is  at  least  as  impres- 
sive as  Mr.  Wilson's  aversion  to  bot- 
tling up  Jugoslavia.  It  will  be  easier 
for  Italy  to  satisfy  the  spirit  of  his 
demand  by  reasonable  guarantees 
than  it  will  be  for  him  to  convince 
Italy  that  she  is  wrong  because  in 
the  fifteenth  century  her  colonists  got 
in  the  way  of  a  Jugoslavia  that  was 
to  be.  The  case  is  one  for  negotia- 
tion and  compromise. 

wrHY  worry  over  all  sorts  of  new- 
'^  f  angled  problems?  Senator 
Penrose  knows  a  trick  worth  two  of 
that,  when  it  comes  to  picking  a  Re- 
publican candidate  for  President. 
"The  principal  test,"  he  says,  "will  be 
that  the  nominee  be  an  approved  Re- 
publican." Of  course  there  are  a 
good  many  "approved  Republicans," 
and  there  may  be  a  good  deal  of  a 
tussle  between  them  at  Chicago;  but 
nobody  minds  that.  The  great  thing 
is  to  keep  them  from  worrying  over 
labor,  finance,  economic  restoration 
of  the  world,  and  things  like  that. 
Stick  clo.se  to  the  good  old  rule,  the 
simple  plan.  Run  your  candidate  on 
his  Republican  label! 

'T'HE  Federal  Reserve  Board,  in  its 
■'-  annual  report,  deals  in  an  earnest 
and  yet  cautious  spirit  with  the  ques- 
tion of  "deflation."  So  far  as  re- 
gards the  practical  steps  to  be  taken, 
the  cautiousness  is  unqualifiedly  com- 
mendable; for  instance,  everybody 
must  approve  this  statement  of  pol- 
icy: 

Too  rapid  or  too  drastic  deflation  would  de- 
feat the  very  purpose  of  a  well-regulated 
credit  system  by  the  needless  unsettlcnient  of 
mind  it  would  produce  and  the  disastrous  re- 
action that  such  unsettlement  would  have  upon 
productive  industry. 

Radical  and  drastic  deflation  is  not,  there- 
fore, in  contemplation,  nor  is  a  policy  of  fur- 
ther expansion.  Either  course  would  in  the 
end  lead  only  to  disaster  and  must  not  be  per- 
mitted to  develop. 


On  the  other  hand,  the  Board  would 
have  done  better  service  to  straight 
thinking  if  it  had  avoided  the  slipperi- 
ness  of  such  an  outgiving  as  this : 

Dcdation,  however,  merely  for  the  sake  of 
deflation  and  a  speedy  return  to  "normal" — 
deflation  merely  for  the  sake  of  restoring  se- 
curity values  and  commodity  prices  to  their 
pre-war  levels  without  regard  to  other  conse- 
quences— would  be  an  insensate  proceeding  in 
the  existing  posture  of  national  and  world 
affairs. 

Deflation  for  the  sake  of  deflation  is 
an  object  well  worthy  of  the  most 
serious  thought.  In  point  of  fact, 
we  have  little  doubt  it  actually  fur- 
nishes a  large  part  of  the  motive  for 
the  Reserve  Board's  recent  and  pros- 
pective policy,  though  the  Board 
seems  anxious  not  to  admit  this  mo- 
tive explicitly,  as  it  might  imply  a  re- 
proach on  its  previous  record.  But 
nobody  is  asking  for  a  "speedy  re- 
turn" to  pre-war  commodity  prices, 
or  for  the  pursuance  of  a  policy  of 
deflation  "without  regard  to  other 
consequences."  Everybody  knows 
that  this  would  be  an  "insensate  pro- 
ceeding." Knocking  down  a  man  of 
straw  is  usually  a  sign  of  weakness. 

TN  declining  to  serve  as  a  delegate 
-■■  at  large  to  the  Republican  National 
Convention  on  the  ground  .that  he 
should  be  in  Europe  in  June,  Mr. 
Root  did  not  say  that  he  should  be 
there  in  the  interests  of  the  Per- 
manent Court  of  International  Jus- 
tice, to  be  created  by  virtue  of  Article 
14  of  the  Covenant.  But  it  is  a  fair 
influence  that  such  is  his  intention. 
And  if  it  is  true  that  he  has  accepted 
the  invitation  which  was  supposed  to 
have  been  extended  to  him,  to  share 
in  the  establishment  of  the  new 
tribunal,  then  the  omens  may  be  pro- 
nounced most  favorable.  There  is  no 
one  whom  the  United  States  could 
depute  to  this  task  with  more  confi- 
dence that  it  was  making  a  genuina 
contribution  towards  the  realization 
of  a  hopeful  project.  It  is  no  longer 
a  question  of  whether  there  should 
or  should  not  be  a  League ;  the  Leaguf 
is  in  being.  Its  best  chance  of  con- 
tinuing in  being,  of  gaining  genuim 
recognition  as  a  respectable  anc 
trustworthy  agency  in  regulating  th( 
affairs  of  men,  seems  to  lie,  if  we  an 
not  greatly  mistaken,  in  the  increase! 
opportunity  it  offers  for  arbitral  am 


February  28,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[198 


judicial  settlement  of  international 
disputes.  Here  the  world  is  not  deal- 
ing with  something  wholly  new.  It 
has  had  experience  of  this  kind  of 
thing  before,  an  experience  which 
is  by  no  means  discouraging  to  any 
one  who  does  not  expect  perfection  at 
a  jump.  The  opportunity  for  advance 
along  lines  where  it  has  already  been 
demonstrated  that  advance  is  possible 
is  worth  the  attention  of  the  world's 
best  brains,  and  if  Mr.  Root  is  to  be 
her  representative,  America  will  feel 
that  she  has  given  the  best  she  has. 

A  NYTHING  like  armed  rebellion  in 
■^  Michigan  against  the  enforce- 
ment of  Federal  Prohibition  is  of 
course  unthinkable.  Iron  County  is 
not  out  for  blood.  But  the  mere  fact 
that  a  Federal  Prohibition  Director 
should  ask  for  United  States  troops 
and  for  the  wholesale  arrest  of 
county  officials  leaves  an  unpleasant 
taste.  There  is  not  enough  raisin 
wine  in  all  Iron  County  to  wash  it 
j  out.  There  is  not  in  all  Olympus  un- 
j  quenchable  laughter  sufficient  to  give 
savor  to  the  situation. 

'T'HE     two     questions     concerning 
i     ■'-  Allied  policy  toward  Russia  asked 
I   by  a  correspondent  in  a  letter  pub- 
!   lished  last  week  are  searching  and 
pertinent,   but  the   inquirer   is   mis- 
taken  in   assuming   that   the   points 
raised  have  not  been  discussed  already 
in  these  columns.    The  first  query  is 
j   whether,  if  foreign  nations  had  given 
i   substantial  aid  to  Kolchak,  Lenin  and 
i  Trotsky     would     not     have     turned 
i   "patriots"  and  succeeded  in  rousing 
I  the  fury  of  the  peasants  against  him 
as  "a  tool  of  the  foreigner"  and  the 
like.    The  answer  is  that  Lenin  and 
1  Trotsky,  although  by  profession  in- 
j  ternationalists  despising  patriotism, 
I  tried  all  this,  but  without  success.    It 
was  only  when  they  represented  Kol- 
I  chak  as  the  head  of  a  movement  de- 
I  signed   to   take   away   the   peasants' 
j  lands  that  they   made  any   impres- 
'  sion.    Even  then  hundreds  of  villages 
rose   in   revolt   against   the    Bolshe- 
viks in  the  hope  that  Kolchak  would 
come  in  time  to  save  them,  and  work- 
'  men  in  the  great  Putilov  works  at 
Petrograd  cheered   openly  for  him. 
On  the  other  hand,  when   the  later 


policy  of  Lloyd  George  towards  the 
border  provinces  indicated  that  his 
purpose  was  to  dismember  Russia, 
the  patriotic  anti-Bolshevik  bourgeois 
Russians,  not  the  peasants,  swung  in 
under  the  Bolshevik  banner  in  de- 
fense of  the  unity  and  integrity  of 
their  country. 

'T'HE  second  question  asks  if  it  is 
■*■  not  expedient  for  the  world  to  let 
the  Bolsheviki  somewhere  work  out 
their  system  to  ruin,  to  a  reductio  ad 
abaurdum  so  plain  that  even  the  fools 
of  the  world  will  understand  its  folly. 
This  is  rather  a  cold-blooded  vivisec- 
tion proposition  on  a  gigantic  scale. 
The  world  might  perhaps  look  on 
complacently,  but  unfortunately  Rus- 
sia does  not  live  for  herself  alone, 
and  the  prolongation  of  her  agony 
jeopardizes  the  very  existence  of 
European  civilization.  It  is  all  very 
well  that  a  child  should  burn  himself 
to  acquire  a  wholesome  fear  for  fire, 
but  it  is  scarcely  wise  to  encourage 
him  to  set  the  house  on  fire  in  order 
to  learn  this  important  lesson.  It 
must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  Bol- 
sheviki are  a  very  small  minority  of 
the  Russian  people,  for  the  most  part 
alien  to  them  and  maintaining  their 
regime  by  force  and  terror ;  that  their 
programme  proved  itself  a  failure 
within  two  months  after  they  secured 
control,  and  ever  since  they  have  been 
making  radical  changes  and  adjust- 
ments in  it  in  the  futile  effort  to  adapt 
it  to  actual  conditions ;  and  that  they 
regard  Russia  not  as  a  social  labora- 
tory, but  as  a  point  d'appui  from 
which  to  spread  the  malignant  poison 
of  their  propaganda  of  revolution 
throughout  the  world.  We  do  not  be- 
lieve that  it  was  expedient  to  stand 
idly  by  while  a  gang  of  cutthroats 
and  robbers  tortured  and  plundered 
the  helpless  Russian  people,  only  to 
use  their  blood-stained  loot  to  under- 
mine and  overthrow  other  govern- 
ments. We  have  a  lively  scientific 
interest  in  social  and  economic  experi- 
ments, but  in  this  case  the  results  do 
not  justify  the  cost. 

/^LD  and  far-off  things,  but  not 
^-^  unhappy,  are  brought  to  mind  by 
the  death  of  the  discoverer  of  the  pole. 
What  would  we  not  give  to-day  for  a 


return  of  the  boyish  ardor  with  which 
we  all  hailed  Peary's  triumph,  and 
the  unstinted  interest  we  all  took  in 
the  great  Doctor  Cook  controversy! 
Will  such  things  ever  be  again? 
Shall  we  be  able  to  forget  the  world's 
terrific  problems,  class  struggles  at 
home,  the  cost-of-living  question,  and 
the  rest,  and  throw  our  whole  heartf» 
into  something  as  remote  from  presc- 
ing  trouble  as  was  the  nailing  of  the 
flag  to  the  North  Pole?  Well,  there 
is  some  comfort  in  thinking  of  the 
stir  Einstein  has  made  even  in  the 
very  depth  of  our  woes;  and  it  is 
quite  certain  that  the  first  man  who 
makes  a  landing  on  the  moon  will 
create  excitement  even  greater  than 
that  which  greeted  Peary's  splendid 
exploit. 

Hillquit  on  the  Socialist 
^amme 


Progn 


T  UCIDITY  and  directness  char- 
'-^  acterized  the  testimony  given  by 
Mr.  Hillquit  before  the  Judiciary 
Committee  of  the  New  York  Assem- 
bly, which  covered  almost  every  im- 
portant phase  of  the  Socialist  move- 
ment in  this  country.  He  denied 
throughout  that  that  programme  con- 
templated incitement  to  violence.  He 
admitted,  or  rather  asserted,  through- 
out that  the  programme  was  distinctly 
a  programme  of  revolution.  The 
change  which  the  Socialists  aim  to 
bring  about  is  a  revolutionary  change, 
and  it  is  to  Mr.  Hillquit's  credit  that 
he  made  no  attempt  to  disguise  this 
fact.  No  intelligent  person  needed 
to  be  instructed  upon  it,  but  many 
intelligent  persons  take  refuge  in 
misty  obscurities  rather  than  face  it. 
The  sharpest  test  to  which  he  was 
put  related  to  the  possibility  of  a 
resort  to  force  at  some  future  time 
for  the  actual  attainment  of  this  revo- 
lutionary goal.  He  was  confronted 
with  an  article  of  Victor  Berger's  in 
which  the  former  Socialist  Congress- 
man declared  that  in  a  pinch  "the 
ballot  may  not  count  for  much,"  and 
that  therefore  "workingmen  should 
make  it  their  duty  to  have  rifles  and 
the  necessary  rounds  of  ammunition 
at  their  homes,  and  be  prepared  to 
back  up  their  ballots  with  their  bul- 


19-t] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  42 


lets  if  necessary."  Mr.  Hillquit  did 
not  flinch  from  the  defense  of  this 
position.  He  did  not  repudiate  it; 
but,  with  great  ability  and  ingenuity, 
he  placed  upon  it  an  interpretation 
consistent  with  his  denial  that  the 
programme  of  the  Socialist  party  in 
this  country  was  in  any  way  a  pro- 
gramme of  lawlessness  or  violence. 
He  admitted  that  the  article  was 
"somewhat  unfortunately  worded," 
and  that  some  of  the  expressions  in 
it  were  "altogether  too  strong  for  the 
meaning  which  they  carry  and  in- 
tended to  carry" ;  but  he  interpreted 
it  as  pointing  to  the  use  of  the  bullet 
only  in  defense  of  rights  actually 
acquired  by  the  ballot.  The  question- 
ing brought  out  from  him  this  some- 
what formal  statement  of  the  So- 
cialist party's  position  as  he  under- 
stands it: 

Our  position  with  reference  to  violence  is 
— we  say  we  will  protect  the  right  of  the  ma- 
jority to  make  or  unmake  the  form  of  gov- 
ernment. We  proceed  upon  the  assumption 
that  we  shall  bring  about  the  change  by  con- 
stitutional methods,  and  that  the  minority  will 
submit  when  we  are  in  the  majority,  as  we 
submit  now  when  we  are  the  minority. 

While  we  anticipate  a  peaceful  change,  his- 
tory may  play  one  of  its  tricks  by  forcing  us 
to  defend  ourselves.  History  has  shown 
among  other  things  that  when  the  privileged 
minority  is  about  to  lose  its  privileges  it  be- 
comes desperate;  it  tries  to  obstruct  lawful 
progress,  to  destroy  reforms.  In  that  case  it 
will  be  up  to  the  majority  to  defend  its  rights 
and  in  a  case  of  this  kind  it  may  come  to 
shooting. 

Now,  what  are  we  going  to  do 
about  it?  That  is  the  question  that 
is  squarely  before  the  American  peo- 
ple. How  are  we  going  to  treat  men 
like  Hillquit?  What  are  we  going  to 
do  about  the  representatives  whom 
the  party  that  he  describes  may  suc- 
ceed in  sending  to  our  State  Legis- 
latures or  to  Congress?  What  are  we 
going  to  do  about  the  spread  of  the 
opinions  and  sentiments  which  in- 
spire that  party?  We  had  been  jog- 
ging along  in  the  presence  of  these 
men  and  these  things,  without  being 
brought  to  the  point  of  any  sharp 
definition  of  policy  in  relation  to 
them.  Speaker  Sweet's  spectacular 
coup  at  Albany  suddenly  made  a  ques- 
tion acute  which  might  otherwise 
have  continued  mildly  chronic  for  a 
long  time.  It  produced  instantly  a 
sharp  division,  not  as  between  So- 
cialists and  conservatives,  but  among 
the  conservatives  themselves — mean- 


ing here  by  the  word  conservative 
every  person  who  is  an  upholder  of 
American  institutions,  or,  indeed,  of 
the  historic  institutions  of  civilization 
itself.  Those  who  have  opposed  and 
those  who  have  defended  Speaker 
Sweet's  action  are  not  distinguished 
from  each  other  by  a  greater  or  less 
fidelity  to  the  principles  of  our  Gov- 
ernment or  to  the  established  insti- 
tutions of  society.  They  differ  in 
their  view  of  the  conduct  which  is 
demanded  for  the  maintenance  of 
those  principles  and  those  institu- 
tions. 

Mr.  Hillquit's  testimony  ought  to 
serve  the  purpose  of  still  further 
clarifying  the  issue  thus  drawn.  The 
real  question  between  those  who  be- 
lieve that  the  Socialist  Assemblymen 
should  be  expelled  and  those  who  be- 
lieve that  they  should  be  allowed  to 
retain  their  seats  is  essentially  the 
question  whether  a  man  holding  the 
views  expressed  by  Mr.  Hillquit, 
and  whether  the  representative  of  a 
party  occupying  the  position  that  he 
defined,  is  disqualified  from  member- 
ship in  an  American  representative 
assembly.  A  score  of  odds  and  ends, 
some  fantastic,  some  trivial,  some  of 
a  certain  degree  of  real  importance, 
were  brought  out  in  the  earlier  part 
of  the  inquiry,  but  they  have  failed  to 
make  any  serious  impression  on  the 
public  mind.  The  only  substantial 
element  now  in  the  case  is  that  of 
general  attitude ;  and  both  sides  might 
well  agree  to  regard  this  as  repre- 
sented, for  all  practical  purposes,  by 
Mr.  Hillquit's  testimony.  Accordingly, 
what  we  have  to  decide  is  just  this : 
What  is  henceforth  to  be  the  status 
of  men  who  avow  their  determination 
to  do  all  in  their  power  by  lawful 
means  to  bring  about  a  fundamental 
change  in  our  system  of  government, 
who  purpose  to  effect  a  revolution  in 
the  economic  order,  and  who. hold  this 
object  so  paramount  that  they  do  not 
shrink  from  the  possibility  of  being 
compelled  at  some  future  time  to  as- 
sure its  consummation  by  force  of 
arms? 

The  answer  given  by  those  who 
have  a  genuine  faith  in  the  efficacy 
of  free  institutions  is  that  the  only 
way  to  beat  these  men  is  to  beat  them 
at  the  polls.     Let  them  persuade  as 


many  of  their  fellow-citizens  as  they 
can  that  they  are  right.  Let  us  per- 
suade as  many  of  our  fellow-citizens 
as  we  can  that  they  are  wrong.  Then 
if  they  are  beaten — as  we  feel  sure 
they  will  be — all  the  world  will  know 
that  they  have  been  beaten.  Nobody 
proposes  to  kill  them,  to  put  them  in 
prison,  or  even — in  so  far  as  they  are 
American  citizens — to  deport  them. 
They  will  remain  with  us,  whether 
we  seat  their  representatives  or  not. 
Their  attachment  to  their  own  con- 
victions will  not  be  weakened,  but 
strengthened,  by  denial  to  them  of 
the  fundamental  right  of  American 
citizens,  the  right  of  representation. 
Moreover,  those  convictions  them- 
selves involve  no  depravity,  either  of 
mind  or  of  morals.  They  are  shared 
by  multitudes  of  persons  in  all  the 
leading  countries  of  Europe.  No 
stigma  can  be  put  upon  them  by  any 
method  of  proscription.  If,  with  all 
our  advantage  in  numbers,  and,  as  we 
firmly  believe,  in  intelligence,  we  can 
not  make  head  against  them  in  a  fair 
contest,  there  is  in  ourselves  a  defect 
of  character  or  of  spirit  which  Ameri- 
cans surely  must  be  loth  to  admit. 
It  is  not  by  shutting  people's  mouths, 
but  by  convincing  their  minds  and 
stirring  their  hearts,  that  the  people 
of  a  nation  of  freemen  must  uphold 
the  institutions  that  they  hold  dear. 

Profiteer-Hunting  and 
Political  Economy 

THE  outcry  which  was  raised  against  them 
on  this  occasion  was,  we  suspect,  as  ab- 
surd as  the  imputations  which,  in  times  of 
dearth  at  home,  were  once  thrown  by  states- 
men and  judges,  and  are  still  thrown  by  two 
or  three  old  women,  on  the  corn  factors. 

This  sentence  occurs  in  Macaulay's 
essay  on  Lord  Clive,  which  appeared 
in  the  Edinburgh  Review  in  the  year 
1840.  He  is  speaking  of  the  rumor 
which  was  spread  in  England  at  the 
time  of  the  terrible  East  Indian 
Famine  of  1670  "that  the  Company's 
servants  had  created  the  famine  by 
engrossing  all  the  rice  of  the  coun- 
try"; and  the  contrast  to  which  hf 
refers  is  that  between  the  state  oj 
mind  which  had  been  almost  universa 
before  the  rise  of  the  science  of  polit 
ical  economy  and  the  enlightened  un 
derstanding  of  elementary  economi( 


February  28,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[195 


phenomena  which  at  the  time  when 
he  was  writing  had  become  equally 
universal  among  educated  persons. 

Among  the  elementary  teachings 
of  that  science,  few  are  more  note- 
worthy than  that  which  points  out 
that  intelligent  hoarding,  in  the  face 
of  impending  or  actual  scarcity,  by 
men  whose  business  it  is  to  watch  the 
prospects  of  demand  and  supply,  so 
far  from  being  an  injury  to  the  pub- 
lic, is  a  great  public  service.  The  mo- 
tive of  such  hoarding  unquestionably 
is  private  gain ;  but  that  gain — always 
supposing  that  nothing  in  the  nature 
of  monopoly  enters  into  the  case — 
can  only  be  realized  through  the  in- 
terest of  the  speculator  coinciding 
with  the  interest  of  the  public.  His 
gains  are  made  not  at  the  time  of 
withholding  the  supply,  but  at  the 
time  of  releasing  it ;  and  if  his  calcu- 
lation is  correct,  the  scarcity  he  re- 
lieves by  selling  is  more  extreme  than 
the  scarcity  which  he  intensifies  by 
hoarding.  Prices  may  be  made  some- 
what higher  at  a  time  of  comparative 
ease,  but  they  are  made  decidedly 
lower  at  a  time  that  would  be  one  of 
extraordinary  hardship  if  the  with- 
held supply  had  been  previously  con- 
sumed. 

It  is  something  of  a  shock  to  one's 
Twentieth  Century  complacency  to 
think  how  numerous  in  our  time  has 
become  that  tribe  which  Macaulay 
dismissed  eighty  years  ago  as  repre- 
sented by  "two  or  three  old  women." 
In  our  frantic  endeavors  to  do  some- 
thing about  the  high  cost  of  living 
we  have  clutched  at  all  sorts  of 
straws,  and  at  none  more  eagerly 
than  that  of  "profiteering."  The  hunt 
for  profiteers  has  taken  many  shapes, 
but  the  most  conspicuous  of  them  has 
been  that  of  sporadic  crusades  against 
the  storage  of  food  products.  Four 
or  five  months  ago.  State  and  Federal 
agents  in  all  parts  of  the  country 
were  busily  engaged  in  discovering 
supplies  of  eggs,  and  sugar,  and 
meats,  which  in  their  judgment  were 
more  than  ought  to  be  allowed  to 
remain  in  storage,  and  thrusting 
them  upon  the  market.  The  front 
pages  of  the  newspapers  bristled  with 
the  figures  of  a  million  eggs  here  and 
a  thousand  tons  of  sugar  there,  which 
through  the  zeal  of  the  people's  offi- 


cers were  rescued  from  the  maw  of 
greedy  speculators.  We  had  got  the 
beast  by  the  tail  at  last,  and  prices 
were  to  be  reasonable  once  more.  Of 
course,  nothing  of  the  kind  happened. 
The  price  of  eggs  and  the  price  of 
sugar  went  higher  than  ever — we  do 
not  say  because  of  these  seizures,  but 
at  least  in  spite  of  them.  The  fact  was 
that  besides  the  impossibility  of  ac- 
complishing the  object  in  any  such 
way — besides  the  circumstance  that 
whatever  effect  it  did  produce  was 
almost  sure  to  be  precisely  the  op- 
posite of  what  was  intended — the 
amounts  involved,  large  as  they 
looked  to  the  unthinking,  were  too 
small  to  exercise  any  important  in- 
fluence on  the  general  situation. 

It  is  just  to  acknowledge  that,  wide- 
spread as  was  (and  is)  the  delusion 
on  this  subject  of  the  relation  be- 
tween speculation  and  prices,  it  was 
not  shared  by  the  more  intelligent 
part  either  of  the  business  world  or 
of  the  press.  What  was  wanting, 
however,  was  that  firm  grounding  in 
fundamental  principles  which  is 
necessary  to  enable  intelligent  senti- 
ment to  dominate  over  unintelligent. 
And  the  absence  of  this — as  illus- 
trated in  many  another  economic 
question —  is  to  be  ascribed,  above  all 
else,  to  the  discredit  into  which  the 
"classical"  political  economy  fell  some 
three  or  four  decades  ago,  under  the 
influence  chiefly  of  the  then  fashion- 
able German  historical  school.  This 
latter  school  itself  lost  its  vogue  per- 
haps as  far  back  as  twenty  years  ago ; 
it  really  had  but  a  short  run  of  favor. 
Whatever  its  merits,  it  was  soon 
found  that  it  was  quite  incapable  of 
offering  a  substitute  for  the  fruitful 
ideas  on  which  the  science  had  been 
built  by  the  great  British  economists, 
or  for  the  central  doctrines  which  had 
flowed  from  those  ideas.  But,  so  far 
as  the  general  public  was  concerned, 
the  mischief  had  been  done ;  with  the 
consequence  that  the  world  has  gone 
through  a  vast  deal  of  floundering  for 
want  of  the  authoritative  guidance 
which  nothing  but  those  central  doc- 
trines can  supply.  What  this  flounder- 
ing has  cost  our  country  and  the 
world,  it  is  quite  impossible  to  com- 
pute. 

We  are  by  no  means  unaware  of 


the  errors  into  which  the  world  was 
led,  partly  by  a  too  naive  acceptance 
of  the  doctrines  of  the  classical  econo- 
mists, partly  by  a  misunderstanding 
of  them,  and  partly  by  faults  which 
are  justly  to  be  laid  to  the  charge  of 
those  economists  themselves.  Most 
mischievous  of  all,  perhaps,  was  the 
readiness  of  statesmen  and  journal- 
ists to  regard  economic  principles 
which  constituted  merely  an  analysis 
of  what  is,  as  dogmatic  declarations 
of  what  ought  to  be  or  what  must  be. 
The  business  of  economic  theory  is  to 
extricate  from  the  great  and  com- 
plex mass  of  economic  phenomena 
those  factors  which  are  of  funda- 
mental importance,  and  to  trace  out 
the  relations  of  cause  and  effect  which 
flow  from  their  operation.  That  there 
are  factors  of  a  non-economic  char- 
acter which  the  statesman  must  take 
into  account,  the  great  economists 
have  never  denied ;  nor  have  they  de- 
nied that  it  is  possible  for  the  state 
to  introduce  economic  factors  which 
modify  the  operation  of  those  brought 
into  play  by  individual  initiative.  The 
doctrine  of  laissez  faire,  though 
doubtless  overemphasized  by  many 
political  economists  of  the  past,  is  not 
a  doctrine  of  economic  science  at  all. 
Its  merits  in  any  given  instance  must 
be  determined  by  all  the  considera- 
tions bearing  on  the  case,  among 
which  those  that  belong  to  economic 
science  are  only  a  part. 

What  the  doctrines  of  theoretical 
economics  can  do  for  the  world  is  not 
to  furnish  a  magic  prescription  for 
the  conduct  of  its  affairs,  but  to  en- 
able it  to  think  clearly  about  some  of 
the  most  vital  elements  that  enter 
into  them.  The  mariner's  chart  and 
compass  do  not  tell  him  for  what  port 
he  should  steer,  neither  do  they  enable 
him  to  dispense  with  the  services  of 
the  pilot  who  knows  the  rocks  and 
shoals  with  which  the  voyage  may  be 
beset.  But  we  do  not  throw  away  the 
compass  and  the  chart  because  they 
do  not  of  themselves  assure  the  suc- 
cess of  the  voyage.  In  our  wander- 
ings among  the  economic  difficulties 
of  the  time,  iliese  invaluable  aids 
have  fallen  into  regrettable  desuetude, 
with  the  result  of  a  vast  amount  of 
most  expensive  sailing  on  false 
courses. 


196] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  42 


Agriculture,  the  Basic 
Industry 

A  MERICAN  agriculture,  as  a  basis 
-^  for  American  aid  in  the  recon- 
struction of  Europe,  is  the  subject  of 
a  very  interesting  pamphlet  put  out 
a  few  days  ago  by  the  publicity  de- 
partment of  the  Guaranty  Trust 
Company,  of  New  York.  In  spite  of 
the  "drift  to  the  cities"  of  which  we 
hear  so  much,  the  volume  and  value 
of  our  farm  products  continues  to 
show  remarkable  growth.  Forty 
years  ago  the  far  output  of  the  nation 
was  valued  at  a  billion  and  a  half  per 
year.  From  that  date  to  the  begin- 
ning of  the  great  war,  the  annual 
value  is  estimated  to  have  risen  to 
about  eight  billions,  and  to  have 
doubled  this  immense  figure  within 
two  years,  under  the  influence  of  war 
conditions.  The  author  of  the  pam- 
phlet fails  to  call  attention  to  the  fact 
that  this  last  violent  "increase,"  in 
so  short  a  time,  is  in  the  main  not 
an  increase  of  production  but  merely 
the  evidence  of  a  great  decline  in  the 
purchasing  power  of  the  medium  of 
exchange.  Yet  after  proper  deduction 
on  this  score,  there  was  a  notable 
increase. 

The  proportion  of  the  population 
now  living  on  farms  is  put  at  a  trifle 
less  than  one-third,  but  nearly  twenty 
millions  more  live  in  towns  of  less 
than  2,500  and  many  of  these  are 
directly  engaged  in  farming,  or  are 
the  owners  of  rented  farms.  Mention 
should  also  be  made  of  the  increasing 
number  of  professional  and  business 
men  in  cities  who  own  and  operate 
farms.  We  do  not  refer  to  the  "city 
farmer"  who  is  simply  amusing  him- 
self with  a  country  home  and  farm, 
regardless  of  expense,  but  to  nie'n  who 
are  themselves  of  farm  origin  and 
who  hold  their  acres  to  an  even 
stricter  financial  account  than  farm- 
ers who  have  never  had  the  business 
training  of  the  city.  Farming  of  this 
type  is  especially  in  evidence  in  the 
Middle  West,  where  so  many  cities 
have  rich  farm  lands  immediately 
adjoining.  Such  farms  are  often  of 
great  value  in  introducing  business 
habits  and  scientific  agricultural 
methods  into  backward  communities. 


Among  the  systematic  means  now 
in  use  for  the  introduction  of  better 
methods,  the  "county  agent"  is  the 
most  pervasive  and  perhaps  most  suc- 
.cessful.  We  are  told  that  there  are 
a  trifle  under  three  thousand  agri- 
cultural counties  in  the  United  States, 
and  a  county  agent,  sometimes  with 
one  or  more  assistants,  is  now  em- 
ployed in  more  than  three-fourths 
of  them,  not  merely  addressing  farm- 
ers' meetings,  but  going  from  farm 
to  farm  and  giving  expert  advice  to 
meet  the  individual  need.  In  each 
of  about  1,700  counties  a  woman 
"home  demonstration  agent"  is  also 
employed  to  carry  to  the  women  of 
the  farm  the  newer  applications  of 
agricultural  science  to  such  matters 
as  canning,  care  of  poultry,  house 
sanitation,  etc.  In  some  parts  of  the 
country  the  banks  are  employing 
agents  to  assist  farmers  in  so  apply- 
ing loans  as  to  increase  net  profits. 
The  amount  of  money  loaned  on  farm 
property  at  present  is  estimated  at 
something  like  $6,000,000,000:  but 
these  are  very  largely  loans  for  the 
express  purpose  of  increasing  profits, 
not  the  resylt  of  a  failure  to  meet 
expenses  and  a  consequent  necessity 
of  mortgaging  the  farm  that  the 
family  may  be  clothed  and  fed  until 
the  coming  of  better  times.  And 
with  better  methods,  the  agricultural 
borrower  is  making  steady  progress 
towards  a  lower  rate  of  interest.  Go 
to  any  of  the  towns  and  small  cities 
in  the  good  farming  districts,  and  the 
banks  will  tell  you  that  the  farmers 
are  steadily  growing  in  importance 
as  depositors  and  investors.  In  these 
phenomena  the  compilers  of  the 
Guaranty  Trust  Company's  pamphlet 
find  evidence  that  the  American 
farmer  will  constitute  a  very  effec- 
tive factor  in  absorbing  the  securi- 
ties necessary  to  provide  the  credits 
essential  to  the  reconstruction  of 
Europe. 

There  is  nothing  in  the  facts 
brought  out  by  this  pamphlet  to  deny 
the  special  difficulties  with  which  the 
farmer  is  now  contending,  such  as 
scarcity  and  high  wages  of  labor. 
There  is  much,  however,  to  show  that 
the  forces  by  which  these  difficulties 
are  to  be  met  are  already  well  in 
hand   and   making   steady   progress. 


There  is  no  occasion  to  grow  pessimis- 
tic over  the  future  of  American 
agriculture,  faulty  conclusions  from 
still  more  faultily  managed  ques- 
tionnaires to  the  contrary  notwith- 
standing. 

Outwitting  Winter 

COMEONE  recently  dug  up  Steven- 
^  son's  remark  about  life  being  "an 
amusement  totally  unsuitable  for 
winter."  Yet  surely  winter  is  not  so 
different  from  other  things  that  there 
is  not  something  to  be  said  for  it.  It 
happens  to  be  just  fifty  years  ago 
that  Lowell  spoke  his  "good  word  for 
winter,"  as  "a  thoroughly  honest 
fellow,  with  no  nonsense  in  him,  and 
tolerating  none  in  you,  which  is  a 
great  comfort  in  the  long  run."  One 
would  expect  that  from  Lowell ;  ruddy 
and  hirsute,  with  hands  thrust  deep 
in  the  pockets  of  his  pea-jacket,  he 
might  pass,  as  one  met  him  on  his 
daily  walk,  for  old  Hiems  himself. 
The  frailer  Stevenson,  unequally  but 
not  ungallantly  pitted  against  the 
dour  Scots  climate,  has  in  him  the 
larger  share  of  our  common  humanity. 

Accepting  winter,  however,  as  a 
fact — and  gad !  we'd  better — its  chief 
charm  appears  to  be  that  it  may  in 
one  way  or  another  be  outwitted.  This 
is,  after  all,  the  best  of  winter  sports. 
Skating,  skiing,  snow-shoeing,  tobog- 
ganing, curling,  ice-boating  are  all 
very  well  for  one  who  had  but  the 
requisite  opportunity  and  stamina, 
but  for  most  grown  people  they  can 
furnish  at  best  but  a  very  occasional 
day's  sport.  The  bulk  of  the  winter 
must  somehow  be  got  through  with- 
out them.  And,  indeed,  to  one  given 
to  reflection,  they  offer  very  little  that 
is  sustaining.  This  may  be  proved  by 
referring  to  a  recent  anthology  called 
"Winter  Sports  Verse."  The  thing 
was  worth  doing,  perhaps,  merely  to 
show  what  could  be  done.  As  a  dem-  , 
onstration  it  is  perfect.  But  as  for 
poetry,  a  man  would  soon  perish  on 
a  diet  of  snow  and  rushing  air.  It  is  , 
all  too  confoundedly  healthy  and  'I 
cheerful  for  any  use.  There  is  too 
much  crying  of  "ho!"  in  it. 

No,  the  poetry  of  winter,  the  satis- 
factions of  winter,  as  distinguished 
from  its  fun,  lie  largely  in  getting 


February  28,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[197 


the  better  of  it,  in  defeating  its  pur- 
poses by  means  of  fire  and  com- 
panionship. Lowell,  in  his  essay,  has 
faggotted  up  what  the  poets  have 
had  to  say  on  this  subject,  and  it  is 
all  to  this  same  purpose.  The  best 
strategy  is  even  to  convert  it  into 
an  ally.  The  simplest  creature-com- 
forts gain  from  us  a  respect  that  we 
forget  to  pay  them  in  easier  days. 
One  of  the  few  warm  touches  in  our 
book  of  verses  about  winter  sports  is 
this  from  Theodore  Roberts: 

What   matters   though   the  winds   blow   chill 

And   toot  the  drifts  about  our  door, 
When  we  have  fire-light,  and  good-will, 
And   bear-skins   strewn  upon   the   ffoor, 
And  bacon  and  a  pot  of  tea 
To  make  the  time  go  merrilee? 

The  world  shut  out,  we  are  the  more 
ready  to  value  the  little  that  we  have. 
We  have  come,  it  is  true,  a  long 
way  from  the  primitive  days  in  which 
humanity  huddled  together  comfort- 
ing one  another  as  under  a  common 
calamity,  looking  to  its  waning  stores 
and  half  wondering  if  the  miracle  of 
spring  would  in  truth  repeat  itself. 
We  have  progressed  far  in  the  game 
of  outwitting  winter  with  our  the- 
atres and  concerts  and  other  ways  of 
being  warm  and  bright  and  pretend- 
ing it  is  for  some  other  reason  that 
we  are  got  together.    We  may  have 
our  peaches  at  a  dollar  apiece.    The 
old    minstrel's    tale    of    cherries    at 
Christmas  is  no  miracle  at  all;  it  is 
merely  a  matter  of  having  the  price. 
But  we  all  have  deep  in  our  bones 
some  ancestral  sense  for  winter  as  it 
was,  some  lingering  zest  for  the  older 
game  of  looking  for  winter's  compen- 
sations, as  against  the  newer  game, 
not   always   successfully   played,    of 
pretending  that  winter  doesn't  exist. 
To  whom  will  the  sound  of  sleigh- 
bells  come  without  a  lifting  of  the 
heart?     When  snows  have  made  of 
the  automobile   a   lurching,   helpless 
body     upon     ineffectually     spinning 
wheels,  when  the  shag-coated  horse 
is  roused  from  his  winter  nap,  and 
the  old  cutter  in  which  the  hens  lately 
roosted  or  the  mice  worked  their  will 
is  dragged  rustily   across  the   barn 
floor,    who    does    not    feel    himself 
warmed  by  the  spectacle  of  the  con- 
traption as  it  passes?    The  sound  of 
its  bells  lingers  in  the  ear,  now  faint 
and  now  generously  showered  about 


one  by  a  moment's  gust,  like  ancient 
memories  forgotten  in  all  but  their 
sweetness.  In  future  ages,  when  new 
religious  forms  shall  rise  among  peo- 
ples with  manners  seemingly  new, 
yet  blood  of  the  old  blood  in  their 
veins  for  all  that,  who  shall  say  that 
annually  a  ceremonial  sleigh,  like  the 
car  of  the  ancient  earth-goddess,  shall 
not  pass  between  lanes  of  reverent 
folk,  who  shall  do  honor  to  its  smooth- 
gliding  course  and  the  music  of  its 
bells,  not  quite  knowing  what  they 
do,  but  sure  that  without  these  things 
the  people  perish? 

A  Lamentable  Failure 

T^HE  breakdown  of  the  work  of  re- 
-*•  educating  our  disabled  soldiers 
makes  a  story,  as  it  is  set  forth  by 
the  New  York  Evening  Post,  that 
leaves  the  heart  sick.  Failure  here  is 
more  humiliating  than  in  any  other 
of  the  many  sorts  of  endeavor  which 
the  war  called  forth.  To  fail  in  the 
face  of  a  superior  enemy  can  be  sup- 
ported by  fortitude;  to  blunder  and 
still  to  win  may  be  excused  to  human 
nature ;  but  to  fail  in  a  clearly  recog- 
nized duty  toward  those  who  uncom- 
plainingly yielded  up  the  strength  of 
their  young  manhood  is,  for  the  rest 
of  us,  to  accept  the  brand  of  un- 
pardonable sin.  Failure  is  the  merited 
word.  Seventy-five  per  cent,  of  the 
men  who  are  eligible  for  training  are 
not  in  training,  though  it  is  now 
twenty  months  since  the  Division  of 
Rehabilitation  was  established.  Three 
hundred  thousand  of  our  boys  were, 
in  greater  or  less  degree,  disabled. 
Two  hundred  thousand  of  these  ex- 
pressed a  desire  to  avail  themselves 
of  the  offer  of  help — real  help,  no 
mere  cash  bonus — which  Congress 
held  out  to  them.  According  to  the 
Post's  figures  only  24,000  have  so  far 
been  put  in  training,  and  only  217 
have  graduated  into  gainful  employ- 
ment. 

Money  has  been  spent  in  abun- 
dance, a  clerical  force  of  more  than 
three  thousand  have  been  busy,  at 
good  salaries,  constructing  impene- 
trable entanglements  of  red  tape, 
spacious  offices  have  been  hired  and, 
sometimes,  paid  for,  and  the  business 
for  which  the  Federal  Board  for  Vo- 


cational Education  was  created  sim- 
ply has  not  gone  forward.  The  ex- 
soldier,  sensitive  of  his  disability  and 
easily  discouraged,  had  a  burden  of 
proof  placed  upon  him  by  the  Board 
which  was  more  than  he  could  bear; 
summoned  by  form  letter  to  inter- 
views that  ended  in  nothing  but  wait- 
ing, ordered  to  produce  this  document 
and  that,  subjected  to  repeated  med- 
ical examinations,  it  is  small  wonder 
that  he  came  to  the  conclusion  that 
it  was  the  Board's  intention  to  wear 
him  out  if  it  could ;  counsel,  support, 
encouragement,  a  sustaining  sense 
that  someone  was  looking  out  for  his 
interests,  there  was  none.  Even  when 
a  man  finally  found  himself  placed  in 
training,  there  seems  to  have  been  no 
adequate  care  taken  to  see  that  he 
got  what  he  was  supposed  to  get. 

It  can  hardly  be  doubted  that  the 
Board  for  Vocational  Education 
counted  among  its  number  some  who 
labored  devotedly  and  with  a  sense  of 
the  issues  at  stake.  But  it  is  only  too 
plain  that  the  direction  of  the  work 
was  not  intrusted  to  men  of  insight 
and  grasp.  It  was  a  task  at  once  diffi- 
cult and  delicate.  Mere  organization, 
without  appreciation  of  the  human 
values  involved,  could  not  meet  it. 
As  a  demonstration  of  the  failure  of 
bureaucracy  when  it  comes  to  inti- 
mate dealings  with  the  lives  of  human 
beings  it  leaves  nothing  to  be  desired. 
If  the  Board  had  been  made  respon- 
sible to  one  of  the  several  Depart- 
ments which  contended  for  its  con- 
trol, things  might  have  gone  better. 
Even  now  it  is  not  too  late  for  Con- 
gress, which  alone  is  directly  respon- 
sible, to  do  something,  not  by  way 
of  investigation  but  by  putting  the 
work  in  charge  of  a  man  capable  of 
retrieving  what  is  yet  retrievable. 
If  Congress  will  do  nothing,  being 
busied  in  withholding  grants  to  the 
stricken  peoples  of  Europe  and  in 
distributing  a  cash  bonus  among  ex- 
service  men  as  one  gives  a  check  at 
Christmas  because  it  is  too  much 
trouble  to  pick  out  a  gift  that  means 
something,  then  the  charge  falls  upon 
each  community  and  upon  each  indi- 
vidual of  means  to  see  to  it  that  this 
draft  upon  the  nation's  dearest  honor 
is  worthily  met.  Dishonored  it  must 
not  and  can  not  be. 


198] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  42 


> } 


The    "Student-Hour 
and  College  Efficiency 

THERE  are  fields  in  which  "effi- 
ciency" is  a  matter  of  definite 
physical  measurement.  A  sewer  sys- 
tem is  efficient  in  proportion  as  its 
discharge,  within  a  given  period,  ap- 
proximates the  greatest  amount  of 
sewage  which  the  calibre  of  its  tubes 
will  in  theory  permit  it  to  carry.  But 
there  are  fields  in  which  efficiency  is 
a  quality  too  elusive  for  such  easy 
methods  of  evaluation.  We  may  not 
say,  on  the  analogy  of  the  sewer,  that 
a  college  classroom  is  efficient  in  pro- 
portion as  its  discharge  of  students 
at  the  end  of  each  class-hour  approxi- 
mates the  full  number  which  its  seats, 
not  to  speak  of  windowsills  and 
standing  room,  will  accommodate. 
And  yet  there  are  not  a  few  American 
colleges  in  whose  administrative  of- 
■  fices  a  careful  record  is  now  kept  of 
the  "student-hours"  taught  by  each 
member  of  the  faculty.  This  aggre- 
gate is  obtained  by  multiplying  the 
number  of  hours  taught  per  week  by 
the  average  number  of  students  in 
the  instructor's  classes.  Now  there 
may  be  reasons  entirely  harmless,  if 
not  positively  useful,  for  collecting 
and  filing  such  statistics.  There  is  a 
growing  suspicion,  however,  that  col- 
lege presidents  and  trustees  are  in- 
clined to  attach  an  undue  importance 
to  them  when  such  matters  as  salary 
increases,  promotions,  and  the  grant- 
ing of  requests  for  department  sup- 
plies are  concerned. 

Few  things  could  be  more  inimical 
to  the  true  spirit  and  purpose  of 
higher  education  than  the  rating  of 
the  comparative  efficiency  of  teachers 
on  any  such  basis.  A  class  of  five  or 
six  students  in  some  abstruse  and 
comparatively  neglected  subject  may 
seem  a  waste  of  effort  to  the  admin- 
istrative officer  bent  on  economy,  but 
the  inspiration  gained  from  close  per- 
sonal contact  with  a  scholarly  instruc- 
tor under  such  conditions  has  not 
infrequently  made  of  one  man  a 
greater  force  than  a  hundred  ordi- 
nary college  graduates,  whether  in 
wise  public  leadership  or  in  some  im- 
portant special  line  of  scholarly  re- 
search. We  readily  grant  that  college 


students  are  more  intelligent  than  the 
average,  but  their  experience  of  life 
and  sanity  of  judgment  have  not  yet 
reached  the  point  where  their  com- 
parative numbers  in  two  departments 
of  study,  or  in  the  classrooms  of  two 
different  instructors,  can  be  taken  as 
a  safe  indication  of  comparative  edu- 
cational values. 

We  are  not  unaware  that  college 
administrators  have  of  recent  years 
encountered  a  real  evil  in  the  multipli- 
cation of  small  classes.  The  evil  re- 
sides, however,  not  in  the  size  of  the 
classes  but  in  the  relative  unimpor- 
tance of  the  subjects,  in  the  too  close 
paralleling  of  courses  already  sched- 
uled, or,  in  undergraduate  work,  in 
the  introduction  of  subjects  for  which 
the  students  are  not  yet  sufficiently 
prepared.  In  all  these  cases  the  evil 
would  be  still  greater,  educationally, 
if  the  classes  were  larger.  The  young 
instructor,  and  sometimes  the  veteran 
professor  in  competition  with  the 
younger,  finds  no  greater  temptation 
to  cheapen  the  standard  of  his  work 
than  that  which  comes  from  an  ap- 
parent show  of  special  administrative 
favor  to  the  teacher  of  large  classes 
in  comparatively  easy  subjects.  The 
college  administration  that  has  the 
broad  interests  of  scholarship  most 
intelligently  at  heart  will  realize  that 
it  has  a  special  duty  of  support  and 
encouragement,  both  financial  and 
moral,  to  any  branch  of  study  which, 
important  in  itself,  is  suffering  from 
student  neglect,  whether  because  it 
is  inherently  difficult,  or  because  it  is 
too  far  out  of  the  ordinary  course  of 
student  thinking  for  its  importance 
to  be  known,  or  because  it  is  without 
any  direct  bearing  upon  the  power  to 
earn  money.  We  have  ceased  to  insist 
that  every  student  should  pursue  cer- 
tain definite  lines  of  study  in  order 
to  secure  the  distinction  of  a  college 
degree;  but  this  very  concession 
should  arouse  our  colleges  to  a  firm 
determination  that  no  branch  of 
higher  learning  having  a  vital  relation 
to  human  life  and  culture  should  be 
dropped  from  its  schedules,  or  al- 
lowed to  languish,  merely  because 
subjects  more  superficially  attractive 
have  caught  the  taste  of  the  time. 

In  addition  to  the  danger  to  im- 
portant subjects  of  study  not  spon- 


taneously elected  by  large  numbers, 
another  harmful  tendency  of  the 
"student-hour"  idea  is  to  speak  of 
recitation  halls  as  attaining  their 
maximum  efficiency  only  when  each 
classroom  is  occupied  by  a  class  every 
hour  of  the  college  day.  A  storage 
warehouse  is  of  course  most  profit- 
able when  each  day's  withdrawal  of 
goods  is  accompanied  by  immediate 
entries  of  equivalent  amount;  but  a 
vacant  hour  in  a  college  classroom, 
when  the  teacher  can  linger  with  the 
more  interested  of  his  pupils,  or  even 
compel  the  less  interested  to  linger 
with  him,  and  converse  a  little  more 
freely  than  the  requirements  of  the 
regular  hour  will  allow,  will  often 
raise  a  student  to  a  new  level  of  effort 
and  attainment.  Opportunities  for 
such  informal  converse  ought  to  be 
favored,  not  discouraged  by  an  effort 
to  use  the  "plant"  to  its  full  capacity 
every  hour  of  the  college  day.  Modern 
ingenuity  has  wrought  out  certain 
mechanical  processes  and  standards 
of  measurement  which  are  of  great 
practical  value  when  intelligently  ap- 
plied to  their  appropriate  objects; 
but  when  we  turn  about  and  attempt 
to  apply  them  to  the  workings  of  the 
human  intelligence  itself,  failure  and 
confusion  is  the  result.  This  may 
seem  to  some  too  obvious  a  truth  to 
need  utterance ;  but  many  college  pro- 
fessors are  to-day  required  to  furnish 
statistics  the  collection  of  which  is 
evidently  inspired  by  a  belief  in 
these  mechanical  theories  of  educa- 
tional evaluation.  The  triumph  of 
such  ideas  would  be  far  more  effec- 
tive than  low  salaries  in  driving 
genuine  scholars,  of  the  true  teaching 
spirit,  out  of  the  profession. 


THE  REVIEW 

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Copyriffht,     1920,     in     the     United    States    of 
America 
Editors 
FABIAN  FRANKLIN 
HAROLD  DE  WOLF  FULLER 
Associate  Editors 
Harry  Morgan  Avres     O.  W.  Fiiikin<j 
A.  J.  Barnouw  W.  H.  Johnson 

Jerome  Landfield 


February  28,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[199 


Pre -War  American  Diplomacy 


IT  IS  now  a  commonplace  of  American 
politics  that  the  President's  control 
of  foreign  affairs  is  thoroughly  auto- 
cratic and,  in  spite  of  the  powers  of  the 
Senate,  may  be  exerted  without  any 
check  except  the  very  indefinite  one 
of  public  opinion.  The  Constitutional 
authority  delegated  to  the  Federal  Gov- 
ernment is  incompletely  and  not  too 
definitely  parceled  out;  neutrality,  the 
recognition  of  new  Governments,  the  ab- 
rogation of  treaties,  and  the  conclusion  of 
agreements  not  so  formal  as  to  require 
the  sanction  of  the  Senate  are  all  within 
the  prerogative  of  the  President.  And, 
as  Mr.  Wilson  has  said,  to  guide  diplo- 
macy prior  to  the  conclusion  of  a  treaty 
is  very  often  to  force  ratification — the 
present  conflict  being  the  exception  to 
the  rule.  Yet  the  fact  that  the  Senate 
must  ratify  all  agreements  is  likely  to 
make  us  believe  that  we  really  have  popu- 
lar control  of  foreign  policy  when,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  less  is  knovsTi  about 
American  diplomacy  before  and  during 
the  war  than  about  the  exchanges  lead- 
ing to  and  accompanying  the  belliger- 
ency of  any  of  the  other  Allies. 

This  is  rather  forcibly  brought  to 
mind,  so  far  as  pre-war  American 
diplomacy  is  concerned,  by  the  publica- 
tion in  the  January  Contemporary 
Review  of  extensive  excerpts  from  the 
testimony  of  Count  Bernstorff  before  a 
"Parliamentary  Commission  of  Inquiry 
into  Responsibility  in  and  for  the  War," 
which  was  instituted  by  a  Reichstag 
resolution  under  Article  34  of  the  new 
German  Constitution.  The  sub-commit- 
tee before  which  Bernstorff  testified  was 
to  investigate  "all  occasions  which  of- 
fered a  possibility  of  peace  negotiations 
with  the  enemy."  The  former  Ambas- 
sador's revelations,  even  in  their  sub- 
stantially verbatim  form,  contain  many 
omissions  and  can  not  be  definitely  dealt 
with  until  they  are  heavily  documented. 
But  some  prima  facie  disclosures  are 
made  on  a  number  of  points  concerning 
which  the  American  people  have  been 
vouchsafed   little   information. 

After  his  first  public  attempt  at 
mediation.  President  Wilson  made  un- 
successful overtures  in  September,  1914, 
which  were  not  answered  by  the 
Entente;  after  his  first  trip  abroad  for 
the  President  during  the  winter  of  1914- 
1915,  Colonel  House  reported  that  the 
moment  for  peace  had  not  yet  come;  on 
June  2,  1915,  in  discussing  the  Lusi- 
tania,  President  Wilson  told  Bernstorff 
that  if  Germany  would  give  up  the  use 
of  submarines,  he  could  persuade  the 
English  Cabinet  to  agree  to  abandon  the 
attempt  to  starve  Germany,  and  "he 
hoped  that  this  would  be  the  beginning 
of  peace  action  on  a  great  scale."    Presi- 


dent Wilson  first  insisted  that  Germany 
should  admit  the  Lusitania  outrage  to  be 
a  breach  of  faith,  but  later  gave  way  and 
was  satisfied  with  the  statement  that 
"reprisals  must  not  inflict  injury  on 
neutrals."  In  January,  1916,  Colonel 
House  found  the  chief  opposition  to 
peace  in  Paris  and  a  certain  willingness 
in  Berlin  and  London.  Many  negotia- 
tions took  place  in  New  York  between 
Bernstorff  and  Colonel  House  in  order 
to  avoid  the  publicity  that  White  House 
conferences  would  have  entailed. 

House  told  me  Wilson  no  longer  had  the 
power  to  oblige  England  to  obey  the  practices 
of  international  law  [this  was  just  after  the 
Sussex  affair]  ;  American  trade  was  so  inti- 
mately tied  up  with  the  Entente  that  Wilson 
could  not  possibly  disturb  these  trade  rela- 
tions without  evoking  a  terrific  storm.  On 
the  other  hand,  he  was  in  a  position  to  ob- 
tain a  peace  without  victory,  and  he  intended 
to  do  so  as  soon  as  an  opportunity  offered 
itself.  But  seeing  that  such  a  step  would 
now  universally  be  called  pro-German  in 
America,  he  could  only  do  it  when  public 
opinion  about  relations  with  Germany  had 
somewhat  calmed  down.  He  proposed  a 
pause,  and  hoped  without  fail  to  be  able  to 
make  a  beginning  of  peace  mediation  towards 
the  end  of  the  summer.  Then  Rumania  en- 
tered the  war. 

This  made  the  Entente  sure  of  victory 
and  caused  Wilson  to  defer  his  interven- 
tion. 

In  October,  1916,  the  Emperor  trans- 
mitted through  Ambassador  Gerard  a 
memorandum  to  the  effect  that  he  was 
willing  to  entertain  a  peace  offer,  but  the 
Presidential  election  caused  a  delay. 

The  Peace  Note  which  Wilson  dispatched 
on  December  18  had  been  composed  as  far 
back  as  the  middle  of  November  but  had  been 
thrust  by  Wilson  into  his  writing  table,  be- 
cause another  wave  of  anti-German  feeling 
swept  through  the  country  on  account  of  the 
Belgian  deportations.  Colonel  House  told  me 
that  the  peace  offer  which  was  already  drawn 
up  by  the  middle  of  November  was  not  sent 
off  by  Wilson  because  he  could  not  be  re- 
sponsible for  it  in  the  state  of  public  feel- 
ing. .  .  . 

On  November  24,  Bernstorff  telegraphed: 

Wilson  has  commissioned  Colonel  House  to 
tell  me  in  the  strictest  confidence  that  he 
would  undertake  an  effort  for  peace  as  soon 
as  possible,  presumably  between  now  and  the 
New  Year.  But  meanwhile  he  made  it  a 
condition  that  we  should  discuss  peace  as 
little  as  possible,  and  that  we  should  allow 
no  new  submarine  controversies  to  spring  up, 
in  order  to  prevent  a  premature  refusal  by 
our  enemies. 

When  the  German  reply  to  President 
Wilson's  peace  note  of  December  18  con- 
tained no  mention  of  terms  of  peace. 
Count  Bernstorff  "telegraphed  that  Lan- 
sing had  begged  him  at  any  rate  to  com- 
municate our  peace  terms  to  him  in 
confidence."  The  terms  sent  by  the 
Germans  with  their  peace  proposal  of 
December  12  were  so  moderate,  however, 
that  "Lansing  answered  me  that  he  was 


unable  to  understand  why  we  did  not 
ask  as  much  as  the  others ;  then  a  middle 
line  of  compromise  could  be  arranged." 
Bernstorff  said  that  "an  American 
peace  mediation  which  should  not  include 
the  restoration  of  Belgium  was  wholly 
excluded" ;  he  understood  President  Wil- 
son's "peace  without  victory"  address  to 
the  Senate  on  January  22,  1917,  "to 
mean  that  Germany  was  to  retain  her 
world  position  undiminished." 

It  must  always  be  remembered  that  on  Janu- 
ary 31,  1917,  Wilson's  whole  attitude  under- 
went a  change.  Until  January  31  Wilson 
believed  us  to  be  wishing  for  a  peace  by  agree- 
ment; after  January  31  he  was  convinced  we 
would  only  accept  the  so-called  German  peace. 

These  are  the  most  significant  points 
in  Count  Bernstorff's  testimony,  and 
they  serve  to  show  the  incompleteness 
of  what  we  know  of  American  neutrality. 
Practically  all  of  the  formal  notes  con- 
cerning the  submarine  warfare  have 
been  published,  but  Bernstorff's  testi- 
mony indicates  very  clearly  that  the  in- 
formal exchanges  were  both  frequent 
and  important.  Ambassador  Gerard's 
book  did  tell  us  something,  but  it  was 
valuable  chiefly  as  propaganda  and,  while 
he  doubtless  participated  in  pourparlers 
which,  at  the  time  of  publication  it  was 
thought  wise  to  leave  out,  his  story  can 
not  be  important,  since  most  of  the  ne- 
gotiations were  conducted  in  the  United 
States.  Judging  by  the  few  times  he 
figures  in  Bernstorff's  evidence.  Secretary 
Lansing  will  not  have  any  startling  dis- 
closures; the  German  Ambassador  dealt 
chiefly  with  Colonel  House.  One  won- 
ders, however,  what  the  State  Depart- 
ment's archives  contain.  In  a  volume 
entitled  "A  Survey  of  the  International 
Relations  between  the  United  States  and 
Germany,  1914-1917,"  published  in  1918, 
James  Brown  Scott  (who  had  been  chair- 
man of  the  Neutrality  Board  which  ad- 
vised the  State  Department)  casually 
quoted  an  unpublished  pledge  (February 
16,  1916)  of  the  German  Government 
with  reference  to  the  Lusitania  and  sub- 
marine warfare  in  the  future.  This 
formula,  never,  so  far  as  I  know,  pub- 
lished in  the  newspapers  or  official  edi- 
tions of  the  correspondence,  is  doubtless 
the  partial  admission  of  fault  which 
Bernstorff  told  his  investigating  commis- 
sion President  Wilson  was  persuaded  to 
accept.  With  the  exception  of  matters 
such  as  this  and  the  controversy  over 
armed  merchantmen,  we  shall  have  to 
look  to  President  Wilson  and  Colonel 
House  for  the  full  story. 

In  England  the  documentation  of  the 
war  is  proceeding  rapidly.  Lord  Hal- 
dane's  personal  defense  of  his  much-dis- 
cussed reports  on  the  1912  mission  to 
Berlin  is  about  to  appear  in  book  form. 
Lord  Morley  is  known  to  have  a  third 
volume  of  "Recollections,"  and  it  is  an 
open  secret  that  certain  members  of  the 
Liberal  Government  of  1914  are  not  well 


200] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  42 


pleased.  There  are  many  authoritative 
volumes  on  war  responsibility  as  indi- 
cated by  the  diplomatic  correspondence, 
by  Headlam,  Price,  Archer,  Stowell,  and 
Oman.  Early  in  the  war  Professor  Gil- 
bert Murray  issued  a  semi-official  de- 
fense of  "The  Foreign  Policy  of  Sir 
Edward  Grey,"  and  extreme  radicals 
like  Morel  and  left-wing  Liberals  like 
Lord  Loreburn  have  published  reasoned 
attacks  on  the  diplomacy  which  obligated 
England  without  a  treaty,  an  adequate 
army,  or  Parliamentary  approval,  but 
could  not  tell  Germany  that  England 
would  intervene.  Little  remains  to  be 
known  of  Anglo-German  relations — at 
least  on  the  English  side. 

America's  case  against  Germany  was 
much  simpler  and  more  indubitable  than 
England's,  yet  President  Wilson's  policy 
has  not  been  adequately  disclosed.  What 
did  the  President  say  to  Bernstorff  and 


what  notes  (not  yet  published)  were 
sent  to  Berlin?  Did  President  Wilson 
and  Mr.  Balfour  discuss  the  secret 
treaties?  Was  there  any  attempt  at 
political  preparedness  for  peace  before 
the  final  debacle?  What  actually  did 
Wilson,  Lloyd  George,  Clemenceau,  and 
Orlando  say  to  each  other  in  that  stuffy 
room  which  housed  the  Council  of  Four? 
These  are  things  that  we  must  know  be- 
fore even  provisional  estimates  can  be 
formed  of  President  Wilson's  policy  be- 
fore and  during  the  war;  and,  in  spite 
of  our  machinery  for  popular  control  of 
diplomacy,  Americans  know  rather  less 
of  their  own  recent  history  than  of  Eu- 
ropean history.  It  is  a  nice  ethical  ques- 
tion, finally,  as  to  whether  the  citizens 
of  a  democracy  should  not  be  told  these 
matters  by  official  publications  instead 
of  personal  memoirs. 

Lindsay  Rogers 


What  Must  the  World  Do 
To  Be  Fed? 


TWO  books  are  at  hand  which  deal 
expertly  with  a  problem  which  a 
few  years  ago  only  the  initiated  recog- 
nized as  a  problem  at  all.  The  first, 
"The  Feeding  of  Nations,"  by  E.  H. 
Starling,  was  written  by  the  Chairman 
of  the  Royal  Society  Food  Committee 
and  Honorary  Scientific  Advisor  to  the 
British  Ministry  of  Food  during  the 
war.  The  second,  "The  World's  Food 
Resources,"  is  by  Professor  J.  Russell 
Smith,  lately  Consulting  Expert  of  the 
War  Trade  Board  and  Professor  of 
Economic  Geography  at  Columbia  Uni- 
versity. If  the  present  writer  ventures 
to  call  attention  to  the  importance  of 
these  two  works,  it  is  not  because  he 
has  long  been  in  the  class  of  the  in- 
itiated, but  because  in  common  with 
thousands  of  his  fellows  he  has  learned 
to  see  in  recent  events  the  development 
of  a  new  function  of  statecraft. 

The  world  learned  more  of  the  tech- 
nique of  democratic  government  during 
the  few  fevered  years  of  the  war  than 
it  had  learned  in  a  hundred  previous 
years.  And  the  war  served  as  well  to 
reveal  the  dangerous  pressure  points  in 
the  democratic  structure.  Not  the  least 
of  these  concerned  the  utilization  of  re- 
sources which  are  the  very  grist  of  the 
democratic  mill.  The  campaigns  for  con- 
servation of  national  resources  had 
seemed  to  have  camparatively  only  a 
doctrinaire  interest  until  the  operations 
of  Dr.  Walther  Rathenau  in  Germany 
and  of  the  Munitions  Ministry  of  Lloyd 
George  in  England  taught  the  necessity, 
as  well  as  the  possibility,  of  a  strict  mo- 
bilization of  all  the  resources  of  a  na- 
tion. But  more  important  in  every 
respect  in  the  psychology  of  peoples,  and 


even  the  stability  of  governments  them- 
selves, are  the  questions  which  arise  in 
connection  with  the  administration  of 
the  food  supply.  For  these  questions  the 
foundations  have  already  been  laid  in 
abstract  science,  two  branche?  of  which 
are  represented  in  the  books  before  us. 
Dr.  Starling  is  a  representative  of  ap- 
plied physiology,  who  finds  his  attention 
drawn  from  the  problems  of  the  composi- 
tion of  food  and  the  food  requirements 
of  the  average  man  back  to  the  questions 
which  are  involved  in  Europe's  deficit 
for  1920  of  16,000,000  tons  of  cereals. 
Professor  Smith  is  a  representative  of 
economic  geography,  who  finds  himself 
asking  the  question,  "Has  food  shortage 
come  to  stay?"  The  best  answer  he 
can  find  is  that  it  depends  on  whether 
man  behaves.  By  all  odds  the  most  in- 
teresting and  significant  portion  of  Pro- 
fessor Smith's  book  is  the  last  fifty 
pages,  in  which  he  discusses  "The  Dis- 
tribution of  Food  and  of  Men,"  and 
"Hunger,  Trade,  and  War." 

As  our  authors  well  know,  these  ques- 
tions involve  more  than  economic  geo- 
graphy or  applied  physiology,  important 
as  these  are.  They  involve  new  zones 
of  administration  in  the  state.  For  these 
administrative  activities  there  are  few 
enough  precedents.  Until  the  great  war, 
food  policy  was  either  lacking  or  it  was 
doctrinaire.  When  starvation  lay  out- 
side of  the  paths  of  the  world's  markets 
it  was  taken  as  the  handiwork  of  God. 
When  nations  have  had  a  foodstuffs  policy 
it  has  been  a  local  one.  Germany  began 
to  adapt  its  national  life  to  the  food 
problem  immediately  after  the  Franco- 
German  War.  Since  then  she  has  ex- 
traordinarily  increased  her  productive- 


ness per  man  unit,  but  she  did  nothing  to 
prepare  for  the  supreme  test  of  her 
policy  in  war,  and  when  war  came  her 
policy  failed  her.  Great  Britain  never 
had  raised  enough  for  her  own  consump- 
tion; but  she  has  been  kept  from  facing 
the  problem  by  her  excess  of  manufac- 
tured stuff  which  she  could  exchange  for 
foodstuffs  from  abroad,  and  by  her  com- 
mand of  shipping.  Free  trade  was  Eng- 
land's food  policy,  and  it  was  a  local  one. 

The  place  of  food  policy  as  an  economic 
principle  of  government  was  not  learned 
until  Herbert  Hoover  taught  it  in  con- 
nection with  the  work  of  the  Commis- 
sion for  Relief  in  Belgium.  There  the 
true  governmental  function  of  the  food 
supply  in  all  its  various  social,  financial, 
economic,  and  diplomatic  aspects  was 
created  during  the  first  two  years  of  the 
war.  When  Hoover  was  taken  into  the 
war  Government  as  United  States 
Food  Administrator,  this  function  of 
government  was  accepted  by  the  United 
States  as  belonging  to  its  war  policy. 
This  was  followed  immediately  by  the  ap- 
pointment of  Lord  Rhondda  as  British 
Food  Controller,  and,  a  little  later,  when 
the  Clemenceau  Government  was  estab- 
lished in  France,  food  policy  was  ac- 
cepted as  a  factor  therein.  During  the 
two  years  of  war  that  followed  and  the 
one  further  year  before  peace  was  finally 
declared,  the  world  learned  all  that  it 
now  knows  of  the  statesmanship  involved 
in  the  food  supply.  .It  is  not  likely  soon 
to  forget  the  pressing  need  of  all  the 
lessons  it  learned  in  the  hard  school  of 
war. 

Is  peace  to  bring  an  end  to  the  food 
problem?  One  cannot  gather  an  affirma- 
tive answer  to  this  question  from  either 
of  these  books,  or  from  any  sane  view 
that  one  may  take  of  the  situation.  The 
best  that  one  can  say  is  that  the  food 
problem  will  end  if  the  world  can  get 
together.  And  this  answer  is  worth 
little  enough,  for  it  must  be  taken  with 
a  plenty  of  reservations  and  interpreta- 
tions. Aside  from  the  inherent  diffi- 
culty of  rebuilding  again  the  broken 
bonds  of  faith  between  nations,  of  fill- 
ing up  the  lack  of  manufactured  goods 
to  exchange  for  products  of  the  farm,  of 
establishing  on  a  larger  and  better  basis  i 
international  finance  and  shipping,  in 
fact  of  providing  again  a  social  equi- 
librium within  the  States  as  well  as  be- 
tween States,  there  is  the  further  diffi- 
culty that  food  policy  never  has  been 
rationally  envisaged  as  a  world  problem; 
and  getting  together,  therefore,  will  nol 
mean  a  return  to  the  conditions  of  be 
fore  the  war,  but  advancing  by  slow  ant 
painful  stages  to  a  point  at  which  th( 
internal  food  policy  of  a  nation  is  ad 
justed  to  the  world  situation. 

Immediately  after  the  armistice,  Eu 
rope  asked  for  a  continuation  of  inter 
Allied  food  control,  and  Dr.  Starling  add 
his  plea  for  cooperative  control  in  tim 


February  28,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[201 


of  peace.  No  man  more  than  Mr.  Hoover 
stands  for  the  entente  between  na- 
tions, and  yet  he  has  been  compelled 
to  oppose  from  the  first  all  such  meas- 
ures. The  reasons  are  not  selfish  ones. 
The  nations  of  Europe  must  return  to 
a  basis  of  defensible  independent  food 
policy  before  the  United  States  can  un- 
dertake even  to  consider  the  pooling  of 
her  vast  but  sorely-tried  resources  with 
those  of  Europe.  During  the  war  we 
were  willing  to  feed  high-priced  grains 
to  live  stock  in  order  to  provide  a  quick 
export  of  fats  to  Europe.  We  cannot 
indefinitely  continue  such  an  expensive 
programme.  The  physiological  mean 
necessary  for  sustenance  is  a  useful  ab- 
straction when  you  have  reached  the 
danger  point.  The  time  has  not  yet 
come  for  the  application  of  this  mean 
to  America  along  with  Europe  to  com- 
pensate for  errors  in  Europe's  food 
policy.  Europe  has  been  living  from 
hand  to  mouth  for  generations,  and 
meanwhile,  by  means  of  embargoes  which 
were  both  murderous  and  suicidal,  de- 
stroying the  production  across  border 
lines.  The  destroyed  herds  of  Serbia 
must  have  come  back  more  than  once  in 
five  hungry  years  to  plague  the  con- 
sciences of  Magyar  statesmen.  Germany 
came  near  to  having  a  rational  food 
policy,  but  the  difficulty  of  enforcing  a 
strict  application  of  policy  on  the  farm- 
ers during  the  war  was  responsible  for 
the  wastage  of  incalculable  amounts  of 
cereals  on  the  maintaining  of  useless 
herds,  which  were  good  neither  for  milk 
nor  fat,  and  was  one  of  the  contribut- 
ing causes  to  the  loss  of  the  war. 

The  problem  as  to  how  food  policy 
v/ill  enter  into  the  psychology  of  govern- 
ment will  constitute  in  time  to  come  one 
of  the  severest  tests  of  democracy.  The 
failures  in  food  policy  of  the  last  five 
years  have  been  even  more  illuminating 
than  the  successes.  On  account  of  her 
position  in  the  food  market  and  because 
she  has  had  the  advantage  of  wise  ad- 
ministration, the  United  States  has  been 
put  in  the  way  of  the  successes.  We 
learned  to  conserve  in  the  midst  of 
plenty,  to  produce  readily  at  a  sugges- 
tion of  need,  and  to  control  stable  dis- 
tribution in  the  midst  of  a  nervous  mar- 
ket. The  failures  of  Europe  were  also 
partly  on  account  of  her  position.  Para- 
doxical as  it  may  seem,  it  is  more  diffi- 
cult to  stabilize  a  market  in  the  midst  of 
conditions  of  scarcity  than  in  the  midst 
of  well-advertised  plenty.  And  it  is 
more  difficult  to  exercise  suasion  over 
the  producer  than  over  the  distributor. 
You  can  encourage  producers  to  raise 
wheat  and  pigs,  as  we  did  in  America, 
but  you  cannot  force  them  to  give  up 
the  last  margin  on  a  requisition.  More 
important  still,  you  cannot  force  them 
to  measures  of  scientific  economy,  as  was 
shown  in  Germany  in  connection  with 
the  cattle  supply. 


An  important  difference  revealed  by 
the  war  between  the  food  policy  of  Great 
Britain  and  that  of  Germany  is  preg- 
nant with  meaning.  Throughout  the 
war  Great  Britain  managed  to  keep  her 
average  consumption  per  man  about  the 
same  as  the  pre-war  average,  about  3,400 
calories.  She  did  this  by  reducing  the 
overlavish  consumption  of  the  rich  and 
increasing  the  ration  of  the  formerly 
ill-nourished  classes.  Germany  sank 
from  the  excess  of  pre-war  days  to  2,300 
calories  in  1915  and  to  1,600  calories  in 
1916.  Upon  such  a  ration  no  man  can 
thrive.  There  developed,  therefore,  what 
may  be  called  the  underground  stocks 
that  were  never  counted  in  the  available 
supplies  of  the  nation  and  finally  reached 
only  the  hands  of  those  who  could  pay 
exorbitant  prices.  While  England  as  a 
matter  of  governmental  policy  was  bind- 
ing to  her  cause  the  classes  that  were 
necessary  for  the  prosecution  of  the  war, 
Germany,  on  the  other  hand,  on  account 
of  her  hard  straits  and  as  well  on  ac- 
count of  her  ancient  ineptitude  in  popu- 
lar government,  was  draining  food- 
stuffs from  the  people  for  the  support 
of  the  wealthy  few.  And  when  the  well- 
fed  Junkers  in  power  called  upon  the 
people  in  their  extremity  in  the  fall  of 
1918,  either  the  people  were  dead  or  they 
had  turned  against  the  Government 
which  had  betrayed  them. 

Thomas  H.  Dickinson 

The  Uncult 

I  AM  in  touch  with  the  hippodrome  of 
the  seven  arts.  The  ringmaster  is  on 
the  wire. 

Mrs.  Challis  informs  me  that  the 
Athelney  Club  is  to  give  a  dinner  to- 
morrow night.  The  Athelney  Club 
doesn't  give  dinners  without  provocation, 
and,  whenever  I  receive  an  invitation,  I 
ask  "Who?"  Then  I  say  "Oh,  of  course," 
and  blunder  about  the  public  library  feel- 
ing like  a  regular  dilettante. 

"The  guest  of  honor,"  Mrs.  Challis's 
moral-suasion  tone  indicates  that  I  am 
being  reproved  for  not  knowing  all  about 
it,  "the  guest  of  honor  will  be  Arthur 
Veronicus  Roehm.    You  know." 

"He  was  in  Welterweight's  Anthology 
last  year,  wasn't  he?"  I  venture.  I  can 
venture  things  over  the  telephone  quite 
recklessly ;  I  think  I  could  win  in  a  long- 
distance poker  game.  Besides,  Welter- 
weight's Anthology  is  the  surest  of  all 
literary  hazards,  as  Mr.  Welterweight 
distributes  two-penny  bouquets  to  every- 
one who  ever  wrote  a  rhyme.  I  have 
wounded  Mrs.  Challis,  however.  She 
moans  prettily,  and  I  know  that  her  eyes 
are  like  a  dove's  that  sickeneth. 

"You  are  confusing  him  with  Ada 
Roehm  who  wrote  '  Sonnets  from  the 
Bosnian,' "  she  corrected  me  with  the 
glibness  of  a  barber  exploding  the  fal- 
lacy that  Mollowitz  pitched  his  first  game 


for  Milwaukee  in  1902.  "Mr.  Roehm 
writes  those  reminiscences  of  a  rivet- 
slinger  for  the  Next-to-Reading-Matter 
Weekly — without  any  punctuation,  you 
know.  And  his  spelling  is  a  scream. 
You  must  be  there  to-morrow  night.  Be 
sure,  now." 

The  receiver  stops  its  gracious  grating, 
and  I  hang  it  up,  and  wonder  a  little. 
My  sense  of  duty  tells  me  that  I  ought 
to  meet  this  lion  with  the  screaming 
spelling.  I  ought  to  sit  at  the  Athelney 
dinner-table  and  look  and  listen  and  have 
Boswellian  thrills,  but,  first  of  all,  I  ought 
to  read  something  by  Arthur  Veronicus 
Roehm. 

I  hunt  up  one  of  the  Reminiscences  of 
a  Rivet-Slinger  and  plunge  into  it  man- 
fully. My  eye  searches  in  vain  for  capi- 
tal letters  and  commas.  I  shouldn't  let 
such  superficialities  prejudice  me.  Some- 
where there  is  an  idea,  everywhere  there 
is  humor;  the  editor's  foreword  says  so. 
"Whenever  we  have  cumpany  to  eat  the 
wife  gives  me  eyebrow  signels  all  the 
time  for  feer  I  should  maybe  cut  my 
mouth  with  my  nife  but  I  never  dun  it 
yet  and  I  am  age  28  yrs  old  if  its  a 
day."  .  .  .  The  sociable  seat-mate! 
the  smoking-car  raconteur!  the  relatives 
of  the  charwoman!  that  rough  diamond, 
the  self-made  man!  Rather  than  turn 
over  a  handsome  advertisement  of  Dutch 
Cleanser,  I  stop  reading. 

Truly,  illiteracy  is  upon  us  in  a  deluge. 
It  is  more  popular  than  ever  before,  and 
it  has  always  been  more  or  less  popular. 
Daisy  Ashford  is  the  newest  member  of 
the  uncult,  and  takes  a  place  above  Ring 
Lardner,  H.  C.  Witwer,  and  "Dere 
Mable."  The  Lowell  centenary  brought 
the  Biglow  Papers  to  the  attention  of 
many  as  something  entirely  new.  We  can 
all  remember  "Hashimura  Togo"  and 
"Chimmie  Fadden,"  and  we  still  have  Abe 
Martin  as  the  successor  to* Josh  Billings, 
Petroleum  V.  Nasby,  Artemus  Ward,  and 
M.  Quad,  whom  our  oldsters  are  now 
ashamed  to  have  laughed  over  in  their 
bicycle  days. 

Modernize  old  Samuel  Pepys'  orthog- 
raphy and  construction,  and  he  would 
become  as  ponderous  a  bore  as  Benjamin 
Franklin.  Write  the  "Real  Diary  of  a 
Real  Boy"  as  it  would  be  written  by  the 
super-schooled  youth  of  to-day,  and 
Plupy  and  Beany  would  sink  into  oblivion 
with  Sanford  and  Merton. 

What  is  the  lure  of  the  illiterate,  the 
spell  of  the  misspelled?  What  is  there 
about  bad  grammar  that  so  charms  the 
dear  public? 

The  bright  boy  at  the  end  of  the  col- 
umn states  that  he  believes  the  vogue  of 
the  uncult  is  due  to  its  sincere  humility. 
He  goes  on  to  say  that  the  dear  public 
is  weary  of  the  condescending  voices  on 
Parnassus.  It  is  no  longer  impressed 
by  holier-than-thou  literary  style  and  the 
apotheosis  of  the  polysyllabic ;  it  has  dis- 
covered that  an  honest  heart  may  beat 


202] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  Xo.  42 


between  a  split  infinitive.  It  prefers  the 
writers  who  get  on  its  own  level — the 
street  level — or  even  a  little  lower,  in 
the  gutter. 

However,  in  spite  of  this  pessimistic 
conclusion,  I  shall  attend  the  Athelney 
dinner  to-morrow  night,  and  give  this 
Roehm  person  the  double-o. 

Weare  Holbrook 

Correspondence 

The  Decline  of  Liberty 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

In  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury Mill  contended,  with  iwpular  ap- 
proval, that  the  duty  of  a  Government 
was  to  assure  the  individual  the  greatest 
amount  of  liberty  compatible  with  the 
liberty  of  all.  Herbert  Spencer  was  of. 
the  same  mind;  and  Lord  Acton  ex- 
pressed the  same  conviction  when  he 
said  a  perfect  Government  must  be  one, 
irrespective  of  its  form,  in  which  each 
man  was  free  to  follow  the  dictates  of 
his  own  conscience.  In  America,  as  late 
as  1905,  James  Coolidge  Carter  could 
endorse  the  laissez-faire  doctrine  with 
the  approval  of  thoughtful  students  of 
sociology. 

Are  we  drifting  away  from  these 
tenets  of  Benthamite  liberalism?  The 
course  of  contemporaneous  legislation 
would  so  indicate.  Women  have  been 
given  the  vote,  it  is  true,  but  their 
liberty  to  contract  or  to  dispose  of  their 
property  has  been  considerably  abridged. 
They  may  not  work  more  than  a  certain 
number  of  hours  a  week,  and  only  in 
places  conforming  to  standards  approved 
by  Government  inspectors.  Employees  in 
certain  occupations  are  forbidden  to  sue 
their  employers  for  torts,  but  obliged  to 
accept  the  benefits  of  insurance  schemes 
required  by  law.  There  is  a  constant  and 
successful  agitation  for  laws  forbidding 
work  for  less  than  a  minimum  wage,  pro- 
hibiting many  callings  to  children,  pro- 
scribing articles  of  food  and  drink,  and 
assuring  special  privileges  to  individuals 
or  classes  supposed  to  be  powerful  in 
politics. 

The  lassez-faire  policy  gets  no  hearing 
to-day.  Government  help  has  been  sub- 
stituted for  self-help.  It  is  purposed 
to  give  the  mass  of  the  "workers"  their 
"fair  share"  of  what  they  contribute  to 
the  national  wealth.  This  interesting 
experiment  has  never  been  tried  before. 
The  feudal  baron  took  from  his  serfs 
everything  they  produced  except  what 
was  essential  to  support  their  lives.  In 
return  he  kept  the  peace  and  gave  them 
employment.  He  kept  the  seed  com  him- 
self until  the  seeding  time.  If  he  had 
confided  it  to  the  serfs,  can  anyone  doubt 
there  would  have  been  none  to  plant? 
The  Russian  peasants  drank  up  the  har- 


vest annually.  Contemplate  the  excesses 
of  our  own  artisans  who  stayed  home 
during  the  war.  Are  they  rich?  No, 
they  have  eaten  the  seed  corn.  They 
now  have  silk  shirts,  second-hand  auto- 
mobiles, imitation  jewelry,  and  the  mem- 
ories of  numberless  movie  shows.  But 
they  have  no  capital. 

They  still  have  votes,  however,  and  if 
they  can  not  render  themselves  financially 
independent  by  economic  means,  they  will 
by  political.  Alas,  to  climb  the  hill  of 
prosperity  requires  more  than  votes.  If 
one  increase  one's  income  by  dollars 
which  are  unearned,  the  buying  power  of 
the  dollar  depreciates.  This  is  not  due  to 
a  capitalistic  conspiracy.  No  form  of 
government  can  be  invented  which  will 
relieve  the  irresponsible  of  the  effects  of 
their  incompetence.  If  oversight  of  the 
seed  corn  is  really  necessary,  will  it  be 
cheaper  to  have  the  Government  do  it 
than  the  capitalists?  Or  shall  we  be 
merely  delivering  ourselves  up  to  the 
mercies  of  a  new  set  of  thieves  who  will 
have  to  make  up  for  lost  time? 

Those  of  us  who  prefer  to  be  free  and 
be  cheated  rather  than  to  bargain  away 
our  liberty  to  the  Government  for  protec- 
tion against  the  rich  are  little  heard 
from  in  these  days.  Perhaps  we  shall 
have  to  give  collectivism  a  chance.  About 
the  end  of  the  century  the  pendulum  will 
swing  back  again,  and  it  will  be  observed 
that  the  same  old  crowd  is  acting  as  the 
custodian  of  capital. 

George  W.  Martin 

New  York,  February  20 

What  Might  Happen  to  the 
Constitution 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

In  a  statement  published  in  the  New 
York  Times,  Mr.  Wayne  B.  Wheeler, 
chief  counsel  of  the  Anti-Saloon  League, 
asserts  that  "the  power  to  amend  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  is  un- 
limited except  in  two  particulars  named 
in  Article  5.  On  all  other  questions 
there  is  no  limitation  except  as  to  the 
method  prescribed  in  that  article." 

If  Mr.  Wheeler's  contention  is  upheld 
by  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States  it  will  be  constitutionally  possible 
for  180  Members  of  Congress,  86  less 
than  a  majority  of  both  Houses,  and  less 
than  3,000  members  of  36  State  Legisla- 
tures, to  do  these  things: 

Abolish  a  republican  fonn  of  govern- 
ment. 

Establish  a  hereditary  monarchy. 

Abolish  the  Supreme  Court. 

Take  away  from  the  several  States  the 
right  to  levy  taxes. 

Prohibit  the  exercise  of  the  Christian 
religion. 

Confiscate  all  money  in  the  banks. 

Repudiate  the  national  debt. 

All  these  revolutionary  changes,   de- 


stroying the  American  system  of  govern- 
ment, can  be  brought  about  by  less  than 
3,000  men,  in  spite  of  the  protest  of  all 
other  citizens  of  the  United  States,  and 
the  Supreme  Court  will  be  powerless  to 
hold  that  such  amendments  are  void,  even 
though,  as  is  clearly  the  case  with  the 
Eighteenth  Amendment,  they  are  in 
direct  conflict  with  the  existing  Consti- 
tution. 

E.  J.  Shriver 
Chairman    Executive    Committee,    The 

Vigilance  League 
New  York,  February  18 

The  Outlook  for  Religion 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review  : 

Religion,  as  well  as  industry  and  poli- 
tics, needs  resistance  to  dangerous  radi- 
calism. In  the  former,  as  in  the  latter, 
irresponsible  agitators  and  conservative 
extremists  make  true  progress  difficult. 
Orthodox  believers  still  cling  to  the 
literal  infallibility  of  the  Bible,  and  will 
not  study  it  as  they  do  other  books,  priz- 
ing the  good  and  rejecting  the  evil.  "They 
worship  it  as  the  basis  of  all  truth  and 
virtue.  The  Catholics  regard  the  Church 
rather  than  the  Bible  as  the  final  au- 
thority, a  position  theoretically  more 
liberal,  but  in  practice  they  are  as  un- 
compromising as  the  Protestants. 

Many  movements,  such  as  Positivism, 
Ethical  Culture,  Spiritualism,  Theosophy, 
Christian  Science,  Monism,  Rationalism, 
etc.,  have  attempted  to  improve  upon  or 
supersede  the  Christian  religion,  and 
have  rendered  benefits  along  certain 
lines;  but  too  often  they  have  served 
only  to  destroy  existing  abuses,  failing 
to  advance  constructive  principles.  With- 
out disparagement  of  the  work  of  any 
of  these  movements,  or  of  any  of  the 
Christian  denominations,  the  writer 
maintains  that  Rationalism — the  exercise 
of  reason  in  all  problems  of  thought  and 
conduct — thoroughly  accepted  and  ap- 
plied, would  go  a  long  way  toward  meet- 
ing present  difficulties.  It  has  long 
existed,  both  within  the  Church  and 
without.  It  was  a  leading  factor  in  the 
Renaissance  and  the  Reformation,  and 
can  claim  credit  for  the  Copemican  sys- 
tem, the  doctrine  of  Evolution,  and  many 
other  great  truths.  It  has  given  hu- 
manity countless  advances  in  science,  art, 
education,  and  government,  sharing  at 
least  equally  with  the  altruistic  spirit 
of  Christianity  in  building  the  great 
edifice  of  modern  civilization. 

The  most  urgent  task,  therefore,  is  the 
rationalization  of  the  churches,  making 
all  religious  creeds  and  ordinances  sub- 
ject to  the  rules  of  reason,  and  substitut- 
ing progress  for  the  idea  of  finality. 
But  Rationalism  must  discover  and  pro- 
claim new  religious  views,  as  well  as 
pass  judgment  on  those  already  existing. 
It  must  work  out  a  new  philosophy  of  \ 


February  28,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[203 


the  cosmos,  and  a  new  code  of  morals, 
not  destroying  the  vital  elements  of  the 
old,  but  reproducing  them  in  higher 
form,  and  correlating  them  with  modern 
thought. 

The  separation  of  Church  and  State, 
in  this  country  and  some  others,  puts 
a  serious  difficulty  in  the  way  of  thor- 
ough modernization.  The  people  as  a 
whole  can  not  act  in  the  interest  of  their 
religious  needs.  Religion,  as  education, 
concerns  the  people  in  general,  and 
should  be  supervised  and  regulated  by 
the  Government.  The  "community 
church"  is  a  move  in  the  right  direction, 
and  all  efforts  to  discard  strictly  sec- 
tarian teaching  are  commendable,  but 
creeds  and  platforms  should  not  be 
dropped  entirely.  The  various  creeds 
should  be  retained  by  those  who  sin- 
cerely hold  them,  but  with  tolerance 
and  respect  for  the  views  of  others. 
Gradually,  the  collective  thought  and 
experience  of  the  congregations  will 
determine  what  is  helpful  and  what 
detrimental.  The  present  is  a  supreme 
crisis  in  the  churches,  and  the  movement 
towards  a  more  rational  programme 
must  be  rapid  if  they  are  to  endure. 
Liberals  will  accept  all  in  the  Christian 
religion  that  is  sound  and  uplifting,  but 
they  will  not  accept  error,  or  abandon 
the  principles  of  rationality  and  pro- 
gressiveness  in  the  search  for  truth. 
Cyrus  H.  Eshleman 

Ludington,  Mich.,  February  19 

Universities  and  the  Danger 
Point 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

I  read,  February  7,  "What  Are  Col- 
leges For?"  with  profound  interest.  It  is 
good  to  have  you  emphasize  what  can- 
not be  too  widely  known.  President  But- 
ler's and  President  Lowell's  opinion  that, 
as  you  say,  education  along  the  lines 
of  narrowly  applied  science  is  not  the 
only  thing  worth  while.  I  can  bear  wit- 
ness to  the  fact  that  one  president  of  a 
State  university — it  cannot  be  doubted 
that  there  are  others,  and  it  is  to  be 
hoped  that  there  are  many — President 
Bryan  of  Indiana  has  long  held  and  up- 
held the  same  opinion.  But  I  cannot 
believe  that  your  adjective,  "dominant," 
used  in  respect  to  this  idea  is  applicable 
to  Columbia  or  Harvard  or  any  other  uni- 
versity in  the  United  States  at  this  time, 
and,  therefore,  I  can  not  agree,  much 
as  I  should  like  to  do  so,  that  the  "point 
of  danger"  is  passed.  I  should  say  rather 
that  the  point  of  danger  has  been  per- 
ceived and  is  being  attacked  by  a  few 
farsighted  men.  But  this  is  not  enough. 
I  dare  affirm  that  a  decided  majority  of 
every  university  faculty  in  the  country 
to-day  believes  that  education  along  the 
lines  of  narrowly  applied  science  is  the 
only  thing   worth   while,    including   the 


"science  of  education."  I  heartily  wish 
that  facts  to  prove  me  wrong  might  be 
forthcoming. 

May  I  touch  upon  one  other  point? 
You  say  that  students  must  learn 
breadth  and  tolerance.  But  what  you, 
and  other  farsighted  ones  who  make  this 
declaration,  do  not  do  is  to  keep  on  to 
the  conclusion — the  practical  reason  for 
studying  the  humanities — namely,  in- 
crease of  understanding  among  men; 
human  sympathy.  Sympathy  is  the 
product  of  imagination,  and  imagina- 
tion— that  which  "bodies  forth  the 
forms  of  things  unknown" — imagination, 
with  all  men  save  geniuses,  soon  withers 
and  dies  if  it  be  not  nourished  by  the 
one  support  which  can  be  given  it,  com- 
munion and  constant  intercourse  with 
the  best  that  the  past  has  thought  and 
done.  This  support  the  American  alma 
mater  has  largely  withheld  from  her 
children  for  decades  past.  Applied 
science,  largely  at  Germany's  academic 
dictation,  has  taken  the  place  of  English 
literature,  particularly  English  poetry, 
while  the  humanizing  thought  of  the 
past,  as  expressed  in  architecture,  the 
allied  arts  and  music,  has  had,  relatively 
speaking,  no  place  at  all.  That  the 
genius  finds  such  support  somehow, 
somewhere,  is  a  commonplace. 

John  Drinkwater  makes  the  point  in 
question  beautifully  clear  in  his  "Abra- 
ham Lincoln"  when — it  is  the  Fort 
Sumpter  crisis — he  has  the  President 
turn  to  Seward  and  say,  (after  a  pause) : 

"There  is  a  tide  in  the  affairs  of  men " 

Do  you  read  Shakespeare,  Seward? 
Seward  :   Shakespeare  ?    No. 
Lincoln :    Ah  1 

But  the  rank  and  file  of  undergradu- 
ates are  not  geniuses  or  near-geniuses. 
With  these  it  is  necessary  that  imagina- 
tion be  nursed  to  the  great  end  that 
sympathy  may  be  awakened  and  quick- 
ened, and  so  their  capacities  for  getting 
on  with  their  fellow  countrymen  and 
worldmen  be  increased. 

Alfred  M.  Brooks 

Blooming  ton,  Ind.,  February  18- 


Pelf  and  Pedagogy 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

Up  and  down  the  land  the  hat  is  being 
passed  for  the  somewhat  problematical 
benefit  of  the  professor.  Heroic  exer- 
tions are  being  made  to  increase  univer- 
sity salaries  from  fifteen  to  fifty  per 
cent,  over  the  present  scale,  although  the 
authorities  do  not  fail  to  realize  that  to 
save  the  present,  or,  to  be  exact,  the  for- 
mer status  of  college  teachers,  their  sal- 
aries will  have  to  be  doubled  at  the  least, 
and  that  in  the  very  near  future.  Of 
course,  the  crucial  question  is:  Where's 
the  money  to  come  from?  The  teachers 
are  tempted   to  say  to  their  trustees: 


"That's  not  our  problem,  but  yours." 
But  being  teachers,  they  say  nothing. 
To  some  people  it  looks  like  a  conspiracy 
of  silence;  they  fear  the  teachers  might 
"unionize"  or  amalgamate  with  the  A.  F. 
of  L.  No  fear.  Their  vocational  soli- 
darity is  not  sufficient  for  that.  Some- 
thing else  will  have  to  happen  to  arouse 
the  authorities  to  a  full  sense  of  the 
danger;  rather,  it  is  happening  now.  As 
the  teachers  die  off,  one  by  one,  or  as 
they  desert  the  educational  camp  for  the 
wider  fields  of  business,  their  places  are 
filled  by  men  of  lesser  calibre. 

Now  supposing,  optimistically,  that  the 
salaries  of  university  teachers  can  be 
sufficiently  amplified  to  put  a  stop  to  the 
professorial  exodus,  will  the  other  press- 
ing needs  for  duplication,  aye,  triplica- 
tion, of  collegiate  endowments  be  met? 
The  question  simply  amounts  to  this :  Can 
the  new  crop  of  multi-millionaires  pro- 
duced of  late  be  relied  on  to  foster  the 
higher  learning  with  the  same  lavishness 
that  has  built  up  our  institutions  under 
the  munificence  of  the  past  two  genera- 
tions? Or,  in  case  the  majority  of  pri- 
vately endowed  colleges  should  starve  to 
death,  can  we  hope  for  such  spiritual 
enlightenment  in  our  State  Legislatures 
as  would  bring  about  a  sudden  amplifica- 
tion of  their  educational  budgets?  The 
truth  is,  universities  have  not  been  man- 
aged in  conservative  business  fashion. 
Most  of  them  have  undertaken  more  than 
their  finances  can  carry,  they  have  "bit- 
ten off  more  than  they  can  chew."  The 
remedy  lies  in  retrenchment.  We  have 
altogether  too  many  institutions  that 
strive  to  cover  the  whole  ground,  crip- 
pling themselves  and  their  rivals  in 
the  effort.  They  are  run  too  much  like 
department  stores ;  only  there  is  no  actual 
profit  in  some  of  the  lines  to  offset 
losses  in  others.  Isn't  it  absurd,  for  in- 
stance, for  urban  universities  to  encum- 
ber themselves,  for  the  factitious  show 
of  the  complete  stock,  with  schools  of 
mines  and  agriculture,  or  for  rural  uni- 
versities to  be  conducting  schools  of  law 
and  medicine? 

Educational  institutions  ought  to 
change  from  their  silly  attitude  of  rivalry 
to  one  of  thoroughgoing  cooperation. 
Then  they  could  easily  agree  on  some 
form  of  labor  division,  and  abandon  the 
imaginary  obligation  of  maintaining 
singly  and  severally  all  conceivable  de- 
partments of  instruction.  By  the  assign- 
ment of  particular  departments  to  par- 
ticular institutions  within  a  given  zone, 
and  by  partnership  in  the  maintenance 
of  important,  but  under  the  present  sys- 
tem unprofitable,  endeavors,  the  avail- 
able funds  could  be  made  to  go  much 
farther;  at  the  same  time,  the  cause  of 
higher  education  would  be  much  better 
served. 

Otto  Heller 
Washington  University, 

St.  Louis,  January  21 


204] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  42 


Book  Reviews 

The  Interpreter  of  American 
Nationalism 

The  Like  of  John  Marshall.  By  Albert  J. 
Beveridge.  Four  Volumes.  Boston : 
Houghton  Mifflin  Co. 

THE  first  and  second  volumes  of  ex- 
Senator  Beveridge's  "Life  of  Mar- 
shall" appeared  in  1916.  The  third  and 
the  fourth,  three  years  later.  They  all 
have  but  a  single  theme.  In  Marshall's 
day  there  was  much  mutual  jealousy 
and  suspicion  among  the  different  sec- 
tions of  the  country.  A  majority  of  the 
people  of  each  State  felt  it  was,  of  right, 
still  sovereign  and  independent.  The 
Life  makes  plain  how  Marshall  came  to 
think  and  to  feel  nationally.  It  pictures 
to  us  those  qualities  which,  at  the  age  of 
forty-five,  made  him  Chief  Justice,  and 
which,  during  the  more  than  a  third  of  a 
century  of  his  service,  enabled  him  to 
play  in  the  nationalizing  of  the  American 
people  a  part  greater  than  that  of  any 
other  man. 

The  present  is  a  fitting' time  to  tell 
such  a  story.  It  is  true  that  it  is  fifty- 
five  years  since  Appomattox,  but,  for 
almost  another  half  century,  the  great 
party  which  Jefferson  organized  con- 
tinued to  profess  adherence  to  those  doc- 
trines of  States'  Rights  and  strict  con- 
struction upon  which,  in  1791,  he  based 
his  argument  against  Hamilton's  bill  to 
charter  a  bank  of  the  United  States. 
That  party  has  won  seventeen  out  of  our 
thirty-three  Presidential  elections.  Even 
when,  during  its  almost  one-hundred  and 
thirty  years  of  activity,  its  fortunes 
have  been  at  the  lowest,  its  followers 
comprised  nearly  one-half  the  people  of 
the  United  States. 

So  recently  as  1912,  the  platform  of 
the  convention  from  which  Mr.  Wilson 
received  his  first  nomination  denounced 
as  "usurpation  the  efforts  of  our  oppon- 
ents to  deprive  the  States  of  any  of  the 
rights  reserved  to  them,  and  to  enlarge 
and  magnify  by  indirection  the  powers 
of  the  Federal  Government."  Before  an- 
other national  convention  came  together, 
a  Congress,  Democratic  in  both  branches, 
had  enacted  the  first  anti-child  labor 
law,  the  Federal  Reserve  Bank  Bill,  and 
many  another  measure  which,  directly  or 
indirectly,  extended  national  power  and 
influence  at  the  expense  of  the  States. 
The  party  of  Jefferson  had  become  as 
nationalistic  as  its  opponents,  and  in 
1916,  for  the  first  time  in  its  history,  its 
declaration  of  principles  was  silent  as  to 
States'  Rights.  In  spite  of  the  Virginia 
and  Kentucky  resolutions  of  1798,  and 
the  teachings  of  John  C.  Calhoun  and 
Jefferson  Davis,  the  first  four  States  to 
ratify  the  Eighteenth  Amendment  were 
Mississippi,     Virginia,    Kentucky,     and 


South  Carolina.  Marshall  has  won.  His 
triumph  may  be  even  too  complete.  The 
future  will  tell.  At  the  moment  his 
views  are  those  of  every  section  of  his 
country.  Were  the  economic,  industrial 
and  social  forces  which  worked  for  na- 
tional consolidation  so  powerful  that 
they  were  bound  to  triumph,  even  if 
Marshall  had  never  been? 

It  took  a  millennium  to  make  Germany 
one,  and,  in  the  end,  unity  was  achieved 
by  methods  which  taught  the  German 
people  that  philosophy  of  politics  which 
made  possible  the  blood  and  wrack  of 
the  world  war  and  its  aftermaths.  That 
titanic  struggle  enables  us  to  compre- 
hend, as  before  it  few  could,  why  our 
forefathers,  during  the  wars  of  the 
French  Revolution  and  Empire,  felt  and 
acted  as  they  did.  We  were  wont  to 
think  that  the  Republicans  and  the  Fed- 
eralists of  the  last  decade  of  the  Eight- 
eenth Century,  and  of  the  first  fifteen 
years  of  the  Nineteenth,  allowed  them- 
selves to  become  so  absorbed  in  the  drama 
which  was  being  played  across  the  sea 
that  they  lacked  something  of  national 
self-respect.  Since  the  1st  of  August,  1914, 
we  have  learned  to  understand  them  bet- 
ter. For  over  a  century  everybody  has 
wondered  how  the  Federalists  could  have 
been  stupid  enough  to  pass  the  alien  and 
sedition  bills.  John  Marshall  thought 
they  were  blunders  then,  and  said  so.  In 
these  last  times  we  have  put  upon  the 
statute  book  much  legislation  inspired 
by  similar  fears  and  dislikes,  and  are 
proposing  to  add  to  its  volume. 

We  learn  from  this  really  great  biog- 
raphy what  manner  of  man  Marshall 
was — how  he  worked  and  how  he  played. 
He  becomes  to  us  very  human  indeed. 
The  book  is  readable  from  start  to  fin- 
ish. In  Marshall's  early  life  there  was 
little  out  of  the  ordinary.  He  served  as 
an  officer  in  the  Revolutionary  Army. 
He  began  to  practise  as  a  lawyer  before 
he  had  made  any  serious  study  of  the 
law.  He  was  elected  to  the  Legislature 
and  subsequently  to  Congress.  All  these 
experiences  were  common  to  successful 
young  men  of  his  day,  and  since.  His 
father,  the  descendant  of  some  genera- 
tions of  mechanics  and  small  farmers, 
was  personally  of  the  type  that  naturally 
becomes  influential  in  the  community. 
He  was  vestryman,  burgess  many  times, 
sheriff,  clerk  of  court,  colonel  in  the  Revo- 
lutionary Army,  and  a  lifelong  friend  of 
Washington.  His  mother  was  a  Keith 
of  that  family  of  the  Earls  Marischal  of 
Scotland,  many  of  whose  members  had 
brains  as  well  as  pedigrees.  It  was  more 
to  the  purpose  that  she  was  a  great- 
grandchild of  that  William  Randolph  and 
Mary  Isham  who  were  the  common  ances- 
tors of  Thomas  Jefferson,  of  John  Mar- 
shall, of  John  Randolph  of  Roanoke,  and 
of  Robert  E.  Lee. 

Marshall  was  black-haired,  tall,  gaunt, 
loose-jointed    and    awkward,    of    great 


strength,  and,  in  youth,  athletic  and  fleet 
of  foot.  His  eyes  and  the  kindly  expres- 
sion of  his  countenance  were  his  most 
attractive  features.  In  his  early  life  he  was 
described  as  convivial  to  excess.  This  is 
doubtful,  but  it  is  probable  that  he  al- 
ways liked  play  better  than  work,  though 
deep  thinking  was  not  necessarily  work  to 
him.  At  the  bar  and  on  the  bench,  he 
had  an  almost  infallible  instinct  for  the 
really  important  points  of  a  case,  and  he 
seldom  wasted  time  or  strength  on  any- 
thing else.  He  never  sought  occasion  to 
exert  himself  over  that  which  did  not 
seem  worth  while. 

He  had  little  faith  in  popular  govern- 
ment, but  in  personal  taste  and  habits  he 
was  the  most  democratic  of  men.  He 
loved  to  mingle  on  familiar  terms  with 
people  of  every  class.  He  enjoyed  their 
society,  and  they  his.  The  touch  of  in- 
dolence in  his  nature,  combined  with 
strong  but  quiet  self-confidence,  made  it 
easy  for  him  to  listen  patiently  to  argu- 
ments of  intolerable  length,  or  to  appear 
so  to  do,  even  when  he  had  prepared  his 
opinion  before  counsel  opened  their 
mouths.  He  once  jestingly  said  that  the 
acme  of  judicial  distinction  means  "the 
ability  to  look  a  lawyer  straight  in  the 
eyes  for  two  hours,  and  not  hear  a 
damned  word  he  says."  One  who  thinks 
that  easy  has  never  been  a  judge. 

Senator  Lodge  in  his  "Life  of  Hamil- 
ton" refers  to  Marshall  as  "standing  at 
the  head  of  all  lawyers,"  adding,  "espe- 
cially on  Constitutional  questions." 
There  is  point  to  the  qualification.  Mar- 
shall was  a  great  advocate,  and  still  a 
greater  judge,  when,  as  in  Constitutional 
and  international  cases,  he  could  think 
out  great  fundamental  principles  and 
apply  them,  unembarrassed  by  prece- 
dents established  by  minds  of  feebler 
grasp.  Apart  from  the  branches  of 
jurisprudence  to  which  a  statesmanlike 
breadth  of  view  is  essential,  his  contri- 
butions to  legal  science  were  not  great. 
His  name  is  not  associated  with  its  de- 
velopment as  is  that  of  Mansfield,  for 
example.  On  the  bench  he  took  his 
share,  and  perhaps  more,  of  the  common 
drudgery,  but  it  is  probable  that  he  was, 
as  a  rule,  quite  willing  to  let  his  asso- 
ciates have  a  free  hand  in  disposing  of 
the  ordinary  run  of  cases,  important  as 
these  usually  were  to  the  litigants,  and 
intellectually  interesting  as  they  fre- 
quently proved  to  those  who  had  a  turn 
for  such  questions.  If  so,  it  was  all  the 
easier  for  them  to  follow  his  lead  in 
matters  about  which  he  really  cared. 

The  terms  of  the  Supreme  Court  were 
then  short.  Travel  was  so  uncomfortable, 
and  even  dangerous,  that  the  Justices  sel- 
dom brought  their  wives  to  Washington. 
During  the  sessions  of  the  Court  they 
lived  in  one  boarding  house;  so  that  they 
became  personally  far  more  intimate  than 
is  usually  possible  to-day.  Under  such 
conditions,  Marshall's  charm  and  lovable- 


February  28,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[205 


ness,  his  spirit  of  comradeship,  his  lik- 
ing for  a  joke  and  a  story,  no  less  than 
the  impression  he  always  created  of  men- 
tal breadth,  strength,  clarity,  and  wis- 
dom, gave  him  a  personal  influence  over 
his  colleagues,  the  importance  of  which 
it  would  be  difl!icult  to  exaggerate. 

These  qualities  explain  why  his  power 
to  speak  for  the  Court  did  not  end  before 
his  work  was  well  begun.  While  for  the 
first  ten  years  of  his  Chief  Justiceship 
the  majority  of  his  Court  were,  like  him- 
self. Federalists,  after  1811,  Bushrod 
Washington  was  the  only  associate  who 
was  not  an  appointee  of  Jefferson,  Mad- 
ison, or  of  one  of  their  successors  of  the 
same  political  party.  Of  Marshall's 
great  Constitutional  decisions,  only  Mar- 
bury  vs.  Madison,  and  Fletcher  vs.  Peck 
were  handed  down  while  he  still  had  the 
support  of  a  Federal  majority  of  the 
Court.  Sturgis  vs.  Crowninshield,  Dart- 
mouth College  vs.  Woodward,  McCulloch 
vs.  Maryland,  Osborn  vs.  The  Bank, 
Cohens  vs.  Virginia,  Gibbons  vs.  Ogden, 
Brown  vs.  Maryland,  and  the  rest  were 
decided  by  a  court  more  than  two-thirds 
of  whose  members  had  been  selected  in 
large  part  because  it  was  believed  that 
they  were  opponents  of  all  that  Marshall 
held  dear  in  Constitutional  construction. 

One  can  not  help  being  interested  in 
the  long  duel  between  Jefferson  and  Mar- 
shall. There  was  no  love  lost  between 
these  second  cousins,  once  removed.  Jef- 
ferson nursed  a  grudge  longer  and  had  a 
greater  capacity  for  personal  hatred,  but 
Marshall  was  at  least  equally  tenacious 
in  his  opinions.  Senator  Beveridge 
throws  into  strong  relief  the  exceeding 
shrewdness  with  which,  during  the  crit- 
ical opening  years  of  the  last  century,  he 
carried  on  the  struggle  to  keep  for  the 
Judiciary  that  place  which  he  believed 
the  Constitution  gave  to  it  and  which  he 
was  convinced  the  welfare  of  the  country 
required  that  it  should  maintain. 

The  Republicans  came  into  power, 
flushed  with  victory,  and  full  of  rage 
against  the  National  Courts,  as  the  last 
stronghold  of  their  defeated  adversaries. 
The  "midnight  judges"  were  ousted  in 
contemptuous  defiance  of  the  Constitu- 
tional provision  that  they  should  hold 
their  offices  during  good  behavior.  In 
each  of  the  two  Houses,  the  right  of  the 
Judiciary  to  pass  upon  the  constitution- 
ality of  that  or  any  other  Act  of  Con- 
gress was  vehemently  denied.  Procedural 
and  other  obstacles  made  it  impossi- 
ble for  the  Courts  to  reinstate  the  dis- 
missed judges.  There  was  grave  danger 
that  the  practical  limitation  thus  imposed 
upon  the  judicial  power  would,  by  the 
passage  of  years,  ripen  into  an  authori- 
tative and  irreversible  construction  of 
the  Constitution.  It  was  imperative  that 
the  Supreme  Court  should  defend  itself, 
and  that  right  speedily,  but  how  was  it 
to  be  done?  If  executive  assistance  was 
required   to   enforce   any   order   of   the 


Court,  based  upon  its  having  stricken 
down  an  Act  of  Congress  as  unconstitu- 
tional, it  was  certain  that  Jefferson  would 
say,  as  very  nearly  thirty  years  later 
Jackson  did  say,  "John  Marshall  has  made 
his  decision;  now  let  him  enforce  it." 

The  Chief  Justice  found  in  Marbury's 
application  for  a  mandamus  to  compel 
Madison,  as  Secretary  of  State,  to  deliver 
to  him  his  commission  as  Justice  of  the 
Peace  for  the  District  of  Columbia  an 
opportunity  safely  to  do  the  needful 
thing.  The  Supreme  Court  declared  it 
could  not  grant  the  relief  for  which  the 
plaintiff  asked,  because  the  Act  of  Con- 
gress which  attempted  to  confer  upon  it 
the  power  to  issua  the  writ  of  mandamus, 
was  unconstitutional,  and,  in  consequence, 
void,  for  the  reason  that  it  extended  the 
original  jurisdiction  of  the  Court  beyond 
the  limits  fixed  by  the  Constitution.  Jef- 
ferson might  rage  and  his  followers 
might  imagine  vain  things,  but,  as  to  that 
case,  there  was  nothing  that  they  could 
do,  for  although  the  opinion  said  that 
Madison  had  refused  to  do  his  duty,  no 
order  had  been  passed  against  him. 

The  more  zealous  partisans  of  the  ad- 
ministration hoped,  through  the  exercise 
of  the  power  of  impeachment,  to  teach 
the  judges  that  the  Houses  were  their 
masters.  It  was  upon  this  issue  that  the 
trial  of  Justice  Chase  really  turned, 
rather  than  upon  the  allegations  of  the 
specific  articles  exhibited  against  him. 
No  one  had  a  clearer  understanding  of  all 
that  was  involved  than  John  Marshall. 
He  knew  that  the  intemperate  expres- 
sions and  the  indiscreet  conduct  of  his 
associate  had  put  weapons  into  the  hands 
of  the  foes  of  the  Court.  The  pages  of 
the  Life  tell  us  how  alive  he  was  to  the 
danger,  and  how  prudently  he  bore  him- 
self while  the  proceedings  were  pending. 
The  acquittal  of  the  accused  ended  for- 
ever the  attempt  in  that  way  to  strip  the 
judiciary  of  its  independence,  as  sixty 
years  later  a  like  verdict  in  favor  of 
Andrew  Johnson  determined  once  for  all 
that  the  President's  political  responsibil- 
ity is  not  to  Congress. 

By  his  opinion  in  Marbury  vs.  Mad- 
ison, Marshall  took  from  his  opponents 
the  aid  of  time,  and  made  it  his  ally.  The 
longer  what  was  there  said  remained  un- 
reversed and  unqualified,  the  less  likeli- 
hood there  was  that  it  could  be  success- 
fully challenged.  The  Court  could  wisely 
rest  content  with  the  situation,  but  Sena- 
tor Beveridge  is  not  quite  accurate  in 
saying  that  fifty-two  years  passed  before 
( in  the  D  red  Scott  case)  it  again  asserted 
its  right  to  declare  unconstitutional  an 
Act  of  Congress.  In  Hodgson  vs.  Bow- 
erbank,  5th  Cranch,  303,  decided  in  1809, 
it  was  held  that  the  provision  of  the 
Judiciary  Act  of  1789,  which  attempted 
to  confer  upon  the  Circuit  Courts  juris- 
diction over  suits  to  which  an  alien  was 
a  party,  exceeded  the  authority  of  Con- 
gress because  it  went  beyond  the  Consti- 


tutional grant  of  judicial  power  to  the 
Federal  Government  "over  controversies 
between  a  State,  or  the  citizens  thereof, 
and  foreign  States,  citizens  or  subjects." 
The  most  significant  thing  about  this 
otherwise  unimportant  case  is  that  in  six 
years  the  doctrine  of  Marbury  vs.  Mad- 
ison had  become,  to  the  Bench  and  Bar 
of  the  Court,  a  finality.  The  chief  Jus- 
tice disposed  of  the  case  in  a  single  sen- 
tence: "Turn  to  the  article  of  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  United  States,  for  the 
statute  can  not  extend  the  jurisdiction 
beyond  the  limits  of  the  Constitution." 
That  was  all.  It  was  conclusive.  The 
whole  report  of  the  case  occupies  but  half 
a  page. 

One  who  holds  that  the  Courts  should 
strike  down  unconstitutional  legislation 
need  not  necessarily  favor  a  broad  con- 
struction of  the  Constitution  itself.  In- 
deed it  is  a  strict  constructionist  who 
would  most  often  wish  to  exercise  such  a 
power.  In  the  earlier  years  of  the  coun- 
try's history,  however,  the  earnest  up- 
holders of  the  prerogative  of  the  Courts 
in  this  matter  were  almost  always 
believers  in  an  effective  national  govern- 
ment. This  was  strikingly  true  of  Mar- 
shall. Why  was  he  so  strong  a  Nation-, 
alist  when  most  of  the  Virginians  of  his 
generation  took  the  other  side?  Senator 
Beveridge  finds  the  chief  explanation  in 
the  impressions  made  upon  him  by  the 
unnecessary  sufferings  at  Valley  Forge, 
and,  indeed,  throughout  the  Revolution- 
ary War,  resulting  from  a  military  ineffi- 
ciency which  prolonged  the  conflict  far 
beyond  the  time  in  which  it  could  have 
been  ended  had  the  resources  of  the 
American  Colonies  been  effectively  used 
by  a  well-organized  central  administra- 
tion. His  devotion  to  Washington  un- 
doubtedly confirmed  his  Nationalistic 
leanings,  but  more  important  was  his 
knack  for  seeing  the  essential  thing. 
He  felt  that  unless  the  power  of 
the  nation  was  strong  enough  not 
only  to  hold  the  States  together,  but  to 
limit  the  lengths  to  which  temporary 
gusts  of  popular  opinion  in  particular 
localities  might  go,  union,  peace,  order, 
or  justice  could  not  long  be  maintained. 
Almost  all  men  have  since  reached  the 
same  conclusion.    He  got  there  first. 

Senator  Beveridge  takes  up  each  of 
Marshall's  great  decisions,  and  makes 
clear  to  us  the  way  in  which  the  issues 
involved  presented  themselves  to  the  dif- 
ferent classes  then  making  up  our  people. 
His  story  of  Burr's  trial  is  especially  in- 
teresting and  unusually  well  told.  Had 
Marshall  been  less  firm  and  less  clear- 
headed, our  annals  might  not  be  so  free 
of  political  prosecutions,  under  the  guise 
of  treason  trials,  as  they  fortunately  are. 
It  might  have  been  easier  than  we 
think  to  have  fallen  into  the  habit  of  at 
least  occasionally  waging  our  political 
battles  by  the  aid  of  gallows,  block,  guil- 
lotine, or  firing  squad. 


206] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  42 


Space  will  not  permit  an  examination 
of  the  author's  account  of  the  great 
cases  in  which  Marshall  upheld  the  duty 
of  the  Supreme  Court  to  compel  State 
tribunals  to  act  upon  its  construction  of 
the  Constitution,  and  to  require  State 
Legislatures  to  respect  the  obligations  of 
contracts,  and  to  refrain  from  interfer- 
ing with  interstate  commerce  or  with 
those  agencies  which  the  Federal  Gov- 
ernment, in  the  exercise  of  its  implied 
powers,  has  found  useful.  All  of  it  is 
excellently  done.  Since  Thayer's  Cavour, 
no  American  has  given  to  the  world  so 
valuable  a  biography  of  a  great  historical 
personage. 

John  C.  Rose 

Disentangling  Socialism 
from  Bolshevism 

The   Psychology  of   Bolshevism.     By  John 
Spargo.   New  York:   Harper  and  Brother. 

MR.  SPARGO'S  efiforts  to  disentangle 
Socialism  from  Bolshevism  arouse 
(in  one  who  knows  his  Spargo)  mixed 
emotions.  In  the  mixture  it  is  easy  to 
identify  a  modicum  of  amusement,  a 
jnodicum  of  admiration,  and  a  modicum 
of  satisfaction;  and,  under  the  influence 
of  these  three,  it  is  natural  to  pronounce, 
if  not  an  enthusiastic,  at  least  a  tolerant 
benediction  upon  those  efforts.  In  the 
language  of  the  street,  they  will  prob- 
ably be  "all  to  the  good,"  anyhow! 

"The  Psychology  of  Bolshevism"  is  an 
amusing  work,  because  it  exhibits  Mr. 
Spargo's  anxiety  (as  a  Socialist)  to  clear 
his  own  skirts  and  the  skirts  of  his 
party  from  responsibility  for  the  conse- 
quences of  putting  into  practice  the  doc- 
trines of  their  chief  evangelist,  Karl 
Marx.  It  excites  in  the  reader  a  real 
admiration  for  the  mental  agility  that 
is  displayed  therein,  and  it  produces  at 
least  some  satisfaction,  because  it  shows 
that  Socialism  in  practice,  alias  Bolshev- 
ism in  Russia,  has  frightened  a  good 
many  of  our  Socialists  in  America,  who, 
seemingly,  never  intended  any  such  re- 
sults and  do  not  like  them  now  that  they 
have  occurred.  In  the  belief  that  Mr. 
Spargo's  latest  book  may  help  to  bring 
others  to  the  same  state  of  dissatisfaction 
it  has  our  blessing. 

His  adventures  in  the  field  of  psycho- 
pathology — to  explain  the  phenomena  of 
"parlor-Bolshevism,"  and  so  forth — are 
conducted  with  the  same  fluent  facility 
of  phrase-making  and  easy  generaliza- 
tion that  are  to  be  found  in  more  than 
one  of  his  previous  essays  in  compro- 
mise. Much  in  the  "Psychology  of  Bol- 
shevism" reminds  us  of  his  book  wherein 
he  "reconciled"  Socialism  with  the  Ju- 
daeo-Christian  theology.  It  is  all  simple, 
after  all.  One  can  as  easily  say  "hyster- 
ical hyper-sesthesia"  as  "immanence," 
and  "psycho-neurosis"  is  a  very  comfort- 
able refuge.     Besides,  every  intelligent 


newspaper  reader  nowadays  is  presumed 
to  know  the  main  "complexes"  recognized 
by  the  "Sunday  science"  of  psycho- 
analysis. It  is  a  diverting  sketch  that  Mr. 
Spargo  draws  of  the  typical  Bolshevist 
Intellectual.  Here  are  some  of  his  main 
characteristics  :  —  "  exaggerated  egoism, 
extreme  intolerance,  intellectual  vanity, 
hypercriticism,  self-indulgence,  craving 
for  mental  and  emotional  excitement,  ex- 
cessive dogmatism,  hyperbolic  language, 
impulsive  judgment,  emotional  instabil- 
ity, intense  hero-worship,  propensity  for 
intrigues  and  conspiracies,  rapid  alterna- 
tion of  extremes  of  exaltation  or  depres- 
sion, violent  contradictions  in  tenaciously 
held  opinions  and  beliefs,  periodic,  swift, 
and  unsystematic  changes  of  mental  at- 
titude." He  has  evidently  been  conscien- 
tious in  his  studies  of  the  current  lit- 
erature of  "opinion,"  journalism  of  "pro- 
test," and  broadsheets  of  "revolt."  To 
do  him  bare  justice  it  is  only  fair  to  say 
that  he  himself  has  never  been  of  this 
class ;  compromise  has  ever  been  the  key- 
note of  his  thought.  He  has  always 
sought  to  prove  that  Socialism  was  a 
gentle  thing,  quite  compatible  with  re- 
ligion, the  family,  personal  property, 
home  comforts,  and  the  other  simple 
pleasures  and  treasured  convictions  of 
the  humble  every-day  bourgeois.  Small 
wonder  that  he  wants  to  convince  us 
that  Bolshevism  is  a  wicked  perversion 
of  the  true  Marxian  faith ! 

He  will  not  grudge  us  a  quiet  chuckle 
over  it,  we  feel  sure ! 

Recent   Books   on  Mexican 
Problems 

The  Plot  Against  Mexico.  By  L.  J.  de  Bek- 
ker.    New  York:    Alfred  A.  Knopf. 

Intervention  in  Mexico.  By  Samuel  Guy 
Inman.     New   York:     Association   Press. 

Industrial  Mexico.  By  P.  Harvey  Middle- 
ton.  New  York:  Dodd,  Mead  and  Com- 
pany. 

IN  recent  publications  concerning  Mex- 
ico there  is  to  be  found  little  that 
has  not  already  appeared  several  times 
during  the  last  three  years.  So  long, 
however,  as  the  Mexican  problem  con- 
tinues to  have  news  value,  we  must  ex- 
pect the  frequent  publication  of  books 
with  such  titles  as  "The  Shameful  Treat- 
ment of  Americans  by  Mexico"  or  "The 
Crime  Against  Mexico."  If  a  corre- 
spondent becomes  impregnated  with  the 
desire  to  carry  to  the  American  public 
the  message  which  comes  to  him  during 
his  fleeting  "first-hand"  investigation, 
he  must,  of  course,  express  it  in  print, 
but  it  is  unfortunate  that  he  can  not 
state  it  in  a  concise  article  in  one  of 
the  current  periodicals  or  in  a  Sunday 
supplement. 

"The  Plot  Against  Mexico,"  by  Mr. 
de  Bekker,  is  the  most  recent  contribu- 
tion from  visiting  journalists.  Of  the 
nineteen  chapters,  two  are  devoted  to  the 


"plot"  and  occasional  reference  to  this 
thesis  may  be  found  elsewhere,  but  the 
remainder  of  the  book  is  devoted  to  a 
repetition  of  impressions  and  facts  that 
have  for  some  time  been  common  prop- 
erty. The  writer  appears  to  have  a 
genius  for  relating  the  most  common- 
place facts  -with  all  the  ardor  of  one 
who  has  made  a  new  discovery.  The 
reader  should  remember  this  literary 
ability  when  he  reads,  for  example,  on 
page  53,  that  Mexico's  "assets  are  a 
thousand  times  in  excess  of  her  liabili- 
ties." 

The  plot  against  Mexico  is  not  unde- 
serving of  attention.  There  is,  undoubt- 
edly, a  small  group  of  men  who  have 
wished  to  bring  about  intervention  in 
Mexican  affairs.  And  any  discerning 
reader  of  the  daily  newspapers  must 
have  been  impressed  by  the  "yellow" 
character  of  much  of  the  news  coming 
from  Mexico.  It  has  been  unfair,  highly 
colored,  and  calculated  to  stir  the  feeling 
of  the  country.  Mr.  de  Bekker  does  a 
service  in  bringing  these  facts  together 
in  striking  form.  But  to  recognize  these 
facts  is  one  thing,  and  to  characterize 
them  as  "a  plot"  in  which  high  Govern- 
ment ofliicials  are  implicated  is  quite  an- 
other thing. 

Mr.  Inman's  book  is  much  more  care- 
fully and  modestly  written.  Mr.  Inman 
has  had  long  experience  in  Mexico,  and 
is  entitled  to  express  seasoned  opinions. 
Moreover,  he  has  the  first  requisite  of  a 
writer  upon  Mexico,  viz.,  a  sympathetic 
understanding  of  the  Latin-American. 
He  has  known  President  Carranza  longer 
and  more  intimately  than  any  other 
writer  in  the  United  States,  and  while 
his  picture  of  the  Mexican  President  is 
highly  complimentary  and  possibly  a 
little  prejudiced,  he  is  not  ignorant  of 
the  weaknesses  of  the  man,  and,  alto- 
gether, his  portrayal  of  Carranza  is 
probably  the  best  that  has  appeared  in 
English.  Mr.  Inman  is  also  much  im- 
pressed by  the  activity  of  those  Ameri- 
cans who  desire  intervention.  He  is 
firmly  of  the  opinion  that  intervention 
would  be  a  tremendous  blunder.  He  has 
no  panacea,  but  believes  that  the  Mexi- 
can problem  can  be  solved  only  by  long 
and  patient  efforts  to  educate  the  masses 
of  the  people  in  the  practical  arts,  the 
cultural  subjects,  and  in  higher  ideals. 
And,  finally,  "the  great  problem  before 
the  Mexican  people  is  the  development  of 
character,  and  to  the  working  out  of  this 
problem  all  of  Mexico's  friends  are  called 
to  help."  As  a  presentation  of  the  Mexi- 
can point  of  view,  there  is  much  in  this 
volume  to  arouse  sober  thought  amonj. 
Americans. 

Mr.  Middleton's  book  is  of  an  entirely 
different  type,  and  we  must  confess  somi 
relief  in  reading  a  current  book  tha 
makes  no  pretense  at  interpreting  Mexi 
cans  or  the  Mexican  problem.  The  boo" 
is  an  economic  manual,  giving  the  prin 


February  28,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[207 


cipal  industrial  and  financial  facts — such 
as  we  have  been  accustomed  to  find  in 
the  Mexican  Year  Book  up  to  1914,  and, 
more  recently,  in  the  Latin-American 
Year  Book.  Mr.  Middleton's  book  is 
superior  to  the  Mexican  Year  Book  in 
that  it  brings  the  facts  up  to  date,  and 
it  is  better  written  and  more  carefully- 
edited  than  the  Latin-American  Year 
Book. 

In  addition  to  the  ordinary  commercial 
and  industrial  statistics,  it  contains 
much  recent  information  of  interest  to 
American  investors,  such  as  the  proposed 
new  petroleum  law,  the  new  mining  law, 
together  with  some  remarks  on  the  prob- 
able trend  of  the  new  banking  legisla- 
tion. The  book  is  readable,  timely,  and 
appears  to  be  reliable.  Mr.  Middleton 
states,  in  his  interesting  introduction, 
that  the  business  men  of  best  standing 
in  Mexico  are  now  of  the  opinion  that 
Article  27  of  the  new  Constitution  will 
be  so  amended  as  to  protect  the  foreign 
interests.  He  is  also  of  the  opinion  that 
the  Mexican  Government  is  about  to 
take  steps  to  recognize  and  refund  the 
debts  of  the  Huerta  regime.  It  is  diffi- 
cult to  conceive  of  two  acts  of  the  Mexi- 
can Government  that  could  do  more  to 
quiet  the  feeling  of  unrest  that  is  evident 
wherever  the  interests  of  foreigners  are 
touched  by  the  present  Government. 
And,  incidentally,  nothing  could  do  more 
to  rehabilitate  Mexico's  credit.  The 
opinion  that  Mexico  is  preparing  to 
recognize  her  international  obligations  is 
borne  out  by  other  recent  books.  It 
would  seem,  therefore,  that  the  present 
is  not  the  time  to  spread  broadcast  a 
propaganda  of  intervention. 

Mr.  Bullard  on  Russia 

The  Russian  Pendulum.  By  Arthur  Bul- 
lard. New  York:  The  Macmillan  Com- 
pany. 

MR.  BULLARD'S  new  book  deserves 
careful  attention.  Much  of  it  is 
valuable  first-hand  material  for  the  stu- 
dent, and  some  of  it,  alas,  can  not  be 
considered  as  entirely  accurate  or  un- 
biased. The  author  is  a  trained  and 
painstaking  observer,  and  where  he  has 
erred  it  has  been  in  fields  where  he  de- 
pended on  the  testimony  of  others  rather 
than  upon  his  own  personal  investigation, 
and  where  his  own  background  has  in- 
clined him  to  see  many  things  only 
through  the  eyes  of  the  Russian  revo- 
lutionists of  the  beginning  of  the  pres- 
ent century. 

Quite  the  most  valuable  feature  of  the 
volume  is  his  opening  chapter  devoted 
to  Lenin.  Here  we  have  the  results  of 
the  author's  personal  observation  and 
searching  interviews,  and  it  is  to  be 
doubted  if  there  exists  a  more  authori- 
tative analysis  of  the  mentality  of  the 
man  who  is  the  brains  of  the  whole  Bol- 
shevist  revolution.     What   makes    this 


analysis  particularly  interesting  is  that 
it  is  based  on  an  acquaintance  dating 
back  to  1905. 

When  Mr.  Bullard  deals  with  the  con- 
ditions and  institutions  of  Russia  under 
the  Old  Regime,  he  is  less  sure  of  his 
ground.  Few  will  attempt  to  defend  the 
lumbering  old  bureaucracy  with  its  arbi- 
trary conduct,  its  incompetence  and  cor- 
ruption, but  if  one  sees  it  only  as  a  ma- 
levolent tyranny  and  has  not  actually 
lived  among  the  peasants  under  it,  the 
tendency  is  to  exaggerate  their  unhap- 
piness  and  misery.  His  study  of  the 
Zemstvo,  Duma,  and  Cooperative  insti- 
tutions is  well  done,  considering  the 
space  at  his  disposal,  and  especially  good 
is  his  account  of  the  development  of  that 
new  phenomenon  in  Russian  life,  the 
Soviet,  an  account  that  shatters  the 
fiction  circulated  concerning  it  by  Ray- 
mond Robins  and  other  superficial  ob- 
servers. In  his  treatment  of  the  land 
problem,  and  particularly  of  the  peasant 
commune,  he  is  less  happy.  His  state- 
ments concerning  land  tenure,  allotment, 
and  redemption  payments,  and  especially 
the  attitude  of  the  peasants  toward  the 
commune,  require  considerable  correction 
and  modification.  He  distinctly  misin- 
terprets the  land  reforms  of  Stolypin  and 
their  motives,  reforms  that  were  almost 
universally  welcomed  by  the  peasants  as 
freeing  them  from  the  yoke  of  the  com- 
mune, and  which  marked  a  great  step 
forward  toward  an  enlightened  solution 
of  the  agrarian  problem. 

In  dealing  with  the  March  Revolution 
and  the  Provisional  Government,  Mr.  Bul- 
lard does  not  exaggerate  the  difficulties 
that  confronted  Kerensky,  but  he  takes 
entirely  too  kindly  a  view  of  this  con- 
temptible and  cheap  little  demagogue, 
who,  more  than  any  other,  was  respon- 
sible for  the  failure  of  the  revolution. 
On  the  other  hand,  he  does  not  do  justice 
to  Kornilov,  displaying  a  partisan  bias 
and  ignoring  Kornilov's  address  before 
the  Congress  at  Moscow  and  his  under- 
standing with  Kerensky,  which  the  latter 
so  treacherously  repudiated  in  the  crisis. 

The  study  of  the  November  Revolution 
and  the  Bolshevik  regime  is  excellent. 
With  all  of  the  author's  judgments  and 
conclusions  one  may  not  agree,  but  one 
must  grant  it  fairmindedness  and  care- 
ful analysis.  With  the  third  section  of 
his  book,  the  part  that  deals  with  Si- 
beria, the  case  is  different.  Here  he 
viewed  events  and  men  from  the  far-dis- 
tant city  of  Vladivostok,  the  worst  place 
in  all  the  world  in  which  to  gain  informa- 
tion as  to  the  facts  or  to  form  fair  judg- 
ments as  to  men  and  movements.  With 
reference  to  this,  it  is  fair  to  quote  the 
author's  own  words,  appended  to  his  ac- 
count of  the  coup  d'etat  of  November  18, 
1918,  at  Omsk.  "The  truth  of  the  mat- 
ter was  that  at  Vladivostok  we  did  not 
have  any  facts  on  which  to  base  a  judg- 
ment."   In  fact,  the  Siberian  part  is  un- 


worthy of  the  writer  and  appears  to  have 
been  done  under  pressure  to  pad  out  an 
otherwise  admirable  book,  a  pressure 
which  is  also  indicated  by  the  faulty 
transliteration  of  Russian  names. 

Proletarian  Comedy 

Storm  in  a  Teacup.  By  Eden  Phillpotts.  New 

York :  The  Macmillan  Company. 
Two  Men  :  A  Romance  of  Sussex.   By  Alfred 

OUivant.     New    York:    Doubleday,   Page 

and  Company. 
The  Taming  of  Nan.    By  Ethel  Holdsworth. 

New  York:  E.  P.  Dutton  and  Company. 

THE  comedy  of  the  small  town  and  the 
main  street  continues  to  win  much 
attention  from  current  British  novelists. 
Mr.  Phillpotts  is  still  at  his  old  game 
with  the  witty,  garrulous,  and  appallingly 
above-board  denizens  of  what  may  now 
be  frankly  recognized  as  the  land  of 
Phillpottsia.  Long  since  it  became  evi- 
dent that,  for  all  their  differences  of 
accent  and  whether  placed  in  Devon  or 
Wales  or  Cornwall,  his  people  are  pretty 
much  the  same  in  type  and  treatment. 
For  the  rest,  "Storm  in  a  Teacup"  adds 
to  his  earlier  romances  of  industry  the 
atmosphere  and  the  technique  of  the 
paper-maker's  trade.  Step  by  step,  with 
interludes  of  romantic  comedy,  we  fol- 
low the  processes  of  paper  manufacture; 
and  the  expositor  makes  little  attempt 
to  conceal  from  us  that  we  are  under 
instruction.  No  less  than  seven  of 
the  chapters  are  frankly  devoted  to 
describing  the  different  stages  of  paper- 
making,  most  of  them  under  titles  like 
"The  Rag  House,"  and  "The  Drying 
Lofts."  In  short,  readers  of  Mr.  Phill- 
potts who  do  not  skip  these  chapter^  for 
the  story  may  now  add  a  knowledge  of 
this  industry  to  the  lore  of  poppy-grow- 
■ing,  shepherding,  slate-quarrying,  and 
divers  other  trades  with  which  the 
writer's  earlier  novels  will  have  ac- 
quainted them.  He  has  little  to  add  to 
the  interpretation  of  rustic  character 
and  situation  which  charmed  so  many 
readers  in  his  earlier  novels;  and  there 
is  no  denying  a  sense  of  repetition  and 
dilution  in  much  of  the  later  work. 

"Two  Men"  and  "The  Taming  of  Nan" 
are  chronicles  of  the  main  street  and 
the  vulgar  cit.  Mr.  Ollivant's  two  men 
are  brothers.  Their  father,  Edward 
Caspar,  is  not  quite  a  gentleman,  being 
the  son  of  a  rich  but  rough-and-ready 
contractor.  With  the  makings  of  a 
scholar,  he  has  succumbed  early  to  drink, 
and  allowed  himself  to  be  privately  mar- 
ried by  a  lower-class  woman  of  char- 
acter who  is  devoted  to  him.  Ernest,  the 
elder  son,  inherits  something  of  his 
father's  wondering  simplicity  of  na- 
ture, his  practical  helplessness,  and  his 
taste.  Alf,  the  younger,  is  a  bom  gut- 
ter-rat, the  embodiment  of  all  the  squalid 
instincts  and  sordid  motives  of  the  slum- 
bred  child.  To  tell  the  truth,  it  is  Alfs 
very  completeness  which  casts  doubt  upon 


208] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  Xo.  42 


the  whole  book.  He  is  too  unshaded  a 
rascal.  His  pusillanimity  and  malignity 
are  plain  to  see;  and  we  can  not  believe 
that  the  Trupps  and  the  Pigotts  of  the 
stor>'  would  have  let  him  off  with  any 
such  mild  tushing  and  finger-shaking  as 
the  narrative  records.  Nor  can  we  quite 
believe  that  his  mother,  who  is  certainly 
not  a  fool,  would  have  waited  so  long 
before  turning  on  him  with  the  verdict 
he  patently  deserves.  Alf  becomes  the 
pushing  and  foxy  man  of  business  and 
duly  achieves  a  waistcoat  and  a  watch- 
chain.  Em,  the  feckless  and  half- 
awakened,  drifts  along  unprosperously 
enough,  putting  always  the  wrong  foot 
foremost,  and  yet  never  altogether  losing 
sight  of  a  faint  star  towards  which  his 
stumbling  way  does  vaguely  lead.  In  the 
end,  or  rather  at  the  point  where  we  lose 
sight  of  him,  his  loyal  heart  finds  its 
humble  reward.  What  makes  the  book, 
of  course,  is  not  its  matter  but  its  sub- 
stance, that  fabric  which  owes  its  rich- 
ness more  to  the  workman's  hand  than 
to  any  visible  quality  in  the  material. 
Mr.  OUivant's  work  has  been  oddly  un- 
equal in  this  respect,  ranging  from  the 
firm  perfection  of  "Bob,  Son  of  Battle," 
to  the  artificiality  of  "Boy  Woodburn." 
But  for  the  dubious  figure  of  Alf,  one 
might  unhesitatingly  place  "Two  Men" 
with  his  best  work. 

Readers  with  a  keen  eye  for  new  work 
of  unusual  quality  may  recall  the  appear- 
ance a  year  or  two  ago  of  "Helen  of 
Four  Gates"  by  an  Englishwoman  who 
chose  to  sign  herself  "An  Ex-Mill  Girl." 
It  was  a  rather  "grim"  story,  with  a 
flavor  which  reminded  more  than  one 
reviewer  of  Hardy  and,  a  considerably 
stranger  thing,  won  the  praise  of  the 
old  Master  himself.  "The  Taming  of 
Nan"  is  less  "uncompromising,"  that  is, 
less  disagreeable  in  its  net  effect.  In- 
deed we  recognize  it,  in  retrospect  at 
least,  as  romantic  comedy.  But  it  is 
romantic  comedy  reduced  to  nearly  its 
lowest  terms.  Nan  Cherry,  married  to 
and  honest  fellow,  and  mother  of  a  nearly 
grown  girl,  is  a  fighting  shrew:  "The 
untamable  hooligan — the  Stone  Age  hid- 
den under  the  veneer  of  Civilization. 
She  had  neither  humor,  imagination, 
nor  protectiveness.  She  should  have  been 
an  apache's  mate."  The  man  Cherry  is  a 
huge  porter,  a  man  of  humor  and  self- 
command.  We  see  him  in  the  opening 
scene,  breasting  the  torrent  of  his  mate's 
wild  speech  and  regarding  her  with  a 
glance  "of  affectionate  tolerance,  mingled 
with  that  of  a  man  who  has  lost  all 
illusions,  but  knows  that  he  has  his  feet, 
if  the  worst  comes  to  the  worst."  Feet, 
that  is,  to  stand  on  and  if  necessary  to 
run  away  with.  He  loses  them  presently 
on  the  railway,  and  comes  home  a  cripple 
for  life.  Nan  does  not  soften  towards 
him.  She  scorns  him  for  his  helpless- 
ness and  for  a  long  time  treats  him 
brutally.     How  he  gets  back  a  place  in 


the  world  and  finally  wins  Nan  for  good 
is  the  matter  of  a  very  good  story. 
There  is  Polly's  story,  too,  which  is  of 
hardly  secondary  interest.  Indeed,  it  is 
as  a  study  of  her  emergence  from  the 
blurred  prettiness  and  apparently  un- 
protected amativeness  of  girlhood  to  real 
achievements  in  character  and  happiness 
that  the  book  may  especially  commend 
itself  to  the  confirmed  yet  still  hopeful 
novel  reader. 

H.  W.  BOYNTON 

Ancient  Architecture 

The  Foundations  of  Classic  Architecture. 
By  Herbert  Langford  Warren,  A.M.,  Late 
Fellow  of  the  American  Institute  of  Archi- 
tects and  Dean  of  the  Faculty  of  Archi- 
tecture of  Harvard  University.  Illustrated 
from  Documents  and  Original  Drawings. 
New  York:    The  Macmillan  Company. 

THE  death  in  1918  of  Professor  Her- 
bert Langford  Warren,  late  Dean  of 
the  Harvard  University  School  of  Archi- 
tecture, deprived  American  scholarship 
of  one  of  its  most  promising  figures.  The 
volume  which  the  Macmillans  have  just 
published  under  the  title  of  "The  Foun- 
dations of  Classic  Architecture"  gives 
rise  to  new  regrets  that  his  late-matur- 
ing, but  richly-developed,  literary  and 
critical  talent  was  not  spared  for  wider 
and  still  higher  achievement.  His  death 
left  the  manuscript  of  this  volume  nearly 
ready  for  publication;  the  last  chapter 
has  been  sympathetically  completed  from 
his  notes  by  the  editor,  Professor  Fiske 
Kimball,  upon  whom  devolved  also  the 
selection  of  the  118  excellent  illustra- 
tions which  elucidate  the  text  and  of 
the  beautiful  drawings  by  the  author's 
brother,  Harold  B.  Warren,  which  serve 
as  caption-pieces  to  the  five  chapters  or 
sections  of  the  book. 

These  five  chapters  discuss  with  fine 
scholarship,  wholly  free  from  affectation 
or  pedantry,  and  with  admirable  discrim- 
ination between  essentials  and  non-essen- 
tials, the  architectures  respectively  of 
Egypt,  Mesopotamia,  Persia,  the  Aegean 
civilization,  and  Greece.  The  author  vi- 
talizes the  ancient  styles,  setting  forth 
with  simplicity  and  clearness  the  condi- 
tions which  gave  them  birth,  and  the 
processes  by  which  they  were  developed. 
His  explanations  of  their  methods  of  con- 
struction and  his  descriptions  of  their 
characteristic  forms  and  decorative  de- 
tails gain  in  the  reader's  interest  by  their 
freedom  from  technical  jargon.  The 
various  streams  of  influence  leading 
through  and  from  the  more  ancient  archi- 
tectures to  the  culminating  art  of  Greece 
are  traced  with  remarkable  clarity.  The 
reviewer  knows  of  no  work  that  deals 
more  sanely,  and  at  the  same  time  sym- 
pathetically and  convincingly,  with  that 
glorious  culmination.  Breadth  of  view 
and  sincerity  of  treatment  characterize 
the  whole  discussion. 

It  was  inevitable  that  such  a  survey 


should  involve  dealing  with  certain  mat- 
ters of  controversy,  especially  in  the  field 
of  theories  or  origins.  Such  questions 
Professor  Warren  handles  with  perfect 
fairness  to  theories  from  which  he  dis- 
sents, while  expressing  his  own  conclu- 
sions with  clear  conviction.  •  Not  all 
readers  will  agree  with  his  contention  in 
favor  of  the  purely  lithic  origin  of  the 
entire  Doric  order,  both  column  and  en- 
tablature, but  one  is  forced  to  admire  the 
clarity  and  sanity  of  his  presentation  of 
this  contention.  We  may  assent  in  gen- 
eral to  his  division  of  all  architectural 
forms  into  the  two  classes  of  "primary" 
and  "secondary"  forms,  according  to 
their  structural  origin,  without  neces- 
sarily assenting  to  all  his  applications  of 
this  classification;  but  no  one  can  read 
Professor  Warren's  suggestive  and  il- 
luminating discussions  of  such  ques- 
tions without  an  awakened  interest  and 
a  real  intellectual  pleasure.  Here  is  the 
ripest  work  of  a  scholar  and  teacher, 
who  refuses  to  follow  traditional  ruts  or 
to  be  bound  by  narrow  prejudices;  the 
final  masterpiece  of  a  teacher  who  never 
could  be  a  mere  pedagogue,  but  who,  if 
his  teaching  was  like  this  book  in  its 
charm  of  literary  style  and  clearness  of 
exposition,  must  have  been  an  inspiring 
and  stimulating  educator. 

The  book  is  beautifully  printed  on 
heavy  plate  paper,  and  the  only  typo- 
graphical error  the  reviewer  has  discov- 
ered is  the  unfortunate  printing  upside 
down  of  Figure  91  on  page  284.  There 
is  an  adequate  index,  but  no  list  of  illus- 
trations. 

The  Run  of  the  Shelves 

WITHOUT  doubt  Mrs.  Whitehouse  did 
excellent  work  in  interesting  the 
Swiss  press  in  the  war  aims  of  America 
and  in  the  vast  war  preparations  which 
were  being  made.  She  admits  it.  No 
doubt,  also,  this  publicity  was  not  without 
its  effect  in  counteracting  German  propa- 
ganda in  Switzerland  and  in  heartening 
those  whose  sympathies  were  with  the 
Allies.  But  a  reading  of  her  book  ("A 
Year  as  a  Government  Agent" ;  Harper) , 
interesting  as  it  is,  leaves  one  in  doubt 
as  to  whether  it  is  an  apologia  or  a  suf- 
frage tract.  Further,  it  exposes  again 
the  error  of  creating  an  extra-legal  gov- 
ernment department,  The  Committee  on 
Public  Information,  with  authority  to 
act  abroad  in  matters  of  foreign  policy 
independently  of  the  Department  of 
State.  It  may  be  that,  as  Mrs.  White- 
house  declares,  the  American  Legation 
in  Switzerland  was  inefficient,  or  tram- 
meled by  the  traditions  of  diplomacy, 
unable  to  meet  certain  vital  issues  raised 
by  German  propaganda.  But  the  fact 
remains  that  an  independent  publicity 
bureau,  uncontrolled  by  the  Department 
of   State,   might  easily,   and    in    many 


February  28,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[209 


places  actually  did,  put  forth  "publicity" 
and  foster  policies  inimical  to  the  lines 
decided  upon  by  the  Department.  The 
obstructions  which  Mrs.  Whitehouse 
found  from  this  quarter  are  not  correctly 
attributable  to  the  fact  that  she  was  a 
woman  and  a  suffragist,  or  to  antiquated 
methods  of  secret  diplomacy,  but  to  the 
fact  that,  lacking  proper  control  in  a  field 
for  which  it  was  solely  responsible,  the 
legation  could  not  be  sure  of  her  dis- 
cretion and  the  subordination  of  her 
work  to  the  Department  policy.  The  fault 
was  not  that  of  Mrs.  Whitehouse,  but  of 
those  who  instituted  a  system  in  which 
there  was  bound  to  be  conflict  of  au- 
thority. 

Mrs.  Whitehouse's  book  is  a  lively  re- 
cital of  her  personal  experiences  and 
gives  a  vivid  account  of  the  trying  con- 
ditions under  which  Switzerland  main- 
tained neutrality,  and  her  doctrinaire 
views  on  diplomacy  and  democracy  add 
zest  to  it. 

During  the  course  of  the  war  it 
looked  for  a  time  as  though  the  conven- 
ient little  Leipsic  "Tauchnitz  Edition  of 
British  and  American  Authors"  might 
go  down  in  the  universal  wreck  of  Ger- 
man interests.  In  the  middle  of  1915, 
M.  Louis  Conard  started  at  Paris  "The 
Standard  Collection  of  British  and 
American  Authors,"  modeled,  as  regards 
size  and  thickness,  on  Baron  Tauchnitz's 
volumes,  and  declared  that  "ninety  per 
cent,  of  the  former  Tauchnitz  authors 
have  signed  with  me  for  the  duration 
of  the  war  and  for  five  years  after  the 
peace."  Before  the  end  of  1916,  M.  Con- 
ard had  published  nearly  forty  volumes 
from  such  well-known  writers  as  Mrs. 
Humphry  Ward,  Booth  Tarkington,  W. 
E.  Norris,  Mrs.  Atherton,  Arnold  Ben- 
nett, Joseph  Conrad,  Miss  May  Sinclair, 
and  John  Galsworthy;  and  the  volumes 
are  still  appearing.  But  so  are  the  Leip- 
sic volumes,  and  what  is  more,  some  au- 
thors are  found  in  both  lists.  Thus,  C. 
N.  and  A.  M.  Williamson  gave  M.  Conard 
"Secret  History"  more  than  two  years 
ago,  and  Baron  Tauchnitz  starts  his  re- 
newed, after-war  series.  No.  4,  527  of 
the  Edition,  with  "The  Wedding  Day" 
of  these  same  joint  authors.  Mr.  Arnold 
Bennett  is  still  more  conspicuous  in  this 
respect.  Though  he  gave  M.  Conard 
"The  Price  of  Love"  and  "These  Twain," 
four  volumes  in  all,  he  has  just  appeared 
in  two  volumes  at  Leipsic — "The  Truth 
About  an  Author"  and  "The  City  of 
Pleasure."  Bernard  Shaw,  however, 
much  as  might  have  been  expected,  re- 
mained faithful  to  the  German  house, 
and  both  of  the  latest  issues  from  across 
the  Rhine  are  from  him — "The  Plays  for 
Puritans"  and  "John  Bull's  Other  Is- 
land." The  truth  of  the  matter  is  that  a 
great  collection  of  nearly  5,000  volumes, 
the  copyright  paid  for,  the  plates  stereo- 
typed, and  embracing,  not  only  the  most 


popular  British  and  American  authors 
of  the  day,  but  the  classics  of  the  past 
like  Shakespeare,  Milton,  Byron,  Irving, 
Cooper,  Dickens,  Thackeray,  Macaulay, 
Emerson,  and  a  host  of  others,  can  not 
easily  die,  especially  as  the  founder  of 
the  series,  the  first  Baron  Tauchnitz,  and 
its  continuator,  the  present  Baron,  were 
the  warm  personal  friends  of  many  of 
the  most  famous  writers  on  both  sides  of 
the  Atlantic. 

"Memoirs  of  the  American  Academy 
at  Rome"  Volume  II  (New  York:  Uni- 
versity Press  Association)  offers  first  a 
selection  of  the  current  work  of  the  Fel- 
lows of  the  Academy  in  painting,  sculp- 
ture, and  architecture.  We  have  recon- 
structions of  the  Ponte  Rotto,  of 
Hadrian's  Round  Pavilion  near  Tivoli, 
a  study  of  the  admirable  formal  garden 
of  the  Villa  Gamberaia  at  Settignano, 
and,  most  important,  a  reconstruction  of 
Bramante's  original  design  for  the  Court 
and  Pavilion  of  the  Belvedere  at  the 
Vatican.  Expressive  of  the  advantages 
of  cooperative  study  under  favorable 
conditions  is  the  joint  design  for  the 
sanctuary  of  a  Roman  Catholic  church 
by  fellows  respectively  in  architecture, 
painting,  and  sculpture.  Four  archaeo- 
logical papers  by  members  of  the  affiliated 
School  of  Classical  Studies  make  up  the 
bulk  of  the  volume.  These  are  creditable 
on  the  scholarly  side  and  interesting  to 
any  reader  with  a  modicum  of  ancient 
lore. 

E.  Douglas  van  Buren  discourses 
on  Terracotta  Arulae.  These  miniature 
altars  are  mostly  tomb  finds  from  Magna 
Grsecia  and  Sicily.  The  author  thinks 
they  represent  a  survival  of  an  Asiatic 
custom  of  combining  altar  and  tomb.  Of 
the  276  examples  analytically  catalogued, 
86  are  animal  subjects,  97  mythologies, 
and  69  genre  themes.  These  altarlets 
are  of  good  period.  Fifth  and  Sixth  Cen- 
turies B.  C.  The  essay  seems  pretty 
well  to  exhaust  the  subject.  Lucy  George 
Roberts's  article  on  "The  Gallic  Fire  and 
the  Roman  Records"  touches  the  layman 
more  nearly.  Historians,  supposing  that 
the  sack  of  387  B.  c.  must  have  destroyed 
all  records,  have  dismissed  all  earlier 
accounts  of  Rome  as  legendary.  From  a 
careful  study  of  the  location  of  the 
archives  and  of  fabric  records  Miss 
Roberts  arrives  at  the  reassuring  con- 
clusion that  international,  legal,  and 
senatorial  papers  probably  survived  the 
fire,  while  only  priestly  records  were 
certainly  destroyed.  These  could  have 
been  replaced  from  memory.  Thus,  we 
need  not  wholly  forego  the  she-wolf  nor 
yet  the  capitoline  geese.  In  a  brief  pa- 
per Albert  William  van  Buren  makes 
some  minute  contributions  to  the 
archeology  of  the  Forum  at  Pompeii.  It 
is  a  bit  of  a  shock  to  learn  that  impor- 
tant and  bulky  objects  mentioned  in  the 
diaries   of   the   excavators   have   utterly 


disappeared.  The  single  contribution  in 
the  mediaeval  field  is  Stanley  Lothrop's 
careful  study  of  Pietro  Cavallina,  who, 
more  than  his  junior  contemporary, 
Giotto,  revived  the  Roman  style  of  paint- 
ing. Mr.  Lothrop's  reconstruction  fol- 
lows the  lines  of  Venturi's,  but  is  more 
conservative,  rejecting  all  panel  pictures. 
Thirty-five  plates  of  good  scale  and  defini- 
tion are  treasure  trove  for  the  special 
student.  The  very  interesting  frescoes 
in  the  Palazzo  Communale  at  Perugia  are 
here  first  published.  The  whole  volume 
make  an  impression  of  serious  and  well- 
balanced  activity  on  both  the  practical 
and  historical  sides  of  art.  It  should 
hearten  the  supporters  of  the  Academy 
to  renewed  and  extended  effort  looking 
towards  a  permanent  endowment. 

Mrs.  Cynthia  Morgan  St.  John,  of 
Ithaca,  New  York,  who  died  last  summer, 
spent  nearly  forty  years  of  her  life 
making  one  of  the  most  complete  Words- 
worth collections  to  be  found  here  or  in 
Europe.  For  the  past  ten  years  Mrs. 
St.  John  was  occupied  in  preparing  for 
Messrs.  Houghton  Mifflin  a  "Bibliog- 
raphy of  Wordsworth,"  but  the  publica- 
tion was  finally  abandoned  on  account  of 
the  author's  ill-health.  Into  this  work 
was  being  put  a  mass  of  inedited  notes 
and  references,  and  it  would  have  con- 
tained also  eighteen  facsimile  illustra- 
tions of  interesting  Wordsworthiana 
from  her  collection,  which  is  now  being 
catalogued  and  about  to  be  offered  for 
sale. 

Besides  the  thirty-three  regular  edi- 
tions given  in  some  of  the  bibliographies 
of  the  poet,  Mrs.  St.  John  had  the  rare 
privately  printed  issues  and  several  con- 
taining variations  not  noted  elsewhere. 
In  addition  to  a  copy  of  "The  Lyrical 
Ballads"  (1798),  we  find  here  a  second 
copy  of  the  same  issue,  but  with  the 
name  of  Joseph  Cattle,  Bristol,  on  the 
title  page,  which  slight  variation  adds 
considerable  value  to  the  volume. 

The  collection  contains  not  only  books 
and  separate  poems  by  Wordsworth,  but 
many  volumes,  pamphlets,  and  poems 
about  the  poet — publications  referring 
to  him,  biographies,  poems  addressed  to 
him,  parodies,  a  considerable  number  of 
manuscripts,  a  score  of  books  from 
Wordsworth's  own  library,  the  bust 
which  belonged  to  Mrs.  Wordsworth,  an 
early  portrait  painted  for  Cattle  by 
Shurter,  a  considerable  number  of  other 
portraits,  including  a  large  engraving 
signed  by  Wordsworth,  and  many  rare 
relics,  such  as  a  lock  of  his  hair. 

It  is  impossible  to  read  many  pages 
of  Laurie  Magnus'  "European  Litera- 
ture in  the  Centuries  of  Romance" 
(Dutton)  and  retain  one's  patience.  It 
is  exasperating  to  be  told  that  Dares  and 
Dictys  relate  the  story  of  Troilus  and 
Criseyde,  that  Saxo's  History  is  inter- 


210] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  42 


esting  because  "it  narrates  the  tales  of 
the  old  Anglo-Saxon  epic  'Beowulf,'  "  that 
the  Nibelungen  poet  "incorporated  all 
that  went  before  him  in  the  matter 
known  as  'Germania';  the  lay  of  Hilde- 
brand  .  .  .  'Beowulf  of  the  north- 
ern mainland,  'Maldon'  of  our  own  coasts 
and  similar  heroic  poems,"  that  "Piers 
the  Plowman,  who  is  Peter  the  Church, 
starts  in  the  character  of  a  just  man, 
and  is  gradually  spiritualized  into  a 
symbol  of  Christ.  His  original  dream  in 
the  Malvern  hills,"  etc.,  etc.  In  a  gen- 
eral sketch  of  European  literature  from 
the  tenth  century  to  the  twentieth,  of 
which  this  first  of  three  projected  vol- 
umes brings  the  story  down  to  the  mid- 
dle of  the  seventeenth,  minor  inaccu- 
racies and  considerable  omissions  might 
be  pardoned,  if  the  broad  lines  were 
sound  and  clear. 

Magnus  ab  integro  saeclorum  nascitur  ordo. 

What  we  get  instead  is  clutter,  and  not 
very  trustworthy  clutter,  and  at  a  fright- 
fully high  price.  Magnus  and  ordo  are 
as  the  poles  asunder.  Doubtless  as  the 
work  progresses  into  more  modern  times 
things  will  go  better.  It  would  have 
been  wiser  if  the  first  part  had  not  been 
attempted  at  all. 

"The  Story  of  the  Great  War,"  by 
William  Stanley  Braithwaite  (Stokes),  is 
intended  for  the  boy  and  girl  reader,  but 
the  style  and  method  is  that  of  a  com- 
pressed weekly  press  history,  crowded 
with  detail.  A  more  concise  and  more 
general  treatment  would  have  answered 
better  the  writer's  purpose ;  it  is  a  quite 
possible  thing  to  do,  and  has  not  yet 
been  attempted.  The  general  spirit  of 
the  book  is  appreciative  rather  than  dis- 
criminating— we  read,  for  instance,  that 
"the  conquest  of  the  air  was  an  Ameri- 
can achievement."  Beside  this,  the  occa- 
sional inexcusable  errors  of  the  text  fade 
into  insignificance.  For  the  most  part, 
the  author  is  accurate  in  his  statement 
of  facts.  His  military  narrative  presents 
a  clear  arrangement,  chronologically  and 
by  campaigns — except  for  the  events  of 
1918;  but  it  is  not  clear  how  his  boy 
and  girl  readers  are  to  follow  even  the 
larger  outlines  of  his  narrative  without 
even  a  single  map. 

The  devices  which  go  to  the  making 
of  E.  Phillips  Oppenheim's  "The  Great 
Impersonation"  (Little,  Brown) — the 
two  men  who  look  alike,  the  assumption 
by  one  of  them  of  the  role  of  the  other, 
and  even  the  skillfully  managed  surprise 
at  the  end — have  all  met  with  the  ap- 
proval of  time.  But  they  are  not  for 
that  reason  the  less  capable  of  holding 
one's  interest,  especially  when  the  story 
turns  on  the  machinations  of  the  German 
spy  system  in  the  tense  days  preceding 
the  war. 


Winter  Mist 

FROM  a  magazine  with  a  rather  cynical 
cover  I  learned  very  recently  that 
for  pond  skating  the  proper  costume  is 
brown  homespun  with  a  fur  collar  on 
the  jacket,  whereas  for  private  rinks 
one  wears  a  gray  herringbone  suit  and 
taupe-colored  alpine.  Oh,  barren  years 
that  I  have  been  a  skater,  and  no  one 
told  me  of  this!  And  here's  another 
thing.  I  was  patiently  trying  to  acquire 
a  counter  turn  under  the  idle  gaze  of  a 
hockey  player  who  had  no  better  busi- 
ness till  the  others  arrived  than  to  watch 
my  efforts.  "What  I  don't  see  about 
that  game,"  he  said  at  last,  "is  who 
wins?"  It  had  never  occurred  to  me  to 
ask.  He  looked  bored,  and  I  remem- 
bered that  the  pictures  in  the  magazine 
showed  the  wearers  of  the  careful  cos- 
tumes for  rink  and  pond  skating  as 
having  rather  blank  eyes  that  looked 
inimitably  bored.  I  have  hopes  of  the 
"rocker"  and  the  "mohawk";  I  might 
acquire  a  proper  costume  for  skating  on 
a  small  river  if  I  could  learn  what  it  is; 
but  a  bored  look — why,  even  hockey  does 
not  bore  me,  unless  I  stop  to  watch  it. 
I  don't  wonder  that  those  who  play  it 
look  bored.  Even  Alexander,  who  played 
a  more  imaginative  game  than  hockey, 
was  bored — poor  fellow,  he  shpuld  have 
taken  up  fancy  skating  in  his  youth;  I 
never  heard  of  a  human  being  who  pre- 
tended to  a  complete  conquest  of  it. 

I  like  pond  skating  best  by  moonlight. 
The  hollow  among  the  hills  will  always 
have  a  bit  of  mist  about  it,  let  the  sky 
be  clear  as  it  may.  The  moonlight,  which 
seems  so  lucid  and  brilliant  when  you 
look  up,  is  all  pearl  and  smoke  round  the 
pond  and  the  hills.  The  shore  that  was 
like  iron  under  your  heel  as  you  came 
down  to  the  ice  is  vague,  when  you  look 
back  at  it  from  the  centre  of  the  pond, 
as  the  memory  of  a  dream.  The  motion 
is  like  flying  in  a  dream;  you  float  free 
and  the  world  floats  under  you;  your 
velocity  is  without  effort  and  without 
accomplishment,  for,  speed  as  you  may, 
you  leave  nothing  behind  and  approach 
nothing.  You  look  upward.  The  mist 
is  overhead  now;  you  see  the  moon  in  a 
"hollow  halo"  at  the  bottom  of  an  "icy 
crystal  cup,"  and  you  yourself  are  in  just 
such  another.  The  mist,  palely  opal- 
escent, drives  past  her  out  of  nothing 
into  nowhere.  Like  yourself,  she  is  the 
centre  of  a  circle  of  vague  limit  and 
vaguer  content,  where  passes  a  swift, 
ceaseless  stream  of  impression  through 
a  faintly  luminous  halo  of  consciousness. 

If  by  moonlight  the  mist  plays  upon 
the  emotions  like  faint,  bewitching  mu- 
sic, in  sunlight  it  is  scarcely  less.  More 
often  than  not  when  I  go  for  my  skating 
to  our  cosy  little  river,  a  winding  mile 
from  the  mill-dam  to  the  railroad  trestle, 
the  hills  are  clothed  in  silver  mist  which 


frames  them  in  vignettes  with  blurred 
edges.  The  tone  is  that  of  Japanese 
paintings  on  white  silk,  their  color  show- 
ing soft  and  dull  through  the  frost-pow- 
der with  which  the  air  is  filled.  At  the 
mill-dam  the  hockey  players  furiously 
rage  together,  but  I  heed  them  not,  and 
in  a  moment  am  beyond  the  first  bend, 
where  their  clamor  comes  softened  on 
the  air  like  that  of  a  distant  convention 
of  politic  crows.  The  silver  powder  has 
fallen  on  the  ice,  just  enough  to  cover 
earlier  tracings  and  leave  me  a  fresh 
plate  to  etch  with  grapevines  and  ara- 
besques. The  stream  winds  ahead  like 
an  unbroken  road,  striped  across  with 
soft-edged  shadows  of  violet,  indigo,  and 
lavender.  On  one  side  it  is  bordered 
with  leaning  birch,  oak,  maple,  hickory, 
and  occasional  groups  of  hemlocks  under 
which  the  very  air  seems  tinged  with 
green.  On  the  other,  rounded  masses  of 
scrub  oak  and  alder  roll  back  from  the 
edge  of  the  ice  like  clouds  of  reddish 
smoke.  The  river  narrows  and  turns, 
then  spreads  into  a  swamp,  where  I 
weave  my  curves  round  the  straw-col- 
ored tussocks.  Here,  new  as  the  snow 
is,  there  are  earlier  tracks  than  mine. 
A  crow  has  traced  his  parallel  hiero- 
glyph, alternate  footprints  with  long 
dashes  where  he  trailed  his  middle  toe 
as  he  lifted  his  foot  and  his  spur  as  he 
brought  it  down.  Under  a  low  shrub 
that  has  hospitably  scattered  its  seed  is 
a  dainty,  close-wrought  embroidery  of 
tiny  bird  feet  in  irregular  curves  woven 
into  a  circular  pattern.  A  silent  glide 
towards  the  bank,  where  an)ong  bare 
twigs  little  forms  flit  and  swing  with  low 
conversational  notes,  brings  me  in  com- 
pany with  a  working  crew  of  pine 
siskins,  methodically  rifling  seed  cones  of 
birch  and  alder,  chattering  sotto  voce  the 
while.  Under  a  leaning  hemlock  the 
writing  on  the  snow  tells  of  a  squirrel 
that  dropped  from  -the  lowest  branch, 
hopped  aimlessly  about  for  a  few  yards, 
then  went  up  the  bank.  Farther  on, 
where  the  river  narrows  again,  a  flutter- 
headed  rabbit  crossing  at  top  speed  has 
made  a  line  seemingly  as  free  from 
frivolous  indirection  as  if  it  had  been 
defined  by  all  the  ponderosities  of  mathe- 
matics. There  is  no  pursuing  track; 
was  it  his  own  shadow  he  fled,  or  the 
shadow  of  a  hawk? 

The  mist  now  lies  along  the  base  of 
the  hills,  leaving  the  upper  ridges  almost 
imperceptibly  veiled  and  the  rounded 
tops  faintly  softened.  The  snowy  slopes 
are  etched  with  brush  and  trees  so  fine 
and  soft  that  they  remind  me  of  Diirer's 
engravings,  the  fur  of  Saint  Jerome's 
lion,  the  cock's  feathers  in  the  coat  of 
arms  with  the  skull.  From  behind  the 
veil  of  the  southernmost  hill  comes  a 
faint  note  as 

From  undiscoverable  lips  that  blow 
An  immaterial  horn. 
It  is  the  first  far  premonition  of  the  noon 


February  28,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[211 


train;  I  pause  and  watch  long  for  the 
next  sign.  At  last  I  hear  its  throbbing, 
which  ceases  as  it  pauses  at  the  flag  sta- 
tion under  the  hill.  There  the  invisible 
locomotive  shoots  a  column  of  silver 
vapor  above  the  surface  of  the  mist, 
breaking  in  rounded  clouds  at  the  top, 
looking  like  nothing  so  much  as  the 
photograph  of  the  explosion  of  a  sub- 
marine mine,  a  titanic  outburst  of  force 
in  static  pose,  a  geyser  of  atomized  water 
standing  like  a  frosted  elm  tree.  Then 
quick  puffs  of  dusky  smoke,  the  volley  of 
which  does  not  reach  my  ear  till  the 
train  has  stuck  its  black  head  out  of 
fairyland  and  become  a  prosaic  reminder 
of  dinner.  High  on  its  narrow  trestle 
it  leaps  across  my  little  river  and  dis- 
appears between  the  sandbanks.  Far 
behind  it  the  mist  is  again  spreading 
into  its  even  layers.  Silence  is  renewed, 
and  I  can  hear  the  musical  creaking  of 
four  starlings  in  an  apple  tree  as  they 
eviscerate  a  few  rotten  apples  on  the 
upper  branches.  I  turn  and  spin  down 
the  curves  and  reaches  of  the  river  with- 
out delaying  for  embroideries  or  ara- 
besques. At  the  mill-dam  the  hockey 
game  still  rages;  the  players  take  no 
heed  of  the  noon  train. 

Let  Zal  and  Rustum  bluster  as  they  will, 

Or  Hatim  call  to  supper  .  .  . 
Their  minds  and  eyes  are  intent  on  a  bat- 
tered disk  of  hard  rubber.  I  begin  to 
think  I  have  misjudged  them  when  I  con- 
sider what  effort  of  imagination  must  be 
involved  in  the  concentration  of  the 
faculties  on  such  an  object,  transcending 
the  call  of  hunger  and  the  lure  of  beauty. 
Is  it  to  them  as  is  to  the  mystic  "the 
great  syllable  Om"  whereby  he  attains 
Nirvana?  I  can  not  attain  it;  I  can  but 
wonder  what  the  hockey  players  win  one- 
half  so  precious  as  the  stuff  they  miss. 
Robert  Palfeey  Utter 

George  Soures,   an 
Athenian  Satirist 

HE  made  others  laugh,  but  he  could 
not  laugh  himself.  Of  very  few 
men  would  this  saying  hold  so  true 
as  of  George  Soures,  the  most  popular 
poet  of  contemporary  Greece,  whose  death 
was  announced  a  few  weeks  ago  from 
Athens.  As  a  poet,  in  the  strictest  sense 
of  the  word,  he  can  hope  for  little  favor 
at  the  hands  of  the  critics.  Horace 
might  bring  against  him  the  same  charge 
he  brought  against  Lucilius :  "Often  in 
a  single  hour  he  would  declaim  two  hun- 
dred verses  as  a  great  feat  and  stand- 
ing on  one  foot  at  that."  But  he  might 
also  say  of  him  that  he  is  clever  and  keen 
to  detect  and  satirize  evil.  In  the  field 
of  satire  there  is  no  doubt  that  Soures 
deserves  a  place  of  honor. 

His  popularity  has  been  unchallenged 
for  years.  To  mention  the  name  of 
Soures  might  be  sufficient  to  make  any 


Greek  townsman  or  peasant  smile.  A 
poem  or  verse  of  his  recited  would  bring 
good  humor  to  a  gloomy  company.  In 
Athens  when  the  paper  boys  who  had  the 
luck  to  seize  the  first  packs  of  Soures' 
weekly,  The  Romios — the  word  means 
"The  Greek"  with  a  derisive  touch  to  it 
— rushed  through  the  streets  yelling  at 
the  top  of  their  voices  "two  cents  for 
Soures'  'Romios'!"  the  announcement 
had  the  effect  of  an  exhilarating  breeze. 
The  sleepy  man  in  the  generally  crowded 
coffee  house  would  jump  up  eager  to 
snatch  a  copy;  the  businessman  would 
dispatch  his  errand  boy  for  the  new 
number  of  the  satirical  review.  The 
housekeeper  would  open  her  window  to 
call  loudly  after  the  impatiently  run- 
ning youngster;  and  the  hired  cook  would 
exercise  particular  industry  in  her  work 
for  that  day  in  order  to  gain  from  her 
mistress  the  privilege  of  a  glance  at  the 
comic  little  weekly. 

In  lounging  places  a  group  would  as- 
semble round  the  happy  owner  of  a  copy 
and  listen  to  the  reading,  eager  to  hear 
how  Soures  would  handle  the  last  politi- 
cal developments  and  what  he  had  to  say 
about  the  Prime  Minister,  the  King,  the 
Queen,  the  Parliament,  the  Mayor,  the 
Great  Powers,  etc.  Often  the  readers 
would  be  delighted  to  find  that  Soures 
would  poke  fun  at  himself  and  sometimes 
even  at  his  own  wife  and  children. 
Friendship,  kinship,  majesty,  power  were 
all  the  same  to  him.  He  would  heap  ridi- 
cule upon  them  whenever  they  seemed  to 
deserve  it;  and,  although  he  never  shows 
bitterness  and  appears  to  enjoy  himself 
by  making  others  laugh  good-naturedly, 
one  easily  detects  that  the  comedian 
laughs  lest  he  should  weep. 

To  say  that  Soures  is  an  incurable  pes- 
simist, that  he  is  absolutely  disgusted 
with  life,  and  that  he  laughs  a  hopelessly 
tragic  laugh,  would  seem  to  the  great 
majority  of  the  Greeks  a  preposterous 
statement.  For  they  have  always  ac- 
cepted him  as  a  merrymaker  through 
and  through.  But  Soures  was  not  a  happy 
man.  Born  in  1853,  in  the  island  of 
Syra,  of  a  Chian  family,  he  studied  in 
his  native  place  and  then  went  to  the 
University  of  Athens  to  attend  courses 
in  classical  philology.  For  some  reason 
he  failed  to  pass  his  examinations  for 
the  doctorate,  a  fact  which  led  him  to  ex- 
ercise his  satirical  genius  against  one  of 
the  professors  whom  he  held  mainly  re- 
sponsible for  his  failure.  Often  he  says 
of  himself  that  "he  had  once  taken  im- 
portant examinations  under  Prof.  Se- 
mitelos,  and,  failing  unanimously  with 
high  honors,  he  had  become  an  example 
for  all  candidates  for  examinations."  He 
first  attempted  to  make  his  livelihood  in 
a  small  town  of  the  Azof  shores  in  Rus- 
sia, where  he  was  employed  by  a  grain- 
dealer.  His  employer  forgave  him  his 
inability  for  serious  work  because  he  en- 
joyed his  merry  rimes.     Describing   in 


one  of  his  poems  his  experience  in  Russia, 
he  tells  us  how  one  day,  when  his  em- 
ployer had  asked  him  to  keep  a  lookout 
on  one  of  his  storehouses  filled  with 
grain,  a  whole  army  of  pigs  invaded  the 
place : 

I  was  mad ;  I  stoned  them,  chased  them ; 
But  they  could  run,  too,  and  so  the  great  war 

started ; 
The  cursed  animals — they  were  not  so  few 

either — 
As   soon  as   I   had  pushed  one  out  there 

rushed  in  another, 
And  so  in  a  little  while  they  were  so  many 
You  might  think  they  had  sown  pigs  with 

that  grain. 
I  am  sure  there  are  as  many  barbarian  pigs 

flourishing  in  Scythia 
As  there  are  wise  and  literary  men  in  Greece. 

An  unfortunate  love  affair,  as  well  as 
his  conviction  that  he  could  never  cut  a 
figure  in  commercial  life,  drove  him  back 
to  Athens,  where  he  finally  settled  and 
married.  From  that  time  he  devoted  all 
his  energy  to  political  and  social  satire. 
His  family  life  seems  to  have  been  quiet 
and  happy,  although  he  suffered  from  ill 
health  and  had  to  struggle  to  keep  the 
wolf  from  his  door.  But  what  depressed 
him  most  was  the  social  and  political 
condition  of  his  country.  He  lived 
through  a  period  of  national  nightmares. 
Only  one  part  of  Greece  was  liberated. 
The  great  majority  of  the  Greeks  were 
under  the  Turkish  yoke.  Of  the  modest 
public  wealth  of  the  state  a  large  part 
had  to  be  sacrificed  to  armaments  for  th» 
relief  of  nationals  across  the  borders. 
There  seemed  to  be  no  hope  for  the  ful- 
fillment of  the  national  dreams.  Greece 
saw  herself  treated  with  contempt  by  the 
Powers  which  made  the  treaty  of  Berlin, 
and  passed  through  a  long  period  of  mor- 
bid resentment,  until  the  climax  of  mis- 
fortunes was  reached  with  her  defeat  by 
Turkey  in  1897.  Naturally  the  blame  was 
laid  on  everybody  and  everything,  and  the 
intelligentsia  of  the  nation,  with  a  few 
exceptions,  were  plunged  into  despair. 
Few  of  the  literary  world,  like  Palamas, 
kept  up  the  light  of  faith  under  the  black 
veil  of  agony.  Soures  gave  up  all  hope 
and  turned  to  laughter  for  relief.  It 
added  to  his  gloom  that  even  his  satiri- 
cal laughter  was  not  taken  seriously  by 
the  majority  of  his  fellow  countrymen, 
who,  far  from  detecting  under  the  comic 
masqiie  the  real  motives  of  his  satire, 
simply  enjoyed  good-naturedly  the  super- 
ficial merriment  derived  from  his  verses. 
Yet  he  did  not  grow  angry  or  bitter;  only 
once  or  twice  he  gave  definite  clues  to 
his  state  of  mind.  That  he  thought  of 
his  work  as  a  sad  complaint  rather  than 
as  coarse,  meaningless  fun,  we  see  clearly 
in  his  lines  "To  Myself" : 

Come,  Myself,  and  find  but  once 

Beautiful  this  globe  of  ours; 

Let  some  golden  worlds  appear  before  you ; 

And  see  this  dark  night  as  a  Day. 

See  the  world  as  good,  just  once; 
In  the  black  sorrow,  scatter  joy; 
Look  for  a  quiet  sea  before  you, 
For  spring  and  flowers,  not  for  misfortunes. 


212] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  42 


Tear  and  bum  your  mourning  verses; 
Get  to  drinking,  get  to  laughing; 
Write  some  sprightly  merry  songs, 
•And  say  that  Greece  sails  on  first  rate. 

Fascinate  all  ears  with  some  happy  news, 
Don't  be  so  surly,  my  poor  sell! 
Enough   of   nagging  and   complaining; 
Spend  one  hour,  at  least,  content. 

When  will  you  be  calm,  at  last? 
When  will  you  be  sick  of  ailing? 
When  will  you  warm  your  tongue? 
Eat  it,  after  all,  before  it  eats  you  I 

His  sincerity  is  by  no  means  subdued 
when  he  attacks  himself.  He  discloses 
mortifying  incidents  of  his  own  life,  not 
shamelessly  but  relentlessly.  He  will  tell 
how  be  was  beaten  by  the  brother  of  a 
girl  he  made  love  to.  He  will  confess  his 
love  for  a  Russian  beauty  he  calls  Vera. 
Courting  distantly,  he  tried  to  impress 
her  by  singing  a  Greek  serenade  under 
her  window,  which  never  opened,  only  to 
find  out  next  day  that  the  fair  one  had 
left  town  never  to  return.  He  will  even 
give  his  portrait  with  unsparing  realism : 

Four  feet  high ; 
With  ugly  face; 
And  a  beard 
Sparsely  haired. 

Brow  divine 
Somewhat  broad 
Surest  sign 
Of  a  poet. 

Two  eyes  black 
Without  guile. 
Full  of  fire, 
Crassly  dull. 

Nostrils  long. 
Deeply  cut ; 
Bearded  chin 
Shaped  like  Christ's. 

Mouth,  a  well ; 
Flowing  hair 
And  enough 
For  a  mattress. 

Savage  face 
Shrivelled  up 
Pale  and  cold 
Like  a  corpse. 

Not  a  color 
Fits  it  much ; 
And  it  changes 
Even  now — 

Teeth  are  lacking; 
Others  are 
Full  of  cracks ; 
And  my  looks 
Are  like  a  Jew's, 
Treated  roughly. 

Soures  worked  industriously  Jto  the 
verj'  end.  His  life  and  work  will  al- 
ways reflect  one  of  the  saddest  periods  of 
Greece.  Only  the  last  few  months  of  his 
life  brought  light  in  his  world  of  dark- 
ness. He  saw  his  country  tear  itself 
from  the  dishonor  which  a  foolish  king 
and  his  gang  endeavored  to  inflict  on  it. 
He  saw  with  pride  his  people  rise  into  a 
revolution  and  dethrone  a  popular  king 
in  order  to  rank  themselves  with  the 
forces  of  freedom  and  make  good  their 
plighted  word;  and  he  died  with  the  hope 
which  his  last  verses  frankly  reflect,  the 
hope  that  Greece  is  at  last  to  come  to 
her  own  inheritance  and  a  new  life. 

Aeistides  E.  Phoutrides 


Music 

"Parsifal"  in  English  at  the 
Metropolitan 

THE  revival  of  "Parsifal,"  with  new 
English  words,  at  the  Metropolitan 
last  week,  was  another  milestone  on  the 
road  to  the  achievement  of  an  ideal.  It 
was  a  concession  by  the  management  of 
our  leading  opera  house  to  the  desire  of 
many  thousands  of  Americans  to  have 
music-drama  sung  in  their  own  tongue. 

To  be  thorough  in  the  fulfillment  of 
his  task,  Mr.  Gatti-Casazza,  a  devout 
and  warm  Wagnerian,  had  flung  away 
the  old  trappings,  scenery,  and  costumes, 
used  during  the  consulship  at  the  Met- 
ropolitan of  the  late  Heinrich  Conried. 
New  costumes,  very  handsome  and  quite 
accurate,  had  been  designed  for  the  oc- 
casion, besides  stage  pictures  which  were 
here  and  there  appropriate. 

Since  "Parsifal"  was  ravished  (by  a 
trick)  from  its  Bayreuth  sanctuary.  New 
York  has  changed.  To  many  the  mys- 
terious work  of  Wagner  seems  too  long. 
The  majority,  I  think,  would  not  have 
sorrowed  if  some  parts  of  the  first 
"Temple"  scene  and  in  the  Gurnemanz 
episodes  had  been  shortened.  New  York, 
you  see,  is  not  another  Bayreuth.  The 
subway  runs  below  the  Metropolitan. 
And  there  are  no  more  lazy  beer  halls  on 
•Broadway,  in  which,  between  the  acts, 
the  weary  may  recuperate. 

I  have  heard  "Parsifal"  quite  forty 
times,  or  more.  To  me,  with  two  ex- 
ceptions— -"Tristan  und  Isolde"  and  "Die 
Meistersinger" — it  is  the  greatest,  most 
sublime,  of  Wagner's  music-dramas.  Its 
meaning  may  have  had  too  much  stress 
laid  on  it.  I  can  not  think  that  it  was 
wholly  Christian.  It  is  tinged  with 
Hinduism.  Much  of  it  was  anticipated 
in  Buddhistic  legends.  More  of  it  is 
merely  monastic  mysticism.  But  the  in- 
ventor of  this  "consecrational  festival 
play"  no  doubt  conceived  it  as  an  atone- 
ment for  his  sins,  the  proof  of  a  much 
bruised  and  chastened  soul,  which  had 
expressed  itself  in  earlier  days  too  pas- 
sionately. And  yet,  for  one  who  really 
wished  to  play  the  penitent,  the  composer 
lapsed  at  times  into  strange  license.  The 
"Temptation"  episode,  for  instance, 
almost  terrifies  one  by  its  unbridled 
boldness.  No  wonder  that  some  call  the 
work  "degenerate." 

The  chief  novelty  in  the  revival  was, 
beyond  question,  Mr.  Krehbiel's.  transla- 
tion of  the  text.  On  this,  and  on  the 
ability  (or  inability)  of  the  chief  singers 
in  the  cast,  hung  more  than  the  success 
or  failure  of  the  performance.  Success 
might  lead  to  other  longed-for  efforts 
at  the  Metropolitan  to  replace  foreign 
tongues  by  our  own  English  idiom.  The 
difficulties  which  a  translator  has  to  con- 
quer in  such  tasks  as  Mr.  Krehbiel's  are 


considerable.  No  man  knows  more  of 
this  than  I  do.  For  I,  also,  have  put 
Wagner  into  what  I  am  assured  is  sing- 
able English.  It  is  pleasing  to  be  able 
to  say,  honestly,  that,  by  and  large,  ex- 
cept in  a  few  passages,  Mr.  Krehbiel  has 
done  very  well  indeed.  He  has  preserved 
the  general  sense  of  Wagner's  text 
(though  now  and  then  he  has  taken 
needless  liberties  with  straightforward 
lines).  He  has  done  no  really  vital  out- 
rage to  the  German  rhythms.  His 
words  are  clear  enough,  if  often  tame; 
and,  if  well  rendered  by  singers  used  to 
English,  would  be  no  less  intelligible  to 
attentive  Americans  than  the  original 
could  be  to  German  audiences. 

Mr.  Krehbiel  has  supplied  a  good 
equivalent  for  the  prophecy 

Durch  Mitleid  wissend, 
Der  reine  thor.  .  .  . 

and  so  on,  in  his 

Through  pity,  knowing. 
The  blameless  fool.  .  .  . 

He  has  been  particularly  happy  in  his 
equivalent  for  the  "Good  Friday's  Spell" 
words.  As  an  example  let  me  quote  his 
opening  lines: 

Are  not  the  meadows  strangely  fair  today  ? 
True,  I   did  meet  sonic  marvellous  flowers 
Which  sought  around  my  neck  to  twine  their 
tendrils. 

But — yes,  I  regret  to  say,  there  are 
some  "buts" — throughout  his  book  he 
has  shown  a  distressing  tendency  to  pre- 
fer words  of  Latin  origin  to  Anglo- 
Saxon  words.  By  this  he  has  often 
weakened  the  original  sounds  of  Wag- 
ner's lines.  Extreme  cases  of  the  kind 
occur  in  his  translation  of  the  Flower 
Maidens'  call  to  Parsifal. 

Come  !     Come  !     Pretty  lover. 

Make  me  your  treasure. 

For  your  solace  and  pleasure 

I  will  strive  without  measure. 
and  in  his  opening  of  one  chorus  in  the 
first  "Temple"  scene: 

Wine  and  bread  of  last  refection. 
Chang'd  at  our  blest  Lord's  election, 
By  compassion's  loving  pow'r.  .  .  . 

which  in  the  place  of  "Wein  und  Brod 
des    letzten    Mahles,"    and    so    forth,    is 
"tolerable,  and  not  to  be  endured."    Nor 
can  I  see  why  Mr.  Krehbiel  has  gone  out 
of  his  way  to  substitute  for  the  strong  | 
German  "Wer  schoss  den  Schwan?"  the 
much    weaker    English    "Who    did    the  ' 
deed?"    when    "Who    shot   the    Swan?"  ; 
seemed  logically  indicated. 

On  the  whole,  Mr.  Krehbiel  is  not 
guilty  if  quite  three-quarters  of  the 
text  of  "Parsifal"  remained  obscure  at 
the  performance.  The  responsibility 
weighs  partly  on  certain  singers  who, 
being  innocent  of  English  when  they  be- 
gan rehearsals,  failed  to  enunciate  their 
parts  with  proper  plainness.  Among 
them  I  may  mention  Leon  Rothier,  the 
French  Gurnemanz,  who  had  attempted 
what  to  him  was  utterly  impossible,  and, 
the     Polish     Klingsor,     Adamo     Didur.i 


February  28,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[213 


Margarethe  Matzenauer,  the  Kundry, 
was  understandable  in  her  legato  pas- 
sages, but  became  meaningless  in  her 
declamatory  moments.  The  choruses,  of 
course,  were  unintelligible.  But,  after 
all,  though  one  may  deplore  the  de- 
ficiencies of  some  singers,  the  manage- 
ment picked  out  the  artists  for  their 
lespective  parts.  It  can  not,  therefore, 
be  acquitted  of  its  share  of  the  respon- 
sibility for  what  was  lacking  in  the  per- 
formance. In  justice  to  the  singers  I 
have  named,  I  wish  to  add  that  their 
interpretations  of  their  parts  did  them 
great  credit.  I  should  also  add  that 
Orville  Harrold,  the  new  Parsifal,  sang 
almost  all  his  lines  with  clearness,  and 
that,  both  as  to  his  English  and  as  to  his 
performance,  the  Amfortas  of  Clarence 
Whitehill  could  hardly  have  been  bet- 
tered. 

The  orchestra,  directed  by  Bodanzky, 
interpreted  the  master's  score  with  elo- 
quence; perhaps  slightly  overdoing  some 
of  the  climaxes,  by  giving  the  brass  in- 
struments more  than  the  accustomed 
prominence,  but  doing  justice  to  the 
gracious  and  exquisite  beauties  of  the 
"Good  Friday's  Spell"  music  and  other 
episodes.  The  choruses  at  times  were 
out  of  tune. 

The  new   scenery   devised   by   Joseph 
Urban  for  this   "Parsifal"   revival  was 
good  and  less  good.     It  seemed  a  com- 
promise between  the  literal  realism  of  a 
bygone  age  of  stage  art  and  the  more 
modern  style  which  seeks  to  be  sugges- 
tive.   The  landscapes  were  distinctly  un- 
suggestive    of    that    part    of    Northern 
Spain    in   which    the    Templars    of    the 
Grail   had    their    abode — as    we,    at    all 
events,  suppose.     The  setting  used  for 
Klingsor's  Magic  Garden  gave  one  the 
impression  that  it  was  somewhere  in  the 
tropics.     But  the  white  mountains  near 
at  hand  seemed   in   Castile.     Far   more 
effective  was  the  majestic  Temple  scene, 
with    its    stone    pillars    and    impressive 
gloom.      Admirable,    though,     like    the 
other     scenes,     it     ignored     the     most 
cherished  orders  of  the  composer,   was 
the  simple  hint  of  a  high  tower  from 
tvhich    the    Magician    watched    the    ap- 
oroach  of  the  young  hero  in  the  second 
ict,  and  bade  tortured  Kundry  tempt  him 
Tom   his   virtue.      The    "Verwandlung" 
—moving     transformation     scene — pre- 
iicribed  by  Wagner  and  employed  in  the 
i^onried  production,  as  at  the  Festspiel- 
liaus  at  Bayreuth,  was  omitted  by  Mr. 
Jrban,  and  as  a  consequence  some  mys- 
leries  were  sacrificed.     In  its  place  we 
|iad    a    dimly    painted     curtain.       The 
ipring-lit  meadow  called  for  at  another 
|ioint  expressed  the  loveliness  of  meed 
0  apparent  in  both  the  verses  and  the 
nisic  of  the  composer.    But  it  conflicted 
ith  preceding  hints  and  evidence  as  to 
le  landscape  roundabout  the  Templars' 
ome. 
"My    fathec,"     once    said     Siegfried 


Wagne.-  to  me,  as  we  sat  in  the  shadow 
of  the  Festspielhaus,  "intended  his  mu- 
sic-dramas to  be  tieated  as  plays.  And, 
for  that  reason,  he  desired  his  words  to 
be  understood  by  those  who  hear  them." 
Charles  Henry  Meltzer 

Drama 

"Letty"  and  "His  House  in 

Order" — "Ibsen   in 

England" 

The  Social  Plays  of  Arthur  Wing  Pin- 
ERO,  Vol.  II:  Letty — His  House  in  Or- 
der. Edited  by  Clayton  Hamilton. 
New  York:  E.  P.  Button  and  Com- 
pany. 

Ibsen  in  England.  By  Miriam  Alice 
Franc.  Boston:  The  Four  Seas  Com- 
pany. 

SIR  ARTHUR  PINERO'S  books  were 
a  pile — or  less  than  a  pile  even,  a 
heap — upon  a  littered  floor.  He  owes 
much  to  Mr.  Clayton  Hamilton  for  pick- 
ing out  the  best  volumes,  dusting  them, 
and  ranging  them  in  straight  rows  on  a 
clean  table.  If  only  there  were  a  fire- 
place in  the  room  and  a  friend  with 
courage  enough  to  dispose  of  the  incrim- 
inating residue!  Sir  Arthur's  literary, 
or  sub-literary,  progeny  is  large.  One 
can  not  help  wishing  that  the  Spartan 
custom  of  the  exposure  of  feeble  or 
sickly  infants  for  the  purgation  of  the 
stock  had  been  prevalent  in  Sir  Arthur's 
time  and  place.  But  England  is  not 
Sparta,  and  the  sort  of  exposure  which 
they  did  receive  was  not  fitted  to  invig- 
orate the  breed. 

Pinero  is  a  mixture  of  the  ordinary 
and  the  extraordinary,  beside  which  the 
merely  extraordinary  looks  rather  com- 
monplace. The  difference  between  the 
two  types  in  him  is  precipitous,  myste- 
rious, almost  scandalous.  One  wonders 
how  the  better  Pinero  could  have  tol- 
erated the  worse  as  a  trespasser  on  his 
premises  or  a  loafer  in  his  stable.  Mr. 
Hamilton,  whose  perceptions  are  quick, 
is  quite  aware  of  this  inequality,  and 
points  out  that  the  dramatist  wrote  the 
groveling  "Wife  Without  a  Smile"  be- 
tween "Letty"  and  "His  House  in  Or- 
der." Had  Pinero  no  concern  for  his 
intellectual  and  literary  admirers?  Or 
was  he  bored  by  these  admirers,  like 
Nora  Helmer  by  her  husband's  cloying 
virtues,  and  are  these  inferior  plays  his 
way  of  saying  "Damn  it  all!"? 

Mr.  Hamilton's  "Introduction"  con- 
tains some  sound  and  shrewd  remedies 
suggested  by  Pinero's  partiality  for 
women.  Women,  says  Mr.  Hamilton, 
dominate  Pinero's  stage,  because  they 
fill  his  orchestra  and  galleries,  and 
women  love  to  study  women  as  men  do 
not  care  to  study  men.  I  will  add  that 
the  two  sexes  take  sex  very  diff'erently: 
In   sex  women   are   a   sect;   men   are  a 


club.  There  is  a  cult  of  women  by 
women;  the  male  sex,  though  arrogant 
enough  in  its  phlegmatic  way,  Iniilds  no 
altars  to  itself.  I  may  add  that  there 
should  be  a  sting  for  Sir  Arthur  Pinero 
in  Mr.  Hamilton's  quiet  and  entirely 
friendly  assumption  that  the  roots  of 
his  fondness  for  women  are  mercantile. 

In  the  two  critical  prefaces  Mr.  Ham- 
ilton is  never  less  than  competent  and 
interesting,  but  I  own  that  his  general 
observations  have  helped  me  less  than 
his  uncommonly  quick  eye  for  particu- 
lars, for  times,  places,  settings,  points 
of  diction.  I  can  not  go  with  him  in  his 
feeling  that  "His  House  in  Order" 
owes  its  vigor  largely  to  technique.  Its 
technique  is  indeed  masterly;  as  ship  it 
is  trimmer  than  "Iris"  or  the  "Second 
Mrs.  Tanqueray";  their  advantage  is  in 
the  lading.  But  the  special  claims  of 
"His  House  in  Order,"  sympathy  for  a 
baited  young  creature,  delight  in  her 
power  over  her  tormentors,  admiration 
for  her  generous  surrender  of  that 
power — these  energies  reside  in  the  ma- 
terial, not  the  craft.  There  seems  to  be 
a  vague  notion  in  the  air  that  technique 
is  a  substitute  for  power  or  feeling,  a 
means  of  doing  emotion's  work  without 
emotion.  Technique  is  to  me  a  lever,  a 
middle  term  between  power  and  result. 
A  man  may  lift  a  weight  with  a  bar  or 
with  his  arms;  in  both  cases  he  lifts  it 
with  his  muscles.  A  man  may  move  an 
audience  with  or  without  technique;  in 
both  cases  he  moves  it  by  feeling.  Tech- 
nique does  not  generate  feeling  any 
more  than  the  lever  creates  muscle.  The 
lever  applies  or  concentrates  muscle; 
technique  applies  or  concentrates  emo- 
tion. "His  House  in  Order"  ranks  high 
for  me  among  Pinero's  plays;  less  orig- 
inal than  "Iris"  or  the  "Second  Mrs. 
Tanqueray,"  less  cogent  than  the  "Thun- 
derbolt," it  excels  in  the  union  of  con- 
summate workmanship  with  a  vividly 
human,  and  in  the  main  healthy,  appeal. 

"Letty,"  on  the  other  hand,  breaks 
down  in  the  effort  to  rationalize  a  sug- 
gestive and  original  idea.  A  man  and 
a  woman  face  each  other  alone  in  the 
hour  of  sexual  crisis.  Men  have  spared 
girls  at  such  a  moment.  To  Pinero 
came  another  thought.  Could  that  hour 
be  critical,  not  for  the  girl  only,  but  for 
the  man?  Could  it  be  the  hour  when  a 
decadent  race  completed  its  damnation 
or  began  its  self-retrieval?  There  is  a 
step  further  in  originality.  Could  the 
girl,  in  a  sense,  spare  the  man?  Such 
an  idea  savors  of  the  tremendous;  it 
savors  of  the  ridiculous.  The  most  that 
can  be  said  for  Pinero's  treatment  is 
that  the  ridiculous  is  avoided;  the  tre- 
mendous certainly  is  not  achieved.  For 
adequacy  in  such  a  situation,  both  man 
and  woman  should  possess  the  rudi- 
ments of  greatness.  Nevill  and  Letty 
are  both  small.  Mr.  Hamilton  admires 
the    faultless    gentleman    in    Nevill.     I 


214] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  42 


should  call  him  an  occasional  gentleman, 
a  gentleman  with  intermissions. 

Mr.  Hamilton  objects,  on  the  whole 
rightly,  to  the  epilogue  in  "Letty,"  an 
expedient  in  which  Pinero  shows  him- 
self at  one  and  the  same  moment  a  good 
man  of  business  and  a  bad  man  of  let- 
ters. Even  if  we  waive  the  point  of  cli- 
max, the  briskness  and  patness  with 
which  rewards  and  punishments  are 
handed  out  in  this  dapper  little  epilogue 
reveal  a  shallowness  in  Pinero  which  it 
is  not  easy  to  forgive.  There  are  men 
who  are  more  royalist  than  the  king; 
Pinero's  providences  put  Providence  to 
shame.  He  renews  his  adhesion  to  the 
copybook  and  psalmbook  type  of  moral- 
ity when,  in  "His  House  in  Order,"  he 
permits  Nina  to  grovel  before  the  Ridge- 
leys  in  a  quagmire  of  renunciation.  Let 
her  burn  Annabel's  letters  by  all  means, 
but  as  for  her  puppies  and  her  ciga- 
rettes— Sir  Arthur  becomes  a  Ridgeley 
himself  in  the  penitence  through  which 
he  drags  this  high-spirited  young  wife. 
The  dramatist  fails  to  see  that  conduct 
is  a  compromise  between  nature  and  pre- 
cept, and  that  the  precept  which  tram- 
ples upon  nature  to-day  is  a  precept 
upon  which  nature  will  trample  to-mor- 
row. 

To  write  the  story  of  Ibsen  in  Eng- 
land was  a  good  thing  to  do.  It  was  so 
good  a  thing  to  do  that,  even  when  ill 
done,  the  result  is  not  worthless.  The 
titles  of  four  out  of  the  seven  chapters 
of  Miss  Franc's  book,  "English  Trans- 
lations of  Ibsen,"  "Performances  of 
Ibsen  in  England,"  "Parodies  and  Se- 
quels to  Ibsen  Dramas,"  "Ibsen's  Influ- 
ence on  English  Drama,"  will  suggest 
the  scope  and  interest  of  the  topics. 
Two  appendixes,  listing  English  trans- 
lations and  performances,  are  perhaps 
almost  more  agreeable  than  the  book 
proper,  because  they  are  all  that  they 
claim  to  be — lists — whereas  thtf  book 
proper  claims  to  be  narrative,  and  is 
logbook.  Ibsen's  career  in  England  is 
a  story,  almost  a  drama,  and  it.  is  re- 
grettable that  the  person  intrusted  with 
its  recital  should  have  been  deaf  to  the 
challenge  of  these  facts.  Accuracy  in 
such  a  work  is  the  one  apology  for  mech- 
anism. I  tested  the  accuracy  of  Miss 
Franc  by  verifying  a  short  list  of  refer- 
ences, fifteen,  I  should  say,  or  at  most 
twenty.  The  very  first  reference,  on 
page  84,  to  the  "Athenaeum"  for  June 
6,  1889,  was  wrong.  There  is  no  "Athe- 
naeum" for  June  6,  1889.  Another  ref- 
erence, on  page  105,  to  Shaw  in  the 
Saturday  Review  for  June  26,  1897, 
was  wrong;  the  true  date  is  July  3, 
1897.  In  the  chapter  on  influences, 
where  judgment  is  naturally  required, 
suggestiveness  on  the  largest  scale  and 
often  on  the  smallest  evidence  is  attrib- 
uted to  Ibsen.  One  is  reminded  of  that 
fantastic  paternity  which  the  daughter 
of  the  Dovre-King  endeavored  to  thrust 


upon  Peer  Gynt.  A  curious  instance  of 
that  laxity  in  figurative  language  which 
prevails  in  so  many  quarters  nowadays 
is  found  on  pages  144-145,  where  the 
topic  is  "Man  and  Superman"  and  "Get- 
ting Married":  "The  discussion  walks 
away  with  the  plot  and  the  characteriza- 
tion, and  there  is  left  nothing  but  a 
very  long  and  very  tedious  conversa- 
tion." The  discussion  walks  away  and 
the  conversation  is  left.  What  Miss 
Franc  should  do  is  to  go  over  her  work, 
fact  by  fact,  with  the  utmost  particu- 
larity, verifying  and  correcting,  and  to 
rewrite  the  chapter  on  influences,  omit- 
ting from  one-third  to  one-half  of  the 
examples  she  has  got  together.  Her 
work  will  then  be  useful  as  a  book  of 
reference. 

0.  W.  Firkins 

Books  and  the  News 

Recent  Books 

THE  holiday  books  were  especially  in- 
teresting, and  the  mid-winter  books 
are  no  less  satisfactory,  whether  you 
seek  information  or  amusement.  The 
conscientious  reader  must  peruse  Mr. 
Keynes  on  "The  Economic  Consequences 
of  the  Peace"  (Harcourt)  ;  few  econo- 
mists have  a  more  readable  style.  Do 
not  fail  to  see  Punch's  rhymed  re- 
view of  the  book.  Speaking  of  rhymed 
reviews,  Arthur  Guiterman's  "Ballads 
of  Old  New  York"  (Harper)  is  a  suitable 
book  for  a  gift,  that  is,  one  whose  charm 
does  not  vanish  after  a  first  reading.  An 
artist  in  rhyme  made  these  verses,  so 
that  they  linger  in  the  memory,  as  vers 
libres  fail  to  do.  Mrs.  Clement  Scott's 
"Old  Days  in  Bohemian  London" 
(Hutchinson)  tells  of  notable  folk;  but 
it  pushes  too  far  the  present  British 
custom  of  adopting  an  extremely  chatty 
style  of  memoirs.  Rather  better  is  "My 
Bohemian  Days"  (Stokes),  by  Harry 
Furniss,  and  his  sketches  enhance  the 
book. 

A  volume  of  literary  biography  is  "A 
Book  of  R.  L.  S."  (Scribner),  by  George 
E.  Brown.  Arranged  like  a  reference 
book,  with  its  entries  in  alphabetical 
order,  it  seemed  to  me,  nevertheless, 
readable  throughout,  with  its  comments 
upon  his  friends  and  family,  his  books 
and  their  characters,  his  homes  and  his 
travels.  I  can  never  get  too  many  books 
about  Stevenson,  for  like  Mark  Twain, 
he  is  one  of  the  few  writers  whose  life 
was  also  interesting.  "Leonard  .Wood: 
Conservator  of  Americanism"  (Doran), 
by  Eric  Fisher  Wood,  is  not  to  be  dis- 
posed of  as  "a  campaign  biography."  It 
is  an  admirable  study  of  a  man  of  im- 
mense importance  in  the  world  to-day. 

Three  volumes  of  fiction  for  pure 
amusement  are  Melville  Davisson  Post's 
"The  Mystery  at  the  Blue  Villa"  (Apple- 


ton),  George  A.  Birmingham's  "Up,  the 
Rebels!"  (Doran),  in  which  the  author 
makes  his  nearest  recent  approach  to  his 
earliest  successes  of  "Spanish  Gold"  and 
"The  Major's  Niece";  and  "A  Thin 
Ghost,  and  Others"  (Longmans),  by  Mon- 
tague R.  James.  The  last  may  dis- 
appoint readers  who  hope  to  find  such 
good  stories  as  those  in  "Ghost  Stories 
of  an  Antiquary"  by  the  same  author, 
but  Dr.  James  always  paints  in  a  weirdly 
fascinating  background,  even  when  the 
incidents  of  his  plot  are  slight. 

To  turn  to  graver  subjects.  Bertha 
E.  L.  Stockbridge's  "What  to  Drink; 
Recipes  for  Non-Alcoholic  Drinks"  (Ap- 
pleton)  may  help  those  who  see  hope  in 
pineapple  tosh  and  raspberry  rumble. 
But  its  sub-title  is  significant:  "The 
Blue  Book  of  Beverages."  Stephen  Gra- 
ham's "A  Private  in  the  Guards"  (Mac- 
millan)  is  a  capital  account  of  going  to 
war  with  one  of  those  regiments  where 
pipe-clay  and  brass-polish  are  house- 
hold gods.  Viscount  Haldane,  in  "Before 
the  War"  (Funk  and  Wagnalls),  tells  of 
his  conversations  with  William  II,  with 
Bethman-Hollweg,  and  with  Tirpitz. 

Two  light-hearted  books  of  essays  are 
"Old  Junk"  (Knopf),  by  H.  M.  Tomlin- 
son,  with  its  talk  about  the  sea,  about 
travel,  and  about  books;  and  Carl  Van 
Vechten's  "In  the  Garret"  (Knopf),  the 
musical  fiavor  of  which  would  have  put 
it  beyond  me,  if  it  had  not  been  for  one 
striking  essay  upon  New  York,  called 
"La  Tigresse."  Satirical  and  vigorous 
are  Mrs.  Gerould's  essays  in  "Modes  and 
Morals"  (Scribner),  in  which  she  pays 
her  compliments  to  the  "British  Novel- 
ists, Ltd."  The  publication  of  this  book 
enabled  me,  to  my  great  joy,  to  place  the 
anecdote  about  the  milliner  in  a  New 
England  town,  who  when  told  by  a  cus- 
tomer that  "they  are  wearing  hats  low 
in  New  York,  this  year,"  retorted,  "They 
are  wearing  them  high  in  Newbury- 
port!"  Knowing  something  of  my  birth- 
place, I  believe  that  what  Mrs.  Gerould 
mistook  for  Yankee  conservatism  was 
really  Irish  wit. 

Edmund  Lester  Pearson 

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Years.    Longmans,  Green.    $5. 

{Continued  on  page  216) 


February  28,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[215 


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[Vol.  2,  Xo.  42 


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Mr.  Huebsch  had  long  sought  for  an  un- 
hackneyed device  that  symbolizes  light, 
and  finally  adopted  this  candlestick  with 
the  monogram  at  the  base. 

{Continued  on  page  IV) 


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By  BRINSLEY  MACNAMARA 
Author  of  "The  Valley  of  the  Squinting  Windows" 

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i'l 


THE  REVIEW 


Vol.  2,  No.  43 


New  York,  Saturday,  March  6,  1920 


FIFTEEN  CENTS 


Contents 


Brief  Comment 
Editorial  Ariicles: 


217 


What  Is  a  Liberal? 

219 

Tiie  Soviet  Drive  for  Peace 

220 

Mr.  Asquith's  Return 

222 

The  Women's  Colleges 

223 

Constantinople    and    the    Straits. 

By 

Philip  Marshall  Brown 

224 

The    Case    of    Sir    Oliver   Lodge. 

By 

Joseph  Jastrow 

22b 

Correspondence 

227 

Book  Reviews: 

Jeremiad  and  Jumble 

229 

A  Catholic  Critic  of  Sinn  Fein 

230 

Among  Our  Americas 

231 

War  and  Discipline 

2b2 

The  Run  of  the  Shelves 

234 

Unlocking  the  Great  Lakes.    By  L.  J 

.B. 

235 

Books  and  the  News:   Mr.  Wilson. 

By 

Edmund  Lester  Pearson 

237 

AS  we  go  to  press,  the  outlook  for 
ratification  of  the  treaty,  in  'any 
form,  is  as  dark  as  possible.  If  the 
event  shall  prove  as  now  seems  bo 
probable,  there  will  be  few  indeed 
who  will  be  able  to  take  any  satisfac- 
tion in  the  retrospect.  The  only  vic- 
tors will  be  the  outright  enemies  of 
the  treaty,  with  Senators  Borah  and 
Johnson  at  their  head;  and,  in  spite 
of  the  extremely  objectionable  char- 
acter of  some  of  the  tactics  employed 
by  them,  they  will  at  least  be  entitled 
to  the  satisfaction  of  having  gained 
an  end  which  they  had  consistently 
and  fearlessly  avowed,  and  to  which 
many  of  them  at  least  were  sincerely 
devoted  as  a  matter  of  principle. 
With  this  exception,  all  parties,  from 
President  Wilson  to  Senator  Lodge, 
will  experience  a  sense  of  bitter  mor- 
tification as  they  review  the  long  his- 
tory of  the  impotent  wrangle. 

TT  is  still  possible  that  a  new  turn 
■^  may  be  given  to  the  situation.  But 
the  possibility  rests  on  the  faint  hope 
that  in  one  or  another  of  the  decisive 
quarters  a  largeness  of  mind  and  of 
soul  may  be  manifested  which  has 
thus  far  been  wholly  absent.    As  for 


I 


the  "great  and  solemn  referendum" 
which  will  ensue  upon  failure  of  the 
treaty,  nothing  is  more  certain  than 
that  it  will  be  neither  great  nor  sol- 
emn. The  time  is  past  when  the 
American  people  could  be  got  to  con- 
centrate their  attention  upon  the  sub- 
ject, to  the  exclusion,  or  even  the 
subordination,  of  other  issues.  Not 
only  has  the  lapse  of  time,  together 
with  the  urgency  of  other  questions, 
thrown  it  into  the  background,  but 
the  issue  itself  has  been  so  bedeviled 
with  trivialities  and  personalities 
that  the  country  is  sick  and  tired 
of  it.  The  only  way  to  make  it  a  gen- 
uine and  central  issue  before  the 
nation  would  be  for  Mr.  Wilson  him- 
self to  be  the  candidate,  a  contingency 
which  seems  in  the  highest  degree 
improbable.  Barring  that  possibility, 
the  injection  of  the  treaty  quarrel 
into  the  Presidential  campaign  opens 
up  the  prospect  of  a  prolonged  night- 
mare from  which  all  citizens  may 
devoutly  pray  to  be  spared.  Until  the 
doom  has  actually  been  pronounced, 
we  cling  to  a  shred  of  hope  that  it 
may  still  be  averted. 

/~\F  the  appointment  of  Bainbridge 
^-^  Colby  as  Secretary  of  State,  it  is 
almost  enough  to  say  that  for  those 
who  like  that  kind  of  Secretary  of 
State,  he  is  just  the  kind  of  Secretary 
of  State  they  like.  This  does  not 
mean  that,  as  some  have  imagined, 
Mr.  Colby  is  to  be,  or  is  expected  to 
be,  a  "doormat,"  or  even  a  "rubber 
stamp."  He  has  engaging  qualities 
and  a  bright  mind,  and  will  doubtless 
be  a  great  comfort  to  Mr.  Wilson, 
who  evidently  likes  him  extremely. 
The  danger  to  be  apprehended  from 
his  appointment  is  not  that  he  will  be 
merely  a  passive  tool  in  the  Presi- 
dent's hands,  a  function  which,  while 
not  brilliant,  may  be  useful,  and,  in 
the  case  of  a  President  determined  to 
be  his  own  Secretary  of  State,  per- 


haps as  useful  as  any  that  he  could 
perform.  The  danger  is  that  Mr. 
Colby,  who  has  no  perceptible  quali- 
fication for  the  post,  but  who  has  a 
mind  of  his  own,  and  has  winning 
ways,  may,  while  humoring  the  Presi- 
dent to  the  top  of  his  bent  as  re- 
gards things  in  general,  exercise  an 
evil  influence  over  him  as  regards 
many  a  thing  in  particular  which 
will  come  up  during  these  months  of 
acute  international  trial.  Neither  in 
his  training  nor  in  his  habits  of 
thought  and  action  does  Mr.  Colby 
possess  the  attributes  which  ought  to 
be  regarded  as  essential  to  the  head 
of  the  country's  department  of  for- 
eign affairs. 

'T'HE  editor  of  the  Nation,  after 
-'•  reciting  the  holding  up  of  certain 
American  cotton  ships  by  the  British 
blockade,  characterizes  ex-Secretary 
Lansing  as  "one  of  those  who  thought 
that  just  as  stiff  a  note  should  be  sent 
to  England  about  these  matters  as 
had  been  sent  to  Germany  about  the 
Lusitania."  We  have  yet  to  see  any 
real  evidence  that  Mr.  Lansing  ever 
committed  himself  to  the  equating  of 
the  Lusitania  crime  with  the  British 
blockade.  The  "0.  G.  V."  Washing- 
ton correspondence  of  the  Evening 
Post  at  the  time  had  much  to  say 
about  a  note  answering  to  this  de- 
scription, prepared  before  Bryan's 
resignation,  held  for  five  months,  and 
finally  sent  only  after  it  was  so 
altered  as  to  recognize  a  material  dis- 
tinction between  taking  human  life 
without  warning  and  holding  up  cot- 
ton, with  judicial  resource  to  deter- 
mine whether  the  seizure  was  legal. 
Until  convinced  by  indubitable  evi- 
dence, we  prefer  to  believe  that  the 
hand  and  heart  of  Mr.  Lansing  aided 
in  softening  the  note  rather  than  in 
putting  into  it  (if  it  really  was  ever 
there)  that  blind  disregard  of  both 
moral    and    legal    distinctions    with 


218] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  43 


which  "O.  G.  V."  credits  it,  and  for 
which  he  commends  it. 

PRESIDENT  WILSON  is  not  happy 
-■-  in  his  diplomatic  appointments, 
and  the  result  is  that  America  is  in- 
adequately represented  at  foreign 
capitals  at  a  time  when  our  foreign 
relations  demand  the  highest  type  of 
diplomatic  ability.  It  is  difficult  to 
say  whether  these  appointments  are 
due  to  the  paucity  of  material  in  the 
Democratic  party  or  to  the  faultiness 
of  the  President's  judgment.  The 
appointment  of  Mr.  Charles  R.  Crane 
as  Minister  to  China  is  the  latest 
example.  Mr.  Crane  is  an  amiable 
gentleman,  a  philanthropist,  and  very 
rich.  He  is  feverishly  but  superficially 
interested  in  movements  and  men, 
lacking  in  tact  and  discretion,  and  a 
dilettante  in  international  politics. 
With  the  best  will  in  the  world,  he 
may  easily  compromise  our  position 
in  the  intricate  and  complex  situation 
in  China. 

npHE  considerations  that  have  led 
■'•  the  Supreme  Council  to  decree 
that  the  Turks  should  retain  Constan-  ' 
tinople  are  not  made  clear  in  any  of 
the  statements  thus  far  made  public. 
In  answer  to  the  outcry  of  protest 
among  liberals  everywhere,  and  es- 
pecially that  voiced  by  Lord  Bryce, 
Mr.  Lloyd  George  puts  forward  the 
claim  that  England  is  bound  to  con- 
sider the  wishes  of  the  eighty  million 
Moslems  in  India  who  loyally  sup- 
ported the  war.  Mr.  Montagu,  Secre- 
tary of  State  for  India,  has  sought  to 
clinch  matters  by  a  premature  an- 
nouncement of  the  action  in  India 
itself.  But  this  explanation  is  far 
from  satisfying.  On  the  one  hand, 
it  has  not  been  demonstrated  that  the 
Moslems  in  India  have  any  such  rev- 
erence as  is  represented  for  the  Sul- 
tan as  Caliph,  nor  that  this  is  neces- 
sarily localized  in  Constantinople.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  is  an  anachronism 
that  after  more  than  four  centuries 
of  misrule,  the  Turks,,  themselves  a 
minority,  should  be  left  in  possession 
of  a  great  city  which  possesses  such 
singular  significance  for  hundreds  of 
millions  of  Christian  peoples.  It  is 
possible,  of  course,  that  the  British 
policy  is  based  upon  the  desire  to 


retain  as  warder  at  the  gate  a  sub- 
servient tool.  But  there  are  ugly 
rumors  in  the  European  capitals  of 
financial  interests  and  sinister  in- 
trigue, and  it  is  implied  that  the  chief 
consideration  involved  is  that  of  pro- 
tecting the  French  and  British  bond- 
holders. Mr.  Montagu  is  not  only 
Secretary  of  State  for  India;  he  is 
also  a  member  of  one  of  the  greatest 
banking  families  of  Europe. 

In  nearly  all  the  discussion  over  the 
disposition  of  Constantinople,  how- 
ever, a  most  important  factor  has 
been  entirely  overlooked.  That  fac- 
tor is  Russia.  To  ignore  her  entirely 
now  is  to  store  up  trouble  for  the 
future.  A  tactful  acknowledgment  of 
her  interests,  and  an  intimation  that 
the  settlement  will  in  due  time  be  sub- 
ject to  her  review  without  prejudice, 
would  be  a  wise  precaution  against 
wars  to  come. 

'T'HE  reputed  founder  of  the  Utah 
■'-  State  Juvenile  Court  and  various 
other  institutions  for  boys.  Judge  Wil- 
lis Brown,  has  discovered  a  new  ap- 
proach to  our  longed-for  political 
millennium.  It  lies  in  the  very  simple 
process  of  organizing  four  million 
first  voters  and  plumping  their  com- 
bined first  votes  in  favor  of  the  right 
man  for  President.  The  thing  looks 
easy,  if  you  just  shut  your  eyes  tight 
enough,  as  the  devisers  of  such 
schemes  never  seem  to  have  any  diffi- 
culty in  doing.  Of  course,  if  these 
four  million  freshman  voters  -once 
realize  that  they  can  elect  a  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States,  they  will  at 
once  cut  loose  from  all  present  influ- 
ence of  parents  and  older  brothers 
and  friends,  throw  overboard  all  in- 
herited political  prejudices,  give  up 
all  divided  opinions  on  all  divisive 
political  questions,  pick  the  best  man 
with  infallible  judgment,  close  ranks, 
and  read  the  death  sentence  to  any 
party  foolish  enough  to  disagree.  The 
only  chance  of  slipping  up  seems  to 
be  that  the  sophomore  voters,  jealous 
of  such  presumption,  might  organize 
theii-  four  million  and  pick  somebody 
else.  In  the  ballot  tug-of-war  thus 
precipitated,  with  a  year's  experi- 
ence on  the  sophomoric  side,  Judge 
Brown's  freshman  team  might  con- 
ceivably get  pulled  into  the  creek,  and 


the  bedraggled  millennium  be  left  on 
the  bank  of  defeat,  disconsolately 
drying  its  sweater  in  the  chill  Novem- 
ber breeze. 

TN  spite  of  the  labor  troubles  which 
-*•  have  absorbed  so  much  of  public 
attention,  a  recent  number  of  the 
Labor  Market  Bulletin,  published  by 
the  New  York  State  Industrial  Com- 
mission, shows  that  the  past  year  has 
been  one  of  progress.  December 
averages  for  1919,  as  compared  with 
those  of  the  previous  year,  show  a 
considerably  higher  level  of  employ- 
ment in  many  important  industries, 
such  as  building  materials  of  all 
kinds,  house  furnishings,  wearing 
apparel,  leather  goods,  musical  in- 
struments, sheet  metal  and  hardware, 
rubber  goods,  and  silverware.  The 
total  number  of  factory  workers  is 
higher  than  a  year  ago,  as  high  as  at 
the  close  of  the  two  previous  years, 
when  the  output  of  special  war  neces- 
sities was  so  great,  and  about  one- 
third  higher  than  in  1914.  Total 
payroll  expenditures  for  December, 
1919,  were  16  per  cent,  higher  than 
in  1918,  49  per  cent,  higher  than  in 
1917,  and  178  per  cent,  above  the 
figure  of  1914.  The  compilers  of  the 
bulletin  figure  out  a  distinct  gain  for 
the  wage-worker  in  increase  of  earn- 
ings as  compared  with  the  increase 
of  price  of  food  products,  though  we 
must  remember  that  all  such  figures 
merely  show  whether  or  not  it  is  pos- 
sible to  live  more  cheaply,  not 
whether  any  particular  class  is  actu- 
ally doing  so,  or  even  making  the 
attempt.  In  the  matter  of  the  fac- 
tory man's  dinner  table,  as  elsewhere, 
de  gustibus  non  disputandum. 

TN  sustaining  Oklahoma's  income 
-'■  tax  law  and  in  declaring  void  that 
part  of  the  New  York  State  law 
which  discriminates  against  non-resi- 
dents, the  Supreme  Court  has  ren- 
dered two  important  decisions  which 
common  sense  hastens  to  claim  for  its 
own.  The  fact  that  the  right  of  a 
State  to  tax  incomes  accruing  to  non- 
residents from  their  property  or  busi- 
ness within  the  State  is  susceptible  i 
of  abuse  is  no  valid  ground  for  deny- 
ing such  a  right.  One  such  abuse  is 
forever  removed  by  the  New  York; 


March  6,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[219 


decision — non-residents  must  be  taxed 
on  precisely  the  same  terms  as  resi- 
dents; the  privileges  and  immunities 
enjoyed  by  citizens  of  New  York  must 
not  be  denied  to  other  citizens  of  the 
Republic.  As  a  rebuke  to  the  care- 
lessness, if  it  was  carelessness  only, 
of  the  New  York  State  Legislature, 
the  decision  is  additionally  welcome. 

T  AST  year  Lenin  made  it  clear  in 
^  repeated  statements  that  the  un- 
limited printing  of  paper  money  and 
the  consequent  demonetization  of  the 
ruble  was  but  a  step  in  the  general 
plan  to  overthrow  capitalism  by  doing 
away  with  money.  Now,  however, 
the  Bolshevist  Commissar  of  Finance, 
Krestinsky,  has  issued  a  statement, 
preliminary  to  the  expected  foreign 
trade,  that  the  Soviet  Government  will 
issue  a  new  type  of  credit  note,  backed 
by  reserves  of  platinum,  to  the  value 
of  37,500,000  gold  rubles.  The  issue 
will  be  limited  to  65,000,000  rubles, 
and  the  Government  will  be  ready  on 
call  to  convert  them  into  platinum 
coins.  These  platinum  notes  will  be 
used  in  payment  of  foreign  purchases 
made  direct  by  the  Government.  This 
complete  volte  face  in  Bolshevik 
finance  is  only  another  indication  of 
the  way  in  which  the  Soviet  Govern- 
ment is  turning  to  capitalism.  It  is 
interesting,  both  as  a  financial  expe- 
dient and  as  illustrating  the  charac- 
ter of  the  Bolshevik  mind.  As  it  is 
only  an  expedient  to  secure  a  modest 
amount  of  credit  on  the  security  of 
platinum  now  in  the  possession  of  the 
Bolsheviks,  the  businesslike  way  of 
doing  it  would  be  to  deposit  the  plati- 
num in  some  satisfactory  financial 
institution  as  a  guarantee  for  a  loan 
in  sterling  or  dollar  exchange.  This, 
however,  might  require  proof  that 
the  metal  had  not  been  stolen  from  its 
rightful  owners. 

'pHE  numerous  "drives"  that  are 
-■-  being  made  by  the  men's  col- 
leges ought  to  make  it  easier  rather 
than  harder  for  the  women's  colleges 
to  obtain  the  endowment  which  they 
also  need.  The  argument  is  the  same 
in  both  cases.  Faculty  salaries  must 
be  raised  if  faculties  are  to  be  re- 
tained; the  old  salary  schedules  are 
absurdly  inadequate  in  view  of  exist- 


ing prices.  Each  appeal  that  has 
already  been  made  has  helped  to  drive 
the  argument  home.  The  campaigns 
for  Bryn  Mawr,  Smith,  and  Mt.  Hol- 
yoke  are  now  under  way ;  they  should 
meet  with  a  generous  response  not  only 
among  the  alumnae,  or  the  alumnae 
and  their  friends,  but  among  people 
generally  who  realize  the  critical 
state  in  which  the  cause  of  education 
in  America  stands  to-day. 

TT  is  a  safe  enough  prophecy  that 
-"-  blundering  attempts  to  fight  So- 
cialism by  unfair  means  will  increase 
the  Socialist  vote.  To  admit  this, 
however,  is  not  to  concede  the  reason- 
ableness of  "voting  Socialist"  as  a 
means  of  punishing  bad  official  con- 
duct or  securing  good.  A  vote  for  the 
Socialist  ticket,  in  any  case  in  which 
the  political  views  of  the  candidate 
have  any  bearing  at  all,  can  be  justified 
only  by  an  honest  conviction  that  So- 
cialism is  right  in  its  fundamental 
fight  against  individual  initiative,  and 
the  right  of  the  individual  to  better 
his  position  by  the  fruits  of  his  own 
brains,  toil  and  thrift.  If  one  really 
believes  in  that  doctrine,  he  is  justi- 
fied in  supporting  it  at  the  ballot 
box,  but  not  otherwise.  The  fact  that 
some  one  is  rocking  the  political  boat 
does  not  justify  the  voter  who  wants 
a  safe  passage  in  joining  hands  with 
those  who  openly  seek  to  knock  out 
the  bottom. 

TT  seems  hard  to  get  the  idea  out 
-■-  of  the  heads  of  certain  Congres- 
sional leaders  at  Washington  that 
economy  in  appropriations  is  a  mere 
matter  of  totals.  The  Air  Service 
has  already  been  seriously  crippled 
by  the  denial  of  the  financial  support 
necessary  to  hold  together  and  keep 
at  work  the  best  of  the  trained  per- 
sonnel in  the  service  at  the  close  of 
the  war.  And  now  more  than  half 
has  been  cut  from  the  estimates  for 
carrying  on  the  work  of  the  Bureau 
of  Foreign  and  Domestic  Commerce 
in  soliciting  foreign  trade.  If  this 
action  stands,  the  commercial  attache 
service  of  the  bureau  will  be  wrecked. 
Representatives  of  many  American 
business  organizations  in  session  in 
New  York  a  few  days  ago  formally 
pronounced  this  "a  direct  blow  at 


American  foreign  trade,  at  a  time 
when  it  is  most  in  need  of  trade  infor- 
mation from  foreign  lands."  The 
division  of  statistics  of  the  customs 
service  is  seriously  hampered  by  a 
similar  display  of  Congressional 
economy,  not  having  force  enough  to 
present  its  results  with  the  prompt- 
ness and  completeness  which  alone 
can  give  them  real  value  to  the  busi- 
ness world.  To  follow  the  example 
set  by  these  economizers  in  Congress, 
our  dairymen  should  seek  a  more 
economical  production  of  milk  by  cut- 
ting down  the  amount  of  food  appro- 
priated for  their  cows,  and  farmers 
should  reduce  the  cost  of  their  corn, 
wheat  and  potatoes  by  eliminating  the 
expense  of  fertilizers. 

What  is  a  Liberal? 

npHE  ultimate  aim  of  the  Labor  Party,  and 
-*•  of  those  who  would  inspire  and  direct  its 
policy,  is  the  acquisition  and  operation  by  the 
State  of  the  whole  machinery  of  the  produc- 
tion of  the  country.  That  is  a  form  of  indus- 
trial tyranny  against  which,  if  you  can  conceive 
of  it  ever  being  brought  into  practical  effect, 
it  is,  in  my  opinion,  the  first  duty  of  Liberalism' 
to  protest. 

In  this  clean-cut  declaration  by  Mr. 
Asquith  in  the  opening  speech  of  his 
victorious  campaign  at  Paisley,  the 
word  Liberalism  (with  a  capital  L) 
is  doubtless  used  in  the  British  party 
sense.  But  it  is  time  we  were  begin- 
ning to  think,  both  in  this  country 
and  in  England,  of  the  meaning  of 
the  word  in  a  sense  broader  than,  and 
yet  not  out  of  accord  with,  the  mean- 
ing it  has  had  in  British  politics  dur- 
ing the  past  half-century.  What  Mr. 
Asquith  declares  to  be  "the  first  duty 
of  Liberalism"  in  Britain  is  really 
and  truly  the  first  duty  of  liberalism 
everywhere.  The  word  has  too  long 
been  conceded  to  th«  representatives 
of  a  cast  of  thought  and  a  tendency 
in  action  to  which  it  has  no  just  appli- 
cation. To  be  a  liberal  it  is  neces- 
sary that  one  have  his  mind  open  to 
possibilities  of  improvement  and  re- 
form; but  not  every  scheme  of  real 
or  supposed  economic  improvement, 
and  not  every  project  of  real  or 
supposed  moral  reform  is  entitled 
to  the  designation  of  "liberal."  The 
word  is  a  good  word,  and  a  valuable 
one;  and  it  ought  to  be  reclaimed 
from  the  hands  of  those  who  have  too 


220] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  43 


long  enjoyed  the  benefit  of  its  impli- 
cation, while  displaying  none  of  its 
spirit. 

First  and  foremost  in  this  category 
are  the  socialists  and,  still  more,  the 
half-socialists  who  are  promoting  the 
socialist  programme  without  any 
clear  perception  of  what  it  means. 
It  is  open  to  anyone  to  think  that 
socialism  is  better  than  liberalism; 
but  certainly  socialism  is  not  liberal- 
ism. It  is  the  opposite  of  liberalism. 
Under  whatever  form  it  may  be  pro- 
posed to  put  socialism  into  effect,  it 
will  not  liberalize  but  unliberalize 
the  world.  It  may  conceivably  im- 
prove the  general  economic  condition 
of  mankind.  It  may  reduce,  or  even 
extinguish,  poverty.  It  may  improve 
the  public  health,  cut  down  the  rate 
of  infant  mortality,  and  lengthen  the 
average  span  of  human  life.  The 
existing  institutions  of  society  have 
themselves  had  an  effect  in  all  these 
directions,  which,  on  casting  a  glance 
backward  over  a  period  of  a  hundred 
years,  or  two  hundred  years,  any  can- 
did mind  must  recognize  as  most 
impressive.  Socialists  may  claim  that 
their  system  would  accelerate  the 
process.  But  the  gains  which  we  have 
made  have  been  attained  without  sac- 
rifice of  those  ideas  of  personal  inde- 
pendence, and  personal  self-assertion, 
which  are  of  the  very  essence  of  lib- 
eralism. The  gains  which  socialism 
would  make — if  it  did  make  them — 
would  be  purchased  at  the  cost  of  an 
almost  complete  extinction  of  those 
ideas  as  the  dominant  factor  in 
human  life. 

The  central  aim  of  all  schemes  of 
socialism  or  semi-socialism  is  the 
extinction  of  economic  evils.  It  is 
true  that  in  the  minds  of  many  social- 
ists this  aim  is  exalted  by  the  convic- 
tion that  all,  or  nearly  all,  of  the  moral 
evil  in  the  world  is  traceable  to  eco- 
nomic causes.  That  extreme  poverty 
is  a  prolific  source  of  moral  evil  no 
reasonable  person  would  deny,  and  it 
must  be  the  constant  aim  of  right- 
minded  persons  to  work  toward  the 
abolition  of  extreme  poverty.  But 
there  is  no  reason  whatever  to  believe 
that  when  we  get  above  that  plane 
there  is  any  correlation  between  eco- 
nomic well-being  and  moral  excel- 
lence.     On    the    contrary,    there    is 


abundant  reason  to  believe  that  the 
necessity  for  economic  struggle,  the 
stimulus  of  reward  for  exertion  im- 
posed from  within  and  not  from 
without,  and  of  punishment  for  fail- 
ure to  put  forth  such  exertion,  is  the 
great  nursery  of  human  virtue  as 
well  as  of  human  endeavor.  But  in 
point  of  fact,  ninety-nine  times  out  of 
a  hundred,  socialists  and  semi-social- 
ists not  only  think — as  we  all  do — of 
economic  improvement  as  an  end  in 
itself,  but  think  of  it  as  the  one  all- 
sufficient  end.  They  seek  it  with  little 
or  no  regard  for  the  price  which  may 
have  to  be  paid  for  it  in  the  shape  of 
abandonment  of  liberal  principles  and 
liberal  ideals.  What  the  standardiza- 
tion of  life  may  mean,  in  relation  to 
its  broader  and  deeper  aspects,  sel- 
dom troubles  their  minds. 

That  the  older  idea  of  liberalism, 
the  idea  that  has  been  embodied  in 
four  generations  of  American  and 
British  history,  is  being  reasserted 
with  fresh  vigor  after  the  tempestu- 
ous eclipse  of  the  past  year  or  two, 
there  are  encouraging  indications. 
Quite  in  line  with  Mr.  Asquith's  pro- 
nouncement have  been  the  recent 
declarations  of  Mr.  Hoover  and  Vice- 
President  Marshall,  neither  of  whom 
belongs  in  any  degree  to  the  genus 
mossback.  It  is  not  impossible  that 
in  the  recoil  from  that  vague  revolu- 
tionism which  has  for  some  time  held 
the  centre  of  the  stage  there  may  be 
some  recrudescence  of  reactionary 
activity.  But  it  will  not  get  far. 
Quite  to  the  contrary  of  what  was  so 
glibly  predicted  a  short  time  ago,  the 
contest  is  almost  sure  to  be  not  be- 
tween "reaction  and  revolution,"  but 
between  liberalism  and  what  for  want 
of  a  better  term  is  nowadays  called 
radicalism.  The  radicals  are  for 
what  they  confidently  label  as  prog- 
ress, but  what,  however  it  may  affect 
the  economic  condition  of  men,  is 
progress  away  from  liberalism  and 
towards  regimentation  and  tyranny. 
It  was  John  Wesley,  we  believe,  who 
protested  that  the  devil  should  not 
have  all  the  good  tunes.  The  radicals 
are  not  entitled  to  the  good  tune  of 
liberalism.  Liberty,  variety,  indivi- 
duality— that  is  the  tune  to  which 
liberals  should  march,  and  in  that 
sign  they  will  conquer. 


The  Soviet  Drive  for 
Peace 

TT  is  evident  to  all  observers  that  the 
^  opening  of  relations  with  Russia 
and  some  form  of  conditional  recog- 
nition of  the  Soviet  regime  will  soon 
be  announced  by  the  Council  of  Pre- 
miers. The  successive  steps  by  which 
this  is  approached  are  patently  face- 
saving  expedients  and  will  deceive  no 
one.  Mr.  Lloyd  George  long  since 
yielded  to  the  influences  that  were 
pressing  him  in  this  direction,  and 
with  him  it  was  only  a  question  of  so 
manoeuvring  this  change  of  policy  as 
not  to  arouse  too  great  opposition  on 
the  part  of  the  Conservative  elements 
of  the  Coalition.  What  these  influ- 
ences are  is  becoming  clear.  They 
are,  of  course,  domestic,  but  they  are  . 
not,  in  the  main,  as  has  been  sur- 
mised, the  demands  of  radical  labor, 
protesting  against  a  policy  that  rep- 
resented to  them  an  attempt  of  capi- 
talist interests  to  crush  a  working- 
men's  revolution.  They  are  the  more 
potent  forces  of  British  capital  itself, 
pressing  to  have  opened  to  them  the 
commercial  and  industrial  opportuni- 
ties of  Russia  lest  they  be  outstripped 
by  their  German  rivals. 

The  British  capitalists  have  much 
to  justify  them.  Their  hatred  of  Bol- 
shevism has  not  abated,  and  they  take 
no  stock  in  the  much-advertised 
change  of  heart  and  reform  of  the 
Bolsheviks  themselves.  But  they  are 
aware  that  there  are  in  Russia  at  the 
present  time  more  than  two  million 
Germans,  entrenching  themselves  for 
the  industrial  conquest  of  Russia,  and 
that  German  marks  are  being  used  by 
the  hundred  million  to  purchase 
stocks  and  bonds  of  Russian  enter- 
prises, securities  that  may  now  be 
something  of  a  gamble  even  at  the 
prevailing  rate  of  exchange,  but 
which  before  long  will  place  the  con- 
trol of  these  enterprises  in  German 
hands.  They  see  no  merit  or  advan- 
tage in  abstaining  from  work  in  the 
Russian  field  if  the  result  is  only  to 
give  their  rivals  a  private  preserve 
and  a  flying  start.  And  it  must  not 
be  overlooked  that  the  exploitation 
of  the  resources  of  Russia  has  an 
international  political  significance  for 


March  6,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[221 


the    future    that    outweighs    mere 
pecuniary  considerations. 

At  the  same  time  the  Soviet  Gov- 
ernment is  feverishly  engaged  in  a 
drive  for  peace.  All  who  follow 
attentively  Bolshevist  propaganda  in 
its  diverse  manifestations  must  have 
been  struck  by  its  singular  concen- 
tration upon  this  one  aim  during  the 
past  few  weeks.  Their  artillery  of 
every  kind  and  calibre  was  massed 
for  the  attack.  The  Nation  published 
seven  alleged  Soviet  peace  proposals 
to  the  United  States  and  carefully 
refrained  from  quoting  the  state- 
ments of  Lenin  and  Trotsky  that 
peace  was  sought  by  them  only  to 
obtain  a  breathing  space,  the  better 
to  renew  the  struggle.  The  New 
Republic  bemoaned  the  fact  that  hard- 
hearted capitalists  continued  to  dis- 
play vicious  hostility  to  the  revolu- 
tionary democracy  of  Russia  (as  if 
the  Soviet  Government  were  a  revo- 
lutionary democracy!),  and  let  Nor- 
man Hapgood  pour  out  his  Bolshevik 
soul  in  several  columns  of  superlative 
ignorance  and  misstatement.  A 
claque  of  petty  business  men,  organ- 
ized by  Ludwig  C.  A.  K.  Martens  and 
Dudley  Field  Malone,  issued  a  lot  of 
false  and  misleading  statements  to 
create  the  impression  that  England 
was  already  carrying  on  trade  with 
Soviet  Russia  and  flimflamming  us 
out  of  our  share.  A  number  of  hand- 
picked  correspondents  were  person- 
ally conducted  to  Moscow  to  be  given 
special  interviews  with  the  Bolshevik 
leaders.  There  could  be  no  doubt 
that  the  Bolsheviks  wanted  peace  and 
wanted  it  badly. 

But  students  of  Bolshevik  propa- 
ganda must  have  noticed  also  a  great 
change  in  its  character.  No  longer 
was  emphasis  laid  upon  the  beauties 
of  the  social  revolution  or  what  it 
I  promised  to  the  laboring  man.  Only 
the  most  perfunctory  allusions  were 
I  made  to  the  evils  of  capitalism  and 
j  imperialism.  On  the  contrary,  Lenin 
said  to  one  of  the  specially  invited 
correspondents:  "All  the  world 
knows  that  we  are  prepared  to  make 
peace  on  terms  the  fairness  of  which 
even  the  most  imperialistic  capital- 
ists could  not  dispute.  We  have 
reiterated  and  reiterated  our  desire 
for  peace,  our  need  for  peace,  and 
our  readiness  to  give  foreign  capital 


the  most  generous  concessions  and 
guarantees."  To  the  same  corre- 
spondent Trotsky  said:  "Foreign 
capitalists  who  invest  money  in  Rus- 
sian enterprises  or  who  supply  us 
with  merchandise  we  require  will  re- 
ceive material  guarantees  of  amply 
adequate  character."  In  all  the  prop- 
aganda every  effort  was  made  to 
appeal  to  the  cupidity  of  the  capital- 
ist, and  to  allay  his  fears,  by  assert- 
ing that  the  Bolsheviks  had  reformed 
and  were  no  longer  the  ferocious 
looters  of  last  year,  and  by  covertly 
intimating  that  he  need  not  worry  as 
to  the  security  of  private  property 
rights.  Indeed,  they  were  ready  to 
allow  the  election  of  a  Constituent 
Assembly  (whatever  that  might  sig- 
nify), and  permit  non-Bolsheviks  to 
participate  in  government. 

But  by  far  the  most  striking  mani- 
festations of  their  propaganda  are 
to  be  seen  in  Trotsky's  announce- 
ment concerning  turning  the  Red 
Army  into  labor  battalions,  and  the 
publication  in  foreign  countries  of 
the  Soviet  code  of  labor  laws.  This 
code  is  an  astounding  production.  It 
provides  that  every  citizen  between 
the  ages  of  sixteen  and  fifty  who  is 
not  incapacitated  shall  be  subject  to 
compulsory  labor.  Every  laborer  is 
placed  in  a  definite  group  or  category 
by  the  authorities,  and  his  scale  of 
wages  determined.  He  must  carry  a 
labor  booklet,  which  serves  as  a  sort 
of  passport,  and  he  can  not  change 
from  one  job  to  another  without  the 
permission  of  the  authorities.  The 
code  deprives  the  working  man  of  the 
last  vestige  of  liberty  and  reduces 
him  to  industrial  serfdom.  The 
object  of  the  publication  of  this  dras- 
tic code  is  clear — it  is  to  assure  the 
capitalist  that  if  he  will  come  and 
invest  his  money  in  Soviet  Russia,  he 
need  fear  no  labor  troubles  and  can 
treat  his  workmen  as  slaves. 

The  fact  is  that  the  Bolsheviks  have 
utterly  failed  in  Russia  and  stand  on 
the  brink  of  disaster.  They  have 
brought  about  the  complete  ruin  of 
economic  life  and  have  existed  thus 
far  on  reserves  already  accumulated. 
Now  these  reserves  are  approaching 
exhaustion  and  their  only  hope  is  to 
persuade  capital  to  come  in  and  take 
over  the  task  of  putting  things  to 
rights.    They  are  not  concerned  over 


the  fate  of  the  millions  of  hapless 
people,  but  they  see  in  this  new  move 
a  chance  to  retain  their  power  as  well 
as  the  ill-gotten  riches  that  have  built 
up  a  whole  new  Bolshevik  bour- 
geoisie. Here  is  a  simple  analogy. 
Suppose  a  gang  of  ignorant  bandits 
and  cut-throats,  led  by  a  few  dream- 
ers and  fanatics  who  believe  they 
have  discovered  a  marvelous  process 
for  extracting  gold  without  labor  or 
expense,  have  jumped  the  claim  to  a 
rich  gold  mine.  They  badly  maltreat 
the  mine  and  come  to  the  end  of  their 
resources.  In  their  extremity  they 
appeal  to  capitalists  to  take  over  the 
property  and  supply  machinery  and 
engineers,  meanwhile  opening  up  fine 
oflices  and  putting  on  the  finest  front 
possible.  They  hope  to  see  the  mine 
restored  to  productivity  and  they 
expect  to  retain  a  controlling  interest. 
For  the  ruined  stockholders  they  have 
no  care. 

Russia  will  be  opened  up,  and 
before  long.  It  will  present  a  fearful 
spectacle  of  disorganization  and  ruin. 
Life  has  gone  back  to  a  primitive 
state — to  the  Dark  Ages — and  to 
material  destruction  is  added  moral 
degradation.  Two  years  of  violence, 
corruption,  injustice,  and  terror  have 
done  their  deadly  work.  The  ques- 
tion is  how  long  will  the  Bolshevik 
regime  endure.  If  the  blockade  were 
to  continue  a  short  time  longer,  there 
is  little  doubt  that  the  Soviet  Govern- 
ment would  topple  over,  for  it  has 
never  been  weaker  than  at  the  pres- 
ent moment,  despite  its  military  vic- 
tories and  its  brave  front.  But  if  it 
should  fall  under  these  conditions, 
there  is  nothing  apparently  to  take  its 
place,  and  the  result  would  be  a  vast 
welter  of  anarchy.  If  relations  are 
opened  with  Russia  and  capital  vig- 
orously attacks  the  problem  of  reor- 
ganizing economic  life  and  bringing 
the  people  back  to  a  state  of  produc- 
tivity, the  Soviet  Government  may 
continue  in  authority  yet  a  few 
months  longer,  and,  vile  as  it  is,  it 
may  serve  as  the  necessary  cohesive 
force  to  prevent  utter  disintegration 
until  new  forces  can  be  developed  to 
succeed  it.  Such  a  system  can  not 
continue  to  exist  in  modern  civiliza- 
tion, even  in  so  primitive  a  country 
as  Russia.  During  its  brief  hour  it 
has  held  sway  by  brute  force  and 


222] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  43 


terror  over  cowed  and  servile  mil- 
lions; it  has  robbed  the  gentlemen 
and  the  scholars  of  Russia  of  their 
heritage;  it  has  wiped  out  Russian 
civilization  and  Russian  culture  like 
a  Tatar  horde.  It  would  indeed  be 
the  irony  of  history  if  in  its  final 
days  it  should  perforce  serve  a  useful 
purpose. 

Although  England,  F  ranee,  and 
Italy  are  moving  rapidly  towards  the 
recognition  of  the  Soviet  Government, 
there  is  no  reason  why  America 
should  lower  herself  by  grasping  the 
blood-stained  hands  of  the  tyrants  at 
Moscow.  We  are  not  driven  by  neces- 
sity to  make  friends  with  temporarily 
successful  evil,  only  to  appear  ridicu- 
lous a  little  later,  when  those  forces 
of  evil  fall.  America  must  in  the 
future  play  an  important  role  in  the 
tasks  of  reconstruction  in  Russia; 
this  is  incumbent  on  us  by  reason  of 
our  surplus  capital  and  our  future 
international  interests;  and  there  is 
no  reason  to  compromise  these  oppor- 
tunities for  any  temporary  and  insig- 
nificant trade  advantages.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  is  our  duty  to  work 
out  a  comprehensive  and  practical 
plan  whereby  we  can  perform  these 
tasks  wisely  and  adequately,  looking 
out  for  our  own  national  interests, 
and  at  the  same  time  safeguarding 
the  Russian  people  against  exploita- 
tion. 

Mr.  Asquith's  Return 

t'VER  since  his  defeat  in  the  elec- 
•*-'  tions  of  1918,  Mr.  Asquith  has 
maintained  a  dignified  aloofness  from 
politics,  being  well  aware  that  the 
sound  common  sense  he  might  utter 
would  fall  on  deaf  ears  so  long  as 
the  nation  had  not  sobered  down  from 
the  intoxication  of  victory.  The  peo- 
ple's excited  passions  are  a  fit  instru- 
ment for  a  man  of  Lloyd  George's 
talent  to  play  upon,  but  to  the  nation 
in  its  soberer  mood  the  self-contained 
wisdom  of  an  Asquith  will  make  the 
stronger  appeal.  He  has  been  biding 
his  time  and  appears  to  have  chosen 
the  right  moment  for  his  return.  The 
greatness  of  his  personality  is  out  of 
all  proportion  to  the  smallness  of  the 
party  as  whose  leader  he  will  oppose 
the  Coalition  Government.     Indeed, 


if  the  vote  of  the  Paisley  electorate 
had  brought  no  other  change  than  the 
substitution  of  Sir  Donald  McLean 
by  Mr.  Asquith  as  leader  of  the  "Wee 
Frees,"  as  the  small  group  of  Free 
Liberals  is  nicknamed,  the  result  of 
the  recent  election  would  be  merely 
a  personal  victory  for  Lloyd  George's 
predecessor.  But  it  is  more  than 
that,  inasmuch  as  the  former  Pre- 
mier's reappearance  in  the  House  of 
Commons  is  fraught  with  the  prom- 
ise of  great  and  far-reaching  conse- 
quences. 

The  Coalition  has  had  its  day. 
There  are  few  people  in  England  who 
continue  to  believe  in  its  vitality.  The 
abortive  attempt  of  Lord  Birkenhead 
to  form  a  new,  the  National,  party,  a 
camouflaged  revival  of  the  moribund 
Coalition,  has  only  emphasized  the 
fact  that  it  is  unavoidably  doomed. 
Its  Liberal  members,  realizing  its 
approaching  break-up,  will  probably 
rally  round  the  old  leader  whom  they 
abandoned  in  1918.  And  what,  in 
that  event,  will  Lloyd  George's  next 
move  be  ?  It  has  been  observed  that, 
less  punctilious  but  more  cautious 
than  Bonar  Law,  he  refrained  from 
sending  a  message  of  best  wishes  for 
his  success  to  the  Coalition  candidate 
at  Paisley,  whom  they  both  knew  to 
be  going  in  for  a  losing  fight.  He 
evidently  did  not  wish  to  commit  him- 
self to  any  utterance  which  might  bar 
for  him  the  way  to  a  reconciliation 
with  his  former  chief,  in  the  event  of 
the  latter  beating  his  Labor  opponent. 
The  Welshman's  resourceful  brain  is 
capable  of  conceiving  any  new  com- 
bination, however  impossible  its 
realization  may  seem  to  the  outsider. 
Is  it  likely  that  Mr.  Asquith  would 
accept  the  hand  proffered  him  by  the 
man  whom  he  must  admire,  but 
whom  he  can  not  possibly  respect, 
as  a  politician? 

British  opportunism  and  love  of 
compromise  may  build  the  bridge 
across  the  hostility  that  divides 
the  two  former  associates.  The 
chief  question  of  the  near  future 
is  whether  British  Labor  shall  dic- 
tate its  will  to  the  country  or  be  held 
in  check  by  that  innate  love  of  mod- 
eration in  reform  which  is  one  of  the 
many  aspects  of  the  Briton's  common 
sense.      Mr.    Asquith    has    taken    a 


definite  stand  against  the  Labor 
Party's  demands  for  socialization  of 
the  mines  and  railroads.  On  the 
other  hand,  by  his  hearty  approval 
of  Lloyd  George's  Russian  policy  he 
has  drawn  the  line  between  his  party 
and  the  Conservative  section  of  the 
Coalition.  These  two  problems  of 
national  and  foreign  policy,  the  most 
important  that  the  present  brings  up 
for  solution,  form  the  common  ground 
on  which  the  Prime  Minister  and  the 
Liberal  leader  may  meet  and  join 
forces. 

A  reconstitution  of  the  old  Liberal 
Party,  if  thus  realized,  would  natu- 
rally react  upon  the  attitude  of  the 
Conservatives.    The  defection  of  the 
Liberals   from   the   Coalition   would 
force  them  to   take   their   bearings 
afresh.    The  proposed  Centre  Party, 
a  fusion  of  progressive  Conservatives 
and  Coalition  Liberals  advocated  by 
Winston  Churchill,  could  not  be  con- 
stituted without  the  support  of  Lloyd 
George.    It  is  significant  of  the  gen- 
eral impression  that  its  fate  will  be 
decided  by  the  result  of  the  Paisley 
election  and  the  subsequent  course  of 
events,  that  little  has  been  heard  dur- 
ing the  past  month  of  any  steps  being 
taken  towards  the  realization  of  the 
plan.     Lord  Robert  Cecil  was  gen- 
erally held  to  be  the  man  destined  for 
the  leadership  of  the  new  party,  but 
he    has    maintained    a    punctilious 
silence,  evidently  waiting  to  take  his 
cue  from  the  move  that  Lloyd  George 
is    going   to    make.      If    the    latter 
chooses  Asquith  for  Lord  Robert,  the 
Conservatives  of  divers  hue  will  have 
to  rely  upon  themselves,  and,  giving 
up  all  hope  of  continuing  the  Coali- 
tion in  some  disguise  or  other,  smooth 
over  the  differences  that  divide  them 
in  order  to  retain  their  significance: 
as  a  party.    Conservatives  and  Lib- 
erals,   though   each   retaining   their 
independence  as  in  former  days,  will 
be  united  in  opposition  to  the  nation- 
alization schemes  of  the  Labor  Party 
The  exultant  note  struck  by  Ramsaj 
Macdonald  in  a  recent  article  in  the 
Nation   would   probably   have   beei 
tuned  a  little  lower  if  it  had  beei 
written  after  Mr.  Asquith's  victor; 
had  opened  the  writer's  eyes  to  th 
possibility  of  a  different  course  o,i 
developments.  ! 


March  6,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[223 


The  Women's  Colleges 

WHEN  Emma  Willard,  in  1819. 
.  made  her  appeal  to  the  New 
York  Legislature  for  the  endowment 
of  a  "female  seminary,"  nothing  was 
farther  from  her  thoughts  than  the 
idea  that  she  was  preparing  the  way 
for  the  inauguration  of  colleges  for 
women.  A  large  part  of  her  dis- 
course, in  fact,  is  taken  up  with  the 
repudiation  of  any  such  motive.  "The 
seminary  here  recommended,"  she 
says,  "will  be  as  different  from  those 
appropriated  to  the  male  sex  as  the 
female  character  and  duties  are  from 
the  male."  This  from  one  of  the  most 
advanced  spirits  of  the  time. 

The  modesty  of  the  demands  of 
those  who  were  pioneers  in  the  field  of 
women's  education  shows  more  clearly 
than  anything  else  can  do  the  force 
of   the    opposition    arrayed    against 
them.    Always  "the  phantom  of  the 
learned  lady"    (in  Emma  Willard's 
phrase)  must  be  laid  to  rest  before 
the  positive  argument  for  a   more 
than  ABC  education  for  girls  can 
proceed.     And  the  reasons  assigned 
for  wishing  to  have  girls  educated 
even  in  a  very  small  way  are  as  care- 
fully unassuming  as  are  the  schemes 
of  education  proposed.    Girls  should 
be  educated  because  as  women,  they 
will  have  an  "influence"  on  society. 
They  will  be  wives,  they  will  be  moth- 
ers; they  may  even,  on  occasion,  be 
teachers  of  small  children.     It  will 
make   a    distinct    difference    to    the 
human  race  (of  which  women  them- 
selves seem  to  be  rather  an  appendage 
than  a  part)  whether  they  are  intelli- 
gent creatures  or  not.    The  idea  that 
women's  minds  may  be  worth  culti- 
vating for  the  sake  of  the  women 
i  themselves  is  rarely  even  suggested. 
Yet  the  recognition  of  the  fact  that 
women's  education  was,  from  what- 
ever point  of  view,  a  matter  of  public 
concern,  marks  a  big  step  forward. 
The  Troy  Female  Seminary,  which 
Emma  Willard  established  in  1821, 
soon     became     famous     throughout 
the  country,  as  did  also,  a  few  years 
later,  Catherine  Beecher's  school  at 
Hartford  and  Mary  Lyon's  seminary 
at  Holyoke.    Nothing  better  was  done 
for  girls  in  the  Eastern  States  until 
Vassar  opened  in  1865.    In  the  West 


more  progress  was  made.  Oberlin, 
founded  as  a  collegiate  institute  in 
1832  and  chartered  as  a  college  in 
1850,  was  coeducational  from  the 
start,  and  Antioch  not  only  admitted 
women  students  but  made  a  point  of 
having  women  as  well  as  men  on  its 
faculty.  But  the  number  of  women  in 
attendance  was  small,  and  the  fact  of 
their  being  admitted  did  not  attract 
wide  attention.  The  opening  of  Vas- 
sar in  1865  impressed  people  gener- 
ally as  the  real  beginning  of  higher 
education  for  women. 

Matthew  Vassar,  in  his  first  ad- 
dress to  the  trustees  of  the  college, 
struck  no  uncertain  note.  "It  oc- 
curred to  me,"  he  said,  "that  woman, 
having  received  from  her  Creator  the 
same  intellectual  constitution  as  man, 
has  the  same  right  as  man  to  intellec- 
tual culture  and  development."  The 
aim  was  to  provide  a  liberal  educa- 
tion, not  toned  down  to  meet  supposed 
requirements  of  the  female  mind,  nor 
trimmed  up  with  feminine  "accom- 
plishments." Vassar  was  to  be  "an 
institution  which  shall  accomplish  for 
young  women  what  our  colleges  are 
accomplishing  for  young  men,"  and 
there  was  to  be  no  pretense  that  sew- 
ing for  girls  is  the  equivalent  of 
science  for  boys. 

The  movement,  once  started,  made 
rapid  progress.  By  1885,  when  Bryn 
Mawr  was  opened,  Vassar,  Wellesley, 
and  Smith  were  flourishing  institu- 
tions, Cornell  and  a  few  other  East- 
ern colleges  had  taken  women  in,  and 
at  the  State  universities  of  the  West 
coeducation  was  a  matter  of  course. 
"The  phantom  of  the  learned  lady" 
melted  away.  It  was  found  that 
women's  minds  were  really  of  the 
same  stuff  as  men's,  and  that  girls 
were  neither  enfeebled  nor  unsexed 
by  contact  with  Greek,  physics,  and 
higher  mathematics.  Bryn  Mawr, 
building  on  what  had  already  been 
accomplished,  was  able  to  give  new 
strength  to  the  movement  by  raising 
the  standard  of  admission  and  by 
establishing,  under  the  influence  of 
Johns  Hopkins,  a  first-cldss  graduate 
school  such  as  few  colleges  in  the 
country  at  that  time  possessed. 

In  view  of  the  combined  weight  of 
incredulity  and  disapproval  which 
the  idea  of  the  woman  scholar  had  to 


contend  with,  it  is  remarkable  that 
hostile  prejudice  retreated  as  quickly 
as  it  did.  Nothing  is  left  of  such 
prejudice  nowadays.  The  existence 
in  large  numbers  of  college-trained 
women  is  one  of  the  important 
aspects  of  our  national  civilization, 
and  in  the  East,  where  coeducation  in 
undergraduate  work  is  not  a  common 
practice,  no  one  would  deny  that  col- 
leges for  women  are  as  vitally  neces- 
sary as  colleges  for  men.  But  while 
the  public  has  been  quick  to  appre- 
ciate, it  has  been  slow  to  help.  The 
difficulties  of  raising  money  for  a 
woman's  college  are  peculiar.  Men's 
colleges  increase  their  endowments 
chiefly  through  gifts  from  the  alumni ; 
ninety  per  cent,  of  the  money  raised 
in  the  present  Harvard  "drive"  is 
from  this  source.  Women's  colleges, 
on  the  other  hand,  must  depend 
largely  on  outside  contributions.  Their 
alumnae  associations  are  compara- 
tively small,  and  contain  a  com- 
paratively small  proportion  of  rich 
members — and  even  those  members 
whom  one  calls  "rich"  often  have  no 
large  sums  of  money  at  their  own  dis- 
posal. The  maniffest  need  can  not  be 
met  unless  disinterested  citizens,  and 
especially  men  of  wealth,  become  alive 
to  the  opportunity  for  usefulness  that 
is  here  offered.  At  a  time  when 
women's  higher  education  was  but  an 
unpopular  hope,  Matthew  Vassar  gave 
away  one-half  of  his  hard-earned  for- 
tune in  order  to  found  Vassar  Col- 
lege. Our  present-day  millionaires 
know  the  worth  of  the  institutions 
that  he  and  his  successors  estab- 
lished; how  many  will  come  forward 
and  help  sustain  them? 


THE  REVIEW 

A  tverkly  joitrnal  tf  foliticat  »n4 

general  discussion 

Published  by 

Thk  National   Weiicly   CoitroiATiOH 

140  Nassau  Street,  New  York 

Fabian  FaAHKLiN,  President 

Hakold   di    Wol»   FinxE».    Treaturer 


Subscription  price,  five  dollars  a  /ear  im 
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cents  extra.  Foreign  subscriptions  may  be  sent 
to  Messrs.  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sobs,  Ltd.,  24,  Bed- 
ford St.,  Strand,  London,  W.  C.  2.  Eofland. 
Copyright,  1920,  m  the  United  States  tf 
America 

Editors 

FABIAN  FRANKLIN 

HAROLD  DI  WOLF  FULLER 

Associate  Editors 

Har«y  Morgan  Aykss     O.  W.  Fiikins 

A.  J.  Barnouw  W.  H.  Johnson 

Jerouk  Landfiilj) 


224] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  43 


Constantinople  and  the  Straits 


SHORTLY  after  the  Dardanelles 
were  opened  to  the  warships  of 
the  victorious  Allies,  in  November, 
1918,  I  saw  once  again  the  glistening 
dome  of  Hagia  Sophia,  and  thought 
with  wonder  of  the  many  strange 
mutations  of  human  fortunes  this 
ancient  Christian  monument  had  wit- 
nessed. Among  my  fellow  passengers 
was  a  group  of  fervid  Greek  patriots 
who  were  exalted  by  the  belief  that 
before  long  the  Church  of  Holy  Wis- 
dom would  once  more  resound  to  the 
liturgy  of  the  Greek  Church. 

This  idea  has  recently  received  the 
vigorous  support  of  a  group  of  Eng- 
lish churchmen  of  prominence  who 
are  demanding  that  the  Turks  shall 
not  be  permitted  to  keep  possession 
of  this  most  ancient  of  Christian  edi- 
fices. The  British  press  has  published 
violent  protests  against  the  decision 
of  the  Supreme  Council  to  allow  the 
Sultan  to  continue  to  reside  in  Con- 
stantinople. 

This  point  of  view  has  very  many 
supporters  in  the  United  States — 
notably,  Ex-Ambassador  Henry  Mor- 
genthau,  who  rendered  such  splendid 
services  in  Turkey  at  the  outbreak 
of  the  war.  It  is  generally  main- 
tained, in  the  familiar  words  of  Glad- 
stone, that  the  Turks  must  be  driven 
out  of  Europe,  "bag  and  baggage." 

Against  this  point  of  view  we  have 
the  solemn  protest  of  Mr.  Montagu, 
Secretary  for  India,  that  Great  Brit- 
ain must  not  affront  the  sensibilities 
of  those  millions  of  Moslems  who  look 
with  pride  to  Constantinople  as  the 
seat  of  the  Caliphate.  Both  he  and 
Lloyd  George  have  asserted  that  the 
British  Government  can  not  prove 
faithless  to  its  formal  assurances 
given  during  the  war  that  there  was 
no  intention  of  driving  the  Turks 
from  their  capital.  Otherwise,  as 
they  forcibly  declare.  Great  Britain 
had  no  right  to  call  on  its  Moslem 
subjects  to  help  conquer  Turkey. 

The  legal  right  of  the  descendants 
of  Osman  to  the  Caliphate  is  undoubt- 
edly open  to  serious  question.  It  is 
true  that  many  Moslems,  notably 
those  of  Persia,  contest  these  claims. 
Millions  of  Moslems  throughout  the 


world,  however,  including  our  own 
islands  of  the  Philippines,  have  a  deep 
sentimental  regard  and  respect  for 
the  Sultan  of  Turkey  as  the  leading 
temporal  monarch  of  Islam.  An  in- 
teresting recognition  of  this  fact  is  the 
action  taken  by  the  United  States  Gov- 
ernment in  appealing  to  Sultan  Abdul 
Hamid  to  use  his  influence  as  Caliph 
to  persuade  the  revolting  tribes  of 
Moslems  in  the  Jolo  Archipelago  to 
accept  American  rule.  There  can  be 
no  doubt  that  Moslems  everywhere 
have  had  a  genuine  pride — a  childish 
pride,  if  you  will — in  the  fact  that  a 
Moslem  potentate  has  his  palace 
where  the  Imperial  Caesars  once  held 
sway. 

The  overwhelming  defeat  of  the 
Turks  and  the  loss  of  the  major  por- 
tion of  their  once  magnificent  empire 
has  been  a  bitter  humiliation  to  the 
House  of  Islam.  Nor  should  the  revolt 
of  the  Arabs  from  Turkish  rule  be 
taken  too  seriously  as  offsetting  in 
any  sense  this  powerful  Moslem  sen- 
timent concerning  the  Caliphate  and 
Constantinople.  Taking  into  account 
the  simplicity  of  character  and  the 
fanaticism  of  the  Arabs,  it  is  not 
unlikely  that  they  may  experience  at 
any  moment  a  revulsion  of  feeling 
concerning  their  fellow  Moslems  the 
Turks,  formerly  their  oppressors  and 
bitter  enemies.  There  is  grave  dan- 
ger that  sooner  or  later  the  vast 
majority  of  Moslems  would  unite  in 
fierce  opposition  to  any  attempt  by 
Christian  Powers  to  subject  the  Sul- 
tan-Caliph to  further  humiliations. 

It  was  an  evil  day  for  the  Turks 
when  those  hardy  warriors  of  the 
plains  and  hills  abandoned  their  tents 
to  settle  down  in  the  palaces  of  the 
Caesars.  Constantinople  is  one  of  the 
loveliest  cities  of  the  world,  but  it 
has  been  the  apple  of  discord  between 
many  nations  for  centuries,  the  cause 
of  many  misfortunes,  disasters,  and 
wars.  It  has  been  the  centre  of  base 
intrigues  and  corruption.  Here  the 
Turks  were  enervated  and  demoral- 
ized by  Byzantine  traditions  and  by 
the  worst  influences  of  European 
civilization.  There  is  much  melan- 
choly truth  in  the  opinion  expressed 


by  the  author  of  "Nationalism  and 
War  in  the  Near  East"  that  "the  fail- 
ure of  the  Turks  is  due  to  Byzantin- 
ism.  Their  corruption  and  impotence 
were  inherited  with  their  national 
capital — not  inherent  in  their  na- 
tional character.  .  .  .  Byzantine 
civilization  was  overflowed,  not  flood- 
ed out,  by  the  Turkish  invasion; 
and  all  the  worst  features  of  the 
decadent  Byzantine  social  system 
emerged  and  flourished  in  the  soil 
refertilized  by  new  blood.  No  democ- 
racy, no  simple  virtues,  and  no  sound 
vitality  could  grow  in  such  soil  with- 
out a  more  thorough  purification  than 
even  Mahomet  could  give  it." 

The  curse  of  Constantinople  comes, 
of  course,  in  the  main  from  its  situa- 
tion athwart  the  Straits  connecting 
the  Euxine  and  the  Mediterranean, 
both  high  seas  necessary  for  the  use 
of  many  nations,  particularly  for  the 
vast  Russian  Empire.  No  single 
nation  could  expect  to  control  exclu- 
sively this  place  without  incurring 
the  envy  and  hostility  of  other 
nations.  This  magnificent  port  was 
plainly  intended  by  nature  to  be  a 
great  port  of  call,  like  Singapore,  or 
an  important  commercial  emporium, 
like  Hong  Kong.  It  was  never  suited 
to  be  the  free,  secure  capital  of  an 
independent  nation. 

The  freedom  of  the  Straits  of  the 
Bosphorus  and  the  Dardanelles  has 
long  been  an  imperative  necessity,  as 
well  as  an  abstract  right  under  inter- 
national law.  This  freedom  must  be 
established  and  guaranteed  by  the 
most  absolute  and  effective  measures 
that  may  be  devised.  Whatever  the 
differences  and  mutual  jealousies  of 
the  Powers,  they  seem  fairly  well 
agreed  on  this  fundamental  proposi- 
tion :  the  freedom  of  the  Straits  must 
be  assured,  and  no  single  nation  shall 
be  permitted  to  control  their  use  for 
its  own  selfish  ends. 

Such  being  the  facts  and  the  logic 
of  the  situation,  the  question  whether 
the  Turks  shall  be  permitted  to  con- 
tinue to  reside  in  Constantinople 
becomes  of  subsidiary  importance. 
Once  the  freedom  of  the  Straits  isi 
effectively  guaranteed,  its  value  as  a 
national  capital  is  destroyed.  If  the 
Turks  care  to  remain  under  the  guns  I 
of  foreign  warships  and  overawed  bjj 


March  6,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[225 


foreign  garrisons,  they  are  accepting 
restraints  and  humihations  that  can 
not  long  be  endured.  Sooner  or  later 
they  will  hanker  for  the  seclusion  and 
the  tranquillity  of  Konia,  the  old  capi- 
tal of  the  Seljukian  Turks  in  the  heart 
of  Asia  Minor.  (Broussa  is  far  from 
an  ideal  capital,  as  it  also  would  be 
dependent  for  an  outlet  on  the  Sea  of 
Marmora  and  the  Dardanelles.)  The 
day  will  surely  come  when  the  Turks 
will  escape  from  the  spell  of  ill-fated 
Byzantium;  when  they  will  see  the 
situation  in  its  true  light,  and  will 
realize  that  national  greatness  con- 
sists not  in  empire  but  in  moral 
regeneration.  Once  again  they  will 
return  to  the  plains  and  hills  from 
whence  they  came;  and  in  such  a 
Hegira  will  assuredly  lie  their  salva- 
tion, their  true  happiness  and  wel- 
fare. 

In  the  meantime,  if  by  reason  of 
the  ignis  fatuus  of  Constantinople 
they  are  blinded  to  their  true  inter- 
ests, why  should  others,  in  the  light 
of  all  the  practical  considerations 
involved,  give  themselves  undue  con- 
cern? Why  dissipate  their  energies 
and  influence  in  a  futile  agitation,  and 
lose  sight  of  the  true  issue  which 
Lloyd  George  has  properly  empha- 
sized as  the  problem  of  establishing 
and  maintaining  the  freedom  of  the 
Straits,  and  protecting  the  interests 
of  the  peoples  of  the  Near  East? 

It  should  now  be  evident,  in  view 
of  the  rivalries  and  the  mutual  dis- 
trust of  the  Powers,  that  the  problem 
of  providing  the  right  kind  of  man- 
dates in  Constantinople  and  the  Near 
East  is  excessively  difficult,  and  over- 
shadows all  other  considerations.  If 
one  could  only  feel  sure  that  their 
main  concern  was  truly  the  freedom 
of  the  Straits  and  the  welfare  of  the 
peoples  of  that  part  of  the  world, 
there  would  be  much  less  cause  for 
anxiety.  In  fact,  under  such  condi- 
tions, the  American  people  might 
even  be  induced,  by  a  high  sense  of 
obligation  to  render  a  great  disin- 
terested service  for  mankind  in  gen- 
eral as  well  as  for  these  unhappy 
peoples  in  particular,  to  undertake  a 
general  mandate  over  Constantinople 
and  Asia  Minor.  The  attitude  of  the 
Powers,  however,  leaves  too  much 
reason  to  fear  that  they  have  not 


accepted  wholeheartedly  those  gener- 
ous principles  advocated  by  the 
United  States  in  this  war,  and  that 
it  would  be  futile  and  unwise  for  us 
to  attempt  a  mandate  where  our 
efforts  would  be  foredoomed  to  fail- 
ure. 

It  is  impossible  to  avoid  the  un- 
happy conclusion  that  the  preoccupa- 
tion of  the  Powers  over  the  division 
of  conquered  territories,  and  the 
establishment  of  new  spheres  of  influ- 


ence in  accordance  with  the  archaic 
and  utterly  vicious  principle  of  bal- 
ance of  power,  threatens  a  lamentable 
failure  to  solve  the  Eastern  question. 
The  key  to  its  solution  would  seem  to 
lie  in  the  establishment  and  main- 
tenance of  the  freedom  of  the  Straits ; 
and  with  this  accomplished,  it  mat- 
ters little  whether  or  no  the  Turks 
are  suffered  to  remain  beside  the 
Golden  Horn. 

Philip  Marshall  Brown 


The  Case  of  Sir  Oliver  Lodge 


'T'HE  conspicuous  exhibits  in  the 
-*•  "case"  of  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  are 
the  posters  six  feet  high  announcing 
lectures  upon  "The  Structure  of  the 
Atom"  and  "The  Evidence  for  Sur- 
vival" and  the  streams  of  auditors 
filling  well-paid  seats  to  listen  to  a 
"scientific"  message.  The  popularity 
betokens  no  sudden  renascence  of  in- 
terest in  exact  science ;  nor  is  the  per- 
suasive oratory  of  the  physicist  the 
magnet  that  draws  dollars  and  de- 
votees. It  is  the  author  of  "Ray- 
mond" and  not  the  professor  of 
physics  at  the  University  of  Liver- 
pool that  is  speaking.  The  atom  en- 
ters the  best  society  through  the 
patronage  of  "spooks." 

Prestige  is  potent.  Surely  if  a  dis- 
tinguished physicist,  trained  in  the 
niceties  of  the  laboratory  and  the  logic 
of  scientific  evidence,  is  convinced 
that  the  living  communicate  with  the 
dead,  the  testimony  must  be  pro- 
foundly convincing.  The  obvious  fact 
is  strangely  ignored  that,  for  the  one 
exceptional  scientist  who  subscribes 
to  the  reality  of  such  communication, 
there  are  hundreds  of  equal  authority 
who  would  violently  resent  the  impli- 
cation that  they  might  be  tempted  to 
draw  conclusions  as  to  the  nature  of 
the  universe  from  the  testimony  of 
"mediums"  trafficking  upon  human 
credulity.  Let  no  venturesome  entre- 
preneur suppose  that  he  can  repeat 
this  platform  success  by  importing  a 
still  more  eminent  physicist,  whose 
prestige  might,  indeed,  assemble  a 
modest  audience  at  Harvard  or  Co- 
lumbia University,  but  who  would 
hardly  fill  Carnegie  Hall  in  New  York 
or  the  Academy  of  Music  in  Philadel- 


phia. Prestige  is  potent ;  but  the  will 
to  believe  is  more  so.  They  combine 
in  the  "case"  of  Sir  Oliver  and  his 
audiences. 

The  scientific  student  of  the  belief 
in  spirits  places  the  phenomenon  in 
the  primitive  stages  of  human  think- 
ing. Sir  Edward  Tylor  tells  us  that 
"the  received  spiritualistic  theory 
belongs  to  the  philosophy  of  sav- 
ages" ;  that  a  North  American  Indian 
transferred  to  a  spirit-seance  in  Lon- 
don with  its  "raps,  noises,  voices,  and 
other  physical  actions,  would  be  per- 
fectly at  home  in  the  proceedings."^ 
Andrew  Lang  regarded  the  study  of 
these  "psychological  curiosities"  of 
persistent  belief  "as  a  branch  of 
mythology  or  folklore."  Podmore, 
the  historian  of  modern  spiritualism, 
calls  the  belief  less  an  hypothesis  or 
an  explanation  than  "the  instinctive 
utterance  of  primitive  animism."  And 
yet  in  the  twentieth  year  of  the  twen- 
tieth century  the  same  order  of  be- 
lief, based  upon  the  same  discredited 
type  of  evidence,  but  couched  in  more 
learned  language,  sways  the  minds  of 
men  who  live  richly  in  a  world  built 
upon  the  discoveries  of  science;  by 
whom  the  spirit  that  created  the  tele- 
graph and  telephone,  aeroplanes  and 
motor  cars,  "wireless"  and  X-rays, 
aseptic  surgery  and  preventive  medi- 
cine, is  forsaken  in  pursuit  of  a  cult 
of  revelation  by  mediums  plying  a 
questionable  trade  among  the  intel- 
lectual slums  of  civilization. 

For  the  ordinary  every-day  mind 
holding  such  beliefs  at  arm's  length 
or  playing  with  them  as  the  fash- 
ionable toy  of  the  hour,  with  no  dis- 
ciplined standards  of  consistency,  and 


226] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  43 


slight  responsibilities  of  reputation, 
there  is  nothing  seriously  discredit- 
able— though  much  that  is  deplorable 
— in  the  lapse;  for  such  minds  fol- 
low the  torch-bearers  and  are  blinded 
by  the  incandescent  filament  of  pres- 
tige. What  is  pardonable  for  the  fol- 
lowing is  not  so  for  the  leaders  of 
thought.  Nor  can  the  tribute  which 
we  gladly  pay  to  our  cousinly  col- 
leagues coming  to  us  under  the  mis- 
sion of  science  be  permitted  to  silence 
the  protest  against  the  mental  con- 
fusion and  darkening  counsels  of  ob- 
scurantism which  follow  the  trail  of 
Sir  Oliver  across  the  American  con- 
tinent. 

The  peculiar  aggravation  of  the 
"case"  is  the  trivial  irrelevance  of  the 
evidence  upon  which  a  professor  of 
physics  announces  a  subversive  dis- 
pensation, which,  if  true,  would  con- 
tradict every  principle  of  his  science 
and  relegate  his  laboratory  to  the 
scrap  heap  of  an  abandoned  intellec- 
tual habitation.  For  Sir  Oliver  offers 
the  same  threadbare  evidence,  stale 
and  unprofitable.  The  mingling  of 
physics  and  psychics  is  most  amaz- 
ing: 

The  fact  that  a  photograph  can  be  clearly 
recognized  when  the  medium  has  only  seen 
the  person  clairvoyantly  on  the  other  side  of 
the  veil  is  suggestive,  since  it  seems  to  show 
that  the  general  appearance  is  preserved-;-or, 
in  other  words,  that  each  human  body  is  a 
true  representation  of  personality. 

Sir  Oliver  ventures  into  biology 
with  the  same  confidence.  He  speaks 
of  the  similarity  of  "the  ideas  about 
inheritance  usually  associated  with 
the  name  of  Weissmann,  and  the  in- 
heritance or  conveyance  of  bodily 
attributes  or  of  powers  acquired 
through  the  body,  into  the  future  life 
of  the  soul."  So,  when  spirits  return 
in  the  incoherent  disclosures  of  the 
seance  room,  the  man  of  science  ob- 
serves how  far  they  "inherit"  or  "con- 
vey" their  acquired  characteristics. 
"Future  existence  may  be  either 
glorified  or  stained,  for  a  time,  by 
persistence  of  bodily  traits."  Fur- 
thermore, it  is  found  that,  although 
bodily  marks,  scars,  and  wounds  are 
clearly  not  of  soul-compelling  and 
permanent  character,  yet  for  pur- 
poses of  identification,  and  when  re- 
entering the  physical  atmosphere  for 
the  purpose  of  communication  with 
friends,  these  temporary  marks  are 


reassumed."  How  does  Sir  Oliver 
reach  these  positive  deductions? 
From  the  inspired  revelations  of 
mediums,  accepted  on  their  own  pre- 
tensions as  experts  in  the  physics  and 
biology  of  the  future  world.  Weiss- 
mann and  his  followers  have  a  preju- 
dice in  favor  of  controllable  experi- 
mentation upon  transmission  of  traits 
through  successive  generations  of  liv- 
ing animal  or  plant  forms ;  Sir  Oliver 
prefers  the  simpler  method  of  clair- 
voyance to  reveal  the  laws  of  spirit 
transmission.  But  Sir  A.Conan  Doyle, 
whose  training  both  as  a  physician 
and  as  a  detective  should  give  him  a 
higher  expert  rating,  says  that  in  the 
future  world  we  are  all  of  an  age,  the 
young  growing  older  and  the  old 
growing  younger  until  a  democratic 
equilibrium  of  appearance  is  reached. 
These  discrepancies  might  be  embar- 
rassing if  spirits  and  those  who  com- 
municate with  them  felt  it  obligatory 
to  carry  the  impedimenta  of  logical 
baggage  on  their  journeys.  Sir 
Oliver  does  not  wish  to  be  troubled 
with  explaining  these  matters  when 
he  reaches  the  world  with  which  he 
now  communicates.  He  gives  no- 
tice: 

As  a  digression  of  some  importance,  I  ven- 
ture to  say  that  claims  of  thoughtless  and 
pertinacious  people  upon  the  charitable  and 
eminent,  even  here,  are  often  excessive:  it  is 
to  be  hoped  that  such  claims  become  less  trou- 
blesome and  less  effective  hereafter;  but  it  is 
a  hope  without  much  foundation. 

So  long  as  mediums  control  the  tele- 
phone-book of  the  "hereafter,"  there 
is  little  outlook  for  peace.  For  it  is 
plain,  as  Dr.  Furness,  the  genial 
Shakespearean,  used  to  say,  the  most 
difficult  task  for  a  logical  mind  is  to 
take  these  matters  seriously. 

The  citations  are  relevant  to  show 
what  manner  of  thinking  and  what 
standards  of  evidence  Sir  Oliver  em- 
ploys in  support  of  his  thesis.  Are 
these  reasonings  those  of  a  man  of 
science  in  any  other  sense  than  they 
reflect  the  apologetics  of  a  mind  that 
retains  a  vestige  of  logical  conscience, 
but  for  the  most  part  wanders  wher- 
ever it  listeth  ?  The  conclusions  must 
be  made  to  appear  reasonable  and 
learned,  and  the  argument  modelled 
after  the  patterns  of  the  fabric  that 
science  weaves.  But  the  result  is  a 
travesty,  a  grotesque  degradation, 
pernicious  because  it  may  influence 


minds  inexpert  in  distinguishing  be- 
tween truth  and  nonsense,  between  a 
poem  and  a  parody. 

Let  us  test  Sir  Oliver's  acumen  in 
simpler  fashion.  Ten  years  ago  New 
York  and  other  American  cities  were 
similarly  aflutter,  but  not  with 
learned  theories  and  platform  deliv- 
erances ;  for  the  central  figure  of  the 
excitement  could  neither  read  nor 
write,  nor  speak  any  other  language 
than  the  Italian  of  her  class.  But  she 
had  spokesmen  in  plenty  and  with 
ample  prestige :  Lombroso  and  Mor- 
selli  in  Italy,  Richet  and  Flammarion 
in  France,  and  a  group  of  eminent 
observers  in  England,  including  Sir 
Oliver  Lodge.  Mr.  Carrington  de- 
voted a  book  to  the  "case"  of  Eusapia 
Palladino  and  said :  "Eusapia  is  gen- 
uine; but  she  is,  so  far  as  I  know, 
almost  unique."  "The  whole  evi- 
dential case  for  the  physical  phenom- 
ena of  spiritualism"  rests  with  her; 
if  "nothing  but  fraud  entered  into 
the  production  of  these  phenomena, 
then  the  whole  case  for  the  physical 
phenomena  would  be  ruined — utterly, 
irretrievably  ruined."  The  piece  de 
resistance  of  Eusapia's  performance 
consisted  in  the  lifting,  "levitation  by 
spirits,"  of  a  very  light  table  which 
she  carried  with  her  for  the  purpose. 
When  unknown  to  her,  two  witnesses 
were  smuggled  under  the  table  and 
saw  her  foot  levitate,  and  when  with 
proper  control  of  her  hands  and  feet 
nothing  happened,  while  with  lax 
control  the  spirits  gave  most  satisfac- 
tory performances,  the  case  of  Palla- 
dino collapsed ;  but  Mr.  Carrington  is 
now  publishing  a  "psychical"  journal 
for  the  further  record  of  the  rare 
powers  of  future  Eusapias. 

Did  Eusapia  deceive  all  Europe  and 
did  she  succumb  only  to  the  shrewd 
Yankee  mind?  By  no  means.  Pro^ 
fessor  Le  Bon  saw  the  trickery  in 
Paris;  Dr.  Moll  and  Dr. Dessoir  (Ger- 
mans, be  it  whispered)  saw  through 
Eusapia  in  Berlin;  Professor  Sedg- 
wick, Dr.  Hodgson,  Mr.  Myers — 
though  inclining  to  belief  in  some 
form  of  supernormal  powers — were 
convinced  that  Eusapia  was  fraudu- 
lent. But  Sir  Oliver  wrote:  "I  am 
therefore  in  hopes  that  the  present 
decadent  state  of  the  Neapolitan 
woman  may  be  only  temporary,  and 


March  6,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[227 


that  hereafter  some  competent  and 
thoroughly  prepared  witness  may 
yet  bring  testimony  to  the  continued 
existence  of  a  genuine  abnormal 
power  in  her  organism." 

Is  this  the  utterance  of  a  science- 
trained  caution  or  of  the  will  to  be- 
lieve despite  the  unwelcome  trend  of 
the  evidence? 

The  case  of  Sir  Oliver  does  not 
stand  alone.    Sir  Richard  Crookes,  a 
fellow-physicist   of   like    distinction, 
testified  to  seeing  a  medium  sitting  in 
the  air  supported  by  nothing  visible, 
offered    spirit    photographs    as    evi- 
dence of  survival,  inferred  the  exist- 
ence of  an  "hitherto  unknown  force" 
from  the  fact  that  a  medium  affected 
a  balance  with  which  apparently  he 
had  no  contact — to  mention  only  a 
few  of  the  accredited  miracles  of  a 
physical  nature.    Alfred  Russel  Wal- 
lace had  a  like  faith  in  the  genuine- 
ness of  several  forms  of  mediumistic 
performances,  and,  in  addition,  re- 
garded the  neglect  of  phrenology  as 
one  of  the  scientific  sins  of  the  nine- 
teenth century.    The  list  could  be  ex- 
tended not  indefinitely,  but  consider- 
ably.   The  phenomenon  is  a  puzzling 
one;  for  we  associate  with  the  effect 
of  a  professional  training  a  general 
robustness  of  logical  vigor,  a  thor- 
ough saturation  of  the  mind  in  all  its 
vocations  with  the  habits  of  rigid  evi- 
dence and  critical  caution.     We  as- 
sume a  consistency  of  mental  habit, 
and  in  that  assumption  seemingly  go 
astray.    We  must  make  room  for  the 
existence  of  minds  streaked  with  ra- 
tionality   but    not    uniformly    pene- 
trated by  the  stabilizing  quality ;  we 
must  consider  reserved  areas  of  prej- 
udice and  predilection  in  which  ideas 
flourish   and    convictions    are    cher- 
i  iahed  with  slight  regard  to  their  rec- 
'onciliation  with  the  dominant  logi- 
cality of  the  rest  of  one's  beliefs.    If 
such  products  of  our  complex  psy- 
chology are  common,  though  presum- 
;ably  in  less  momentous  phases  of  the 
I  mental  character,  why  should  they 
tflot  occasionally  occur  among  profes- 
jSional  men  of  science,  and  now  and 
jthen  among  the  ablest  of  them?    It 
is  plainly  not  the  "physical"  but  the 
personal  bent  of  Sir  Oliver  that  is 
responsible  for  the  amazing  conclu- 
nons  to  which  he  commits  himself. 


bringing  to  their  statement  the 
formulating  skill  which  results  from 
the  professional  side  of  his  men- 
tality. 

It  would  seem  extravagant  to  speak 
of  a  divided  personality,  because  that 
type  of  psychological  chasm  runs 
deeper  and  invades  the  emotional  re- 
sponses in  more  pragmatic  types  of 
conduct.  And  yet  the  emotional  ele- 
ment in  the  will  to  believe  is  the  es- 
sential common  factor.  In  the  pres- 
ence of  strong  emotion  in  these 
straining  times,  so  tragically  reen- 
forced  by  the  calamity  of  bereave- 
ment on  a  world-wide  scale,  compos- 
ure is  difficult  and  reason  seems  a 
frail  support.  To  see  life  steadily 
and  to  see  it  whole  is  no  easy  consum- 
mation, when  the  most  cherished 
values  have  been  trampled  upon  and 
the  closest  ties  broken.  Unreason  is 
rampant  in  the  political  world;  its 
invasion  of  the  scientific  domain  is 
not  surprising. 

It  is  characteristic  that  the  conclu- 
sions for  which  such  feeble  and 
pitiable  evidence  is  advanced  and  ac- 
cepted always  appeal  to  a  strong  per- 
sonal wish.  Change  the  stake  but  a 
little,  and  the  intensity  of  the  emo- 
tion pales.  One  may  discuss  the  hy- 
pothesis of  telepathy  quite  compos- 
edly; the  overwhelming  evidence  of 
exact  experiment  is  that  it  does  not 
exist.  The  presumption  in  favor  of 
it  is  part  of  the  same  predilection, 
has  the  same  anthropological  flavor 
as  that  in  favor  of  the  belief  in  spirit 
intercourse;  but  its  animus  is  closer 
to  the  intellectual  pursuit.  It  is  less 
hazardous  to  take  a  chance  on  its 
occasional  and  sporadic  occurrence; 
and  the  most  ardent  believers  in  its 
possibility  use  the  telegraph  no  less 
regularly  when  they  wish  to  convey 
messages  with  some  reasonable  as- 
surance of  their  delivery.  Telepathy 
does  not  penetrate  the  emotional  na- 
ture and  play  havoc  with  the  integ- 
rity of  social  relations  and  the  secur- 
ity of  a  logical  conscience.  Naturally, 
those  inclined  to  credit  "occult" 
forces  are  hospitable  to  both  hypoth- 
eses; and  it  has  been  assumed  by 
some  psychic  researchers  that  spirits 
may  use  telepathy,  while  Maeterlinck 
ascribes  the  power  to  exceptional 
horses.    The  satisfaction  attaching  to 


such  beliefs  is  real,  and  when  not  too 
dearly  purchased  is  an  indulgence 
which  strong  minds  can  stand.  But 
rationality  is  too  precious  an  asset 
to  be  complacently  exposed  to  such 
temptation. 

The  social  menace  is  twofold :  it  in- 
clines sober  minds  to  speculate  in 
supernatural  forces  as  though  they 
were  regularly  listed  on  the  stock 
exchange  of  sound  beliefs;  and  it 
sends  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men 
and  more  sorts  and  conditions  of 
women  to  visiting  mediums  and  flirt- 
ing with  "ouija"  boards,  to  the  un- 
dermining of  their  none  too  stable  be- 
liefs in  the  rectitude  of  nature  and 
the  solidarity  of  human  experience. 
All  the  interests  of  sanity — medical, 
educational,  religious,  and  broadly 
humanitarian — have  a  like  stake  in 
opposing  the  momentary  assault  upon 
rationality,  and  marshaling  against 
it  the  institutional  resources  of  press 
and  pulpit  and  platform,  academic 
and  civilian.  The  coinage  of  the 
mind  can  not  be  debased  with  impun- 
ity.   At  credulity's 

booth  are  all  things  sold. 
Each  ounce  of  dross  costs  its  ounce  of  gold. 

Joseph  Jastrow 

Correspondence 

"The  Human  Cost  of 
Living" 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review  : 

I  am  wondering,  after  reading  the  har- 
rowing tale  of  "The  Human  Cost  of  Liv- 
ing," whether  John  knows  also  that  to 
get  his  electric  light  a  certain  process 
has  to  be  gone  through  wherein  women 
have  to  sit  in  a  room  at  the  steady  tem- 
perature of  110  degrees? 

This  I  have  been  told  by  one  who  pro- 
fesses to  know  whereof  she  speaks.  Their 
shifts  must  be  short — but  even  so! 

On  the  other  hand,  I  really  should  like 
to  know  what  John  can  do  about  it,  and 
whether,  unless  he  can  do  something 
about  it,  it  is  valuable  or  wise  to  depress 
and  even  torment  his  soul  with  the 
knowledge. 

Can  anything  be  done  about  it  that 
will  not  overturn  our  material  civiliza- 
tion? Of  course  these  workers  are  real 
heroes — every  one  with  a  heart  for 
humanity  must  realize  that — but  are 
they  not  open-eyed  and  voluntary  heroes? 
They  must  know  beforehand  the  risks 
they  are  to  take,  and,  therefore,  consider 
that  the  compensation  repays  them  for  it 


228] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  43 


— they  can  hardly  be  so  altruistic  as  to 
wish  to  give  John  his  light  simply 
because  he  wants  to  have  it. 

Anyhow,  what  can  John  do  about  it? 

B. 
Arlington,  Mass.,  February  18 
[Mr.  Colcord  made  it  clear  that  much 
can  still  be  done  to  better  the  working 
conditions  of  labor.    Eds.  The  Review.] 

Industrial  Welfare  Work  at 
Akron 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review  : 

The  "welfare  work"  of  the  Goodyear 
Tire  and  Rubber  Company  is  well  worthy 
of  attention  by  students  of  industrial 
conditions.  A  seven-storied  clubhouse 
as  the  centre  of  welfare  activities  is 
nearing  completion,  at  a  cost  of  about  a 
million,  it  is  said.  The  first  floor  pro- 
vides a  gymnasium  100  by  172  feet,  and 
a  theatre  seating  2,000,  with  stage  40 
feet  broad  and  of  still  greater  depth. 
The  second  floor  has  community  room 
for  men,  library,  music  rooms,  etc.,  with 
dormitory  rooms  for  300  men.  There 
are  rooms  for  the  "Industrial  Assembly" 
(Senate  and  House)  on  the  third  floor, 
the  greater  part  of  which,  however,  is 
given  up  to  domestic  science  rooms,  rec- 
reational rooms,  and  dormitories,  for 
women.  Of  the  remaining  four  floors, 
one  provides  cafeteria  service  for  8,000 
employees,  and  the  other  three  house  the 
"Goodyear  University"  and  the  moving 
picture  department,  where  films  eluci- 
date the  various  processes  of  manufac- 
turing rubber  products.  In  the  base- 
ment are  lockers,  bowling  alleys,  rifle 
ranges,  etc.  Two  papers — a  monthly  and 
a  tri-weekly — are  published  for  em- 
ployees, but  have  also  a  wide  circulation 
outside. 

The  company  aids  and  encourages  em- 
ployees to  own  their  own  homes,  finan- 
cing them  on  a  system  of  monthly  instal- 
ments proportioned  to  wages  or  salary, 
and  at  the  end  of  five  years  the  home 
purchaser  who  has  persisted  gets  a  bonus 
from  the  company  of  one-fourth  the  cost 
of  the  property.  The  welfare  work  is 
managed  by  a  central  committee  of  rep- 
resentatives from  each  department  of 
the  plant,  working  under  a  written  con- 
stitution. Some  thirty  organizations, 
literary,  athletic,  musical,  dramatic,  etc., 
are  under  its  direction.  For  outdoor 
sports  a  large  athletic  field  is  provided, 
and  there  is  also  a  children's  playground, 
with  instructors  on  duty  during  the 
summer  months,  for  the  children  of  em- 
ployees. A  nursery  is  provided  where 
mothers  working  in  the  factory  may 
leave  their  babies  under  competent  care 
during  the  day. 

If  we  were  to  ask  one  of  the  25,000 
Goodyear  employees  how  so  much  work 
of  this  kind  can  be  accomplished,  he 
would  probably  explain  it  by  "the  Good- 
year spirit,"  which  a  former  official  once 


defined  as  "a  feeling  of  satisfaction  that 
radiates  through,  and  is  of  mutual  benefit 
to,  both  men  and  management,  brought 
about  by  the  earnest  efforts  of  both  par- 
ties to  please  and  support  each  other." 
This  spirit  is  attained  by  cooperation,  in 
all  things  pertaining  to  the  work  of  the 
plant,  from  its  general  management 
down,  and  the  prospects  are  that  its 
achievements  will  be  even  greater  in  the 
future,  as  the  experience  of  years  points 
the  way. 

Grace  Orb 
West  Lafayette,  Ind., 

February  20 

The  High-Handedness  of  the 
Anti-Saloon  League 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

The  attempt  of  the  Anti-Saloon  League 
to  convey  the  impression  that  the  citizens 
who  are  protesting  against  the  iniquitous 
Volstead  Law,  or  attacking  the  validity 
of  the  Eighteenth  Amendment,  are  coun- 
tenancing law-breaking  or  disrespect  for 
the  Government,  is  a  clever  trick,  but  one 
that  will  not  work.  The  Anti-Saloon 
League  is  not  yet  the  Government  of  this 
country,  though  it  thinks  that  it  is. 
There  are  millions  of  sober,  temperate 
men  and  women  who  believe  that  they 
have  a  natural  and  inalienable  right  to 
decide  as  to  what  beverages  they  shall 
drink,  and  they  resent  the  assumption 
that  a  band  of  self -constituted  reformers 
have  any  right  to  dictate  to  them  in  a 
matter  relating  solely  to  their  personal 
tastes.  They  favor  action  thoroughly  to 
test  the  validity  of  the  Eighteenth 
Amendment,  and,  if  that  effort  fails,  to 
bring  about  its  repeal.  In  so  doing,  they 
are  just  as  good,  just  as  law-abiding,  and 
just  as  true  Americans  as  the  men  and 
women  who  have  forced  upon  the  coun- 
try a  measure  that  directly  violates  the 
letter  and  spirit  of  the  Declaration  of 
Independence,  and,  we  believe,  also  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States. 

The  violent  abuse  with  which  the  Anti- 
Saloon  League  has  assailed  all  those,  in- 
cluding the  Vigilance  League,  who  pro- 
test against  the  action  of  Congressmen 
and  State  legislators  who  had  no  man- 
date from  the  people  on  this  issue,  is 
proof  that  they  are  at  least  doubtful  as 
to  whether  on  a  popular  vote  they  would 
have  received  a  majority.  The  test  of 
the  true  spirit  of  Americanism  is  loyalty 
to  the  principle  of  personal  liberty, 
which  is  the  cornerstone  of  American 
political  liberty,  and  it  is  a  new  and  un- 
American  doctrine  that  would  deny  to 
free  citizens  of  the  United  States  the 
right  to  test  the  validity  of  a  law  or  Con- 
stitutional amendment,  or  to  seek  its 
repeal. 

E.  J.  Shriver 
Chairman  Executive  Committee, 
The  Vigilance  League 
New  York,  February  28 


The  Power  of  the  Refer- 
endum 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review  : 

The  significance  of  the  efforts  of  Gov- 
ernor Milliken  of  Maine  to  line  up  the 
States  whose  Legislatures  voted  to  ratify 
Constitutional  Prohibition  against  Rhode 
Island  lies  in  the  fact  that  out  of  44 
possibilities  he  has  only  announced  26. 

Does  this  not  indicate  a  cooling  off  of 
sentiment  in  the  remainder?  The  Gov- 
ernor of  Vermont  not  only  refused  to 
cooperate  but  expressed  the  hope  that 
Rhode  Island  would  win  her  case.  In 
Maryland  a  red-hot  fight  for  "rescission 
plus  a  referendum"  is  now  in  progress. 

Moreover,  the  list  of  26  includes  sev- 
eral States  where  the  referendum  has 
been  invoked.  The  Governor  of  Califor- 
nia, for  instance,  may  find  that  he  has 
joined  the  movement  without  the  author- 
ity of  his  people. 

Before  long  the  Ohio  referendum  case 
will  be  decided  by  the  United  States 
Supreme  Court. 

Provided  it  holds  that  the  people  are 
part  of  "the  Legislature,"  if  the  State 
Constitution,  as  interpreted  by  the  State 
Supreme  Court,  so  ordains,  there  may 
result  favorable  decisions  for  a  refer- 
endum in  California,  Washington,  Ne- 
braska, Missouri,  Oklahoma,  Michigan, 
and  New  Mexico. 

These  States,  in  that  event,  will  not 
have  voted  as  yet  upon  Constitutional 
Prohibition.  For,  if  the  people  can 
legally  take  part  in  the  Legislative  act,  it 
is  not  yet  complete.  So  it  is  quite  possible 
that  a  considerable  number  of  Americans 
will  have  an  opportunity,  after  all,  to 
record  their  views  on  Constitutional  Pro- 
hibition, even  if  the  New  York  and 
Massachusetts  Legislatures  now  in  ses- 
sions refuse  to  grant  referendums. 

A  decision  by  the  Supreme  Court  in 
the  Ohio  case  may  wake  them  out  of 
their  trance. 

As  to  Constitutional  Suffrage,  the 
Oklahoma  Legislature  gave  what  is 
called  "a  Legislative  recognition"  to  the 
referendum  in  that  State  by  omitting  the 
"emergency  measure  clause"  after  the 
lower  house  had  first  insisted  upon  it. 

If,  including  Ohio  and  Oklahoma,  the 
suffragists  succeed  in  obtaining  36  Statt 
Legislatures  for  the  amendment,  will  the 
Secretary  of  State  ignore  the  referen 
dums  as  he  did  on  Prohibition  in  issuinj 
his  proclamation?    Or  will  fear  of  possi 
ble  legal  complications  as  affecting  thi 
approaching    Presidential    election   giv 
him  pause  and  cause  him  to  reverse  th 
Prohibition    precedent    and    await   witl 
patience  the  coming  authoritative  rulin; 
on  this  question  by  the  Supreme  Court 
The  latter  would  seem  to  be  the  wise 


course. 


Optimist 


New  York,  February  29 


March  6,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[229 


Book  Reviews 

Jeremiad  and  Jumble 

Liberalism  in  America.  By  Harold  Stearns. 
New  York :    Boni  and  Liveright. 

The  Intellectuals  and  the  Wage-Earners. 
By  Herbert  Ellsworth  Cory.  New  York : 
The  Sunwise  Turn. 

AMERICAN  liberals  are  a  rather  poor 
sort,  according  to  Mr.  Harold 
Stearns.  They  acquiesced  in  conscrip- 
tion; they  allowed  thennselves,  either 
through  timidity  or  through  the  seduc- 
tion of  office,  to  become  a  part  of  the 
war  machine  and  to  help  along  the  mon- 
strous evils  that  developed  during  the 
period  of  conflict — hysteria,  bitterness, 
persecution,  imposture,  false  propaganda, 
and  everything.  Fortunately,  however, 
from  Mr.  Stearns's  standpoint,  not  all 
of  the  liberals  were  of  this  weak  fibre. 
A  saving  remnant  of  Sir  Bediveres  have 
stood  guard  till  now,  and  will  stand 
guard  in  the  wild  hour  coming  on.  For 
a  tempestuous  time  is  just  ahead  of  us 
— social  revolution  with  a  strong  proba- 
bility of  much  bloodshed. 

It  would  be  profitable  to  learn  just 
what  this  liberalism  is  and  with  what 
groups  it  is  to  be  identified.  But  the 
reader  will  hardly  be  satisfied  with  what 
is  furnished  him.  Liberalism  apparently 
is  not  a  doctrine,  nor  are  doctrines  its 
primary  concern.  It  is  rather  a  "philoso- 
phy" which  embodies  a  "respect  for  the 
individual  and  his  freedom  of  conscience 
and  opinion,"  a  "temper  and  attitude  of 
tolerance,"  a  dependence  upon  facts  and 
upon  reason  as  their  interpreter.  Still, 
though  it  stresses  reason,  it  does  not 
overlook  "the  drive  of  passion  of  con- 
viction." It  is  a  well-bred  "philosophy." 
"It  is  urbane,  good-natured,  non-parti- 
san, detached.  It  is  in  a  way  frankly 
'above  the  battle.' " 

The  observant  reader  will  labor  hard 
in  his  effort  to  discover  any  existent 
group  in  which  these  qualities  are  con- 
spicuous. He  will  labor  yet  more  strenu- 
ously in  his  effort  to  find  their  ex- 
emplification in  Mr.  Stearns's  volume. 
Liberalism,  he  will  conclude  as  he  turns 
the  last  page,  may  be  all  of  these  things ; 
but  the  volume  itself  is  anything  but  an 
exhibit  in  support  of  the  thesis.  Of  tol- 
erance for  a  contrary  opinion,  and  of  re- 
'  spect  for  him  who  holds  it,  there  is 
usually  none.  The  things  set  down  as 
facts  are,  as  a  rule,  either  disputable 
things  or  else  the  opposite  of  things 
known  by  any  well-informed  person  to 
'be  true.  There  is  small  exercise  of  rea- 
son and  much  emotional  excitation. 
1  There  is  a  piling  up  of  aggressive  as- 
sertion, with  sweeping  and  uncritical 
generalizations.  In  some  pages  the 
breathless  rush  of  words  mounts  (or  de- 
scends, as  you  please)  into'  mere  rant. 
The  temper  throughout  is  violent,  parti- 


san, and  belligerent.  The  book  as  a 
whole  is  an  interesting  example  of  the 
highly  modern  thing  called  intellectual 
radicalism  (though  why  intellectual  it 
is  hard  to  say),  with  its  swirl  and  rush 
of  extreme  and  unbased  opinions  on 
every  conceivable  subject. 

It  is  a  serious  intellectual  weakness, 
we  learn  on  page  12,  to  be  unfair  to 
one's  opponent.  This  weakness,  however, 
is  revealed  more  than  once  in  the  book, 
and  nowhere  more  strikingly  than  in  the 
treatment  (pp.  111-12)  of  certain  Ameri- 
can Socialists  who  left  their  party  be- 
cause of  its  attitude  on  the  war.  Noth- 
ing in  the  book  reveals  the  slightest 
understanding  of  the  psychology  of  the 
American  people  as  a  whole  regarding 
the  war,  or  of  the  psychology  of  any 
particular  group — even  his  own.  It  is 
but  natural,  therefore,  that,  in  the  fury 
of  his  partisanship,  the  author  can  see 
no  "integrity  in  the  possessor  of  an  op- 
posing view.  The  motive  that  deter- 
mined Mr.  Walling,  Mr.  Russell,  and  Mr. 
Spargo  was  the  "natural  desire  to  be 
quoted  and  popular."  In  Mr.  Spargo's 
case  he  goes  further.  The  book  "Bol- 
shevism" seems  to  him,  "on  the  face  of 
it,  dishonest  and  unfair."  The  stupidity 
and  falseness  of  the  first  judgment,  the 
flippancy  and  ignorance  of  the  second, 
are  obvious  enough  to  any  sincere  per- 
son; but  the  offensiveness  of  both  is 
made  more  glaring  by  reason  of  the 
author's  high-flown  pretensions  to  the 
alleged  liberal  virtues. 

When  one  comes  to  the  chapter  on 
"Leadership,"  one  knows  what  to  expect. 
Whatever  else  it  may  contain,  it  is  sure 
to  include  a  tribute  to  Nicolai  Lenin. 
The  mind  of  emotional  radicalism  is 
fashioned  of  contrarieties.  When  it 
sings  the  praise  of  tolerance,  of  reason, 
of  respect  for  the  individual,  of  free- 
dom of  conscience,  speech,  Fi"ess,  and 
assemblage;  when  it  anathematizes  mili- 
tary conscription,  the  regimentation  of 
labor,  government  by  executive  decree 
and  the  like,  the  observant  reader 
senses  what  is  coming  next.  It  is  a 
paean  to  that  chief  modern  exponent  of 
intolerance,  fanaticism,  and  repression, 
Lenin.  And  sure  enough,  on  the  second 
page  of  the  chapter  it  begins.  At  first 
it  is  a  bit  tentative  and  cautious — per- 
haps an  illustration  of  that  liberal 
"method  of  approach"  elsewhere  extolled. 
"It  [the  war]  produced  practically  no 
leaders  among  the  men  of  affairs  except 
possibly  Lenin.  .  .  .  Even  Clemenceau 
has  been,  for  all  his  stubbornness  and 
refreshing  reactionary  directness,  more 
of  a  dictator  than  a  leader."  So  the 
Clemenceau  who  ruled  by  a  majority 
of  an  elected  chamber  and  who  any  day 
might  have  been  overturned  was  a  "dic- 
tator," while  the  Lenin  who  has  ruled 
by  the  bayonet  is  a  "leader."  But  this 
is  only  the  beginning.  A  little  further 
on  (pp.  204-5),  and  behold  the  apotheosis! 


Of  misstatements  of  simple  fact  there 
are  too  many  to  chronicle.  But  one  won- 
ders just  how,  with  the  figures  in  front 
of  him  and  carefully  set  down,  the  author 
can  assert  (p.  59)  that  the  increase  in 
railway  mileage  in  1910  over  the  mile- 
age in  1860 — a  matter  of  eight  times — 
is  "almost  one  hundred  times."  There  is 
something  here  to  prompt  the  reader  to  a 
curious  speculation  regarding  the  au- 
thor's mental  habits.  But  still  more  will 
such  speculation  be  induced  by  a  con- 
sideration of  the  author's  readings  from 
history  and  his  estimates  of  present  and 
future  conditions.  Nearly  everything  in 
the  United  States  is  wrong,  it  appears, 
and  has  been  so  for  more  than  a  cen- 
tury. The  Civil  War  was  unnecessary 
and  could  have  been  avoided  had  the 
Abolitionists  kept  quiet.  It  has  left  in 
its  wake,  moreover,  a  fearful  train  of 
horrors — the  negro  problem.  Federal 
supremacy,  the  imminence  of  a  national 
smash-up,  materialism,  and  a  miscellane- 
ous assortment  of  minor  ills.  The  recent 
war — at  least  America's  participation  in 
it — was  also  needless,  and  its  effect  has 
been  only  to  pile  Pelion  upon  Ossa  in 
the  shape  of  further  horrors.  The  hopes 
aroused  by  it  have  all  been  dissipated, 
and  chaos  lies  just  around  the  corner. 

For  the  emotional  radical  to  find  every- 
thing wrong  in  the  present  is  conven- 
tional enough ;  to  see  the  future  doubtful 
and  threatening  is  not  uncommon;  but 
to  find  past  and  present  equally  bad  and 
to  forebode  the  future  as  worse  is  a  new 
turn  in  social  meteorology.  The  author 
must  at  least  be  credited  with  a  novel 
contribution. 

With  much  tall  talk,  and  no  little 
sentimentality,  Mr.  Cory  offers  his  blend 
of  psycho-analysis,  Bolshevism,  I.  W. 
W.-ism,  Federalism  (otherwise  Plural- 
ism), Marxism,  guild  Socialism,  benevo- 
lent sabotage,  and  a  number  of  revolu- 
tionary kickshaws  that  happen  to  be 
lying  around.  It  is  a  marvelous  synthe- 
sis, piled  high  with  a  jumble  of  hetero- 
geneous objects  in  the  foreground  and 
with  limitless  horizons.  It  is  the  very 
latest  word  in  revolutionary  divination, 
and  for  a  few  weeks  at  least  it  ought  to 
close  the  field  against  rival  entries  from 
the  ultra-radical  coteries. 

True  to  type,  it  contains  the  conven- 
tional revolutionary  paean  to  liberty  and 
the  complemental  laudations  of  Lenin. 
While  it  excoriates  the  sabotage  of  the 
rascally  bourgeoisie,  it  idealizes  prole- 
tarian sabotage  as  a  thing  "that  moves 
progressively  towards  truth,  beauty, 
love."  The  measures  taken  by  demo- 
cratic States  to  protect  themselves  con- 
stitute repression;  the  far  more  vigorous 
measures  taken  by  the  Soviet  oligarchy 
to  maintain  itself  are  merely  instances 
of  "self-discipline."  Fanatical  absurdi- 
ties of  this  sort  crowd  the  volume.  There 
is  to  be  said  for  it,  however,  that  it  is 
free  from  the  detestable  smartness  that 


280] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  43 


penades  so  much  of  current  revolution- 
ar>'  print  and  that  it  shows  evidences 
of  study,  however  preposterously  the 
gleanings  from  that  study  have  been 
applied.  I  hope  that  it  will  be  widely 
read;  for  there  is  need  for  all  to  know 
what  fantastic  speculation  is  constantly 
issuing  from  the  revolutionary  fold. 
Among  thinking  persons  the  book  will 
prove  its  own  best  antidote. 

W.  J.  Ghent 

A   Catholic   Critic  of  Sinn 
Fein 

Some  Questions  of  Peace  and  War,  with 
special  reference  to  Ireland.  By  Rev. 
Walter  McDonald,  D.D.,  Prefect  of  the 
Dunboyne  Establishment,  St  Patrick's 
College,  Maynooth.  London :  Burns  and 
Gates,  Ltd. 

PRACTICAL  statesmen  are  not  much 
given  to  quoting  books  by  profes- 
sors. So  there  may  well  have  been  a 
flutter  of  curiosity  in  the  British  Parlia- 
ment when,  during  a  recent  speech 
about  Home  Rule,  Mr.  Lloyd  George  held 
up  a  little  green  brochure  fresh  from  the 
press,  and  insisted  that  honorable  mem- 
bers should  listen  to  long  paragraphs  by 
Dr.  Walter  McDonald.  Honorable  mem- 
bers would  no  doubt  prick  up  their  ears, 
and  the  suspicious  among  them  would 
fancy  that  these  extracts  had  appealed  to 
the  Premier  less  through  their  intrinsic 
merit  than  through  the  support  they  lend 
to  the  new  Irish  bill.  Beyond  doubt  it 
was  good  debating  to  cite  a  Maynooth 
professor  for  the  view  that  Sinn  Fein 
has  garbled  the  records  of  the  past,  that 
historically  there  never  was  any  such 
thing  as  an  Irish  "nation,"  united  and 
fully  independent,  and  that  the  claim  of 
nationality,  in  the  only  sense  which  mat- 
ters, can  be  advanced  with  at  least  equal 
force  on  behalf  of  the  Protestants  in  the 
northeast  comer  of  Ulster.  Those  who 
might  be  stimulated  to  read  the  book 
would  find  in  it  an  indictment  of  the 
prelates  who  said  that  no  conscription 
law  could  be  rightly  applied  to  the  Irish 
people  without  Ireland's  consent,  and 
would  be  impressed  by  the  fact  that  an 
authorized  teacher  of  candidates  for  the 
priesthood  will  admit  no  strength  in  such 
a  plea.  The  sponsors  of  a  bill  which 
aims  to  unite  the  warring  extremists  on 
either  side  might  naturally  welcome  the 
help  of  a  Catholic  doctor  of  divinity  who 
says  that  Sir  Edward  Carson  acted  as 
every  statesman  in  Europe  or  America 
would  do  in  similar  circumstances, 
urged  by  a  similar  conviction. 

But,  although  the  book  has  these  obvi- 
ous uses  of  which  so  dexterous  a  de- 
bater as  Mr.  Lloyd  George  has  been  quick 
to  avail  himself,  it  would  be  most  un- 
fair to  call  its  author  a  mere  propa- 
gandist for  a  party  programme.  In 
what  he  has  written  there  are  some 
notable  features  of  permanent  and  timely 


value  for  the  elucidation  of  his  subject. 
As  befits  his  profession,  Dr.  McDonald 
summons  his  readers  to  look  at  Ireland's 
case  in  the  light  of  a  history  not  only 
sympathetic  but  impartial,  and  in  the 
light  of  an  ethic  not  only  insistent  but 
intelligent.  Thus,  the  book  is  in  part 
historical  and  in  part  critical.  Two 
sources  of  mistake  are  vigorously  ex- 
posed :  first,  the  idea  that  the  Home  Rule 
problem  can  be  solved  by  burrowing  into 
the  past  and  claiming  a  restoration  of 
the  "independent"  status  which  Ireland 
lost  some  centuries  ago  at  the  hand  of 
English  invaders  acknowledging  no  prin- 
ciple higher  than  force;  second,  the  idea 
that  an  abstract  formula  like  "self-de- 
termination," used  without  any  scrutiny 
of  circumstance  or  any  forecasting  of 
probable  results,  is  sufficient  by  itself  to 
define  the  regime  under  which  a  country 
shall  be  governed.  Both  these  specious 
arguments  have  had  immense  vogue,  and 
Dr.  McDonald  subjects  both  to  a  mordant 
analysis  which  does  credit  to  his  power 
in  the  science  of  applied  ethics.  He 
raises  such  points  as  these :  whether  Ire- 
land ever  was  united  and  independent; 
whether  she  has  not  many  times  re- 
nounced, at  least  by  implication,  her 
separate  status;  whether  there  are  not 
numerous  cases  in  which  "nationhood," 
with  the  approval  of  the  whole  world, 
has  been  forfeited  without  "acquies- 
cence;" what  sort  of  community  is  to  be 
recognized  as  a  national  self,  and  whether 
Ulster  can  not  urge  this  right  as  against 
the  rest  of  Ireland  just  as  fairly  as  Ire- 
land can  urge  it  against  Great  Britain. 
Passing  to  some  ethical  issues  of  the 
Great  War,  Dr.  McDonald  asks  how  those 
who  approve  of  wars  waged  in  a  good 
cause  can  help  approving  also  of  a  draft 
law  essential  to  military  success.  Since 
it  is  wrong  to  begin  a  fight  where  there 
is  no  chance  of  winning,  must  not  those 
who  have  willed  the  end  will  also  the 
means?  How  could  Ireland  escape  this 
common  burden  of  the  Empire  unless  her 
people  could  plead  conscientious  objec- 
tion to  all  war  as  such — a  plea  surely 
among  the  very  last  which  historical  evi- 
dence can  make  good  ?  She  can  not  treat 
the  Imperial  Parliament  as  a  constitu- 
tional authority  when  it  legislates  to  her 
own  taste,  and  denounce  it  as  a  usurping 
aggressor  when  it  legislates  otherwise. 
All  this,  and  much  more  like  it,  is  ad- 
mirably to  the  point.  To  exempt  Ireland 
from  conscription  was  no  matter  of  inter- 
national right;  it  was  a  counsel  of  expe- 
dience, in  view  of  that  deplorable  es- 
trangement for  which  British  rulers  in 
days  gone  by  are  so  much  to  blame,  and 
whose  consequence  British  rulers  of  the 
present  have  still  to  bear.  That  new 
term,  "self-determination,"  in  which 
President  Wilson  has  crystallized  the 
mood  of  a  new  time,  involved  the  in- 
evitable risk  of  a  word  which  may  be 
tortured  in  contradictory  directions.    It 


is  an  excellent  working  formula,  but 
language  is  at  best  no  more  than  approxi- 
mately expressive,  and  no  state  in  Eu- 
rope has  had  its  place  fixed  at  the  Paris 
Conference  by  either  historical  inquiries 
or  abstract  rules  pursued  to  the  complete 
neglect  of  existing  facts. 

In  his  criticism  of  Sinn  Fein  Dr.  Mc- 
Donald has  had  no  difficulty  in  proving 
that  the  history  on  which  his  opponents 
rely  with  such  confidence  is  at  best  un- 
certain, and  that  some  general  maxims 
which  they  quote  can  quite  as  well  be 
used  against  them.  But,  what  is  really 
more  important,  he  makes  it  clear  that 
from  neither  of  these  sources,  with 
whatever  degree  of  literal  exactness  they 
may  be  understood,  can  an  answer  to  our 
present  problem  reveal  itself.  What  con- 
cerns us  now  is  neither  antiquarian  re- 
search nor  manipulated  abstractions,  but 
a  resolute  facing  of  comparative  values 
for  the  future. 

Those,  however,  who  base  Ireland's 
claim  to  self-government  upon  what 
Matthew  Arnold  so  well  called  the  fact 
of  "the  incompatibles"  can  endorse  a 
great  deal  of  what  Dr.  McDonald  has 
said  without  agreeing  with  his  conclusion 
that  the  northeast  corner  has  just  the 
same  special  right  that  belongs  to  the 
country  as  a  whole.  Splitting  up  into 
fragments  can  not  go  on  indefinitely. 
Level-headed  Irishmen  do  not  demand 
Home  Rule  just  because  they  are  in- 
fatuated about  "historical  nationhood"; 
they  rather  make  much,  sometimes  too  i 
much,  of  historical  nationhood  because 
they  discern  the  need  for  Home  Rule. 
Not  because  Niall  of  the  Nine  Hostages  ' 
ruled  over  a  united  Ireland  in  the  fourth 
century  or  Brian  in  the  eleventh,  and  not 
because  the  order  established  by  these 
ancient  worthies  was  never  willingly 
abandoned  by  any  generation  of  their 
descendants,  do  they  insist  that  a  regime 
which  has  broken  down  before  our  own 
eyes  shall  be  replaced  by  a  regime  which 
can  stand.  Niall  and  Brian  and  the  rest 
are  in  truth  as  shadowy  figures  to  nine- 
tenths  of  the  discontented  Irish  now  as 
they  can  be  to  Dr.  McDonald,  and  the 
practical  solution  is  as  little  dependent 
on  his  scientific  denials  as  on  Mr.  Dc 
Valera's  sentimental  enthusiasms  about 
that  cloudland  of  romance. 

Thus,  when  we  speak  of  "incompati- 
bles" we  must  face  the  incompatibiHtj 
in  the  north.    The  question  of  Ulster  is 
like  that  of  conscription,  a  problem  o 
expedience   and   generosity.      One  ma; 
agree  that  the  people  of  the  northeas 
corner,  differing — some  of  them — fror 
the  rest  of  Ireland  in  race,  creed,  an^ 
mentality,  are  entitled  to  a  legislatur 
with   local  powers   subordinate,   as  Di 
McDonald  himself  insists,  to  a  geucn 
Irish  Parliament  in  Dublin.    But  a  cri 
cial  point  arises  in  defining  the  princip! 
on  which  the  two  areas  are  to  be  stake 
out.     Again   and   again   Dr.   McDonal' 


March  6,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[281 


speaks  of  Ulster  "Protestants."  Is  it 
possible  that  we  are  to  apply  just  the 
test  of  differing  creeds?  Is  there  to  be  a 
barrier  between  contrasted  faiths,  such 
as  modern  Europe  has  learned  to  look 
upon  with  horror?  Are  we  to  stereotvpe 
by  statute  that  wretched  antagonism  to 
which  Ireland  already  owes  so  much  of 
her  distress?  Are  we  to  provide  a  con- 
stitutional guarantee  for  that  persisting 
religious  hatred  whose  softening  has 
been  so  far  the  ideal  of  all  good  men?  I 
defy  any  one  to  find  these  homogeneous 
districts  of  Ulster;  for  let  us  be  thank- 
ful that  in  every  county  there  are  those 
of  both  creeds  who  will  not  admit  with- 
out a  struggle  this  monstrous  plan  for 
religious  segregation.  As  a  Protestant 
Nationalist  who  spent  thirty  years  of 
his  life  in  that  northeast  corner.  I  can 
testify  to  having  known  multitudes  of 
my  own  race  and  creed  who  would  be 
glad  of  any  other  arrangement  whacever 
rather  than  one  which  would  subject  this 
robust  minority  in  Antrim  and  Down  to 
a  purely  Carsonite  legislature  in  Belfast. 
Are  men  like  Lord  Pirrie — a  Protestant, 
and  for  years  by  far  the  largest  employer 
of  Belfast  labor — to  be  refused  the  right 
of  self-determination?  They  differ  at 
least  in  that  interesting  point  called 
"mentality"  from  the  swearers  to  a  Car- 
sonite covenant.  Are  scrutineers  to  go 
from  house  to  house,  presenting  the  al- 
ternative of  the  Westminster  Confession 
of  Faith  and  the  Decrees  of  Trent,  so 
that  a  zigzag  line  may  be  traced  on  the 
basis  of  the  worst  possible  distinction 
for  founding  a  polity?  In  Belfast  alone 
we  should  have  many  a  case  of  two 
women  grinding  at  the  same  mill  of 
whom  one  should  be  taken  and  another 
left.  Mr.  Lloyd  George  seems  to  have 
some  such  holy  inquisition  in  mind.  Let 
us  hope  that  the  good  sense  of  Parlia- 
iment  will  make  short  work  of  this  in  the 
committee  stage  of  the  coming  bill. 
Fancy  a  proposal  to  harmonize  Ontario 
and  Quebec  by  "breaking  up  some  of  the 
present  counties,"  putting  the  Protes- 
tants of  Quebec  into  an  expanded  On- 
tario, and  the  Catholics  of  Ontario  into 
an  expanded  Quebec! 

Dr.  McDonald's  answer,  no  doubt, 
iwould  be  that  cases  of  special  hardship 
are  inevitable,  for,  as  he  says,  "minori- 
ties must  suffer."  Is  not  this  a  good  rule 
for  Ireland  as  a  whole?  A  northeast 
legislature,  based  on  that  geography 
which  guides  us  in  all  other  places,  with 
ipowers  narrowly  defined,  and  admitting 
pf  quick  fusion  with  the  legislature  of 
ithe  south  as  the  logic  of  events  may 
Iprescribe,  seems  to  be  the  best  practical 
Way  out  for  Ulster's  difficulty.  But  there 
nust  be  no  gerrymandering  of  the  areas, 
^nd  it  does  seem  unfortunate  that  Dr. 
McDonald  should  have  bewildered  us  all, 
jn  a  book  otherwise  conciliatory  to  con- 
ititutional  folk  of  every  side,  by  denying 
ill  fault  in  Sir  Edward  Carson's  scheme 


of  intimidating  Parliament  by  arms.  We 
read  with  amazement  that  Sir  Edward 
was  justified  by  the  right  of  self-deter- 
mination! Is  it  not  Dr.  McDonald  him- 
self who  has  taught  us  not  to  take  that 
rubric  too  seriously,  not  to  apply  it  with 
mechanical  literalness,  but  to  weigh  and 
estimate  and  compare  consequences? 
Who  is  to  decide  how  the  balance  in- 
clines? Sir  Edward  Carson  says  he  be- 
lieves only  in  the  Imperial  Parliament; 
and  did  not  this  Parliament,  after  long 
debate,  decide  the  Home  Rule  act  of  1914 
to  be  fair?  Dr.  McDonald  is  fond  of  put- 
ting conundrums  to  the  Irish  bishops; 
can  he  say  how  Ulster  could  consistently 
take  up  arms  to  defeat  an  act  passed  at 
Westminster,  alleging  as  her  ground  that 
only  Westminster  can  be  relied  upon  for 
just  legislation? 

Herbert  L.  Stewart 

Among  Our  Americas 

A  Man  for  the  Ages.     By  Irving  Bacheller. 

Indianapolis :  The  Bobbs-Merrill  Company. 
Rebels  :  Into  Anarchy  and  Out  Again.    By 

Marie   Ganz:    In   Collaboration   with   Nat 

J.  Ferber.     New  York:  Podd,  Mead  and 

Company. 

The  Mask.     By  John  Cournos.     New  York: 
George  H.  Doran  Company. 

IT  has  been  the  fashion  for  reviewers 
to  treat  Mr.  Bacheller  with  some- 
thing like  good-humored  contempt,  or, 
let  us  say,  affectionate  condescension. 
What  we  have  held  against  him  most, 
probably,  is  that  he  has  quietly  ignored 
certain  inhibitions  of  the  literary  hour. 
He  has  not  chosen  to  assume,  with  the. 
best  people,  that  air  of  skeptical  remote- 
ness, that  slightly  lifted  shoulder  and 
slightly  wry  smile,  which  now  mark  good 
form  in  the  humorist — except,  of  course, 
the  humorist  of  a  shamelessly  popular 
order.  Mr.  Bacheller  is  not  afraid  to 
wear  his  heart  on  his  sleeve,  sees  no  rea- 
son for  not  being  amiable  and  sympa- 
thetic. He  has  not  thought  of  concealing 
either  his  old-fashioned  smiles  or  his 
old-fashioned  tears  from  professional 
reviewers  or  other  superior  and  sophisti- 
cated persons.  And  who  shall  say  that 
he  may  not  have  his  appeal  for  the 
"highbrows"  of  later  generations  ?  There 
are  current  signs  of  reaction  against  the 
ultra-knowing  and  you-can't-fool-us  atti- 
tude of  an  already  disintegrating  Geor- 
gian age.  The  best  people  are  rediscov- 
ering the  Dickens  whom  the  people  have 
never  forgotten:  rediscovering  him  as  a 
fellow-being  whose  "unabashed  senti- 
mentalism"  marked  his  kinship  with  the 
lave.  It  is  suspected  that  you  can't  get 
the  most  fun  or  even  the  deepest  satis- 
faction out  of  peering  at  life  through 
narrowed  eyelids  under  a  wearily  toler- 
ant brow.  Perhaps  the  Latest  Unpleas- 
antness, with  its  revelation  of  primitive 
faults,  has  driven  us  to  seek  also  the 
primitive  virtues  of  swelling  heart  and 
outstretched  hand  which  the  clever  ones 


have  never  been  able  to  make  quite 
absurd. 

It  is  possible  and  even  tempting  for 
professional  reviewers  to  get  rid  of  a 
book  like  this  one  of  Mr.  Bacheller's 
with  a  tolerant  smile  and  a  shake  of  the 
head  and  an  "all  very  pretty,  but  too 
pretty"  wave  of  the  hand.  But  it  may 
be  as  just  and  should  be  as  profitable  to 
take  the  author's  intention  and  lend  our- 
selves as  far  as  we  can  to  his  effect.  Let 
us  grant  that  he  has  been  consistently  a 
sentimentalist  in  a  period  which  has  re- 
fused its  official  countenance  to  sentimen- 
talism.  Beyond  doubt  he  has  rasped  the 
string  pitilessly  at  times.  And  a  genera- 
tion which  prides  itself  upon  having  out- 
grown Mrs.  Stowe  and  Bret  Harte — yes, 
and  Mark  Twain — has  by  no  means  with- 
drawn its  ear  from  the  author  of  "Eben 
Holden"  and  "D'ri  and  I."  One  thing  it 
could  not  if  it  would  ignore — the 
intensive  Americanism  of  his  mate- 
rials and  their  handling.  His  portrait 
of  Lincoln,  in  this  latest  story,  may  be 
accepted  as  neither  better  nor  worse 
than  other  idealized  likenesses  of  that 
great  realist.  His  chronicle  of  the  pio- 
neering America  of  the  thirties  and  for- 
ties is  a  performance  of  real  freshness 
and  power.  We  recall  Hamlin  Garland's 
recent  interpretation  of  the  Westward 
pioneers.  With  all  its  sympathy  and 
fidelity  to  detail,  his  picture  was  touched 
with  melancholy ;  it  presented  the  pioneer 
as,  on  the  whole,  a  pathetic  though  neces- 
sary sacrifice  upon  the  altar  of  civiliza- 
tion. Mr.  Bacheller's  mood  is  character- 
istically different.  His  pioneers  escape 
none  of  the  hardships  of  their  calling, 
but  do  themselves  in  some  sense  realize 
the  promised  land.  Samson  Traylor  of 
the  mighty  thews  and  the  merry  heart  is 
a  true  type  and  more  than  a  type.  The 
obscure  call  which  sets  him  upon  a  long 
Westward  trail  from  the  Vermont  vil- 
lage of  his  birth  to  the  Illinois  village 
of  his  destiny  will  not  be  denied.  There 
is  an  empire  building  in  the  West;  he 
must  be  there  to  help;  and  help  he  does, 
with  his  thews  and  his  laughter  and  his 
shrewd  Yankee  brain.  Nor  does  he  fail 
to  share  the  prosperity  of  the  new  land. 
.  .  .  Lincoln  is  a  figure  already  established 
in  the  imagination  of  the  world.  Mr. 
Bacheller  could  do  no  more  than  throw 
it  into  relief  against  its  natural  back- 
ground and  give  us  some  echoes  of  the 
familiar  voice.  I  shall  remember  this 
book  for  its  original  portrait  of  Samson 
Traylor  and  his  fellow-pioneers  rather 
than  for  its  capable  projection  of  the 
well-known  features  of  Honest  Abe. 

Meanwhile  the  world  has  continued 
flowing  toward  the  Occident.  Traylor's 
West  has  become  East  and  his  East  West 
to  new  races  of  pioneers.  Quite  recently 
a  new  literature  has  sprung  up;  a  record 
of  the  peoples  who  have  left  the  known 
trials  of  Europe  for  the  vague  blessings 
of  America;  and  of  how  they  have  fared 


232] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  43 


here.  Two  striking  examples  of  this  lit- 
erature are  before  us  at  the  moment. 
Both  are  plainly  documentar>'  in  charac- 
ter, though  cast  in  the  form  of  fiction. 
Both  are  stories  of  Jewish  immigrants 
and  of  what  the  New  World  does  for 
and  to  them.  They  have  little  else  in 
common.  "Rebels"  is  a  vigorous  and 
straightforward  narrative;  "The  Mask" 
is  a  lettered  and  sophisticated  commen- 
tary on  certain  facts  put  in  evidence.  As 
its  sub-title  indicates,  "Rebels"  is  not  on 
the  whole  a  document  of  extreme  radi- 
calism— thanks,  as  it  appears,  to  the 
shocks  of  war.  The  story  of  Marie  Ganz 
has,  in  substance,  been  repeatedly  told  in 
recent  fiction.  She  is  the  daughter  of  a 
Galician  Jew  who  has  come  to  America 
to  make  a  place  for  his  wife  and  chil- 
dren. He  plies  his  pushcart  alone  until 
he  has  saved  enough  to  bring  his  family 
over  to  his  wretched  corner  in  the 
New  York  ghetto.  There  begins  the 
long  struggle  with  hunger,  cold,  and 
sickness,  ignorance  and  the  pitiless 
law.  The  white  plague  of  the  tene- 
ments presently  carries  off  the  father. 
Marie,  the  oldest  child,  must  leave  school 
to  help  her  mother  keep  the  family  alive 
and  the  poor  "home"  intact.  Eviction, 
the  terror  of  the  ghetto,  is  always  mena- 
cing. Somehow  they  rub  along.  Marie 
grows  up,  makes  friends  among  the 
young  revolutionaries  of  the  city.  Their 
bitterness  against  want  and  against 
riches  expresses  itself  in  all  ways  from 
the  preaching  of  the  sober  doctrines  of 
the  old  Socialism  to  the  open  waving  of 
the  red  flag  of  violence.  Marie's  initia- 
tion comes  about  through  her  personal 
experience  in  the  sweat-shops  of  the 
East  Side.  From  a  leader  of  strikes  she 
becomes  an  advocate  of  force.  She  tries 
to  shoot  the  younger  Rockefeller  as  a 
protest  against  the  Colorado  "atrocities," 
and  against  the  capitalist  system  as  a 
■whole.  Then  comes  the  war.  Her  first 
impulse  is  to  side  with  the  pacifists  and 
obstructionists,  her  former  comrades. 
But  her  chief  friend,  her  "pal,"  an  edu- 
cated man,  turns  her  thoughts  and  her 
gratitude  for  the  first  time  towards  the 
land  that  has,  after  all,  in  some  measure 
protected  and  developed  her.  She  sees 
the  larger  issues  involved,  and  joins  her 
neighbors  of  the  ghetto  in  their  zealous 
enlistment  in  the  cause  of  America  and 
of  the  world.  And,  the  war  over,  we  see 
her  preparing  to  "go  back  into  the  old 
fight  to  better  the  lives  of  our  people,  but 
there  is  to  be  no  more  violence,  no  more 
bitterness  or  hate."  In  this  glowing 
mood  of  service  and  of  good  hope  the 
narrative  ends. 

"The  Mask"  is  of  very  different  mould 
and  temper.  Our  immigrant  here  is  a 
Jew  of  the  middle  class.  But  he  seeks 
America  as  an  asylum  after  his  "better 
days"  are  over.  Chance  and  irony  turn 
him  towards  the  "City  of  Brotherly 
Love."    There  he  finds  no  friendly  hands 


outstretched;  there,  as  elsewhere,  is  a 
ghetto  in  which  his  people  may  huddle 
at  their  risk.  There  is  to  be  encountered 
a  new  poverty  and  a  deeper  squalor  and 
fresh  humiliation  at  the  hands  of  a  free 
people.  Beyond  free  schooling  for  the 
children,  there  appears  none  of  the 
boasted  benefits  of  "the  melting-pot." 
The  family,  and  despite  his  outward 
Americanization,  not  least  the  boy,  John 
Gombarov,  remain  unmelted  and  unas- 
similated.  The  boy,  we  gather  (and  here 
the  veil  of  the  autobiographer  is  care- 
lessly worn),  is,  in  the  long  run,  by  no 
means  impressed  with  the  superior  cul- 
ture or  opportunities  of  "the  new  world." 
Much  of  the  story  is  told  by  way  of  frag- 
mentary reports  of  the  conversations,  or 
monologues,  of  the  man  whom  years 
later  this  boy  has  become.  He  then  lives 
in  London,  prefers  London  to  all  other 
cities,  discourses  eloquently  of  her  per- 
fections. She  is  "the  chastely  outlined 
queen,  silver-girdled  by  the  Thames,  of 
the  kingdom  of  creative  chaos,  beside 
whom  Paris  is  an  obviously  beautiful 
woman,  and  New  York  a  parvenu  and  a 
harlot."  As  for  Philadelphia,  she  is  "a 
dowdy  housewife,  who  might  be  charm- 
ing and  respectable  if  she  did  not  so  neg- 
lect herself."  John  Gombarov,  having 
had  neither  beauty  nor  loving  kindness 
revealed  to  him  in  the  "City  of  Brotherly 
Love,"  has  willingly  proceeded  from  her 
and  from  the  America  that  contains  her, 
to  a  richer  civilization  on  his  side  of  the 
seas.  He  has  won  wisdom  from  her: 
"But  that,"  he  says,  "is  because  the  ex- 
•perience  came  after  my  boyhood  years  in 
the  Russian  woods,  and  the  contrast  made 
America  seem  like  a  hell  to  me.  Once 
you  recognize  your  environment  as  hell, 
you  can  use  that  hell's  fire  to  set  your 
imagination  aflame.  Hell  is  always  im- 
agination. It  was  only  this  clash  be- 
tween the  inner  and  the  outer  world 
which  saved  me.  And  in  this  clash  the 
wood  god  triumphed  over  Pluto."  So 
the  wood  god  flutes  it  in  a  London  res- 
taurant, by  the  lips  of  one  who  has 
learned  in  America  and  elsewhere  to 
wear  "the  mask."  Gombarov's  mask, 
"with  its  subtle  contours  of  repose  and 
irony,"  is,  we  gather,  the  best  thing  he 
has  won  from  experience. 

H.   W.   BOYNTON 

War  and  Discipline 

A  Private  in  the  Guards.    By  Stephen  Gra- 
ham.    London :     Macmillan   &  Company. 

THIS  book,  the  work  of  a  well-known 
writer  who  served  two  years  as  a  pri- 
vate in  one  of  the  most  rigidly  disci- 
plined regiments  of  the  British  army,  has 
fluttered  the  dovecotes  of  England  not  a 
little,  provoking  lively  discussion  in  the 
press,  the  inevitable  letters  to  the  Times, 
and  sundry  questions  in  the  House  of 
Commons.  The  prevalent  idea  that  Mr. 
Graham  meant  it  as  a  deliberate  attack 


on  the  British  methods  of  military  train- 
ing is  (we  believe)  quite  mistaken.  For 
the  miracle  of  the  book  is  that  the  super- 
sensitive author  seems  to  have  convinced 
himself  that  the  more  or  less  "brutal" 
practices  he  describes  are  essential  to  the 
turning  out  of  a  good  soldier.  "The 
sterner  the  discipline,  the  better  is  the 
soldier,  the  better  the  army,"  is  Mr.  Gra- 
ham's opening  sentence.  The  attack,  if  it 
exists,  is  on  war  and  militarism  in  them- 
selves, not  on  what  Mr.  Graham  con- 
ceives (erroneously,  as  we  may  hope)  to 
be  their  inevitable  concomitants.  And  it 
bears  no  mark  of  rancor. 

Few  readers  of  Mr.  Graham's  previous 
books  would  have  been  astonished  if  he 
had  turned  out  a  really  conscientious 
C.  0. ;  fewer  still  will  find  it  strange  that 
he  was  not  among  the  volunteers  in  the 
early  stages  of  the  war.  He  says  of  him- 
self he  was  "of  a  Christian  temperament 
and  more  ready  to  be  killed  than  to  kill." 
As  a  sergeant  put  it:   "You're  too  soft." 

When,  however,  the  call  came  to  men  of 
his  age,  he  decided  (doubtless  after  a 
soul-searching  struggle)  that  he  could 
take  no  step  to  evade  the  common  lot  of 
British  manhood.  He  chose,  too,  to  take 
his  medicine  in  its  bitterest  form,  join- 
ing the  Scots  Guards,  supposed  to  be  the 
most  pitiless  "factory"  for  breaking 
down  the  civilian  and  building  him  up 
again  as  a  soldier.  The  training  at 
"Little  Sparta"  (Caterham)  had  in  se- 
verity probably  no  parallel  short  of 
Potsdam.  He  steadfastly  refused  all  op- 
portunities of  a  commission  or  even  of  a  i 
lance-corporal's  stripe. 

An  immense  gulf  seems  to  separate  the  man 
who  wrote  from  the  man  who  shoulders  the 
rifle.  It  is  as  if  he  had  died  .  .  .  and  then 
been  born  again  as  a  soldier.  Each  new  man 
posted  to  the  battalion  is  posted  to  the  his- 
torical and  spiritual  inheritance  of  the  bat- 
talion also  .  .  .  the  spirit  is  born  of  many  suf- 
ferings and  endless  patience. 

It  would  almost  seem  as  if  Mr.  Gra- 
ham's career  in  the  British  army  was 
really  his  first  intimate  contact  with  the 
ordinary  man  of  the  twentieth  century. 
In  his  intercourse  with  his  beloved  Rus- 
sian peasants  he  had  certainly  faced  an 
extremity   of   physical   discomfort  that 
would  have  daunted  most  men ;  but  all  i 
this  happened  in  a  mystical  twilight  bor- 
derland of  primitive  humanity  where  it 
was  possible  for  the  poet  to  walk,  head 
erect,   in  a  continuous    atmosphere    of 
haze  and  glamour.     Among  the  "Jocks" 
he  had  to  face  the  real  thing.    His  funda- 
mental antipathy  to  war  led  him  (as  it 
has  led  so  many  others)  to  deny  the  pos- 
sibility of  any  fine  shades  in  the  methodj 
of  carrying  it  on,  and  so  (by  a  natura 
step)    to  accept   all  the  pitilessness  oi 
training  as  inevitable.     His  logic  seem.' 
to  be  that  war  is  so  unspeakably  horribli 
that  horrible  methods  alone  can  make  it: 
instruments    efficient.    These    "brutali 
ties"    he    has    probably    tended    unconj 
(Continued  on  page  234) 


March  6,   1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[283 


Niag"ara'&<  Rival  /or 


Dependable  Pd!^r"; 


32  Years 

Behind 

Them! 

The  sturdiness  of  C-W  motors 
is  traditional.  Under  the 
severest  conditions  of  service 
these  motors  have  stood  up 
unflinchingly  and  with  the 
minimum  of  attention  and 
repairs. 


hnslJenl 


Crocker- Wheeler  Co. 

Ampere,  N.  J. 


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284] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  43 


(Continued  from  page  282) 
sciously  to  exaggerate,  taking  (e.  g.)  a 
too  literal  and  serious  view  of  the  "con- 
ventional" side  of  much  of  the  vile  lan- 
guage used  in  handling  recruits.  Per- 
haps, too,  he  misses  some  of  its  coarsely 
"humorous"  intention.  Mr.  Graham's 
enthusiastic  esprit  de  corps  and  almost 
naive  belief  in  the  superiority  of  the 
Guards  facilitate  his  acceptance  of  their 
extraordinarily  ruthless  system  of  train- 
ing; but  the  success  of  other  units, 
trained  on  milder  and  more  modem  lines, 
gives  us  some  right  to  hope  that  this 
phenomenal  severity  is  merely  a  bastion 
of  outworn  tradition.  Records  captured 
on  the  field  show  that  (at  least  in  one 
section  and  at  one  period)  the  Germans 
ranked  a  Territorial  Division  as  their 
most  formidable  opponents,  with  Domin- 
ion and  Kitchener  formations  in  the 
second  and  third  places.  One  would  cer- 
tainly like  to  believe  that  ultimate 
success  was  in  large  part  due  to  the 
superiority  of  more  humane  and  less 
mechanical  treatment  of  the  private 
soldier. 

As  a  book  this  shows  Mr.  Graham  at 
his  best — perhaps  as  a  sadder  and  a 
wiser  man,  who  has  added  knowledge  of 
the  common  world  to  his  insight  into  the 
spiritual  mysteries.  The  description  of 
the  Joy  Dance  at  Marchiennes,  the  spiri- 
tual interpretation  of  military  ritual, 
the  characterization  of  the  various  N.  C. 
O.'s,  the  march  into  Germany  behind  the 
pipers,  are  all  pure  delight.  Americans 
will  find  many  interesting  references, 
chiefly  complimentary,  to  the  American 
members  of  the  battalion.  The  author 
has,  of  course,  much  to  say  of  the  Brit- 
ish officer,  the  verdict,  on  the  whole,  being 
favorable  as  to  his  gift  of  leadership 
and  his  cordial  understanding  with  his 
men.  He  has  no  sympathy  for  the  view 
that  he  is  really  less  useful  than  the  N. 
C.  O.  His  remarks  on  the  chaplains  are 
also  significant. 

As  might  easily  be  guessed,  Mr.  Gra- 
ham's anomalous  position  somewhat  puz- 
zled his  chums.  Some  of  his  officers  had 
read  his  books;  he  was  entrusted  with 
the  preparation  of  the  Battalion  Records ; 
he  gave  lectures;  he  was  called  out  of 
the  ranks  to  be  presented  to  the  King. 
One  barrack  friendship  was  based  on 
the  fact  that  the  other  man  remembered 
waiting  on  Mr.  Graham  at  a  fashionable 
dinner.  One  day  he  sat  at  table  beside 
an  English  princess;  the  next  he  was  on 
sentry-go  at  Buckingham  Palace,  meas- 
uring his  to-and-fro  marching  by  re- 
peating Gray's  Elegy — two  lines  up  and 
two  lines  back  again. 

Mr.  Graham  does  not  gloze  over  the 
horrors  of  war,  and  some  of  his  inci- 
dents are  gruesome  indeed.  There  is  no 
flavor  of  Kiplingesque  rhetoric  about 
him,  but  he  can  write  that  "no  matter 
what  blunders  our  leaders  made,  the 
common  soldier  always  felt   the   Cause 


was  good."  He  has  no  illusions  as  to 
where  the  real  guilt  lay ;  he  does  not  be- 
long to  the  six-of-one  and  half-a-dozen- 
of-the-other  school.  His  account  of  how 
the  British  hate  of  the  German  melted 
away  under  the  rays  of  peace  is  signifi- 
cant. 

"How  do  you  account  for  it?"  I  asked  the 
sergeant.  "If  any  hated  the  Germans  more 
rutlilessly  than  others,  it  was  you."  "Well,  I 
don't  know;  they  just  knock  us  off  our  Gawd- 
damned  feet." 

The  first  chapter,  on  Discipline,  is  a 
noble  piece  of  English  prose,  well  worthy 
of  general  reading.  It  is  hardly  fair  to 
mutilate  it  by  quotation,  but  this  pas- 
sage is  characteristic: 

If  we  had  all  understood  Christianity  as 
Tolstoy  understood  it,  Germany  would  have 
won.  If  we  had  all  been  merely  brave  and 
gone  out  to  fight  moved  by  the  Spirit,  we 
should  probably  have  lost.  These  facts  we 
knew,  and  aUhough  the  seeming  defeat  of  the 
ideal  might  have  been  more  glorious  and  even 
more  serviceable  to  humanity  as  a  whole  than 
the  prolonged  conflict,  we  chose  to  fight  Ger- 
many in  Germany's  way What  our  men 

of  all  ages,  professions,  and  temperaments  had 
to  go  through  to  become  soldiers !  And  then 
how  stern  and  choiceless  the  road  to  victory 
and  death  I 

J.  F.  M. 

The  Run  of  the  Shelves 

SURVEYING  the  welter  of  the  world. 
Professor  Leacock  says: 

"This  is  a  time  such  as  there  never  was 
before.  It  represents  a  vast  social  trans- 
formation in  which  there  is  at  stake,  and 
may  be  lost,  all  that  has  been  gained  in 
the  slow  centuries  of  material  progress 
and  in  which  there  may  be  achieved  some 
part  of  all  that  has  been  dreamed  in  the 
age-long  passion  for  social  justice" 
(P  13). 

The  problem  could  hardly  be  more 
succinctly  or  correctly  stated.  What  we 
call  "Western  civilization"  has  to  find 
some  way  whereby  it  may  contrive  to 
retain  the  material  fruits  of  the  "indus- 
trial revolution"  and  at  the  same  time 
establish  a  state  of  reasonable  content- 
ment on  the  part  of  the  many  stratified 
constituent  parts  of  the  industrial  or- 
ganization. Such  a  state  of  contentment 
can  result  only  when  it  is  founded  upon 
a  general  recognition  that  the  existing 
order  corresponds  to  the  dictates  of 
"social  justice."  It  is  manifest  that  we 
are  very  far  at  present  from  entertain- 
ing any  such  idea  concerning  the  "exist- 
ing order" — therefore  the  problem  is  to 
discover  wherein  the  "existing  order"  is 
wrong  and  wherein  we  are  wrong  in  our 
ideas  with  regard  to  it.  This  is  the  sub- 
ject of  Mr.  Leacock's  book,  "The  Un- 
solved Riddle  of  Social  Justice"  (Lane). 

We  are  to-day  in  a  position  somewhere 
between  that  of  the  "Manchester  School" 
and  that  representing  the  Socialist  idea. 
Professor     Leacock     rejects     both     the 


"Manchester  School"  and  "Socialism"  as 
exemplars  of  the  ideal  social  order,  the 
former  because  it  has  demonstrably 
worked  badly,  and  the  latter  because  it 
will  not  work.  "On  either  side,"  he  says, 
"is  on  the  brink  of  an  abyss.  On  one 
hand  is  the  yawning  gulf  of  social 
catastrophe  represented  by  Socialism. 
On  the  other,  the  slower,  but  no  less  inev- 
itable, disaster  that  would  attend  the 
continuation  in  its  present  form  of  the 
system  under  which  we  have  lived. 
.  .  .  Somewhere  between  the  two  lies 
such  narrow  safety  as  may  be  found" 
(p.  124).  He  sees  certain  things  that 
should  be  done.  The  state  must  see  that 
there  is  work  for  all  who  are  able  and 
willing  to  do  it,  and  society  must  bear 
the  burden  of  supporting  the  sick  and  the 
infirm.  Recognizing  the  moral  value  of 
human  personality.  Professor  Leacock 
rejects  Malthusianism  in  all  its  forms 
and  the  extreme  proposal  of  eugenics. 
He  demands  for  every  child  born  into 
the  world  equality  of  opportunity.  The 
principle  of  the  minimum  wage  follows 
logically  upon  that  of  a  moral  worth  in 
personality,  as  does  that  of  legislative 
regulation  of  labor  hours.  But  "the 
chief  immediate  direction  of  social  effort 
should  be  towards  the  attempt  to  give  to 
every  human  being  in  childhood  ade- 
quate food,  clothing,  education,  and  an 
opportunity  in  life.  This  will  prove  to 
be  the  beginning  of  many  things."  These  < 
words  are  the  closing  sentences  of  his  ■ 
book. 

It  is  sound  common  sense  doctrine  that 
he  preaches,  and  for  that  reason  it  will 
be  popular  with  but  few  people  in  these 
days  of  emotional  "thinking."  The 
Bourbon  will  curse  him  for  a  "radical," 
the  radical  will  bark  "reactionary!"  at 
him,  the  "scientific"  person  will  scoff  at 
his  notions  of  "moral  worth"  in  human 
personality.  But,  if  the  world  does  win 
through,  it  may  very  well  be  in  some 
such  way  as  that  to  which  he  points. 

The  latest  number  of  the  Paris  semi- 
monthly, the  Mercure  de  France,  offers 
further   evidence   of   the   solid   way  in 
which  this  interesting  periodical,  after 
a  thirty  years'  struggle,  has  finally  es- 
tablished itself  in  public  favor,  thanks 
chiefly  to  the  fine  business  capacity  oi 
its  editor,  M.  Alfred  Vallette,  who  sacri- 
ficed   his    career    as    an     independent 
writer  in  order  to  devote  all  his  tira< 
and  energy  to  the  Mercure.    Before  19K 
each  issue  consisted  of  224  pages,  whicl 
were  reduced  to  192  during  the  war;  bu 
henceforth,  beginning  with  the  curren 
number,   there  will  be  288   pages.     M 
Vallette  states  that  though  the  Mereur 
now   offers   the   public   about  one-thir 
more  matter  than  its  principal  rivals  i 
France,  it  will  continue,  in  the  futur 
as  in  the  past,  to  do  this  at  a  cheapc 
rate  than  these  rivals. 


March  6,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[285 


New  Issue 


$2,400,000 


The  Cincinnati  Gas  &  Electric  Co. 

Six  Per  Cent.  Three -Year  Secured  Gold  Notes 


Daled  December  1.  1919. 


Due  December  1,  1922. 


Redeemable  at  the  option  of  the  Company,  as  a  whole  or  in  part,  at  any  time  on  thirty  days' 
notice,  at  101}^  on  or  before  December  1,  1920,  at  101  on  or  before  December  1,  1921,  and  at 
\OOy2  thereafter,  plus  accrued  interest. 

The  follovuing  information  is   summarized  from  a  letter  signed  by  Mr.  Charles  D.  Jones, 
President  of  the  Company: 

Property :    The  Cincinnati  Gas  &  Electric  Company  owns  the  gas  and  electric  generating  and 

distributing  systems  supplying  Cincinnati,  Ohio,  and  a  number  of  adjacent  suburban  com- 
munities. The  company  owns  one  of  the  largest  and  most  modern  electric  generating  sta- 
tions in  the  United  States,  having  a  present  installed  capacity  of  60,000  K.  W.  and  ultimate 
capacity  of  120,000  K.  W.  The  Company  is  now  installing  and  equipping  a  third  unit  of 
30,000  K.  W.,  which  will  give  an  installed  capacity  of  90,000  K.  W. 

Security:  These  notes  will  be  secured  by  deposit  of  $3,000,000  of  the  Company's  First  and 
Refunding  (now  First)  Mortgage  5%  Gold  Bonds,  which  in  turn  are  secured  by  a  first  mort- 
gage on  substantially  the  entire  properties  of  the  Company. 

Earnings :  Income  applicable  to  interest  charges  is  equal  to  over  three  and  one-quarter  times 
the  requirements  on  the  total  funded  debt  of  the  Company. 

The  Company  has  one  of  the  longest  dividend  records  of  any  corporation  in  the  United 
States,  having  paid  dividends  of  not  less  than  4%  per  annum  for  over  66  years.  The  present 
rate  of  5%  has  been  paid  since  1910.  The  market  value  of  the  stock  at  present  quotations  is 
over  $25,000,000. 

We  offer  these  note*,  when,  at  and  if 
issued,  subject  to  approval  of  counsel. 


Price  97V2  and  Interest 
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54  Wall  Street 
New  York 


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Unlocking  the  Great 
Lakes 

rHE  problem  of  opening  a  thorough- 
fare from  the  Great  Lakes  to  the 
^a  is  one  that  has  appealed  to  the  imagi- 
Ution  of  farsighted  Americans  and  Ca- 
lidians  for  several  generations.  It  has, 
I  deed,  been  partially  solved  by  succes- 
ve  enlargements  of  the  St.  Lawrence, 
lelland,  and  Sault  Ste.  Marie  canals,  and 
!  the  Erie  canal  and  its  branches,  but 
ie  governing  depth  of  the  St.  Lawrence 
;nals  is  to-day  only  14  feet,  and  of  the 
'ie  12  feet,  while  the  draught  of  mod- 


ern lake  freighters  now  exceeds  20  feet, 
and  they  are  more  than  twice  the  length 
of  most  of  the  existing  locks.  The  exist- 
ing canals  on  the  St.  Lawrence,  and  be- 
tween the  lakes  and  the  Hudson,  are,  in 
fact,  only  adapted  to  the  smaller  lake 
craft  and  barges. 

At  Sault  Ste.  Marie,  the  Poe  lock,  and 
what  are  known  as  the  Third  and  Fourth 
locks,  on  the  United  States  side,  and  the 
Canadian  lock,  have  respectively  lengths 
of  800  feet,  1,350  feet,  1,350  feet,  and  900 
feet,  and  depths  of  22  feet,  241/2  feet,  241/2 
feet  and  22  feet.  The  channels  in  St. 
Mary's  River  have  been  excavated  to  21 
feet.    The  large  lake  vessels  can,  there- 


fore, pass  freely  between  Lake  Superior, 
Lake  Huron,  and  Lake  Michigan,  and 
improvements  in  the  channels  in  the  St. 
Clair  River,  Lake  St.  Clair,  and  the 
Detroit  River,  have  also  carried  the  deep 
waterway  down  to  the  foot  of  Lake  Erie. 
Here  Canada  has  at  present  a  canal  with 
25  locks,  each  270  feet  long  and  with  a 
depth  of  14  feet,  and  is  now  building  the 
Welland  Ship  Canal,  which  is  to  have  7 
lift-locks  each  800  feet  long  and  25  feet 
deep,  with  provision  for  increase  to  30 
feet.  With  the  completion  of  this  canal, 
the  Great  Lakes  will  be  opened  for  large 
craft  from  the  head  of  Lake  Superior  to 
the  first   rapids  on   the   St.   Lawrence. 


236] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  43 


There  will  then  remain  only  the  effective 
enlargement  of  the  St.  Lawrence  canals, 
or  the  canalization  of  the  river,  to  open 
a  way  for  large  lake  craft  or  ocean-going 
vessels  between  Duluth  and  the  Atlantic 
seaboard,  the  Canadian  Government  hav- 
ing already  deepened  the  ship  channel 
below  Montreal  to  30  feet,  and  work  now 
being  well  advanced  on  a  35-foot  channel. 
At  a  public  hearing  before  the  Inter- 
national Joint  Commission  in  the  sum- 
mer of  1918,  the  Canadian  Solicitor  Gen- 
eral urged  on  behalf  of  his  Government 
the  desirability  of  the  two  neighboring 
countries  uniting  in  a  cooperative  scheme 
of  development  of  the  Upper  St.  Law- 
rence in  the  interests  of  navigation  and 
power,  and  shortly  afterward  two  mem- 
bers of  the  Canadian  Cabinet  went  to 
Washington  to  suggest  similar  action 
directly  to  the  United  States  Govern- 
ment. Nothing  was  done  at  the  time, 
probably  because  of  the  overwhelming 
demands  of  war  emergency  measures, 
but  in  March,  1919,  Congress  requested 
that  the  International  Joint  Commission 
should  investigate  the  practicability  and 
cost  of  creating  a  deep  waterway  for 
ocean-going  ships  between  Lake  Ontario 
and  Montreal,  and,  after  some  negotia- 
tion between  the  two  Governments,  the 
whole  problem  has  been  now  referred  to 
the  Commission.  This  body,  as  noted  in 
a  recent  article  in  the  Review,  is  com- 
posed of  three  Americans  and  three  Ca- 


nadians, and  is  charged,  among  other 
important  duties,  with  the  investigation 
of  just  such  questions  as  this,  more  or 
less  vitally  affecting  the  interests  of  the 
people  of  the  two  countries. 

Public  sentiment  toward  the  proposed 
development  seems  to  be,  on  the  whole, 
rather  markedly  favorable.  It  is,  perhaps, 
obvious  that  this  should  be  so  in  Canada, 
although  the  long-standing  agitation  for 
the  development  of  an  alternative  route 
to  Montreal  from  Georgian  Bay  by  way 
of  French  River,  Lake  Nipissing,  and 
the  Ottawa  River  still  has  many  warm 
advocates,  and  Western  Canadians  are 
somewhat  loath  to  support  any  project 
that  might  interfere  with  the  develop- 
ment of  the  Hudson  Bay  route;  but  one 
could  not  so  readily  anticipate  a  favor- 
able verdict  on  the  United  States  side  of 
the  boundary  for  a  waterway  which  must 
necessarily  find  its  outlet  through  for- 
eign territory.  The  fact  seems  to  be, 
however,  that  outside  the  State  of  New 
York,  where  public  sentiment  naturally 
views  with  a  degree  of  suspicion  any 
undertaking  that  might  interfere  with 
the  success  of  the  State's  own  water 
route  to  the  sea,  the  feeling  towards  the 
proposed  deep  waterway  is  remarkably 
friendly.  A  very  aggressive  Association 
to  support  the  project  was  organized 
some  months  ago  under  the  name  of  the 
Great  Lakes-St.  Lawrence  Tidewater  As- 
sociation, with  headquarters  at  Duluth; 


it  is  said  already  to  have  the  official 
endorsement  of  fourteen  States:  Illinois, 
Michigan,  Ohio,  Wisconsin,  Indiana, 
Minnesota,  Iowa,  North  Dakota,  South 
Dakota,  Montana,  Wyoming,  Idaho,  Colo- 
rado, and  Nebraska.  A  similar  body 
has  since  been  formed  on  the  Canadian 
side  under  the  name  of  the  Canadian 
Deep  Waterways  and  Power  Associatior;, 
with  headquarters  at  Windsor,  Ontario. 

At  the  meeting  of  the  National  Rivers 
and  Harbors  Congress  held  in  Washing- 
ton in  December  the  deep  waterways 
scheme  was  discussed  very  fully  from 
both  the  navigation  and  water-power 
standpoints,  and  Mr.  A.  T.  Vogelsang, 
First  Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Interior, 
devoting  himself  entirely  to  the  latter 
point  of  view,  brought  together  some 
extremely  interesting  and  significant 
figures  as  to  the  incidental  value  of  the 
waters  of  the  Upper  St.  Lawrence  when 
harnessed  for  the  production  of  power. 

It  may  be  conveniently  noted  here  that 
the  reference  to  the  Commission  contem- 
plates four  different  general  schemes  or 
methods  of  improvement:  (a)  by  means 
of  locks  and  navigation  dams  in  the 
river,  or,  in  other  words,  by  canalizing  the 
river;  (b)  by  means  of  locks  and  side 
canals  similar  to  the  existing  canals; 
(c)  by  a  combination  of  the  two  preced- 
ing methods;  and  (d)  by  means  of  locks 
and  power  dams.  The  engineers  ap- 
pointed  by   the   two   Governments   will 


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Winona,  Minn., 
December  29,   1919. 
THE  REVIEW, 
140  Nassau  St., 
New  York. 
Gentlemen : — 

We  need  such  papers  as  this  seems  to 
be.  It  is  sane  and  dignified.  Refutes  very 
logically  some  of  the  dangerous  radical 
stufif  that  is  printed. 

Wishing  you  a  prosperous  and  long 
career,  I  am 

Truly  yours, 


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THE  REVIEW 


[287 


prepare  plans  and  estimates  for  each  of 
these  alternative  schemes,  and,  on  the 
basis  of  their  reports,  supplemented  by 
information  obtained  at  public  hearings 
and  otherwise,  the  Commission  will  de- 
cide and  report  which  of  these  schemes 
will  be  the  most  practicable,  most  eco- 
nomical and  in  the  best  interests  of  the 
people  of  the  two  countries. 

As  Mr.  Vogelsang  points  out,  the 
State  of  New  York  on  one  side  and  the 
Province  of  Ontario  on  the  other  are  par- 
ticularly interested  in  the  possible  de- 
velopment of  power  from  the  Upper  St. 
Lawrence,  while  the  other  States  border- 
ing on  the  Great  Lakes  are  more  directly 
interested  in  the  creation  of  a  deep 
waterway  which  would  enable  ocean- 
going steamers  to  ply  freely  between 
lake  ports  and  ocean  ports. 

To  appreciate  the  probable  importance 
of  a  deep  waterway  from  the  Great  Lakes 
to  the  sea,  it  is  necessary  to  have  some 
idea  of  the  phenomenal  growth  of  com- 
merce on  the  Great  Lakes.     In  1850  the 
entire  volume  of  freight   on  the  Great 
Lakes   amounted   to   about   25,000   tons, 
carried  by   a  handful   of   small-draught 
vessels.     In  1916  there  were  37,852  pas- 
sages   of   vessels    through    the    Detroit 
River,  with  a  registered  tonnage  of  over 
76,000,000,  carrying  one  hundred  million 
tons  of  freight  of  an  estimated  value  of 
something    over    $1,000,000,000.     These 
totals  were  slightly  reduced  in  1917  and 
1918,  owing  to  causes  arising  out  of  the 
war,  but  there  are   already   indications 
that  they  will  be  greatly  exceeded  within 
the  next  few  years.    What  proportion  of 
i:his  enormous  traffic,  many  times  greater 
;;han  that  annually  passing  through  the 
Suez  Canal,  would  find  its  way  to  and 
'rom  the  seaboard  by  way  of  the   St. 
L,awrence  is  a  moot  point  on  which  there 
ire  very  wide  differences  of  opinion.  But 
lis  a  large  percentage  of  both  eastbound 
ind  westbound  traffic  is  at  present  sub- 
ect  to    transshipment    at    Buffalo    and 
)ther  ports  on   the   lower   lakes,   there 
vould  seem  to  be  more  than  sufficient 
raffic  available  for  a  route  that  would 
nable  shipments   to   be   made   without 
ireaking  bulk  to  offset  the  cost  of  the 
reposed  waterway. 

L.  J.  B. 

'  Books  and  the  News 
Mr.  Wilson 

yEW  books  are  written  about  an 
.  American  President  which  are  not 
ritten  by  admirers.  The  opponents  ex- 
ress  themselves  in  speeches,  in  articles 
i  newspapers  or  periodicals;  the  books 
■e  written  by  friends.  The  bound  vol- 
jnes  about  President  Wilson  fill  about 
ilf  a  shelf  in  the  average  library,  and 
obably  there  is  not  one  which  he  would 
it  read  with  pleasure.    The  same  holds 


true  of  the  larger  number  of  volumes 
which  have  collected  about  Mr.  Roosevelt. 
He  was  subjected  to  attack  which  for 
bitterness  makes  all  that  has  ever  been 
said  about  President  Wilson  sound  like 
a  symphony  of  praise,  but  only  a  trifle  of 
it  got  between  the  covers  of  bound  vol- 
umes. In  two  full  shelves  one  may  find 
only  one  or  two  insignificant  volumes  of 
abuse. 

The  following  books  about  the  Presi- 
dent are  all  recent ;  many  of  them  are  by 
foreign  writers.  Campaign  biographies, 
and  the  faithful  press-agent  work  of  Mr. 
Creel,  are  not  mentioned: 

H.  Wilson  Harris's  "President  Wilson" 
(Headley  Bros.,  1917)  is  a  little  out  of 
date  now,  but  it  is  interesting  as  an 
English  commentary  upon  American  pol- 
itics, and  as  a  biography  which  has  been 
drawn  upon  by  two  or  three  other 
writers,  English  and  European.  A. 
Maurice  Low  can  hardly  be  classed  as  a 
foreigner;  his  "Woodrow  Wilson;  an 
Interpretation"  (Little,  1918)  is  a  skillful 
defense  of  Mr.  Wilson's  foreign  policy. 
A  brief  book,  with  one  English  view  is 
William  Archer's  "The  Peace  President" 
(Holt,  1919).  Daniel  Halevy's  "Presi- 
dent Wilson"  (Lane,  1919)  has  been 
translated  from  the  French  by  Hugh 
Stokes.  It  represents  a  French  opinion 
probably  more  favorable  than  that  of  the 
average  European  writer.  A  Swedish 
admirer,  who  responds  to  the  religious 
appeal,  is  Lars  P.  Nelson,  author  of 
"President  Wilson;  The  World's  Peace- 
Maker"   (Norstedt,  Stockholm,  1919). 

Two  American  books,  both  published 
in  1916,  when  an  election  was  approach- 
ing, yet  hardly  to  be  called  campaign 
biographies,  are  Henry  J.  Ford's  "Wood- 
row  Wilson;  the  Man  and  His  Work" 
(Appleton,  1916)  and  Eugene  C.  Brooks' 
"Woodrow  Wilson  as  President"  (Row, 
Peterson,  1916).  Of  these,  Professor 
Ford's  is  the  more  important;  one  of 
the  best  biographies  published  up  to 
that  time.  Professor  Brooks'  is  a  fat 
volume,  fortified  with  Mr.  Wilson's 
speeches. 

Professor  George  D.  Herron  wrote,  in 
1917,  "Woodrow  Wilson  and  the  World's 
Peace"  (Kennerley),  a  series  of  essays 
during  the  war,  and,  of  course,  without 
reference  to  the  Peace  Conference.  Mr. 
Ray  Stannard  Baker,  author  of  "What 
Wilson  Did  at  Paris"  (Doubleday,  1919) 
was  formerly  one  of  the  writers  whose 
method  in  approaching  the  President 
was  to: 

Weave   a   circle   round   him   thrice 
And  close  your  eyes  in  holy  dread. 

But  there  is  not  so  much  of  this  in  his 
present  little  sketch.  He  makes  such 
statements  as  that  the  President  con- 
sulted freely  with  his  advisers,  but  he 
makes  them  calmly.  It  is  the  book  of  an 
idolator,  but  it  is  an  interesting  book. 
Edmund  Lester  Pearson 


A    Short    History  of   Belgium 

A 

FASCINATING 
STORY 

It  tells  how  Belgium  became  a  nation 
and  relates 

Her  Part  In 
The  Great  War 

Written  by  a  Belgian  historian  LEON 
VAN  DER  ESSEN  of  the  University  of 
Louvain 

If  you  would  understand  the  reasons  for 
the  heroic  part  Belgium  played  in  the  world 
war,  learn  something  of  the  history  of  this 
brave  nation. 

It  was  this  glorious  past  that  inspired  the 
little  Belgian  army  to  fling  itself  against 
the  might  of  all  Germany.  Red-blooded 
Americans  will  read  this  vivid  narrative  of 
Belgium's  history  with  pleasure. 

New,  Enlarged  Edition,  $1.50;  poatpaid,  $1.65 

INTRODUCTION   TO   THE 
PEACE   TREATIES 
By  ARTHUR  PEARSON  SCOTT,  As- 
sistant Professor  of  History,  University 
of  Chicago. 

This  book  will  give  you  an  understanding 
of  the  causes,  elements,  and  purposes  of  the 
negotiations  during  and  after  the  great  war. 
It  is  a  comprehensive  explanation  of  the 
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ested in  their  country's  welfare.  Ready  in 
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THE    NEW   ITALIAN   SERIES 

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WILKINS  and  RUDOLPH  ALTROCCHI.  150 
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238] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  43 


What  Theodore  Roosevelt  and  the  Kaiser  talked  about 
ten  years  ago  is  told  in  the  Colonel's  own  words,  in  the 
March  number  of  Scribner's  Magazine.  He  calls  the 
Kaiser  "A  curious  combination  of  power,  energy,  ego- 
tism, and  restless  desire  to  do,  and  seem  to  do,  things"; 
and  adds,  "there  were  many  points  in  international 
morality  where  he  and  I  were  completely  asunder." 
^  John  Fox's  last  novel,  "Erskine  Dale — Pioneer,"  con- 
tains a  remarkable  horse  race  in  this  number.  ^  Gen- 
eral Charles  H.  Sherrill  recently  visited  Korea  and 
Shantung.  He  says  in  the  March  Scribner's  that  the 
United  States  should  try  to  see  the  Japanese  point  of 
view.  ^  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  is  portrayed  sym- 
pathetically by  his  very  old  friend.  Sir  Sidney  Colvin. 
^  The  Turkish  situation  and  Armenia  are  discussed  by 
Major  E.  Alexander  Powell.  ^  Professor  Laughlin  says 
that  a  change  in  the  state  of  mind  of  the  laboring  man  is 
necessary  for  a  true  solution  of  the  Labor  Problem. 
Q  Judge  Stafford  has  an  eloquent  plea  for  the  college 
man  in  public  service.  ^  A  country  governed  by  United 
States  marines,  Haiti,  is  pictured  by  Horace  Ashton. 
^  The  stories  in  the  March  number  of  Scribner's  Maga- 
zine are  by  Leonard  Wood,  Jr.  (a  son  of  the  General), 
Gordon  Arthur  Smith,  and  Ralph  D.  Paine,  all  vigor- 
ous, manly  writers.  ^  Henry  van  Dyke  in  his  third 
"Guide-Posts  and  Camp-Fires"  in  the  March  Scrib- 
ner's discusses  national  and  individual  selfishness,  with 
a  preachment  about  the  unseen  Silent  Partner.  ^  Dis- 
tinguished writers  deal  with  important  subjects  in  all 
numbers  of  Scribner's  Magazine. 


Please  mention  The  Review  in  writing  to  advertisers. 


THE  REVIEW 


Vol.  2,  No.  44 


New  York,  Saturday,  March  13,   1920 


.^1 


FIFTEEN  CENTS 


Contents 


Brief  Comment  239 

Editorial  Articles: 
'Idealism"   at   Its  Worst  241 

The   Protest  Against  the  Eighteenth 

Amendment  242 

Fighting  the  Symptoms  243 

What  Has  Come  of  "Blood  and  Iron"  244 
Welfare  or  "Hell-fare"?  245 

What  Constitutes  a  Poem?  246 

Bolshevism  in  Holland.     By  A.  J.  Bar- 

nouw  247 

The     Troubles      of     the     "Politicians' 

Union."    By  Edward  G.  Lowry  248 

Poetry: 

On  Record.    By  Richard  Burton  249 

Germany's  Future  Relations  with  East- 
ern Europe.   By  Dr.  Paul  Rohrbach  250 
Organization     in     Scientific     Research. 

By  James  Rowland  Angell  251 

Correspondence  253 

Book  Reviews: 
Roosevelt's  Imperishable  Youth  255 

All  Sorts  of  Adams's  255 

War-Time    Reactions  257 

Lessons  from  the  Progress  of  Science  258 
The  Run  of  the  Shelves  259 

Of  Woodpiles.    By  Robert  P.  Utter        260 
Music : 
The   Birthday   of  the   Infanta— D'Er- 
langer's   "Aphrodite."     By    Charles 
Henry   Meltzer  261 

Drama : 
Problem-Plays  in  New  York.     By  O. 
W.  Firkins  262 

The  Advertisees.    By  Weare  Holbrook    264 
Books  and  the  News: 
Turkey.     By  Edmund  Lester  Pearson  266 


'T'HE  President's  letter  to  Senator 
■■■  Hitchcock  is  interpreted  on  all 
sides  as  designed  to  make  the  treaty 
the  paramount  issue  of  the  Presi- 
dential campaign.  But  there  is  only 
one  way  to  make  it  the  paramount 
issue.  If  Mr.  Wilson  were  him- 
self the  candidate,  he  could  unques- 
tionably keep  it  in  the  foreground 
of  people's  thoughts.  But  even 
then  it  would  not  be  the  control- 
ling factor  in  the  election.  It  might 
be  paramount  among  the  declared 
Issues,  but  there  would  be  an  issue 
that  would  transcend  all  those  con- 
tained in  any  platform.  That  issue 
would  be  the  reelection  of  Mr.  Wilson. 
We  find  it  impossible  to  imagine  a 
majority,  or  anything  distantly  ap- 
proaching a  majority,  of  the  Ameri- 
can people  deliberately  imposing  upon 
themselves    another    four    years    of 


Wilsonian  autocracy.  The  treaty 
issue  can  not  be  paramount  without 
Wilson,  because  he  alone  can  give  it 
life;  and  it  can  not  be  paramount 
with  him  because  he  himself  would 
overshadow  it.  He  would  carry  it 
down  to  ignominious  defeat,  not  be- 
cause the  people  want  to  defeat  it,  but 
because  they  have  had  enough  of  him. 

CENATOR  JOHNSON  seems  to 
•^  have  a  real  grievance  against  the 
Minnesota  primary  law  and  its  ad- 
ministration. The  law  permits  the 
holding  of  a  primary  any  time  be- 
tween the  hours  of  2  P.  M.  and  9  P.  M., 
an  arrangement  amply  elastic  for  al- 
most any  abuse  which  the  secret  pur- 
pose of  machine  politicians  might 
devise.  The  Minnesota  Republican 
State  Committee  has  set  the  Presi- 
dential primary  for  the  single  hour 
from  7:30  to  8:30  p.  M.,  March  15, 
with  the  gracious  permission  to 
county  chairmen  to  extend  the  period 
an  additional  half  hour.  Senator 
Johnson's  comment  is,  "In  plain  lan- 
guage this  is  no  primary  at  all,  but  an 
endeavor  by  the  organization  in  con- 
trol to  disfranchise  the  Republicans 
of  Minnesota."  The  criticism  in  this 
case  is  just,  but  it  does  not  follow 
that  political  juggling  of  this  kind  is 
altogether  responsible  for  the  poor  re- 
sults, so  far,  of  the. primary  system. 
In  fact,  this  very  juggling  of  so  much 
of  our  primary  legislation  is  only  an- 
other proof  of  that  lack  of  intelligent 
popular  interest  in  nominations  with- 
out which  no  primary  system  can  ob- 
viate the  difficulty  of  getting  the 
right  sort  of  men  into  public  office. 

nPHERE  are  welcome  signs  that  the 
-■-  American  Legion  is  making  an 
earnest  effort  to  discover  where  it 
stands  on  the  "bonus"  question.  Just 
as  it  was  no  solution  of  the  matter 
last  November  to  put  it  up  to  Con- 
gress to  decide,  so  it  is  no  solu- 
tion of  the  matter  now  for  Congress 
to    say    in   effect,  "The    country    is 


too  poor  to  accommodate  you  just 
now,  but  later  on,  when  we  have  a 
little  more  money  to  spend,  you  have 
only  to  apply  again,  and  then  see 
what  we'll  do  for  you !"  The  Legion 
must  decide  now  whether  it  is  out 
for  itself  (or,  rather,  whether  it  is 
going  to  allow  itself  to  be  dominated 
by  an  element  which  is  out  for  all  it 
can  get  for  itself) ,  or  prepared  wisely 
and  energetically  to  strive  for  the 
realization  of  the  fair  promise  which 
presided  over  its  inception.  Only  if 
it  clearly  chooses  the  latter  course 
will  its  organization  be  anything  but 
a  menace  to  the  country.  Already,  it 
may  be  noticed,  the  chief  priest  of 
high  protectionism  in  the  House  is 
of  all  people  the  most  convinced  that 
the  "bonus"— the  whole  "bonus"— 
must  and  will  be  granted  at  once. 

'pHERE  is  nothing  like  figures  to 
■*■  give  an  air  of  finality  to  an  argu- 
ment, and  nothing  like  figures  to  trip 
their  own  proponent  up  if  not  used 
with  becoming  care.  We  find  the  fol- 
lowing sentence  in  last  week's  Nation, 
concerning  the  return  of  the  railroads 
to  private  management : 

According  to  Mr.  George  P.  Hampton,  direc- 
tor of  the  Farmers'  National  Council,  there 
must  be  an  increase  in  freight  rates  of  from 
25  to  40  per  cent.,  and  that  will  result  in  an 
increase  in  the  cost  of  living  of  about  $200  a 
year  per  family. 

Whether  this  $200  represents  the 
figuring  of  the  Nation  or  of  Mr. 
Hampton,  is  a  little  uncertain,  but  the 
Nation  apparently  accepts  it,  in  any 
case.  Let  us  look  at  it:  $200  per 
family  means  a  total  increase  in  liv- 
ing cost  of  about  $5,000,000,000.  Set- 
ting off  one-third  for  extra  profits 
taken  by  dealers  on  the  score  of  in- 
creased freights,  the  freight  carriers 
would  have  $3,333,000,000  left,  in 
round  numbers,  or  just  about  what 
the  figures  of  the  railroad  administra- 
tion give  as  the  grand  total  of  freight 
receipts  for  1919.  To  make  the 
Nation's- figures  fit  into  the  actual 
facts  of  freight  receipts,  we  must  as- 


240] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  U 


sume  that  for  every  dollar  added  in 
freight  charges,  there  would  be  added 
a  charge  of  about  five  dollars  to  the 
consumer.  But  what  pleasure  would 
there  be  in  editing  a  journal  of  opin- 
ion, and  upholding  unlimited  freedom 
of  speech,  if  one  were  not  free 
enough  to  make  such  an  assumption 
as  that? 

TF  strong  measures  against  the 
■'■  Turks  are  justified  by  the  recent 
massacres  in  Marash,  there  should 
never  have  been  any  question  of  len- 
iency towards  them.  For  the  late 
outrages  were  only  child's  play  com- 
pared to  the  wholesale  extermination 
of  more  than  half  the  Armenian 
people  which  was  perpetrated  during 
the  war.  This  policy  of  fits  and 
starts,  determined  by  Turkish  provo- 
cation and  submission  rather  than  by 
principles  of  international  justice,  is 
bound  to  defeat  the  ends  which  the 
Entente  professes  to  have  in  view. 
The  Turks,  from  long  experience, 
know  exactly  how  to  steer  their  de- 
vious course  against  these  intermit- 
tent blasts  of  western  indignation. 
They  will  humbly  submit  and  promise 
to  mend  their  ways,  well  knowing 
how  easy  it  is  to  placate  a  group  of 
Powers  which  desire  nothing  better 
than  to  be  placated,  as  each  is  afraid 
lest  the  problem  how  to  dispose  of 
Constantinople  after  the  expulsion  of 
the  Sultan  should  lead  to  interna- 
tional friction  more  dangerous  to 
the  rest  of  Europe  than  any  patched- 
up  compromise  with  the  Sublime 
Porte. 

fpHE  article  by  Dr.  Paul  Rohrbach 
■■•  which  appears  in  this  week's  issue 
of  the  Revieic  is  valuable  and  illumi- 
nating, not  only  because  it  gives  the 
German  point  of  view,  but  because  it 
sets  forth  a  number  of  fundamental 
facts  of  the  political  and  economic 
situation  in  Eastern  Europe  that  can 
not  be  dodged,  despite  the  unpleasant 
conclusions  to  which  they  point.  Un- 
erringly he  tears  the  mask  from  the 
legend  of  the  Greater  Poland  and 
shows  how  completely  doomed  to  fail- 
ure must  be  the  efforts  to  build  up  a 
buffer  state  between  Germany  and 
Russia  within  the  boundaries  of  the 
Poland  of  1772.    Such  a  state  would 


contain  elements  of  weakness  of  such 
a  character  that  they  would  undoubt- 
edly lead  eventually  to  a  Fourth  Par- 
tition. 

r\R.  ROHRBACH'S  analysis  of  the 
■■--'  present  attitude  of  Russians 
toward  Germany  is  undoubtedly  accu- 
rate. On  the  other  hand,  his  inter- 
pretation of  certain  other  factors  in 
the  Russian  situation  shows  some 
noteworthy  misinformation.  He  ex- 
aggerates the  proportion  of  non-Rus- 
sian elements  in  the  Russian  Empire 
and  the  extent  of  their  separatist 
nationalism.  Especially  is  this  the 
case  with  reference  to  the  Ukraine. 
His  conclusion  that  Great  Russia, 
shorn  of  her  border  Provinces,  will 
continue  to  exist  as  a  sort  of  peasant 
republic  seems  to  be  the  result  rather 
of  his  desire  than  of  a  careful  study 
of  the  history  and  psychology  of  the 
Russian  people.  In  this  matter,  the 
writer  falls  into  the  all-too-common 
error  of  assuming  to  voice  the  senti- 
ments of  the  inarticulate  peasant 
masses.  What  is  only  too  true  is  that 
the  Balkanization  of  Eastern  Europe 
has  created  a  series  of  petty  States 
which,  while  they  may  maintain  the 
outward  semblance  of  political  inde- 
pendence, must,  sooner  or  later,  in- 
evitably fall  under  the  economic 
domination  of  Germany. 

Recalling  Dr.  Rohrbach's  profound 
studies  of  Russia,  and  the  fact  that  he 
has  in  the  past  been  one  of  the  great- 
est exponents  of  German  expansion, 
particularly  in  the  East,  one  is  led  to 
inquire  whether  he  is  entirely  candid 
in  the  statement  of  his  belief  that  a 
Russia  now  broken  up  will  not  regain 
its  unity  and  power.  He  can  scarcely 
have  recanted  so  quickly,  and  his 
present  views  can  not  be  regarded 
apart  from  his  well-known  and  fre- 
quently expressed  opinions.  Dr. 
Rohrbach  knows  better  than  anyone 
else  that  only  a  powerful  Germany 
could  overcome  the  natural  forces 
making  for  cohesion  in  Russia.  Find- 
ing herself  incapable  of  achieving  this 
dismemberment  by  force,  does  it  not 
seem  likely  that  Germany  will  at- 
tempt it  by  keeping  alive  the  fires  of 
dissension  and  separatism?  The 
propagation  of  such  ideas  in  the 
Allied  countries,  therefore,  may  not 

1 


be  wholly  foreign  to  Dr.  Rohrbach's 
purpose. 

JPXCELLENT  progress  has  been 
^  made  by  the  Woman's  Roosevelt 
Memorial  Association  in  the  work  of 
restoring,  and  opening  to  the  public 
use,  the  Roosevelt  birthplace  at  28 
East  20th  Street,  New  York.  The 
house,  together  with  number  26,  next 
door,  has  been  purchased,  and  plans 
for  making  of  the  two  a  single  monu- 
mental building  which  shall  perpetu- 
ate the  atmosphere  of  an  unpreten- 
tious city  home  of  the  middle  of  the 
last  century  are  well  under  way.  Be- 
tween the  spacious  Colonial  mansion 
of  George  Washington  and  the  pio- 
neer cabin  of  Lincoln  there  is  room 
in  America  for  such  a  shrine  as  this ; 
not  a  place  for  losing  oneself  in  a 
reverent  "O  altitudo!" — Roosevelt 
himself  would  be  the  last  to  desire 
that — but  a  place  amid  whose  books 
and  portraits  citizens  of  all  ages  may 
take  heart  of  grace  to  search  yet  more 
deeply  into  what  it  means  to  be  an 
American.  Some  money  is  still  de- 
sired, to  complete  the  work  of  resto- 
ration and  to  provide  for  mainte- 
nance. Opportunities  for  the  country 
to  purchase  so  much  potential  good 
for  so  little  present  cash  are  not 
many.  Contributions  may  be  sent  to 
the  Woman's  Roosevelt  Memorial  As- 
sociation, No.  1  East  Fifty-seventh 
Street,  New  York. 

A  N  interesting  and  novel  suggestion 
-^*-  in  President  Lowell's  recent  an- 
nual report  was  that  of  the  inaugura- 
tion of  some  system  by  which  teachers 
at  Harvard  may  be  relieved  of  at 
least  a  part  of  their  classroom  duties, 
for  a  year  or  more,  for  the  express 
purpose  of  preparing  for  publication 
the  results  of  their  special  studies. 
He  gives  warning,  however,  in  mak- 
ing the  suggestion,  that  the  number 
thus  helped  to  write  must  be  very 
limited,  and  that  the  humanly  imper- 
fect wisdom  which  is  alone  avail- 
able for  making  selections  is  sure  to 
result  in  many  disappointments.  Fur- 
thermore, resources  are  not  limitless, 
and  if  departments  insist  on  multi- 
plying courses,  relief  from  teach- 
ing in  order  to  promote  production 
will  hardly  be  a  possibility. 


March  13,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[241 


"Idealism"  at  its 
Worst 

rpHERE  is  a  great  deal  of  fine  senti- 
■■■  ment  in  Mr.  Wilson's  letter  to 
Senator  Hitchcock.  There  is  even  a 
great  deal  of  really  moving  language. 
But  there  is  not  a  trace  of  recognition 
of  the  duty  w^hich  is  laid  upon  him  by 
the  situation  that  he  actually  con- 
fronts. Not  one  ray  of  light  does  the 
letter  shed  on  the  question  whether 
our  country  and  the  vv^orld  would  be 
better  off  if  the  treaty  were  ratified  in 
the  only  way  in  which  it  can  be  rati- 
fied, or  if  the  treaty  were  rejected. 
And  that  is  the  only  question  which, 
as  President  of  the  United  States  in 
this  month  of  March,  1920,  he  is 
called  upon  to  decide. 

The  assertion  is,  indeed,  made  with 
an  abundance  of  rhetorical  emphasis 
that  America  would  do  better  to  keep 
out  altogether  than  to  go  in  with  res- 
ervations.    But    on    what    kind    of 
grounds    does    the    assertion    rest? 
There  is  not  one  of  them  that  can 
stand  a  moment's  calm  examination. 
iThe  President  tells  us,  for  instance, 
ithat  he  is  compelled  to  act  as  he  does 
;  because  otherwise  he  "could  not  look 
the  soldiers  of  our  gallant  armies  in 
the  face,"  since  "it  was  to  this  cause 
the  cause  of  Article  X  !]  they  deemed 
'hemselves  devoted  in  a  spirit  of  cru- 
saders."    Everybody  knows  that,  so 
ar  as  regards  all  but  a  minute  frac- 
ion  of  our  two  million  fighting  boys, 
his  is  pure  balderdash. 
'    Take,  again,  what  the   President 

s  about  the  attitude  of  the  Allied 

ions : 

must  not  be  forgotten.  Senator,  that  this 
'e  constitutes  a  renunciation  of  wrong  am- 
n  on  the  part  of  powerful  nations  with 
m  we  were  associated  in  the  war.  It  is 
;o  means  certain  that  without  this  article 
such  renunciation  will  take  place. 

body  proposes  to  cut  out  Article  X, 

far    as    "renunciation"    is    con- 

.-^rned.    In  so  far  as  the  Article  pro- 

'ides  that  the  members  of  the  League 

lall  respect  the  territorial  integrity 

nd  political  independence  of  all  its 

embers,    no    reservation    that    has 

n  proposed  in  the  Senate  weakens 

le  obligation  in  the  least.    It  is  only 

relation  to  the  means  to  be  used 

this  country  to  preserve  that  in- 

i  ity  and  independence  that  the  res- 


ervations are  of  any  effect.  If  the 
Allied  Powers  are  really  on  the  watch 
to  fly  at  one  another's  throats,  as  the 
President  so  strongly  implies,  and  if 
their  pledge  to  refrain  from  so  doing 
is  in  itself  worthless,  the  degree  of 
protection  afforded  by  a  blanket 
promise  that  the  United  States  will 
force  them  to  desist — a  promise  which 
the  President  admits  must  depend  for 
its  performance  upon  the  will  of  the 
American  Congress  at  the  time — 
must  certainly  be  but  a  slender  reli- 
ance. Our  country's  participation  in 
the  League— Article  X,  or  no  Article 
X,  reservation  or  no  reservation — 
would,  in  the  nature  of  things,  be  a 
mighty  factor  in  averting  such  evils ; 
but  if  it  were  not  so  in  the  nature  of 
things,  it  would  not  be  made  so  by 
the  presence  or  absence  of  a  phrase. 

Mr.  Wilson  says  that,  with  Article 
X  weakened,  the  League  of  Nations 
"might  be  hardly  more  than  a  futile 
scrap  of  paper,  as  ineffective  in  op- 
eration as  the  agreement  between 
Belgium  and  Germany  which  the 
Germans  violated  in  1914."  Surely 
this  is  a  most  unfortunate  parallel. 
It  was  not  owing  to  any  defect  in  the 
wording  of  the  treaty  guaranteeing 
the  neutrality  of  Belgium  that  that 
document  became  "a  futile  scrap  of 
paper."  If  the  League  is  not  backed 
by  the  spirit  of  the  nations  that  com- 
pose it,  the  letter  of  the  Covenant 
will  be  quite  impotent  to  make  it  a 
potent  reality. 

The  President  is  not  content  with 
failing  to  say  a  single  word  calcu- 
lated to  illuminate  the  subject,  or  to 
clear  up  the  practical  difficulties  of 
the  situation  that  confronts  him.  He 
hits  right  and  left  at  real  and  imagi- 
nary enemies.  He  tells  us  that  "every 
imperialistic  influence  in  Europe  was 
hostile  to  the  embodiment  of  Article 
X  in  the  Covenant  of  the  League  of 
Nations."  This  will  be  news  to  at 
least  the  majority  of  the  American 
public.  In  Mr.  Ray  Stannard  Baker's 
panegyric  on  "What  Wilson  Did  at 
Paris,"  a  little  book  chiefly  devoted 
to  showing  the  difficulties  which  the 
President  overcame,  we  find  nothing 
about  opposition  to  Article  X.  Was 
England  opposed  to  it  ?  Was  France  ? 
Did  either  of  these  countries,  or  any 
of  their  statesmen,  entertain  so  des- 


perate a  longing  to  snatch  territory 
from  their  fellow  members  of  the 
League  that  for  the  sake  of  the  op- 
portunity to  do  so  they  wished  to 
refuse  the  protection  of  their  own  ter- 
ritories which  Article  X  undertook 
to  provide? 

Coming  nearer  home,  Mr.  Wilson 
indulges  not  only  in  a  peculiarly  con- 
temptuous characterization  of  reser- 
vationists  in  general,  but,  towards 
the  end  of  his  letter,  takes  pains  to 
make  an  especially  vicious  dab  at  the 
mild  reservationists.  "I  can  not  un- 
derstand," he  says,  "the  difference  be- 
tween a  nullifier  and  a  mild  nullifier." 
Such  is  the  recognition  which  he 
gives  to  a  group  of  men  who  have 
labored  in  season  and  out  of  season 
to  save  the  treaty  with  as  little  im- 
pairment as  possible.  Both  from  the 
standpoint  of  intellectual  merit  and 
from  that  of  a  respect  for  the  decen- 
cies of  human  relations,  there  is  in 
this  short  and  easy  dismissal  of  the 
mild  reservationists  a  strong  re- 
minder of  the  President's  recent  be- 
havior toward  Secretary  Lansing. 

The  President  does  not  absolutely 
declare  that  he  will  reject  the  treaty 
if  the  Senate  ratifies  it  with  reserva- 
tions that  are  not  to  his  liking.    He 
comes  as  near  that  as  possible  with- 
out actually  saying  it.    It  is  conceiv- 
able that  the  letter  is  a  last  desperate 
effort  to  preserve  Article  X  without 
serious  reservation,  and  that  having 
made  this  effort  the  President  will,  if 
the  treaty   comes  before   him,   still 
regard  the  question  open.    This  seems 
extremely  improbable;  yet  it  is  not 
absolutely  out  of  the  question.    If  the 
Democratic  Senators  could  rise  to  the 
height  of  their  duty,  they  would  do 
what  they  think  is  right  and  let  the 
President  shoulder  the  responsibility 
for  the  final  fate  of  the  treaty.    We 
earnestly  hope  that  this  may  yet  hap- 
pen, improbable  as  it  seems.     If  it 
does,  Mr.  Wilson  will  be  confronted 
with  one  of  the  most  awful  responsi- 
bilities that  any  man  has  ever  faced. 
May  that  love  of  righteousness,  and 
that  lofty  sense  of  duty,  which  he 
constantly  protests  so  solemnly,  pro- 
tect him,  not  against  the  \\ickedness 
of  the  outside  world,  but  against  the 
promptings  of  his  own  arrogant  self- 
sufficiency  ! 


242] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  44 


The    Protest    Against 

the    Eighteenth 

Amendment 

THE  protest  against  national  pro- 
hibition by  Constitutional  Amend- 
ment has  begun  to  assume  large 
dimensions.  The  first  important  sign 
of  it  was  the  Ohio  election  in  Novem- 
ber. Shortly  after  this  came  Rhode 
Island's  manful  and  impressive  asser- 
tion of  the  fundamental  principles  of 
our  Federal  Government.  Governor 
Edwards'  aggressive  campaign,  vig- 
orously followed  up  after  his  installa- 
tion in  office,  next  attracted  the  atten- 
tion of  the  country.  In  his  message 
to  the  New  York  Legislature  at  the 
beginning  of  this  year.  Governor 
Smith  gave  a  leading  place  to  his  pro- 
posal of  a  State  referendum  on  the 
subject.  The  town  elections  in  Ver- 
mont and  Massachusetts  last  week 
showed,  as  many  town  elections  in 
New  England  had  done  in  November, 
the  existence  of  a  strong  sentiment 
of  dissent  from  the  prohibition  re- 
gime. And  finally  there  comes  the 
prospective  inquiry  at  Albany  into 
the  methods  of  the  Anti- Saloon 
League,  which  bids  fair  to  focus  the 
attention  of  the  nation  upon  an  aspect 
of  the  story  which  may  not  unreason- 
ably be  accounted  as  important  as 
any. 

To  the  Review  these  signs  that  the 
nation  is  awakening  to  the  serious- 
ness of  the  issue,  even  if  too  late  for 
any  immediate  practical  result,  are 
extremely  welcome.  In  one  of  the 
first  editorials  that  appeared  in  this 
journal,  we  gave  expression  to  our 
sense  of  the  injury  that  had  been 
done  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  and  to  the  whole  spirit  of 
American  institutions  and  American 
life,  by  the  adoption  of  the  Eighteenth 
Amendment.  It  may  not  be  amiss  to 
quote  here  one  short  passage  from 
that  editorial : 

Unlike  many  of  our  State  Constitutions,  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  has  hitherto 
been  the  embodiment  only  of  those  things 
which  are  essential  either  to  the  marking  out 
of  the  structure  of  our  Government  or  to  the 
preservation  of  fundamental  human  rights. 
Such  an  instrument  can  command,  and 
throughout  our  history  has  commanded,  the 
loyal  devotion  of  a  great  people.  It  is  in- 
conceivable that  this  feeling  could  have  been 
built  up  for  a  document  which  undertook  to 
impose    upon    the    people    in    permanency — to 


withdraw  from  the  operation  of  the  ordinary 
processes  of  majority  rule — specific  statutes 
undertaking  to  control  the  daily  lives  of  a 
hundred  million  people  scattered  over  the  ex- 
panse of  a  continent.  As  much  as  one  pro- 
vision can  do  to  lower  the  standing  of  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States,  the  Eight- 
eenth .'Amendment  has  done.  If  there  were 
nothing  else  to  be  said  against  it,  this  alone 
would  be  an  objection  whose  gravity  can  hard- 
ly be  overestimated. 

When  Rhode  Island  entered  her  suit 
before  the  Supreme  Court  we  felt 
that,  even  if  her  action  accomplished 
no  juristic  result,  it  would  do  "an 
important  service  in  at  least  showing 
the  country  that  the  Eighteenth 
Amendment  was  not  being  accepted 
without  serious  protest."  To  our 
mind  the  most  distressing  feature  of 
the  whole  story  of  that  amendment 
was  the  manner  in  which  it  was  put 
through — the  country  standing  idly 
by,  as  if  this  were  routine  legislation, 
instead  of  the  most  vital  change  in  the 
character  of  our  institutions  since 
their  formation,  and  one  which  only 
a  few  years  ago  every  normal  Ameri- 
can would  have  seen  to  be  wholly 
repugnant  to  their  spirit.  In  con- 
nection with  Rhode  Island's  protest 
we  said: 

Not  since  the  formation  of  the  Union  has  so 
gross  an  injury  been  done  to  the  character 
of  American  institutions.  For  the  injury  has 
been  threefold.  It  has  struck  a  blow  at  the 
very  life  of  the  idea  of  State  autonomy  in  State 
affairs,  and  has  made  easy  the  path  of  every 
agitation  that  may  arise  in  the  future  for  the 
concentration  at  Washington  of  power  over 
any  matter  of  local  concern  which  the  itch 
for  regulation  may  seize  upon  as  its  next 
victim.  It  has  swept  away  whatever  was  left 
of  authority  in  the  idea  of  the  liberty  of  the 
individual  to  lead  his  own  life  in  his  own 
way,  subject  to  respect  for  the  right  of  others 
to  do  likewise.  And  last  but  not  least,  it  has 
immeasurably  lowered  the  standing  of  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  United  States  by  imbedding 
into  its  substance  a  mere  police  regulation, 
and  entrenching  it  behind  those  safeguards 
which  were  designed  for  the  preservation  of 
the  nation  and  the  protection  of  the  essentials 
of  liberty. 

Some  very  good  people  say  that  it 
is  wrong  to  protest.  The  amendment 
having  been  adopted  by  Congress  and 
the  requisite  number  of  States,  they 
urge,  it  ought  to  be  quietly  accepted 
by  all  good  citizens.  To  the  testing  of 
its  validity  by  the  Supreme  Court, 
they  of  course  do  not  seriously  object ; 
but  beyond  that,  they  insist,  nothing 
should  be  done.  In  so  far  as  these 
objections  relate  to  any  unlawful 
practices  we  entirely  agree  with  the 
objectors.  But  vigorously  to  subject 
to  every  lawful  test  the  validity  of 
the  amendment  and  of  the  laws  en- 


acted for  its  enforcement,  we  con- 
sider to  be  not  only  the  right,  but 
the  duty,  of  those  whose  convictions 
are  like  ours.  Nor  is  that  all.  The 
principles  themselves  of  which  the 
amendment  is  a  violation  should  be 
asserted  and  reasserted  on  every  le- 
gitimate occasion.  It  is  a  misfortune 
to  the  country  that  this  issue  should 
be  injected  into  our  national  politics 
at  all ;  but  the  blame  for  that  misfor- 
tune rests  upon  those  who,  in  their 
fanatical  pursuit  of  a  single  object, 
were  regardless  of  all  other  consid- 
erations, and  upon  those  who  either 
through  thoughtlessness  or  through 
supineness  allowed  them  to  nave  their 
way. 

Many  opponents  of  the  Eighteenth 
Amendment   have   laid   chief    stress 
upon  the  claim  that  it  is  not  approved 
by  a  majority  of  the  American  people. 
This  is  a  point  which,  so  far  as  we 
can  remember,  the  Review  has  never 
so  much  as  mentioned,  and  certainly 
one  upon  which  it  has  laid  no  stress. 
Much  might  be  said  of  the  way  in 
which  Congress,  and  Legislature  after 
Legislature,  has  acted  upon  this  great 
question.     In  a  large  number  of  in- 
stances members   voting   in   the  af- 
firmative have  reflected  neither  their 
own    convictions    nor   any   mandate 
from  their  constituents.  •  But  that  is 
not  the  main  point.     It  matters  not 
whether  fifty-one  millions  or  forty- 
nine  millions  of  the  people  of  the 
United  States  are  opposed  to  drink 
We  should  consider  it  just  as  wronj 
for  fifty-one  millions  as  for  forty 
nine    millions    to    impose    upon   tb 
whole  people  of  the   United  States 
and  to  imbed  into  their  organic  law 
this  iron  rule. 

If  we  are  to  remain  a  free  peoplt 
the  majority  must  instinctively  fe(. 
that  there  are  some  things  which 
has   no    right   to   impose    upon   t\ 
minority.    There  have  unquestionab! 
been  times  when  a  majority  of  tl' 
voters  of  this  country  have  felt,  ( 
could  with  a  little  agitation  have  bet 
made  to  feel,  that  the  Catholic  Chun 
was  a  terrible  danger  to  the  natiO; 
Of  those  who  have  been  of  this  mil  I 
a  large  proportion  have   been  p(f 
sessed  with  the  conviction  that  ts 
Catholic  Church  was  profoundly  i- 
imical  not  only  to  the  temporal  but  l> 


March  13,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[243 


the  eternal  welfare  of  the  people.  No 
anti-Catholic  movement,  however — 
though  there  have  been  many  of  them 
— has  made  great  headway.  The 
First  Amendment  to  the  United 
States  Constitution,  the  amendment 
protecting  religious  freedom,  was  a 
recognition  at  once  of  the  possibility 
of  such  attempted  proscription  and  of 
its  wrongfulness ;  but  it  would  be  a 
mistake  to  suppose  that  our  chief  pro- 
tection from  such  evils  has  been  in 
the  written  injunction  against  them. 
It  has  lain  in  the  instincts  and  tradi- 
tions of  the  people  themselves.  But, 
such  as  it  is,  the  protection  of  the 
First  Amendment  will,  as  our  expe- 
rience with  the  enactment  of  the 
Eighteenth  has  shown,  be  swept  away 
easily  enough  by  any  great  tide  of 
popular  prejudice,  real  or  factitious, 
if  we  lose  our  sense  of  the  rightful- 
ness of  those  restraints  which  the 
majority  should  gladly  and  of  its  own 
free  will  respect. 

There  is  one  more  aspect  of  the 

case  upon  which  it  is  important  to 

speak   at    this    particular    juncture. 

The  investigation  of  the  Anti-Saloon 

League  at  Albany  may  amount  to 

nuch    or    little;    it    may    clear    the 

League   of   the   specific   accusations 

nade  against  it,  or  it  may  confirm 

hem.    All  this  remains  to  be  seen. 

But  everybody  knows  that,  whatever 

he  precise  character  of  the  methods 

)ursued  by  the  League,  their  effect 

las    been    intimidation,    moral    and 

olitical,  on  a  grand  scale.    Its  agents, 

nd  especially  the  most  conspicuous 

if  them,  William  H.  Anderson,  have 

|onstantly  flaunted  in  the  faces  of 

jiiose  who  opposed,  or  those  who  hesi- 

lited,  the  power  of  the  churches  as 

leing  the  foundation  of  the  power  of 

le  League.     Anderson  himself  has 

■ted  and  spoken  like  a  ruffian.    He 

IS  not  disguised  the  terrorist  char- 

pter  of  his  tactics.    It  was  not  upon 

|?rsuasion  of  the  minds  of  legisla- 

rs,  but  upon  the  threat  of  evil  con- 

.quences    to    themselves    that    he 

"iefly  relied  for  the  attainment  of 

end.    Unless  the  good  people  of 

Y  churches,  for  whom  he  has  pro- 

Rsed  to  be  spokesman,  believe  in  the 

(ctrine  that  the  end   justifies  the 

'  'ans,  or  unless  they  are  blind  to  the 

i)ral  degradation  which  submission 


to  such  threats  involves,  they  can  not, 
in  so  far  as  he  has  truly  had  their 
backing,  absolve  themselves  from  the 
guilt  of  having  helped  to  bring  about 
what  they  regard  as  a  good  end  by 
abhorrent  means. 

It  is  not  the  first  time  that  good 
people — the  good,  religious  people  of 
a  whole  country — have  done  such  a 
thing.  An  infinitely  more  intense 
religious  fervor  swept  all  England 
into  a  frantic  agitation  of  which  the 
leader  was  an  infinitely  worse  ter- 
rorist. Between  the  zeal  of  the  pro- 
hibition campaign  and  the  frenzy  of 
the  "Popish  plot"  crusade  there  is 
only  the  resemblance  that  there  is 
between  a  headache  and  a  raging 
fever.  Between  the  terrorism  of 
Anderson  and  the  bloodthirsty  crimi- 
nality of  Oates  there  is  only  the 
resemblance  that  there  is  between  a 
misdemeanor  and  a  frightful  crime. 
But  all  of  Protestant  England  was 
swept  into  the  tide  of  the  Popish  plot 
madness.  Those  who  think  that  the 
Eighteenth  Amendment  must  in- 
fallibly be  right  because  all  the  "good 
people"  are  for  it,  would  do  well  to 
think  of  the  error  into  which  the  good 
people  of  England  fell,  with  far 
greater  unanimity,  in  the  days  of  the 
Popish  Plot  and  Titus  Oates. 

Fighting  the  Symp- 
toms 

The  proposed  statute  that  will  make  hoard- 
ing unlawful  is  aimed  to  prevent  the  with- 
holding from  the  market  of  necessary  food- 
stuffs and  also  the  destruction  of  food  when 
the  purpose  of  destruction  is  to  enhance  the 
price  or   restrict  the  supply. 

THIS  sentence  from  a  special  mes- 
sage sent  by  Governor  Smith  to 
the  New  York  Legislature  is  typical 
of  a  great  deal  of  the  well-intentioned 
but  futile  effort  that  has  been  made 
for  many  months  to  bring  down 
prices,  or  "the  cost  of  living."  With 
the  last  part  of  it  no  fault  can  be 
found.  The  destruction  of  food  for 
the  purpose  of  enhancing  its  price  is 
a  practice  which,  in  so  far  as  it  may 
exist  on  a  large  scale,  it  would  be  per- 
fectly proper  for  the  law  to  repress. 
That  it  does  exist  on  a  large  scale 
we  have  seen  no  trustworthy  evi- 
dence; but  this  is  simply  a  question 
of  fact.    On  the  other  hand,  the  idea 


that  "hoarding"  should  be  made  un- 
lawful rests  on  an  error  of  principle. 
There  are,  indeed,  some  kinds  of 
hoarding  which  it  may  be  to  the  pub- 
lic interest  to  forbid;  but  ordi- 
nary hoarding  of  foodstuffs,  by  per- 
sons whose  business  it  is  either  to 
produce  or  to  buy  them  for  the  pur- 
pose of  selling  at  a  profit,  is  a  process 
which  it  is  to  the  public  interest  to 
permit  to  take  its  own  course. 

There  are  two  types  of  hoarding, 
extreme  opposites  of  each  other,  which 
may  constitute  a  serious  public  evil. 
Where  there  is  monopolistic  control, 
or  an  approach  to  it,  the  withholding 
of  supplies  from  the  market  may  be 
so  managed  as  to  give  to  the  manipu- 
lators an  extortionate  profit  which 
could  not  otherwise  be  obtained. 
This  evil,  in  so  far  as  it  exists,  should 
be  attacked  through  the  means  which 
the  law  provides  for  the  prevention 
or  the  curbing  of  monopolies.  At  the 
other  extreme  there  is  the  possibility 
of  hoarding  for  private  use,  a  prac- 
tice which  may  conceivably  result  in 
the  withholding  from  consumption, 
at  a  time  of  real  or  supposed  scarcity, 
of  large  supplies  when  nothing  in  the 
condition  or  prospects  of  the  market 
justifies  such  withholding.  When 
there  is  reason  to  fear  that  such  a 
thing  will  happen  on  a  sufficient  scale 
to  be  of  serious  public  concern,  regu- 
lations like  those  which  from  time  to 
time  have  been  adopted  in  regard  to 
the  sale  of  sugar  to  consumers  are 
desirable  and  efficacious. 

But  it  is  to  neither  of  these  ex- 
tremes that  the  agitation  against 
hoarding  is  usually  directed.  It  is 
aimed  simply  at  hoarding  as  such; 
and  it  is  not  only  useless,  but  posi- 
tively injurious.  The  man  who  with- 
holds supplies  from  the  market  at  a 
given  time  because  his  trained  judg- 
ment leads  him  to  believe  that  the 
price  of  the  commodity  in  question 
will  be  higher  at  a  future  time,  as  a 
natural  result  of  the  free  play  of 
supply  and  demand,  is  doing  not  an 
injury  but  a  service  to  the  public.  If 
his  calculation  is  correct,  he  will 
make  his  profit  by  selling  what  he 
has  withheld,  at  a  price  higher  in- 
deed than  he  could  have  got  in  the 
first  instance,  but  lower  than  the 
price  which,  had  he  not  previously 


244] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  44 


withheld  a  portion  of  the  supply, 
would  have  prevailed  in  the  market 
at  the  time  of  still  greater  scarcity 
when  he  makes  his  sale.  In  the  case 
of  perishable  commodities,  it  is  true, 
the  consideration  of  actual  destruc- 
tion of  them  comes  in  and  may  justify 
special  measures.  But  this  must  be 
regarded  as  the  exception  and  not  as 
the  general  rule.  Judging  from  the 
newspaper  summary  of  the  bill  to 
which  Governor  Smith  refers,  that 
particular  bill  appears  to  be  care- 
fully drawn,  and  not  in  violation 
of  the  principle  we  have  laid  down; 
but  many  bills,  and  many  administra- 
tive acts,  have  ignored  that  principle, 
and  popular  opinion  is  in  line  with 
Governor  Smith's  apparent  belief 
that  it  is  a  good  thing  simply  to 
"make  hoarding  unlawful"  and  to 
"prevent  the  withholding  from  the 
market  of  necessary  foodstuffs."  It 
is  much  safer  for  the  public  to  take 
the  chances  of  injury  from  the  mis- 
calculations of  professionals  who,  if 
they  hoard  unnecessarily,  do  so  at 
their  peril,  than  from  the  mistakes 
of  legislators  who  by  a  cast-iron  rule 
prevent  hoarding  which  may  be  emi- 
nently desirable. 

The  great  source  of  relief  to  which 
we  must  look,  in  all  those  matters 
that  press  most  heavily  upon  us  in 
these  days  of  high  cost  of  living,  is 
the  increase  of  supply,  the  increase 
of  production.  To  strike  at  the  symp- 
tom when  and  where  we  see  it  may 
afford  a  relief  to  our  feelings,  but 
it  does  nothing  toward  effecting  a 
cure.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  very  apt 
to  aggravate  the  disease.  The  attempt 
to  fix  the  price  of  milk  is  a  conspicu- 
ous instance  of  this  vain  endeavor 
to  get  rid  of  the  trouble  by  fighting 
the  symptoms.  If  the  distributers 
are  charging  extortionate  rates 
under  cover  of  monopolistic  control 
of  the  field',  something  ought  to  be 
done  about  that ;  but,  though  the  sub- 
ject has  been  up  for  years  in  the 
State  of  New  York,  and  though  every 
opportunity  has  been  given  for  ex- 
posing the  facts,  it  has  not  yet  been 
shown  that  the  profits  of  the  dis- 
tributers constitute  any  considerable 
percentage  of  the  price  that  con- 
sumers have  to  pay  for  milk.  Re- 
cently the  attack  has  turned  largely 


toward  the  farmer  producers;  but 
here,  too,  the  corresponding  facts,  at 
least  so  far  as  public  knowledge  is 
concerned,  are  conspicuously  absent. 
Simply  -to  decree  lower  prices,  with- 
out any  assurance  that  the  requisite 
amount  of  milk  is  going  to  be  pro- 
duced and  delivered  at  those  prices, 
is  to  scratch  the  scab  in  the  hope  of 
healing  the  wound. 

The  same  kind  of  thing  has  been 
going  on  in  regard  to  the  housing 
situation.  It  is  all  right  to  prevent 
sharp  practices  by  which  individual 
landlords,  or  go-betweens,  take  ad- 
vantage of  the  ignorance,  or  the 
exceptional  difficulties,  of  particular 
tenants;  no  doubt  many  individual 
cases  of  injustice  and  hardship  have 
been  thus  prevented  or  relieved.  But 
as  a  means  of  lowering  rents  in  gen- 
eral, profiteer-hunting  is  worse  than 
useless.  If 'the  supply  of  housing  con- 
tinues to  be  short  of  the  demand 
at  existing  prices,  landlords  will  get 
higher  prices,  because  there  will  be 
thousands  of  people  willing  and  able 
to  pay  them.  And  in  the  meanwhile, 
such  encouragement  as  there  may  be 
to  builders — speculators,  if  you  will 
— in  the  existing  high  rents  is  seri- 
ously diminished  by  every  threat  of 
repressive  measures,  and  even  by  the 
odium  which  the  constant  cry  of 
"profiteer"  places  upon  them.  There 
is  another  injury,  too,  perhaps  quite 
as  important.  There  are  possibilities 
of  improving  the  housing  situation — 
not  by  penalizing  profits,  but  by 
diminishing  expenses.  The  emer- 
gency quite  justifies  special  exemp- 
tions from  tax  burdens  for  all  new 
projects  of  housing  for  the  poor  and 
for  people  of  moderate  means.  But 
legislative  proposals  of  this  nature 
fail  to  receive  the  attention  which 
they  ought  to  get,  because  of  the 
diversion  of  interest  to  futile  schemes 
and  to  idle  denunciation.  When  you 
stray  off  on  a  false  track  you  are 
not  merely  as  badly  off  as  if  you  had 
stood  still,  you  are  much  worse  off. 
For  the  time  and  energy  which  you 
have  been  spending  on  this  aimless 
wandering  might,  if  properly  em- 
ployed, have  got  you  at  least  some- 
what nearer  to  the  goal  toward  which 
you  had  fondly  imagined  yourself  to 
be  tending. 


What    Has   Come   oi 
"Blood  and   Iron" 

p  E  PRESENTATI VES  of  the  Schles- 
-'-'■  wig  and  Holstein  organizations, 
together  with  members  of  various  po- 
litical parties,  proclaimed  on  March  2 
the  emancipation  of  Schleswig-Hol- 
stein  from  Prussia  and  the  establish- 
ment of  a  new  State.  This  is  an  in- 
teresting piece  of  news,  affording  an 
object  lesson  in  political  history.  Nc 
matter  whether  this  declaration  of 
independence  takes  effect  or  not,  the 
fact  that  a  large  group  of  representa- 
tive citizens  of  the  old  Elbe  Duchies 
have  voiced  a  desire  to  sever  their 
connection  with  Prussia  is  in  itselj 
important  enough  to  call  for  com- 
ment. The  action  of  these  men  pro 
claims  to  the  world  that  Bismarck's 
immoral  policy  of  "blood  and  iron' 
can  not  build  lasting  empires. 

The  possession  of  Schleswig-Hol 
stein  was  for  Prussia  of  vital  impor 
tance,  as  it  would  give  her  control  o| 
the  coast  and  of  the  harbor  of  Kie" 
the  only  one  which  could  be  made  int 
a  maritime  base  for  the  Prussian  flee 
which    Bismarck    was    planning    t 
build.     A   long  and   patiently  con 
ducted  policy  of  intermittent  intrigui 
negotiation,  and  armed  force  led  t 
the  coveted  result.    The  Austro-Pru 
sian  war  with  Denmark  was  the  fir 
move  in  this  skilfully  conducted  can 
paign.     Bismarck's  ally  did  not  i 
tend  to  fight  the  Danes  "pour  le  R 
de  Prusse" ;  Austria  posed  as  a  chai 
pion  of  outraged  German  rights,  ai 
hoped  to  add  a  new  member  to  t' 
"Bund."     On    August    1,    1864,   t 
King  of  Denmark  ceded  all  his  rigli 
to  the  Duchies  of  Holstein  and  Schl'  • 
wig  to  the  Austrian  Emperor  and  t  i 
King  of  Prussia.     By  the  treaty  I 
Gastein,  of  the  following  year,  H^ 
stein    was    placed    under    Austri ., 
Schleswig  under  Prussian  rule,  It 
Kiel,  with  Friedrichsort,  was  prcJ- 
sionally  ceded  to  Prussia  as  a  mi'i- 
time  station.    Bismarck  never  loo  d 
upon  this  treaty  as  a  permanent  f- 
tlement.    But  he  waited  for  a  prelct 
to  substitute  Prussian  rule  for  le 
newly  established  condominium.  T  is 
was    given    him    by    Austria   it.'^ft 
which  on  June  1,  1867,  publishc  a 


March  13,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[245 


declaration  to  the  effect  that  it 
wished  to  let  the  "Bund"  decide  the 
future  status  of  the  two  Duchies. 
Bismarck  denounced  this  as  a  breach 
of  the  treaty  of  Gastein,  which  con- 
sequently had  ceased  to  have  any 
binding  force  on  Prussia.  He  or- 
dered Prussian  troops  to  march  into 
Holstein.  The  Austrian  forces  of  oc- 
cupation retreated  without  giving 
battle,  thus  leaving  the  King  of  Prus- 
sia sole  and  absolute  master  in  both 
Duchies.  Prussian  despotism  as- 
serted itself  at  once :  the  convocation 
of  the  Holstein  States  at  Itzehoe  was 
repealed,  all  political  societies  were 
disbanded,  several  papers  suspended. 
■  With  iron  alone  Bismarck,  this 
time,  had  achieved  his  end.  But 
streams  of  blood  were  to  be  spilt  in 
the  impending  war  with  Austria, 
which  was,  indirectly,  the  outcome  of 
Prussia's  act  of  usurpation.  And 
now,  after  sixty  years  of  Prussian 
rule,  after  having  shared  for  half  a 
century  in  the  greatness  and  the  glory 
of  Bismarck's  Prussia,  the  people  of 
the  two  Duchies  appear  to  be  still  so 
little  devoted  to  the  usurper  as  to 
wish  for  a  severance  from  the  king- 
dom. 

Welfare  or  "Hell-fare"? 

pERTAIN  activities  of  the  Good- 
^    year   Rubber   Company  for  the 
welfare   of   its   employees   were    de- 
scribed  by   a   correspondent   in   the 
Review  last  week.     This  is  but  one 
|of  the  many  instances  in  which  man- 
lufacturing  concerns  have  deemed  it 
wise  to  devote  large  sums  of  money 
and  the  energy  of  trained  and  well- 
ipaid  officials  to  work  of  this  kind. 
The   movement    is    not    new    in    its 
fundamental    character,    but    it    has 
leached  an  extent  and  a  systematiza- 
;ion  hitherto  unknown.     It  has  been 
Warmly  approved  by  public  opinion, 
JDut  the  more  radical  labor  leaders 
'luestion  its  motives,  hold  it  up  to 
"idicule,  and  endeavor  to  turn  against 
t  the  laboring  men  who,  with  their 
vives  and  children,  receive  its  bene- 
its.    Parodying  the  name  by  which  it 
s  commonly  known,  they  have  ma- 
ieiously  characterized  it  as  "hell-fare 
vork,"  and  even  Samuel  Gompers  has 
mblicly  repeated  the  jibe. 


In  the  case  of  Mr.  Gompers,  let  us 
hope  that  this  was  no  more  than  a 
momentary  lapse  of  judgment  under 
the  stress  of  the  steel  strike.  Those 
who  launched  the  epithet,  however, 
had  a  more  logical  reason  for  their 
attitude.  Having  in  view,  not  such 
an  improvement  in  wages  and  condi- 
tions of  work  as  will  make  the  work- 
man prosperous  and  contented,  but  a 
fundamental  revolution  eliminating 
the  private  ownership  and  manage- 
ment of  productive  industries  alto- 
gether, they  judge  of  "welfare  work" 
only  as  it  tends  to  promote  or  retard 
the  overturn  of  existing  institutions. 
If  it  were  found  to  inculcate  a  dis- 
contented and  revolutionary  state  of 
mind,  their  attitude  at  heart  would 
be  that  of  welcome,  though  good 
strategy  would  forbid  them  to  say  so. 
The  fact  that  it  meets  with  their  dis- 
approval is  a  tribute  to  its  success. 

In  establishments  where  such  work 
has  been  intelligently  and  liberally 
carried  on,  with  sincere  effort  at  gen- 
uine cooperation  with  employees  in 
selection  of  activities  to  be  undertaken 
and  in  management,  laborers  are  more 
prosperous  and  contented,  strikes  or 
friction  of  any  kind  is  less  frequent, 
and  agitators  from  without  or  within 
are  at  a  discount.  This  normally 
means  an  improvement  in  quantity 
and  quality  of  the  average  output  per 
unit  of  labor,  an  avoidance  of  the  loss 
occasioned  by  strikes,  and,  therefore, 
a  return  to  the  company  of  at  least  a 
considerable  portion  of  the  cost — in 
some  cases  probably  a  net  financial 
profit  of  considerable  importance. 
But  the  agitator  seizes  upon  this  fact 
to  arouse  prejudice  against  the  work 
as  mere  selfishness,  as  though  it  were 
not  permissible  for  the  employer  to 
benefit  his  employees  except  at  the 
cost  of  actual  loss  to  himself. 

Another  line  of  attack  is  that  this 
work  is  paid  for  out  of  the  workman's 
wages,  and  to  the  detriment  of  his 
right  to  seek  his  welfare  in  his  own 
way.  But  the  laborer  can  have  this 
freedom  at  any  moment,  by  giving  up 
his  position  and  taking  employment 
with  some  company  by  which  no  wel- 
fare system  is  maintained.  Inciden- 
tally, he  will  discover  in  making  the 
transfer  that  wages  average  no  higher 
in  industries  which  spend  no  money 


on  welfare  work.  The  criticism, 
however,  comes  almost  wholly  from 
the  outside.  We  have  yet  to  learn  of 
a  case  in  which  the  employees  of  any 
great  industry  carrying  on  a  well- 
managed  work  of  this  kind  have  met 
together  and  said  to  the  manage- 
ment: "Sell  your  welfare  buildings 
and  equipment,  close  your  athletic 
fields  and  parks  and  children's  play- 
grounds, abolish  your  savings  bu- 
reau with  its  attendant  bonusfes  to 
persistent  depositors,  drop  your  as- 
sistance to  would-be  home  owners, 
dismiss  your  physicians  and  nurses, 
and  in  place  of  it  all  divide  pro  rata 
among  us  in  wages  the  same  propor- 
tion of  the  cost  as  we  now  get  out  of 
the  income  of  the  plant  exclusive  of 
this  work." 

At  bottom,  such  work  is  simply  one 
of  the  ways  of  creating  conditions 
favorable  to  a  profitable  operation  of 
the  plant.  An  ill-adjusted  workman 
and  an  ill-adjusted  piece  of  ma- 
chinery are  alike  harmful  to  such 
operation,  and  time  and  money  spent 
in  better  adjustment  are  as  rational 
in  the  one  case  as  in  the  other.  The 
human  as  well  as  the  mechanical  side 
is  always  present,  and  the  most  skill- 
ful technical  care  of  the  latter  can  not 
bring  the  best  results  if  the  social, 
moral,  and  economic  welfare  of  the 
former  are  going  awry.  It  need  not 
be  argued  that  on  the  human  side  the 
problems  of  the  manager  are  more 
delicate,  the  opportunities  for  harm 
through  tactlessness  and  lack  of  un- 
derstanding more  numerous.  Wel- 
fare work  is  not  wholly  a  matter  of 
altruism,  as  we  have  already  shown; 
but  though  it  must  be  made  in  gen- 
eral to  pay  its  own  way,  the  highest 
success  will  be  attained  only  by  a 
management  which  shows  a  genu- 
inely sympathetic  spirit.  Modern 
thought  is  recognizing  more  and 
more  the  inherent  difference  between 
a  man  and  a  machine,  and  the  growth 
of  attention  to  the  personal  welfare 
of  employees  is  one  of  the  most  evi- 
dent marks  of  that  recognition.  It 
is  a  movement  that  merits  hearty  en- 
couragement from  all  except  those 
who  find  in  its  tendency  to  promote 
stability  and  contentment  in  indus- 
trial circles  a  stumbling-block  to 
their  plans  for  revolution. 


246] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  44 


What  Constitutes  a 
Poem? 

CRITICS  of  the  past  have  striven 
for  a  satisfactory  definition  of 
poetry,  by  stating  the  positive  ingre- 
dients which  it  must  contain.  But 
the  literary  market-place  has  continu- 
ally refuted  them  by  paying  good 
money  for  "poems"  minus  any  one, 
or  all,  of  the  qualities  enumerated  in 
these  proffered  definitions.  In  this 
day  of  anti-everything  which  in- 
volves a  must,  either  in  literature  or 
in  life,  the  idea  has  arisen  of  getting 
at  the  matter  the  other  way  round, 
by  eliminating  the  various  qualities 
which  are  not  necessary,  thus  arriv- 
ing at  the  irreducible  minimum. 
Rhyme,  of  course,  was  never  a  sine 
qua  non,  though  if  used  at  all,  a  cer- 
tain degree  of  regularity  has  been 
considered  necessary.  Even  this 
must  no  longer  holds,  as  witness  any 
number  of  our  newest  poets,  skipping 
from  vers  libre  to  verse  in  the  ankle- 
fetters  of  rhyme  from  one  line. to  the 
next. 

Of  course,  the  very  term,  "vers 
libre,"  implies  the  kicking  out  of 
metrical  regularity ;  but  it  may  creep 
in  again  at  any  crevice  of  line,  page, 
or  poem,  and  a  passage  that  might 
have  fallen  in  faultless  cadence  from 
the  lips  of  Tennyson  himself  may  sud- 
denly tumble  you  off,  in  the  middle  of 
a  sentence,  upon  a  declivity  of  vocal 
jags  and  crevasses  in  comparison 
with  which  "bumping  the  bumps"  at 
Coney  Island  is  a  nerve-soothing  rec- 
reation. Martial  borrowed  the  germ 
of  this  trick  from  the  Greeks,  in  his 
occasional  Latin  scazontics,  or  stum- 
blers ;  but  he  kindly  trips  you  up  only 
once  to  the  line,  and  after  the  second 
or  third  fall  you  foresee  the  danger 
and  brace  yourself,  like  the  circus 
girl  in  the  heels-over-head  automobile 
stunt.  The  most  you  can  claim  now 
for  metrical  regularity  as  a  poetic  in- 
gredient is  that  a  sample  now  and 
then,  dropped  in  with  a  carefully 
guarded  air  of  insouciance,  is  not  nec- 
essarily fatal  to  a  poet's  reputation. 

Has  length  of  line  any  vital  rela- 
tion to  poetry?  A  variation  of  from 
eight  to  twelve  syllables  did  not  sug- 
gest either  rejection  or  revision  of 


a  "sonnet"  offered  a  year  or  two  ago 
to  so  careful  a  periodical  as  Art  and 
Archaeology;  and  the  free  sonneteer- 
ing spirit  of  our  great  Mexican  bor- 
der State,  we  were  assured  not  long 
since  by  a  student  of  poetic  tenden- 
cies among  the  Texans,  has  even  cut 
the  wires  of  the  fourteen-line  barrier. 
If  the  inspiration  of  boundless  cow- 
pastures  swells  the  outburst  to  nine- 
teen lines,  or  a  sudden  raid  of  Vil- 
lista  bandits  cuts  it  short  at  nine, 
who  has  the  authority  to  tell  the  free 
American  citizen  that  it  is  any  the 
less  a  sonnet  for  either  reason?    As 
to   length   of   line   in   general,   Walt 
Whitman  long  ago  pushed  its  possi- 
bilities out  into  regions  where  only 
an  Einstein  may  safely  range,  while 
at   the   opposite   extreme,   the   very 
High    Priestess    of    the    temple    of 
Twentieth  Century  muses  has  shown 
that  the  one  word  Damn,  with  the  aid 
of  an  exclamation  point,  will  fill  all 
requirements.    We  are  forced  to  the 
conclusion,  then,  that  with  the  mod- 
ern poet  length  of  line,  as  well  as  the 
regulation   or  non-regulation   of  its 
vocal  ups  and  downs,  is  as  v/hoUy  at 
the  discretion  or  non-discretion  of  the 
individual  writer  as  the  cut  or  non- 
cut,  the  dress  or  un-dress,  of  his  or 
her    hair    or    beard.     Even  capital 
letters  at  the  beginning  of  lines,  sen- 
tences, and  proper  names  are  non- 
requisites,  as  the  Dial,  in  its  new  and 
exclusive  devotion  to  art  and  letters, 
proceeds  to  show  by  example,  though 
the  same  authority  shows  that  the 
capital  is  not  to  be  despised  merely 
as  such,  by  allowing  it  to  head  a  few 
harmless    prepositions    in    the    pro- 
cession. 

We  say  "procession"  with  some 
misgiving,  for  the  word  may  be  taken 
as  implying  that  the  author  intends 
the  reader  to  begin  at  the  physical 
beginning  of  these  particular  poems 
and  read  through  in  regular  order  to 
the  physical  end,  an  assumption  pos- 
sibly altogether  too  conventional.  We 
had  almost  said  that  this  order  in 
reading  would  enable  one  to  get  at 
the  thought  of  the  poems  better,  but 
this  would  imply  that  thought  is  a 
necessity  in  poetry.  Now  the  whole 
campaign  of  the  most  modern  mod- 
ernists has  had  the  primary  object  of 
clearing  away  every  barrier  that  may 


hamper  the  freedom  of  the  poetic 
impulse.  But  the  requirement  of 
genuine  thought  has  always  been  a 
far  more  hampering  restraint  on 
poetic  impulse  than  any  of  those  mere 
conventionalities  of  form  to  which  the 
boot-toe  of  the  modernist  has  been 
so  vigorously  and  successfully  ap- 
plied. Are  we  then  to  sacrifice  the 
fruits  of  victory  already  in  our  grasp 
by  leaving  poetic  HohenzoUernism  in 
possession  of  its  one  really  powerful 
stronghold,  the  requirement  that 
poetry  must  (odious,  imperialistic 
word!)  really  mean  something?  No, 
must  me  no  musts! 

And  so  the  attempt  to  get  at  the 
essential  substance  of  poetry  through 
definition  by  elimination  finally 
breaks  down,  just  as  did  the  earlier 
efforts  to  define  it  by  positive  charac- 
teristics. We  may  be  sure  of  no  more, 
perhaps,  than  that  a  poem  is  some 
undefinable  thing  (thanks  to  the  lan- 
guage-builders for  the  non-commit- 
tal vagueness  of  that  word  thing!) 
which  its  author  can  sell  on  Mount 
Vernon  Street,  Boston,  or  West  Thir- 
teenth Street,  New  York,  or  some- 
where between.  We  had  almost  called 
it  "an  aggregation  of  words,"  rather 
than  a  "thing,"  but  the  haunting  sus- 
picion arises  that  the  one-syllable 
line  already  quoted  in  full  in  a  pre- 
vious paragraph  might,  under  suit- 
able conditions  of  modern  poetic  in- 
spiration, become  an  entire  poem  in 
itself.  If  poetry  shall  follow  such  a 
course  as  this,  there  will  be  a  mani- 
fest conservation  of  ink  and  paper, 
but  it  will  be  necessary  to  work  out 
some  scheme  of  pecuniary  compensa- 
tion by  emotional  intensity  rather 
than  by  linear  measure. 


THE  REVIEW 

A  weekly  journal  of  political  and 

general  discussion 

Published  by 

The    National  Weekly   Corporation 

140   Nassau   Street,    New    York 

Fabian  Franklin,  President 

Harold  de  Wolv  Fuller,   Treasurer 

Subscription     price,     five     dollars     a     year     m 
advance.     Fifteen  cents  a  copy.     Foreign  post- 
age,   one   dollar  extra;    Canadian    postage,   fifty 
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to  Messrs.  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  Ltd.,  24,  Bed- 
ford   St.,    Strand,   London,   W.    C.   2,   England, 
Copyright,     1920,     in     the     United     States     <-/ 
America 
Editors 
FABIAN   FRANKLIN 
HAROLD  DE  WOLF  FULLER 
Associate  Editors 
Harry  Morgan  Avres      O.  W.  Firkins 
A.  J.  Barnouw  W.  n.  Johnson 

Jerome  Landfield 


March  13,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[247 


Bolshevism  in  Holland 


A  CCORDING  to  recent  despatches 
^  from  Holland,  the  Netherland 
Government  is  enforcing  a  rigid  con- 
trol of  the  frontiers  so  as  to  prevent 
the  intrusion  of  Bolshevist  agitators 
from  Germany.  The  unrest  in  the 
country  must  be  pretty  serious  if  the 
authorities  have  recourse  to  preven- 
tive measures  of  suppression,  as  po- 
litical tradition  in  Holland  is  opposed 
to  official  discrimination  between  na- 
tive and  alien,  and  betv^^een  desirable 
and  undesirable  foreigners.  Even 
during  the  war,  when  there  was  rea- 
son for  the  Government  to  be  on  its 
guard  against  the  intrigues  of  for- 
eign spies  and  agents,  free  access  to 
the  country  was  subject  only  to  a 
few  limitations  of  simple  formality, 
and  no  protests  from  watchful  citi- 
zens in  the  border  districts,  alarmed 
,  at  the  traffic  that  was  allowed  to  go  on, 
^  could  avail  against  the  rooted  aver- 
sion of  the  authorities  to  rigid  inter- 
:  ference  with  the  liberty  of  interstate 
communication. 

This  extremely  liberal  conception 
of    the     duty    of    hospitality     was 
frightfully  abused   by   Russian   and 
German  refugees  and  deserters.     In 
return   for   the    safety   and    shelter 
which  Holland  afforded  them,  they 
sowed  discord  and  discontent  among 
the  natives.     Even  the  man  at  the 
head  of  the  bureau  for  relief  to  Rus- 
sian prisoners  of  war  in  Germany, 
whom  the  Government  allowed  to  ex- 
port  large    quantities   of   foodstuffs 
which    the    Dutch    themselves    were 
badly  in  need  of,  was,  early  this  year, 
placed    under    police    control,    being 
strongly  suspected  of  abetting  secret 
Bolshevist    propaganda.      However, 
this   agitation   by   foreigners   would 
have  been  of  little  avail  to  the  cause 
'jf  communism  in  Holland,  if  they  had 
bot  found  a  soil  already  fertilized  for 
!:he    cultivation    of    Trotskian    doc- 
':rines.     The  gravest  danger  to  the 
fcountry's  recuperation  from  the  un- 
liettled  war  conditions  and  its  undis- 
furbed  economic  development  is  not 
he  alien  but  the  native  agitator,  who 
ipeaks  to  the  worker  in  his  own  tongue 
md  with  a  thorough  knowledge  of 
he  country. 


First  among  these  is  Mr.  David 
Wijnkoop,  an  Amsterdam  Jew  of  a 
fiery,  impetuous  temperament,  a 
great  orator  with  a  strong  hold  on 
the  masses.  He  is  the  Dutch  counter- 
part of  his  Russian  comrade  Trotsky, 
whom  he  resembles  even  in  outward 
appearance,  and  a  faithful  henchman 
of  his  Moscow  alter  ego  in  the  spread- 
ing of  the  latter's  international  prop- 
aganda. Before  the  war  he  was,  as 
a  politician,  the  laughingstock  of  the 
country,  the  butt  of  jocose  criticism 
whenever  he  formulated  his  absurd 
demands  on  behalf  of  a  negligible 
flock  of  followers.  But  the  war,  with 
its  privations  and  unemployment, 
was  the  making  of  Mr.  Wijnkoop.  He 
is  a  political  war  profiteer.  In  Am- 
sterdam, always  a  hotbed  of  radical- 
ism, he  carried  it  over  his  opponent 
of  the  Social  Democratic  Labor  Party 
at  the  July  elections  of  1918,  and  with 
him  two  other  Communist  lead- 
ers were  preferred  by  the  elec- 
torate for  a  seat  in  the  Second 
Chamber. 

Here  they  were  given  a  platform 
from  which  they  could  address  the 
entire  nation,  as  their  parliamentary 
speeches — and  they  are  among  the 
most  voluble  orators — are  faithfully 
reported  by  the  daily  press.  The 
three  together  form  an  isolated  group 
in  Parliament.  They  profess  to  de- 
spise the  legislative  body  o.f  which 
they  are  members,  and  abuse  their 
high  office  to  denounce  that  capital- 
istic system  under  whose  liberal  rule 
they  have  obtained  the  right  to  ex-  . 
pound  their  doctrine  in  Parliament. 
Their  criticism  being  exclusively  de- 
structive, they  contribute  nothing  to 
the  legislative  work  of  the  House. 
But  their  presence  there  has,  indi- 
rectly, a  fatal  effect  upon  its  proceed- 
ings: some  Social  Democratic  Labor 
members,  afraid  lest  Mr.  David  Wijn- 
koop should  take  the  wind  out  of 
their  sails,  are  tempted  to  outbid  him 
in  revolutionary  demands,  Mr.  Troel- 
stra,  the  leader,  being  the  chief  advo- 
cate of  this  competitive  policy.  Wijn- 
koop, with  his  sarcastic  sallies 
against  his  irritable  rival,  ridiculing 
his  inconsistent,  half-hearted  adher- 


ence to  the  teachings  of  Marx,  knows 
exactly  how  to  exasperate  the  other 
into  the  formulation  of  demands 
which  go  far  beyond  what  more  mod- 
erate labor  leaders,  such  as  Schaper 
and  Albarda,  recognize  as  the  legiti- 
mate maximum. 

But  the  floor  of  the  Second  Cham- 
ber is  not  the  only  platform  from 
which  the  Communists  can  address 
all  classes  of  society.  The  Church  is 
also  open  to  their  propaganda.  The 
Reverend  Schermerhorn,  Minister  of 
the  Dutch  Reformed  Community  in 
Nieuweniedorp,  the  centre  of  a  pros- 
perous agricultural  district  north  of 
Amsterdam,  is  an  ardent  believer  in 
the  tenets  of  Bolshevism.  He  is  a 
powerful  preacher  and  attracts  many 
a  churchgoer  who,  though  averse  to 
his  doctrine,  wishes  to  listen  to  his 
eloquence.  "Take  as  much  liberty  as 
you  can  get"  is  one  of  his  maxims, 
and  portraits  of  the  revolutionary 
"dominee"  with  these  words  under- 
neath are  circulated  among  his  ad- 
mirers. When  last  year  the  Amster- 
dam police  came  upon  the  track  of  a 
gang  of  bomb  manufacturers  and 
munition  smugglers,  they  found  this 
portrait  as  a  wall  decoration  in  the 
criminals'  den.  The  preacher,  of 
course,  had  nothing  to  do  with  these 
militant  anarchists,  but  the  incident 
shows  what  close  affinity  there  la 
between  unrestrained  idealism  and 
crime. 

More  balanced  minds  than  the  fiery 
pulpiteer  are  the  two  scientists  who, 
by  their  membership  on  the  Execu- 
tive Board  of  the  Communist  Party, 
lend  an  academic  dignity  to  its  doc- 
trine. They  are  Dr.  Pannekoek,  a  dis- 
tinguished astronomer,  and  Dr.  Man- 
noury,  professor  of  mathematics  in 
the  Municipal  University  of  Amster- 
dam.  The  support  which  Communism 
receives  from  these  two  prominent  in- 
tellectuals may  have  a  deeper  and 
wider  influence  than  the  sermons  of 
the  Reverend  Schermerhorn.  Though 
they    may    carefully    abstain    from 
bringing  propaganda  into  the  lecture 
room,  the  fact  of  their  approving  the 
Communist  doctrines  can  not  fail  to 
impress    the    susceptible    minds    of 
young  admiring  pupils.  And  as  these, 
at  the   completion   of  their  studies, 
are  scattered  all   over  the   country, 


248] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  4 


the  ideas  of  their  masters  are  im- 
perceptibly spread  among  the  intel- 
lectual milieus  of  even  the  smallest 
towns. 

Still,  the  Government  would  make 
itself  unpopular  if  it  deemed  this 
a  reason  for  depriving  them  of 
their  chairs  and  the  university  of 
their  learning.  The  present  conserva- 
tive Cabinet,  apparently  alarmed  at 
the  spread  of  Communist  thought, 
took  just  recently  an  exceptional  step 
to  prevent  the  promotion  of  one 
of  these  Communist  professors.  Dr. 
Pannekoek  had  been  proposed  by  the 
trustees  of  Leiden  University  for 
appointment  to  the  vacant  chair  of 
astronomy  in  that  city,  and  the  Gov- 
ernment by  refusing  to  appoint  him 
on  the  ground  of  his  political  convic- 
tions exposed  itself  to  severe  criti- 
cism by  the  entire  Left  of  the  Second 
Chamber  and  the  principal  organs 
of  the  liberal  press.  The  Amsterdam 
Handelsblad,  a  paper  which  has 
never  betrayed  any  leanings  towards 
Socialism,  declared  itself  in  agree- 
ment with  Dr.  Van  Ravesteyn,  one  of 
the  three  Communist  members  of 
Parliament,  in  asserting  that,  gener- 
ally speaking,  in  the  appointment  of 
educational  functionaries,  political  or 
religious  considerations  should  have 
no  weight.  There  might  be  some 
reason  for  deviating  from  this  gen- 
eral principle  in  the  case  of  a  vacancy 
in  the  department  of  law  or  eco- 
nomics, where  the  appointee  is  ex- 
pected to  teach  a  doctrine  and  ideas 
to  which  a  Communist  candidate  is 
confessedly  opposed,  but  no  such  con- 
sideration could  be  valid  in  the  case 
of  Dr.  Pannekoek.  The  heavens  are 
his  field  of  research,  and  his  claim  to 
distinction  in  that  domain  of  science 
can  not  be  impaired  by  whatever 
radical  views  he  may  hold  concern- 
ing sublunary  affairs.  Freedom  of 
thought  and  speech  is  dear  to  the  na- 
tion, and  it  will  uphold  it  even  when 
that  freedom  must  be  granted  to 
those  who  aim  at  the  overthrow  of 
its  established  institutions.  Because 
of  native  impatience  and  distrust  of 
control,  the  people  are  apprehensive 
of  greater  danger  resulting  from  the 
abuse  of  the  power  to  suppress  such 
freedom  than  from  the  abuse  of  the 
freedom  itself. 


Into  this  league  of  the  politician, 
the  preacher,  and  the  pedagogue  for 
the  establishment  of  the  communistic 
state  enters,  as  a  fourth  ally,  the  poet, 
the  greatest  among  the  living  poets 
of  Holland.  Mrs.  Henriette  Roland 
Hoist  will  live  in  the  people's  memory 
when  the  names  of  her  male  co-mili- 
tants shall  have  passed  into  oblivion, 
and  her  poetry  is  the  monument  by 
which  posterity  will  be  reminded  of 
a  revolutionary  phase  in  the  nation's 
peaceful  history.  She  has  written 
other  things  than  verse,  propa- 
ganda literature  for  the  enlighten- 
ment of  the  masses,  a  history  of  revo- 
lutionary action,  a  biography  of 
Rousseau.  But  poetry  is  her  true 
domain. 

If  Communism  can  be  justified 
in  the  eyes  of  the  intellectual  elite 
of  Holland,  it  is  as  the  source  of 
inspiration  for  the  most  powerful 
verse  of  modern  Dutch  literature. 
She  is  a  past  master  in  moulding  her 
vigorous  thought  into  plastic  lan- 
guage. In  her  latest  volume  of  verse, 
"Verzonken  Grenzen"  (Submerged 
Bounds),  she  has  surpassed  all  her 
previous  work.  The  disillusion  of 
modern  man  and  the  promise  of  a 
better  world  are  her  theme.  Between 
the  dream  and  the  deed  our  lives  are 
divided.  Dreams  can  not  lift  the 
world  to  a  higher  plane,  and  when 
we  are  active  the  beauty  of  the  dream 
vanishes.  There  is  no  escape  from 
this  disillusionment  except  by  the 
self-sacrifice  of  love,  the  only  deed  by 
which  the  dream  can  be  realized. 

Blessed  the  man  who  goes  to  the  sacri- 
fice, 

In  him  dream  and  deed  are  reborn  into 
one. 

Man  must  dare  to  die  for  the  dream 
of  the  communistic  millennium,  go 
through  the  ordeal  of  bloodshed  and 
revolution,  that  the  next  generation 
may  live  united  by  a  common  love, 
in  which  all  the  barriers  that  hatred 
now  raises  between  man  and  man 
shall  be  submerged.  It  is  the  symbol- 
ism of  the  Gospel  translated  into 
terms  of  latter-day  Communism.  In- 
stead of  the  One  Man  who  died  on  the 
cross,  it  is  the  holocaust  on  the  barri- 
cades that  must  bring  peace  on  earth 
and  good  will  among  men. 

A.  J.  Barnouw 


The   Troubles    of  th< 
"Politicians'  Union" 

THE  present  demoralization  of  all  goi 
ernmental  activities  at  Washingto 
makes  a  situation  that  lends  itself  1 
moralizing.  Even  before  Mr.  Wilson  s 
peremptorily  sacked  Mr.  Lansing  tl; 
pace  of  routine  administration  was  sic 
enough  and  efficiency  was  at  low  ebl 
The  President's  flare-up  will  not  quicke 
or  hearten  those  who  remain.  No  Cab 
net  officer  or  other  underling  will  dan 
except  in  the  most  chastened  and  cii 
cumspect  way,  attend  to  any  aflfairs  c 
state  that  require  initiative  and  entei 
prise.  So  it  befalls  that  this  harbo 
and  refuge  and  centre  of  politicians  i 
given  over  to  discussion  of  politics. 

The  game  of  politics,  like  the  game  c 
chess,  while  intricate  and  susceptible  o 
many  variations,  is  governed  by  fixe 
and  ancient  rules  and  conventions.  ; 
Persian  chess  master  having  no  languag 
but  his  own,  and  no  contact  or  aquainj 
ance  or  understanding  or  even  fair 
knowledge  of  the  western  world,  coul 
yet  come  to  Washington,  Georgia,  an 
there  in  the  shade  and  repose  and  peae 
of  that  fine  old  town  meet  and  play  th 
local  expert  in  the  perfect  ease  and  se 
curity  of  a  meeting  on  thoroughly  know: 
ground.  With  the  chessmen  arrangei 
between  them  the  players  would  kno^ 
without  a  spoken  word  or  any  othe 
channel  of  communication  what  to  di 
next.  The  Georgia  villager  might  sooi 
find  himself  in' closer  mental  communioi 
with  the  Persian  than  with  any  of  hi: 
neighbors. 

Politicians  among  us  are  set  apar 
like  that.  Many  of  them,  a  great  many 
too  many  of  them,  follow  the  game  foi 
a  livelihood.  They  become  professional! 
in  their  engrossing  vocation.  Politics  ii 
the  only  game  that  has  no  penalties  ol 
suspension  or  disbarment  for  fouls  anc 
unfair  practices.  There  are  no  rules 
against  gouging  and  biting  and  scratch' 
ing  and  hitting  below  the  belt.  Mer 
seek  to  rise,  to  attain  temporary  ag- 
grandizement and  office,  to  overcome 
their  opponents  by  any  guile  or  subter 
fuge.  In  their  old  age  they  are  erabit 
tered  and  their  lives  are  ashes  in  theii 
mouths.  Their  days  of  activity  are  spen 
in  the  vain  pursuit  of  illusions  and  no 
in  solid  achievement.  In  the  end  the:| 
are  "lame  ducks"  who  must  be  "takei; 
care  of,"  or  if  they  fall  out  of  the  gam' 
inopportunely  when  their  old  cronie 
and  associates  are  not  in  power,  they  g 
back  where  they  came  from  and  "n 
sume  the  practice  of  law." 

Their  daily  life  is  one  of  appallin 
transitions.  On  one  day  it  takes  thn 
or  four  messengers  to  conduct  them  i 
proper  state  from  the  entrance  of  the 
offices  to  their  desks  and  relieve  the 


March  13,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[249 


of  hat  and  coat.    To  see  the  great  man 

appointments  have  to  be  made  well  in 

[  advance  through  a  reluctant  secretary, 

and  the  time  of  audience  is  restricted. 

It  may  be  that  the  next  time  you  see 

I  him  he  will  be  hanging  precariously  on 

'  the  rear  platform  of  a  street  car  and 

j  oh!  so  eager  to  talk  about  anything  and 

I  as  long  as  you  like.     The  heavy  curse 

1  that  hangs  over  the  "ins"  is  that  sooner 

I  or  later  they  will  be  "outs,"  and  the  one 

'  hope  that  sustains  the  "outs"  and  pre- 

I  vents  them  from  giving  way  to  despair 

and  going  to  work  to  earn  a  living  is 

that  presently  a  turn  of  the  wheel  will 

bring  them  "in." 

As  a  chronicler  of  the  Washington 
scene,  my  days  were  spent  seeking  out 
the  notables  and  being  besought  by  the 
ex-notables.  One  favorite  device  for 
"getting  one's  name  in  the  papers"  in 
other  days  when  the  President's  office 
was  a  centre  of  activity  was  to  come  to 
Washington  in  the  off-season  while  Con- 
gress was  not  in  session  and  pay  a  visit 
to  the  White  House  "to  confer"  with  the 
Executive  on  this,  that,  or  the  other  thing 
that  was  uppermost  in  people's  minds.  It 
was  a  cheap  and  sure  way  to  get  the 
news  back  home.  "Conferring  with  the 
President"  is  one  of  the  oldest  sure-fire 
I  tricks  of  the  trade.  It  has  virtually 
ifallen  into  disuse  at  this  juncture. 
I  Being  what  they  are,  and  permeated 
Iwith  the  instinct  for  their  guild,  the 
ipoliticians  resent  the  intrusion  of  ama- 
teurs and  persons  with  new  ideas  and 
inew  plans.  They  hate  anything  new 
llike  the  very  devil.  They  can  not  cope 
iwith  it.  They  like  established  and 
ifamiliar  issues  such  as  the  tariff.  They 
like  to  deal  with  other  professionals. 
They  disliked  intensely  the  prohibition 
:ontests  in  the  States  a  few  years  back, 
joecause  "you  never  can  tell  which  way 
j:he  darn  thing  is  going  to  cut."  State 
jights  between  the  "wets"  and  the 
i'drys"  spoiled  the  alignment  of  the  more 
or  less  docile  electorate.  The  profes- 
inonals  always  more  or  less  distrusted 
'Roosevelt  and  Hughes,  and  Wilson,  too, 
(vhen  he  first  emerged.  What  the  politi- 
|:ian  always  wants  to  know  of  any  new 
nan  who  is  brought  forward  "to  pander 

0  the  moral  sense  of  the  community"  is 
vhether  he  will  "recognize  the  organi- 
|ation."  It  is  the  same  instinct  and 
jnotive  that  leads  to  a  demand  on  em- 
iiloyers  for  a  recognition  of  the  union. 
jl'he  politicians  are  strongly  unionized. 

1  am  indebted  to  Mr.  William  Bayard 
lale,  who  is,  perhaps,  not  now  remem- 
ered  as  one  of  the  earliest  "authorized" 
iographers  of  Woodrow  Wilson,  for  an 
ceount  of  the  scene  when  the  question 
f  "recognition"  was  first  put  to  the 
merging   President    of    Princeton: 

On  Tuesday,  July  12,  1910,  a  number  of 
|entlemen  gathered  in  a  private  room  of  the 
i  ankers'  Club,  120  Broadway,  New  York,  to 

iquire  of  Mr.  Wilson  whether  he  would  allow 


his  name  to  be  presented  to  the  New  Jersey 
Democratic  State  Convention.  At  that  meet- 
ing were  present  Robert  S.  Hudspeth,  national 
committeeman  for  New  Jersey;  James  R. 
Nugent,  State  chairman ;  Eugene  F.  Kinkead, 
Congressman ;  Richard  V.  Lindabury,  George 
Harvey,  and  Milan  Ross.  But  one  practical 
inquiry  was  made  of  Mr.  Wilson ;  it  was 
voiced  by  Mr.  Hudspeth  and  was  in  substance 
this: 

"Doctor  Wilson,  there  have  been  some  politi- 
cal reformers  who,  after  they  have  been  elected 
to  office  as  candidates  of  one  party  or  the 
other,  have  shut  the  door  in  the  face  of  the 
Organization  leaders,  refusing  even  to  listen 
to  them.  Is  it  your  idea  that  a  Governor  must 
refuse  to  acknowledge  his  party  organization?" 

"Not  at  all,"  Mr.  Wilson  replied.  "I  have 
always  been  a  believer  in  party  organizations. 
If  I  were  elected  Governor  1  should  be  very 
glad  to  consult  with  the  leaders  of  the  Demo- 
cratic Organization.  I  should  refuse  to  listen 
to  no  man,  but  I  should  be  especially  glad 
to  hear  and  duly  consider  the  suggestions  of 
the  leaders  of  my  party.  If,  on  my  own  in- 
dependent investigation,  I  found  that  recom- 
mendations for  appointment  made  to  me  by 
the  Organization  leaders  named  the  best  pos- 
sible men,  I  should  naturally  prefer,  other 
things  being  equal,  to  appoint  them,  as  the 
men  pointed  out  by  the  combined  counsels  of 
the  party." 

Such  fluid,  changing  times  as  these 
daze  the  politicians.  They  don't  know 
what  to  do.  Particularly  they  are  at  a 
loss  to  meet  the  projection  of  such  figures 
as  Hiram  Johnson  and  Herbert  Hoover 
into  the  scene.  Johnson  knows  the  con- 
ventions of  the  political  game  but  will 
never  abide  by  them.  He  doesn't  consort 
or  league  himself  with  professional  poli- 
ticians. He  does  not  number  himself 
among  them,  nor  do  they  claim  him.  He 
has  been  in  politics  and  in  office  since 
1910,  not  because  but  in  spite  of  the 
politicians.  He  has  been  getting  him- 
self elected  by  going  directly  and  in 
person  to  the  voters  in  his  own  State 
and  telling  them  what  he  would  do  if 
given  power.  When  elected  he  has  kept 
his  promise  and  done  what  he  said  he 
would  do.  Now  he  is  offering  himself 
for  the  Presidency  on  the  same  terms 
without  the  aid  or  through  the  offices  of 
any  "organization."  The  managers  of 
his  party  do  not  want  him.  They  can't, 
as  they  put  it,  "do  business"  with  John- 
son. They  think  they  have  him  headed 
off,  for  as  they  say,  "He  may  have  the 
votes  but  he  hasn't  got  the  delegates." 
They  mean  that  politicians  must  nomi- 
nate Presidents  before  voters  can  elect 
them. 

But  the  horrid  fear  and  spectre  that 
makes  the  politicians  so  nervous  and 
jumpy  these  days  is  that  the  voters  may 
insist  on  nominating  as  well  as  electing 
a  President.  That  is  why  the  projec- 
tion of  Mr.  Hoover  is  so  baffling  and 
bewildering.  They  can't  make  head  or 
tail  of  the  posture  in  which  he  has  put 
himself.  They  dislike  him  because  they 
fear  him,  and  they  fear  him  because  they 
can't  understand  him.  Not  for  a  min- 
ute do  they  believe  Hoover  is  not  a  can- 
didate. The  more  frequently  he  repeats 
that  he  is  not  seeking  the  nomination 


the  surer  they  become  that  he  is  put- 
ting over  some  new  "deep  stuff."  And 
it  is  both  pathetic  and  amusing  to  see 
them  nosing  about  trying  to  find 
"Hoover's  press  bureau."  They  are  sure 
that  he  has  one  concealed  some- 
where about  these  precincts  where  "sen- 
timent" is  being  manufactured  for  him. 
They  can't  understand  why  any  man 
should  be  talked  about  for  the  Presi- 
dency, as  Hoover  is  being  talked 
about,  unless  he  is  actively  foment- 
ing the  whole  movement.  The  Low- 
den  boom,  the  Wood  boom,  the  Hard- 
ing boom,  the  Palmer  boom,  the  Cox 
boom,  they  can  understand.  In  each 
case  there  is  clearly  visible  and  appar- 
ent all  the  apparatus — the  press  agent, 
the  managers,  the  Western  headquarters, 
the  Eastern  headquarters — in  fine,  the 
candidate's  organization.  The  whole 
apparition  is  familiar  to  the  politicians. 
It's  the  sort  of  thing  they  understand. 
But  they  can  not  understand  why  such 
diverse  journals  and  channels  of  public 
opinion  as  the  Saturday  Evening  Post, 
the  New  Republic,  the  Review,  the 
World,  the  Springfield  Republican,  and 
Life  should  all  at  once  be  found  saying 
in  various  ways  appreciative,  friendly 
things  about  Hoover,  unless  Hoover  has 
some  dark,  mysterious  underground 
organization  applying  pressure  and  stim- 
ulating sentiment.  That  all  of  these 
editors  should  have  come  separately  to 
the  belief  that  Hoover  is  worth  serious 
consideration  for  the  Presidency  simply 
on  his  record  of  accomplishment  and  his 
character  and  capacities,  as  they  have 
been  revealed  since  1914,  passes  their 
understanding.  The  politicians  won't 
nominate  Hoover  unless  they  have  to^ 
but  they  can  be  made  to  name  him  if  the 
pressure  of  public  sentiment  is  strong 
enough. 

The  wary,  timorous,  stupid  creatures 
will  do  in  the  end,  as  they  always  do, 
whatever  aroused  opinion  demands  of 
them.  Meanwhile  they  talk  politics  and 
con  over  the  stale  chicane  of  their  ancient 
and  outworn  subterfuges.  Washington 
is  dull  and  flat,  and  they  make  it  duller 
and  flatter. 

Edwaed  G.  Lowby 

Poetry 

On  Record 

T  WOULD  not  hand  a  baby  face, 

J-       Smooth  and  unscarred,  to  God  on 

high. 
And  say:  "Hereon  You  will  find  no  trace 
Of  living,  now  I  come  to  die." 

No,  battered  up  and  down  the  ways, 
I  give  Him  back  this  proof  of  me; 

Record  of  keen,  tumultuous  days. 
Life's  scars,  for  man  or  God  to  see! 
Richard  Burton 


250] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  44 


Germany's  Future  Relations  with 
Eastern  Europe 


AFTER  the  collapse  and  dissolution 
of  the  Russian  Empire,  the  Entente 
Powers  found  themselves  faced  by  the 
problem  of  how  they  could  create  a  new 
system  of  forces  which  might  act  as  a 
check  on  a  reviving  Germany.  Having 
once  recovered  from  her  enormous 
losses,  Germany  would,  in  the  long  run, 
derive  great  advantage  from  the  fact 
that  her  immediate  neighbor  in  the  east 
was  no  longer  a  great  power  of  the  first 
order.  The  Entente  policy  naturally  de- 
manded, as  a  substitute  for  this  loss, 
that  Poland  should  be  made  as  strong 
as  possible.  If,  however,  the  Polish 
State  remained  limited  to  the  ethno- 
graphic boundaries  of  its  nationality,  it 
would  only  be  a  secondary  Power,  little 
more  important  than  Rumania.  The 
Entente  requires  a  strong  Poland,  and 
to  that  end  German  territories  must  be 
added  to  it  in  the  west,  Ukrainian  land 
in  the  south,  and  a  white  Russian  area 
in  the  east,  so  that  the  size  of  Poland 
should  be  doubled  and  her  population 
increased  by  fifty  per  cent,  beyond  the 
extent  ethnographically  justified.  If  the 
present  Polish  claims  were  to  be  satis- 
fied, the  future  Poland  would  contain 
seventeen  to  eighteen  million  Poles,  two 
million  Germans,  six  to  seven  million 
Ukrainians,  several  millions  of  white 
Russians,  an  indefinite  number  of  Lithu- 
anians, and  four  to  five  million  Jews. 

The  aggrandizement  of  Poland,  how- 
ever, though  an  end  in  itself,  is  part 
also  of  a  larger  scheme,  the  exclusion 
of  Germany  from  Eastern  Europe  by  the 
formation  of  a  barrier  of  Germanophobe 
States  running  from  the  Baltic  to  the 
Adriatic  and  the  Black  Seas.  France 
and  England  are  at  one  in  supporting 
this  policy,  but  they  are  actuated  by  dif- 
ferent motives:  England  hopes  thereby 
to  exclude  Germany  from  the  Russian 
market,  France  to  prevent  a  political 
alliance  between  Russians  and  Germans 
which  might  jeopardize  the  Entente's 
victory. 

The  Entente  policy  with  regard  to 
Russia  is  handicapped  by  a  general 
ignorance  of  conditions  in  Eastern 
Europe.  A  better  knowledge  would  have 
saved  its  statesmen  from  the  mistake  of 
believing  it  possible  that  Russia,  barring 
the  recognition  of  an  independent 
Poland  and  Finland,  could  be  restored 
in  its  entirety  under  a  democratized 
Tsarist  Government.  The  attempt  to 
bring  this  about  by  supporting  the  mili- 
tary campaigns  of  Kolchak,  Denikin, 
and  Yudenich  was  doomed  to  failure 
from  the  outset.  It  was  based  on  two 
fundamentally  wrong  assumptions,  one 
being  that  the  dismemberment  of  Rus- 


sia into  its  component  nationalities  could 
be  undone  again,  the  other  that  a 
democratized  Tsarist  rule  would  be  wel- 
come to  the  bulk  of  the  Russian  nation 
and  even  to  the  alien  nationalities.  Not 
until  the  new  East-European  States  have 
become  established  on  a  firm  and  lasting 
foundation  will  people  in  West-Euro- 
pean countries  and  the  United  States 
cease  to  believe  that  Russia  ever  was 
an  internally  unified  realm.  The  Rus- 
sian world  empire  has  always  carefully 
concealed  the  fact  that  Eastern  Europe 
was  populated  by  a  great  variety  of 
nations  and  tribes,  of  which  the  great 
Russians  or  Muscovites  formed  only  47 
per  cent.  Fifty-three  per  cent,  of  the 
inhabitants  of  Tsarist  Russia  were  not 
of  Great  Russian  stock.  The  most  im- 
portant of  these  alien  peoples,  the  Finns, 
the  Esthonians,  the  Letts,  the  Lithu- 
anians, the  Poles,  the  Ukrainians,  the 
Georgians,  the  Armenians,  have  realized 
their  craving  for  a  national  independ- 
ence, and  it  seems  a  psychological  and 
political  impossibility  that  they  should 
ever  voluntarily  be  reunited  with  Mos- 
cow. And  to  coerce  them  into  a  reunion 
by  violence  is  not  in  the  power  of  Soviet 
Russia. 

The  alleged  loyalty  of  the  bulk  of  the 
Russian  peoples  to  Tsarism  has  not  stood 
the  test  of  the  late  anti-Bolshevik  cam- 
paigns. The  failure  of  Kolchak  and 
Denikin  was  largely  due  to  the  people's 
refusal  to  support  them.  In  the  rear  of 
both  armies  followed  the  landowners 
whom  the  peasants  had  expelled,  and 
demanded  restitution  of  their  land,  their 
cattle,  and  everything  the  peasants  had 
robbed  them  of.  When  Denikin  pene- 
trated into  the  Ukraine  he  was  at  first 
hailed  by  the  peasants  as  a  deliverer 
from  Bolshevist  requisitions,  but  when 
the  returning  landovraers  claimed  not 
only  the  value  of  the  poultry  stolen  two 
or  three  years  before  but  also  the  value 
of  the  eggs  which  the  hens  were  reckoned 
to  have  laid  during  that  time,  the 
peasants  began  to  realize  that  Denikin 
brought  no  change  for  the  better.  The 
expelled  landowners  in  the  Ukraine  were 
Great  Russians,  who  had  been  in  pos- 
session of  the  land  ever  since  the 
Ukraine  was  forcibly  brought  under  the 
rule  of  Moscow;  so  a  national  element 
added  strength  to  the  agrarian  and  social 
motives  counteracting  Denikin's  enter- 
prise. The  peasants  know  that  the  chief 
issue  is  the  land  problem  and  that  a 
success  of  the  Tsarist  generals  would 
have  meant  a  restoration  of  the  landed 
gentry,  and  a  return  to  the  old  social 
order.  To  that  old  order  they  are  bit- 
terly hostile.     It  is  a  grave  mistake  to 


expect  loyalty  to  the  Tsar  from  the  Rus- 
sian peasants.  Nicholas  II  and  his  Min- 
isters, believing  in  their  loyalty,  granted 
the  peasantry  the  right  to  vote  when 
they  drafted  an  electoral  system  for  the 
first  Duma  in  1905.  The  result  was  a 
Duma  with  a  radical  majority  of  peasant 
deputies  elected  on  a  platform  in  which 
the  chief  plank  was  the  surrender  of  all 
land  in  Russia  to  the  peasants,  if  pos- 
sible, without  any  compensation. 

As  to  the  chief  aspects,  therefore,  of 
the  future  of  Eastern  Europe  there 
can  be  little  doubt:  (1)  The  dissolu- 
tion of  the  old  Russian  Empire  will  be 
permanent,  and  attempts  to  restore  it 
by  force,  though  they  might  have  a 
short-lived  success,  will  only  tend  to 
establish  the  new  order  on  a  firmer  basis; 
(2)  the  largest  of  the  future  East- 
European  States,  Great  Russia  or  Mos- 
cow, will  most  probably  assume  the 
status  of  a  peasant  democracy.  It  is 
less  easy  to  make  a  forecast  as  to  the 
duration  of  Bolshevist  rule.  It  car 
hardly  be  permanent,  as  it  is  the  dic- 
tatorship of  a  minority,  and  even  of  i 
small  minority.  Eighty  per  cent,  of  th« 
Great  Russian  population  are  peasants 
and  these  will  have  nothing  to  do  wit! 
Bolshevism.  Soviet  Russia  consists,  as 
it  were,  of  two  separate  areas,  a  Bol 
shevist  one,  which  is  limited  to  the  largt 
cities  and  the  control  of  the  railways, 
and  an  agrarian  one,  which  has  relapsec 
into  the  most  primitive  economic  con- 
ditions, without  manufactures,  ever 
almost  without  iron.  A  dozen  sewing 
needles,  the  only  iron  implement  the 
peasant  absolutely  needs,  can  not  be 
bought  for  less  than  a  hundred  rubles, 
Of  the  middle  classes  in  the  cities  little 
is  left,  as  part  of  them  have  emigrated 
and  the  rest  have  become  pauperized 
and  decimated  by  diseases  and  starva- 
tion. 

In  nearly  all  parts  of  the  former  Rus- 
sian Empire  the  Entente  is  very  unpopu- 
lar. Especially  towards  France  the 
people's  feelings  are  bitterly  hostile,  and 
the  English  are  feared  and  distrusted 
It  is  generally  believed  that  the  Entente 
is  responsible  for  Russia's  downfall 
Among  the  better  educated  elements  oi 
the  Russian  masses  the  idea  of  a  unior 
with  Germany  is  very  popular,  not  £ 
political  or  military  union  for  an  aggres 
sive  policy  of  revenge,  but  an  economic 
and  cultural  alliance.  The  Russians 
have  come  to  realize  that  the  gulf  be 
tween  their  own  mentality  and  that  ol 
the  western  peoples  can  never  be  bridged 
and  that,  in  spite  of  their  aversion  t( 
the  Germans,  which  was  very  pro 
nounced  before  the  war,  they  have  mon 
in  common  with  them  than  with  any  othe 
European  nation.  Before  the  war  th 
Russians  used  to  complain  that  thei 
country  was  being  exploited  by  German; 
by  means  of  an  extorted  commercis 
treaty.    But  now  one  can  hear  them  sa; 


March  13,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[251 


that  the  British  and  French  schemes 
with  regard  to  Russia  are  worse  than 
exploitation  and  amount  to  downright 
plunder.  It  is  no  secret  in  Russia  that 
the  British  Board  of  Trade  has  recom- 
mended a  plan  for  a  general  State  insur- 
ance of  all  goods  to  be  exported  to 
Russia.  The  English  manufacturer 
naturally  distrusts  the  uncertain  condi- 
tion of  affairs  in  Russia,  and  objects  to 
his  bearing  the  risk  of  the  export.  This 
insurance  scheme,  it  is  thought  in  Rus- 
sia, is  meant  to  act  as  a  check  on  future 
German  competition.  The  Russian  offi- 
cers who  belonged  to  the  former  army  o'f 
Colonel  Avalov-Bermondt,  who  made  the 
abortive  attempt  to  enlist  20,000  German 
soldiers  for  his  projected  march  against 
Moscow,  say  quite  openly  that  the  En- 
tente did  not  permit  the  Germans  to  join 
Avalov's  forces  for  two  reasons,  Eng- 
land being  afraid  lest  that  military 
campaign  should  open  a  Russian-German 
trade  route,  and  France  foreseeing  the 
growth  of  a  Russian-German  alliance  out 
of  this  joint  armed  action.  Both  appre- 
hensions have  no  real  foundations,  as 
far  as  Germany  is  concerned.  Both  the 
people  and  the  Government  in  Germany 
are  too  passive  to  conceive  such  far- 
reaching  political  schemes.  But  this 
Russian  talk  is  significant  of  the  pre- 
vailing feelings  among  the  Russians,  and 
helps  one  to  understand  the  anger  of  the 
French  Colonel  who,  according  to  a  dis- 
patch from  a  Swedish  journalist,  had  an 
interview  with  one  of  Avalov's  officers, 
in  which  he  bitterly  complained  of  the 
Russian  people  who,  he  said,  seemed  to 
know  only  one  feeling,  that  of  hatred 
against  France. 

Germany's  future  position  in  Eastern 
Europe,   therefore,  will  not  be  decided 
by  any  definite  schemes  now  on  foot,  but 
by  the  existing  facts,  both  political  and 
ethnographical,    and    by   the    prevailing 
sentiments  of  the  Russian  people.     Not 
even   Poland   will   probably   be   able   to 
persist  economically  in  her  hostile  atti- 
1  tude  towards  Germany.     The  intensity 
^  of  national  contrasts  in  Poland  and  the 
!  peculiarities  of  the  Polish  character  will 
I  soon   create  a  very   unsettled   state   of 
I  affairs  in  that  country.    Poland  as  it  has 
j  been  set  up  by  the  Entente  will  never 
1  form  a  stable  element  in  the  future  East- 
I  European    system.      With    the    Czecho- 
slovak State,  in  spite  of  the  resentment 
I  felt  among  Germans  on  account  of  three 
millions  of  their  countrymen  being  forced 
I  into  Czechoslovak  citizenship,   Germany 
jmust  also,   sooner  or   later,   enter   into 
close   economic    relations.      The   Czechs 
[are  on  three  sides  surrounded  by  Ger- 
man  territory,    through    Germany    they 
must  keep  in  touch  with  the  rest  of  the 
j  world,  the  German  language  is  for  them 
jthe  medium  by  which  they  acquire  their 
knowledge  of  western  culture.    Neither 
can     Hungary     and     Jugoslavia     exist 
permanently  without  economic  and  cul- 


tural relations  with  Germany.  Their 
history  and  geographical  position  pre- 
clude a  lasting  estrangement.  In  the 
Hungarian  and  Slav  territories  of  the 
former  Dual  Monarchy  German  has  for 
centuries  been  a  second  vernacular;  it 
is  too  firmly  e.stablished  to  be  suddenly 
and  arbitrarily  replaced  by  another  lan- 
guage. Neither  Eastern  Middle  Europe 
nor  Eastern  Europe  proper  is  able  to 
exist  without  a  close  relationship  to  Ger- 
many, to  German  commerce,  to  German 
industries,  to  German  intellect.  The 
attempt  to  make  English-French  inter- 
ests and  culture  prevail  in  those  parts 
is  doomed  to  failure  for  the  simple  rea- 
son that  the  East  European  peoples  will 
never  take  to  them.  It  is  a  common 
error    to    think    that    French    is    the 


favorite  foreign  language  of  the  Rus- 
sians. It  was  that  only  among  court 
circles  and  the  aristocracy.  When  the 
Russian  businessman,  the  scholar,  the 
official  learned  a  foreign  language,  it 
was,  in  four  out  of  five  cases,  German. 
Before  the  war  Russians  loved  to  pre- 
tend that  they  knew  no  German,  but  they 
understood  it  quite  well  all  the  same.  In 
the  days  of  German  militarism  much 
harm  was  done  to  German  interests  in 
Russia  by  German  "Schroffheit"  and 
"Schneidigkeit."  But  these  are  ill  man- 
ners of  the  past.  A  change  also  in  the 
German  mentality  will  help  to  open  up 
a   peaceful   way   towards  the  East. 

Dr.  Paul  Rohrbach 

Berlin,  January  7 


Organization  in  Scientific  Research 


ORGANIZE  research?  Why  you 
might  as  well  try  to  organize  the 
production  of  poetry,  or  sculpture,  or 
painting!  It  can't  be  done,  and  if  it 
could,  it  oughtn't  to  be!"  Thus  spoke 
a  very  clever  and  intelligent  friend  of 
mine,  whose  opinions  tend  strongly 
toward  the  indicative  and  imperative 
moods,  with  only  the  rarest  sprinkling 
of  subjunctives.  And  I  suspect  that  his 
opinion,  while  ludicrously  untrue  as  to 
the  facts,  is  shared  by  many  of  our  intel- 
ligentsia to  whom  research  is  identified 
with  the  occasional  epoch-making  dis- 
covery which  they  visualize  to  themselves 
as  the  inspiration  of  some  solitary  genius. 
The  mere  term  "organization"  smacks 
to  them  of  repression  and  coercion,  sug- 
gests the  strait-jacket  and  the  boss, 
and  other  unpleasant  things  well  known 
to  be  hostile  to  initiative  and  individual- 
ity.    But  let  us  consider  the  situation. 

Merely  to  satisfy  one's  instinct  of 
pugnacity,  it  would  be  gratifying  to  take 
up  the  gauntlet  cast  down  by  my  dogmatic 
friend,  and  to  note  how  many  great 
works  of  plastic  art  have  in  a  fair  sense 
been  made  to  order.  Even  the  poet 
laureate  has  been  known  to  rise  to  an 
occasion  requiring  celebration  in  verse. 
But  time  fails  to  pursue  this  trail, 
and,  moreover,  the  completeness  of  the 
analogy  of  research  with  creative  art 
may  be  called  in  question.  At  all  events, 
it  is  for  us  to  come  at  once  to  grips 
with  scientific  research  and  the  condi- 
tions of  its  effective  prosecution. 

As  a  noted  botanist  says:  "Science 
has  thus  far  progressed  by  purely  guerilla 
modes  of  warfare.  It  is  time  that  it 
organized  and  conducted  its  campaign 
as  intelligently  as  do  other  human  inter- 
ests." If  one  thinks  of  such  organization 
as  implying  a  director-general  of  re- 
search who  doles  out  to  each  individual 
his  particular  job  in  the  programme, 
then  undoubtedly  the  result  would  be 
disastrous.    Intrinsic  intellectual  interest 


would  inevitably  be  slighted  and  snubbed, 
enthusiasm  and  energy  would  be  sapped, 
and  in  place  of  vigorous  and  fruitful 
endeavor  we  should  have  a  process  of 
purely  mechanical  time-marking.  But, 
fortunately,  there  are  quite  other 
methods  of  securing  the  desired  end 
which  avoid  most,  if  not  all,  of  these  dif- 
ficulties. 

Let  us  suppose  that  a  group  of  the 
leading  men  in  a  given  field  of  science 
get  together  and  survey  the  most  urgent 
needs  or  the  most  promising  possibilities 
in  their  own  line  of  work;  suppose  they 
outline  a  general  inclusive  programme  of 
research  which  affords  opportunity  to 
pursue  the  most  varied  interests,  and 
still  to  knit  them  all  into  one  central 
project;  suppose,  finally,  that  invitations 
be  issued  to  a  group  of  competent  scien- 
tists to  participate  in  such  a  programme. 
There  is  nowhere  any  coercion,  no  one 
takes  part  who  does  not  desire  so  to  do, 
and  no  one  suffers  under  any  restrictions 
save  those  of  his  own  imposing.  But 
the  result  of  such  a  cooperative  under- 
taking is  inevitably  more  inclusive  in  the 
breadth  and  thoroughness  of  its  achieve- 
ment than  the  wholly  uncoordinated 
efforts  of  the  same  group.  Nor  is  this 
assertion  a  matter  of  mere  opinion.  It 
was  proved  to  be  true  over  and  over 
again  in  the  war,  and  in  other  nations 
as  well  as  among  ourselves.  Such 
methods  speed  up  research,  and  produce 
far  more  symmetrical  and  conclusive 
results.  This  is  one  of  the  things  which 
the  National  Research  Council,  represent- 
ing as  it  does  in  its  membership  all  the 
great  scientific  societies  of  the  country, 
is  successfully  undertaking.  It  involves 
simply  a  voluntary  programme  of  scien- 
tific men  for  enlarging,  energizing,  and 
expediting  their  own  productivity,  with 
a  consequent  gain  for  society  as  well  as 
for  science. 

But  let  us  return  a  moment  to  my 
friend   and  his  conception  of   research 


252] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  44 


as  something  wholly  esoteric,  individual- 
istic, and  inspired. 

No  doubt  there  are  individualists  in 
science,  as  in  art,  and  even  in  business — 
men  who  make  personal  contacts  with 
difficulty  or  not  at  all.  Some  of  these 
men  are  geniuses,  but  most  are  not.  They 
are  simply  folk  who  have  to  make  their 
human  contribution,  large  or  small,  as  it 
may  be,  in  their  own  peculiar  way.  They 
must  be  largely  neglected  in  any  coopera- 
tive programme.  But  it  would  be  a 
gross  perversion  of  the  historical  facts 
to  assume  that  all  the  seriously  useful 
contributors  to  science,  even  all  the 
geniuses,  are  of  this  type.  Quite  the  con- 
trar>'  is  the  case.  And  moreover,  the 
natural  sciences  have  for  several  gen- 
erations been  at  the  point  where  they 
could  advantageously  employ  in  their 
advancement  research  capacities  extend- 
ing all  the  way  from  that  of  a  Newton 
or  Darwin  down  to  the  freshest  tyro 
with  the  ink  not  yet  dry  on  his  doctor's 
degree.  Organization  is  the  clue,  and 
the  only  clue,  to  securing  some  approach 
to  a  full-interest  return  on  the  intellectual 
capital  represented  by  these  very  diverse 
abilities.  In  a  well-conceived  general 
programme  of  research,  place  can  be 
found  for  even  mediocre  ability,  which, 
if  left  to  itself,  is  certain,  for  the  most 
part,  to  be  sterile.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
much  of  the  best  research  in  the  great 
scientific  laboratories  has  emanated  from 
the  planning  of  the  master  at  the  head, 
who  throughout  a  long  period  of  years, 
perhaps,  guides  and  directs  the  research 
of  his  disciples  with  the  result  that 
knowledge  of  the  highest  value  accrues 
from  the  integrated  work  of  men,  many 
of  whom  if  left  unguided  would  have 
produced  little  or  nothing  and  even  that 
of  an  accidental  and  incidental  charac- 
ter, sustaining  no  significant  relations  to 
the  main  currents  of  scientific  progress. 

One  should  not  be  confused  in  think- 
ing of  this  situation  by  assuming  that 
such  cooperative  research  as  we  have 
been  discussing  need  tend  toward  purely 
practical  issues.  The  direction  which 
such  investigation  takes  rests  on  wholly 
other  considerations.  Scientists  may  in 
a  given  instance  decide  that  for  the 
moment  the  most  urgent  need  is  re- 
search in  a  field  of  applied  science.  But 
they  well  know  and  fully  appreciate  that 
only  in  pure  science  are  the  revolutionary 
discoveries  to  be  made,  and  that  no  one 
can  predict  in  advance  whence  such  a 
discovery  may  come  nor  what  its  impli- 
cations may  be.  A  discovery  in  the 
physiology  of  the  organic  cell  may  revo- 
lutionize the  conceptions  of  physics  and 
chemistry.  There  need,  therefore,  be  no 
fear  that  if  scientists  work  in  more  inti- 
mate contact  with  one  another  than 
heretofore  they  will,  in  consequence,  tend 
to  neglect  the  interests  of  pure  science. 

Still  more  convincing  as  to  the  needs 
and  possibilities  of  organization  in  scien- 


tific research  are  considerations  regard- 
ing the  problems  set  by  society  and  the 
conditions  of  modern  life.  Many  of  the 
most  important  issues  confronting  the 
contemporary  community  inevitably  in- 
volve for  their  solution  the  cooperation 
of  scientists  in  quite  distinct  fields. 
Illustrations  without  number  will  sug- 
gest themselves.  For  example,  sewage 
disposal  is  in  part  a  problem  for  the 
sanitary  engineer,  in  part  for  the  chem- 
ist, in  part  for  the  bacteriologist,  in  part 
for  the  expert  in  soil  ftrtilizers  or  in  the 
industrial  utilization  of  end  products. 
No  one  individual  is  or  can  be  a  compe- 
tent investigator  in  all  these  directions. 
The  problem  of  improvement  in  fuels  and 
their  use  is  similarly  in  part  a  question 
of  geology,  in  part  one  of  chemistry,  in 
part  one  of  engineering,  to  say  nothing 
of  the  economic  aspects  of  the  issue. 
Public  health  questions  generally  involve 
the  bacteriologist,  the  hygienist,  the 
epidemiologist,  the  chemist,  the  engineer, 
etc.  These  are  not  fictitious  illustra- 
tions. They  are  drawn  from  actual 
practice,  and  exhibit  some  of  the  simpler, 
rather  than  some  of  the  more  compli- 
cated, requirements.  Often  the  State  or 
the  city  calls  together  such  a  group  to 
study  its  own  special  practical  problems, 
but  no  agency  has  hitherto  attempted  to 
assume  any  general  leadership  in  secur- 
ing cooperative  attack  upon  the  under- 
lying fundamental  scientific  issues  in 
such  problems  without  regard  to  any 
immediate  practical  exigencies.  Here 
again,  the  National  Research  Council  is 
offering  its  services  and  bringing  to- 
gether, by  the  voluntary  action  of  rep- 
resentatives of  our  leading  scientific 
societies,  groups  of  competent  investi- 
gators to  attack  such  problems.  If  left 
to  the  accidents  of  individual  initiative, 
they  are  likely  to  be  indefinitely  post- 
poned, and  just  because  they  involve  so 
wide  a  range  of  scientific  interests. 
Obvious  are  the  opportunities  for  coop- 
eration among  State  and  Federal  scien- 
tific agencies,  among  the  great  private 
research  institutions  and  the  like. 
A  very  conspicuous  field  of  cooperative 
endeavor  in  applied  science  is  met  in  the 
case  of  the  smaller  industries.  The  great 
industrial  corporation  can  afford  its  own 
research  laboratories,  and  many  have 
such.  But  the  small  producer  can  not 
afford  such  a  luxury.  There  is,  however, 
no  reason  why  he  should  not  join  with 
other  firms  in  his  line  of  work  and  estab- 
lish conjointly  a  central  research  labora- 
tory, to  the  support  of  which  each 
contributes ;  or  if  that  form  of  procedure 
be  impracticable,  these  groups  may 
employ  scientific  men  working  in  their 
own  laboratories  to  undertake  such 
research  as  is  required.  Plans  of  these 
types  have  already  gained  headway  both 
in  En<Jland  and  in  the  United  States,  and 
the  National  Research  Council  is  giving 
such  aid  as  it  can. 


By  no  means  the  least  important  aspect 
of  the  whole  case  is  the  producing  of 
trained  personnel  for  research.  Broadly 
speaking,  the  universities  are  the  only 
agencies  from  which  such  personnel  is 
now  derived.  Moreover,  they  serve  a 
double  function  in  producing  the  larger 
part  of  the  research  in  pure  science  at 
the  same  time  that  they  train  research 
personnel.  It  is  well  understood,  and 
requires  no  further  emphasis,  how  exten- 
sively many  of  these  institutions  have 
been  raided  by  business  and  industry  as 
an  aftermath  of  the  war,  in  which  it 
was  suddenly  discovered  that  the  occa- 
sional college  professor  has  a  tangible 
economic  value.  But  it  is  impossible  to 
exaggerate  the  disaster  which  will  over- 
take our  entire  national  programme  in 
science,  if  there  be  not  prompt  steps 
taken  to  attract  and  retain  for  the 
academic  profession  a  fair  share  of  men 
of  the  highest  ability. 

Quite  apart,  however,  from  this  mat- 
ter is  the  problem  of  securing  a  more 
rational  distribution  of  research  facili- 
ties. As  matters  now  stand,  the  larger 
universities  tend  to  expand  into  every 
field  of  research  with  relatively  little 
regard  to  the  conditions  in  other  insti- 
tutions. The  temptation  is  to  make  each 
institution  a  university  in  a  somewhat 
literal  sense.  Now,  it  requires  only  the 
most  superficial  knowledge  of  the  con- 
ditions in  science  to  recognize  that  some 
forms  of  research  are  eminently  appro- 
priate in  one  institution  and  grotesquely 
inappropriate  in  others.  One  would  be 
hard  put  to  it  to  justify  the  development 
of  marine  engineering  in  a  region  hun- 
dreds of  miles  removed  from  any  navi- 
gable water;  and  with  several  large 
medical  schools  in  a  community  of  mod- 
erate size,  the  establishment  of  another 
could  hardly  be  viewed  as  judicious. 
Nevertheless,  this  is  exactly  the  sort  of 
thing  which  has  been  going  on,  and 
which  will  go  on  indefinitely  unless  our 
university  authorities  get  together  and 
arrive  at  some  kind  of  gentleman's 
agreement,  if  it  be  nothing  more  formal, 
which  will  prevent  the  dissipation  of 
financial  and  scientific  energy  repre- 
sented by  the  present  practices. 

It  is  absurd  to  have  every  university 
attempt  unlimited  varieties  of  research 
work.  The  wastage  in  material  equip- 
ment is  unjustified,  and  it  is  quite  impos- 
sible in  this  generation  at  least  to  secure 
the  necessary  calibre  in  the  scientific  men 
needed  to  provide  so  many  institutions 
with  competent  directors  of  research 
and  trainers  of  fresh  personnel  in  every 
department  of  science.  There  must  be 
cooperation  and  organization  here  if 
wholly  unwarranted  wastage  and  ineffi- 
ciency are  to  be  avoided. 

All  things  considered,  therefore,  we 
may  safely  conclude  that  research  can 
be  organized  in  ways  which  exercise  only 
beneficial   influences  on   initiative,  that 


March  13,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[258 


without  such  organization  our  science 
will  remain  in  the  condition  of  mediaeval 
industry,  that  by  improving  the  methods 
already  employed  the  boundaries  of 
knowledge  may  be  pushed  forward  with 
unprecedented  rapidity,  and  finally,  that 
for  the  solution  of  certain  types  of  prob- 
lems, organization  is  wholly  indispen- 
sable. 

For  the  realization  of  such  ends,  the 
National  Research  Council  was  created. 
It  has  just  received  a  very  generous 
endowment,  which  will  allow  it  in  per- 
petuity to  carry  forward  and  develop  the 
efforts  it  has  already  initiated  to  provide 
such  a  mobilization  of  research  talent  as 
may  best  contribute  to  the  welfare  of  the 
nation  in  times  of  peace,  and  be  ready 
at  a  moment's  notice  for  the  nation's 
defense  in  time  of  peril. 

James  Rowland  Angell 

Chairman,-  National  Research  Council 

Correspondence 

Mr.  Lansing's  Statutory 
Rights 

To  the  Editors  of  THE  Review: 

Let  me  congratulate  you  on  your  edi- 
torial on  the  Lansing  incident.  In  all 
the  discussion  of  this  question,  it  seems 
to  be  assumed  that  the  President  has 
complete  power  over  his  so-called  Cabinet 
officers.  It  seems  to  be  the  general  im- 
pression that,  as  the  President  nominates 
the  head  of  a  department  and  can  remove 
him  at  pleasure,  he  is  peculiarly  the 
instrumentality  of  the  Executive  and 
that  his  rights  and  obligations  are  as 
the  Executive  may  require. 

The  assumption  that  Cabinet  officers 
derive  their  powers  solely  from  the 
President  is  erroneous.  Even  his  power 
to  appoint  them  is  qualified  by  the 
requirement  that  the  Senate  shall  con- 
sent, and  his  power  to  remove  is  to  some 
extent  shared  by  Congress,  which  can 
at  any  time  impeach  a  delinquent  head 
of  a  department,  and  thus  remove  him 
from  his  position. 

The  head  of  a  department  has  a  statu- 
tory office  with  statutory  rights  and 
obligations.  The  official  status  is  cre- 
ated by  the  Constitution  itself,  and  the 
power  to  determine  the  duties  of  a 
department  head  is  delegated  to  Con- 
gress, and  not  to  the  Executive.  Neither 
by  statute  nor  by  the  Constitution  does 
the  Cabinet  officially  exist.  It  is  a  mere 
colloquial  term. 

The  Constitution  (Art.  I,  Sect.  8) 
gives  to  Congress  the  power 

to- make  all  laws  which  shall  be  necessary  and 
proper  for  carrying  into  execution  the  fore- 
going powers  and  all  other  powers  vested  by 
this  Constitution  in  the  Government  of  the 
United  States,  or  in  any  department  or  officer 
thereof. 

Under  this  grant  of  power,  the  depart- 


ments, whose  executive  heads  constitute 
the  so-called  Cabinet,  were  established  by 
Congress.  Thus,  it  is  provided  by  R.  S. 
Sect.  199: 

There  shall  be  at  the  seat  of  Government  an 
executive  department,  to  be  known  as  the  De- 
partment of  State,  and  a  Secretary  of  State, 
who  shall  be  the  head  thereof. 

Similar  provisions  are  made  for  the 
other  departments  of  the  Government, 
and  Congress  prescribes  by  various 
statutes  the  respective  duties  allotted 
to  these  departments,  and  the  rights  and 
obligations  of  the  officials  connected 
therewith. 

Secretary  Lansing,  therefore,  did  not 
owe  his  office  to  President  Wilson.  He 
did  owe  his  nomination  to  that  office  to 
the  President  and  his  final  appointment 
to  the  Senate,  which  confirmed  it.  He 
had  an  official  status,  which  Congress 
had  created,  and  he  had  rights  and 
duties  which  Congress  prescribed.  No 
one  could  question  that  the  illness  of 
the  President  in  any  respect  impaired 
the  right,  power,  and  duty  of  the  Sec- 
retary of  State  to  continue  in  the  ad- 
ministration of  his  department.  The 
President,  however,  contended  that  the 
Secretary  of  State  in  the  discharge  of 
his  statutory  duties  could  not  confer 
with  the  heads  of  other  departments  in 
a  so-called  session  of  the  Cabinet  with- 
out the  consent  of  the  President,  even 
though  the  President  were  unable  to 
give  his  consent.  Of  all  Mr.  Wilson's 
extraordinary  manifestations  of  one- 
man  power,  this  is  easily  the  most  inde- 
fensible. 

While  each  department  of  the  Govern- 
ment has  its  own  province,  yet  coordina- 
tion between  them  is  required,  as  their 
duties  overlap.  The  balance  wheel  is 
the  Department  of  Justice,  and  nearly 
all  the  department  heads,  other  than  the 
Attorney  General,  would  find  it  difficult 
to  disciiarge  their  duties  unless  they 
could  confer  with  the  Attorney  General 
with  respect  to  their  legal  obligations. 
Congress  compels  the  Attorney  General 
to  advise  the  departments,  when  re- 
quested by  their  executive  heads.  This 
generally  involves  conference  and  cooper- 
ation. If  the  Secretary  of  State  had  the 
right  to  confer  with  the  Attorney  Gen- 
eral, without  the  request  of  the  Presi- 
dent, then  it  follows  that  he  had  an 
equal  right  to  confer  with  any  other 
department  head  whose  cooperation  was 
necessary  in  the  discharge  of  his  duties. 
Thus,  no  department  can  function  with- 
out the  cooperation  of  the  Treasury 
Department.  If  two  heads  of  depart- 
ments can  confer  in  the  discharge  of 
their  statutory  duties,  without  asking 
the  permission  of  the  President,  it  must 
follow  that  all  could  do  the  same.  If 
this  right  and  duty  of  cooperation  exists 
when  the  President  is  not  disabled,  a 
fortiori  it  exists  in  the  event  of  his  dis- 
ability. 


The  opposing  theory  is  due  to  the  fact 
that,  in  the  popular  mind — and  appar- 
ently in  Mr.  Wilson's  idea  of  the  Con- 
stitution— the  Cabinet  has  an  official 
status  as  such  and  that  its  decision  car- 
ries with  it  a  collective  influence  as  such ; 
but,  as  I  have  said,  the  Cabinet  is,  from 
a  legal  standpoint,  non-existent.  Each 
department  head  has  a  power  which  is 
limited  to  his  own  sphere  of  usefulness, 
and  is  defined  by  statute,  and  the  heads 
of  departments  can  not  collectively  take 
any  action  that  would  have  any  greater 
legal  force  than  that  which  each  head  of 
a  department  takes  separately,  except 
where  otherwise  specifically  provided. 
Thus,  if  a  Secretary  of  State  were  to 
take  a  certain  action  which  in  itself  was 
legal,  no  court  could  nullify  his  action 
because  the  Cabinet  was  of  opinion  that 
it  was  inexpedient.  In  any  legal  pro- 
ceeding, no  cognizance  could  be  taken 
of  the  Cabinet,  as  such. 

The  executive  head  of  a  department, 
therefore,  is  something  more  than  a 
mere  automaton  of  the  President.  He 
is  a  servant  of  the  Government,  with 
rights,  duties,  and  limitations  prescribed 
by  Congress  and  not  by  the  President. 
If  Congress  requires  him  to  do  a  certain 
act  or  to  refrain  from  doing  a  certain 
act,  and  such  command  or  injunction  is 
within  the  legislative  powers  of  Con- 
gress, then  the  Cabinet  officer  must  obey 
the  command  or  respect  the  limitation, 
without  regard  to  the  wishes  of  the 
President.  Thus,  if  Congress  were  to 
pass  a  law  forbidding  the  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury  to  compromise  a  claim 
against  the  United  States  except  after 
conference  with  and  by  the  advice  of  the 
Attorney  General,  the  President  would 
be  powerless  to  direct  his  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury  to  compromise  the  claim 
in  any  other  way. 

All  this  is  so  trite  and  obvious  that  its 
statement  would  be  the  idlest  superfluity 
had  not  the  President  gravely  called  into 
question  the  power  of  the  members  of 
his  so-called  Cabinet  to  confer  with  each 
other.  Undoubtedly  the  joint  meeting 
of  the  heads  of  the  departments,  which 
collectively  we  call  the  Cabinet,  while 
having  no  Constitutional  or  even  statu- 
tory status,  has  acquired  in  the  practical 
administration  of  the  Government  an 
unofficial  status,  and,  therefore,  it  may 
be  open  to  fair  question,  as  a  matter  of 
official  etiquette,  whether  the  heads  of 
the  departments,  except  in  an  extraordi- 
nary emergency,  could,  on  their  own 
motion,  jointly  meet  as  a  Cabinet  with- 
out discourtesy  to  the  President.  If  the 
President  had  rested  his  complaint 
against  Mr.  Lansing  upon  a  question  of 
courtesy,  more  could  be  said  in  justi- 
fication of  his  contention ;  although,  even 
then,  the  contention  is  surprising  that, 
with  the  President  stricken  by  a  serious 
malady,  the  so-called  Cabinet  could  not 
meet  to  determine  what  the  public  inter- 


2.>4] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  44 


ests  required.  The  President,  however, 
did  not  rest  his  complaint  upon  a  ques- 
tion of  etiquette  or  courtesy;  but  con- 
tended that  the  meeting  of  the  Cabinet 
without  his  knowledge  and  approval — 
although  he  was  then  incapable  of  either 
knowledge  or  approval — was  a  violation 
of  our  form  of  government,  and  suffi- 
ciently grave  to  justify  the  summary 
removal  of  a  Secretary  of  State.  Its 
unsoundness  can  be  tested  by  an  extreme 
illustration. 

Suppose  that  the  Cabinet  of  the  United 
States,  in  time  of  war,  became  convinced 
that  the  President  of  the  United  States 
was  conspiring  with  the  enemies  of  his 
country  and  that  for  this  and  other  grave 
misdemeanors  was  justly  subject  to 
impeachment,  and  let  us  suppose  that 
the  facts  with  reference  to  the  Presi- 
dent's dereliction,  which  fully  justified 
his  removal,  lay  exclusively  in  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  various  heads  of  departments. 
If,  under  these  circumstances,  the  Cabi- 
net met  formally,  reached  the  conclusion 
that  the  President  should  be  impeached 
and  removed,  and  communicated  their 
joint  judgment  to  the  Congress  of  the 
United  States,  what  Constitutional  pro- 
vision would  be  violated?  Indeed,  would 
they  not,  under  the  assumed  circum- 
stances, simply  discharge  an  undoubted 
duty  that  they  owed  to  their  country? 

James  M.  Beck 

New  York,  March  8 

How  to  Meet  the  Revolu- 
tionist 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review  : 

In  your  issue  of  February  28,  the  edi- 
torial entitled  "Hillquit  on  the  Socialist 
Programme,"  presents  the  urgent  ques- 
tion. What  is  to  be  done  as  to  the  Social- 
ists and  their  revolutionary  propaganda? 

One  difficulty  encountered  is  the 
adroit  use  of  language  found  among 
professional  Socialists.  The  language  of 
the  Socialist  agitator  to  his  "proletariat" 
audience  may  probably  be  received  in  a 
different  sense  from  that  which  he 
assigns  to  it  if  called  to  account  by  con- 
stituted authority.  The  terms  "mass 
action,"  "direct  action"  and  "revolution," 
used  repeatedly  in  Socialist  writings,  are 
illustrations. 

Mr.  Hillquit  himself  is  hardly  the  type 
of  "proletarian"  for  whom  the  social 
"Revolution"  is  advocated.  His  success- 
ful law  practice  of  27  years  and  his  resi- 
dence on  Riverside  Drive  are  not  an 
obvious  identification  with  the  "ex- 
ploited" labor  masses.  It  is  not  sur- 
prising that  his  announced  definition  of 
Socialism  falls  short  of  that  current  in 
Russia,  and  expressed  by  other  leaders 
of  the  Socialist  party  in  this  country 
and  in  the  manifesto  of  that  portion  of 


the  Socialist  party  in  this  country 
(claiming  to  be  a  large  majority  in 
numbers)  which  set  up  a  separate  organi- 
zation less  than  a  year  ago.  The  "Revo- 
lution" once  loosed,  it  would  be  idle  to 
expect  it  to  stop  at  the  limits  assigned 
by  Mr.  Hillquit.  Any  answer  to  the 
problem  of  what  we  should  do  requires 
the  best  thought  of  our  wisest  and 
most  experienced  leaders.  The  following, 
however,  are  suggested  as  lines  of  action : 

1.  Let  us  clearly  understand  and  see 
to  it  that  the  public  understands  the  dif- 
ference between  Reform  and  Revolution. 
They  are  sharply  differentiated  by 
Socialists  themselves,  but  a  lack  of  com- 
prehension of  this  distinction  is  respon- 
sible for  ill-considered  action  by  senti- 
mentalists. In  the  manifesto  and  pro- 
gramme of  the  Communist  party  of 
America,  which  in  August,  1919,  sepa- 
rated from  the  titular  Socialist  party,  and 
claims  to  have  taken  more  than  two- 
thirds  of  its  membership,  we  find  the 
following : 

Participation  in  parliamentary  campaigns, 
which  in  the  general  struggle  of  the  proletariat 
is  of  secondary  importance,  is  for  the  purpose 
of  revolutionary  propaganda  only.  Parliamen- 
tary representatives  of  the  Communist  party 
shall  not  introduce  or  support  reform  meas- 
ures. 

In  the  fundamental  Communist  Mani- 
festo of  Marx  and  Engels  occurs  the  fol- 
lowing reference  to  one  class  of  activi- 
ties which  they  differentiate  from  their 
own  objectives: 

A  part  of  the  bourgeoisie  is  desirous  of 
redressing  social  grievances  in  order  to  secure 
the  continued  existence  of  bourgeois  society. 
To  this  section  belong  economists,  philanthro- 
pists, humanitarians,  improvers  of  the  condi- 
tion of  the  working  class,  organizers  of  charity, 
members  of  societies  for  the  prevention  of 
cruelty  to  animals,  temperance  fanatics,  hole 
and  corner  reformers  of  every  imaginable 
kind. 

And  elsewhere  it  states: 

The  Communists  disdain  to  conceal  their 
views  and  aims.  They  openly  declare  that 
their  ends  can  be  attained  only  by  the  forcible 
overthrow  of  all  existing  social  conditions. 

In  the  manifesto  of  the  Communist 
International  adopted  at  Moscow  in 
March,  1919,  bearing,  among  others,  the 
signatures  of  Lenin  and  Trotsky,  appears 
the  following: 

Decades  of  organizing  and  labor  reformism 
created  a  generation  of  leaders  most  of  whom 
gave  verbal  recognition  to  the  programme  of 
social  revolution  but  denied  it  in  substance. 
They  were  lost  in  the  swamp  of  reformism 
and  adaptation  to  the  bourgeois  state. 

And  again: 

Socialist  criticism  has  sufficiently  stigmatized 
the  bourgeois  world  order.  The  task  of  the 
International  Communist  party  is  now  to  over- 
throw this  order  and  to  erect  in  its  place  the 
structure  of  the  Socialist  world  order. 

2.  With  a  knowledge  of  what  the 
"Socialist   world   order"   means,    let   us 


encourage  and  promote  social  and  eco- 
nomic reforms.  Much  has  been  done 
through  legislation  respecting  child 
labor,  hours  of  labor,  factory  legislation, 
tenement  legislation,  workmen's  compen- 
sation, etc.  More  remains  to  be  done. 
The  world  war  leaves  us  in  a  state  of 
world-wide  unrest,  perhaps  on  the  thresh- 
old of  a  new  era;  there  is  a  spirit  abroad 
that  challenges  established  traditions 
and  the  conditions  demand  wide  vision 
and  wise  and  far-reaching  plans. 

3.  Even  as  we  give  our  earnest  sup- 
port to  wise  reforms,  we  should  infiexi- 
bly  combat  the  noxious  revolutionary 
propaganda.  However  fair  its  promises, 
it  inevitably  unchains  terror  and  social 
chaos.  Promote  in  every  proper  way  the 
spirit  of  holding  fast  to  the  funda- 
mental guaranties  and  securities  upon 
which  our  Government  and  social  struc- 
ture have  been  built.  Let  us  not  be  fear- 
ful of  changes  that  will  improve  and 
strengthen,  but  let  the  changes  be  step 
by  step.  True  progress  consists  in  hold- 
ing to  what  we  have  until  we  have  tried 
out  that  to  which  we  propose  to  change. 

4.  Let  us  purge  our  civic  bodies, 
schools,  churches,  and  other  organizations 
of  the  poisonous  and  destructive  propa- 
ganda of  revolution.  Easy-going  toler- 
ance and  lax  indifference  have  allowed 
the  propagandists  of  these  doctrines  to 
insinuate  themselves  into  what  should 
be  the  temples  and  citadels  of  our  social 
structure.  Let  us  supervise  those  who 
instruct  and  develop  the  thought  of  our 
children,  and  those  of  riper  years  as  well, 
and  if  they  are  false  prophets,  let  us 
brand  them  as  such.  Side  by  side  with 
this  attack  upon  those  who  menace  our 
institutions,  let  us  provide  wholesome 
teaching  for  those  whose  energies  may 
now  be  misdirected  and  ill-spent.  Afford 
an  outlet  for  the  natural  zeal  of  the 
reformer  which  will  make  him  a  sup- 
porter of  our  Government  and  institu- 
tions, not  an  ally  of  their  enemies. 

5.  Let  us  also  firmly  exclude  the  aliens 
who  come  here  to  preach  sedition.  The 
effort  is  now  organized  on  a  large  scale. 
Lieutenant  Kliefoth,  a  former  attache  of 
our  Embassy  in  Russia,  is  quoted  as  stat- 
ing that  the  Committee  on  Propaganda 
and  the  Suppression  of  Counter  Revolu- 
tion spent  in  the  past  year  400,000,000 
rubles  for  propaganda,  printed  in  every 
known  language.  Lenin's  foreign  policy 
was  based,  he  said,  on  foreign  propa- 
ganda and  world  social  revolution.  As 
to  alien  agitators  who  have  already  ob- 
tained or  hereafter  may  obtain  admis- 
sion, through  our  ignorance  of  their  real 
character  and  motives,  let  us  provide  a 
swift  and  certain  return  to  their  home- 
land, and  let  it  be  made  clear  that  this 
will  be  done  with  all  who  thus  abuse  our 
hospitality. 


Herbert  Barry 


New  York,  March  3 


March  13,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[255 


Book  Reviews 

Roosevelt's  Imperishable 
Youth 

Theodore  Roosevelt  :  An  Autobiography.  New 
^'ork  :    Charles  Scribner's  Sons.  ' 

THE  spirit  of  adventure  and  the  spirit 
of  domesticity,  good  things  in  them- 
selves, are  perfect  as  correctives  to  each 
other,  and  the  perfection  of  their  union 
and  the  fruitfulness  of  that  perfection 
are  abundantly  manifest  in  this  mus- 
cular and  spirited  autobiography.  These 
two  elements  so  shaped  and  colored  the 
man  that  politics  remained  for  him  from 
first  to  last  the  superb  adventure,  and 
patriotism  itself  took  form  as  the  exten- 
sion of  marital  and  fatherly  care  to  a 
widened  household.  There  is  an  incipi- 
ent outlaw  in  every  adventurer;  there  is 
a  potential  dictator  in  every  parent;  it 
was  curious  that  the  exemplar,  Theodore 
Roosevelt,  whose  life-formula  might  be 
summarized  as  the  application  of  courage 
to  disinterested  ends  on  a  world-scale, 
should  have  become  the  illustrator  of 
both  tendencies. 

He  was  in  some  respects  a  most  demo- 
cratic person ;  he  valued  manhood  apart 
from  class  or  wealth.  He  would  have 
embraced  Theodore  Roosevelt  in  blouse 
and  sweater;  he  would  probably  have 
embraced  Theodore  Roosevelt  in  blanket 
or  loin-cloth.  He  loved  the  other  man  of 
his  type;  what  he  could  not  love  or  see 
was  the  other  type.  He  thought,  with 
some  reason,  that  he  lived  a  very  good 
life  himself,  and  his  object  as  patriot, 
like  his  object  as  father,  was  to  distrib- 
ute that  form  of  life  in  the  utmost 
possible  abundance  through  the  widest 
possible  area.  He  was  a  man-breeder, 
man-feeder,  man-builder.  When  he  was 
President  he  wanted  to  do  something  to 
season  the  savorless  and  stupefying  life 
of  laborious  women  on  the  farms.  This 
is  more  than  paternalism;  it  is  grand- 
motherliness.  It  evokes  a  smile  possibly, 
but,  on  the  absolute  genuineness  of  Theo- 
dore Roosevelt  on  this  side,  its  conclu- 
siveness is  exhilarating.  Demagoguesand 
hypocrites  are  not  mindful  of  this  sort 
of  hardship;  they  hear  only  the  moans 
which  can  be  distilled  into  bravos. 

The  danger,  the  drawback,  in  all  this 
lay  in  the  subjection  to  things.  The  sub- 
jection is  natural  to  mankind.  The  boy 
in  his  playground,  the  man  in  his  work- 
shop, are  actualists;  what  society  feebly 
tries  to  do  in  the  brief  interval  of  so- 
called  higher  education  is  to  call  geome- 
try with  its  line,  algebra  with  its  letter, 
language  with  its  tvord,  law  with  its 
rule,  logic  with  its  formula,  science  with 
its  class,  to  chasten  or  counterpoise  the 
domination  of  the  brute  thing.  This  edu- 
cation Theodore  Roosevelt,  to  all  appear- 
ances, needed  and  lacked.  He  was 
graduated  from  Harvard  University,  he 


studied  law,  and  he  had  acquirements 
and  versatilities  on  which  stress  is  duly 
and  affectionately  laid.  But  his  relation 
to  things  remained  elementary;  he  could 
not  gain  a  second  point  of  view.  Efficient 
at  an  age  when  other  men  are  fumbling, 
he  was  rigid  at  an  age  when  other  men 
are  pliant.  The  gods  drive  their  bar- 
gains with  the  best  of  us,  and  perpetual 
boyhood  was  the  price  paid  by  Theodore 
Roosevelt  for  imperishable  youth.  Hence 
a  nature  that  is  always,  in  the  French 
phrase,  on  "le  premier  plan."  Culture  in 
the  sense  of  modulation — the  sense  in 
which  every  chord  in  a  man's  being  is 
audible  with  a  difference  in  every  other 
chord — is  not  the  property  of  his  mind. 
In  style  his  fist  is  always  powerful,  but 
the  hand  is  not  versatile  or  supple,  and 
there  is  no  trace  of  his  ownership  of  a 
musician's  ear.  His  remarks  on  books, 
while  sensible  enough,  are  not  so  good  as 
the  remarks  of  an  energetic  mind  on  a 
subject  that  skirted  its  own  field  ought  to 
be.  Of  individuality  in  character  he 
seems  to  have  had  little  sense.  The  cer- 
tificates of  efficiency  which  he  deals  out 
in  lavish  abundance  with  fraternal  pleas- 
ure are  curiously  alike  in  their  matter 
and  their  diction.  Men  to  him  became 
largely  tools;  he  knew  the  difference 
between  a  good  and  a  bad  tool,  but  the 
distinctions  between  good  tools  were 
negligible.  The  sense  of  humor  which 
enables  a  man  in  a  sort  to  pursue  and 
overtake,  to  waylay  and  circumvent,  him- 
self, was  not  found  in  high  quality  or 
large  amount  in  Theodore  Roosevelt. 
Something  of  this  elemental,  boyish  char- 
acter is  visible  in  the  plunge  from  deed 
to  deed,  the  rebound  from  task  to  task, 
which  marked  his  hurried,  eager,  impro- 
vised career.  His  fight  for  righteousness 
was  a  form  of  Roughridership;  he  was 
the  moral  raider,  the  Prince  Rupert,  the 
Morgan,  the  Mosby,  supreme  in  the  inspi- 
ration of  a  charge,  less  certain  in  the 
sinuosities  of  a  campaign. 

The  "Autobiography"  of  Theodore 
Roosevelt  may  be  viewed  in  a  double 
aspect.  On  the  one  side,  it  is  a  strong, 
bright,  simple  book,  a  saga,  a  chanson 
de  geste,  with  altered  settings  and  prop- 
erties. On  another  side,  the  side  of  the 
author's  unconscious  self-revelation,  it 
has  the  effect  of  profound  and  artful 
satire,  the  work  of  a  Swift  or  Pascal 
or  Voltaire.  The  author  is  simple,  but 
the  book — or  Nature  behind  the  book — is 
cunning.  When,  on  pages  250-1,  we  find 
Theodore  Roosevelt  as  Lieutenant-Colonel 
rescinding  the  act  of  a  major-general, 
and  escaping  the  penalties  of  that  vio- 
lated discipline  which  he  enforced  for 
smaller  offenses  on  lesser  men,  we  can 
not  but  shudder  at  the  peril  to  the  Repub- 
lic latent  in  the  puissance  of  a  man 
capable  of  the  presumption  of  that  deed 
and  the  nonchalance  of  that  confession. 
The  same  quality  is  evident  in  milder 
form  in  the  quiet  bitterness  of  the  fre- 


quent allusions  to  the  failure  of  his  "suc- 
cessor" to  carry  out  the  Rooseveltian 
policies  where  they  bruised,  or  seemed  to 
bruise,  the  Constitution.  Theodore  Roose- 
velt was  so  much  the  thrall  of  the  con- 
crete that  the  notion  that  a  word  could 
stand  between  a  good  man  and  a  good 
act  was  to  him  incomprehensible  and 
monstrous.  It  never  occurred  to  him  to 
ask  himself  seriously  if  the  same  word 
that  stands  between  a  good  man  and  a 
good  act  to-day  may  not  stand  between 
a  bad  man  and  a  bad  act  to-morrow.  He 
could  not  understand  that  an  unselfish 
act  might  be  wrong;  he  felt  his  ovm  acts 
to  be  thoroughly  unselfish,  and  he  ac- 
cepted that  artless  guarantee  of  their 
virtue.  This  temper  of  mind  is  primitive, 
and  its  association  with  powers  so  ex- 
traordinary and  with  aims  so  magnani- 
mous gives  to  his  own  case  that  subtlety 
and  ironic  point  which  was  so  curiously 
wanting  in  his  own  view  of  the  world 
and  himself. 

All  Sorts  of  Adams's 

The  Degradation  of  the  Democratic  Dogma. 
By  Henry  Adams.  With  an  Introduction 
by  Brooks  Adams.  New  York:  The  Mac- 
millan  Company. 

iy|R.  AUGUSTINE  BIRRELL,  in  one  of  his 
■'■'•'•  scoffing  moods,  speaks  disrespectfully  of 
poor  Francis  Horner  because  he  "maintained 
an  atmosphere,"  whereas  if  he  had  been  asked 
what  he  had  done  since  he  was  breeched,  he 
could  only  mutter  something  about  the  cur- 
rency. That  artificial  atmospheres  have  been 
maintained  we  do  not  deny;  but,  after  many 
years,  they  acquire  permanency,  and  posterity 
accepts  the  verdict  of  contemporaries  as  final. 
That  an  atmosphere  has  surrounded  the  elder 
members  of  the  Adams  family  is  certainly 
true,  and  we  do  not  think  it  should  be  dis- 
pelled ;  nor  did  we  think  it  likely  that  at  this 
late  day  any  attempt  to  dispel  it  would  be 
successful. 

We  must  say,  however,  that  by  the 
publication  of  this  book  Mr.  Brooks 
Adams  has  seriously  disturbed  this 
atmosphere.  So  far  as  he  himself  was 
protected  by  it — not  that  it  was  in  his 
case  very  impenetrable — he  has  com- 
pletely dissipated  it.  The  world  had  for- 
gotten that  he  was  a  violent  devotee  of 
"free  silver";  but  he  takes  this  oppor- 
tunity to  renew  his  vituperation  of  the 
"gold  bugs,"  and  to  drag  Henry  Adams 
into  the  extinct  controversy.  He  be- 
moans his  pecuniary  losses  in  the  panic 
of  1893 — brought  on  by  the  agitation  in 
which  he  was  active — but  as  no  one  but 
himself  was  to  blame,  his  sufferings 
arouse  more  contempt  than  pity,  for, 
after  all,  he  did  "crawl  in  with  the 
bankers  on  the  rise."  He  had  better  let 
oblivion  do  its  kindly  work. 

That  he  did  not  deserve  to  keep  an 
atmosphere  is  also  shown  by  the  title  of 
this  book.  We  took  it  up  anticipating 
pleasure  if  not  profit  in  getting  Henry 
Adams's  views  on  democracy.  We  have 
been  disappointed.  Whatever  views  on 
this  subject  Henry  Adams  may,  have  else- 


256] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  44 


where  expressed,  he  expresses  none  here. 
He  discourses  on  views  of  the  universe 
in  general,  and  the  philosophy  of  history 
in  particular,  but  he  has  nothing  to  say 
of  the  degradation  of  the  democratic 
dogma,  or  of  the  democratic  dogma 
itself.  Nor  do  we  find  that  Mr.  Brooks 
Adams  increases  our  knowledge  of  these 
subjects.  He  allows  himself  122  pages 
of  discursive  lucubration,  and  spares 
Henry  Adams  less  than  200  pages;  but 
to  offer  this  matter  under  the  title  he 
has  given  it  is  to  practise  a  deception 
on  the  public  worthy  only  of  the  late 
P.  T.  Barnum. 

Dr.  Holmes,  we  believe,  maintained 
that  to  reform  a  man  you  must  begin 
with  his  grandparents.  Proceeding  on 
this  theory  Mr.  Brooks  Adams  under- 
takes to  explain  Henry  Adams  in  terms 
of  his  grandfather,  John  Quincy  Adams. 
We  confess  that  we  do  not  understand 
the  explanation.  It  may  be  that  "what 
is  most  remarkable  is  the  persistence  of 
the  same  cast  of  intelligence  in  the 
grandfather  and  grandson,  the  scientific 
mixed  with  the  political,  which  made  the 
older  man  reject  with  horror  a  scientific 
theory  forced  upon  him  by  circum- 
stances, which  the  younger  man  has 
accepted,  if  not  with  approbation,  at 
least  with  resignation,  and  at  so  rela- 
tively short  an  interval  of  time."  The 
laws  of  heredity  are,  it  is  true,  some- 
what obscure,  but  why  the  same  cast 
of  intelligence  should  produce  such  con- 
tradictory results  is  passing  strange,  if 
not  past  belief.  Other  explanations  are 
offered  which  might  be  reduced  to  coher- 
ency with  patient  study,  but  the  game  is 
not  worth  the  candle.  Possibly  the 
phenomenon  is  caused  by  the  Adams's 
atmosphere. 

To  sweep  aside  the  atmosphere  in 
which  John  Quincy  Adams  has  been  com- 
fortably shrouded  appears  to  us  as  an 
act  of  gross  impiety.  The  "old  man 
eloquent"  really  amounted  to  something; 
he  was  conceited,  but  that  does  not  excuse 
his  grandson  for  using  him  as  an  illus- 
tration of  the  proverb,  "seest  thou  a  man 
wise  in  his  own  conceit?  there  is  more 
hope  of  a  fool  than  of  him."  Why 
should  attention  be  called  to  the  fact  that 
the  grandfather  declared  that  if  his 
"conceptive  power  of  mind"  had  been 
greater,  his  "diary  would  have  been, 
next  to  the  Holy  Scriptures,  the  most 
precious  and  valuable  book  ever  written 
by  human  hands,"  and  he  "would  have 
been  one  of  the  greatest  benefactors"  of 
his  country  and  of  mankind.  He  would, 
"by  the  irresistible  power  of  genius  and 
irrepressible  energy  of  will  and  the  favor 
of  Almighty  God,  have  banished  war  and 
slavery  from  the  face  of  the  earth  for- 
ever." He  concluded  with  the  prayer: 
"May  I  never  murmur  at  the  dispensa- 
tions of  Providence."  After  his  politi- 
cal downfall,  according  to  his  grandson, 
he  never  did  much  else  but  murmur. 


With  the  result,  if  not  the  purpose,  of 
writing  down  his  grandfather  an  ass, 
his  grandson  submits  extracts  from  his 
diary,  some  of  which  we  quote.  They 
do  not  suggest  heroism,  and  make  us 
skeptical  as  to  what  the  diary  might  have 
been,  even  with  the  special  favor  of 
Almighty  God.  "I  was  up  at  three  and 
again  at  four,  and  wrote  on  the  arrears 
of  this  diary  from  that  time  till  seven. 
...  I  passed  a  night  of  torture,  with  a 
hacking  and  racking  cough,  and  feverish 
headache.  ...  I  went  to  bed  at  nine 
and  was  up  with  fits  of  coughing  at  11,  at 
1,  at  3,  and  at  5  this  morning,  and  finally 
lay  till  near  6  utterly  dispirited.  .  . 
I  ate  nothing  the  whole  day."  The  lapse 
of  80  years  has  deprived  these  events  of 
interest,  and  what  they  have  to  do  with 
the  "heritage  of  Henry  Adams" — unless 
he  was  subject  to  fits  of  coughing — is 
conceivable  only  by  the  "conceptive  power 
of  mind"  possessed  by  Mr.  Brooks 
Adams.  Our  own  theory  of  "heritage"  is 
that  John  Quincy  Adams  was  somehow 
derived  from  Louis  XIV.  After  the 
overwhelming  defeat  at  Ramillies,  that 
monarch  exclaimed :  "Has  God  then  for- 
gotten all  that  I  have  done  for  him!" 
When  John  Quincy  Adams  found  that  his 
political  theories  failed  in  practice,  he 
considered  (according  to  his  grandson) 
that  he  had  been  betrayed  by  his  God. 
The  failure  of  God  to  support  him  in 
his  policy  of  constructing  highways  and 
canals  through  the  national  Government 
caused  him  even  to  doubt  the  existence  of 
a  supreme  being.  Such  incapacity  to  regu- 
late the  affairs  of  this  country  in  accord- 
ance with  the  Adams's  ideas  showed  that 
God  was  really  unfitted  for  his  position. 
The  poor  old  man  was  disappointed,  em- 
bittered, and  broken  in  health;  but  why, 
as  Mr.  Birrell  somewhere  observes, 
"should  the  universe  be  stretched  upon 
the  rack  because  food  disagrees  with 
man  and  cocks  crow  ?"  But  God  is  merci- 
ful. He  spared  the  old  man  knowledge 
of  what  his  grandson  was  going  to  do 
to  his  remains.  Had  he  foreknown  it, 
any  murmur  at  the  dispensations  of 
Providence  would  have  been  blotted  out 
by  the  Recording  Angel. 

John  Quincy  Adams  was,  in  the  opin- 
ion of  his  grandson,  "the  most  interest- 
ing and  suggestive  personage  of  the  early 
nineteenth  century,"  and  Henry  Adams 
in  his  philosophy  "certainly  one  of  the 
most  so  of  the  present  century."  We 
do  not  understand  this  stinted  praise  of 
Henry;  although,  as  it  incidentally 
appears  that  he  found  Brooks  a  bore, 
there  is  room  for  conjecture.  It  is 
understood  that  the  "Education"  has 
been  read,  or  partly  read,  by  a  great 
many  people.  We  are  not  confident  that 
all  these  readers  could  give  a  clear 
statemert  of  the  principles  of  education, 
as  a  result  of  their  labors,  but  it  is  rea- 
sonable to  suppose  that  they  found  Henry 
Adams    an    interesting    and    suggestive 


personality.  Such  they  may  find  him 
here.  His  essays,  to  be  sure,  have 
nothing  to  do  with  Democratic  Dogma. 
One  is  entitled  "A  Letter  to  American 
Teachers  of  History."  The  other  is  "The 
Rule  of  Phase  Applied  to  History." 
Those  who  are  concerned  to  reconcile  the 
mechanical  theory  of  the  univei'se  with 
the  existence  of  a  vital  principle,  Sir 
Isaac  Newton  with  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  and 
who  succeed  in  their  attempts,  may  pos- 
sibly develop  a  philosophy  of  history  sat- 
isfactory to  themselves  from  these  essays. 
To  others  it  may  not  be  satisfactory. 

For  neither  a  history  nor  a  philosophy 
based  on  the  meditations  of  the  anthro- 
poid ape  a  hundred  thousand  years  ago 
deserves  attention.  This  being  is  repre- 
sented as  employing  his  time,  not  in 
cracking  nuts,  but  in  considering  the 
problem — "How  long  could  he  go  on 
developing  indefinite  new  phases  in  re- 
sponse to  the  occult  attractions  of  an 
indefinitely  extended  universe?"  Even 
if  the  problem  is  "the  same  as  that 
addressed  to  the  physicist-historian  of 
1900";  especially  if  he  foresaw  that  in 
1921  "thought  will  reach  the  limit  of  its 
possibilities,"  and  that  "only  a  few 
highly  trained  and  gifted  men  will  then 
be  able  to  understand  each  other,"  we 
are  sure  that  this  ancestor  of  ours, 
although  illiterate,  knew  enough  not  to 
spend  his  time  over  a  riddle  that  after 
a  hundred  thousand  years  was  to  get  no 
better  answer  than  this.  He  probably 
tried  hard  to  understand  his  brother  apes 
and  was  proud  of  his  progress ;  but  if  he 
had  known  that  this  was  to  be  the  long 
result  of  time  he  would  have  been  dis- 
couraged at  the  start. 

"You  may  be  sure,"  Henry  Adams  tells 
the  American  Historical  Association, 
"that  four  out  of  five  serious  students 
of  history  who  are  living  to-day  have, 
in  the  course  of  their  work,  felt  that 
they  stood  on  the  brink  of  a  great  gen- 
eralization that  would  reduce  all  history 
under  a  law  as  clear  as  the  laws  which 
govern  the  material  world."  At  the 
same  rapid  progress  in  history  which 
has  been  made  during  the  last  fifty  years, 
another  half  century  would  carry  his- 
torians over  this  "brink,"  our  author 
tells  us.  He  doubts  if  this  rate  can  be 
maintained.  "If  not,  our  situation  is 
simple.  In  that  case  we  shall  remain 
more  or  less  where  we  are."  This  is 
sound  reasoning,  and  as  most  terrific 
results  will  follow  to  church,  and  state, 
and  property,  and  society  itself  if  history 
is  to  continue  its  progress,  we  insist  that 
it  must  remain  where  it  is,  "be  the  same 
more  or  less." 

On  the  brink  of  one  generalization 
the  author  not  only  has  stood  but  has 
fallen  over.  "Man  has  always  flattered 
himself,"  he  tells  us,  "that  he  knew — 
or  was  about  to  know — something  that 
would  make  his  own  energy  intelligible 
to  itself,  but  he  has  invariably  found,  on 


March  13,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[257 


further  inquiry,  that  the  more  he  knew 
the  less  he  understood.  ...  He  knew 
nothing  at  all!  .  .  .  No  one  knew  any- 
thing." This  is  mere  dogmatism.  The 
author  may  speak  for  himself  as  to  the 
limits  of  his  own  knowledge;  he  may 
possibly  generalize  correctly  concerning 
anthropoid  apes;  but  he  has  no  right  to 
measure  the  intelligence  of  his  fellow 
creatures  by  his  own  ignorance. 

The  world  has  listened  with  equanim- 
ity, so  far  as  it  has  listened  at  all,  to 
warnings  of  philosophers  as  to  the  final 
crack  of  doom.  One  tells  us  that  it  is  the 
height  of  imprudence  not  to  see  that — 
after  some  preliminaries — "the  inevitable 
death  of  all  things  will  approach  with 
headlong  rapidity."  Our  author  inclines 
to  this  view,  but  at  first  he  allows  us 
time  to  get  used  to  it,  if  that  is  any 
comfort.  "Man  and  beast  can,  at  best, 
look  forward  only  to  a  diversified  agony 
of  twenty  million  years";  but  it  is  mis- 
erable comfort  to  know  that  "at  no 
instant  of  this  considerable  period  can 
the  professor  of  mathematics  flatter  him- 
self or  his  students  with  an  exclusive  or 
extended  hope  of  escaping  imbecility." 
Still,  this  leaves  a  ray  of  hope  to  that 
large  part  of  our  race  that  has  always 
despised  mathematics  and  questioned  the 
pretensions  of  its  professors;  but  this 
ray  is  quickly  extinguished.  For  an- 
other authority  says,  "An  insane  world 
is  looked  forward  to  by  me  with  cer- 
tainty in  the  not  far  distant  future." 

Yet  even  the  most  stolid  of  mankind 
may  be  startled  to  hear  that  the  "catas- 
trophe of  civilization"  is  so  near  at  hand 
as  1921.  This  date  is  indicated  by  the 
career  of  the  comet  of  1843,  which  is 
shown  by  an  illustration  to  have  whisked 
around  the  sun  in  twelve  hours  and  flown 
off  into  space.  Now  a  comet  "resem- 
bles Thought  in  certain  respects,  since, 
in  the  first  place,  no  one  knows  what  it 
is,  which  is  also  true  of  Thought,  and 
it  seems  in  some  cases  to  be  immaterial. 
...  If  not  a  Thought,  the  comet  is  a 
sort  of  brother  of  Thought,  an  early  con- 
densation of  ether  itself,  as  the  human 
mind  may  be  another,  traversing  the 
infinite  without  origin  or  end,  and 
attracted  by  a  sudden  object  of  curiosity 
that  lies  by  chance  near  its  path.  If 
such  elements  are  subject  to  the  so-called 
law  of  gravitation,  no  good  reason  can 
exist  for  denying  gravitation  to  the 
mind." 

With  this  basis,  by  using  the  law  of 
squares  and  some  conjectures  which 
space  does  not  allow  us  to  present,  the 
conclusion  is  reached  that  Will  and  Rea- 
son "must  submit  to  the  final  and  funda- 
mental necessity  of  Degradation." 

In  a  review  of  Mr.  Pinmoney's  poems. 
Punch  says  of  the  most  consummate  of 
them,  "Here  we  have  the  whole  philoso- 
phy of  life  and  the  life  hereafter  summed 
up."  As  this  poem  also  contains  in  a 
compendious  form  the  whole  of  Henry 


Adams's  philosophy,  we  present  it  for 
the  use  of  readers  whose  time  is  valuable: 
"Man  comes 
And  goes. 
What  then? 
Who  knows?" 

D.  McG.  Means 

War-Time  Reactions 

The  Call  of  the  Soil.  By  Adrien  Bertrand 
(Lieutenant  Chasseurs  Alpins).  Trans- 
lated by  J.  Lewis  May.  New  York :  John 
Lane  Company. 

The  Judgment  of  Peace.  By  Andreas  Latzko. 
Translated  by  Ludwig  Lewisohn.  New 
York :  Boni  and  Liveright. 

The  Secret  Battle.  By  A.  P.  Herbert.  New 
York:  Alfred  A.  Knopf. 

Up  and  Down.  By  E.  F.  Benson.  New  York: 
George  H.  Doran  Company. 

WAR-TIME  reactions  and  experiences 
are  not  for  the  moment  of  burning 
interest  to  most  of  us.  Being  no  longer 
agrope  among  them  we  should  more  or 
less  frankly  like  to  put  them  out  of  mem- 
ory for  a  time.  Yet  it  is  certain  that 
their  best  records  are  still  to  come.  Most 
of  the  immediate  literature  of  the  war 
was,  and  had  to  be,  shortsighted,  frag- 
mentary, and  often  hysterical,  whether 
with  rage  or  with  pity — when  it  did  not 
cultivate  a  protective  nonchalance,  and  a 
kind  of  hard  tonelessness  of  style,  also 
protective. 

"The  Call  of  the  Soil,"  in  French 
"L'Appel  du  Sol,"  won  the  Goncourt 
prize  in  1916.  Already  it  is  a  little  quaint, 
like,  say,  a  motor-car  of  that  date.  It  is 
a  story  of  the  emotional  order.  Like 
Berger's  "Ordeal  By  Fire,"  and  many 
other  French  war  novels,  it  expresses 
the  triumphant  merging  of  individual 
will  and  destiny  in  the  service  of  France. 
Without  going  afield  in  pursuit  of  larger 
ideals — the  preservation  of  civilization  or 
democracy,  or  the  vindication  of  an  uni- 
versal brotherhood — it  is  content  to  exalt 
love  of  country.  It  finds  in  patriotism  a 
motive  sufficient  to  justify  if  not  the  war, 
certainly  the  French  citizen's  part  in  it. 
The  Frenchmen  of  the  story,  whatever 
their  rank,  or  their  personal  characters, 
willingly  die  for  France:  "the  power 
which  guided  them  all  was  the  call  of 
the  soil  of  France."  To  those  who  have 
faith  in  the  validity  of  this  species  of 
■  sacrifice,  the  horrors  of  war  do  not  cease 
to  exist,  but  may  be  accepted  like  the  nat- 
ural horrors  of  whirlwind  or  earthquake. 
It  is  only  those  who  see  no  meaning  in 
war  who  gloat  over  its  monstrous  physical 
cruelties  to  the  individual  .  .  .  This 
is  not  an  infallible  distinction,  after  all, 
as  witness  "The  Test  of  Scarlet,"  by 
W.  Coningsby  Dawson,  than  which  noth- 
ing more  naturalistically  sanguinary  or 
more  romantically  sanguine  has  come 
out  of  the  war.  But  it  will  hold  in  the 
main. 

Witness  "The  Judgment  of  Peace," 
by     Andreas     Latzko,     a     Teuton     who 


significantly  inscribes  this  work  "To 
Remain  RoUand,  my  great  compatriot  in 
the  love  of  Man."  His  earlier  war  novel 
was  acclaimed  by  all  those  who  set  the 
hatred  of  war  above  the  love  of  anything 
whatsoever — or  rather  identify  it  with 
the  love  of  humanity.  That  an  Austrian 
officer  in  war-time  should  express  so  viv- 
idly, so  furiously,  his  loathing  for  war 
and  for  the  militarist  spirit  which 
brought  the  world  to  this  war,  was,  to 
put  it  vulgarly,  nuts  for  the  pacifists. 
"Men  in  War"  was  indeed  a  fine  and 
impassioned  utterance  of  that  saeva 
indignatio  of  the  humanitarian  which  so 
ruthlessly  visits  itself  upon  all  who  are 
not  professionally  humanitarian.  Latzko 
is  an  eagle  of  peace.  The  air  winces 
under  the  buflFeting  of  his  wings,  and 
echoes  with  a  cry  that  might  be  curse 
or  blessing.  "The  Judgment  of  Peace" 
does  not  release  us  from  the  bloody  tur- 
moil of  "the  front." 

Here,  as  was  the  case  in  the  war- 
fiction  of  Barbusse  and  Duhamel,  are 
pitilessly  exposed  the  squalor  and  the 
agony  of  forced  marches,  of  trench  life, 
of  useless  raids  and  unmeaning  brutali- 
ties. Here,  to  the  confusion  or  incre- 
dulity of  non-Teutonic  readers,  are  va- 
rious incidental  allusions  to  "atrocities" 
on  the  part  of  the  Allies,  all  the  more  dis- 
turbing for  being  so  unstressed.  Ill- 
treatment  of  prisoners  at  French  hands 
is  alluded  to  as  a  matter  of  course,  and 
as  for  the  wounded :  "With  the  hands  of 
a  veritable  hangman  the  hate-maddened 
French  staff  surgeon  had  probed  his 
wound  and  torn  off  his  bandages.  The 
attendants  of  both  sexes  had  done  their 
best  to  equal  their  commander  in  patri- 
otic zeal  until  his  vigorous  organism  had 
remained  victorious  and  the  hated  boche 
had  ceased  spitting  blood  and  was  dis- 
charged." How  familiar  this  would 
sound  with  the  substitution  of  "Prus- 
sian" for  "French"!  However,  there  is 
solace  for  the  other  side  in  the  picture 
of  the  devoted  French  Sister,  who  gives 
her  tears  as  well  as  her  tireless  care  to 
the  dying  German  officer,  while  his 
wounded  comrades  curse  him  as  a  traitor 
for  not  playing  the  stoic  to  the  end. 
.  .  .  Shrill  above  the  author's  hatred 
of  war  as  a  crime  against  humanity  rises 
that  familiar  note  of  rage  against  war 
for  its  indifference  to  the  precious  indi- 
vidual. Why  should  anyone  so  unique, 
so  inviolable  as  I  myself  be  thrown  into 
the  cauldron? 

In  a  very  different  temper  "The  Secret 
Battle"  is  a  study  of  the  injustice  of  war 
to  the  individual.  Being  the  work  of  a 
cultivated  Englishman,  it  has  the  re- 
straint of  the  famous  public-school  tra- 
dition. It  wishes  to  betray  too  little 
rather  than  too  much  feeling.  Its  man- 
ner is  tense  with  sympathy,  but  its 
matter  approaches  dryness.  Its  theme 
is  the  tragic  fate  of  an  ardent  young 
Briton  entangled  in  the  meshes  of  the 


258] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  44 


military  system.  He  eagerly  offers  him- 
self to  England  at  the  beginning  of  the 
war,  with  God  knows  what  dreams  of 
heroic  service  and  its  attendant  glory. 
At  Gallipoli  he  serves  his  bitter  and  dis- 
illusionizing apprenticeship  in  the  drab 
trade  of  modern  warfare.  His  valor  is 
at  first  unquestionable,  but  his  fortitude 
is  not  proof  against  the  long  strain  of 
perilous  service  and  the  determined 
enmity  of  certain  "superior"  officers,  the 
one  a  martinet,  the  other  a  slacker,  in 
whose  black  books  chance  and  malice 
have  placed  him.  His  nerve  is  broken 
before  a  wound  sends  him  home.  There, 
on  his  recovery,  he  is  urged  to  accept 
a  safe  post.  But  his  doubt  of  himself 
drives  him  back  to  the  front,  and  this 
time  chance  and  malice  make  short  work 
of  him.  Now  the  author  does  not  base 
upon  this  incident  an  indictment  of  war- 
fare so  much  as  record  it  for  what  it 
may  be  worth.  "This  book  is  not  an 
attack  on  any  person,  on  the  death  pen- 
alty, or  on  anything  else,  though  if  it 
makes  people  think  about  these  things, 
so  much  the  better.  I  think  I  believe  in 
the  death  penalty — I  don't  know.  But 
I  did  not  believe  in  Harry  being  shot. 
.  .  .  That  is  the  gist  of  it;  that  my 
friend  Harry  was  shot  for  cowardice — 
and  he  was  one  of  the  bravest  men  I 
knew." 

Mr.  Benson's  "Up  and  Down"  is  a 
study  of  lighter  tone  and  texture,  but  it 
is  in  no  trivial  sense  of  the  term  that 
we  may  call  it  a  comedy  of  two  friends 
in  war-time.  May,  1914,  to  April,  1917, 
are  its  containing  datea  The  scene 
shifts  from  Italy  to  England  and  back. 
The  older  person  is  (approximately)  Mr. 
Benson  himself;  the  younger  a  clever 
and  indolent  individualist  who  is  per- 
fectly happy  in  his  Italian  villa,  means 
to  live  there  always,  and  speaks  of  Eng- 
land as  an  unpleasant  place  from  which 
he  happens  to  have  escaped.  In  July, 
1914,  the  older  friend  is  in  England,  and 
as  the  war  cloud  gathers  he  has  a  letter 
from  the  younger,  in  which  he  calls 
himself  "a  denationalized  individual." 
He  thinks  he  might  fight  for  Italy — but 
how  could  he  take  arms  against  Germany, 
who  "taught  'mankind  how  to  think"? 
He  thinks  England  ought  to  be  able  to 
keep  out  of  it,  though  it  will  be  "particu- 
larly beastly"  there,  "with  all  these  dis- 
turbances going  on."  Why  doesn't  his 
friend  pack  his  comb  and  his  toothbrush 
and  come  back  to  Alatri  ?  Then  in  a  few 
days  come  the  facts  of  England's  entry 
into  the  war  and  Italy's  declaration  of 
neutrality — and  on  their  heels  a  letter 
from  our  young  dilettante,  which  says 
simply,  "Of  course  we  had  to  come  in 
when  Belgium  was  invaded.  ...  By 
the  way,  if  it  is  true  that  we  are  sending 
an  Expeditionary  Force  to  France,  just 
send  me  a  wire,  will  you?"  So  perishes 
the  denationalized  one,  while  a  patriot  is 
born  for  England.     .     .     .     The  rest  of 


the  book  is  of  less  firm  texture.  The 
younger  friend  serves,  and  dies,  though 
not  at  the  front;  and  thereafter,  by 
agreement,  communicates  fragmentarily, 
through  a  medium,  with  the  older 
man. 

Upon  this  episode  Mr.  Benson  bears 
not  too  heavily.  He  believes  it  possible 
that  on  occasion  we  may  be  "brought  into 
connection  not  with  the  soul  of  the  de- 
parted, his  real  essential  personality,  but 
with  a  piece  of  his  mere  mechanical  in- 
telligence." ...  "I  believe  the  door 
between  the  two  worlds  not  to  be  locked 
and  barred;  certain  people — such  as  we 
call  mediums — have  the  power  of  turn- 
ing the  handle  and  for  a  little  while  set- 
ting this  door  ajar.  But  what  do  we  get 
when  the  door  is  set  ajar?  Nothing  that 
is  significant,  nothing  that  brings  us 
closer  to  those  on  the  other  side.  If  I 
had  not  already  believed  in  the  perma- 
nence and  survival  of  individual  life,  I 
think  it  more  than  possible  that  the  accu- 
rate and  unerring  statement  of  what  was 
in  the  sealed  packet  might  have  con- 
vinced me  of  it.  But  it  brought  me  no 
nearer  Francis."  All  of  which  is  worth 
the  consideration  of  both  the  bulls  and 
the  bears  of  the  spiritualistic,  or  spirit- 
istic, or  psychical  exchanges  of  the  hour. 

H.  W.  BOYNTON 

Lessons   from   the  Progress 
of   Science 

The  Whole  Armour  of  Man.  By  C.  W. 
Saleeby.  Philadelphia:  J.  B.  Lippincott 
Company. 

THE  war-like  title  of  this  book  was 
suggested  no  doubt  by  the  author's 
experiences  in  the  great  war,  but  the 
conflict  that  he  has  in  mind  is  the  strug- 
gle between  man  and  his  adverse  environ- 
ment. The  armor  with  which  man  must 
gird  his  loins  is  the  knowledge  furnished 
by  the  progress  of  science.  At  the  end 
of  the  book,  and  in  a  way  as  a  summing 
up  of  the  whole  truth  of  the  matter,  the 
author  quotes  almost  with  reverence  the 
noble  address  delivered  by  Pasteur  some 
thirty  years  ago,  a  message  in  which  he 
declared  his  belief  that  "Science  and 
peace  will  triumph  over  ignorance  and 
war."  To  this  belief  the  author  is  glad 
to  give  his  enthusiastic  adherence  in 
spite  of  the  untoward  events  of  recent 
years. 

The  book  consists  for  the  most  part  of 
a  series  of  papers  and  addresses  previ- 
ously published  or  delivered  and  brought 
together  in  this  volume  in  a  somewhat 
haphazard  form.  The  author  apologizes 
for  this  loose  arrangement  on  the  plea 
that  the  urgency  of  the  matter  treated 
did  not  ptymit  time  for  the  composition 
of  an  "organic  volume."  Hence  the  selec- 
tion and  publication  of  miscellaneous  pa- 
pers which  cover  the  whole  field  of  sani- 


tation and  preventive  medicine,  with 
something  to  spare,  since  he  throws  in 
such  things  as  tributes  to  Carrel  and  to 
Horseley  and  disquisitions  upon  the 
evils  of  speculation  and  the  solution  of 
the  world's  wheat  problem.  In  spite  of 
this  heterogeneity  and  much  repetition, 
the  volume  is  most  readable.  The  author 
has  a  wide  knowledge  of  the  biological 
sciences,  which,  if  not  always  accurate 
in  details,  is  sufficiently  sound  in  general; 
and,  added  to  this,  he  has  in  high  degree 
the  gift  of  expression.  His  English  is 
vigorous  and  epigrammatic.  The  latter 
quality  is  possibly  too  much  in  evidence. 
The  author  at  times  seems  to  succumb 
to  the  temptation  to  air  this  gift,  as, 
for  example,  in  his  "slams"  against  the 
ancient  and  honorable  game  of  golf, 
which  he  characterizes  as  "not  a  game 
but  a  treatment." 

The  conservative  scientist  lacking  a 
personal  acquaintance  with  Dr.  Saleeby 
will  infer  from  his  writings  that  he  be- 
longs to  that  group  of  whole-souled  re- 
formers whose  virtuous  enthusiasm  may 
make  them  at  times  uncertain  guides, 
but  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  he  pos- 
sesses to  an  unusual  degree  the  art  of 
popularizing  scientific  knowledge.  It  is 
a  rare  gift.  The  writings  of  most  re- 
formers, especially  in  matters  of  public 
health,  are  likely  to  be  deadly  dull,  even 
though  tricked  out  with  a  good  deal  of 
yellow  science.  In  this  country  we  need 
very  much  men  who  possess  the  gift  to 
arouse  our  reading  public  to  a  realiza- 
tion of  the  extraordinary  opportunities 
now  available  in  the  application  of  the 
results  of  science  to  the  prevention  of 
disease  and  death.  Dr.  Saleeby's  breezy 
essays,  although  written  especially  for 
the  British  public  and  applicable  in  de- 
tail only  to  the  conditions  there  prevail- 
ing, are  entirely  pertinent  in  general  to 
the  conditions  existing  in  this  and  other 
civilized  countries.  In  such  matters  we 
are  all  in  the  same  boat.  The  author  is 
very  savage  with  the  English  as  con- 
trasted with  the  Scottish  public,  and  par- 
ticularly with  the  English  politicians,  on 
account  of  their  alleged  contempt  for 
science.  He  finds  evidence  for  this  accu- 
sation, of  course,  in  the  conduct  of  the 
war. 

He  attempts  to  stimulate  his  fellow 
countrymen  by  pointing  out  how  much 
better  such  things  are  done  in  France  or 
in  this  country.  But,  so  far  as  we  are 
concerned,  it  is  to  be  feared  that  the 
compliment  must  be  passed  back  to  him. 
In  sanitary  methods  and  in  social  eco- 
nomics we  must  award  first  place  to- 
Great  Britain,  and  the  book  under  re- 
view gives  sufficient  evidence,  perhaps, 
for  this  belief.  They  have  a  Minister 
of  Health,  whom  we  have  not,  and  the 
things  done,  together  with  the  things 
contemplated,  as  set  down  in  this  book, 
are  of  a  kind  to  provoke  envy  as  well 
as  congratulations. 


March   13,   1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[2.59 


The  Run  of  the  Shelves 

THE  dramatic  editor  of  the  Indian- 
apolis News,  Oliver  M.  Sayler, 
visited  the  theatres  of  Moscow  and  Pe- 
trograd  in  the  winter  of  1917-1918.  His 
book,  the  "Russian  Theatre  Under  the 
Revolution"  (Little,  Brown  and  Com- 
pany), is  said  to  give  "the  first  complete 
record  in  English  of  the  foremost  dra- 
matic movement  of  our  time."  In  that 
winter  Russia  was  staging  a  revolution. 
A  visitor  who  should  choose  the  moment 
when  a  man's  house  was  on  fire  to  inspect 
his  cameos  would  not  be  a  commonplace 
person.  The  exhibitor  of  cameos  under 
those  circumstances  would  likewise  be 
exceptional.  Mr.  Sayler  found  his  the- 
atres. Escape  from  the  Russian  Revo- 
lution, which  seems  impracticable  in 
Paris  or  London  or  New  York,  appears 
to  be  entirely  achievable  in  the  stalls  and 
boxes  of  the  Small  State  Theatre  (con- 
servative), which  plays  Shakespeare  and 
Schilling  and  Hugo,  of  the  Moscow 
Art  Theatre  (liberal),  which  features 
Tchekhov,  and  of  the  Kamerny  Theatre 
(radical),  which  plays  Kalidasa  and 
Synge  and  Goldoni  and  Calderon  and 
Beaumarchais  and  Benelli  (of  the 
"Jest"),  and,  to  the  unspeakable  delight 
of  the  ihapsodic  and  phosphoric  Mr.  Say- 
ler, Oscar  Wilde's  "Salome."  A  country 
which  can  maintain  a  literary  art  at  the 
summit  of  histrionic  perfection  at  a 
time  when  famine  pinches  and  discord 
reddens  its  capital  is  a  country  to  whose 
possibilities  it  is  difficult  to  fix  a  bound. 
For  part  of  this  miracle — that  is  for 
the  unsuipassed  artistic  merit  of  the 
acting — we  are  obliged  to  trust  to  Mr. 
Sayler's  word.  His  sincerity  is  unques- 
tionable, but  his  temper  runs  to  hyper- 
'bole.  Moreover,  he  has  the  theatrical 
field  in  Russia  for  the  moment  all  to  him- 
self— a  dangerous  privilege.  No  for- 
eigner is  by  to  check  him  up,  and  we 
suspect  him  of  a  tendency  to  that  en- 
largement of  vision  and  speech  to  which 
human  nature  is  prone  in  the  absence 
of  challengers.  Monopoly  always  raises 
the  price  of  its  own  wares.  His  criti- 
cism is  not  daunted  by  his  evident  igno- 
rance of  the  Russian  language.  In  the 
point  of  analysis  he  is  easily  satisfied. 
For  the  acting  at  the  Moscow  Art 
Theatre  his  formula  is  "spiritualized 
realism."  Spiritualized  realism,  at  the 
first  glance,  would  seem,  like  sentimen- 
tal or  mystic  realism,  to  involve  a  con- 
tradiction in  terms.  Realism  is  uncolored 
fact,  and  spirituality  and  sentiment  and 
mysticism  are  all  colorings.  Very  pos- 
sibly the  point  is  answerable.  No  wise 
man  will  declare  war  on  a  phrase,  any 
more  than  he  will  capitulate  to  one.  But 
should  not  Mr.  Sayler  have  given  us 
something  more  than  a  phrase  to  make 
war  on  or  make  peace  with?  Sometimes 
his  remarks   (see  page  78)    reveal  that 


artlessness  with  which  sophistication  is 
now  and  then  so  strangely  companion- 
able. In  spite  of  all  doubts  and  deduc- 
tions, Mr.  Sayler's  book  should  be  read 
by  all  students  of  contemporary  drama. 
If  it  is  not  a  striking  history,  it  is  a 
spirited  and  curious  novel. 

Poe  has  found  much  warmer  admirers 
abroad  than  at  home.  American  critics, 
from  his  own  day  to  yesterday,  invari- 
ably spill  a  bit  of  gall  in  the  honey.  For- 
eign recognition,  says  Brownell,  rewards 
to  a  disproportionate  extent  the  merits 
that  espe3ially  appeal  to  foreigners.  In 
the  case  of  Poe,  these  merits,  not- 
ably the  single-eyed  preoccupation  with 
beauty,  wese  of  a  sort  which  goes 
straight  to  the  heart  of  Frenchmen  in 
particular.  Baudelaire,  perhaps  the  only 
other  poet  in  the  world  who  was  Foe's 
euphonic  equal,  put  Poe's  verse  into  mar- 
velous French ;  and  Frenchmen  have  ever 
since  been  charmed  by  his  genius  and 
shocked  by  his  own  country's  callous 
ingratitude. 

A  new  book  by  M.  Andre  Fontainas 
("La  Vie  d'Edgar  A.  Pee":  Mercure  de 
France)  is  a  biography  of  Poe,  not  a 
study  of  his  writing.  It  is  an  enthusi- 
astic retelling  of  his  pathetic  and  often 
noble  life,  involving  a  passionate  attack 
on  his  traducers.  Poe  was  the  only  cham- 
pion of  art  for  art  in  his  country  and 
genoi-ation.  Hence,  it  was  inevitable  that 
the  Philistines,  the  materialists,  the 
pieachers,  the  reformers,  all  they  who 
love  dollars,  decorum,  or  doctrines  more 
dearly  than  art,  should  have  misunder- 
stood him,  disliked  him,  attac!;ed  him, 
especially  in  view  of  his  proneness  to 
attack  first.  It  is  probable  that  few 
Americans  can  even  yet  read  such  a  study 
as  this  of  M.  Fontainas  with  full  appre- 
ciation, since  most  Americans  are  still 
enrolled  in  one  troop  or  the  other  of  the 
army  against  which  poor  Poe  tilted  sin- 
gle-handed. To  most  of  us  it  makes  little 
difference — since  by  his  zealous  biogra- 
pher's own  admission  he  was  discharged 
from  one  magazine  for  drunkenness — 
whether  or  not  he  was  dismissed  a  second 
or  third  time  for  a  similar  offense.  We 
admire  his  genius,  disapprove  of  his 
irregularities,  regret  sincerely  that  we 
have  been  inclined  to  exaggerate  them, 
and  take  national  pride  in  a  detail  which 
has  apparently  made  no  great  impression 
on  his  French  champion — the  fact  that, 
whatever  his  personal  life  may  have  been, 
and  though  utterly  bare  of  didacticism, 
his  writings,  prose  and  poetry,  are  abso- 
lutely clean  and  pure.  But  for  all  our 
Philistinism,  we  can  see  that  M.  Fon- 
tainas has  written  a  valuable  book,  accu- 
rate, abreast  with  the  most  recent  dis- 
coveries, and  pleasant  to  read.  If  we  had 
been  given  our  choice  we  should  have 
preferred  that  the  twenty-five  pages  given 
ove-  to  the  sentimental  poems  of  Poe's 
friend,  Mrs.  Whitman,  had  been  devoted 


to  a  continuation  of  the,  to  us,  much  more 
interesting  main  subject  in  hand.  Other- 
wise, the  book  is  well-planned  and  skil- 
fully executed. 

In  compiling  the  volume  "Great  Artists 
and  Their  Works  by  Great  Authors" 
(Boston:  Marshall  Jones  Company), 
Professor  Alfred  Mansfield  Brooks  has 
hit  on  an  excellent  idea.  Excluding,  in 
the  main,  artists'  utterances,  and  giving 
rather  little  from  professional  art  critics, 
he  gleans  general  literature  for  com- 
ments on  art  in  general,  the  particular 
arts,  or  individual  artists  and  master- 
pieces. Thus  he  brings  together  for  the 
use  and  pleasure  of  the  art  lover  many 
significant  passages  which  would  other- 
wise escape  him.  So  far  as  it  goes,  the 
book  is  acceptable,  but  the  principle  of 
selection  seems  pretty  casual,  and  the 
omissions  are  disquieting.  If  it  was 
worth  while  to  collect  a  number  of 
Goethe's  rather  commonplace  observa- 
tions on  art,  surely  such  real  critics  as 
Lessing,  Winckelmann,  and  Schopen- 
hauer should  have  been  considered.  The 
French  list  is  blank  as  regards  Diderot, 
Gautier,  Taine,  and  Zola,  not  to  mention 
the  notable  romantic,  Baudelaire.  On  the 
English  side  why  lug  in  Lord  Leighton 
and  George  Clausen,  when  Rossetti, 
W.  E.  Henley,  and  R.  A.  M.  Stevenson 
are  ignored?  To  substitute  in  a  second 
edition  extracts  from  these  writers  for 
the  present  superabundance  of  Ruskin 
would  remedy  its  somewhat  parochial 
flavor. 

"Lettres  d'un  Soldat"  (Paris:  Chape- 
lot)  first  appeared  in  1916  and  has  gone 
through  several  editions.  It  immediately 
attracted  attention  in  both  England  and 
America,  and  two  separate  translations 
were  brought  out  in  1917  by  two  differ- 
ent houses  and  under  two  different  titles. 
Here  the  book  was  called  "A  Soldier  of 
France  to  His  Mother"  (McClurg),  in 
England,  "Letters  of  a  Soldier"  (Con- 
stable) ;  and  now,  oddly  enough,  a  second 
London  edition,  newly  translated  and 
with  still  another  title — "Letters  from  a 
French  Soldier  to  His  Mother"— appears 
from  still  another  London  publisher — 
Alexander  Moring.  It  is  also  surpris- 
ing that  the  present  editor  and  transla- 
tor still  leaves  the  authorship  of  this 
book  cloaked  in  anonymity,  although  it 
has  been  publicly  admitted  by  the  family 
for  a  year  or  more  that  these  remarkable 
letters  are  from  the  pen  of  Sergeant 
Eugene  Lemercier,  an  artist-soldier  of 
great  talent,  killed  on  the  Western  front. 
Furthermore,  his  mother,  also  an  artist 
and  the  one  to  whom  the  letters  are  ad- 
dressed, is  now  engaged  in  making  a 
selection  from  all  of  her  son's  writings 
which  will  be  published  next  year  in 
America,  accompanied  by  a  biographical 
introduction  and  a  number  of  reproduc- 
tions of  the  artist's  best. work. 


>60] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  44 


Of  Woodpiles 

WE  were  walking,  the  poet  and  I,  past 
a  low  white  farm  house  and  a  tall 
r«d  barn.  Between  the  two  was  a  wood- 
pile, a  noble  one,  ten  or  fifteen  cords  of 
■traight,  clean  maple,  hickory,  oak,  and 
birch. 

"There's  a  handsome  woodpile  for 
you!"  I  exclaimed. 

Even  as  I  spoke,  I  was  conscious  that 
I  had  said  something  of  the  sort  before. 
The  poet  had  not  forgotten  it;  he  turned 
a  curious  eye  on  me. 

"What  are  you  so  interested  in  wood- 
piles for?" 

I  found  it  hard  to  explain  in  a  word. 

"Aren't  you?"  I  countered. 

"No  more  than  in  piles  of  coal,"  he 
returned,  and  with  the  word  he  forfeited 
all  my  poetic  faith. 

When  I  got  home,  I  took  up  the  emaci- 
ated volume  he  had  given  me,  and 
discovered  that  he  is  in  the  habit  of  at- 
taching a  set  of  rather  pale  emotions  to 
characters  one  seldom  meets  outside  the 
appendix  to  the  classical  dictionary;  I 
doubt,  for  example,  whether  he  is  to  this 
day  more  than  "half  assuaged  for  Itylus" 
(whoever  Itylus  was).  My  heart  doea 
not  leap  up  for  such  as  these,  but  it 
warms  to  a  woodpile.  If  I  had  ever  with 
my  own  hands  inducted  a  ton  of  coal 
from  its  lair  to  my  hearth  and  warmed 
myself  by  its  heat,  I  might  love  a  coal 
pile  as  I  do  a  woodpile,  but  I  doubt  it — I 
think  it  much  more  likely  that  I  should 
hate  it.  I  have  toiled  over  woodpiles 
when  the  flesh  was  weary,  but  the  spirit 
did  not  revolt.  I  have  followed  steep 
trails,  and  no  trails,  among  the  high 
snows  with  a  heavy  pack  from  dawn  till 
"barely  time  to  make  camp,"  and  down  to 
timber-line  with  every  muscle  aching.  I 
should  have  been  glad  to  spread  my 
blanket  and  let  someone  else  rustle  the 
night's  supply  of  wood,  and  cook  supper. 
But  in  the  end,  after  putting  my  last 
ounce  of  energy  into  every  log  I  brought 
in,  when  with  a  full  stomach  and  a  full 
pipe  I  watched  the  sparks  eddy  upwards 
among  the  pine  tops  and  the  stars,  then 
the  woodpile  was  not  the  smallest  item 
in  the  sum  of  self-congratulation  over 
the  day's  achievement,  and  scarcely  less 
agreeable  to  contemplate  than  the  fire. 

My  feeling  for  woodpiles  has  a  back- 
ground with  which  the  poet's  experience 
did  not  supply  him.  I  am  an  amateur  if 
you  like,  but  I  am  a  veteran.  Under  pa- 
ternal supervision,  I  began  early  in  life 
on  a  load  of  cottonwood  logs  from  the 
head  of  the  canyon.  On  them  I  worked 
hard,  not  for  money,  but  because  Jim 
Corbett  was  training  just  then  with  a 
bucksaw.  There  are  years  vacant  of 
woodpiles  between  that  time  and  the  con- 
veyance to  me  and  my  heirs  of  sundry 
acres  (he  the  same  more  or  less)  of 
sprout  land  on  the  New  England  hillside 
where  I  still  swing  my  axe,  but  always 


my  devotions  have  been  as  steady  as  fate 
would  allow.  I  do  not  boast  of  accom- 
plishment worth  while  in  itself,  but 
merely  of  experience  that  makes  the 
woodpile,  which  to  the  poet  was  nothing 
more,  to  me  a  stimulus  to  the  imagina- 
tion and  a  delight  to  the  eye. 

First,  doubtless,  for  its  flattering  testi- 
mony to  worthy  accomplishment.  The 
man  is  not  human  who,  after  a  day  with 
the  axe,  does  not  smoke  his  evening  pipe 
in  the  presence  of  his  woodpile  to  esti- 
mate in  complacence  the  well-earned  in- 
crement. In  sympathy  or  emulation  his 
spirit  echoes  the  experience  when  he  sees 
another  man's  woodpile.  To  Thoreau,  the 
feeling  was  almost  enough  in  itself  to 
justify  the  accumulation  of  firewood.  At 
the  woodpile  stage  of  the  process  he  felt 
that  he  had  had  all  the  pleasure  he  was 
entitled  to,  and  for  any  further  glow  to 
be  obtained  from  his  fuel  he  must  render 
account  in  the  form  of  tasks  sternly  done 
in  the  warmth  of  his  fire.  'Tis  the  voice 
of  the  Puritan,  the  word  of  the  miser. 
Thoreau  is  not  of  the  true  fraternity  of 
axe  and  saw,  for  the  woodpile  teaches 
no  creed  of  asceticism,  but  releases  its 
treasure  to  whosoever  will  come.  He 
was  a  miser  if  the  accumulation  of  goods 
as  a  means -became  to  him  in  itself  an 
end.  And  to  borrow  a  turn  from  one 
who  had  ever  an  answer  ready  for  the 
Puritan:  If  to  burn  mine  own  wood 
freely  be  a  sin,  God  help  the  wicked.  If 
you  cut  your  own  wood,  your  fire  can 
hardly  beguile  you  to  unearned  idleness, 
and  there  can  be  nothing  wrong  with  the 
man  who  in  contemplation  of  his  wood- 
pile anticipates  ease,  or  before  his  fire 
remembers  industry.  I  like  to  meet  the 
sticks  on  my  hearth  as  old  friends,  and 
to  recall  former  meetings.  "I  remem- 
ber you  well,"  I  say  to  a  gummy  stick  of 
wild  cherry;  "you  are  more  affable  than 
when  I  saw  you  last.  I  found  you  diffi- 
cult of  approach  as  you  stood  in  the  angle 
of  the  wall."  Of  course,  almost  any 
stick  is  companionable  in  the  atmosphere 
of  the  fireplace,  but  those  you  have 
brought  up  yourself  are  always  the  most 
so.  They  are  like  college  students  as 
their  teachers  see  them,  sometimes  a  bit 
difficult  when  you  are  licking  them  into 
shape,  but  warmly  responsive  as  you 
meet  them  later. 

In  days  of  exile  the  woodpile  stood 
among  the  fondest  of  memories.  Travel- 
ing inland  from  Brest  on  a  raw  January 
day,  not  a  few  of  my  shivers  were  antici- 
patory as  I  saw  the  woodpiles  of  Brit- 
tany and  Normandy,  bundles  of  twigs 
that  no  American  would  feel  that  he 
could  afford  to  handle  except  to  burn  as 
slashings,  hoarded  like  counted  money 
against  the  winter's  firing.  In  Paris  as 
I  paid  seven  francs  a  basket  for  wood 
that  at  home  I  should  not  have  wasted 
time  in  cutting  except  for  riddance,  and 
bumcfl  it  in  a  tiny  roll-top  fireplace,  I 
fondly  dreamed  of  the  woodshed  I  had  so 


warmly  lined  with  solid  sticks  before  I 
left  home.  At  a  hospital  camp  in  Bur- 
gundy I  saw  the  only  woodpile  that  looked 
real  to  an  American  eye.  A  trainload 
of  firewood  had  backed  in  on  the  camp  sid- 
ing, and  squads  of  husky  doughboys  wer« 
pitching  it  off — the  air  was  thick  with 
it;  it  fell  in  a  huge  drift  nearly  as  big 
as  the  train.  It  was  poor  stuff  by  Ameri- 
can standards,  but  at  least  it  was  cord- 
wood,  and  I  took  off  my  hat  to  the  S.  0.  S. 
with  something  like  my  first  realization 
of  how  highly  France  prized  our  help; 
nowhere  did  I  see  her  burning  such  wood 
to  keep  herself  warm.  A  few  days  later 
I  learned  the  feel  of  a  French  axe. 
Three  of  us  out  for  a  walk  came  upon 
a  peasant  felling  a  poplar  beside  a  ditch. 
We  gave  him  cigarettes,  took  his  axe, 
and  worked  by  turns,  two  talking  with 
him  of  his  service  and  his  wounds  while 
one  chopped.  The  axe  had  a  long,  nar- 
row bit  and  straight  helve;  it  drove  like 
a  chisel  into  the  narrow  cut,  wasting 
little  in  chips  and  stumpage.  We  met 
its  owner  afterwards  on  many  a  white 
road  thereabout,  and  always  had  from 
him  a  cheerful  password  of  the  universal 
brotherhood  of  the  woodpile. 

It  was  a  serviceable  axe  and  a  thrifty, 
but  I  missed  the  sinuous,  slender  helve 
of  my  own  "weapon  shapely,  naked,  wan." 
Give  me  a  blade  that  suggests  the  con- 
cave of  a  razor,  and  a  helve  of  at  least 
twenty-eight  inches  with  no  treacherous 
cross-grain  to  weaken  its  double  curve. 
An  axe  like  a  pendulum  has  its  rhythm 
according  to  its  length,  and  if  it  does 
not  suit  me  I  can  not  keep  step  with  it. 
With  an  axe  that  fits,  a  proper  stance, 
and  the  right  swing,  chopping  is  not 
heavy  or  exhausting  work.  The  feeling 
is  that  of  controlling  rather  than  exert- 
ing force,  like  swinging  a  weight  round 
your  head  by  a  string.  After  the  lift 
and  poise,  a  twist  of  trunk  and  shoulders 
give  the  axe  its  planetary  motion  and 
speed;  the  arms  hold  it  to  its  arc, 
muscles  stretched  taut  by  the  centrifugal 
pull  as  if  they  were  an  extension  of  the 
helve,  but  neither  they  nor  the  grip  may 
have  the  slightest  rigidity.  As  in  golf, 
do  not  "push"  to  gain  force,  but  drive 
the  bit  deep  by  a  flick  of  the  wrists  at 
the  end  of  the  stroke.  Thus  you  may 
chop  all  day  with  a  merry  heart,  laying 
each  cut  to  a  hair  where  you  want  it  to 
fall,  leaving  the  end  of  each  stick  as  clean 
as  if  you  had  sheared  it  with  a  single 
blow.  And  when  you  read  in  your  "red- 
blood"  novel  of  what  the  hero  performs 
"with  a  few  well-directed  blows  of  his 
axe"  you  will  wonder  whether  the  novel- 
ist knows  as  well  as  you  do  whereof  he 
speaks.  As  you  pile  the  freshly  cut 
sticks,  you  become  aware  that  the  rows 
of  upturned  ends  present  a  rather  odd 
view  of  your  wood-lot  in  cross  section; 
almost  as  if  you  could  see  your  village 
with  the  ends  of  the  houses  removed. 
Here  are  the  intimate  life-histories  of 


March  13,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[261 


the  trees  revealed  in  the  tale  of  the  con- 
centric rings,  stories  of  poverty-stricken 
years  you  never  suspected,  hoarded 
wealth  you  never  knew,  healed  scars  and 
hidden  wounds,  secrets  of  the  birth  of 
new  branches,  and  revelations  of  the 
means  of  supporting  them  from  the  par- 
ent trunk. 

Of  the  wood-lot  in  winter,  normally  its 
busy  season,  I  have  not  had  full  experi- 
ence. I  know,  indeed,  the  austere  joy  of 
a  brilliant  morning  with  the  mercury 
near  to  zero,  the  air  twinkling  with 
snow-sparks,  electric  to  sight  and  touch, 
when  even  double  mittens  can  not  pro- 
tect finger-tips  from  aches  as  poignant 
as  ever  haunted  a  tooth — but  as  Uncle 
Everett,  my  neighbor  philosopher,  sagely 
remarks,  "S'long  as  they  keep  on  a-hurt- 
in',  you  know  they  ain't  relly  damaged 
much,"  and  you  swish  your  saw  prestis- 
simo to  drive  the  blood  into  every  last 
extremity.  Here  the  woodpile  is  as  ne^t 
between  its  upright  stakes  as  a  box  of 
dominos,  till  there  comes  the  slow  creak- 
ing .sled  and  its  "dumb  old  servitor"  to 
bear  it  at  a  foot  pace  down  the  hillside, 
down  the  valley,  to  the  scene  of  its  trans- 
lation into  ashes  and  ethereal  parts.  But 
most  often  I  must  cut  my  wood  out  of 
season,  in  summer  when  it  is  heavy  with 
sap.  A  morning  in  a  tiny  cubicle  which 
represents  "the  study"  at  camp,  at  monk- 
like labor  laying  words  end  to  end,  brings 
me  to  the  limit  of  my  endurance.  With 
axe  and  saw  I  retire  to  my  laboratory 
where  trees  too  thickly  congregate.  The 
sun  slants  shafts  of  powdered  gold 
through  the  greenery  overhead;  the  song 
of  the  woodthrush  ripples  the  placid 
air;  jay  and  chickadee  cock  beady  eyes 
at  my  proceedings,  one  squawks  derision, 
the  other  pipes  companionship.  I  spy 
through  the  shot-windows  of  my  high 
room  tiny  vistas  framed  in  leaves,  the 
far  curve  of  a  hill's  bosom  to  the  north, 
or  a  brush-point  of  Chinese  white  repre- 
senting a  church  spire  down  the  valley 
to  the  west.  Here  in  reflective  peace  I 
fell  gray  birch  and  redundant  maple,  or 
plot  and  execute  engineering  feats  to 
reduce  the  trunk  of  a  big  blighted  chest- 
nut. I  hear  a  cautious  rustling,  and  a 
terrier's  towzled  face  peers  round  a  lau- 
rel bush.  He  rejoices  on  me  with  flying 
paws  and  quivering  tail,  then  retires  be- 
yond range  of  the  chips.  Next  come 
small  bipeds,  proprietors  and  managers 
of  the  dog,  and  there  follow  endless  tea- 
drinking  ceremonies  with  clean  chips 
and  stumps,  much  sitting  on  logs  and 
talking  of  things  in  general  with  obser- 
vations on  the  theory  of  tittlebats.  If 
there  is  the  less  wood  cut,  there  is  the 
more  left  standing. 

With  the  saw  as  with  the  axe,  "easy 
does  it,"  or  in  Uncle  Everett's  words, 
"It's  all  right  ter  try  's  hard  's  you've  a 
min'ter,  but  it  ain't  no  use  ter  try  no 
harder  than  ye  kin."  "Best  recipe  I 
know,"  he  told  me,  "ter  keep  a  saw  run- 


nin'  smooth,  is  ter  slip  it  back  'n  forth 
through  a  log  a  little  while  every  day." 
No  stick  ever  pinches  his  saw,  for  he 
has  the  only  perfect  sawbuck,  an  old 
scarred  veteran  that  looks  like  the  vault- 
ing horse  in  the  gymnasium,  with  hick- 
ory pegs  set  solidly  in  its  back  to  hold 
the  log  as  in  a  mitre-box.  Next  best  is 
one  you  may  make  but  can  not  buy,  with 
three  X-shaped  supports  so  spaced  that 
your  stick  is  held  firm  its  whole  length 
and  can  not  sag  where  you  saw  it.  If 
you  would  know  comfort,  make  this  crea- 
ture with  legs  so  long  that  when  you 
have  set  it  a  foot  in  the  ground  for  rigid- 
ity it  is  still  high  enough  not  to  kink 
your  back.  For  a  saw,  get  a  "one-man 
cross-cut"  with  teeth  like  a  shark's,  and 
you  will  find  sawing  a  contemplative  rec- 
reation, for  you  may  handle  your  saw  as 
lightly  as  a  fiddle-bow  with  no  fear  of 
its  sticking,  and  discharging  your  bat- 
teries of  nervous  energy  in  crackles  of 
profanity. 

My  fireplaces  are  genially  catholic  in 
their  tastes.  I  could  call  over  the  whole 
catalogue  of  the  trees  and  find  scarce 
one,  however  commonly  despised  for  fire- 
wood, of  which  they  have  not  at  one  time 
or  another  made  good  use.  Of  elm,  for 
example,  I  have  never  heard  a  good  word 
spoken,  but  I  have  had  praiseworthy 
service  from  it  as  a  green  backlog  "to 
hold  the  fire."  Its  unpopularity  is  due  to 
its  tough,  interwoven  fibre  which  makes 
it  almost  impossible  to  split,  and  slow  to 
season.  Of  blighted  chestnut  I  have 
burned  my  share  or  a  bit  more,  and  well 
I  know  its  skill  in  high-angle  bombard- 
ment with  incendiary  sparks.  It  does  not 
suit  all  moods,  for  it  makes  of  sitting  by 
the  fire  a  lively,  hilarious  game  instead 
of  a  period  of  innocuous  coma.  Use  your 
chestnut  sticks  with  discretion;  put  one 
on  the  fire  when  you  have  a  caller  who 
needs  periodical  awakening — he  will  talk 
fast  enough  when  a  cubic  inch  of  red- 
hot  charcoal  lands  in  his  lap,  and  will 
display  great  agility  in  hunting  sparks 
off  the  rug  while  you  apologize  for  the 
misbehavior  of  your  fire.  Of  course,  the 
best  wood  for  other  purposes  is  also  the 
best  wood  to  burn.  Hickory  seldom 
comes  on  my  andirons,  but  rock  maple  is 
nearly  as  good,  burning  with  an  intense, 
steady  glow  to  a  fleecy  white  ash.  But 
gray  birch,  almost  useless  for  anything 
else,  is  the  staple  of  my  woodpile  when 
I  go  after  firewood  per  se.  If  it  bums 
fast,  it  is  also  fast  to  grow  and  fast  to 
cut,  and  to  take  it  out  of  one's  woods  is 
as  good  a  deed  as  to  weed  the  garden. 
The  trouble  is  that  cutting  only  encour- 
ages it;  Hydra  is  a  pale  figure  for  its 
performances  at  producing  in  incalculable 
ratio  many  heads  for  every  one  you  lop. 
Pear,  cherry,  and  apple,  when  bad  luck 
in  the  orchard  brings  them  to  the  hearth, 
make  the  best  of  fires,  slow-burning,  but 
with  abundant,  steady  heat.  Oak  and 
ash,    butternut    and    poplar,    even    tag 


alder  and  pussy  willow,  I  have  burned 
them  all  as  chance  and  change  have 
brought  them  under  the  axe,  and  all, 
whatever  their  faults,  give  out  warmth 
and  glow,  and  provide  excellent  wood- 
ashes  for  garden  and  lawn. 

Breathes  there  the  man  who  does  not 
deem  himself  competent  above  all  others 
to  manage  his  fire;  who  is  not  jealous  of 
it  as  of  his  honor  at  the  hands  of  an- 
other? So  I  feel  about  my  fire,  and 
scarcely  less  so  about  my  woodpile.  To 
carry  heavy  loads  of  wood  with  aching 
arms  from  the  shed  to  the  study  is  no 
joy,  but  even  when  I  have  the  choice,  I 
do  it  myself  rather  than  leave  it  to  one 
who  does  not  understand  the  blending  of 
firewood.  He  will  bring  it  to  me  all 
green  or  all  dry,  all  birch  or  all  chest- 
nut. The  result  is  either  no  fire  at  all, 
or  else  a  fire  that  is  about  as  comforting 
as  a  cocktail  made  by  a  man  to  whom  all 
bottles  look  alike.  Besides,  I  like  to  keep 
an  eye  on  my  woodpile  in  its  waning  no 
less  than  its  waxing.  Even  now  I  have 
more  words  laid  up  than  cordwood;  I 
ground  my  axe  yesterday,  and  I  know 
where  stands  a  wild  cherry  tree  that  is 
waiting  its  chance  to  corrupt  the  orchard 
with  caterpillars. 

Robert  P.  Utter 


Music 


"The   Birthday   of  the    In- 
fanta"—D'Erlanger's 
"Aphrodite" 

THE  end  of  the  short  season  at  the 
Lexington  was  more  sensational 
than  important.  Apart  from  two  ballets, 
by  Americans,  and  some  remarkable 
singing  by  Titta  Ruffo,  Bonci,  and  others 
in  old-fashioned  operas,  it  brought  the 
production  (the  first  performance  in  this 
country)  of  Camille  d'Erlanger's  much 
advertised  "Aphrodite."  Before  touch- 
ing on  the  work  last  named,  a  few  words 
about  the  new  American  ballets. 

In  "Boudour,"  Felix  Borowski,  the 
Chicago  critic,  proved  his  ability  to  com- 
pose vivacious  music  for  a  theme  which, 
although  modified  and  changed  in  various 
ways,  was  plainly  suggested  by  the  Rus- 
sian ballet,  "Scheherazade."  Technically, 
Mr.  Borowski  did  credit  to  himself.  But 
he  said  nothing  new. 

Vastly  more  interesting,  musically  and 
in  other  ways,  was  "The  Birthday  of 
The  Infanta" — a  charming  and  effective 
reconstruction,  in  ballet  form,  of  one  of 
Oscar  Wilde's  most  fanciful  tales  for 
children.  The  creator  of  this  very  dainty 
dance-poem  was  John  Alden  Carpenter 
(like  Mr.  Borowski,  of  Chicago).  He 
had  himself  arranged  the  plot  to  suit  his 
purpose,  while  Adolph  Bolm,  the  Russian, 
had  devised  the  dances. 

Nothing  that  our  composers  have  in- 


262] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  44 


vented  has  been  more  satisfying  than 
"The  Birthday  of  the  Infanta,"  which, 
by  the  by,  is  Mr.  Carpenter's  first  effort 
to  write  music  for  the  operatic  stage. 
It  gives  one  hope  of  even  better  things 
to  come — perhaps  good  operas.  The 
storj'  that  it  tells  concerns  the  love  of 
the  grotesque  and  tragic  Pedro  for  the 
young  Princess,  before  whom  he  dances. 
To  reward  him,  the  Princess  sends  him  a 
gift  which  he  construes  into  a  sign  of 
love.  His  broken  heart  and  death  wind 
up  the  tale.  Incidentally,  we  have  light 
and  amusing  dances,  quaint  pageants, 
and  costumes  such  as  Velasquez  has  im- 
mortalized. Above  all,  we  have  a  bur- 
lesque bull  fight  in  an  improvised  Plaza 
de  Toros  and,  at  the  end  of  the  first 
scene  (there  are  two  scenes  in  Mr.  Car- 
penter's witching  ballet),  a  pageant,  full 
of  monstrously  hooped  skirts  and  lights 
and  color. 

In  his  score  Mr.  Carpenter  has  ex- 
pressed many  moods  with  unusual  elo- 
quence; some  humorous,  others  dainty, 
graceful  or  tragical.  His  music  has 
subtility  and  elegance.  It  is  sometimes 
brilliant,  often  sad  and  haunting.  The 
most  serious  charge  that  can  be  brought 
against  it  (and  that  must  be  brought) 
is  that  it  is  not  always  really  new  and 
personal.  In  one  episode  the  composer 
quotes  Debussy  with  too  much  subser- 
viency. In  another  he  harks  back  to  the 
"Carmen"  and  "L'Arlesienne"  of  Bizet. 

The  success  of  the  whole  work  was 
much  enhanced  by  two  stage  scenes — 
each  of  them  simple  to  a  fault  and  very 
modem — invented  by  Robert  Edmond 
Jones.  The  first  showed  a  conventional 
outer  court  or  garden,  with  a  mountain- 
ous background.  The  second  gave  a  hint 
of  the  interior  of  a  gloomy  chapel.  Each 
picture  seemed  to  harmonize  with  the 
moods  of  Wilde  and  his  interpreter.  Each 
was  a  model  of  unforced  and  fitting  taste. 

If  stage  pictures  of  themselves  could 
kill  an  opera,  those  which  distressed  the 
«ye  in  the  "Aphrodite"  of  d'Erlanger 
would  have  been  deadly.  They  were 
crude  and  rude,  and  very  "cheap"  indeed. 
But  they  were  good  enough  as  accessories 
in  the  performance  of  a  worthless  work. 

The  interest  of  the  public  had  been 
whetted  by  the  high  prices  charged  for 
the  rather  doubtful  privilege  of  hearing 
the  opera.  And  mahy  who  attended  the 
performance  doubtless  did  so  hoping  for 
scandalous  improprieties.  Nor  can  they 
have  been  greatly  disappointed.  The 
operatic  version  of  the  story  by  Pierre 
Louys,  now  familiar  to  the  general  pub- 
lic in  another  and  much  more  spectacular 
form,  through  the  entertainment  now  on 
view  at  the  Century  Theatre,  is  quite 
unabashed  and  odiously  frank.  I  need 
bardly  say  that  it  revolves  around 
Chrysis,  the  courtesan,  who,  as  the  price 
of  her  sophisticated  favors,  forces  Deme- 
trics,  her  lover,  to  commit  murder  and 
sacrilege.      As    to    details,    there    are 


analogies  between  "Thai's,"  "The  Jewels 
of  the  Madonna,"  and  "Aphrodite."  But, 
in  the  opera  of  d'Erlanger,  things  are 
far  more  cynically  harped  on  than  in 
the  other  works. 

The  composer's  setting  is  strangely 
futile — a  vague  and  tame  rehash  of 
Massenet  and  Charpentier,  devoid,  except 
in  the  long  overture,  or  introduction, 
and  at  moments  in  the  lascivious  orgy 
served  up  as  a  ballet  of  inspiration.  A 
Temple  scene  and  a  brutal  Crucifixion 
episode,  contrived  for  the  opera,  were 
omitted.  For  this  most  in  the  audience 
should  have  felt  grateful  to  the  Chicago 
management.  A  closing  scene — a  sort 
of  epilogue — in  which  two  sister  courte- 
sans of  the  seductive  Chrysis  were  seen 
sorrowing  at  her  grave,  after  she  had 
expiated  her  ill  deeds  by  drinking  poison, 
might  also  have  been  spared  us.  It  was 
rank  anti-climax.  No  analysis  of  the 
music  is  called  for.  Only  by  the  least 
musical  and  most  debased  in  taste  will  it 
be  remembered,  except  with  weariness. 

The  one  redeeming  feature  in  the  per- 
formance of  "Aphrodite"  at  the  Lexing- 
ton was  Mary  Garden,  who  sang  the  diffi- 
cult and  often  exacting  role  of  the  ignoble 
but  quite  irresistible  heroine  with  charm 
and  expression.  Miss  Garden  was  a  pic- 
ture of  half-veiled  and  unveiled  loveli- 
ness. She  had  dressed  (I  use  the  term 
for  the  sake  of  decency)  the  part  most 
conscientiously.  So  far  as  the  chief 
character  was  concerned,  no  one  could 
grumble. 

Edward  Johnson,  the  American  tenor, 
was  less  romantic  and  less  lyrical  than 
he  might  have  been  as  Demetrios;  and, 
in  a  minor  part,  Marie  Claessens  sang 
impressively. 

Charles  Henry  Meltzer 

Drama 

Problem -Plays  in  New  York 

RACHEL  CROTHERS  IN  "HE  AND 
SHE"— LIONEL  BARRYMORE  IN 
"THE  LETTER  OF  THE  LAW." 

IT  is  very  difficult  to  stage  a  play  in 
one's  brain.  I  had  read  Miss  Rachel 
Crothers'  "He  and  She"  with  sympathy, 
in  1917;  I  read  it  two  weeks  ago  with  a 
pleasure  which  my  occupancy  of  a  sick- 
bed at  the  moment  did  not  blur.  I 
thought  it  a  genuine,  though  chastened 
and  reticent,  stage-play.  My  surprise 
was  accordingly  great  to  discover  that 
on  the  boards  of  the  Little  Theatre  the 
play  visibly  blanched  and  pined.  I  still 
nurse  the  hope  that-  the  guilt  lay  in  the 
cast  rather  than  the  play.  The  actors, 
inexpert  as  a  group,  saw  that  the  play 
was  quiet,  feared  that  a  quiet  play  might 
drowse,  and  hallooed  and  whistled  to 
keep  it  awake.  The  great  mistake,  how- 
ever, lay  in  the  decision  of  Miss  Rachel 


Crothers  to  impersonate  her  own  hero- 
ine. The  artist  and  mother  which  Miss 
Crothers,  the  author,  had  put  into  Ann 
Herford,  Miss  Crothers,  the  actress,  was 
unable  to  re-discover  or  reclaim.  Ann 
Herford  is  a  sculptor,  a  shaper  of  things 
with  the  hands,  and  I  have  never  known 
an  acted  part  that  seemed  to  me 
so  obviously  manipulated.  There  was 
plenty  of  study  and  determination ;  there 
was  no  substance  on  which  that  study  and 
determination  could  effectually  act.  In 
the  final  effect  there  was  something  hun- 
gry and  grasping  which  belonged  neither 
to  Ann  Herford  nor,  in  all  probability, 
to  Miss  Crothers,  but  to  Miss  Crothers' 
convulsive  but  imperfect  hold  upon  her 
part.  It  is  unlucky  for  "He  and  She" 
that  its  subject  should  have  been  antici- 
pated, not  in  composition  but  perform- 
ance, by  one  of  the  eminent  stage-suc- 
cesses of  the  season  in  New  York,  Mr. 
James  Forbes'  "Famous  Mrs.  Fair." 

Both  these  plays  deal  gravely  with  a 
timely  and  serious  problem — the  relation 
of  executive  or  artistic  force  in  woman 
to  the  claims  of  motherhood.  War-work 
in  Mrs.  Fair's  case,  sculpture  in  Mrs. 
Herford's,  detach  the  mother  tempo- 
rarily from  the  child.  The  daughters 
rush  into  unimaginable  follies,  and  are 
saved  in  the  end  by  the  mothers'  pas- 
sionate repudiation  of  every  claim  except 
the  claim  of  contrite  and  self-spurning 
motherhood.  This  conduct  is  dramati- 
cally sound ;  the  trouble  is  that,  in  seem- 
ing at  least,  the  cry  of  an  impassioned 
heart  in  the  exaltation  of  a  critical  mo- 
ment is  presented  as  the  final  solution 
of  a  difficult  and  many-sided  problem. 

You  may  draw  from  "He  and  She"  a 
thesis  that  is  sound  and  tame,  that  in 
a  conflict  between  motherhod  and  art 
the  claims  of  motherhood  are  first.  You 
may  also  put  its  thesis  in  a  form  which 
is  bold,  interesting,  certainly  question- 
able, and  probably  false,  that  no  mother 
has  the  right  to  be  a  sculptor.  It  is  not 
the  first  time  that  the  problem-drama 
offers  us  the  sorry  choice  between  a  sound 
but  futile  generality  and  a  vivid  but 
untrustworthy  particular.  To  grant  the 
priority  of  motherhood  in  case  of  con- 
flict is  not  to  grant  that  conflict  is  inevi- 
table. In  nine  cases  out  of  ten  what  is 
wanted  is  not  heroism,  but  common  sense, 
not  sacrifice,  but  wise  accommodation. 
Drama  insists  on  the  tenth  case;  that  is 
its  right  as  drama;  the  tenth  case,  the 
extreme  case,  is  its  property.  If  it  wrote 
"Tenth  Case"  over  its  play,  its  conduct 
would  be  quite  honest  and  quite  harm- 
less, but  the  more  it  poses  as  social  in- 
structor, the  harder  and  harder  do  such 
acknowledgments  become.  Social  science 
insists  on  the  middle  case,  the  type-case; 
that  is  its  right  as  social  science.  What 
is  left  for  drama,  in  its  role  of  social  phi- 
losopher, to  do  except  to  declare  that  the 
extreme  case  is  typical? 

(Continued  on  page  264) 


March  13,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[263 


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THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  44 


(Continued  from  page  262) 
Miss  Crothers  proves  her  theorem  by 
a  special  case  the  particulars  of  which 
aie,  of  course,  absolutely  at  her  own  dis- 
posal. But  even  here  her  embarrass- 
ments aie  great.  The  mother  sends  her 
daughter  to  boarding-school.  Miss  Cro- 
thers, however,  has  to  reckon  with  an 
audience  that  knows  that  girls  are  sent 
to  boarding-schools  by  mothers  who  are 
not  sculptors,  and  are  very  good  mothers 
indeed.  What  is  left?  The  sculptor- 
mother  refuses  to  let  her  daughter  come 
home  for  the  Easter  vacation,  and  in  this 
invaluable  fortnight  the  Devil  and  Miss 
Crothers  get  in  their  work.  The  girl  is 
at  the  school,  and  we  get  forward  only 
on  assumption  that  girls  are  unsafe  in 
vacation  in  the  same  places  and  hands  in 
which  they  are  safe  in  school-time.  But 
we  are  thankful  to  get  forward  at  all. 
The  girl's  brains  have  next  to  be  immo- 
lated to  the  thesis,  and  one  regrets  that 
in  a  drama  which  sets  out  to  prove  that 
friezes  are  worth  less  than  girls,  the 
frieze  should  be  excellent  and  the  girl 
vapid.  I  will  not  follow  the  case  into  all 
its  details ;  the  difficulties,  as  I  think,  are 
plain.  Miss  Crothers  herself  is  less  to 
blame  than  the  disparity  between  drama 
and  social  science,  the  difficulty  of  ad- 
justing an  art  which  is  anything  but  dis- 
criminative to  the  necessities  of  a  science 
of  which  discrimination  is  the  soul.  The 
trouble  lies  in  the  fact  that  drama,  if  it 
teaches  to  any  purpose,  must  teach  com- 
mon sense,  and  that  the  business  of  com- 
mcu  sense  in  this  unromantic  world  is 
to  destroy  the  occasions  for  drama. 

Eugene  Brieux  is  one  of  the  most  hon- 
est men  alive,  and  the  hope  of  a  decent, 
kind,  and  upright  France,  which  might  be 
clouded  by  a  perusal  of  his  works,  is 
rekindled  by  the  thought  of  their  author. 
The  retort  to  Brieux's  France  is — Brieux. 
The  largeness  of  his  spirit  is  finely  evi- 
dent in  the  hand  reached  out  to  America 
in  "Les  Americains  chez  Nous,"  from 
which  the  February  number  of  La 
France  has  reprinted  a  discerning  ex- 
tract. The  man  is  half  artist,  half 
dramatist,  wholly  crusader.  Such  a  role 
might  have  made  a  German,  possibly  an 
Englishman,  intolerably  heavy;  but  this 
man  sprang  of  a  vivacious  and  dramatic 
race,  and,  if  Brieux  himself  be  a  trifle 
solid,  France  is  sprightly  even  in  Brieux. 
He  has  given  himself  to  the  problem- 
play  with  a  Dickensian  mixture  of  art- 
lessness  and  energy,  and  some  of  his 
work  reveals  the  peril  of  a  combination 
of  drama  and  science  both  in  the  weight 
which  it  takes  from  science  and  the 
weight  which  it  adds  to  drama.  One 
might  wish,  perhaps,  that  the  scope  of 
Brieux's  attack  on  social  evils  had  been 
less  extensive.  It  is  hard  to  believe  that 
a  man  whose  work  proves  that  he  was 
half  a  novice  in  his  own  specialty  was  an 
expert  in  a  dozen  other  fields.  The  com- 
bination  of   philosopher   and    dramatist 


may  sometimes  evade  the  censure  which 
either  part  would  severally  attract.  Has 
he  defects  in  knowledge?  We  excuse 
them  in  a  dramatist.  Has  he  blunders 
in  dramatic  art?  They  are  venial  in  a 
philosopher. 

Brieux's  art  is  best  when  simplest;  the 
"Red  Robe,"  inaptly  called  the  "Letter 
of  the  Law"  in  the  English  rendering  at 
the  Criterion,  is  a  play  of  large  area — 
and,  what  is  more  to  be  dreaded — ill- 
defined  frontiers.  It  is  a  large,  loose, 
decentralized  attempt  to  prove  that  the 
French  judiciary — impenetrable  to  gold 
— is  pervious  to  every  other  species  of 
corruption.  Its  power  is  less  the  power 
of  a  play  than  of  a  speech;  Brieux  is  the 
prosecutor  of  the  whole  judiciary.  Nar- 
rative of  a  kind  is  present,  but  there  is 
no  current  in  the  narrative;  it  loses 
itself  in  the  exposition  as  a  stream 
merges  in  a  pond. 

A  further  difficulty  arises  from  the  fact 
that  there  are  primary  and  secondary 
interests  in  the  play,  and  that  the  inter- 
ests which  are  primary  in  importance 
are  secondary  in  power.  At  the  end  a 
judge  is  stabbed  by  a  peasant  woman,  and 
his  colleagues,  pouring  in  from  the  cor- 
ridor, exclaim:  "Another  vacancy." 
Murder  is  subordinated  to  epigram.  It 
is  as  if  Brieux  had  taken  up  the  dagger 
reddened  by  the  crime,  and  slit  an  en- 
velope with  the  still  dripping  edge.  In 
the  second  act,  likewise,  a  man  accused 
of  murder  is  examined  by  a  magistrate. 
Brieux's  eye,  the  play's  eye,  is  on  the 
prosecutor,  but  who  can  persuade  an 
audience  to  look  at  a  magistrate  when  a 
cutthroat,  real  or  supposititious,  is  in 
the  field  of  view?  A  lighter  treatment, 
a  treatment  modeled  on  that  of  Gogol  in 
the  "Inspector-General"  or  perhaps  on 
that  of  Le  Sage  in  "Turcaret,"  would 
have  been  deadlier  in  the  end.  Indeed, 
in  this  play,  the  rare  comic  strokes  are 
the  strokes  of  power.  In  Madame  Vagret 
a  society  that  eats,  drinks,  and  breathes 
promotion  is  caricatured,  and  its  pas- 
sage into  caricature  completes  the  proof 
of  its  reality. 

An  inoffensive  and  uninteresting  cast, 
to  which  Miss  Doris  Rankin  and  Mr. 
Charles  White  impart  vigor  in  certain 
episodes  of  peasant  life,  need  not  arrest 
us  in  our  passage  to  Mr.  Lionel  Barry- 
more's  exuberantly  sordid  Mouzon.  Mou- 
zon  is  a  vulgar  rascal;  the  actor's  task  is 
to  make  him  odious,  yet  keep  him  toler- 
able; and  Mr.  Barrymore's  success  in 
this  ticklish  enterprise  is  considerable. 
He  made  Mouzon  despicable,  yet  pro- 
tected him  from  our  contempt.  The 
original  point  in  Mouzon  is  that  he  is 
both  jovial  and  stony;  or,  if  the  reader 
pleases,  he  is  hard  and  unctuous  like  a 
waxed  floor.  In  the  rendering  of  -this 
combination  Mr.  Barrymore  was  happy; 
he  even  put  shading  into  a  character  to 
which 'Brieux  has  not  been  liberal  of 
shades.     Mr.  Barrymore's  Mouzon  is  a 


really  able  performance.  Whether  abil- 
ity spent  on  such  an  object  is  finally 
remunerative  is  a  point  on  which  I  can 
not  free  my  mind  from  indecision. 

0.  W.  Firkins 

The  Advertisees 

You  know  them,  of  course.  Every 
magazine  devotes  pages  and  pages 
to  them ;  you  are  sure  to  find  some  mem- 
ber of  the  family  in  any  newspaper  you 
may  pick  up.  They  are  the  Adver- 
tisees. 

It  was  my  good  fortune  to  visit  them 
during  the  printers'  strike  recently. 
Many  of  them  were  taking  their  first 
vacation  in  years,  and  time  hung  heavily 
on  their  hands.  But  they  were  happy, 
very  happy,  so  happy  that  they  seemed 
not  quite — well,  you  know. 

Grandfather  met  me  at  the  door.  As 
he  opened  the  door  he  rattled  the  knob 
proudly  and  said,  "It  locks."  I  remem- 
bered that  that  was  the  slogan  of  th« 
Yell  &  Pound  Lock  Company.  (A  rival 
firm  had  been  campaigning  with  the 
slogan  "It  unlocks."  Grandfather  did 
not  approve  of  this.) 

I  had  been  walking  fast.  "Rather 
warm,"  I  remarked  as  we  entered  the 
sitting-room. 

"Ah,  not  if  you  wear  Neverich  Under- 
wear. See?"  He  rolled  up  his  trousers 
to  show  me.  At  that  moment  practically 
the  whole  family  trooped  down  the  stairs, 
and  like  a  well-trained  chorus,  shouted, 
"So  do  we!  We  wear  Neverich."  Smil- 
ing, they  surrounded  me  and  started  to 
undress.  I  assured  them  that  I  could 
believe  without  seeing.  And  I  was  re- 
lieved when  Father  slapped  me  on  the 
back  and  exclaimed  heartily,  "You  are 
just  in  time  for  dinner.  Come  in  and 
sit  down  with  us." 

I  followed  him  into  the  dining-room 
and  took  my  place  at  a  large  table.  As 
I  pulled  back  my  chair  to  sit  down,  it 
slid  from  my  hand  and  caromed  across 
the  floor. 

"Oh,  I  should  have  told  you  before," 
Mother  apologized.  "All  of  our  chairs 
are  fitted  with  Nobs  of  Noiselessness. 
'They  glide.' " 

Thinking  that  I  might  not  believe  her, 
the  rest  of  the  family  coasted  about  the 
room  on  their  chairs  until  I  began  to 
fear  a  collision  and  begged  them  to  stop. 

With  indelible  cheerfulness  they  grad- 
ually composed  themselves,  and  a  servant 
in  a  handsome  livery  brought  in  a  silver 
tureen  and  set  it  on  the  table.  Father 
raised  the  cover  and  beamed  with  satis- 
faction as  the  steam  floated  up.  "I  eat 
Macpherson's  Macerated  Mushine,"  he 
murmured  devoutly.  "I  also,"  added 
Grandfather,  who  looked  exactly  like 
Father  except  that  his  hair  was  white. 
"I  have  always  used  Macpherson's 
Macerated  Mushine,"  echoed  Baby,  who  ' 
(Continued  on  page  266  > 


March  13,  1920] THE  REVIEW ^, 


THE    EQUITABLE 

LIFE  ASSURANCE  SOCIETY  OF  THE  U.  S. 
120  BROADWAY,  NEW  YORK 

The  year   1919   was  the   most   productive    in   the    Equitable's    history. 
NEW  INSURANCE  issued  and  paid  for  in  1919 $454,839,437 

All  increase  of  $i8[,6i5,878  over  the  previous  year. 
During  the  year  the  Two  Billion  mark 
in  Outstanding   Insurance   was   passed 
OUTSTANDING  INSURANCE,  Dec.  31,  1919 $2,270,903,931 

An    mcrease    of    $346,365,353    over    the    previous    year. 

PAID  TO  POLICYHOLDERS  IN  1919 $73,990,176 

97%  of  the  domestic  death  claims  paid  in  1919  were 
settled  within  one  day  after  receipt  of  proofs  of  death 

PAID    POLICYHOLDERS    Since    Organization $1,302,291,677 

ASSETS.  December  31,  1919-. $599  423  919^ 

INSURANCE  RESERVE $493,390,577  ^=^=^-= 

Other  Liabilitie... 17,418,765       510,809  342 

SURPLUS  RESERVES: 

For  di.tribution  to  policyholder,  in  1920...  17,191   084 
Awaiting  apportionment  on  ' 

deferred  dividend  poUcie, 54  3  00,085 

For  Contingencie.  17,123,408      $88,614,577 

$599,423,919 

The  above  figures  are  from  the  60th  Annual  Statement 
which     will     be     sent     to     any     address     on     request. 
The  Equitable  issues  all  standard  forms  of  life  insurance  and 
annuities,  including  the  following : 
A  LIFE  INCOME  POLICY  AN  INCOMF  RONH 

under   which   the   beneficiary   receives   a   monthly   in  •  ,     .  INCOME  BOND 

come  for  life— the  safest  and  the  best  kind  of  insur-      *°  P^^ide  for  the  declining  years  of  the  purchaser, 
ance  for  family  protection.  AN  ENDOWMENT  ANNUITY  POLICY 

A  GROUP  POLICY  maturing  at  age  65,  providing  thereafter  an  income 

by   which   an   employer   protects    the    families   of    his  ^or  life. 

employes.  AN  EDUCATIONAL  POLICY 

A  CORPORATE  POLICY  providing  a    fund    for  the  college   training  of  a   son 

to  safeguard  business  interests.  or  daughter. 

A  CONVERTIBLE  POLICY  A  CASH  REFUND  LIFE  ANNUITY 

which   can   be   '"-^ified    from   time   to   time   to   meet  under  which  the  total  return  may  be  more,  but 

changing  conditions.  can    never    be    less    than    the    purchase   price. 

The  following  provisions  will  be  added  to  the  policy  when  desired: 

1.  In  case  of  total  and  permanent  disability  : 

(a)  Premiums  will  cease,    (b)  The  Insured  will  receive  a  monthly  in- 
come,    (c)  Ihe  beneficiary  will  receive  full  face  of  policy  at  maturity. 

2.  Double  the  face  of  the  policy  will  be  paid 

in  case  of  death  from  Accident. 

A  non-cancellable  Accident  and  Health  policy  completes  the  circle  of  Equitable  protection. 

W.  A.  DAY 

President 


Please  mention  The  Review  in  writing  to  advertisers. 


2661 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  4-1 


(Continued  from  page^  264) 
looked   exactly  like  Grandfather  except 
that  he  didn't  have  any  hair. 

I  was  given  a  large  plate  of  the  taste- 
less, colorless  stuff,  and  as  I  was  endeav- 
oring to  choke  down  a  hunk  of  it  I 
became  alarmed  at  the  apearance  of 
Aunt  Clara,  who  sat  opposite  me.  1  had 
never  seen  any  one  so  haggard  and 
emaciated;  her  skin  was  yellow  and 
there  were  dark  circles  about  her  eyes. 
For  a  moment  I  expected  her  to  faint, 
but  she  summoned  strength  enough  to 
reach  for  a  glass  of  water.  Dropping 
a  blue  pill  into  it,  she  gasped  "Before," 
and  drank.  Immediately  her  cheeks  grew 
pink  and  plump,  her  gray  hair  turned  to 
gold,  and  crying  "After!"  in  a  trium- 
phant tone,  she  dashed  to  the  sideboard 
and  wrote  a  testimonial. 

Cousin  Ralph  was  late.  He  came  in 
just  as  Baby  was  pleading,  "More 
Mushine,  please.  And  be  sure  that  it  is 
Macpherson's.  Seven  thousand  eminent 
physicians  state  that  it  can  not  harm  the 
growing  child." 

Ralph  dashed  into  the  room  with  his 
face  half  lathered,  and  a  safety  razor  in 
his  hand.  When  he  saw  me  he  grinned 
and  shouted,  "It  shaves!"  All  the 
family  applauded ;  Ralph  says  such  clever 
things,  and  he  has  appeared  on  the  back- 
cover  of  every  magazine  in  the  country. 

"My  dear,"  said  Grandmother  to  little 
Bobby,  "you  may  run  the  Simpo  Wash- 
ing Machine.    'A  child  can  operate  it.' " 

"Oh,  thank  you,"  said  little  Bobby, 
"and  may  I  develop  my  power  and  per- 
sonality in  ten  days,  if  I  be  good?" 

Grandmother's  reply  was  interrupted 
by  a  confusion  in  the  hall.  Edythe,  the 
eldest  daughter,  the  beauty  of  tfe 
family,  entered  and  flung  her  arms  about 
Father. 

"Why,  darling,"  Father  exclaimed. 
"What's  the  matter?" 

"I  asked  for  a  tube  of  Molar  Sun- 
shine." 

"Naturally,"  commented  Father.  "We 
use  no  other  brand." 

"But  this  brute,  this  scoundrel,  offered 
me  something  he  said  was  'just  as  good.' 
He  tried  to  sell  me  a  substitute!" 

"Good  Lord!"  Father  jumped  to  his 
feet  in  anger.  "It's  a  crime  against  your 
honor  and  your  copyright!  The  fiend! 
I'll  get  him  for  this." 

Murmuring  something  about  "the 
unwritten  law,"  he  started  for  the  door, 
brandishing  a  revolver. 

"Be  careful  with  that  gun !"  I  cried. 

He  stopped  and  turned  to  me  with  the 
same  benevolent  smile  he  had  worn  a 
few  moments  before.  His  old  habit  had 
conquered  his  new  passion. 

'"There's  no  danger  with  this  revolver," 
he  explained.  "It's  a  Hitt  &  Missen 
Automatic,  and  it's  perfectly  safe.  You 
can  jiggle  the  trigger.  'It  won't  shoot.' 
For  sale  at  all  dealers." 

Weare  Holbrook 


Books  and  the  News 

Turkey 

ONCE  more  the  Turkish  Empire  seems 
to  be  drawing  back  into  Asia,  and 
again  its  claws  cling  around  Constanti- 
nople. Will  our  Allies  permit  this?  Can 
the  American  Executive,  whose  prestige 
is  so  diminished,  prevent  it?  The 
severest  indictment  of  Turkey  can  be 
found  in  the  histories  of  Armenia  (some 
of  which  were  named  in  this  department 
of  the  Review  on  l^vember  1,  1919), 
but  a  few  books  on  Turkey  will  be  inter- 
esting now.  Many  of  them  are  by 
writers  influenced  by  the  romantic  charm 
of  the  East,  or  by  the  amiability  of  the 
people  they  knew,  and  these,  if  read 
alone,  without  the  antidote  of  history — 
especially  the  history  of  Armenia— 4o 
not  lead  to  clear  thinking  on  interna- 
tional politics.  One  may  be  too  far  from 
a  country  and  its  people  to  see  the  truth 
— or  too  near.  Witness  a  number  of 
learned  gentlemen  in  America  who  were 
unable  to  see  anything  evil  in  the  events 
in  Belgium  in  1914-15,  be:ause  they 
viewed  affairs  through  a  prismatic  glass 
created  for  them  by  an  hour  or  two  at 
the  Kaiser's  luncheon  table,  where  the 
food  was  evidently  good  and  the  Imperial 
host  most  condescending.  So  the  roman- 
tic writers  upon  the  charm  of  the  Orient 
must  be  salted  with  the  bitter  salt  of 
historical  fact. 

A  brief  history  of  Turkey  is  Stanley 
Lane-Poole's  "Story  of  Turkey"  (Put- 
nam). A  longer,  older  work  is  the  "His- 
tory of  the  Ottoman  Turks,"  by  E.  S. 
Creasy,  which  derives  from  the  learned 
German,  von  Hammer  Purgstall.  Two 
commentaries  upon  recent  history  are 
F.  G.  Aflalo's  "Regilding  the  Crescent" 
(Lippincott,  1911),  concerning  the  re- 
sults of  the  revolution  prior  to  the  great 
war,  and  E.  F.  Benson's  indictment, 
"The  Crescent  and  Iron  Cross"  (Doran, 
1918). 

For  the  history,  family  life,  and  religion 
of  the  Ottomans,  as  well  as  of  other 
races  in  the  Turkish  Empire,  there  is  Sir 
Edwin  Pears's  "Turkey  and  Its  People" 
(Methuen,  1911).  The  writings  of  Lucy 
Garnett  upon  Turkey  are  important. 
They  include  "Turkish  Life  in  Tovra 
and  Country"  (Putnam,  1904),  "The 
Turkish  People"  (Methuen,  1909),  for 
the  social  and  domestic  life,  and  "Tur- 
key of  the  Ottomans"  (Scribner).  In 
"Turkey  and  the  Turks"  (Pott,  1911) 
Z.  D.  Ferriman  describes  the  people,  their 
life,  and  customs.  Stanwood  Cobb  takes 
a  favorable  view  in  "The  Real  Turk" 
(Pilgrim  Press,  1914).  Sidney  Whit- 
man's "Turkish  Memories"  (Scribner, 
1914)  tells  of  his  visits  to  Turkey  be- 
tween 1896  and  1908,  with  historical 
chapters  for  that  period,  and  comments 
upon  the  land  and  the  people. 

Two  famous  stylists  have  described 


Constantinople — Edmondo  De  Amicis  in 
his  "Constantinople"  (Putnam)  and 
Theophile  Gautier  in  a  book  with  the 
same  title.  Both  books  have  been  ren- 
dered into  English.  Three  recent  writers 
upon  the  Sultan's  capital  are  H.  G. 
Dwight,  whose  "Constantinople,  Old  and 
New"  (Scribner,  1915),  is  interesting 
and  well  illustrated;  W.  H.  Hutton,  who, 
in  "Constantinople:  the  Story  of  the  Old 
Capital  of  the  Empire"  (Dent,  1900), 
has  written  a  brief,  and  attractive  his- 
tory (it  is  in  the  Medieval  Towns 
Series),  and  Alexander  Van  Millingen, 
whose  "Constantinople"  (Black,  1906)  is 
also  notable  for  colored  pictures  by  War- 
wick Goble.  Art,  architecture,  history, 
and  travel  are  combined  in  Anna  Bow- 
man Dodd's  "In  the  Palaces  of  the  Sul- 
tan" (Dodd,  1903). 

Edmund  Lester  Pearson 

Books  Received 

FICTION 

Aranha,  Graca.  Canaan.  Translated  from 
the  Portuguese  by  Mariano  J.  Lorente.  In- 
trod.  by  G.  Ferrero.     Four  Seas  Co.     $2  net. 

Bain,  F.  W.  The  Substance  of  a  Dream. 
Putnam. 

Brooks,  Charles  S.  Luca  Sarto.  Century. 
$1.75  net. 

Daviess,   Maria   T.     The  Matrix.     Century. 

Hewlett,  Maurice.  The  Outlaw.  Dodd, 
Mead. 

Hutten,  Baroness  von.  Happy  House. 
Doran. 

MacNamara,  Brinsley.  The  Clanking  of 
Chains.     Brentano's. 

McKenna,  Stephen.  Sheila  Intervenes. 
Doran. 

Miln,    Louise   J.     Mr.   Wu.     Stokes.     $1.75 
net. 
■  Serao,   Matilda.     Souls  Divided. 

BIOGRAPHY  AND  HISTORY 

Asian,  Kevork.  Armenia  and  the  Armenians. 
Macmillan.     $1.25. 

Boswell,  A.  B.  Poland  and  the  Poles. 
Dodd,  Mead. 

Firkins,  O.  W.     Jane  Austen.     Holt.    $1.75. 

Pepper,  Chas.  M.  The  Life  and  Times  of 
Henry  Gassaway  Davis.     Century.     . 

Van  der  Essen,  Leon.  A  Short  History  of 
Belgium.     Univ.  of  Chicago  Press.    $1.50  net. 

DRAMA  AND  MUSIC 
Huneker,  James.     Bedouins.     Scribner.    $2 
net. 

GOVERNMENT  AND  ECONOMICS 

Brasol,  Boris.  Socialism  vs.  Civilization. 
Scribner.     $2  net. 

Goricar,  Joseph,  and  Stowe,  Lyman  Beecher. 
The  Inside  Story  of  Austro-German  Intrigue. 
Doubleday,  Page. 

Keynes,  J.  M.  The  Economic  Consequences 
of  the  Peace.     Harcourt,  Brace  and  Howe. 

Lippman,  Walter.  Liberty  and  the  News. 
Harcourt,  Brace  and  Howe. 

Lynd,  Robert.  Ireland,  A  Nation.  Dodd, 
Mead. 

Montgomery,  R.  H.  Excess  Profits  Ta.x 
Procedure,  1920.     Ronald  Press. 

The  American  Labor  Year  Book,  1919-1920 
Vol.  III.  Edited  by  Alexander  Trachtenberg 
Rand  School  of  Social  Science.    $2  net. 

York,  Thomas.  Foreign  Exchange :  Theor; 
and  Practice.     Ronald  Press. 

LITERATURE 
McFayden,    Donald.     The    History   of   thi 
Title    Imperator    Under   the   Roman   Empire 
University  of  Chicago  Press. 


<^ 


:\ 


THE  REVIEW 


Vol.  2,  No.  45 


New  York,  Saturday,  March  20,   1920 


FIFTEEN  CENTS 


Contents 


Brief  Comment 


267 


Editorial  Articles: 
What  Kansas  is  Doing  About  Labor     269 
The  Stock  Dividend  Case  271 

Irish  Surprises  272 

Russia's      Substitute     for     "W  age 

Slavery"  273 

Experimental  Allegiances.    Part  I.    By 

W.  J.  Ghent  275 

The  Plight  of  Russian  Peasants.     By 

Jerome  Landfield  276 

The  Erzberger-Helfferich  Trial  and  the 

Aftermath.     By  Christian  Gauss        277 

Correspondence  279 

Book  Reviews: 

Republicanism  in  China  281 

A  Treatise  for  the  Man  in  the  Shop     282 

L'Affaire  Caillaux  283 

Three  Ways  of  Looking  at  Ireland      284 

The  Run  of  the  Shelves  285 

The  Company  Stores  at  Lawrence.   By 

Staff  Correspondent  286 

Church  Unity.     By  Theologian  287 

Drama: 
Percy  Mackaye's  "George  Washing- 
ton" and   St.  John   Ervine's  "Jane 
Clegg."    By  O.  W.  Firkins  288 

Music: 
David      Bispham's      Memoirs.      B  y 
Charles  Henry  Meltzer  289 

Educational  Section  290 

Books  and  the  N-ews:  Woman  Suf- 
frage. By  Edmund  Lester  Pear- 
son 294 


D  Y  the  time  this  issue  of  the  Review 
*^  reaches    our    readers   the   treaty 
mil   probably   have   arrived    at   the 
;inal  stage  of  failure  in  the  Senate, 
jrhat    faint    possibility    which,    tv.'o 
veeks  ago,  we  pointed  out  has  not  de- 
veloped, as  indeed  there  was  little 
•eason  to  hope  that  it  would.     On 
leither  side  of  the  quarrel  has  there 
)een   manifested   any  trace   of  that 
argeness  of  mind  which  befits  the 
ssue,  and  for  the  lack  of  which  the 
'ountry  has  been  dragged  through  an 
xperience  upon  which  one  can  not 
leflect  without  a  feeling  of  shame  al- 
|tiost  as  deep  as  of  regret.    It  ought 
jiot  to  be  necessary  for  the  Review  to 
ixplain  that  in  saying  this  we  do  not 
Impute  low  aims  or  dishonest  pur- 
;|ose  to  those  whose  position  was  at 
jither    extreme    or    in    the    middle, 
jl'^hat  we  do  mean  is  that,  from  what- 
ever standpoint  the  subject  may  be 


viewed,  those  upon  whom  the  duty 
chiefly  rested  of  bringing  matters  to 
some  kind  of  tolerable  conclusion  in 
a  reasonable  time  fell  shockingly  far 
below  any  respectable  standard  of 
statesmanlike  conduct.  The  Presi- 
dent's arrogant  and  offensive  atti- 
tude, and  his  failure  to  bring  to  bear 
upon  the  question  any  resources 
either  of  argument  or  of  conciliation, 
form  one  side  of  the  picture.  The 
meaningless  shiftings  of  position,  and 
the  absence  of  the  essentials  of  lead- 
ership, on  the  part  of  Senator  Lodge 
form  another  side,  on  which  it  is 
hardly  pleasanter  to  dwell.  There 
were  deeper  elements  in  the  case,  to 
be  sure.  The  discussion  of  these  may 
be  postponed  until  the  final  result  has 
actually  been  recorded.  In  the  mean- 
while, one  can  but  be  filled  with  mor- 
tification at  the  story  so  far  as  it  has 
gone,  while  cherishing  a  faint  glim- 
mer of  hope  that  the  end  of  it  may 
prove  other  than  now  seems  certain. 

npHE  ease  and  swiftness  with  which 
-*-  the  counter-revolution  at  Berlin 
was  put  through  has  proved  to  be  no 
evidence  of  its  strength.  The  plot 
was  evidently  well  engineered,  and 
was  carried  out  with  all  the  advan- 
tage of  the  discipline  and  skill  which 
the  Prussian  militarists  have  so  abun- 
dantly at  their  command.  But  they 
seem  once  more  to  have  underesti- 
mated the  power  of  the  human  fac- 
tors against  which  they  are  arrayed. 
If,  as  seems  highly  probable,  they 
counted  on  powerful  support  from 
the  Socialist  extremists  who  hated 
the  moderate  Ebert  regime  for  rea- 
sons opposite  to  their  own,  they  have 
been  disappointed  in  their  sinister 
calculation.  In  the  chief  German 
states  other  than  Prussia  they  en- 
countered immediately  the  resistance 
of  the  established  Governments.  As 
for  the  masses  of  the  German  people 
in  general,  it  seems  clear  that  they  are 
ready  to  use  against  the  Junkers  the 


weapon  of  the  strike,  a  weapon  pe- 
culiarly powerful  in  the  present  eco- 
nomic condition  of  Germany.  As  we 
go  to  press,  the  indications  are  that 
the  Ebert  Government  will  put  up  an 
uncompromising  fight,  with  the  pros- 
pect of  a  speedy  dislodgment  of  the 
usurpers. 

"AN  overdue  attempt"  the  Junker 
-'^  party's  coup  d'etat  was  called  in 
the  proclamation  issued  by  the  new 
Government.  Overdue  it  may  have 
been  from  the  standpoint  of  internal 
politics,  for  the  militarists  might 
have  made  an  even  more  successful 
haul,  perhaps,  in  the  troubled  waters 
of  last  year's  labor  unrest,  when  the 
Spartacans  seemed  not  averse  to  an 
alliance  with  the  reaction.  But  in 
the  light  of  the  international  situa- 
tion the  adventure  seems  rather  im- 
mature than  overdue.  Dr.  Kapp  and 
his  associates  chose  a  most  inop- 
portune moment  for  what  he  calls 
"the  laying  of  the  foundations  for  the 
economic  resuscitation  of  Germany." 
This  is  the  voice  of  the  incorrigible 
Prussian.  At  the  very  time  when, 
partly  under  the  impression  of  urgent 
representations  of  both  the  authori- 
ties and  the  press  in  Germany,  the 
British  and  Italian  Premiers,  under 
protest  of  thair  French  colleague, 
draw  up  a  plan  for  the  economic  res- 
cue of  the  Empire,  the  bankrupts  an- 
nounce to  the  astonished  world  that 
they  will  resuscitate  themselves.  The 
manifesto  of  the  Supreme  Council  is 
impertinently  scorned  as  a  superflu- 
ous act  of  unsolicited  generosity. 
Thus  that  "most  influential  leader- 
ship" which,  according  to  President 
Wilson,  has  of  late  gained  "ascend- 
ancy in  the  counsels  of  France"  is 
entitled  to  a  frank  admission,  by 
those  who  accused  it  of  militaristic 
aims,  that  events  in  Berlin  have  jus- 
tified its  insistence  on  military  pre- 
paredness against  a  revival  of  Prus- 
sian militarism. 


268] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  45 


IT'OR  that  is  what  this  revolution, 
•■■  if  it  should  be  maintained  or  re- 
vived, will  come  to.  Cheap  promises 
to  "use  every  effort  to  maintain  inter- 
nal and  external  peace,"  gratuitous 
phrases  about  "the  vital  interest  to 
foreign  countries  not  to  have  a  Govern- 
ment in  Germany  which  in  any  way 
could  or  might  endanger  the  peace  of 
Europe,"  can  not  delude  anyone  as  to 
the  real  purposes  that  these  "Umstiirz- 
ler"  have  in  view.  A  Government 
headed  by  the  founder  and  former 
president  of  the  "Vaterlandspartei" 
is  bound  to  initiate,  sooner  or  later, 
a  policy  of  revenge.  That  outspoken 
character  is,  indeed,  also  its  great 
weakness.  For  to  the  non-Prussian 
German  it  means  a  resumption  of 
Prussia's  military  and  political  lead- 
ership, and  the  other  states  are  not  at 
all  inclined  to  support  a  policy  for 
whose  success  that  hated  supremacy 
is  a  conditio  sine  qua  non.  "Attempts 
to  separate  from  the  Empire,"  the 
new  Government  immediately  found 
it  necessary  to  announce,  "will  be 
dealt  with  by  court-martial  as  high 
treason." 

■I7VERYTHING  is  going  well  with 


Ej 


the  Turk.    Lloyd  George's  threat 


of  drastic  measures  to  be  taken  at 
Constantinople  appears  to  have  been 
an  empty  word,  having  no  other 
effect  than  heightened  self-confidence 
for  the  Porte.  Syria,  which  was  to 
receive  a  French  protectorate  as  a 
blessing  from  Allah,  has  proclaimed 
her  independence,  and  takes  to  the 
blackmail  policy  of  demanding  her 
recognition  from  the  Powers  under 
threat  of  joining  the  Turkish  Nation- 
alists under  Mustapha  Kemal,  if  she 
does  not  get  her  wish.  The  Christian 
population  in  Jerusalem  protests 
against  the  Zionist  invasion,  and 
seems  ready  to  support  the  Moham- 
medans in  their  agitation  against  the 
severance  of  Palestine  from  Syria. 
In  Mesopotamia  plans  are  said  to  be 
on  foot  to  proclaim  the  country  a 
state,  which,  under  the  regency  of  a 
younger  brother  of  Prince  Feisal, 
now  King  Feisal  of  Syria,  is  to  form 
a  joint  Government  with  the  latter 
country.  The  revolution  in  Berlin 
has  brought  the  associates  of  Enver 
Pasha  and  Talaat  Pasha  into  power 


again,  and  causes  France  to  concen- 
trate all  her  watchfulness  on  the  fur- 
ther development  of  affairs  in  Ger- 
many. And  meanwhile  the  Premiers 
of  the  three  great  Powers  are  pa- 
tiently waiting  for  the  opinion  of 
Washington  on  their  decisions  with 
regard  to  the  Sublime  Porte. 

TT  is  reported  that  Congress  will 
^  this  year  abandon  the  free  distri- 
bution of  seeds.  The  apartment 
dweller  will  no  longer  receive  his  five 
tiny  packets — beets,  usually,  and  let- 
tuce, and  marigolds,  were  there  not? 
We  forget  the  others.  But  there  was 
always  the  touching  request  that  in 
return  for  its  bounty  the  Government 
would  dearly  like  to  know  of  our  suc- 
cess with  the  little  seeds.  We,  too, 
always  felt  a  desire  to  know  what  be- 
came of  them.  We  trust  they  fell  on 
good  ground,  and  that  the  earth  was 
made  fruitful  and  glad  by  their 
power.  But  of  course  we  never  did 
know  what  ultimately  happened  to 
the  contents  of  the  waste  basket. 
Congress  no  doubt  regrets  the  dis- 
continuance of  the  practice;  it  loves 
to  give  things  away.  Perhaps  it  is 
trying  to  console  itself  for  the  lost 
seeds  by  taking  an  interest  in  a  bonus 
for  the  ex-soldiers. 

Seed  distribution  began  with  the 
laudable  motive  of  aiding  in  the  test- 
ing and  introduction  of  new  or  im- 
proved varieties  of  useful  plants. 
This  was  a  perfectly  legitimate  aim, 
but  the  development  of  agricultural 
experiment  stations,  both  national 
and  state,  furnished  a  far  more  ef- 
fective instrument.  Deprived  thus  of 
its  one  possible  reason  for  being, 
seed  distribution  from  Washington 
sunk  rapidly  into  one  of  the  pettiest 
of  all  pilferings  of  public  funds  for 
the  purpose  of  making  the  folks  back 
home  think  that  their  Congressman 
had  not  forgotten  them.  In  just 
what  remote  corner  of  the  country 
the  game  any  longer  has  the  prag- 
matic sanction  of  "working,"  no  one 
has  been  able  to  find  out ;  and  yet  the 
farce  has  gone  on.  One  of  the  bless- 
ings of  an  intelligently  organized  na- 
tional budget  system  should  be  its 
facilities  for  discovering  and  check- 
ing a  multitude  of  treasury  leaks  of 
this  kind. 


'T'HERE  will  be  no  general  strike  in 
-*•  England  to  force  nationalization 
of  the  mining  industry,  not  just  yet, 
as  Mr.  Veblen  would  put  it.  Last 
week,  524,000  miners  voted  in  favor 
of  such  a  policy,  and  346,000  against 
it.  The  miners  agreed,  however,  to 
abide  by  the  decision  of  the  Trade 
Union  Congress,  to  be  rendered  the 
following  day.  In  this  body  the 
miners'  demand  for  "direct  action" 
was  presented  by  their  Secretary, 
Mr.  Hodges,  and  opposed  by  J.  H. 
Thomas,  leader  of  the  railwaymen, 
Thomas  Shaw,  Secretary  of  the  tex- 
tile workers,  and  John  R.  Clynes, 
President  of  the  National  Union  of 
General  Workers,  and  former  Food 
Controller.  Tom  Mann  supported 
Mr.  Hodges.  In  the  vote  immediately 
following,  cast  by  the  delegates  in 
attendance,  who  held  proxies  for  the 
entire  membership  of  their  local 
unions,  the  general  strike  lost  by  the 
overwhelming  majority  of  2,820,000 
in  a  total  vote  of  4,920,000;  in  other 
words,  those  who  took  the  conserva- 
tive side  of  the  question  immediately 
at  issue  outvoted  the  radicals  by 
nearly  four  to  one. 

W7"E  have  no  very  full  report  of  the 
''  discussion  which  led  up  to  this 
vote,  but  cabled  extracts  from  the 
speech  of  John  R.  Clynes  are  signifi- 
cant. "The  man  who  would  most  wel- 
come direct  action,"  he  said,  "is  not 
at  this  conference,  but  is  in  Downing 
Street.  If  we  announce  a  general 
strike,  the  Premier  will  give  us  a  gen- 
eral election,  in  which  we  would  find 
our  class  rent  in  twain,  while  the 
other  classes  would  be  united  to  fight 
what  would  be  called  this  aggressive 
move  by  labor."  The  issue  in  such  a 
contest,  he  predicted,  would  be  the 
conduct  of  the  laboring  classes  them- 
selves, and  not  the  question  whether 
nationalization  would  work  an  im- 
provement in  industry.  "Force,  as  it 
has  been  proposed  to  employ  it,"  he 
added,  "is  not  a  British  but  a  Prus- 
sian characteristic." 

When  a  speech  of  this  kind  is  sus- 
tained by  almost  a  four-fifths  vote, 
it  is  evident  that  the  British  laboring 
classes  are  in  no  mood  to  seek  nation- 
alization of  industry  at  the  cost  of 
violent  revolution.     In  choosing,  as 


March  20,  1920] 


THE  UEV1E^V 


[269 


they  did  by  a  second  vote,  to  work 
for  nationalization  through  ordinary 
political  methods,  they  voluntarily 
assume  the  burden  of  proving  to  the 

I   majority  of  British  voters  that  it  is 

I  wise.  And  in  the  open  and  protracted 
discussion  thus  insured,  they  of 
course  assume  the  risk  of  having  it 

■  proved  to  the  satisfaction  of  a  very 
large  portion  of  their  own  number 

i  that  it  is  unwise.  This  is  genuine 
democracy  in  action,  and  gives  prom- 

I  ise  that  England  may  settle  down  to 
the  work  of  post  bellum  reconstruc- 
tion with  some  assurance  of  indus- 
trial stability  and  prosperity. 

nPHE  vogue  of  evolution  was  sup- 
-'-  posed  to  have  put  an  uncompro- 
mising "never"  into  the  old  saw  that 
"history  repeats  itself."  North  Da- 
kota's Commissioner  of  Immigration, 
however,  who  has  been  in  the  East 
hunting  up  prospective  citizens  for  the 
realm  of  the  Non-Partisan  League, 
tells  a  story  to  the  contrary.  League 
politics  has  gone  back  to  the  simplic- 
ity of  primitive  Rome.  Like  Cincin- 
natus  when  summoned  to  the  dicta- 
torship, Lynn  J.  Frazier  was  at  home 
at  the  plow,  wholly  unsuspicious  of 
any  impending  change  of  fortune, 
when  men  came  to  tell  him  that  he 
had  been  nominated  to  be  Gov- 
ernor of  his  State.  We  are  not  told 
whether,  like  Cincinnatus,  he  was 
first  enjoined  to  send  his  wife  back 
to  the  house  for  his  toga,  that  the 
news  might  be  received  in  raiment 
sufficiently  dignified  for  its  impor- 
tance. But  Virgil's  nudus  ara — plow 
naked — is  a  detail  of  Roman  simplic- 
ity a  little  too  exacting  for  one  who 
has  to  plow  in  the  blasts  that  come 
down  from  Medicine  Hat  over  the 
plains  of  North  Dakota.  And  for  still 
other  reasons  Governor  Frazier's 
friends  can  not  afford  to  press  the 
parallel  too  closely.  Cincinnatus  was 
once  more  called  away  from  his  plow, 
this  time  to  quell  by  force  an  upris- 
ing of  the  discontented  masses,  then 
known  as  "plebeians."  A  little  study 
of  the  original  sources  may  convince 
Governor  Frazier  that  it  will  be 
well  to  switch  the  Cincinnatus  par- 
lallel  of  his  nomination  at  the  first 
javailable  sidetrack.  The  Roman 
farmer  who  could  get  his  name  into 


the  official  calendar  in  the  days  of 
Cincinnatus  was  altogether  too  indi- 
vidualistic and  aristocratic  to  hold 
the  respect  of  the  socialistic  Non- 
partisan Leaguers,  if  once  they  find 
him  out. 

'T'HE  smallest  newspaper  in  the 
-■-  world  is  called  Better  Times.  It 
is  a  monthly  magazine,  rather,  with 
illustrations,  special  departments,  the 
whole  apparatus,  in  fact,  "and  are  to 
be  sold,"  as  the  bibliopoles  put  it,  for 
half  a  dollar  a  year.  Its  aim  is  to 
keep  the  public  aware  of  the  work  of 
the  Neighborhood  Homes  of  New 
York.  Settlement  work  comes  to  the 
present  problem  of  "Americaniza- 
tion" with  thirty  years  of  experience 
behind  it.  The  public  should  accept 
the  modest  and  highly  proper  invita- 
tion to  examine  the  work  of  the  Set- 
tlements in  this  and  other  fields. 

W7"ITH  this  issue,  the  Review  initi- 
ates a  special  Educational  Sec- 
tion. It  has  for  its  purpose  careful 
discussion  of  the  manifold  educational 
tendencies  which  are  observable 
throughout  the  nation  to-day.  Like 
the  good  democrats  they  are,  the 
American  people,  having  done  their 
duty  in  the  conflict  of  arms,  now  turn 
with  renewed  enthusiasm  to  the  one 
institution  which  can  safeguard  their 
future — education.  The  impulse  is 
commendable,  but  it  harbors  a  dan- 
ger which,  if  not  seen,  may  produce  a 
mass  of  disillusion  comparable  to  that 
which  political  "idealists"  are  already 
beginning  to  experience  from  having 
built  up  hopes  of  an  entirely  new 
world  emerging  from  the  war.  Edu- 
cation is  now  relied  upon  to  create 
simon-pure  Americans.  It  is  charged 
with  propaganda  which  may  set  our 
teeth  on  edge,  if  it  is  not  checked  by 
common  sense  discussion.  In  its 
Educational  Section  the  Review 
plans,  by  means  of  collaborators 
throughout  the  country,  to  keep  in 
touch  with  the  new  impulses.  It  de- 
sires to  promote  the  effort  to  increase 
and  vivify  instruction,  both  of  youth 
and  of  adults,  but  at  the  same  time  to 
help  to  keep  education  within  the 
bounds  which  it  must  respect  if  it  is 
to  be  a  truly  vital  and  wholesome 
force  in  our  life  as  a  nation. 


What  Kansas  is  Doing 
About  Labor 

T^HE  police  strike  in  Boston  made 
■*■  GovernorCoolidgea  national  figure. 
The  crisis  in  Kansas,  brought  about  by 
the  great  bituminous  coal  strike,  has 
made  Governor  Allen  a  national  fig- 
ure. Between  the  two  situations,  as 
well  as  between  the  proceedings  of 
the  two  governors,  there  were  strik- 
ing points  of  resemblance.  In  both 
cases  the  vital  interests  of  the  com- 
munity were  acutely  menaced.  In 
both  cases  the  head  of  the  State 
planted  himself  on  the  paramount 
rights  of  the  commonwealth,  and  ap- 
pealed with  signal  success  to  the  sup- 
port of  the  great  mass  of  its  citizens. 
In  both  cases  the  lesson  was  im- 
pressively taught  that  no  group,  how- 
ever strong  its  apparent  position, 
can,  in  an  American  State,  achieve 
its  end  by  methods  which  arouse  the 
resentment  of  the  great  body  of 
right-minded  citizens. 

But  the  problem  with  which  Gov- 
ernor Allen  had  to  deal  was  incom- 
parably broader  and  more  complex 
than  that  which  confronted  Governor 
Coolidge.  In  Massachusetts  the  issue 
was  that  of  the  supremacy  of  govern- 
ment in  a  domain  which  belonged 
unquestionably  and  exclusively  to  it. 
In  Kansas  it  was  necessary  to  assert 
the  jurisdiction  of  the  government  in 
a  field  in  which  its  functions  are  of 
limited  application^ — to  extend  them 
beyond  their  usual  bounds  on  the 
ground  of  imperious  public  necessity. 
Governor  Allen  did  not  hesitate.  The 
people  were  not  to  be  allowed  to 
starve  and  freeze  while  the  mine 
owners  and  the  mine  workers  were 
fighting  out  their  differences.  As  a 
temporary  measure  he  obtained 
through  the  courts  the  power  to  op- 
erate the  mines;  and  to  prevent  the 
recurrence  of  similar  evils  he  pro- 
cured from  the  Legislature  the  pass- 
age of  a  bill  establishing  a  "Court  of 
Industrial  Relations,"  with  powers  so 
broad  that,  if  it  shall  prove  a  success 
in  practice,  no  such  disturbance  of 
the  life  of  the  people  can  again  be 
possible. 

Both  phases  of  this  remarkable 
stor"  are  worthy  of  the  most  serious 


270] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  45 


attention.  It  is  worth  noting  in  the 
first  place  that  Governor  Allen,  in 
his  writings  and  speeches  on  the  sub- 
ject, clearly  recognizes  that  there  was 
wrong  on  both  sides  in  the  coal  dis- 
pute itself.  The  miners  had  a  just 
grievance — as  the  Review  has  stated 
all  along — in  that  holding  them  to 
their  war  contract  long  after  the  real 
close  of  the  war  was  grossly  inequi- 
table and  based  on  the  worst  kind  of 
technicality.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
demands  of  the  miners  themselves 
were  utterly  unreasonable.  But  the 
thing  that  was  intolerable  was  their 
attempt  to  extort  what  they  wanted  by 
a  threat  designed  to  intimidate  not 
the  mine  owners  but  the  whole  people 
of  the  State  and  of  the  country.  What 
made  Governor  Allen's  achievement 
so  splendid  was  the  promptness  with 
which  he  asserted  the  paramount 
rights  of  the  public,  and  the  effective- 
ness with  which  he  marshaled  in  sup- 
port of  them  the  voluntary  efforts  of 
thousands  of  stalwart  Kansans.  It 
would  be  hard  to  find  a  more  inspirit- 
ing picture  of  patriotic  energy,  and 
cheerful  sacrifice,  than  that  presented 
by  the  host  of  young  men  from  town 
and  country  who  responded  to  the 
Governor's  call.  They  at  once  began 
operating  the  mines,  flooded  and  dis- 
mantled as  many  of  them  were,  in 
the  midst  of  bitter  winter  weather. 
It  took  but  a  few  days  of  this  to  bring 
the  miners  to  their  senses.  Within 
two  weeks  the  strike  was  over.  The 
example  is  one  that  will  long  remain 
a  landmark,  a  guide  to  the  people  of 
every  State  in  the  Union. 

The  establishment  of  the  Court  of 
Industrial  Relations  raises  questions 
that  are  more  difficult.  As  an  experi- 
ment, it  will  undoubtedly  prove  of 
great  value.  Its  object  is  broadly 
stated  in  the  following  declaration: 

It  is  hereby  declared  and  determined  to  be 
necessary  for  the  public  peace,  health,  and 
general  welfare  of  the  people  of  this  State 
that  the  industries,  employments,  public  utili- 
ties, and  common  carriers  herein  specified  shall 
be  operated  with  reasonable  continuity  and 
efficiency  in  order  that  the  people  of  this 
State  may  live  in  peace  and  security  and  be 
supplied  with  the  necessaries  of  life. 

The  chief  means  by  which  this  object 
is  to  be  attained  is  the  substitution 
of  the  decisions  of  the  court  for  the 
methods  of  the  strike  and  the  lockout 
in  the  settlement  of  disputes  in  the 
industries  coming  within  its  scope. 


There  is  nothing  in  the  law  that  in- 
terferes either  with  labor  organiza- 
tions or  with  collective  bargaining; 
but  neither  the  strike  nor  the  lockout 
can  be  resorted  to.  If  the  parties 
can  not  settle  their  differences  by 
mutual  agreement  they  must  refer 
them  to  the  court.  The  law  makes 
no  provision  for  arbitration.  On  the 
contrary.  Governor  Allen  assigns  as 
perhaps  the  chief  reason  for  the  es- 
tablishment of  the  court  the  ineffi- 
cacy  of  arbitration,  which  he  feels 
that  experience  has  shown  to  be  in- 
capable of  bringing  about  just  and 
stable  settlements.  "Arbitration," 
he  says,  "holds  no  guaranty  of  justice 
to  either  side,"  and  adds : 

When  each  side  appoints  an  arbitrator  and 
these  two  select  a  third  party,  this  umpire  rnay 
do  one  of  three  things:  He  may  join  one  side 
or  the  other  and  obtain  a  partisan  decision,  or 
he  may  dicker  back  and  forth  and  obtain  a 
temporary  compromise  which  does  not  satisfy 
either  side. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  Court  of  In- 
dustrial Relations  "represents  gov- 
ernment, with  all  its  pledge  of 
justice." 

If  one  inquires  as  to  the  principles 
by  which  the  new  court  will  be  guided 
in  its  decisions,  one  finds  little  in  the 
way  of  an  answer  except  that  it  will 
be  governed  by  the  principles  of 
common  sense.  It  will  feel  its  way. 
It  will  try  to  settle  each  case  in  such 
a  way  that  plain  men  will  feel  that 
it  has  given  a  "square  deal"  to  both 
sides — or  rather  all  three  sides,  labor, 
capital,  and  the  public.  The  three 
members  of  the  court  are  to  be  ap- 
pointed on  the  same  principle  as  the 
members  of  any  court  are  appointed, 
not  as  representatives  of  any  side, 
but  simply  as  men  pledged  to  do  what 
is  right.  The  result  will  be  watched 
with  keen  interest.  Kansas  will  be 
doing  what  our  Federal  system  has 
enabled  so  many  of  our  States  to  do 
in  so  many  directions — working  out 
an  important  experiment  within  her 
ovm  borders,  the  trying  of  which  on 
a  national  scale  would  involve  great 
difficulties  and  enormous  risk.  The 
rest  of  us  should  look  on  with  every 
wish  that  the  experiment  may,  either 
directly  or  through  the  lessons  that  it 
will  teach,  prove  a  great  contribution 
to  the  solution  of  the  labor  problem. 
But  to  acclaim  it,  in  advance  of  ex- 
perience, as  being  manifestly  the  key 


to  the  situation,  would  be  rash  in  the 
extreme. 

"Jubtice"  is  an  easy  word  to  say, 
but  a  very  difficult  word  to  define. 
Governor  Allen's  enthusiastic  reli- 
ance on  the  analogy  between  the  de- 
cision of  civil  and  criminal  cases  by 
judicial  process  and  this  proposed 
settlement  of  labor  disputes  by  judi- 
cial process  overlooks  an  essential  ele- 
ment. It  is  true  that  the  time  was 
when  individuals  used  to  fight  out 
issues  which  now  everybody  leaves  to 
the  courts;  but  the  justice  which  the 
courts  mete  out  does  not  consist  in 
an  assignment  to  each  party  of  what 
the  court  thinks  is  naturally  his  due, 
but  in  a  determination  of  what  the 
law  commands.  When  a  court  de- 
cides that  a  certain  piece  of  property 
belongs  to  A  and  not  to  B,  it  does 
so  on  the  basis  of  contracts,  or  title 
deeds,  or  the  like.  When  A  sticks  a 
knife  into  B,  the  court  does  not  in- 
quire whether  he  stuck  it  no  deeper 
than  his  grievance  justified,  but 
whether  he  did  it  at  all.  Of  an  en- 
tirely different  nature  are  those 
questions  which  come  up  in  the  chief 
labor  disputes.  The  work  that  this 
new  court  will  have  to  do  will,  after 
all,  be  essentially  of  the  nature  of  ar- 
bitration. 

It  does  not  in  the  least  follow  that 
the  court  will  be  a  failure.  On  the  con- 
trary, the  more  it  confines  itself  to 
that  modest  function,  and  the  less  it 
attempts  to  dispense  anything  like 
abstract  "justice,"  the  more  likely  it 
is  to  succeed.  We  must  wait  and  see. 
When  New  Zealand  introduced  com- 
pulsory arbitration,  and  for  a  num- 
ber of  years  after,  that  country  was 
pointed  to  as  the  pioneer  that  was 
blazing  the  way  for  the  rest  of  the 
world  to  the  goal  of  industrial  peace. 
All  that  has  gone  by;  and  now  here 
is  our  own  progressive  Kansas  basing 
her  new  departure  chiefly  on  the  fact 
of  the  failure  of  the  New  Zealand 
idea.  In  this  there  need  be  no  dis- 
couragement, but  sensible  men  must 
see  in  it  a  warning.  Let  us  watch 
Kansas  with  hope  and  with  friendly 
interest,  but  let  us  keep  our  heads. 
And  in  the  meanwhile,  the  best  of 
good  luck  to  Governor  Allen,  a  right- 
minded,  stout-hearted,  and  level- 
headed American! 


March  20,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[271 


The  Stock  Dividend 
Case 

^HE  reasons  why  a  stock  dividend 
can  not  justly  be  regarded  as  in- 
ame  are  stated  with  such  lucidity 
id  force  by  Mr.  Justice  Pitney,  who 
Blivered  the  opinion  of  the  Supreme 
pourt,  that  the  first  feeling  one  must 
ive  in  reading  that  opinion  is  a  feel- 
of  wonder  that  the  decision  was 
ide  by  a  five-to-four  vote.  That 
eling,  however,  is  considerably  mod- 
Sed  when  one  notes  the  character  of 
le  two  dissenting  opinions.  The 
opinion  delivered  by  Mr.  Justice 
Brandeis,  and  concurred  in  by  Mr. 
Justice  Clarke,  controverts  the  con- 
clusion of  the  majority  that  stock 
dividends  are  not  in  any  true  sense 
income.  But  that  is  not  the  case  with 
the  dissenting  opinion  delivered  by 
Mr.  Justice  Holmes  and  concurred  in 
by  Mr.  Justice  Day.  On  the  contrary, 
the  first  sentence  of  the  short  para- 
graph which  constitutes  the  whole  of 
Judge  Holmes's  dissenting  opinion  is 
as  follows:  "I  think  that  Towne  v, 
Eisner,  245  U.  S.  418,  was  right  in 
its  reasoning  and  result,  and  that  on 
sound  principles  the  stock  dividend 
was  not  income,"  Accordingly,  upon 
the  question  whether  stock  dividends 
r<willy  should  be  regarded,  "on  sound 
principles,"  as  income  there  is  no  dis- 
sent from  the  opinion  of  the  Court 
except  on  the  part  of  Judges  Brandeis 
and  Clarke.  We  shall  endeavor 
briefly  to  indicate  the  grounds  of  the 
decision,  and  to  discuss  the  objections 
made  to  it  in  the  two  dissenting 
opinions. 

So  far  as  the  decision  is  concerned, 
it  is  needless  to  do  much  more  than 
make  a  few  quotations  from  Judge 
Pitney's  opinion.  In  the  case  of 
Toivne  v.  Eisner  the  Supreme  Court 
had  decided  that  stock  dividends  were 
not  income  within  the  meaning  of  the 
law  as  it  stood  at  that  time  (1916). 
The  Revenue  Act  of  September  8, 
1916,  made  a  change  in  the  law,  de- 
signed to  bring  stock  dividends  with- 
in its  definition  of  income.  In  the 
case  decided  last  week  the  crucial 
question  was  whether,  under  the  Six- 
teenth Amendment  to  the  United 
States    Constitution,    Congress    had 


power  to  tax  such  dividends  as  in- 
come. The  Court  adheres  to  the 
view  it  took  in  the  case  of  Towne  v. 
Eisner,  "not  because  that  case  in 
terms  decided  the  Constitutional 
question,  for  it  did  not;  but  because 
the  conclusion  there  reached  as  to  the 
essential  nature  of  a  stock  dividend 
necessarily  prevents  its  being  re- 
garded as  income  in  any  true  sense." 
Nevertheless,  in  view  of  the  impor- 
tance of  the  matter,  and  of  the  subse- 
quent legislation  by  Congress,  the 
Court  not  only  reviews  the  argument 
in  the  previous  case,  but  enters, 
afresh  into  its  merits. 

A  few  extracts  will  suffice  to  give  a 
clear  impression  of  the  basis  on  which 
the  decision  in  both  the  cases  rests : 

A  stock  dividend  really  takes  nothing  from 
the  property  of  the  corporation,  and  adds 
nothing  to  the  interests  of  the  shareholders. 
Its  property  is  not  diminished,  and  their  inter- 
ests are  not  increased.  .  .  .  The  proportional 
interest  of  each  shareholder  remains  the  same. 
The  only  change  is  in  the  evidence  which 
represents  that  interest,  the  new  shares  and 
the  original  shares  together  representing  the 
same  proportional  interest  that  the  original 
shares  represented  before  the  issue  of  the  new 
ones.  .  .  . 

In  short,  the  corporation  is  no  poorer  and 
the  stockholder  is  no  richer  than  they  were 
before.   .   .   . 

The  essentia!  and  controlling  fact  is  that 
the  stockholder  has  received  nothing  out  of 
the  company's  assets  for  his  separate  use  and 
benefit;  on  the  contrary,  every  dollar  of  his 
original  _  investment,  together  with  whatever 
accretions  and  accumulations  have  resulted 
from  employment  of  his  money  and  that  of 
the  other  stockholders  in  the  business  of  the 
company,  still  remains  the  property  of  the 
company,  and  subject  to  business  risks  which 
may  result  in  wiping  out  the  entire  investment. 
Having  regard  to  the  very  truth  of  the  mat- 
ter, to  substance  and  not  to  form,  he  has  re- 
ceived nothing  that  answers  the  definition  of 
income  within  the  meaning  of  the  Sixteenth 
Amendment. 

It  is  impossible,  of  course,  to  do  jus- 
tice in  a  brief  space  to  the  whole  ar- 
gument; but  there  is  one  more  point 
of  great  interest  which  we  can  not 
omit.  The  case  against  the  Court's 
view  rests  essentially  upon  an  ignor- 
ing of  the  difference  between  income 
accruing  to  the  corporation,  and  re- 
tained by  it  as  part  of  its  assets,  and 
income  actually  put  into  the  hands 
of  the  shareholder.  On  this  point  the 
Court  says,  among  other  things: 

We  must  treat  the  corporation  as  a  sub- 
stantial entity  separate  from  the  stockholder, 
not  only  because  such  is  the  practical  fact  but 
because  it  is  only  by  recognizing  such  separate- 
ness  that  any  dividend — even  one  paid  in 
money  or  property — can  be  regarded  as  in- 
come of  the  stockholder.  Did  we  regard  cor- 
poration and  stockholders  as  altogether  iden- 
tical, there  would  be  no  income  except  as  the 


corporation  acquired  it;  and  while  this  would 
be  taxable  against  the  corporation  as  income 
under  appropriate  provisions  of  law,  the  in- 
dividual stockholders  could  not  be  separately 
and  additionally  taxed  with  respect  to  their 
several  shares  even  when  divided,  since  if 
there  were  entire  identity  between  them  and 
the  company  they  could  not  be  regarded  as 
receiving  anything  from  it,  any  more  than 
if  one's  money  were  to  be  removed  from  one 
pocket  to  another. 

In  opposing  the  view  of  the  Court 
Judge  Brandeis  makes  not  a  frontal 
attack  but  a  series  of  flank  move- 
ments. His  argument  is  of  a  compli- 
cated nature,  but  it  is  safe  to  assume 
that  he  regards  as  its  piece  de  re- 
sistance what  he  puts  forward  at  con- 
siderable length,  and  with  a  good  deal 
of  a  flourish,  at  the  beginning  of  his 
opinion.  The  point  of  this  argument 
is  that  it  has  been  customary  in  the 
past  for  corporations  to  adopt,  with 
apparent  indifference,  as  *iiough  they 
were  substantially  identical,  either  of 
two  methods  in  issuing  new  stock. 
One  is  that  of  the  stock  dividend,  by 
which  the  new  stock  is  distributed 
pro  rata  to  shareholders  according  to 
their  existing  holdings.  The  other  is 
to  give  the  shareholder  the  option  of 
taking  his  pro  rata  amount  of  the 
new  stock  or  a  cash  dividend  equal 
to  the  par  value  of  that  amount  of 
stock.  "Whichever  method  was  em- 
ployed," says  Judge  Brandeis,  "the 
resultant  distribution  of  the  new 
stock  was  commonly  referred  to  as  a 
stock  dividend" ;  the  fact  being  that, 
as  a  rule,  the  stock  was  worth  so 
much  more  than  par  that  the  cash 
option  was  hardly  more  than  a  for- 
mality. Until  the  Federal  Income 
tax  made  a  difference  between  the 
two  methods  they  were  regarded  in 
practice,  says  Judge  Brandeis,  as  sub- 
stantially identical;  and  from  this 
circumstance  he  draws  the  inference 
that  the  stock  dividend  must  be  re- 
garded as  income. 

But  the  conclusion  does  not  follow 
from  the  premises.  Corporations,  in 
adopting  either  one  method  or  the 
other,  were  not  concerned  with  draw- 
ing any  distinction  regarding  the 
classification  of  the  dividend  as  in- 
come or  not  income.  The  fact  that 
they  treated  the  two  things  alike — 
granting  that  it  is  a  fact — has  no 
force  whatever  in  determining  the 
question.  So  far  as  that  mere  cir- 
cumstance is  concerned,  it  might  as 


272] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol. 


No.  45 


logically  be  argued  that  because  stock 
dividends  are  not  income  cash  divi- 
dends are  not  income,  as  that  because 
cash  dividends  are  income  stock  divi- 
dends are  income.  Neither  conclu- 
sion would  be  justified ;  the  point  has 
to  be  determined  by  consideration  of 
the  real  nature  of  the  facts,  and  not 
by  the  action  taken  by  corporations 
or  anybody  else  in  transactions  which 
did  not  involve  the  point  at  all. 

There  is  only  one  more  point  of 
which  we  can  take  notice  in  Judge 
Brandeis's  discussion.    He  says: 

It  is  argued  that  until  there  is  a  segregation, 
the  stockholder  can  not  know  whether  he  has 
really  received  gains;  since  the  gains  may  be 
invested  in  plant  or  merchandise  or  other 
property  and  perhaps  be  later  lost.  But  is 
not  this  equally  true  of  the  share  of  a  partner 
in  the  year's  profits  of  the  firm  or,  indeed,  of 
the  profits  of  the  individual  who  is  engaged 
in  business  alone? 

It  is  difficult  to  believe  that  so  acute 
a  thinker  as  Judge  Brandeis  can  have 
put  this  forward  as  a  serious  conten- 
tion. The  gains  of  an  individual, 
and  even  of  a  member  of  a  partner- 
ship, belong  to  him,  and  it  is  not  in 
any  way  the  concern  of  the  law  what 
he  may  do  with  them.  The  gains  of 
a  corporation  belong  to  the  corpora- 
tion, and  do  not  accrue  to  the  indi- 
vidual until  they  are  distributed.  He 
has  no  way  of  claiming  control  over 
them.  If  they  are  lost,  they  will  be 
lost  not  by  him,  but  by  the  corpora- 
tion. And,  what  is  also  to  the  pur- 
pose, but  what  Judge  Brandeis  does 
not  in  any  way  refer  to,  those  gains 
are  taxed  as  income  of  the  corpora- 
tion, while  the  gains  of  an  individual, 
or  of  a  member  of  a  partnership, 
can  not  be  taxed  except  as  his  per- 
sonal income,  partnerships  not  being 
legal  entities  subject  to  taxation. 

Judge  Holmes's  dissent  rests  on  an 
entirely  different  ground.  As  we 
have  already  said,  he  admits  that  "on 
sound  principles"  the  stock  dividend 
is  "not  income."  His  dissent  rests 
exclusively  on  a  broad  interpretation 
of  the  Sixteenth  Amendment  itself. 
He  says: 

The  known  purpose  of  this  Amendment  was 
to  get  rid  of  nice  Questions  as  to  what  might 
le  direct  taxes,  and  I  can  not  doubt  that  most 
I>eople  not  lawyers  would  suppose  when  they 
voted  for  it  that  they  put  a  question  like  the 
present   to   rest 

On  the  other  hand,  the  Court  states 
its  view  of  the  Sixteenth  Amendment 
as  follows: 


A  proper  regard  for  its  genesis,  as  well  as 
its  very  clear  language,  requires  that  this 
.Amendment  shall  not  be  extended  by  loose 
construction,  so  as  to  repeal  or  modify,  ex- 
cept as  applied  to  income,  those  provisions  of 
the  Constitution  that  require  an  apportionment 
according  to  population  for  direct  taxes  upon 
property,  real  and  personal.  This  limitation 
still  has  an  appropriate  and  important  func- 
tion, and  is  not  to  be  overriden  by  Congress 
or    disregarded   by    the   courts. 

Judge  Brandeis's  dissent  is,  in  our 
judgment,  invalid  because  it  does  not 
stand  the  test  of  sound  logic.  In 
Judge  Holmes's  dissent  the  issue  is 
not  one  of  logic,  but  of  good  sense 
and  sound  public  policy.  Is  it  right 
to  call  a  thing  income  which  is  not 
income,  simply  because  of  a  supposed 
intention  of  "most  people"  to  get  rid 
of  "nice  questions  as  to  what  might 
be  dire:t  taxes"?  Would  not  the  nat- 
ural way  to  get  rid  of  all  such  "nice 
questions"  have  been  simply  to  repeal 
the  clause  of  the  Constitution  for- 
bidding (except  by  apportionment 
among  the  States)  the  imposition  of 
direct  taxes?  If,  as  the  Court  declares 
in  its  opinion,  "this  limitation  still 
has  an  appropriate  and  important 
function,"  is  it  sound  policy  to  de- 
stroy that  limitation  by  the  rough- 
and-ready  process  of  brushing  aside 
the  distinctions  upon  which  it  rests? 

Irish  Surprises ' 

'T'HE  Government  of  Ireland  bill 
-*-  has  a  "bad  press"  in  the  country 
which  it  is  meant  to  benefit  and  pac- 
ify. That  is  the  best  reception  which 
could  befall  it.  Praise  on  one  side 
and  detraction  on  the  other  would 
rouse  a  suspicion  of  partiality  on  the 
part  of  the  British  Government. 
Unanimous  disapproval,  on  the  other 
hand,  is  the  highest  commendation 
any  Home  Rule  proposal  could  meet 
with  in  Ireland.  Lloyd  George  had 
no  illusions  as  to  the  welcome  his  new 
Bill  would  receive.  In  the  course  of 
his  speech  in  the  House  of  Commons 
on  December  22,  1919,  he  said: 
"Looking  around  I  find  no  section 
that  can  accept  anything  except  the 
impossible.  There  is  no  section  in 
Ireland  who  will  stand  up  and  say: 
'We  accept  this,'  or  'we  accept  that,' 
except  something  which  you  can  not 
put  through." 

The  sudden  volte  face  of  Sir  Ed- 
ward Carson  must,  therefore,  have 


come  to  him  as  a  pleasant  surprise! 
The  motive  which  Sir  Edward  is 
quoted  as  having  given  for  his  change 
of  attitude  does  not  seem  altogether 
convincing,  for  it  leaves  one  impor- 
tant fact  out  of  account.  "It  must 
be  remembered,"  he  said,  "that  the 
Home  Rule  act  of  1914  is  on  the 
statute  book,  and  unless  an  amend- 
ing measure  be  passed,  it  will  auto- 
matically come  into  force  the  day 
peace  is  officially  declared,  and  then 
Ulster  would  be  placed  under  the 
control  of  the  Dublin  Parliament." 
In  other  words,  of  two  evils  he  chose 
the  lesser  one.  But  when  the  act  of 
1914  was  placed  on  the  statute  book, 
Mr.  Asquith,  with  the  assent  of  the 
Irish  Nationalist  members  of  the 
House,  gave  an  undertaking  that  it 
should  not  be  brought  into  operation 
until  an  act  of  Parliament  had  been 
carried  dealing  with  the  peculiar  posi- 
tion of  Ulster.  It  was,  therefore,  not 
so  much  a  choice  between  the  act  of 
1914  and  the  present  bill,  but  one  be- 
tween the  two  birds  in  the  bush 
which  he  might  catch  with  that  prom- 
ised act  of  Parliament  and  the  one 
bird  which  the  present  bill  places  in 
his  hand. 

The  features  that  recommend  the 
bill  to  the  Carsonites  will  naturally 
make  it  an  object  of  suspicion  to  the 
Nationalists.  The  attitude  of  Sinn 
Fein  can  not  be  materially  affected 
by  Ulster's  acceptance  or  rejection  of 
the  proposals.  They  demand  the  im- 
possible, regardless  of  the  conse- 
quences which  the  realization  of  their 
wishes  might  have  for  the  Empire. 
To  every  fair-minded  outsider  it  must 
appear  as  a  matter  of  course  that 
England  can  not  possibly  agree  to  an 
absolute  severance  of  Ireland  from 
the  United  Kingdom  without  reck- 
lessly jeopardizing  her  own  existence. 
The  experience  of  the  late  war  has 
shown  what  would  be  the  fate  of 
Great  Britain,  if,  with  an  independent 
Irish  Republic  at  her  very  door,  she 
would  have  to  defend  herself  against 
an  enemy's  submarine  fleet,  which 
could  use  the  Irish  coasts  as  a  mari- 
time base.  Sir  Horace  Plunkett,  in  a 
recent  speech  in  which  he  assailed 
the  Government's  proposals,  did  the 
American  people  the  justice  of  repre- 
senting them  to  his  audience  as  in 


ISIarch  20,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[273 


favor  of  "as  large  a  measure  of  self- 
government  as  is  consistent  with  the 
military  safety  of  the  British  Empire." 
This  estimate  of  public  opinion  in 
America  is  doubtless  correct.  The 
average  Englishman  has  a  differ- 
ent impression.  The  active  German- 
Irish  propaganda  for  Sinn  Fein  has 
created  the  belief  abroad  that  the 
United  States  is  a  hotbed  of  anti-Brit- 
ish agitation.  That  evil  force,  which 
was  Germany's  accomplice  in  the  big 
crime,  continues,  quite  openly  now 
and  undisturbed,  its  sinister  work 
for  the  estrangement  of  the  two  great 
English-speakingnations.  Sir  Horace, 
in  the  speech  from  which  we  have 
quoted,  told  as  "a  matter  of  personal 
knowledge  that,  from  1911  onward, 
the  Prussian  Government  was  organ- 
izing the  German-Irish  alliance  in 
American  politics  with  the  view  of  the 
coming  attack  on  the  world's  free- 
dom." 

These  words  are  worth  putting  on 
record  as  coming  from  an  Irishman 
who,  though  no  Sinn  Feiner  and 
opposed  to  all  plans  for  an  Irish 
republic,  is  an  ardent  patriot  and  an 
advocate  of  Home  Rule  for  his  coun- 
try. From  the  short  summary  of  his 
speech  that  has  appeared  in  the  press 
it  is  not  sufficiently  clear  what  his 
chief  grievances  are  against  the  new 
bill.  One  is  the  privileged  position 
which  Ulster  would  command,  it 
being  made  "a  virtual  mandatory  over 
Ireland  without  responsibility."  Sir 
Edward  Carson's  support  of  the  bill 
seems  to  add  force  to  this  charge. 
But  it  may  be  brought  against  any 
Home  Rule  scheme  which  does  not 
propose  an  absolute  surrender  by  the 
Imperial  Government  of  all  its  pow- 
3rs.  Sir  Horace  evidently  fears  that 
|the  Ulstermen,  under  the  leadership 
pf  Sir  Edward  Carson,  thanks  to  the 
jfavored  position  which  their  loyalty 
|;o  England  secures  them  with  the 
London  Government,  will  control 
he  execution  of  the  reserved  powers 
n  Ireland. 

There  certainly  is  some  ground  for 
■his  fear;  but  for  a  patient,  sick  to 
|leath,  to  refuse  the  experiment  of  a 
[lew  treatment  because  of  the  possible 
jlanger  to  his  health,  is  not  the  way 
jo  get  better. 
Ireland    is,    indeed,    rapidly    ap- 


proaching a  crisis  in  its  chronic 
illness.  "It  is  obvious,"  said  Ian 
Macpherson  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons on  March  5,  "that  we  are  up 
against  a  tremendously  dangerous 
situation,"  and  he  added,  by  way  of 
illustration,  that  "the  Sinn  Fein  had 
at  least  200,000  men  prepared  to  com- 
mit murder  at  any  hour  of  the  day 
or  night."  There  may  be  gross  ex- 
aggeration in  the  oratio  pro  domo 
of  the  Chief  Secretary  for  Ireland, 
but  even  if  one-hundredth  of  that 
number  were  a  more  correct  esti- 
mate, he  would  still  be  justified  in 
characterizing  the  situation  as  grave. 
The  aims  of  Sinn  Fein  are  only  nega- 
tive. They  know  that  their  indepen- 
dent Irish  Republic  is  a  castle  in  the 
air,  which  even  American  money  can 
not  help  them  to  build.  But,  their 
own  scheme  being  impossible,  they 
want  to  make  any  other  plan  impos- 
sible too.  If  they  were  in  earnest 
about  their  Irish  Republic  they  would 
not  employ  assassins  to  lay  its  foun- 
dations. It  is  the  usual  tactics  of  all 
revolutionary  minorities.  Not  being 
able  to  rule  by  right,  they  try  to  over- 
rule the  right  of  others  by  a  reign  of 
terror.  The  results  of  the  recent 
municipal  elections  in  Ireland  have 
shown  that  Sinn  Fein,  of  a  total  num- 
ber of  322,244  of  valid  votes,  polled 
only  87,311.  If  the  total  poll  of 
Labor,  which  is  mainly  Republican, 
be  added  to  that  number,  the  total 
Republican  vote  is  less  than  145,000, 
or  a  good  deal  less  than  half  the  coun- 
try's total  poll. 

The  Unionists  have  taken  the 
first  step  towards  a  reconciliation. 
The  Nationalists  might  spare  their 
unhappy  country  endless  misery  if 
they  would  follow  that  example  and 
submit  to  v/hat  they  call  the  insult 
that  Ireland  should  be  given  a  start 
on  self-government  instead  of  the  full 
measure  of  Home  Rule  which  they 
desire.  The  bill  oflFers  to  a  divided 
Ireland  the  means  of  setting  up  di- 
vided legislatures,  but  paves  the  way 
for  both  parts  to  unite  at  what  time 
and  to  what  extent  they  choose.  The 
very  prospect  for  both  parties  of 
being  able  to  discuss  their  common 
internal  affairs  without  the  interfer- 
ence of  their  present  ruler  should  be 
an  inducement  for  the  Nationalists  to 


accept  any  plan  which  made  such 
freedom  possible. 

However,  their  opposition  to  the 
bill  is  not  likely  to  subside,  the  less 
so  since  they  have  received  the  un- 
expected support  of  Mr.  Asquith. 
Asquith  naturally  prefers  his  own 
Home  Rule  act  of  1904  to  the  bill 
now  before  the  House.  But  it  is 
strange  to  find  him  reject  the  latter 
because  of  its  plan  for  a  dual  govern- 
ment, as  he  himself,  in  1914,  con- 
ceded the  justice  of  the  Unionist  de- 
mand for  an  Amendment  act  provid- 
ing for  separate  legislative  treatment 
for  Ulster. 

In  the  exciting  game  of  politics 
strange  surprises  will  happen.  Who 
could  have  foretold  that  a  Home  Rule 
bill  for  Ireland  would  be  opposed  by 
the  Homeruler  Asquith  and  receive 
the  support  of  the  leader  of  the  Irish 
Unionists? 

Russia's  Substitute  for 
"Wage  Slavery" 

'T'HANKS  to  extremely  industrious 
-'-  propaganda,  the  idea  has  been 
very  widely  spread  among  Amer- 
ican workingmen  that  the  Soviet 
Government  of  Russia  is  a  work- 
ingman's  government.  It  is  not  fair 
to  assume,  perhaps,  that  the  more  in- 
telligent workmen  and  trade-union 
leaders  believe  this.  But  there  can 
be  no  question  that  the  rank  and  file 
of  labor  is  convinced  that  Lenin  and 
Trotsky,  exercising  a  "dictatorship  of 
the  proletariat,"  are  acting  as  trus- 
tees for  the  power  seized  by  the 
workers.  Furthermore,  they  have 
had  set  before  them  roseate  pictures 
of  the  labor  Utopia  which  has  been 
brought  about  by  the  communist  ex- 
periment in  Russia. 

At  the  same  time  the  propagandists 
hit  upon  a  clever  plan  to  prevent  the 
enlightenment  of  the  workman  on 
this  subject.  They  convinced  him 
that  all  the  reports  derogatory  to  the 
Soviet  Government,  or  exposing  the 
failure  of  the  Communist  system, 
were  lies  circulated  by  the  capitalist 
press,  a  press  paid  by  the  capitalists 
as  a  means  of  protecting  their  own 
interests.  The  result  was  that  all 
the  best  sources  of  information  were 
virtually  closed  to  American   work- 


274] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  4.5 


ingmen.  If  a  man  came  out  of  So- 
viet Russia,  no  matter  what  his  ex- 
perience or  reliability,  and  told  the 
simple  story  of  the  ruin  wrought  by 
Bolshevism,  he  was  set  down  as  the 
hired  tool  of  the  hated  capitalist. 
But  if  a  man  like  Arthur  Ransome, 
or  Isaac  Don  Levine,  whose  relations 
with  the  Bolsheviks  were  only  too 
well  known,  came  out  with  stories 
whitewashing  the  Soviet  Govern- 
ment, though  the  stories  continually 
contradicted  themselves  and  were  on 
the  face  of  them  lacking  in  credibil- 
itj%  they  were  exploited  by  the  radi- 
cal press  and  believed  by  the  duped 
workingmen. 

During  all  this  time,  the  most 
damning  evidence  against  the  tyrants 
at  Moscow  was  contained  in  their 
own  official  decrees  and  newspapers. 
But  now  there  has  been  put  out  by 
them  a  document,  which,  if  it  is  care- 
fully read  by  American  workingmen, 
must  completely  disillusion  them. 
This  is  the  Soviet  Government's  Code 
of  Labor  Laws,  published  in  Soviet 
Russia  in  its  issue  of  February  21. 

To  be  sure,  this  Code  makes  some 
pretense  at  protecting  the  laborer 
and  assuring  to  him  some  of  the  ad- 
vantages for  which  labor  everywhere 
has  been  agitating,  such  as  the  eight- 
hour  day,  disability  and  unemploy- 
ment insurance,  the  right  to  labor, 
and  the  protection  of  women  and 
children  in  industry.  All  of  these  ad- 
vantages, however,  are  carefully  cir- 
cumscribed so  that  they  can  be  sus- 
pended at  any  time  by  the  higher 
authorities  under  the  plea  of  neces- 
sity. In  reality,  the  Code  introduces 
labor  serfdom  of  a  sort  far  more 
tyrannical  than  even  the  peasant 
serfdom  of  half  a  century  ago. 

Article  I  of  the  Code  provides  that 
all  citizens  of  the  Russian  Socialist 
Federated  Soviet  Republic  between 
the  ages  of  sixteen  and  fifty,  unless 
incapacitated  by  injury  or  illness,  are 
"subject  to  compulsory  labor."  This 
is  the  keynote  to  the  whole  Code, 
and  the  other  sections,  no  matter  how 
disguised  in  the  wording,  are  merely 
provisions  for  carrying  this  tyranny 
into  effect. 

So,  for  example,  each  workman  is 
assigned  to  a  specific  group  or  cate- 
gory, with  corresponding  wages,  by 


the  higher  authorities,  and  he  is  re- 
quired to  carry  a  labor  handbook  in 
which  must  be  entered  his  name  in 
full,  his  category,  when  he  goes  to 
work,  when  he  is  paid,  when  he  is 
absent,  or  when  he  is  changed  to 
other  employment.  It  is,  in  fact,  a 
sort  of  labor  passport,  an  instrument 
of  oppression  to  which  no  American 
laborer  would  submit  for  an  instant. 
He  must  produce  it  on  all  occasions 
when  demanded  by  the  authorities, 
and  the  entries  in  it  must  be  coun- 
tersigned by  his  employer. 

The  laborer  is  bound  to  his  job 
and  can  change  from  one  employment 
to  another  only  by  permission  of  the 
authorities.  Furthermore,  he  is  not 
allowed  to  earn  any  extra  pay  under 
any  pretense  whatsoever  while  work- 
ing at  his  job,  and  any  remuneration 
so  received  must  be  deducted  from 
his  regular  pay.  Under  the  guise  of 
the  enforcement  of  the  right  to  work, 
careful  regulations  provide  for  the 
assignment  of  laborers  to  their  jobs, 
and  especially  for  the  distribution  of 
the  unemployed. 

Ostensibly  provision  is  laade  for 
the  trades  unions  and  works  councils 
to  have  a  hand  in  determining  con- 
ditions of  labor,  wages,  etc.,  but  these 
are  all  subject  to  the  approval  of  the 
higher  Soviet  authorities.  Anyone 
who  has  read  Mr.  H.  V.  Reeling's 
account  of  his  personal  experiences 
in  connection  with  the  present  trades 
unions  in  Russia  will  realize  that 
these  bodies  are  in  no  sense  repre- 
sentative of  the  workers,  but  are 
dominated  entirely  by  the  Commis- 
sars. It  is  interesting  also  to  note 
that  the  works  councils  have  been 
abolished. 

It  is  not  only  from  the  standpoint 
of  labor  that  the  Code  is  interesting. 
It  also  throws  a  light  on  other  aspects 
of  Soviet  theory  and  practice.  In  the 
section  dealing  with  rules  for  the  de- 
termination of  disability  for  work 
and  the  payment  of  sick  benefits  to 
wage  earners,  it  is  provided  that  the 
resources  of  the  local  hospital  funds 
shall  be  derived: 

(a)  From  obligatory  payments  by  enter- 
prises, establishments  and  institutions  employ- 
ing  paid    labor. 

(b)  From  fines  for  delay  of  payments. 

(c)  From  profits  on  the  investment  of  the 
funds. 


It  is  evident,  therefore,  that  the  hated 
institution  of  capital  and  interest, 
against  which  Lenin  and  Trotsky  ful- 
minated so  violently,  is  now  recog- 
nized as  a  necessary  part  of  their 
system. 

To  one  who  has  followed  the  previ- 
ous Bolshevik  propaganda  addressed 
to  labor  in  other  lands,  the  question 
insistently  presents  itself  as  to  why 
this  Code  of  Labor  Laws  should  be 
published  at  the  present  moment. 
The  reason  for  putting  into  effect 
such  a  Code  is  evident.  The  Bol- 
shevik experiment  m  Communism 
has  failed  and  its  industrial  system 
is  unable  to  produce.  Partly  this  is 
due  to  the  lack  of  fuel  and  raw  mate- 
rials, as  well  as  to  the  breakdown  in 
transportation.  But  according  to 
official  statements  of  the  Bolsheviks 
themselves,  one  of  the  greatest  of  all 
difficulties  has  been  the  labor  prob- 
lem. It  is  therefore  to  put  an  end 
to  labor  troubles,  and  to  put  out  of 
the  heads  of  labor  all  pretensions  to 
rights  and  liberties,  that  the  Code 
was  adopted.  Why  it  was  published 
abroad  just  at  this  time  is  less  evident, 
but  it  seems  reasonable  to  assume 
that  it  is  addressed  not  to  working- 
men  but  to  capitalists,  and  that  the 
intention  is  to  assure  the  latter  that 
they  can  now  invest  their  money  in 
Russian  enterprises  in  full  confidence 
that  there  will  be  no  strikes  or  other 
difficulties  with  labor.  In  other 
words,  the  Soviet  Government,  fac- 
ing utter  economic  collapse,  and  beg- 
ging the  capitalists  of  foreign  coun- 
tries to  come  in  and  save  the  situa- 
tion, off'er,  as  a  special  inducement, 
to  provide  slave  labor. 


THE  REVIKW 

A   weekly  journal^  of  political  and 

ffeneral  discussion 

Published  by 

The    National   Weekly   Corporation 

140   Nassau    Street,    New    York 

Fabian  Franklin,  President 

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ford   St.,    Strand,   London,   W.    C.   2,    England. 
Copyright,     1920,     i»     the     United    States    of 
America 
Editors 
FABIAN  FRANKLIN 
HAROLD  DE  WOLF  FULLER 
Associate  Editors 
Harrv  Morgan  Ayres      O.  W.  Firkins 
A.  J,  Barnouw  W.  II.  Johnson 

Jerome  Landfield 


Maich  -20,   1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[275 


Experimental  Allegiances 


(in  two  parts — PART  ONE) 

FOR  several  years  I  have  been  striv- 
ing to  attain  a  workable  under- 
standing of  the  theory  of  the  state 
known  variously  as  Pluralism,  Fed- 
jralism,  Administrative  Syndicalism, 
ind    the    Federationism    of    Experi- 
mental Allegiances.    I  have  lingered 
curiously  over  the  pages  of  Mr.  Gra- 
ham Wallas's"The  Great  Society"  and 
of  Mr.  Harold  J.  Laski's  "The  Prob- 
lem of  Sovereignty"  and  "Authority 
in  the  Modern  State."    I  have  never 
failed  to  read  the  occasional  exposi- 
tions of  the  theory  in  the  columns  of 
the  Ne^v  Republic,  sometimes  anony- 
mous,   but    usually    signed    by    Mr. 
Laski,    Mr.   Herbert    Croly,    or    Mr. 
Walter  Lippmann.     The  faint  fore- 
■ihadowings  of  the  theory  appearing 
in  the  Nation  at  various  times  during 
:he  last  year  and  in  the  Dial  during 
ts  twelve-months'   fling  in  the  me- 
ropolis  as  an  exponent  of  intellectual 
•adicalism,  have  not  escaped  me.     I 
lave  read  them  all,  but  I  am  still  dis- 
atisfied  with  my  progress  toward  a 
ounded  comprehension  of  this  blend 
if  theory,  doctrine,  and  vision.     In 
he  belief  that  somewhere  there  may 
e  some  other  person — some  forlorn 
nd  baffled  brother — who  has  striven 
s  hard,  with  results  as  incomplete 
nd  unsatisfactory,  and  who,  seeing, 
lay  take  heart  again,  I  set  down  this 
ecord  of  steps  taken  in  the  sands  of 
ndeavor. 

Mr.  Laski  is  by  common  consent 

ne  protagonist,  the  chief  pleader,  of 

lie  cause.     In  the  columns  of  the 

''ew  Republic  and  elsewhere,   from 

me  to  time,  he  pays  tribute  to  Mr. 

rely  and  Mr.  Lippmann  as  worthy 

i)adjutors.     But  the  reciprocal  trib- 

i:e  from  Mr.  Croly  and  Mr.  Lipp- 

ann   to   Mr.   Laski   is   always   the 

;ore  glowing  and  expansive,  and  it 

)ints  to  the   chieftainship    of    the 

luse  in  a  way  that  is  unmistakable. 

I  a  day  when,  particularly  in  the 

ild  of  radical  journalism,  there  is  so 

:uch  questioning  of  motives,  detrac- 

()n  and  sharp  accusation,  this  fre- 

tiient  public  exchange  of  encomiastic 

I  urtesies  stands  out  as  a  wholesome 


and  altogether  admirable  survival  of 
more  spacious  times. 

Mr.  Lippmann  concedes  {N.  R., 
May  31,  1919,  p.  148)  that  the  theory 
is  not  a  popular  one.  All  the  stupen- 
dous labor  Mr.  Laski  has  brought  to 
its  formulation,  and  all  that  the  New 
Republic  has  done  for  its  propaga- 
tion, have  not  availed  to  dispel  the 
reigning  prejudice  against  it.  Of 
"Authority  in  the  Modern  State"  and 
of  Mr.  Laski  he  writes: 

Dealing  with  matters  which,  if  called  by  the 
names  used  in  current  headlines  would  arouse 
a  fury  of  partisanship,  arguing  for  a  theory 
'liat  is  widely  and  deeply  resented,  he  has  pro- 
tected his  argument  from  the  dust  and  heat  of 
the  outer  world,  from  the  anger  of  opponents 
and  the  clamorous  approval  of  advocates,  by 
the  expedient  of  enormous  scholarship.  .  .  . 
The  learning  in  which  his  ideas  are  contained 
is  so  vast  and  so  recondite  that  I  imagme  even 
the  sleuth-hounds  of  Mr.  Easley  will  hesitate. 

What  "the  sleuth-hounds  of  Mr. 
Easley"  will  do  in  the  matter  I  can 
not  guess.  But  I  suspect  that  if  they 
hesitate  (to  attack  Mr.  Laski,  I  pre- 
sume Mr.  Lippmann  means)  the 
cause  of  the  hesitation  will  be  found 
not  so  much  in  the  brave  show  of 
vast,  enormous,  and  recondite  schol- 
arship as  in  the  difficulty  of  determin- 
ing exactly  what  Mr.  Laski  is  about. 
That  he  has  "protected  his  argument 
from  the  dust  and  heat  of  the  outer 
world"  seems  evident  enough.  But  I 
suspect  that  the  "protection"  is  more 
or  less  an  involuntary  one,  and  that 
the  "expedient  of  enormous  scholar- 
ship" is  no  expedient  at  all.  Why, 
anyway,  a  pleader  should  seek  to 
"protect"  his  argument,  I  do  not 
understand;  one  would  naturally 
suppose  that  the  main  business  of 
propaganda  is  to  get  itself  dissemi- 
nated— from  Severn  to  the  sea  and 
to  all  its  shores  the  wide  world  round. 
By  locking  itself  up  in  an  academic 
vocabulary,  fortified  with  a  tremen- 
dous bibliography,  it  would  seem 
merely  to  suppress  itself. 

No,  the  "protection"  that  encases 
Mr.  Laski's  argument  seems  to  me 
largely  that  of  unintelligibility.  One 
may  admit  the  scholarship — if  by  the 
word  is  meant  the  learning  which  en- 
ables him  to  cite  innumerable  pas- 
sages from  many  volumes  of  forgot- 
ten lore  which  have  only  a  conjectural 


relation,  if  any,  to  the  subject  in 
hand.  But  something  more  than 
scholarship  (in  this  narrow  sense)  is 
needed  for  exposition ;  and  that  is  the 
ability  to  set  down,  out  of  its  accu- 
mulated stores,  an  understandable 
statement.  Mr.  Laski  deals  largely 
in  abstractions,  which  may  mean  a 
number  of  things,  and  in  generaliza- 
tions so  sweeping  that  sometimes  they 
mean  nothing.  He  hurries  along  with 
a  copious  rush  of  words — often  un- 
considered words,  they  seem  to  me — 
and  the  breaks  in  his  sequences  are 
sometimes  so  complete  as  to  make  one 
wonder  what  possible  relation  a  cer- 
tain sentence  can  have  with  the  one 
on  each  side  of  it.  He  finds  an  enor- 
mous number  of  "obvious"  things, 
some  of  them  so  obvious  as  to  be 
banal  and  others  the  obviousness  of 
which  I  have  to  reject;  and  he  finds 
so  great  a  number  of  "fundamental" 
things  as  to  make  one  wonder  if  he 
is  not  frequently  mistaking  some  part 
of  the  superstructure  for  the  founda- 
tion. I  do  not  say  that  there  may  not 
be  others  who  fully  comprehend  him, 
despite  Mr.  Lippmann's  testimony  to 
the  invulnerability  to  friend  and  foe 
alike  of  the  armor  in  which  his  argu- 
ment is  encased.  I  say  only  that,  so 
far  as  I  am  concerned,  Mr.  Lipp- 
mann is  in  this  one  matter  approxi- 
mately correct. 

When  Mr.  Laski  writes  (A.  M.  S., 
p.  386) ,  "For  the  obvious  fact  is  that 
men  will  not  peacefully  endure  a  sit- 
uation they  deem  intolerable,"  I 
think  I  understand.  The  statement 
seems  to  me  to  embody  a  simple 
thought  simply  expressed.  Its  obvi- 
ousness seems  conspicuously  obvious, 
and  as  a  datum  of  political  science  it 
seems  to  me  one  on  which  Bolshevik 
and  anti-Bolshevik,  Christian  and 
Mohammedan,  atheist  and  deist, 
Judge  Gary  and  Mr.  Gompers, 
President  Wilson  and  Senator  Lodge 
could  all  cordially  agree.  But  when 
he  writes  {ibid.,  p.  385-86,  "It  ['the 
movement  towards  administrative 
syndicalism']  is  not  a  revolt  against 
authority  but  against  a  theory  of  it 
which  is,  in  fact,  equivalent  to  servi- 
tude," I  confess  that  I  am  baffled.  I 
can  not  comprehend  how  under  any 
circumstances,  in  the  world  as  we 
now  know  it,  servitude  may  be  equiv- 


276] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  4.) 


alent  to  authority  or  even  to  a  theory. 
When  further  he  writes  (ibid.,  p. 
188),  "Certainly  if  there  is  one  truth 
to  which  all  history  bears  witness  it 
is  that  unity  is  the  parent  of  iden- 
tity," I  am  worse  than  baffled;  I  am 
tantalized  by  a  fair,  round  abstrac- 
tion which  seems  to  mean  something, 
but  may  mean  anything  or  nothing. 
I  could  cite,  if  to  do  so  were  to  the 
purpose,  hundreds  of  such  examples. 

But  not  always  is  Mr.  Laski  so 
futile  or  so  unintelligible.  In  his  re- 
view of  Professor  Giddings'  book  on 
the  State  a  year  ago  and  of  W.  F. 
Willoughby's  recent  book  (N.  R.,  Jan. 
7,  1920,  p.  175)  he  has  expressed  him- 
self in  an  "unprotected"  way.  The 
manner  in  both  cases  is  arrogant, 
hoighty-toity,  intolerant,  and  unfair; 
but  at  least  there  is  some  definiteness 
of  substance.  Further,  and  more  to 
the  matter  in  hand,  is  a  statement  in 
the  New  Republic  for  May  31,  1919 
(the  issue  from  which  the  Lippmann 
passage  above  is  taken)  in  which 
he  gives  us  something  sufficiently 
clear  and  definite  to  afford  us  a  start- 
ing point.  Mr.  Lippmann  indites  his 
glowing  eulogy  of  "Authority  in  the 
Modern  State"  and  then  pauses. 
After  all,  there  are  some  further  con- 
siderations. Is  it  all  so  simple  as  it 
seems?  May  not  Pluralism  create 
new  evils,  or  restore  the  old  ones  in  a 
new  guise?  "In  attempting  to  sub- 
stitute coordination  for  hierarchy," 
he  writes,  "the  result  may  well  be  a 
new  hierarchy.  And  the  reason  is 
that  since  a  man  can  not  give  equally 
steady  allegiance  to  two  authorities, 
he  will  end  by  exalting  his  immediate 
allegiance."  He  is  troubled,  and  he 
suffers  a  momentary  lapse  of  faith. 
Will  Mr.  Laski  come  to  grips  with  the 
matter,  solve  it,  and  reconfirm  the 
faith  of  a  disciple? 

Mr.  Laski  will ;  and  obligingly  and 
courteously  he  does  so.  That  is,  he 
responds.  He  fails  utterly  to  meet 
the  question,  but  he  does  something 
as  well.  He  sums  up,  in  fairly  con- 
crete terms,  uncabin'd,  uncited,  and 
unencased,  what  he  is  trying  to  mean 
by  the  Federationism  of  Experimen- 
tal Allegiances.  From  this  statement, 
with  help  from  other  expositions  by 
the  three  coadjutors,  one  may  get 
something  like  the  following: 


"Personality  is  a  compex  thing,  and 
the  institutions — religious,  industrial, 
political,  in  which  it  clothes  itself — 
are  as  a  consequence  manifold."  Hu- 
man beings  give  allegiance,  in  vary- 
ing degrees,  to  these  institutions. 
They  constantly  experiment  with  new 
allegiances.  The  sovereign  state  de- 
mands a  paramount  allegiance  to 
itself.  The  individual  may  or  may 
not  grant  this  demand.  He  may  in- 
stead yield  his  paramount  allegiance 
to  an  organization — local,  national,  or 
international — such  as  a  church,  a 
trade-union,  a  secret  society,  or  a 
political  party.  The  sovereign  state 
is  sometimes  unable  to  enforce  its 
demand,  and  by  insistence  may  wreck 
itself.  What  society  needs,  in  accord 
with  its  institutions  and  its  psychol- 
ogy, is  a  system  of  coordinated  and 
federated  allegiances.  "The  plural- 
istic state  is  an  endeavor  to  express 
in  terms  of  structure  the  facts  we 
thus  encounter.  ...  It  destroys,  if 
you  like,  the  sovereign  state,  that  it 
may  preserve  the  personality  of 
men." 

All  this  is,  in  a  sense,  simple  enough. 
It  is  merely  an  introduction  to  our 
old  friend,  Group  Autonomy — older 
than  Karnak  or  Cnossos,  old  as  the 
first  rude  association  of  primitive 
men.  It  has  a  new  vocabulary  and  a 
new  bibliography — and  little  else. 
But  these  autonomous  groups  are  to 
be  federated,  and  the  matter  is  no 
longer  simple;  for  in  what  manner 
and  to  what  degree  they  are  to  be 
federated  there  is  little  to  show  in 
all  the  writings  of  Mr.  Laski,  Mr. 
Croly,  and  Mr.  Lippmann.  On  this, 
the  crucial  point  in  any  social  scheme, 
the  expositors  are  nebulous  or  self- 
contradictory.  On  the  matter  of 
keeping  allegiances  coordinated  and 
at  par,  which  lately  has  troubled  Mr. 
Lippmann,  there  is  an  utter  absence 
of  exposition.  In  the  earlier  days 
of  his  discipleship  Mr.  Lippman  was 
more  positive.  He  acknowledged  the 
dilemmas,  but  he  proposed  an  heroic 
remedy.  "The  dilemmas  themselves 
have  to  be  abolished,"  he  wrote  {N. 
R.,  April  14,  1917,  p.  316),  "and 
forms  of  cooperative  allegiance  de- 
vised." How?  Even  in  his  more 
confident  days  he  did  not  know.  "We 
have  as  yet,"  he  then  said,  "only  the 


vaguest  notions  as  to  how  this  is  to 
be  done."  The  other  members  of  the 
firm,  as  I  shall  later  show,  are  no  bet- 
ter off.  If  during  the  intervening 
three  years  this  vagueness  has  to  any 
degree  been  clarified,  the  evidence  has 
not  yet  been  confided  to  the  printed 
page. 

W.  J.  Ghent 

[To  be  concluded  next  week] 

The  Plight  of  Russian 
Peasants 

WITHIN  a  brief  cablegram,  received 
last  week  from  Harbin  and  scarcely 
noticed  in  our  press,  there  is  contained 
a  story  of  pathetic  heroism  that  deserves 
the  attention  and  admiration  of  working- 
men  in  all  lands.  The  cablegram  relates 
simply  that  thirty  thousand  Russian 
workmen  and  peasants  from  the  Urals 
and  Western  Siberia,  who  formed  a 
division  in  the  anti-Bolshevik  army,  and 
who,  it  was  feared,  had  been  destroyed 
by  the  Bolsheviks  since  the  defeat  of 
Admiral  Kolchak,  had  succeeded  in  cut- 
ting their  way  through  the  enemy  forces 
and  marching  two  thousand  miles  to 
Verkhne-Udinsk.  The  story  of  these 
fighting  workmen  is  one  of  the  romantic 
episodes  of  the  war.  They  were  chiefly 
the  laborers  of  the  Izhevsky  and  Vod- 
kinsky  works  in  the  neighborhood  of 
Perm.  Last  June,  by  resolution  of  the 
Ural  Trade  Unions,  they  sent  a  mission 
of  four  of  their  members  to  inform  the 
people  of  England  concerning  conditions 
in  Russia  and  of  the  Russian  working 
classes.  This  mission  was  sent  by  the 
Unions  themselves,  without  funds  from 
other  sources,  and  after  great  difficulties 
it  finally  reached  England  in  December. 
It  consisted  of  Upovalov,  the  president  of 
the  Vodkinsky  Union  of  Metal  Workers; 
Strumilov,  a  director  of  the  Metal  Work- 
ers' Union  of  Perm;  Zhandarmov,  vice- 
president  of  the  Federated  Trades 
Unions  of  the  Ural,  and  Menshikov, 
member  of  the  Executive  Committee  of 
the  Izhevsky  Union. 

The  statements  of  the  delegates  in 
which  they  explain  the  reasons  why  the 
peasants  and  workmen  of  the  Ural  re- 
gion rose  against  the  Soviet  rule  are 
clear  and  definite. 

The  Bolsheviks  established  their  ])ower  by' 
bayonets  and  broke  the  strength  of  peasants 
and  workers,  broke  the  Constituent  Assem- 
bly, which  was  elected  on  the  principle  of  uiii 
versal.  direct,  equal,  and  secret  voting;  broke 
all  the  societies  of  a  democratic  nature,  sue! 
as  the  Zemstvos,  that  self-governing  bo{l> 
elected  by  universal,  direct,  and  secret  voting 
The  Bolsheviks  ruthlessly,  like  autocratic  gen 
darmes,  killed  all  labor,  political,  and  Social 
ist  organizations ;  throttled  the  labor  pres' 
and  finally  established  by  decree  the  dawn  n 
their   own    Tsarist    Socialism.     Who   split   ii] 


March  20,   l!>-2()] 


THE  REVIEW 


[277 


the  reserve  funds  of  the  trade  unions?  The 
Bolsheviks.  Who  split  up  the  trade  unions  as 
a  class?  By  whose  orders  were  all  strikes 
put  down  by  force  of  arms,  amid  plentiful 
executions?  It  was  the  Bolsheviks  who  broke 
the  cooperative  societies  and  converted  their 
shops  into  Communist  stores. 

The  Bolsheviks  promised  the  working  people 
peace,  bread  and  freedom.  Actually,  in  place 
of  peace,  they  gave  civil  war,  which  destroyed 
all  manufactures  and  stained  the  country  with 
blood;  in  place  of  freedom — prison,  exile,  and 
the  firing  squad;  in  place  of  bread — famine 
and  the  grave. 

So  it  was  that,  having  drunk  to  the  full 
the  cup  of  humiliation  and  tasted  this  red- 
bayonet  Socialism,  the  Izhevsky  and  Vodkin- 
sky  workers  recognized  that  further  life  of 
this  sort  was  impossible,  and,  though  without 
weapons,  and  armed  only  with  the  armor  of 
right,  with  only  their  blistered  hands  to  fight 
with,  united  in  spirit,  to  a  man  they  rose 
against  the  oppressors,  and,  by  virtue  of  their 
strength  of  will,  snatched  the  rifles  from  the 
hands  of  the  Red  Guards  and  began  the 
battle  for  citizens'  rights  and  the  freedom  of 
the   Russian   people. 


It  was  this  division  of  workmen  sol- 
diers that  bore  the  brunt  of  the  Bol- 
shevik attack  last  summer  when  the 
forces  of  Kolchak,  without  munitions 
and  undermined  in  the  rear,  crumbled, 
and  it  was  this  division,  faithful  to  the 
end,  that  covered  the  great  retreat.  Now, 
after  untold  privations  and  sufferings, 
they  have,  like  another  Ten  Thousand, 
fought  their  way  through  to  possible 
safety.  It  is  to  such  sturdy  champions 
of  liberty  that  the  new  Russia  must  look 
hopefully  when  it  is  possible  again  to 
face  the  tasks  of  reconstruction.  This 
episode  is  the  best  answer  to  those  who 
would  decry  the  qualities  of  the  Russian 
peasants,  and  who  would  judge  by  the 
present  supremacy  of  the  Bolshevik 
minority  that  they  were  incapable  of  or- 
ganized patriotic  resistance  and  political 
self-assertion. 

Jerome  Landfield 


The  Erzberger-Helfferich  Trial  and 
the  Aftermath 


ON  Saturday  morning  of  last  week  the 
cables  brought  the  news  of  the  ver- 
dict in  the  suit  of  Mathias  Erzberger, 
until  recently  Secretary  of  State  for  Fi- 
nance in  the  German  Republic,  against 
Karl  Helfferich,  former  Vice-Chancellor 
and  Secretary  of  State  for  the  Interior 
and  for  Finance  in  the  time  of  William 
II.  Helfferich,  a  pronounced  reactionary, 
was  condemned  to  a  nominal  fine,  three 
hundred  marks  and  costs,  yet  he  left  the 
courtroom  amid  prolonged  applause;  and 
the  trial  amounted  virtually  to  a  con- 
demnation of  the  plaintiff,  for  Erzber- 
ger had  sued  for  slander  and  defamation 
of  character,  and  Helfferich's  fine  was 
imposed,  not  on  this  count,  the  judge 
stating  that  Helfferich  had  acted  from 
"patriotic  motives,"  but  because  he  had 
"shown  hatred"  in  his  persecution  of  the 
plaintiff. 

The  same  evening  brought  the  news 
of  a  reported  and  seemingly  unexpected 
coup  d'etat  by  the  German  reactionary 
parties,  the  details  and  effects  of  which 
must  for  a  time  remain  somewhat  vague. 
The  American  press  in  general  had  paid 
but  little  attention  to  the  Helflferich- 
Erzberger  controversy,  regarding  it 
'  more  or  less  as  a  private  quarrel  between 
politicians;  whereas  there  is  a  close  con- 
nection between  the  two  events. 
I  Helflerich's  attitude,  which  differs 
little,  if  at  all,  from  that  of  the  counter- 
revolutionists,  may  be  briefly  stated  as 
follows:  Germany  was  not  defeated 
through  the  military  superiority  of  the 
Entente  and  the  United  States.  She  met 
disaster  through  her  own  internal  dis- 
sensions, especially  the  unpatriotic  atti- 
tude of  the  Social  Democrats  and  those 
who,   like   Erzberger,   sided   with   them, 


particularly  in  the  crisis  of  1917.  This 
crisis,  which  forced  Bethmann-Hollweg 
out  of  office,  gave  Prussia  universal  suf- 
frage, and  passed  the  famous  Reichstag 
Peace  Resolution,  broke  down  the  "Burg- 
friede,"  or  truce  of  parties.  On  that 
occasion  the  Reichstag  for  the  first  time 
showed  itself  strong  enough  to  prevail 
against  the  Emperor,  Chancellor,  and 
General  Staff.  From  that  time  on,  the 
Reichstag  continued  to  undermine  the 
power  and  authority  of  William  II  and 
of  the  German  General  Staff,  which  had 
been  the  secret  of  Germany's  strength. 
The  multiplication  of  stupid  activities 
and  pretensions  by  this  incompetent 
Reichstag  finally  overthrew  the  German 
Empire  and  brought  Germany  to  her 
present  pass. 

The  feeling  of  Helfferich  and  his  class 
is  much  less  severe  against  the  Social 
Democrats  than  against  Erzberger  and 
what  following  he  may  still  have.  The 
Social  Democrats  were  an  evil  to  which 
the  old  regime  had  been  accustomed,  and 
their  status  had  been  formulated  once  for 
all  when  William  II  on  a  famous  occasion 
characterized  them  as  "enemies  of  the 
Fatherland."  From  them  nothing,  there- 
fore, had  been  expected.  It  had  sur- 
prised no  one  that  as  the  prospect  of 
a  German  victory  became  more  and  more 
remote  they  should  have  protested  more 
and  more  vehemently  against  the  old 
regime.  Ebert  and  Noske  had  always 
done  this,  and  after  the  armistice  had 
merely  run  true  to  form.  They  had 
balked  at  voting  the  war  taxes  in  July, 
1917,  and  had  worked  consistently  to 
bring  about  parliamentary  government. 
It  was  to  have  been  expected  that,  after 
the  revival  of  Socialistic  hopes  following 


the  Russian  Revolution  of  the  spring  of 
1917,  they  would  favor  the  Reichstag 
Peace  Resolution.  Indeed,  they  were  its 
earliest  advocates.  Yet  in  the  eyes  of 
the  reactionaries  they  could  not  have  suc- 
ceeded either  in  passing  the  Peace  Reso- 
lution or  in  introducing  parliamentary 
reforms  without  the  assistance  of  other 
parties.  It  was,  therefore,  more  repre- 
hensible to  support  a  Social  Democrat 
than  to  be  one,  for  to  countenance  such 
outlaws  not  only  gave  them  political 
standing  but  also  a  cachet  of  respecta- 
bility. Hence  Erzberger's  position  as 
arch-villain  in  that  tragedy,  The  Junkers' 
Overthrow. 

It  was  excellent  political  policy,  from 
the  reactionary  standpoint,  to  attack 
Erzberger.  The  move  promised  success, 
since  as  a  personality  he  was,  beyond 
doubt,  the  weakest  spot  in  the  Govern- 
ment's armor.  The  question  of  finance 
in  Germany  being  particularly  pressing, 
if  it  could  be  proved  that  the  head  of 
the  Treasury  was  himself  dishonest,  self- 
seeking,  and  a  war  profiteer,  all  eco- 
nomic policies  of  the  Republic  would  be 
discredited. 

It  seems  that  Erzberger  was  a  suffi- 
ciently astute  politician  to  realize  the 
weakness  of  his  position.  If  the  verdict 
has  in  essence  gone  against  him,  he  can 
at  least  urge  in  extenuation  that  unwill- 
ingly he  came  to  sue.  Helfferich,  in  his 
three  volumes  of  "Der  Weltkrieg,"  which 
has  been  very  widely  read  in  Germany, 
made  statements  that  no  respectable  poli- 
tician could  allow  to  pass  unchallenged. 
Yet  Erzberger  remained  silent.  Helf- 
ferich then  published  a  pamphlet  "Down 
with  Erzberger,"  and  has  since  improved 
every  opportunity  to  insult  him  in  pub- 
lic. Erzberger  was  probably  forced  by 
his  colleagues  to  take  action  and,  shortly 
after  it  was  instituted,  to  withdraw  from 
the  Cabinet.  The  pamphlet,  which  re- 
views Erzberger's  career,  was  read  at  the 
trial,  and  easily  made  him,  not  Helfferich, 
appear  as  the  defendant  in  the  suit. 
Hence  the  charges,  which  seem  to  have 
been  virtually  substantiated,  not  only 
have  resulted  in  a  personal  triumph  for 
Helfferich,  but  carry  the  implication  that 
Erzberger's  colleagues  in  the  Government 
are  likewise  condemned.  This  assump- 
tion is,  I  believe,  unfair  to  men  like 
Ebert  and  Noske,  who  in  their  political 
life  have  acted  consistently,  and,  on  the 
personal  side  are  respected. 

Much  which  can  only  now  be  disclosed 
had  been  happening  behind  the  scenes 
unknown  to  the  Reichstag  generally  and, 
of  course,  to  ourselves.  At  the  begin- 
ning of  April,  1917,  Emperor  Charles, 
Empress  Zita,  and  Count  Czemin  ap- 
peared at  the  German  General  Head- 
quarters at  Kreuznacht  and  suggested 
peace.  They  made  it  plain  that  Austria's 
position  was  exceedingly  serious.  Not 
only  did  they  talk  of  peace,  they  even 
suggested  ■  important   cessions   of   terri- 


278] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  45 


tory.  The  Emperor  and  Empress  and 
their  Minister  evidently  returned  home 
with  the  conviction  that  it  was  hopeless 
to  obtain  any  concessions  from  the  Ger- 
man General  Staff.  Shortly  after,  on 
April  14,  a  personal  aide  of  Emperor 
Charles  delivered  to  Emperor  William  a 
letter  written  in  his  own  hand  which 
was  accompanied  by  a  memoir  from 
Oeunt  Czernin  to  the  following  effect: 
Austria-Hungary's  clock  was  running 
down.  Morale  was  bad  and  the  revolu- 
tionarj-  danger  was  increasing.  The  raw 
materials  for  war  munitions  were  giv- 
ing out  and  Arnerican  intervention  had 
rendered  the  situation  still  more  acute. 
French,  English,  and  Italian  offensives 
were  to  be  expected.  "Before  America 
can  destroy  the  military  situation  for  us 
we  must  make  a  far-reaching  and  de- 
tailed proposal  of  peace  and  not  shrink 
from  making  eventually  extensive  and 
grievous  sacrifices."  Undoubtedly  Eng- 
land and  France  were  likewise  tired,  and, 
though  the  ruthless  submarine  warfare 
would  not  be  decisive,  the  statesmen  of 
the  Entente  would  ask  themselves 
"whether  it  was  expedient  and  wise  to 
carry  on  this  war  d  outrance  or  whether 
it  was  not  more  statesmanlike  to  cross 
golden  bridges  if  these  were  built  for 
them  by  the  Central  Powers.  In  that 
case  the  moment  had  come  for  far-reach- 
ing, painful  sacrifices  by  the  Central 
Powers."  These  included,  on  Germany's 
side,  the  cession  of  Alsace-Lorraine,  and 
on  Austria-Hungary's  part  the  giving  up 
of  the  whole  of  Galicia  and  the  Trentino. 
Austria-Hungary  could  not  possibly  look 
forward  to  another  winter's  campaign, 
and  it  was  feared  that  such  a  campaign 
might  likewise  bring  about  in  Germany 
political  changes  which  the  responsible 
defenders  of  the  dynastic  principle  must 
consider  as  more  serious  than  a  poor 
peace  negotiated  by  the  monarchs. 

The  Emperor  and  German  Headquar- 
ters refused  to  take  so  serious  a  view  of 
the  situation,  because  of  the  promising 
aspect  of  developments  in  Russia  and 
also  because  of  an  alleged  remark  of 
Ribot's  to  the  Italian  Ambassador  to  the 
effect  that  France  was  bleeding  to  death. 
On  German  policy  the  most  serious 
immediate  effect  of  this  communication 
was  to  arouse  that  bitter  feeling  against 
Austria  which  was  to  become  more  and 
more  pronounced  as  the  war  progressed. 

Czemin's  memoir,  like  the  visit  of  the 
Imperial  pair  to  German  Headquarters, 
proved  unavailing  for  reasons  that  can- 
not here  be  discussed.  Evidently  the 
German  militarists  either  were  confident 
of  a  victory  or  believed  that  peace  over- 
tures would  be  made  by  the  Entente. 
The  developments  in  which  Erzberger 
was  to  take  so  large  a  part  came,  there- 
fore, as  a  most  unexpected  shock.  The 
parties  of  the  Left  were  to  prove  "un- 
grateful" and  were  to  demand  more  than 
the  Emperor  had  promised  in  the  way 


of  reforms  in  the  Prussian  system  of 
elections.  Also,  a  political  cross-current 
set  in;  LudendorfT,  Hindenburg,  and  the 
reactionaries  demanded  the  removal  of 
von  Bethmann-Hollweg  as  Chancellor, 
whom  the  Left  seemed  quite  willing  to 
keep.  In  the  Main  Committee  of  the 
Reichstag  the  Social  Democrats,  with 
Ebert  and  Noske  taking  prominent  parts, 
demanded  a  peace  resolution  announcing 
a  programme  of  "no  annexations."  At 
this  point  Hindenburg  and  Ludendorff, 
growing  impatient,  sent  in  their  resig- 
nations to  take  effect  immediately  unless 
von  Bethmann-Hollweg  were  dismissed. 

The  storm  would  have  been  weathered, 
Helffer.ch  believes,  but  for  the  fact  that 
Erzberger  of  the  Catholic  Centre  party 
joined  with  the  Social  Democrats  and 
brought  them  an  unexpected  accession  of 
strength.  He  painted  an  exceedingly 
dark  picture  of  Germany's  prospects.  It 
is  impossible  to  analyze  in  detail  his  ac- 
tions in  this  crisis,  and  it  is  simplest  to 
believe  that  he  was  improving  the  occa- 
sion to  fish  in  troubled  waters.  He  had 
been  particularly  close  to  von  Bethmann- 
Hollweg  and  the  German  Foreign  Office. 
Yet  he  suddenly  turned  against  the 
Chancellor  and  was  instrumental  in  his 
dismissal,  as  well  as  being  the  most  im- 
portant factor  in  the  passage  of  the 
Peace  Resolution.  In  the  general  tur- 
moil the  further  reform  of  the  Prussian 
system  of  elections  was  also  carried.  All 
of  these  measures  were  effectea  against 
the  will  of  the  Emperor  and  his  Govern- 
ment. They  were  the  most  important 
concessions  ever  forced  from  him,  and 
clearly  indicated  that  his  authority  was 
beginning  to  wane.  This  undermining 
of  the  Imperial  and  military  authority  is 
quite  properly  regarded  by  the  German 
reactionaries  as  the  beginning  of  the 
end.  Erzberger  symbolized  to  them 
everything  that  is  reprehensible  in  the 
new  parliamentary  regime.  As  he  was, 
in  addition,  one  of  the  plenipotentiaries 
who  negotiated  the  armistice  with  Foch, 
he  is  regarded  as  one  of  those  most  re- 
sponsible for  the  peace. 

It  will  hardly  assist  us  in  our  attempt 
to  understand  the  present  psychology  of 
a  large  wing  of  German  opinion  to  con- 
sider Erzberger,  as  has  sometimes  been 
done,  a  disinterested  lover  of  peace 
and  a  thoroughgoing  republican.  Helf- 
ferich's  charge  that  the  German  Repub- 
lic's Minister  of  Finance  frequently 
directed  his  political  activities  to  his  per- 
sonal financial  advantage  must  be  taken 
seriously.  Erzberger's  support  of  the 
Peace  Resolution  was  the  more  un- 
expected because  of  his  previous  attitude. 
He  had  in  September  of  1914  presented 
to  von  Bethmann-Hollweg,  to  von  Tir- 
pitz,  von  Falkenhayn,  and  others  a  pro- 
gramme of  annexations  which  was 
excessive,  even  from  the  German  stand- 
point. It  included  not  only  the  annexa- 
tion of  the  Flemish   and  French  coast. 


but  also  the  English  islands  of  the  Chan- 
nel, as  well  as  the  French  mining  fields. 
Helfferich  accused  him  of  having  ac- 
cepted bribes  in  the  form  of  directorates 
and  other  considerations  from  corpora- 
tions whose  interests  he  was  to  further 
in  the  Reichstag  and  in  cases  in  which 
he  acted  as  referee.  Erzberger  admitted 
having  received  a  hundred  thousand 
marks  as  a  director  in  Thyssen's  Iron 
and  Steel  Works.  It  was  charged  that 
he  was  paid  this  sum  to  purchase  his 
influence  for  the  companj,  and  that  in 
advocating  the  annexation  of  the  French 
ore  basins  he  was  merely  rendering  his 
quid  pro  quo.  It  is  probably  true  that 
Erzberger  resigned  after  the  passage  of 
the  Pepce  Resolution,  though  under  what 
circumstances  and  for  what  reasons  it 
is  impossible  to  say  at  present. 

Erzberger  has  also  been  accused  of 
making  unlawful  use  of  Czemin's  con- 
fidential memoir  to  Emperor  William  II. 
It  was  through  him,  according  to  Helf- 
ferich, that  news  of  Austria's  desperate 
situation  reached  Germany's  enemies. 
On  this  count,  certainly,  Erzberger  must 
be  acquitted.  Czernin  had  intended  that 
his  memoir  should  be  seen  only  by  the 
two  Emperors.  At  the  time  of  Emperor 
Charles's  visit  to  Headquarters  and  of 
his  letter  to  William  II,  Austria's  situa- 
tion was  certainly  desperate.  Charles 
knew  that  he  must  make  peace.  His 
experience  at  German  Headquarters 
made  it  impossible  to  entertain  much 
hope  of  success  from  the  "military  mas- 
ters of  Germany,"  and  both  Czernin  and 
Charles  felt  that  if  they  were  to  obtain 
any  result  whatever  it  must  be  through 
the  Reichstag.  It  was  only  natural  that 
they  should  have  attempted  to  act 
through  the  Catholic  Centre  party,  and  it 
has  since  been  disclosed  that  Erzberger 
received  his  copy  of  the  Czernin  memoir 
through  no  less  a  person  than  the  Em- 
peror Charles  himself.  It  was  given  him 
to  use,  the  only  injunction  being  that  he 
should  not  reveal  the  source  from  which 
he  had  obtained  it.  Since  at  the  same 
time  the  Emperor  had  written  the  well- 
known  Prince  Sixtus  Letter  and  had  sent 
Count  Mensdorff,  his  former  Ambassa- 
dor at  London,  to  Switzerland  to  estab- 
lish contact  if  possible  with  representa- 
tives of  the  Entente  Powers,  it  could 
hardly  have  been  a  secret  in  Entente 
circles  that  Austria  was  decidedly  weary 
of  the  war  and  that  her  clock  had  "very 
nearly  run  down." 

It  is  undoubtedly  true  that  Erzberger 
was  an  exceedingly  important  factor  in 
bringing  about  peace  and  in  establishing 
the  parliamentary  regime  in  Germany. 
We  may  regret  that  his  personal  char- 
acter seems  to  be  so  far  from  admirable, 
for  it  is  useless  to  blink  the  fact  that 
his  overthrow  will,  temporarily  at  least, 
do  much  to  increase  reactionary  senti- 
ment in  Germany. 

Christian  Gauss 


JNIarch  20,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[279 


Correspondence 

Loose  Talk  Within  the 
Church 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

Turning  from  your  thoughtful  edi- 
torial on  "Religion  and  the  World's 
Need,"  in  the  Review  of  February  21,  I 
happened  to  pick  up  a  copy  of  the 
Churchman  of  the  same  date,  wherein  is 
reported  an  address  before  "the  younger 
clergy  of  the  metropolitan  district"  by 
the  Rev.  J.  Howard  Melish,  of  Brooklyn. 
Here  are  some  of  the  things  he  said : 

Mark  my  word  the  time  is  at  hand  when 
men  who  speak  as  I  speak,  unwilling  to  com- 
promise on  the  subject  of  the  inherent  rights 
of  the  laboring  man,  will  be  thrown  out  by 
the  Church  which  is  demanding  suppression 
and  end  of  free  speech  in  this  free  Republic. 
...  Is  the  Church's  purpose  a  partisan  one,  or 
does  it  exist  for  religion?  Is  it  to  be  but- 
tressed by  the  rich  and  then  used  to  exploit  the 
poor?  ...  As  it  is  now,  some  men  who  are 
living  on  interest,  rents,  and  coupons — and 
still  not  producing — are  getting  the  cream. 
Until  that  sort  of  thing  is  brought  to  an  end 
it  is  the  Church's  business  to  see  that  we  are 
always  on  the  edge  of  revolution. 

"Mr.  Melish  took  his  seat,"  says  the 
reporter,  "amid  prolonged  applause,  al- 
though several  present  were  heard  to  say 
that  they  were  in  some  respects  directly 
opposed  to  the  speaker's  conclusions." 
Talcott  Miner  Banks 

Williamstown,  Mass.,  February  21 

Keynes  and  Dillon 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

It  does  not  appear  to  be  realized  by 
the  general  reading  public  that  the  two 
most  ambitious  and  most  entertaining 
volumes  on  the  peace  treaty  which  have 
thus  far  appeared — those  of  Mr.  J.  M. 
Keynes  and  of  Dr.  E.  J.  Dillon — are  seri- 
ously untrustworthy  in  their  statements 
of  fact,  and  even  in  their  accounts  of  the 
provisions  of  the  treaty.  Both  writers 
set  out  with  a  manifest  determination 
to  prove  that  the  treaty  was  conceived 
in  sin  and  born  in  iniquity;  that,  under 
some  hypocritical  concealments,  it  repu- 
diates most  of  the  terms  of  the  armistice 
agreement;  and  that,  in  essential  mat- 
ters, the  principles  and  programme  of 
President  V/ilson  were  set  aside.  Mr. 
Keynes,  it  is  true,  has  done  a  useful  ser- 
vice in  urgiij.g — as  others  have  done — 
that  the  framers  of  the  treaty  overesti- 
mated Germany's  power  of  economic 
recovery  under  the  conditions  proposed, 
and  that,  in  the  general  interest  of 
Europe,  many  of  the  economic  clauses 
require  revision.  But  his  attack  upon 
the  treaty  is  much  more  sweeping  than 
this;  and  many  of  his  other  strictures 
upon  it,  especially  on  the  score  of  good 
faith,  are  based  upon  misstatements  or 
omissions  of  pertinent  facts.  As  for 
Dr.  Dillon,  one   is  tempted  to  surmise 


that  he  regards  his  conversations  with 
eminent  personages  in  Paris  during  the 
Conference  as  absolving  him  from  the 
tiresome  task  of  reading  the  final  text 
of  the  treaty;  at  all  events,  he  presents 
singularly  erroneous  accounts  of  some 
of  its  most  important  provisions. 

I  give  some  examples  of  these  inaccu- 
racies : 

1.  By  the  clauses  which  reserve  to 
the  Allied  Goveinments  the  right  to  take 
property  of  German  citizens  or  corpora- 
tions in  ceded  territory,  "a  wholesale 
expropriation  of  private  property  is  to 
take  place,"  says  Mr.  Keynes,  "without 
the  Allies  affording  any  compensation 
to  the  individuals  expropriated."  In 
Alsace-Lorraine,  for  example,  "the  prop- 
erty of  the  Germans  who  reside  there 
is  now  entirely  at  the  disposal  of  the 
French  Government  without  compensa- 
tion, except  in  so  far  as  the  German 
Government  itself  miy  choose  to  afford 
it"  (italics  mine).  In  point  of  fact,  the 
treaty  makes  provision  for  compensation 
to  all  Germans  whose  property  is  taken. 
Only  by  a  breach  of  faith  on  the  part  of 
their  own  Government  can  they  fail  to 
receive  such  compensation.  By  Art.  297 
(1),  "Germany  undertakes  to  compen- 
sate her  nationals  in  respect  to  the  sale 
or  retention  of  their  property,  rights,  or 
interests  in  Allied  and  Associated 
States";  and  by  Art.  74  the  same  pro- 
vision is  applied  specifically  to  Germans 
in  Alsace-Lorraine  who  may  be  dis- 
possessed. Expropriated  property,  more- 
over, is  to  be  used  primarily  to  pay  pri- 
vate debts  owed  by  Germans  to  citizens 
of  Allied  countries  through  an  interna- 
tional clearing  office;  if  any  balance  re- 
mains and  is  retained  by  an  Allied  Power, 
it  is  to  be  credited  to  Germany  on  the 
reparation  account. 

2.  As  an  example  of  the  perversion  of 
the  plain  meaning  of  the  Fourteen  Points 
through  "sophistry  and  Jesuitical  exe- 
gesis," Mr.  Keynes  points  to  the  clause 
making  Danzig  a  free  city,  with  the 
proviso  that  it  shall  be  included  within 
the  customs  frontier  of  Poland  and  that 
its  foreign  relations  shall  be  conducted 
by  the  Polish  Government.  Yet  this 
clause  merely  translates  into  the  con- 
crete Point  13,  which  required  that  "the 
Polish  State  shall  have  free  and  secure 
access  to  the  sea."  This  requirement,  it 
is  manifest,  could  not  be  effectually  and 
lastingly  realized  by  leaving  the  mouths 
of  the  Vistula  in  German  hands;  nor 
could  it  be  realized  by  establishing  a  com- 
pletely independent  port,  with  its  own 
customs  system  and  the  power  to  make 
commercial  or  other  treaties  on  its  own 
account.  Under  the  treaty  the  town 
becomes  self-governing,  but  with  restric- 
tions indispensable  if  Poland's  access  to 
the  sea  is  to  be  really  "free"  and  really 
"secure."  Mr.  Keynes's  complaint  seems 
to  be  that  the  Allies  kept  faith  with  the 
Poles. 


3.  "Clemenceau  brought  to  success," 
says  Mr.  Keynes,  "what  had  seemed  to 
be,  a  few  months  before,  the  extraordi- 
nary and  impossible  proposal  that  the 
Germans  should  not  be  heard."  That 
the  German  delegates  were  not  "heard," 
in  a  physiological  sense,  is  true.  It  is 
not  true,  as  the  reader  would  naturally 
suppose,  that  no  hearing  was  given  to 
their  side  of  the  case.  They  were  in 
Paris  for  some  seven  weeks;  during  the 
whole  of  this  time  they  were  busily 
engaged  in  drafting  and  laying  before 
the  representatives  of  the  Allies  a 
voluminous  series  of  notes  in  criticism 
of  the  treaty-draft,  and  in  submitting 
counter-proposals  traversing  the  entire 
field  of  the  peace  settlement.  All  these 
communications  were  received,  published, 
considered,  and  answered  in  detail;  and 
some  alterations  in  the  treaty  were  made 
in  consequence,  the  most  important  being 
the  provision  for  a  plebiscite  in  Upper 
Silesia.  The  objections  to  the  holding 
of  a  series  of  public  oral  debates  (in 
three  or  four  languages)  between  the 
Allied  and  the  German  delegates  were 
surely   obvious   and   sufficient. 

4.  Both  Mr.  Keynes  and  Dr.  Dillon 
represent  the  arrangement  concerning 
the  Saar  Valley  as  (in  the  words  of  the 
former)  "an  act  of  spoliation  and  insin- 
cerity"; and  both,  in  order  to  prove  it 
such,  give  misleading  accounts  of  the 
provisions  of  the  treaty.  The  reason 
officially  given  for  the  arrangement  is 
that  it  was  made  "as  compensation  for 
the  destruction  of  coal  mines  in  the  north 
of  France  and  as  part  payment  towards 
the  total  reparation  due  from  Germany." 
Mr.  Keynes,  however,  charges  that  this 
explanation  is  disingenuous.  For,  he 
asserts,  "compensation  for  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  French  coal  mines  is  pro- 
vided for  elsewhere  in  the  treaty."  "As 
a  part  of  the  payment  due  for  repara- 
tion, Germany  is  to  deliver  to  France 
7,000,000  tons  annually  for  ten  years," 
these  deliveries  being  "wholly  additional 
to  the  amounts  available  by  the  cession 
of  the  Saar  or  in  compensation  for 
destruction  in  Northern  France."  If 
these  statements  were  accurate,  they 
would,  doubtless,  convict  the  framers  of 
the  treaty  of  a  deliberate  attempt  to  mis- 
lead the  public.  But  it  is  Mr.  Keynes 
who  misleads  the  public.  The  clauses  to 
which  he  refers  merely  give  France  for 
ten  years  an  option  for  the  annual  pur- 
chase, at  the  market  price,  of  diminish- 
ing quantities  of  coal  from  Germany. 
The  maximum  (27  million  tons)  possi- 
ble in  any  one  year  under  the  option 
about  equals  the  1912  output  of  the  Nord 
and  Pas  de  Calais  mines ;  after  five  years 
the  deliveries  can  not  exceed  60%,  and 
may  fall  to  about  25%  of  that  amount. 
These  clauses  provide  an  offset  for 
France's  future  loss  in  coal  production, 
but  they  manifestly  propose  no  repara- 
tion whatever  for  the  malicious  destruc- 


280] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  45 


tion  of  the  mines  themselves,  or  for  the 
loss  of  their  output,  or  of  that  of  the 
iron  mines  of  Briey,  during  the  past  five 
years.  Moreover,  France  is  not  assured 
of  the  fulfillment  of  this  option.  For  the 
treaty  provides  that  if  the  Reparation 
Commission  "shall  determine  that  the 
full  exercise  of  these  options  would  inter- 
fere unduly  with  the  industrial  require- 
ments of  Germany,  the  Commission  is 
authorized  to  postpone  or  to  cancel  deliv- 
eries." And,  as  Professor  Haskins  has 
already  pointed  out,  Mr.  Keynes  else- 
where seeks  to  prove  that  these  clauses 
are  an  illusion,  since  it  is  impossible  for 
Germany  to  furnish  the  coal  required; 
so  that  his  own  arugments  go  to  show 
that  the  Saar  Valley  provisions  alone 
afford  France  a  substantial  guarantee 
of  compenstion  for  the  ruin  of  the 
greater  part  of  her  coal-mining  industry. 
It  becomes,  in  truth,  increasingly  evi- 
dent that  they  give  almost  the  only 
security  for  prompt  reparation,  of  any 
kind,  that  France  possesses. 

Dr.  Dillon,  however,  asserts  (what  Mr. 
Keynes  apparently  implies)  that  the  pur- 
pose of  the  clauses  relating  to  the  Saar 
Valley  was  less  to  obtain  reparation  than 
to  mask  a  design  of  eventual  annexation. 
"For  fifteen  years,"  he  writes,  "there  is 
to  be  a  foreign  administration  there,  and 
at  the  end  of  it  the  people  are  to  be 
asked  whether  they  would  like  to  place 
themselves  under  French  sway,  so  that  a 
premium  is  offered  for  French  immigra- 
tion into  the  Saar  Valley."  But  by  Art. 
34  "all  persons,  without  distinction  of 
sex,  more  than  twenty  years  old  at  the 
date  of  the  voting,  resident  in  the  terri- 
tory at  the  date  of  the  signature  of  the 
present  treaty,"  will  be  entitled  to  vote  in 
the  plebiscite  of  1934.  No  other  class  of 
voters  is  provided  for;  and  no  extension 
of  the  suffrage  beyond  the  class  thus 
defined  could  be  accomplished  without 
the  vote  of  a  majority  of  the  Council  of 
the  League  of  Nations.  Nor  can  it  be 
assumed  that  the  League  will  disregard 
the  plebiscite.  There  is  therefore  no 
likelihood  of  annexation  to  France  four- 
teen years  hence,  unless  the  present  pop- 
ulation of  the  district  then  desire  it. 
Why  the  believers  in  "self-determination" 
should  wish  to  withhold  from  this  popu- 
lation, at  the  close  of  the  existing  tem- 
porary arrangement,  the  privilege  of 
determining  freely  their  future  alle- 
giance, is  difficult  to  see.  Dr.  Dillon  still 
more  grossly  misrepresents  the  facts 
when  he  repeatedly  asserts  that  the 
treaty  "makes  over  the  German  popula- 
tion of  the  Saar  Valley  to  France  at  the 
end  of  fifteen  years  as  a  fair  equivalent 
of  a  sum  of  money  payable  in  gold." 
What  he  means  to  convey  by  this  is  that 
if  Germany  fails  to  repurchase  the 
mines,  the  district  and  its  inhabitants 
will  be  transferred  to  France.  The 
treaty  in  its  final  form  contains  no  such 
provision. 


5.  The  confiding  reader  of  Mr. 
Keynes's  book  could  gain  no  other  im- 
pression than  that  President  Wilson's 
part  in  the  Conference  was  essentially  a 
passive  one;  that  he  gradually  surren- 
dered the  substance  of  almost  all  the 
principles  which  he  had  previously  so 
eloquently  enunciated,  content  if  only,  by 
ingenious  glosses  and  interpretations, 
some  verbal  show  of  conformity  with 
the  "Fourteen  Points"  were  maintained. 
And  Dr.  Dillon  quotes  with  approval  the 
words  of  an  American  journalist:  "Cle- 
menceau  got  virtually  all  he  asked. 
President  Wilson  virtually  dropped  his 
own  programme  and  adopted  the  French 
and  British,  both  imperialistic."  The 
easy  verifiable  truth  of  the  matter  is 
that,  while  the  treaty,  as  might  have 
been  expected,  was  made  possible  only  by 
concessions  on  the  part  of  all  concerned, 
the  concessions  obtained  by  Mr.  Wilson 
were  of  far  greater  significance  than 
those  which  he  yielded  and  that,  but  for 
his  tenacity  of  purpose,  the  treaty  would 
be  immensely  different  from  what  it  is, 
and  incomparably  more  "imperialistic." 
A  too  easy  plasticity  is  scarcely  the  fault 
with  which  the  members  of  the  Confer- 
ence are  most  likely  to  reproach  Mr.  Wil- 
son. It  is  indubitable  that,  up  to  April  6, 
the  French  delegation  demanded  the 
restoration  of  "the  frontier  of  1814," 
i.  e.,  the  actual  annexation  of  the  Saar 
district;  and  that  on  the  morrow  of  the 
President's  sending  for  the  George 
Washington  this  demand  was  withdrawn. 
It  is  also  a  matter  of  official  record,  in 
the  report  of  the  Commission  de  la  Paix 
of  the  Chamber  of  Deputies,  that  until 
the  middle  of  March  the  representatives 
of  France  insisted  that  all  German  ter- 
ritory on  the  left  bank  of  the  Rhine 
should  willy-nilly  be  separated  from  the 
German  Empire.  The  Government  ex- 
plained to  the  Committee  of  the  Chamber 
its  reluctant  abandonment  of  this  demand 
on  these  grounds,  among  others:  "That 
it  had  been  objected  that,  without  vio- 
lating the  principles  adopted  on  Novem- 
ber 4,  1918,  as  the  basis  of  the  peace 
[i.  e.,  the  Fourteen  Points],  it  was  im- 
possible to  separate  from  Germany  five 
and  a  half  million  Germans  with  a 
plebiscite — which,  moreover,  if  held, 
would  result  in  favor  of  Germany;"  and 
that  "for  these  reasons  certain  govern- 
ments refused  to  associate  their  troops 
[indefinitely]  in  the  occupation"  of  the 
Rhineland  or  "to  recommend  to  their  par- 
liaments the  breaking  of  the  bond  be- 
tween Germany  and  the  left  bank  of  the 
Rhine."  It  was,  however,  only  after 
President  Wilson's  suggestion  of  the  spe- 
cial treaties  with  England  and  the 
United  States,  as  an  alternative  guaran- 
tee for  the  security  of  France  against 
German  aggression,  that  the  French  Gov- 
ernment finally  yielded  the  point. 

Now  these  two  French  demands,  for 
which    M.    Clemenceau    seems    to    have 


fought  with  all  his  skill,  resourcefulness 
and  pertinacity,  were  obviously  the 
supreme  danger-points  of  the  Confer- 
ence. Their  acceptance  would  have 
meant  a  clear  repudiation  of  the  princi- 
ples of  settlement  agreed  to  by  the  Allies 
before  the  armistice;  it  would  have  made 
probable,  and  justifiable,  a  German  irre- 
dentist movement  of  the  most  formidable 
proportions;  and  it  would  have  been  in 
the  highest  degree  threatening  to  the 
peace  of  Europe.  In  this  crucial  issue, 
it  was  not  Mr.  Wilson  who  yielded  the 
essentials  of  his  position.  This  fact 
alone  compels  one  to  regard  both  Mr. 
Keynes's  and  Dr.  Dillon's  picture  of  the 
President's  role  in  the  negotiations  as 
little  better  than  caricatures.  There 
are  many  other  facts,  easily  ascertainable 
by  any  unbiased  student  of  the  treaty 
and  of  the  history  of  the  Conference, 
which  justify  the  same  conclusion.  Like 
all  clever  caricatures,  Mr.  Keynes's  pic- 
ture has  its  touches  of  verisimilitude;  but 
in  the  main,  it  can  most  charitably  be 
described  as  a  brilliant  exercise  of  the 
creative  imagination.  But  the  public,  it 
is  to  be  feared,  cares  much  more  for 
brilliant  exercises  of  the  creative  imagi- 
nation than  it  does  for  facts. 

Arthur  0.  Lovejoy 
Baltimore,  Md.,  March  6 

[As  regards  the  facts  mentioned  in 
Professor  Lovejoy's  last  paragraph,  the 
reader  is  referred  to  an  article  in  the 
Revieiv  for  December  20,  1919,  by  Mr. 
Frederick  Moore,  who  attended  the 
Peace  Conference,  and  who  holds  a  very 
different  opinion  as  to  the  amount  oi 
the  President's  yielding. — Eds.  The  Re- 
view.] 

Fuel  in  Germany 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review  : 

In  noting  your  issue  of  December  27 
last  under  the  heading  of  "Impresssions 
from  Hungary,"  I  was  surprised  at  the 
following  statement :  "Germany,  to  the 
writer's  positive  knowledge,  is  the  only 
country  on  the  continent  where  the  sup- 
ply of  fuel  is  adequate,  and  the  factories 
are  working  day  and  night." 

No  statement  could  be  farther  from 
the  truth.  During  the  latter  part  of 
last  year  I  was  in  Germany  for  about 
four  weeks,  and  I  was  unable  to  make 
my  purchases  because  of  the  fact  that 
there  was  no  paper  to  be  had,  on  account 
of  lack  of  fuel.  In  one  factory,  in  Nlirn- 
berg,  they  were  fighting  desperately  to 
keep  the  boilers  going  by  using  a  com- 
bination of  the  poorest  grade  of  coal, 
wood,  and  peat,  and  after  I  got  to  Paris 
I  received  word  that  the  factory  had 
closed  down  on  account  of  this  supply 
having  become  exhausted,  and  that  they 
could  not  predict  when  they  would  re- 
sume. 

W.  J.  Lowenstein 
Atlanta,  Ga.,  March  5 


lAIarch  20,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[281 


Book  Reviews 

Republicanism  in  China 

Modern   China:    A  Political  Study.     By  Sih- 
Gung  Cheng.     Oxford;    Clarendon  Press. 

IN  Part  II  of  this  volume  Mr.  Cheng 
has  dealt  with  China's  foreign  rela- 
tions, extraterritoriality,  tariffs,  eco- 
nomic concessions,  and  foreign  invest- 
ments, but,  with  regard  to  these  topics, 
has  furnished  no  considerable  informa- 
tion not  already  available  in  other  works. 
In  Part  I,  however,  which  deals  with  con- 
stitutional developments  in  China,  he  has 
presented  a  new  and  valuable  account 
of  recent  political  events  in  his  country, 
an  account  which,  besides  being  inform- 
ing, raises  questions  which  deserve  some 
discussion  because  in  the  answers  to  them 
will  appear  not  only  an  explanation  of  the 
happenings  in  China  of  the  last  few 
years,  but  a  basis  for  judging  whether  a 
rapid  development  of  constitutional  and 
republican  institutions  in  that  country 
may  be  expected  in  the  near  future. 

It  has  now  been  more  than  eight  years 
since  the  Manchu  monarchy  was  over- 
thrown and  a  government,  republican  in 
form,  established  in  its  place.  During 
these  years,  the  domestic  situation  in 
China — not  to  speak  of  her  foreign  rela- 
tions— has  gone  from  bad  to  worse.  As 
yet  it  has  been  found  impossible  to  put 
into  force  a  permanent  constitution.  The 
so-called  "Provisional  Constitution,"  hur- 
riedly drawn  up  and  promulgated  early 
in  1912,  and  admitted  by  every  one  to  be 
seriously  defective  as  an  instrument  of 
government,  is  still  in  force  as  the 
fundamental  law  of  the  Republic.  Twice 
the  attempt  has  been  made  to  reestab- 
lish the  monarchy :  the  first  time  by 
Yuan  Shih-Kai,  and  the  second  time  by 
the  bandit  general,  Chang  Hsun,  who 
actually  succeeded  in  maintaining  the 
deposed  Manchu  boy  emperor  upon  the 
dragon  throne  for  something  over  a  week. 
Twice  the  Parliament,  without  a  shadow 
of  constitutional  warrant,  has  been  dis- 
solved by  Presidential  mandate,  and,  at 
the  present  time,  most  of  the  southern 
and  southwestern  Provinces  refuse  to 
admit  the  de  jure  character  of  the  new 
Parliament  at  Peking  or  the  legal  title 
to  office  of  the  President  elected  by  it. 
Instead-«-in  form  if  not  in  substance — 
they  give  their  allegiance  to  a  body  sit- 
ting at  Canton  which  claims  to  be  com- 
posed of  a  majority  of  the  members  of 
the  old  twice-dissolved  Parliament.  At- 
j  tempts,  continuing  for  nearly  two  years, 
I  have  been  made  to  compromise  the  differ- 
ences between  the  Canton  and  Peking 
Governments,  but  as  yet  without  success. 
Meanwhile,  there  has  been  a  stead- 
ily increasing  domestic  demoralization. 
The  control  of  the  Government  at  Peking 
over  even  those  Provinces  which  acknowl- 
edge a  nominal  allegiance  to  it  has  almost 


disappeared;  the  civil  authorities  have 
not  been  able  to  control  the  military 
forces  (the  second  dissolution  of  the  Par- 
liament by  President  Li  Yuan-Hung  was 
directly  due  to  military  threats)  ;  the 
construction  of  railways  and  other  pub- 
lic works  has  been  at  a  standstill;  and 
the  national  revenues  have  been  wholly 
inadequate  to  meet  even  primary  gov- 
ernmental needs,  with  the  result  that  re- 
peated foreign  loans  have  been  a  neces- 
sity, and  these  having  been  obtained  in 
large  measure  from  Japan  have  carried 
with  them  concessions  not  only  economi- 
cally onerous,  but  politically  dangerous. 
In  short,  as  yet  the  Chinese  people  have 
not  been  able  to  give  substance  and  full 
constitiitional  operation  to  their  repub- 
lican form  of  government,  but  have  been 
forced  to  endure  a  progressive  breakdown 
of  their  civil  administrative  services,  to 
see  their  northern  and  southern  Prov- 
inces at  war  with  each  other,  and  to  sub- 
mit, as  they  did  in  1915,  at  the  time  of 
Japan's  Twenty-One  Demands,  to  serious 
inroads  upon  their  sovereignty  and  in- 
tegrity as  an  independent  nation. 

Beyond  doubt  China  has  been  greatly 
hindered  in  her  efforts  to  develop  con- 
stitutional government  and  to  give  real- 
ity to  republican  principles,  by  the  con- 
stant interference  of  Japan  in  her  do- 
mestic affairs;  but,  in  addition,  it  is  evi- 
dent that  the  Chinese  people  were  far 
from  prepared  by  previous  political  expe- 
rience and  long-established  conceptions 
of  law  and  government  for  the  plunge 
which,  in  1911,  they  took  into  the 
troubled,  if  stimulating,  waters  of  de- 
mocracy. This  is  a  matter  which  de- 
serves some  discussion  in  view  of  the 
statement  so  often  made  that  the  Chi- 
nese people  were  peculiarly  qualified  for 
the  republican  experiment  by  reason  of 
the  extent  to  which,  for  many  genera- 
tions, they  had  practised  self-government 
in  their  local  affairs,  and  because  of  the 
essentially  democratic  character  of  their 
social  and  economic  life. 

The  truth  is,  paradoxical  as  it  may 
seem,  that  it  has  been  precisely  because 
of  these  facts  that  the  Chinese  have 
found  it  difficult  to  maintain  an  effective 
central  government  founded  upon  a 
democratic  basis.  In  the  first  place, 
republican  or  representative  government, 
to  be  successful,  must  rest  upon  a  con- 
stitutional basis;  that  is,  it  must  be  a 
government  of  laws  and  not  of  men. 
Now  this  very  idea  of  government  by 
uniform,  imperative  law,  as  opposed  to 
personal  authority,  has,  in  tlie  past, 
played  a  peculiarly  small  part  in  Chinese 
notions  of  rule.  It  has  been  said  by  one 
of  the  most  philosophical  of  the  writers 
upon  Chinese  history  (Meadows)  that 
"of  all  races  that  have  attained  a  certain 
degree  of  civilization  the  Chinese  are  the 
least  revolutionary  and  the  most  rebel- 
lious." By  this  statement  the  author  evi- 
dently means  that  the  Chinese  have  ever 


laid  emphasis  upon  the  personal  charac- 
ter of  their  rulers  and  have  consistently 
maintained  their  right  to  rid  themselves 
of  emperors  or  provincial  governors  as 
well  as  of  lower  public  officials  by  whom 
they  have  conceived  themselves  to  be 
oppressed  or  under  whose  rule  they  have, 
for  any  reason,  failed  to  prosper.  But 
not  until  1911  did  they  show  any  desire 
to  change  the  forms  of  government  under 
which  they  lived.  Personal  rule  they 
understood  and  seemed  to  prefer,  and, 
having  got  rid  of  an  incompetent  or 
tyrannical  ruler,  they  were  satisfied  to 
replace  him  with  another  ruler,  with 
equal  powers,  from  whom  they  might 
hope  to  obtain  more  beneficent  govern- 
ment. 

Again,  in  the  adjustment  of  their  per- 
sonal differences,  the  Chinese  were  not 
accustomed  to  resort  to  law,  as  the  west- 
ern world  understands  that  term,  or  to 
tribunals  maintained  by  the  state.  Dis- 
putes between  members  of  a  family  or 
clan  were  settled  by  the  heads  of  the 
family  or  clan.  Controversies  between 
inhabitants  of  the  same  villages,  or  be- 
tween the  villages  themselves,  were  set- 
tled by  the  "village  elders,"  who  owed 
their  station  and  authority  rather  to 
tacit  recognition  of  merit  than  to  formal 
election  by  the  villagers.  Differences 
between  merchants  were  almost  always 
settled  by  the  guilds,  of  which  practi- 
cally all  the  merchants  were  members. 
And,  finally,  even  when  there  were  orders 
issued  by  the  political  authorities,  the  ob- 
ligation to  obey  was  conceived  to  be  a 
moral  or  rational,  rather  than  a  political 
or  legal,  one.  It  is  true  that  these  orders 
were  issued  as  commands,  and  often  had 
attached  to  them  the  admonition  "trem- 
blingly obey,"  but,  in  fact,  they  were  com- 
monly prefaced  by  argumentative  state- 
ments which  indicated  that  they  were 
intended  to  be  persuasive  in  character; 
that  is,  to  appeal  primarily  to  the  reason 
and  sense  of  moral  obligation  of  the  per- 
sons to  whom  they  were  directed.  In  this 
important  respect,  then,  the  Chinese  were 
not,  by  their  past  practices  and  political 
philosophy,  prepared  for  that  rigid  rule 
of  law  which  a  constitutional  regime 
imports  and  which  is  a  prerequisite  to  a 
Government  which  is  to  be  legally  as 
well  as  politically  responsible  to  the  gov- 
erned. 

In  the  second  place,  and  closely  con- 
nected with  the  first  point,  the  Chinese 
in  the  past  had  been  habituated  not  so 
much  to  self-government  as  to  doing 
without  government  at  all.  It  has  been 
seen  that  the  Chinese  were  wont  to  make 
comparatively  little  use  of  the  judicial 
branch  of  their  Government.  The  legis- 
lative branch  meant  even  less  to  them,  as 
they  found  the  substantive  rules  of  con- 
duct in  custom  rather  than  in  statute 
law.  And  as  for  the  executive  branch, 
they  demanded  very  little  of  it.  To  the 
central  Government  they  were  willing  to 


282] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  45 


pay  their  very  moderate  taxes,  but  from 
it  they  expected  little  beyond  protection 
against  foreign  aggression,  and  a  few 
public  works  of  too  great  magnitude  for 
local  undertaking,  a  general  direction  of 
state  examinations  for  entrance  to  the 
public  service,  occasional  aid  in  cases  of 
great  crop  failures,  floods,  or  other  dis- 
asters, and  protection  against  banditry 
when  this  evil  became  too  serious  to  be 
met  by  the  local  authorities.  And  of  their 
local  Governments  the  Chinese  people 
asked  almost  nothing — no  administration 
of  such  local  affairs  as  sanitation,  edu- 
cation, fire  protection,  road  building,  and 
the  like.  Even  as  to  local  police  protec- 
tion, only  a  minimum  was  expected. 
Thus  it  happened  that  in  many  of  the 
villages  long  periods  elapsed  during 
which,  except  the  collection  of  taxes  or 
the  recording  of  land  transfers,  no  dis- 
tinctively governmental  functions  were 
exercised  from  one  year's  end  to  another. 

The  third  respect  in  which  the  ground 
in  China  had  not  been  prepared  for  rep- 
resentative government — and  here  an- 
other seeming  paradox  appears — was 
that  the  Chinese  constituted  such  a 
socially  and  economically  democratized 
people  that  there  did  not  exist  clearly 
defined  classes  or  interests  upon  which 
political  representation  might  be  based. 
This  was  a  feature  emphasized  by  Dr. 
Frank  J.  Goodnow  in  an  important  mem- 
orandum which,  as  constitutional  ad- 
viser, he  submitted  to  the  President  of 
China.* 

Finally,  and  perhaps  the  most  impor- 
tant of  all  the  circumstances  which  have 
made  the  republican  experiment  pecu- 
liarly difficult  to  the  Chinese  people,  has 
been  the  lack  of  a  politically  effective 
national  patriotism.  No  people  have 
been  more  proud,  and,  in  many  respects, 
justly  proud,  of  their  civilization  and 
national  attainments  than  the  Chinese, 
and  few  peoples  in  the  world  have  been 
more  clearly  entitled  to  be  deemed  and 
treated  as  a  single  nation  when  viewed 
from  the  standpoint  of  an  ethnic  and  cul- 
tural homogeneity  reinforced  by  a  long 
and  unbroken  history  of  political  unity. 
But  this  feeling  of  national  oneness  had 
not,  prior  to  the  revolution  of  1919,  led  to 
a  patriotism  that  had  made  the  Chinese 
willing  to  sacrifice  individual,  or  family, 
or  local  interests  to  those  of  a  national 
character.  The  Chinese  were,  and  are, 
not  without  idealism,  but  they  also  have 
a  very  keen  conception  of  what  is  of 
direct  and  immediate  practical  value  to 
themselves.  And  thus,  obtaining  almost 
nothing  for  themselves  from  their  cen- 
tral Government,  and  viewing,  indeed, 
their  political  rulers  in  a  peculiarly  de- 
tached manner  as  concerned  with  matters 
with  which  they,  the  mass  of  the  people, 
were  not  personally  concerned,  they  were 


♦Later  published  in  the  American  Political 
Science  Review,  VIII,  541. 


not  willing  to  make  considerable  sacri- 
fices in  their  behalf  or  in  behalf  of  the 
political  organization  which  they  repre- 
sented and  operated.  Politically,  as  well 
as  economically  and  socially,  their  pri- 
mary allegiance  had  always  been  to  the 
family,  the  clan,  or  the  village.  The 
result  was  that,  even  prior  to  the  revo- 
lution of  1911,  the  control  which  the 
central  Government  had  been  able  to 
exercise  over  the  Provinces  and  their 
lesser  administrative  divisions  had  al- 
ways been  a  precarious  one.  Since  the 
revolution  that  control  has  been  almost 
non-existent.  Because  of  this  the  cen- 
tral Government  has  been  unable  to  ob- 
tain adequate  revenues,  and  this  in  turn 
has  tended  to  demoralize  their  admin- 
istrative services  and  to  place  them  at 
the  mercy  of  the  foreign  Powers  to  whom 
they  have  had  to  resort  for  loans. 

A  false  impression  would  be  left,  how- 
ever, if  it  were  not  pointed  out  that, 
upon  the  credit  side  of  the  political 
ledger,  there  are  important  and  growing 
items  which,  if  allowed  to  increase,  with- 
out foreign  interference,  may  be  ex- 
pected, in  time,  to  overcome  the  debit 
entrise  which  have  been  spoken  of.  The 
mere  fact  of  having  a  government  that, 
in  principle,  is  based  upon  the  will  of 
the  governed,  has  had  an  enormously 
quickening  effect  upon  the  minds  of  the 
Chinese  people.  The  remnants  of  the 
old  antipathy  to  things  western  are  dis- 
appearing with  increasing  speed.  The 
idea  that  governments  exist  in  order  to 
advance,  in  an  affirmative  manner,  the 
welfare  of  the  whole  people,  and  not  sim- 
ply to  provide  places  of  profit  to  those 
who  happen  to  occupy  the  seats  of  power, 
is  rapidly  making  its  way.  Government 
has  become  a  matter  of  public  discus- 
sion, and  its  acts  are  subject  to  a  sus- 
tained, even  if  not  as  yet,  in  many  in- 
stances, an  effective  public  criticism.  A 
true  general  will  with  reference  to  mat- 
ters political  is  developing;  the  people 
are  more  and  more  tending  to  think  na- 
tionally— a  point  that  is  of  importance 
from  the  international  as  well  as  from 
the  national  point  of  view.  And,  in  this 
connection,  it  is  significant  that,  despite 
the  contest  and  even  open  warfare  that 
has  existed  between  the  northern  and 
southern  Provinces,  there  has  been 
evinced  upon  neither  side  a  desire  that 
the  solution  should  be  found  by  dividing 
the  country  into  two  independent  States. 
With  the  further  development  of  means 
of  communication  and  transportation 
this  national  solidarity,  thus  strikingly 
exhibited,  will  inevitably  become  more 
and  more  manifest.  The  Japanese,  by  the 
attacks  which  they  have  been  constantly 
making  against  the  territorial  rights  of 
the  Chinese,  are  doing  much  to  hasten 
the  development  of  this  national  patri- 
otism, for,  uncomplimentary  though  it 
may  be  to  the  races  of  men,  it  seems  to 
be  a  fact  that  a  sense  of  injury  or  danger 


from  an  outside  source  is  the  most  ef- 
fective of  all  forces  in  creating  a  strong 
national  feeling.  If  then,  it  be  true,  as 
has  sometimes  been  asserted,  that  a  cen- 
tralized, energetic  Chinese  state  will  be 
a  menace  to  Japan,  or,  at  any  rate,  will 
render  impossible  the  realization  by  her 
of  certain  of  her  ambitions,  Japan,  from 
the  practical  point  of  view,  has  been  pur- 
suing during  recent  years  a  highly  inex- 
pedient policy  toward  her  neighbor. 

W.    W.    WiLLOUGHBY 

A  Treatise  for  the  Man  in 
the  Shop 

The  Flow  of  Value.  By  Logan  Grant  Mc- 
Pherson.  New  York:  The  Century  Com- 
pany. 

MR.  Mcpherson's  subject  is  of  such 
high  importance  that  it  is  a  pity 
he  lacks  an  ingratiating  style.  Who  could 
read  the  following  without  effort:  "The 
ratio  to  the  dollar  of  man-hours— that 
is,  the  wage  of  the  employee — is  deter- 
mined by  interrelations  between  the 
supply  of  and  the  demand  for  effort  of 
the  quality  he  is  capable  of  applying 
toward  the  production  of  final  utilities; 
and  the  ratio  to  the  dollar  of  final  utili- 
ties is  determined  by  the  interrelations 
between  the  supply  of  and  the  demand 
for  final  utilities  of  the  respective  kinds 
which  find  expression  in  the  proportions 
of  man-hours  applied  that  final  pur- 
chasers pay  for  final  utilities  of  the 
respective  kinds."  Other  passages  quite 
as  tedious  could  be  quoted  from  the  work 
before  us.  They  impair  the  effective- 
ness of  what  is  in  many  ways  a  very 
valuable  treatise. 

Mr.  McPherson  is  justly  entitled  to 
this  mild  censure  because  it  is  obvious 
that  his  aim  is  to  reach  the  man  in  the 
shop  and  the  factory.  That  his  inten- 
tion is  to  be  elementary  is  disclosed  by 
his  opening  paragraph,  in  which  he 
imagines  the  effect  which  our  earthly 
affairs  would  have  on  a  man  from  Mars. 
The  presumption  is,  of  course,  that  the 
man  from  Mars  is  utterly  unfamiliar 
with  the  course  of  things  in  this  world, 
but  is  the  personification  of  that  intelli- 
gence which  enables  him  to  perceive, 
prompts  him  to  inquire,  impels  him  to 
logical  conclusion.  Our  author  attempts 
to  outline  certain  phases  of  human  exist- 
ence as  they  would  have  appeared  to  the 
Martian  at  any  time  during  the  years 
which  preceded  the  outbreak  of  the  war 
of  1914.  This  is  not  the  way  an  economic 
writer  would  present  the  situation  to 
economic  thinkers;  it  is,  however,  one 
of  the  best  ways  to  present  it  to  those 
who  are  about  to  begin  to  think  eco- 
nomically. 

Mr.  McPherson  may  be  said  to  think 
aloud.  We  participate  in  the  whole  men- 
tal process  by  which  he  reaches  the 
conclusions  here  embodied.  Economics, 
supposititiously  the  driest  of  subjects,  is 


March  20,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[288 


related  to  the  commonest  and  most  neces- 
sary facts  of  life.  The  commonest  facts 
of  life,  however,  are  the  most  instinctive 
facts  and  the  ones  which  the  ordinary 
mind  cares  least  to  think  about.  The 
difficulty  of  proving  the  obvious  is,  after 
all,  what  makes  economics  trying  to 
most  persons.  Now,  it  is  the  obvious 
that  Mr.  McPherson  is  trying  to  prove, 
and  perhaps  we  are  a  trifle  unfair  in 
calling   him   hard    reading. 

We  hasten  to  add  that  we  can  recall 
no  one  who  has  been  more  successful  in 
proving  the  obvious.  Essential  to  prop- 
erty is  the  application  of  human  effort, 
which  first  brings  into  possession  that 
in  which  there  is  property,  and  the  put- 
ting forth  of  effort,  when  necessary,  to 
protect  the  rights  of  property  in  that 
which  has  been  brought  into  possession. 
Such  effort  is  primarily  exerted  by  the 
person  in  protecting  his  rights.  The 
right  to  property  is  not  only  the  right 
to  hold,  use,  and  dispose  of  that  in  which 
a  person  has  property,  but  also  to  hold, 
use,  and  dispose  of  that  which  is  pro- 
duced through  the  utilization  of  that  in 
which  he  has  property.  Man  not  only 
uses  and  disposes  of  forms  of  matter, 
but  he  uses  and  disposes  of  measures  of 
force.  The  very  use  and  disposition  of 
matter  necessarily  involves  the  use  and 
disposition  of  force.  The  results  of  his 
efforts  are  due  as  much  to  the  applica- 
tion of  force  as  to  the  matter  to  which 
force  is  applied.  The  right  to  property 
in  the  force  which  man  directs  to  his 
ends  has  an  implied  recognition  in  the 
law.  In  the  sense  that  a  man  has  the 
right  either  to  use  or  to  dispose  of  the 
right  to  use  the  force  thereof,  he  has 
property  in  his  body  and  his  brain. 

This  is  a  common-sense  deduction 
from  the  facts  of  experience  and  from  a 
study  of  the  mental  constitution  of  the 
race.  But  the  fact  that  it  is  common 
sense  may  not  enhance  its  value  in  a 
revolutionary  period,  when  the  fact  of 
individual  ownership  of  matter,  includ- 
ing gray  matter,  is  generally  questioned. 
Mr.  McPherson  declares,  however,  that 
the  written  law  has  defined  the  rights  to 
property  in  matter,  though  it  has  not  as 
yet  fully  defined  the  rights  to  property 
in  force.  There  is  lack  of  general  recog- 
nition of  the  fact  that  to  the  mental 
effort  of  those  who  direct  and  coordinate 
the  application  of  force,  is  due  the  pro- 
duction in  greater  volume  than  otherwise 
would  be  possible  of  the  things  that  men 
use  and  consume.  "It  is  not  only  the 
concrete  things  in  which  a  man  or  a 
business  organization  has  property  that 
conduce  to  the  most  effective  production 
of  things  and  services  that  meet  the 
wants  of  humankind,  but  in  greater 
measure  the  brains  of  those  who  give 
that  arrangement  to  these  concrete 
things  which  enables  their  most  effec- 
tive utilization,  and  so  direct  and  co- 
ordinate the  application  of  force  to  them 


and  through  them  that  the  most  effec- 
tive result  is  obtained." 

Such  is  the  theme  of  the  present  work. 
The  development  of  the  theme  involves 
much  minute  investigation  of  the 
promptings  and  processes  of  human 
nature.  Effect  is  traced  back  to  cause; 
step  by  step  the  genesis  and  development 
of  prices,  wages,  and  profit  are  noted. 
"Toward  meeting  his  wants,"  says  Mr. 
McPherson,  "man  utilizes  matter  in  vast 
aggregates,  in  manifold  combinations, 
and  in  minute  subdivisions.  He  utilizes 
force  in  mighty  currents  and  in  infini- 
tesimal pulsation."  And  he  tells  us 
why  and  how.  He  deals  with  "utilities," 
showing  why  they  come  into  being  and 
how  they  are  diffuped.  The  exchange 
of  utilities  connotes  "want,"  and  in  eco- 
nomic phraseology  "want"  signifies  not 
only  that  a  person  desires  a  thing  but 
that  he  has  that  in  exchange  for  which 
it  may  be  obtained.  Similarly,  in  eco- 
nomic parlance,  "demand"  signifies  the 
offering  of  that  in  return  for  which  that 
which  meets  a  "want"  may  be  obtained. 

The  value  of  the  present  work  lies  in 
the  clearness  with  which  the  fact  is 
developed  that  all  commodities  and  ser- 
vices are  the  product  of  human  effort, 
and  that  the  greater  the  production  as 
compared  to  the  effort  the  greater  will 
be  the  supply,  and  thus  the  greater  the 
well-being  of  every  individual.  The 
vigorous  enforcement  of  this  truth  at  a 
time  when  the  world  seems  bent  on  a 
hunger  strike  is  a  real  service. 

L' Affaire  Caillaux 

The  Enemy  Within.  Hitherto  unpublished 
details  of  the  great  conspiracy  to  corrupt 
and  destroy  France.  By  Severance  John- 
son, special  investigator  and  correspond- 
ent at  the  Peace  Conference.  New  York : 
The  James  A.  McCann  Company. 

THIS  lamentable  work  reveals  for  the 
first  time,  if  we  may  accept  the  pub- 
lisher's announcement,  "the  ramifications 
of  the  vast  conspiracy  to  destroy  France" 
and  "points  out  that  the  fate  from  which 
France  escaped  may  befall  the  United 
States."  These  are  praiseworthy  objects. 
Caillaux  is  at  the  present  moment  on 
trial  for  treason  during  the  war;  it  is 
well  that  we  should  know  something  of 
his  career,  his  associates,  and  the  charges 
brought  against  him.  The  book  is  la- 
mentable because  it  defeats  its  ends  by 
illiteracy  and  sensationalism. 

The  book  contains  a  number  of  un- 
doubted facts;  it  might  be  possible  for 
a  reader  well  acquainted  from  other 
sources  with  the  history  and  politics  of 
France  for  the  last  ten  or  fifteen  years 
to  compile  from  it  a  fairly  accurate  ac- 
count of  I'affaire  Caillaux.  But  these 
facts  are  presented  in  such  disorderly 
fashion,  so  blended  with  fiction,  so  un- 
balanced by  reason  of  omissions,  that 
they  must  inevitably  fail  to  carry  weight 
except  with  minds  already  as  assured  as 


the  author's  of  Caillaux's  guilt.  For  Mr. 
Johnson  has  no  doubts  whatever  in  this 
matter.  He  assumes  from  the  beginning 
not  only  that  Caillaux  was  in  secret  cor- 
respondence with  German  agents  and 
statesmen  during  the  war — very  prob- 
ably the  fact,  although  it  yet  remains  to 
be  judicially  proved — but  also  that  even 
before  the  war  he  was  the  "Arch-Ger- 
man conspirator  (p.  xv),  planning  to  be- 
come the  Lenine  of  France"  and  build- 
ing up  a  party  "to  set  France  aflame 
with  a  Bolshevist  revolution  as  soon  as 
Berlin  gave  the  command." 

It  will  be  useful,  in  view  of  the  ex- 
aggerations and  distortions  of  this  un- 
happy book,  to  state  briefly  what  is 
known  and  what  is  merely  suspected  of 
Caillaux.  His  pro-German  sympathies 
are  nothing  new  nor  st.-ange.  As  far 
back  as  1911  he  advocated  a  policy  of 
mutual  concessions  and  a  good  under- 
standing with  the  old  enemy  of  France, 
as  opposed  to  Clemenceau's  policy  of  the 
Entente  Cordiale  with  England.  As  Pre- 
mier he  negotiated  over  the  head  of  the 
French  Ambassador  in  Berlin  a  treaty 
which  in  return  for  Germany's  recogni- 
tion of  France's  position  in  Morocco 
ceded  to  the  Empire  a  large  part  of  the 
French  Congo.  There  can  be  little  doubt 
that  Caillaux's  policy  was  dictated  by 
financial  considerations.  The  long  con- 
tinued hostility  between  France  and  Ger- 
many and  the  ever-increasing  cost  of  ar- 
maments was  imposing  on  France  a 
greater  financial  burden  than  Caillaux 
believed  she  was  able  to  bear.  A  finan- 
cier to  the  finger-tips,  this  seems  to  have 
been  the  only  aspect  of  the  rivalry  that 
he  considered,  and  there  is  no  reason  to 
doubt  that  he  was  sincere  in  his  belief. 
His  great  influence  with  the  Socialist 
parties  in  France  sprang  also,  strange  as 
it  may  seem,  from  his  financial  policy. 
His  advocacy  of  an  income  tax  by  way 
of  shifting  to  the  bourgeoisie  the  burden 
of  taxation  made  him  as  popular  with 
the  Socialists  as  he  was  detested  by  the 
respectable  middle-class.  He  held  the 
position  of  Minister  of  Finance  under 
various  Premiers,  and  was  generally  ac- 
knowledged as  unrivaled  in  his  knowl- 
edge and  skill  in  this  field,  so  much  so 
that  even  to-day  one  hears  voices  in 
France  asserting  that  only  Caillaux  can 
solve  the  financial  problems  confronting 
the  country.  Forced  out  of  public  life 
in  1914  by  the  scandal  of  his  wife's  mur- 
der of  Calmette,  editor  of  Le  Figaro,  he 
was  still  represented  in  the  war-cabinet 
from  1914  to  1917  by  his  faithful  hench- 
man Malvy,  who  was  continued  in  his 
post  as  Minister  of  the  Interior  to  pla- 
cate the  large  and  powerful  Socialist 
groups  which  had  in  the  past  followed 
Caillaux.  As  the  war  took  on  its  long 
and  indecisive  aspect  of  trench-warfare, 
Caillaux  seems  to  have  resumed,  natu- 
rally in  profound  secrecy,  his  policy  of  a 
rapprochement  with  Germany.    There  is 


284] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  45 


little  doubt  that  directly  or  indirectly  he 
was  in  touch  with  German  agents  and 
statesmen,  seeking  to  secure  a  statement 
of  such  German  terms  as  would  make 
it  possible  for  a  war-wearied  France  to 
conclude  peace,  with  or  without  the  con- 
sent of  her  English  ally.  In  Italy,  in 
particular,  his  conversations  with  vari- 
ous Italian  politicians  were  so  pessimis- 
tic as  to  the  successful  prosecution  of 
the  contest  by  arms  that  it  is  believed 
that  the  Italian  Government  was  de- 
terred from  ordering  his  instant  arrest 
only  by  the  fear  of  the  bad  effect  of 
such  an  action  on  her  ally,  France. 

Meanwhile,  a  daring  and  scandalous 
defeatist  propaganda  sprang  up  in 
France  itself.  A  group  of  adventurers 
flooded  the  country  with  journals,  tracts, 
and  handbills  calling  for  peace  at  any 
price,  and  actually  appealing  to  the  troops 
in  the  trenches  to  turn  their  arms  against 
a  Government  that  persisted  in  prolong- 
ing the  war.  That  this  propaganda  was 
financed  by  German  gold  there  is  no 
longer  any  shadow  of  a  doubt,  and  the 
chief  traitors,  Bolo,  Duval,  and  Lenoir, 
have  already  paid  the  extreme  penalty. 
How  far  was  Caillaux  connected  with  this 
treasonable  attempt?  That  is  exactly 
the  question  which  remains  to  be  an- 
swered at  his  trial.  All  that  is  certain 
is  that  his  creature,  Malvy,  who  as  Min- 
ister of  the  Interior  was  bound  in  duty 
to  keep  watch  upon  and  suppress  any 
such  propaganda,  not  only  failed  to  sup- 
press it,  but  actually  maintained  friendly 
relations  with  one  of  its  leaders,  Alme- 
reyda  of  the  pacifist  Bonnet  Rouge,  and 
repeatedly  interfered  with  the  military 
police  in  their  attempts  to  break  up  and 
punish  the  gang. 

Finally,  in  1917,  after  the  terrible 
losses  of  the  French  offensive  early  that 
year,  the  situation  grew  impossible.  It 
became  plain  that  if  the  army  was  to  be 
held  to  its  task  its  morale  must  be  de- 
livered from  pacifist  propaganda  and 
must  be  assured  of  a  Government  as 
determined  as  its  own  leaders,  Petain 
and  Foch,  to  continue  the  struggle  to  the 
bitter  end.  Malvy  was  driven  from 
office  and  later  tried  and  condemned — 
not,  be  it  remarked,  for  treason,  but  for 
dereliction  of  duty.  Clemenceau  was 
called  to  power,  and  one  of  his  first  acts 
was  to  initiate  a  thorough  investigation 
of  the  defeatist  movement.  The  band 
of  wretched  traitors  whom  Malvy  had  at 
least  shielded  were  brought  to  trial  and 
convicted,  and  Caillaux  himself  was 
arrested  and  imprisoned,  in  January, 
1918.  He  has  remained  a  prisoner  ever 
since.  Why  was  he  not  brought  at  once 
to  trial?  Nothing  could  have  given  bet- 
ter proof  to  the  world  of  the  determina- 
tion of  France  to  crush  domestic  treason 
than  the  conviction  and  punishment  of 
so  well  known  a  figure  in  international 
politics.  The  only  plausible  answer 
seems  to  be  that  the  French  Government 


was  altogether  uncertain  of  being  able 
to  convict  him  of  actual  treason,  and 
believed,  no  doubt  correctly,  that  the  ac- 
quittal of  Caillaux  would  do  more  harm 
than  his  trial  could  do  good.  Circum- 
stances have  changed  now;  the  acquittal 
of  Caillaux  will  hardly  cause  a  ripple  on 
the  sea  of  international  politics.  In  the 
spring  or  summer  of  1918,  it  might  well 
have  sufficed  to  overthrow  the  only  Gov- 
ernment capable  of  leading  France  to  a 
victorious  conclusion  to  the  war. 

Three  Ways  of  Looking  at 
Ireland 

Irish  Impressions.  By  G.  K.  Chesterton. 
New  York :   John  Lane  Company. 

The  Soul  of  Ireland.  By  W.  J.  Lockington, 
S.J.  New  York ;  The  Macmillan  Com- 
pany. 

Elizaueth.vn  Ulster.  By  Lord  Ernest 
Hamilton.  New  York :  E.  P.  Dutton  and 
Company. 

EACH  of  these  three  books  has  an 
interest  of  its  own;  they  represent 
three  types  of  mind  which  are  occupied 
just  now  with  Irish  affairs.  We  know 
what  to  expect  from  Mr.  Chesterton: 
vividness,  color,  wit,  epigrams  often  a 
little  strained  but  not  seldom  such  as 
make  one  catch  one's  breath  and  wonder; 
clear-cut  antitheses — sometimes  cut  too 
clear  to  correspond  accurately  with  situ- 
ations that  are  complex  and  confused, 
but  always  a  stimulant  to  thought,  and 
not  least  arousing  when  they  are  most 
provoking.  And  it  is  the  true  Chester- 
tonian  humor  that  greets  us.  in  these 
"Irish  Impressions."  G.  K.  C.  paid  his 
first  visit  to  the  Green  Isle  two  years 
ago,  and  came  back  with  his  mind  full 
of  Irish  romance  and  of  well-intentioned 
Anglo-Irish  blundering.  He  has  set  it 
all  before  us. 

Everything  he  saw  gave  him  food  for 
reflection,  and  most  of  the  things  he 
seems  to  have  seen — after  his  own  habit 
of  seeing — in  contrasted  pairs.  There 
are  two  monuments  near  each  other  in 
Dublin,  one  to  a  hard-faced  old  monarch 
of  German  descent,  which  is  fast  falling 
into  neglect,  the  other  to  the  thriftless 
but  lovable  poet,  Clarence  Mangan,  which 
is  tended  with  affectionate  care.  Mr. 
Chesterton  may  be  trusted  to  look  at 
these  together,  and  to  point  the  moral 
about  Irish  temperament.  He  draws  our 
attention  to  such  facts  as  that  the  English 
think  of  people  individually,  while  in  Ire- 
land they  are  considered  in  families — • 
never  Murphy  or  O'Sullivan,  but  always 
the  Murphys  and  the  O'Sullivans.  Some- 
where in  the  records  of  Grattan's  Par- 
liament he  has  unearthed  a  rather  nasty 
illustration  of  this  habit.  It  seems  that 
in  those  hot  days  an  orator  while  de- 
nouncing his  opponent  in  the  House 
caught  sight  of  the  sister  of  his  enemy 
in  the  Ladies'  Gallery.  He  at  once  burst 
into  his  peroration,  invoking  wrath  upon 
the  whole  household  of  them  "from  the 


toothless  old  hag  who  is  grinning  in  the 
gallery  to  the  white-livered  poltroon  that 
is  shivering  on  the  floor!"  It  consoles 
one's  wounded  national  pride  to  remem- 
ber that  this  happened  in  the  Anglo-Irish 
Parliament  of  the  English  pale. 

Mr.  Chesterton  tells  how  he  went  on 
a  mission  to  stimulate  recruiting  in 
1918,  and  how  he  found  that  the  gross 
mistake  had  been  made  of  sending  "el- 
derly English  landlords"  to  carry  on  this 
campaign  in  the  south  and  west  of  Ire- 
land. He  whets  an  appetite,  which  he 
will  not  gratify,  by  saying  that  it  would 
be  too  cruel  to  "recount  their  adven- 
tures." He  drives  home  his  own  favorite 
lesson  against  Socialism  by  describing 
a  road  along  which  he  passed,  and  which 
on  its  left  side  showed  a  modern  estate 
lying  waste,  while  on  the  right  side  peas- 
ant proprietorship  was  successfully  gar- 
nering the  harvest.  And  he  has  stories 
for  us  about  "Belfast  and  the  religious 
problem"  which  set  the  capital  of  Ulster 
in  a  most  unkind  similitude  with  Berlin. 
We  must  not  take  everything  he  says 
too  seriously;  for,  if  we  did,  Mr.  Ches- 
terton would  feel  that  he  had  said  it 
wrong.  But  even  when  he  jests  there  is 
a  background  of  sober  meaning.  He 
rather  neatly  says  of  himself:  "My  life 
is  passed  in  making  bad  jokes,  and  see- 
ing them  turn  into  true  prophecies." 

Father  Lockington's  book  is  quite  dif- 
ferent, and  a  critic  who  does  not  belong  to 
the  author's  faith  must  not  dissect  too 
minutely  a  work  that  is  in  essence  one  of 
Catholic  devotion.  The  "soul  of  Ireland" 
is  for  this  writer  to  be  found  in  Irish 
fidelity  to  the  ancient  worship,  and  he 
presents  us  with  a  moving  scene  of 
priests  and  nuns,  of  the  festival  of 
Corpus  Christi  and  the  cloisters  "lit  by 
the  soft  glow  of  the  tabernacle  lamp," 
of  the  long  years  of  martyrdom  for  con- 
viction and  the  innate  joyousness  which 
the  Church  sustained  in  her  children 
throughout  their  trials.  Even  those  who 
stand  outside  the  sacred  circle  for  which 
he  writes  and  who  can  not  share  the 
glowing  devoutness  of  his  symbolism 
must  be  moved  by  the  enthusiastic  ten- 
derness with  which  this  Jesuit  priest 
idealizes  the  land  of  his  ministry. 

If  there  is  genial  humor  in  Mr.  Ches- 
terton and  poetic  pathos  in  Father  Lock- 
ington, the  reader  must  not  expect  much 
of  either  spirit  in  the  brochure  by  Lord 
Ernest  Hamilton.  It  is  in  cold  facts 
that  this  historian  has  endeavored  to 
specialize,  and  he  often  makes  them  so 
cold  as  to  excite  suspicion  that  he  has 
given  us  those  half-facts  which  are  the 
most  misleading  things  of  all.  If  mere 
hard  work  could  produce  a  good  history, 
Lord  Ernest  Hamilton  would  have  done 
very  well  indeed,  for  beyond  doubt  he 
has  been  industrious,  though  his  labor 
is  rather  of  the  kind  which  makes  a  Blue 
Book  or  a  catalogue.  It  is  a  dull  thing 
that  he  has  given  us,  but  not  without  its 


March  20,   1!)2()] 


THE  REVIEW 


[28.5 


value.  Tale  follows  tale  about  the  mis- 
deeds of  Shane  O'Neill  and  Hugh  Roe, 
and  other  Irish  chieftains,  whose  deplor- 
able addiction  to  strong  drink  the  author 
dwells  upon  again  and  again  with  most 
decorous  regret.  He  does  not  fail,  in- 
deed, to  chronicle  some  corresponding 
defects  in  the  English  and  Scottish  set- 
tlers of  the  period,  and  it  is  but  fair  to 
say  that  his  record  of  the  efforts  to 
Anglicize  Ireland  under  Elizabeth  has 
brought  together  in  compact  form  much 
that  is  of  antiquarian  interest,  not  easily 
accessible  to  the  general  reader  else- 
where. The  chief  fault  of  his  work  is 
his  obvious  inability  to  think  himself 
back  into  an  environment  and  a  mode  of 
life  quite  different  from  that  of  the  year 
1920;  so  that  he  has  produced  a  criti- 
cism of  Irish  character  in  Elizabethan 
days  such  as  might  be  given  of  Homeric 
warriors  by  one  who  judged  them  in  the 
light  of  modern  methods  of  warfare. 
This  is  not  what  is  known  as  the  "sym- 
pathetic tone"  in  history.  But  we  must 
remember  that  Lord  Ernest  Hamilton  is 
an  Ulster  member  of  Parliament. 

Herbert  L.  Stewart 

The  Run  of  the  Shelves 

During  the  war.  Professor  W.  S.  Davis, 
who  is  as  favorably  known  for  his  his- 
torical novels  as  for  his  more  serious 
work  in  history,  began  a  little  sketch 
intended  to  tell  the  men  of  the  American 
Army  something  of  the  past  of  the  great 
French  nation,  on  whose  soil  they  were 
battling  for  liberty.  The  early  armistice 
enabled  him  to  expand  this  into  a  consid- 
erable volume  of  six  hundred  pages  for 
all  Americans:  "A  History  of  France 
from  the  Earliest  Times  to  the 
Peace  of  Versailles"  (Houghton-Mifflin). 
Though  very  sympathetic  to  his  subject, 
and  though  he  often  animadverts  to  the 
ravages  of  the  Hun  in  the  present  when 
telling  of  the  past,  his  tone  is  scholarly 
and  his  attitude  sufficiently  impartial. 
In  his  survey  of  twenty  centuries  he  has 
skillfully  selected  only  those  events  which 
were  of  permanent  importance.  He  be- 
lieves in  using  the  past  to  interpret  the 
present.  He  suggests,  for  instance,  in- 
teresting analogies  between  the  Jacobins 
of  Revolutionary  France  and  the  Bolshe- 
viki  of  Revolutionary  Russia.  He  sup- 
plements his  narrative  with  a  number  of 
good  illustrations,  and  for  those  of  his 
readers  who  are  stirred  to  a  further 
study  of  French  history,  Mr.  Davis  has 
added  an  excellent  select  bibliography. 
Unfortunately,  there  is  almost  nothing 
of  French  literature  and  art — virtually 
nothing  of  the  Chansons  de  Gestes,  noth- 
ing of  the  Renaissance  under  Francis  I, 
and  only  a  scant  page  given  to  the  daz- 
zling age  of  Louis  XIV.  Yet  who  can 
doubt  that  this  great  national  literature 
has  been  one  of  the  strongest,   though 


perhaps  quite  unconscious,  forces  in  giv- 
ing the  French  those  splendid  national 
traditions  and  ideals  which  fortified  their 
spirit  so  remarkably  during  the  dark 
months  following  1914? 

"Spain's  Declining  Power  in  South 
America"  (Berkeley:  University  of  Cali- 
forniaPress), by  BernardMoses, Emeritus 
Professor  of  History  and  Political  Science, 
presents  a  consideration  of  the  last  dec- 
ades of  colonial  dependence  in  Spanish 
South  America.  He  finds  that  during 
the  period  in  question,  in  spite  of  certain 
measures  of  economic  progress,  the  au- 
thority and  efficiency  of  the  Government 
were  declining.  The  policy  of  the  Crown 
to  confer  important  offices  in  America 
only  upon  persons  sent  from  Spain  led 
the  Creoles  and  mestizos  gradually  to 
constitute  themselves  a  society  apart 
from  the  Spaniards  and  in  opposition  to 
the  established  administration.  Revolts 
against  the  policy  of  this  administration 
and  against  its  imposition  of  specific 
fiscal  burdens  constitute  a  feature  of 
this  history,  and  indicate  that  the  colo- 
nies were  slipping  away  from  the  grasp 
of  Spain,  even  before  the  creole-mestizo 
elements  in  the  population  had  clearly 
formed  a  design  for  emancipation.  The 
author  gives  a  somewhat  extended  ac- 
count of  the  expulsion  of  the  Jesuits  as 
an  act  depriving  the  dependencies  of 
their  ablest  and  most  effective  teachers, 
as  well  as  of  their  most  energetic  and 
farsighted  industrial  and  commercial 
entrepreneurs.  By  this  act,  moreover, 
the  Government  removed  the  only  body 
of  residents  who  manifested  any  clear 
conception  of  the  proper  relations  to  be 
maintained  between  the  Spaniards  and 
the  Indians. 

Writing  recently  from  Paris,  where 
he  now  resides.  Professor  Moses  says : 

Since  my  last  book  was  finished,  I  have  been 
studying  the  colonial  literature  of  Spanish 
South  America ;  but  this  is  only  for  the  fun 
of  doing  it.  No  normal  person  in  these  times 
is  likely  to  be  interested  in  this  subject,  and 
when  the  book  is  finished  it  will  liave  to  take 
its  place  in  the  morgue  of  subsidized  pul)lica- 
tions,  such  ^s  the  universities  are  supporting 
nowadays. 

The  Bulletin  Italien,  devoted  to  things 
Italian,  was  issued  for  eighteen  years 
under  the  auspices  of  the  University  of 
Bordeaux;  "but  we  were  forced  to  sus- 
pend publication  at  the  end  of  1918," 
writes  Professor  Georges  Radet,  dean  of 
that  institution,  "for  two  reasons.  In 
the  first  place,  and  principally,  for  lack 
of  funds  and  the  increase  of  fifty  per 
cent,  in  the  cost  of  printing,  and  in  the 
second  place  because  the  managing  edi- 
tor of  the  Btdletin,  Professor  Bouvy, 
who  filled  the  chair  of  Italian  literature, 
was  transferred  to  the  University  of 
Paris  and  no  successor  was  sent  us." 

But  the  suspension  at  Bordeaux  really 
meant   only   enlarging   the   field    of   the 


Bulletin,  for  it  soon  followed  Professor 
Bouvy  to  Paris,  where  it  began,  in  Janu- 
ary, 1919,  to  appear  under  another  title, 
Etndex  Italiennes,  and  has  beiome  "the 
only  French  review  whose  sole  object  is 
the  historical  study  of  Italian  civiliza- 
tion." The  editors,  three  Sorbonne 
Italian  scholars — Professors  Henri  Hau- 
vette,  Eugene  Bouvy,  and  Edouard 
Jordan — unite  in  declaring  that  they  owe 
much  of  the  success  of  their  undertaking 
to  the  support  of  their  well-known  pub- 
lisher, M.  Ernest  Leroux,  "whose  habit 
of  taking  the  initiative  outweighed  any 
hesitation  he  might  have  felt  in  continu- 
ing the  good  work  of  the  Btdletin  in  the 
midst  of  the  printing  crisis  through 
which  we  are  now  passing."  The  editors 
also  announce  that  the  number  of  pages 
of  the  periodical,  now  some  130,  will  be 
increased  "as  soon  as  this  crisis  ends." 

The  editor-in-chief,  M.  Hauvette,  is 
the  leading  Italian  scholar  of  France, 
where  he  organized  the  Italian  courses 
and  studies  of  the  colleges  and  universi- 
ties and  where  he  has  been  since  1893  a 
professor  of  the  Italian  language  and 
literature,  assuming  the  chair  at  the 
Sorbonne  in  1906.  He  is  also  the  presi- 
dent and  founder  of  the  Union  Intel- 
lectuelle  Franco-Italienne,  under  whose 
auspices  the  new  quarterly  appears,  and 
the  author  of  many  volumes  on  Italian 
literature  and  art,  his  new  translation 
of  Dante's  "Inferno"  being  now  in 
press. 

The  three  or  four  numbers  of  Etudes 
Italiennes  which  have  reached  this  coun- 
try speak  well  for  its  present  character 
and  its  future  success.  The  articles  are 
printed  either  in  French  or  Italian, 
though  the  first  of  these  languages 
largely  predominates.  The  third  number 
contains  a  very  eulogistic  review  of  the 
three  books  on  Dante  by  Professor 
Grandgent,  of  Harvard,  who  was  recently 
chosen  a  corresponding  member  of  the 
famous  Florentine  Accademia  della 
Crusca,  and  who  was  an  exchange  pro- 
fessor at  the  Sorbonne  in  1915-1916.  At 
the  end  of  the  review  his  former  col- 
league, pays  him  this  very  high  compli- 
ment: "May  we  not  expect  some  day 
from  Professor  Grandgent  a  complete 
translation  for  the  American  and  British 
public  of  the  poetical  works  of 
Dante?" 

Mr.  Brand  Whitlock,  American  Am- 
bassador to  Brussels,  writes  in  a  recent 
letter,  apropos  of  his  two  remarkable 
volumes,  "Belgium:  A  Personal  Narra- 
tive," in  many  ways  the  best  of  the 
American  war  books : 

Payot  is  about  to  bring  it  out  in  a  French 
edition  at  Paris,  as  well  as  a  French  edition 
of  my  little  "Life  of  Lincoln."  which  I  trans- 
lated myself  By  the  way,  I  had  hoped  to  stay 
on  awhile  in  America,  but  the  King  asked 
me   to   accompany   him   home,   and   so  here   I 


>86] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  Xo.  45 


The  Company  Stores  at  Lawrence 


ON  the  banks  of  the  Merrimac  at  a 
point  where  its  busy  waters  take 
a  slithering  slide  of  some  twenty-six 
feet  and  in  the  process  produce  annually 
$200,000,000  worth  of  woolens,  stand 
the  city  of  Lawrence,  Massachusetts,  and 
the  great  hills  that  dominate  it  not  other- 
wise than  anciently  the  cathedrals  domi- 
nated the  towns  that  gathered  in  their 
shelter.  The  carvings  are  not  there,  nor 
the  painted  windows,  nor  choirs  to  chant 
their  orisons  in  the  still,  chill  air  of 
winter  mornings.  But  for  all  that,  he 
who  finds  in  the  contrast  of  the  elder 
day  with  our  own  no  sign  but  of  spiritual 
decadence,  should  pause  to  consider  many 
things  before  he  seals  his  judgment,  and 
not  among  the  least  of  these,  some  very 
recent  happenings. 

Just  at  present  those  in  the  little 
Massachusetts  city  who  are  looking  for 
some  new  thing  may  be  abundantly  sat- 
isfied. The  streets,  in  fact,  are  all  agog 
with  the  pros  and  cons  of  the  newly 
established  Company  Stores  of  the  great 
American  Woolen  Company. 

Is  the  whole  thing  a  bluff?  Will  it  last? 
Was  it  justified?  Will  it  do  any  good? 
— these  are  but  a  few  of  the  innumerable 
questions  that  are  on  every  tongue  and 
they  are  asked  in  English,  French,  Ital- 
ian, Portuguese,  Polish,  Russian,  Syrian, 
and  languages  even  more  foreign  to 
American  ears.  For  of  the  ninety-odd 
thousand  inhabitants  of  Lawrence,  sev- 
enty-eight thousand  are  foreign  born  or 
of  foreign  parentage.  It  is  not  quite 
true  that  these  various  nationals  live  in 
separate  quarters — the  city  is  too  small 
to  allow  of  that.  Nevertheless,  there  is 
a  natural  grouping  of  that  sort,  and  in 
each  neighborhood  are  several  small, 
"one  man"  stores  where  the  people  may 
bargain  in  their  native  tongues.  Then, 
of  course,  there  are  the  main  streets, 
where  the  larger  and  more  pretentious 
emporiums  keep  company,  and  carry  on 
a  thriving  trade — rather  too  thriving, 
according  to  William  Wood,  president  of 
the  American  Woolen  Company,  who 
challenged  them,  one  and  all,  to  show 
cause  why  he  should  not  take  a  hand  in 
the  game,  to  prevent  the  alleged  exploita- 
tion of  his  employees. 

Now,  the  uneducated  foreigner  with 
his  pocket  full  of  good  American  wages 
is  not  often  miserly.  He  lounges  into 
the  best  store  in  town — it  is  shirts  he 
wants — that  fine  silk  one  with  the  broad 
stripes — too  large?  No  matter;  it  is 
what  he  wants.  Out  of  his  pocket  comes 
an  enviable  "roll"  and  the  requisite  num- 
ber of  bills  are  proudly  peeled  off.  Under 
such  circumstances  human  nature  does, 
sometimes,  I  doubt  not,  profiteer.  Temp- 
tation of  that  sort  is  rather  more 
abundant  in  Lawrence  than  in  most 
Massachusetts  cities,  so  that  it  seems  not 


altogether  improbable  that  the  charge 
made  by  the  head  of  the  American 
Woolen  Company  to  the  effect  that  the 
cost  of  the  necessities  of  life  was  higher 
in  Lawrence  than  elsewhere  was  not 
without  some  justification. 

But  that  is  really  a  very  small  part  of 
the  story;  the  cost  of  living  is  always 
highest  at  the  point  where  one  happens 
to  be  paying  one's  bills.  The  merchants 
of  Lawrence  met  Mr.  Wood's  demand  for 
lower  prices  by  a  denial  of  his  state- 
ments of  fact,  and,  after  one  or  two 
rather  sharp  passages,  it  was  formally 
announced  that  the  American  Woolen 
Company  would  reduce  the  cost  of  living 
for  its  employees  by  establishing  stores 
where  they  could  buy  without  paying 
retailers'  profits.  A  beginning  was  made 
and  enthusiastically  received  by  the 
workers,  an  organization  is  being  per- 
fected to  enlarge  the  scope  of  the  enter- 
prise, and  the  merchants  of  Lawrence 
are  out  of  luck — that  is  about  all  that 
the  public  knows  of  the  matter. 

The  talk  that  froths  and  foams  about 
these  surface  facts  follows  the  partisan 
sympathies  of  the  talker.  Some  say 
that  Mr.  Wood  is  caught  in  a  trap  of 
his  own  setting,  that  by  a  hastily  and 
ill-advised  statement  which  pride  has 
compelled  him  to  back  up,  he  har.  forced 
his  own  hand,  and  that  he  will  soon 
weary  of  the  experiment.  Others  say 
that  the  merchants  of  Lawrence  mis- 
judged their  man,  and  have  got  them- 
selves into  a  scrape  from  which  many 
will  not  come  out  with  whole  skins.  As 
always,  there  is  the  man  who  button- 
holes you  and  leads  you  aside  to  insinu- 
ate darkly  that  organized  labor  has  got 
the  big  corporation  into  a  corner  and 
forced  it  to  act  against  its  choice  and 
better  judgment. 

A  few  who  think  more  deeply  say  that 
the  president  of  the  American  Woolen 
Company  is  not  a  man  to  make  an  im- 
portant move  from  impulse,  or  under 
the  stress  of  outside  compulsion;  that 
he  would  not  commit  the  great  com- 
pany of  which  he  is  the  head  to  an 
important  business  policy  merely  to  put 
a  few  town  merchants  in  a  pickle;  they 
say  that  Mr.  Wood  is  a  "policy  man," 
and  acts  only  with  some  farsighted  aim. 
This  aim,  according  to  these  knowing 
ones,  is  to  hold  his  labor  for  the  evil 
day  that  draws  nigh  when  immigration 
will  no  longer  afford  an  unfailing  supply. 

It  does  not  appear  to  be  in  the  nature 
of  the  "nigger  in  the  wood  pile"  type 
of  thinker  to  accept  so  simple  and  lumi- 
nous a  statement  as  that  which  Mr.  Wood 
himself  made  at  the  dinner  of  the  Na- 
tional Association  of  Clothiers: 

"I  will  not  trouble  you  with  the  narra- 
tion of  what  we  have  already  done,  but  I 
will  say  that  we  intend  to  lose  no  oppor- 


tunity to  promote  wisely  and  justly,  the 
happiness  and  prosperity  of  those  upon 
whose  labors  this  great  industry  depends. 
...  In  the  past  we  have  had  our  dis- 
agreements. Demands  have  been  made 
by  the  workers  which  I  have  felt,  in  jus- 
tice to  the  investors  and  to  the  public,  I 
could  not  grant.  But  sometimes,  no 
doubt,  I  myself  have  been  mistaken. 
...  I  am  happy  to  say  that  with  the 
experience  of  these  years  I  think  I  now 
know  my  job  better.  .  .  .  Things  have 
happened  of  late  in  the  relations  of  our 
employees  and  the  management  that  have 
touched  me  very  deeply  and  that  have 
given  me  a  new  confidence  in  the  future 
as  well  as  a  deep  satisfaction.  I  indulge 
in  no  illusions.  I  know  that  we  shall 
have  our  troubles  and  disagreements  in 
the  future  somewhat  as  we  have  had  in 
the  past,  but  I  hope  and  believe  that  we 
shall  approach  them  with  a  new  spirit 
and  a  new  appreciation  and  a  new  regard 
each  for  the  viewpoint  of  the  other." 

In  few  words,  it  would  appear  from 
this  that  the  company  has  moved  in  the 
direction  of  really  helping  its  employees, 
and  the  workers  have  shown  a  disposi- 
tion to  meet  the  company  half  way";  that 
the  conduct  of  so  great  a  business  has 
had  an  educative  effect  on  all  concerned; 
that  the  experiences  of  the  great  war  have 
deepened  and  quickened  these  lessons; 
and  that  the  prosperity  brought  about 
by  war-time  profits  has  softened  the  way 
and  opened  the  door  for  a  new  attitude, 
first  on  the  part  of  the  employer,  and, 
in  response,  on  the  part  of  the  workers. 

If  the  American  Woolen  Company 
persists  in  its  enterprise — and  it  is 
generally  believed  that  it  will,  as  it  is 
reported  to  have  the  solid  backing  of 
organized  labor  and  of  its  own  workers 
— the  weaker  merchants  may  be  forced  to 
close  their  doors,  but  the  stronger  ones 
and  the  better  ones  will  remain,  and  per- 
haps make  more  money  than  they  ever 
did — why  not?  For  the  more  wholesome 
the  conditions,  the  better  for  all  con- 
cerned. 

As  to  the  future — well,  they  are  a 
mercurial  lot,  these  Italians,  Poles,  Rus- 
sians, and  Syrians  of  whom  only  about 
one-half  speak  English  well.  It  is  more 
than  probable  that  the  waters  will  again 
be  troubled.  It  is  not  inconceivable  that 
again,  as  in  1912,  wild  mobs,  led  on  by 
wilder  leaders,  may  surge  down  the 
streets  of  Lawrence  calling  for  the 
destruction  of  the  mills,  of  the  city,  of 
the  Government.  All  of  this  may  happen. 
But  it  is  the  belief  of  your  correspond- 
ent that  the  corner  has  been  turned  in 
the  Americanization  of  this  cosmopolitan 
mass  of  workers,  and  at  the  same  time 
in  their  relations  to  the  industry  by 
which  they  are  supported.  The  com- 
pany stores  are  an  incident  only  of  a 
movement  that  has  in  it  a  very  real 
promise  of  better  things. 

Staff  Correspondent 


March  20,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[287 


Church  Unity 

THE  movement  of  present-day  thought 
about  church  unity  offers  many  strik- 
ing analogies  to  that  noticeable  in  the 
ideas  of  political  reform.  In  the  world 
of  politics  we  find  at  once  the  widest 
internationalism  and  the  narrowest  na- 
tionalism. On  the  one  hand  we  are  ex- 
horted to  learn  the  difficult  art  of  think- 
ing internationally;  on  the  other  we  are 
urged  to  shun  all  such  vague  generaliza- 
tions and  to  lend  all  our  energies  to  the 
fostering  of  an  aggressive  nat'onal 
spirit.  And  then,  of  course,  between 
these  tv/o  apparently  irreconcilable  op- 
posites  there  is  a  "new  school"  of 
mediators  who  insist  that  there  is  here 
no  opposition  at  all,  but  that  interna- 
tionalism is  only  nationalism  in  its 
social  expression.  I  need  not  love  my 
country  lesd  because  I  love  "humanity" 
more. 

Precisely  the  same  lines  of  thought  are 
followed  by  those  who  concern  them- 
selves with  the  subject  of  church  unity. 
Here,  too,  we  find  the  party  of  frankly 
avowed  sectarianism  and  the  party  of 
intersectarianism,  or,  as  they  are  more 
prone  to  call  it,  "non-sectarianism."  And 
then  between  the  two  we  have  the  media- 
tors again,  those  who  would  maintain 
their  allegiance  to  their  several  sects, 
not  merely  out  of  a  traditional  loyalty, 
but  because  they  believe,  or  would  like  to 
think  they  believe  that  only  through 
this  narrower  loyalty  can  the  remoter 
end  of  a  true  Christian  unity  be  attained. 

Within  this  body  of  mediating  thought, 
however,  there  is  one  rather  nice  distinc- 
tion not  always  clearly  perceived,  but 
worth  careful  attention.  It  is  suggested 
by  the  two  words  "unity"  and  "union." 
Unity,  we  are  often  told,  we  all  desire 
and  may  all  attain.  It  rests  upon  such 
a  deep  and  complete  conviction  of  the 
real  nature  of  Christianity  that  all  dif- 
ferences of  form  and  expression  become 
of  no  importance.  Pruvided  only  that 
the  true  Christian  spirit  be  preserved, 
the  varieties  of  creed  and  of  organization 
are  of  no  account.  They  are  only  the 
natural  outcome  of  those  diversities  in 
human  nature  that  save  it  from  stagna- 
tion and  decay.  "All  very  fine,"  replies 
the  other  wing  of  the  mediating  party, 
"but  where  are  you  to  get  a  definition  of 
this  abstract  unity?  How  are  we  to  know 
when  any  single  body  of  persons  has  at- 
tained thereto,  much  less  the  whole  multi- 
tude of  those  who  confess  themselves  and 
would  like  to  be  called  'Christians'?" 
There  must  be  some  outward  signs  by 
which  this  unity  can  be  recognized.  In 
other  words,  there  must  be  some  form 
and  some  degree  of  union  to  give  a  tangi- 
ble body  to  what  is  otherwise  only  a 
vague  and  impracticable  ideal. 

We  once  heard  the  very  liberal  pastor 
of  an  American  church  abroad  give  an 
invitation  to  the  celebration  of  the  Lord's 


Supper  which,  for  breadth  and  inclusive- 
ness,  left  nothing  to  be  desired,  had  he 
not  seen  fit  to  conclude  with  the  request 
that  his  hearers  "would  partake  with 
ungloved  hands."  It  was  only  the  other 
day  that  the  Episcopalian  Bishop  of  New 
York  publicly  reproved  a  clergyman  sub- 
ject to  his  direction  for  lending  his 
church  building  for  the  purpose  of  a 
political  discussion.  The  offense  lay,  not 
in  providing  a  room  for  discussion  nor 
in  the  nature  of  the  opinions  expressed, 
but  in  the  desecration  of  a  building 
specifically  consecrated  to  a  religious  pur- 
pose. It  is  not  long  since  a  building 
thus  consecrated  was  sold  to  worship- 
ers of  another  communion  and,  before 
it  was  handed  over,  solemnly  decon- 
secrated. The  principle  of  unity  is  very 
apt  to  break  down  at  the  critical  point 
and  the  emphasis  to  shift  over  to  some 
tangible  kind  of  union  in  outward  form. 

These  reflections  are  suggested  by  the 
appearance  of  a  little  volume*  bearing 
the  modest  title  of  "Approaches  Toward 
Church  Unity."  It  contains  a  group  of 
articles  by  four  clergymen,  three  Con- 
gregationalists  and  one  Episcopalian.  Its 
declared  aim  is  not  to  lay  down  any  one 
definite  programme  of  action,  but  rather 
to  suggest  various  possibilities  of  helpful 
effort  toward  the  end  of  unity.  It  is 
not  consummation  but  "approach"  that 
we  are  asked  to  consider.  Two  leading 
motives  are  followed:  one,  the  histori- 
cal, another,  the  speculative  or  ideal. 
The  former  is  the  subject  of  the  first 
article,  in  which  Professor  Walker,  of 
Yale  University,  deals  with  the  infinitely 
vexed  question  of  the  development  of 
"officers"  within  the  body  of  the  early 
"charismatic"  Church. 

On  the  nature  of  these  officials  Dr. 
Walker  speaks  with  no  uncertain  voice. 
He  reviews  in  the  light  of  the  best  in- 
foimation  we  have,  meagre  as  this  is,  the 
emergence  of  an  official  class  from  the 
simple  charismatic  leaders  of  the  first 
generation  to  the  monarchical  parish 
(not  diocesan)  episcopate  of  the  Ignatian 
letters.  He  concludes  that  here  is  no 
trace  of  an  apostolic  succession,  but 
rather  evidence  of  a  leadership  resting 
upon  personal  quality.  If  Dr.  Wal- 
ker is  right,  and  we  think  he  is,  the  whole 
structure  of  claims  to  church  authority 
resting  upon  apostolic  succession  falls  to 
the  ground.  No  chain  is  stronger  than  its 
weakest  point,  and,  if  the  defective  link 
in  a  chain  of  evidence  occurs  at  the  very 
beginning  of  it,  we  need  not  concern 
ourselves  greatly  about  the  rest. 

The  historical  "approach"  is  continued 
by  Dr.  Raymond  Calkins,  a  Congregation- 
alist  minister  of  Cambridge,  Mass.  His 
contribution  here  takes  the  form  of  an 
exhortation  to  all  apparently  opposing 
branches  of  the  Christian  family  to  study 


♦Approaches  Toward  Church  Unity, 
edited  by  Xewman  Smyth  and  Williston 
Walker.     New  Haven :    Yale  University  Press. 


the  history  of  grreat  dividing  epochs, 
notably  in  the  Church  of  England,  and 
thus  to  reach  such  an  understanding, 
each  of  the  others'  points  of  view,  that 
they  may  come  to  think  of  their  own 
peculiar  ideas  and  practices  as  of  no 
account  compared  with  the  great  aim  of 
realizing  the  ideal  of  the  One  Holy 
Catholic  Church.  He  thinks  that  some 
approach  can  and  ought  to  be  made  to 
Canon  Rawlinson's  dictum  that  real  unity 
of  church  worship  "can  not  take  place 
until  the  Pope  of  Rome  appreciates  and 
values  the  Methodist  prayer-meeting  or 
until  the  Puritan  learns  to  worship  with 
insight  and  devout  intelligence  at  Mass 
in  St.  Peters."  Dr.  Calkins  would  say 
"and  until"  rather  than  "or  until,"  but 
he  does  not  seem  to  realize  that  if  ever 
this  gorgeous  ideal  could  be  reached  both 
Pope  and  Puritan  would  long  before  have 
disappeared.  His  historical  approach 
only  demonstrates  that  after  two  thou- 
sand years  of  struggle  the  Protestant, 
even  "though  he  be  educated  in  church 
history,"  still  wants  to  be  a  Protestant 
and  the  Catholic  wants  to  be  a  Catholic, 
but  that  neither  wants  to  be  both. 

Dr.  Calkins  dc-es  not  hope  that  "this 
or  that  experiment  of  reunion  shall  suc- 
ceed" but  only  that  these  two  forms  of 
the  Church  shall  "understand  each  other." 
He  has  faith  that  out  of  st(ch  mutual 
understanding  there  shall  arise  the  one 
Church,  etc.,  but  he  seems  to  forget 
that  one  of  the  postulates  of  this  whole 
volume  is  that  the  one  Church  already 
exists  and  only  seems  to  be  divided  be- 
cause its  varied  aspects  have,  in  fact, 
worked  out  into  those  differing  forms 
which  reflect  the  happy  varieties  of 
human  nature  itself.  What  is  going  to 
happen  when  this  much-prayed-for  un- 
derstanding is  reached  does  not  appear, 
and  we  suspect  that  our  authors  have 
only  the  vaguest  idea  of  this  themselves. 
We  incline  to  think  that  the  wicked  peo- 
ple to  whose  infirmities  of  temper  Dr. 
Calkins  attributes  the  divisions  of  the 
Reformation  period  had  a  great  deal 
clearer  understanding  of  the  meanings 
of  their  partisan  conflicts  than  we  have, 
or  than  our  successors  educated  in  the 
doctrine  of  development  are  likely  to 
have.  The  heat  of  their  partisanship 
came  largely  because  they  understood 
what  was  involved  in  their  controversies, 
and  we  are  profiting  both  ways  from  the 
steadfastness  of  their  faith. 

Where  Dr.  Calkins's  real  sympathies  lie 
seems  to  be  rather  more  clearly  disclosed 
in  another  article  on  Creeds.  He  shows 
quite  accurately  that  creeds  are  historical 
formulations,  not  metaphysical  inven- 
tions. His  special  concern,  however,  is 
not  to  have  them  preserved  for  defensive 
purposes,  but  to  have  them  frequently 
repeated  as  a  means  of  edification  and 
as  reminders  of  the  unity  of  all  Chris- 
tians. That  the  creeds  contain  positive 
affirmations  of  belief  in  things  which  the 


288] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  4.j 


rational  sense  of  our  time  knows  to  be 
impossible  does  not  trouble  him.  "Say 
them  over  often  enough"  is  the  obvious 
inference  from  his  words  "and  you  will 
come  to  believe  them  in  some  sense  that 
is  good  enough  for  the  one  supreme  end 
of  unity."  The  virgin  birth,  the  descent 
into  hell,  the  physical  resurrection — 
these  all  mean  something  "more"  than 
they  say,  and  what  this  something  may 
be  every  individual  "believer"  is  at  lib- 
erty to  determine  for  himself.  Dr.  Cal- 
kins says  "this  is  not  to  toy  with  lan- 
guage," but  there  will  be  readers  who 
will  think  that  it  is  toying  with  things 
more  important  than  language,  with 
honesty  of  thought  and  the  sanctities  of 
true  belief.  The  church  that  says  "No 
matter  what  you  believe  so  long  as  you 
are  willing  to  say  you  believe  what  other 
people  say  they  believe"  is  planting  the 
seeds  of  its  own  damnation. 

Dr.  Newman  Smyth's  chief  contribu- 
tion is  in  several  short  articles  on  the 
general  thesis  of  biological  analogies  in 
the  life  of  the  Church.  It  is  a  method 
rather  suggestive  than  positively  con- 
structive. The  Church  is  an  organism 
with  a  development  going  on  from  the 
beginning  and  destined  to  go  on  forever. 
Schism,  which  Dr.  Smyth  seems  to  agree 
is  a  sin,  is  not  so  much  the  lopping  off 
of  one  limb  from  an  otherwise  perfect 
organism  as  it  is  a  separation  between 
members  equally  responsible  for  the 
maintenance  of  unity  and,  therefore, 
equally  guilty  of  the  sin  of  division.  The 
application  of  this  idea  to  the  modern 
Church  is  obvious.  There  is  no  single 
tribunal  that  can  decide  in  the  matter 
of  schism.  It  is  the  duty  of  all  the 
churches,  frankly  admitting  their  sinful 
state,  to  "get  together"  under  the  guid- 
ance of  the  one  spirit  they  all  profess 
to  follow. 

Bishop  Brent,  of  the  Protestant  Epis- 
copal Church,  in  a  chapter  of  three  pages, 
exp-esses  general  good  will  toward  any 
workable  project  of  church  unity.  He 
makes  also  a  hopeful,  but  non-committal, 
reference  to  a  scheme  of  approach  to  this 
end  by  a  conference  of  Episcopalians  and 
Congregationalists.  Dr.  Smyth,  too,  pre- 
pares us  for  a  study  of  this  scheme  by  a 
selection  of  cases  illustrating  the  possi- 
bility of  episcopal  ordination  in  addition 
to  that  already  received  from  some  other 
source.  The  scheme  itself  is  given  in  the 
Appendix,  and  we  can  not  escape  the 
impression  that  here  we  have  the  "nub" 
of  the  whole  matter  so  far  as  this  volume 
is  concerned.  The  essence  of  the  pro- 
posals here  contained  is,  that  any  min- 
ister who  has  not  received  epi.scopal 
ordination,  with  the  approval  of  "the 
ecclesiastical  authority  to  which  he  is 
sub:e2t,"  may  under  certain  conditions 
receive  ordination  from  a  bishop  of  the 
Protestant  Episcopal  Church  without, 
however,  ceasing  to  be  a  member  of  the 
communion  to  which  he  alreadv  belongs. 


Here  is  obviously  the  danger  of  a  con- 
flict of  jurisdiction,  but  this  is  cannily 
provided  for  in  advance.  In  case  this 
luckless  servant  of  two  masters  be 
"charged  with  error  of  faith  or  of  con- 
duct," he  shall  be  tried  according  to 
episcopal  procedure  and  sentenced  by  a 
bishop,  with  due  notification  to  the  other 
communion  and  acceptance  of  its  find- 
ings as  "evidence  of  facts." 

This  scheme  has  been  accepted  by  men 
calling  themselves  Congregationalists, 
but  to  the  unregenerate  it  looks  like  a 
veiy  one-sided  bargain.  It  seems  to  him 
that  the  principle  of  episcopacy  would 
be  gaining  a  practical  recognition  from 
that  body  of  Christians  which  has  been 
most  distinctly  opposed  to  it,  and  that 
the  principle  of  Congregationalism  would 
in  fact  be  surrendered.  Now  these  two 
principles  are  not  reconcilable.  Any 
working  arrangement  between  them 
would  be  possible  only  by  trimming  away 
from  each  all  that  makes  it  valuable  in 
the  adaptation  of  the  Church  to  the 
varied  needs  of  various  types  of  men. 
If  ever  that  trimming  process  shall  be 
completed  the  sham  unity  that  will  re- 
sult will  not  be  worth  having.  The  real 
and  fortunate  diversities  of  human  na- 
ture will  then  proceed  to  re-assert  them- 
selves, and  the  ancient  struggle  of  liberty 
against  uniformity  and  of  honesty 
against  wordy  compromise  will  begin 
again.  The  only  true  unity  is  that  unity 
of  the  spirit  which  thrives  upoii  diversi- 
ties utilizing  them  for  its  highest  ends. 

Theologian. 

Drama 

Percy    Mackaye's    "George 

Washington"  and  St.  John 

Ervine's  "Jane  Clegg" 

AT  the  Lyric  Theatre  last  week  I  saw 
Percy  Mackaye's  "George  Washing- 
ton" received  with  moderate  approval  by 
an  audience  whose  size  hinted  only  too 
plainly  that  the  play's  weeks,  if  not  its 
hours,  were  numbered.  Washington  is 
the  first,  or  second,  of  our  men  of  state, 
and  Mr.  Mackaye's  name  is  bright  on 
the  rcster  of  cur  active  men  of  letters. 
Rumor  says  that  Mr.  John  Drinkwater's 
"Abraham  Lincoln"  has  been  known  to 
earn  six  thousand  dollars  a  week  at  the 
Cort  Theatre,  and  the  emptiness  of  two- 
thirds  of  the  se?.ts  in  the  Lyric  orchestra 
gapes  for  explanations.  One  might  begin 
by  suggesting  that  Mr.  Drinkwater's  re- 
lation to  "Abraham  Lincoln"  is  that  of 
chaplain;  the  relation  of  Mr.  Mackaye 
to  "George  Washington"  might  be  de- 
fined in  the  word  "herald."  Heralds  had 
their  solemnity  in  the  old  Roman  and 
mediaeval  days,  and  Mr.  Mackaye  is  stu- 
dious, solicitous,  and  earnest  in  his  fash- 
ion.    But  in  Mr.  Drinkwater  the  design 


and  the  temper  are  equally  grave;  in 
Mr.  Mackaye  the  design  is  graver  than 
the  temper.  Both  plays  with  entire  wis- 
dom omit  formal  story,  but  the  theme  of 
Lincoln  has  offered  Mr.  Drinkwater  rich 
compensations  in  character  and  atmos- 
phere. Washington  has  not  been  quite 
so  generous  to  Mr.  Mackaye. 

In  history  I  think  one  has  the  sense 
that  Washington  does  not  quite  embody 
Washington,  that  there  is  a  sheath  or 
glaze  about  the  man  which  resists  the 
passage  of  the  soul  outward.  In  life  he 
seems  already  monumental.  Now  Mr. 
Mackaye,  whose  gift  is  "buxom,  blithe 
and  debonair,"  might  have  seemed  to  be 
nature's  own  appointee  for  the  task  of 
enlivening  and  diversifying  a  slightly 
heavy  theme.  What  has  been  the  issue? 
Mr.  Mackaye  has  added  the  condiment 
freely,  but  he  has  forborne  to  stir  it  in; 
and  the  result  is  that  part  of  the  dish  is 
overseasoned,  and  part  of  it  is  rela- 
tively savorless.  For  example,  the  mad- 
cap George,  in  his  very  first  appearance, 
frightens  an  old  negress  out  of  her  wits 
by  masquerading  as  a  feathered  Indian. 
Plainly,  we  are  to  have  a  live  George;  I 
am  thankful  for  a  live  George;  but  I 
could  have  spared  this  particular  guar- 
antee. Moreover,  I  have  a  feeling  that 
the  liveliness  has  a  certain  resemblance 
to  the  Indian  feathers  in  the  ease  and 
completeness  with  which  it  falls  off,  leav- 
ing us,  for  long  periods  at  least,  to  the 
expected  and  accustomed  sobrieties. 

The  Washington  is  acceptable,  but 
scarcely  noteworthy,  and  there  is  still 
another  point  which  raises  mild  remon- 
strance in  the  critic.  The  play  begins 
in  fantasy,  and  there  are  three  whim- 
sical people,  Quilloquon  and  his  boy  and 
girl,  who,  always  on  the  stage  and  never 
in  the  play,  and  proving  by  their  saucy 
charm  how  soon  the  'superfluous  can 
become  the  indispensable,  never  allow 
the  play  to  escape  from  the  realm  of  the 
fantastic.  This  is  all  very  well  in  cer- 
tain parts,  but  what  can  fantasy  do  at 
Valley  Forge  or  Trenton?  Elfland  surely 
does  not  skirt  the  Delaware.  In  or ; 
scene  Mr.  Mackaye  makes  Washington 
play  the  flute  in  the  rigors  of  Valley 
Forge.  The  flute  at  Valley  Forge — in  a 
soit  it  is  symbolic  of  the  play.  Mr. 
Mackaye's  diction,  which  is  hardly  sur- 
passed in  its  kind,  afforded  me  the  cus- 
tomary pleasure;  I  could  only  regret  the 
apparent  blindness  of  the  audience  to  the 
fireflies  that  shone  snd  darted  in  his 
verse. 

Mr.  Walter  Hampden  took  the  part  of 
George  Washington.  The  e  is  some- 
thing of  the  Roman,  of  the  magistrate, 
in  Mr.  Hampden  as  in  Washington  him- 
self, and  the  rigidity  which  is  felt  in 
both  is  both  a  help  and  an  impediment  to 
Mr.  Hampden.  It  enables  him  to  produce 
without  trouble  a  respectable  Washing- 
ton; it  hinders  him  in  the  suggestion 
of  that  Washington   whom   Washington 


^March  20,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[289 


I 


himself  could  not  reveal.  The  emotion, 
when  it  arrives,  is  mannered ;  the  person- 
age obscu.es  the  man. 

Mr.  St.  John  Ervine's   "Jane  Clegg," 
which  the  Theatre  Guild  is  now  present- 
ing at  the  Gariick  Theatre,  is  a  real  play 
and  a  good  play.     It  is  less  moving  than 
"John   Ferguson."     The  note   of   "John 
Ferguson"  was  an   intense   family  soli- 
darity;   the  note  of  "Jane   Clegg"   is  a 
family  division  so  profound  as  almost  to 
make  the  characters   impervious  to  joy 
or  .sorrow   from   each   other.     It   is   the 
stoiy  of  the  relation  of  a  husband  and  a 
wife.     That  relation,  tacit  at  the  begin- 
ning, is  explicit  at  the  close;  at  its  depths 
the  play  is  stationary.     On  the  surface, 
however,    the  e   is    motion    enough;    the 
means  by  which   this  tacit   relation  be- 
comes explicit  is  a  compact,  crisp,  and 
ene.-getic  drama.     Another  point  of  in- 
terest is  that  the  dramatic  force  of  the 
separation  in  the  last  act  lies  less  in  the 
rupture  of  a  tie  worn  so  thin   on  both 
sides  that  it  paits  without  a  snap  than 
in  the  originality  of  the  conditions  under 
which  this  division  is  accomplished.    Hus- 
band and  wife  both  want  the  same  thing, 
a  concord  which  is  sometimes  thought  to 
stifle  drama.     But  agreement  may  now 
and  then  be  dramatic  if  the  agreement 
itself  be  in  conflict  with  expectation  and 
the   normal    course    of    things.      In    ex- 
actly the  same  way  a  quiet  curtain   (of 
which   there  are   three   in   Jane  Clegg) 
may  be  dramatic,  if  it  is  quiet  enough 
to  make  its  quietness  surprising. 

The  play  is  very  simple  in  its  mechan- 
ism.   The  scene  is  immovable;  the  action 
includes  three  days  and  fills  three  even- 
ings; the  transaction  is  single.     Of  the 
scant  cast  of  seven  characters,  two,  the 
children,  are  entirely  useless,  and  a  third, 
the  grandmother,  is  nearly  so.     The  ac- 
tors  in   the   play   reduce   themselves    to 
four,   the   lying,    bullying,   and   whining 
husband,    the   grave,   unfaltering,   clear- 
sighted  wife,    the   cashier   of   the   bank 
>vhich  the  husband  has  robbed  of  one  hun- 
ired  and  forty  pounds,  and  the  bookmaker 
Aho  presses  the  husband  for  the  settle- 
iient  of  a  racing  bet.    Behind  this  group 
here    lurks    in    the    shadow    the    other 
voman,  for  whose  sake  the  husband  is 
)repared  to  rob  his  employers,  to  desert 
lis  family,  and  to  flee  to  Canada,  and 
vho.se  existence  is  disclosed  in  the  final 
■ft  by  the  vengeance  of  the  unpaid  book- 
iiaker  to  the  laconic,  Draconic,  and  un- 
werving  wife.     The  bookmaker,  who  in 
his  last  scene,  as  elsewhere,  is  a  mere 
tensil,  is  allowed  by  Mt.  St.  John  Ervine 
0  make  rather  more  clatter  than  a  uten- 
il  should.    The  closing  passage  between 
usband   and    wife,    in   which   the   wife 
ends  him  off  or  lets  him  go,  is  of  a  deli- 
ate  originality  and  a  rare  penetration. 
■  fine  moment  arrives  when  the  husband 
'  shocked   at  the  wife's   failure  to   be 
locked  by  the  misdeeds  which  he  grossly 
immits  and  delicately  deprecates.     The 


play  is  essentially  a  play  of  character 
without  obvious  thesis;  one  of  those  wise 
plays  in  which  the  plot  is  to  the  charac- 
ters what  the  .scenery  is  to  the  plot. 
Some  day  I  shall  read  the  play  to  test  my 
p.esent  impression  that  the  grand- 
mother is  memorable  among  the  figures 
of  the  contemporary  stage  for  the 
mixture  of  crackbrainedness,  shrewdness, 
cynicism,  languor,  peevishness,  mawkish- 
ne.s.s,  and  self-complaisance. 

The  performance  was  equally  re- 
markable for  vigor  and  symmetry.  Mr. 
Dudley  Digges  as  Henry  Clegg  was  good, 
though  the  human  nature  in  the  auditor 
writhes  a  little  at  the  exhibit  of  its  own 
dishonor.  Miss  Margaret  Wyche.-ly's 
Jane  Clegg  was  the  prolongation  of  one 
note,  but  that  note  was  judicious  and 
imposing.  Mr.  Henry  Travers  was  ex- 
cellent in  the  whip-cracking  part  of  the 
bookmaker.  Mr.  Erskine  Sanford  as  the 
cashie.-  was  really  subtle  in  the  circum- 
spect, circuitous  and  deprecatory  man- 
ner which  cloaked,  yet  could  not  hide,  the 
undeceivable  and  unflinching  man  of 
business.  Miss  Helen  Westley's  por- 
trayal of  the  old  grandmother  left  admi- 
ration groping  for  words. 

0.  W.  Firkins 


Music 

David  Bispham's  Memoirs 

A  Quaker  Singer's  Recollections.  By  David 
Bispham.  New  York:  The  Macmillan 
Company. 

A  SINGER  who  can  write  with  ease 
and  style  is  rarer  than  that  rare 
bird,  the  black  swan.  One  artist  of  the 
kind  is  David  Bispham. 

For  thirty  years  and  more  David  Bis- 
pham has  been  prominent,  here  and 
abroad,  as  a  baritone  of  note,  a  singing 
actor,  and  an  advocate  of  the  use  of 
English  speech  in  opera.  In  these  recol- 
lections he  has  packed  into  one  volume 
the  record  of  a  long  and  busy  life — a  life 
of  many  strange  and  varied  experiences. 
Unlike  most  men  who  have  their  hour 
in  opera,  he  has  had  his  in  society.  He 
has  traveled  far  and  wide,  and  mixed 
with  people  who  were  worth  knowing  and 
far-famed  in  many  ways.  To  this  it  may 
be  added,  unreservedly,  that  he  has  more 
than  an  instinctive  turn  for  setting  down, 
in  plain  but  vivid  words,  what  he  would 
tell.  He  writes  attractively  of  art  and 
men  and  things.  And  if  at  times  he 
dwells  at  undue  length  on  minor  matters 
(such  as  his  family  crest  and  ancient 
Norman  lineage),  we  can  forgive  him. 

On  both  his  father's  and  his  mother's 
sides  he  comes  of  Quaker  stock,  tracing 
back  his  ancestry  to  the  Biscops  and  the 
Biscophams  of  Lancashire  and  the  Eng- 
lish Lake  District.  The  descendants  of 
those  English  Quakers  settled  in  Penn- 
sylvania;   and    it   was    there,    in    Phila- 


delphia, that  the  future  singer  was  born 
into  a   rather  weary  world.     From   his 
early  childhood  he  was  strongly  drawn 
to   drama   and    music.      It   seemed    un- 
ce.tain    for    some    years    to    which    of 
these  he  would  devote  his  life.     He  did 
well  enough  in  amateur  theatricals.    But 
his    taste    leaned    much    more    strongly 
towards  singing.  While  still  quite  young, 
he  visited  Europe  and  some  pa«ts  of  the 
Near  East,  heard  Verdi's  operas  in  Italy, 
and  halted   in  Athens.     Thence  he  was 
taken  to  Constantinople,   where  he  had 
glimpses  of  Dancing  Dervishes.     He  saw 
Fechter,    Bariy    Sullivan,    and    Adelaide 
Neilson,  and  lest  no  chance  of  reading 
all  the  d.ama.s,  new  and  old,  he  could  lay 
hands  on.     Then,  after  a  few  brief  com- 
mercial inte.ludes,  he  devoted  himself  to 
oratorio   and   studied    hard    for   a   time 
under   the   best   teacher   of   the   day    in 
England,     William     Shakespeare.       His 
Quaker  friends  soon   looked  on   him  as 
lest.     They   prophesied   that   little  good 
would  come  to  a  young  man   who  was 
always    "fooling    around    after    music." 
But,  sometimes  in  Boston  and  his  home 
town,  sometimes  in  Europe,  he  persisted 
in  singing.     In  Europe,  at  the  outset  of 
his    career,    he    met    many    celebrities; 
among  them,  Salvini,  Irving,  Cellier,  Gil- 
bert,   Sullivan,    Meredith,    Watts,    Ellen 
Terry,  Sargent,  "Ouida,"  Browning,  Mrs. 
Burnett.    Booth,    and    Barrett.      At    the 
advice  of  various   friends,   he  extended 
his  activities   from   the  concert  hall  to 
the  opera  house,  and,  at  the  age  of  thirty- 
two,  made  his  first  bow  in  opera,  as  the 
Due  de  Longueville,  at  the  Royal  English 
Opera  House  (now  known  as  the  palace), 
in  "La  Basoche"  of  the  French  composer, 
Andre  Messager. 

"Planchette,"  which  anticipated  the 
now  popular  "ouija  board,"  then  took  a 
hand  in  David  Bispham's  art  life.  At 
a  dinner  given  in  London,  the  young 
baritone  sat  down  to  consult  the  spirits. 
When  his  turn  came,  but,  as  he  assures 
us,  before  he  had  touched  the  planchette 
board,  he  read  these  words:  "Opera,  by 
all  means."  It  was  the  answer  to  a 
question  he  was  about  to  formulate. 
Planchette  next  urged  him  strenuously 
to  study  "Verdi  and  Wagner" — more  par- 
ticularly "Aida,"  "Tannhauser,"  "Tristan 
und  Isolde,"  and  "Die  Meistersinger." 
Going  further  into  detail,  Planchette 
bade  him  learn  the  parts  of  Amonasro, 
Wolfram,  Kurvenal,  and  Beckmesser.  To 
his  great  surprise,  he  was  soon  after 
engaged  by  Sir  Augustus  Harris,  of 
Covent  Garden,  to  sing  all  those  roles. 

It  was  to  Mr.  Maurice  Grau,  when 
temporarily  director  of  Covent  Garden, 
he  owed  his  engagement  at  the  Metro- 
politan, where  he  repeated  some  of  the 
successes  he  had  scored  abroad.  He  made 
his  New  York  debut  as  Beckmesser,  in 
"Die  Meistersinger,"  with  Jean  and 
Edouard  de  Reszke,  Pol  Plan^on,  and 
Emma  Fames. 


290] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  45 


Americans  had  not  yet  fought  their 
way  on  to  the  opera  boards.  Indeed,  at 
one  time  David  Bispham  was  the  only 
male  American  in  opera.  He  gave  more 
care  than  most,  too  much  as  some  have 
thought,  to  the  dramatic  aspects  of  his 
interpretations,  even  at  the  sacrifice  of 
vocal  urgencies.  He  agreed  in  theory, 
no  doubt,  with  "Jean,"  who  invariably 
reminded  himself  that  opera  was  neither 
pure  drama  nor  pure  music,  but  a  com- 


promise, and  that  acting  in  opera  should, 
for  that  reason,  be  largely  convention- 
alized. 

Like  Maurice  Renaud,  the  French  bari- 
tone, and  Saleza,  the  French  tenor,  David 
Bispham  was  too  prone  to  overstrain  in 
order  to  interpret  thoroughly.  Had  he 
been  less  devoted  to  the  acting  art,  he 
might  have  stayed  some  years  longer  on 
the  opera  stage.  He  cut  a  wide  swath, 
none  the  less,  in  opera  before  leaving  it 


for  the  concert  field.  Among  other  parts 
in  which  he  gained  distincton  may  be 
mentoned  Wolfram,  Wotan,  Vander- 
decken,  Kurvenal,  Alberich,  Falstaff, 
Amonasro,  Beckmesser,  and  Gomarez  (in 
Floridia's  "Paoletta") . 

These  recollections  abound  in  pertinent 
anecdotes.  They  are  handsomely,  lav- 
ishly illustrated.  Above  all,  they  are 
well  and  brightly  written. 

Charles  Henry  Meltzek 


EDUCATIONAL  SECTION 


To  meet  an  obvious  demand  for  the 
discussion    of    educational    matters, 
the  Revieiv  plans  with  this  issue  to  set 
up  a  special  department.     There  is  no 
intention  of  entering  the  province  of  tech- 
nical journals;  the  aim  will  be,  rather, 
to  discuss  "questions  of  fundamental  in- 
terest to  the  citizen  as  well  as  to  the 
professional  teacher.    "Everyone,"  writes 
one  of   our   readers,   "is  now  thinking 
about  educational  matters  as  he  never 
did  before,  and  very  few  are  thinking 
with  much  clearness."    It  is  the  purpose 
of  the  Review,  by  discussion  of  those 
problems  about  which  "everyone  is  think- 
ing," to  serve  the  clear  and  constructive 
elements  in  educational  thought.     It  is 
worth  noticing,  too,  that  the  word  "Edu- 
cation" has  come  to  embrace  legitimately 
a  great  many  enterprises  wholly  sepa- 
rate from  academic  control.     The  work 
of  the  American  Library  Association,  the 
organization  of  schools  at  the  plants  of 
large  industries,  and  the  amazing  devel- 
opment  of   propaganda   are   significant 
instances.     Notices,  with  editorial  com- 
ment, of  those  phases  which  seem  of  na- 
tional importance  will  appear  from  time 
to    time   in    the   Review.     Obvious    ad- 
juncts of  these  notices  and  comments  will 
be  book  reviews  and  occasional  articles 
on  educational  questions  of  wide  interest. 

THE  wise  man  who  said  that  "it  takes 
two  to  make  a  teacher"  has  received 
possibly  more  praise  than  he  deserves. 
He  did  not  mention  the  parent  and  voter, 
who    in    his    double    capacity    produces 
both  child  and  revenue.    At  no  time  has 
this  third  "party"  been  of  greater  impor- 
tance than  now,  for  he  has  opinions  and, 
with  negligible  exceptions,  he  suffers  no 
inhibitions  in  the  expression  of  them. 
The  benefits  which  may  accrue  from  his 
quickened  interest  in  education  are  many. 
He  is  calling  the  schools  and  colleges  to 
a  practical  demonstration  of  their  effect- 
iveness.    Retroactively,  he  is   realizing 
more  and  more  that  growth  of  mind  and 
spirit   can   not    be   accomplished   by    a 
purely  utilitarian  course,  that  intellect 
is,  after  all,  more  important  than  intelli- 
gence, that  capacity  without  character  is 
not  the  end  of  life.    He  may  even  come 


to  see  that  an  underpaid  teacher  is  an 
undesirable  teacher.  But  the  dangers 
which  spring  from  the  same  cause  are 
formidable.  Sometimes  the  good  man, 
whether  he  is  a  teacher  or  not,  mistakes 
notions  for  opinions,  and  a  clear  dis- 
tinction between  principles  and  preju- 
dices is  rarely  his  affair.  In  the  lively 
and  rather  muddy  stream  of  thought 
which  has  accompanied  the  emergence 
of  education  from  academic  groves,  the 
word  "education"  has  come  to  be  as 
loosely  used  as  "democracy"  itself.  When 
it  is  employed  to  describe  a  "process 
which  stimulates  productive  growth,"  it 
allows  astonishing  variations;  but  the 
definition  is  a  good  one  for  general  pur- 


poses, since  it  reminds  us  of  the  essen- 
tial nature  of  education.  When  the  word 
is  used,  however,  simply  to  describe  a 
process,  neither  productive  nor  growth- 
stimulating— worse  yet,  to  describe 
something  which  does  not  even  proceed— 
it  amounts  to  a  mere  dissipation  of 
energies.  Thinking  on  educational  ques- 
tions probably  ought  not  to  be  returned 
to  private  control;  certainly  the  parent 
and  voter  can  not  and  will  not  be  put 
back  into  the  isolated  modesty  or  indif- 
ference of  his  forbears.  He  has  taken 
education  and  the  future  of  the  nation 
to  be  his  province — what  is  he  going  to 
do  about  it? 


Dead  Culture  and  Live  Business 


A  "FORMER  college  professor,"  writ- 
ing in  the  Century  for  January  on 
"Why  I  Remain  in  Industry,"  gives, 
among  other  reasons  for  his  decision,  the 
discovery  that  "culture  and  broad-mind- 
edness" are  more  commonly  to  be  found 
in  the  industrial  world  than  in  the  uni- 
versity. "Ideas,  instead  of  being  con- 
fined to  text-books  and  class-room  lec- 
tures, are  in  a  constant  state  of  flux  and 
competition  with  one  another.  The  re- 
sult is  a  certain  mental  alertness,  a  readi- 
ness to  credit  the  other  man's  viewpoint, 
and  an  openness  to  new  plans  and  ideas, 
no  matter  how  unusual,  which  are  un- 
known in  academic  life." 

The  arraignment  of  the  university  may 
not  be  wholly  fair;  the  definition  of  cul- 
ture, implied  if  not  actually  stated,  may 
leave  much  to  be  desired.  The  profes- 
sor's conclusion,  however,  supports  a 
general  feeling  that  certain  traditional 
notions  need  radical  revision.  One 
meets  plenty  of  businessmen  who  bear 
the  marks  of  culture,  as  well  as  other 
businessmen  and  many  college  professors 
who  bear  no  such  marks.  Do  the  college 
men  lack  them  in  spite  of  the  atmosphere 
in  which  they  constantly  dwell?  Did  the 
businessmen  who  bear  the  marks  acquire 
them  at  college  and  do  they  preserve 
them,  forever  indestructible,  in  the  "sor- 
did" atmosphere  of  their  dollar-chasing? 


Or,  as  the  professor  suggests,  does  the 
world  of  industry,  rather  than  the  col- 
lege, produce  that  "accessibility  to  ideas" 
which  Matthew  Arnold  insisted  on  as  the 
sine  qua  non  of  culture? 

The  poor  word  culture  has  been  much 
abused.     One  might  perbans   disregard 
as  trivial  the  most  obvious  misuse  of  it, 
if  that  misuse  were  not  common,  even 
among  "educated  people."     To  a  great 
many  the  word  unfortunately  carries  the 
vague  meaning  of  an  intellectual  adorn- 
ment, accompanied  by  a  mild'  disdain  for 
things  which  have  cash  value.    It  is  com- 
monly used  in  only  a  negative  sense,  to 
cover  a  condition  which  is  not  utilita- 
rian.    Working  from  this  conception  of 
it,  many  have  argued,  by  the  facile  proc- 
ess which  used  to  get  called  ignoratxo 
elenchi,   that   studies  which   are  in  no 
sense  utilitarian  must  serve  it— as,  for 
example,   reading   Shelley   or   reciting  a 
Latin  verb;  and  whole  courses  of  study 
have  been  built  on  the  dreary  fallacy. 
The  "man  in  the  street,"  who  has  too 
often  been  told  that  something  of  this 
sort  is  culture,  has  long  been  suspicious 
of    its    having    any    value,    spiritual   or 
other;   it  may  fairly  be  called  dead,  if 
indeed  it   ever  lived— that   is,  dead  as 
culture,  but  still  living,  though  moribund, 
as  a  cult. 

(Continued  on  page  292) 


March  20,  1920] 


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292] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  45 


^Continued  from  page  290) 
Few,  but  more  worthy  of  notice,  are 
these  who  adhere  to  Matthew  Arnold's 
view  of  culture — "the  acquainting  our- 
selves with  the  best  that  has  been  known 
and  said  in  the  world,  and  thus  with 
the  history  of  the  human  spirit."  Such 
acquaintanceship  should  produce  what 
our  "former  college  professor"  calls  "a 
readiness  to  credit  the  other  man's  view- 
iwint,  and  an  openness  to  new  plans  and 
ideas."  But  it  means  a  sense  of  values, 
too;  an  instant  distinction  between 
things  significant  and  things  insignifi- 
cant, essential  and  accidental;  a  sort  of 
intellectual  chastity.  The  point  is  illus- 
trated by  a  remark  attributed  to  a  well- 
known  Gree'.i  scholar  when  some  one. 
eulogizing  Bernard  Shaw,  said  triumph- 
antly, "Well,  you  must  admit  that  Shaw 
says  a  lot  of  true  things."  To  which  the 
scholar  replied:  "Any  man  who  allows 
no  inhibitions  in  his  thinking  can  not  fail 
at  times  to  strike  the  truth.  If  he  thinks 
everything,  he  must  include  some  true 
things.  But  the  value  of  his  mind  de- 
pends only  on  the  order  among  his 
ideas." 

It  is  this  unerring  sense  of  values 
which  perhaps  more  than  anything  else 
marks  the  man  of  culture.  Our  "college 
professor"  found  in  the  leaders  of  in- 
dustry a  progressive  mental  alertness 
which  he  had  not  found  in  the  academic 
circle — not  merely  a  quick  intelligence  in 


regard  to  things  that  "pay,"  but  "a  read- 
iness to  credit  the  other  man's  view- 
point," with  the  strong  implication  of 
at  least  a  potential  sense  of  values.  Evi- 
dently, if  he  was  right,  culture  may  flour- 
ish in  a  factory  while  it  languishes  in 
a  colleje.  Mr.  Lowes  Dickinson  says 
ominously,  speaking  of  culture,  "The 
things  we  do  to  maintain  it  might  kill 
it ;  the  things  we  do  to  kill  it  might  pre- 
serve it." 

The  fact  is,  we  have  grown,  since 
Arnold,  to  think  of  culture  as  a  condition 
0.'  state  of  being,  and  in  so  doing  we 
have  oftener  than  not  treated  it  as  dead 
at  the  sta.t,  with  the  result  that  our  col- 
lege courses  established  to  maintain  it 
have  too  frequently  amounted  to  a  sort 
of  solemn  obsequies.  Yet  this  passive 
use  of  the  word  culture  was  apparently 
unknown  before  the  nineteenth  century. 
Cice .0,  though  he  used  the  word  figura- 
tive'y — that  is,  to  speak  of  culture  of  the 
mind — never  did  so,  we  are  told,  "except 
with  st.ong  consciousness  of  the  meta- 
phor involved";  and  the  same  conscious- 
ness of  metaphor  appears  not  only  in 
Bacon's  "Culture  and  manurance  of 
minds,"  but  in  the  use  of  the  word  by 
other  writers  till  recenr  times.  To  be 
sure,  the  condition  which  we  now  call 
culture  existed,  happily,  and  was  con- 
stantly being  produced  by  cultural  proc- 
esses, long  before  men  got  to  thinking 
of  the  condition  itself,  passively,  as  cul- 


ture. Nowadays  we  may  go  the  length 
of  saying  that  "culture  of  the  mind  pro- 
duces culture,"  but,  instead  of  doing  any- 
thing so  foolish,  though  it  might  whole- 
somely remind  us  that  a  vital  process  is 
involved,  we  say,  "the  study  of  Latin  pro- 
duces culture."  Culture  thus  becomes  a 
full-fledged  state  of  being,  not  a  process; 
and  we  have  only  to  teach  Latin  in  any 
one  of  a  dozen  wrong  ways  to  kill  cul- 
ture outright — if  we  have  not  already 
destroyed  it  by  the  very  act  of  crystal- 
lizing it  into  a  condition. 

For  it  is  significant  that,  together  with 
the  growth  of  the  conception  of  culture 
r.s  a  condition,  a  state  of  mind,  grew 
also  the  notion  first  alluded  to,  that  it 
could  have  nothing  to  do  with  things  of 
practical  value.  The  men  of  culture  a 
few  generations  ago  studied  for  the  most 
part  things  which  had  no  utilitarian 
value,  but  so  did  everybody  who  went  to 
college — so  did  these  who  acquired  no 
culture  whatever;  a  fact  which  ought  to 
have  raised  the  suspicion  that  the  prac- 
tical usefulness  or  uselessness  of  a  sub- 
ject in  no  way  indicated  its  cultural 
value.  Instead,  the  few  sons  of  light 
were  piously  observed,  and  the  classical 
tradition,  already  strong  because  of  its 
"disciplinary"  value,  was  now  invoked  as 
the  handmaiden  of  culture.  The  thing 
was  demonstrable — or  nearly  so.  Did 
not  the  classics  contain  much  of  "the  best 
(Continued  on  page  293) 


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(Continued  from  page  292) 
that  has  been  known  and  said  in  the 
world?"  Where,  if  not  in  them,  was  to 
be  found  the  intellectual  chastity  which 
the  wayward  generation  needed?  All 
sorts  of  students  were,  therefore,  put 
through  the  process,  students  who  in  due 
time  grew  into  such  apostate  professors 
as  the  contributor  to  the  Century.  Cul- 
ture in  colleges  was  nearly  dead;  the 
thing  which  was  done  to  maintain  it  was 
killing  it. 

While  the  classics,  properly  taught, 
might  have  established  contact  with  "the 
best  that  has  been  known  and  said  in 
this  world,"  they  accomplished,  except  in 
a  few  notable  cases,  small  signs  of  cul- 
ture. It  was  then  that  the  college  cham- 
pions of  the  classical  tradition  fell  back 
on  the  last  infirmity  of  their  noble  minds 
and  made  much  of  the  fact  that,  though 
only  a  few — the  children  of  sweetness 
and  light— might  attain  unto  the  fullness 
of  the  stature  of  culture,  the  "vast  re- 
siduum," if  they  did  not  get  culture,  at 
least  got  mental  discipline  out  of  the  clas- 
sics. A  doctrine  which  thus  set  culture 
apart,  a  thing  to  be  enjoyed  only  by  a 
small  and  rather  precious  group,  was  cal- 
culated to  hasten  the  process  towards 
atrophy.  Even  professors  became  apos- 
tate. 

Yet  culture  did  not  really  die.  Under 
such  conditions  it  merely  seeks  pastures 
new,  wherever  its  chief  food,  ideas,  sets 
up  a  cultural  process — in  colleges,  but 
perhaps  in  science  laboratories,  perhaps 
also  in  those  classical  courses  which  have 
broken  with  the  formula;  also  in  busi- 
ness, in  the  very  stronghold  of  cash 
values. 

It  should  be  instructive  in  this  connec- 
tion to  recall  the  activities  of  men  dur- 
ing periods  of  productive  culture.  What 
wrought  the  desired  state  of  being  in 
Erasmus,  in  Bacon,  in  Milton?  Certainly 
not  the  classics,  which  had  a  plain  cash 
value.  What  was  the  process  before 
Erasmus  and  the  classical  tradition? 
Latin  in  the  Middle  Ages  was  as  hope- 
lessly utilitarian  as  French  is  to-day. 
And  what  shall  be  said  of  Phidias  and 
Praxiteles,  to  whom  Greek  was  the  neces- 
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classics,  should  have  been  so  incurably 
utilitarian  as  to  build  fortifications  and 
invent  wheelbarrows?  Was  it  not  that 
they,  just  because  of  a  vital  culture,  a 
culture  that  was  still  a  process,  were 
filled  with  creative  energy,  as  are  to-day 
the  diggers  of  canals  and  the  builders 
of  railroads — men  of  vision  and  ideas?  A 
good  many  champions  of  dead  culture 
seem  to  have  forgotten  that  the  Renais- 
sance, their  fortress  and  their  strength, 
was  directly  responsible  for  a  quickened 
interest  in  this  world,  an  interest  which 
in  time  produced  modern  science.  Science 
(Continued  on  page  294) 

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MORE  CHAPTERS 

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By  H.  E.  KREHBIEL 

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MASKS 

By  GEORGE  MIDDLETON 

This  sixth  volume  treats  of  a  wide  range  of 
subjects  shown  in  varied  moods.  Maslis  is  a 
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MANY,  MANY 

MOONS 

By  LEW  SARETT 

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Country  among  the  Indians  as  a  guide  and 
woodsman  and  was  adopted  as  a  brother  by 
the  tribes.  Out  of  the  tall  timber  of  the  land 
of  K'cheegamee  he  has  come  with  these  poems 
of  the   wilderness.  $1.50 

HENRY  HOLT&  COMPANY 

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29-t] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  45 


{Contintted  from  page  293) 
worked  havoc  with  their  comfortable 
ways  of  thinking;  they  pronounced  the 
non-utilitarian  doctrine  to  maintain  their 
precious  culture,  and  so  killed  it;  and 
culture  went  to  live  among  the  idolaters ! 
The  trouble  is  not  with  culture,  plainly, 
nor  yet  with  the  classics.  It  lies  in  the 
crystallizing  of  culture  into  a  state  of 
being  and  the  development  of  a  ritual 
to  serve  it — in  losing  that  "strong  con- 
sciousness of  the  metaphor  involved"  in 
Bacon's  "Culture  and  manurance  of 
minds."  Business  is  "live"  because  it  is 
vital,  and  as  such  it  may  produce  ideas, 
may  even  produce  order  among  ideas. 
But  it  is  not  cultural  just  because  it  is 
utilitarian,  any  more  than  the  classical 
formula  is  cultural  because  it  is  non-util- 
itarian. Few,  if  any,  ideas  have  had  such 
transforming  power  as  those  contained 
in  the  classics.  There  is  a  strong  case 
for  them,  though  not  the  case  most  com- 
monly presented — as  there  is  a  strong 
case  for  other  studies  which  reveal  man's 
search  for  truth — if  their  guardians  will 
bear  steadily  in  mind,  whatever  the  con- 
sequences to  "immemorial"  prejudices, 
that  the  condition  of  .culture  has  ever 
been  produced  by  the  process  of  culture, 
that  mental  pruning  shears  alone  will  not 
make  the  student  grow,  that  there  must 
also  be  "manurance  of  minds."  Culture 
will  flourish  wherever  significant  ideas 
are   brought   to   birth;    and   significant 


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ideas  are  more  likely  to  be  brought  to 
birth  where  men  are  building  Parthenons 
and  Pennsylvania  Terminals  than  where 
they  are  repeating,  with  ghostly  insig- 
nificance, the  rituals  of  a  perished  super- 
stition. 

Walter  S.  Hinchman 

IT  is  worth  noticing  that  the  Board  of 
Education  of  Massachusetts  plans  to 
give  this  spring  a  course  in  "Methods  of 
Teaching  English  in  Secondary  Schools." 
This  course,  which  will  be  organized  as  a 
series  of  conferences  of  English  teach- 
ers, will  focus  its  attention  particularly 
on  the  question  of  College  Entrance  Eng- 
lish. Such  an  effort,  after  the  publicity 
that  has  recently  been  given  this  much- 
mooted  question,  should  have  practical 
results  and  should  prove  of  interest  and 
value  outside  of  Massachusetts.  Not 
only  have  the  discussions  in  the  Harvard 
Alurrini  Bulletin  shown  that  everyone  is 
net  satisfied  with  admission  requirements 
as  they  now  stand,  but  the  recent  flood- 
ing of  the  universities  of  Minnesota  and 
Iowa  with  inadequately  prepared  stu- 
dents under  the  "accrediting"  system 
has  revealed  that  everyone  is  not  satisfied 
with  admission  requirements  as  they  now 
fall.  At  the  November  meeting  of  the 
National  Council  of  Teachers  of  English, 
Miss  Breck,  of  Oakland,  California,  urged 
the  colleges  to  rely  on  the  judgment  of 
the  high  schools — to  open  wide  their 
doors  and  have  faith.  The  question  is 
not  merely  one  of  English  require- 
ments, nor  yet  burning  solely  in  Massa- 
chusetts; it  concerns  the  whole  question 
of  admission  requirements  and  is  of 
national  importance. 

An  honestly  liberal  view  can  not  adhere 
exclusively  to  either  the  radical  or  the 
ultra-conservative  ideas.  Is  a  college 
education  desirable  for  more  than  a  small 
percentage  of  high  school  graduates? 
Will  they  really  profit  by  the  opportunity 
if  the  doors  are  thrown  wide  open?  Are 
those  who  can  profit  really  shut  out  by 
examination  bars?  Will  the  psycholog- 
ical tests  recently  set  up  by  Columbia 
solve  the  problem?  If  the  colleges  are 
to  become  advanced  high  schools,  where 
are  the  instructors  to  be  found?  These 
questions  have  not  yet  been  adequately 
answered,  but  the  issue  between  the  ac- 
crediting system  and  the  old  examina- 
tion system  is  fairly  joined.  The  impor- 
tance of  the  outcome  of  this  issue  must 
be  appreciated  by  all  who  are  interested 
in  educational  matters. 

Books  Received 

POETRY 

Brereton,  C.  Mystica  et  Lyrica.  London : 
Elkin  Mathews. 

Lindsay,  Vachel.  The  Golden  Whales  of 
California.     Macmillan.     $1.75. 

Sassoon,  Siegfried.  Picture-Show.  Dut- 
ton.     $1.50  net. 

Turner,  W.  J.  The  Dark  Wind.  Dutton. 
$2  net.  • 


Books  and  the  News 

Woman  Suffrage 

WITH  woman  suffrage  by  Constitu- 
tional amendment  all  but  an  accom- 
plished fact,  to  name  a  list  of  books  upon 
the  subject  may  seem  superfluous.  But 
both  as  a  current  question  and  for  the 
historical  interest  in  the  long  struggle, 
it  is  not  inopportune  to  refer  to  the 
stories  of  the  pioneers,  and  the  argu- 
ments of  the  "pros"  and  of  the  "antis." 

The  whole  question  of  "women's, 
rights"  from  the  days  of  Augustus  to  the 
present,  '  is  described  by  Eugene  A. 
Hecker  (a  "pro")  in  his  "Short  History 
of  Women's  Rights"  (Putnam,  1910). 
Anna  H.  Shaw,  in  her  "Story  of  a  Pio- 
neer" (Harper),  tells  of  campaigns, 
early  and  late,  in  America.  Another 
American  leader's  work  is  told  in  "Julia 
Ward  Howe  and  the  Woman  Suffrage 
Movement"  (Dana  EStes,  1913),  by  her 
daughter,  Florence  H.  Hall. 

The  suffragists  are  well  represented 
by  Mary  Putnam  Jacobi's  "  'Common 
Sense'  Applied  to  Woman  Suffrage" 
(Putnam,  2nd  ed.,  1915)  and  by  Carrie 
Chapman  Catt's  compilation,  "Woman 
Suffrage  by  Federal  Constitutional 
Amendment"  (National  Woman  Suf- 
frage Pub.  Co.,  1917).  Helen  L.  Sum- 
ner, the  author  of  "Equal  Suffrage" 
(Harper,  1909),  made  an  investigation 
of  conditions  and  results  in  Colorado, 
and  reports  favorably.  Josephine  Schain's 
"Women  and  the  Franchise"  (McClurg, 
1918)  is  brief;  it  states  the  arguments 
against  equal  suffrage,  but  is  itself  pro- 
suffrage.  "What  Women  Want"  (Stokes, 
1914),  by  Beatrice  F.-R.  Hale,  is  "an 
interpretation  of  the  feminist  move- 
ment," in  which  the  question  of  votes 
occupies  only  a  fraction  of  the  space. 

On  the  other  side,  should  be  read 
Grace  D.  Goodwin's  "Anti-Suffrage;  Ten 
Good  Reasons"  (Duffield,  1913).  A  re- 
markable monograph  is  Sir  Almroth 
Wright's  "The  Unexpurgated  Case 
Against  Woman  Suffrage"  (Constable, 
1913).  Molly  Elliot  Seawell  wrote  wit- 
tily, on  this  side  of  the  question,  in  "The 
Ladies'  Battle"   (Macmillan,  1912). 

"The  Woman  Voter"  (Stokes,  1918), 
by  Mary  Sumner  Bosd,  is  a  handbook 
about  the  history  of  the  woman-suf- 
frage movement,  together  with  informa- 
tion for  the  woman  voter.  Henry  St.  G. 
Tucker's  "Woman's  Suffrage  by  Consti- 
tutional Amendment"  (Yale  Univ.  Press, 
1916)  is  an  important  legal  study;  with- 
out expressing  an  opinion  of  the  right  or 
wrong  of  woman  suffrage,  he  attempts 
to  show  that  for  the  country  to  adopt  it 
in  the  manner  which  is  now  being  done 
is  subversive  of  the  spirit  of  the  Consti- 
tution. Samuel  McC.  Crothers's  "Medi- 
tations on  Votes  for  Women"  (Houghton, 
1914)  is  a  humorous  and  pleasing  essay. 
Edmund  Lester  Pearson 


/ 


THE  REVIEW 


^' 


Vol.  2,  No.  46 


New  York,  Saturday,  March  27,   1920 


FIFTEEN  CENTS 


Contents 


Brief  Comment 
■Editorial  Articles: 

The  Wreck  of  the  Treaty 
Campaign  Arguments 
il       The  Farmers'  Questionnaire 
"  '       Kapp's  Ballon  d'Essai 


295 

297 
299 
299 
301 


Behind  the  Financing  of  China.     Part 

I.     By  Charles  Hodges  302 

Experimental     Allegiances.      Part    II. 

By  W.  J.  Ghent  303 

The  Transportation  Problem  in  France. 

By  Andre  Rostand  305 

Correspondence  306 

Book  Reviews: 
Public  Service  in  the  Days  of  Roose- 
velt 308 
A  Modern  Greek  Poet  309 
First  Youth                                                  310 
The  Run  of  the  Shelves                             310 
Drama: 
Arnold  Bennett's  "Sacred  and  Pro- 
fane   Love" — John    Barrymore    in 
"Richard  III."     By  O.  W.  Firkins     312 
'  Books  and  the  News:   Sea  Stories.   By 

Edmund  Lester  Pearson  314 

It  TAD  we  not  grown  so  accustomed 
!•■■■'•  to    the    idea,    the    situation    in 
I  which  the  country  finds  itself  with  the 
I  treaty's  failure  in  the  Senate  would 
Ibe  regarded  as  intolerable.    No  prac- 
iticable  way  of  arriving  at  a  real  set- 
Jtlement  is  in  sight.    A  mere  declara- 
ion  that  the  war  is  over  would  leave 
everything  at  loose  ends,  even  if  it 
'could  be  made  effective  without  the 
consent  of  the  President,  which  is  at 
least    doubtful.    The    one    resource 
which  does  remain  open  is  a  return 
of  the  treaty  to  the  Senate  by  the 
President,  with  a  suggestion  from 
him  of  some  basis  upon  which  ratifi- 
cation may  be  obtained.    But  it  seems 
certain  that  Mr.  Wilson  entertains  no 
thought    of    doing  anything  of  the 
Icind.    It  is  still  in  his  power,  how- 
ever, by  a  single  stroke  to  reestablish 
limself  in  the  regard  of  those  who 
50  short  a  time  ago  were  his  devoted 
idmirers,  and  to  win  the  approbation 
)f  millions  of  others.    All  he  has  to 
lo  is  to  recognize  the  duty  which  cir- 
;umstances  place  upon  him.     If  he 
should  rise  to  the  occasion  now,  no- 


body will  begrudge  him  the  satisfac- 
tion of  claiming  that  he  was  right  all 
along,  that  he  had  fought  to  the  last 
ditch  for  what  he  held  to  be  essential, 
and  that,  in  accepting  less  at  last,  he 
was  yielding  only  to  the  compulsion  of 
absolutely  demonstrated  necessity. 

/~\N  the  evidence  presented,  the  jury 
^-^  at  Grand  Rapids  promptly  brought 
in  a  verdict  of  guilty  against  Senator 
Newberry  and  sixteen  of  the  leading 
agents  in  the  collection  and  expendi- 
ture of  the  funds  used  to  procure  his 
election.  The  result  is  of  the  highest 
public  importance  as  an  example  of 
the  powerlessness  of  wealth  and  social 
standing  and  political  influence  to 
paralyze  the  arm  of  justice.  Judge 
Sessions  imposed  upon  Senator  New- 
berry and  two  others  the  maximum 
penalty  of  two  years  in  the  peniten- 
tiary and  $10,000  fine.  The  verdict 
was  based  on  conspiracy  to  violate 
the  law  imposing  a  specific  limit  on 
allowable  expenditure.  Senator  New- 
berry's complicity  was  established  by 
letters  over  his  own  signature  to  the 
manager  of  his  campaign,  showing 
that  he  had  full  knowledge  of  the 
large  sums  used,  and  gave  constant 
advice  as  to  their  expenditure.  A 
stay  of  sixty  days  was  granted,  within 
which  papers  will  be  prepared  for  an 
appeal.  The  case  will  be  fought  on 
the  validity  of  the  law  itself,  and  not 
on  the  question  of  its  violation.  The 
possible  escape  of  the  present  defen- 
dants on  some  technical  defect  in  the 
legislation  under  which  they  were 
convicted  would  only  deepen  the  pub- 
lic feeling  that  the  expenditure  of 
money  to  control  the  results  of  pri- 
maries and  elections  needs  stringent 
regulation. 

npHE  newspapers  have  given  only 
•*-  fragmentary  reports  of  the  evi- 
dence in  the  case.  Enough  has  been 
printed,  however,  to  show  that  the 
wealth  of  Mr.  Newberry  himself,  his 


family,  and  his  friends  was  lavishly 
used  in  violation  of  the  law  and  of 
political  decency.  This  is  not  to  say 
that  Senator  Newberry  reached  his 
seat  by  what  is  usually  denominated 
as  bribery.  But  we  are  coming  to 
realize  that  less  visibly  criminal 
forms  of  attaining  one's  ends  in  poli- 
tics may  be  more  corrupting,  more 
dangerous  to  the  safety  of  the  state, 
than  direct  bribery.  The  expenditure 
of  large  sums  of  money  in  election 
campaigns  is  not  wrong  merely  be- 
cause there  happens  to  be  a  law  set- 
ting a  comparatively  low  limit,  and 
establishing  a  penalty  for  its  trans- 
gression. The  moral  condemnation 
of.  the  practice  was  emphatic  and 
general  long  before  it  found  its  way 
into  the  statute  books.  It  is  practi- 
cally impossible  to  keep  such  lavish 
expenditure  free  from  actual  bribery, 
but  even  if  this  could  be  done  there 
is  ample  reason  for  restriction.  To 
allow  the  man  of  wealth  to  spend 
without  limitation  is  to  put  a  tremen- 
dous handicap  on  the  man  of  small 
means  who  aspires  to  public  office. 

ACCORDING  to  the  Freeman, 
■^*- which  made  its  initial  bow  to  the 
reading  public  last  week,  the  one  far- 
off  divine  event  into  which  mankind 
is  to  evolve,  with  the  husks  of  politi- 
cal organization  stripped  away,  is  to 
be  simply  "the  idea  of  Society."  The 
aristocratic  state  has  passed,  the 
middle-class  state  is  hurrying  to- 
wards the  brink;  the  proletarian 
state  is  coming,  but  not  to  stay.  In 
fact,  the  very  word  stay  is  an  offense 
to  the  whole  scheme  of  modern  prog- 
ress. Did  not  Cicero  appeal  to 
Jupiter  StaioT  to  stay  the  hand  of 
Catiline  and  his  fellow  progressives 
in  their  efforts  to  change  the  estab- 
lished order  of  the  Roman  republic? 
Why  centre  our  politics  around  an  old 
Graeco-Roman  root  like  that,  with  all 
kinds  of  reactionary  ideas  clinging  to 
it?    Let  us  away  with  things  static. 


296] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  46 


and  give  full  swing  to  the  kinetic. 
The  mere  "idea  of  Society,"  uncor- 
seted  by  stays  of  any  description,  is 
certainly  fluid  enough  to  make  of  life 
no  dull  museum  of  the  magna  char- 
tas,  constitutions  and  other  establish- 
ments of  the  past,  but  one  grand 
movie,  with  no  police  regulations,  no 
censor,  no  war  tax,  and  no  reserved 
seats.  Doubtless  the  architects  will 
be  able  to  arrange  some  plan  by 
which  each  and  all  of  us  may  have  the 
very  best  seat,  the  one  thing  neces- 
sary to  save  the  stateless  future  from 
that  friction  of  inequality  supposed 
to  be  fatal  to  any  possible  form  of 
state. 

"[VTEITHER  the  Danes  nor  the  Ger- 
■'•^  mans  are  satisfied  with  the  re- 
sults of  the  plebiscite  in  Slesvig.  The 
former  are  bitterly  disappointed  by 
their  defeat  in  the  Second  Zone, 
which  includes  the  important  town  of 
Flensburg ;  the  Germans,  on  the  other 
hand,  complain  of  the  inclusion  within 
the  First  Zone  of  such  preponder- 
antly German  towns  as  Tondern, 
where  the  vote  was  2,385  for  Ger- 
many and  733  for  Denmark,  and  of 
Hoyer,  where  581  German  and  219 
Danish  votes  were  cast.  The  Ger- 
man Government  has  presented  a 
note  to  the  Plebiscite  Commission  de- 
manding a  frontier  line  which  would 
leave  a  section  including  these  towns 
and  some  territory  belonging  to  Flens- 
burg's  hinterland  to  Germany,  and  in 
Denmark  a  strong  chauvinistic  move- 
ment is  on  foot  for  a  Danish  Flens- 
burg, in  spite  of  an  overwhelming  ma- 
jority having  voted  against  incorpo- 
ration with  Denmark.  The  plebiscite 
as  a  panacea  for  frontier  disputes  is 
sadly  discredited  by  this  experiment, 
which  leaves  both  parties  dissatisfied 
and  insisting  on  a  revision. 

'T'HE  refusal  of  England  and  France 
"'■  to  recognize  Prince  Feisal  as  King 
of  Syria  has  promptly  been  answered 
by  the  new  monarch  with  the  declara- 
tion of  a  boycott  against  countries  oc- 
cupying territory  of  Arabs.  The  Brit- 
ish policy  of  encouraging  a  Pan-Arab 
propaganda  was  an  excellent  weapon 
against  the  Turk  when  military  forces 
could  not  be  spared  in  sufficient 
numbers  to  defeat  him  without  the 


aid  of  his  rebellious  subjects ;  but  now 
the  rebels,  being  subjects  of  the  Turk 
no  longer,  are  naturally  disinclined  to 
acknowledge  themselves  subjects  of 
any  Western  Power.  "Freedom  and 
independence  are  rights  of  Syria," 
proclaim  the  posters  displayed  on  the 
walls  of  Damascus;  and  the  Arab's 
origin  from  Ishmael,  "more  ancient 
than  Moses,  Christ,  or  Mohammed," 
buttresses  his  claim  to  these  rights. 
Without  strong  reinforcements  it 
will  be  difficult  for  France  to  main- 
tain her  position  of  mandatory  Power, 
but  it  is  doubtful  whether,  at  the 
present  juncture,  with  Germany  in  a 
turmoil,  she  will  be  able  to  spare  any 
troops.  For  a  country  so  exhausted, 
and  deprived  of  a  large  percentage  of 
its  manhood,  it  seems  a  dangerous 
policy  to  sacrifice  its  energy,  badly 
needed  for  reconstruction  at  home,  to 
a  scheme  of  colonial  expansion.  Win- 
ston Churchill  admitted  in  the  House 
of  Commons  the  impossibility  of 
policing  Mesopotamia  permanently  at 
the  cost  of  at  least  $15,000,000  a  year. 
How,  then,  could  France  afford  to 
keep  up  her  protectorate  over  a  coun- 
try which  strongly  objects  to  being 
protected?  But  Churchill  has  sug- 
gested a  remedy  for  this  high  cost  of 
colonial  living :  as  a  modern  Prospero 
he  will  send  out  his  Ariels  to  guard, 
in  inexpensive  flight,  the  old  Garden 
of  Eden. 

ivro  merchant  fleet  has  suffered  se- 
J-  *  verer  losses  during  the  war  than 
that  of  France.  They  amount  to 
930,355  tons,  or  40  per  cent,  of  pre- 
war tonnage.  The  Compagnie  de 
Navigation  sud-Atlantique,  in  a  re- 
cent publication,  gives  a  very  pessi- 
mistic view  of  the  country's  chances 
of  recovering  its  sea-trade.  Only  by 
purchasing,  at  fabulous  prices,  old  or 
badly  built  wooden  ships,  has  France 
been  able  somewhat  to  make  up  for 
her  loss.  But  neither  the  number  nor 
the  seaworthiness  of  these  new  acqui- 
sitions suffices  to  enable  the  country 
to  compete  with  its  allies  and  the  neu- 
trals in  the  conquest  of  the  world- 
market.  The  import  of  the  chief  nec- 
essaries of  life  is  carried  on  largely 
by  foreign  freighters,  for  which  the 
country  has  to  disburse  an  annual 
amount  of  four  billion  francs  to  for- 


eign steamship  companies.  Experts 
estimate  the  country's  need  of  ton- 
nage at  51/2  million  tons,  which  is 
about  twice  the  amount  before  the 
war.  No  wonder  the  French  press  in- 
sists on  retention  of  the  500,000  tons 
of  German  ships  now  in  the  hands  of 
the  French  Government,  of  200,000  of 
which  the  Wilson-George  agreement 
would  deprive  the  French. 

TN  his  able  criticism  of  Keynes  and 
•■■  Dillon  in  last  week's  issue  of  the 
Review,  Professor  Love  joy  expresses 
the  belief  that  "M,  Clemenceau  seems 
to  have  fought  with  all  his  skill,  re- 
sourcefulness and  pertinacity"  for  the 
French  demand  that  all  German  ter- 
ritory on  the  left  bank  of  the  Rhine 
should  be  separated  from  the  German 
Empire.  As  the  former  French  Pre- 
mier is  held  responsible  by  common 
opinion  for  all  the  demands  which, 
though  but  partly  conceded,  have 
made  the  Versailles  peace  an  execra- 
ble document  to  the  Keyneses  and 
Dillons,  it  seems  only  fair  to  M.  Cle-- 
menceau  that  a  different  version  of 
his  share  in  the  proceedings  with  re- 
gard to  this  point  of  vital  interest 
should  be  brought  to  the  knowledge 
of  our  readers.  Stephane  Lauzanne, 
the  chief  editor  of  the  Matin,  vouches 
for  the  truth  of  this  diverging  ac- 
count. Foch  and  Poincare,  accord- 
ing to  him,  were  advocates  of  the 
Rhine  as  the  strategic  frontier. 
"Foch  wrote  his  eloquent  memoran- 
dum of  January  10, 1919,  which  could 
not  be  suppressed ;  Poincare  composed 
an  admirable  note,  which  can  not  be 
suppressed  for  good,  and  will,  one 
day,  have  to  be  published."  But  he 
demanded  that  it  should,  at  least,  be 
handed  to  Wilson  and  Lloyd  George. 
They  refused  to  concede  it,  "and,"  ex- 
claims Lauzanne,  "how  could  they  be 
expected  not  to  refuse,  seeing  that 
the  French  delegation  shared  their 
standpoint!  In  vain  Poincare  ad- 
dressed a  personal  letter  to  Wilson 
and  Lloyd  George  to  win  them  ovei 
to  his  views.  But  how  many  letter.' 
would  he  have  had  to  write  to  con 
vince  Clemenceau,  Pichon,  and  ever 
Tardieu !"  Only  Tardieu  let  himsel: 
be  persuaded,  at  last,  to  change  hif 
mind  and  became  an  ardent  supportei 
of  Foch  and  Poincare  after  his  con 


March  27,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[297 


version.  It  was  he  who,  even  after 
France  had  received,  as  an  alternative 
guarantee  for  her  security,  the  prom- 
ise of  special  treaties  with  England 
and  the  United  States,  insisted  on  a 
temporary  occupation  of  the  Rhine- 
land  as  a  guarantee  for  the  fulfillment 
of  the  peace  terms  by  Germany. 

TT  is  very  encouraging  to  be  told 
•'■  by  the  Restaurant  Men's  Associ- 
ation that  the  price  of  food  is  coming . 
down.  From  such  a  source  it  is  so 
much  more  encouraging  than  if  the 
hope  were  held  out,  say,  by  a  Govern- 
ment official,  or  a  mere  economist. 
We  have  noticed  that  when  the  deal- 
ers in  clothes  or  the  dealers  in  gaso- 
line, or  the  dealers  in  anything,  say 
that  the  price  of  their  commodities  is 
going  up,  go  up  it  does.  As  prophets, 
they  never  make  a  mistake.  For  that 
reason,  when  they  say  that  prices  are 
coming  down,  we  are  prepared  to  ex- 
tend to  them,  and  to  them  only,  the 
fullest  credence. 

ANOTHER  hopeful  sign  of  the 
■^  times  is  given  forth  by  the  New 
York  Custom  Cutters'  Club,  which, 
apparently,  is  charged  with  responsi- 
bility for  setting  the  styles  of  men's 
clothes.  Tight-fitting  clothes  must  go, 
and  the  easy,  natural-fitting  coat  of 
pre-war  days  will  be  the  mode.  Since 
pretty  much  everybody  who  is  thor- 
oughly honest  and  of  good  taste  is 
still  wearing  a  coat  that  was  made 
before  the  war,  concerning  the  lines 
of  which  it  may  at  least  be  said  that 
they  are  easy,  perhaps  the  decision 
of  the  Custom  Cutters  is  just  as  well. 

'T'HE  attack  of  the  New  York  City 
■*■  Commissioner  of  Accounts  on 
William  T.  Hornaday,  as  director  of 
the  New  York  Zoological  Park,  is  a 
matter  which  deserves  the  attention 
of  every  lover  of  wild  life.  If  the 
Commissioner  has  found  points  in 
which  the  account-keeping  of  the 
Park  could  be  improved,  no  one  who 
knows  the  character  of  Mr.  Hornaday 
will  doubt  that  a  proper  presentation 
of  them  would  receive  respectful  and 
immediate  attention  from  him.  But 
the  tone  and  substance  of  the  attack 
bears  every  mark  of  a  desire  to  re- 
move the  Bronx  Zoological  Garden 


from  the  care  of  the  New  York 
Zoological  Society  and  throw  it  into 
the  hopper  of  city  politics.  This 
would  not  only  strike  a  heavy  blow  at 
the  value  of  the  "Zoo"  itself,  as  a 
place  of  recreation  and  education  for 
the  millions  of  New  York  City,  but 
would  seriously  cripple  the  working 
facilities  of  a  man  who  has  done  per- 
haps more  than  any  other  man  that 
ever  lived  to  promote  an  intelligent 
interest  in  wild  life,  and  secure  both 
legislative  and  private  measures  for 
its  protection.  It  is  inconceivable 
that  public  sentiment  will  allow  the 
wolves  of  spoils  politics  to  drive  Will- 
iam T.  Hornaday  out  of  the  "Zoo." 

"T  FOUND  myself  deeply  interested," 
-■■  said  Professor  McAndrew  Cantlie, 
"in  the  present  effort  to  socialize 
the  traffic  in  New  York's  Fifth  Ave- 
nue. I  regret  that  I  had  not  more 
time  in  which  to  study  its  manifold 
bearings.  It  was  at  once  plain  to 
me,  however,  that  whatever  signifi- 
cance they  might  have  in  the  troubled 
lives  of  the  drivers  of  motor  cars,  the 
complicated  system  of  lights  and 
other  signals  possessed  no  interest 
for  mere  pedestrians.  The  pedes- 
trians, indeed,  do  not  even  need  to 
watch  the  incredibly  numerous  po- 
licemen who  are  strategically  dis- 
posed along  the  thoroughfare.  The 
pedestrian  is  watched  by  the  police- 
man ;  and  let  him  so  much  as  start  to 
cross  the  street  when,  as  it  were,  he 
would  be  moving  out  of  his  turn,  and 
a  vigilant  officer  firmly  and  promptly 
restores  him  to  an  insecure  footing 
on  the  edge  of  a  crowded  curb.  When 
at  a  signal  the  vigilance  of  the  police 
relaxed,  the  crowd  streamed  across 
the  avenue  with  an  unwonted  sense 
of  utter  safety.  At  that  moment — it 
seemed  to  be  perfectly  understood  by 
those  who  were  managing  the  game, 
but  it  most  certainly  was  not  under- 
stood by  the  crowd — the  motors  turn- 
ing from  Forty-second  street  into 
the  Avenue  began  to  crash  into  them. 
It  was  most  interesting  to  see  the 
crowd  endeavoring,  and  not  always 
with  perfect  success,  to  recover  its 
blunted  sense  of  individual  responsi- 
bility. Here,"  said  the  Professor,  "I 
fear  we  have  the  perfect  type  and 
example  of  paternalism." 


The  Wreck  of  the 
Treaty 

WHEN  President  Wilson  laid  the 
"  -  Treaty  of  Versailles  before  the 
Senate,  he  knew,  and  all  the  country 
knew,  that  there  would  be  a  more  or 
less  serious  struggle  over  its  ratifica- 
tion, and  that  this  would  turn  entirely 
on  the  issue  of  the  League  of  Nations. 
It  soon  became  apparent,  too,  that 
the  lines  would  be  drawn  not  upon 
acceptance  or  rejection  of  the  League, 
but  upon  the  issue  of  reservations 
designed  to  lessen  the  force  of  some 
of  the  obligations  involved  in  the 
treaty,  especially  those  contained  in 
Article  X.  That  the  treaty  would  be 
accepted  in  some  form  was  not  only 
the  almost  universal  wish  and  hope, 
but  the  almost  universal  expectation, 
of  the  people  of  the  United  States. 
A  large  proportion  of  them  desired  it 
because  of  their  high  hopes  of  the 
League  as  a  permanent  preventive  of 
war ;  and  all  of  them,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  a  small  though  not  an  unim- 
portant contingent,  desired  it  because 
rejection  of  the  League  meant  rejec- 
tion of  the  treaty,  and  rejection  of 
the  treaty  meant  failure  of  the  United 
States  to  do  its  share  in  the  restora- 
tion of  the  world.  It  was  felt  that 
even  any  considerable  delay  in  the 
completion  of  the  settlement  would  be 
a  calamity  of  appalling  magnitude, 
with  Europe  in  the  throes  both  of 
revolutionary  upheaval  and  of  dire 
economic  distress. 

In  those  first  days  of  the  treaty 
debate,  the  gloomiest  of  pessimists 
would  not  have  dared  to  forecast  the 
actual  story  which  these  nine  months 
have  presented.  We  have  lived 
through  month  after  month  of  dreary 
wrangling,  relieved  by  hardly  a  single 
inspiring  feature,  and  ending  in 
melancholy  failure.  For  this  failure, 
while  there  have  been  many  causes. 
President  Wilson  must  bear  incom- 
parably the  heaviest  load  of  responsi- 
bility. He  chose  to  adopt  from  the 
beginning,  and  to  maintain  to  the  end, 
the  attitude  of  one  who  was  not  called 
upon  either  to  pay  a  decent  respect 
to  the  opinions  of  those  who  differed 
with  him  in  judgment,  or  to  take  into 
serious  account  the  power  of  those 


298] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  46 


who,  in  the  exercise  of  their  Consti- 
tutional functions,  were  in  a  position 
to  defeat  his  purpose.  From  the  first 
moment  to  the  last,  it  seems  never  to 
have  occurred  to  him  that  the  higher 
that  purpose  was,  the  more  impera- 
tively was  the  duty  laid  upon  him  of 
striving  for  it,  not  by  staking  every- 
thing on  a  gambler's  chance  of  win- 
ning by  sheer  obstinacy,  but  by 
adopting  such  a  course  as  was  rea- 
sonably calculated  to  attain  so  much 
of  it  as  could  be  attained.  No  plea 
of  high  ideals  can  avail  to  absolve 
him  from  the  guilt  of  having  failed 
in  that  clear  duty.  How  lamentably 
he  did  fail,  a  calm  retrospect  suifices 
to  show. 

For  the  outstanding  feature  of  the 
whole  story  is  that  the  President's 
hold  on  public  sentiment  has  steadily 
diminished,  from  week  to  week,  from 
month  to  month.  He  started  out  with 
the  advantage  of  that  almost  unani- 
mous desire  for  a  speedy  settlement 
to  which  we  have  referred.  More- 
over, his  party  in  the  Senate  was  sol- 
idly behind  him,  while  the  opposing 
party  was  split  into  three  sharply 
marked  divisions.  The  "mild  reser- 
vationists"  showed,  in  those  early 
days,  more  anxiety  in  behalf  of  the 
treaty  than  in  behalf  of  their  reserva- 
tions. These  reservations  themselves 
were  couched  in  language  which  care- 
fully avoided  all  appearance  of  un- 
friendliness to  the  broad  purposes  of 
the  League.  It  was  evident  that  what 
these  men  offered,  and  offered  at  the 
cost  of  arraying  themselves  against 
their  party's  leaders,  was  the  utmost 
that  could  be  attained.  Some  of  the 
most  ardent  advocates  of  the  League 
of  Nations — men  who  had  been  de- 
voted to  the  idea  of  it  long  before  Mr. 
Wilson  had  taken  it  up — recognized 
this  at  once ;  others  of  them,  like  Mr. 
Taft,  recognized  it  before  long.  The 
President  had  absolutely  no  reason 
for  believing  otherwise.  Had  he  felt 
that  sense  of  responsibility  for  the 
result  which  marks  the  true  states- 
man— yes,  the  true  man — ^he  would 
have  welcomed  the  aid  of  the  "mild 
reservationists."  He  might  not  have 
accepted  their  proposal;  he  might 
have  fought  for  more,  so  long  as  there 
was  any  hope  for  more ;  but  he  would 
have  exhibited  a  certain  degree  of 


friendliness  to  those  who  were  striv- 
ing to  save  all  they  could  of  his  pro- 
gramme. Instead  of  that,  he  left 
them  out  in  the  cold ;  the  Democratic 
Senators,  acting  under  his  directions, 
refused  to  enter  into  any  kind  of  un- 
derstanding with  them;  in  a  word, 
the  only  hopeful  element  in  the  whole 
situation  was  deliberately  reduced  to 
a  nullity. 

We  have  said  that  the  President 
had  "absolutely  no  reason"  for  think- 
ing that  the  treaty  could  be  put 
through  without  reservations.  In 
one  sense  this  statement  is  not  alto- 
gether correct.  He  did  have  one  rea- 
son, which  to  his  peculiar  type  of 
mind  was  sufficient.  He  thought  that 
he  could  swing  the  country  into  line 
in  a  whirlwind  speaking  tour.  No 
amount  of  experience  seems  to  sufllice 
to  pry  this  notion  of  personal  omnipo- 
tence out  of  Mr.  Wilson's  head.  His 
speaking  tour  did  not  fail  because  of 
his  physical  breakdown.  It  was  a  pit- 
iful failure  from  the  beginning.  And 
it  was  to  the  credit  of  the  American 
people  that  it  was  a  failure.  Long 
before  he  began  the  tour,  it  had  be- 
come manifest  that  the  people  had 
come  to  realize  that  there  were  se- 
rious reasons  for  misgiving  about  the 
country  pledging  itself  unreservedly 
to  so  momentous  a  departure  from  its 
traditions  as  was  involved  in  Article 
X.  Instead  of  meeting  the  actual  dif- 
ficulties of  this  question  Mr.  Wilson 
simply  dug  himself  in.  Exhortation, 
denunciation,  assertion — these  were 
the  staple  of  his  speeches.  They  rested 
essentially  on  the  assumption  that 
whoever  opposed  his  programme  was 
actuated  either  by  a  low  standard  of 
public  morality  or  by  partisan  or  per- 
sonal malice;  and  at  the  end  of  his 
speechmaking  the  League  was  weaker 
than  at  the  beginning  of  it. 

Apart  from  all  this,  however,  the 
last  trace  of  possible  doubt  as  to  the 
character  of  the  situation  was  re- 
moved when  the  Senate  voted  on  rati- 
fication four  months  ago.  There 
might  still  be  differences  of  opinion 
on  specific  points ;  but  that  the  treaty 
could  not  be  adopted  without  substan- 
tial reservations  was  then  proved  be- 
yond peradventure.  The  President 
would  still  have  been  justified,  never- 
theless, in  an  endeavor  to  have  the 


reservations  made  as  inoffensive  as 
possible;  but  not  a  finger  did  he  stir 
in  this  direction.  When  he  emerged 
from  his  long  silence  in  his  Jackson- 
Day  letter,  he  dashed  all  the  hopes  of 
the  friends  of  the  treaty  by  adhering 
to  his  position  of  no  compromise.  In 
his  very  last  word — his  recent  letter 
to  Senator  Hitchcock — he  went  even 
further  than  ever  before  by  explic- 
itly putting  upon  the  mild  reserva- 
tionists the  same  brand  as  upon  those 
who  had  been  responsible  for  the 
most  obnoxious  proposals.  The  con- 
sequence has  been  not  only  the  defeat 
of  the  treaty,  but  a  practically  unop- 
posed course  for  a  miscellaneous  as- 
sortment of  mischievous  proposals 
such  as  the  preposterous  reservation 
concerning  Irish  independence.  When 
all  proposals  are  indiscriminately 
doomed  to  futility,  there  can  be  little 
energy  in  the  effort  to  save  the  best 
and  reject  the  worst.  How  different 
the  result  would  have  been  if  the 
President  had  not  laid  his  paralyzing 
touch  upon  the  situation  may  unhesi- 
tatingly be  inferred  from  the  fact 
that,  even  as  it  was,  one-half  of  the 
Democratic  Senators  felt  it  their  duty 
to  vote  for  the  treaty  vdth  all  the 
sins  of  the  Lodge  programme,  and 
more  besides,  on  its  head. 

We  do  not  by  any  means  wish  to 
absolve  others  of  their  share  of  the 
blame.  Senator  Lodge  has  shown 
himself  neither  a  large-minded  states- 
man nor  a  competent  party  leader; 
and  he  has  given  countenance  to  many 
abominable  moves  in  the  game.  On 
the  Democratic  side  there  has  been 
a  lamentable  want  of  manly  self- 
assertion.  In  the  face  of  a  responsi- 
bility so  awful  in  its  nature  that  one 
might  have  hoped  it  would  call  forth 
on  all  sides  a  loftiness  of  spirit  and  a 
largeness  of  mind  befitting  the  occa- 
sion, there  has  been  a  long  succes- 
sion of  petty  manoeuvres.  But  the 
situation  of  others  was  complicated 
by  the  fact  of  divergencies  to  be 
reconciled  or  combinations  to  be  ef- 
fected; upon  the  President  alone 
there  rested  a  clear  and  simple  duty 
and  an  undivided  responsibility. 
The  responsibility  he  shouldered  with 
unhesitating  assurance;  but  to  the 
duty  he  has  been  consistently  and  per- 
versely blind. 


March  27,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[299 


Campaign  Arguments 

/^NE  consideration  must  have 
^  tempted  even  the  "irreconcil- 
ables"  to  yield  on  the  treaty.  The 
thought  of  the  campaign  arguments, 
with  the  treaty  still  an  issue,  is  hor- 
rible to  contemplate.  An  indication 
of  what  they  will  be  like,  even  when 
prosecuted  on  a  supposedly  high 
plane,  is  given  by  Mr.  Walter  Lipp- 
mann's  attack  on  General  Leonard 
Wood  in  the  New  Republic. 

Two  laudatory  volumes  on  General 
Wood  gave  Mr.  Lippmann  his  chance. 
A  part  of  this  material  was  fair  game, 
no  doubt,  though  even  here  Mr.  Lipp- 
mann shows  himself  to  be  a  pretty  old 
young  man  in  taking  exception  to  the 
use  as  argument  of  certain  details 
which  were  calculated  to  catch  the 
admiration  of  youth.  For,  other 
things  being  equal,  Wood's  athletic 
prowess  at  college  and  his  marked 
success  in  organizing  college  teams 
might  be  supposed  to  excite  approval. 
Truly,  our  youth  have  rapidly  aged 
if  they  now  regard  the  captain  of  the 
football  team  as  quite  like  other  mor- 
tals! Not  so  long  ago  even  old  men 
were  rather  pleased  to  remember 
Teddy's  skill  as  a  boxer  and  the  fact 
that  he  had  once  floored  a  big  bully 
in  the  primitive  West. 

The  point  would  not  be  worth 
stressing  if  it  were  not  involved  in 
the  broad  implications  of  Mr.  Lipp- 
mann's  arguments.  It  unfortunately 
tends  to  discredit  the  advantages  of 
vigorous  manhood  and  carries  the 
reader  back  to  that  whole  body  of 
doctrine  sponsored  by  the  phrase  "too 
proud  to  fight."  Is  one  of  the  best 
American  instincts  to  be  challenged 
anew  during  the  campaign? 

One  is  not  pleased,  either,  by  Mr. 
Lippmann's  polite  sneer  at  General 
Wood's  proud  American  ancestry.  In 
biographies  it  is  fitting  to  introduce 
facts  of  birth  and  antecedents,  and 
Mr.  Lippmann's  singling  out  of  these 
for  criticism  reminds  one  of  the  re- 
cent tendency  of  representatives  of 
other  races  in  this  country  to  mini- 
mize the  Anglo-Saxon  strain  and  tra- 
ditions. Of  such  urgency  is  the  cause 
of  internationalism ! 

These  are  preliminary  details. 
What  matters  in  the  writer's  argu- 


ment is  General  Wood's  qualifications 
for  President.  After  listening  to  per- 
functory praise  of  his  work  in  Cuba, 
which  is  shown  to  signify  little  as  to 
his  possibilities  as  a  statesman,  we 
are  permitted  the  conclusion :  he  has 
not  been  "an  administrator  by  vol- 
untary cooperation  like  Hoover." 
Waiving  the  established  fact  that 
Wood  had  remarkable  success  in  ob- 
taining the  good  will  of  the  Cubans, 
Mr.  Lippmann's  comparison  can  not 
pass  without  challenge.  If  he  is  re- 
ferring to  Mr.  Hoover  in  his  capacity 
as  United  States  Food  Administrator, 
his  remark  ill  befits  one  who  has  for 
some  years  preached  the  supreme 
power  of  economics  in  regulating 
world  affairs.  While  we  do  not  wish 
to  detract  one  jot  of  the  praise  due  to 
Mr.  Hoover,  it  is  only  fair  to  recog- 
nize that  with  his  hand  on  the  great 
food  reservoirs  of  this  country  he 
held  over  Europe  a  weapon  mightier 
than  a  general's  sword. 

"For  the  ulterior  objects  of  this 
war  he  [Wood]  cared  nothing  in  par- 
ticular, but  for  war,  efficiently  and 
triumphantly  conducted,  he  cared  a 
great  deal.  Roosevelt  and  he  focused 
and  organized  sentiment  chiefly 
among  the  upper  strata  of  society  in 
the  big  cities,  in  the  colleges,  and 
among  the  intellectuals.  The  mass  of 
the  people  they  did  not  convert — that 
was  done  by  the  President  with  his 
democratic  formulas."  There  is  a 
curious  upsidedownness  in  Mr.  Lipp- 
mann's reasoning.  He  contends,  in 
effect,  that  the  persons  of  presum- 
ably higher  intelligence  drew  upon 
their  instincts  in  order  to  see  the 
light;  whereas  the  masses  were  not 
convinced  until  vouchsafed  the  Four- 
teen Points.  Which  is  to  say  that  a 
farmer  in  Kansas  withheld  his  son 
until  assured  that  Albania  was  to  be 
freed  and  Poland  guaranteed  access 
to  the  sea!  What  the  upper  strata 
saw  and  felt  was,  of  course,  the  out- 
rage perpetrated  upon  civilization. 
To  infer  that  they  had  no  hope  of  a 
better  order  of  things  coming  out  of 
the  war  is  merely  stupid.  Stricter 
logic  would  have  made  Mr.  Lippmann 
see  that  what  the  President  really  did 
was  to  confuse  simple  persons  by 
setting  their  minds  at  work  on  the 
details  of  the  future  world   settle- 


ment when  they  should  have  been 
focused  on  the  central  issue  of  right 
and  wrong.  To  admonish  us  to  be 
neutral  in  our  thoughts  on  a  question 
upon  which  no  right-minded,  discern- 
ing person  could  possibly  be  neutral 
tended  to  delay  a  popular  judgment 
which  any  leader  with  his  heart  in 
the  cause  might  have  obtained 
promptly. 

But  to  hold  Mr.  Lippmann  down  to 
strict  logic  would  be  hardly  fair.  Our 
new  President  is  to  be  an  executive 
in  a  "new  world"  in  which  even  logic 
may  be  supposed  to  show  new  mani- 
festations. What  qualities  he  should 
have  is  not  clear  even  to  the  radicals. 
The  Nation,  also  a  "new  worlder," 
condemns  the  New  Republic's  choice, 
Mr.  Hoover,  because  he  is  not  what 
he  professes  to  be,  a  "progressive  in- 
dependent." He  is  not  progressive,  it 
seems,  because  he  clings  to  those 
hoary  institutions,  private  ownership 
of  railroads  and  competition  in  indus- 
try. If  a  man  with  "progressive" 
ideas  is  desired,  let  it  be  remembered 
that  Mr.  Wilson  had  those  in  abun- 
dance. One  of  the  real  dangers  just 
now  is  the  fact  that  the  world  is 
deluged  vsith  ideas,  most  of  them  too 
unwieldy  for  mortals'  brains.  The 
man  of  the  hour  is  he  who  can  re- 
orient us  safely  and  solidly.  It  is  well 
for  the  chances  of  Hoover  and  Wood 
that  they  do  not  measure  up  to,  or 
down  to,  the  tests  implied  by  Mr. 
Lippmann's  campaign  arguments. 

The  Farmers'  Ques- 
tionnaire 

/^NE  is  somewhat  at  a  loss,  these 
^  days,  without  a  Who's  Who  of 
farmers'  organizations.  Here,  as 
elsewhere,  one  has  to  be  on  the  look- 
out for  camouflage,  for  it  is  no  more 
true  that  everyone  who  wears  the 
"blue  jeans"  has  ever  held  the  plow 
handle  than  that  every  American  girl 
who  walks  the  streets  of  Lucerne  with 
a  rucksack  slung  over  her  shoulder 
and  an  alpenstock  in  her  hand  has 
climbed,  or  intends  to  climb,  Pilatus. 
We  have  no  reason  to  suppose,  how- 
ever, that  the  National  Board  of  Farm 
Organizations,  which  has  drawn  up  a 
questionnaire  for  presidential  candi- 


800] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  46 


dates,  does  not  have  its  roots  actually 
in  the  outdoor  soil,  rather  than  in 
some  politician's  private  hothouse. 

The  questions  which  these  men 
have  put  are  conveyed  with  no  offen- 
sive threat,  nor  do  they  involve  any 
temptation  to  an  honest  candidate  to 
stultify  himself,  or  sacrifice  the  inter- 
ests of  the  whole,  in  order  to  secure 
the  vote  of  a  class.  The  candidate 
who  does  so  will  not  be  driven  by 
superior  force  from  without,  but  will 
be  displaying  his  own  inherent  in- 
stinct for  the  demagogue's  way  of 
approach.  The  candidates  are  first 
asked  to  pledge  themselves  to  work 
towards  a  more  direct  dealing  be- 
tween farmers  and  consumers,  both 
sides  to  share  in  the  resultant  saving 
from  undue  expenses  between  farm 
and  kitchen.  There  is  no  demand  to 
abolish  the  middleman  altogether,  no 
railing  at  him  as  always  and  every- 
where a  profiteer,  but  merely  a  rea- 
sonable proposal  to  cut  down  interme- 
diate expenses  by  such  means  as  may 
be  found  available.  The  second  point 
aims  to  secure  to  all  farmers  and  con- 
sumers "the  full,  free  and  unques- 
tioned right  to  organize  and  to  pur- 
chase and  sell  cooperatively."  Coop- 
eration is  not  "socialism,"  nor  is  there 
any  denial  of  the  right  to  private 
property  in  the  fact  that  a  large  num- 
ber of  individuals  choose  to  use  a 
part  of  their  private  property  in  such 
a  combination.  In  claiming  every 
such  movement  as  an  irretraceable 
advance  towards  an  inevitable  "so- 
cialism," the  advocates  of  that  "ism" 
do  not  state  a  fact,  but  merely  illus- 
trate their  lack  of  mental  balance. 

The  third  question,  pertains  to  rep- 
resentation of  farmers  on  general 
boards  and  commissions  in  whose 
membership  various  interests  are 
recognized,  even  though  the  work  in- 
volved might  be  only  indirectly  con- 
nected with  agriculture.  Believing 
that  this  was  not  intended  as  a  mere 
request  for  a  share  in  "patronage," 
we  do  not  believe  that  any  candidate 
would  improve  his  chances  by  pledg- 
ing himself,  if  elected,  to  place  some 
man  direct  from  the  farm  on  each  and 
every  "general"  board  or  commission 
constituted  during  his  term.  What 
is  wanted  is  a  reasonable  considera- 
tion   of    the    agricultural    interest, 


wherever  directly  or  indirectly  in- 
volved, and  this  can  be  both  promised 
and  delivered  without  demagoguery 
or  class  favoritism.  The  next  ques- 
tion concerns  the  qualifications  of  the 
Secretary  of  Agriculture,  and  sug- 
gests nothing  extreme  or  unwise.  In 
asking  for  a  Secretary  "satisfactory 
to  the  farm  organizations  of  Amer- 
ica," we  do  not  believe  that  the  satis- 
faction in  mind  is  of  the  sort  referred 
to  when  one  speaks  of  a  Democratic 
revenue  collector  at  the  port  of  New 
York,  or  a  Republican  postmaster  in 
Philadelphia,  as  "satisfactory  to  the 
organization."  The  request  for  an 
investigation  of  "the  great  and  grow- 
ing evil  of  farm  tenancy,  so  that  steps 
may  be  taken  to  check,  reduce,  or  end 
it,"  may  well  have  an  affirmative  re- 
ply, without  committing  the  candidate 
to  the  assertion  or  belief  that  tenant 
farming  is  always  an  evil.  The  real 
evil  is  the  descent  from  ownership  to 
tenancy ;  but  tenancy  is  sometimes  an 
intermediate  station  for  men  moving 
in  the  opposite  direction. 

We  are  not  quite  certain  just  what 
is  referred  to  in  the  question  whether 
the  candidate  will  work  to  secure  to 
cooperative  organizations  of  farmers 
engaged  in  interstate  commerce  "ser- 
vice and  supplies  equal  in  all  respects 
to  those  furnished  to  private  enter- 
prises under  like  circumstances" ;  but 
all  right-thinking  men  should  agree 
that  the  federal  power  ought  to  pre- 
vent discrimination  of  the  kind,  if  it 
exists,  at  any  point  falling  within  its 
jurisdiction.  The  candidate  is  further 
asked  whether  he  will  favor  the  re- 
opening of  the  railroad  question  "if 
at  the  end  of  two  years  of  further 
trial  of  private  ownership  the  rail- 
roads fail  to  render  reasonably  satis- 
factory service."  We  do  not  take  it 
that  the  men  who  drew  up  this  ques- 
tion meant  to  say,  "Satisfactory  ser- 
vice within  two  years,  or  Government 
ownership!"  The  candidate  who 
should  pledge  himself  to  a  hard  and 
fast  programme  of  that  kind  would 
hardly  find  that  he  had  sensed  the 
present  temper  of  American  farmers 
as  a  class. 

"Will  you  use  your  best  efforts  to 
secure  the  payment  of  the  war  debt 
chiefly  through  a  highly  graduated 
income  tax,  or  otherwise,  by  those 


best  able  to  pay"  ?  Here  is  a  question 
on  which  a  candidate  might  easily 
trip  himself  up,  if  at  all  inclined  to  be 
a  demagogue  in  matters  of  taxation. 
A  graduated  income  tax  may  be  a 
reasonable  recognition  of  varying  de- 
grees of  ability  to  aid  in  bearing  the 
public  burdens ;  on  the  other  hand,  it 
may  be  a  vicious  attempt  to  hit  at 
wealth  merely  as  wealth.  We  pre- 
dict that  the  candidate  who  is  not 
afraid  to  call  attention  to  this  truth, 
and  to  pledge  himself  only  to  what 
shall  appear  fair  and  wise,  will  have  no 
trouble  with  the  farmer.  The  candi- 
date who  will  not  pledge  himself,  in 
accordance  with  the  next  question,  to 
uphold  the  policy  of  the  conservation 
of  our  natural  resources  and  to  work 
for  some  effective  check  to  deforesta- 
tion, will  have  trouble  with  others  as 
well  as  farmers.  Any  right-minded 
candidate  can  also  afford  to  pledge 
himself  to  do  his  best  to  secure  and 
enforce  "effective  national  control 
over  the  packers  and  other  great  in- 
terstate combinations  of  capital  en- 
gaged in  the  manufacture,  transpor- 
tation, or  distribution  of  food  and 
other  farm  products  and  farmers' 
supplies."  The  Board  of  Farm  Or- 
ganizations wisely  refrain  from  set* 
ting  forth  a  detailed  programme  of 
legislation  for  this  purpose.  All  they 
ask  is  a  candidate  determined  to  make 
as  effective  as  possible  a  course  of 
action  to  which  the  Government  has 
long  been  committed. 

And  finally,  "Will  you  respect  and 
earnestly  try  to  maintain  the  right  of 
free  speech,  free  press,  and  free  as- 
sembly?" There  is  no  assertion  here 
that  these  rights  have  no  limitation. 
Any  candidate  may  well  say  to  the 
American  farmer,  "I  will  go  as  far 
as  you,  perhaps  even  a  little  farther, 
in  granting,  under  the  head  of  the 
rights  mentioned,  anything  that  does 
not  strike  dangerously  at  the  moral 
health  of  civilized  society,  or  the  con- 
tinued existence  of  orderly  govern- 
ment." The  revolutionary  radical 
will  give  the  farmer  up  as  hopeless 
when  he  reads  this  questionnaire ;  and 
herein  the  Review  finds  justification 
for  the  belief  which  it  has  expressed 
more  than  once,  that  the  American 
farmer  is,  as  a  rule,  a  makeweight  on 
the  side  of  stable  progress. 


March  27,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[801 


Kapp's  Ballon  d'Essai 

■p'ROM  the  various,  often  contradic- 
-*•  tory,  reports  that  have  reached 
us  from  several  parts  of  Germany,  one 
important  fact  stands  out  sufficiently 
clear  to  admit  of  some  tentative  con- 
clusions being  drawn  from  it  as  to 
future  developments.  The  failure  of 
Dr.  Kapp  and  his  associates  to  main- 
tain the  power  which  they  had  seized 
without  any  apparent  difficulty  was 
not  due  to  their  Government  being 
paralyzed  by  the  general  strike  or  the 
refusal  of  the  Reichsbank  to  honor 
their  orders  for  money.  They  failed 
because  of  the  freezing  lack  of  re- 
sponse from  the  bulk  of  the  nation. 
Even  the  immediate  success  of  the 
coup,  obtained  without  bloodshed, 
could  not  rouse  the  people  to  an  im- 
pulsive declaration  of  loyalty  to  the 
new  Government.  On  that  the 
usurpers  had  reckoned,  and  realizing, 
after  four  days  of  anxious  expec- 
tancy, that  their  calculation  had  been 
wrong,  they  saw  no  other  way  out 
than  to  surrender.  More  amazing 
than  the  briefness  of  their  rule  is 
that  ignorance  of  the  people's  real 
state  of  mind  which  made  their  mis- 
reckoning  possible.  Prussian  official- 
dom, trained  to  a  high  degree  of  effi- 
ciency in  working  the  state  machine, 
has  always  ignored  the  human  ele- 
ments of  will  and  passion  that  gen- 
erate the  power  by  which  the 
mechanism  is  driven.  The  bureau- 
crat Wolfgang  Kapp  imagined  that, 
as  soon  as  the  expert  officials  of  the 
old  regime  had  resumed  their  posts 
at  the  machines  in  the  state's  engine- 
room,  the  business  would  revive  and 
jProsper  as  before.  That  the  generat- 
'ing  station  would  supply  the  power 
was  to  them  a  matter  of  course. 

It  would  be  over-hasty  to  conclude 
from  the  events  of  last  week  that  the 
jerman  nation  has  finished  with 
nonarchism  and  is,  for  good  and  all, 
■epublican  in  conviction  and  senti- 
nent.  Two  other  causes  account  for 
ts  having  turned  a  cold  shoulder  to 
he  herald  of  the  restoration:  the 
reneral  apathy  and  mental  lassitude 
)revailing  among  all  classes  except 
he  extreme  wings  of  Communists 
tnd  "Kaiser-treuen,"  who,  being  the 
ipposition  parties,  are  stimulated  by 


hatred  and  by  hope  of  an  upheaval; 
and,  more  important  still,  the  lack  of 
political  thinking  in  the  average  Ger- 
man citizen,  which  makes  him  slow  to 
act  in  a  crisis  of  this  kind.  The  old 
regime  taught  its  subjects  not  to 
reason  but  to  obey,  and  so  long  as 
their  material  welfare  was  secure 
they  little  objected  to  a  rule  which 
spared  them  the  mental  difficulty  of 
choosing  and  deciding  for  themselves. 
But  now  that  prosperity  is  gone,  and 
with  it  their  absolute  confidence  in 
the  wisdom  and  infallibility  of  those 
in  power,  they  have  turned  skeptical 
and  despondent,  and  are  helpless  be- 
cause of  that  lack  of  political  training 
which  is  their  heritage  from  the  old 
regime.  One  circumstance  only  could 
have  induced  the  bulk  of  the  nation  to 
acclaim  the  Government  of  Kapp  and 
Von  Liittwitz:  its  lasting  success. 
But  as  this  success  could  not  be  se- 
cured by  force  of  arms,  but  was  itself 
dependent  on  the  support  of  the 
people,  the  enterprise  ran  a  fruitless 
course  in  a  vicious  circle. 

The  daring  coup  of  the  extreme 
right  having  ended  in  disaster,  the 
extreme  left  is  likely  to  pluck  the 
fruits  of  its  failure.  The  Independ- 
ents are  not  strong  enough  to  seize 
power,  but  they  possess  the  means  to 
make  the  resumption  of  it  by  Herr 
Ebert's  Government  a  difficult  task. 
The  general  strike,  employed  by  the 
Majority  Socialists  as  a  weapon 
against  the  usurping  Government, 
was  turned  by  the  Independents 
against  the  lawful  one.  The  agree- 
ment between  Ebert  and  the  Federa- 
tion of  Trade  Unions  is  an  undeniable 
surrender  to  the  Independents.  The 
immediate  socialization  of  all  indus- 
tries, involving,  of  course,  the  nation- 
alization of  the  coal  and  potash  syndi- 
cates, is  a  far-reaching  concession  to 
make  for  a  Government  in  which  both 
the  Centre  and  the  German  Popular 
party  have  their  representatives.  It 
is  to  be  seen  whether  these  bourgeois 
parties  will  give  their  sanction  to  the 
compromise.  The  wisest  course  for 
them  would  be  to  accept  it  without 
demur,  as  their  rupture  with  the  Ma- 
jority Socialists  would  cause  the  lat- 
ter to  swing  still  farther  to  the  radical 
left  and  help  to  strengthen  the  forces 
of  Independents  and  Communists. 


The  French  may  be  right  in  dis- 
trusting the  official  German  reports 
of  Communist  risings  as  a  means  of 
frightening  the  Entente  into  conces- 
sions as  to  the  number  of  troops  that 
the  Empire  may  retain.  Noske's  ex- 
cuse for  tarrying  with  the  reduction 
of  the  army  is  far  from  convincing. 
The  real  danger  is  not  in  the  local 
successes  of  scattered  Communist 
forces,  but  in  a  development  of  the 
political  situation  which  should  leave 
the  Majority  Socialists  no  other 
choice  than  to  compromise  with  the 
German  section  of  the  Third  Interna- 
tionale. And  in  a  compromise  be- 
tween opportunists  and  doctrinair- 
ians  experience  suggests  that  it  is 
the  former  who  give  and  the  latter 
who  take. 

The  failure  of  the  reactionary  coup 
d'etat  has  not  resulted,  therefore,  in 
a  firmer  reestablishment  of  the  Ebert 
regime.  It  has  regained  power  at  the 
risk  of  its  stability.  It  vacillates 
towards  the  radical  left,  and  not  only 
the  Communists  but  also  the  reaction- 
aries will  see  their  advantage  in  un- 
settling it  still  further.  The  reaction 
would  see  its  time  arrive  when  undi- 
luted Socialism  had  make  the  na- 
tion realize  the  stern  blessings  of  the 
proletariat's  rule.  That  the  late  coup 
is  to  remain  the  only  attempt  of  the 
old  regime  to  return  to  power  is  very 
unlikely.  The  ballon  d'essai,  which 
probably  Ludendorff  sent  up,  with  Dr. 
Kapp  and  von  Liittwitz  as  pilots,  will 
doubtless  be  followed  by  better- 
equipped  political  aircraft  when  the 
clouds  that  darken  the  nation's  des- 
tiny bring  on  the  storm  in  which  it 
can  secretly  manoeuvre  to  better  ad- 
vantage. 


THE  REVIEW 

A   weekly  journal  of  political  and 

general  discussion 

Published  by 

The   National   Weekly   Corporation 

1 40   Nassau   Street,   New    York 

Fabian    Franklin,  President 

Harold  de  Wolf  Fuller,  Treasurer 


dollars    a    year    in 
copy.     Foreign  post- 


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advance.     Fifteen  cents  a         . 
age,   one   dollar  extra;    Canadian   postage,   fifty 
cents  extra.     Foreign  subscriptions  may  be  sent 
to  Messrs.  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  Ltd.,  24.  Bed- 
ford  St.,    Strand,   London,  W.    C.   2,   England. 
Copyright,     1920,     in     the     United     States     of 
America 
Editors 
FABIAN  FRANKLIN 
HAROLD  de  wolf  FULLER 
Associate  Editors 
Harry  Morgan  Ayres      O.  W.  Firkins 
A.  J.  Barnouw  W.  H.  Johnson 

Jerome  Landfield 


302] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  46 


Behind  the  Financing  of  China 


(IN  FOUR  PARTS — PART  ONE) 

rpHE  consummation  of  a  $20,000,000 
•*■  gold  loan  to  China  by  the  Allied 
banking  groups  brings  to  the  fore  the 
most  dangerous  situation  in  the  East 
to-day. 

China's  economic  potentialities  at 
the  present  time  are  greater  than 
those  of  any  other  country.  Yet  the 
Chinese  Republic  constitutes  a  tre- 
mendous international  liability,  in- 
stead of  being  a  stabilizing  asset  in 
a  war-stained  world;  the  blame 
for  a  state  of  affairs  where  her  ex- 
penditures exceed  her  income  by 
$100,000,000  annually  lies  between 
China  herself  and  the  frenzied  finance 
of  the  Powers.  For  some  time  now, 
this  deficit  has  been  an  almost  fatal 
overload,  eating  up  the  country's  re- 
sources and  thwarting  its  develop- 
ment. From  the  first  foreign  obli- 
gations incurred  in  1875  to  the  deluge 
of  Japanese  loans  recklessly  resorted 
to  for  running  expenses  during  the 
Great  War,  the  Chinese  people  have 
been  the  victims  of  hard  international 
circumstances  and  have  seen  one  bur- 
den after  another  piled  upon  them  at 
the  most  difficult  period  in  their  four 
thousand  years  of  national  life. 

Take  it  as  you  will,  China  is  no 
longer  a  going  concern.  Almost  too 
late,  the  Powers  have  become  cogni- 
zant of  conditions  which  threaten  the 
peace  of  the  world;  foreign  offices, 
it  is  now  clear,  realize  that  only  far- 
reaching  efforts  on  their  part  can 
save  us  from  developments  in  the 
East  as  extensive  as  the  breakdown 
of  Russia. 

Internally,  China's  position  has 
been  like  that  of  an  ancient  business 
house  using  until  recently  obsolete 
methods  and  forced  to  compete  with 
establishments  running  on  the  costs 
system  and  scientific  management. 
Up  to  the  Manchu  conquest,  the  Chi- 
nese Emperors  had  somehow  made 
both  ends  meet  by  levying  what  they 
could  and  expending  what  conditions 
obliged  them  to  disburse.  The  com- 
plicated system  of  taxation  operative 
during  the  Manchu  regime  accom- 
plished little  more,  yet  it  was  suffi- 
cient until  the  T'aiping  Rebellion  rav- 


aged the  heart  of  the  Empire  and 
tried  China's  resources  to  the  limit 
at  the  moment  (in  the  'fifties)  when 
the  Western  nations  were  resorting 
to  force  of  arms  to  open  the  country 
to  foreign  intercourse.  This  initiated 
a  series  of  calamities  most  costly  to 
China.  The  war  with  Japan  in  1894- 
95  carried  in  its  wake  the  Boxer  Out- 
break of  1900,  to  be  followed  in  1911 
by  the  Chinese  Revolution  and  the  fall 
of  the  Manchu  dynasty.  Republican 
China  tried  to  get  itself  on  a  business 
basis  in  1912,  but  ran  into  domestic 
difficulties  which  the  Great  War 
aggravated  by  its  fiare-back  on  the 
Orient. 

Along  with  this  went  a  saddling  of 
the  country  with  external  obligations. 
The  Chino-Japanese  War  left  costs 
aggregating  more  than  $375,000,000 
gold.  With  this  came  the  scramble 
of  the  Powers  for  "concessions,"  as 
a  result  of  the  conviction  that  China's 
hour  of  partition  had  arrived;  the 
Boxer  troubles  were  the  direct  prod- 
uct of  the  vicious  circle  of  demands 
made  on  China  for  "spheres  of  inter- 
est," as  European  diplomats  euphe- 
mistically called  the  process  of  provi- 
sional dismemberment.  The  cost  to 
the  Chinese  for  the  rash  popular  pro- 
test was  a  new  series  of  loans  to 
cover  an  indemnity  of  $337,500,000. 
Coincidently,  the  Powers  employed 
their  financial  diplomacy  to  obtain 
railway  loans,  aggregating  $230,- 
000,000,  and  to  develop  strategic  ends 
in  China. 

These  years  saw  the  European 
rivalries  which  culminated  in  the 
Great  War  playing  their  part  in  the 
economic  conflict  of  the  Far  East. 
While  diplomacy  had  its  hands  full 
with  the  frictions  in  the  West, 
China's  troubles  were  naturally  left 
unconsidered.  After  all,  they  were 
assets  in  the  hands  of  European 
statesmen,  and  we  were  too  detached 
from  the  game  to  count.  European 
statesmen  eagerly  followed  the  leads 
of  their  foreign  offices.  United 
States  bankers  really  played  no  large 
part,  because  they  had  neither  that 
capability  which  comes  from  expe- 
rience nor  the  continuous  diplomatic 


support  necessary  to  essay  such  an 
international  financial  role  as  the 
situation  demanded  if  China's  spoli- 
ation was  to  be  stopped. 

It  was  laissez-faire  with  a  ven- 
geance in  China,  haphazard  financing 
subordinated  to  state  purposes  of  a 
dubious  sort.  The  sum-total  of  all 
this  has  put  China  under  the  follow- 
ing burden : 

Debt  outstanding  from  Japanese 

War,   1894   $    150,000,000 

Indemnity   of   1900 240,000,000 

Communications  Loans  200,000,000 

Japanese    Loans    during    Great 

War  300,000,000 

General  Loans   225,000,000 

Sliort  Term  Loans  85,000,000 

$1,200,000,000 

The  service  of  this  debt,  sinking  fund 
and  interest  charges,  costs  China 
about  $56,000,000  annually,  or  more 
than  half  of  the  deficit  confronting 
her.  Though  China's  running  ex- 
penses have  been  met  in  part  by  bor- 
rowed capital,  throughout  all  her 
troubles  she  has  met  her  foreign  ob- 
ligations without  default.  But  so  far 
as  the  national  balance-sheet  is  con- 
cerned, she  is  on  the  verge  of  bank- 
ruptcy. 

China,  however,  is  too  large  and 
too  important  a  country  to  permit  of 
a  receivership  in  the  interests  of  any 
one  Power  or  group  of  Powers.  In 
comparison  with  her  tangible  re- 
sources, China  is  not  insolvent  but 
in  need  of  large-scale  reorganization. 
The  fact  that  she  has  in  the  past 
raised  funds  from  every  possible 
source  on  every  kind  of  security  at 
exorbitant  rates  does  not  mean  des- 
perate need  and  low  security. 
Neither  is  the  payment  to  reputable 
bankers  of  a  commission  of  6  to  9 
per  cent,  on  national  loans  the  sign 
of  failing  credit.  The  truth  is,  as 
might  be  suspected  from  a  glance  at 
the  list  of  external  obligations,  that 
China  has  been  milked  by  the  preda- 
tory finance  of  the  Powers.  It  has 
been  the  drive  of  the  Government- 
backed  pound  sterling,  ruble,  and 
franc;  the  yen  diplomacy,  the  dollar 
diplomacy,  which  has  cornered 
China. 

What  but  the  fears  of  Manchester 
steel  mills  and  Osaka  spinning  inter- 
ests for  their  foreign  markets  has 
made  them  invoke  every  diplomatic 
means  to  strangle  China's  infant  in- 


March  27,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[303 


dustries?  What  nations,  down  to 
1918,  balked  every  Chinese  attempt 
to  secure  more  revenue,  vetoing  every 
plan  to  increase  the  five  per  cent, 
tariff  arranged  by  treaty  sixty  years 
ago,  though  the  enumerated  articles 
increased  more  than  four  times  and 
the  volume  of  trade  eighteen  ?  What 
interests  at  the  Shanghai  Conference 
in  1918  made  every  attempt  to  pre- 
vent even  a  nominal  increase  in  tariff 
revenue?  It  was  the  same  forces 
which  have  made  China  at  every 
turn,  thanks  to  international  high 
finance,  accept  the  most  onerous 
banking  terms  on  record. 

With  the  exception  of  Japan,  these 
interests  have  overplayed  their 
hands,  for  none  of  them  can  afford 
to  have  a  foreclosure  on  China 
carried  out.  Largely  responsible  for 
China's  international  straits  to-day 
because  of  the  handicaps  placed  on 
her  by  them  in  the  past,  the  Powers 
are  now  turning  to  the  problem  of 
salvaging  their  capital  investments 
on  a  scale  which  would  not  have  been 
necessary  had  there  ever  been  con- 
structive finance  in  the  East.  The 
Frankenstein  of  their  greed  frightens 
them. 

They  see  a  region  greater  than 
Europe  still  lacking  the  needed  trunk 
lines,  for  the  political  railways 
now  serving  parts  of  China  are  dis- 
connected systems  personifying  the 
national  interests  behind  them  from 
couplings  to  goods  vans  and  bridge 
spans.  They  see  a  country  with  a 
population  over  three  times  that  of 
the  United  States  possessing  but  the 
railroad  mileage  of  California;  in 
China  there  are  107,000  people  for 
every  mile  of  railway  built,  while  in 
the  United  States  it  is  3,800  people  to 
each  mile  of  line.  Wheat  at  eleven 
cents  a  bushel  exists  in  China's  west, 
whereas  a  thousand  miles  away,  on 
the  lower  Yangtsze,  millions  starve. 
There  is  not  a  mile  of  railway  operat- 
ing in  Szechuan,  a  Province  exceeding 
pre-war  Germany  in  size,  population, 
and  basic  natural  wealth. 

It  is  recognized  that  constructive 
financial  cooperation  in  China  must 
succeed  the  former  practices  of  inter- 
national bankers,  who  hunted  in  a 
I  pack  only  because  it  was  easier  to 
I  crowd    China   and   then    divide    the 


spoil.  Transportation  and  produc- 
tion are  the  foundations  of  the  mod- 
ern state;  it  is  the  problem  of  the 
new  finance  to  bring  these  to  China. 
The  financial  stabilizing  of  China 
means  the  end  of  maladministration 
aided  and  abetted  for  diplomatic  ob- 
jectives; then  the  Land  Tax,  which 
now  yields  $90,000,000,  will  increase 
to  five  times  that  sum ;  the  Wjne  and 
Tobacco  Administration,  it  is  esti- 
mated, can  equal  the  reorganized  Salt 


Administration's  $70,000,000 ;  and  so 
on  down  the  list. 

Just  two  nations  are  in  a  position 
to  furnish  the  sinews  for  this  finan- 
cial renovation  of  China.  It  is  a 
question  whether  Japanese  yen  and 
American  dollars  will  devote  them- 
selves to  a  decade  of  reconstructive 
cooperation  or  will  prefer  to  bring 
China  into  a  new  welter  of  financial 
imperialism. 

Charles  Hodges 


Experimental  Allegiances 


(in  two  parts — PART  TWO) 

P'ROUP  Autonomy  is  hardly  the 
^^  fearsome  thing  darkly  hinted 
by  Mr.  Lippmann.  As  an  idea  it  is 
sufficiently  heretical  and  revolution- 
ary to  provide  ecstatic  thrills  for  the 
most  ardent  parlor  radical;  but  as  a 
movement  or  tendency  with  an  ap- 
preciable threat  to  democracy  it 
awakens  few  tremors  of  alarm.  It 
has  had  its  day,  even  among  the 
trade-unions  of  France.  Certainly 
the  I.  W.  W.  have  built  their  struc- 
ture and  doctrines  around  the  idea; 
and  it  goes  without  saying  that  the 
I.  W.  W.  are  generally  regarded  as  a 
menace.  But  it  is  not  because  of  the 
idea  itself  that  they  are  so  regarded ; 
it  is  because  of  their  proneness  to 
certain  pluralistic  activities  such  as 
the  starting  of  bogus  free-speech 
fights,  the  destruction  of  hop-fields, 
the  wrecking  of  buildings,  and  the 
breaking  up  of  trade-unions.  Though 
over  these  activities  the  New  Repub- 
lic and  the  Nation  are  now  and  then 
wont  to  shed  the  halo  of  indulgent 
toleration,  to  the  general  public  they 
are  unendurable  and  call  for  suppres- 
sion. 

Group  Autonomy  is  as  Group  Au- 
tonomy does.  Under  the  apostleship 
of  Kropotkin  it  took  on  the  seeming 
of  a  vague  but  not  unbeautif  ul  dream. 
Under  Johann  Most  it  carried  a  fiery 
message  of  universal  revolt;  and  the 
days  of  Most,  though  many,  were 
full  of  trouble.  Under  Emma  Gold- 
man, the  least  intellectual  but  one 
of  the  most  energetic  and  aggressive 
of  its  prophets,  it  lapsed  into  quite 
unintelligible  vagueness;  and,  need- 


less to  say,  it  was  not  her  group- 
autonomistic  pleas  that  brought  her 
into  conflict  with  the  law.  Group 
Autonomism  may  be,  as  Mr.  Lipp- 
man  avers,  a  "powerful  heresy,"  but 
unless  its  propaganda  is  accom- 
panied by  certain  overzealous  incite- 
ments and  activities,  the  "heresy- 
hunters"  of  Mr.  Lippman's  apprehen- 
sion are  unlikely  to  set  up  the  hue  and 
cry. 

For  the  thing  has  never,  since  man- 
kind grew  out  of  it,  taken  an  endur- 
ing hold.  Men  do  indeed  look  back 
upon  it,  now  and  then,  as  upon  a 
long-abandoned  home,  a  sort  of  uni- 
versal Zion  of  the  race,  which  might 
serve  as  a  refuge  from  the  irksome 
and  troublous  present.  But  this  is  a 
matter  for  the  imagination,  and  not 
for  the  workaday  world  of  effort. 
Sometimes,  moreover,  for  a  brief 
period,  the  idea  inspires  a  movement ; 
but  the  reaction  follows  as  the  night 
the  day.  The  one  unique  opportunity 
for  its  translation  into  the  actuali- 
ties of  modern  life  has  been  Soviet 
Russia.  One  finds  there,  instead,  a 
rigorous,  unitary,  political,  sovereign 
state  in  which  autonomous  groups 
have  been  relentlessly  crushed,  or,  as 
in  the  case  of  the  cooperative  socie- 
ties, permitted  to  live  only  under  a 
constant  persecution.  There,  if  it  had 
something  of  that  vital  and  persis- 
tent force  ascribed  to  it  by  Mr.  Laski, 
Mr.  Croly,  and  Mr.  Lippman,  should 
have  been  the  place  of  its  beginning. 
It  should  have  triumphed  over  Bol- 
shevist tyranny  and  firmly  estab- 
lished itself.  It  was  unable  to  do  so, 
and  the  unitary  state  was  its  victor. 


804] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  46 


Still,  new  light  may  have  been 
brought  to  bear  upon  the  subject; 
and  here  are  recondite  pages  and 
columns  aplenty  in  which  to  search 
out  answers  to  obstinate  questionings. 
Is  this  pluralism  of  the  state  a  pro- 
posed, a  projected  thing,  or  is  it  an 
inherent  thing  somewhat  obstructed 
in  the  functioning?  Mr.  Lippmann 
(N.  R..  April  14,  1917,  p.  316)  calls 
attention  to  the  fact  that  Mr.  Laski 
has  just  published  a  book,  "The  Prob- 
lem of  Sovereignty,"  which  contains 
the  "courageous  assertion  that  the 
state  is  not  absolute  but  plural."  I 
fear  that  the  answer  embodies  a  con- 
fusion between  is  and  ought  to  be, 
for  I  find  in  other  places  the  most 
severe  arraignment  of  the  state  as  a 
unitary  concern  that  must  give  way. 
But  I  pass  on.  How  much  "disper- 
sion of  power"  should  there  be ;  what 
degree  of  federation ;  what  limitation 
of  the  power  of  final  decision  by  a 
central  authority?  Further,  and 
most  to  the  point,  are  there  now  ob- 
servable tendencies  in  the  United 
States  toward  this  "dispersion  of 
power";  toward  a  loosening  of  the 
reins  of  the  central  government; 
toward  the  creation  of  autonomous  or 
quasi-autonomous  bodies  which,  fed- 
erated, may  supplant  the  central  au- 
thority? 

I  turn  to  Mr.  Laski.  "Even  in 
America,"  he  writes  (A.  M.  S.,  p. 
384),  "the  classic  ground  of  federal 
experiment,  it  is  a  new  federalism 
that  is  everywhere  developing."  He 
mentions  the  Federal  Reserve  Sys- 
tem and  the  Rural  Credits  Board,  and 
he  refers  to  an  article  by  Mr.  Croly 
in  the  New  Republic  for  further  light. 
I  turn  to  Mr.  Croly  (N.  R.,  Dec.  16, 
1916,  pp.  170-72)  and  find  an  article 
entitled  "The  Failure  of  the  States." 
Though  it  is  unsigned,  no  doubt  Mr. 
Laski  knew  who  wrote  it.  But  what 
I  find  herein  is,  strangely  enough,  a 
declaration,  not  that  centralization  is 
declining,  but  that  it  is  everywhere 
developing.  The  article  is  a  severe 
arraignment  of  the  inefficiency, 
backwardness,  selfishness,  capricious- 
ness,  irresponsibility,  wrongheaded- 
ness,  "social  obscurantism,"  and  cor- 
ruption, along  with  a  number  of 
minor  evils,  on  the  part  of  the  forty- 
eight  American  State  Governments. 


Constitutional  federalism,  it  would 
appear,  has  broken  down.  But  the 
outstanding  fact  is  the  increasing 
centralization  of  power  in  Washing- 
ton. "Symptoms  of  the  tendency 
toward  centralization,"  he  writes, 
.  "are  showing  themselves  in  every 
region  of  political  activity,"  and  he 
gives  what  appear  to  him  to  be  in- 
stances. He  is  apparently  unsatisfied 
to  have  the  declaration  rest  upon  his 
own  assertion,  and  so  he  cites  a  com- 
petent authority.  This  authority  is 
none  other  than  Mr.  Laski.  "No  won- 
der," writes  Mr.  Croly,  "an  English 
observer  of  American  political  pro- 
cesses inquires,  as  Mr.  Harold  J. 
Laski  does,  in  another  column, 
whether  the  American  democracy  is 
not  consenting  to  the  erection  in 
Washington  of  an  ominous  and  auto- 
cratic mechanism  of  centralized  con- 
trol." 

I  turn  to  Mr.  Laski,  in  the  same 
number  (pp.  176-78),  to  find  the  con- 
firmation of  Mr.  Croly's  statement; 
and  then  I  turn  back  to  Mr.  Croly  to 
find  the  confirmation,  suggested  in 
Mr.  Laski's  book,  of  the  evidence  of 
the  developing  "new  federalism." 
The  evidence  cited  is  exceedingly 
tenuous.  There  is  the  Federal  Re- 
serve System — nothing  more — and 
there  follows  the  prediction  that 
similar  bodies  are  sure  to  be  organ- 
ized. But  the  amazing  part  of  this 
pluralistic  argument  is  the  insistence 
(or  seeming  insistence)  upon  central 
political  control.  The  illuminating 
passage  follows: 

The  Federal  Reserve  system,  for  instance, 
combines  regional  banks,  which  preserve  a 
sufficient  measure  of  local  self-government 
with  central  political  control.  Similar  ex- 
amples of  regional  independence  subject  to 
national  determination  of  general  policy  will 
almost  certainly  be  adopted  when  the  work  of 
reorganizing  essential  national  industries,  such 
as  the  railroads  and  the  food  and  luel  supplies, 
are  seriously  undertaken. 

So  all  the  brave  words  about  the 
"dispersion  of  power,"  "the  neutrali- 
zation of  the  state,"  "the  abdication 
of  sovereignty,"  "the  coordination 
and  federation  of  allegiances";  the 
dark  hints  of  the  explosive  revolu- 
tionism in  this  tremendous  new  idea 
— all  soften  down  into  an  approval 
of  boards  and  bureaus  under  the 
sovereign  control  of  the  national 
state.    M.  Jourdain  has  been  talking 


prose  all  his  life  without  knowing 
it.  If  this  be  Administrative  Syn- 
dicalism we  have  most  of  us  been 
Administrative  Syndicalists  all  our 
lives.  The  parlor  radical  can  not  but 
feel  that  he  has  been  cruelly  hoaxed, 
and  that  he  must  transfer  his  alle- 
giance to  some  more  thrilling  pro- 
posal. 

I  turn  back  to  Mr.  Laski  for  fur- 
ther evidence  of  the  "new  federal- 
ism." He  says  {A.  M.  S.,  pp.  384- 
85)  ; 

There  is  a  clear  tendency  upon  the  part  of 
industrial  and  professional  groups  to  become 
self-governing.  Legislation  consecrates  the 
solutions  they  evolve.  They  become  sovereign 
in  the  sense —  which,  after  all,  is  the  only  sense 
that  matters — that  the  rules  they  draw  up  are 
recognized  as  the  answer  to  the  problems  they 
have  to  meet.  They  are  obtaining  compulsory 
power  over  their  members ;  they  demand  their 
taxes;  they  exercise  their  discipline;  they  en- 
force their  penal  sanctions.  They  raise  every 
question  that  the  modern  federal  state  has  to 
meet,  and  their  experience  is,  governmentally, 
a  valuable  basis  for  national  enterprise. 

So,  it  appears,  you  may  have  it  both 
ways:  the  extension  of  administra- 
tive service  under  the  control  of  the 
sovereign  state  is  Pluralism ;  and  the 
totally  opposite  thing,  the  functioning 
of  bodies  which  decline  to  recognize 
the  state  (if  there  be  any),  is  also 
Pluralism.  It  is  hard  to  be  patient 
with  such  a  mass  of  preposterous 
assertions  as  are  contained  in  the 
passage  quoted.  If  Mr.  Laski  can 
furnish  a  single  instance  of  a  group 
that  has  become  self-governing  (or 
is  in  the  way  of  becoming  self-gov- 
erning) in  the  sense  required  by  his 
implication,  he  will  do  far  more  for 
his  argument  than  by  citing  innum- 
erable passages  of  irrelevancy  from 
De  Maistre  or  Lamennais.  If  he  can 
show  how  the  "consecration  of  solu- 
tions" by  legislation  is  an  evidence  of 
coordination  of  power,  he  will  do  yet 
more  for  his  argument.  By  a  reck- 
less manipulation  of  words — by  the 
use  of  "taxes"  where  he  means 
"dues";  "penal  sanctions"  where  he 
means  "rules  regarding  fines  and  sus- 
pensions" ;  "compulsory  power" 
where  he  means  a  very  restricted  con- 
trol over  certain  activities  in  a  single 
field — he  has  made  a  showing  for 
autonomism  as  an  existing  force.  By 
representing  it  as  a  specifically  mod- 
ern phenomenon  (which  it  is  not) 
and  as  a  force  which  is  constantly 


March  27,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[305 


developing  (an  assertion  exceedingly 
dubious)  he  has  heightened  the  pic- 
ture; and  he  has  capped  and  crowned 
it  with  the  statement  that  these  vol- 
untary bodies  "raise  every  question 
that  the  modern  federal  state  has  to 
meet."  All  this  is  too  painfully 
absurd  for  comment.  But  one  can 
not  pass  this  amazing  summary  with- 
out a  look  at  the  meaning  of  the  third 
sentence.  If  sovereignty,  in  "the 
only  sense  that  matters,"  is  the 
power,  for  instance,  of  the  trade- 
union  to  determine  the  conditions 
under  which  its  members  will  work, 
then  the  whole  structure  of  Pluralism 
as  a  rival  of  the  existing  state  cracks 
and  falls  into  fragments. 

I  trust  that  there  is  more  to  be  said 
for  it  than  this ;  for  though  I  hold  to 
the  unitary  state  and  am  even  unable 


to  think  of  organized  society  in  any 
other  terms,  I  can  yet  wish  that  a 
theory  (or  more  correctly,  a  social 
passion)  which  has  captivated  so 
many  beings  should  be  presented  at 
its  best  that  it  might  be  fairly  judged. 
It  may  be  that  this  theory  (or  what- 
ever it  is  to  be  called)  is,  as  Mr.  Lipp- 
mann  says,  "widely  and  deeply  re- 
sented." But  I  choose  to  think  that 
the  resentment  has  a  different  object. 
I  think  it  is  directed  not  at  the  theory 
but  at  the  manner  of  propaganda. 
A  part  of  the  prevalent  resentment 
arises,  I  fear,  from  the  arrogant  and 
sweeping  censure  of  system,  codes, 
institutions,  and  individuals  in  the 
name  and  on  behalf  of  the  theory  by 
exponents  who  can  not  intelligibly 
explain  it  even  to  themselves. 

W.  J.  Ghent 


The  Transportation  Problem  in  France 


THE    recent    abortive    strike    of    the 
railroad  workers,   the   second   since 
the  signing  of  the  armistice,  has  once 
more  drawn  attention  to  the  transporta- 
tion problem,   one  of  the  gravest  con- 
fronting the  French  Government.    Since 
the  previous  attempt  of  July  21,  1919, 
the  condition  of  the  railroads  has  stead- 
ily deteriorated,  partly  through  the  ex- 
tension of  the  personnel  with  thousands 
of  inefficient  hands,  partly  through  the 
rowing  lack  of  rolling  stock  and  coal. 
V  few  months  after  the  July  strike  of 
;ast  year,  the  Chamber  of  Deputies,  de- 
sirous to  avert  the  spread  of  Bolshevism 
by  meeting   the   ever-growing   demands 
Df   railway  men   and    other    industrial 
workers,  passed  the  eight-hour  working- 
Jay  law,   which   compelled  the   railroad 
companies  to  increase  their  personnel  by 
140,000  men.    These  had  to  be  recruited 
rom  various  industries  by  the  lure  of 
ligh    wages,    although    they    were    un- 
rained   hands   who   had   to   be   taught 
!ieir  work  from  the  beginning.    The  ex- 
orienced  staff,  moreover,  suffering  from 
he  strain  of  four  or  five  years'  overwork 
luring  the  war,  gave  way  to  a  pardon- 
ible  longing  for  leisure  and  laziness,  a 
latural  reaction  from  the  hardships  they 
lad  bravely  withstood  in  the  hour  of 
1  anger. 

The  condition  of  the  rolling  stock  was 
ittle  better.  The  pre-war  average  num- 
ler  of  engines  under  repair  amounted  to 
ight  per  cent.;  it  has  now  risen  to 
wenty.  The  number  of  passenger  cars 
nder  repair  has  gone  up  from  nine  to 
wenty-six  per  cent.,  that  of  freight  cars 
rom  four  to  seventeen.  The  engines 
■  hich  Germany  has  handed    over    are 


mostly  out  of  condition,  and  the  adjust- 
ment of  American  engines  to  their  new 
work  has  only  recently  been  accomplished. 

As  a  consequence  of  this  decrease  in 
labor  output  and  lack  of  rolling  stock, 
several  passenger  trains  had  to  be  taken 
off.  But  even  that  restriction  could  not 
bring  the  freight  traffic  up  to  its  normal 
volume.  And,  which  is  worse,  even  if  the 
transportation  system  could  be  restored 
to  its  efficiency  and  comprehensiveness 
of  six  years  ago,  it  would  not  answer 
the  requirements  of  new  agricultural  and 
industrial  conditions  created  by  the  war. 
A  complete  reorientation  and  reorganiza- 
tion is  necessary  for  the  railroads  to 
meet  the  exigencies  of  entirely  altered 
circumstances. 

The  destruction,  first  of  all,  of  the  fac- 
tories in  the  north  and  the  east  of  France, 
a  loss  which  it  will  take  many  years 
to  repair,  has  thrown  the  currents  of 
traffic  out  of  their  accustomed  course. 
The  materials  which  are  necessary  for  a 
given  industry  are,  in  a  great  many  cases, 
no  longer  to  be  found  in  those  parts  from 
which  they  used  to  come.  The  devastated 
provinces,  which  formerly  were  great 
producers,  are  only  consumers  now.  And, 
in  the  second  place,  the  abnormal  propor- 
tion between  export  and  import,  the  for- 
mer having  decreased  to  the  lowest  level 
ever  known  in  the  history  of  France,  is 
another  factor  which  makes  for  disturb- 
ance and  disorganization  of  railroad 
traffic. 

But  the  gravest  problem  the  railroads 
have  to  cope  with  is  the  severe  lack  of 
coal.  Even  before  the  war  home  produc- 
tion remained  far  short  of  the  country's 
needs.     Now  a  great  number  of  mines 


are  ruined,  and  years  will  pass  before 
they  will  have  recovered  their  former 
productivity.  And  the  output  of  those 
mines  that  can  be  worked  has  been  con- 
siderably reduced  by  the  introduction  of 
the  eight-hour  working  day.  Hence 
France  has  to  import  her  coal  from 
abroad.  But  Belgium,  where  similar  ab- 
normal conditions  prevail,  can  not  spare 
her  much;  the  export  from  Great  Britain 
has  been  severely  curtailed  by  repeated 
strikes  in  the  mining  districts,  and  Ger- 
many, which,  under  the  terms  of  peace, 
had  to  indemnify  France  for  her  ruined 
pits,  has  failed  up  to  now  to  supply  the 
stipulated  amount. 

■  As  a  result  of  these  deplorable  eco- 
nomic conditions  the  railroads  are  faced 
by  a  financial  debacle.  The  amount  of 
wages  paid  to  their  personnel  has  in- 
creased from  800  to  3,000  million  francs, 
their  coal  expenses,  from  350  to  1,500 
million  francs ;  the  total  cost  of  exploita- 
tion from  1,250  to  4,750  million  francs. 
What  return  can  security  holders  expect 
for  the  money  invested  in  a  railroad  busi- 
ness? Two  and  a  half  million  French- 
men have  placed  their  confidence  in  what, 
a  few  years  ago,  appeared  to  be  a  safe 
investment.  Most  of  these  people  are 
small  holders,  the  average  amount  of 
their  capital  thus  invested  not  exceeding 
7,000  francs.  A  railway  strike  that 
threatens  to  ruin  outright  a  by  no 
means  prosperous  concern  in  which  one 
of  every  fifteen  Frenchmen  is  financially 
interested  is,  therefore,  bound  to  be  un- 
popular. 

The  obvious  remedy  for  this  precarious 
situation  is  to  raise  the  fares.  On  Feb- 
ruary 23,  a  new,  greatly  increased  tariff 
went  into  effect.  Another  effective  meas- 
ure is  the  priority  granted,  under  the 
freight-carriage  regulations,  to  essentials 
such  as  foodstuffs,  agricultural  imple- 
ments, etc.  However,  these  remedies  are 
only  makeshifts.  The  whole  system, 
which  is  based  on  a  scheme  drafted  as 
far  back  as  1883,  no  longer  answers  pres- 
ent exigencies  and  should  be  put  on  quite 
a  different  footing.  "Nationalize  the 
roads,"  is  the  Socialists'  cry ;  whereas  the 
capitalists  of  the  old  regime  fear  nothing 
but  disaster  from  any  change  whatever. 
The  country,  however,  will  not  listen  to 
either  extreme.  It  looks  to  M.  Noble- 
maire,  one  of  the  new  members  of  the 
Chamber  of  Deputies,  for  a  solution  of 
the  problem.  He  is  the  son  of  a  former 
manager  of  the  great  P.  L.  M.  company ; 
his  brother  manages  the  Compagnie  des 
Wagons-Lits,  and  he  himself  is  on  the 
board  of  the  P.  L.  M.  As  he  proudly  said 
in  the  speech  in  which  he  unfolded  his 
scheme  before  the  Chamber,  he  knows 
what  he  is  talking  about.  Seldom  did 
the  Chamber  listen  to  a  speaker  so  inti- 
mately acquainted  with  the  matter  under 
discussion;  he  made  a  strong  impression 
on  his  audience  by  an  absolute  freedom 
from  prejudice,  by  an  honest  apprecia- 


306] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  46 


tion  of  modern  ideas  concerning  social 
cooperation,  and  by  his  expert  discussion 
of  the  remedies  for  an  evil  which  he  has 
been  better  situated  than  any  living 
Frenchman  to  observe  and  study  closely. 
M.  Noblemaire  envisages  the  fact  that 
the  problem  is  not  exclusively  economic, 
but  has  its  moral  and  social  aspects  as 
well.  This  scheme  involves  an  entire  re- 
vision of  actual  conditions.  He  advo- 
cates a  strong  concentration  of  the  lead- 
ing organization,  together  with  local  de- 
centralization, guarantees  granted  to  the 
security  holders  by  the  state,  and  coop- 
eration between  the  managers  and  the 
professional  syndicates.  But  it  is  a  long 
way  from  the  enacting  of  a  new  railway 
law  to  the  blessed  state  of  things  which 
it  is  meant  to  inaugurate.  Will  life, 
during  that  long  and  anxious  time,  keep 
on  pulsating  through  the  arteries  of  the 
country's  organism? 

Andre  Rostand 
Paris,  March  4 

Correspondence 

The  Theory  of  Purchasing 
Power 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

William  James  once  showed  me  a  re- 
view of  a  book  on  ethics  in  a  protection- 
ist journal  which  declared  that  it  was  as 
impossible  to  construct  a  theory  of  con- 
duct without  religion  as  to  expect  pros- 
perity without  a  protective  tariff.  From 
the  bed-rock  of  the  tariff  it  was  possible 
to  reason  direct  to  the  Kingdom  of  God. 
With  like  confidence  it  would  seem  as  if 
the  believer  in  the  quantity  theory  of 
money  relied  on  the  sacerdotal  character 
of  the  doctrine  that  the  more  money  there 
is  in  circulation  the  greater  the  demand 
and  the  higher  the  level  of  prices.  Be- 
lieving that  this  dogma  is  neither  true 
in  principle  nor  workable  in  fact,  I  beg 
the  courtesy  of  your  journal  for  a  brief 
consideration  of  the  matter. 

Purchasing  power,  either  in  the  offer 
of  money,  or  of  checks  drawn  on  a  de- 
posit account  (the  result  of  a  credit 
transaction)  is  the  mechanism  through 
which  demand  operates.  But  economics 
knows  no  doctrine — so  far  as  I  am 
aware — that  demand  alone  determines 
the  price  of  anything  (1).  We  do  have  a 
principle  of  demand  and  supply  which 
affects  price.  In  short,  buyers  may  ex- 
press their  desire  for  an  article  through 
effective  demand;  that  is,  through  ac- 
ceptable purchasing  power;  but  that  is 
only  one-half  the  problem.  The  price  is 
also  as  much — if  not  more — determined 
by  all  the  conditions  affecting  supply  (2). 
When  a  millionaire  contractor  wishes  a 
hammer  (a  type  of  freely  reproducible 
articles),  does  he  forget  the  state  of  the 
arts,  the  efficiency  of  modern  industry  in 


producing  hammers,  and  make  an  offer 
at  a  price  independent  of  the  production- 
costs  for  hammers?  (3).  If  he  did,  he 
would  soon  be  out  of  business.  The  supply 
comes  forward  in  competitive  industries 
under  conditions  affecting  expenses  of 
production,  such  as  prices  of  materials, 
wages,  and  taxes.  No  competent  buyer 
pays  more  for  goods  than  the  price  at 
which  his  rival  can  buy,  no  matter  how 
much  credit  he  has  at  the  bank  (4) .  Just 
because  he  is  a  successful  man  of  wealth 
and  has  credit  we  have  the  reason  why 
he  is  likely  to  know  what  a  fair  price 
should  be  under  existing  conditions  of 
supply.  What  holds  the  price  above  a 
given  level  at  any  time  is  the  production- 
costs  (5).  Demand  and  purchasing  power 
are  adjusted  to  them.  In  fact,  demand 
varies  with  the  price,  generally  falling 
off  as  price  rises  and  increasing  as  price 
falls  (6).  That  is,  demand  is  always  de- 
mand at  a  price.  Production-costs  are 
conditions  influencing  demand.  Does  not 
every  one  know  that  to-day,  in  spite  of 
an  intense  desire  for  our  goods  in  Eu- 
rope, the  demand  for  our  exports  is  fall- 
ing off  because  prices  as  increased  by 
the  unfavorable  rates  of  foreign  ex- 
change are  high? 

But,  so  far,  we  have  had  in  mind  only 
the  great  mass  of  freely  reproducible 
articles.  There  are  goods,  however, 
which  can  not  be  quickly  supplied  as  de- 
mand varies.  Until  supply  can  come 
forward,  a  strenuous  demand  may  keep 
prices  above  production-costs.  This  is 
the  explanation  of  possible  profiteering. 
In  such  cases,  it  is  not  the  offer  of  pur- 
chasing power  which  is  dominant  in  set- 
ting the  price,  but  the  scarcity  of  the 
goods ;  for  as  soon  as  scarcity  disappears 
(even  under  a  strong  demand)  price 
falls  to  some  relation  to  production- 
costs.  Of  course,  under  absolute  monop- 
oly, supply  has  no  effect,  and  demand  is 
decisive.  That  is  what  monopoly  means. 
On  the  prices  of  such  goods  changes  in 
the  quantity  of  money  and  credit  are  not 
material. 

For  sake  of  brevity,  purchasing  power 
has  so  far  been  referred  to  as  consisting 
usually  of  money.  But  when  loans  are 
made  on  the  sale  of  staple  goods  to  pur- 
chasers, the  bank  first  grants  the  bor- 
rower a  deposit  account.  Thus  by  a 
credit  operation.  A,  for  instance,  selling 
shoes,  has  his  goods  coined  into  purchas- 
ing power.  So  does  B,  who  is  selling 
clothing ;  and  C,  who  is  selling  plows ;  and 
so  on  throughout  the  whole  range  of  all 
our  industries.  That  is,  A's  purchasing 
power  is  met  by  the  purchasing  power 
of  B,  C,  .  .  .  Y,  Z,  offered  for  A's  goods. 
Therefore,  why  should  A's  purchasing 
power,  arising  from  normal  credit,  raise 
the  prices  of  the  other's  goods  when  met 
by  an  equalizing  demand?  Demand  by 
normal  credit  does  not  come  out  of  the 
blue  against  all  goods;  it  is  a  form  of  a 
reciprocal    demand    of    goods    for    each 


other,  offered  through  banks  and  clear- 
ing houses.  In  its  essence,  normal  credit 
acts  only  as  a  medium  of  exchange  like 
money,  and  is  not  an  initial  cause  of  de- 
mand; it  is  only  a  mechanism  through 
which  goods  coined  into  a  means  of  pay- 
ment are  exchanged  against  each  other. 
The  initial  cause  of  the  demand  is  the 
possession  of  bankable  goods. 

But  the  logic  of  Alice  in  Wonderland 
is  left  far  behind  by  the  argument  that 
the  more  dollars  there  are  the  more  will 
be  offered  for  goods.  Why  a  sober  busi- 
ness man  with  large  means  should 
suddenly  act  like  a  spendthrift  and  be 
obliged  by  some  unseen  force  to  expend 
to-day  all  the  purchasing  power  he  has 
for  such  goods  as  he  may  at  the  moment 
want,  is  beyond  any  intelligence  but  that 
of  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  (7).  There  is  no  such 
impelling  economical  force.  Worst  of  all, 
this  necessary  expenditure  of  a  man's 
purchasing  power  is  supported  by  the 
amazing  assumption  that  because  of  the 
competition  of  purchasers  there  is  no 
limit  to  the  ensuing  rise  of  prices  (8). 
But  what  has  happened  to  the  competition 
of  sellers  and  producers?  To  argue  as  if 
prices  were  fixed  solely  by  buyers  is  to 
assume  that  the  whole  world  of  suppliers 
are  sick  with  influenza  or  have  gone  to 
each  other's  funerals.  To  talk  as  if  sell- 
ers had  no  effect  on  price  is  to  suppose 
that  goods  come  into  existence  by  incan- 
tation or  by  rubbing  Aladdin's  lamp  (9). 

When  men  can  not  follow  such  reason- 
ing, they  are  supposed  to  be  under  the 
delusion  that  "gold  is  a  fixed  standard  of 
value."  In  the  first  place,  it  is  one  thing 
to  say  that  our  currency  is  to-day  re- 
deemable in  gold,  and  quite  another 
thing  to  say  that  "gold  is  a  fixed  stand- 
ard of  value."  The  latter  is  impossible, 
and  for  a  very  good  reason.  Price  is 
the  ratio  of  exchange  between  any  article 
and  a  given  standard,  like  gold.  A 
change  on  either  side  of  this  ratio  will 
change  price.  If  the  production-costs  of 
steel  or  shoes  increase  (because  of  the 
rising  prices  of  materials,  labor,  etc.), 
their  prices  will  rise;  which  is  the  same 
thing  as  saying  that  gold  has  fallen  rela- 
tively to  steel  and  shoes.  Now  the  quan- 
tity theorists  one-sidedly  insist  that 
only  causes  affecting  the  money  side  of 
the  price  ratio  affect  prices,  utterly  ob- 
livious to  what  happens  to  the  expenses 
of  producing  goods.  But  if  driven  to 
this  point,  they  contend  that  materials 
and  labor  could  rise  in  price  (and  thus 
raise  production-costs)  only  because 
there  was  more  money  or  credit  in  circu- 
lation offered  for  them.  This  fallacy, 
however,  entirely  ignores  the  influence 
of  scarcity  of  materials  and  labor.  I 
have  already  dealt  with  that  matter 
above.  Moreover,  before  we  entered  the 
war  and  before  prices  rose  materially, 
scarcity  conditions  caused  a  higher  price 
for  materials  and  labor.  Why  ignore 
the  supply  side  of  demand  and  supply? 


March  27,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[307 


Then  the  curious  point  is  made  that, 
even  if  production-costs  did  rise,  that 
"has  absolutely  nothing  to  do  with  the 
question  of  the  relation  between  prices 
and  the  supply  of  money"  (10).  That  is,  if 
the  question  at  issue — that  only  an  in- 
crease of  money  raises  the  price  of  any- 
thing, labor  or  materials — is  granted, 
then  production-costs  do  not  influence 
the  selling  prices  of  goods  (11).  Of 
course,  no  economist  in  his  senses  could 
grant  this  for  a  moment.  But  to  the 
quantity  theorist  this  method  may  be  as 
necessary  as  for  the  protectionist  to 
argue  from  the  bed-rock  of  the  tariff  to 
the  existence  of  religion. 

J.  Laurence  Laughlin 

Boston,  February  28 

[The  foregoing  letter  by  Professor 
Laughlin  is  in  reply  to  the  editorial  on 
"Prices  and  the  Gold  Standard"  which 
appeared  in  the  Review  for  February  21. 
For  the  sake  of  brevity  and  clearness  we 
have  indicated  by  numbers  the  points 
upon  which  it  seems  desirable  to  com- 
ment, thus  avoiding  the  necessity  of  re- 
peating Professor  Laughlin's  remarks. 

1  and  2.  Nobody  that  we  know  any- 
thing about  has  said  or  implied  that  "de- 
mand alone  determines  the  price  of  every- 
thing," or  has  denied  that  the  price  is 
as  much  determined  "by  all  the  condi- 
tions affecting  supply." 

In  the  very  article  to  which  Professor 
Laughlin  is  replying,  we  said : 

The  quantity  theory  of  money  perfectly 
recognizes  that  high  prices  are  quite  as  capable 
of  being  brought  about  by  diminution  of  pro- 
ductivity as  by  increase  of  the  monetary  me- 
dium. In  so  far  as  productivity  has  diminished 
in  these  last  years,  it  accounts  for  the  rise  of 
prices.  How  serious  that  diminution  has  been, 
nobody  knows.  But  everybody  knows  that 
there  has  been  enormous  increase  in  the 
monetary  medium ;  and  all  that  the  quantity 
theory  says  is  that  this  increase  has  caused  a 
corresponding  rise  of  prices. 

3.  The  price  offered  by  anybody  for 
hammers  is  of  course  not  "independent 
of  the  production-costs  for  hammers." 
But  the  relation  of  the  price  of  the  ham- 
mers to  the  production-costs  is  a  rela- 
tion not  to  those  costs  as  measured  in 
hours  of  labor  and  quantity  (by  weight 
or  volume)  of  raw  materials  consumed, 
but  to  those  production-costs  as  meas- 
ured in  money.  Reference  to  rise  of 
production-costs,  therefore,  only  shoves 
one  step  back  the  question  of  the  rise 
of  prices,  and  leaves  the  nature  of  the 
question  just  the  same  as  before. 

4.  This  is  quite  true;  but  if  both  the 
buyer  and  his  rivals  have  command  of 
a  larger  amount  of  credit  in  dollars  than 
they  had  before,  while  the  supply  of  the 
commodity  for  which  they  are  bidding 
has  not  increased,  they  will,  unless  there 
is  a  combination  among  them,  bid  more 
in  dollars  for  it  in  the  endeavor  of  each 
to  have  his  full  share  of  the  business. 


5.  This  has  been  treated  under  3. 

6.  Demand  does  "fall  off  as  price 
rises,  and  increase  as  price  falls,"  if 
the  monetary  supply  is  not  altered;  but 
demand  does  not  fall  off  as  price  rises 
if  the  rise  of  prices  simply  keeps  pace 
with  the  increased  volume  of  the  mone- 
tary medium  at  the  command  of  pur- 
chasers. 

7.  In  the  editorial  to  which  Professor 
Laughlin  is  replying  we  referred  to  the 
fact  that  "some  very  intelligent  persons 
experience  a  certain  difficulty"  in  this 
matter,  though  we  had  not  supposed  that 
any  professors  of  political  economy  were 
included  among  these  persons.  What  we 
said  with  a  view  to  clearing  up  their 
difficulty  was  as  follows: 

Merely  because  I  have  more  dollars,  they 
ask,  why  should  I  pay  a  higher  price  for  what 
I  want?  But  the  reason  is  very  plain.  Any- 
body who  has  more  dollars  than  he  had  before 
wishes  to  do  something  with  the  extra  dollars ; 
he  wishes  either  to  spend  them  or  to  save 
them.  Now  if  the  things  to  be  bought  for  the 
dollars  are  no  more  abundant  than  they  were 
before,  then,  at  the  old  scale  of  prices,  he 
would  be  getting  more  of  the  things  than  he 
got  before,  and  somebody  else  would  have  to 
go  without.  Accordingly  somebody — either  he 
or  somebody  else — will  pay  a  higher  price 
rather  than  forgo  the  satisfaction  of  his  de- 
sires; and  in  this  competition  of  purchasers 
prices  are  raised.  Nor  is  the  case  different  if 
he  prefers  to  save  instead  of  spending.  People 
do  not  in  our  time  put  their  extra  money  into 
a  stocking.  They  invest  it  so  as  to  draw  in- 
terest. But  to  invest  means,  directly  or  in- 
directly, to  engage  in  some  form  of  produc- 
tion or  trade;  and  this,  in  turn,  means  to  buy 
either  commodities  or  labor  needed  for  the 
carrying  on  of  that  production  or  trade.  Thus 
the  extra  money  is  put  to  just  the  same  kind 
of  use  as  the  old  money — the  purchase  of 
commodities  or  services.  And  if  the  aggre- 
gate quantity  of  those  commodities  and  serv- 
ices remains  the  same  while  the  number  of 
dollars  available  for  the  purchase  of  them  is 
doubled,  the  average  price  of  them  will  be 
doubled  also. 

8.  Nobody  says  that  "there  will  be 
no  limit  to  the  ensuing  rise  of  prices;" 
the  limit  to  which  prices  naturally  tend 
(conditions  other  than  those  affecting  the 
monetary  volume  remaining  the  same)  is 
that  which  would  make  the  rise  in  the 
general  price-level  proportional  to  the  in- 
crease of  the  monetary  medium. 

9.  Nobody  talks  as  if  "sellers  had  no 
effect  on  price." 

10  and  11.  We  have  already  referred 
to  the  matter  of  production-costs,  under 
5.  But  to  make  it  plain  that  we  said 
nothing  that  could  possibly  be  inter- 
preted as  meaning  that  "production-costs 
do  not  influence  the  sefling  prices  of 
goods,"  and  that  we  did  not  beg  the  ques- 
tion at  issue,  we  will  reproduce  here  the 
whole  of  what  we  said  on  that  point: 

Mr.  Laughlin's  idea  is  that  the  prices  of 
commodities  are  high  because,  under  the  pres- 
sure of  war  need,  high  wages  were  paid  to 
workingmcn,  both  in  manufactures  and  agri- 
culture, in  order  to  stimulate  production,  and 
that  this  had  the  effect  of  raising  the  prices 
of  all  commodities.     But  this  is  only  another 


way  of  saying  that  the  first  thing  that  rose  in 
price  was  labor,  and  that  other  things  followed 
suit — which  may  be  perfectly  true,  but  has 
absolutely  nothing  to  do  with  the  question  of 
the  relation  between  prices  and  the  supply  of 
money.  If  commodities  had  risen  first,  and 
wages  had  risen  afterwards  in  order  to  meet 
the  increased  cost  of  living,  the  thing  that 
made  the  rise  possible  all  round  would  still 
have  been  the  same — the  increased  supply  of 
money.  As  a  matter  of  fact — and  indeed  of 
notorious  fact — the  events  have  taken  place 
sometimes  in  one  order  and  sometimes  in  the 
other.  The  new  supply  of  money  may  flow  in 
the  first  instance  to  any  one  of  a  hundred  dif- 
ferent points;  but  to  msist  that  because  it 
flowed  first  to  one  point  rather  than  another, 
therefore  the  flow  of  money  had  nothing  to 
do  with  the  case,  is  suggestive  of  the  logic  of 
Alice  in  Wonderland  rather  than  of  the  rea- 
soning of  political  economy. — Eds.  The  Re- 
view.] 


The  Work  of  the  South 
in  Women's  Education 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review  : 

A  copy  of  the  Review  containing  the 
article  "The  Women's  Colleges"  has  come 
into  my  hands,  and  I  note  with  regret 
that  there  is  no  mention  of  what  the 
South  did  in  those  early  days  for  the  edu- 
cation of  women.  I,  therefore,  give  you 
a  brief  sketch  of  Wesleyan  College, 
Macon,  Ga. 

The  Legislature  of  Georgia  granted  a 
charter  and  gave  the  power  to  confer 
degrees  to  Wesleyan  College  in  1836,  but 
the  coUege  was  then  named  "The  Georgia 
Female  College."  On  January  7,  1839, 
the  doors  of  the  college  were  opened  and 
ninety  students  entered.  The  curriculum 
was  practically  that  of  the  colleges  for 
men.  On  July  16,  1840,  eleven  young 
women  were  graduated  and  they  received 
the  A.  B.  degree,  the  first  degrees  ever 
given  to  women  in  the  world.  The  first 
name  on  the  list  was  that  of  Catherine 
Brewer,  who  married  Richard  A.  Benson, 
and  became  the  mother  of  Admiral  W.  S. 
Benson. 

Harvard,  the  first  college  for  men, 
was  founded  in  1636,  and  two  hundred 
years  later,  in  1836,  Wesleyan  College, 
the  first  college  for  women,  was  founded. 
Neither  Oberlin  nor  Holyoke  was  able  to 
give  degrees  until  some  years  later  than 
Wesleyan.  There  were  some  excellent 
seminaries  in  the  South,  and  the  college 
drew  its  first  students  largely  from  them. 
It  is  thought  by  some  that  the  reading 
of  the  work  that  Emma  Willard  was  try- 
ing to  do  in  the  North  put  into  the  minds 
of  some  of  our  Southern  men  the  idea 
of  doing  better  things  for  the  women  of 
the  South.  Wesleyan  has  gone  steadily 
onward  and  upward,  its  doors  have  never 
been  closed,  and  it  has  sent  out  a  great 
number  of  cultured,  broad-minded,  edu- 
cated women  whose  power  has  been  felt 
in  this  country  and  abroad. 

LiLLUN  P.  Posey 

Macon  Go.,  March  20 


308] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  46 


Book  Reviews 

Public  Service  in  the  Days 
of  Roosevelt 

George  von  Lengerke  Me^tx,  His  Life  and 
Public  Services.  By  M.  A.  De  Wolfe 
Howe.  New  York:  Dodd,  Mead  and 
Company. 

MR.  ROOSEVELT  was  a  believer  in 
the  amenities  and  civilities  of  pub- 
lic as  well  as  private  life.  He  had  a 
very  alert  and  correct  sense  of  "form." 
It  was  one  of  his  strongly  marked 
traits,  though  little  dwelt  upon  by  his 
many  biographers.  He  gathered  about 
him  while  he  was  in  the  White  House 
many  agreeable,  pleasant,  civil-spoken 
men  whose  chief  apparent  qualification 
was  a  distinct  social  background  and 
tradition.  They  were  not  grubby,  work- 
aday persons  at  all,  but  rather  men  who 
had  found  the  world  a  charming  place 
of  sojourn  largely  because  their  fathers 
and  grandfathers  had  provided  a  solvent 
for  the  bread-and-cheese  problem.  For 
the  most  part  they  were  the  very  best 
butter  and  acquitted  themselves  credit- 
ably. George  von  Lengerke  Meyer  was 
one  of  these  men. 

The  current  fiction  about  Washington 
in  Roosevelt's  time  that  sought  to  ac- 
count for  the  circumstance  that  Meyer 
held  one  good  job  after  another  was  that 
he  was  kept  in  by  the  potent  influence  of 
Senator  Lodge.  The  amusing  theory  was 
that  unless  a  gilded  place  was  found  and 
kept  for  Meyer  his  ambition  for  public 
service  would  lead  him  to  make  a  race 
for  Congress  against  Augustus  P.  Gard- 
ner, Mr.  Lodge's  son-in-law.  It  is  true, 
at  any  rate,  that  Mr.  Meyer  was  giving 
serious  consideration  to  his  chances  as  a 
Congressional  candidate  when  he  ac- 
cepted President  McKinley's  offer  of  the 
Ambassadorship  to  Italy.  It  was  Mr. 
Gardner  who  went  to  Congress. 

All  men  in  public  office  should  keep 
a  diary  of  their  formal  and  informal 
contacts.  It  insures  a  measure  of 
permanence  to  the  memory  of  their 
activities.  So  few  measured  opinions 
are  of  value,  but  in  any  honest  impres- 
sion artlessly  set  down  always  inheres 
the  distinct  flavor  and  quality  of  truth. 
Meyer  kept  such  a  diary,  and  it  has  been 
skilfully  used  by  his  present  biographer. 
Some  quotations  from  it  here  will  serve 
best  to  give  a  taste  of  the  man's  quality. 
During  Meyer's  residence  in  Italy 
(1900-1905)  the  German  Emperor  was 
showing  much  attention  to  Americans, 
especially  to  rich  Americans.  The  Em- 
peror managed,  not  only  at  that  period, 
but  in  later  years,  to  see  a  great  deal  of 
our  Ambassador.  Meyer  was  of  German 
descent;  both  his  paternal  grandfather 
and  grandmother  were  German  born.  It 
is  apparent  that  he  was  flattered  by  the 


Emperor's  attentiveness.  He  has  set 
down  fairly  long  and  detailed  accounts 
of  what  happened  on  the  several  occa- 
sions he  lunched  and  dined  with  the 
Kaiser  and  had  long,  uninterrupted,  and 
unhurried  talks  with  him.  After  Meyer 
had  come  home  from  Europe  and  was 
Postmaster-General  in  Roosevelt's  Cabi- 
net he  sets  down  in  his  diary : 

The  President  in  [Cabinet]  meeting  turned 
to  me  and  said  that  he  had  Imperial  informa- 
tion that  I  was  not  quite  satisfied  or  contented 
being  in  the  Cabinet,  and  that  he,  the  Em- 
peror, would  be  very  pleased  to  have  me  come 
as  Ambassador  to  Berlin ;  reminded  the  Presi- 
dent that  he  had  sent  Speck  to  please  him. 

On  another  and  earlier  day  Mr.  Meyer 
records  that  one  of  the  newspaper  cor- 
respondents came  to  him  to  ask  if  he 
was  going  to  Berlin,  saying  that  he  had 
heard  the  story  at  the  German  Embassy, 
where  it  was  intimated  that  the  appoint- 
ment would  be  very  agreeable  to  the 
Kaiser. 

In  January,  1905,  while  still  Ambassa- 
dor at  Rome,  he  received  a  letter  from 
President  Roosevelt  notifying  him  that 
he  was  to  be  transferred  to  St.  Petersburg 
and  also  stating,  with  characteristic 
vigor,  Roosevelt's  conception  of  the  func- 
tions of  an  Ambassador: 

I  desire  to  send  you  as  Ambassador  to  St. 
Petersburg.     My  present  intention  is,   as  you 
know,   only  to  keep  you   for  a  year  as  Am- 
bassador;  but  there  is  nothing  certain  about 
this,  inasmuch  as  no  man  can  tell  what  con- 
tingencies   will    arise    in    the    future;    but    at 
present  the  position  in   which   I   need  you   is 
that  of   Ambassador   at    St.    Petersburg.     St. 
Petersburg  is  at  this  moment,  and  bids   fair 
to  continue  to  be  for  at  least  a  year,  the  most 
important  post  in  the  diplomatic  service,  from 
the  standpoint  of  work  to  be  done;  and  you 
come  in  the  category  of  public  servants  who 
desire  to  do  public  work,  as  distinguished  from 
those  whose  desire  is  merely  to  occupy  public 
place — a  class  for  whom  I  have  no  particular 
respect.    I  wish  in  St.  Petersburg  a  man  who, 
while  able  to  do  all  the  social  work,  able  to 
entertain  and  meet  the  Russians  and  his  fel- 
low-diplomats on  equal  terms,  able  to  do  all 
the  necessary  plush  business — business  which 
is  indispensable— can  do,  in  addition,  the  really 
vital   and   important  things.     I    want   a   man 
who  will  be  able  to  keep  us  closely  informed, 
on  his  own  initiative,  of  everything  we  ought 
to  know ;  who  will  be,  as  an  Ambassador  ought 
to  be,  our  chief  source  of   information  about 
Japan  and  the  war — about  the  Russian  feeling 
as  to  relations  between  Russia  and  Germany 
and   France,  as   to  the   real   meaning   of   the 
movement   for   so-called   internal   reforms,   as 
to  the  condition  of  the  army,  as  to  what  force 
can  and  will  be  used  in  Manchuria  next  sum- 
mer, and  so  forth  and  so  forth.     The  trouble 
with  our  Ambassadors  in  stations  of  real  im- 
portance is   that  they  totally   fail   to   give  us 
real  help  and  real  information,  and  seem  to 
think  that  the  life-work  of  an  Ambassador  is 
a  kind  of  glorified  pink  tea-party.     Now,  at 
St.   Petersburg  I  want  some  work  done,  and 
you  are  the  man  to  do  it. 

Within  two  months  of  his  arrival  at 
St.  Petersburg  it  fell  to  the  American 
Ambassador  to  conduct  in  person  the 
negotiations  with  the  Czar  which  led  to 
the  Peace  Conference  at  Portsmouth  and 
the  conclusion  of  the  Russo-Japanese 
war;  a  little  more  than  two  months  later 


he  secured  from  the  Czar,  again  in  per- 
son, the  agreements  upon  terms  which 
brought  about  the  signing  of  the  treaty.  • 
He  observed  closely  the  beginning  of  the 
internal  disturbances  in  Russia  and 
watched  the  unpropitious  opening  of  the 
Duma.  He  wrote  regularly  to  Roose- 
velt. His  letters  and  diaries  written  in 
Russia  in  1905,  1906,  and  1907  picture  a 
government  and  a  social  condition  now 
passed  beyond  recall.  His  own  records 
of  this  period  are  more  complete  than 
those  of  any  of  his  other  services. 

The  anecdotal,  gossipy  record  of  his 
contacts  and  minor  adventures  in  Wash- 
ington, where  he  came  in  1907  as  Post- 
master-General in  the  Roosevelt  Cabinet, 
is  heartening  to  read  at  this  time,  when 
Washington     seems     disorganized     and 
demoralized.     Mr.   Roosevelt  did  bring 
interesting  men  to  Washington  and  the 
governmental  machine  was  well  admin- 
istered and  cared  for  during  his  time. 
The  diary  reflects  many  of  the  lighter, 
intimate  aspects  of  the  Roosevelt  official 
household.    Here  is  a  new  T.  R.  epithet : 
At  a  Cabinet  meeting  the  President  said, 
"Notwithstanding  our  exact  information 
as   to   Japan's   preparation   there   were 
certain    'sublimated    sweetbreads'    who 
closed  their  eyes  to  any  chance  of  trouble 
with    Japan."      And    when    the    anti- 
Japanese  feeling  came  to  the  surface  in 
California,   Roosevelt  "regretted   it  be- 
cause the  State  was  too  small  to  become 
a  nation  and  too  large  to  put  into  a  luna- 
tic asylum."    This  was  also  said  in  the 
close  privacy  of  the  Cabinet. 

We  quote  at  random  a  few  other  bits 
of  the  diary : 

May  11.— Ride  with  the  President,  Root,  and 
Lodge;  go  way  out  on  the  Potomac.  The 
French  Ambassador  and  Madame  Jusserand 
were  out  in  the  park  near  the  hurdles.  The 
President  put  his  horse  over  the  3-foot  stone 
wall  and  the  4-foot  hurdle.  Then  he  turned 
to  me  and  said  that  we  would  jump  them 
together,  which  we  did.  Lodge  said  my  horse 
jumped  in  much  better  form.  He  was  carry- 
ing, however,  about  30  pounds  less.  After 
that,  without  realizing  what  effect  it  would 
have  on  the  President,  I  put  my  horse  over 
the  5-foot  jump.  I  had  no  sooner  done  it 
than  the  President  went  at  it.  His  horse  re- 
fused, so  he  turned  his  horse,  set  his  teeth, 
and  went  at  it  again.  This  time  the  horse 
cleared  it  well  forward,  but  dragged  his  hind 
legs.  Lodge  was  very  much  put  out  that  the 
President  has  taken  such  a  risk  with  his 
weight.  I  appreciated  that  it  was  my  fault, 
for  the  President  said,  "I  could  not  let  one 
of  my  Cabinet  give  me  a  lead  and  not  follow." 
October  25.— First  Cabinet  meeting  since 
last  June,  Taft  and  Straus  absent.  Presi- 
dent tells  a  story  why  Root,  according  to  a 
certain  general,  is  the  greatest  Secretary: 
"The  trouble  with  Taft  was  that  he  had  once 
been  a  Judge,  and  if  he  came  up  against  the 
law  in  a  policy  which  he  wanted  to  pursue, 
he  had  such  a  respect  for  the  law  that  he 
gave  in,  while  Secretary  Root  was  such  a 
great  lawyer  that  he  always  could  find  a  way 
to  get  around  it." 

February  16.— The  President  said  to  Root, 
"George  Meyer,  when  I  ask  him  to  go  to  walk, 
refuses,  but  with  an  air  which  is  as  much  as 
to  say,  'I  have  been  several  times  and  I  am 
able  to  do  it,  therefore  I  can  refuse  I'"    The 


March  27,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[309 


President  told  this  with  one  of  his  smiles 
which  showed  all  his  fine  teeth. 

March  20— Cabinet  meeting.  All  present. 
Decide  to  accept  the  invitation  from  Japan 
to  have  the  fleet  visit  their  ports.  Attention 
was  brought  to  the  publication  of  a  Socialist 
journal  in  Paterson.  The  President  much  in- 
censed. It  urged  the  use  of  dynamite  to  de- 
stroy the  troops  and  the  police.  Under  instruc- 
tions from  the  President,  I  am  to  stop  the 
transmission  through  the  mails. 

March  27.— Cabinet  meeting.  The  Attorney 
General  informed  the  Cabinet  that,  under  the 
strict  construction  of  the  law,  I  probably  had 
not  the  authority  to  keep  certain  anarchistic 
papers  out  of  the  mail,  as  the  Courts  had  pre- 
viously defined  what  "immoral"  was. 

I  informed  the  Attorney  General  that  it 
had  already  been  done,  and  the  President 
added  that  we  had  public  sentiment  with  us, 
and  that  he  should  continue  this  policy  to- 
wards the  papers  which  threatened  life  and 
property  until  the  Courts  stopped  us. 

Taft  telephones  me  to  meet  him  at  the 
Union  Station  at  3:30.  Get  there  just  as  he 
is  getting  out  of  his  automobile.  We  sit  down 
on  a  bench  in  the  Union  Station  and  the  secret 
service  men  [form]  a  cordon  about  us.  I  find 
he  wants  me  to  consider  Beekman  Winthrop 
for  Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  which 
is  agreeable  to  me.  He  tells  me  Hale  said  to 
him  that  a  resolution  would  be  introduced,  if 
I  were  appointed  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  in- 
vestigating my  relations  with  the  Fore  River 
Engine  Co.  I  told  him  that  I  never  owned  a 
diare  or  bond  in  my  life. 

March  2.— Final  Cabinet  meeting.  Mr.  Roose- 
velt said,  "Before  we  take  up  any  business, 
ts  this  is  our  last  meeting,  I  want  to  say  to 
you  that  no  President  ever  received  more  loyal 
support  from  his  official  family  than  I  have 
received.  The  work  that  you  have  done  I 
Ijave  received  the  credit  for — credit  must  go 
to  the  general  in  command.  The  only  reward 
you  receive  is  having  the  knowledge  of  doing 
your  work  well.  I  refuse  to  allow  you  to 
reply;"  but  Garfield  said,  "Whatever  we  have 
done  has  been  inspired  by  your  example." 

While  he  was  Secretary  of  the  Navy  in 
I  Mr.  Taft's  Cabinet,  Mr.  Meyer,  singu- 
(larly  enough,  kept  no  diary.  That  is 
I  unfortunate,  for  it  would  have  made  an 
:  interesting  contrast. 

Edward  G.  Lowry 

A  Modern  Greek  Poet 

IKoSTES   Palamas:   Life   Immovable.     Trans- 
lated  by  Aristides   E.   Phoutrides.     Cam- 
bridge :  Harvard  University  Press. 
MR.  PHOUTRIDES,  a  Harvard  doctor 
of  philosophy,  who  has  recently  ac- 
Icepted  a  professorship  at  the  University 
\ot  Athens,  is  undertaking  the  task  of 
aediating  between  the  souls  of  a  native 
id  an  adopted  country.    He  is  proceed- 
Dg  with  a  tact,  modesty,  and  good  taste 
liat  are  in  refreshing  contrast  with  the 
ptyle  of  a  more  widely  advertised  inter- 
reter  who  proclaims  his  mission  in  this 
rain:    "This  book  reveals  America  to 
Brself  by  interpreting  Europe.    I  stand 
symbolic  relation  to  both  Hemispheres 
-having    navigated    unknown    seas    of 
erman  psychology." 

Dr.    Phoutrides'    translation    of    the 
jief  work  of  the  modern  Greek  poet 
Costes  Palamas  is  also  of  a  very  differ- 
■5nt  literary   quality  from   that  of  the 
/olume   of   grotesque    renderings    from 


German  poetry  put  forth  a  few  years 
ago  under  the  auspices  of  one  of  the  most 
eminent  representatives  of  German  sci- 
ence in  America: 

Naught  else  he  loved  above  it. 

He  emptied  it  every  meal, 

And  so  he  used  to  love  it, 

The  tears  from  his  eyes  would  steal. 

There  are  no  niaiseries  of  this  sort  in  Dr. 
Phoutrides'  book.  Estimates  of  its  value 
as  absolute  poetry  may  vary.  But  there 
is  nothing  to  offend  the  taste  or  provoke 
the  smiles  of  a  reader  bred  in  the  purest 
traditions  of  English  poetry.  One  ap- 
parent possible  exception. 

The  lilies  grew  of  marble  witherless, 
would  be  remedied  by  a  comma  after 
"marble."    The  original  has — 

Bgainoun  amarant  apo  marmaro  ta  krina 
Omitting  the  rhymes  and  the  double 
rhymes  as  too  difficult  to  reproduce,  he 
has  given  us  in  correct  rhythm,  and  in 
singularly  pure  and  often  truly  poetical 
English,  a  faithful  transcript  of  what 
the  Greek  poet  tries  to  say  and  what  the 
strange  language  in  which  he  writes  will 
not  let  him  say  to  more  than  a  few  score 
'  readers  in  all  the  world. 

Mr.  Phoutrides  will  probably  not  con- 
cur in  this  estimate.  But  he  will  par- 
don the  sincerity  that  raises  a  most  in- 
teresting psychological  problem.  He  is 
able  to  keep  in  separate  chambers  of  the 
mind  his  proved  and  competent  appre- 
ciation of  classical  Greek  poetry,  the  pur- 
ity of  his  English  taste  with  his  mastery 
of  English  poetical  diction,  and  his  pa- 
triotic enthusiasm  for  the  quaint  lan- 
guage which  a  poet  of  modern  Athens  is 
driven  to  employ.  He  is  not  troubled 
by  the  mixture  of  clipped  popular  forms, 
commonplace  literary  modern  Greek,  and 
poetic  compounds  suggested  by  the  older 
language  and  sometimes  emulating  its 
happiest  audacities  in  which  Palamas  em- 
bodies his  genuine  if  slightly  Byronic  in- 
spiration of  sentiment  and  reflection. 
But  for  all,  save  the  very  few  who  are 
capable  of  such  division  of  the  records 
of  the  mind,  Mr.  Phoutrides'  version  is 
far  better  than  the  original.  It  is  bet- 
ter for  me.  In  the  sestet  of  the  second 
sonnet  on  the  lagoon  city  of  Missolonghi 
I  can  read  with  pleasure  unalloyed  by 
the  shock  of  any  admixture  of  incon- 
gruity : 

There  stands  Varsarova,  the  triple-headed ; 
And  from  her  heights,  a  lady  from  her  tower. 
The  moon  bends  o'er  the  waters  lying  still. 
But  innocent  peace,  the  peace  that  is  a  child's. 
Not  even  there  I  knew ;  but  only  sorrow 
And,  what  is  now  a  fire — the  spirit's  spark. 

But  in  spite  of  two  winters  spent  in 
Athens  I  can  not  read  the  original  so. 
It  is  not  that  I  am  unable  to  construe  it. 
But  my  pleasure  is  baffled  by  the  san  apo 
purgou  doma,  the  sta  olostrata  nera,  the 
mia  photia  echei  genei  and  other  aberra- 
tions from  the  haunting  nouns  that  pre- 
occupy my  mind. 


I  can  not  in  feeling  harmonize  them 
either  with  the  delicacy  of  the  poetical 
sentiments  or  with  the  sophistication  of 
the  compound  epithets,  some  of  them 
hardly  intelligible  to  readers  who  would 
require  sta  and  san  and  the  like.  Emer- 
son somewhere  says  that  the  single  word 
"Madame"  spoils  an  entire  page  of  Ra- 
cine for  him.  I  have  outgrown  that  par- 
ticular prejudice.  But  what  Anatole 
France  feels  as  "those  exquisite  lines" 
of  Baudelaire — 

Et  des  que  le  matin  fait  chanter  les  platanes 
D'acheter  au  bazar  anznas  et  bananes 

still,  in  spite  of  my  better  knowledge  and 
belief,aflfect  me  somewhat  in  this  fashion: 

And   when   dawn  thro'  the  plane  tr^es  the 

morning  breeze   fans 
To  buy  at  the  bazar  pineapples  and  "banans." 

And  this  gross  caricature,  though  not  in 
strict  logic  a  parallel,  may  serve  to  illus- 
trate the  chief  obstacle  to  the  appreci- 
ation of  modern  Greek  poetry  by  English 
speaking  scholars — the  obtrusion  and 
conflict  of  incompatible  associations. 
This  does  not  interfere  with  the  enjoy- 
ment of  the  Klephtic  ballads.  They  are 
too  simple,  too  far  removed  from  clas- 
sical Greek,  to  invite  the  fatal  compari- 
son— "simia  quam  similis."  But  ordi- 
nary modern  Greek  verse  with  its  dis- 
regard of  quantity,  its  perpetual  sug- 
gestion of  French,  English,  or  German 
idiom,  the  teasing  approximations  of  its 
polysyllabic  and  often  beautiful  com- 
pounds to  classical  Greek,  and  its  sudden 
lapses  into  what  from  this  point  of  view 
are  barbarisms  and  solecisms  requires  for 
its  enjoyment  a  more  agile  and  open 
mind  than  most  of  us  with  the  utmost 
goodwill  can  achieve.  The  French  crit- 
ics who  salute  Mr.  Palamas  as  the  great- 
est living  European  poet  are  not,  I  sus- 
pect, more  intimately  familiar  with  mod- 
ern Greek,  but  only  less  sensitive  to  these 
disparates,  if  I  may  borrow  a  word  from 
their  own  language.  They  estimate  Mr. 
Palamas  by  their  sympathy  with  his  poet- 
ical ideas — ^his  gallicized  criticism  of 
life  and  letters,  his  twentieth-century 
questionings  of  destiny,  his  Wordsworth- 
ian  religion  of  nature  and  tranquillity, 
his  neo-Hellenic  patriotism  blended  with 
Childe-Haroldian  meditations  on  the  de- 
parted glories  of  a  Greece  whose  olives 
are  still  as  green  as  when  Minerva 
smiled : 

For  I  stood  on  the  end  of  the  sea,  and  thee  I 

beheld  from  afar, 
O  white,  ethereal  Liokoura,  waiting  that  from 

thy  midst 
Parnassus,   the  ancient,  shine  forth  and  the 

nine  fair  sisters  of  song. 
Yet,  what  if  the  fate  of  Parnassus  is  changed  I 

what  if  the  nine  Fair  Sisters  are  gone? 
Thou   standest  still,   O   Liokoura,  young  and 

forever  one 
O  thou  muse  of  a  future  Rhythm  and  a  Beauty 

still  to  be  born. 

All  these  things  Mr.  Phoutrides'  versions 
give  us  with  perfect  faithfulness  and  in 
a  sufficiently  poetical  English  diction  en- 


310] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  46 


tirely  free  from  the  disharmonies  that 
thwart  our  endeavors  to  do  justice  to 
the  original.  His  book,  with  its  thought- 
ful, well-written  introduction,  will  give 
much  pleasure  to  the  quiet  lovers  of  the 
quiet  poetry  of  meditation  and  senti- 
ment. There  are  still  a  few  such  left  in 
spite  of  the  noisy  vogue  of  Miss  Amy 
Lowell's  "Grand  Cancan  of  St.  Mark's 
or  the  Four  Horses  of  the  Acropolis." 
(I  quote  from  memory.)  In  the  words 
of  our  author: 

But  still  more  beautiful  and  pure  than  these, 

An  harmony  fit  for  the  chosen  few 

Fills  with  its  ringing  sounds  our  dwelling 

place, 
A  lightning  sent  from  Sinai  and  a  gleam 
From  great  Olympus,  like  the  mingling  sounds 
Of  David's  harp  and  Pindar's  lyre  conversing 
In  the  star-spangled  darkness  of  the  night. 

Paul  Shorey 

First  Youth 

Pirates   of  the   Spring.     By   Forrest   Raid. 

Boston :    Houghton  Mifflin  Company. 
CoGCiN.     By  Ernest  Oldmeadow.    New  York: 

The   Century   Company. 
The  Burning  Secret.     By  Stephen  Branch. 

New  York:    Scott  and  Seltzer. 
Jeremy.      By    Hugh    Walpole.      New    York: 

George  H.  Doran  Company. 

OUAINT  enough  now  seems  the  time 
when  a  child  was  looked  upon  as  a 
sort  of  unsuccessful  or  at  best  incom- 
plete grown-up.  Yet  it  survived  by  some 
centuries  the  John  Evelyn  who  boasted 
that  there  had  been  "nothing  childish" 
about  the  son  who  died  of  Greek  and 
other  unchildish  complaints  before  reach- 
ing the  age  of  five.  Not  until  our  own 
generation  has  childishness  ceased  to  be 
looked  upon  as  a  blemish,  and  childlike- 
ness  come  to  be  perceived  as  a  quality  in 
itself  venerable.  It  has  remained  for  us 
not  merely  to  yield  the  infant  his  place  in 
the  sun,  but  to  pay  him  tribute  as  a 
prophet ;  or  at  least  as  a  celestial  stranger 
whose  undimmed  vision  of  our  makeshift 
world  may  be  of  value.  Very  recently 
we  have  been  giving  serious  study  to 
the  tragi-comedy  of  adolescence. 

In  an  earlier  novel,  "The  Spring  Song," 
Forrest  Reid  achieved  a  remarkable  in- 
terpretation of  a  child  who,  somewhat 
haplessly,  carries  over  his  childish  sen- 
sitiveness and  imaginativeness  into  the 
years  of  boyhood.  It  is  a  touching  por- 
trait of  an  Ariel  among  the  Stalkys. 
"Pirates  of  the  Spring"  belongs  frankly 
to  the  Stalky-realm.  Its  four  schoolboys 
are  typical  and  inclusive  rather  than  ex- 
ceptional, very  British,  very  much  in  the 
recognized  public  school  manner.  For 
the  thousandth  time  we  are  here  inducted 
into  the  privacies  of  the  English  school 
for  young  gentlemen,  with  its  gentle- 
manly masters,  its  scholarly  head,  its 
cricket,  its  construing,  its  chicane.  A 
point  of  novelty  is  that  our  four  boys 
are  day-scholars,  a  race  commonly  dis- 
credited in  British  school-fiction.     The 


central  figure  is  Beach  Traill,  son  of  a 
charming  and  well-to-do  widow.  From 
the  schoolmaster's  point  of  view,  he  is 
the  dullest  of  the  four.  There  is  little 
far  him  in  the  insides  of  books,  and  he 
keeps  his  place  in  school  by  the  merest 
foothold.  But  he  has  character  and  a 
kind  of  sturdy  charm,  an  instinct  for  the 
right  kind  of  people  and  the  right  way 
of  conduct  in  a  larger  sense.  For 
Beach's  friendship  the  other  three  in 
their  different  ways  contend.  He  has  one 
blind  spot,  the  result  of  his  boyish  feel- 
ing for  a  younger  boy  Evan.  It  is  not 
quite  an  infatuation,  but  one  of  those 
innocent  if  not  altogether  wholesome 
leanings  of  youth  to  youth  which  are  so 
common  during  the  period  of  adolescence. 
Evan's  beauty  and  half-feminine  weak- 
ness are  lures  to  the  stalwart  older  boy. 
We  are  largely  concerned  with  his  grad- 
ual release  from  what  threatens  to  be- 
come an  unhealthful  relation.  The 
moral,  I  say,  is  ruthlessly  British.  Beach 
Traill  and  Palmer  Dorset  and  Miles  Oul- 
ton  are  essentially  all  right;  (because) 
they  are  of  good  stock,  well-housed  and 
well-bred.  The  villain,  Cantillon,  is  a 
bounder  and  a  cur,  and  the  handsome 
Evan  is  at  bottom  a  cad  and  a  coward; 
(because)  they  have  lacked  like  advan- 
tages of  birth  and  breeding.  By  way  of 
offset — and,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  with- 
out the  knowledge  of  the  author — Evan's 
mother,  that  amiable  Philistine  and  fault- 
less skipper  of  the  domestic  bark,  is 
infinitely  superior  to  Beach's  pretty  and 
well-bred  mother  in  character  as  well  as 
in  personality. 

She  is  a  far  more  real  person  than  the 
mother  of  "Coggin,"  who  is  held  up  for 
our  admiration  in  the  tale  of  that  name, 
as  a  lady  of  low  degree.  Though  British, 
Coggin  is  one  of  nature's  gentlemen  as 
well  as  a  genius — a  hard  compound  to 
swallow  for  the  conventional  novel- 
reader.  For  it  seems  to  be  generally 
agreed  that  a  genius  is  almost  always  a 
cad,  even  with  all  possible  advantages  of 
birth  and  rearing.  Coggin  is  not  a  cad; 
but  he  is,  to  tell  the  truth,  a  fearful 
prig,  and  the  reader  must  have  a  patient 
way  with  priggish  and  humorless  virtue 
to  bear  with  him  till  the  end  of  the  pres- 
ent narrative.  The  story  is  told  with  a 
certain  skill  and  polish ;  but  it  is  not  very 
clearly  worth  the  telling,  for  all  that. 
Even  if  you  believe  in  Coggin,  he  re- 
mains little  short  of  a  bore ;  and  the  tale 
ends  in  a  smother  of  religious  emotional- 
ism centring  in  the  not  very  well-bal- 
anced parson,  who  is  supposed  to  have 
been  turned  mysteriously  into  a  sort  of 
pseudo-Christ  (what  more  popular  figure 
in  recent  fiction?)  by  contact  with  Cog- 
gin. Coggin's  merit,  I  take  it,  is  that  he 
is  without  guile,  integer  vitae;  but  surely 
he  needn't  have  been  an  ass?  He  is  the 
virtuous  prodigy  about  whom  there  is 
nothing  that  is  childish,  and,  alas,  little 
that  is  human. 


"The  Burning  Secret"  is,  perhaps,  a 
"novelette"  rather  than  a  novel;  the  study 
of  an  episode  in  its  bearing  upon  various 
lives — two  lives  really.  The  scene  is  a 
foreign  mountain  resort  in  a  country  un- 
named. The  persons  are  a  Jewess  on 
the  verge  of  overmaturity,  wife  of  a 
prosperous  lawyer  of  "the  metropolis"; 
her  twelve-year-old  son  Edgar;  and  a 
woman-hunting  young  baron.  The  Jew- 
ess is  the  baron's  only  promise  of  sport 
at  the  time  and  place.  As  a  first  move 
in  the  game  he  makes  up  to  the  boy, 
who  responds  with  passionate  gratitude. 
But  he  soon  finds  himself  pushed  aside; 
then  begins  his  awakening.  It  is  he  who 
saves  his  mother  from  her  folly,  and  in 
the  process  leaves  childhood  behind  him. 
Not  altogether  unhappily,  for  now  he 
dimly  perceives  the  mysterious  charm  of 
the  future  reaching  out  to  him:  "Once 
again  the  leaves  in  the  book  of  his  child- 
hood were  turned  alluringly,  then  the 
child  fell  asleep,  and  the  profounder 
dream  of  his  life  began."  The  story  has 
a  compactness  and  distinction  compa- 
rable to,  say,  Mrs.  Wharton's  "Ethan 
Frome,"  or  Mr.  Swinnerton's  more  re- 
cent "Nocturne,"  It  is  not,  of  course,  a 
"pleasant"  story. 

I  confess  to  having  found  Mr.  Wal- 
pole's  "Jeremy"  hard  reading.  It  is 
a  circumstantial  and  doubtless  faithful 
chronicle  of  the  nursery  life  of  an  Eng- 
lish household  some  thirty  years  ago.  It 
sedulously  refrains  from  having  any  spe- 
cial point  or  "idea."  It  records  in  piti- 
less detail  the  egotism,  the  whimsicality, 
the  grubbiness,  the  fancies,  the  predilec- 
tions of  an  average  sort  of  family  of 
children.  It  represents  a  kind  of  thing 
which  has  been  very  much  done  of  late, 
and  is  a  solid  piece  of  work  in  that  kind. 
But  it  adds  nothing  of  great  account  to 
our  lore  of  youth  or  to  our  debt  to  Mr. 
Walpole.  And  Jeremy  is  too  neutral  and 
"average"  a  youngster  to  absorb  atten- 
tion for  his  own  sake. 

The  Run  of  the  Shelves  i 

MISS  ELLEN  FITZGERALD  has 
translated  for  Doubleday,  Page  the 
French  Volume  of  "Walt  Whitman :  The 
Man  and  his  Work,"  published  by  M. 
Leon  Bazalgette  in  1908.  Miss  FitzGerald 
teaches  English  in  a  normal  college,  and 
her  own  English  is  a  melancholy  proof 
of  the  growing  insensibility  of  educators 
and  publishers  alike  to  their  obligations 
as  curators  of  the  language.  M.  Bazal- 
gette is  not  a  critic;  he  is  a  biographer, 
or,  better,  a  portrait-painter,  or,  better 
still  an  indweller  who  invites  the  reader 
to  share  his  domestication  in  the  tene- 
ment of  Whitman's  personality.  Person- 
ality in  this  case,  includes  and  stresses 
the  physique.  There  are  moments  when 
we  feel  disposed  to  say  that  the  subject 
of  this  biography  is  the  person  of  Walt 


March  27,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[311 


Whitman.  The  author  can  not  take  his 
hands  off  his  poet's  frame;  when  he  is 
not  feeling  his  pulse,  he  is  testing  his 
muscle. 

The  book  has  been  prepared  with  some 
ire.  Every  fact  of  weight  is  supported 
by  a  reference — the  only  means  by  which 
the  exhibitor  of  a  foreign  theme  can  pro- 
tect both  himself  and  his  readers.  There 
are  parts  of  Whitman's  life,  notably  the 
period  before  1855  and  the  finalities  of 
ins  decline,  which  the  devotion  and  per- 
severance of  the  biographer  make  rather 
vivid  for  us.  But  M.  Bazalgette  is  in- 
separable from  his  subject;  his  jubilee 
from  page  1  to  page  355  is  uninterrupted. 
Now  a  biographer  who  has  chosen  a  sub- 
ject is  a  good  deal  in  the  position  of  a 
man  who  has  married  a  wife.  Devotion 
is  the  presumable  motive  in  both  acts, 
but  henceforth  a  certain  chariness  or 
continence  in  praise  is  enjoined  by  the 
publicity  of  the  relation.  When  the 
author  is  too  lavish  of  exclamation  points 
the  reader  parries  with  the  question 
mark.  Whitman  was  a  man  who  might 
be  said  by  a  reckless  figure  to  bathe  in 
humanity,  as  he  bathed  in  rivers  or  the 
sea,  and  this  book  is  designed  after  a 
sort  for  bathers  in  Whitman.  But  much 
of  the  tonic  effect  of  the  robust  plunge 
is  lost  when  M.  Bazalgette  insists  on 
heating  the  water  for  use  in  his  private 
tank. 

In  one  sense  the  book  is  very  thorough ; 
it  leaves  no  phase  of  Whitman's  life  un- 
ouched.  The  reader,  however,  may  be  re- 
minded of  a  delightful  pleasantry  which, 
iccording  to  a  recent  article  in  the  Cen- 
tury, was  uttered  to  General  Pershing 
n  Mexico  by  some  person  lowly  enough 
0  be  impertinent:  "Well,  General,  I 
hink  we've  surrounded  Villa — at  least 
)n  one  side."  It  is  in  something  of  the 
lame  fashion  that  M.  Bazalgette  has  en- 
ircled  Whitman. 

There  is  much  more  than  antiquarian 
nterest — though  much  of  that,  too,  of 
n  absorbing  character — in  Frederic  J. 
Vood's  "Turnpikes  of  New  England" 
Boston:  Marshall  Jones),  a  handsome 
olume  of  which  both  author  and  pub- 
isher  have  reason  to  be  proud.  A  de- 
jailed  history  of  each  of  the  many  turn- 
like  companies,  such  as  is  here  fur- 
ished,  offers  a  great  deal  to  interest 
he  engineer,  and,  from  one  point  of 
iew,  summarizes  the  economic  develop- 
lent  of  the  country  from  the  close  of 
le  Revolution  to  the  middle  of  the  nine- 
jenth  century.  To  all  these  varied  ap- 
eals  of  his  subject  Major  Wood  is  fully 
nd  discriminatingly  responsive. 

The  turnpikes  were  built  by  the  first 
f  the  public  service  corporations, 
carcely  one  of  them,  though  the  public 
jntinued  to  subscribe  for  stock  with  an 
ithusiasm  that  is  a  little  difficult  to 
nderstand,  ever  collected  enough  tolls  to 


pay  even  a  decent  interest  return  on  the 
investment.  Before  many  years,  long 
before  the  competition  of  the  railroads 
began  to  be  felt,  the  corporations  were 
glad  to  turn  their  highways  over  to  the 
town  or  the  county,  which  in  turn  were 
seldom  glad  to  assume  the  responsibility. 
But,  thanks  to  private  enterprise,  and 
in  spite  of  public  hostility  to  the  pay- 
ment of  tolls  at  all  and  to  the  tendency 
of  the  corporations  to  lay  their  roads  in 
a  straight  line,  no  matter  who  was 
inconvenienced,  communication  between 
town  and  town  was  made,  what  it  had 
hardly  been  before  1800,  a  practicable 
every-day  affair.  The  book  is  furnished 
with  excellent  maps  and  many  photo- 
graphs. 

There  is  one  community  in  Palestine 
which  must  be  watching  the  Zionists  with 
more  than  trepidation.  As  old  a  feud 
as  any  that  exists  in  the  whole  world  is 
that  between  the  Jews  and  the  Samari- 
tans, and  age  has  not  abated  its  vigor. 
The  Moslems  and  Christians  may  view 
the  Jews  as  the  Canaanites  did  the  in- 
vading army  of  Joshua,  but  these  can 
fairly  take  care  of  themselves.  With  the 
tiny  body  of  Samaritans  it  is  different, 
and  only  archaeologists  are  interested  in 
them  as  a  strange  bit  of  social  and  re- 
ligious fossilization.  It  is,  therefore,  to 
their  advantage  to  have  their  very 
strangeness  recognized.  As  museum 
"specimens,  if  not  as  a  viable  people,  they 
may  be  saved.  So  every  book  about  them 
helps,  and  especially  one  like  Dr.  J.  E.  H. 
Thomson's  ""The  Samaritans,  Their  Testi- 
mony to  the  Religion  of  Israel."  (Lon- 
don: Oliver  and  Boyd),  for  it  is  full  of 
vivid  antiquarian  detail.  He  evidently 
likes  the  Samaritans  as  he  has  known 
them,  and  he  has  known  them  quite  inti- 
mately. He  has  recast,  in  his  mind,  the 
whole  history  of  Israel  round  them  and 
their  problems — their  ritual,  their  his- 
tory, their  theology,  and  their  sacred 
texts — and  has  gained  thereby  some  most 
interesting  ways  of  looking  at  that  his- 
tory. There  is  much  to  be  said  for  this 
method  of  shaking  the  kaleidoscope  of 
the  world,  and  Dr.  Thomson  has  used  it 
skilfully.  As  he  says  himself,  he  has  come 
out  with  conclusions  which  agree  neither 
with  traditional  orthodoxy  nor  with  the 
orthodoxy  of  the  dominant  critical 
school;  and  that  is  a  distinct  gain.  The 
more  dominant  schools,  orthodox  or  so- 
called  critical,  are  criticised,  the  better  it 
is  for  them  and  for  everybody.  When 
their  conclusions  pose  as  "the  assured  re- 
sults of  modern  science"  they  invite 
new  thunderbolts,  and  there  are  several 
celestial  flashes  in  this  book. 

"Home,  Then  What?— The  Mind  of  the 
Doughboy,  A.  E.  F."  (Doran)  consists  of 
thirty  short  essays  submitted  by  Ameri- 


can expeditionary  soldiers  in  a  prize  com- 
petition. Able  the  essays  are  not,  if  one 
reflects  on  the  aggregate  of  brains  and 
of  literary  ability,  tried  or  untried,  which 
the  conscription  of  the  entire  young  man- 
hood of  an  enlightened  people  must  have 
sent  to  France.  Diversified  the  essays 
are  not.  Mr.  John  Kendrick  Bangs,  in 
the  uncritical  benevolence  of  a  sunny 
"Foreword,"  begins  his  first  paragraph 
with  the  assertion  that  it  would  take  a 
thousand  pens  with  a  thousand  nibs 
apiece  to  set  down  the  variety  of 
thoughts  in  the  minds  of  two  million 
doughboys.  He  begins  his  second  para- 
graph by  saying  that  their  minds  ran  in 
grooves.  The  likeness  of  men  to  each 
other  is  modified  surprisingly  little  by 
that  cult  of  individuality  in  the  universal 
praise  of  which  we  assert  our  difference 
and  prove  our  unity.  The  feelings,  the 
purposes,  in  these  papers  are  exemplary. 
This  is  partly  the  outcome  of  the  condi- 
tions. A  prize  competition  is  an  inspec- 
tion or  dress  parade,  and  it  is  only  nat- 
ural that  the  ideas  and  sentiments  which 
appear  in  it  should  be  beautifully 
groomed. 

All  this  is  true;  but  its  truth  has  no 
quarrel  with  the  other  truth  that  lovers 
of  America  might  replenish  their  faith 
in  its  destiny  by  a  perusal  of  these 
manly,  modest,  sane,  and  patriotic  es- 
says. A  year  in  military  service  has  al- 
tered the  stuff  of  the  ideals  of  these 
young  men  very  little,  but  it  has  done  for 
their  ideals  what  it  has  done  for  their 
persons — made  them  erect  and  robust. 
It  is  curious  to  observe  that  in  these 
writers  there  is  no  visible  mark  of  any 
lasting  effect  upon  their  spirits  of  the 
horrors  and  squalors  to  which  their  rela- 
tion has  been  so  intimate  and  painful. 
Not  one  of  them  finds  his  present  world 
ugly. 

Mr.  Humphrey  Milford,  of  the  Oxford 
University  Press,  has  recently  issued  for 
the  British  Academy  two  pamphlets: 
"Shakespeare  and  the  Makers  of  Vir- 
ginia," and  "Sir  James  Murray."  The 
first,  the  annual  Shakespeare  lecture  for 
1919,  is  the  work  of  Sir  A.  W.  Ward,  a 
fellow  of  the  Academy,  who  speaks  in 
most  complimentary  fashion  of  "Shakes- 
peare and  the  Founders  of  Liberty  in 
America,"  by  Professor  C.  M.  Gayley,  of 
the  University  of  California.  The  sec- 
ond pamphlet  is  interesting  to  Americans 
because  it  has  to  do  with  the  learned 
editor  of  the  Oxford  Dictionary,  Sir 
James  A.  H.  Murray,  who,  it  will  be 
remembered,  died  in  1915,  before  the 
completion  of  this  great  work.  This 
interesting  biographical  sketch  is  writ- 
ten by  Dr.  Murray's  principal  coadjutor. 
Dr.  Henry  Bradley,  who  truly  says  of  his 
chief  that  "it  is  to  Murray  far  more  than 
to  any  other  man  that  the  honor  of  this 
great  achievement  will  belong." 


312] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  46 


Drama 


Arnold  Bennett's  "Sacred 

and  Profane  Love" — 

John  Barrymore  in 

"Richard  III" 

MR.  ARNOLD  BENNETT'S  "Sacred 
and  Profane  Love,"  which  is  aiding 
Miss  Elsie  Ferguson  to  pack  the  Morosco 
Theatre,  is  a  play  of  which  I  do  not 
clearly  grasp  the  purport.  An  outline  of 
the  plot  may  serve  to  explain  my  diffi- 
culties, if  it  explains  nothing  else,  to  the 
inquiring  reader. 

In  the  first  act  an  inexperienced  young 
girl,  Carlotta  Peel,  gives  herself  to  a  cele- 
brated pianist,  Emilio  Diaz,  on  the  ur- 
gency of  feelings  implanted  by  an  hour's 
acquaintance.  This  takes  place  in  a 
house  of  timid  and  even  peevish  respec- 
tability, and  Mr.  Bennett's  excuse  for  the 
dramatic  impropriety  is  puerile.  What- 
ever our  view  of  the  morality  of  the  act 
— Mr.  Bennett's  unconcern  about  its  mor- 
als is  Olympian — surely  we  can  not  but 
feel  that,  on  the  part  of  two  persons  of 
the  first  order  of  human  capacity,  its  pre- 
cipitation is  clownish.  The  mere  sense 
of  artistic  process  which  inhibits  the  be- 
ginning of  a  symphony  with  its  finale  or 
a  novel  (the  girl  is  a  novelist)  with  the 
concluding  chapter  should  have  inter- 
posed its  quiet  veto.  The  girl,  however, 
becomes  frightened  and  distrustful,  and 
the  hurry  of  her  tremulous  flight  in  the 
chill  of  the  reproachful  provides  a  brief 
scene  of  novel  interest.  Afterwards  she 
repents,  but — and  here  lies  the  pith  and 
marrow  of  the  play — what  she  repents  is 
not  the  deed,  but  the  departure.  She 
had  failed  in  faith. 

Act  II  discovers  Carlotta  Peel,  after 
a  lapse  of  seven  years,  accumulating  fame 
and  fortune  by  the  composition  of  heart- 
probing  novels  in  a  suburb  of  London. 
The  main  plot  is  almost  motionless,  but 
there  is  a  curious  interlude  in  which  Car- 
lotta finally  declines  an  elopement  with  a 
married  publisher  to  whom  she  had  con- 
fessed her  attachment  and  vouchsafed  a 
kiss.  The  import  of  this  outbreak  of  vir- 
tue is  not  clear  unless  Mr.  Bennett  means 
to  suggest  that  the  persons  who  yield 
magnificently  can  magnificently  renounce. 

The  third  act  finds  Carlotta  Peel  at 
the  door  of  Emilio  Diaz,  whom  the  mor- 
phine habit  has  expelled  from  concert 
halls  and  decent  hotels,  and  condemned  to 
the  ignominies  of  a  degenerate  life  in  an 
evil  district  of  forgetful  Paris.  Diaz  is 
brought  to  accept  the  companionship  and 
nursing  of  Carlotta  at  the  end  of  a  long 
scene,  which  is  somewhat  bloodshot  and 
disheveled  for  the  author  of  "Clay- 
hanger,"  and  which,  lying  inside  the 
story,  lies  outside  the  theme.  Indeed  the 
theme  and  story  in  this  play  remind  one 


of  those  fellow-travelers  who  rejoin  each 
other  after  frequent  separations. 

Act  IV,  in  contrast  to  Act  III,  might 
almost  be  described  as  an  element  in  the 
theme,  but  an  interlude  in  the  story. 
The  return  of  Diaz  to  London,  where,  in 
the  confidence  of  returning  health  and 
skill,  he  plays,  amid  resurgent  plaudits, 
in  an  overflowing  concert-hall,  is  of 
course  essential  to  the  narrative.  But  the 
real  point  of  Act  IV  is  the  momentary 
revival  of  Carlotta's  old  insecurity  as  to 
the  faithfulness  of  Diaz,  an  insecurity 
which  is  finally  dispelled  by  his  utter- 
ance of  the  tranquillizing  words:  "I 
drink  to  our  marriage." 

What  does  all  this  mean?  Trust,  says 
Mr.  Bennett.  Yes:  but  trust  where  and 
when?  Are  men  as  men  to  be  trusted  in 
illicit  ties?  The  male  record  is  discour- 
aging. Are  artists  as  such  to  be  trusted 
in  like  relations?  The  artistic  record  is 
disquieting.  If  Mr.  Bennett  means  that 
in  illicit  relations  trust  is  doubly  im- 
perative, because  the  securities  for  the 
permanence  of  such  unions  are  all  in- 
ternal, his  point  is  sound.  But  a  retort 
would  be  promptly  forthcoming  to  the 
effect  that  the  failure  of  so  devoted  and 
courageous  a  woman  as  Carlotta  Peel  to 
attain  or  maintain  that  unfaltering  trust 
is  proof  of  the  inherent  brittleness  of 
such  connections.  The  mischief  of  un- 
authorized relations  is  that  their  main- 
tenance demands  more  character  than 
human  nature  can  supply.  A  woman 
should  not  flee  from  her  great  moment. 
Possibly  not.  But  will  Mr.  Bennett  un- 
dertake to  provide  the  woman  with  some 
clear  tests  for  distinguishing  the  really 
great  moment  from  those  imitations  of 
great  moments  by  which  her  sisters  have 
been  cruelly  and  irreparably  deceived? 
His  man  and  woman  marry  in  the  end — 
accept  an  external  security.  Trust  in 
God,  but  keep  your  powder  dry. 

Miss  Elsie  Ferguson's  success  as  Car- 
lotta Peel  is  only  moderate.  Her  voice  in 
plain  speech  is  dry  and  a  little  hard, 
and  when  she  needs  an  emotional  voice, 
her  only  expedient  is  to  open  sluices.  It 
then  becomes  a  rainy  voice,  a  wading 
voice,  sometimes  a  drowned  voice,  and 
the  hearer  is  irritated  by  Carlotta's  in- 
sistence that  he  join  her  in  the  celebra- 
tion of  her  sorrow.  Mr.  Jose  Ruben  gave 
a  life-like  presentation  of  a  Diaz  in  whom 
perhaps  the  original  is  a  little  lightened 
and  reduced. 

"Richard  III,"  in  which  Mr.  Arthur 
Hopkins  presents  Mr.  John  Barrymore 
in  a  notable  performance  at  the  Ply- 
mouth Theatre,  is  a  play  of  restless 
energy  and  brilliant  episodes.  But  it  suf- 
fers from  the  fact  that  it  is  a  chronicle- 
play  in  form,  a  character-play  in  essence ; 
and,  since  the  chronicle-play  is  inevitably 
the  regulative  force,  the  result  is  an  ex- 
position of  character  that  is  prolix,  scat- 
tering, repetitious,  and  unclimaxed. 
Richard  himself  is  never  dull  but  I  should 


have  liked  better  a  Richard  who  was 
more  subtle  and  less  complex.  The  com- 
plexity begins  in  the  division  of  the  hero 
into  two  men.  There  is  Richard,  and 
there  is — Dickon.  Richard  is  the  dis- 
sembler, the  contriver,  the  Jesuit ;  Dickon 
is  the  grotesque,  the  imp,  the  sneerer,  the 
scoffer,  the  Mephistopheles.  Richard  and 
Dickon  are  more  than  once  at  cross-pur- 
poses; Dickon  would  speak  when  Richard 
craves  his  silence;  in  the  fantastic  scene 
in  Act  I  where  Richard  wins  the  heart 
of  Lady  Anne  by  methods  which  insult 
both  her  heart  and  her  intelligence,  the 
derision  really  nullifies  the  subtlety. 

But  the  division  between  Richard  and 
Dickon  is  not  the  end  of  the  complexities; 
Richard  himself  is  complex.  Among  his 
brutal  compeers  he  is  not  the  fox  among 
lions ;  he  is  only  the  lion  with  a  vulpine 
streak.  His  policy  succumbs  to  his 
wrath,  as  it  bends  to  his  impishness.  His 
rage  dispenses  with  Buckingham  whom 
his  cunning  would  have  anchored  to  his 
side.  In  the  crisis  of  his  fate  his  craft 
disappears,  and  he  is  thrown  back  upon 
that  valor  and  ferocity  which  was  the 
common  heritage  and  stronghold  of  his 
race. 

Such  a  nature  is  evidently  complex.  It 
is  too  complex  to  excel  in  subtlety.  In  a 
man  who  is  lion  and  ape  as  well  as  fox, 
the  fox  will  never  be  perfected.  Shake- 
speare in  Richard  sought  to  give  us  the 
artist  in  crime;  what  he  gave  was  the 
criminal,  but  not  the  artist.  Shake- 
speare's age  was  nowhere  more  artless 
than  in  the  view  it  took  of  artfulness ;  a 
perfect  willingness  to  lie  and  kill  seemed 
an  ample  equipment  for  successful  vil- 
lainy. Richard  murdered  unwisely,  his 
methods  are  often  blunt  and  crude,  he  is 
quite  as  much  the  juggler  or  sorcerer  as 
the  tactician  (see  his  handling  of  Anne 
and  Elizabeth),  and  Shakespeare  has  not 
spared  him  the  crowning  humiliation  of 
taking  from  Buckingham  the  hint  for  the 
prayer-book  and  churchmen  scene,  almost 
the  only  scene  in  which  he  bears  himself 
with  incontestable  astuteness. 

What  does  Mr.  John  Barrymore  do 
with  a  Richard  of  this  kind?  He  does  a  i 
great  deal,  and  much  of  what  he  does  is 
fine.  To  begin  with  a  detail  or  two,  Mr. 
Barrymore  knows  how  to  listen;  as  the 
Lady  Anne  scene  clearly  shows  he  can 
make  listening  an  act.  Again,  he  has  hit 
upon  the  art  of  soliloquizing;  the  "win- 
ter of  our  discontent"  speech  was  admir- 
able in  the  leisurely  tentativeness,  the  ob- 
vious search  of  the  mind  for  the  next 
thought,  which  alone  can  justify  or  ex- 
tenuate soliloquy.  But  the  great  original 
beauty  of  his  work  was  that  the  Richard 
he  portrayed  was  mainly  thoughtful, 
with  a  mind  not  quick  or  springing,  but 
ruminative,  a  self-infolding,  self-em- 
bosomed mind,  looking  out  from  its  cov- 
ert with  a  curious,  contented,  relishing 
sagacity  at  the  world  and  its  own  conduct 
(Continued  on  page  314) 


March  27,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[313 


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314] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  46 


{Continued  from  page  312) 
in  the  world.  His  best  speeches  had  the 
effect  of  distillations,  distilled  venom,  it 
is  true,  but  extracts  and  concentrations 
nevertheless.  There  were  other  parts  of 
his  work  that  seemed  to  me  raw  beside 
this  beautiful  and  satisfying  ripeness. 
He  blustered  sometimes,  and  his  bluster 
struck  me  as  no  better  than  that  of  the 
ungifted  actor;  indeed,  bluster  would 
seem  to  have  the  property  of  reducing  all 
artists  to  a  level.  The  trait  has  its  war- 
rant in  the  drama,  but  the  half-animal 
element  in  Richard,  which  I  can  not  but 
think  that  the  tradition  of  the  stage  has 
imposed  on  a  reluctant  Shakespeare,  was 
brought  out  by  Mr.  Barrymore  with  a 
success  that  set  a  premium  upon  failure. 
I  had  no  pleasure  in  the  laugh,  the  leer, 
or  the  guttural  noises,  and  in  what  might 
be  half  symbolically  described  as  the 
licking  of  the  chops  after  some  act  of 
blood.  I  felt  only  another  recreancy  to 
the  high  ideals  which  ruled  the  greater 
and  the  graver  sections  of  his  work. 

The  support,  while  respectable  in  the 
mass,  was  scarcely  provocative  of  hyper- 
boles. The  settings  of  Mr.  Robert  E. 
Jones,  on  the  contrary,  were  a  support 
and  an  alleviation  to  the  play.  To  a 
period  in  which  history  shades  off  into 
fiction  at  its  borders,  Mr.  Jones  was  wise 
enough  to  give  a  legendary  setting,  a 
setting  in  which  vivid  centres  fade  away 
into  marginal  indistinctness.     He  gave 


meaning  and  animation  to  the  Middle 
Ages  without  dispelling  the  twilight  into 
which  their  actualities  have  receded. 

0.   W.    FlEKINS 

Books  and  the  News 

Sea  Stories 

THE  National  Marine  League  and  the 
American  Library  Association  are 
craftily  inciting  readers  and  writers  to 
choose  the  best  ten  books  of  the  sea.  It 
should  not  be  difficult  to  start  the  argu- 
ment ;  most  of  us,  like  Hamlet,  will  iight 
upon  this  theme  until  our  eyelids  will 
no  longer  wag.  It  is  inherited,  perhaps, 
from  far-off  ancestors,  like  the  love  for 
wood  fires,  and  though  we  be  the  mildest 
and  least  sea-faring  persons  going,  we 
can  hold  strong  opinions  about  nautical 
writers.  I  have  always  sympathized  with 
that  strange  mariner,  Captain  Parker 
Pitch,  in  Carryl's  ballad : 

His  disposition,  so  to  speak, 
Was  nautically  soft  and  weak; 
He  feared  the  rolling  ocean,  and 
He  very  much  preferred  the  land. 

For  he  summed  it  all  up: 

Says  Captain  Pitch :   "The  ocean  swell 
Makes  me  exceedingly  unwell." 

And  so,  though  I  put  to  sea  with  mis- 
givings, I  am  as  ready  as  others  to  say 


which  seem  to  me  the  best  books  about 
the  sailor  and  the  ocean.    Here  they  are : 
Janvier.     "In  the  Sargasso  Sea." 
Clark  Russell.     "List,  ye  Landsmen!" 
Clark  Russell.    "My  Shipmate  Louise." 
Hamblen.    "On  Many  Seas." 
R.  L.  Stevenson.     "The  Wrecker." 
Bullen.    "The  Cruise  of  the  Cachalot." 
Slocum.     "Sailing  Alone  Around  the 
World." 

Kipling.  "The  Seven  Seas." 
W.  W.  Jacobs.  "Many  Cargoes." 
Southey.  "Life  of  Nelson." 
Janvier,  in  his  story  of  the  young 
sailor,  caught  in  that  vast  tangle  of  old 
wrecks  in  the  mythical  Sargasso  Sea, 
not  only  tells  a  fine  tale  of  adventure, 
with  all  the  magic  and  wonder  of  the  sea, 
but  he  concentrates  his  reader's  atten- 
tion upon  the  lonely  experiences  of  one 
man,  in  a  fashion  hardly  equalled  since 
Robinson  Crusoe.  Clark  Russell  is  still, 
to  me,  the  first  among  his  kind,  and  no 
psychological  Mr.  Conrad  can  equal  him. 
It  is  customary  to  recommend  his  first 
success,  "The  Wreck  of  the  Grosvenor," 
but  the  two  which  I  have  named,  in  spite 
of  their  sentimental  titles,  are  better 
examples.  Both  contain,  though  it  is 
irrelevant  to  their  excellence,  his  always 
amusing  and  eminently  correct  treatment 
of  that  difficult  situation:  the  unchaper- 
oned  young  lady  and  the  resourceful  hero. 
Mr.  H.  E.  Hamblen,  writing  under  the 
pseudonym  of  "Frederick  Benton  Will- 


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[815 


iams,"  made  of  his  "On  Many  Seas;  the 
Life  and  Exploits  of  a  Yankee  Sailor,"  a 
capital  book  of  yarns,  a  sort  of  latter- 
day  "Two  Years  Before  the  Mast."  It 
is  presented  as  fact,  not  fiction.  Not  all 
of  Stevenson's  "Wrecker"  is  upon  the 
sea ;  but  the  ocean  chapters  are  pure  gold, 
as  a  murder  story  its  horror  is  unsur- 
passed, and  as  a  mystery  only  the  actual 
events  of  the  cruise  of  the  "Marie 
Celeste"  can  be  quoted  with  it. 

Of  "The  Cruise  of  the  Cachalot; 
Round  the  World  after  Sperm  Whales," 
Mr.  Kipling  said  all  that  is  needed:  "It 
is  immense — there  is  no  other  word. 
I've  never  read  anything  that  equals  it 
in  its  deep-sea  wonder  and  mystery." 
Captain  Slocum's  "Sailing  Alone  Around 
the  World"  is  unique — humorous  and 
extraordinary.  You  have  only  to  hunt 
for  quotations  about  all  the  phases  of 
ocean  life  and  adventure  to  prove  that 
there  are  more  apt  ones  in  Kipling's 
"Seven  Seas"  than  in  any  other  single 
volume  of  poetry.  For  humorous  short 
stories  of  the  sea,  and  along  shore,  Mr. 
Jacobs  leads  all  the  rest;  his  "Many  Car- 
goes" contains  some  of  his  best  tales. 
Southey's  "Life  of  Nelson"  is  not  apt  to 
be  displaced  as  a  readable  biography; 
greater  accuracy,  or  greater  fullness  of 
historical  detail  may,  of  course,  be  found. 
Nobody  has  yet  done  so  well  for  our 
naval  hero,  Paul  Jones.  The  scientific 
historians  have  made  it  unlikely  that 
anyone  ever  will. 

The  omission  of  Mr.  Conrad  from  such 
a  list  will  cause  more  objection  that  any- 
thing else.  Like  Meredith,  he  has  his 
warm  admirers  and  he  has  those  who 
simply  can  not  read  him.  The  former 
look  upon  the  latter  as  Mr.  Tumulty  is 
said  to  look  upon  Republicans;  simply  as 
lioll  weevils.  I  think  that  Mr.  Conrad's 
sincere  admirers  have  been  reinforced 
through  clever  advertising  —  through 
spreading  the  idea  that  one  must  like 
him  for  the  sake  of  intellectual  distinc- 
tion. But  to  those  who  do  not  find  his 
characters  interesting — and  there  are 
many  such — it  matters  not  about  the 
beauty  of  his  descriptions,  nor  the  thrill- 
ing quality  of  some  of  the  incidents. 
Quarter-deck  and  forecastle  alike,  in  Mr. 
Conrad's  novels,  look  to  me  like  psycho- 
logical clinics.  Though  I  can  fancy  and 
tolerate  Jesse  James  and  his  brother  in  a 
ship's  crew,  I  do  not  expect  to  meet — I 
do  not  care  to  meet — Henry  James  and 
his  brother,  William,  there. 

Edmund  Lester  Pearson 

Books  Received 

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PHILOSOPHY  AND  RELIGION 

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316]  THE  REVIEW  [Vol.  2,  No.  4G 


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THE  REVIEW 


Vol.  2,  No.  47 


New  York,  Saturday,  April  3,  1920 


FIFTEEN  CENTS 


Contents 


Brief  Comment  317 

Editorial  Articles: 

The  Anomaly  at  the  White  House  319 
Labor  and  the  Industrial  Conference  320 
The  Centralia  Murder  Trial  321 

France  and  England  322 

Behind   the   Financing   of   China.     By 

Charles  Hodges  324 

Constantinople  and  the  Turks.    By  D. 

B.  Macdonald  325 

The    Third   Internationale.     By   A.   J. 

Barnouw  328 

Correspondence  329 

Religious  Revivals — Old  and  Nev7.    By 

Stanley  Went  332 

Book  Reviews: 
Three  American  Labor  Leaders  333 

Reality  and  Antidote  334 

The  Cockpit  of  Christendom  335 

Spanish  America  335 

Poetry:    These  Dead  Have  Not  Died. 

By  Harry  T.  Baker  336 

1  The  Run  of  the  Shelves  337 

Drama : 
I     "Medea"  at  the  Garrick— the  "Piper" 

at  the  Fulton.    By  O.  W.  Firkins      338 
I  Music : 

"Eugene  Onegin"  —  Pushkin  and 
Tschaikowsky.  By  Charles  Henry 
Meltzer  340 

Books  and  the  News:   The  Candidates. 

By  Edmund  Lester  Pearson  340 

Educational  Section  342 

America's  Foreign  Loans.    By  Thomas 

F.  Woodlock  344 


4  NUMBER  of  prominent  citizens, 
^*-  all  of  them  "devoted  friends  of 
the  League  of  Nations,"  have  ad- 
dressed to  the  President  a  respectful 
but  urgent  appeal.  They  ask  him  to 
jaccept  the  treaty  on  the  best  terms 
jnow  obtainable,  and  leave  to  subse- 
quent endeavor  the  task  of  securing 
any  modifications  of  the  terms  upon 
which  we  take  part  in  the  League. 
The  request  is  eminently  reasonable. 
Had  it  been  made  in  a  disputatious 
iform,  it  might  have  cited  the  Pres- 
jident's  own  former  declarations  as  to 
'the  desperately  urgent  necessity  of 
putting  the  machinery  of  the  peace, 
lind  of  our  participation  in  it,  into 
jimmediate  operation.  What  they  do 
^ay,  and  what  we  are  certain  is  the 
jfeeling  of  an  overwhelming  majority 
pf  the  American  people,  is  that  the 


only  sure  way  to  save  the  treaty  is  to 
save  it  now.  A  subsequent  appeal 
might  be  made  to  the  nation  in  behalf 
of  the  President's  own  programme; 
an  appeal  which  could  be  made  "with- 
out subjecting  the  vital  question  of 
our  becoming  a  part  of  the  League  of 
Nations  to  the  uncertainties  and 
perils  of  a  partisan  political  cam- 
paign in  which,  by  entirely  unfore- 
seen influences,  all  may  be  lost." 
That  the  evident  cogency  of  this  view 
will  make  any  impression  on  the 
President,  we  are  not  so  sanguine  as 
to  expect;  but  at  least  the  effort  is 
worth  making,  and  it  is  stated  that 
the  petition  will  have  the  backing  of 
thousands  of  representative  citizens 
in  all  parts  of  the  country. 

TTAVING  "got"  the  Kaiser  in  the 
■'■■'-  interests  of  humanity,  a  good 
many  former  members  of  the  armed 
forces  of  the  United  States  are  once 
more  in  the  field,  thank  you,  to  get  a 
little  something  for  themselves.  They 
propose  to  begin  where  the  G.A.R. 
left  off — not  compensation  for  dis- 
ability, but  a  little  something  for 
everybody  who  wore  a  uniform,  and 
the  more  the  better.  Call  it  not  a 
bonus ;  it  is  "adjusted  compensation," 
an  attempt  to  put  into  the  ex-service 
man's  pocket  some  of  the  money  he 
might  have  made  if,  instead  of  going 
to  war,  he  had  staid  home  to  profiteer. 
If  war  is  sometimes  profitable  to 
somebody,  should  not  a  fair  share  of 
the  profit  accrue  to  the  men  who  bore 
directly  the  hardships  and  dangers  of 
war?  But  the  fight  over  this  ques- 
tion within  the  American  Legion  is 
not  yet  ended.  If  more  of  the  leaders 
in  that  organization  will  display 
something  of  the  courage  of  George 
Brokaw  Compton,  Chairman  of  the 
New  York  County  Committee — fight 
to  the  end,  and  then  resign  if  neces- 
sary— a  grave  danger  may  yet  be 
averted.  The  danger  was  foreseen 
when  the  Legion  was  organized.    Re- 


sponsible men  chose  to  run  the  risk 
of  it  in  order  that  the  many  possibili- 
ties for  good  inherent  in  such  an  or- 
ganization might  have  a  chance  of 
realization.  Now  that  the  organiza- 
tion gives  promise  of  destroying  at 
the  outset  its  possibilities  of  useful- 
ness by  its  insistence  on  cash  in  ad- 
vance, it  is  the  patriotic  duty  of  the 
leaders  who  can  not  control  their  cre- 
ation to  good  ends,  to  destroy  it  if 
they  can,  and  while  there  may  yet 
be  time. 

TJ7THAT  that  danger  is  may  be  made 
"  clearly  to  appear  by  glancing 
at  the  four  proposals,  very  modestly 
and  decently  expressed  by  Frank- 
lin D'Olier,  the  Legion's  National 
Commander. 

First,  land  settlement  covering  the  purchase 
of  farms  in  all  States. 

Second,  home  aid  to  encourage  the  purchase 
in  all  States  of  either  rural  or  city  homes  by 
ex-service  men. 

Third,  vocational  education  for  all  ex-service 
persons. 

Fourth,  adjustment  of  compensation  or 
extra  back  pay  based  on  length  of  service. 

The  committee  unanimously  decided  that  the 
ex-service  men  should  be  given  the  choice  of 
the  four  features  proposed. 

The  first  and  the  third  of  these  sug- 
gestions are  reasonable  propositions. 
There  is  a  natural  limit  to  the  number 
of  men  who  will  want  farms  or  the 
benefits  of  technical  education,  and 
there  is  a  limit  to  the  amount  of  these 
things  which  will  be  wanted  by  those 
who  want  them.  For  a  return  of  this 
kind  a  man  who  had  offered  himself 
to  his  country  might  reasonably  look. 
But  the  second  proposition,  which  is 
not  clear  but  looks  like  a  disguised 
form  of  the  fourth,  and  the  fourth 
itself,  are  essentially  different  from 
the  others.  In  any  group  of  men  there 
will  be  almost  none  who  will  refuse 
a  gift  of  profitable  real  estate  or  of 
cash,  once  they  have  persuaded  them- 
selves that  they  can  accept  it  with- 
out loss  of  dignity,  and  there  is  no 
limit  beneath  the  heavens  to  the 
amount  of  such  "easy  money"  that 
they  will  find  themselves  willing  to  ' 


318] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  47 


accept.  If  they  accept  a  bonus  rang- 
ing from  $50  to  $1,000  to-day,  they 
■will  accept  more  the  day  after.  The 
choice  which  the  committee  offers  to 
the  ex-service  man  is  not  a  fair  one. 
And  the  ex-service  man,  in  shouting 
for  his  "bonus,"  is  not  playing  fair. 
He  is  presuming  on  the  weakness  of 
Congress,  which  rarely  has  the 
strength  to  reject  the  easy  course  of 
granting  money  when  votes  are  in 
sight.  And  he  is  presuming  on  the 
natural  desire  of  the  public  to  see 
their  own  soldiers  and  sailors  hon- 
ored by  being  duly  helped  where  help 
is  needed.  Whatever  Congress  may 
do — and  it  might  do  much  if  the  in- 
fluence of  the  Legion  were  brought 
to  bear  in  such  matters  as  the  reha- 
bilitation of  disabled  men,  the  facil- 
itation of  the  entrance  upon  the 
better  sort  of  agricultural  or  indus- 
trial work  of  any  who  desire  it,  the 
tj'ing  up  of  all  those  loose  ends  which 
have  left  many  ex-service  men  with 
a  feeling  that  "the  Government  is  not 
doing  its  part" — whatever  Congress 
may  do,  the  public  is  not  going  to 
look  with  complacency  upon  another 
G.A.R.  before  which  the  ghost  of  the 
old  one  will  stand  amazed  at  its  own 
moderation;  the  public  is  not  going 
to  be  pleased  with  the  spectacle  of 
men  of  whom  it  longs  to  be  proud 
scrambling  in  the  gutter  for  cop- 
pers. 

"■WTHEN  McKinley  was  shot  down," 
"  exclaims  Senator  John  Sharp 
Williams,  addressing  the  Mississippi 
Legislature,  "when  Garfield  was  shot, 
was  there  a  Democrat  but  expressed 
sorrow?  Has  any  one  seen  words  of 
sympathy  for  the  President  in  any 
Republican  paper?"  Does  it  not  oc- 
cur to  Senator  Williams,  however, 
that  neither  McKinley  nor  Garfield 
was  engaged  in  ruling  the  country 
— not  to  speak  of  the  world — with  a 
rod  of  iron  from  his  sick-bed?  The 
country  can  hardly  be  asked  to  submit 
to  the  dictatorship  of  a  sick  man  who, 
even  when  well,  was  distinguished  for 
almost  unparalleled  self-will;  and  if 
he  is  to  be  resisted,  it  would  be  more 
offensive  for  his  opponents  to  be  con- 
stantly expressing  solicitude  over 
his  illness  than  to  pass  it  over  in 
silence. 


THE  real  situation  in  Germany  is 
more  clearly  revealed  by  the  list 
of  Ministers  in  the  new  Cabinet  than 
by  any  dispatches  concerning  the 
movements  and  local  successes  of 
Communist  forces.  The  inclusion  of 
members  of  the  Centre  and  Democrat 
Parties  in  Herr  Hermann  Miiller's 
Government  may  be  taken  as  evidence 
of  the  failure  of  the  radical  left  to 
impose  their  will  on  the  men  in  power 
at  Berlin.  Ebert's  recent  compromise 
with  Legien,  it  is  true,  binds  the  new 
Cabinet  to  a  plan  of  socialization 
which  will  make  its  members  the  exec- 
utives of  the  Independents'  instruc- 
tions. But  when  the  Red  revolt,  which 
the  French  were  obviously  right  in  de- 
claring exaggerated,  has  subsided 
into  its  former  state  of  brooding  dis- 
content, the  work  of  legislation  will 
gradually  decrease  both  in  speed  and 
radical  tendencies,  under  the  pressure 
of  those  elements  which  are  for  mod- 
eration in  reform.  Bauer's  Cabinet 
fell  far  short  of  the  expectations  even 
of  his  own  friends,  the  Majority  So- 
cialists; and  Hermann  Miiller,  unless 
he  proves  to  be  a  stronger  man  than 
he  is  believed  to  be,  is  not  likely  to 
carry  through  legislation  which  will 
satisfy  the  Independents.  There  is  a 
wide  chasm  between  his  undertakings 
and  the  chances  of  their  fulfillment, 
and  his  failure  to  bridge  it,  which 
seems  next  to  certain,  will  mark  the 
beginning  of  a  new  period  of  domestic 
upheaval  and  revolt. 

CHORTLY  after  the  Paisley  elec- 
^  tion,  the  Daily  Chronicle,  Lloyd 
George's  speaking  trumpet,  made  an 
attempt  to  claim  Mr.  Asquith  for  the 
Coalition — on  the  ground  of  his  hav- 
ing received  the  votes  not  only  of 
the  Liberals,  but  also  of  a  great 
many  Unionists,  because  of  his  oppo- 
sition to  nationalization.  Besides, 
the  journal  opined,  there  was  hardly 
any  difference  in  the  policies  of  the 
two.  The  Premier  himself  repeated 
this  bid  for  the  support  of  the  Inde- 
pendent Liberals  when  he  called  upon 
all  the  old  parties  to  unite  against 
their  common  enemy,  the  Bolshevist 
spirit  of  Labor.  Mr.  Asquith  has 
made  a  reply  to  these  approaches 
which  precludes  any  reconciliation 
between    the   two   leaders.     He    de- 


nounced Lloyd  George's  call  to  arms 
against  Labor  as  an  "appeal  for 
class  cleavage  and  the  most  mischie- 
vous thing  that  has  been  done" ;  and 
in  order  to  leave  no  doubt  as  to  the 
cleavage  between  Mr.  Lloyd  George's 
policy  and  his  own  he  repeated,  in 
the  strongest  terms,  his  condemna- 
tion of  the  Irish  bill,  calling  it  "the 
greatest  travesty  of  self-government 
ever  offered  a  nation."  This  out- 
spoken language  will  have  its  bene- 
ficial effect  upon  British  politics.  It 
traces  with  unmistakable  distinct- 
ness the  lines  which  divide  true 
Liberalism  from  the  false  variety  of 
the  Coalition,  and  may  help  many  a 
Liberal  who  went  astray  in  this 
"transient  era  of  organized  insin- 
cerity" to  find  again  his  lost  bear- 
ings. 

A  SPECIAL  Federal  grand  jury, 
■^  sitting  in  Indianapolis,  has  re- 
turned indictments  against  125  coal 
miners  and  operators  for  violations 
of  the  Federal  conspiracy  laws.  The 
exact  nature  of  the  charges,  and  the 
evidence  on  which  they  were  based, 
have  not  yet  been  given  to  the  pub- 
lic. Comment  on  the  validity  of  the 
indictments  is  of  course  out  of  place 
until  the  trial  develops  the  character 
of  the  evidence  which  the  prosecution 
has  in  hand.  The  fact  that  both  em- 
ployers and  employees  have  fallen 
into  the  net  of  the  law  together,  how- 
ever, furnishes  proof  that  the  grand 
jury  was  actuated  by  no  animus 
against  the  miners  and  their  organ- 
ization in  its  enquiry.  If  operators 
have  violated  the  law,  they  must  take 
their  punishment.  Under  the  circum- 
stances, the  case  may  surely  be 
allowed  to  proceed  to  its  conclusion, 
whatever  this  may  be,  with  no  at- 
tempt to  inflame  public  opinion  in 
one  direction  or  the  other  in  ad- 
vance. 

'T'HE  word  "soviet"  has  a  little  more 
•*-  to  do  than  ordinary  labor  union 
standards  would  seem  to  allow,  even 
if  kept  strictly  within  its  own  limits. 
An  untold  quantity  of  printer's  ink 
and  paper,  and  some  editorial  energy 
to  boot,  was  wasted  last  week  in  ap- 
plying it  to  a  temporary  wave  of  stu- 
dent horse-play  in  a  Kansas  college. 


April  3,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[819 


Ebullitions  of  the  kind,  where  masses 
of  young  men  are  gathered  together, 
are  as  old  as  human  history,  and  the 
colleges  have  less  serious  trouble  with 
them  to-day  than  they  have  had  in 
days  gone  by.  In  times  when  events 
of  real  importance  are  crowding  the 
mails  and  wires  beyond  the  limits  of 
the  paper  supply  for  printing,  the 
news  agencies  may  well  allow  tales 
of  college  "Soviets"  to  pass  unher- 
alded into  the  oblivion  which,  at  least 
in  the  place  of  their  origin,  would 
swallow  them  up  in  a  week.  Isn't  the 
exploiting  of  college  mare's  nests 
growing  just  a  little  stale  for  real 
newspapers  ? 

nnHE  Review  is  very  glad  to  give 
-'■  space  to  the  Interchurch  World 
Movement  of  North  America  to  tell 
its  own  story.  In  its  campaign  for 
a  third  of  a  billion  dollars  it  will  un- 
doubtedly be  successful.  But  the  very 
magnitude  of  its  assured  accomplish- 
ment, the  very  ease  of  it,  once  the 
efficient  machinery  is  put  in  action, 
give  rise  to  more  doubts  than  can 
fairly  be  disposed  of  in  a  paragraph. 
In  the  first  place,  a  third  of  a  billion 
is  a  large  sum  of  money;  if  that 
amount  is  needed  to  enable  the 
churches  to  do  the  work  they  ought 
to  do,  so  much  is  not  too  much  to  ask 
for  and  to  receive.  But  is  there  any 
assurance  that  it  will  not  fall  into  the 
hands  of  leaders  who  are  energetic 
and  resourceful  rather  than  well-bal- 
anced and  mindful  of  the  vital  im- 
portance of  pursuing  only  right 
methods  and  appropriate  objects? 
Will  the  church,  with  this  great  in- 
crease in  material  prosperity,  stead- 
fastly refuse  to  aim  at  political 
power?  Will  it  cling  to  its  spiritual 
treasures  and  avoid  the  temptation — 
which  has  been  alluringly  placed  be- 
fore it  by  sentimental  radicals 
having  their  own  notions  as  to  what 
a  regenerated  church  may  accom- 
plish— to  become  the  clearing-house 
of  industrial  disputes?  On  the  an- 
swer to  such  questions  hinges  the 
success  or  failure  of  this  enlarged 
programme.  It  is  not  impertinent  to 
remind  the  ministers  of  religion  that 
their  own  estate  is  subject,  in  this 
jperiod  of  change,  to  the  same  dangers 
Ithat  beset  the  body  politic. 


The  Anomaly  at  the 
White  House 

'T'HE  question  of  what  constitutes 
■'•  "inability"  of  the  President  to 
perform  the  duties  of  his  office,  which 
greatly  exercised  the  public  mind  a 
few  weeks  ago,  ceased  to  be  acute 
when  the  marked  improvement  in  Mr. 
Wilson's  health  set  in.  This  improve- 
ment appears  to  be  maintained.  It 
is  manifested  both  by  his  occasional 
appearances  in  the  public  streets,  and 
by  a  number  of  vigorous  acts  in  re- 
lation to  great  public  questions.  Even 
at  the  worst,  there  was  a  marked  ab- 
sence of  pressure  for  action  of  any 
kind  on  the  subject,  and  now  nobody 
is  thinking  of  disturbance  of  his  exec- 
utive powers  during  the  remainder  of 
his  term  of  office.  There  is  even  seri- 
ous thought  of  his  candidacy  for  a 
third  term. 

Nevertheless,  the  situation  at  the 
seat  of  government  is  in  the  highest 
degree  abnormal.  The  mighty  power 
of  the  Presidency  is  being  wielded, 
and  there  is  every  prospect  of  its  con- 
tinuing to  be  wielded  for  eleven 
months  more,  by  a  man  apparently  in 
full  possession  of  his  mental  vigor, 
and  certainly  in  possession  of  a  will 
of  extraordinary  inflexibility,  but 
almost  completely  withdrawn  from 
all  those  influences  and  aids  which 
are  supposed,  as  a  matter  of  course, 
to  be  indispensable  to  the  wise  and 
safe  exercise  of  those  faculties  in  the 
direction  of  that  tremendous  power. 
There  is  abundant  reason  to  believe 
that,  even  if  the  President  were  by 
nature  as  much  inclined  to  take  ad- 
vice as  in  point  of  fact  he  is  disin- 
clined to  do  so,  the  state  of  his  phys- 
ical health  would  forbid  this  being 
burdened  by  the  consideration  of  the 
complex,  troublesome,  and  often  in- 
tensely trying  developments  of  a  sit- 
uation of  unexampled  difficulty  and 
seriousness.  Unless  it  be  supposed 
that  the  judgments  at  which  he  ar- 
rived many  months  ago  are  infallible 
guides  for  his  conduct  in  the  present 
and  in  the  future — subject  neither  to 
revision  on  their  merits,  nor  to  modi- 
fication on  account  of  the  emergence 
of  new  facts  and  new  problems — we 
have  before  us  the  spectacle  of  the 


ship  of  state  being  steered  by  a  helms- 
man who  gets  but  meagre  indications 
either  of  its  position  or  of  the  state 
of  things  by  which  it  is  surrounded. 
The  discharge  of  Secretary  Lansing 
on  the  ground  that  he  called  the  Cabi- 
net together  in  informal  meetings  has 
not  been  followed  by  the  holding  of 
Cabinet  meetings,  either  formal  or 
informal,  at  the  call  of  the  President. 
The  access  to  him  of  public  men, 
whether  from  the  Cabinet  or  from 
Congress,  is  so  slight  as  to  be  practi- 
cally nil.  Senators  of  his  own  party, 
who  had  faithfully  stood  by  him 
through  months  of  struggle  over  the 
treaty,  are  as  much  in  the  dark  as 
anybody  else  concerning  his  inten- 
tions on  that  subject,  as  well  as  on 
all  others. 

In  his  insistence  upon  carrying  on 
the  Government  after  this  fashion, 
Mr.  Wilson  is  violating  no  provision 
of  the  Constitution.  But  for  the 
wholesome  working  of  any  system  of 
government,  something  more  is  re- 
quired than  observance  of  the  positive 
injunctions  upon  which  it  is  based. 
Great  as  is  the  inherent  power  of  the 
Presidency,  and  comprehensive  as  its 
expansion  has  been,  owing  to  the 
ever-increasing  scope  and  importance 
of  governmental  functions,  such  an 
exercise  of  that  power  as  we  are  now 
witnessing  has  never  been  contem- 
plated as  possible.  It  is,  indeed,  a 
distinguishing  feature  of  our  system, 
as  contrasted  with  the  parliamentary 
regime  of  which  the  British  Govern- 
ment is  the  great  model,  that  the 
American  chief  executive  is  abso- 
lutely independent  of  any  outside  con- 
trol. Our  history  has  furnished  many 
notable  instances  of  the  aggressive 
and  inflexible  exercise  of  that  inde- 
pendence. Andrew  Jackson  in  his 
uncompromising  determination  to  de- 
stroy the  United  States  Bank,  Grover 
Cleveland  in  his  unflinching  stand  for 
sound  money,  are  outstanding  exam- 
ples of  adamantine  firmness  on  the 
part  of  American  Presidents.  But 
these  were  assertions  of  executive 
power  relating  to  single  definite  is- 
sues of  fixed  policy,  by  Presidents  who 
maintained  normal  relations  with 
their  Constitutional  advisers  and  who 
were  in  normal  touch  with  the  events 
and  with  the  influences  of  their  time. 


820] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  47 


They  involved  no  arrogation  by  the 
President  of  the  right  to  wield  su- 
preme power  without  those  safe- 
guards for  its  proper  exercise  which 
are  prescribed  not  only  by  the  spirit 
of  our  Constitution,  but  by  the  obvi- 
ous principles  of  rational  government. 
It  may  be  objected  that  it  is  idle 
to  make  these  criticisms  when  noth- 
ing can  be  proposed  by  way  of 
remedy.  But  surely  the  recognition 
of  a  grave  and  unexpected  evil  is  one 
of  the  first  requirements  of  intelli- 
gent public  opinion  among  a  free 
people.  Nobody  knows  what  the  com- 
ing eleven  months  may  bring  forth. 
The  oversight  of  our  foreign  relations 
has  lately  been  transferred  from  the 
hands  of  a  trained  and  seasoned  pub- 
lic servant,  and  placed  in  charge  of  a 
man  not  marked  out  for  the  post 
either  by  experience  or  by  personal 
qualifications.  At  any  moment  the 
most  crucial  decisions  may  be  taken 
without  proper  consideration  either 
in  the  State  Department  or  at  the 
White  House.  There  is  no  reason  to 
expect  that,  when  such  a  question 
arises,  there  will  be  that  grave  con- 
sideration, that  effective  taking  of 
counsel,  which  is  supposed  to  be  the 
special  function  of  important  meet- 
ings of  the  Cabinet.  In  sweeping 
aside  everything  which,  in  the  course 
of  our  history,  and  indeed  as  a  result 
of  the  most  elementary  principles  of 
human  relationship,  has  grown  up  as 
a  mitigation  of  the  absolutism  of  the 
Presidency,  Mr.  Wilson  has  opened  up 
possibilities  of  danger  in  our  system 
of  government  which  no  previous  ex- 
perience had  given  reason  to  appre- 
hend. Against  the  possible  aberra- 
tions of  a  self-willed  sick  man,  en- 
trenched in  the  seclusion  of  the  White 
House  and  wielding  without  abate- 
ment the  immense  power  of  the  Presi- 
dency, our  Constitution  and  laws  fur- 
nish no  protection.  If  we  can  not 
count  on  the  good  will  of  the  incum- 
bent and  on  his  recognition  of  the 
undefined,  but  nevertheless  univer- 
sally recognized,  obligations  of  such 
a  situation,  we  are  helpless.  Whether 
anything  can  be  done  about  it  or  not, 
it  is  manifestly  the  duty  of  the  Ameri- 
can people  to  recognize  the  fact  and 
to  take  account  of  the  possibilities 
which  it  discloses. 


Labor  and  the  Indus- 
trial Conference 

nnO  understand  what  the  Industrial 
•'-  Conference  at  Washington  has 
done  it  is  essential  constantly  to 
bear  in  mind  two  vital  points — one 
relating  to  the  general  conditions  of 
industry,  the  other  to  the  settlement 
of  disputes. 

In  its  treatment  of  the  general 
problem  of  improved  industrial  con- 
ditions, the  Conference  confines 
itself  to  recommendations  the  effi- 
cacy of  which  will  depend  solely  on 
the  weight  that  the  report  of  the 
Conference  may  have  in  swaying  the 
minds  of  employers  and  employed, 
either  directly  or  through  the  influ- 
ence of  public  opinion.  No  mecha- 
nism whatever  is  provided  for  put- 
ting into  effect  any  of  the  general 
recommendations  of  the  Commission 
which  deal  with  the  normal  relations 
between  employers  and  employed. 
Whether  the  subject  be  employee 
representation,  profit-sharing,  gain- 
sharing,  or  hours  of  labor,  all  that 
the  Conference  report  does  in  discus- 
sing it  is  to  express  its  estimate  of 
the  degree  of  importance  to  be  at- 
tached to  the  matter,  of  the  prospect 
of  its  advancement  as  indicated  by 
past  experience,  and  of  the  means 
which  it  would  be  wise  to  adopt  in 
promoting  the  object  in  question. 
On  the  particular  question  of  "em- 
ployee representation" — shop-coun- 
cils and  the  like — the  report  does  not 
content  itself  with  the  absence  of 
any  governmental  proposal,  but  ex- 
plicitly says  that  "it  is  not  a  field  for 
legislation,  because  the  form  which 
employee  representation  should  take 
may  vary  in  every  plan."  That  is  a 
good  reason,  but  there  is  a  deeper 
reason,  as  the  Conference  is  doubt- 
less fully  aware;  the  fact  being  that 
it  refrains  from  proposing  legisla- 
tion not  only  on  this  point,  but  on 
any  of  the  points  relating  to  the 
actual  conduct  of  industry. 

In  regard  to  the  settlement  of  dis- 
putes, the  Conference  does  propose 
the  establishment  of  an  elaborate 
system  of  governmental  machinery; 
but  compulsion  is  no  part  of  the  pur- 
pose of  that  machinery.     Every  ef- 


fort is  directed  towards  making 
resort  to  the  mechanism  almost  in- 
evitable if  composition  of  the  trouble 
by  the  parties  immediately  interested 
proves  unattainable ;  but  the  right  to 
strike  is  not  interfered  with,  nor  is 
the  decision  of  the  governmental 
agency,  when  resorted  to,  binding  un- 
less the  parties  have  assented  to  the 
decision  in  advance.  Mr.  Hoover, 
who  is  generally  understood  to  have 
been  a  dominating  factor  in  the  pro- 
ceedings of  the  Conference,  has  taken 
occasion,  since  the  issue  of  the  report, 
to  contrast  the  Conference  plan  for 
the  settlement  of  disputes  with  that 
recently  adopted  by  the  Kansas  Leg- 
islature in  the  case  of  essential  indus- 
tries. Mr.  Hoover  regards  the  Kan- 
sas plan  as  substantially  identical 
with  the  scheme  of  compulsory  arbi- 
tration which,  so  hopefully  acclaimed 
when  introduced  in  Australasia  a 
number  of  years  ago,  is  now  gener- 
ally acknowledged  to  have  broken 
down;  and  it  is  his  opinion  that  any 
compulsory  plan  is  inherently  des- 
tined to  failure.  We  believe  that  this 
is  at  least  certainly  true  of  any  plan 
of  national  scope ;  and  accordingly  we 
feel  that  the  Conference  has  done  very 
wisely  in  undertaking  no  more  than 
to  bring  to  bear  upon  a  dispute  a 
well-considered  mechanism  of  inquiry 
and  adjudication,  the  efficacy  of  which 
will  depend  either  on  voluntary  sub- 
mission or  on  the  effective  focusing 
of  public  opinion  upon  the  points  at 
issue. 

The  character  of  this  machinery 
was  set  forth  in  sufficient  detail  in 
the  preliminary  report  of  the  Con- 
ference issued  on  December  29  last. 
In  the  Review  for  January  3  we  dis- 
cussed the  character  and  merits  of  the 
plan.  The  final  report  does  not 
modify  it  in  any  important  respect. 
We  sincerely  hope  that  the  plan  will 
be  adopted  by  Congress,  with  such 
modifications  as  competent  discussion 
may  indicate  to  be  desirable.  But 
it  was  evident  from  the  start,  and  it 
is  still  more  evident  now,  that  the 
project  will  meet  with  opposition  both 
from  the  capitalist  side  and  from 
the  labor-union  side.  It  solves  none  i 
of  the  inveterate  problems  over  which 
the  struggles  of  two  generations  have 
been  carried  on;  it  does  not  under-  ' 


April  3,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[321 


take  to  solve  them.  Fundamentally, 
however,  the  opposition  from  either 
side  is  due  to  a  fear  that  it  will  some- 
how strengthen  the  other.  Men  look- 
ing at  it  from  the  standpoint  of  the 
great  organizations  of  capital  fear 
that  it  will  strengthen  the  position  of 
the  great  organizations  of  labor ;  and 
the  heads  of  the  great  labor  organiza- 
tions fear  that,  while  it  does  not  in 
any  explicit  way  interfere  with  their 
functions,  it  will  lessen  their  hold  on 
the  situation  when  any  crucial  con- 
test is  on.  To  our  mind,  the  great 
merit  of  the  plan  is  that  it  recog- 
nizes the  abiding  character  of  the 
forces  on  both  sides,  that  it  does  not 
seek  to  eliminate  or  to  emasculate 
either,  but  that  it  provides  means  for 
reducing  to  a  minimum  the  clashes 
between  them.  To  reject  it  would  be 
to  refuse  to  try  an  experiment  against 
which  no  vital  objection  has  been 
I'aised,  and  in  favor  of  which  there 
seems  to  us  to  stand  the  promise  of 
innumerable  opportunities  for  the 
averting  of  blind  and  disastrous  in- 
dustrial warfare. 

Mr.  Gompers  objects  not  only  to 
the  plan  for  the  adjustment  of  dis- 
putes, but  also  to  the  general  rec- 
ommendations of  the  Conference. 
Among  these  the  report  lays  most 
stress  upon  the  idea  of  "employee 
representation."  The  phrase  itself  is 
happily  chosen  to  cover  what  "has 
been  discussed  under  different  names 
and  forms,  such  as  shop  committees, 
shop  councils,  works  councils,  rep- 
resentative government  in  industry, 
and  others."  The  Conference  satis- 
fied itself,  after  extensive  inquiry, 
that  experience  in  many  industrial 
concerns  in  this  country  justifies  the 
belief  that  a  widespread  introduction 
of  these  methods  will  have  a  benefi- 
cent effect  not  only  upon  the  rela- 
tions between  employers  and  em- 
ployed, and  upon  the  well-being  of 
the  latter,  but  also  upon  our  indus- 
trial productivity.  Whether  this  con- 
clusion is  correct  or  not,  surely  it 
can  not  justly  be  made  the  subject 
of  bitter  attack.  For  the  recommen- 
dation of  the  Conference  will  not  be 
adopted  in  a  wholesale  fashion.  The 
most  it  can  do  is  to  direct  more  seri- 
ous attention  to  a  plan  which  in  the 
past  few  years  has  been  attracting 


much  interest.  Mr.  Gompers  fears 
that  any  development  of  organization 
among  the  employees  within  a  plant 
will  lessen  their  allegiance  to  the 
great  national  organizations  which, 
he  asserts,  are  the  sole  efficient  pro- 
tectors of  the  rights  of  labor.  But  it 
is  manifest  that  no  such  lessening  of 
allegiance  follows  as  a  necessary  con- 
sequence of  that  closer  union  among 
the  workers  of  a  single  plant  which 
the  plan  of  employee  representation 
institutes.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
plan  has  worked  successfully  with  all 
possible  relations  of  the  men  to  the 
unions.  If  it  is  instituted  in  accord- 
ance with  the  principles  laid  down 
in  the  Conference  report,  it  will  evi- 
dently interfere  with  the  power  of 
the  union  only  in  cases  where  the 
workmen  themselves  feel  that  that 
power  is  exercised  in  a  tyrannical 
way. 

The  report  says  a  good  word  for 
profit-sharing,  but  recognizes  the  se- 
vere limitations  to  which  it  is  subject. 
It  points  out  that  "gain  sharing"  is 
free  from  the  difficulties  of  profit- 
sharing,  in  that  here  the  extra  reward 
of  the  worker  is  based  on  actual  in- 
crease of  production  and  not  on  the 
chances  of  profit  and  loss  connected 
with  the  business  conduct  of  the  en- 
terprise. It  takes  up,  also,  such  broad 
questions  as  those  affecting  hours  of 
labor,  housing,  etc.  A  very  important 
class  ef  recommendations  are  those 
relating  to  unemployment.  Among 
these  is  one  for  the  establishment  of 
"a  system  of  employment  exchanges, 
municipal.  State  and  Federal,  which 
shall  in  effect  create  a  national  em- 
ployment service" ;  another  relates  to 
the  devising  of  methods  for  diminish- 
ing seasonal  variations  in  industries 
in  which  they  have  very  evil  effects, 
such  as  coal  mining  and  building.  On 
the  special  status  of  labor  in  public 
utilities,  and  of  public  employees,  ap- 
propriate recommendations  are  made. 
In  all  these  matters  the  Conference 
says  things  that  are  well  considered 
and  helpful.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the 
report  will  be  widely  read.  It  is  cal- 
culated to  promote  the  best  tendencies 
in  the  ranks  of  employers,  of  labor, 
and  of  the  public.  But  it  can  not 
be  said  that  the  report  along  these 
general  lines  does  more  than  this. 


Nor  was  more  to  be  expected;  the 
danger  was  rather  that  an  ambitious 
attempt  at  the  solution  of  insoluble 
problems  might  be  undertaken,  with 
the  consequence  of  that  mischief 
which  always  attends  the  raising  of 
false  hopes. 

It  is  not  upon  the  general  recom- 
mendations of  the  Conference,  but 
upon  its  plan  for  the  adjustment  of 
industrial  disputes,  that  public  atten- 
tion should  be  chiefly  centred.  This 
is  a  definite  proposal — not  going  to 
the  root  of  the  trouble  indeed,  but 
holding  out  the  prospect  of  a  real  ad- 
vance. We  trust  that  the  plan  will  be 
considered,  in  Congress  and  out,  upon 
its  merits,  and  not  be  enveloped  in  the 
haze  of  a  vague  and  scattering  dis- 
cussion of  a  miscellaneous  assort- 
ment of  questions  concerning  the 
welfare  of  labor,  or  the  principles  of 
industrial  management. 

The  Centralia  Murder 
Trial 

T^HE  days  have  been  filled  with  im- 
-*■  portant  doings  of  their  own 
since  last  November,  and  the  Armis- 
tice Day  troubles  that  cost  four  lives 
in  Centralia,  Washington,  are  all  but 
forgotten  outside  the  region  of  their 
occurrence.  Eastern  papers  have 
done  little  more  than  record  the  ver- 
dict, in  the  case  of  the  ten  members 
of  the  I.  W.  W.  who  were  brought  to 
trial  for  the  death  of  one  of  the  vic- 
tims of  that  day's  tragedy.  Seven  of 
the  ten  were  declared  guilty  of  mur- 
der in  the  second  degree,  one  was 
pronounced  insane,  and  two  were 
acquitted.  The  State  had  contended 
for  a  verdict  of  murder  in  the  first 
degree. 

The  newspapers  of  the  Northwest 
express  sharp  dissent  from  this  ver- 
dict, contending  that  the  facts  of  the 
case  left  no  tenable  middle  ground  be- 
tween shooting  in  permissible  self- 
defense  and  premeditated  murder.  If 
the  jury  had  accepted  the  theory  of 
self-defense,  acquittal  was  the  only 
verdict  possible.  By  holding  the 
seven  men  all  equally  guilty,  they 
say,  the  jury  indicated  its  belief  that 
they  were  acting  by  such  preconcerted 
arrangement  as  to  come  fully  within 


322] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  47 


the  definition  of  first-degree  murder. 
The  Nation  takes  the  result  as  prov- 
ing that  the  prosecution  was  unable 
to  make  out  its  case,  and  that  there- 
fore there  was  no  plan  to  attack  the 
procession.  This  forces  the  conclu- 
sion, it  holds,  that  the  killing  took 
place  in  a  riot  which  followed  an  at- 
tack by  the  marchers  on  the  I.  W.  W. 
hall.  A  witness  before  the  coroner's 
jury,  himself  a  member  of  the  pa- 
rade, is  said  to  have  testified  to  an 
attack  on  the  hall,  and  the  firing  of 
a  volley  from  within  when  the  door 
was  forced  open.  This  the  Nation 
uses  to  substantiate  its  position. 

This  leaves  out  of  account,  how- 
ever, the  evidence  produced  at  the 
trial  that  the  paraders  were  fired 
upon  from  three  different  points  out- 
side and  at  a  distance  from  the  hall, 
by  I.  W.  W.  men  armed  in  advance. 
The  defense  could  not  break  down 
the  testimony  that  Warren  O.  Grimm, 
the  one  of  the  victims  on  whose  kill- 
ing the  indictment  in  this  trial  was 
based,  received  his  fatal  wound  at 
too  great  a  distance  from  the  hall  to 
have  been  shot  in  immediate  resis- 
tance to  an  attempt  to  force  an  en- 
trance. The  defense  was  not  in 
position  to  deny  that  I.  W.  W.  men 
were  stationed  under  arms  at  differ- 
ent points  commanding  the  route  of 
the  parade,  but  sought  to  justify  this 
as  permissible  preparation  for  the 
defense  of  their  hall  against  possible 
attack.  The  court  instructed  the 
jury,  however,  that  the  plea  of  self- 
defense  could  not  cover  the  taking  of 
human  life  under  such  circumstances. 
It  must  be  remembered  that  the  sol- 
diers on  parade  were  marching 
wholly  unarmed. 

To  take  the  second-degree  verdict 
as  conclusive  proof  that  the  prosecu- 
tion had  failed  to  substantiate  its 
contention  is  to  neglect  more  than  one 
well-known  tendency  in  the  working 
of  our  jury  system.  Cases  are  not 
infrequent  in  which  a  jury  as  a  whole 
assents  to  a  milder  verdict  because 
of  its  knowledge  that  some  one  or 
more  of  its  members  will  never  agree 
to  the  sterner  conclusion  warranted 
by  the  evidence.  In  the  material  of 
which  American  juries  are  made,  too, 
there  is  a  very  widespread  tendency 
to  flinch  from  a  verdict  which  will 


involve  the  probability  of  the  death 
sentence.  Under  the  State  law  in  this 
case,  if  a  first-degree  verdict  had  been 
rendered  the  decision  between  the 
death  penalty  and  life  imprisonment 
would  have  devolved  upon  the  jury 
itself,  while  in  case  of  a  second-de- 
gree verdict  the  assessment  of  the 
penalty  is  left  to  the  court.  The 
opportunity  to  escape  this  solemn  re- 
sponsibility would  act  as  a  strong 
incentive,  with  many  jurymen,  to 
avoid  the  sterner  verdict  on  any 
ground  not  felt  to  constitute  a  delib- 
erate violation  of  sworn  duty.  We 
can  not  read  precisely  what  was  in 
the  minds  of  the  jurymen  at  Monte- 
sano,  but  it  seems  reasonable  to  sup- 
pose that  their  verdict  was  a  not 
unusual  softening  of  a  sterner  con- 
clusion really  justified  by  the  evi- 
dence, rather  than  a  determination  to 
pronounce  a  sentence  of  guilt  in  some 
form  when  the  failure  of  the  prosecu- 
tion to  make  good  its  contention  really 
demanded  an  acquittal.  For  there  is 
force  in  the  contention  of  the  Port- 
land Oregonian,  which  gave  very 
close  attention  to  the  case  as  devel- 
oped during  the  trial,  that  the 
shooting  was  either  an  outright  assas- 
sination or  a  justifiable  act  of  self- 
defense. 

We  have  seen  no  indication  that  the 
defendants  did  not  have  a  fair  trial. 
The  jury  was  solemnly  charged  that 
they  were  to  be  considered  as  indi- 
viduals, indicted  for  the  specific  of- 
fense of  killing  Warren  0.  Grimm. 
Their  membership  in  the  I.  W.  W. 
must  not  be  taken  into  account,  nor 
the  fact  that  others  were  killed  at 
the  same  time.  Instruction  was  also 
given  by  the  court  that  the  confession 
of  Loren  Roberts,  alleged  by  the  coun- 
sel for  the  defense  to  be  insane,  must 
not  be  allowed  to  have  any  weight 
against  any  of  the  other  defendants. 
It  is  true  that  an  informal  "labor 
jury,"  appointed  by  labor  organiza- 
tions to  watch  the  trial  and  render 
its  own  verdict,  pronounced  in  favor 
of  acquittal.  But  it  is  also  true  that 
one  member  of  this  "jury,"  called 
before  the  courts  as  a  witness,  was 
obliged  to  admit  that  he  had  been  aid- 
ing the  attorneys  for  the  defense  in 
securing  testimony.  The  prosecutor, 
dissatisfied  with  the  mildness  of  the 


verdict  in  view  of  the  testimony  pre- 
sented, has  given  notice  that  indict- 
ments for  murder  in  the  first  degree 
of  another  of  the  victims  will  be  im- 
mediately pressed  against  the  same 
men. 

Perhaps  the  worst  of  all  attempts 
to  explain  the  shooting  was  made  by 
the  Nation  just  after  its  occurrence: 

The  country  is  reaping  what  it  has  sown;  it 
has  been  teaching  millions  how  to  kill.  It  has 
expounded  the  doctrine  that  the  way  to  punish 
a  fellow  you  do  not  like  was  to  apply  "force 
without  stint"  to  him,  and  we  are  now  wit- 
nessing the  private  application  of  the  doctrine 
on  a  large  scale.  The  most  lawless  continue 
to  be  judges  and  district  attorneys  and  law 
officers  generally. 

The  genesis  of  the  Centralia  murders 
lay  not  in  the  war,  but  in  the  unrea- 
soning distrust  and  hatred  of  all 
orderly  legal  processes  imbedded  in 
the  ignorant  and  unruly  minds  of 
such  men  as  largely  make  up  the 
I.  W.  W.,  emboldened  to  the  point  of 
criminal  action  by  just  such  wild 
words  as  those  which  we  have  quoted. 

France  and  England 

TVTHEN  the  French  and  English 
"  fought  shoulder  to  shoulder, 
and  British  convoys  of  reinforce- 
ments and  wounded  were  crossing 
and  re-crossing  the  Channel,  the  lack 
of  a  tunnel  connection  between  the 
two  countries  was  much  deplored  by 
the  British,  and  the  conviction  was 
general  on  both  sides  of  the  water 
that,  after  the  war,  an  under-sea  thor- 
oughfare would  be  built  which  would 
symbolize  their  friendship  in  a  prac- 
tical and  permanent  form.  "England 
must  remain  an  island,"  said  Lloyd 
George  in  disapproval  of  the  plan. 
But  though  she  maintained  her  geo- 
graphic insularity,  politically  Great 
Britain  will  never  be  able  to  reen- 
trench  herself  in  "splendid  isolation." 
The  war  has  made  her  a  peninsula  on 
the  political  map  of  Europe,  and  no 
successful  opposition  against  the 
Channel  tunnel  can  sever  it  from  the 
Continent. 

That  being  so,  it  is  a  matter  of  the 
greatest  consequence  to  Europe  that 
England  should  live  on  the  best  of 
terms  with  her  immediate  Continen- 
tal neighbor,  and  the  friends  of  both 
countries  will   therefore  view  with 


April  3,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[323 


anxiety  the  symptoms  of  an  estrange- 
ment which  grow,  week  by  week,  in 
number  and  strength.  A  tempera- 
mental difference  is  at  the  bottom  of 
this  disagreement.  In  the  Briton, 
less  emotional  than  his  French  com- 
rade in  arms,  hatred  against  the 
beaten  foe  will  sooner  subside  than 
in  the  Frenchman.  The  latter's  more 
open  exposure  to  the  enemy's  revenge, 
and  the  recollection  of  severer  suf- 
ferings than  England  has  borne,  add 
the  force  of  argument  to  the  im- 
ponderable strength  of  instinctive 
feelings.  This  deep-rooted  difference 
of  temperament,  accentuated  by  ex- 
ternal circumstances,  accounts  for  the 
clash  between  British  criticism  and 
French  advocacy  of  the  terms  of  the 
peace  with  Germany. 

Of  late,  however,  French  insistence 
on  their  justice,  and  on  the  danger  of 
mitigation,  has  taken  the  form  of  an 
indictment  of  England.  It  is  Eng- 
land that  prevented  the  pushing  for- 
ward of  the  military  frontier  to  the 
Khine,  it  is  England  that  prevented 
the  creation  of  a  great  Poland,  it  is 
England  that,  by  urging  leniency 
towards  Germany,  sacrificed  the 
safety  and  reconstruction  of  France 
to  the  demands  of  the  British  Labor 
Party.  The  bitter  tone  in  which 
these  grievances  are  worded  by  M. 
Rene  Pinon  in  the  New  Europe,  by 
Pertinax  in  the  Echo  de  Paris,  by  M. 
Barthou  in  the  Chamber  of  Deputies, 
creates  the  impression  that  in  Paris 
this  conflict  of  British  and  French 
policies  is  felt  to  be  due  to  an  inten- 
tion, on  the  part  of  the  London  Gov- 
ernment, to  block  the  vital  interests 
of  France  at  all  points.  "Eng- 
land," says  M.  Barthou,  "is  ready  to 
recognize  the  Soviet  Government  as 
soon  as  she  assures  herself  of  the 
greatest  possible  advantages  she  can 
I  get."  M.  Pinon  complains  of  "un- 
I  friendly  intrigues  of  British  agents 
in  Syria  to  disgust  France  with 
I  Syria  and  the  Syrians  with  France, 
I  and  insinuates  that  King  Feisal  is 
still  supported  by  Great  Britain. 
Even  England's  whole-hearted  sup- 
port of  the  League  of  Nations  is 
called  into  question;  it  affords  her  a 
pretext  for  holding  her  hands  free 
and  backing  out  of  definite  agree- 
ments. 


How  much  truth  is  there  in  these 
accusations?  That  Lloyd  George's 
foreign  policy,  in  spite  of  his  late  de- 
nunciation of  Labor,  has  largely  been 
guided  by  the  wish  to  conciliate  the 
British  Labor  Party,  is  undeniable, 
but  it  is  not  Labor  alone  that  insists 
on  mitigation  of  the  peace  terms.  A 
large  body  of  Liberal  opinion  in  Eng- 
land is  no  less  in  favor  of  leniency. 
But  there  would  be  far  less  of  this 
sentiment  if  the  British  public  could 
be  brought  to  see  great  force  in  the 
French  contention  that  a  revision  in 
favor  of  Germany  is  detrimental  to 
the  vital  interests  of  France.  Though 
the  man  at  the  head  of  affairs  in 
England  be  himself  not  guided  by 
any  principles,  the  powerful  body  of 
British  opinion  which  he  can  not  af- 
ford to  ignore  is  actuated  by  no  self- 
ish motives,  but  earnestly  wishes  to 
see  France  fully  indemnified  and  re- 
stored and  Europe  at  peace. 

French  statesmen  oppose  the  opti- 
mistic belief  in  the  efficacy  of  mercy 
as  the  surest  safeguard  against  the 
lust  for  revenge  with  the  realistic 
plea  that  nothing  except  superior 
strength  can  protect  France  from 
German  revenge.  The  Government 
of  France  is  determined,  if  need  be, 
to  act  independently  of  her  Allies  in 
enforcing  the  strict  execution  of  the 
treaty,  even  at  the  price  of  fresh  mili- 
tary burdens  for  the  country.  Only 
an  intimate  knowledge  of  the  spirit 
presiding  at  present  over  the  German 
people  and  its  Government,  a  knowl- 
edge we  do  not  pretend  to  possess, 
could  give  one  the  right  to  condemn 
this  attitude  of  the  French  as  in- 
transigeant.  But  we  deplore  it  be- 
cause of  the  dangers  that  will  result 
from  it  both  to  France  herself  and  to 
Europe.  Even  if  Marshal  Foch  suc- 
ceeds, which  we  do  not  doubt  he  can, 
in  carrying  out  his  plan  of  reprisals, 
France  will  have  paid  too  high  a  price 
for  her  safety  from  a  questionable 
danger  by  the  sacrifice  of  the  Entente 
Cordiale. 

And  of  this  there  is  a  real  danger. 
If  isolated  action,  involving  French 
occupation  of  more  German  terri- 
tory, should  lead  to  the  political  iso- 
lation of  France,  the  security  which 
the  possession  of  military  guar- 
antees   will   give   her   will   be   neu- 


tralized by  the  loss  of  her  inter- 
national connections,  which  will 
make  her  seem  a  less  formidable 
enemy  in  the  eyes  of  a  vindictive  Ger- 
many. France  isolated  means  a 
relatively  stronger  Germany,  al- 
though under  compulsion  of  Marshal 
Foch's  military  measures  the  reduc- 
tion of  the  German  army  be  carried 
out  to  the  letter  of  the  treaty.  What 
more  can  Foch  expect  than  to  deprive 
Germany,  for  a  certain  length  of 
time,  of  the  means  of  revenge?  The 
spirit  of  revenge  he  can  not  quell, 
by  force  of  arms,  in  a  nation  of  sixty 
millions.  If  it  will  be  revenged,  it 
will  recover  the  means,  in  spite  of 
peace  treaties  and  military  guaran- 
tees. France,  in  her  state  of  physical 
and  financial  exhaustion,  will  scarcely 
be  able  to  bear  for  long  the  burden 
which  the  possession  of  those  guaran- 
tees entails.  And,  as  Millerand  said 
in  the  Chamber :  "France  will  be  to- 
morrow as  she  was  yesterday,  the 
first  victim  of  a  new  assault." 

But  to  England  also  the  danger 
would  again  be  as  great  as  it  was  six 
years  ago.  England  can  not,  for  her 
own  sake,  allow  France  to  put  herself 
into  an  impossible  position.  To  the 
express  demands  of  the  French  an- 
nexationists, indeed,  British  opinion 
can  never  be  brought  to  assent.  But 
British  statesmen  can  do  a  great  deal 
towards  conciliating  France  by  re- 
moving the  suspicions  which,  with 
more  or  less  justice,  are  being  har- 
bored in  Paris  and  which  are  respon- 
sible for  the  present  irritation.  The 
Entente  Cordiale  ought  not  to  fall  a 
victim  to  an  incompatibility  of  tem- 
per which  can  be  controlled  by  a  wise 
and  circumspect  statesmanship. 


THE  REVIEW 

A   weekly  journal  of  political  and 

general  discussion 

Published  by 

The   National   Weekly    Corporation 

140   Nassau    Street,    New    York 

Fabian    Franklin,  President 

Harold  de  Wolf  Fuller,  Treasurer 


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to  Messrs.  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons.  Ltd.,  24,  Bed- 
ford  St..   Strand,   London,   W.    C.    2,   England. 
Copyright,     1920,     in     the     United    States    of 
America 
Editors 
FABIAN   FRANKLIN 
HAROLD  DE  WOLF  FULLER 
Associate  Editors 
Harry  Morgan  Ayres      O.  W.  Firkins 
A.  J.  Barnouw  W.  H.  Johnson 

Jerome  Landfield 


32-1] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  47 


Behind  the  Financing  of  China 


(IN   FOUR  PARTS — PART   TWO) 

"pHINA,"  said  my  official  Chinese 
^  friend,  "by  force  of  circum- 
stances is  on  the  auction  block — it 
would  pay  the  world  a  thousandfold 
to  underwrite  her  instead  of  letting 
Japanese  yen  control  our  potentiali- 
ties." 

That  statement  was  made  in  Peking 
at  a  time  when  the  armistice  had  for 
the  moment  halted  the  finance  that  is 
undermining  China's  integrity.  Even 
then,  a  movement  was  being  pushed 
quietly  by  an  inner  circle  of  friends 
of  the  Chinese  Republic.  Meetings 
were  held  at  certain  private  resi- 
dences where  foreigners  representing 
official  and  unofficial  interests  worked 
upon  schemes  to  provide  for  the  in- 
ternational financing  of  China  along 
cooperative  lines.  From  the  first 
there  was  general  recognition  that  the 
legitimate  vested  interests  of  all  the 
Powers  would  have  to  be  protected  in 
an  equitable  way,  and  that,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  effective  blocking  of 
the  extension  of  spheres  of  influence 
was  imperative. 

Well-wishers  of  China  have  been 
long  convinced  that  the  only  way  to 
keep  China  intact  is  to  pool  the  con- 
flicting interests,  pro-rate  the  entire 
development  of  the  country  among 
the  interested  Powers,  and  thus  end 
political  manipulation  by  outside  in- 
fluence. There  was  nothing  new  dip- 
lomatically in  the  proposal.  The  idea 
was  behind  Secretary  of  State  Knox's 
proposals  to  "neutralize,"  or  interna- 
tionally control,  the  Manchurian  rail- 
way development  in  1909-10.  It 
cropped  up  in  another  form  in  the 
evolution  of  the  Six  Power  Group  to 
make  China  a  huge  loan  for  reorgani- 
zation shortly  before  the  war. 

Our  withdrawal  from  this  interna- 
tional bloc,  it  will  be  remembered, 
was  forced  by  the  Wilson  Adminis- 
tration in  1913.  The  abrupt  action 
of  President  Wilson  at  that  time 
caused  a  great  deal  of  distrust  be- 
tween our  bankers  and  the  foreign 
banking  groups,  who  could  not  under- 
stand how  such  a  step  could  be  taken 
by  the  American  Government  without 
our  financial  interests  having  fore- 


knowledge of  the  move.  While  it 
may  not  seem  strange  to  us  now,  we 
must  bear  in  mind  that  at  the  time 
the  world  had  not  accustomed  itself  to 
the  President's  instinctive  recourse 
to  obstructive  measures  the  moment 
his  conceptions  of  statecraft  were 
crossed.  Thus,  instead  of  helping  to 
modify,  as  he  thought  best,  the  terms 
then  proposed  to  China,  he  would 
have  nothing  to  do  with  them.  The 
President's  interposition  served  to 
hold  up  action  until  the  outbreak  of 
the  European  war.  Henceforth,  the 
European  members  of  what  became 
the  Five  Power  Group  could  give  little 
heed  to  even  their  vital  interests  in 
the  East,  except  where  the  war  itself 
disastrously  crossed  them. 

The  working  out  of  events  gave 
Japan  the  free  hand  in  the  Orient 
which  has  so  tremendously  compli- 
cated any  settlement  of  the  situation. 
With  Japan  financial  diplomacy  has 
meant  everything.  She  has  risen 
from  the  position  of  a  debtor  nation, 
heavily  encumbered  by  borrowings 
abroad,  to  that  of  a  Power  with  a 
surplus  of  funds.  Instead  of  being 
chronically  sapped,  Japan  was  able 
to  embark  on  the  sapping  of  her 
neighbor. 

The  three  periods  of  Japan's  finan- 
cial growth  in  China's  development 
vividly  show  what  has  happened. 
Until  1909,  when  she  began  to  recover 
from  the  strain  of  the  Russo-Japa- 
nese War,  which  had  given  her  a  foot- 
hold in  Manchuria,  the  Japanese  in- 
vestments were  of  small  importance 
outside  of  the  Three  Eastern  Prov- 
inces. From  the  year  1909,  however, 
to  the  outbreak  of  the  European 
struggle,  her  investments  rose  per- 
ceptibly; they  reached  the  total  of 
approximately  50,000,000  yen — say 
$25,000,000.  The  distribution  of 
Japan's  surplus  capital  was,  in  many 
ways,  not  unlike  those  of  other 
Powers:  railway  loans  in  her  South 
Manchurian  sphere;  advances  on 
communications  in  the  Yangtse  Val- 
ley; and  a  series  of  credits  to  the 
great  Hanyehping  Iron  Works  in 
Hankow,  the  Chicago  of  China.  It 
was  in  the  last  of  these  advances  that 


the  purpose  of  Japanese  loans  began 
to  show  itself — to  gain  political 
domination  over  China's  development 
by  first  mortgages  which  should  close 
to  other  Powers  possible  avenues  of 
investment. 

A  great  increase  in  lending  on  these 
lines  began  with  the  opening  of  the 
Great  War.  Between  1914  and  1916, 
the  Okuma  Ministry  negotiated 
12,000,000  yen  worth  of  loans ;  it  was 
the  Foreign  Minister,  too,  of  the  "lib- 
eral" Okuma  who  directed  Japan's 
diplomatic  assault  on  China  in  1915. 
The  negotiations  over  the  Twenty-one 
Demands  gave  Japan  privileges 
directly  affecting  the  situation  at  the 
present  moment,  for  they  secured  to 
Japanese  capital  a  monopoly  of  de- 
velopment in  five  Chinese  provinces 
and  part  of  a  dependency  until  the 
year  2002. 

Under  the  premiership  of  Terauchi, 
the  aggressive  Japanese  elements  in- 
trigued with  the  Chinese  militarists, 
between  1916  and  1918,  to  pile  up  a 
huge  total  of  non-productive  loans, 
for  they  were  advanced  for  military 
or  administrative  purposes.  They 
were  accompanied  by  the  most  objec- 
tionable practices,  a  literal  debauch- 
ing of  a  nation,  for  (1)  they  were 
consummated  in  the  main  illegally, 
without  recourse  to  the  duly  consti- 
tuted authorities ;  (2)  they  carried  an 
abnormally  high  rate  of  interest;  (3) 
adequate  supervision  over  expendi- 
ture was  deliberately  omitted  to  per- 
mit diversion  to  unworthy  ends ;  (4) 
they  mortgaged  to  Japan  national 
assets  threatening  China's  security 
and  not  infrequently  violating  rights 
held  by  other  Powers. 

According  to  information  from 
American  official  sources,  China  is 
said  to  have  borrowed  from  Japan, 
during  1917  and  1918,  about  250,000,- 
000  Chinese  dollars — mines  of  all 
kinds,  national  forests,  strategic  rail- 
ways, etc.,  being  pledged  as  security. 
These  advances  were  largely  wasted 
in  the  struggle  between  the  Northern 
and  the  Southern  parties  in  China, 
as  Japanese  statesmen  well  knew 
they  would  be,  and  they  served  to 
prolong  China's  internal  conflict. 
Even  the  much-heralded  liberalism  of 
the  Hara  Ministry  has  not  been  able 
to  stop  this  subsidizing  of  China's 


April  3,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[325 


ruin  by  Japan's  Military  Party,  and 
the  grand  total  of  political  and  so- 
,  called  economic  loans  made  to  China 
!  by  Japan  now  exceeds,  in  all  proba- 
liility,  half  a  billion  yen — say,  $300,- 
000,000  gold  in  round  numbers. 

When  the  news  of  the  armistice 
broke  over  the  Far  East,  something 
like  panic  took  possession  of  the 
Japanese  Foreign  Office  and  the  Mili- 
tary Party.  They  felt  that  the  Peace 
Conference  would  upset  all  their 
plans.  "Had  the  organization  of  the 
New  Consortium  been  brought  at 
I  once  to  a  conclusion  after  the  armis- 
tice," one  of  the  foreign  officials 
directly  concerned  with  the  formation 
of  the  international  financing  project 
intimated  to  me  recently,  "the  Japa- 
nese would  have  been  only  too  glad  to 
come  in  on  the  best  terms  we  would 
give  them.  Now  the  situation  has 
changed.  The  results  of  the  Peace 
Conference  have  enabled  Japan  to 
hold  off  and  dicker  for  her  own  con- 
ditions." 

It  is  natural  that  Japan  should 
ivish  to  see  the  fruits  of  her  high 
inance  validated;  namely,  excluded 
rom  the  scope  of  the  Consortium, 
vhich  latter  she  would  like  to  wreck. 


as  she  did  our  dollar  diplomacy  in 
Manchuria  just  a  decade  ago.  She 
has  made  large  preliminary  advances 
and  her  business  system  at  home  is 
overextended  and  tied  hand-and-foot 
with  the  success  of  her  schemes  for 
expansion.  These  require  title  to 
Manchuria's  future  for  a  century;  a 
similar  grip  must  be  fastened  on  the 
Shantung  Peninsula;  a  like  penetra- 
tion must  be  assured  into  Mongolia. 
Hundreds  of  miles  of  communications 
will  thus  be  ear-marked  for  Japanese 
capitalists ;  and  the  natural  resources 
Japan  so  lacks  will  become  hers  as 
the  nominal  tenant  of  China. 

The  control  of  such  interests  is  the 
stake  in  the  fight  being  waged  by  the 
Powers  that  advocate  international 
cooperation  in  the  development  of 
China,  under  American  leadership, 
as  opposed  to  the  yen  diplomacy  of 
a  predatory  nationalism.  The  Con- 
sortium offers  the  only  fair  solution 
for  this  conflict  of  Japanese  ambi- 
tions, Chinese  rights,  and  the  grouped 
interests  of  the  other  Powers.  The 
bringing  about  of  this  is  the  inward- 
ness of  the  Lamont  financial  mission 
we  have  just  sent  to  the  Far  East. 
Charles  Hodges 


Constantinople  and  the  Turks 


rHE  problem  of  Constantinople  and  of 
the  status  of  the  Ottoman  Turks  in 
islam,  like  everything  else  in  this  world 
f  space  and  time,  is  confused  or  ex- 
lained  by  the  principle  of  relativity.  We 
;ave  learned   copiously  of   late   that   a 
jhing  is  what  it  is  always  in  relation  to 
jome  other  thing  and  never  absolutely, 
'hat    applies    here    most    exactly.     The 
urks  are  one  thing  to  themselves,  an- 
;ther  thing  to  the  Arabs,  and  yet  a  third 
iiing  to  the  far-away  Moslems  of  India. 
:  would  be  easy  to  establish  for  them 
ill  more  relativities;  but  in  these  three 
■e  have  the  cardinal  points  for  our  pres- 
it  problem.    Similarly,  the  Caliphate  is 
jQe  thing  for  the  Turks,  another  thing 
)r  the  Arabs,  and  a  third  very  different 
ling  for  Indian  Islam.    And,  finally,  the 
jurks  feel  in  one  way  about  their  own 
Utus  in  Constantinople;  the  Arabs  feel 
I  another  way  about  that  same  status 
the  Turks;  and  India  has  to  it  still 
lother  attitude.    In  all  this  the  Turkish 
id  the  Arab  positions  have  been  clear 
ir  long,  almost  for  centuries;  but  the 
tactions  of  Indian   Moslems  are  quite 
odern,    are    in    all    probability    hardly 


clear,  even  yet,  to  their  own  conscious- 
ness, and  have  been  deeply  affected — the 
orthodox  Moslems  would  say,  perverted — 
by  a  couple  of  generations  of  English 
education.  In  all  probability  the  old- 
fashioned  Moslems  of  India,  who  have 
learned  their  Islam  in  Arabic  or  in  Per- 
sian and  not  from  English  books,  think 
of  the  whole  complicated  tangle  of  rela- 
tionships much  as  do  the  Moslems  of  the 
nearer  East  and  if,  from  motives  of  pol- 
icy, they  fall  in  with  the  drift  around 
them,  do  so  with  a  full  understanding 
of  its  unhistorical  character. 

I.  The  Turks,  to  themselves,  are  pri- 
marily Turks  and  secondarily  Moslems. 
This  may  not  hold  consciously  of  the 
masses;  but  it  does  so  unconsciously.  To 
them  an  Arab,  for  example,  is  an  ogre, 
an  enchanter,  an  uncanny  being;  this 
comes  out  clearly  in  their  popular  fairy 
tales.  For  their  leaders,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  Empire  is  consciously  the  Otto- 
man Empire,  and  to  the  dream  of  Otto- 
manizing  everything  the  Young  Turks 
sacrificed  the  fruits  of  their  revolution 
and  thus  sealed  the  fate  of  historical 
Turkey.     They  feel  far  greater  kinship 


with  the  Turanian  tribes  which  stretch 
through  Asia  to  the  Great  Wall  of  China 
than  they  do  with  their  fellow  followers 
of  the  Prophet  of  Arabia.  They  are 
completely  under  the  spell  of  racial 
nationality  and,  under  the  names  of 
pan-Turanianism  or  Yeni  Turan  (New 
Turan),  they  dream  of  a  restored  empire 
reaching  from  the  ^Egean  to  China.  The 
rest  of  the  world  of  Islam  they  would 
lightly  sacrifice  to  that. 

Naturally,  then,  for  the  Arabs,  they 
are  indifferent  Moslems  or  absolute  un- 
believers. The  Arabs,  that  is  all  the 
Arabic-speaking  peoples  south  of  the 
Taurus  and  the  mountains  of  Kurdistan, 
have  known  them  for  centuries  as  con- 
querors and  oppressors.  For  them  the 
Turk  is  a  bogey,  despised  for  stupidity, 
feared  for  his  heavy  hand,  yet  respected 
for  a  certain  solid  force  of  discipline  and 
ability  to  pull  together  in  subordination. 
To  discipline  and  subordination  no  Arab 
will  ever  submit.  It  is  an  old  observa- 
tion that  the  only  thing  which  has  ever 
unified  them  has  been  religion,  and  even 
that  never  for  long.  In  consequence,  the 
Turks  were  able,  though  with  difficulty, 
to  keep  them  under  until  the  Arab  chance 
came  in  the  war.  That  common  uprising 
united  them  for  a  time;  now,  out  of  the 
confusion,  the  Kingdom  of  the  Hijaz,  a 
dubious  Kingdom  of  Syria  and  another 
still  more  dubious  of  Mesopotamia,  seem 
to  have  arisen;  but  for  how  long  none 
can  prophesy.  Religion,  the  only  force 
which,  according  to  the  old  and  true  say- 
ing, could  unite  them,  is  the  one  force 
which  must  not.  That  way  madness  lies. 
And  now  in  recoil  from  foreign  domina- 
tion, the  attraction  of  a  common  cause 
is  being  found  even  with  the  Turks.  Not 
that  the  Arabs  wish  the  Turks  back 
again ;  they  must  stay  on  their  own  aide 
of  the  mountains.  But,  when  all  has 
been  said,  they  are  Orientals  and,  at 
least,  nominal  Moslems,  trying  to  hold 
their  own  against  an  all-devouring  West, 
and  if  they  are  overthrown  or  weakened 
beyond  measure,  all  Moslem  peoples  will 
be  weakened  thereby. 

But  modern  Indian  Islam  has  never 
known  the  Turk  and  has  never  suffered 
from  him :  It  believes  quite  fixedly,  with 
of  course  varying  degrees  of  under- 
standing, that  Turkey  in  the  past  has  not 
had  a  fair  deal;  has  been  more  sinned 
against  than  sinning.  That  is,  those  who 
have  some  knowledge  of  the  Turkish  sit- 
uation and  problem  so  believe.  For  the 
masses  the  Ottoman  Sultans  have  been 
far-off,  half-legendary  rulers,  the  great- 
est ruling  independent  Moslem  realms 
and  meeting  the  kings  of  Christendom  on 
equal  terms.  Now  they  have  fallen  on 
evil  days,  and  so  it  is  for  all  Moslems  to 
rally  to  their  support;  the  solidarity  of 
Islam  must  mean  at  least  as  much  as 
that.  It  is  true  that  they  have  made  war 
on  the  British  Raj,  and  Indian  Islam  has 


326] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  47 


fought  against  them  loyally ;  but  the  long 
years  of  friendship  between  Britain  and 
Turkey  should  now  be  remembered,  and 
too  great  a  penalty  should  not  be  im- 
posed. In  this,  of  course,  there  is  an  im- 
mense amount  of  the  will  to  believe; 
but  there  can  not  be  any  doubt  that  the 
Moslem  masses  in  India  do  so  believe.  It 
does  not  mean  disloyalty  on  their  part  or 
even,  in  any  strict  sense,  a  divided  loy- 
alty; it  is  rather  a  profound  sentiment 
based  on  community  of  religion  and  on 
ancestral  devotion  and  respect. 

II.  There  can  not  be  much  doubt  that 
the  conception  of  the  Caliphate  is  enter- 
ing upon  a  period  of  change.  But  the 
time  is  far  in  the  future  when  it  will  be 
safe  to  say  that  it  has  actually  changed, 
and  that  there  need  no  longer  be  any 
fear  of  a  reversion  to  the  original  con- 
ception. And,  so  far,  the  position  of  the 
canonists  of  Sunnite  Islam  has  been 
unanimous  and  clear.  The  Caliph  is  an 
administrator  only;  he  is  the  executive 
of  Islam,  and  he  administers  the  whole 
system  of  Islam  as  it  is  related  to  this 
world  and  to  the  world  to  come.  Strictly 
he  should  do  it  all  personally ;  lead  in  the 
mosque  prayers,  preach  the  Friday  ser- 
mon, judge  in  the  law  courts,  head  the 
armies  in  war.  As  that  is  impossible, 
his  office  has  gradually  been  put  into 
commission,  and  all  the  functionaries 
who  do  these  things  are  his  delegates. 
But  he  has  no  power  of  legislation,  or 
even  of  interpretation.  Still  less  is  he 
a  spiritual  head  who  can  bind  the  con- 
science* of  the  Moslems,  but  otherwise 
has  no  control  over  them.  The  systems 
of  theology  and  of  canon  law  have  been 
formulated  by  the  inerrant  Agreement  of 
the  Moslem  people,  and  he  must  accept 
these  and  can  administer  only  these.  He 
may  have  his  own  opinion;  but  that  is 
only  as  an  individual  Moslem  and  not  as 
Caliph.  In  consequence  no  non-Moslem 
sovereign  state  can  allow  him  any  au- 
thority with  regard  to  its  Moslem  sub- 
jects. That  would  mean,  at  the  least, 
that  he  was  a  suzerain,  however  that 
term  may  be  defined,  and  it  might  mean 
that  he  could  interfere  at  any  point  in 
the  administration  of  that  state. 

So,  ideally,  the  canonists  put  it;  the 
practice  has,  of  course,  varied  greatly; 
but  has  always  been  based  on  the  funda- 
mental fact  that  the  Caliph  is  the  execu- 
tive in  the  state.  Also,  as  priesthood  of 
any  kind  is  unknown  to  Sunnite  Islam, 
he  has  never  been  an  authority  in  his 
own  right  in  spiritual  things.  To  the 
Turks  the  Caliphate  came  after  their 
conquest  of  Egypt  in  1517  by  legacy  from 
the  last  Abbasid  Caliph,  then  resident 
there.  This  transfer  was  perfectly  legal 
if  accepted  and  ratified  by  the  people, 
and  since  then  the  Ottoman  Sultans  have 
been  formally  elected  Caliph  by  the 
Shaikh  al-Islam,  acting  as  representative 
of  the  people,  at  the  time  of  their  inau- 
guration as  Sultan.    But  for  them  these 


two  titles  were  of  very  different  practical 
value.  The  title  of  Sultan  meant  that 
they  were  rulers  of  the  factual  Ottoman 
state,  while  Caliph  meant  only  a  claim  to 
rule  over  a  vague  Moslem  world.  It  was 
of  far  greater  importance  to  them  to  ex- 
tend the  actual  Ottoman  boundaries — 
especially  so  as  to  include  the  Sacred 
Cities,  Mecca  and  Medina — than  to  stress 
an  historical  and  practically  impossible 
headship.  It  is  true  that  later,  within 
the  last  couple  of  centuries,  Turkish  dip- 
lomats found  the  Caliphate  useful  as  a 
card  to  play  in  their  game  with  the  Eu- 
ropean Powers.  They  found  that  the 
idea  of  spiritual  headship,  of  a  papacy 
in  fact,  was  current  among  these  Powers 
and  acceptable  to  them,  and  that  the  pos- 
session of  such  a  status  would  add 
greatly  to  the  influence  and  dignity  in 
Europe  of  the  Ottoman  state.  It  gave 
Turkey,  in  the  eyes  of  Europe,  that  hege- 
mony of  the  Moslem  world  which  she  de- 
sired, while,  being  spiritual  only,  it 
seemed  to  do  away  with  all  fear  of  Turk- 
ish meddling  with  the  Moslem  subjects 
of  European  Powers.  Naturally  then, 
this  misconception  of  the  Caliphate  was 
encouraged,  and  Turkey's  possession  of 
the  title  was  emphasized.  The  European 
Powers  were  misled,  or,  at  least,  public 
opinion  in  Europe  was,  while  Moslems  in 
general  and  the  Moslem  subjects  of  these 
Powers  in  particular  knew  very  well  that 
the  recognition  of  the  Ottoman  Caliphate 
meant  that  the  Sultan  was  overlord  de 
jure  and  in  part  de  facto  to  all  Europe. 

Meanwhile,  for  the  Arabs  or  Arabic 
speakers,  the  Caliphate  meant  the  Suc- 
cessorship  of  the  Prophet,  and  was  lim- 
ited by  accepted  tradition  in  such  ways 
as  legally  to  exclude  all  Turks  and  simi- 
lar parvenus.  "So  long  as  there  are  two 
left  of  the  tribe  of  Quraish,"  says  a  tra- 
dition from  Mohammed,  "one  of  them 
will  be  Caliph  and  the  other  his  helper." 
This  the  Arabs  always  remembered,  even 
when  they  had  to  submit  to  the  force 
majeure  of  the  Turks.  The  Caliphate, 
therefore,  was  and  is  for  them  a  high 
ideal  office.  It  reminds  them  that  Mo- 
hammed was  the  Prophet  of  the  Arabs 
and  that  it  was  under  the  early  Caliphs 
that  their  race  swept  to  victory  from 
Samarcand  to  Spain.  It  reminds  them  of 
the  days  of  undivided  empire  and  of  the 
future  apocalyptic  days  when  Islam  will 
be  led  by  a  true  Successor  of  the  Prophet 
to  the  conquest  of  the  whole  earth.  For 
those  whose  minds  are  not  attuned  to  so 
lofty  a  strain  it  is  reminiscent  of  all  the 
glories  of  the  vanished  Moslem  courts,  of 
the  Omayyads  at  Damascus,  and  the  Ab- 
basids  at  Bagdad  and  the  Fatimids  at 
Cairo.  So  loaded  with  memories  and 
hopes  is  the  Caliphate  for  them — a  sym- 
bol of  the  necessary  and  essential  unity 
of  all  Islam  and  of  the  glory  of  the  Arab 
race.  Nor  can  they  separate  it  from  the 
long  theological  and  legal  development 
through  which  it  has  lived.     Their  Ca- 


liph, as  Successor  of  the  Prophet,  must 
be  an  orthodox  Moslem,  as  orthodoxy  has 
come  with  them  to  be  understood.  That 
does  not  necessarily  mean  the  rigors 
of  the  puritanic  and  Calvinistic  Wah- 
habites;  but  he  must  himself  profess 
broad,  orthodox  Islam — be  a  Sunnite  in 
that  sense  of  the  term — and  must  regard 
himself  as  the  head  of  such  Moslems  and 
as  essentially  opposed  to  all  wanderers 
from  that  faith,  whether  they  be  Shi'itea 
or  of  minor  errant  sects. 

It  might  be  thought  that  this  last  re- 
quirement should  be  taken  for  granted; 
that  a  Caliph  must  be  an  orthodox  Mos- 
lem— "an  unbelieving  Pope  will  never 
do!"  But  the  view  of  the  Caliphate  to 
which  Indian  Islam  seems  to  have  come 
suggests  caution  here.  For  it  the  Cali- 
phate is  now  a  symbol  for  all  Islam  in 
the  widest  conceivable  sense,  and  their 
hope  is  that  the  Caliph  of  the  time  may 
be  a  centre  round  which  all  sects  and  par- 
ties may  unite  for  mutual  support  and 
defense.  They  are  thus,  like  the  Turks, 
realists,  but  of  a  very  different  reality. 
The  real  thing  for  the  Turks  is  the  Turk- 
ish race,  first  the  Ottomans  and  then  all 
their  connections;  for  Indian  Moslems 
the  real  thing  is  the  People  of  Moham- 
med, as  it  exists  at  the  present  day,  apart 
from  creed,  school,  or  history.  They  are 
the  only  absolute  Panislamists,  for  with 
them  Panislam  is  not,  as  it  was  with  Abd 
al-Hamid,  a  political  means,  but  a  faith. 
Some  of  their  leaders  may  have  schemes 
or  ambitions;  but  the  masses  are  un- 
doubtedly simple  and  sincere.  This  tend- 
ency has  been  long  present  in  Islam,  and 
has,  from  time  to  time,  asserted  itself 
in  individual  theologians.  One  of  the 
greatest  of  them  all,  in  the  early  twelfth 
century,  said,  "Keep  a  guard  on  thy 
tongue  as  to  people  who  turn  in  worship 
towards  the  Ka'ba."  He  meant  that  they 
were  all  to  be  reckoned,  without  ques- 
tions being  asked,  as  fellow  Moslems. 
And  modem  conditions  in  India  have 
tended  to  foster  this  catholic  tendency. 
All  kinds  of  Moslem  sects  are  there,  and 
they  are  all  face  to  face  with  the  crassest 
forms  of  polytheism  and  idolatry.  They 
are  all,  too,  under  the  Pax  Britannica, 
bound  over  to  keep  the  peace  not  only 
with  their  ovra  heretics  but  with  these 
flagrant  idolaters.  Naturally  they  draw 
together  in  spirit  and  the  All-India  Mos- 
lem League  is  the  consequence.  Its  Pres- 
ident was,  perhaps  is,  the  head  by  right 
of  blood  of  the  sect  of  Khajas,  who  were 
the  Assassins  of  the  Crusaders,  and  he 
himself  is  the  lineal  descendant  of  the 
Old  Man  of  the  Mountain — an  absolute 
heretic  if  not  an  unbeliever  for  orthodox 
Islam.  Through  the  English  education 
of  the  leaders,  too,  they  have  for  years 
been  soaked  in  ideas  of  tolerance  and 
union.  In  truth,  church  union  seems  to 
be  in  the  air,  and  the  same  air  is 
breathed  in  India  as  in  the  United  States. 
Thus  it  came  about  that  all  Indian  Mos- 


April  3,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[827 


lems,  Sunnites  and  Shi'ites  with  far  out 
heretical  sects  to  which  earlier  Islam 
refused  the  name  of  Moslem  at  all,  have 
united  on  behalf  of  the  Turks.  Less  easy 
to  understand  is  their  hostility  to  the 
King  of  the  Hijaz,  a  Moslem  of  unexcep- 
tionable orthodoxy  and  a  descendant  of 
the  Prophet  in  de  facto  possession  of  the 
Sacred  Cities.  But  he  is  also  a  rebel 
against  the  Ottoman  Sultan,  and  in  India 
the  glamour  of  Constantinople  and  of  its 
great  Caliph  has  long  worked  powerfully. 
There  the  Indian  Moslems  thought  they 
had  found  the  centre  and  symbol  of  the 
Moslem  world  for  which  they  had  hoped. 
Other,  and  less  ideal  elements,  including 
the  complicated  politics  of  Arabia  itself, 
have  also  probably  played  a  part ;  but  the 
decisive  movement  has  certainly  been 
loyalty  to  the  Ottoman  Sultan.  It  has 
driven  some  of  them  so  far  that 
they  have  formulated  a  demand  that 
the  lost  provinces — Syria,  Mesopotamia, 
Arabia,  especially  the  Sacred  Cities — ■ 
should  be  returned  to  Turkey.  That  is 
a  hopelessly  impossible  position,  which 
certainly  does  not  express  the  mind  of 
these  provinces  and  which  suggests  influ- 
ence from  Turkey  itself.  Yet  it  makes 
plain  that  for  India  the  Ottoman  Sultan- 
ate is  the  great  fact  in  Western  Islam. 

III.  It  is  probable  that  the  average 
Turk  is  puzzled  at  the  prominence  which 
Constantinople  has  come  to  hold  in  these 
discussions.  He  has  never  felt  especially 
at  home  there;  Brusa,  for  example,  as 
compared  to  it,  is  to  him  home.  Just  as 
so  many  Turks  have  abandoned  Bulgaria 
and  Thrace,  so  he,  with  a  comparatively 

i  easy  mind,  would  move  on  across  the 
Straits.  In  all  Constantinople  there  is 
only  one  specially  sacred  place,  the 
mosque  built  over  the  alleged  tomb  of 
Ayyub,  a  Companion  of  the  Prophet,  who 
fell  in  that  first  unsuccessful  siege  of  the 
city  in  or  about  A.  D.  672,  nearly  800 
years  before  its  capture.  There  the  Otto- 
man Sultans  are  inaugurated  by  being 

!  girt  with  the  sword  of  Othman  by  a  dep- 
uty from  the  Head  of  the  Mevleviyeh 
Dervishes   at   Konia.     With   Adrianople 

I  the  ties  are  much  older  and  closer,  and 
the  present  threats  of  the  Turkish  army 
in  Thrace  to  hold  it  by  force  are  intel- 
ligible. 

But  with  the  Arabs,  again,  the  case 
is  different.  Constantinople,  for  them, 
marks  a  great  conquest  of  Islam.  Their 
memories  carry  back  to  the  first  fiery 
raids  under  the  immediate  Successors  of 
the  Prophet,  when  Constantinople  was 
reached  but  not  taken;  then  to  the  later 
long-drawn-out  conflict,  when  the  By- 
jZantines  reestablished  and  held  the  lines 
I  of  the  Taurus  against  them.  That  the 
'  Ottomans  should  finally  have  taken,  made 
their  capital,  and  held  so  long  that  city 
of  long-deferred  hopes,  marked  them  as 
great  conquerors  and  restorers  of  Islam, 
and  that  they  should  now  lose  it  would 
be  bitter,  even  to  those  who  have  cast  off 


allegiance  to  them.  We  have  here,  again, 
the  solidarity  of  Islam  rising  above  race, 
language,  and  local  hostilities.  It  is  a 
different  matter  from  their  personal  feel- 
ing towards  the  Turks  qua  Turk,  and 
very  different  from  their  feeling  towards 
the  Ottoman  Sultan  as  claimant  of  the 
canonical  Successorship  of  the  Prophet — 
he,  an  interloper  and  "climber,"  without 
lot  or  part,  except  by  violence,  in  the 
sacred  memories  and  associations  of  the 
Arab  race!  But,  again,  with  the  Arabs, 
as  with  all,  there  is  another  constant  mo- 
ment uniting  them  with  the  Turks.  They 
recognize  perfectly  clearly  that  for  cen- 
turies the  Turks  have  represented  the 
East  as  against  the  West,  have  stood  in 
the  gate,  by  diplomacy  and  by  force, 
against  that  which  for  the  whole  East 
was  and  is  the  great  peril,  the  ever-ad- 
vancing and  devouring  West.  But  when 
so  sweeping  a  statement  as  this  is  made, 
what  of  the  attitude  of  the  Oriental 
Christian  peoples?  Do  they  feel  them- 
selves as  Orientals  solid  with  the  Mos- 
lem peoples  among  whom  they  are  scat- 
tered? It  may  safely  be  answered  that, 
given  personal  security  and  equality, 
they,  too,  would  be  part  of  this  solidarity 
of  Asia.  The  Egyptian  Copts  are  an 
example:  In  the  security  of  the  British 
Protectorate — that  is  the  irony  of  such 
things — they  are  joining  the  Moslem 
Nationalists,  as  Orientals  against  the 
West.  In  so  doing  they  shut  their  eyes, 
wittingly  or  unwittingly,  to  the  fact  that 
the  ultimate  object  of  their  agitation 
must  be  the  removal  of  that  protectorate 
and  their  own  suppression  and  political 
destruction  by  the  enormous  preponder- 
ance of  the  Moslem  population.  For  it 
can  not  be  overemphasized  that  no  Mos- 
lem state  or  civilization  can,  in  fact,  give 
citizenship  and  equal  rights  to  its  non- 
Moslems.  It  may  possibly,  in  contradic- 
tion to  the  basal  principles  of  Islam, 
write  these  into  its  constitution,  but  the 
non-Moslems  can  secure  and  enjoy  their 
rights  only  by  having  actual  force  behind 
them.  And  the  Moslems,  left  to  them- 
selves, will  always  revert  to  that  basal 
Islam. 

The  same  considerations  hold  with  In- 
dian Moslems;  they  feel  the  solidarity  of 
Islam  and  they  also  feel  the  solidarity  of 
the  East.  But  so  far  as  they  have  been 
affected  by  English  education,  and  that 
is  very  widely  and  deeply,  another  ele- 
ment enters.  They  think  of  Constanti- 
nople in  terms  of  our  classical  world. 
They  have  read  their  Gibbon,  even  if 
they  have  not  their  Virgil,  and  Constan- 
tinople is  for  them  New  Rome,  the  City 
of  Constantino,  before  it  is  the  City  of 
the  Sultans.  There  the  Ottoman  Sultans 
represent  the  Byzantine  emperors  and 
carry  on  the  line  of  the  Csesars.  To 
minds  thus  nurtured  the  thought  that 
the  City  of  Europe,  the  -''>'f — many 
remember  that  Stamboul  means  cigri/VTToAiv 
— has  been  held  by  Eastern  hands  for 


nearly  five  hundred  years — works  like  a 
spell,  and  to  abandon  it  would  be  proof 
of  the  final  decadence  of  Islam.  This  may 
be  set  against  the  sentiment  of  Christen- 
dom that  the  dome  of  Santa  Sophia  must 
again  be  given  to  Christian  worship. 

Such  are,  fairly,  the  foundations  of  the 
problem.  But  the  essence  of  the  prob- 
lem is  simply  the  Turks.  There  are  so 
and  so  many  millions  of  them,  scattered 
through  such  and  such  territory;  what 
can  be  done  with  them?  We  can  not 
employ  with  them  their  own  methods 
with  the  Armenians;  so  they  are  on  our 
hands.  There  must  be  some  way,  per- 
haps a  makeshift  one,  found  to  control 
them.  For  how  to  control  them  is  the 
question,  and  whatever  method  really 
controls  them  is  right,  and  the  right 
method  can  be  found  only  by  trying.  It 
may  be  that  they  can  be  controlled  from 
Constantinople;  it  may  be  that  that  will 
only  split  them  up.  Then  they  must 
lose  Constantinople  and  the  control  must 
be  pushed  into  Asia  Minor.  Whatever 
may  come  of  the  rather  premature  King- 
doms of  Syria  and  Mesopotamia,  the 
French  are  now  advancing  again  into 
Northern  Syria  and  Cilicia  and  the 
Greeks  are  advancing  from  Smyrna.  The 
British  will  have  to  hold  the  mountains 
which  command  the  Mesopotamian  plains 
and  the  southern  shores  of  the  Caspian. 
The  pity  is  that  a  precious  year  has  been 
lost  through  waiting,  mostly  for  this 
country  to  discover  its  own  mind.  And 
now  it  will  be  well  for  us,  in  our  turn,  to 
be  realists ;  that  is,  to  recognize  facts  in- 
stead of  spinning  theories,  however  beau- 
tiful. The  gorgeous  figments  of  a  new 
heaven  and  a  new  earth  are  gone,  and 
both  here  and  in  the  East  we  must  make 
the  best  of  the  same  old  conditions  and 
the  same  old  human  nature.  This  coun- 
try definitely  declines  to  take  a  mandate; 
it  can,  therefore,  claim  little  voice  in  the 
settlement.  Whatever  League  of  Nations 
can  now  come  into  being,  if  any,  can  be 
but  feeble,  and  yet  all  actually  in  contact 
with  the  situations  agree  that  a  League 
to  affect  anything  must  have  a  very  big 
and  thick  stick  and  be  prepared  to  break 
it  over  certain  heads.  And  these  heads 
are  not  those  of  the  supposed  predatory 
European  Powers,  but  of  the  little  na- 
tionalities which  have  sprung  into  exist- 
ence out  of  the  debris  of  Turkey,  and 
which  are  ready  to  fly  at  one  another's 
throats.  The  old  Turkish  Empire  is 
now  fairly  Balkanized,  for  better  or  for 
worse.  And,  finally,  we  must  not  im- 
agine that  any  settlement  is  going  to  be 
permanent,  for  many  a  long  day  to  come. 
This  may  sound  like  despair;  it  is  really 
hope.  The  nations  must  fight  their  own 
way  out  to  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit 
of  happiness.  They  may  be  guarded  and 
protected  in  that,  but  the  burden  of  the 
struggle  is  and  must  be  their  own. 

D.  B.  Macdonald 


328] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  47 


The  Third  Internationale 


ACCORDING  to  a  cablegram  from  The 
Hague  of  March  20,  a  special  edi- 
tion of  the  Tribune,  the  organ  of  the 
Dutch  Communists,  has  given  publicity 
to  the  complete  list  of  resolutions  adopted 
by  a  secret  meeting  of  the  Third  Inter- 
nationale held  at  Amsterdam  on  Febru- 
ary 3  and  following  days.  The  public  in 
Holland  will  have  received  the  news  with 
more  than  its  usual  phlegm,  as  an  ex- 
tensive report  of  this  secret  conference 
had  appeared  in  the  papers  more  than 
a  month  before  the  conspirators  put  a 
bold  face  on  the  matter  and  made  their 
Tribune  repeat  what  a  bourgeois  journal 
had  betrayed.  It  was  the  Amsterdam 
Handelsblad  which,  a  week  after  the 
meeting,  brought  the  first  revelations. 
Communists,  even  when  secretly  conspir- 
ing, remain  communicative  creatures. 
One  of  them  must  have  unburdened  his 
mind  to  an  undeserving  bourgeois  jour- 
nalist, whose  faithful  report  in  the  Han- 
delsblad remained  for  more  than  a  month 
the  only  source  whence  the  Communist 
subscribers  to  the  Tribune  could  draw 
information  as  to  how  their  interests 
were  being  cared  for  by  the  great  politi- 
cal thinkers  of  the  party. 

The  Handelsblad  chose  the  right  mo- 
ment for  its  disclosures.  For  on  that 
same  day,  February  14,  a  general  strike 
was  declared  in  the  Rotterdam  and 
Amsterdam  harbors,  the  demand  of  the 
laborers  being  an  increase  of  wages,  in 
which  the  four  principal  labor  groups, 
Socialists,  Communists,  Roman  Catho- 
lics, and  members  of  the  Christian 
Workers  Union,  however  much  differing 
among  themselves  in  political  views,  could 
go  hand  in  hand. 

But  when  the  report  "f  the  secret 
Communist  meeting  was  (disclosed  in  the 
Handelsblad,  the  leaders  of  the  two  last- 
mentioned  groups  realized  that  they  were 
allied  with  men  who  used  the  demand 
for  an  increased  wage  as  a  pretext, 
merely,  for  starting  an  action  directed 
against  the  control  both  of  the  harbor 
and  the  City  Government,  although, 
when  they  entered  into  the  compact  with 
the  radicals,  it  had  been  emphatically 
stipulated  that  their  action  was  to  be 
economic  and  non-political.  The  advisors 
of  the  Roman  Cathol'>,  laborers,  there- 
fore, counseled  theix  followers  to  re- 
sume work  at  once,  but — an  ominous  sign 
of  the  times  and  of  the  futility  of  leader- 
ship when  once  the  masses  have  been 
turned  loose — the  men  refused  unani- 
mously to  do  as  they  were  told  and  stuck 
faithfully  to  their  Communist  comrades. 

The  strike  has  lasted  now  for  seven 
weeks,  and  there  is  little  chance  that  it 
will  soon  be  called  off.  The  Holland- 
America  Line  announces  in  the  New 
York  papers  that  "on  account  of  strike 
in  Holland,  sailings  up  to  and  including 


April  3  have  been  canceled."  The  Fed- 
eration does  not  lack  money  to  finance  it. 
"The  Russian  Soviet  Government,"  says 
the  Handelsblad  report  of  the  Communist 
meeting  of  February  6,  "has  placed  at 
the  disposal  of  the  Executive  Bureau  of 
the  Third  Internationale  a  collection  of 
diamonds,  pearls,  and  other  precious 
stones  to  a  value  of  twenty  million 
rubles,"  which,  as  was  explained  by  Mr. 
S.  J.  Rutgers,  the  happy  bearer  of  this 
news  from  Moscow,  "must  be  used  for 
the  support  of  every  strike  and  every 
movement  which  bears  a  revolutionary 
character."  Amsterdam  is  a  regular 
market  for  the  sale  of  stolen  jewelry 
from  Russia,  and  one  of  the  brokers  em- 
ployed by  the  gentlemen-dealers  of  Mos- 
cow is  a  Communist  member  of  the  City 
Council.  Diamonds  are  offered  for  sale 
as  imported  from  Denmark,  although 
Copenhagen  has  never  had  any  trade  in 
that  line.  The  wife  of  Mr.  Rutgers  is 
less  mysterious  about  their  origin  than 
the  jobbers.  She  makes  no  secret  of  it 
that  she  brought  a  diamond  cross,  a  pearl 
necklace,  one  big  and  one  small  diamond 
to  Holland  in  order  to  sell  them  for  the 
benefit  of  the  Communist  movement. 

This  Mr.  Rutgers  is  a  Dutch  engineer, 
who  has  been  for  some  time  in  the  em- 
ploy of  the  Soviet  Government,  and,  hap- 
pening to  be  in  Moscow  at  the  time, 
attended  the  constitutive  assembly  of  the 
Third  Internationale.  Its  international 
character  was  not  apparent  at  that  first 
meeting,  for  the  only  non-Russian  mem- 
bers were  Chinese,  Poles,  Letts,  and  pris- 
oners of  war  from  the  countries  of  the 
Central  and  Allied  Powers.  Lenin,  being 
desirous  to  internationalize  his  Interna- 
tionale, sent  Mr.  Rutgers  to  his  native 
country  with  the  mission  there  to  effect 
an  extension  of  the  new  organization,  and 
to  prepare  a  Bolshevist  Conference  for 
the  West  European  countries  and  the 
United  States.  Lenin's  choice  of  Hol- 
land as  the  centre  for  this  propaganda 
scheme  was  explained  in  these  words, 
verbally  quoted  by  Mr.  Rutgers  from 
the  Soviet  Tsar:  "It  is  a  quiet  country 
with  a  feeble  reaction,"  a  characteriza- 
tion which  has  caused  no  little  amuse- 
ment in  Holland,  as  the  brave  David 
Wijnkoop,  the  Dutch  Trotsky,  is  never 
tired  of  denouncing  the  bourgeois  Gov- 
ernment at  The  Hague  as  a  gang  of 
reactionary  despots.  The  remark  justi- 
fies, incidentally,  the  drastic  measures 
against  bolshevist  agitation  in  this  coun- 
try, which  will  save  it  from  the  distinc- 
tion conferred  upon  Holland  by  the  great 
man  at  Moscow. 

Mr.  Rutgers  was  assisted  in  the  exe- 
cution of  his  great  mission  by  the  poets 
Herman  Gorter  and  Henriette  Roland 
Hoist  van  der  Schalk,  by  the  astronomer 
Dr.  A.  Pannekoek,  and  the  politicians  W. 


van  Ravesteyn  and  David  Wynkoop. 
Obedient  to  Lenin's  orders,  they  called  a 
secret  international  conference,  which  was 
attended  by  representatives  from  Ger- 
many, Switzerland,  the  Netherland  East 
Indies,  Russia,  England,  Belgium,  Hun- 
gary and  the  United  States.  The  chief 
item  on  the  programme  was  the  forma- 
tion of  an  Executive  Bureau  of  the  Third 
Internationale  which  will  await  its  orders 
direct  from  Moscow.  Sub-bureaus  are  to 
be  established  in  North  America,  East 
Asia,  Spain,  and  Mexico.  Once  in  three 
months  the  countries  which  have  joined 
Lenin's  Internationale  will  send  a  dele- 
gate to  the  Bureau  at  Amsterdam. 

With  regard  to  Soviet  Russia  the  fol- 
lowing resolution  was  passed : 

A  revolutionary  action  of  labor  for  forcing 
international  capitalism  to  make  peace  with 
Russia  is  a  necessary  condition  for  the  salva- 
tion of  Russia  and  the  maturing  of  the  world 
revolution.  In  order  to  promote  this  action, 
the  communists  in  all  countries  must  make  use 
of  every  strike  and  every  mass  demonstra- 
tion, must  remind  the  working  classes  of  their 
responsibility  towards  the  Russian  revolution, 
must  convince  them  of  the  analogy  between 
their  own  and  Russia's  aspirations,  and  pro- 
mote all  over  the  world  a  strong  feeling  of 
revolutionary  solidarity.  Under  the  growing 
pressure  of  labor  on  the  various  Governments 
the  latter  have  begun  to  evince  a  desire  for  a 
compromise  with  Russia,  not  with  a  view  to 
peace,  but  in  order  to  dislocate  Soviet  Russia 
from  within.  The  recent  proposals  for  a  re- 
sumption of  trade  relations  by  means  of  reac- 
tionary representatives  of  pre-revolution  co- 
operatives, which  since  have  been  merged  in 
the  Soviet  organizations,  have  no  other  pur- 
pose than  to  drive  a  wedge  between  peasants 
and  laborers  and  to  crush  the  Soviet  monopoly. 
Under  the  disguise  of  such  manceuvres  a 
great  spring  offensive  is  being  prepared,  which 
must  be  prevented  at  all  cost.  This  Bureau, 
therefore,  must  immediately  take  steps  to  or- 
ganize an  international  demonstrative  strike 
against  intervention  in  Russia.  Such  a  strike 
must  not  only  demand  the  cessation  of  the 
blockade  and  intervention  in  Russia,  but  ought 
also  to  press  political  and  economic  demands, 
in  accordance  with  the  revolutionary  develop- 
ment of  each  separate  country.  This  demon- 
stration must  be  supplemented  by  coercive 
strikes  in  proportion  to  the  power  which  the 
workers  can  command  for  such  an  action.  The 
appeal  to  the  workers  for  an  international 
strike  must  be  made  not  exclusively  through 
the  medium  of  the  bureaucracy  of  the  trade 
unions,  but  should  preferentially  be  straight- 
way addressed  to  the  masses  both  within  and 
without  these  organizations,  over  the  heads  of 
their  leaders. 

A  long  discussion  had  preceded  the 
passing  of  this  lengthy  resolution,  espe- 
cially about  a  proposal  of  comrades  Mur- 
phy and  Frayna,  delegates  from  Eng- 
land and  the  United  States,  which  the 
Handelsblad  gives  as  follows : 

The  imperialistic  Governments  try  to  justify 
their  own  aggression  by  accusing  the  Soviet 
Government  of  aggressive  aims.  Soviet  Russia 
admits  that  revolutions  have  their  origin,  not 
in  attacks  from  abroad,  but  in  forces  developed 
in  the  country  itself.  Soviet  Russia  is  now 
waging  a  defensive  war,  which  her  imperialis- 
tic opponents  force  upon  her.  It  will  cease 
as  soon  as  the  imperialistic  Governments  ac- 
cept peace  on  the  conditions  which  the  Soviet 
Government  has  formulated  more  than  once. 
If,  however,  the  opposition  of  the  imperialistic 


April  3,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[329 


Governments  should  compel  Soviet  Russia  to 
change  her  defensive  war  into  a  military  offen- 
sive, either  against  the  West  or  the  East,  an 
appeal  would  be  addressed  to  the  workers  in 
the  other  countries  not  to  offer  resistance  to 
the  Soviet  armies,  but  to  expel  their  own  bour- 
geois Governments  and  proclaim  the  Soviet 
Republic. 

Against  this  resolution  the  great  David 
Wijnkoop  raised  a  warning  voice,  because 
it  would  play  into  the  hands  of  the  reac- 
tionary Governments.  "It  is  perfectly 
true,"  he  said,  "and  it  may  safely  be 
admitted  in  this  meeting,  but  if  the  bour- 
geoisie should  come  to  know  of  these 
plans,  it  would  exploit  them  against  us 
and  accuse  us  of  reckoning  on  an  invasion 
of  the  Soviet  armies  and  of  intending  to 
aid  them.  I  should  like  to  know  what 
Mr.  Rutgers"  (who  represented  the 
Soviet  Government)  "has  got  to  say  on 
this  point." 

Mr.  Rutgers  agreed  with  David  Wijn- 
koop that  the  resolution  of  com- 
rades Murphy  and  Frayna  was  untimely. 
"The  situation,"  he  said,  "is  such  that 
months  may  yet  pass  before  the  Soviet 
troops  can  begin  an  offensive  outside  Rus- 
sia. The  Soviet  Government,  I  think, 
would  hardly  be  pleased  with  the  passing 
of  this  resolution."  The  opinion  of  Rut- 
gers, the  spokesman  of  Lenin,  finished 
the  matter;  the  resolution  was  imme- 
diately withdrawn,  so  that  the  bour- 
geoisie of  the  imperialistic  countries 
might  be  kept  hoodwinked  a  little  longer. 

The  disclosures  of  the  Handelsblad 
form  a  telling  comment  on  the  recent 
statement  of  Maxim  Litvinov,  the  Soviet 
plenipotentiary  at  Copenhagen,  as  to 
Moscow's  foreign  policy:  "We  respect 
the  right  of  every  country  to  dispose 
freely  of  its  own  affairs,  and  will  not 
interfere  in  the  interior  politics  of  other 
nations."  What  business  has  a  Govern- 
ment so  little  meddlesome  to  establish 
Executive  Bureaus  and  sub-bureaus  in 
Holland,  Spain,  Mexico,  the  United 
States,  East  Asia?  Are  strikes  no  inter- 
nal affairs,  and  is  their  financing  with 
the  loot  of  the  Soviets  no  interference  in 
the  interior  politics  of  other  nations? 
And  how  does  comrade  Litvinov  reconcile 
his  promise  of  non-interference  in  the 
domestic  affairs  of  other  nations  with  the 
conviction  of  the  secret  conference  that 
"a  revolutionary  action  of  labor  for 
forcing  international  capitalism  to  make 
peace  with  Russia  is  a  necessary  condi- 
tion for  the  salvation  of  Russia  and  the 
maturing  of  the  world  revolution?"  The 
answer  to  these  questions  is  perfectly 
simple:  it  is  not  the  Soviet  Government 
which  will  be  responsible  for  the  uni- 
versal upheaval,  henceforth  the  Third 
Internationale,  honestly  international- 
ized, will  do  the  dirty  work,  thereby 
allowing  the  official  spokesmen  of 
Russia  to  profess  the  Soviet  Govern- 
ment's "respect  for  the  right  of  every 
country  to  dispose  freely  of  its  own 
affairs."  A.  J.  Barnouw 


Correspondence 

The  Adriatic  Problem 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

In  your  editorial  on  the  Fiume  prob- 
lem in  the  Review  for  February  28  you 
state  that  "a  strict  application  of  the 
principle  of  racial  self-determination 
would  have  allotted  to  Italy  all  the  East- 
ern ports  and  islands  of  the  Adriatic." 
Racial  self-determination  is  a  rather 
vague  expression,  but  on  any  interpreta- 
tion your  statement  seems  wide  of  the 
truth.  That  the  Italian  race  is  either 
wholly  absent  from,  or  constitutes  but 
a  negligible  fraction  of,  the  population 
in  the  Eastern  ports  and  islands  of  the 
Adriatic,  save  only  the  ports  of  Fiume 
and  Zara  and  the  Lussin-Cherso  island 
groups,  is  frankly  recognized  by  Italian 
as  well  as  other  authorities.  The  beau- 
tiful ethnographic  map  by  Olinto 
Marinelli,  the  foremost  living  Italian 
geographer,  published  in  the  Geographi- 
cal Review  during  the  war,  and  the 
ethnico-linguistic  maps  by  the  Agostini 
Geographical  Institute,  which  greatly 
exaggerate  the  Italian  areas,  agree  in 
showing  that  the  east  side  of  the  Adriatic 
is  overwhelmingly  Jugoslav.  When  Presi- 
dent Wilson  enunciated  the  principle  of 
self-determination,  all  Italy  protested 
through  the  press  and  through  her  offi- 
cial spokesman  that  this  principle  could 
not  be  applied  to  the  settlement  of  Italy's 
frontier  problems.  The  Jugoslav  repre- 
sentatives agreed  to  a  settlement  of  the 
whole  issue  by  plebiscite  because  they 
were  confident  that  not  one  port  or 
island  would  vote  for  Italian  rule. 

Equally  surprising  is  the  assertion 
that  "paradoxically,  the  Pact  of  London 
was  more  nearly  in  accord  with  the  Four- 
teen Points  than  any  subsequent  pro- 
posal has  been."  Since  the  subsequent 
proposals  have  eliminated  from  Italian 
control  over  200,000  Jugoslavs  and  only 
14,000  Italians  in  Dalmatia,  and  over 
100,000  Jugoslavs  and  only  4,000  Italians 
in  the  region  at  the  head  of  the  Adriatic, 
and  have  at  the  same  time  added  only 
10,000  Germans  and  Jugoslavs  with  less 
than  100  Italians  in  the  Sexten  Valley  and 
Tarvis  regions;  and  since,  furthermore, 
they  increase  the  security  of  Jugoslavia's 
access  to  the  sea  by  removing  Italian 
territory  farther  from  Fiume,  it  is  easily 
seen  that  they  bring  the  settlement  more 
closely  into  accord  with  such  of  the  Four- 
teen Points  as  are  applicable  to  the  Adri- 
atic problem. 

You  add  that  the  Treaty  of  London 
"gave  Italy  virtually  all  of  the  Italian- 
speaking  littoral."  It  would  be  more 
accurate  to  say  that  it  gave  to  Italy  all 
the  economically  and  strategically  most 
important  Slavic-speaking  littoral.  It  is 
frankly  admitted  by  Italy  and  her  allies 
that  the  Treaty  of  London  was  designed 


for  strategic  ends  in-so-far  as  its  Adriatic 
terms  are  concerned.  And  while  many 
Jugoslavs  do  speak  Italian,  none  of 
the  parties  to  the  Treaty  denies  that 
the  Slavic-speaking  population  forms  an 
overwhelming  majority  in  the  disputed 
areas.  The  Austrian  census  figures  are 
based  on  language,  and  favor  the  Italian 
case,  since  many  Jugoslavs  give  Italian 
as  their  language  for  business,  political, 
cultural,  and  other  reasons,  while  an 
Italian  seldom  if  ever  gives  Slavic  as 
his  language.  Yet  the  language  statistics 
show  less  than  20,000  persons  speaking 
Italian  as  their  ordinary  language  and 
nearly  400,000  speaking  the  Slavic  tongue 
in  that  part  of  the  lands  assigned  to  Italy 
by  the  "Treaty  of  London  which  the  Presi- 
dent refuses  to  turn  over  to  Italian  sov- 
ereignty. 

It  is  not  my  intention  to  go  into  ques- 
tions where  there  is  some  possible 
ground  for  a  reasonable  difference  of 
opinion,  nor  even  into  the  oft-repeated 
assertion  that  Fiume  is  "an  Italian  city," 
although  I  think  careful  study  will  make 
clear  to  any  fair-minded  man  the  facts 
that  the  so-called  Italian  "majority"  in 
Fiume  is  a  little  less  than  half  the  total 
population  of  the  city,  that  it  includes 
many  Italian-speaking  Jugoslavs  who  have 
no  Italian  blood  in  their  veins,  that  it 
also  includes  several  thousand  citizens 
of  Italy  who  never  gave  up  their  Italian 
citizenship,  and  that  a  very  considerable 
proportion  of  the  total  Italian  popula- 
tion, as  well  as  the  large  Slavic  and 
mixed  population,  is  vigorously  opposed 
to  Italian  sovereignty  on  the  very  sub- 
stantial ground  that  it  would  mean  the 
economic  ruin  of  the  port.  But  the  spe- 
cially staged  "self-determination"  of 
Fiume  has  obscured  the  real  situation  to 
many,  and  put  the  question  in  the  realm 
of  the  debatable,  where  I  am  content  to 
leave  it.  Square  Deal 

New  York,  March  15 

[Our  correspondent  justly  calls  atten- 
tion to  certain  overstatements.  His  own 
figures,  however,  show  that  the  mingling 
of  races  is  such  that  no  strict  applica- 
tion of  the  principle  of  self-determination 
is  possible.  No  mere  reckoning  of  human 
debits  and  credits — Slavs  assigned  to 
Italy,  and  vice-versa,  at  all  meets  the 
case.  We  repeat  the  gist  of  our  com- 
ment:— a  commercial  outlet  should  be 
assured  to  Jugoslavia ;  otherwise  the  pre- 
sumptions are  in  favor  of  Italy,  because 
of  her  sacrifices  in  the  war,  because  of 
the  necessity  of  securing  her  active  ad- 
herence to  the  League,  and  because  of 
her  established  cultural  position  and  pros- 
pects. When  disposing  of  an  almost  un- 
developed region,  statistics  of  the  scanty 
population  have  secondary  meaning. 
What  counts  greatly  is  the  capacity 
of  the  claimants  for  developing  and 
eventually  peopling  the  territory.— Eds. 
The  Review.] 


330] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  47 


"Keep  Your  Eye  on  Paisley" 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review  : 

Herbert  H.  Asquith's  return  to  the 
House  of  Commons  as  member  for  the 
Scottish  constituency  of  Paisley  is  not 
without  much  significance.  "Keep  your 
eye  on  Paisley,"  has  been  the  maxim  of 
political  leaders  in  the  old  country  for  a 
long  time.  The  town  has  historic  in- 
dustrial, and  intellectual  traditions  of  a 
peculiar  kind.  Asquith's  constituency 
for  nearly  thirty  years  was  the  East  Fife 
burghs,  including  St.  Andrews,  with  its 
ancient  university.  The  Fifeshire  man, 
known  as  the  "Fifer,"  is  of  the  most 
"pawky"  of  canny  Scots,  and  when  Glad- 
stone recommended  the  cultured  young 
Yorkshireman  from  his  own  university 
of  Oxford  to  the  East  Fife  electors  as 
a  suitable  candidate,  he  made  an  excellent 
choice.  Both  Gladstone  and  Asquith 
have  combined  in  their  characters  the 
industrial  instinct  of  the  North  Country 
man  with  the  intellectual  culture  of  their 
Southland  university.  Indeed,  it  is  as  a 
financier  rather  than  as  a  statesman  that 
Gladstone  may  finally  be  known  to  his- 
tory. Gladstone  himself,  beginning 
political  life  as  member  for  the  Univer- 
sity of  Oxford,  had  finally  to  woo  the 
suffrage  of  a  Scottish  constituency,  that 
of  Midlothian. 

The  higher  "industrial  call,"  as  it  may 
be  termed — that  is,  the  union  of  the  his- 
toric sense  and  of  intellectual  acumen 
with  the  common  sense  of  the  manufac- 
turer and  businessman — is  the  call  of  the 
time  to-day.  The  Paisley  voter  has  a 
long  national  past  behind  him  and  com- 
bines these  qualities.  Two  miles  off,  in 
the  suburb  of  Ellerslie,  the  Scottish 
patriot.  Sir  William  Wallace,  was  born. 
In  its  noble  Abbey,  left  unharmed  in  the 
general  destruction  of  religious  edifices 
at  the  Reformation,  lies  buried  a  Stuart 
queen.  In  this  magnanimity.  Paisley 
wisely  did  not  break  with  the  past.  In  the 
eighteenth  century  it  became  an  indus- 
trial centre,  and  Burns's  Nannie,  readers 
of  "Tam  o'  Shanter"  will  remember,  had 
a  "sark  of  Paisley  ham."  An  intelli- 
gent citizen  of  Paisley,  visiting  the  Vale 
of  Cashmere  over  a  hundred  years  ago, 
made  himself  acquainted  with  the  ex- 
quisite products  of  its  looms,  and 
planted  the  industry  of  "Paisley  shawls" 
in  the  old  burgh.  Another  Paisley  man, 
James  Coats,  discharged  after  Waterloo 
with  a  meagre  private's  pension,  was 
able  to  establish  the  manufacture  of 
thread  at  Paisley  in  a  way  that  made 
the  name  of  Coats  known  all  over  the 
world.  Paisley  has  also  had  a  continu- 
ous literary  tradition.  The  brightest 
lyric  star  after  Bums  was  the  Paisley 
weaver,  Robert  Tannahill,  who  cele- 
brated the  beauties  of  the  Braes  of  Glen- 
nifer.  At  the  close  of  last  century,  when 
the  Marquis  of  Bute  wished  to  establish 


a  Scottish  Review,  it  was  to  a  Paisley 
editor.  Dr.  Metcalfe,  and  to  the  enter- 
prising Paisley  publishing  firm  of 
Gardner  that  he  entrusted  the  work. 
And  this  same  editor  it  was  who  brought 
out  the  revised  edition  of  Jamieson's 
Scottish  Dictionary,  with  supplement. 
Historically,  intellectually,  and  indus- 
trially Asquith  has  thus  again  a  con- 
stituency that  will  be  able  to  appreciate 
him.  The  world  still  does  well  to  "keep 
its  eye  on  Paisley." 

James  Main  Dixon 
San  Francisco,  Calif  omia, 
March  3 

Reducing  the  Human  Cost 
of  Living 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

Is  it  permitted  to  say  a  word  regarding 
Mr.  Colcord's  article  on  "The  Human 
Cost  of  Living"? 

1.  Personally  I  deprecate  the  "sob 
stuff."  Can  we  not  leave  this  style  to  the 
muck-rakers  and  the  journals  of  opinion? 

2.  Why  compare  those  "killed  and 
maimed"  in  industry  with  those  "killed" 
on  the  Union  side  at  Gettysburg?  Un- 
like things  can  not  be  compared.  The 
number  killed  daily  in  industry  in  the 
United  States  is  83.  The  number  killed 
on  the  Union  side  in  the  three  days' 
battle  of  Gettysburg  was  3,072,  or  an 
average  of  1,024  per  day.  The  ratio, 
therefore,  is  not  one  to  two  but  one  to 
twelve. 

3.  The  young  lady  in  the  chorus  said 
that  she  had  not  yet  learned  much  in  her 
double-entry  bookkeeping  course  at  the 
business  college  but  that  she  had  found 
out  that  when  you  put  something  down 
on  one  page  you  put  something  down  on 
the  opposite  page  to  contradict  it.  How 
then  shall  we  make  our  ledger  entries? 
If  we  put  on  the  one  page  the  25,000 
killed  annually  in  industry,  what  shall 
be  put  on  the  other?  The  processes  of 
civilization  are  held  generally  to  have 
substantially  added  to  the  average  of 
human  life,  and,  whereas,  say  a  century 
ago,  the  average  length  of  life  was  ap- 
proximately 32.22  years,  it  is  now  about 
47.60  years.  We  have  a  population  of 
approximately  110,000,000.  These  now 
die  then  at  the  average  of  47.60  years, 
or  2,310,924  annually;  whereas  at  the  old 
rate  the  number  of  deaths  annually  would 
have  been  3,414,028.  We  may  then  con- 
trast the  two  entries,  25,000  lost  and 
1,103,104  saved. 

4.  But  in  and  of  itself  the  daily  indus- 
trial loss  of  83  is  lamentable  and  it  would 
be  serious  indeed  were  we  compelled  to 
adopt  the  writer's  view  that  it  is  doubt- 
ful "if  it  is  humanly  possible  to  do  more 
than  our  great  industrial  corporations 
.  .  .  are  doing  to-day."  Can  not  the 
workers  themselves  do  something?  Be- 
cause   we   have   swept   off   the   statute 


books  "contributory  negligence"  and 
"fellow-employees,"  have  the  things  that 
they  connoted  disappeared? 

Some  years  ago  the  then  Governor  of 
Pennsylvania  in  an  effort  to  build  up  his 
political  machine  called  an  industrial 
conference.  Mr.  Gompers,  in  his  inter- 
esting address,  said  that  most  of  the 
industrial  accidents  occurred  in  the  clos- 
ing hour  of  work,  and  advocated  the 
eight-hour  workday  as  a  remedy.  I  in- 
vestigated the  facts  in  one  of  the  haz- 
ardous industries,  itself  on  an  eight-hour 
basis.  The  facts  were  that  most  of  the 
accidents  occurred  in  the  first  hour  after 
the  noon  interval,  and  were  attributed  to 
the  use  of  intoxicants  by  the  workers 
during  that  interval.  Voluntary  reform 
or  reform  compulsory  under  prohibition 
may  be  a  substantial  remedy. 

The  railroad  representatives  at  this 
conference  called  attention  to  fatal  acci- 
dents on  railroads  (5,084  to  trespassers 
and  2,031  to  passengers  and  to  employees 
in  1915)  and  advocated  legislation  to  in- 
sure the  prevention  of  trespassing.  This 
was  strenuously  opposed  by  the  leaders 
of  organized  labor,  and  the  explanation 
passed  around  was  that  they  were  afraid 
that  in  the  case  of  a  strike  the  law  might 
be  used  to  prevent  their  easy  access  to 
railroad  property,  provided  they  wished 
to  interfere  with  workers.  It  may  be 
that  the  employer,  alive  to  his  responsi- 
bilities, has  done  all  that  he  is  able,  but 
I  think  it  likely  that  something  remains 
to  be  done  by  the  workmen  through 
greater  carefulness,  more  sober  and  re- 
sponsible habits,  and  the  selection  of 
wiser  leadership;  and  by  the  State 
through  intelligent  and  courageous  legis- 
lation. 

5.  From  a  bulletin  recently  received  I 
abstract  the  following: 

In  Pennsylvania  there  was  reported  in  1919 
a  total  of  484  strikes,  involving  171,630  wage 
earners,  who  lost  in  the  aggregate  500,000 
working  days.  The  total  strike  loss  is  esti- 
mated at  $14,000,000. 

In  Pennsylvania  the  record  of  disabling  acci- 
dents in  industry  for  1919  showed  152,544 
cases,  involving  a  wage  loss  of  about  $8,750,- 
000. 

The  abolition  of  strikes  would  mean  as 
much  or  more  savmg  for  industry  in  general 
as  would  the  complete  prevention  of  acci- 
dents.* 

It  may  well  be  that  we  should  feel  that 
the  contrast  as  made  is  unsympathetic 
and  gives  but  scant  value  to  the  human 
element,  but  on  the  other  hand  the  strike 
loss  is  not  fully  indicated  by  the  wage 
loss.    There  is  always  the  suffering  and 


♦Reference  is  made  to  Bulletin  No.  157  of 
the  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics,  U.  S.  Depart- 
ment of  Labor,  and  to  the  articles  "On  the 
Improvement  in  Longevity  during  the  19th 
Century  in  the  Netherlands,"  by  Pereira  and 
Landre,  and  "On  the  Improvement  in  Longev- 
ity in  the  United  States  during  the  19th  Cen- 
tury," by  John  K.  Gore,  published  in  Volume 
I  of  the  Proceedings  of  the  Fourth  Interna- 
tional Congress  of  Actuaries. 


April  3,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[331 


the  want,  disease  and  death,  the  reduc- 
tion to  poverty  and  semi-starvation  of 
thousands  of  workers,  the  dislocation  of 
business  enterprises,  the  dispersion  of 
orders  to  other  communities  and  other 
countries — consequences  that  may  endure 
long  after  the  strike  is  over. 

L.  F.  LOREE 
New  York,  March  8 

Religious  Liberty 

To  the  Editors  of  THE  Review: 

I  note  with  interest  the  proposal  of 
Mr.  Cyrus  H.  Eshleman,  in  your  issue 
of  February  28,  that  the  Government 
should  "supervise  and  regulate"  religion. 
It  is  not  a  novelty,  however.  Cujus  regio 
ejus  religio  was  a  sixteenth  century 
maxim  which  can  be  applied  under  demo- 
cratic control  as  well  as  under  personal 
rule;  and  the  policy  of  the  dominant  fac- 
tion in  "Red"  Russia  appears  to  be  quite 
on  that  line.  The  French  Revolutionists 
of  the  Terror  tried  it,  too,  with  what 
success  we  know.  But  I  fail  to  see  why 
the  proposed  revival  of  secular  tyranny 
over  spiritual  matters  should  be  thought 
either  "liberal,"  "rational,"  or  "progres- 
sive." Such  use  of  undefined  terms 
darkens  counsel,  even  though  it  is  too 
often  characteristic  of  "modern  thinkers." 
Mr.  Eshleman  forgets  that  historic 
Christianity  is  based  upon  a  historic 
fact :  the  life  of  Jesus  Christ.  Christians 
believe  that  Jesus  Christ  is  God  made 
Man,  a  living  Revelation  of  the  invisible 
Father.  Catholic  Christians  believe  that 
He  established  a  Divine  Society,  His 
Church,  which  shall  endure,  essentially 
unaltered,  so  long  as  the  world  stands. 
They  believe  that  they  already  know  the 
Truth,  and  are  made  free  by  that  knowl- 
edge; and  they  respectfully  decline  Gov- 
ernment regulation  of  their  belief  and 
worship,  or  membership  in  a  state-con- 
trolled religious  Trust.  Even  non-Chris- 
tians will  acknowledge  that  if  men  are 
convinced  of  the  divine  authority  of  a 
teacher,  they  can  not  make  better  use  of 
their  reason  than  by  obeying  him. 

Mr.  Eshleman  is  wrong  when  he  de- 
clares that  Orthodox  believers   worship 
the  Bible  or  the  Church.    Whether  Protes- 
tant or  Catholic,  they  worship  Jesus  as 
I  their  Lord  and  God,  their  living  Head. 
iAnd  when  it  is  proposed  to  "substitute 
progress  for  the  idea  of  finality,"  Mr. 
Eshleman  must  tell  us  what  he  means  by 
•  progress,  and  towards  what  goal.     It  is 
[possible  to  go  ahead  until  one  is  hope- 
llessly  bogged,  if  one  does  not  know  the 
way  or  its  end. 

This  is  no  place  to  debate  the  issues 
j  between  Christianity  and  secular  sys- 
Items  of  thought;  but,  to  speak  a  word 
for  religious  liberty,  in  view  of  an  appar- 
ent threat,  may  perhaps  be  allowed.  And 
it  is  significant  that  the  advocate  of  state 
control  of  religion  should  be  not  an  eccle- 
siastic, but  a  professed  liberal  and  ra- 


tionalist,   supposedly    animated    by    the 
modern  spirit. 

William  Harman  van  Allen 
Boston,  March  2 

The   Hazard.s   of   Book 
Reviewing 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

In  the  first  sentence  of  the  review  of 
"The  Flow  of  Value"  in  the  Review  of 
March  20,  my  style  receives  wholesale 
condemnation  supported  by  the  quotation 
of  what  probably  is  the  most  abstruse 
sentence  in  the  entire  book.  That  sen- 
tence is  the  culmination  of  an  elaborate 
line  of  reasoning.  Unless  the  reader  has 
been  led  up  to  that  sentence  not  only 
will  he  find  it  "tedious,"  and  "not  to  be 
read  without  effort,"  but  he  will  find  it 
utterly  incomprehensible,  without  mean- 
ing at  all.  A  man  once  said  to  me  that 
Herbert  Spencer's  definition  of  Evoluti6n 
was  clear  as  crystal  to  the  man  who  fol- 
lowed the  exposition  which  culminated  in 
that  definition,  but  that  if  a  negro  min- 
strel were  to  take  that  definition  alone 
and  rattle  it  off  in  a  vaudeville  mono- 
logue it  would  bring  a  laugh  from  the 
entire  audience.  I  hope  the  analogy  is 
apparent.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  no 
comparison  is  instituted  between  Herbert 
Spencer  and  myself. 

Ninety-nine  persons  out  of  a  hundred 
after  reading  that  first  paragraph  not 
only  would  not  read  the  book,  but  would 
not  read  the  remainder  of  the  review.  To 
the  mind  of  "a  general  reader"  it  would 
kill  the  book. 

Logan  G.  McPherson 
New  York,  March  22 

[We  feel  that  the  opening  paragraph 
of  the  review  was  likely  to  do  Mr.  Mc- 
Pherson's  book  the  injustice  of  which  he 
complains,  though  it  was  certainly  not 
the  intention  of  the  reviewer  to  convey 
the  impression  that  the  sentence  he 
quoted  was  typical.  Had  the  remark 
been  made  anywhere  but  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  review,  its  occurrence  would, 
whether  too  severe  as  to  the  particular 
point  or  not,  have  been  just  one  of  the 
ordinary  incidents  of  the  hazardous 
trade  of  reviewing.  As  it  is,  we  are 
glad  to  offset  any  wrong  it  may  have 
done  by  pointing  out  that  in  the  very 
next  paragraph  of  the  review  the  au- 
thor's method  of  opening  up  his  subject 
is  commended  as  "one  of  the  best  ways 
to  present  it  to  those  who  are  beginning 
to  think  economically";  that  from  this 
point  on  throughout  the  article,  the  work 
is  commended  for  the  straightforward- 
ness and  adequacy  of  its  exposition;  and 
that  the  closing  paragraph  of  the  review 
refers  to  the  "clearness"  with  which  the 
book  develops  its  main  thesis,  the  "vig- 
orous enforcement"  of  which  is  declared 
to  be  a  "real  service." — Eds.  The 
Review.] 


Protection  for  Investors 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review  : 

Senator  Kenyon  has  introduced  a  bill, 
Senate  No.  3702,  which  proposes  Federal 
action  to  protect  the  investor  against 
fraudulent  stock  promotions.  Such  leg- 
islation was  urged  by  the  Capital  Issues 
Committee  during  the  war,  and  by  Presi- 
dent Wilson  in  a  recent  message.  The 
bill  requires  any  corporation  engaged  in 
interstate  commerce  to  give  publicity  to 
pertinent  financial  facts  regarding  new 
securities  which  it  offers  investors. 
Such  information  is  to  be  filed  with  the 
local  United  States  postmaster  for  public 
inspection,  and  also  with  the  Federal 
Trade  Commission  at  Washington,  and, 
in  addition  to  general  facts  regarding 
the  corporation  and  its  officers,  and  the 
latest  balance  sheet  of  the  corporation, 
it  must  include  a  statement  as  to  the 
purposes  to  which  the  proceeds  of  the 
new  securities  are  to  be  devoted,  and  the 
terms  of  the  flotation,  including  expenses 
and  the  names  of  the  underwriters  and 
others  concerned  with  the  original  sale. 
A  copy  of  this  statement  of  information 
is  to  be  attached  to  every  bond  and 
original  certificate  of  stock  and  receipt 
for  subscription.  False  statements  are 
punishable  as  perjury  and  the  United 
States  District  Attorney  is  made  respon- 
sible for  enforcement.  Purchasers  of 
original  securities  regarding  which  mis- 
statements are  made  may  recover  by  suit 
twice  the  amount  of  the  purchase  price, 
but  the  suit  must  be  brought  within  a 
year  of  the  time  of  purchase.  The  pre- 
cise form  which  this  statement  should 
take  is  a  matter  on  which  expert  opinion 
will  differ,  but  the  requirement  of  such 
a  statement  regarding  new  issues  seems 
a  sound  public  policy. 

Still  further  control  is  effected  through 
the  public  post  office  by  the  proposed  en- 
actment that  the  mailing  of  any  original 
securities  for  which  the  required  state- 
ment has  not  been  filed  or  the  mailing  of 
any  required  statement  regarding  securi- 
ties known  to  be  false  shall  be  a  punish- 
able offense. 

The  details  of  the  Kenyon  bill  should 
of  course  be  scrutinized  carefully  by 
those  concerned  technically  with  the  pro- 
motion of  securities,  for  such  legislation, 
to  be  effective,  must  be  workable.  Their 
judgment  may,  however,  be  supplemented 
by  that  of  disinterested  laymen  who  see 
not  only  the  great  loss  every  year 
through  fraudulent  securities,  but  also 
the  still  greater  check  excited  by  such 
fraudulent  activities  on  the  growth  of  a 
habit  of  thrift.  To  one  judging  the  situ- 
ation from  this  point  of  view  the  Ken- 
yon bill  offers  hope  of  a  legitimate 
method  of  control,  and  the  undersigned 
urges  that  Senator  Kenyon's  bill  receive 
widespread  consideration. 

Benjamin  R.  Andrews 
New  York,  March  16 


332] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  47 


Religious  Revival 
Old  and  New 

IN  the  financial  columns  of  a  New  York 
evening  newspaper  there  appeared  re- 
cently a  cable  dispatch  from  its  London 
correspondent  which  declared  that  there 
was  a  growing  feeling  among  "hard- 
headed  business  men"  that  the  best  hope 
of  checking  the  Bolshevist  spirit  lay  in 
"a  genuine  religious  revival." 

That,  on  the  face  of  it,  seems  rather  a 
remarkable  statement,  coming  from  such 
a  source.  When  one  speaks  of  a  religious 
revival  one  thinks  instinctively  of  the 
Billy  Sunday  type  of  evangelism  or  of 
the  old-fashioned  emotional  revivals  led 
by  some  prominent  evangelist  who  made 
a  swing  around  the  circle,  rousing  men 
and  women  to  confess  their  sins  and  join 
the  church. 

It  is  hardly  possible  to  overrate  the 
influence  in  shaping  the  character  of  the 
American  people  that  such  periodic  re- 
vivals exercised.  They  have  become  an 
intimate  part  of  American  history,  and 
no  account  of  the  development  of  Ameri- 
can character  and  institutions  can  ignore 
them.  But  clearly  this  is  not  the  type  of 
revival  that  one  would  expect  to  appeal 
to  "the  hard-headed  business  man"  as  a 
probable  cure  for  Bolshevism.  What  he 
doubtless  had  in  mind  was  a  general 
quickening  of  the  spiritual  life  of  the 
country  through  a  more  acute  realization 
of  the  truths  of  Christianity,  an  empha- 
sis on  the  spiritual  as  opposed  to  the  ma- 
terial things  of  life. 

In  point  of  fact,  it  may  fairly  be  as- 
serted that  in  America  this  kind  of  re- 
vival is  already  under  way,  and  there  are 
signs  that  it  is  spreading,  by  way  of  the 
great  Dominions,  Canada  and  Australia, 
to  the  British  Isles.  The  man  in  the  street 
may  feel  inclined  to  grumble  at  the  fre- 
quency with  which  he  is  invited  to  pull 
out  his  pocketbook ;  occasional  doubt  may 
even  be  expressed  as  to  the  administra- 
tive economy  of  some  of  these  appeals  to 
the  charitable  public;  but  it  is  a  rather 
remarkable  tribute  to  the  spiritual  em- 
phasis of  these  drives  that  it  does  not 
seem  to  have  occurred  to  any  one  to  cast 
serious  doubts  on  the  fundamental  worth 
of  the  objects  involved. 

No  doubts  are,  of  course,  possible.  Al- 
most without  exception  the  drives  have 
been  in  aid  of  some  eleemosynary,  educa- 
tional, or  religious  cause  of  unquestioned 
standing.  They  have  come  at  a  time 
when  the  country  is  rolling  in  wealth, 
and  there  can  hardly  be  a  doubt  that  the 
spiritual  blood-letting,  if  one  may  call  it 
that,  which  they  have  accomplished  has 
been  an  uncommonly  good  thing  for  the 
community. 

This,  then,  is  the  new  type  of  revival, 
displaying  itself,  broadly  speaking,  in 
appeals  to  the  public  to  concern  them- 
selves with  the  things  of  the  spirit  in 


the  most  practical  and  effective  manner 
possible  by  providing  money  for  their 
support.  More  specifically,  of  course,  the 
term  revival  is  particularly  applicable  to 
those  appeals  which  have  a  definitely  reli- 
gious end  in  view.  Started  by  a  small 
denomination,  the  Disciples  of  Christ, 
which  in  1918  "went  over  the  top,"  as 
the  jargon  of  the  "drive"  has  it,  with  a 
total  subscription  of  $6,500,000,  the 
fashion  of  these  intensive  campaigns  has 
been  adopted  by  one  denomination  after 
another.  The  most  conspicuous  ex- 
ample so  far  is,  of  course,  the  Centen- 
ary Movement  of  the  two  branches. 
North  and  South,  of  the  Methodist  Epis- 
copal Church,  which  subscribed  the  mag- 
nificent total  of  $168,000,000. 

Now  the  ambitious  programme  of  the 
Centenary  is  to  be  eclipsed  by  the  Inter- 
church  World  Movement  of  North  Amer- 
ica, with  an  appeal  to  the  Protestant  con- 
stituency of  the  country  for  a  sum  of  no 
less  than  $336,000,000,  the  intensive  cam- 
paign by  which  this  enermous  sum  is 
to  be  raised  being  scheduled  to  take  place 
during  the  one  week,  April  25  to  May  2. 
As  a  matter  of  fact  the  total  is  not  quite 
so  staggering  as  it  sounds,  for  whereas 
the  Centenary  Movement,  which  was 
able  to  raise  $168,000,000,  represented 
only  two  denominations,  the  Interchurch 
World  Movement  represents  thirty  with 
members  and  adherents  numbering  some 
30,000,000.  Indeed,  one  compelling  cause 
for  the  Movement's  coming  into  exist- 
ence was  the  clearly  seen  necessity  for 
some  kind  of  coordination  among  the 
various  Protestant  churches  of  the  coun- 
try in  making  their  appeals  for  public 
support.  The  various  Protestant  denom- 
inations have  profited  so  well  by  the  les- 
sons taught  them  by  the  Disciples  of 
Christ  and  the  Methodists  that  at  the 
present  time  there  are  completed,  under 
way,  or  in  immediate  contemplation  more 
than  thirty  different  denominational  "for- 
ward movements,"  all  appealing  to  their 
several  constituencies  for  various  sums 
which  amount  in  the  aggregate,  for  the 
five  years  which  most  of  the  forward 
movements  adopt  as  the  period  of  their 
programme,  to  considerably  more  than 
half  a  billion  dollars. 

It  does  not  need  the  assistance  of  an 
efficiency  expert  to  realize  the  inevitable 
economic  waste  and  duplication  of  effort 
involved  in  conducting  all  these  separate 
"drives,"  not  to  speak  of  the  almost  cer- 
tain apathy  or  irritation  that  the  multi- 
plicity of  appeals  would  ultimately  induce 
in  the  general  public.  It  is  obvious  also 
that,  even  if  the  money  was  collected,  in 
the  framing  of  a  number  of  different  pro- 
grammes, each  independent  of  all  the 
others,  the  evils  of  overlapping  and  du- 
plication could  hardly  be  avoided,  and 
consequently  that  the  money  collected 
would  not  be  applied  to  the  missionary 
and  other  benevolent  objects  of  the  va- 
rious churches  in  the  most  economical 


and  effective  manner  possible. 

Both  these  dangers  were  realized  by 
the  churches  in  time,  with  the  result  that 
thirty  denominations  have  agreed  to 
unite  their  forces  in  the  financial  cam- 
paign of  the  Interchurch  World  Move- 
ment, and  to  adjust  their  programmes 
of  expansion  so  as  to  avoid  competition 
one  with  another.  The  denominational 
forward  movements  retain  their  integ- 
rity, just  as  the  various  churches  retain 
their  complete  denominational  autonomy. 
They  will  canvass  their  own  constituen- 
cies for  funds,  and  these  funds  will  be 
applied  to  their  own  treasuries.  At  the 
same  time  a  joint  campaign  committee  in 
each  community,  consisting  of  represen- 
tatives of  all  the  local  churches  partici- 
pating in  the  campaign,  will  make  an 
appeal  to  citizens  who  are  not  identified 
by  membership  with  any  church.  Funds 
derived  from  this  source  and  not  ex- 
pressly given  for  a  particular  denomina- 
tion will  go  to  a  central  treasury  in  care 
of  the  Interchurch  World  Movement,  and 
at  the  end  of  the  financial  year  will  be 
distributed  pro  rata  among  the  partici- 
pating denominations. 

A  study  has  been  made  of  the  exact 
facts  of  the  situation,  and  these  facts 
are  available  to  the  cooperating  denomi- 
nations and  to  any  other  denomination 
that  may  subsequently  decide  to  partici- 
pate in  the  Movement.  The  opinion  of 
the  newspaper  correspondent  quoted  at  f 
the  head  of  this  article  indicates  part  ? 
of  the  opportunity  that  is  given  to 
the  churches,  and  careful  inquiries 
made  among  representative  men  in 
various  walks  of  life  in  this  country 
show  that  that  opinion  is  very  widely 
shared.  There  is  a  deep  and  growing 
conviction  that  our  domestic  problems  are 
going  to  be  solved  only  through  an  in- 
creasing recognition  by  employers  and 
employees  alike  of  the  essentially  Christ- 
ian principle  of  the  brotherhood  of  man.  ( 
Both  capital  and  labor  have  rather  fallen  I 
into  the  habit  of  late  of  assuring  the< 
church  that  here  is  an  unparalleled  oppor- 
tunity to  assert  its  influence — by  which 
they  usually  mean  to  throw  its  weight 
into  the  particular  scale  which  the  ap- 
pellant represents — and  the  church  has 
at  times  appeared  inclined  to  adopt  an 
attitude  of  apology  for  its  inability  to 
assist  matters.  There  is  a  good  deal  of 
evidence  that  church  leaders  in  these 
days  are  inclined  to  take  a  sounder  and 
more  aggressive  view  of  the  church's 
position,  and  their  reply  to  the  vocifera- 
tions of  both  sides  is:  "No,  gentlemen, 
this  is  not  our  opportunity,  it  is  your 
opportunity.  We  are  not  a  species  of  in- 
dustrial expert  to  be  called  in  when  you 
are  in  trouble  to  settle  things  for  you, 
while  you  yourselves  remain  outside  the 
church.  You  come  inside  the  church, 
and  you  will  find  that  you  will  quickly 
settle  things  for  yourselves." 

Stanley  Went 


April  3,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[333 


Book  Reviews 

Three  American  Labor 
Leaders 

Labor  and  the  Common  Welfare.  By  Sam- 
uel Gompcrs.  Edited  by  Hayes  Robbins. 
New  York:  E.  P.  Dutton  and  Company. 

W.  B.  Wilson  and  the  Department  of  Labor. 
By  Roger  W.  Bsbson.  New  York:  Bren- 
tano's. 

Debs  :  His  Authorized  Life  and  Letters. 
From  Woodstock  Prison  to  Atlanta.  By 
David  Karsner.  New  York:  Boni  and 
Liveright. 

IT  is  an  interesting  and  perhaps  signifi- 
cant fact  that  all  three  of  these  notable 
American  labor  leaders  are  of  foreign 
extraction.  Samuel  Gompers  was  bom 
in  London,  in  the  year  1850,  and  came 
to  America  at  the  age  of  thirteen.  Wil- 
liam Bauchop  Wilson  was  born  at  Blan- 
tyre,  near  Glasgow,  in  1862,  and  came  to 
Arnot,  Pennsylvania,  at  the  age  of  eight. 
Eugene  Victor  Debs  is  a  native  of  In- 
diana, but  his  parents,  Jean  Daniel  and 
Marguerite  Bettrich  Debs,  were  French 
Alsatians  from  Colmar.  When  these 
facts  are  noted,  it  is  easy  to  see  the  tena- 
cious pugnacity  of  the  bulldog  breed  in 
Gompers,  the  untiring  industry  of  the 
canny  Scot  in  Wilson,  and  the  fierce  revo- 
lutionary idealism  of  the  French  in  Debs. 

The  most  extraordinary  thing  about 
Samuel  Gomcers  is  the  fact  that  he  has 
held  the  presidency  of  the  American  Fed- 
eration of  Labor  from  1882  until  the 
present  time,  with  the  exception  of  a 
single  year.  His  enemies  say  that  he  is 
a  labor  fakir  and  a  political  boss,  who,  by 
alliance  with  the  big  national  unions,  has 
created  a  machine  which  the  small  fac- 
tions, lacking  leadership  and  the  advan- 
tage of  office,  have  been  unable  to  break ; 
but  Mr.  Gompers,  though  an  astute  poli- 
tician, is  far  more  than  that — he  is  the 
voice  of  organized  labor,  expressing,  as 
no  one  else  has  done,  the  principles  and 
purposes  of  craft  unionism  in  America 
during  the  past  forty  years. 

Perhaps  Mr.  Robbins  in  his  valuable 
compilation  of  addresses  and  editorials 
may  have  selected  those  giving  the  most 
favorable  impression  of  Mr.  Gompers's 
labor  philosophy ;  but,  making  due  allow- 
ance for  the  personal  equation  of  the 
compiler,  it  must  be  admitted  that  Mr. 
Gompers  has  a  record  for  consistency  in 
his  utterances  such  as  few  politicians  of 
any  stripe  can  show.  He  is  so  consistent, 
in  fact,  as  to  incur  suspicion  of  insincer- 
ity in  repeating  the  shibboleths  of 
former  days,  which,  although  they  still 
appeal  to  the  multitude,  must  have  long 
since  lost  much  of  their  meaning  for 
him.  But,  of  course,  no  esoteric  philoso- 
phy of  labor  is  here  revealed. 

Mr.  Gompers  has  been  preaching  the 
gospel  of  trade  unionism  for  nearly 
forty  years  with  great  emphasis  upon  the 


rights  of  labor  and  with  but  slight  men- 
tion of  correlative  duties.  Among  the 
most  sacred  are  the  right  to  organize, 
locally,  nationally,  or  internationally,  as 
may  seem  most  advantageous;  the  right 
to  bargain  collectively  through  represen- 
tatives of  locals  or  nationals,  as  the  la- 
borers may  prefer;  the  right  to  ask  for 
better  and  still  better  wages,  hours,  and 
conditions  of  labor;  the  right  of  a  body 
of  laborers  to  strike,  or  withhold  their 
labor;  the  right  of  laborers  to  boycott  or 
withhold  their  purchasing  power  from 
obnoxious  employers ;  the  right  to  picket, 
to  "peacefully  persuade,"  or  to  use  other 
lawful  means  to  prevent  the  employment 
of  strike  breakers,  or  to  extend  a  boycott. 
For  many  years,  especially  since  the 
passage  of  the  Sherman  Anti-Trust  Act 
of  1890  and  the  Pullman  Strike  of  1894, 
Mr.  Gompers  has  protested  against  the 
use  of  the  injunction  in  labor  disputes, 
and  has  contended  that  labor  is  not  a 
commodity  or  article  of  merchandise; 
until  finally  his  views  were  in  part  incor- 
porated in  the  Clayton  Act  of  1913,  and, 
apparently,  labor  was  absolved  from  the 
sin  of  conspiracy  in  restraint  of  inter- 
State  trade. 

Although  Mr.  Gompers  has  been  an 
antagonist  of  many  individual  capital- 
ists, he  has  been  at  the  same  time  a  de- 
fender of  capitalism  against  those  who 
would  kill  the  cow  that  gives  such  abun- 
dant milk  or  the  goose  that  lays  the 
golden  eggs.  He  condemns  Socialism  as 
"economically  unsound,  socially  wrong, 
and  industrially  impossible."  Nor  is  he 
any  too  friendly  to  "welfare  workers,  so- 
cial uplifters  and  busy-bodies,  intellec- 
tuals and  professional  public  morals  ex- 
perts," who  are  condescendingly  trying 
to  do  for  the  laborers  what  they,  when 
organized,  can  far  more  effectively  do 
for  themselves.  Also,  Mr.  Gompers  has 
stood  out  against  the  creation  of  a  labor 
party,  preferring  the  traditional  method 
of  pledging  candidates  and  manipulating 
the  balance  of  power,  although  quite  re- 
cently he  has  seemed  to  waver  on  this 
point.  Mr.  Gompers  is  nothing  if  not 
self-sufficient,  assuming,  as  the  priest  of 
trade  unionism,  that  organized  labor  can 
do  no  wrong,  and  justifying  its  ways  by 
a  strange  mixture  of  sound  and  specious 
reasoning.  As  for  reproof  and  admoni- 
tion of  his  constituents,  Mr.  Gompers 
does  not  indulge  in  it,  but  takes  them  as 
they  are  for  better  or  worse — and  here 
is  another  reason  for  his  long  tenure  of 
office. 

The  Honorable  William  Bauchop  Wil- 
son, as  presented  by  Mr.  Babson,  is  not 
so  much  an  evangelist  and  bishop  of  the 
labor  church  as  a  sort  of  Dick  Whitting- 
ton,  who  came  to  this  country  a  poor  boy, 
and,  by  virtue  of  his  ability,  honesty,  and 
steadfastness  of  purpose,  became  Inter- 
national Secretary  of  the  United  Mine 
Workers,  then  member  of  Congress,  and, 
finally,  the  first  Secretary  of  Labor  in 


the  United  States.  He  was  a  studious 
boy,  a  "lad  o'  pairts,"  who,  despite  his 
lack  of  schooling  and  his  entering  a  coal 
mine  at  the  age  of  nine  gave  his  spare 
time  to  poetry,  philosophy,  economics, 
and  like  solid  reading,  and  thus  acquired 
a  truly  liberal  education,  which  with  his 
native  qualities  has  made  him  one  of  the 
best  and  sanest  of  American  labor  lead- 
ers. 

It  has  been  Mr.  Wilson's  fortune  to  be 
somewhat  overshadowed  by  more  con- 
spicuous men,  such  as  Samuel  Gompers, 
John  Mitchell,  and  President  Wilson,  but 
for  all  that,  he  stands  high  in  the  regard 
of  all  who  know  him.  He  has  been  criti- 
cised as  biased  in  favor  of  labor,  and  his 
intervention  in  certain  disputes  has  been 
resented  by  many  employers,  yet  he  tries 
to  be  fair  to  all  parties,  according  to  his 
light,  and  the  dissatisfied  should  be 
thankful  that  the  labor  administration, 
especially  during  the  world  war,  was  not 
in  worse  hands.  Certainly,  Mr.  Wilson 
is  something  more  than  a  labor  advocate, 
and  his  utterances  on  economic  questions 
bear  the  marks  of  keen  analysis  and 
sound  judgment  worthy  of  a  countryman 
of  Adam  Smith  and  James  Mill.  He  is 
especially  strong  in  his  defense  of  col- 
lective bargaining,  as  opposed  to  the  rev- 
olutionary views  and  proposals  of  the 
Socialists,  who,  after  his  examination  of 
the  alleged  right  to  the  whole  product 
of  labor,  have  scarcely  a  leg  to  stand 
upon. 

Mr.  Babson  very  properly  combines 
with  his  biography  of  Mr.  Wilson  a  brief 
history  of  the  Department  of  Labor  and 
of  the  bureaus  which  preceded  it,  which, 
while  substantially  accurate,  is  far  from 
complete  or  final.  Oddly  enough,  the 
brilliant  and  versatile  Roger  Babson  ap- 
pears in  the  foreground  with  occasional 
references  to  business  barometers,  the 
"law"  of  equal  and  opposite  reaction,  the 
Babson  Composite  Plot,  and  a  chapter 
on  business  cycles,  and  he  poses  in  two 
pictures  of  buildings  connected  with  the 
early  life  of  Secretary  Wilson.  It  is  a 
little  hard,  therefore,  to  tell  where  Bab- 
son begins  and  Wilson  leaves  off,  for  the 
biographer  has  not  been  quite  able  to 
play  the  part  of  Boswell  to  his  Johnson. 

David  Karsner,  a  true  hero  worship- 
per, has  done  better  by  Eugene  Victor 
Debs,  and  has  made  a  loving  portrait, 
which,  although  idealized  in  many  re- 
spects, is  far  from  imaginary  and  is  al- 
most a  work  of  art.  The  ordinary  reader 
who  knows  of  Debs  as  a  flaming  revolu- 
tionist, four  times  candidate  for  the 
Presidency  on  the  Socialist  ticket,  one  of 
the  founders  of  the  I.  W.  W.,  and  the 
comrade  of  "undesirable  citizens"  like 
Bill  Haywood,  will  be  surprised  to  find 
that  Debs  has  neither  hoofs  nor  horns, 
but  is  a  simple-minded,  affectionate, 
neighborly  Hoosier  poet,  a  sentimentalist 
and  fanatic,  no  doubt,  but  a  hail-fellow- 
well-met  whether  in  a  country  store,  a 


834] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  47 


tavern,  a  socialist  meeting,  or  a  peniten- 
tiarj-.  Debs  was  a  great  friend  of  Robert 
Ingersoll,  James  Whitcomb  Riley,  Eugene 
Field,  and  other  literary  men,  all  of  whom 
have  testified  to  his  fine  qualities  of 
mind  and  heart.  Mr.  James  Lyons, 
Mayor  of  Terre  Haute,  Mr.  Debs'  birth- 
place and  home,  said  of  him  in  1907: 

While  the  overwhelming  majority  of  the 
people  here  are  opposed  to  the  social  and  eco- 
nomic theories  of  Mr.  Debs,  there  is  not  per- 
haps a  single  man  in  this  city  who  enjoys  to 
a  greater  degree  than  Mr.  Debs  the  affection, 
love,  and  profound  respect  of  the  entire  com- 
munity. He  numbers  his  friends  and  asso- 
ciates among  all  classes,  rich  and  poor,  and 
some  of  the  richest  men  here,  people  who  by 
very  instinct  are  bitter  against  Socialism,  are 
warm  personal  friends  of  Mr.  Debs. 

If  all  this  be  true,  why  is  Eugene  Debs 
in  jail?    He  was  sentenced  to  ten  years 
in    the    penitentiary  on  September  14, 
1918,  by  a  United  States  Court  in  Cleve- 
land, Ohio,  for  violation  of  the  Espionage 
Law  in  a  speech  before  the  Ohio  State 
Socialist  Convention  at  Canton  on  June 
16  of  the  same  year.    In  this  speech  Mr. 
Debs    characterized    the    entry    of    the 
United  States  into  the  war  as  the  work  of 
"Wall  Street  Junkers,"  condemned  patri- 
otism as  "the  last  refuge  of  scoundrels," 
scarified  Samuel  Gompers  as  a  friend  of 
the  capitalist  class,  praised  the  I.  W.  W., 
glorified    the    Bolsheviki    as    "the    very 
breath   of  democracy  and   the  quintes- 
sence of  freedom,"  and  made  many  other 
intemperate  and  insane  remarks,  all  of 
which  he  proudly  admitted  before  the 
court,    without    apology    or    retraction. 
Naturally,   the   court   had   to   find   him 
guilty  of  "attempting  to  cause  and  incite 
insubordination,  disloyalty,  mutiny,  and 
refusal  of  duty  in  the  military  and  naval 
forces  of  the  United  States,"  and  on  sev- 
eral other  counts  as  well,  and  the  sen- 
tence was  later  confirmed  by  the  United 
States  Supreme  Court.     Now,  Mr.  Debs 
is  in  Atlanta  prison,  recalcitrant  as  ever 
and  refusing  even  to  ask  for  freedom  lest 
such   action   should   be   construed   as   a 
withdrawal  of  his  words  and  an  admis- 
sion of  wrong-doing. 

Eugene  Debs  glories  in  martyrdom, 
arouses  sympathy  among  friends  and 
enemies,  and  will  probably  make  con- 
verts to  Socialism  from  his  prison  cell; 
just  as  he  made  them  on  a  free  platform 
and  by  the  articles  that  he  was  continu- 
ally writing  for  the  socialist  press. 
In  fact,  unrestrained  and  morbid  elo- 
quence such  as  his,  is  just  now  at  a 
discount,  when  even  people  of  radical 
views  realize  that  something  more  is 
needed  for  the  healing  of  the  world  than 
maudlin  sentimentality.  Berserker  rage, 
the  revolutionary  fervor  of  a  paranoiac, 
or  the  frenzy  of  a  whirling  dervish — all 
forces  of  destruction,  which,  if  given  free 
rein,  might  easily  ruin  the  whole  fabric 
of  civilization. 

J.  E.  Le  Rossignol 


Reality  and  Antidote 

The  Inscrutable  Lovers.  By  Alexander  Mac- 
Farlan.  New  York:  Dodd,  Mead  and 
Company. 

Legend.  By  Clemence  Dane.  New  York :  The 
Macmiilan   Company. 

1  RECALL  "Mockery"  as  a  somewhat 
disconcerting  and  ill-balanced  piece 
of  ironic  comedy  with  a  fresh  accent.  It 
was  a  new  voice  speaking,  whether  one 
liked  it  or  not,  which  is  the  one  thing  a 
reviewer  of  contemporary  fiction  most 
yearns  for.  Here  now  was  another 
young  comer,  an  Alexander  MacFarlan 
to  be  by  a  few  ears,  at  least,  listened  for : 
"The  Inscrutable  Lovers"  is  their  suffi- 
cient reward.  It  is  a  comedy  of  simpler 
and  firmer  texture  than  its  predecessor. 
It  has  not  only  brilliancy  but  a  delicate 
completeness  comparable  to  (not  like) 
that  of  Mr.  Hewlett's  earlier  bits  of  ro- 
mantic comedy.  It  is  based  upon  a  para- 
dox more  than  once  announced  of  late, 
in  one  form  or  other,  that  the  realist  in 
art  or  in  life  is  a  person  seeking  escape 
from  his  own  romantic  nature,  and  vice 
versa. 

The  problem  is  worked  out  here  purely 
in  terms  of  life.     There  are  only  three 
human  factors,  Count  Kettle,  his  daugh- 
ter  Margaret,    and   the   young   Macaig 
whom  she  absurdly  marries.    Count  Ket- 
tle is  that  hapless  one  who  tries  to  "live 
up  to"  his  ideals,  who  is  bent  upon  ex- 
pressing instead  of  denying  or  escaping 
his  romantic  nature  in  action — a  predes- 
tined failure  accordingly.    He  is  a  wor- 
shiper of  fine  sentiments  and  phrases — 
a  true  worshiper,  who  can  not  learn  that 
his  companions  are  mostly  sniggering  in 
their  sleeves.    It  is  his  pleasure  and  van- 
ity to  sacrifice  himself  and  his  family  to 
any  fine  desperate  cause.    His  invincible 
sentimentalism  makes  him  the  gull  and 
victim  of  venial  plotters.    A  costly  and 
disillusionizing    fiasco    in    Mexico    has 
finally  done  for  his  wife.    Now  he  is  pre- 
pared to  offer  the  rest  of  his  fortune,  and 
his  daughter,  as  blindly  to  the  uses  of  a 
pro-German  plot,  which  is  thinly  masked 
for  his  benefit  as  a  stroke  for  Ireland. 
But  the  daughter  is  not  willing  to  be  sac- 
rificed.   Though  she  has  been  brought  up 
to  be  noble  and  highflown,   she  has   a 
secret  yearning  for  common  sense.  Hence 
her  sudden  marriage  with    the    young 
Macaig,    "from    his    infancy    nourished 
upon  facts."    There  she  will  take  refuge 
from  romantic  torments,  in  the  shelter  of 
his  humdrum  and  his  commonplace.    She 
is   happy.     But   presently   the   quixotic 
Count,  her  father,  becomes  involved  in  a 
rascally  plot   (which  is  not  rascally  for 
his  innocence),  and  confides  his  part  in  it 
to  his  daughter.  She  turns  upon  him  and 
threatens  to  block  his  dangerous  plans 
by  telling  her  English   husband.     The 
Count  is  outraged:  "He  will  treat  my 
honor    as— a    fact!"    he    cries,    ".     .     . 
He  will  regard  the  situation,  this  tragi- 


cally delicate  situation,  as  though  it  were 
a  business  problem.    He  will  bend  upon 
it  all  his  prudence.    Prudence!"    Never 
mind,  he  shall  be  told,  says  Margaret: 
Macaig's  very  literalness    will    see  the 
need  of  curbing  the  Count's  wild  project. 
Then  comes  the  high  point  of  the  com- 
edy; for  Macaig,  being  told,  shows  him- 
self to  be  quite  another  man  from  the 
stolid  citizen  they  have  taken  for  granted. 
He  quite  understands  the  Count,  being  a 
concealed  romanticist  who  has  abhorred 
the  practical  traditions  of  his  house  as 
Margaret  has  the  impractical  traditions 
of  hers.    And  presently,  when  the  Count 
is  disposed  of  as  gently  as  may  be,  the 
young  pair  are  left  to  discover  each  other 
anew.     He,  it  now  transpires,  has  mar- 
ried her  as  "a  daughter  of  the  romantic 
life  he  coveted,"  while  she  has  married 
him  solely  because  he  was  not  of  that 
life,  but  "a  plain,  steady,  dependable  man 
with  no — no   dreams."     However,   they 
happen  to  love  each  other,  and  are  not  to 
be  parted  by  theories,  even  theories  of 
each  other.     The  old  priest.  Father  Cli- 
thero,  says  the  last  word  about  them :  that 
"their  characters  are  much  the  same  and 
only  their  temperaments  differ."    More- 
over, he  perceives  how  slyly  each  will 
continue  to  impute  his  own  impulses  to 
the    other,    the    wife    finding    evidence 
where  you  will  that  there  must  be  "a 
practical  streak  in  him  somewhere,"  and 
the  husband,  that  "she  must  be  romantic 
at  bottom."     A  delightful  piece  of  lit- 
erary comedy. 

Readers  of  the  first  novel  of  Clemence 
Dane,   "Regiment  of  Women,"  will  re- 
member there  also  a  fresh  accent.   That 
was  a  satirical  comedy  dealing  with  the 
relations  of  women  to  each  other — and 
breaking  rather  suddenly  at  the  end  into 
the  romantic  vein  knovra  to  vulgar  tab- 
ulation as  "heart  interest."    Only  in  the 
relations  of  man  and  woman  does  the 
author,  after  all,  find  anything  sound  and 
satisfying.    One  may  perceive  a  similar 
moral  in  "Legend,"  different  as  the  tale 
is  in  scope  and  method.    Its  way  of  tell- 
ing is  original,  as  a  single  dialogue  or 
scene,  recalled  some  years  later  by  one 
of  the  minor  actors — or,  one  may  almost 
say,  hardly  more  than  a  chance  witness. 
Place,  Anita  Serle's  rooms,  occasion,  a 
sort  of  monthly  salon  of  minor  celebri- 
ties, literary  and  "artistic";   time,  the 
day  of  the  death  in  child-birth  of  a  for- 
mer member  of  their    group,    Madala 
Grey.    It  is  the  legend  of  Madala  Grey, 
fresh-compounded  by  friends  and  inti- 
mates, that  we  are  to  hearken  to ;  a  leg- 
end touched  quite  as  much  with  malice 
as  with  affection;  a  commentary  on  the 
quality  of  the  surviving    friends    even 
more  than  of  the  dead  one.    Madala  Grey, 
we    gather,    was    a    wholesome    young 
woman  with  a  touch    of    genius  which 
drove  her  to  the  writing  of  two  remark- 
able novels   of   realism,   or  naturalism. 
And  having  written  them  and  been  ap- 


April  3,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[385 


plauded  for  them,  she  found  them  harsh 
and  ugly,  and  wished  that  she  might 
write  "a  kind  book,  a  beautiful  book." 
This  she  did  presently,  with  "The  Rest- 
ing-place," a  romance  beginning  "There 
was  once,"  and  ending  "happy  ever 
after,"  and  delighting  a  vast  audience 
hungry  for  the  fact  or  the  illusion  of  hap- 
piness. Her  literary  friends  of  the  Anita 
sort  deplored  this  bitterly,  tried  to  believe 
it  a  deliberate  parody,  and  so  on.  But 
there  followed  the  more  disconcerting 
fact  of  her  marriage  to  a  commonplace 
honest  fellow,  with  whom  she  was  ap- 
parently quite  content.  And  now  she  is 
dead  as  the  result  of  her  folly.  Among  the 
company  who  here  sit  informally  upon 
the  life  and  character  of  the  departed 
are:  the  egotistic  Anita,  later  to  become 
famous  as  Madala's  biographer;  Mr. 
Flood,  a  supercilious  litterateur  with  no 
heart;  "the  Baxter  girl,"  a  literary  sat- 
ellite ;  the  chronicler,  who  is  Anita's  new 
secretary;  and  so  on.  Two  figures  who 
stand  apart  from  the  rest  are  the  painter 
Kent  who  has  really  loved  Madala  and  is 
stunned  by  her  loss,  and  (unique  portrait 
among  them  all)  old  lady  Serle,  Nita's 
mother,  who  has  also  loved  Madala  for 
her  genuineness,  and  is  blind  to  none  of 
the  pretentious  littlenesses  of  her  own 
daughter.  ...  In  the  end,  after  the 
long  making  and  remaking  of  the  legend, 
comes  the  unexpected  and  a  trifle  super- 
fluous bit  of  romantic  convention  in 
which,  it  seems,  this  writer  habitually 
seeks  refuge  at  the  eleventh  hour  from 
her  satire.  Whether  the  whole  perform- 
ance is  more  than  a  brilliant  tour  de 
force  may  only  be  determined  or  esti- 
mated, after  later  readings;  it  is  cer- 
tainly well  worth  a  first. 

H.  W.  BOYNTON 

The  Cockpit  of  Christendom 

A  Short  History  of  Belgium.  By  Leon  von 
der  Essen.  The  University  of  Chicago 
Press. 

THE  history  of  Belgium,  from  the 
.  early  Middle  Ages  down  to  the  pres- 
ent time,  is  a  compendium  of  European 
warfare.  "The  very  cockpit  of  Christen- 
dom" the  Netherlands  were  called  by 
James  Howell  in  his  "Instructions  for 
Forreine  Travell,"  "the  school  of  arms 
and  rendezvous  of  all  adventurous  spirits 
and  cadets;  which  makes  most  nations 
beholden  to  them  for  soldiers."  And 
the  Nuncio  Bentivoglio,  writing  at  about 
the  same  time,  coined  the  phrase  "arena 
militare,"  which  became  a  standing 
designation  for  Belgium  in  books  deal- 
ing with  European  history. 

Readers  of  the  present  volume  can  not 
fail  to  recognize  the  aptness  of  these 
descriptive  names.  The  country's  geo- 
graphic situation,  which  induced  the  Ger- 
mans to  invade  it  in  1914  at  the  cost  of 
their  good  name  in  the  world,  made  Bel- 
gium a  battlefield  and  its  people  com- 


batants in  most  of  the  wars  which  evolved 
from  the  eternal  rivalry  between  Ger- 
many and  France.  It  was  the  latter 
country,  in  those  earlier  conflicts,  which 
menaced  the  independence  of  the  Bel- 
gians. "France  will  absorb  Flanders  or 
will  be  destroyed  by  it,"  said  the  French 
King  Philip  Augustus.  And,  as  in  our 
days,  it  was  England  which,  for  her  own 
safety,  came  to  the  assistance  of  the 
little  country  against  the  greatest  Power 
of  the  Continent.  The  Emperor  Otto  of 
Brunswick  and  the  Duke  of  Brabant 
joined  the  English-Flemish  alliance,  and 
on  July  24,  1214,  the  battle  of  Bouvines 
was  fought,  which  gave  Philip  Augustus 
victory  over  his  enemies.  This  famous 
battle  established  the  political  hegemony 
of  France  in  Europe  and  the  subjection, 
for  nearly  a  century,  of  the  political  and 
intellectual  life  of  the  Flemish.  But 
they  had  revenge  in  1302,  when  the 
Flemish  Communes,  in  the  Battle  of  the 
Golden  Spurs,  under  the  walls  of 
Courtrai,  inflicted  a  crushing  defeat  on 
the  army  of  King  Philip  the  Fair.  That 
victory  not  only  saved  them  from  absorp- 
tion by  France  but  raised  them  to  the 
prestige  of  an  international  power,  whose 
alliance  was  sought  by  King  Edward  III 
of  England  in  his  war  against  King 
Philip  of  Valois.  Under  the  leadership 
of  Jacob  Van  Artevelde,  "the  greatest 
Fleming  of  all  times,"  Flanders  joined 
the  English  cause;  not  for  political  rea- 
sons only,  but  also  for  the  sake  of  its 
thriving  cloth  industry,  which  required 
an  undisturbed  import  of  English  wool. 
Economic  factors  had  begun  to  carry 
weight  in  these  international  conflicts, 
since  the  communes  of  Flanders,  by  the 
power  which  their  growing  wealth  as- 
sured them,  had  acquired  a  decisive  voice 
in  the  conduct  of  the  country's  policy 
towards  its  mighty  neighbors. 

With  the  incorporation  of  Flanders 
with  the  realm  of  the  Burgundian  Dukes, 
a  restoration  of  the  ninth  century  king- 
dom of  Lotharingia,  the  political  power 
of  the  Communes  in  international  affairs 
came  to  an  end.  In  a  short  but  lucid 
survey  the  writer  explains  how  the 
Burgundian  Netherlands  passed  into  the 
possession  of  the  Spanish  branch  of  the 
Hapsburgs,  against  whom  they  rose  up 
in  arms  in  1568.  The  eighty  years'  war 
that  followed  divided  the  Low  Countries 
into  an  independent  northern  part,  the 
Republic  of  the  United  Netherlands,  and 
a  southern  part  which,  from  1588  on, 
remained  subject  to  Spain.  Henceforth 
the  destinies  of  Holland  and  Belgium  fol- 
lowed separate  courses,  apart  from  a 
short  and  ill-fated  period  (1813-1839), 
when  they  formed  one  kingdom  under 
William  I  of  Holland.  The  two  centuries 
and  a  half  between  Belgium's  return 
under  the  Spanish  yoke  and  the  creation 
of  the  Kingdom  of  the  Belgians  form 
the  most  uneventful  and  inglorious  part 
of  its  history.     Under  the  rule  of  the 


Coburgs  it  resumed  its  place  among  the 
nations  of  Europe  and  played  a  part  in 
its  history  not  unworthy  of  its  great 
past. 

Professor  van  der  Essen  has  treated 
this  difficult  and  often  intricate  subject 
with  admirable  skill;  though  writing 
with  a  scholar's  intimate  knowledge  of 
his  country's  history,  he  has  succeeded 
in  steering  clear  from  the  shoal  of  pon- 
derosity and  dulness.  Here  and  there 
the  Roman  Catholic  has  led  the  historian 
astray.  Having  described  the  collapse 
of  his  country  at  the  end  of  the  Spanish 
war,  when  the  population  had  been  re- 
duced by  at  least  50  per  cent.,  when  trade 
and  industry  were  in  large  part  gone, 
and  artistic  and  literary  activity  had 
come  to  a  complete  standstill,  the  writer 
winds  up  with  the  words  "but  Bel- 
gium remained  Catholic  and  subject  to 
the  Spanish  branch  of  the  Hapsburgs," 
as  if  that  were  a  compensation  for  the 
loss  of  the  nation's  freedom. 

Spanish  America 

Studies  in  Spanish-American  Literature. 
By  Isaac  Goldberg,  Ph.D.  New  York: 
Brentano's. 

THIS  volume  is  intended  for  several 
kinds  of  readers.  It  is  evident  from 
the  title  that  it  will  interest  not  only 
specialists  in  the  study  of  literature  in 
the  language  of  Cervantes,  but  also  that 
part  of  our  reading  public,  by  no  means 
small,  which  is  at  present  extremely  curi- 
ous in  regard  to  Spanish  America.  But 
Dr.  Goldberg's  reviewers  can  do  him  a 
service  by  pointing  out  what  he  himself 
has  not  made  clear  in  his  title,  that  the 
book  concerns  a  third  feroup  of  readers. 
It  deals  with  that  phase  of  recent  Span- 
ish-American letters  called  Modemismo, 
which  is  only  one  aspect,  as  its  name 
implies,  of  the  new  spirit  that  permeated 
the  world  of  thought  during  the  late 
nineteenth  and  early  twentieth  centuries. 
It  is  obvious,  then,  that  it  should  be  read 
also  by  the  students  of  Whitman  and 
Wilde,  of  Sudermann  and  Hauptmann, 
of  Gorki  and  Ibsen  and  d'Annunzio,  of 
the  Parnassians  and  Symbolists  of 
France,  whether  they  know  Spanish  or 
not,  and  whether  or  not  they  care  for 
Spanish  America. 

Whatever  motive  may  lead  a  reader 
to  Open  Dr.  Goldberg's  book,  he  will  cer- 
tainly be  surprised  at  what  he  finds. 
Someone  has  written  a  book  called  "The 
Amazing  Argentine,"  and  the  adjective 
might  well  be  applied  to  the  whole  of 
Spanish  America.  Our  education  in  re- 
gard to  "the  other  Americans"  has  con- 
sisted from  the  first  in  agreeable  dis- 
illusionment. Only  a  few  years  ago  we 
thought  that  throughout  the  rest  of  this 
hemisphere  everyone  wore  broad-brim- 
med hats  and  no  one  wore  shoes.  We 
supposed  that  the  chief  products  of 
Spanish  America  were  revolutions  and 


336] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  47 


yellow  fever.  By  a  series  of  surprises 
we  have  found  out  that  Rio  and  Buenos 
Aires  and  Santiago  de  Chile  are  modern 
cities,  and  that  they  and  many  other 
southern  cities  are  filled  with  men  not 
only  civilized  enough  to  wear  shoes  and 
uphold  stable  governments,  but  also 
energetic  enough  to  win  one-fifth  of  our 
total  foreign  trade.  We  still  persist, 
however,  in  thinking  that  their  progress 
is  only  material ;  that  mentally  and  spir- 
itually and  aesthetically,  at  least,  they  are 
ragged  and  shoeless.  And  now  comes  Dr. 
Goldberg  with  the  greatest  surprise  of 
all,  for  his  book  shows  that  Spanish  Amer- 
ica is  as  much  to  be  reckoned  with  in  the 
world  of  literature  as  in  the  world  of 
trade ;  that  the  poetry  of  the  Modemistas 
— and  their  prose  too,  although  prose 
plays  here  a  minor  part — is  as  worth 
studying  as  that  of  any  other  recent  or 
contemporary  school  of  poetry,  whether 
French,  Italian,  or  American. 

An  author  who  attempts  to  write  a 
book  on  Spanish-American  literature  is 
handicapped  by  two  serious  difficulties. 
The  first  lies  in  the  fact  that  the  major- 
ity of  his  readers  are  totally  ignorant 
of  the  subject.  Exposition,  and  a  great 
deal  of  it,  must  come  before  criticism. 
Dr.  Goldberg  has  realized  this.  In  his 
foreword  he  says :  "Owing  to  the  meager 
acquaintance  that  our  reading  public 
has  with  Spanish-American  literature,  a 
book  of  purely  critical  essays  is  at  this 
time  inadvisable.  I  have,  therefore,  in 
the  following  chapters,  freely  mingled 
excerpts,  exposition,  and  a  modicum  of 
criticism."  The  faithfulness  with  which 
he  has  adhered  to  this  plan  may  be  in- 
ferred from  the  size  of  his  book.  It  con- 
tains 377  pages,  of  which,  moreover, 
some  250  are  devoted  to  only  four 
writers.  But  he  is  not  merely  exhaus- 
tive. He  writes  English  both  charm- 
ingly and  forcefully,  and  has  the  ability, 
besides,  to  seize  and  emphasize  salient 
points.  His  opening  pages,  on  the 
French  background  of  the  Modemistas, 
constitute  a  masterly  handling  of  a  very 
difficult  subject.  The  following  sections, 
on  the  precursors  of  the  movement,  are 
as  notable  for  what  they  omit  as  for 
what  they  contain.  And  the  body  of  the 
book,  which  deals  with  the  four  great 
exponents  of  Modemismo,  is  a  model  of 
expository  writing.  It  is  certain  that 
readers  who  know  Spanish,  and  who, 
therefore,  can  read  the  excerpts  which 
Dr.  Goldberg  offers  as  evidence  of  the 
soundness  of  his  critical  contentions, 
will  gain  a  correct  impression  of  the 
versatile,  but  always  delicate  Dario,  the 
glowing,  radiant  Rodo,  the  strong,  vi- 
brant Chocano,  and  the  vitriolic  Blanco- 
Fombona.  It  may  be  asserted  with  con- 
fidence that  he  has  overcome  one  of  the 
difficulties  inherent  in  his  task. 

The  majority  of  Dr.  Goldberg's  read- 
ers, however,  will  not  know  Spanish, 
and  in  their  ignorance  of  the  language 


lies  the  second  of  the  handicaps  to  which 
I  have  referred.  With  this  problem,  un- 
fortunately, he  has  not  dealt  as  success- 
fully as  with  the  first.  He  has  tried  to 
solve  it,  of  course,  by  means  of  transla- 
tions, some  of  them  in  prose  and  some 
in  verse.  The  prose  translations  are 
fairly  satisfactory.  Nothing  can  be  said 
against  them  except  that  a  prose  render- 
ing of  a  poem  is  never  entirely  satisfac- 
tory. But  the  verse  translations  which 
he  uses — they  are  not  his  own— are 
disappointing.  It  is  always  difficult  to 
translate  poetry  effectively,  but  it  is 
especially  so  in  the  case  of  poetry  of  the 
type  written  by  the  Modemistas,  where 
so  much  depends  on  the  sheer  music  of 
the  words  and  lines  and  strophes.  The 
translations  used  by  Dr.  Goldberg,  al- 
though good  English  verse,  do  not  re- 
flect this  music  at  all,  and  can  therefore 
give  no  adequate  idea  of  the  originals. 
It  is  even  possible  that  they  will  lead 
unthinking  or  oversuspicious  readers  to 
discount  the  opinions  of  the  author  as 
to  the  merits  of  the  poets  concerned. 
In  the  lack  of  just  the  right  kind  of 
verse  translations,  therefore.  Dr.  Gold- 
berg would  have  done  better  to  use  prose 
in  all  instances. 

As  to  the  scholarship  of  the  book, 
there  is  not  much  to  criticize,  at  least  in 
the  way  of  essentials.  The  author  makes 
no  slips  in  regard  to  such  things  as  the 
dates  or  facts  of  literary  history,  and 
his  critical  judgments  will  seem  justified 
to  those  who  know  the  field.  He  falls 
below  his  own  standard  of  excellence  only 
in  his  occasional  remarks  on  the  metre 
of  the  Modemistas.  Not  that  it  would 
have  been  advisable  for  him  to  write  a 
chapter  on  this  involved  subject.  He 
himself  points  out,  in  the  early  part  of 
his  book,  that  not  only  the  difference  in 
language,  but  also  the  very  great  differ- 
ence between  our  prosody  and  that  of 
Spanish-American  poetry,  makes  it  al- 
most impossible  for  us  to  enter  inti- 
mately into  the  matter  of  metric  struc- 
ture. It  is  to  be  regretted,  however,  that 
he  has  not  taken  sufficient  care  to  guard 
readers  who  do  not  know  Spanish  from 
certain  vital  errors.  From  his  refer- 
ences to  the  influence  of  Whitman  on  the 
Modemistas,  they  will  certainly  draw 
the  conclusion  that  the  recent  Spanish- 
American  poets  are  Whitmanesque  in 
their  technique.  In  fact,  they  will  go 
further  than  that.  Owing  to  his  un- 
fortunate way  of  printing  some  of  his 
prose  translations  in  short  lines,  they 
will  think  that  the  Modemistas  are  akin 
in  their  metre  to  our  own  writers  of  free 
verse.  These  conclusions  are  erroneous. 
Whitman's  influence  on  the  metre  of  the 
Modemistas  has  consisted  merely  in  en- 
couraging in  them  the  spirit  of  revolt 
against  the  traditional.  "They  have  car- 
ried out  the  revolt  in  their  own  way. 
The  essential  difference  between  them 
and  their  predecessors  consists   in  the 


use  of  longer  lines  and  new  combinations 
of  old  lines.  Their  relation  to  the  older 
Spanish  poetry,  therefore,  may  be  better 
expressed  by  comparing  them  to  Swin- 
burne than  to  Whitman.  And  the  impli- 
cation of  a  metrical  analogy  with  such 
schools  as  the  Imagists  is  equally  mis- 
leading. With  the  exception  of  a  few 
sporadic  instances,  the  most  radical 
Modemistas  have  written  only  vers 
Hbre,  which  is  a  very  different  thing 
from  free  verse,  inasmuch  as  it  is  free 
only  in  the  counting  of  syllables,  and  does 
not  abandon  rhyme,  or  the  traditional 
Spanish  substitute  for  rhyme,  assonance. 
All  this  is  surely  well  known  to  Dr. 
Goldberg.  He  should  have  stated  it 
plainly. 

I  have  said  that  Dr.  Goldberg's  scholar- 
ship is  good  in  essentials.  Unfor- 
tunately, however,  he  can  not  be  compli- 
mented for  carefulness  in  little  things. 
It  seems  probable  that  his  manuscript 
was  sent  to  the  printer  without  the 
thorough  final  revision  advisable  in  a 
book  of  this  nature.  In  spite  of  the 
general  clarity  of  his  style,  there  are 
now  and  then  pages  far  from  clear.  A 
revision  would  have  allowed  him,  more- 
over, to  correct  occasional  errors  in  his 
translations.  There  are  also  certain  me- 
chanical flaws  which  might  easily  have 
been  remedied,  such  as  the  incomplete- 
ness of  the  appendix,  which  does  not  con- 
tain translations  of  all  the  poems  "quoted 
in  the  text  and  not  made  clear  by  the 
surrounding  matter."  And  if  it  is  prob- 
able that  the  manuscript  was  hastily 
prepared,  it  is  certain  that  the  galleys 
were  hardly  proof-read  at  all.  Here 
and  there  misprints  occur  even  in  the 
English;  in  the  Spanish  they  are  here, 
there,  and  everywhere.  We  who  know 
Spanish  have  long  since  become  hardened 
to  the  eccentricities  of  newspaper  Span- 
ish ;  we  can  even  take  delight  in  decipher- 
ing the  garbled  Spanish  of  travel-books; 
but  misprints  in  a  book  of  the  kind  under 
discussion  are  annoying.  When  they  are 
frequent,  they  become  exasperating. 
Frederick  Bliss  Luquiens 


Poetry 


These  Dead  Have  Not  Died 

HAVE  done  with  frenzy  to  pierce  the 
Veil; 
We  need  no  ghost  to  affirm  the  tale. 

"These  dead  shall  not  have  died  in  vain." 
Lincoln  lives — in  the  minds  of  men! 

Leave  to  the  quack  the  promise  free. 
Can  God  be  other  than  mystery? 

Stratford  Church  is  a  holy  place; 
But  Shakespeare  lives  in  the  soul  of  the 
race. 

Harry  T.  Baker 


April  3,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[337 


The  Run  of  the  Shelves 

ON  April  9,  it  is  announced,  Marshal 
von  Hindenburg's  memoirs  are  to 
-see  the  light  under  the  title  "Aus 
Meinem  Leben."  The  work  will  consist 
Df  five  volumes.  The  first  deals  with  the 
author's  life  before  the  war;  the  second 
,vith  the  war  on  the  eastern  front  until 
\ugust  28,  1916,  the  day  on  which  he 
\:is  appointed  Chief  of  the  General  Staff; 
he  third  brings  the  history  of  the  war 
ip  to  the  close  of  1917;  the  fourth  is 
levoted  to  the  final  struggle  on  the  west 
Tont;  the  fifth  contains  the  end  of  the 
onflict.  The  book,  the  title  of  which  is 
ominiscent  of  Goethe's  autobiography, 
s  bound  to  invite  a  great  deal  of  com- 
iient  from  critics  looking  for  the  "Dich- 
ung,"  which,  as  in  the  life  of  his  greater 
ompatriot,  is  the  twin  sister  of  the 
Wahrheit." 

When  "animism"  is  made  a  term  of 
he  last  opprobrium  by  some,  as  recently 
y  Professor  Joseph  Jastrow   in  these 
ages,  and  formally  defended  and  used 
3  explain  the  interworking  of  mind  and 
ody    by    others,    as    by    William    Mc- 
•ougall,   F.  R.   S.,  the  Oxford  psycho- 
igist,  the  plain  man  may  well  ask,  What 
!  it,  after  all?     Up  to  a  certain  point 
e  will  be  helped  by  Mr.  George  William 
ilmore's    admirable    little   book,    "Ani- 
iism,  or  Thought  Currents  of  Primitive 
.  leoples"  (Marshall  Jones).    Mr.  Gilmore 
)as  made  a  very  suggestive  collection  and 
iassification    of   certain    phenomena    in 
le  case,  specimens  of  the  agglomerate 
:  acts  and  beliefs  which  are  the  basis 
'  all  civilization,  the  stuff  of  all  folk- 
re,  and  which  dominate  our  own  most 
aveled  mental  paths.     That  he  stops 
lort  with  objective  statements  of  the 
lienomena  and  does  not  entangle  him- 
If  in  psychologies,  primitive  or  modern, 
of  his  plan.    But,  apparently,  he  has 
.me  out  with  a  definite  belief  in  the 
':istence  of  a  thing  in  man  which  can 
I  called   "soul" — an   exactly   animistic 
.'sition;   in  the  continued   life  of  the 
]oul"  beyond  the  grave;  and  in  the  exis- 
nce  of  superhuman  powers. 
There  is  an  equally  objective  statement 
I  phenomena  in  Professor  G.  Henslow's 
1'roofs  of  the  Truths  of  Spiritualism" 
)odd.  Mead),  but  of  phenomena  much 
«re    exciting,    though    quite    as    well 
^tested  as  the  great  majority  of  folk- 
I'e  elements.     Professor  Henslow  is  a 
Itanist  of  reputation;  he  dates  back  in 
<i.mbridge  to  the  middle  of  last  century, 
Nien  he  took  a  first  class   in  the  old 
litural  Science  Tripos;  that  he  is  also 
s  clergyman   should    hardly   be   to   his 
EBjudice  as  a  witness.  Yet  he  does  bear 
fl^t-hand  witness  to  the  most  hair-rais- 
i|j  things  which  took  place  at  private 
ainces   with    unpaid   mediums — autom- 
?sms,     material     phenomena,     spirit- 
rotography,    psychographs,    materiali- 


zations, etc.  The  pity  is  that,  like  so 
many  old  and  thoroughly  convinced 
spiritualists,  he  is  not  careful  and  de- 
tailed in  his  descriptions  of  happenings ; 
these  things  have  become  for  him  quite 
ordinary.  Still,  his  book,  slovenly  as  it 
often  is  in  statement,  is  another  moment 
in  the  accumulating  mass  of  evidence 
which  can  not  be  laughed  or  sneered  or 
denounced  away.  The  fact  that  this  man 
of  scientific  training,  with  so  many  of 
his  like,  has  been  so  thoroughly  con- 
vinced is  a  definite  one  and  must  be 
faced.  There  are  plainly  phenomena  to 
be  explained,  to  whatever  hypothesis  of 
explanation  we  may  be  driven.  The 
trouble  about  the  spiritist  key  is  that  it 
is  too  much  a  pick-lock  and  too  little  a 
key,  even  a  master-key.  Spirits  can  do 
anything  and  laws  cannot  hold  them. 

In  philosophy,  as  in  theology,  it  is  sal- 
utary, if  not  always  acceptable,  for  agile 
thinkers  to  be  brought  back  to  the  rock 
from  which  they  were  hewn,  and  kindly 
nature,  working  in  the  minds  of  her 
children,  generally  sees  to  this.  Thus 
every  century  has  its  return  to  Aristotle 
and  raises  its  own  crop,  however  thin, 
of  Platonists.  But  there  are  some  nearer 
beginnings  which  do  not  so  automatically 
reassert  themselves,  partly  because  of 
inhibitions — to  speak  by  the  card — and 
partly  because  the  paths  of  connection 
are  overgrown  beyond  even  the  memory 
of  nature.  It  may  be  doubted  whether 
the  Modernists  of  the  Roman  Church 
would  welcome  a  reference  back  to  the 
twofold  truth  of  the  Averroists  or  the 
multiform  truth  of  Moslem  theologians, 
and  few  Pragmatists  know  how  straight 
is  their  descent  from  the  Algazel  of  the 
medieval  scholastics.  Such  work,  there- 
fore, as  the  text  and  translation  of  Av- 
erroes'  Metaphysics,  by  Carlos  Quiros 
Rodriguez,  is  to  be  welcomed.  ("Aver- 
roes  Compendio  de  Metafisica."  Madrid : 
Estanislao  Maestre.)  He  gives  a  much 
better  text  than  the  Cairo  edition,  a 
good  translation,  with  notes  and  a  tech- 
nical vocabulary,  and  a  sufficient  intro- 
duction. From  the  translation  in  this 
book  the  attraction  which  Averroes  exer- 
cised on  mediaeval  Europe  can  be  much 
better  understood  than  from  those  by 
Marcus  Miiller,  published  in  1875.  The 
latter  gave  little  clue  to  his  real  philo- 
sophical positions. 

In  the  biography  of  her  husband,  the 
great  naturalist,  Mrs.  Agassiz  sank  her 
own  personality,  though  she  had  shared 
his  labors  as  few  wives  have  been  able 
to  do.  There  she  was  merely  Mrs.  Louis 
Agassiz.  It  is  fitting  now  that  we  should 
have  a  "Life  of  Elizabeth  Cary  Agassiz" 
(Houghton  Mifflin),  in  which  the  em- 
phasis should  be  laid  on  her  own  achieve- 
ment in  founding  Radcliffe  College.  This 
pleasant  task  has  been  carried  out  faith- 
fully and  well  by  Lucy  Allen  Paton.    The 


emphasis,  as  we  say,  is  properly  placed 
on  Mrs.  Agassiz's  educational  work 
after  the  death  of  her  husband,  and  to  all 
Radcliffians  the  book  will  thus  have  au- 
thoritative value  and  a  special  appeal. 
To  others,  perhaps,  the  most  interesting 
sections  will  be  those  that  deal  with  her 
earlier  life.  The  second  chapter,  con- 
tributed in  part  by  Mrs.  Agassiz's  young- 
est sister,  begins  thus : 

Elizabeth  Cabot  Cary  was  born  on  Decem- 
ber S,  1822,  at  the  home  of  her  grandfather, 
Colonel  Perkins,  in  Pearl  Street.  It  was  a 
dignified  street  in  those  days,  lined  with  hand- 
some dwellings  and  shaded  by  fine  trees,  of- 
fering many  attractions  to  merchants  as  a 
quarter  for  residence  because  of  its  proximity 
to  Fort  Hill  where  from  a  grassy  park  on  the 
Revolutionary  fortifications,  still  unievelled, 
they  could  survey  the  harbor  and  watch  their 
ships  from  India  or  China  coming  into  port. 
...  In  1833  Colonel  Perkins  moved  to  Temple 
Place  where  he  built  a  new  house.  ...  At  that 
time  the  Cary  family  were  living  in  Brookline, 
where  they  had  gone  on  their  return  to  Boston 
in  the  previous  year,  but  Colonel  Perkins 
speedily  began  to  gather  his  daughters  about 
him  in  Temple  Place,  and  built  a  house  for 
Mrs.  Cary  next  his  own  on  the  side  toward  the 
Cornmon.  .  .  .  Such  a  gathering  of  a  clan  into 
a  single  limited  district  was  in  complete  ac- 
cordance with  the  Boston  custom  of  those 
days. 

What  a  door  into  a  life  now  gone  is 
opened  by  these  simple  words !  We  com- 
mend the  following  pages  to  all  and  sun- 
dry who  may  care  to  be  introduced  into 
the  charmed  circle  of  that  old  Boston  so- 
ciety. Next  in  interest,  to  the  unpreju- 
diced reader  we  mean,  are  the  chapters 
which  give  the  personal  side  of  Mrs. 
Agassiz's  life  with  her  husband  in  his 
journeys  for  scientific  purposes  to  Brazil 
and  up  the  west  coast  of  South  America. 
Time  was  found  for  a  good  deal  of  play 
amid  the  strenuous  work  carried  on,  and 
adventures  were  not  wanting.  It  is  a 
pleasant,  happy  record  of  a  full  life. 

"En  Amerique  a  la  Fin  de  la  Guerre" 
(Paris:  Beauchesne),  by  Abbe  Felix 
Klein,  a  warm  friend  of  America,  and 
throughout  the  war  chaplain  of  the 
American  military  hospital  at  Neuilly, 
has  to  do  with  the  special  French  Catho- 
lic mission  sent  last  year  to  the  United 
States  for  the  celebration  of  the  semi- 
centennial of  Cardinal  Gibbon's  episco- 
pacy. Abbe  Klein  was  associated  on  this 
occasion  with  Mgr.  Julien,  Bishop  of 
Arras,  and  with  Mgr.  Baudrillart,  presi- 
dent of  the  Catholic  University  of  Paris, 
of  which  the  Abbe  is  an  emeritus  pro- 
fessor. The  pages  of  this  little  book  are 
full  of  friendly  references  to  the  United 
States,  of  pleasant  sketches  of  many  of 
our  leading  men,  and  of  wise  reflections 
on  our  good  qualities  and  our  foibles. 
Its  aim  is  to  strengthen  "in  the  best 
interest  of  the  two  nations,  that  profound 
friendship,  that  durable  friendship,  that 
necessary  friendship,  just  as  it  exists — 
we  know  this  is  true — in  French  hearts 
and  in  American  hearts,  too,  as  I  know 
full  well." 


338] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  47 


Drama 

"Medea"   at  the  Garrick — 
the  "Piper"  at  the  Fulton 

MANY  years  ago  I  read  the  "Medea" 
in  translation  with  revolt.  I  rested 
a  long  time  in  that  mixture  of  shame  and 
pride  which  marks  one's  estrangement 
from  a  reputed  masterpiece  until,  two  or 
three  years  ago,  a  desire  to  correct  or 
confirm  this  disaffected  attitude  impelled 
me  to  a  wrestle  with  the  Greek.  The 
Greek  was  decisive  on  my  own  relation 
to  the  drama.  Hereafter,  in  a  better 
world  than  this,  I  may  desire  more  love 
and  knowledge  of  it,  but,  for  me,  in  this 
planet,  the  "Medea"  is  everlastingly  a 
foolish  and  revolting  play. 

The  mere  killing  of  the  sons  does  not 
repel  me;  that  has  its  parallels  in  nature 
and  in  tragedy.  What  confounds  me  is 
that  in  a  play  where  a  mother  kills  her 
sons  pity  should  be  asked — for  the 
mother.  I  entertain  no  pity  for  the 
scruples  of  a  criminal  which,  if  they  were 
active  enough  to  deserve  pity,  would  be 
active  enough  to  prevent  crime.  The 
criminal  who  poses  as  victim  is  intoler- 
able. The  evident  tenderness  of  Medea, 
natural  enough  in  itself,  takes  the  result 
out  of  nature.  Killing  sons  is  extreme 
in  any  case;  but  surely  it  is  less  improb- 
able and  less  monstrous  to  kill  sons  whom 
you  do  not  love  than  to  kill  sons  whom 
you  do.  Euripides  has  made  no  attempt 
to  obviate  or  moderate  these  difficulties; 
Euripides  has  felt  no  difficulties.  A  mod- 
em dramatist  would  have  tempered  the 
rawness  of  the  improbability  by  causing 
Jason  to  threaten  to  take  the  children 
from  Medea.  This  would  have  helped  in 
three  ways:  it  would  have  deepened 
Medea's  sense  of  wrong,  it  would  have 
shown  Jason  to  be  vulnerable  on  the  side 
of  paternity,  and  Medea's  preference  of 
her  children's  death  to  their  loss  by 
separation  would  have  seemed  rational 
and  tolerable  beside  her  actual  prefer- 
ence of  their  death  to  their  companion- 
ship. 

I  am  aware  of  the  inability  of  the 
modem  man  to  re-create  in  his  own  mind 
the  Greek  attitude  toward  these  in- 
timately known  and  venerable  legends  in 
which  the  boyhood  of  the  individual 
found,  as  it  were,  a  pasture  in  the  boy- 
hood of  the  race.  I  can  no  more  under- 
stand the  relation  of  Euripides  to  the 
story  of  Medea  than  Euripides  could 
fathom  my  relation  to  the  book  of  Gen- 
esis. Associations  are  despotic,  but 
they  bring  obscurity  as  well  as  light; 
and  my  feeling  that  Euripides  might  be 
a  better  judge  than  I  am  of  some  sides, 
at  least,  of  the  pure  literature  and 
humanity  of  the  book  of  Genesis  conducts 
me  to  the  possibility  of  a  like  advantage 
on  my  part  in  relation  to  the  "Medea." 


The  merely  local  and  racial  appeal  of  the 
play  is  irrecoverable,  and  it  is  not  for 
the  sake  of  that  appeal  that  Mr.  Maurice 
Browne  has  given  to  the  "Medea"  an  in- 
teresting, thoughtful,  and  in  several 
ways  stimulative  presentation  at  the 
Garrick  Theatre  in  this  city. 

Mr.  Browne  does  not  view  the  play  pri- 
marily as  an  action ;  he  views  it  as  spec- 
tacle and  recitative  to  which  action  is 
subsidiary.  This  attitude  is  probably 
judicious.  Present  a  Greek  play  as 
spectacle  and  let  us  say,  loosely,  as  opera, 
and  all  the  incidental  action  you  get  is 
bounty  and  superflux.  Present  it  as  an 
action,  and  all  the  merely  spectacular  and 
operatic  parts  appear  as  charge  and  dis- 
count. In  one  sense  Mr.  Browne's  pres- 
entation may  be  called  inarticulate,  the 
appeal  to  the  ear  is  tonal  rather  than 
verbal.  The  enunciation  is  clear  enough, 
but  it  is  hard  to  follow  the  words  because 
not  one  word  in  twenty  is  a  furtherance 
to  the  action,  and  the  passiveness  with 
which  the  ear  and  the  mind  allow  them- 
selves to  be  rocked  in  the  cradle  of  rhap- 
sodic and  poetic  speech  is  deadening  to 
curiosity. 

Mr.  Browne's  chorus  is  not  Greek  in 
its  numbers,  nor,  I  think,  in  its  move- 
ments ;  but  it  struck  me  as  well  imagined, 
as  embodying  perhaps  better  than  Medea 
or  Jason  the  dim  terror  and  impalpable 
suggestion  which  gave  depth  and  color- 
ing to  the  performance.  Here  were  six 
mobile,  supple,  rhythmic  figures,  who 
gestured  with  their  arms,  with  their 
frames,  with  their  robes,  which  seemed 
themselves  to  be  only  gestures  of  the 
protagonists,  to  be  extensions  and  excur- 
sions of  Medea's  soul.  Whether  Greek 
or  modern,  this  is  poetry  in  spectacle.  A 
most  remarkable  incident  in  the  play,  an 
incident,  indeed,  which  all  but  snatched 
up  the  play  and  ran  away  with  it,  was 
the  scene  in  which  a  messenger,  in  an 
injudicious  minimum  of  costume,  re- 
counts the  story  of  the  "enchaunted 
flame  that  did  Creusa  wed."  It  was 
done  with  minuteness,  virtuosity,  and 
frenzy;  in  a  sort,  it  was  well  done,  and 
possibly  the  cure  for  the  dreaded  irk- 
someness  of  narrative  in  Greek  and 
later  drama  is  not  reduction,  but  enlarge- 
ment. The  size  of  this  episode,  however, 
seemed  abnormal,  since  the  audience  is 
indifferent  to  the  sufferings  of  Creusa, 
and  declines  to  excite  itself  about  a 
murder  which  the  visible  imminence  of  a 
far  blacker  crime  remands  to  insignifi- 
cance. In  Miss  Ellen  Van  Valkenburg's 
Medea,  there  was  a  voice  and  a  presence, 
but  no  woman;  the  accomplished  and 
harmonious  declamation  revealed  nothing 
but  its  own  dexterity.  Mr.  Moroni  Olsen, 
on  the  contrary,  gave  in  Jason  a  vivid 
reflex  of  that  shapely  and  lustrous  hard- 
ness which  Greek  civilization  must  have 
wrought  in  its  baser  materials. 

Every  one  knows  the  tale  of  the  piper 
of  Hamelin,  whose  music  lured  the  rats 


and  mice  into  the  river,  and  the  children 
into  the  hollow  hill,  when  the  just  recom- 
pense for  his  first  exploit  was  withheld 
by  avaricious  burghers.  This  story  fills 
just  one  act  of  Mrs.  Marks's  four-act 
play,  now  offered  in  the  cautious  form  of 
special  matinees  at  the  Fulton  Theatre. 
Where  will  Mrs.  Marks  find  her  three 
remaining  acts,  and  what  form  will  the 
gay,  saucy,  and  somewhat  unfeeling 
legend  take  in  the  hands  of  a  woman  so 
compact  of  fervors  and  poignancies  that 
joy  itself  becomes  for  her  a  half-dis- 
tress? Before  answering  these  inquiries, 
let  me  say  that  Mrs.  Marks's  fancy  is 
blithe,  even  though  her  heart  be  serious, 
and  that  the  "Piper,"  though  not  highly 
dramatic,  must  be  reckoned  among  the 
happiest  outcomes  of  American  poetic 
drama.  The  blank  verse  can  dance  and 
caper  as  well  as  sing;  there  is  plenty  of 
movement,  though  sometimes  the  arms 
move  rather  than  the  feet;  the  play  is 
quaintly  and  busily  inventive,  it  frolics 
in  a  maidenly  way,  it  is  demurely  mis- 
chievous and  archly  tender,  and  is  poetic- 
ally regretful  that  it  must  needs  be  pro- 
saically wise.  This  leads  me  back  to  my 
unanswered  questions. 

Mrs.  Marks,  in  her  earnestness  and 
conscience,  has  given  us  a  piper  who  is  no 
rogue,  but  a  serious  reformer  in  whom 
kidnapping  is  a  form  of  philanthropy. 
He  sees  that  children  and  grown  people 
are  two  species,  that  children  are  butter- 
flies who  fly  and  shine  and  grown  people 
are  caterpillars  who  eat  and  crawl,  and 
that  the  office  of  all  pipers  and  of  all 
clear-voiced  and  clear-souled  beings 
everywhere  is  to  prevent  the  relapse  of 
butterflies  into  caterpillars.  Plainly,  this 
piper  thinks ;  that  is  the  catch,  the  snag, 
in  the  affair;  for,  if  you  think,  you  can 
not  keep  children  indefinitely  in  a  hol- 
low hill  away  from  their  parents.  Some 
day  this  piper  will  meet  a  sorrowing 
mother,  and  some  day  he  will  ask  coun- 
sel of  the  sculptured  Christ  by  the  cross- 
ways,  who  will  bid  him  take  the  children 
home.  The  Christ  is  perfectly  right;  but 
the  piper  is  Pan,  and  somehow  one  does 
not  want  Pan  at  the  feet  of  Christ,  and 
one  hardly  likes  to  see  Christ  siding  with 
the  mealsack.  The  mealsack  is  imperious 
in  real  life.  Must  it  triumph  even  in 
fairyland  where  poets  are  the  sovereigns 
and  legislators? 

All  this  is  done  from  the  highest  and 
most  edifying  motives;  the  piper  grows 
alarmingly  respectable.  In  a  sufficiently 
pretty  episode,  he  persuades  Barbara, 
the  burgomaster's  daughter,  to  eschew 
the  nunnery  to  which  a  peevish  town  had 
sentenced  her,  and  accept  the  brave 
young  conjurer  and  vagabond,  Michael. 
He  sends  them  instantly  to  the  priest. 
To  the  priest  they  should  undoubtedly 
go;  marriage  is  the  only  safety  for  Bar- 
bara. But  the  piper  who  sent  them 
should  forsake  the  road,  and  pipe  the 
{Continued  on  page  340) 


April  3,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[339 


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340] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  47 


The  New  York 
University  Press 

Efficient  Composition:  A 
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By    ARTHUR    HUNTINGTON 
NASON,  Ph.D.,  Professor  of  Eng- 
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THE  NEW|YORK  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

32  Waverly  Place        New  York  City 

Old    Hallowell    on    the 
Kennebec 

A  study  in  the  cultiire-history  of  a 
typical  New  England  town. 
By  EMMA  HUNTINGTON  NASON 

(author    of   "Old   Colonial    Houses 

in  Maine,"  etc.) 

Cloth,  xvi+360  pages.  64  full-page 
illustrations.    Price,  $3.50. 

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had  a  mission  there  among  the  Abenakis,  from 
old-time  letters  and  unpublished  manuscripts, 
from  early  newspapers,  and — for  the  later 
decades — from  her  own  girlhood  memories, 
Mrs.  Nason  has  produced  in  this  volume  a 
picture  of  the  social  and  intellectual  life  of 
Old  Hallowell,  notable  not  only  for  its  scholarly 
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"True  as  history,  compelling  as  romance;  of 
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the  history  of  New  England." — Boston  Evening 
Transcript. 

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THE  NEW  YORK  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

(Selling  Agents) 

32  Waverly  Place        New  York  City 


{Continued  from  page  338) 
Doxology  hereafter  as  chorister  in  the 
parish  church  of  Hamelin.  Let  him  be 
godfather  to  Barbara's  first  child,  and 
be  prompt  in  the  bestowal  of  the 
appointed  number  of  Apostles'  spoons. 
But  it  is  hard  somehow  to  imagine  Pan 
at  the  font. 

0.  W.  Firkins 

Music 

"Eugene  Onegin"— Pushkin 
and  Tschaikowsky 

WITH  the  production,  a  short  time 
ago,  of  "Eugene  Onegin,"  in  Ital- 
ian, at  the  Metropolitan,  the  manage- 
ment gave  us  the  last  novelty  announced 
for  this  season. 

"Eugene  Onegin"  deals  with  romantic 
moods  and  incidents,  poetic  (if  you  will) 
in  a  Byronic  fashion  out  of  favor  here, 
though  still  admired  in  Russia.  The  hero 
might  claim  kinship  with  Childe  Harold. 
He  has  a  "past"  with  all  that  this 
means  in  Byron's  poems.  He  is  bad  and 
mad  and  sad,  but  not,  like  Villon,  "glad," 
by  way  of  contrast.  Yet,  when  the 
heroine,  Tatiana,  an  ill-balanced  girl, 
sends  him  a  foolish  love  letter,  he  snubs 
her  gently.  Soon  after,  though,  he  com- 
promises Tatiana's  sister,  who  is  be- 
trothed to  his  friend  Lenski.  And  in  a 
duel  which  results  Lenski  is  killed.  Then, 
tortured  by  remorse,  Onegin  wanders 
through  the  world  in  search  of  peace. 
Years  later,  he  again  meets  Tatiana,  who 
is  now  married  to  Prince  Gremin  and 
seems  settled.  He  falls  in  love  with  her. 
Forbidden  fruit  attracts  him.  But, 
though  Tatiana's  heart  still  yearns  for 
him,  his  suit  is  spumed.  With  this  the 
story  ends — a  bit  abruptly. 

There  are  hints  of  Werther,  as  you 
see,  in  Onegin,  and  there  are  other  hints 
of  Charlotte  in  Tatiana.  But  the 
romance  of  Werther  lends  itself  to  opera. 
It  has  a  beginning  and  a  middle  and  a 
denouement,  of  a  definite  kind.  Tschai- 
kowsky's  "lyric  scenes"  seem  far  too 
intimate  for  the  vast  spaces  of  the  Metro- 
politan. Mr.  Gatti-Casazza  has  a  con- 
venient trick  of  forgetting  his  point  of 
view.  He  refuses,  in  one  breath,  to  give 
us  "Pelleas."  And,  in  the  next,  he  pro- 
duces "Eugene  Onegin."  To  be  sure, 
Debussy  is  of  the  French  school,  in  which 
the  Italians  of  to-day  see  their  chief 
rival.  But,  to  be  fair,  we  owe  him 
thanks  for  daring  failure  with  this  effort 
of  Tschaikowsky.  We  might  feel  more 
grateful  if  he  had  chosen  one  of  several 
other  Russian  works,  the  "Khovant- 
china"  of  Moussorgsky,  for  example,  or 
the  delightful  (if  too  long  drawn  out) 
"Snegourotchka"  of  Rimsky-Korsakoff. 

Tschaikowsky's  score  is  often  charm- 
ing and  always  delicate,  with  the  melodic 


graces  of  Italian  music  sobered  and  tem- 
pered by  the  sad  Slavic  spirit.  The 
soliloquy  of  Tatiana  in  her  bedroom,  as 
she  sits  writing  her  impassioned  love 
letter  to  Onegin,  will  probably  appeal  to 
many  hearers.  The  dances  in  the  first 
act  have  the  attractive  hues  and  rhythms 
of  Slav  dances.  The  later  dances 
seemed  a  trifle  commonplace.  Many  com- 
posers could  have  made  them  brighter. 
Regarded  as  a  whole,  "Eugene  Onegin" 
has  the  defect  which  ruined  many  a 
pretty  painting  of  the  Victorian  period. 
It  is  too  literary.  In  opera  we  crave 
for  drama  first,  and  only  incidentally  for 
psychology. 

Free  cuts  were  made  (not  always  quite 
judiciously)  in  the  score  by  Mr.  Bo- 
danzky,  who  directed  the  performance  of 
"Onegin"  with  much  taste  and  skill.  One 
episode,  which  should  have  occurred  in  a 
bedroom,  took  place  in  a  garden.  The 
scenery  and  costumes  designed  for  the 
production  by  Joseph  Urban  helped  the 
effect.  The  stage  pictures  of  the  Viennese 
scenic  artist  were  more  discreet  than 
some  which  he  has  shown  us  lately.  The 
snow  scene,  with  the  river  and  a  reflected 
light  in  the  far  background,  though 
really  an  easel  picture  magnified,  with  a 
suggestion  of  a  glorified  Christmas  card, 
was  pleasing  to  the  eye  and  quite  appro- 
priate. The  grays  and  blues  and  whites 
in  one  interior  made  an  agreeable  har- 
mony. And  the  comparative  simplicity 
of  the  ballroom,  in  the  second  act,  re- 
vealed a  new  and  greatly  chastened 
Urban. 

I  can  not  say,  with  truth,  that  the  inter- 
preters of  Tschaikowsky's  "lyric  scenes" 
deserved  much  praise.  De  Luca,  who 
appeared  as  Onegin,  lacked  distinction 
and  that  touch  of  the  Byronic  which 
should  have  marked  the  character.  As 
the  ill-fated  Lenski,  Martinelli  looked 
romantic  and  had  fervor,  but  he  sang 
painfully  out  of  tune  at  certain  times. 
The  Tatiana  of  Claudia  Muzio  was  melo- 
dramatic, although  tuneful. 

"Eugene  Onegin"  may  give  innocent 
enjoyment  to  a  few  audiences.  But, 
when  it  joins  some  other  operas  I  could 
mention  in  the  limbo  of  the  opera  house, 
it  may  not  be  regretted  long  or  deeply. 
Charles  Henry  Meltzeb 

Books  and  the  News  i 

The  Candidates 

WHAT  may  one  discover,  in  books,  to 
tell  of  the  life  and  adventures,  the 
mind  and  character  of  the  dozen  or  more 
gentlemen  who  are  suspected  of  willing- 
ness to  take  that  thrilling  drive  up  Penn- 
sylvania Avenue  on  the  4th  of  next 
March?  Of  most  of  them,  very  little, 
indeed.  Their  words  are  in  print,  in  thf 
depressing  pages  of  the  Congressional 
Record,  in  volumes  of  Governor's  mess- 
iContinued  on  page  342) 


April  3,  1920] THE  REVIEW [341 

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By  E.  Temple  Thurston 

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By  William  Herbert  Hobbs 

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342] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  47 


(Continued  form  page  340) 
ajres,  in  pamphlets — dusty  even  now — 
which  contain  their  orations  given 
at  ceremonious  meetings.  Their  biog- 
raphies have  been  sketched  in  the  maga- 
zines. For  the  most  part  we  draw  our 
mental  pictures  of  them  from  the  news 
reports,  from  the  debates  upon  the 
Treaty,  and  see  them  as  grave  patriots, 
or  ignorant  ruffians,  according  to  our 
own  prejudices. 

Thus,  of  Governor  Cox,  the  shelves  of 
the  library  and  book-shop  reveal  nothing ; 
of  Mr.  McAdoo,  we  may  read  in  pamph- 
lets his  views  upon  tunnels  and  subways, 
upon  fiscal  affairs,  and  upon  the  general 
excellence  of  his  party  and  its  present 
leader.  With  Attorney-General  Palmer, 
the  situation  is  similar.  For  Governor 
Edwards,  I  can  think  of  nothing  better  to 
read  than  the  quatrains  of  Omar  Khay- 
yam. Among  the  candidates  from  the 
rival  party,  Senator  Johnson  and  Gov- 
ernor Lowden  seem  to  be  the  bookless 
ones. 

Others  have  kept  publishers  and 
writers  of  reviews  busy.  President 
Wilson  is  both  biographer  and  biog- 
raphee ;  the  books  about  him  have  already 
been  named  here.  We  know  his  favorite 
poem,  and  that  he  likes  limericks,  and 
can  quote  Oliver  Herford.  The  card 
catalogues  of  the  libraries  contain  a  fair 
number  of  entries,  also,  under  the  name : 
Bryan,  William  Jennings.  There  are 
some  painful  looking  campaign  biog- 
graphies,  dating  from  the  free  silver 
days,  any  number  of  addresses,  singly 
and  in  battalions,  (all  extra  moral)  and 
some  ingenuous  volumes  of  travel.  The 
best  of  the  collection,  however,  and  one 
of  the  two  prizes  discovered  in  this  little 
search  of  mine,  is  Mr.  Bryan's  "Letters 
to  a  Chinese  Official"  (McClure,  1906). 
It  is  Mr.  Bryan  at  his  best, — and  also  in 
his  most  innocent  aspects,  for  it  shows 
him  the  victim  of  a  literary  hoax.  When 
Mr.  Lowes  Dickinson  wrote  his  "  Letters 
from  a  Chinese  Official,"  he  scarcely 
expected  that  his  criticisms  of  western 
civilization  would  impose  upon  a  person- 
age like  Mr.  Bryan.  The  latter,  however, 
had  his  grave  reply  all  written  before  he 
learned  that  an  Englishman,  not  a  China- 
man, was  the  author  of  the  original  book. 
Among  the  other  Democrats  no  one  has 
written  a  more  entertaining  work  than 
Mr.  Gerard's  "My  Four  Years  in 
Germany"  (Doran,  1917).  The  number 
of  translations  indicate  that  the  author 
is  taken  seriously  in  foreign  countries. 

For  the  Republicans,  Dr.  Butler  has 
been  a  frequent,  but  not  voluminous 
writer  upon  matters  connected  with  his 
profession;  there  are  also  one  or  two 
books  and  some  detached  addresses  about 
foreign  and  domestic  politics.  Should 
we  decide  that  we  need  an  epigrammatist 
in  the  White  House,  we  must  plump  for 
Governor  Coolidge.  His  political  wis- 
dom is  presented  in  his  "Have  Faith  in 


Massachusetts"  (Houghton,  1919),  but  I 
doubt  if  it  contains  anything  better  than 
his  tSlegram  to  the  Harvard  football 
team  in  California — that  should  have 
made  them  all  join  a  Coolidge  Club  on 
the  instant. 

General  Wood  is  the  author  of  two 
books,  "Our  Military  History;  its  Facts 
and  Fallacies"  (Reilly,  1916)  and  "The 
Military  Obligation  of  Citizenship" 
(Princeton  Univ.  Press,  1915).  There 
are  biographies  of  him  by  I.  F. 
Marcosson,  J.  H.  Sears,  and  Eric  Fisher 
Wood.  But  Captain  Walter  Lippmann 
(late  of  the  "staff"  of  Colonel  House) 
says  he  won't  vote  for  General  Wood — 
despite  all  these  books.  Had  the  General's 
name  been  Bergdoll  or  Goldman,  had  he 
tried  to  evade  the  draft  instead  of  trying 
to  go  to  France,  there  might  have  been 
kindly  words,  or  apologetic  ones,  for  him. 
But  the  General  is  tainted  with  that 
played  out  rubbish  called  "patriotism" — 


and  a  pitying  smile  is  the  best  he  can 
expect  from  an  editorial  writer  in  the 
New  Republic. 

As  the  author  of  "Principles  of  Mining, 
Valuation,  Organization,  and  Admin- 
istration, Copper,  Gold,  Lead,  Silver,  Tin 
and  Zinc,"  Mr.  Hoover  need  expect  no 
vote  from  me.  My  sense  of  decency  as 
a  librarian  is  aroused  against  such  a 
preposterous  title  as  that.  But  as  the 
translator  with  Mrs.  Hoover,  of  the  "De 
Re  Metallica"  of  Georgius  Agricola,  the 
elder,  he  appeals  to  my  fondness  for 
curious,  and  (I  suspect)  useless,  books. 
It  was  translated  from  the  final  Latin 
edition  of  1556,  and  sumptuously  pub- 
lished in  London,  by  the  Mining  Maga- 
zine, in  1912.  It  is  a  noble  looking 
volume,  and  ought  to  rally  to  the  "Who 
but  Hoover  Clubs"  many  of  the  mining 
engineers,  and  all  of  the  admirers  of 
Georgius  Agricola,  the  elder. 

Edmund  Lester  Pearson 


EDUCATIONAL  SECTION 

Propaganda  and  Education 


ONE  must  be  highly  educated  in  order 
to  read  discriminatingly  current 
publications.  The  press  is  supposed  to 
furnish  news  and  to  educate  the  public. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  requires  well- 
trained  minds  to  distinguish  fact  from 
opinion,  news  from  publicity,  propa- 
ganda from  education. 

When  one  reads,  for  example,  an  ac- 
count of  the  deeds  and  aims  of  the  Bol- 
sheviki,  one  should  have  a  mental  reser- 
vation as  to  both  the  accuracy  of  the 
facts  and  the  purpose  of  the  writer  in 
conveying  his  opinions  concerning  these 
facts.  An  innocent-looking  news  item 
regarding  an  automobile  concern,  or  a 
particular  industrial  enterprise,  may  be 
merely  veiled  publicity,  not  news.  And 
an  interesting  statement  in  the  news  col- 
umns of  a  newspaper  regarding  some 
public  measure  or  decision  of  importance 
may  be  framed  in  a  clever  way,  not  to 
educate  the  public,  but  to  influence  the 
public  to  support  a  special  point  of  view. 

This  obviously  is  propaganda  in  dis- 
guise. It  is  more  effective  and  much  more 
insidious  than  formal  advertising  or  edi- 
torials known  openly  to  represent  a  can- 
did, definite  policy. 

The  development  of  this  means  of  in- 
fluencing public  opinion  was  greatly 
accentuated  during  the  recent  war  in 
connection  with  the  many  "drives"  in 
support  of  various  projects  "to  help  win 
the  war." 

The  promoters  of  such  measures  em- 
phasized, of  course,  the  necessity  of  edu- 
cating the  public.  What  they  meant, 
however,  was  not  strictly  to  educate,  but 


to  make  the  public  see  just  one  point  of 
view.  Irrespective  of  the  nature  of  the 
particular  project,  this  brand  of  educa- 
tion is  to  be  characterized  as  out-and-out 
propaganda;  and  propaganda  is  nothing 
but  publicity,  or  advertising.  The  ob- 
ject is  to  induce  the  public  by  news 
items — soi-disant — by  editorials,  and 
open  advertising,  to  accept  the  ideas 
advocated  by  the  men  backing  the  proj- 
ect in  question. 

The  advertising  manager  of  one  of  the 
most  successful  advertising  mediums  in 
the  United  States  tells  me  that,  if  one 
is  willing  to  spend  the  money,  it  is 
possible  by  modern  advertising  methods 
to  "put  over"  almost  any  article  of  trade 
or  any  commercial  undertaking.  He  says 
that  the  guiding  principle  in  successful 
advertising  is  to  appeal  to  men  more 
through  their  sentiments  and  emotions 
than  through  their  reason.  Emphasis  is 
to  be  placed  on  the  happy,  forward-look- 
ing, and  altruistic  attitude  of  mind. 
Happy,  serene  lives  may  be  attained  by 
sleeping  on  a  special  make  of  mattress. 
Homes  may  be  brightened,  annoyances 
and  domestic  infelicities  obviated  by 
various  mechanical  devices  to  save  labor 
and  give  comfort.  The  children  may  be 
made  better  behaved  and  more  helpful 
if  provided  with  divers  articles  of  play, 
dress,  and  elaborate  conveniences.  Per- 
haps the  most  striking  example  of  the 
evolution  of  modem  advertising  is  to  be 
found  in  extraordinary  advertisements 
couched  in  literary  form  by  undertakers, 
appealing  to  the  sentiments  and  emotions 
of  the  public.    A  funeral  is  made  to  ap- 


April  3,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[343 


pear  so  aesthetic  and  beautiful  that  one 
is  almost  induced  to  want  to  die! 

By  substantially  the  same  methods  it 
is  possible,  according  to  the  expert  al- 
leady  cited,  to  "put  over"  an  idea  as 
well  as  to  sell  goods  and  securities.  By 
the  adroit  use  of  publicity  a  popular  de- 
mand may  be  successfully  created  in  be- 
lialf  of  almost  any  project  backed  by 
money  and  by  men  whose  names  carry 
weight  with  the  public. 

Now  propaganda  of  this  character  ob- 
viously is  not  education  in  the  true  sense, 
which,  on  all  matters  of  importance  re- 
quiring reflection  and  decision,  must 
necessarily  include  a  presentation  of  all 
sides  of  a  question.  The  objections  to  a 
proposal  must  be  considered  as  well  as 
its  alleged  virtues.  True  education  of 
public  opinion  is  through  candid  discus- 
sion and  argument.  This,  naturally,  is 
not  the  aim  of  advertising,  nor  is  it  the 
aim  of  propaganda.  The  lamentable  re- 
sult is  that,  unless  there  is  a  counter 
propaganda  backed  similarly  by  money 
and  men  of  prominence,  the  public  is  not 
in  a  fair  position  to  discuss  intelligently 
the  proposal  in  question,  or  to  reach  a 
reasoned  decision. 

The  significance  of  this  fact  is  of  spe- 
cial moment  at  a  time  when  so  many 
intricate  problems,  domestic  and  interna- 
tional, are  clamoring  for  wise  solution. 
Never  was  there  a  more  urgent  need  for 
a  press  which  should  aim  dispassionately 
to  give  the  public,  first  of  all,  real  news, 
based  on  ascertainable  facts;  secondly, 
the  judgment  of  experts  on  these  facts; 
thirdly,  honest  discussion  concerning 
these  facts  and  opinions;  and  fourthly, 
a  generous  consideration  of  all  serious 
arguments  concerning  a  proposed  line  of 
action  suggested  by  the  facts  and  inter- 
ests involved.  The  pity  of  it  is  that  our 
publications  seem  constrained  to  assume 
in  irrevocable,  partisan  attitude  on  most 
questions  of  importance.  From  that 
•noment  they  dedicate  their  services  to 
3ropaganda  rather  than  to  the  education 
)f  public  opinion. 

This  need  is  nowhere  more  apparent 
;:han  in  the  field  of  international  affairs, 
where  the  American  people,  largely  by 
•eason  of  their  lack  of  training,  are 
)eculiarly  deficient  in  the  ability  to 
mderstand  clearly,  and  to  reach  mature 
udgments  concerning  other  nations  and 
vorld  politics  in  general.  For  years  it 
las  been  evident  that  public  opinion  has 
rreatly  needed  expert  guidance  in  such 

DIVIDEND   NOTICE 


WESTINGHOUSE  ELECTRIC 

&  MANUFACTURING  COMPANY 

i  A  quarterly  dividend  of  2%  ($1.00  per  share)  on 
le  PREFERRED  Stock  of  this  Company  will  be  paid 
ipril    15,    1920. 

'\,J^i^i^"i'^  °'  2%  ($1.00  per  share)  on  the 
'M.MON  Stock  of  this  Company  for  the  quarter 
i"ig  March  31,   1920,  will  be  paid  April  30,   1920. 

Both  dividends  are  payable  to  Stockholders  of  record 
i  of  Apr.l  2,   1920.  H.  F.   BAETZ,  Treasurer. 

New   York,   March  24,    1920. 


matters.  The  American  people  have 
been  pathetically  eager  for  reliable  in- 
formation and  for  authoritative  assist- 
ance in  reaching  sound  conclusions.  Too 
often  they  have  listened,  instead,  to  an 
ex  parte  presentation  of  facts,  and  are 
besieged  by  partisan  propaganda  which 
not  infrequently  takes  the  form  of  a 
moral,  social,  and  political  coercion.  It 
is  not  strange  that  they  feel  utterly 
bewildered  when  drawn  by  the  recent  war 
into  the  maelstrom  of  world  politics,  and 
asked  to  commit  themselves  to  new 
undertakings  that  run  counter  to  pre- 
vious habits  of  thought,  as  well  as  to 
long-established  policy. 

For  these  reasons  I  desire  to  make  an 
appeal  for  a  changed  attitude  on  the 
part  of  our  "journals  of  public  opinion," 
that  they  should  regard  themselves  as 
the  educators,  not  the  arbiters,  of  pub- 
lic opinion.  When  the  New  Republic  was 
founded  I  fondly  hoped,  with  many 
others,  that  it  would  prove  a  public  ser- 
vant of  this  character.  In  this  age  of 
transition  in  thought  about  most  matters 
of  vital  importance,  I  felt  the  need  of  a 
periodical  which  would  seek  to  enlighten 
the  American  people  and  help  them — par- 
ticularly the  reactionary  conservative 
element — to  progress  to  a  plane  of 
conservative  liberalism  that  knows  how 
to  move  with  the  times  but  preserves 
all  that  is  best  in  our  institutions.  But 
the  New  Republic  became  the  organ  of 


special  policies  and  views  presented  in  a 
cavalier  fashion  inconsiderate  of  other 
honest  arguments,  and  affronting  the 
very  class  of  thinkers  it  should  have 
most  desired  to  reach  and  help. 

And  now  that  another  journal — the 
Review — has  this  same  great  opportunity 
before  it,  I  am  hopeful  that  at  last  the 
American  public  has  obtained  the  trust- 
worthy medium  for  news  and  education 
that  is  so  imperatively  needed  at  this 
critical  period  in  our  history.  We  ask 
a  genuine  opportunity  to  be  educated. 
We  ask  to  be  delivered  from  the  irksome 
necessity  of  being  constantly  on  the  alert 
against  publicity  and  propaganda.  The 
press  should  neither  presume  on  our 
ignorance  nor  make  too  great  exactions 
on  our  powers  of  discrimination. 

Philip  Marshall  Brown 


H 


OW  to  Promote  Better  Relations 
Between  England  and  America" 
is  the  imposing  subject  dealt  with  in  an 
essay  competition  between  St.  George's 
School,  Harpenden,  England,  and  the 
school  of  the  same  name  near  Newport, 
Rhode  Island.  The  essays,  it  appears, 
were  few  and  not  of  striking  merit  but 
the  character  of  the  competition  was  one 
which  calls  for  imitation  by  other  Ameri- 
can and  English  schools,  particularly  at 
a  time  when  the  rising  generation  has 
great  need  to  understand  the  necessity 
of  promoting  better    relations  between 


Oldest  Banking  House  in  the  United  States 


The  house  of  Alex.  Brown  &  Sons  was  founded  in  the  year  1 800 — 
1 20  years  ago. 

For  more  than  a  century  the   house  has  steadfastly  maintained  the 
highest  standards  of  financial  service  for  its  customers. 

Investments  are   offered   only   after  the  most  careful  and  efficient 
investigation. 

Large  estates  can  best  be  protected  and  are  frequently  much 
benefited  by  a  special  study  conducted  b\i  investment  experts. 

This  is  particularly  true  at  the  present  time  on  account   of 
changed  values  due  to  the  War  and  subsequent  conditions. 

We  mal^e  inoestment  studies   without  charge,   recommending 
such  changes  as  conditions  or  new  tax  laws  render  advisable. 

The  strictest  confidential  relations  are  adhered  to  in  our  trans- 
actions With  customers. 


Alex.  Brown  &  Sons 

(Oldest  Banking  House  in  ihe  United  States) 

Baltimore,  Maryland 


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344] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  47 


the  two  great  English-speaking  nations. 
Even  those  who  because  of  some  bias, 
Hibernian  or  other,  feel  that  nothing 
good  can  come  out  of  "perfidious  Albion" 
must  admit  that  if  we  are  to  make  faces 
we  ought  at  least  to  understand  the  char- 
acter of  our  adversary;  while  most  good 
Americans  must  see  positive  benefits  in 
any  step  to  encourage  understanding  in 
the  younger  generations  of  the  two  coun- 
tries. Those  in  middle  age  and  beyond 
will  go  on  with  their  Anglophile  or  An- 
glophobe  prejudices,  little  affected  by 
propaganda,  but  they  will  be  dead  in  a 
little  while.  It  is  the  boys  and  girls  of 
to-day  who  must  shape  the  international 
policy  of  to-morrow;  and  little  could  be 
more  promising  than  an  extension  of  the 
St.  George's  idea — an  attempt  in  aca- 
demic competition  to  see  the  good  points 
of  the  other  side, 

"npHE  unholy  alliance  between  tired- 
X  ness  and  temper"  is  the  striking 
phrase  used  by  Mr.  Whiting  Williams,  of 
the  Hydraulic  Pressed  Steel  Company, 
Cleveland,  Ohio,  to  picture  one  of  the 
causes  of  a  condition  which  offers  fertile 
ground  for  the  agitator.  It  produces 
grievances.  "An  imaginary  grievance  is 
just  as  powerful  and  impelling  a  force 
as  a  real  grievance,"  is  one  of  many 
significant  sentences  in  a  speech  made 
recently  by  Col.  Arthur  Woods,  formerly 
Police  Commissioner  of  New  York  City. 
In  the  course  of  his  speech  he  told  of  the 
experience  of  a  Russian  Jewess  who  had 
been  fined  for  a  minor  infringement  of 
a  complicated  law  regarding  ash-cans,  of 
her  sense  of  grievance,  and  of  her  pro- 
jection into  that  condition  which  offered 
fertile  ground  for  the  agitator.  He  then 
proceeded  to  tell  how  an  order  was  issued 
forbidding  policemen  to  make  arrests  for 
violation  of  the  city  ordinances.  "They 
were  told  that  .  .  .  they  had  to  secure 
an  observance  of  the  city  ordinances  on 
their  posts,  but  that  they  must  do  it  by 
educating  the  people  and  not  by  arresting 
them.  .  .  .  The  result  was  quite  as- 
tonishing. We  had  the  people  of  the  East 
Side  turning  to  the  policemen  for  assist- 
ance in  every  sort  of  way,  and  we  had 
the  boys  on  the  East  Side  formed  into 
what  were  called  junior  police  forces." 

All  this  is  only  an  evidence,  in  another 
field,  of  what  the  company  clubs  are 
attempting  to  do  in  industrial  work.  The 
policemen,  to  do  their  work  well,  had  not 
merely  to  be  told  that  it  was  educative, 
but  they  had  to  be  taught  how  to,  make 
it  educative;  and  behind  that  lay  an 
understanding  of  their  relation  to  the 
people  and  to  the  municipal  officers  of 
the  people.  It  is  encouraging  to  note 
that  the  Police  Department  of  New  York 
City  is  a  member  of  the  National  Asso- 
ciation of  Corporation  Schools. 


America's  Foreign 
Loans 

AMERICA'S  advances  to  the  Allied 
Governments  were  made  as  "call 
loans"  and  bore  interest  at  the  rate  of 
five  per  cent.  The  amount  of  them  out- 
standing on  December  31,  1919,  together 
with  the  interest  accrued,  is  shown  in 
the  table  which  follows: 

Amount  of  Credits     Interest 
Country.        Advanced.  Accrued, 

Great 

Britain   $4,277,000,000 


France 

Italy    

Belgium  . 
Russia  . . 
Czecho- 
slovakia 
Greece  . . 
Serbia  _  . . 
Rumania. 


3.047,974,777 

1,621,338,986 

343,445,000 

187,729,750 

67,329,041 
48,236,629 
26,780,465 
25,000,000 


$144,440,837 
94,021,749 
54,256,589 
11,465.278 
16,832,662 

1,667,083 


917,299 
609,873 


Total. 

$4,421,440,837 

3,141,996,526 

1,675,595,575 

354,910,278 

204,562,412 

68,996,124 
48,236,629 
27,697,764 
25,609,873 


Total  Loans 
European 
Allies    .$9,644,834,648     $324,211,370     $9,969,046,018 


Cuba    10,000,000 

Liberia    . .  5,000,000 


548 


10,000.000 
5,000,548 


Total  Loans 
to  all 
Allies    .$9,659,834,648     $324,211,918     $9,984,046,566 

Reckoning  accrued  interest,  the 
amount  is  therefore  now  well  in  excess 
of  $10,000,000,000.  Loans  of  this  kind 
between  Governments  are  not  wholly 
without  precedent  but  are  an  unusual 
feature  in  modern  finance.  They  gen- 
erate problems,  moreover,  which  are  not 
easy  of  solution.  Leaving  out  of  con- 
sideration altogether  the  political  disad- 
vantages (and  perhaps  dangers)  of  a 
mass  of  unfunded  obligations  of  this  sort 
and  considering  only  the  financial  aspects 
of  the  case,  it  appears  that  our  loans  to 
the  Allied  Governments  are  very  likely 
to  prove  a  source  of  disturbance  if  not 
actually  a  hindrance  to  our  foreign  trade. 

The  amount  of  interest  annually 
accruing  to  the  United  States  on  these 
loans  as  they  stand  at  present  is  $500,- 
000,000.  Presumably  some  arrangement 
must  be  come  to  with  regard  to  the 
extinction  of  principal,  so  that  we  have  to 
consider  a  sinking  fund  as  well  as  inter- 
est. Sinking  fund  at  one  per  cent,  would 
make  the  total  amount  annually  due  to 
the  United  States  for  service  of  the  ob- 
ligations $600,000,000.  There  is  only 
one  way  in  which  this  amount  could  be 
received  by  the  United  States,  and  that 
way  leads  through  the  exchange  market. 
In  other  words,  our  Government  would 
have  to  dispose  of  foreign  exchange 
(that  is,  drafts  upon  the  countries  enu- 
merated above)  to  an  amount  of  some 
$600,000,000  every  year.  This  would 
make  the  Government  a  factor  of  tre- 
mendous importance  in  the  foreign  ex- 
change market.  It  must  be  remembered 
also  that  the  debtor  Governments  would 
be  forced  into  the  exchange  markets  of 
their  respective  countries  as  purchasers 
of  exchange  upon  a  large  scale. 

Neither  these  Governments  nor  the 
United  States  Government  is  in  a  posi- 


tion to  "create"  exchange  upon  a  foreign 
country  or  to  "consume"  exchange  upon 
a  foreign  country  in  the  ordinary  way  of 
trade.  Neither  the  United  States  Gov- 
ernment nor  the  foreign  debtor  Govern- 
ments are  able  to  control  or  even  to 
influence  the  operations  of  their  individ- 
ual nations  in  foreign  commerce,  which 
operations  determine  the  supply  and 
demand  of  exchange  in  the  various  coun- 
tries. Yet  our  Government  must  every 
year  market  a  great  quantity  of  ex- 
change; the  above-mentioned  foreign 
Governments  must  every  year  purchase 
a  corresponding  quantity. 

From  the  point  of  view  of  the  Ameri- 
can merchant  engaged  in  foreign  trade, 
the  entry  of  the  United  States  Govern- 
ment into  the  foreign  exchange  market 
as  a  large  seller  of  bills  every  year  is  a 
decidedly  unfavorable  influence.  It  would 
be  very  much  better,  so  far  as  he  is  con- 
cerned, if  we  had  made  no  advances  what- 
ever to  the  Allies,  or,  indeed,  if  we  simply 
wrote  them  off  as  cancelled.  The  foreign 
trade  of  the  United  States  is  face  to  face 
with  the  necessity  for  a  readjustment. 
Our  people  have  until  now  conceived 
"foreign  trade"  wholly  in  terms  of  mer- 
chandise exports;  now  our  export  trade 
is  menaced  very  decidedly  unless  we  in- 
crease both  rapidly  and  largely  the  vol- 
ume of  our  merchandise  imports.  The 
dead  weight  of  the  annual  debt  of 
foreign  nations  to  the  United  States  Gov- 
ernment, amounting  to  $600,000,000  an- 
nually, will  operate  powerfully  toward 
forcing  this  readjustment.  There  is  only 
one  way  by  which  it  can  be  quickly 
accomplished,  and  that  is  by  reduction 
of  exports.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say 
that  perhaps  the  greatest  single  influence 
tending  to  diminish  American  merchan- 
dise exports  to-day  is  this  credit  balance 
of  $600,000,000  a  year. 

It  is  perfectly  evident  that  the  wisest 
course  for  the  United  States  to  pursue 
with  respect  to  this  debt  is  to  fund  it 
over  a  long  term  of  years,  making  the 
rate  of  interest  and  the  annual  contribu- 
tion to  sinking  fund  as  small  as  possible. 
The  best  interests  of  the  whole  commun- 
ity would  probably  be  served  by  funding 
these  obligations  into  bonds  running  one 
hundred  years  at  a  rate  of  interest  not 
more  than  two  per  cent,  and  with  a  sink- 
ing fund  sufficient  to  retire  the  whole 
issue  in  the  period.  If  the  two  per  cent, 
rate  of  interest  seems  too  low,  it  could 
be  made  two  per  cent,  for  twenty-five 
years,  three  per  cent,  for  the  next  twen- 
ty-five years,  four  per  cent,  for  the 
third  twenty-five  years,  and  five  per  cent, 
for  the  concluding  term  of  the  loan.  If 
that  be  considered  too  low,  then  a  good 
way  to  deal  with  it  would  be  to  fund 
the  interest  altogether  for  a  period  of 
five  to  ten  years  so  as  to  remove  the 
Government  from  the  exchange  market 
during  the  critical  period  of  trade 
readjustment.    Thomas  F.  Woodlock 


o^- 


THE  REVIEW 


Vol.  2,  No.  48 


New  York,  Saturday,  April  10,   1920 


FIFTEEN  CENTS 


Contents 


Brief  Comment  345 

Editorial  Articles: 

The  Expulsion  of  the  Socialists  at 

Albany  348 

The    Housing   Problem  —  Ethics    or 

Economics?  349 

Justice  and  the  Bonus  351 

Ousting  the  Sultan  351 

Behind  the  Financing  of  China.     Part 

III.     By  Charles  Hodges  353 

Helping   the  Reactionaries.     By   W.   J. 

Ghent  354 

Poetry:   Tides.    By  S.  N.  356 

The    Outlook    in    Germany.      By    Ex- 
aminer 356 
*  Correspondence                                               358 
[  Problems  of  Labor  and  Capital :    Em- 
ployers' Associations.    By   Morris 
L.  Ernst                                                    361 
I  Book  Reviews: 

A  Sheaf  of  Verse  362 

Domestic  and  Imported  Models         363 
Echoes  of  the  War  364 

I  The  Run  of  the  Shelves  365 

[The  Tragedy  of  Pygmalion.     By  Ra- 
phael Demos  368 
I  Drama:  The  Craft  of  the  Tortoise  and 

Other  Plays.    By  O.  W.  Firkins        368 
(Music:   James   Huneker   on   Art   and 
Occultism.       By     Charles     Henry 
Meltzer  370 

iBooks  and  the  News:    Libraries.    By 

Edmund   Lester  Pearson  372 


fF  you  represented  a  ring  of  con- 
scienceless criminals  that  had  by 
[treachery  and  cunning  seized  power 
fin  a  great  country,  plundered  and 
Mooted    its    public    and    private    re- 
sources, and  by  violence  and  terror 
held  its  simple  folk  in  a  state  of  ab- 
ject serfdom,  and 

IF  your  principals  had  secured  tes- 
timonials from  prominent  Red  Cross 
and  Y.  M.  C.  A.  officials,  giving  as- 
surance that  they  were  sincere  re- 
formers highmindedly,  if  perhaps 
mistakenly,  seeking  to  bring  about  a 
heaven  on  earth  in  the  form  of  a 
Communist  commonwealth,  and 

IF,  abundantly  supplied  with  men 
and  money,  you  had  by  insidious 
propaganda  succeeded  in  persuading 
the  less  intelligent  workingmen  over 
the  country  that  you  represented  a 


workingmen's    Government,   a   veri- 
table Utopia,  and 

IF  you  had  been  successful  in  en- 
'  listing  the  services  of  the  parlor-radi- 
cals and  the  devotees  of  isms,  and 

IF,  with  your  unlimited  funds,  you 
had  taken  into  your  employ  dis- 
credited politicians  and  venal  journal- 
ists, and  had  secured  the  active  sup- 
port of  many  journals  professing 
liberalism  and  open-mindedness,  and 

IF  you  had  tempted  many  unscrup- 
ulous and  dishonest  speculators  with 
promises  of  large  profits  and  rich 
concessions  if  they  would  use  their 
influence  on  the  Government,  and 

IF  you  had  secured  the  opportunity 
to  use  a  Senate  Sub-committee  as  a 
forum  to  create  the  impression  that 
your  principals  had  reformed,  had 
given  up  the  terror,  had  discontinued 
their  campaign  to  set  class  against 
class  and  overthrow  other  Govern- 
ments, and 

IF,  just  as  you  felt  you  were  about 
to  receive  that  recognition  for  your 
principals  that  would  legalize  their 
criminal  acts  and  confirm  them  in  the 
possession  of  their  plunder,  a  courier 
bringing  you  fresh  resources  in  rich 
diamonds  and  the  latest  instructions 
for  your  work  was  seized  and  the 
whole  plot  exposed, 
WOULD'NT  IT  MAKE  YOU  MAD? 

ly/TR.  KEELING,  whose  book  on 
-'-'-'•  Soviet  Russia  received  ample 
notice  in  the  Review,  is  now  in  jail 
at  Moscow.  Lansbury,  the  editor  of 
the  Daily  Herald,  the  British  Labor 
organ,  has  visited  him  in  his  cell, 
and  elicited  from  the  prisoner  the 
confession  that  he  was  not  the  actual 
writer  of  his  book.  He  had  told  his 
impressions  to  others,  who  had  pre- 
pared them  for  the  press,  and  per- 
suaded him  to  put  his  name  to  it. 
But  he  now  regretted  his  part  in  the 
publication,  as  his  opinion  of  Bol- 
shevism had  changed  considerably 
since  his  first  visit,  and  as  a  Chris- 


tian he  wished  to  confess  that  he  had 
been  in  the  wrong.  Soviet  prisons 
must  be  charming  resorts  that  a  resi- 
dence there  can  change  the  impres- 
sion of  horror  gained  by  a  free 
wanderer  through  Russia  into  a 
favorable  opinion  of  that  country. 
We  shall  soon,  we  fear,  have  to  ex- 
press our  sympathy  with  Mr.  Keel- 
ing for  being  dismissed  from  his 
comfortable  reformatory. 

TTAS  the  police  administration  of 
■'■■'•  New  York  City  sunk  back  into 
something  like  the  mire  uncovered  by 
the  Lexow  committee,  and  its  coun- 
sel, Mr.  Goff,  twenty-five  years  ago? 
Are  vice  and  crime  simply  kept  a 
little  further  out  of  range  of  the 
casual  eye,  but  allowed  to  go  on  with 
their  noxious  work  on  condition  of 
pouring  a  steady  stream  of  their 
profits  into  the  pockets  of  the  men 
paid  and  sworn  to  bring  them  to 
punishment?  Evidence  brought  out 
during  the  past  few  weeks  points 
very  significantly  in  that  direction. 
The  blackmail  levied  by  the  criminal 
police  organization  of  Lexow's  day 
was  so  carefully  graded  to  the  ability 
of  its  victims  to  pay  as  to  suggest  the 
work  of  an  expert  price-fixing  com- 
mittee in  some  great  branch  of  mod- 
ern trade.  The  poor  foreigner  with 
his  pushcart,  down  on  Hester  Street^ 
uncertain  whether  he  had  any  legal 
rights  or  not,  got  along  by  paying 
three  dollars  a  month.  The  manager 
of  a  house  of  prostitution  had  to  pay 
five  hundred  dollars  at  the  outset  and 
fifty  dollars  a  month  thereafter,  to 
free  himself  from  the  worry  of  a 
possible  arrest  and  prosecution.  And 
the  individual  inmates  of  these  houses 
made  their  own  forced  contributions 
to  the  graft  thus  gathered  by  these 
guardians  of  the  public  safety 
and  order.  The  Lexow  revelations 
brought  a  stunning  defeat  to  Tam- 
many, and  under  Mayor  Strong's 
Police   Commission   such  corruption 


346] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  48 


became  merely  sporadic,  if  it  was  not 
eliminated  altogether.  But  twenty- 
five  years  is  a  long  time,  and  there  are 
many  apparent  signs  that  the  lesson 
has  been  forgotten.  If  the  grand 
jury  now  at  work  does  not  probe  the 
matter  to  the  very  bottom,  and  arrive 
at  satisfactory  results,  another  in- 
vestigation from  Albany  may  be  in 
order. 

INVESTIGATIONS  by  legislative 
•■■  bodies,  however,  have  their  own 
dangers.  The  influence  of  a  political 
boss  deprived  New  York  of  the  full 
gain  in  constructive  legislation  which 
might  have  :£ollowed  the  Lexow  ex- 
posure of  the  rottenness  that  finds  so 
convenient  a  hiding  place  in  the 
partisan  management  of  police  ad- 
ministration. Well  up  towards  a 
hundred  investigations  by  Senate  or 
House  committees  at  Washington  are 
now  in  progress,  public' interest  and 
confidence  in  all  of  which  is  decidedly 
marred  by  the  fact  that  they  have  not 
been  kept  free  from  the  suspicion  of 
partisan  purpose.  If  the  New  York 
Legislature,  with  a  strong  Republican 
majority,  is  to  investigate  the  police 
of  New  York  City  under  a  Tammany 
administration,  the  very  fact  of  this 
political  setting  of  the  stage  calls  for 
a  committee  wholly  above  the  level  of 
conducting  such  an  enquiry  on  the 
basis  of  its  relation  to  a  coming  elec- 
tion. What  New  York  City  wants  is 
a  police  force  too  honest  and  too  well 
disciplined  to  fill  its  pockets  through 
blackmail  from  the  gains  of  harlots 
and  criminals,  not  simply  a  political 
overturn. 

IF  the  men  in  power  to-day  in  Ber- 
lin were  not  known  to  be  novices 
in  the  subtle  art  of  diplomacy,  one 
would  feel  inclined  to  see  in  their 
sending  of  troops  into  the  neutral 
zone  a  clever  move  to  force  the 
French  Government  to  reprisals 
which,  if  they  should  be  disapproved 
of  by  England  and  the  United  States, 
would  drive  a  wedge  between  France 
and  her  associates.  France  isolated, 
we  wrote  the  other  day,  means  a  rela- 
tively stronger  Germany,  and  that 
diplomatic  gain  would  be  well  worth 
to  her  the  loss  of  the  few  cities  that 
Marshal  Foch  threatened  to  occupy. 


But  neither  our  knowledge  of  the 
German  statesmen  now  at  the  head  of 
affairs,  nor  the  course  of  events  that 
led  up  to  the  present  situation  seems 
to  justify  such  a  suspicion.  Instead 
of  taking  the  decisive  step  of  send- 
ing troops  into  the  Ruhr  Valley  when 
conditions  there  appeared  to  be  suffi- 
ciently alarming  to  make  that  in- 
fringement of  Article  43  of  the  peace 
terms  seem  a  pardonable  act  of  self- 
protection,  they  shrank  from  the 
initiative  and  even  offered  apologies 
in  Paris  for  the  forward  march  of 
Reichswehr  troops  into  the  Ruhr  re- 
gion, which  Herr  von  Mayer,  the  Ger- 
man charge  d'affaires  in  Paris  de- 
clared, was  against  Government  in- 
structions. And  now,  when  the  Red 
forces  seem  near  to  a  collapse,  the 
same  step  which,  when  taken  at  the 
right  moment,  was  officially  called  a 
mistake,  is  deliberately  made  under 
Government  orders.  In  the  matter  of 
diplomacy,  if  such  aimless,  hesitating 
proceedings  deserve  that  name,  Herr 
Miiller  has  proved  himself  to  be  no 
match  for  M.  Millerand  and  Mar- 
shal Foch. 

T  ITTLE  countries,  as  if  infected 
■'-'  by  their  great  neighbors,  are  sus- 
ceptible to  fits  of  chauvinism  and  ex- 
pansion. Belgium  suffered  from  one 
when,  after  the  armistice,  it  de- 
manded annexation  of  Dutch  terri- 
tory. Now  Denmark  has  succumbed 
to  the  contagion.  To  do  justice  to 
the  population  of  both  countries,  it 
must  be  admitted  that  those  who 
come  forward  with  such  claims  form 
only  a  small,  but  vociferous  minor- 
ity, consisting  mostly  of  political 
hotheads  and  wealthy  capitalists 
whose  interests  would  be  promoted 
by  territorial  expansion.  In  Den- 
mark this  group  acquired  greater 
importance  than  its  counterpart  in 
Belgium  by  its  finding  favor  with 
the  Court.  But  the  satisfaction  of 
their  demands  depended  on  factors 
over  which  they  had  no  control :  those 
of  the  Belgians  were  submitted  to  an 
impartial  conference  of  diplomats  in 
Paris,  and  the  Danish  claims  to  the 
inhabitants  of  the  disputed  area.  In 
neither  case  was  the  verdict  to  the 
satisfaction  of  the  chauvinists. 
Those  in  Denmark  committed  the 


mistake  of  calling  the  justice  of  the 
decision,  thus  impartially  arrived  at, 
into  question,  and  clamored  for  a  re- 
vision. That  Flensburg,  included  in 
the  second  zone  of  the  plebiscite  era, 
was  lost  to  Denmark,  they  felt  as  a 
national  defeat,  whose  quiet  accept- 
ance by  the  Cabinet  of  Mr.  Zahle  was 
to  them  a  betrayal  of  the  country's 
honor.  They  want  to  see  the  Danne- 
brog,  the  red  flag  with  the  white 
cross,  hoisted  on  the  townhall  of 
Flensburg.  Their  influence  with  the 
King  carried  the  dismissal  of  the 
Zahle  Ministry.  The  step  was  not 
approved  of  by  the  large  majority 
of  the  people,  and  the  general  in- 
dignation would  have  found  a  more 
decided  expression  if  the  issue  had 
not  been  warped  by  the  Socialists' 
cry  for  a  Danish  Republic.  The  na- 
tion refused  to  have  its  vindication 
of  constitutional  rights  made  an  oc- 
casion for  anti-dynastic  propaganda. 
Still,  the  King  realized  that  the  dis- 
approval of  his  policy  was  stronger 
and  more  general  than  of  the  mo- 
tives which  made  the  Socialists  call 
a  nation-wide  strike,  and  wisely 
came  to  terms  with  the  Rigsdag 
leaders. 

■jV-EW  YORK'S  jungle— Fifth  Ave- 
■'•  *  nue — has  waked  up  with  a  ven- 
geance from  its  winter  snows.  All 
the  Christian  sounds  of  Easter  Sun- 
day could  not  silence  the  laughing- 
hyena  mail  trucks,  the  chattering 
bands  of  monkey  cyclists,  the  inces- 
sant barking  of  wolfish  taxis,  the 
elephantine  tread  of  the  buses,  and 
the  prolonged  roars  of  Rolls  Royces 
and  other  lions  of  the  Avenue.  There 
is  nothing  tame  here.  Why  go  to 
Africa  for  excitement?  Is  it  the 
thrill  of  danger  you  crave?  Then 
dodge  your  policeman  and  take  but 
two  steps  into  this  modern  jungle.  If 
it  be  at  night,  you  will  find,  besides 
the  terrors  of  the  day,  dragon  eyes 
bearing  down  upon  you.  But  this  is 
civilization  at  its  height!  At  least, 
the  advocates  of  a  brotherhood  of 
man  for  the  whole  world,  including 
the  most  primitive  peoples,  need  not 
despair  when  we  have  set  up  in  our 
midst  a  full-grown  jungle  which  we 
point  to  with  pride  as  "Fifth  Ave- 
nue." 


April  10,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[347 


OUT,  jungle  or  not,  Fifth  Avenue 
-■-'  is  the  most  beautiful  business 
street  in  the  world.  The  remark  is 
safe  because  there  is  nothing  of  its 
kind  to  compare  it  with.  London, 
Paris,  Berlin,  and  Vienna  have  no 
business  thoroughfares  of  such  mag- 
nitude. And  even  if  they  had.  Fifth 
Avenue  would  doubtless  hold  its  own. 
For  in  itself  it  is  a  thing  of  great 
Deauty,  as  foreign  visitors  have  freely 
admitted.  Those  who  saw  it  as  the 
Avenue  of  the  Allies,  when  it  was  the 
symbol  of  America's  union  in  a  great 
cause,  will  never  forget  how  satisfy- 
ing it  was  to  all  our  eager  hopes  for 
the  maintenance  of  a  civilization  con- 
taining the  elements  of  charm  and 
beauty  as  opposed  to  an  order  in 
which  might  made  right.  With  that 
memory  still  strong,  the  institution  of 
Fifth  Avenue  Week  as  a  yearly  event 
will  give  pleasure  to  many  persons 
the  country  over.  In  its  gala  dress 
it  is  worth  coming  from  afar  to  see, 
even  though  New  York  is,  and  has 
been  for  months,  "full  up." 

T^  NGLAND  is  meeting  the  campaign 
■'-'     for  prohibition  in  the  right  way. 
Before  even  considering  it  seriously, 
she  means  to  know  whether  prohibi- 
tion is  to  be  used  as  an  entering 
wedge  for  a  host  of  other  restraints 
upon  personal  liberty.     Will  it  lead 
to  the  giving  up  of  tea  and  coffee,  of 
"scent,"  as  the  English  still  like  to 
call  perfume,  and  of  other  domesti- 
cated vices?     This  is  not  extrava- 
ganza, for  unless  we  have  backbone 
we  are  in  for  the  establishment  of  a 
new  set  of  Deadly  Sins.    Science  will, 
of  course,  be  the  guide  in  these  mat- 
ters.     What    cigarettes    can    do    to 
women  we  have  just  been  authorita- 
tively informed.    We  dislike  to  think 
of  what  science,  once  spurred  on  by 
William    H.    Anderson,    will    reveal 
when  its  attention  is  focused  upon 
coffee,  ice-cream  sodas,  and  sugar  on 
grape-fruit.    Americans  are  an  easy- 
going  people   and    will    not   permit 
themselves  to  worry  too  much.  They 
will  probably  be  content  if  the  new 
Deadly  Sins  are  no  more  than  seven. 
All  the  same,  the  evident  intention  to 
legislate  evil  and  sorrow  out  of  the 
world  and  virtue  and  happiness  into 
it  makes  one  wonder  at  Samuel  But- 


ler's foresight  when  he  said  that  the 
next  tyrant  to  rule  on  this  earth 
would  be  machinery.  Of  all  machin- 
ery legislative  machinery  can  be  the 
most  diabolical. 

'T'HERE  will  be  general  sympathy 
•*■  with  Hudson  Stuck,  Archdeacon 
of  the  Yukon,  and  well-knoWn  writer 
on  Alaskan  matters,  in  his  attempts 
to  save  the  residents  of  the  region 
drained  by  the  Yukon  and  its  tribu- 
taries from  the  starvation  which  is 
threatened  by  recent  developments  of 
the  salmon-canning  industry.  The 
whole  economy  of  this  region,  he  says, 
is  based  upon  dried  salmon  as  the 
staple  article  of  food.  There  is  not 
enough  to  eat  without  it,  and  no  na- 
tive product  with  which  to  replace  it. 
Existing  "restrictions"  merely  limit 
the  gross  amount  which  may  be 
taken  by  the  canners  in  the  waters 
of  the  river  itself,  but  do  not  re- 
strain them,  when  this  altogether  too 
liberal  limit  has  been  reached,  from 
moving  their  floating  plant  just  out- 
side into  the  Bering  Sea  and  taking 
all  the  fish  they  can  get.  The  fish 
they  catch  there  are  the  fish  that  have 
gathered  to  ascend  the  river,  and  it 
makes  no  difference  in  the  depletion 
of  the  Yukon  Valley  food  supply 
whether  they  are  taken  in  the  one 
place  or  the  other.  The  danger  is  no 
longer  a  mere  matter  of  prophecy; 
there  was  much  actual  distress  dur- 
ing the  past  winter  because  of  the 
shortage  following  the  canning  opera- 
tions of  last  summer.  The  Fish  Com- 
mission has  no  marine  jurisdiction, 
and  there  seems  to  be  no  resource 
save  an  act  of  Congress  forbidding 
commercial  fishing  in  the  Yukon  and 
adjacent  waters.  Archdeacon  Stuck 
is  now  seeking  to  bring  about  the  in- 
troduction and  passage  of  such  a  bill. 
We  suggest  letters  from  our  readers 
to  their  Congressmen  urging  the  pas- 
sage of  such  a  measure  before  the 
adjournment  of  the  present  session. 

WELL-BRED  talk,  neither  pro- 
"^  found  nor  obvious,  but  human 
always  and  ranging  through  the 
centuries  and  over  the  globe — with  a 
large  class  of  English,  this  is  still 
a  staple  of  life.  The  remark  is 
prompted  by  a  glance  at  the  first  few 


numbers  of  the  London  Mercury,  a 
monthly  occupied  with  the  sphere  of 
literature  and  the  arts.  We  have 
called  the  articles  in  this  publication 
"talk"  because  they  are  so  much 
more  informal  than  articles  in  Amer- 
ican journals  with  similar  intellectual 
pretensions.  To  find  informality  in 
American  letters  one  has  usually  to 
descend  to  the  popular  magazines, 
where  the  desire  of  the  writer  to  be 
at  one  with  the  reader  has  led  to  such 
silly  affectations  as  illiteracy  and  the 
slang  of  the  bar-room.  In  between 
there  is,  of  course,  plenty  of  plain 
writing — so  plain  as  not  to  differ  in 
style  from  the  report  of  a  factory 
superintendent.  But  we  are  speaking 
of  our  intellectuals,  many  of  whom 
when  they  write  put  on  their  culture 
as  though  dressing  for  a  function. 
We  have  in  this  country — witness  the 
considerable  sale  of  Everyman's 
Library — a  large  audience  for  whom 
an  appreciation  of  the  urbanities,  the 
charm,  the  enduring  satisfactions  of 
life  could  be  made  an  active  force 
if  these  were  offered  freely  and 
winningly. 

INFORMALITY  is  all  right  when 
-"•  well-bred.  One  is  not  surprised 
to  find  it  ill-bred  in  the  London 
Saturday  Review,  which  is  always 
ready  to  stoop  when  given  a  chance 
to  indulge  its  dislike  of  America.  For 
this  weekly.  Lady  Astor  is  plain 
"Nancy."  Yet  it  is  only  charitable  to 
remember  that  the  Saturday  Review 
has  long  carried  a  weight  which 
less-determined  editors  would  have 
shifted.  It  has  to  repulse  the  Amer- 
icanization of  Europe  and  the  democ- 
ratization of  England.  The  latter 
danger  is  the  one  which  must  cause 
it  the  most  embarrassment.  The 
honors  bestowed  by  the  King  at  New 
Year's  create  a  predicament.  Shall 
this  paper  acquiesce  or  shall  it  ignore 
them?  It  is  the  self-appointed  guar- 
dian of  English  aristocracy.  When, 
some  years  ago,  Mr.  Blundell  Maple, 
head  of  a  large  furniture  store,  was 
elected  to  the  House  of  Commons,  it 
was  delighted  to  have  the  chance  to 
"Blundell"  him  out.  Lady  Astor's 
tongue  has  been  wagging — does  the 
Saturday  Review  hope  to  stop  it  by 
being  too  familiar? 


348] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  48 


The  Expulsion  of  the 
SociaHsts  at  Albany 

TN  the  face  of  solemn  and  impres- 
•^  sive  protests  by  eminent  Repub- 
lican leaders  like  Mr.  Hughes,  by 
Republican  newspapers  of  which  the 
New  York  Tribune  was  the  chief,  and 
by  New  York  City  organizations  like 
the  Bar  Association,  the  Citizens 
Unions  and  the  City  Club,  the  As- 
sembly at  Albany  has  expelled  the 
five  Socialist  members  by  an  over- 
whelming vote.  It  is  a  matter  of  na- 
tional interest  to  appraise  as  correctly 
as  possible  the  character  and  signifi- 
cance of  this  action. 

There  is  one  special  point  that  de- 
mands separate  consideration.  Un- 
der the  Constitution  and  rules  of  the 
Socialist  party,  those  of  its  members 
who  might  be  elected  to  public  office 
incurred  certain  obligations  which, 
on  their  face,  impaired  their  inde- 
pendence as  public  servants.  If  the 
fight  on  the  Socialist  Assemblymen 
had  been  made  exclusively  on  this 
ground,  the  question  of  their  expul- 
sion would  have  had  no  such  signifi- 
cance as  it  actually  bears.  A  mem- 
ber of  a  Legislature  who  is  under  a 
definite  pledge  to  follow  the  instruc- 
tions of  a  particular  association, 
whatever  its  nature,  is  not  truly  a 
representative  of  the  constituency 
that  elects  him,  but,  in  part  at  least, 
a  mere  agent  of  that  association. 
Had  the  Assembly  confined  itself  to 
asserting  this  principle,  it  would  not 
have  raised  the  broad  and  funda- 
mental issues  which,  in  point  of  fact, 
its  action  has  brought  to  the  front. 
Even  so,  as  we  have  heretofore  said, 
the  expulsion  of  the  members  would 
not  have  been  justified.  It  has  been 
pretty  clearly  made  out  that  the 
ejected  Assemblymen  did  not  ex- 
plicitly sign  such  a  pledge;  and  even 
if  they  had,  all  that  could  justly  have 
been  required  of  them,  as  a  condi- 
tion for  retaining  their  seats,  would 
have  been  the  abrogation  of  the 
pledge.  The  assumption  of  such  an 
obligation,  though  ever  so  wrong, 
would  have  been  neither  criminal 
nor  disgraceful,  and  its  past  exist- 
ence could  not  justly  be  regarded  as 
a  disqualification  for  future  service. 


But  the  gravamen  of  the  case  against 
the  Socialists  did  not  reside  in  the 
existence  of  an  obligation  as  such, 
but  in  the  character  of  the  associa- 
tion to  which  the  alleged  obligation 
had  been  incurred.  The  heart  of  the 
case  against  them  was  not  in  any 
special  feature  of  their  relation  to 
the  Socialist  party,  but  in  the  aims 
of  that  party  itself.  The  reason  that 
the  five  men  were  expelled  was  be- 
cause the  Socialist  party  aims  to 
bring  about  a  revolutionary  change 
in  the  character  of  our  institutions. 

Accordingly,  the  alignment  of  the 
forces  for  and  against  expulsion  was, 
in  essence,  upon  this  question:  Has 
an  American  constituency  the  right 
to  be  represented  in  an  American 
legislative  body  by  a  man  who  is  op- 
posed to  the  continuance  of  the  Amer- 
ican system  of  government  as  now 
established?  And  it  must  be  said, 
in  justice  to  the  chief  exponents  of 
both  sides,  that  in  the  main  they  have 
frankly  recognized  this  to  be  the 
issue.  The  Tribune,  the  leading 
Republican  paper  of  New  York,  and 
the  World,  the  leading  Democratic 
paper,  were  equally  unflinching  in 
the  assertion  of  the  principle  that  to 
deny  such  right  is  a  flagrant  viola- 
tion of  the  fundamental  principles  of 
representative  government.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  Sun  and  New  York 
Herald  and  the  Times  firmly  declare 
that  the  expulsion  of  the  Social- 
ists was  a  justified  assertion  of 
the  right  of  every  form  of  govern- 
ment to  take  such  measures  as  are 
necessary  for  its  own  preservation. 
All  other  elements  in  the  case  sink 
into  insignificance  in  comparison  with 
the  fundamental  divergence  between 
these  two  points  of  view. 

Readers  of  the  Review  do  not  need 
to  be  told  on  which  side  it  stands  in 
this  vital  question.  Every  form  of 
government  is,  indeed,  possessed  of 
the  right — more  than  that,  is  charged 
with  the  duty — of  striving  to  pre- 
serve and  perpetuate  itself.  The  ques- 
tion is,  by  what  means  shall  it  ac- 
complish this?  In  the  case  of  a 
democratic  nation,  at  least,  the  an- 
swer is  plain.  Against  violence  it 
must  maintain  itself  by  any  exer- 
tion of  force,  or  of  punitive  repres- 
sion,   that    the    circumstances    may 


call  for.  Against  infidelity  of  offi- 
cers of  the  law  to  their  sworn  duty 
— as  in  the  case  of  the  Boston  police 
strike — it  must  maintain  itself  by 
summarily  dismissing  them  from 
their  posts.  But  as  against  any 
other  form  of  agitation  or  endeavor, 
however  clearly  directed  against  es- 
tablished institutions,  it  must  pro- 
tect itself  solely  by  preserving  its 
hold  on  the  source  from  which  it 
derives  its  powers,  the  sentiment  of 
the  people.  If  any  body  of  men  in 
this  country,  large  or  small,  is  con- 
vinced that  democratic  institutions 
are  an  evil  and  that  a  monarchy 
would  be  preferable  to  them,  they 
have  a  right  to  disseminate  that  view, 
to  obtain  converts  to  it,  and  to  elect 
representatives  favoring  it  in  any 
electoral  district  in  which  those  con- 
verts may  have  come  to  be  a  major- 
ity. If  we  can  not  keep  the  country 
from  becoming  a  monarchy  otherwise 
than  by  suppressing  the  monarch- 
ists, our  democratic  institutions  are 
in  such  sad  shape  that  they  are  not 
worth  preserving.  And  if  we  can 
not  keep  America  from  turning  So- 
cialist or  Communist  except  by  sup- 
pressing the  voice  of  those  who  be- 
lieve in  Socialism  or  Communism,  we 
have  likewise  admitted  that  Ameri- 
can democracy,  as  established  by  the 
founders,  is  a  failure. 

Through  a  hundred  years  of  our 
history,  although  this  kind  of  ques- 
tion was  very  remote  from  our  own 
affairs,  we  all  took  an  emphatic  stand 
upon  it.  For  the  difference  between 
the  rights  which  the  Socialists  are 
claiming  among  us  to-day  and  the 
rights  which  liberals  in  the  mon- 
archical countries  of  Continental 
Europe  were  asserting  throughout 
the  Nineteenth  Century  is  only  a  dif- 
ference as  to  whose  ox  is  gored. 
When  the  Tsar  of  Russia  was  send- 
ing to  Siberia  anybody  who  dared  to 
propose  a  change  in  his  form  of  gov- 
ernment, when  the  German  Emperor 
was  putting  in  prison  for  lese-majesU 
anybody  who  questioned  his  God- 
given  authority,  who  were  more  in- 
dignant than  we  Americans  over  the 
exercise  of  such  tyranny?  If  Biar 
marck  or  the  Chartcellors  who  suc- 
ceeded him  had  undertaken  to  ex- 
clude  from   the    German    Reichstag 


April  10,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[349 


members  of  the  Social-Democratic 
party,  would  there  not  have  been  a 
universal  outcry  in  America  over 
this  denial  of  the  people's  rights? 
Yet  the  very  name  Democratic,  not 
to  speak  of  Social,  plainly  avowed  the 
design  to  overthrow  the  German  form 
of  government.  Are  we  to  admit 
that,  while  it  is  the  duty  of  a  mon- 
archical government  to  admit  to 
representation  those  who  distinctly 
avow  a  programme  aimed  at  its  over- 
throw, a  democratic  government  must 
resort  to  the  strangulation  of  its  op- 
ponents as  the  only  means  of  pre- 
serving its  existence?  Surely  but 
one  answer  is  possible. 

We  do  not  believe  that  the  action 
of  the  New  York  Assembly  will  find 
imitators.  But  if  it  did,  there  would 
be  inflicted  upon  our  institutions, 
upon  the  whole  spirit  of  them,  an  in- 
jury incalculably  grave.  If  the  prec- 
edent were  to  be  established,  if  the 
practice  were  to  become  general,  we 
should  never  again  know  whether 
the  country  was  sound  at  heart  or 
not.  Representation  would  come  to 
mean  not  a  true  picture  of  the  state 
of  public  feeling  in  the  various  con- 
stituencies, but  only  such  a  picture  as 
an  intolerant  majority  permits  to  be 
presented.  When  there  has  been  one 
Socialist  in  Congress,  or  two,  or 
three,  we  have  been  justified  in  say- 
ing that,  out  of  the  hundreds  of  Con- 
gressional districts  throughout  the 
length  and  breadth  of  the  land,  this 
handful  was  all  that  the  Socialists, 
with  a  fair  field  and  no  favor,  were 
able  to  capture.  If  we  don't  allow 
the  Socialists  to  show  how  many 
they  are,  it  will  obviously  be  im- 
possible for  us  to  show  how  few 
they  are.  And  that  is  not  the  worst 
of  it.  The  charge  of  disloyality,  of 
an  allegiance  to  some  other  institu- 
tion transcending  the  allegiance  to 
State  or  country,  may  be  made  in 
more  directions  than  one.  It  has 
been  made  in  the  past  against  Cath- 
olics, by  fanatical  organizations 
which  have  at  times  commanded  a 
formidable  following.  It  may  be 
made  in  the  future  against  members 
of  a  labor  party,  even  though  not 
Socialist.  It  is  essentially  of  the  na- 
ture of  a  proscription  of  citizens  not 
for  their  acts  but  for  their  state  of 


mind.  It  contains  the  very  essence 
of  tyranny.  It  bears  within  itself 
the  seeds  of  the  destruction  of  free- 
dom. No  higher  duty  rests  upon  the 
leaders  of  public  opinion  in  Amer- 
ica to-day  than  that  of  exposing  its 
pernicious  and  dangerous  character. 
Deplorable  as  the  action  of  the  As- 
sembly has  been,  viewed  as  a  matter 
of  principle  and  precedent,  there  is 
one  aspect  of  the  occurrence  in 
which  we  find  it  possible  to  take  a 
certain  degree  of  comfort.  In  the 
duty  of  responsible  legislators,  men 
who  should  be  supposed  to  under- 
stand the  principles  of  the  govern- 
ment of  which  they  are  a  part,  the 
Assembly  has  lamentably  failed. 
But  while  it  is  no  excuse,  it  is  some- 
thing of  an  explanation  of  their  con- 
duct that  they  doubtless  supposed 
themselves  to  be  reflecting  the  senti- 
ment of  their  constituents.  They 
were  not  carried  away  in  the  end — 
whatever  might  have  been  the  case 
at  the  beginning — by  a  sudden  gust 
of  emotion.  No  such  overwhelming 
majority  could  have  been  cast 
against  the  Socialists  unless  there 
had  been  a  fairly  universal  feeling 
at  Albany  that  the  people  held  the 
Socialist  programme  in  abhorrence. 
Accordingly,  if  there  was  any  doubt 
before,  it  is  quite  certain  now  that, 
except  in  a  few  districts,  the  heart 
of  the  people  is  in  the  right  place. 
They  believe  in  the  government  and 
the  institutions  under  which  the 
country  has  prospered  and  grown 
great.  They  have  no  patience  with 
raw  innovators  who  wish  to  smash 
all  that  the  industry,  the  energy,  and 
the  patriotism  of  four  generations 
of  Americans  have  built  up.  They 
would,  we  believe,  have  been  per- 
fectly content  to  have  the  Socialists 
keep  their  seats;  but  the  Assembly- 
men were  playing  to  the  galleries, 
and  that  means,  though  not  to  the 
sober  convictions,  yet  to  the  emo- 
tional susceptibilities,  of  the  people. 
The  wrong  that  has  been  done  is 
much  like  the  wrong  that  was  done 
by  a  mob  here  and  there  to  some  real 
or  alleged  pro-German  during  the 
war.  Such  acts  are  evil,  and  not  to 
be  excused;  yet  they  had  behind 
them  an  impulse  of  real,  though  un- 
disciplined, patriotism. 


It  is  perhaps  not  fantastic  to 
surmise  that  in  the  very  bigness  of 
the  Assembly's  vote  against  the  So- 
cialists there  may  be  found  a  certain 
antidote  against  its  evil  effect.  It 
will  be  difficult  for  orators  to  get 
people  greatly  excited  about  a  danger 
which  the  vote  itself  shows  to  be 
one  over  which  there  is  no  occasion 
for  immediate  alarm.  However  this 
may  be,  and  whether  the  Socialist 
menace  shall  wax  or  wane,  let  us 
hope  that  those  public  men,  news- 
papers, and  civic  organizations  that 
have  borne  so  honorable  a  part 
in  resisting  the  high-handedness  at 
Albany  will  keep  up  the  good  work. 
There  is  but  one  right  way,  and 
there  is  but  one  effective  way,  to 
preserve  our  institutions  against 
the  assault  of  destructive  opinions. 
America  can  remain  America  only 
through  maintaining  its  hold  on  the 
minds  and  hearts  of  the  great  mass 
of  the  people.  If  they  will  not  be 
Americans  of  their  own  free  will,  we 
can  not  make  them  so  by  proscrip- 
tions and  penalties. 

The  Housing  Problem 
—Ethics  or  Economics? 

rpHERE  has  been  rushed  through 
■*•  the  New  York  Legislature  a 
batch  of  bills  designed  to  protect  ten- 
ants in  New  York  City  against  the 
hardships  of  an  extraordinary  situa- 
tion, and  to  restrict  the  gains  of 
"profiteering"  landlords.  A  number 
of  the  bills  relate  to  details  of  the 
relation  between  landlord  and  ten- 
ant, especially  as  aflfecting  the  pro- 
cedure of  dispossession.  The  most 
notable  of  the  measures,  however,  is 
that  which  makes  an  advance  of 
more  than  25  per  cent,  over  the  pre- 
ceding year's  rent  presumptive  evi- 
dence of  an  unreasonable  agree- 
ment, which  the  tenant  may  contest 
in  the  courts,  the  burden  of  proof 
resting  on  the  landlord,  so  that  the 
tenant  may  remain  in  possession  on 
the  old  terms,  subject  to  the  risk  of 
a  judicial  decision  against  him.  It 
is  not  impossible  that  this  law,  if 
its  constitutionality  is  sustained, 
will  enable  a  considerable  number  of 
tenants  to  continue  in  occupation  at 


350] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  48 


rents  lower  than  those  which  their 
landlords  are  now  demanding.  It 
may  further  be  conceded  that,  in 
view  of  the  highly  exceptional  char- 
acter of  the  situation,  such  relief, 
however  abnormal  the  method,  is 
justified,  provided  that  it  does  not 
carry  with  it  evil  consequences  that 
outweigh  whatever  good  it  may  ac- 
complish. But  it  is  only  too  evi- 
dent that  the  Legislature  acted  in 
response  to  a  wild  rush  of  popular 
feeling,  and  without  the  slightest 
consideration  of  the  larger  aspects  of 
the  problem. 

Every  man  of  sense  must  know 
that  no  artificial  restraint  upon  the 
scale  of  rents  can  continue  effective 
for  any  length  of  time  if  the  pres- 
sure for  housing,  due  to  the  scarcity 
of  accommodations,  continues  un- 
abated. The  reasons  for  that  scar- 
city are  of  the  most  substantial 
possible  kind.  During  the  war  there 
was  an  almost  total  stoppage  of 
building.  Since  the  close  of  the  war 
there  has  been  but  an  extremely 
slight  resumption  of  operations, 
owing  in  part  to  labor  troubles,  but 
above  all  to  the  tremendous  increase 
in  the  money  cost  of  materials  and 
labor.  In  the  meanwhile  there  has 
been  since  the  armistice  a  return  of 
great  numbers  of  men  who  had  been 
away,  and  a  large  influx  of  new- 
comers. The  supply  of  housing  is 
hardly  greater  than  it  was  three 
years  ago,  while  the  demand,  both  in 
point  of  numbers  and  of  the  money 
resources  of  the  population,  has  been 
greatly  augmented. 

Under  the  ordinary  play  of  eco- 
nomic forces  an  article  of  prime 
necessity,  when  the  supply  is  de- 
ficient, commands  a  price  increased 
in  a  far  greater  ratio  than  the  per- 
centage of  deficiency  would  indicate. 
In  the  case  of  ordinary  commodities, 
however,  this  increase  of  price  acts 
as  an  immediate  and  powerful  stim- 
ulus to  production.  Not  so  with 
houses.  The  keen  demand  which  the 
exigency  brings  forth  bears  not 
directly  upon  houses,  but  upon  hous- 
ing— i.e.,  the  occupancy,  the  rental, 
of  houses.  With  no  assurance  that 
the  high  rents  of  to-day  will  continue 
for  a  long  period  of  years,  the  in- 
ducement which  high  rents  offer  for 


the  building  of  houses  is  compara- 
tively feeble.  If  the  price  of  shoes 
is  doubled,  and  the  cost  of  making 
them  is  also  doubled,  that  presents 
no  difficulty  to  the  producer,  for  he 
makes  his  complete  turnover  at  once. 
But  if  rents  are  doubled  and  the  cost 
of  building  houses  is  doubled,  the 
builder  has  no  assurance  that  he  will 
come  out  square,  so  long  as  he  has 
no  strong  reason  to  believe  that  the 
increased  scale  of  rents  will  continue 
during  something  like  the  lifetime  of 
the  house.  Accordingly,  even  if 
there  were  no  legal  restrictions  on 
the  scale  of  rents,  uncertainty  as  to 
the  future  would  act  as  a  most 
powerful  deterrent  to  building  en- 
terprise. A  Legislature  soberly  con- 
sidering the  problem  would  see  that 
its  first  duty  was  to  provide  encour- 
agement to  building  enterprise. 

What  the  New  York  Legislature 
has  done  is  the  diametrical  opposite 
of  this.  The  degree  of  discourage- 
ment which  the  new  laws  will  create 
is  not  to  be  measured  by  the  char- 
acter of  their  specific  provisions, 
serious  as  those  are.  People  think- 
ing of  entering  upon  building  enter- 
prises are  put  upon  notice  that  any 
calculation  they  may  make,  based  on 
the  state  of  demand  and  supply,  may 
be  completely  upset  by  some  act  of 
the  Legislature  whose  nature  it  is 
quite  impossible  to  predict.  To  add 
to  the  risks  and  uncertainties  inher- 
ent in  the  situation  this  novel  risk, 
of  unforeseeable  dimensions,  is  evi- 
dently to  impede  in  a  disastrous  de- 
gree any  prospects  there  may  have 
been  of  a  widespread  resumption  of 
building  enterprise;  and  nothing 
short  of  such  resumption  can  bring 
substantial  relief  to  a  housing  situa- 
tion like  that  of  New  York. 

The  failure  of  the  Legislature  to 
grasp  the  essentials  of  the  subject 
was  emphasized  by  the  circum- 
stance that  the  one  bill  which  did 
point  toward  the  encouragement  of 
building  failed  of  passage — a  bill 
exempting  mortgages  up  to  a  mod- 
est amount  from  taxation.  It  should 
be  understood,  however,  that  such  a 
measure,  while  good  as  far  as  it  goes, 
can  make  but  a  slight  impression  on 
the  situation.  The  difficulty  of  bor- 
rowing money  is  a  somewhat  impor- 


tant element  in  the  case,  but  is  very 
far  from  being  the  most  important 
one.  The  great  obstacle  consists  in 
the  risk  of  the  enterprise.  To  off- 
set this,  measures  far  more  effective 
are  necessary  than  the  relief  of 
mortgages  from  taxation.  Exemp- 
tion from  taxation  of  the  houses 
themselves,  for  a  considerable  term 
of  years,  would  be  a  really  powerful 
stimulus.  If  the  Legislature  had 
adopted  strong  measures  of  this  na- 
ture, simultaneously  with  those  de- 
signed to  restrict  increase  of  rent  for 
present  occupants,  there  would  have 
been  much  more  justification  for  the 
latter  measures. 

A  prime  cause  of  the  futility 
which  marks  our  dealings  with  all 
this  class  of  problems  is  the  tend- 
ency, well-nigh  universal,  to  expend 
upon  invective  and  indignation  the 
energy  which  ought  to  be  concen- 
trated on  sober  thinking.  With  few 
exceptions,  even  the  most  level- 
headed of  the  daily  newspapers  con- 
centrate attention  upon  the  "greed" 
of  the  landlords  and  the  wickedness  of 
the  "profiteering"  speculators,  and 
have  little  thought  left  over  to  de- 
vote to  the  question  of  what  can  be 
done  about  the  trouble.  The  land- 
lords may  be  greedy,  the  speculators 
may  be  profiteers,  but  why  does  not 
somebody  else  come  to  the  rescue? 
Why  are  not  the  virtuous  people,  the 
people  who  are  neither  landlords  nor 
speculators,  the  people  who  are  con- 
tent with  a  moderate  return  on 
their  investments,  rushing  into  the 
breach?  There  is  nothing  to  pre- 
vent hundreds  of  millions  of  dollars 
being  put  into  the  business  of  house 
building  in  New  York.  Yet  nothing 
of  the  kind  is  going  on.  If  wicked- 
ness alone  is  the  cause  of  the  high 
rents,  righteousness  plus  money — 
and  surely  the  combination  must 
exist — ought  to  suffice  to  bring  them 
down.  Yet  up  they  stay,  and  up 
there  is  every  reason  to  expect  them 
to  stay,  for  aught  that  virtue  shows 
any  sign  of  doing  to  mend  matters. 
It  looks  as  though  the  rest  of  us 
wanted  the  landlords  to  be  content 
with  less  than  what  the  market 
would  give  them,  but  were  quite  un- 
willing to  take  any  chances  as  to 
what  the  market  would  give  us  if  we 


April  10,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[851 


built  the  houses  which  the  people 
need.  We  are  indulging  in  a  lot  of 
high  ethics  for  the  other  man,  but 
don't  care  ourselves  to  act  on  any 
higher  plane  than  that  of  ordinary 
economics. 

Justice  and  the  Bonus 

Is  it  right  to  compel  another  person  to  do  a 
disagreeable  job  for  you  and  then  hold  him 
down  to  less  compensation  than  you  crammed 
into  your  pockets  while  he  was  away  ?  Let 
those  who  are  fighting  the  so-called  "bonus" 
legislation  face  and  answer  this  single  ques- 
tion. To  give  a  soldier  $50  more  for  each 
month  he  was  in  service  will  not  make  him 
whole,  and  every  one  knows  it.  If  we  may 
not  confiscate  property  without  paying  an. 
owner  its  full  value  we  certainly  may  not  in 
justice  confiscate  men's  time  without  equal  due 
compensation. — New  York   Tribune. 

If  the  question  of  military  service 
to  the  country  is  to  be  put  on  the 
basis  of  "justice,"  as  applied  to  the 
ordinary  affairs  of  daily  'life,  we 
must  not  only  pay  the  proposed 
bonus  for  the  "confiscation  of  men's 
time,"  but  heavy  damages  for  com- 
pulsory disturbance  of  their  comfort, 
injury  to  their  peace  of  mind,  all  the 
woes  which  they  and  their  families 
suffered  through  the  break-up  of 
their  relations.  Mere  compensation 
for  loss  of  "time"  is  quite  inadequate. 
The  Tribune  does  not  strengthen  its 
case,  but  weakens  it,  by  asserting 
that  "to  give  a  soldier  $50  more  for 
each  month  will  not  make  him  whole, 
and  every  one  knows  it."  That  is 
true  in  many  cases,  and  in  many 
cases  it  is  the  opposite  of  the  truth; 
but  the  more  it  is  true,  the  more 
plain  it  is  that  the  underlying  prin- 
ciple is  wrong,  for  upon  that  prin- 
ciple there  is  no  limit  whatever  to 
what  might  be  claimed  in  the  name 
of  "justice." 

We  put  forth  a  mighty  effort  in 
the  great  war,  but,  in  comparison 
with  other  great  nations,  our  sac- 
rifices were  trifling.  If  we  had  suf- 
fered as  France  did,  through  four 
years  of  desperate  fighting,  we 
should  be  having  a  list  of  three  mil- 
lion men  killed,  perhaps  six  million 
seriously  disabled,  and  many  millions 
more  who  had  served  four  years 
under  the  colors.  To  pay  for  these 
sacrifices,  upon  the  principle  that 
justice  requires  us  really  to  make 
"due  compensation,"  would  require 
an  inconceivable  sum  of  money;  and 


even  if  the  "due  compensation"  were 
reckoned  by  the  measure  of  the  pro- 
posed bonus,  it  would  run  up  to  at 
least  a  hundred  billion  dollars.  A 
pacifist  might  properly  assert  that 
any  nation  that  goes  to  war  is  bound 
to  burden  itself  with  such  an  obliga- 
tion ;  in  the  mouth  of  anybody  else  it 
is  an  absurdity. 

The  nation's  call  upon  its  citizens 
for  military  service  rests  on  grounds 
transcending  those  that  regulate  its 
claims  in  other  matters.  It  must,  in- 
deed, deal  justly  with  all  its  citizens, 
in  the  sense  of  making  favorites  of 
no  class  and  scapegoats  of  no  class. 
The  draft  was  conducted  on  this 
principle.  Men  of  certain  ages  were 
called,  those  of  other  ages  were  not; 
and  within  the  called  ages  selection 
was  made  by  the  impartial  operation 
of  chance.  Some  who  stayed  home 
have  got  rich — ^though  it  must  not  be 
forgotten  that  millions  of  those  who 
stayed  home  got  poor  through  the 
enormous  advance  in  the  cost  of  liv- 
ing. Some  who  went  to  the  war 
were  killed,  some  were  disabled, 
most  came  home  hale  and  hearty. 
What  money  compensation  can  equal- 
ize these  fates? 

To  take  the  chances  of  war  is  part 
of  the  citizen's  duty  to  the  nation; 
to  demand  that  these  chances  be 
taken  is  part  of  the  country's  right 
to  self-preservation.  If  she  can  not 
rightfully  make  that  demand,  she 
can  not  rightfully  compel  military 
service  at  all;  for  surely  of  those 
who  went  to  the  war  there  are  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  who  would  not 
have  gone  for  any  money  considera- 
tion whatsoever,  though  they  went 
gladly  for  love  of  their  country. 
Plausible  as  the  Tribune's  argument 
may  seem  to  some,  the  truth  is  that 
the  proposed  bonus  is  far  more  de- 
fensible without  it  than  with  it. 
For  a  bonus,  pure  and  simple,  some- 
thing might  be  said,  but  the  principle 
of  "due  compensation"  must  be  re- 
jected outright.  It  runs  counter  to 
the  very  essence  of  the  principle  upon 
which  the  country's  right  to  call 
on  its  citizens  for  military  service 
rests,  and  the  logical  consequence  of 
its  acceptance  would  be  nothing  less 
than  the  paralysis  of  the  nation  in 
time  of  danger. 


Ousting  the  Sultan 

TN  the  conflict  between  the  ad- 
■'■  vocates  and  the  opponents  of  the 
Sultan's  expulsion  from  Europe, 
sentiment  is  pitted  against  practical 
politics,  the  romantic  against  the 
realistic  spirit.  The  creator  of  fic- 
tion who  gives  to  avenging  justice 
the  last  word  in  his  story  finds  a  re- 
ward for  that  departure  from  the 
probable  in  the  approval  of  the 
majority  of  readers.  So  when  there 
is  a  chance  of  seeing  poetic  justice 
done  in  this  shocking  reality  of  ours, 
weighty  arguments  must  be  adduced 
by  those  who  would  hinder  it  from 
taking  effect.  For  little  less  than 
five  hundred  years  the  intruder  from 
Asia  has  resided  in  the  great  city 
which  was  the  cradle  of  European 
art  and  culture.  The  spirit  of  the 
place  had  left  him  untouched;  not 
even  a  veneer  of  western  civilization 
would  stick  on  his  nature.  He  has 
remained  the  Asiatic  despot,  blast- 
ing the  prosperity  of  the  lands  un- 
der his  rule,  and  since,  under  the 
tuition  of  his  German  master,  he 
learned  to  foster  the  ideal  of  racial 
expansion  he  seeks  to  realize  it  in 
true  Asiatic  fashion  by  the  wholesale 
massacre  of  all  his  Greek  and 
Armenian  subjects.  An  accomplice 
of  his  master  in  the  great  war,  he 
shared  in  his  downfall,  and  now  that 
the  cruel  despot  has  been  brought  to 
his  knees,  who  would  not  hail  his 
ousting  from  Constantinople  as  a  just 
punishment  for  his  misrule  and  his 
many  crimes,  and  a  recovery  by 
Europe  of  what  she,  on  historical 
grounds,  considers  to  be  her  own  ? 

Such  is  the  reasoning  of  a  large 
majority  in  all  Christian  countries, 
and  Mr.  Wilson's  recent  note  insisting 
that  "the  anomaly  of  the  Turks  in 
Europe  should  cease"  gave  clear  and 
eloquent  expression  to  their  feelings. 
But  the  whole  Turkish  problem  is  a 
tangle  of  anomalies.  We  know  from 
Professor  D.  B.  Macdonald's  illum- 
inating article  in  last  week's  issue  of 
the  Review  that  of  the  three  large 
groups  of  Moslems  concerned  in  this 
matter — the  Turks,  the  Arabs,  and 
the  Indian  Islamites — it  is  the  Turks 
that  would  view  their  expulsion  with 
comparative  indifference,  and  the  dis- 


352] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  48 


tant  Moslems  of  India  who  would 
take  it  ill  as  an  omen  of  the  final 
decadence  of  Islam.  The  Sultan,  con- 
sequently, has  no  better  supporters  of 
his  continued  residence  at  Constanti- 
nople than  the  very  Mohammedans 
who,  in  loyalty  to  their  British  Em- 
peror, took  up  arms  to  help  bring 
about  his  defeat.  Mr.  Wilson  refuses 
to  believe  "that  the  feelings  of  the 
Mohammedan  peoples,  who  not  only 
witnessed  the  defeat  of  Turkish 
power  without  protest,  but  even  mate- 
rially assisted  in  the  defeat,  will  now 
so  resent  the  expulsion  of  the  Turkish 
Government  as  to  make  a  complete  re- 
versal of  policy  on  the  part  of  the 
Great  Powers  desirable  or  necessary." 
With  equal  right  one  might  meet  this 
confession  of  disbelief  with  a  credo 
quia  absurdum.  But  those  who  dis- 
sent from  him  have  more  cogent 
arguments  than  a  statement  of  their 
belief  in  such  resentment.  The  All 
India  Moslem  League,  uniting  both 
Sunnites  and  Ghi'ites,  has  made  a 
strong  appeal  on  behalf  of  the  Sultan, 
and  the  "Young"  Mohammedan  ele- 
ments in  India  form  the  nucleus  of  a 
systematic  agitation  against  British 
rule  for  which  the  contemplated 
humiliation  of  the  Caliph  is  excellent 
propaganda  matter. 

President  Wilson,  indeed,  in  sup- 
port of  his  disbelief,  refers  to  the 
active  part  which  the  Indian  Mos- 
lems took  in  the  Sultan's  defeat, 
he  leaves  out  of  account  the  dual  na- 
ture of  the  ruler  in  Stamboul,  which 
made  it  possible  that,  as  subjects  of 
the  British  Emperor,  they  fought 
against  the  Sultan  of  the  Ottomans, 
for  whom  they  have  no  special  affec- 
tion, and  that,  as  faithful  Moslems, 
they  now  stand  up  for  the  Caliph  and 
the  seat  of  Islam,  both  objects  of 
their  devout  worship. 

Neither  can  the  objection  to  the 
Sultan's  expulsion  be  proved  futile  by 
arguing,  as  is  often  done,  that  the  Al- 
lies were  not  prevented  from  throw- 
ing the  Turks  out  of  three  holy  places, 
Mecca,  Medina,  and  Jerusalem,  by  any 
consideration  for  their  sacredness. 
The  sanctity  of  Constantinople,  in 
the  eyes  of  the  Indian  believers,  is 
an  attribute  not  inherent  in  the  city 
itself,  but  dependent  on  the  Caliph's 
residence  there.    One  must  not,  there- 


fore, equate  the  ousting  of  Turkish 
rule  from  the  holy  places  in  Arabia 
and  Palestine  with  the  expulsion  of 
the  Sultan  from  Constantinople.  If 
the  English,  on  occupying  Mecca,  had 
removed  the  Ka'ba  to  the  British 
Museum,  they  would,  in  the  opinion 
of  Indian  Moslems,  have  committed  a 
sacrilege  comparable  to  the  contem- 
plated removal  of  the  Caliph  from  the 
Seat  of  Islam.  In  the  mere  fact  of 
the  occupation  of  the  city  there  is 
little  that  can  offend  the  religious  sus- 
ceptibilities of  the  believers. 

But  whether  sentiment  or  practical 
politics  will  turn  the  scale  against  or 
in  favor  of  the  Sultan,  "no  arrange- 
ment that  is  made  can  have  any  per- 
manency unless  the  vital  interests  of 
Russia  in  these  problems  are  carefully 
provided  for  and  protected,  and  un- 
less it  is  understood  that  Russia,  when 
it  has  a  Government  recognized  by 
the  civilized  world,  may  assert  its 
right  to  be  heard  in  regard  to  the  de- 
cision now  made."  We  quote  Mr. 
Wilson's  words  with  hearty  approval. 
They  are  based  on  the  assumption 
that,  after  the  fall  of  the  Soviet  Gov- 
ernment, which  the  President  ap- 
pears to  take  for  granted,  a  new 
united  Russia  will  arise,  vital  and 
strong  enough  to  care  for  and  insist 
on  its  right  to  have  a  voice  in  these 
decisions.  The  rulers  of  the  present 
Russia,  however,  whose  Government 
can  not  be  recognized  by  the  civilized 
world,  are  taking  good  care  that, 
though  their  delegates  are  excluded 
from  the  council  of  the  Entente  dip- 
lomats, the  discussions  shall  be 
ruled  by  fear  of  their  power.  It  is 
not  the  pressure  brought  to  bear  on 
them  by  French  capitalists,  holders 
of  Turkish  bonds,  that  will  save  the 
Sultan.  The  British  Government's 
conversion  to  the  French  point  of 
view  is  dictated  by  a  genuine  desire 
to  placate  England's  Moslem  sub- 
jects, so  as  to  deprive  the  Bolshevist 
agitation  in  India  of  fuel.  We  have, 
and  shall  shortly  print,  an  article 
by  Dr.  Paul  Rohrbach  of  Berlin,  an 
authority  on  Eastern  matters,  from 
which  our  readers  will  see  that  Mr. 
Montagu's  fear  lest  Indian  resent- 
ment over  the  Sultan's  expulsion 
should  be  exploited  by  Bolshevist 
firebrands    is    far   from    imaginary. 


and  is  not  merely  a  pretext  to  be 
made  serviceable  to  financial  inter- 
ests of  French  and  British  capital- 
ists. Russia  is  actually  asserting 
her  right  to  have  her  interests  re- 
garded in  the  decisions,  but  in  a  dif- 
ferent fashion  from  what  Mr.  Wil- 
son had  in  view. 

But  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that 
the  sole  object  of  the  Bolsheviki's  in- 
terference in  India  is  the  overthrow 
of  British  rule,  and  they  will  not 
deem  themselves  frustrated  if  the 
Entente's  clemency  towards  the  Sul- 
tan should  rob  their  emissaries  of 
some  of  the  fuel  for  the  fire  they  are 
to  fan.  Other  matter  will  be  found 
by  the  firebrands  to  set  India  aflame. 
The  danger  can  not  be  averted 
by  leaving  the  Sultan  unmolested. 
Though  the  English  escape  the  blame 
of  being  enemies  of  the  Caliph,  they 
will  still  remain  the  suppressors  of 
Asia,  against  whom  Madam  Bala- 
banova  and  her  helpers  can  stir  the 
hatred  of  the  suppressed.  Great 
Britain  must  maintain  her  colonial 
realm  by  other  means  than  this 
roundabout  way  involving  the  per- 
petuation of  an  anomaly  which  is  a 
disgrace  to  Europe.  If  she  can  not 
rely  on  her  own  prestige  and  the 
loyalty  of  the  races  under  her  rule, 
the  makeshift  arrangement  with  re- 
gard to  Turkey  can  not  save  British 
India.  It  would  seem  to  be  a  wiser, 
because  a  more  self-reliant,  policy 
for  England  to  scorn  the  futile  pro- 
tection which  a  conciliated  Sultan 
might  afford,  and,  trusting  to  her 
own  resources,  to  help  rid  Europe  of 
the  intruder  and  render  to  Christen- 
dom the  ancient  city  of  Constantine. 


THE  REVIEW 

A  weekly  journal  of  Political  0nd 

general  discussion 

Published  by 

The   National   Weekly   Corporation 

140   Nassau   Street,    New    York 

Fabian  Franklin,  President 

Harold  de  Wolf  Fuller,   Treasurer 

Subscription     price,     five     dollars     a     year     in 
advance.     Fifteen   cents  a  copy.     Foreign  post- 
age,  one   dollar  extra;    Canadian    postage,   fifty 
cents  extra.     Foreign  subscriptions  may  be  sent 
to  Messrs.  G.  P..  Putnam's  Sons,  Ltd.,  24,  Bed- 
ford   St.,    Strand.   London,   W.    C,   2,    England. 
Copyright,     1920,     in     the     United    States     of 
America 
Editors 
FABIAN  FRANKLIN 
HAROLD  DE  WOLF  FULLER 
Associate  Editors 
Harry  Morgan  Ayres      O.  W.  Firkins 
A.  J.  Barnouw  W.  H.  Johnson 

Jerome  Landfield 


April  10,  19-20] 


THE  REVIEW 


[353 


Behind  the  Financing  of  China 


(IN  FOUR  PARTS — PART  THREE) 

JAPAN'S  repudiation  of  the  Paris 
agreement  of  May,  1919,  is  not 
an  exhibition  of  bad  faith  on  the  part 
of  the  Japanese  Government.  Her 
action — delaying  the  financial  salvage 
of  the  Chinese  Republic  by  interna- 
tional cooperation — evidences  the  dif- 
ference betvi^een  the  de  jure  govern- 
ment of  a  prime  minister  with  his 
cabinet  and  the  de  facto  star  cham- 
ber body  actually  ruling  from  behind 
the  Mikado's  throne. 

When  the  duly  accredited  Japanese 
delegates  met  the  representatives  of 
the  United  States,  France,  and  Great 
Britain  in  a  conference  at  Paris  to 
settle  the  destinies  of  the  Far  East 
under  the  overwhelming  shadow  of 
the  Peace  Congress,  Japan  subscribed 
unreservedly  to  the  preliminary 
agreement  for  a  new  China  Consor- 
tium. This  was  a  momentous  step. 
It  was  a  stroke  of  statesmanship 
which,  if  carried  into  effect  with 
shrewd  rapidity,  might  have  re- 
dressed substantially  the  wrong  just 
previously  done  to  China  in  the  abor- 
tive Shantung  settlement.  The  four 
chief  principles  drafted  for  the 
guidance  of  the  financial  groups  asso- 
ciated in  the  Consortium  were  as  fol- 
lows: 

(a)  That  no  country  should  attempt  to  culti- 
vate special  spheres  of  influence ; 

(b)  That  all  existing  options  held  by  a 
member  of  any  of  the  national  groups  should, 
so  far  as  practicable,  be  turned  into  the  con- 
sortium as  a  whole; 

(c)  That  the  four  banking  groups  of  the 
countries  in  question  should  act  in  concert  and 
in  an  effective  partnership  for  the  interests  of 
China ;  and 

(d)  That  the  consortium's  operations  should 
deal  primarily  with  loans  to  the  Chinese  Re- 
public or  to  Provinces  of  the  Republic,  or  with 
loans  guaranteed  or  officially  having  to  do  with 
the  Republic  or  its  Provinces,  and  in  each  in- 
stance of  a  character  sufficient  to  warrant  a 
public  issue. 

In  other  words,  the  edge  was  taken 
off  individual  financing  which  threat- 
ened China's  conquest  by  strategic 
railways  and  government  -  backed 
banks.  The  very  first  clause  of  this 
declaration  of  purposes  was  inspired 
by  the  United  States  in  order  to  check 
effectively  the  recrudescence  of  the 
"spheres  of  influence"  principle  in 
Far  Eastern  diplomacy  under  the 
skilful     manipulation     of     Japanese 


statesmen.  The  second  was  retroact- 
ive, striking  at  the  concession 
gobbling  carried  on  by  Japanese  in- 
terests under  cover  of  the  Great  War, 
inasmuch  as  it  laid  the  basis  for  the 
pooling  of  all  options  upon  which 
"substantial  progress"  had  not  been 
made.  The  third,  fully  the  equal  of 
the  initial  provision  in  significance, 
would  appear  to  have  made  joint  ac- 
tion by  the  financial  Powers  obliga- 
tory; and  the  idea  conveyed  in  "an 
effective  partnership  for  the  interests 
of  China"  was  obviously  the  reassur- 
ing cry  of  the  New  Finance  to  those 
who  professed  to  see  in  the  Consor- 
tium a  juggernaut  of  imperialism 
overriding  Chinese  independence. 
Finally,  it  was  provided,  largely  in 
deference  to  Japanese  susceptibilities, 
that  the  Consortium's  scope  extended 
only  to  operations  of  a  public  charac- 
ter involving  the  financing  of  the  Cen- 
tral Government  or  the  provinces. 

Not  only  were  these  desiderata 
agreed  to  by  all  the  groups  through 
their  banking  and  diplomatic  repre- 
sentatives, but  the  purport  of  this 
agreement  was  presented  to  the  Gov- 
ernments concerned  and  approved  by 
them.  The  first  intimation  that 
Japan  would  find  it  necessary  to  dis- 
sent from  these  cardinal  principles 
came  months  after,  when  the  full  im- 
port of  the  agreement  had  been  re- 
viewed by  the  real  rulers  of  Japan. 
The  veto,  it  is  not  without  significance, 
originated  with  the  Japanese  War 
Office  and  those  behind  it  who  dictate 
the  master-policy  of  the  Mikado's 
land.  The  reason  quite  frankly  inti- 
mated was  Japan's  "special  position" 
in  the  East. 

Reduced  to  plain  terms,  this  meant 
that  the  old  guard  in  Japan  retained 
their  dominating  control  of  Japanese 
destinies  behind  the  screen  of  pseudo- 
liberalism  of  a  Premier  Hara  and  a 
Baron  Uchida  in  the  Foreign  Office. 
These  men  were  stalking-horses, 
political  fictions  if  you  like,  behind 
which  the  old  diplomacy  of  the  War 
Office  moved  with  no  faltering  steps 
in  the  advance  on  China.  There 
would  have  to  be  a  revision  of  Japan's 
promises,  so  the  fiat  went  forth  to  the 


Hara  Cabinet,  to  maintain  intact  the 
"special  position"  which  Japan's  de- 
vious statecraft  had  labored  so  indus- 
triously to  build.  Thus  it  was  the 
irony  of  Japanese  politics  that  the 
"liberal"  Ministry  itself  was  coerced 
into  administering  what  the  War  Of- 
fice crowd  hoped  would  be  the  coup 
de  grace  to  the  project  the  Cabinet 
had  just  underwritten. 

There  is  more  than  a  difference 
over  the  interpretation  of  the  Con- 
sortium between  the  inner  and  outer 
circles  in  Japan's  Government.  In 
assenting  to  the  financial  arrange- 
ment of  Paris,  the  Hara  Ministry 
sincerely  thought  that  the  best  inter- 
ests of  the  Mikado's  land  were  being 
conserved — that  the  old  diplomacy 
would  be  Japan's  ruin  in  the  East. 
The  War  Office,  however,  under  the 
leadership  of  General  Tanaka,  saw 
no  such  need  for  a  drastic  re-align- 
ment of  Japan's  policies.  The  Min- 
ister of  War  and  his  associates  in  the 
background  were  practical  statesmen 
of  the  world.  They  thought  that 
when  the  flurry  America  was  crea- 
ting over  the  financing  of  China 
should  have  passed,  there  would  be 
little  trouble  in  maintaining  the  old 
order  in  the  East.  They  were  also  past 
masters  in  compromising  a  diplomatic 
proposal  until  it  no  longer  endan- 
gered the  jealously  guarded  "special 
position"  of  Japan.  Indeed,  this 
process  of  emasculation  had  been 
known  to  stalemate  in  the  past  diplo- 
matic games  that  threatened  to  em- 
barrass Japan — notably  whenever  the 
missionary  instinct  so  pronounced  in 
America's  temperament  found  its  in- 
termittent expression  in  a  fluctuating 
foreign  policy. 

It  is  just  possible  that  these  hard- 
headed  Japanese  statesmen,  who  had 
none  of  the  gilded  altruism  of  youth 
in  them,  were  not  unmindful  of  an 
approaching  Presidential  election  in 
the  United  States,  a  calculation  which 
has  been  justified  by  the  fate  of  the 
Peace  Treaty  in  the  Senate.  Perhaps 
judicious  handling  could  jockey  the 
Consortium  through  1921  with  en- 
hanced prospects  of  its  dissolution 
in  the  end.  When  we  understand  that 
Japan's  carefully  builded  primacy  in 
the  East  is  at  stake,  her  past  fruits 
threatened,  and  her  freedom  for  ex- 


354] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  48 


pansion  at  the  expense  of  her  neigh- 
bors taken  from  her,  why  should  not 
the  inner  circle  behind  the  Mikado 
gamble  yet  once  again? 

After  all,  these  Japanese  leaders, 
strangers  to  public  emotions,  could 
not  be  expected  to  abandon  their 
handiwork  of  a  generation  so  easily. 
They  were  asked  to  turn  from  the 
secure  past  of  spheres  of  influence, 
railway  politics,  predatory  finance, 
and  all  that  has  made  for  national 
aggrandizement  to  an  uncharted  fu- 
ture of  international  cooperation  for 
a  dubious  national  benefit.  Ever 
since  the  Anglo-Japanese  Alliance  in 
1902,  they  had  made  the  recognition 
of  Japan's  "special  position"  the  goal. 
Her  snarl  in  1910  over  our  proposal 
for  the  "neutralization"  of  the 
Manchurian  communications  was 
prompted  by  an  excess  of  confidence 
accumulated  during  the  intervening 
years.  The  entrance  of  Japan  into 
the  Great  War,  and  the  subsequent 
diplomatic  assault  on  China  in  1915, 
were  reaffirmations  of  this  inverted 
Monroe  Doctrine  of  Japan.  The 
alliance  which  she  consummated  with 
Russia  in  1916  was  a  partnership  de- 
signed indubitably  to  cooperate  at 
China's  expense.  Japan's  state  high 
finance,  giving  her  economic  priority 
in  China's  development,  has  become 
the  trump  card  in  the  bargaining 
process  to  which  Japanese  statesmen 
have  resorted  in  their  efforts  to 
defeat  the  Consortium.  Linked  to 
these  loans  are  railroad  rights  dif- 
ferent from  those  of  any  other  Power 
now  concerned  in  China's  fate,  be- 
cause in  Japanese  hands  they  mean 
the  extension,  in  a  monopolistic  grip, 
of  Japan's  extraterritorial  jurisdic- 
tion over  Manchuria,  Mongolia,  Shan- 
tung, and  Fukien.  This  strong  posi- 
tion was  reinforced  by  the  circle  of 
treaties  Japan  made  in  1917  with 
Italy,  France,  Russia,  and  Britain,  as 
well  as  by  the  Japanese  distortion  of 
the  Ishii-Lansing  Agreement  so  as  to 
make  the  United  States  inferentially 
a  party  to  the  underwriting  of  the 
"special  position"  doctrine  in  the 
East. 

The  only  hopeful  aspect  of  this 
delicate  situation  which  has  arisen  is 
that,  while  the  Japanese  War  Office 
has  dictated  Japan's  course  of  action. 


a  strong  part  of  the  Japanese  people 
are  becoming  restive. 

The  responsible  business  elements 
have  their  qualms  about  the  "rail- 
and-iron"  policy  dominating  the 
Japanese  Government.  They  at  least 
know  Japan  can  not  pit  herself 
against  the  world.  The  United  States, 
standing  firm   on  the   essentials   of 


the  Consortium,  aligned  France  and 
Britain  with  us.  Japan  has  been  in- 
duced to  reaffirm  international  joint 
action.  But  Japan's  familiar  tactics 
of  indirect  obstruction  remain  a  dan- 
gerous factor.  Our  State  Depart- 
ment's problem  is  to  show  the  Japa- 
nese War  Office  that  the  game  is  up. 
Charles  Hodges 


Helping  the  Reactionaries 


INHERE  can  be  no  doubt  about  the 


1 


reaction.    It  is  here,  and  unless  it 


overreaches  itself,  it  is  destined  for  a 
long  stay.  Its  evidences  are  on 
every  side.  Nor  as  yet  is  there 
any  sign  of  effective  resistance. 
What  it  has  already  won  is  but 
a  preparation  for  further  advances. 
The  editors  of  the  Review  will,  of 
course,  differ  with  me  not  only  as  to 
the  reactionary  character  of  certain 
measures  and  tendencies,  but  as  to 
the  extent  of  the  reaction  as  a  whole. 
They  can  hardly,  however,  reject  the 
evidences  of  the  general  movement. 
This  movement,  true  enough,  is  not 
all-inclusive ;  it  does  not  carry  every- 
thing with  it  in  a  tidal  sweep;  for 
along  with  much  that  is  subversive 
of  progress  is  to  be  found  much  that 
is  hopeful  and  promising.  But  reac- 
tion is  dominant,  and  its  threat  of 
further  encroachments  is  menacing. 
To  the  dangers,  perhaps  diminishing, 
of  the  Bolshevism  of  the  left  are 
added  the  increasing  dangers  of  the 
Bolshevism  of  the  right. 

A  strange  sequence  is  this  to  the 
expectation  of  a  new  order  which 
prevailed  at  the  time  of  the  armistice. 
The  war  had  been  waged  to  "make 
the  world  safe  for  democracy."  It 
had  resulted  in  an  overwhelming  vic- 
tory. Everywhere,  except  among  the 
extreme  radicals  and  the  extreme  re- 
actionaries, the  confident  belief  was 
held  that  the  old  world,  with  its  bitter 
evils,  had  fallen  asunder  and  that  a 
new  world  of  social  justice  was  to  be 
ushered  in.  Even  the  extreme  radi- 
cals, though  they  scoffed  at  what  they 
called  the  delusions  of  the  moment, 
prophesied  a  new  epoch.  It  was  to 
come,  they  said,  not  in  the  ordinary 
course  of  events,  but  by  a  carefully 
planned  revolution.    By  one  means  or 


another,  according  to  the  general  be- 
lief, we  were  to  have  a  new  order. 

Well,  in  these  United  States  there 
is  no  revolution  and  no  sign  of  one. 
The  embryo  Lenins  and  Trotskys  are 
mostly  in  jail  or  on  their  personally 
conducted  tours  abroad,  while  their 
American  dupes  or  abettors,  as  the 
case  may  be,  are  slated  for  a  bad 
time.  Nor  are  the  signs  of  a  peace- 
fully evolved  new  order,  then  so 
promising,  any  longer  visible.  If,  as 
Mr.  Wiliam  Allen  White  said,  in  Sep- 
tember, 1918,  "capital  is  permanently 
hamstrung,"  the  fact  but  shows  that 
this  lively  creature  is  able  to  get  along 
very  well  without  its  Achilles  tendons. 
If,  as  Mr.  Charles  M.  Schwab  then 
prophesied,  only  a  short  time  would 
be  needed  to  wipe  out  all  "sharp  dis- 
tinctions between  rich  and  poor,"  it 
seems  probable  that  the  term  "short 
time"  will  have  to  be  interpreted,  not 
according  to  the  calendar,  but  accord- 
ing to  the  reckoning  of  a  geologist. 
And  if  the  President's  exhortation  to 
all  of  us,  a  few  months  earlier,  to 
"search  our  hearts  through  and 
through  and  make  them  ready  for  the 
birth  of  a  new  day,"  is  still  to  be  fol- 
lowed, it  would  appear  to  demand  an 
extended  period  of  spiritual  prepara- 
tion and  of  watchful  waiting.  Not 
only  has  the  new  day  not  arrived,  but 
it  shows  no  sail  in  the  offing.  A  like- 
lier happening  is  the  return  of  an 
older  day.  Reaction  rules;  it  rules, 
moreover,  not  by  usurpation,  but  by  a 
franchise  from  the  people.  It  finds 
easy  the  task  of  persuading  the  com- 
mon run  of  citizens  that  it  is  not  the 
most  evil  in  the  world — that,,  in  fact, 
in  the  present  crisis,  it  is  a  refuge 
against  an  intolerable  menace. 

Any  propagandist  of  the  left  can 
tell  you  the  causes  of  this  great  trans- 


April  10,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[355 


formation.  He  can  recite  a  long  list 
of  governmental  derelictions  and 
capitalist  aggressions  which  are  re- 
sponsible. He  can  sum  up  all  the 
contributing  causes,  near  and  remote 
— that  is,  all  except  the  one  proximate 
and  dominate  cause  which,  by  reason 
of  his  closeness  to  it,  escapes  his 
notice.  And  that  is  the  flood  of  revo- 
lutionist and  pseudo-liberal  propa- 
ganda, inspired  first  by  Germanophil 
opposition  to  the  war  and  later  by 
infatuation  for  the  Lenin  regime. 
This  propaganda  has  enabled  reac- 
tion to  arm  itself  at  all  points  and 
steadily  to  increase  its  hold.  It  has 
enabled  the  reactionary  to  identify 
social  and  political  criticism  with  se- 
dition; the  pettiest  reform  with  the 
extremist  overturn ;  direct  legislation 
with  direct  action  as  equal  subver- 
sions of  government ;  the  nationaliza- 
tion of  railways  with  the  nationaliza- 
tion of  women ;  reformer,  reconstruc- 
tionist,  and  revolutionist  as  common 
enemies  of  society.  Of  the  two  in- 
spirational sources  the  Lenin  infatua- 
tion has,  of  course,  produced  the 
greater  volume  of  most  helpful 
propaganda.  Mere  wartime  sedition 
could  be,  to  the  reactionaries,  of  only 
partial  and  transient  benefit.  It  is 
Leninism  that  puts  the  game  in  their 
hands;  that  enables  them  to  consoli- 
date their  gains  and  to  move  forward 
along  the  whole  line  for  new  con- 
quests. For  Leninism,  with  its  viola- 
tion of  the  most  primal  right  of 
human  beings,  is  an  evil  that  comes 
directly  "home  to  men's  business  and 
bosoms."  All  except  the  fanatic  and 
the  sentimentalist  can  see  and  under- 
stand what  it  threatens.  Even  the 
downmost  man,  embittered  by  priva- 
tion, may  regard  it  with  scarcely  less 
dread  than  does  the  comfortable 
bourgeois.  Every  gratulant  utter- 
ance of  the  radical  and  pseudo-liberal 
press  in  behalf  of  this  thing,  every 
palliation  or  defense  of  Bolshevist 
tyranny,  brigandage,  and  persecution, 
has  served  to  increase  the  popular 
apprehension;  and  reaction,  sharp- 
eyed  and  resourceful,  has  reaped  the 
advantage. 

Through  no  power  of  their  own, 
through  no  skill  in  manoeuvring, 
through  no  measure  of  press  control 
possible  to  them,  could  the  reaction- 


aries have  come  unaided  to  their 
present  position.  The  public  in  re- 
cent years  had  been  anything  but 
charitably  disposed  toward  the  seek- 
ers of  privilege  and  the  obstructors 
of  democratic  progress.  The  current 
of  legislation  had  long  been  driving 
against  their  aims  and  interests.  The 
vast  majority  of  the  votes  cast  in  the 
Presidential  election  of  1912  was 
specifically  and  aggressively  against 
them.  The  results  of  the  1916  elec- 
tion are  a  puzzle  no  man  can  ever 
read ;  but,  at  least,  there  is  nothing  in 
them  to  indicate  a  marked  subsidence 
of  popular  resentment  of  reactionary 
designs.  Only  by  generous  and  plen- 
tiful aid  could  reaction  have  come 
into  its  own.  Without  doubt  there 
have  been  contributory  causes.  The 
muddling  of  the  Administration  in  a 
score  of  vital  matters,  by  lowering 
the  morale  of  the  people  and  weaken- 
ing its  faith,  has  aided  in  the  con- 
summation ;  and  the  prolonged  wran- 
gle over  the  peace  treaty  has  added 
something  more.  But  all  this  might 
have  happened  with  no  serious  effect 
on  the  general  situation.  It  is  Lenin- 
ism, with  its  propaganda  of  social 
chaos,  which  has  given  the  reins  to 
reaction. 

In  so  far  as  it  has  been  able  to  do 
so,  against  the  interference  of  the 
law,  the  outright  Communist,  I.  W. 
W.,  and  official  Socialist  press  has 
steadily  carried  this  propaganda  to 
the  factories  and  the  fields.  In  the 
case  of  the  Communists,  the  I.  W. 
W.'s,  and  other  extreme  groups  the 
plain  intent  has  been  the  incitement 
of  armed  revolution.  In  the  case  of 
the  party  Socialists  it  has  been  to 
furnish  the  incitement  and  then  let 
nature  take  her  course,  without  ref- 
erence to  any  dogmatic  interpreta- 
tions as  to  the  best  method.  The 
ballot  is  good,  they  say  in  effect,  but 
if  events  choose  to  move  in  a  more 
violent  way,  who  are  we  that  we 
should  interpose  an  objection?  In 
its  unbolshevized  days  the  Socialist 
party  was  the  first  to  condemn  any 
propaganda  which  even  implied  the 
use  of  revolutionary  force.  In  those 
times  it  would  have  furiously  de- 
nounced these  revolutionists  as  the 
tools  of  reaction,  the  betrayers  of  the 
working   class,   the   Father    Capons 


who  sought  to  lead  their  victims  up 
against  the  rifles  and  machine  guns 
of  the  Government,  to  be  uselessly 
slaughtered.  How  often  in  the  old 
days  was  that  denunciation  thun- 
dered from  Socialist  press  and  forum ! 
But  times  change,  and  so  do  parties; 
the  Bolshevik  uprising  showed  an 
easier  way  of  attaining  a  goal,  and  its 
influence  has  been  to  swing  the  So- 
cialist party  more  than  half  way  over 
to  the  outright  revolutionists. 

This  Leninite  propaganda  of  the 
extremist  papers  is  not  wholly  their 
own.  Much  of  it — in  some  issues 
most  of  it — is  drawn  from  the  pages 
of  the  so-called  liberal  journals  of 
opinion.  One  who  has  followed  the 
extremist  papers  for  the  last  fourteen 
months  can  not  have  failed  to  be  im- 
pressed with  the  number  of  columns 
credited  to  the  New  Republic,  the 
Nation,  and  the  Dial  (the  last-named 
now  retired  from  the  pro-Bolshevist 
field),  and  the  additional  credits  oc- 
casionally given  to  the  Survey  and  the 
World  Tomorrow.  One  must  further 
have  been  impressed  with  a  sense 
that  the  stuff  fitted  well  in  its  new 
setting.  It  may  have  been  more  pre- 
tentiously written,  more  sanctimoni- 
ously, or  even  more  daringly  and  vio- 
lently written  than  the  home-made 
stuff  of  the  revolutionist  editor.  But 
in  point  of  view  and  in  general  adapt- 
ability to  the  needs  of  revolutionism 
it  harmonized  admirably  with  the 
surrounding  text.  The  readers  of  the 
stuff  on  its  original  appearance  may 
have  understood  it  in  any  way  they 
pleased.  To  the  revolutionist  editor 
who  copied  it  in  enormous  quantities 
it  meant  what  he  meant,  and  what  his 
readers  wanted  it  to  mean.  Those 
sophistical  persons  who,  in  defense 
of  the  pseudo-liberal  press,  draw  sub- 
tle distinctions  between  the  Leninism 
in  these  pretentiously  intellectual 
journals  and  the  Leninism  in  the 
rough-stuff  revolutionist  papers,  are 
sufficiently  answered  by  the  fact  that 
so  much  of  the  material  does  duty  for 
both.  Highbrow  or  lowbrow,  far  or 
near,  the  stuff  is  in  substance  of  a 
kind.  It  may  be  differently  trimmed 
up  for  different  readers;  and  its  ef- 
fect on  the  cloistered  professor  or  on 
the  naive  seeker  of  "culture"  may  be 
different  from  its  effect  on  the  per- 


356] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  48 


spicacious  "sab  cat"  or  on  his  ecstatic 
ally,  the  parlor  Bolshevist.  But  it 
differs  little  in  essentials.  In  the 
high-class  journals  it  takes  the  form 
of  an  arrogant  outpouring  of  passion 
and  prejudice  loudly  certified  as 
judicial  opinion;  a  studied  distor- 
tion and  suppression  of  inconvenient 
facts ;  a  sweeping  falseness  of  accusa- 
tion; a  canting  defense  of  tyranny 
and  repression  in  the  name  of  democ- 
racy and  freedom;  and  a  frequent 
implication,  soft-pedalled  or  loud- 
pedalled  as  occasion  prompts,  of  prob- 
able revolutionary  uprisings.  In  the 
case  of  the  rough-stuff  papers  it  is 
much  the  same  thing,  though  with 
less  arrogance,  less  disingenuousness, 
■and  with  a  refreshing  absence  of 
cant. 

It  is  all  so  tragically  stupid.  Re- 
action, shrewd  old  reprobate,  pre- 
tending to  the  keenest  alarm,  and 
calling,  in  the  name  of  the  high  gods, 
on  society  to  arm  itself  for  defense, 
chuckles  in  his  sleeve  like  a  Roman 
soothsayer.  For  the  time,  at  least, 
the  battle  is  his. 

W.  J.  Ghent 

Poetry 

Tides 

We  sat  last  night  by  the  fire 

In  the  old  room; 

She,  with  her  work 

In  her  hands, 

I  with  the  gray  sock 

In  mine. 

I  was  knitting; 

And  the  things  that  we  said 

To  each  other, 

Of  war,  and  its  waste 

And  its  woe, 

And  the  talk 

Of  books  and  of  friends 

Was  like  the  froth 

On  the  wave. 

For  the  tide  of  one's  being  flowed  on 

In  thought — 

Of  which  speech 

Is  but  so  fitful  a  sound. 

»    »     ♦     «     « 

Poetry  this  may  not  be  called. 
Yet — were  it  signed  by  the  name 
Of  one  of  the  writers 
Called  poets  to-day — 
Would  you  not,  reader. 
Give  pennies  of  praise 
To  buy  a  new  leaf 
For  the  crown? 

S.N. 
Boston 


The  Outlook  in  Germany 


SUFFICIENTLY  accurate  accounts 
of  the  German  revolution  have 
been  given  in  the  daily  press  so  that 
no  detailed  history  of  this  totally  un- 
expected reactionary  coup  d'etat  is 
necessary.  The  revolution  never 
had  any  chance  of  permanence  be- 
cause it  was  not  supported  by  popu- 
lar reactionary  leaders  who  might 
have  carried  the  people  with  them. 
The  new  Government  lasted  a  few 
days  only  because  it  was  supported 
by  certain  troops  and  because  its  ad- 
vent was  so  unexpected  that  there 
was  no  organized  opposition.  But 
with  the  passing  of  the  reactionary 
danger,  due  to  the  astonishingly 
unanimous  stand  of  the  people,  has 
arisen  the  more  serious  menace  of 
Red  revolution.  An  estimate  of  this 
situation,  because  of  its  bearing  on 
the  immediate  political  and  economic 
future  of  the  world,  should  be  of 
interest. 

The  success  or  failure  of  a  Com- 
munist revolution  in  Germany  de- 
pends, for  the  moment  at  least,  on 
the  military.  According  to  the  terms 
of  the  Treaty  of  Versailles,  the 
German  army  was  to  be  reduced  by 
March,  1920,  to  100,000  men,  but  this 
stipulation  was  based  on  the  theory 
that  the  Treaty  would  be  ratified 
shortly  after  signature.  As  a  mat- 
ter of  fact,  the  Reichswehr,  or  ac- 
tive army,  consists  of  about  300,000 
men,  evenly  distributed  throughout 
the  country.  In  addition,  there 
are  the  Sicherheits-polizei  —  called 
"Noske's  Frogs"  because  of  their 
green  uniforms.  These  troops,  75,- 
000  in  number,  correspond  roughly 
to  American  State  troops.  They 
have  not  yet  been  tested  to  any  ex- 
tent but,  as  they  were  under  the  im- 
mediate orders  of  Noske,  it  can 
be  taken  for  granted  that  their 
tendency  would  be  conservative. 
Finally,  there  are  the  Einwohner- 
wehr,  numbering  perhaps  600,000. 
These  forces  are  largely  made  up  of 
returned  soldiers.  They  are  an  en- 
tirely volunteer  organization,  formed 
to  protect  the  home  from  violence 
and  have  been  placed  under  the  De- 
partment of  the  Interior  in  order  to 


avoid  an  appearance  of  excessive 
militarism.  It  may  be  added  that 
they  exist  contrary  to  the  stipula- 
tions of  the  Treaty. 

It  was  obvious  that  on  the  at- 
titude of  these  troops,  especially  the 
Reichswehr,  must  depend  the  suc- 
cess or  failure  of  the  reactionary 
revolution.  Almost  immediately  well 
over  half  of  the  Reichswehr  de- 
clared for  the  Ebert  Government 
and,  when  lack  of  popular  support 
for  von  Kapp  became  evident,  the 
balance  of  the  troops  wavered,  and 
turned  in  their  allegiance  completely 
to  the  Ebert  Government  when  their 
old  commander,  von  Luettwitz,  re- 
signed as  War  Minister.  The  reac- 
tionary revolution  was  a  dead  issue. 
But  has  its  failure  strengthened  the 
regime  of  the  coalition  parties? 

The  Ebert  Government  was  based 
on  a  compromise  and  suffers  from 
the  traditional  weakness  of  a  coali- 
tion that  has  no  dominant  leadership. 
It  contains  members  of  the  moderate 
parties,  which  represent  the  major- 
ity of  the  German  people,  but  these 
representatives  recognize  no  leader 
and  spend  their  time  dickering  over 
trivialities  while  vital  questions  are 
neglected  because  no  one  party  is 
willing  to  adopt  the  programme  of 
any  other  party.  The  Socialists  are 
disaffected  because  the  Government 
has  not  nationalized  industry.  The 
Democrats  are  unhappy  because,  in 
the  face  of  economic  disaster,  and 
the  prime  necessity  of  resumption  of 
trade,  the  Government  has  given 
way  too  much  to  Socialist  pressure. 
The  Centre  is  losing  its  hold  on  the 
peasant  voters  because  of  the  Gov- 
ernment's food  regulations — paper 
regulations,  to  be  sure,  since  no 
laws  are  efficiently  carried  into  ef- 
fect, but  none  the  less  irritating. 
The  result  of  this  is  that  Germany 
has  become  more  and  more  dis- 
gusted with  a  regime  which  ap- 
pears to  accomplish  little  of  impor- 
tance, which  has  supplied  neither 
food  nor  work.  In  the  meantime  the 
two  extremes  have  been  active  and 
the  Government  has  been  unable  ef- 
fectually to  control  the  propaganda 


April  10,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[357 


either  of  the  Nationalists  or  of  the 
Independent  Socialists.  The  Na- 
tionalists, or  reactionaries,  practi- 
cally control  the  schools  and  the  uni- 
versities. Their  principles  appeal 
to  the  enthusiasm  of  youth  and  they 
have  tangible,  easily  understood 
ideals  which  strike  the  imagination. 
They  have  national  heroes,  like  Hin- 
denburg,  to  set  up  as  figureheads  to 
vi^orship — and  youth  is  prone  to 
hero-worship.  They  have  inherited 
the  science  of  organization.  They 
make  fun  of  the  spineless  Govern- 
ment of  "King  Ebert,  the  saddle- 
maker" — and  youth  likes  to  laugh. 
The  Independent  Socialists,  on  the 
other  hand,  attack  the  Government 
more  grimly.  They  call  it  capital- 
istic; they  sneer  at  its  inability  to 
control  the  profiteers  and  enforce 
laws  made  for  the  benefit  of  work- 
ingmen.  They  fatten  on  hunger  and 
high  prices.  And  always  they  point 
toward  Russia — the  great  new  Rus- 
sia where  the  workingman  is  king, 
where  the  hated  bourgeoisie  has 
been  hunted  from  its  age-old  posi- 
tion of  cynical  exploitation  of  the 
common  man.  Above  all,  they  point 
to  the  Russia  with  an  abundance  of 
grain  that  could  pour  across  the 
German  borders  in  a  life-giving 
flood  if  only  the  German  Govern- 
ment would  think  of  the  German 
people  and  make  peace  with  the 
Soviet.  Finally,  both  extremes  agree 
in  denunciation  of  the  Treaty  of 
Versailles  and  the  subservience  of 
the  Ebert  Government  to  the  humil- 
iating dictates  of  the  Entente. 

This  is  the  dark  side  of  the  pic- 
ture, so  far  as  the  Ebert  Govern- 
ment is  concerned.  The  latent 
strength  of  the  Government  was 
proved  by  the  unanimity  with  which 
the  people  turned  to  its  support 
when  von  Kapp  carried  out  his  fool- 
ish coup  d'etat.  This  was  not  a 
movement  in  support  of  the  per- 
sonnel of  the  Government.  It  was 
rather  a  spontaneous  negative  to  the 
threat  to  take  away  rights  that  had 
been  acquired  in  the  revolution  of 
November,  1918.  The  Government 
had  a  great  opportunity,  and  lost  it 
through  lack  of  any  firm  policy, 
through  dallying  with  the  issues 
presented,  through   failure  to  lead. 


The  Government  itself  had  called  a 
general  strike,  had  thereby  pricked 
the  von  Kapp  bubble,  and  had  put 
into  the  hands  of  the  extreme  rad- 
icals a  weapon  which  they  lost  no 
time  in  using  to  their  own  advan- 
tage. Demands  were  made  on  the 
Government  and  agreed  to  by  the 
Government  in  a  half-hearted  fash- 
ion. Resignations  were  demanded 
and  Noske,  the  really  strong  man  in 
the  Socialist  Party,  was  forced  to 
get  out.  The  Government  would  not 
go  far  enough  to  make  the  inclusion 
of  Independent  Socialists  possible. 
It  went  far  enough,  if  its  pledges  are 
carried  out,  to  make  it  subservient 
to  the  labor  unions.  It  weakened  its 
own  personnel  without  gaining  new 
adherents  either  through  its  weak 
concessions  or  through  its  wavering 
attempts  at  firmness.  Throughout  it 
acted  so  slowly,  with  such  obvious 
hesitation,  that  it  gave  the  leaders  of 
the  Communists  plenty  of  time  to  or- 
ganize their  military  forces  and 
perfect  their  plans  of  military  ad- 
venture. 

It  is  hard  to  think  a  spineless  gov- 
ernment capable  of  inspiring  mili- 
tary forces,  and  if  the  Reichswehr 
stand  firm  against  the  Communists, 
it  will  not  be  through  loyalty  to 
Ebert  but  through  loyalty  to  an  ideal 
which  the  Government  has  not  de- 
stroyed. Such  loyalty  can  not  be  of 
long  duration  because  enthusiasm 
demands  a  living  embodiment  of  an 
ideal.  President  Wilson's  idealism 
appealed  theoretically  to  the  people 
of  Europe  but  had  no  active  force 
until  those  same  people  saw  the 
President  himself.  There  is  in 
Germany  no  truly  democratic  leader 
with  the  power  to  come  out  in  full 
view  of  the  people  and  lead  them  into 
realization  of  the  ideals  which  are 
latent  in  the  hearts  of  those  who 
have  been  freed  from  imperialism 
and  shudder  before  the  menace  of  a 
new  autocracy.  Therefore,  it  is 
fortunate  that  the  Ebert  Govern- 
ment has  agreed,  as  one  result  of  the 
reactionary  revolution,  to  hold  new 
elections  in  June.  The  troops  and 
the  people  know  that  this  Govern- 
ment is  the  only  one  which  can  in- 
sure a  fair  and  full  expression  of 
the  popular  will.    They  know  that 


an  election  under  Communist  con- 
trol would  be  as  farcical  as  are  the 
elections  in  Russia,  and,  since  the 
time  is  short,  they  will  probably  sup- 
port the  Government  during  the  in- 
tervening months. 

Although  the  Communist  move- 
ment in  the  industrial  regions  of  the 
lower  Rhine  has  collapsed  like  the 
reactionary  movement,  the  recent 
revolution  will  leave  its  mark  in 
one  or  two  outstanding  results. 
German  opposition  to  fulfillment  of 
the  terms  of  the  Treaty  of  Ver- 
sailles will  stiffen.  The  press  has 
been  a  unit  in  claiming  the  treaty  as 
the  real  reason  for  the  revolution. 
The  Nationalists  have  much  to  say 
about  "German  honor";  the  Inde- 
pendent Socialists  have  more  to  say 
about  the  burden  placed  by  the 
treaty  on  the  workingman.  At 
first  Germany  trusted  to  the  League 
of  Nations  to  revise  the  treaty. 
When  hope  in  the  power  of  the 
League  went  a-glimmering,  the  na- 
tion adopted  an  attitude  of  passive 
resistance.  Now  it  is  hopeful  of  dis- 
sension among  the  Allies  and  of  the 
growth  of  radicalism  in  Allied  coun- 
tries ;  but  in  any  case  it  fully  intends 
to  scrap  the  economic  terms  of  the 
treaty.  The  second  obvious  result 
of  the  revolution  will  be  a  turning 
away  from  the  West  and  toward  the 
East.  To  the  Nationalists,  Russia  is 
a  prostrate  nation  to  be  exploited 
for  Germany's  benefit.  To  the  Inde- 
pendent Socialists,  Russia  is  the 
hope  of  the  workingman.  The 
German  Government  can  not  put  an 
end  to  the  Communist  revolt  without 
making  large  concessions  to  the  left, 
every  concession  being  a  step  toward 
the  Russian  alliance.  This  is  not 
opposed  by  the  reactionaries  because 
they  believe  themselves  able,  even- 
tually, to  cope  with  Communism. 
They  are  autocrats  by  nature  and  by 
training  and  think  that  they  know 
how  to  deal  vdth  a  counter-autoc- 
racy. Ludendorff  recently  remarked 
that  he  should  be  quite  as  willing  to 
work  with  the  Communists  as  with 
the  militarists  for  the  defeat  of  the 
treaty. 

This,  then,  is  what  the  German 
revolution  means.  It  will  immensely 
increase    both    the    active    and    the 


858] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  48 


passive  opposition  to  fulfillment  of 
the  treaty  terms,  although  opposi- 
tion by  force  of  arms  appears  un- 
likely unless  a  really  Communistic 
government  establishes  itself.  It 
will  swing  the  German  Government 
far  to  the  left  and  will  hasten  an 
alliance,  or  at  least  close  cooperation 
with  Soviet  Russia.  It  has  already 
retarded,  and  will  slow  down  for  a 
long  time  to  come,  the  process  of 
German  recuperation.  The  duty  of 
the  Allies  and  of  America  would  ap- 
pear to  be  to  support  the  present 
German  Government  by  every  legit- 
imate means,  because,  in  spite  of  its 
weakness,  in  spite  of  the  concessions 
it  has  been  forced  to  make,  it  re- 
mains the  only  bulwark  against  a 
radicalism  that  would  almost  cer- 
tainly develop  into  anarchy.  The 
coming  elections  will  determine  the 
policy  of  Germany.  They  will  in- 
dicate the  true  national  sentiment 
only  if  the  ballot  is  universal,  secret, 
and  exercised  without  intimidation. 
These  things,  at  least,  the  present 
Government  can  guarantee. 

Examiner 

Correspondence 

High  Praise  for  Senator 
Lodge 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

I  read  with  much  interest  your  ex- 
cellent article  in  your  issue  of  March 
27,  entitled:  "The  Wreck  of  the 
Treaty."  In  much  that  you  say  I  con- 
cur; but  it  contains  one  sentence  against 
which,  as  one  of  your  readers,  I  want  to 
enter  an  earnest  protest.  After  justly 
criticizing  President  Wilson's  course  in 
the  treaty  controversy,  you  say: 

We  do  not  by  any  means  wish  to  absolve 
others  of  their  share  of  the  blame.  Senator 
Lodge  has  shown  himself  neither  a  large- 
minded  statesman  nor  a  competent  party 
leader  and  he  has  given  countenance  to 
many  abominable  moves  in  the  game. 

This  would  be  more  convincing  if  you 
had  given  any  specifications  for  so 
severe  a  criticism  of  one  of  the  most 
experienced  and  scholarly  statesmen  now 
in  the  public  life  of  this  country.  In 
my  judgment,  this  criticism  is  without 
justification.  I  think  you  have  uncon- 
sciously fallen  into  the  error  of  so  many 
iudges  who  feel  that  they  give  an  im- 
pression of  great  fairness  by  distribut- 
ing the  praise  or  the  blame.  In  many 
law  cases  there  is  much  to  be  said  on 
both   sides,    and   the   judgment   of   the 


Court  carries  wider  conviction  because  it 
fairly  measures  the  pros  and  cons.  But 
it  is  a  weakness  of  some  judges  that,  in 
cases  where  one  side  or  the  other  is  ever- 
lastingly right  or  wrong,  their  attempt 
to  be  judicial  results  in  an  opinion  which, 
either  praising  or  blaming  both  sides, 
compromises  the  issue  involved  by  deny- 
ing full  credit  to  one  side  or  withholding 
full  discredit  from  the  other.  Such  an 
issue,  in  my  opinion,  was  the  momentous 
controversy  just  closed  in  the  United 
States  Senate. 

It  involved  two  issues  of  transcendent 
importance. 

The  first  was  our  form  of  government ; 
for  if  Mr.  Wilson  had  crowded  down  the 
throats  of  the  American  people  his 
League  of  Nations,  whatever  its  merits 
might  otherwise  have  been,  by  an  un- 
constitutional expedient,  whereby  it  was 
sought  to  coerce  the  Senate  into  the  ac- 
ceptance of  the  League,  it  might  have 
meant  the  destruction  of  one  of  the  most 
salutary  features  of  our  Constitution, 
which  divides  the  power  over  the  foreign 
relations  of  this  Government  between  the 
President  and  the  Senate.  It  will  be  an 
unhappy  day  for  America  when  its 
destiny  in  international  relations  is  con- 
trolled by  one  man,  and  Mr.  Wilson's 
course  in  withholding  information  from 
the  Senate  and  in  interweaving  the 
League  with  the  treaty,  in  order  to  com- 
pel the  acceptance  of  the  former,  almost 
amounted  to  a  coup  d'etat. 

The  second  issue  was  the  grave  ques- 
tion whether  America  should  become  a 
member  of  a  foreign  Council  sitting  in 
Geneva,  which  could  compromise  its  sov- 
ereign powers  and  fatally  entangle  it  in 
the  local  politics  of  Europe  and  Asia. 
This  meant  in  any  form  an  abandon- 
ment of  the  great  and  noble  tradition  to 
which  this  country  had  hitherto  been 
faithful  and  under  which  it  had  grown 
surpassingly  great.  It  was  not  a  ques- 
tion of  isolation,  but  of  independence. 

The  burden  of  this  terrific  struggle  fell 
upon  Senator  Lodge.  No  leader  of  our 
time  since  Abraham  Lincoln  has  had  a 
graver  responsibility.  His  party  was 
divided  into  three  factions — the  so-called 
"irreconcilables,"  the  "strong  reserva- 
tionists,"  and  the  "mild  reservationists." 
He  owed  it  to  his  party  and  to  his  coun- 
try to  keep  these  interests  together,  so 
far  as  possible,  without  sacrificing  prin- 
ciple or  the  great  purpose  of  defeating 
the  President's  coup  d'etat.  It  was  not 
an  easy  task.  From  last  July,  when  the 
President  submitted  the  treaty  to  the 
Senate,  until  the  present  month.  Senator 
Lodge  gave  his  time  and  energy  to  as  dif- 
ficult a  task  as  any  leader  in  Congress 
ever  assumed.  I  did  not  share  his  view 
that  this  country  could  accept  even 
honorary  membership  in  the  so-called 
"League  of  Nations" — which  is  not  a 
league  of  nations  at  all,  but  an  offensive 
and  defensive  alliance  masquerading  un- 


der the  form  of  a  league  of  nations.  I 
believed  that  any  participation  in  a  so- 
called  "League"  which  challenges  the 
basic  principle  of  the  equality  of  sov- 
ereign nations  would  have  been  a  mistake 
and  a  dangerous  mistake;  for  if  this 
country  had  become  a  member  of  the  so- 
called  League,  even  with  the  protective 
reservations,  President  Wilson,  acting 
through  his  representative  at  Geneva, 
could  have  continued  his  fatal  implica- 
tion of  this  country  in  the  local  quarrels 
of  Europe  and  thus  completed  the  work 
of  destroying  the  good-will  which,  at  one 
time,  all  our  Allies  had  for  us  in  such 
generous  abundance. 

Senator  Lodge,  however,  was  obliged 
to  reckon  with  the  conflicting  views  of 
his  own  party  in  the  Senate,  and,  as  the 
responsible  leader,  take  the  middle 
course.  He  did  so  with  such  extraordi- 
nary ability  that  not  only  was  the  inde- 
pendence of  America  saved  and  the 
burden  of  defeating  the  treaty  put  upon 
the  President — where  it  belonged — but 
he  kept  his  party  together  and  won  the 
support  of  nearly  one-half  of  the  Ad- 
ministration forces.  The  fight,  so  far  as 
it  was  one  of  personalities,  was  largely  a 
great  struggle  between  Lodge  and  Wilson 
• — and  Lodge  won  a  complete  victory. 

I  can  not  recall  that  a  greater  triumph 
has  been  won  for  America  since  the 
Civil  War,  and  I  do  not  recall  that,  in 
the  long  and  acute  controversy.  Senator 
Lodge  ever  said  an  unworthy  word  or 
did  an  unworthy  act.  Throughout  the 
whole  bitter  dispute  he  was  the  gentle- 
man, the  scholar,  and  the  statesman.  His 
great  speech  on  the  League  recalled  the 
best  traditions  of  the  Senate. 

I  wish  heartily  that  he  were  a  younger 
man;  for,  in  my  judgment,  he  would  be 
the  ideal  candidate  to  succeed  President 
Wilson.  But  the  immense  burdens  of  the 
most  difficult  office  in  the  world  must  of 
necessity  devolve  upon  a  younger  man. 
But  it  would  be  a  calamity  to  the  coun- 
try if  the  next  President  of  the  United 
States  did  not  have  in  some  capacity, 
either  in  the  Senate  or  Cabinet,  the  great 
ability  and  exceptional  talent  for  leader- 
ship that  Senator  Lodge  has  shown  in 
this  great  controversy. 

Under  these  circumstances,  it  does 
seem  to  me  unjust  for  the  Review  to  ap- 
portion the  blame  for  the  defeat  of  the 
treaty  between  President  Wilson  and 
Senator  Lodge.  Did  Lodge  construct  an 
indefensible  League,  which,  as  stated, 
contradicts  the  basic  principle  of  the 
equality  of  sovereign  nations?  Did  he 
interweave  it  with  the  treaty  so  that  the 
treaty  could  not  be  ratified  without  the 
acceptance  of  a  misnamed  League  which 
would  have  fatally  compromised  the  sov- 
ereignty and  independence  of  the  United 
States?  Did  he  show  any  indisposi- 
tion to  accept  the  treaty — and  even 
the  League — if  such  independence  were 
measurably  preserved? 


April  10,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[359 


It  may  be  that  we  live  too  near  these 
great  events  to  estimate  them  properly; 
but  I  venture  the  suggestion  that  a 
future  generation,  looking  back  upon  the 
great  controversy  in  the  perspective  of  a 
half  century,  will  say  that  Senator  Lodge 
rendered  as  great  a  service  to  his  coun- 
try as  did  his  great  predecessor  as  the 
representative  of  Massachusetts — Daniel 
Webster — when  he  defended  the  integ- 
rity of  the  Union  against  the  assault  of 
Senator  Hayne. 

This,  at  least,  is  my  view;  and  I  ven- 
ture to  state  it,  not  without  full  recog- 
nition that  the  editors  of  the  Review  are 
equally  sincere  in  their  conviction. 

James  M.  Beck 

New  York,  April  2 

Clemenceau  and  the  Left 
Bank 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

An  editorial  paragraph  in  the  Review 
of  March  27  courteously  expresses  some 
doubt  about  the  correctness  of  a  remark 
of  mine  that  M.  Clemenceau,  until  the 
special  treaties  with  England  and  the 
United  States  were  proposed,  seemed  to 
have  fought  with  all  his  skill,  resource- 
fulness, and  pertinacity  for  the  separa- 
tion of  the  left  bank  of  the  Rhine  from 
the  German  Empire.  You  quote  a  state- 
ment of  M.  Stephane  Lauzanne,  to  the 
effect  that  M.  Clemenceau  and  the  ma- 
jority of  the  French  delegation  were  op- 
posed to  this  programme,  of  which  Presi- 
dent Poincare  and  Marshal  Foch  were 
the  principal  sponsors.  M.  Lauzanne  is 
doubtless  in  a  position  to  know  whereof 
he  speaks.  Nevertheless,  it  is  a  matter 
of  official  record  that  the  French  Gov- 
ernment and  the  French  delegation  in- 
sisted, until  the  middle  of  March,  upon 
the  adoption  of  the  Rhine  as  "the  west- 
ern boundary  of  Germany."  And  M. 
Clemenceau  was  the  head  of  the  Gov- 
ernment and  the  spokesman  of  the  dele- 
gation. I  translate  from  the  report 
presented  by  M.  Louis  Barthou  on  be- 
half of  the  Commission  de  la  Paix  of  the 
Chamber  of  Deputies : 

The  views  of  Marshal  Foch  were  adopted 
...  by  the  Government,  whose  memorandum 
of  February  25  defined  its  opinion  with  a 
clarity,  force,  and  authority  which  give  a  his- 
toric value  to  the  document.  Its  title  expresses 
its  object:  Memoire  du  gouvernement  franfais 
mr  la  fixation  au  Rhin  de  la  frontiere  occiden- 
tale  de  I'Allemagne  et  I'occwpation  interalliee 
des  pouts  du  fleuve.  The  agreement  upon 
these  points  between  the  Government  and  Mar- 
shal Foch  continued  up  to  the  moment  when, 
on  March  14,  negotiations  with  the  Allies  de- 
termined the  Government  to  accept  another 
system  of  guarantees  [i.e.,  the  treaties  with 
England  and  the  United  States]. 

This  evidence  appears  to  me  to  render 
untenable  the  assertion  that  M.  Clemen- 
ceau did  not  vigorously  support  in  the 
Peace  Conference  the  demand  for  the 
separation  of  the  territory  on  the  left 


bank  of  the  Rhine.  Either  M.  Lauzanne's 
statement  is  incorrect,  or — which  is  more 
probable — it  refers,  not  to  the  period  to 
which  the  remark  quoted  from  me  ex- 
pressly referred,  but  to  the  period  sub- 
sequent to  the  proposal  of  the  "other 
system  of  guarantees."  In  the  latter 
case  there  is  no  conflict  between  M. 
Lauzanne's  statement  and  mine;  while 
your  editorial  paragraph,  through  a  fail- 
ure to  distinguish  the  periods  before  and 
after  March  14,  would  seem  likely  to 
give  the  reader  the  erroneous  impression 
that  M.  Clemenceau  was  from  the  first, 
and  irrespective  of  the  alternative  guar- 
antees, opposed  to  the  demand  for  separa- 
tion. It  is  true,  and  is  frankly  men- 
tioned in  the  official  document  I  have 
above  cited,  that  after  the  French  Gov- 
ernment had  accepted  the  Anglo-French 
and  Franco-American  treaties  as  a  sub- 
stitute. Marshal  Foch  continued  to  favor, 
and  to  agitate  for,  his  original  pro- 
gramme. 

It  is  also  true — to  pass  from  past  his- 
tory to  present  politics — that  if  the  latter 
treaty  is  not  ratified  by  the  Senate  of  the 
United  States,  the  existing  French  Gov- 
ernment may  be  expected  to  demand  the 
other  alternative,  or  at  the  least,  to  insist 
upon  the  indefinite  prolongation  of  the 
military  occupation  of  the  left  bank  and 
of  the  bridgeheads.  Such  a  policy  on 
the  part  of  the  French,  though  it  may 
seem  to  them  necessary  for  their  mili- 
tary security,  would  be  absolutely  inde- 
fensible from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
armistice  agreement,  and  would  be 
fraught  with  grave  peril  to  France  and 
to  Europe.  It  lies  within  the  power  of 
the  Senate  to  avert  that  peril  and  at  the 
same  time  to  exorcise  from  the  French 
mind  that  obsessing  fear  of  another  Ger- 
man invasion  which  disturbs  their  politi- 
cal judgment  and  deflects  their  foreign 
policy  into  courses  dangerous  alike  to 
themselves  and  to  others.  Either  the  de- 
fensive treaty  with  France  is  a  superflous 
precaution  against  future  German  inva- 
sion, in  which  case  there  can  be  no  harm 
in  ratification,  or  else,  as  most  of  the 
French  people  seem  to  believe,  it  is  a 
needed  precaution,  in  which  case  there  is 
imperative  reason  for  ratification.  That 
ratification  would  have,  in  any  case,  an 
incalculably  steadying  and  tranquillizing 
effect  upon  the  general  European  situa- 
tion seems  beyond  question. 

Arthur  0.  Lovejoy 

Baltimore,  Md.,  March  27 

[We  can  assure  Professor  Lovejoy  that 
Stephane  Lauzanne's  statement  clearly 
refers  to  the  period  antecedent,  not  sub- 
sequent, to  the  proposal  of  the  "other 
system  of  guarantees."  The  conversion 
of  Tardieu,  according  to  him,  took  place 
before  Wilson  and  Lloyd  George,  in  the 
beginning  of  March,  offered  the  solution 
which  the  French  Government  accepted. 
Lauzanne's  disclosures,  we  admit,  seem 


to  clash  with  the  report  presented  by  M. 
Barthou  from  which  Professor  Lovejoy 
quotes.  However,  that  document  speaks 
of  an  "agreement  upon  these  points  be- 
tween the  Government  and  Marshal 
Foch,"  and  although  M.  Clemenceau  was 
both  the  head  of  the  Government  and 
the  spokesman  of  the  delegation,  it  does 
not  necessarily  follow  that  his  views 
turned  the  scale  in  the  decisions  of  either 
body.  In  the  French  Cabinet  the  ma- 
jority, evidently,  did  not  share  that  mod- 
erate view  of  which  M.  Lauzanne  asserts 
him  to  have  been  an  advocate  in  the 
peace  delegation. — Eds.  The  Review.] 

Can  a  Constitutional  Amend- 
ment be  Unconstitutional? 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

The  first  ten  amendments  were  placed 
in  the  Constitution  to  satisfy  dissenting 
States  like  Rhode  Island,  as  the  Con- 
gressional resolution  submitting  them 
for  ratification  shows  upon  its  face. 
They  all,  including  the  Tenth,  were 
limitations  upon  Federal  power  for  the 
protection  of  individual  rights,  either 
directly  or  through  the  States  by  the 
application  of  the  home-rule  principle 
of  the  Tenth  Amendment. 

The  Eleventh  protected  the  States 
against  suit  in  the  Federal  courts. 

The  Twelfth  changed  the  machinery 
for  electing  the  President  and  in  no 
way  affected  State  power. 

The  Thirteenth,  Fourteenth  and  Fif- 
teenth were  products  of  revolution; 
adopted  in  form  as  Constitutional  amend- 
ments, they  were  in  fact  terms  of  peace 
and  conditions  of  reconstruction  imposed 
upon  the  States  in  rebellion  by  force  of 
arms. 

The  Thirteenth  recognized  the  existing 
fact  of  the  abolition  of  slavery  which 
the  triumph  of  the  Northern  arms  had 
already  achieved.  In  itself  it  effected 
nothing  new.  The  police  power  of  the 
States  over  the  institution  of  slavery,  to 
which  its  terms  referred,  was  already 
non-existent. 

The  Fourteenth  Amendment  placed 
certain  disabilities  upon  ex-Confederates 
and  provided  for  a  change  in  the  Con- 
gressional representation  of  the  States 
in  rebellion  whereby,  as  a  term  of  recon- 
struction and  re-admission,  the  negro 
population  was  to  count  in  full  instead  of 
three-fifths,  as  formerly,  subject  to  de- 
crease in  representation  for  disfranchise- 
ment. 

The  remainder  consisted  of  the  Freed- 
man's  Bill  of  Civil  Rights.  It  simply 
extended  for  the  benefit  of  the  colored 
man,  as  against  the  States,  guarantees 
of  individual  liberty  and  property  rights 
taken  almost  verbatim  from  the  original 
Bill  of  Rights. 

This  Amendment  neither  invaded  State 


360] 


THE  EEVTEW 


[Vol.  2,  Xo.  48 


power  nor  transferred  it  to  the  Federal 
Government. 

The  Fifteenth  Amendment  related 
solely  to  suffrage — suffrage,  however, 
which  by  the  fiat  of  the  military  recon- 
struction Governments  had  already  been 
conferred  upon  the  negro.  Consequently 
it  made  no  new  voters,  as  does  the  pro- 
posed Nineteenth  Amendment. 

The  States  in  rebellion,  as  a  condition 
to  their  re-admission  with  full  sov- 
ereignty and  Congressional  representa- 
tion, were  required  to  record  their  af- 
firmative assent  and  formal  ratification 
of  the  three  war  amendments,  as  these 
are,  therefore,  appropriately  called. 

Without  such  assent  and  ratification  by 
the  rebelling  States,  the  necessary  three- 
fourths  vote  for  a  Constitutional  Amend- 
ment could  not  have  been  recorded,  at 
least  for  the  Fifteenth,  if  not  for  the 
Fourteenth  also. 

The  Sixteenth  Amendment,  dealing 
with  the  income  tax,  re-asserted  a  Fed- 
eral right  (then  in  temporary  abeyance) 
existing  from  the  foundation  of  the  Gov- 
ernment and  not  affecting  State  power. 

The  Seventeenth  Amendment  merely 
changed  the  form  of  choosing  United 
States  Senators,  requiring  their  popular 
election.  It  diminished  in  no  way  the 
States'  power  over  such  elections,  the 
regulation  of  which  had  always  been 
ultimately  Federal. 

In  the  strictly  historical  sense,  then, 
it  can  be  truthfully  said  that  the  Eight- 
eenth Amendment  is  the  Tirst  attempt  by 
means  of  a  Federal  amendment  to  limit 
an  existing  State  power  reserved  by  the 
Tenth  Article  of  the  Bill  of  Rights,  or  to 
transfer  the  same  to  the  Federal  Gov- 
ernment, or  to  infringe  an  individual 
right  protected  by  our  Home  Rule  plan. 

Whether  in  the  light  of  a  perpetual 
union  of  equally  perpetual  States  that 
can  be  legally  done  is  the  question  the 
Supreme  Court  must  determine;  whether 
the  perpetual  scheme  of  our  Government 
contemplated  the  right  of  the  citizen  of 
Nevada,  3,000  miles  away,  along  with 
35  other  States  of  varying  distance,  to 
legislate  upon  the  dining  tables  and  per- 
sonal morals  of  a  citizen  of  Rhode  Island 
or  to  prescribe  by  perpetual  mandate 
the  conditions  of  suffrage  in  South  Caro- 
lina. 

Our  form  of  government  contemplates 
regulation  of  our  intimate  personal  and 
local  affairs  by  a  responsible  political 
agency — the  State  Legislature — within 
reasonable  reach  of  the  anger  of  an  out- 
raged people.  It  contemplates  govern- 
ment in  such  intimate  personal  affairs 
by  those  whom  we  can  punish  and  reward 
by  our  votes;  who  must  look  us  in  the 
eye  and  be  subject  to  social  ostracism 
and  the  door  of  fellowship  being  closed 
in  their  faces,  if  by  their  legislation  they 
have  committed  an  act  of  tyranny  upon 
their  fellows,  their  neighbors. 

That  is  the  philosophy  of  the  Home 


Rule  plan  of  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States.  That  is  the  cornerstone 
without  which  it  falls. 

That  and  that  alone  is  States  Rights 
and  local  self-government. 

If  that  right  is  invaded,  whether  in 
the  form  of  a  Constitutional  Amendment 
or  not,  it  can  only  be  protected  by  a 
decree  of  the  Supreme  Court. 

If  these  amendments  can  be  legally 
enacted,  all  our  liberties  can  be  taken 
from  us  by  irresponsible,  long-distance 
political  action.  The  entire  Bill  of 
Rights,  including  its  Tenth  Article,  can 
be  wiped  away  by  this  new  legislative 
process. 

Jefferson  said  that  the  Bill  of  Rights 
was  the  one  essential  part  of  the  Con- 
stitution. 

The  people  of  this  nation  have  no  right 
to  destroy  their  form  of  Government 
except  by  actual  physical  revolution. 

If  the  entire  Bill  of  Rights  should  be 
held  to  be  indestructible  and  beyond  the 
reach  of  amendment,  this  would  not  in- 
volve a  rigid  Constitution,  but  merely  a 
permanent  protection  to"  the  individual 
in  his  person  and  property,  of  his  right 
to  government  by  his  neighbors  in  all 
things  intimate,  personal,  and  local. 

It  is  plainly  as  much  the  duty  of  the 
court  to  preserve  the  States  as  inde- 
structible political  units  for  local  pur- 
poses as  it  is  its  duty  to  preserve  their 
indestructible  union  for  Federal  pur- 
poses, and  to  declare  ultra  vires  a  meas- 
ure of  direct  legislation  presented  in  the 
disguise  of  a  Federal  amendment,  if  it 
wholly  or  partly  destroys  the  States. 

The  limitation  upon  power  is  as  clear 
as  in  the  ordinary  case  of  an  unconsti- 
tutional statute. 

The  matter,  therefore,  is  clearly  jus- 
ticiable. It  begs  the  question  to  say  that, 
under  our  dual  form  of  government, 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  an  unconstitu- 
tional Constitutional  Amendment.  This 
at  first  blush  might  seem  to  be  the  case. 
But  when  such  proposed  amendment 
destroys  the  Federal  form  of  our  Govern- 
ment, in  whole  or  in  part,  or  its  method 
of  adoption  violates  the  letter  of  many 
of  the  individual  State  Constitutions, 
whose  legislatures  attempted  to  ratify, 
there  must  be  judicial  power  to  declare 
such  amendment  void  and  such  ratifica- 
tion illegal. 

Otherwise,  it  must  be  held  that  we  can 
commit  governmental  suicide,  without  an 
actual  physical  revolution,  by  simply  in- 
voking the  forms  of  the  amending  clause. 

These  amendments  establish  iron  rules, 
which  are  practically  permanent,  and 
which  the  people  of  no  State  can  here- 
after change  by  any  action  of  their  own. 

Both  the  Eighteenth  Amendment  and 
the  proposed  Nineteenth  destroy  funda- 
mental State  powers.  Both  impose  by 
force  a  distasteful  policy  upon  the  people 
of   unwilling   sections.      The   people   of 


four  States  are  coerced  by  the  former, 
and  of  nine  or  ten  by  the  latter. 

If  36  States  finally  ratify  the  Nine- 
teenth Amendment,  if  the  question  of 
legality  is  held  not  to  be  justiciable,  or 
if  the  Supreme  Court,  in  its  wisdom, 
feels  it  must  sustain  them  as  legal  acts 
of  government,  then  a  revolution  has 
happened,  not  only  in  our  form  of  gov- 
ernment, but  in  our  political  thought, 
which  foredooms  our  continued  existence 
as  an  indestructible  union  of  indestructi- 
ble States — a  Federal  Republic  under 
whose  home-rule  plan  we  have  become 
great  and  until  now  remained  free. 

It  will  doubtless  be  admitted  as  a 
legal  proposition  that  it  would  be  ultra 
vires — and  within  the  power  of  the  Su- 
preme Court  to  so  declare — for  two- 
thirds  of  a  quorum  of  Congress,  backed 
by  36  State  Legislatures,  to  impose  upon 
the  people  of  12  dissenting  States  the 
so-called  nationalization  of  women;  to 
establish  polygamy;  to  cede  all  State 
power;  to  abolish  property;  to  prescribe 
a  particular  religion,  or  to  set  up  a  mon- 
archy in  place  of  our  Federal  Union. 

Yet  if  the  question  of  the  power  to 
pass  the  so-called  Eighteenth  and  Nine- 
teenth Amendments  is  not  a  subject  for 
judicial  determination,  neither  could  the 
Supreme  Court  declare  any  such  acts 
void  in  law,  provided  they  were  clothed 
in  the  prescribed  form  of,  and  adopted 
as,  constitutional  Amendments. 

As  long  as  we  remain  the  United  States 
of  America  that  can  not  be. 

George  Stewart  Brown 

New  York,  March  30 

Intermolecular  Space  and 
the  Spirit 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

I  have  just  read  Professor  Jastrow's 
excellent  analysis  of  "The  Case  of  Sir 
Oliver  Lodge"  in  the  Review.  I  am  not 
a  believer  in  "spiritism,"  though  a 
very  able  "medium"  gave  me  private 
daylight  seances  with  remarkable  mani- 
festations. On  one  occasion  a  scientific 
skeptic  of  note  observed  the  seance  freely 
from  an  adjoining  room — after  which  w^ 
changed  places,  and  I,  too,  could  not  di 
cover  fraud.  Yet  I  was  not  convince' 
There  is,  however,  one  entirely  sci 
entific  argument  in  favor  of  the  "pos 
sibility"  of  the  "astral  body,"  which  to 
my  mind  is  unanswerable,  and  on  the 
strength  of  which  I  have  frequently  con- 
soled sadly  afflicted  mourners  who  came 
to  ask  my  opinion  of  spiritualism.  This 
is  the  well-known  acceptance  of  the  "in- 
termolecular space,"  the  argument  being 
that  the  molecules  of  the  body  might 
"collapse"  in  death,  leaving  the  inter- 
molecular space  of  the  body  "charged" 
with  "atomic  activity"  and — for  a  time — 
as  a  personal  entity. 

Emile  Berliner 
Washington,  D.  C,  March  12 


scv 


April  10,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[361 


Problems  of  Labor  and  Capital 


Employers'  Associations 


[This  is  the  first  of  a  series  of  articles, 
which  will  appear  in  the  Review  in  successive 
wepks,  by  Mr.  Morris  L.  Ernst,  a  member  of 
the  New  York  Bar,  who  has  long  given  special 
attention  to  many  aspects  of  the  labor  question, 
and  especially  to  the  relations  between  em- 
ployers and  employed.  Mr.  Ernst  was  for  sev- 
eral years  engaged  in  manufacturing  business 
as  joint  proprietor  of  a  plant  and  afterwards 
managed  a  large  retail  establishment  in  New 
York  City.  The  law  firm  of  which  he  is  a 
member  is  in  the  peculiar  position  of  repre- 
senting both  employers'  associations  and  labor 
unions,  in  various  lines.  Mr.  Ernst  is  now 
chairman  of  the  New  York  City  Club's  com- 
mittee on  legislation.  For  several  years  pre- 
ceding his  selection  for  this  post  he  was  chair- 
man of  the  City  Club  committees  on  State 
Employment  Bureaus,  Farm  Colonies  for 
Vagrants,  and  Industrial  Relations.  During 
the  war,  as  a  "dollar-a-year  man,"  he  acted  as 
Assistant  Labor  Expert  to  the  Shipping 
Board.] 

SHORTLY  after  Mr.  Wilson  was  elected 
President  for  the  first  time,  he 
wrote  to  the  Federal  Trade  Commission 
requesting  it  to  make  a  study  of  trade  as- 
sociations throughout  the  United  States. 
Nowhere  is  there  greater  need  of  such 
investigation  and  of  the  clearer  definition 
that  may  be  expected  to  result  from  it. 
In  most  industries  associations  of  em- 
ployers are  a  sporadic  growth,  summoned 
into  existence  to  meet  the  threats  either 
of  labor  or  of  legislation,  and  their  mem- 
bership, in  consequence,  is  often  hastily 
and  illogically  made  up.  Yet  until  the 
associations  of  employers  are  as  highly 
developed  as  the  trade  unions,  and  their 
jurisdiction  as  clearly  defined,  peaceful 
and  lasting  settlements  in  labor  disputes 
can  not  be  hoped  for. 

An  illustration  of  the  present  difficulty 
very  quickly  made  itself  manifest  to  the 
men  and  women  who  were  called  upon 
to  assist  in  a  proposed  settlement  of  the 
laundry  strike  in  the  City  of  New  York 
in  the  latter  part  of  1919 ;  they  realized 
at  once  that,  whereas  there  was  supposed 
to  be  a  strike  in  one  industry,  in  reality 
there  were  strikes  in  three  separate  in- 
dustries. Even  a  cursory  study  showed 
that  the  steam  laundry,  bundle  laundry, 
and  hand  laundry  trades  must  each  one 
be  treated  separately  in  the  adjustment 
of  conditions  of  employment,  although 
the  employers  engaged  in  all  three  of 
these  businesses,  commonly  known  as  the 
laundry  business,  had  illogically  com- 
bined into  one  association.  As  soon  as  a 
strike  developed,  the  employers  in  these 
various  laundry  industries  realized  that 
their  interests  were  not  in  common,  and 
even  if  the  employers  had  remained  in 
one  association  a  lasting  settlement  would 
have  been  impossible  because  the  condi- 
tions of  employment  were  in  no  way  simi- 
lar among  them,  and  the  employees  were 
not  interchangeable. 


Employers'  associations  have,  indeed, 
very  generally  been  born  out  of  a  need 
for  united  action  in  matters  other  than 
labor,  for  exchange  of  credit  informa- 
tion, or  for  proper  representation  in 
legislative  chambers.  In  the  textile  and 
garment  trades,  it  has  taken  years  to 
develop  associations  of  employers  on  the 
basis  of  similarity  in  the  type  of  per- 
sons employed.  The  retail  furniture 
trade  was  organized  for  credit  purposes 
years  before  it  was  put  on  a  basis  which 
enabled  it  to  deal  with  labor  problems. 
In  the  jewelry  industry,  until  recently, 
there  were  separate  associations  of  plati- 
num-smiths and  goldsmiths.  Although 
employees  are  not  interchangeable,  that 
is,  a  worker  on  cheap  gold  jewelry  can  not 
take  a  position  in  a  platinum-smith  shop, 
nor  would  a  worker  on  platinum  be  satis- 
fied with  the  pay  of  a  worker  on  gold, 
the  amalgamation  was  inevitable  be- 
cause the  labor  unions  covered  the  entire 
industry  engaged  in  the  manufacture  of 
jewelry.  A  form  of  organization,  how- 
ever, which  is  to  make  possible  lasting 
industrial  peace  must  be  on  a  basis  of 
type  of  labor  employed  and  not  on  the 
basis  of  the  name  commonly  applied  to 
the  product ;  otherwise  parties  to  the  con- 
flict will  discover  conflicting  interests 
within  their  own  ranks,  and  those  who 
do  finally  come  to  an  agreement  may  be 
so  far  from  numerically  representative 
that  no  solution  they  arrive  at  will  long 
continue  to  be  held  satisfactory. 

This  desirable  symmetry  of  organiza- 
tion is  sometimes  easy,  and  sometimes 
very  difficult,  to  accomplish.  The  more 
skilled  the  trades,  the  simpler  it  be- 
comes to  consolidate  into  a  single  em- 
ployers' association  all  the  plants  em- 
ploying such  workmen.  Conversely,  the 
unions  of  office-help  will  always  be  handi- 
capped by  the  almost  impossible  task  of 
gathering  into  one  assocation  all  the  em- 
ployers of  office  help.  Even  employees, 
who  have  advanced  much  further  than 
employers  toward  proper  organizations, 
meet  with  difficulties  arising  from  over- 
lapping jurisdictions.  The  Teamsters  and 
Chauffeurs  Unions,  for  example,  can 
never  reach  lasting  agreements  with  em- 
ployers in  the  retail  furniture  trade  until 
the  unions  include  in  their  membership 
the  teamsters  and  chauffeurs  working  for 
furniture  departments  of  department 
stores,  piano  manufacturers,  warehouses, 
and  others  employing  similar  labor.  Un- 
less agreements  between  chauffeurs  and 
employers  extend  to  nearly  all  employers 
of  such  chauffeurs,  competition  will 
destroy  their  effectiveness. 

In  its  important  investigation,  there- 
fore, the  Federal  Trade  Commission,  and 


any  State  boards  or  agencies  having 
similar  powers,  should  receive  the  hearty 
cooperation  of  organizations  such  as  the 
Merchants  Associations  and  Chambers  of 
Commerce  of  the  larger  cities.  But  un- 
fortunately such  organizations  are  com- 
posed of  individual  merchants,  who  so 
far  as  they  represent  anything  as  a 
whole,  represent  capital  as  a  whole.  Real 
progress  is  not  to  be  made  in  that  way. 
It  is  surprising  that  the  Merchants  Asso- 
ciation of  the  City  of  New  York,  for 
example,  has  not  organized  in  the  form 
of  a  subsidiary  council  a  group  consist- 
ing of  the  official  representatives  of  all 
of  the  different  trade  associations  in  the 
City  of  New  York.  Not  only  would  the 
formation  of  such  a  council  clarify  to 
some  extent  the  present  confused  juris- 
dictions of  the  various  employers'  asso- 
ciations, but  in  the  event  of  conflicting 
interests  between  industries  there  would 
exist  a  forum  for  proper  discussion. 

Another  problem  which  is  related  to 
the  question  of  the  definition  of  jurisdic- 
tions is  the  matter  of  competition  as 
affected  by  different  standards  adopted 
in  various  competing  communities  in 
regard  to  labor  conditions.  Employers 
in  one  city,  presented  with  demands  from 
their  workmen  for  increased  pay  or 
shorter  hours,  hesitate,  and  with  consid- 
erable justice,  to  accede  to  such  demands 
because  the  granting  of  them  would  place 
the  manufacturer  of  that  district  under 
a  competitive  disadvantage  in  relation  to 
other  markets.  The  demand  of  the  Up- 
holsterers Unions  of  New  York  City  for 
a  forty-four-hour  week  with  a  dollar  per 
hour  minimum  wage  was  presented  at  a 
time  when  practically  every  other  com- 
petitive manufacturing  market,  such  as 
Grand  Rapids,  Binghamton,  Chicago,  and 
Medina,  was  working  under  a  forty- 
eight-hour  week  and  no  hourly  minimum. 

In  a  proper  organization  of  employers' 
associations  on  national  lines  also  lies 
greater  success  for  the  legitimate  aims 
of  organized  labor.  Several  industries, 
it  must  be  admitted,  have  developed  their 
organizations  of  employers  and  trades 
unions  along  analogous  local.  State,  and 
even  national  lines.  In  the  building  and 
printing  trades  great  strides  have 
already  been  made.  The  tentative  report 
issued  by  the  President's  Second  Indus- 
trial Conference  also  has  in  mind  the  es- 
tablishment of  district  boards  which 
would  be  cognizant  of  the  fact  that  con- 
ditions of  employment,  in  so  far  as  they 
affect  cost  of  production,  must  be  estab- 
lished on  more  than  a  purely  local  basis. 

What  is  needed  can  come  only  gradu- 
ally. Already  the  continued  successful 
operation  of  "impartial  chairmen"  in  cer- 
tain trades  is  a  striking  token  of  clearly 
defined  and  comprehensive  organization 
on  the  part  of  employers.  Thereunder, 
employers  have  obtained  industrial  peace, 
and  labor  has  been  able  to  speak  clearly. 
Morris  L.  Ernst 


362] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  48 


Book  Reviews 

A  Sheaf  of  Verse 

The  Cobbler  of  Willow  Street.  By  George 
O'Neil.    New  York:    Boni  and  Liveright. 

The  Pursuit  of  Happiness.  By  Benjamin 
R.  C.  Low.  New  York:  John  Lane  Com- 
pany. 

Hearts  Awake.  By  Amelia  Josephine  Burr. 
New  York:    George  H.  Doran  Company. 

Youth  Riding.  By  Mary  Caroline  Davies. 
New  York:    The  Macmillan  Company. 

Shadowy  Thresholds.  By  Cale  Young  Rice. 
New  York:    The  Century  Company. 

MR.  GEORGE  O'NEIL,  a  poet  of 
twenty-one,  is  already  impressing 
critics.  Miss  Zee  Akins  takes  his  verses 
to  her  heart  in  a  preface  which  is  almost 
an  embrace,  and  the  grave  salute  of  the 
Harvard  professor,  Mr.  John  L.  Lowes, 
is  hardly  less  affectionate.  I  am  quite 
at  one  with  Miss  Akins  and  Mr.  Lowes 
in  the  sense  of  a  real — even  a  rare — 
charm  in  this  fragrant  and  glancing 
verse.  It  is  full  of  quick,  bright,  shy, 
passing  things,  like  the  surprises  of  the 
grove  or  the  cliffside.  The  means 
astonish  us  sometimes  by  their  simplic- 
ity. "0  rolling  hills,  trees  in  the  wind, 
blue  sky,"  says  Mr.  O'Neil ;  and  the  trees 
in  the  wind  are  actually  consigned  to  us 
in  that  verse,  and  the  transfer  seems  so 
inexpensive  to  Mr.  O'Neil  that  at  first 
we  scarcely  realize  its  profit  to  our- 
selves. I  quote  a  six-line  poem,  common 
enough  except  for  the  empyreal  final 
line,  which  flies  skyward,  taking  its  com- 
panions with  it. 

Now  summer  is  a  king  grown  old, 

Whose  wealth  diminishes,  whose  sway 

Over  his  land  ebbs  day  by  day  .  .  . 

And  soon,  with  pageantry  of  gold, 

A  prince  shall  come  to  claim  the  realm.  .  .  . 

(All  this  is  rumored  in  an  elm.) 

This  is  imagination.  Let  us  frankly 
and  warmly  proclaim  its  worth,  and  at 
the  same  time  curb  that  impulse  to 
prophesy  which  so  instantly  and  curi- 
ously follows  the  eagerness  to  praise. 
Mr.  O'Neil  is  said  to  be  twenty-one,  and 
at  twenty-one  it  is  sometimes  a  little  hard 
to  say  whether  the  age  or  the  man  writes 
the  poetry.  For  the  lark  to  sing  hymns 
at  heaven's  gate  is  comparatively  easy 
at  the  break  of  day.  The  difficulty  is  to 
maintain  the  song  when  the  east  has 
ceased  to  be  roseate.  In  the  poem  I 
have  just  quoted,  Mr.  O'Neil's  fondness 
for  dots  in  punctuation  is  observable,  and 
the  sensitive  reader  will  note  that  his 
felicities  are  mainly  dots.  He  is  an  illumi- 
nator, but,  as  yet,  perhaps  it  is  letters 
rather  than  words  that  he  enriches  in 
his  glowing  missal.  He  is  overfond  of 
a  few  words  and  images,  of  lace,  for 
example,  and  he  falls  into  fantasticali- 
ties like 

While  cricket  Nero  fiddles  by 
Watching  his  Rome — the  summer — burn. 

These  things  are  subsidiary.  What 
troubles  me  a  little  more  is  the  inac- 


curacy, or  perhaps  I  should  more  mod- 
estly say,  the  doubtfulness,  of  some  of 
his  originalities.  He  speaks  of  the 
"speculative  fingers"  of  the  rain.  Now 
I  can  conceive  of  rain  as  speculative  if 
it  falls  slowly  enough  to  suggest  the 
meditative  indolence  of  Milton's  "minute 
drops  from  off  the  eaves,"  and  I  can  see 
fingers  of  a  sort  if  it  falls  rapidly  enough 
to  form  lines;  but  I  can  not  conceive  it 
as  simultaneously  finger-like  and  specula- 
tive. To  sum  up,  Mr.  O'Neil  has  proved 
in  this  first  volume  the  rarity  of  his 
endowment.  The  difficulties  I  have  sug- 
gested are  conquerable,  no  doubt,  and 
there  is  nothing  to  preclude  the  hope 
that  the  strength  for  their  conquest  has 
been  granted  to  Mr.  O'Neil. 

I  thought  well,  on  the  whole,  of  Mr. 
Benjamin  R.  C.  Low's  "House  That 
Was."  Of  his  "Pursuit  of  Happiness," 
with  its  ruffed  eighteenth-century  title, 
I  think  worse  and  better.  It  is  more 
perverse;  it  is  also  more  original.  If 
there  could  be  a  poetry  for  the  nostril 
that  was  not  also  a  poetry  for  the  mouth, 
I  should  call  the  fifty-five  sonnets  which 
comprise  about  half  the  volume  high 
poetry.  Their  effluence — I  am  choosing 
my  word — is  delectable.  Under  Mr. 
Low's  pilotage  "Sabaean  odours"  from 
Araby  the  Blest  have  blown  across  my 
route;  but  he  has  refused  to  disembark, 
and  the  spice-jars  which  I  as  trader  had 
brought  to  that  coast  are  unreplenished. 

I  quote  a  sonnet: 

A  summer  beach,  warm,  drowsing;  clean,  wet 

sand 
With  filling  footprints ;  boys  and  girls  and  sea. 
Here,  hose  and  shoon  discarded,  rapturedly 
They  run  the  gauntlet;  here,  linked  hand  in 

hand. 
Adventure  off  their  native  bridge  of  land — 
Foam-deep  to  instep,  ankle  and  then  knee — 
To  scurry  home  again  in  panic  glee 
With  clothes  caught  high,  and  limbs  all  shin- 
ing tanned. 
Beauty  wafts  inland,  Love  to  seaward  blows. 
And  meeting,  part,  and  parting,  meet  no  more 
One  golden  moment  blended,  they  are  still ; 
In  children,  in  the  bud-break  of  a  rose. 
The  petals  bloom,  the  childish  zest  burns  chill : 
The  wind  is  desolate  upon  the  shore. 

Several  points  may  be  noted  in  this 
sonnet.  First,  there  is  the  intricacy 
of  expression,  catching  a  traditional 
thought  in  the  meshes  of  its  superficial 
novelty.  Second,  there  is  the  half-fit,  or 
misfit,  in  the  leading  figure:  children 
pursue  their  gambols  with  the  sea  with 
a  perseverance  to  which  the  idea  of 
momentary  contact  and  eternal  parting 
can  not  be  effectually  related  by  a  vigi- 
lant mind.  Third,  there  is  the  exquisite 
"in  the  bud-break  of  a  rose,"  followed  in 
the  next  line  by  the  absurdity  of  "zest 
burning  chill"  (to  which  Milton's  "burns 
frore"  is  not  really  comparable).  Last 
of  all,  is  an  undoubted  magnificence,  a 
"proud,  free  sail,"  a  high  and  gallant 
carriage,  in  the  verse,  which  remind  one 
somewhat  of  the  work  of  Olive  Tilford 
Dargan.      Three    of    these    points,    the 


arrival  at  the  obvious  through  the 
recondite,  the  exquisite  in  phrase  shot 
with  the  puerile,  and  the  manner  of  a 
prince  of  the  blood,  are  pretty  constant 
in  Mr.  Low,  and  make  him  at  the  same 
time  valuable  as  a  possession  and  stimu- 
lating as  a  problem. 

"Hearts  Awake"  has  not  the  full  in- 
spiration which  made  Miss  Burr's  "Sil- 
ver Trumpet"  memorable  among  the 
evocations  of  the  war.  Possibly  the  dif- 
ference lies  less  in  the  blast  itself  than 
in  the  fact  that  in  its  passage  towards 
us  it  has  crossed  the  Quai  d'Orsay  and 
Pennsylvania  Avenue.  Between  the  "Sil- 
ver Trumpet"  and  "Hearts  Awake"  there 
has  come  upon  the  world  a  change  like 
the  reaction  in  Scott's  stag  hunt  in  the 
"Lady  of  the  Lake"  from  the  blitheness 
of  the  morning  gallop  to  the  time  when 

Back  limp'd  with  slow  and  crippled  pace 
The  sulky  leaders  of  the  chase. 

Miss  Burr's  lyrics  are  still  vigorous 
and  fervent;  she  has  the  good  gift  of 
heated  epigram,  epigram  being  a  figure 
whose  crystallizations  often  indicate  a 
fall  of  the  mercury.  She  says  of  the 
flag:  "Of  old  it  was  our  heritage — to- 
day it  is  our  child."  She  makes  Serbia 
say: 

Listen  to  my  living  ere  the  hour  be  sped, 
Lest  you  hear  forever  the  silence  of  my  dead. 

This  is  the  simple  old  idealism — the 
traditional  idealism— over  again.  I 
admit  its  beauty,  but  I  feel  that  the 
idealism  which  can  now  save  us  must  be 
not  an  inheritance  but  a  discovery. 

Two-thirds  of  Miss  Burr's  volume, 
however,  is  occupied  with  a  fairy  play  in 
three  parts,  called  the  "Pixy."  It  is  a 
fairy  tale  informed  with  a  human  and  a 
Christian  spirit;  the  Pixy  who  gives  it 
its  name  and  its  impulsion  differs  from 
the  other  characters  rather  by  the  excess 
than  the  shortage  of  her  humanity  and 
Christianity.  She  has  the  zeal  of  a  con- 
vert, and  it  is  part  of  the  irony  of  things 
that  the  moving  first  act,  in  which  she 
is  still  unconverted,  should  attract  to  its 
earthy  and  pagan  self  the  whole  dra- 
matic vigor  of  the  play.  The  rest  is 
dutifully  done,  but  its  piety  is  unaf- 
fecting. 

There  is  one  law  about  subjects  of 
this  kind  which  Miss  Burr  has  permitted 
herself  to  infringe.  Old  tales  and 
legends  are  crusts  or  shells,  the  filling 
of  which  is  renewable  from  time  to  time. 
A  twentieth-century  filling  in  a  thir- 
teenth-century shell  is  entirely  proper. 
But  novelty  in  the  form  or  body  of  the 
legend — in  other  words,  a  new  shell — is 
hardly  permissible.  If  there  is  to  be 
fairy  lore  in  a  rationalizing  age,  it  must 
be  a  fairy  lore  with  which  we  in  our 
childhood,  or  the  world  in  its  childhood, 
was  acquainted.  Now,  Miss  Burr's  idea 
that  a  fairy  by  self-destruction  can 
magically  free  a  beloved  human  being 
from  the  thraldom  of  a  charm  is  new  to 


April  10,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[868 


me  in  fairy  legend.  It  may  not  be  new 
to  Miss  Burr,  but  Miss  Burr  is  not  writ- 
ing for  herself.  We  should  like  her  fairy 
better  in  any  case  with  a  smaller  allow- 
ance of  magnanimity.  The  Pixy  turns 
into  a  saint  without  becoming  a  woman 
in  the  process. 

Miss  Mary  Davies  begins  thus  in 
"Youth  Riding": 

I  will  not  bow  my  head 

To  listen  to  the  dead. 

I  am  alive  and  I  am  yoimg, 

There  is  gladness  on  my  tongue, 

And  my  lips  are  red. 

Youth  for  Miss  Davies  is  no  state  of 
simple,  natural  well-being.  Youth  is  a 
calling;  youth  is  a  cult,  and  its  object 
is  not  to  forget  itself  in  labor  or  in  joy, 
but  to  recall  itself  to  itself  in  endless 
strains  of  self-fondling  panegyric.  Shel- 
ley in  his  "Prometheus"  describes  cer- 
tain dithyrambic  beings  in  a  chariot  who 
"drink  the  wind  of  their  own  speed." 
That  is  the  occupation  of  Miss  Davies' 
"Youth."  Old  age  is  a  lingering  ailment 
from  which  the  examples  of  recovery  are 
few.  Youth  is  a  more  violent  malady, 
with  the  compensating  advantage  that 
the  cure  is  speedy  and  relapse  impos- 
sible. The  peculiarity  in  Miss  Davies' 
case  is  that  the  inflammation  has  been 
prodigious.  She  despises  age.  God  is 
old,  and  Miss  Davies  is  almost  kittenish 
with  him  on  the  subject  of  his  infirmi- 
ties, 

God,  his  dim  old  eyes  to  bless, 
Brings   back   the    Spring. 

Miss  Davies  is  an  emotional  poet,  or  at 
least  a  poet  of  emotional  themes.  She 
avers,  she  insists  that  she  feels,  and  she 
is  a  strenuous  and  determined  young 
person  whom  it  would  be  impolitic  to 
gainsay.  Besides,  the  testimonies  are 
overwhelming.  It  is  difficult  to  deny  that 
a  person  is  wounded  who  bleeds  visibly, 
copiously  in  one's  presence,  who  stands, 
so  to  speak,  in  a  pool  of  his  own  blood. 
Even  the  hardiest  doubter  must  in  all 
seriousness  admit  that  Miss  Davies  is 
adept  in  the  rhetoric  of  feeling.  I  do 
not  mean  the  ancient,  spurious  rhetoric, 
but  the  true  modern  brand  which 
preaches  simplicity,  directness,  condensa- 
tion. She  feels  the  puissance  of  mono- 
syllables, and  she  knows  that  tiny  words, 
like  children,  however  rebellious  to  the 
tactless  hand,  are  pliancy  itself  to  the 
touch  that  sympathizes.  Her  formula 
for  emotion  might  be  defined  as  measure 
in  the  expression  of  the  unmeasured,  and 
its  excellence  as  formula  is  undeniable. 
She  deploys  emotion  skilfully;  she  is  sen- 
sitive to  brevity  and  climax.  There  are 
rare  and  fortunate  moments  in  which 
cynicism  itself  could  hardly  discriminate 
her  virtuosity  from  virtue.  Who  could 
ask  for  anything  better  than  the  close  of 
j  the  "Door,"  or  than  two  lines  like  the 
following? 

And  where  the  little  river  cried. 
Her  grave  was  made. 


But  Miss  Davies  talks  too  much,  per- 
mits the  adversary  too  many  tests.  The 
foreigner  who  wishes  to  pass  himself  off 
for  a  native  in  the  Pays  du  Tendre,  or 
anywhere  else,  should  not  only  talk  very 
well,  but  talk  very  little.  Miss  Davies' 
emotion  reminds  me  of  that  chill,  bright 
gleam  which  does  duty  for  flame  on  the 
stage  grates  in  our  theatres.  It  has 
every  property  of  fire — but  warmth. 

Mr.  Gale  Young  Rice  has  a  very  active 
mind,  a  mind  active  in  several  planes. 
The  plane  of  its  activity  in  his  latest 
volume,  "Shadowy  Thresholds,"  is  hardly 
of  a  nature  to  exalt  his  reputation.  Mr. 
Rice,  like  Shakespeare's  Richard  II,  is 
too  lavish  of  his  commerce  with  the  pub- 
lic. He  should  imitate  the  reserve  of 
Bolingbroke: 

My  presence,  like  a  robe  pontifical, 
Ne'er  seen  but  wondered  at. 

Much  in  "Shadowy  Thresholds"  is  as 
good  as  much  in  the  earlier  collections 
of  lyrics;  the  inferiority  of  its  best  to 
their  best  is  the  disenchanting  circum- 
stance. The  verse,  indeed,  is  often 
melodious,  and  once  in  a  while  becomes 
seductive.  The  four  lines  that  follow 
are  a  hammock  for  the  ear: 

To  watch  along  Sumatra 
The  Bay  of  Bengal  counting 
Its   fevered  pulsing  surf-beat 
With  timeless  undertone. 

One  recalls  with  some  pleasure  the  open- 
ing sketches  of  a  "Poet's  Ghildhood,"  and 
the  Hawthornesque  fantasy,  "After  the 
Symphony,"  which  ends  the  book.  There 
is  a  preface  which  is  worth  reading, 
though  passages  occur  which  breed  the 
wish  that  the  sharpness  of  the  author's 
temper  might  be  transferred  to  his  per- 
ceptions. 

0.  W.  Firkins 

Domestic  and  Imported 
Models 

The  Happy  Years.  By  Inez  Haynes  Irwin. 
New  York:    Henry  Holt  and  Company. 

The  Board  Walk.  By  Margaret  Widdemer. 
New  York:  Harcourt,  Brace  and  Howe. 

From  Place  to  Place.  By  Irvin  S.  Cobb. 
New  York :    George  H.  Doran  Company. 

The  Blower  of  Bubbles.  By  Arthur  Beverley 
Baxter.  New  York:  D.  Appleton  and 
Company. 

Short  Stories  from  the  Balkans.  Trans- 
lated into  EngUsh  by  Edna  Worthley 
Underwood.  Boston :  Marshall  Jones 
Company. 

A  Lithuanian  Village.  By  Leon  Kobrin. 
Authorized  Translation  from  the  Yiddish, 
by  Isaac  Goldberg,  Ph.  D.  New  York : 
Brentano's. 

THE  author  of  "The  Happy  Years"  is 
past-mistress  of  the  type  of  short 
story  that  is  "available"  for  the  benevo- 
lent and  not  unprofitable  uses  of  the 
woman's  (or  ladies')  home  magazine.  A 
recent  critic  of  the  novel  has  very  well 
said  that  the  prime  essential  in  popu- 
lar fiction  is  its  linking  of  the  strange 
to  the  familiar.   For  the  flapper,  if  you 


like,  wild  journeyings  into  a  romantic 
void.  For  the  young  matron,  bring 
hither,  rather,  your  "little  stories  of  mar- 
ried life."  Show  her  a  pair  not  so  unlike 
herself  and  her  man,  meeting  conditions 
and  problems  not  so  unlike  her  own; 
show  her  a  domestic  gear  often  subject 
to  strain  yet  running  smooth  and  safe 
in  its  bath  of  sentiment;  and  you  have 
shown  her  the  pleasantest  fare  romance 
possesses  for  her.  Such  is  the  fare  pro- 
vided in  "The  Happy  Years."  Maywood, 
the  snug,  well-groomed  commuters' 
town,  with  its  nice  average  people,  its 
Woman's  Glub,  its  Business  Man's  Club, 
its  comfortable  social  and  civic  preoccu- 
pations, is  the  town  we  all  know,  whether 
we  live  in  it  or  not.  Martins,  Storrows, 
Warburtons — these  are  sound  Anglo- 
American  names,  a  circle  of  young  or 
middle-aged  couples  busy  with  their  prob- 
lems of  domestic  economy,  child-rearing, 
and  connubial  adjustment.  Such  mate- 
rials the  story-teller  handles  capably  and 
not  too  subtly,  always  with  an  eye  to  the 
necessity  for  everything's  "turning  out 
right"  even  if  it  has  to  be  taken  by  the 
scruff  and  turned  out  by  hand.  Miss 
Widdemer  ("as  was")  has  also  often 
shown  her  ability  to  produce  pleasant, 
comfortable  stuff  of  similar  kind.  She 
has  romanticized  the  flapper  to  good  pur- 
pose, and  her  "rose  garden  husband"  or 
her  "wishing-ring  man."  In  "The  Board 
Walk"  she  seems  to  rest  from  felicity. 
This  is  realism  of  no  timid  order.  The 
light  of  romance  hangs  over  two  or 
three  of  the  tales,  but  not  romances  of 
the  "sweet  pretty"  kind.  There  are  no 
commercially  agreeable  endings;  and  a 
number  of  the  sketches  are  about  dis- 
tinctly unpleasant  matters,  like  the  be- 
trayal of  infancy,  the  cruel  snobbishness 
of  childhood,  the  brutality  of  a  religious 
flock  toward  its  pastor.  Our  persons  are 
the  "natives"  of  a  little  summer  place, 
with  its  Boardwalk  and  its  "tawdrily  ex- 
cited summers"  lived  at  the  pace  of  its 
irresponsible  visitors  and  too  often  to 
the  cost  of  the  resident  maidens  who 
are  dull  enough.  Heaven  knows,  the  rest 
of  the  year.  A  fresh  scene,  to  which  the 
story-teller  brings  an  uncompromising  if 
not  unsympathetic  eye. 

There  is  not  much  to  say  of  any  new- 
est collection  of  stories  by  Irvin  S.  Gobb 
except  that  they  are  or  are  not  up  to 
previous  sample.  "From  Place  to  Place" 
includes  some  very  good  "Cobbs."  Not 
that  they  are  all  of  a  piece.  Mr.  Gobb, 
though  he  has  the  endurable  misfortune 
to  be  popular,  has  not  only  a  natural 
knack  for  story-telling,  but  a  liberal  in- 
stinct for  ideas.  He  can  tell  you  a  story 
about  a  hangman,  or  a  crook,  or  a  child, 
or  a  Southern  mammy,  or  a  "bull  called 
Emily,"  with  equal  address  and  effective- 
ness. Now  and  then  he  is  careless  about 
letting  the  bones  of  his  plot  stick  out 
or  in  buttering  the  action  overfreely 
with    sentiment.      But   though    frankly 


364] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  48 


enough  a  smile-and-tear  artist,  his  humor 
is  sound  enough  to  avoid,  nearly  always 
(in  his  fiction),  the  extremes  of  blubber 
and  guffaw.  In  contrast  with  his  easy 
professionalism,  the  amateurishness  of 
"The  Blower  of  Bubbles"  would  become 
unfairly  conspicuous.  The  five  stories 
collected  were  written  by  a  Canadian 
soldier  at  odd  times  during  his  "interest- 
ing but  undistinguished  service  of  nearly 
four  years"  with  the  Canadian  forces. 
The  title  story  is  a  somewhat  labored 
portraiture  of  an  unusual  sort  of  man. 
The  other  tales,  which  are  more  con- 
sciously plotted  and  rounded  out,  are 
better  of  their  kind.  One  of  them,  "The 
Airy  Prince,"  is  a  brilliant  and  tender 
little  fantasy,  involving  the  war-brought 
contact  of  an  English  airman  and  a  little 
French  peasant  who,  not  by  chance  as 
we  see,  is  called  Pippa. 

The  translator  of  "Short  Stories  from 
the  Balkans"  has  before  this  published 
English  translations  from  the  Russian, 
Spanish,  and  Portuguese.  The  present 
volume  contains  versions  from  the  Czech, 
Rumanian,  Serbian,  Croatian,  and  Hun- 
garian tongues.  Each  of  the  tales  is 
prefaced  by  a  brief  note  on  the  author 
and  his  place  in  national  and  European 
literature.  These  really  do  much  to 
illuminate  names  like  Vrchlicky,  Sava- 
topluk  Cech,  Lazarevic,  Miksath  and  Jan 
Neruda.  It  should  be  a  good  thing  for 
the  story-reading  American  to  realize 
that  all  over  Europe,  even  in  those 
tumultuous  Balkans  which  but  the  other 
day  we  connected  with  "opera-bouffe," 
men  of  genius  have  for  many  years  been 
expressing  themselves  in  that  form  of 
the  short-story  which  American  maga- 
zine editors  have  held  up  as  a  recent 
American  invention.  The  translator  em- 
phasizes the  fact  that  these  writers  have 
not  confined  themselves  to  that  form. 
Versatility  seems  to  have  been  the  rule 
among  them.  Most  of  them  have  been 
primarily  poets,  but  have  essayed  all 
sorts  of  writing,  and  through  one 
medium  or  another  have  expressed  all 
sorts  of  moods  and  points  of  view.  In 
theme  and  treatment  the  tales  here  as- 
sembled show  great  variety.  But  the 
striking  thing  about  them  is  the  subtlety 
and  complexity  of  mood  one  feels  in 
them,  in  almost  every  one  of  them,  taken 
by  itself.  For  a  parallel  we  must  turn 
to  Scandinavia:  Andersen,  Ibsen,  Bojer, 
Nexo.  Otherwise  Mrs.  Underwood's  gen- 
eralization may  safely  stand:  "The 
union  of  the  poet  and  the  wit,  the  roman- 
tic dreamer  and  the  bitter  critic  of  life, 
is  one  of  the  gifts  of  Hungary  and  its 
neighboring  peoples  to  the  world  of 
letters.  It  is  seldom  found  in  the  Teu- 
ton or  the  Latin,  even  in  a  slight  degree." 

But  in  the  Jew  it  is  surely  to  be  found, 
or  a  blend  closely  akin  to  it ;  in  a  Heine, 
and  in  the  author  of  "A  Lithuanian  Vil- 
lage." Leon  Kobrin  is  among  the  few 
leading  writers  of  Yiddish  literature  in 


America.  Besides  his  dramas  of  the 
ghetto  and  a  vast  number  of  tales  and 
half  a  dozen  novels,  he  has  translated 
much  into  Yiddish  from  the  world  clas- 
sics, with  a  range  from  Faust,  Hamlet, 
Echegaray,  Turgeniev,  Maupassant,  and 
Hugo.  His  own  translator  into  English 
admits  that  his  tales  are  often  "brutally 
realistic."  In  this  book,  however,  though 
naturalistic  detail  is  by  no  means  lack- 
ing, the  atmosphere  is  war  with  senti- 
ment and  memory.  The  words  with  which 
it  begins  and  ends,  "Somewhere  in  Lithu- 
ania there  once  nestled  the  little  village  of 
B ",  are  not  without  their  tender  ele- 
giac overtones.  Out  of  memory  the  author 
seems  to  build  the  homely  Jewish  nest  of 
his  childhood,  a  place  of  poverty  and 
squalor,  yet  also  a  place  of  ancient  faith 
and  young  dreams.  It  is  gone.  America 
has  called  it  from  the  old  ways ;  and  it  will 
never  be  again.  The  book  is  a  group  of 
sketches  rather  than  stories  in  the  maga- 
zinable  sense,  but  full  of  vitality  and  in- 
terest for  English  readers  who,  as  Dr. 
Goldberg  says,  are  at  last  "gazing  toward 
wider  literary  horizons." 

H.   W.   BOYNTON 

Echoes  of  the  War 

The  Stolen  Lands.  By  Marie  Harrison.  New 
York :  E.  P.  Button  and  Company. 

How  I  Filmed  the  War.  By  Lieut.  Malins. 
New  York :  Frederick  A.  Stokes  Company. 

WRITTEN  apparently  towards  the 
close  of  1917,  Miss  Harrison's  little 
book  is  a  bit  of  simple  and  earnest  propa- 
ganda addressed  to  the  average  English- 
man with  the  object  of  convincing  him 
that  the  restoration  of  Alsace-Lorraine 
is  not  merely  a  natural  desire  of  France, 
but  the  concern  of  all  nations  united  for 
the  overthrow  of  German  militarism.  As 
such  it  has  served  its  turn.  When  the 
war  ended  France  reclaimed  her  prov- 
inces, not  merely  with  the  acquiescence, 
but  with  the  hearty  applause  of  all  her 
allies.  That  problem  of  the  war  is 
settled;  one  "open  sore  of  Europe"  has 
been  healed,  and  just  so  far  as  that  is 
the  case  Miss  Harrison's  book  appears 
to  lag  superfluous  on  the  stage.  All  that 
she  says  is  good  and  true,  but  it  has 
not  only  been  said  before,  but  has  been 
heard  and  acted  upon. 

Yet  there  is  something  in  the  book  of 
lasting  value.  Miss  Harrison  had  the 
rare  chance  of  visiting  during  the  war 
that  part  of  Alsace  which  was  already 
regained  for  France.  She  went,  not  as  a 
member  of  a  personally  conducted  party, 
but  independently,  to  study  conditions 
and  gather  impressions  at  her  leisure. 
She  stayed  for  the  greater  part  of  the 
time  at  Massevaux,  not  ten  miles  from 
the  German  trenches;  at  Thann  she  saw 
shells  bursting  in  the  streets  and  was 
presented  with  a  gas-mask  by  the  Mayor 
of  that  little  town.  What  she  gives  us, 
then,  are  her  impressions  of  life  in 
Alsace  redeemed  from  the  German  yoke. 


but  still  under  the  ever-present  German 
menace.  They  may,  perhaps,  be  summed 
up  in  a  single  phrase:  "In  all  the  tumults 
of  warfare  the  Alsatians  are  closer 
to  peace  than  they  ever  were  in  the  days 
of  Germany  occupation."  The  district 
was  never  more  prosperous;  factories 
were  working,  vineyards  were  cultivated, 
farmers  were  making  more  money  than 
ever  before.  There  were  few  food  re- 
strictions; rules  that  applied  in  Paris 
were  not  enforced  in  Alsace.  The  menu 
of  a  chance  luncheon  in  a  little  wayside 
inn — creamy  soup,  a  cheese  pancake  filled 
with  whipped  cream;  tender  veal,  petits 
pois,  eclairs,  coffee,  and  a  bottle  of  good 
red  wine,  all  for  three  francs — makes 
one's  mouth  water  with  longing  for  past 
delights.  And  it  was  not  material  pros- 
perity alone  that  the  Alsatians  enjoyed 
— they  had  that  under  German  rule — 
but  the  sense  of  liberation.  "In  the  old 
days"  a  teaching  sister  at  Thann  told 
her  "we  used  to  lock  the  doors  and  draw 
the  shutters  and  in  very  soft  voices  sing, 
the  Marseillaise.  Now  we  can  sing  it 
as  loud  as  ever  we  like  and  all  the  doors 
and  windows  are  open."  "What  did  you 
feel  like  when  the  French  came  into  Al- 
sace?" Miss  Harrison  asked  a  woman  in 
Massevaux.  "It  was  like  a  coming  home," 
she  answered;  "as  if  someone  I  had 
loved  long  ago  and  who  had  gone  away 
had  at  last  come  back.  It  was  the  hap- 
piest day  of  my  life;  no  matter  what  the 
future  holds  in  store  for  me,  nothing 
can  take  away  its  splendor."  Or  take  the 
words  of  a  simple  shop-keeper  envisaging 
the  terrible  possibility  of  a  German  re- 
turn. "In  that  case"  said  he,  "I  should 
go  into  a  little  corner  of  France  and 
be  glad  to  die."  Actions,  however,  speak 
louder  than  words,  and  the  strongest 
proof  of  the  loyalty  of  the  two  provinces 
to  France  is  furnished  by  the  fact  re- 
corded by  Miss  Harrison  that  they  gave 
the  French  army  some  3,000  officers;  in 
the  German  army  there  was  but  one  real 
Alsatian  officer;  five  others— only  five — 
reckoned  as  such,  were  by  descent  half 
German. 

It  is  its  recognition  of  the  human  ele- 
ment, the  little  scenes  from  Alsatian  life, 
bits  of  talk  that  reveal  the  heart  of  a 
people,  that  give  lasting  interest  to  what 
would  otherwise  be  a  book  wholly  de- 
voted to  the  discussion  of  a  past  issue. 

There  is  nothing  of  the  faint  or  slowly 
dying  echo  in  Lieutenant  Malins's  work. 
It  is,  in  fact,  the  noisiest  book  imaginable. 
Every  page  resounds  with  the  bursts  of 
crumps,  pipsqueaks,  flying  pigs,  woolly 
bears,  and  other  zoological  specimens  of 
high  explosives.  For  Lieutenant  Geof- 
frey Malins,  Official  War  Office  Kinema- 
tographer,  "filmed"  the  battle  of  the 
Somme  where  heavy  artillery  first  showed 
its  full  power,  and,  to  speak  in  the  ver- 
nacular, had  the  time  of  his  young  life 
doing  it.  It  is  impossible  to  criticise 
such  a  book  seriously  and  yet  it  is  im- 


April  10,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[365 


possible  to  laugh  at  the  author.  In  his 
pursuit  of  thrilling  scenes  for  the  camera 
he  braved  danger  in  a  way  that  would 
be  heroic,  if  it  did  not  seem  almost 
stupid.  He  was  drenched  with  German 
weeping  gas  and  blinded  for  hours;  he 
was  blown  into  a  deserted  trench  by  the 
explosion  of  a  shell  and  lay  all  night  on 
the  body  of  a  German  killed  some  weeks 
before;  he  was  hit  by  a  burning  frag- 
ment in  the  conflagration  of  Peronne 
and  "set  up  an  unearthly  yell"  as  the 
flames  caught  his  ear  and  singed  his  hair. 
But  nothing  daunted  him.  He  lay  all 
night  in  the  front  trenches  to  photograph 
the  explosion  of  the  great  mine  near 
Beaumont-Hammel  that  opened  the 
battle.  He  filmed  the  first  tank  that 
went  into  action  near  Martinpuish  and 
the  first  British  regiment  that  crossed 
the  Somme.  When  the  Germans  fell  back 
on  the  Hindenburg  line  he  was  hot  on 
the  trail,  often  miles  in  front  of  British 
troops,  "filming"  scenes  of  Hunnish  de- 
vastation, villages  of  starving  refugees, 
and  joyous  receptions  of  liberating  sol- 
diers by  the  peasantry. 

But  he  was  not  given  to  the  pursuit 
only  of  scenes  of  battle  and  ruined  towns. 
He  "filmed"  personages  great  and  small 
on  all  occasions,  the  greater  the  better: 
naturally,  the  Prince  of  Wales,  Lord 
Kitchener,  Sir  Douglas  Haig,  and  the 
King.  Perhaps  the  most  delightful  chap- 
ter of  the  book  is  that  which  records  his 
pursuit  of  King  George  on  his  visit  to 
the  Somme  battlefield.  From  this  first 
moment  he  followed  the  King  like  a 
bloodhound,  flying  after  him  in  cars  that 
blew  out  tires  ^t  inopportune  moments, 
rushing  on  before  the  royal  party  in 
time  to  plant  his  camera  on  the  parapet 
of  an  old  trench  and  catch  them  as  they 
passed,  and  especially  happy  at  getting 
a  picture  of  the  King  patting  a  small 
puppy  outside  a  field  hospital.  At  the 
last  moment  he  received  permission  to 
return  to  England  on  the  same  boat  as 
the  King.  He  drove  madly  to  the  harbor, 
cursing  his  old  "bus"  because  she  could 
only  "limp  along"  at  fifty  miles  an  hour. 
He  just  arrived  in  time,  dashed  wildly 
by  the  King,  who  was  making  his  official 
farewells  on  the  quay,  set  up  his  camera 
on  the  ship's  deck  and  "filmed"  it  all; 
"not  an  incident  had  passed  me." 

The  book  is  written  in  the  most  re- 
markable mixture  of  styles  imaginable. 
We  have  page  after  page  of  realistic 
dialogue,  steeped  in  the  racy  slang  of 
the  trenches,  and  then  an  outburst  of 
flamboyant  journalism  such  as  no  human 
being  ever  spoke  and  no  good  Christian 
ever  wrote.  In  spite  of  his  journalese, 
however,  the  writer  really  succeeds  in 
putting  over  a  most  lively  picture  of 
trench  warfare.  We  see  and  feel  the 
Flanders  mud,  up  to  the  bellies  of  the 
pack-mules  at  times ;  we  hear  the  deafen- 
ing roar  of  the  high  explosives  "plaster- 
ing"   a   hostile    trench;    we    snufif    the 


tainted  air  on  Trones  wood,  a  "fair  hell" 
of  rotting  corpses.  One  of  the  vividest 
pictures  in  the  book  is  that  of  the  writer 
staggering  through  the  ruined  trenches 
under  the  weight  of  his  equipment, 
"sweating  like  a  bull,"  with  a  lighted 
cigarette  in  each  corner  of  his  mouth  to 
keep  off  the  buzzing  torment  of  the 
poisonous  flies.  Lieutenant  Malins  is 
not  one  of  Carlyle's  strong  silent  heroes. 
He  is  a  very  voluble  young  person,  but 
he  is  something  of  a  hero  all  the  same. 
T.  M.  Parrott 

The  Run  of  the  Shelves 

LACK  of  interest  in  the  matter  is  the 
reason  assigned — and  it  is  the  real 
reason — for  the  abandonment  of  simpli- 
fied spelling  by  the  Modern  Language  As- 
sociation. Its  adoption  some  years  ago 
was  the  work  of  an  enthusiastic  minority, 
but  the  enthusiasm,  as  time  went  on, 
failed  to  spread.  How  "shud"  it  be  ex- 
pected to  when  the  Association's  papers 
"ar  red  by  title"?  Too  many  of  the 
simplifications  adopted  by  the  Associa- 
tion were  of  this  highly  objectionable 
sort.  As  Mr.  Henry  Bradley  has  made 
plain,  spelling  does  other  things  besides 
suggesting  sounds;  a  word  as  a  whole 
and  as  it  is  spelled  suggests  trains  of  as- 
sociated ideas;  "red"  for  "read"  and 
"shoes"  for  "shows"  and  "shud"  for 
"should"  in  two  cases  out  of  three  not 
only  do  not  suggest  the  desired  sound, 
but  in  all  three  cases  do  suggest  a  world 
of  undesired  associations.  A  great  deal 
of  simplification  has  been  accomplished  in 
a  quiet  way  since  Johnson's  Dictionary 
regularized  English  spelling.  A  great 
deal  that  is  illogical  and  cumbersome  still 
remains.  Possibly  we  place  an  exag- 
gerated value  on  consistency  in  spelling. 
The  days  of  Shakespeare  and  of  Milton 
afforded  in  this  respect  a  freer  air  for 
the  noble  and  aspiring  spirit.  Something 
like  a  return  to  these  go-as-you-please 
methods  must  be  the  result  of  any 
large  simplification  of  spelling,  for  such 
simplification,  besides  possessing  many 
other  disadvantages,  is  generally  too  com- 
plicated for  any  but  its  originators  to  be 
able  to  apply  with  consistency. 

Mr.  F.  C.  Prescott's  "Poetry  and 
Dreams"  (Boston:  The  Four  Seas  Com- 
pany) is  described  as  "a  study  of  the 
psychology  of  poetry,  in  the  light  of  the 
Freudian  theory  of  dreams."  Dreams, 
according  to  Dr.  Freud,  spring  from  the 
attempt  of  unconscious  and  suppressed 
desires  to  obtain  imaginary  gratification 
through  the  images  of  sleep.  "Poetry," 
according  to  Mr.  Prescott,  "has  its  source 
in  repressed  and  unconscious  desires," 
and  its  object  is  the  "relief  or  purga- 
tion" afforded  by  the  "expression  and 
imagined   gratification   of   our  desires." 


Mr.  Prescott  is  a  careful  and  candid 
reasoner,  and,  if  citations  prove  any- 
thing, a  learned  man.  He  points  out 
many  clear  and  strong  analogies  between 
poetry  and  dreams  to  which  the  assent 
of  cultivated  readers  will  be  unquestion- 
ing and  universal.  Indeed  so  much  of 
what  Mr.  Prescott  wants  will  be  granted 
with  perfect  ease  that  perhaps  he  is 
hardly  alive  to  the  difficulty  of  obtain- 
ing the  other  small  but  momentous  ad- 
missions which  are  needful  for  the  dem- 
onstration of  his  thesis. 

So  far  as  expression  or  the  poetic 
process  goes,  Mr.  Prescott's  theory  is 
unavailing.  The  poet  wants  expression 
and  gets  expression,  and  so  far  the  grati- 
fication is  not  imaginary,  but  actual. 
But  what  Mr.  Prescott  has  in  mind  is 
the  content  of  poetry;  that  is  drawn  from 
our  unfulfilled  wishes.  We  will  not  urge 
the  obvious  point  that  nobody  wants  to 
be  Hector  or  Hamlet  or  Faust  or  Brand. 
The  ungratified  desires  which  poetry 
slakes  by  images  are  clearly  not  desires 
for  happiness,  but  for  intensity  and 
beauty,  though  why  ungratified  desires 
for  happiness  should  be  so  much  less 
efficacious  in  breeding  poetry  than  un- 
gratified desires  for  intensity  or  beauty 
is  by  no  means  clear.  Let  us  grant  to 
Mr.  Prescott  that  poetry  deals  largely 
with  the  images  of  things  that  we  want 
and  can  not  get;  he  is  further  bound 
to  prove,  and  it  seems  to  us  that  he  has 
failed  to  prove,  that  images  of  things 
that  we  want  and  can  get  are  undiscov- 
erable  in  poetry,  or  that  poetry  ceases  to 
be  poetry  in  the  adoption  and  utilization 
of  these  images.  Let  us  imagine  a  case. 
The  familiar  lines  of  Herbert, 

Sweet  day,  so  cool,  so  calm,  so  bright, 
The  bridal  of  the  earth  and  sky, 

are  read  out-of-doors  by  a  reader  in  the 
full  and  immediate  enjoyment  of  the 
actualities  which  they  reflect.  Is  it 
credible  that  their  charm  would  van- 
ish? 

The  relation  between  poetry  and  unful- 
fillment  may  be  comprehensive,  and  yet, 
in  a  sense,  fortuitous.  A  nation  imports 
nine-tenths  of  its  coffee.  This  involves 
no  fondness  for  importations  as  importa- 
tions, but  merely  a  practical  desire  to 
get  coffee  where  coffee  can  be  had. 
Poetry,  likewise,  seeks  intensity  and 
beauty  where  intensity  and  beauty  are  to 
be  had.  It  abounds  in  unfulfillments,  that 
is,  completions  or  fruitions  unknown  to 
real  life,  not  because  it  loves  unfulfill- 
ments for  their  own  sake,  but  because, 
in  the  poverty  and  stringency  of  our 
present  state,  nine-tenths  of  our  aspira- 
tions toward  intensity  and  beauty  are 
unfulfilled  in  practice.  There  remains 
the  other  tenth — the  unsubmerged  tenth 
— of  our  actual  experience,  a  tenth  that 
may  be  troublesome  to  Mr.  Prescott,  un- 
less he  is  prepared  to  prove  its  foreign- 
ness  or  worthlessness  to  poetry. 


366] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  48 


The  first  volume  of  Axel  Olrik's  "Dan- 
marks  Heltedigtning"  has  been  trans- 
lated by  Lee  M.  Hollander,  with  several 
American  scholars  acting  in  advisory 
capacity,  and  under  the  supervision  of 
the  late  Professor  Olrik  himself.  The 
book  has  been  issued  by  the  American- 
Scandinavian  Foundation  in  a  form 
which  is  worthy  of  the  most  distin- 
guished work  of  a  most  distinguished 
scholar.  "The  Heroic  Legends  of  Den- 
mark" becomes  at  once  a  book  of  prime 
importance  to  the  students  of  Old  Eng- 
lish literature.  It  is  the  most  stimulating 
and  the  most  informing  treatment  of  the 
Old  English  poem  of  "Beowulf"  that  has 
appeared  in  many  years.  If  only  a  few 
passages  from  the  second  and  third  vol- 
umes of  Olrik's  great  work  had  been 
included  in  the  present  translation  we 
should  have  had  available  in  English  the 
most  complete  and  authoritative  discus- 
sion of  the  important  relations  of  the 
"Beowulf"  with  Scandinavian  literature 
that  has  so  far  been  written. 

The  way  in  which  the  two  supplement 
each  other  is  very  pretty.  Both  the 
"Beowulf"  and  the  Scandinavian  poems 
and  sagas  here  considered  deal  with  the 
fortunes  of  the  Scylding  (Danish)  kings 
who  ruled  at  Leire  in  the  fifth  and  sixth 
centuries,  their  external  struggles  against 
the  Heathobards  and  a  struggle  within 
the  family,  long  and  bloodily  carried  on, 
for  possession  of  the  throne.  The  poet 
of  the  "Beowulf,"  to  be  sure,  chooses  to 
treat  this  matter  as  part  of  his  epic 
background,  to  which  he  makes  allusion 
from  time  to  time,  allusions  that  are 
immensely  effective  when  you  know  the 
story.  In  the  foreground  he  has  placed 
the  heroic  figure  of  Beowulf,  and  centres 
attention  upon  his  somewhat  tawdry  ad- 
ventures, first,  in  killing  the  monster 
that  infested  the  royal  hall  at  Leire  and, 
later,  meeting  his  death  in  contest  with 
a  fire-drake  that  ravaged  his  own  land 
of  the  Geats.  Much  space,  too,  is  devoted 
to  the  wars  of  the  Geats  against  the 
Franks  (a  matter  of  historical  record 
elsewhere)  and  against  the  Swedes, 
which,  as  perhaps  matters  not  so  well 
known  to  an  English  audience,  the  poet 
feels  bound  to  handle  less  allusively  than 
he  does  the  story  of  the  Scyldings. 

Concerning  the  Scyldings  the  Old  Eng- 
lish poet  knows  some  things  that  the 
later  Scandinavian  writers  do  not.  He 
knows  the  relationship  of  the  chief  char- 
acters in  the  story ;  but  the  Scandinavian 
stories  tell  more  clearly  the  role  they 
played.  For  example,  he  very  plainly 
indicates  that  Hrothulf  (Hrolf),  the 
nephew  of  the  great  king  Hrothgar,  who 
enjoys  honor  second  only  to  the  king  him- 
self, will  one  day  grow  a  little  less  than 
kind  to  Hrothgar's  young  sons,  Hrethric 
and  Hrothmund.  The  "Biarkamal"  (the 
reconstruction  of  this  poem  is  one  of 
Olrik's  scholarly  triumphs),  on  the  other 
hand,  tells  us  of  the  slaying  of  the  weak 


and  avaricious  king  Hroerek  (Hrethric) 
by  Hrolf  (Hrothulf),  but  it  is  not  aware 
of  the  family  relationship  between  them. 
Hrolf,  who  in  later  Scandinavian  tradi- 
tion becomes  with  his  attendant  heroes 
the  most  brilliant  and  powerful  of  the 
Scylding  kings,  is  in  turn  attacked  at 
Leire  and  slain  by  a  certain  Hiarvarth. 
The  "Beowulf-poet  does  not  tell  the 
story,  but  he  does  know,  what  Scandi- 
navian tradition  had  forgotten,  that 
Heoroweard  (Hiarvarth)  is  the  son  of 
Hrothgar's  elder  brother  Heorogar,  who 
might,  therefore,  regard  himself  as  the 
rightful  occupant  of  the  high-seat  of  the 
Scyldings.  In  this  particular,  as  in  hun- 
dreds of  others,  an  understanding  of  the 
one  literature  is  greatly  enhanced  in  the 
matter  of  epic  breadth  and  tragic  tensity 
by  some  knowledge  of  the  other. 

The  "Soul  of  Abraham  Lincoln" 
(Doran)  is  an  ominous  title.  The  "True 
Story  of  Abraham  Lincoln's  Spiritual 
Life  and  Convictions"  is  an  ominous  de- 
scription. Authorship  by  an  orthodox 
pastor  is  an  ominous  source.  It  is  bare 
justice  to  Mr.  William  E.  Barton  to 
affirm  that  all  these  omens  are  falsified 
by  his  performance.  Clergyman  though 
he  be,  his  judgment  is  incorrupt.  Pos- 
sibly the  only  safe  judges  are  the  men 
for  whom  judgment  as  a  mere  gymnastic 
is  a  stimulus  and  an  enjoyment.  Mr. 
Barton  is  a  born  ganger  of  evidence,  and 
is  glad  rather  than  sorry  to  relieve  his 
own  side  of  those  shaky  arguments 
which,  like  non-combatants  in  an  army, 
increase  its  liabilities  without  fostering 
its  strength.  He  admits  that  Lincoln 
was  a  deist  or  agnostic  in  his  early  man- 
hood— a  state  of  mind  which  the  intoler- 
ance of  the  times  denounced  as  infidelity. 
He  is  able,  however,  to  draw  up  a  creed 
from  the  words,  and  practically  in  the 
words,  of  the  riper  Lincoln  which  com- 
prises a  belief  in  an  all-wise  and  all- 
righteous  Providence  deeply  concerned  in 
mundane  perturbations,  in  a  personal 
relation  between  man  and  God  which 
man  can  modify  in  his  own  favor  by 
supplication  and  repentance,  in  the  Bible 
as  God's  highest  gift  to  man,  and  in  re- 
union with  departed  kinsfolk  in  a  hap- 
pier world.  In  1920  this  creed  will  doubt- 
less be  ample  enough  to  satisfy  even  those 
persons  whose  fathers  or  grandfathers 
would  have  been  first  to  deplore  its 
meagreness  in  1860. 

The  elaboration  of  Mr.  Barton's  plea, 
to  which  a  hundred  pages  of  appendices 
and  bibliography  are  punctiliously  added, 
may  seem  to  some  readers  to  rest  on  an 
overestimate  of  the  difficulty  and  the  im- 
portance of  the  problem.  But  the  best 
way  to  reduce  an  inflated  problem  to  its 
natural  and  proper  dimensions  is  to  solve 
it,  and  the  solution  must  adapt  its  own 
bulk  to  the  bulk  of  the  testimony.  There 
is  another  side  on  which  all  this  research 
and  particularity  is  amply  justified.   The 


ease  with  which  honest  people  lie  is  one 
of  the  points  in  human  nature  on  which 
analysts  are  unanimous  and  satirists 
talkative.  But  the  extent  of  that  lying 
and  the  perfection  of  that  ease  are  realiz- 
able only  in  the  immediate  presence  of  a 
stirring  question  on  which  the  accumula- 
tion of  testimony  has  been  extensive, 
various,  dispersed,  and  contradictory, 
Mr.  Barton's  book  is  a  precious  docu- 
ment in  psychology  in  which  the  insuflS- 
ciency  of  sincerity  as  a  check  on  decep- 
tion is  exposed,  and  the  difficulties  of 
truthtelling  are  made  so  clear  that  its 
imposition  on  human  nature  as  a  duty 
seems,  for  the  time  being  at  least,  unjus- 
tifiable. 

Pierre  Loti  is  not  an  easy  man  to  put 
into  English.  His  peculiarly  French  com- 
bination of  sharpness  in  expression  with 
delicacy  of  sentiment  seems  scarcely 
transferable  to  a  language  in  which  senti- 
ment is  regularly  attained  by  vagueness. 
And  so  one's  first  impression  of  S.  R.  C. 
Plimsoll's  translation  of  "Madame  Prune" 
(Frederick  A.  Stokes  Co.)  is  likely  to  be 
a  sense  of  what  has  been  lost  in  the 
transference  from  French  to  English. 
But  as  one  reads  on  and  becomes  familiar 
— hardens  oneself,  shall  we  say? — to 
Mr.  Plimsoll's  rather  Gallicized  style,  one 
is  likely  to  feel  rather  that  he  has  come 
closer  to  success,  where  complete  success 
is  impossible,  than  would  be  expected. 
Slowly  the  Japan  of  Loti,  the  Japan  of 
fragile  and  superficial  loveliness  with 
hints  of  terrible  cruel  power  under  the 
surface,  is  evoked ;  and  we  almost  forget 
that  we  are  not  reading  the  author's  own 
words.  Mr.  Mortimer  Menpes  has  con- 
tributed eight  illustrations  in  color, 
which  help  to  perfect  this  evocation. 
Those  who  know  only  "Madame  Chrysan- 
theme"  will  be  glad  to  have  its  sequel  in 
this  attractive  form. 

Three  Latin  volumes  (Ausonius  I  by 
H.  G.  E.  White,  Martial  I  by  W.  C.  A. 
Ker,  and  Livy  I  by  B.  0.  Foster)  and 
one  Greek  volume  (Thucydides  I  by 
C.  F.  Smith)  come  to  us  from  Putnams 
as  a  reminder  that  the  Loeb  Library  has 
weathered  the  war  and  is  slowly  building 
up  for  its  founder  a  monumentum  aere 
perennius  and  for  the  editors  and  con- 
tributors an  operae  pretium.  It  is  not 
the  function  of  this  column  to  offer  a  de- 
tailed criticism  of  these  scholarly  works, 
but  we  may  note  especially  the  excellence 
of  Professor  Smith's  translation  and  an- 
notation of  the  first  two  books  of  Thucy- 
dides.  Some  very  minor  complaints  we 
might  make.  Dates  should  have  been 
given  more  abundantly,  and  might  well 
have  been  printed  regularly  in  the  run- 
ning headlines.  Thucydides  has  been 
fortunate  in  his  translators  since  Hobbes 
set  his  hand  at  the  task  (and  learnt 
much  of  his  philosophy  of  history 
(Continued  on  page  368) 


April  10,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[867 


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368] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  Xo.  4» 


XCmOimmtd  fnm  pape  366) 
tkoilv).  aad  PrafcBBor  Smith  has  mil 
■antelMdthetzaditian.  With  its  BOtCB 
and  anvB  this  is  for  a  "gcBdeman 
Uie  ideal  edition  of  tiw 
■as  regarded  fagr  tiiesi^eat 
as    the   etennl    naBwd    of 


The  Tragedy  of 
Pygmalion 

A  FEW  mtma»  ago  the  pared-poat 
IwiM^A  ne  a  beautiful  pietuic  as 

The 


the  atatae  of  a  iuwc^  vonau.  jnst  eam- 
iSK  to  life  nndcr  his  cubiate  and  wiUi 
the  led  hoe  of  blood  alicadr  Unidiing 
It  loaiEed  very  nice;  bat  I 
hdp  a  vacne  fedinc  of  dissatis- 
vith  flw  theacL  Here  was  Fys- 
peeferring  a  living 
to  the  vmk  of  art;  is  not  art,  I 
from  life 
a  fold  to  icteiae 
tiw  pneeaa?  To  «et  more  li^t  on  taj 
I  loolced  op  the  sbsy  and  un- 
[  the  f oBoviw  aceooit  in  the  < 


had  just  beei  concluded,  and  Cyprus, 
which  had  bem  drawn  into  them,  was 
left  in  an  impoverisbod  condition.  Her 
rate  of  exdiange  was  vCTy  low  as  com- 
pared with  that  of  Phoenicia,  from  which 
Cyprus  imported  aU  artkks  of  biznry. 
Pygmalion  easily  consented  to  Galatea's 
requests,  for  his  knre  for  ber  was  warm 
and  fresh,  but  you  can  easily  see  that 
the  expoise  made  a  heavy  drain  on  his 
scanty  parse. 

The  historian  of  those  days  rdates  that 
the  first  organ  of  Galatea's  to  cone  to 
life  was  ho*  tongue,  and  her  feet  the 
hut.  In  fact,  she  never  got  quite  rid 
of  the  habits  of  immobility  which  she 
contracted  on  the  pedestal;  a  certain  las- 
situde still  pervaded  her;  she  preferred 
repose  and  wanted  to  be  carried  about. 
She  insistwl  on  having  breakfast  in  bed. 
Now  Pygmalion  was  a  gentleman  and, 
Oieiefore,  the  owner  of  a  dave.  But 
Ooae  after-war  days  were  di^  of  un- 
rest; new  ideas  floated  in  the  air.  The 
union  of  slaves  was  on  strike,  demand- 
ing that  tiie  state  fix  a  maodmnm  to  the 
number  of  Mows  whidi  a  master  coold 
inflict  aa  his  slave.  So  the  work  f dl  on 
Pygmalion's  shoaider,  and  having  so  far 
been  a  badidor,  he  was  natnrafly  voy 
awkward  in  his  ways  and  was  justly 
scolded  by  his  wiSt. 

Ton  may  have  thought  that  Galatea 
had  to  learn  everything  from  flie  begin- 
ning. Not  dw.  Like  her  more  famous 
'  Minerva,  who  emerged  fnll^ledged 
the  Jovid  head,  Gahtfea'-denxBded 
the  piJflri  wifli  an  her  womanly 
9ie  knew  her  mind 
had  ^gmalian  under  ho- 
flahrtifa  was  a  boni  (the  e^^xea- 
is  ineorreet  but  nagr  be  allowed) 
In  a  dwrt  time  dw  got  tired 
of  yygmaKon  and  began  flirtiag  openly 
with  a  poet-friend  of 
gliwnHy  recalled  flie  ds^T* 
still  on  die  pedestaL 
dodleand  nevn- refused  his  1 
was  without  life;  but  afl  his  own.  Then, 

perfect.  He  was  her 
but  oh!  what  a  gradons  ndstxeaa 
Now  fldt  die  had  eome  down 
from  the  pedestal  dw  was  so  dUEerent — 
fnfl  vl  tapriee,  pdnlairt,  eold^^n  diort, 
IMaHfaisioned,  Pygmalian 
nidmiiiiii  had  done;  that 
everything  has  its  proper  fbite,  and  tint 
idnt  tte  artist  esaeeives  and  creates  is 
alrigjitoattepeiwtil  bat  very  1 
factmy  if  tnmafrrred  to  the 
earth. 

PygmaHoa  made  an  attempt  to  i 
work.  At  least  Gdatca  m^tt  pose  as  a 
moddand  hdp  Mm  retam  to  tiw  rcahn 
her  aaespeded  adveat  had  foteed 
to  leave  Bat  no;  Galatea  waald 
staad  on  the  pedestd  agaia.  Aay- 

or  re- 

Aadaa  if 

thisi  " 


di« 


Pygmalion  to  call  in  other  models.     SI 
did  not  love  her  husband  but  still 
didn't  like  haTing  other  women  in 
house. 

Pygmalion    was    drivte    to    despair4 
Finally,  he  made  a  resolution.    He  we 
up  to  Delphi  and  called  upon  Apollo 
transform  his  wife  into  the  statue  shflf 
had  beoi.     The  oracle  rqdied  that  the^ 
gods  never  undo  vhat  th^  once  hava^  { 
done.     Pygmalion  came  back  in  a  state 
of  utter  dejection. 

At  last  Apollo  took  pity  on  him.  One 
morning  the  married  couple  was  engaged 
in  one  of  their  usual  quarrds.  Galatea 
lost  her  temper  and  stamped  her  foot^ 
Pygmalion  lost  his  courage  and  implored 
forgiveness.  But  Galatea  looked  at  him 
with  a  cdd  stare  and  the  Mood  froze 
in  his  vdna.  It  did,  really  and  literaDy^ 
Pygmalion  was  aware  of  a  certain  no 
ness  cieeping  into  his  limbs;  he  tr 
to  speak  but  his  mouth  would  not 
He  kst  consdousneaL  .  .  . 

Apollo  had  turned  him  into  a 
and  now  it  was  Pygmalion  that  was 

Galatea  shed  a  few  tears,  but 
had  tiie  statue  moved  on  to  her 
previous  pededal,  and  ediibited  it 
friends. 

My  historian's  account  stops  at 
point.    We  may  conjecture  that 
married  again,  but  noUiiag  is 
defiuitdy.    Personally,  I  aa 
to  know  wheOicr  the  statae  still 
in  proper  shape.    Ezesvations  oog^ 
be  started  at  onee  with  a  view  to 
ing  up  this  matter.    But  I  most 
Oiat  to  flie  ardneologists 

Bafjuel  Daumi 

Drama 

The  Craft   of  the   Tortoise  i 
and  Other  Plays 

The  CsArr  or  thk  ToanxsE.    By 
TasML    New  York:  Bom  aid  : 

Thk  Powix  or  a  Go*  amb  Orant  OmitJ 
FtATS.      ]^    ThadMr    Hoidaad 
tlrixua.  IIL:  VmHttn^  at  OGbom 

The  Lamt  or  Hembx.  BfMn^L.Wo 
Bortoa:  The  Poor  Seas  i 


flrat' 


mn.  ALGERNON  TASSDf  is  » 

JvX  son   eminentiy   wortii   looidiig 

Whether  he  is  a  pnaoa  w 

to  is  a  poiat  on  whidi  his  first  book 

to  my  knawleitee)  is  iaen 

wnk  proves  b^fond  qpestion  fhst  1 

tJ^eace  Is  marvdloa*.    The 

of  his  indisce  aaflke  to 
strate  Us  aiasteiy  of  Eagjidi 
Thcae  qaalities,  vahBHe  as  they  a 
woald  be  still  aam  vataaUe  if  their  par 
tid  orig^  ia  Mr.  Sham  wen  leas  di^- 
ceraiMf.  I  ssQr  '>srtiar'  witt  ddibera- 
i;  Mr.  Taaaiifs  rdsfioa  to  Mr.  Shaw 
I  that  of  fbe  wife  who  has  prop- 
^tty  ia  her  owa  right. 


April  10.  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[369 


The  New  York 
University  Press 


Tbe  Groand  and  Goal  of 
Human  Life 

By  CHARLES  GRAY  SHAW,  PhJ>^ 
Professor  of  Ethics  in  New  York 

University 
Ootk.  sii+394  tiff's.    Price,  $3loO 
Ak   ir«it>  Iv  aon  of 


i 


ccTtBBk  hnc  k   Km  ill  ft  fcU  af 
rmr—fnf.  W.  E.  Haetmm.  Btrm 

TWI     at 


Values,  Immediate  and 

Contributory,  and  Their 

Interrelation 

By  MAURICE  PICARD,  PhJ), 
tectuiei  in  Pliilosopfay  in  Barnard 
CoBccc  In  press. 


Efficient  Composition:  A 
College  Rhetoric 

By  ARTHUR  HUNTINGTON 
NASON.  Ph_D^  Professor  of  Eng- 
lish ;n  New  Yock  Uancswy. 

rr^H-51?  fngts.   Price,  $150 


die 


-.;k:   it  is 


THE  NEW  YORK  UNWERSTTY  PBESS 

32  Waverly  PUce         New  York  City 


Tkrt  (rivB..  *»"  In  |{| I'lTitJ^'  «Zff  iL 


Both  Mr.  Taasin  and  Mr.  Shaw  are 
thinker-dramatista,  with  the  thinkor- 
dramatist's  doable  handk^  fhait  his 
study  is  draped  like  a  stage  while  his 
stage  is  famished  like  a  study.  Drama 
should  be  based  on  thoagfat.  It  sfaoakl 
not  be  ceiled  and  wainscoted  with 
thoaght.  Mr.  Tassin  leama  fast;  he 
wants  to  teach  fast;  and  the  diffindtgr 
with  drama  is  that,  while  it  paints  fmt, 
it  teaches  slowly.  Speed  ap  its  tearhing 
and  yoo  retard  or  conf  ose  its  portrayaL 
To  have  many  iaiages  and  few,  bat 
strong,  ideas  is  wdl-beiiig  for  a  dnma- 
tut.  Mr.  Taasm  is  not  content  to  em- 
body a  thoo^t;  he  wants  to  limn  a 
treatise.  Atalanta-like^  he  may  fese  the 
race  by  sbaofiag  to  pick  op  the  golden 
apples  of  iatdigtaKe. 

He  may  lose  the  race,  hmk  tke  loas  Is 
far  from  certain.  His  eqa^pmat  for 
drama  is,  in  some  points,  rema^idile. 
He  has  a  stroog  dialogue  a  compact, 
pugnacioos,  aoertiTe  dialogne^  a  dia- 
loKae  is  wtdtek  cadi  senteBce  ii  a  stand. 
He  is  a  dnaaatiat  ii  kis  aoMe  «f  tite  im- 
pact of  people  <9aB  eadi  otknr;  cv-: 
qoiet  sceaea,  ia  aare  expaaitia%  file 
is  ridged  witii  paaatag  aagei^  jaalaaBieB, 
contempts,  f awmaga,  dictatNaa.  He  is 
a  AJDed  invoitor,  aot  of  plats,  bot  of 
iacadeate  tiiat  oncaver  rdatiaBa.  Bat 
hla  liMllatiwi  as  idajwii^t  fiea  in  the 
faettta^  while  ke  earn  awii  «w  tiw 
r.  be  careaMtaafw  tlw 

caorea  awfoy  far  ne  latdhebiH  aat- 
come :  he  is  satisfied  to  aadce  Ub  poiaL 
His  people  are  iflaatratr*«L  He 
tiiera  vigorous  beeaaae,  bciac  * 
■aa  of  letters,  he  lihn  to  Make  Ua  iDBB- 
tiaUoaa  TigoraaaL  Bat  aa  beiaga^  as 
Irres,  ttcr  meaa  veqr  litOe  to  hlai.  He 
has  Hairief  s  iaipaitial  aeom  for  tte  two 
ddi^ts  not  hiai; 
IsOnreagi 
in  RomauaatsTs  icply  to  HaBkfs 
that  ttepjajii'i  woald  receive  2«al«a  «»- 
fertacaaMaC  fiteaa  audi  a  aiaa? 

The  ao&or  of'  "Haadei*  hiaaJt 
mi^t  afaaoat  hove  been  ilaaralad  hf  tte 
bardeaa  wldik  Ifer.  Tassin  has  laid  opoa 
his  draaiatic  facalty.  He  widMs  ta 
piwe  ttat  the  art  of  waraaa  perpetaally 
theBBastoT  from  tkeatieagOi  of 
i;  tte  aerra^  aa  we  kaow,  eoaiiol  ttw 
The  thill  I  r  has  olmoas  af- 
fiaitieB  with  th^  of  '*lfaB  Md 
maa."  bat  Mr.  Shaw's  pUy  is 
ponorx-  Mr.  Taaain's  acts  are  divided 
hf  <7des.  He  not  only  gives  as  ] 
day  New  York  (Act  IV.)  aad 
1260   (Act.  nL),  bot  patriarchal 

(Act  L).  Three  daractns  appear  in 
dl  foar  acts  in  saecesive  iaeaiaatiaaB, 
aat  of  the  poaoa  cacOr.  bat  aC  tte  type. 
Hew  far  are  Oese  pictorea  of  Sfe  tfoe? 
In  tte  first  three  acts,  plaiair  aaKh  MBit 
be  left  to  fai&;  and  phdatf 
(Ciiafiaaad  «i  p«f«  370) 


James  SMrley,  Drama- 
tist :  A  Biographical  and 
Critical  Study 

By  ARTHUR  HUNTINGTON 
NASON.  PhJ).,  Proiew  of  Bag- 
lish  in  New  York  Uuiiexsiiy. 

la  tke  stadty  ^  Ihe  Kie 
ShiTlv,  the  taimui 

ShMcT's  if^  to 
the  valne  of  the 
basis  of  ttis  critical 
constmct  a  rfimoolagy  mare 
don  has  hccB  hidKrto  avaOiUc . 
oo  a  haoB  oi  this  icvisei  chraaolicy,  to 
le&tudly  dK  ill  ■■nil  wtvks  of  Shiri^. 
in  Older  to  deterwine.  if  |iii  iWi,  At 
co«Kse  «rf  his  ih  iihipw  iil  as  a  dnaas- 
u^;  aMi.  nini^  nro^  tins  saaae  cscanma:- 
tioa  of  te  plays,  to  ih  li  iiaii  die  lEs- 
tiutliie  chaiacteristxs  of  his 
works.  The  tcsok  is  a  aew  : 
lolczTsting  pH.Uue  oi  obs  qk 

poet  of  the  te«a  of  Charles  L 


I 


oni"* — Sir  Sidmey  Imul 
"A  ttclJKfc^  to  t&e  QF^  ami 

ai  Siricr's  En  am 


Cbnk    Ter^J02  pmges.    Ckaietiy  Hms- 

trmud,    Pricr.  SSM. 


TK  KW  YOBK  tiifnmJsnT  PKSs 


32  Wavcity  Pi*:e         .New  York  Oty 


II 


370] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  48 


(Continued  from  page  369) 
Mr.  Tassin's  demands  for  credit  in  three 
acts  impose  on  him  a  quite  decisive  obli- 
gation to  furnish  cash  in  the  fourth,  that 
is,  to  furnish  truth  which  is  not  only 
true  but  verifiable.  But  when  payday 
comes  Mr.  Tassin  wants  to  renew  his 
note.  His  eccentric  New  York  has  to  be 
taken  on  faith.  His  Emmeline,  the  last 
and  lowest  of  her  vulpine  breed,  seems 
almost  as  alien  to  the  spectator's  experi- 
ence as  his  Em  or  Emla  or  Emelie.  I 
do  not  say  that  Emmeline  as  exception  or 
aberration  is  inconceivable.  Tradition 
and  modernity  are  two  species,  and  in  an 
age  when  woman  is  the  offspring  of  their 
union,  she  is  normally  a  hybrid  and  po- 
tentially a  monster.  Do  I  go  too  far  in 
suggesting  that  a  successful  authoress 
who  flirts  with  a  workman  in  overalls  is 
a  monster?  Clearly  she  is  not  typical, 
and  Mr.  Tassin  is  pursuer  of  types. 

"This  play,"  says  Mr.  Tassin  in  a  pref- 
ace, which,  always  coruscating,  is  some- 
times too  coruscating  to  be  luminous, 
"develops  the  theme  that  woman  com- 
pensates for  her  bodily  inferiority  to 
man,  which,  handicapping  her  in  the  be- 
ginning proved  her  strength  in  the 
end,  by  the  utilization  of  her  apparel!" 
Woman  is  tortoise;  man  is  hare:  the 
tortoise  wins  the  race.  Shell  in  the  tor- 
toise is  replaced  by  dress  in  woman. 
That  the  tortoise  is  not  crafty  and  is  not 
helped  by  its  shell  in  the  race  are  obvi- 


ous objections.  Mr.  Tassin's  is  a  subtle 
mind.  One  suspects  him  of  a  mind  as  in- 
sensitive to  the  obvious  as  the  obvious 
mind  itself  is  impervious  to  subtlety.  In 
formal  reasoning  he  is  prodigiously 
acute,  but  he  is  possessed  of  and  pos- 
sessed by  an  ardor  for  generalities  with 
which  a  scorn  of  particulars  is  delicately 
mingled.  In  the  swiftness  of  his  logic 
he  resembles  Mr.  Shaw;  both  Mr.  Shaw 
and  he  resemble  the  hare;  and  I  doubt 
if  he  is  quite  wise  in  recalling  inces- 
santly to  our  minds  a  fable  in  which 
victory  was  obtained  by  the  hare's  plod- 
ding rival.  The  very  quickness  of  his 
mind  is  a  bias — a  bias  towards  explana- 
tions that  presuppose  quickness.  His- 
torically, he  makes  woman  conscious  and 
inventive  where  her  willingness,  if  opera- 
tive at  all,  must  have  been  ingenuous  and 
unreflecting.  This  is  partly  no  doubt  the 
dramatist's  necessity,  but  it  is  also  prob- 
ably the  conscious  thinker's  instinctive 
disallowance  of  instinct.  If  women  are 
the  real  Machiavels,  it  is  odd  that  a  man 
should  name  the  quality.  Are  they  wily 
as  a  sex  or  only  as  a  class — historically 
a  serf  or  subject  class?  Are  they  so 
wily  as  eunuchs?  Are  they  wilier  than 
subject  males — than  parasites  or  court- 
iers, for  example?  Mr.  Tassin  thinks 
that  the  guile  of  woman  is  operative  to- 
day in  the  attempt  to  keep  privileges 
while  she  gains  rights,  to  demand  jus- 
tice and  chivalry  in  the  same  breath; 


and,  by  a  comparison  in  which  chivalry 
gives  up  the  ghost,  likens  her  to  the  en- 
franchised negro  helping  herself  to  her 
ex-master's  goods  and  getting  wages  at 
the  same  time. 

Four  one-act  plays  by  Thacher  How- 
land  Guild  have  been  collected  in  a  vol- 
ume to  which  commemorative  tributes 
by  Mr.  George  P.  Baker,  Mr.  Stuart  P. 
Sherman,  and  other  friends  have  been 
prefixed.  The  plays  show  an  instinct  for 
the  theatre  and  a  humane  spirit  which 
should  fit  them  for  successful  perform- 
ance by  amateurs. 

The  "Lamp  of  Heaven,"  a  one-act 
Chinese  play  of  the  time  of  the  Boxer  re- 
bellion, is  exactly  imaged  in  its  heroine, 
Mee  Fah  Kam.  She  is  very  pretty,  but 
her  feet  are  bandaged,  and  she  can 
scarcely  walk.  The  diction  of  Mrs. 
Smith's  unambitious  little  play  is  pleas- 
ing enough;  what  is  lacks  is  the  power 
to  move.  0.  W.  Firkins 


Music 


James  Huneker  on  Art  and 
Occultism 


Bedouins.     By  James  Huneker. 
Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 


New  York: 


JAMES  HUNEKER,  at  his  best,  has 
almost    genius.      And,    at    his    very 
worst,  he  stands  alone.    There  is  always 


Religion  among  American  Men 

The  material  for  this  book  was  gathered 
under  direction  of  "the  Committee  on  the 
War  and  the  Religious  Outlook" — consist- 
ing of  such  men  as: 


William  Adaus  Brown 
Geokge  W.  Coleman 
W.  H.  P.  Fauncb 
Harey  Emerson  Fosdick 
Henry  Churchill  King 


Francis  J.  McConnell 
Charles  S.  Macfarland 
William   Douglas  Mackenzie 
Shailer  Mathews 
Robert  E.  Speer 


A  questionnaire,  which  sought  to  obtain  not  only  facts,  but  their  mean- 
ing, was  sent  to  chaplains,  Y.  M.  C.  A.  secretaries,  army  officers  and 
men.  To  the  data  secured  were  added  the  results  of  many  interviews 
both  in  the  A.  E.  F.  and  at  home,  and  of  an  extensive  correspondence. 
This  mass  of  carefully  analyzed  evidence  is  presented  as  a  challenge  to 
the  Church,  and  to  the  individuals.     Cloth,  $1.50. 

Missionary  Outlook  in  the  Light  of  the  War 

Also  prepared  by  "the  Committee  on  the  War  and  the  Re- 
ligious Outlook" 

The  increased  significance  and  urgency  of  the  missionary  enterprise;  the 
changed  outlook  in  every  mission  field;  the  new  light  thrown  on  mis- 
sionary policies  and  principles — the  discussion  of  these  subjects  by  out- 
standing experts  gives  to  this  volume  authority  and   inspiring  power. 

Cloth,  $2.00 

The  Army  and  Religion 

Edited  by  D.  S.  CAIRNS,  D.D. 
of  Winchester 


Preface  by  the  Bishop 


"Perhaps,  as  never  before,  the  British  Army  during  the  Great  War 
represented  a  sort  of  cross-section  of  the  nation's  life.  Here,  then,  was 
an  exceptional  o(>portUDity  for  an  enlightening  analysis  of  an  army  that 
represented  the  life  of  the  men  of  the  nation  itself.  It  would  be  difficult 
to  represent  the  religious  revelation  and  results  of  the  war  more  skill- 
fully and  judiciously  than  they  are  presented  in  this  report." — Robert 
E.  Speer.  Cloth,  $2.00 


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April  10,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[371 


this  to  be  said  of  what  he  writes — it 
needs  no  signature.     The  style,  in  his 
1  case,  does  denote  the  man. 
i      That   seems   high   praise,    indeed,    in 
I  these  drab  days,  when  twenty  writers 
I  have  one  single  style.    But  it  implies  as 
j  well  some  faint  dispraise.     For  of  late 
'  years  (to  be  quite  frank)  it  has  not  been 
,  only    style   that   has   distinguished    Mr. 
Huneker's  short  tales  and  essays.   A  tend- 
ency has  now  and  then  become  evident, 
both  in  his  fiction  and  his  criticism,  to 
score    points    with    the    help    of    what 
Frenchmen  call  a  procede — of  which  the 
equivalent  in  English  is  a  recipe. 

The  results  are  often  brilliant,  if  be- 
I  wildering.  But  they  are  also  sometimes 
'  just  the  least  bit  wearying.  Not  tire- 
some (heaven  forbid!),  but  they  do  tire. 
Not  everyone  can  bear  the  constant 
strain  of  following  even  such  a  mind  as 
Mr.  Huneker's  through  a  whole  volume 
of  flamboyant  and  dazzling  fantasies. 

In  this  latest  of  his  many  books  Mr. 
Huneker  has  gathered  up  a  number  of 
his  reviews,  short  tales,  and  essays.  The 
title  is,  perhaps,  a  little  vague  as  a  sug- 
gestion of  a  work  which  deals  with 
babies,  critics,  cats,  Caruso,  Mirabeau, 
Luke,  Anatole  France,  and  Mary  Garden, 
to  say  nothing  of  His  Black  Majesty,  the 
Devil.  I  grieve  to  say  (though  I  do  not 
take  him  seriously  at  this  point)  that,  on 
the  fifth  page  of  his  essay  on  Mary  Gar- 
den, he  frankly  names  himself,  I  believe 
for  the  first  time,  a  devout  disciple  of 
that  strange  but  infamous  writer,  Rene 
de  Gourmont.  The  Satanist  author  of 
"A  Night  in  the  Luxembourg"  might 
surely  have  been  excluded  from  his  rare 
and  audacious  study  of  a  star.  The 
study  in  itself  is  a  delight,  unsparing,  to 
be  sure,  in  its  analysis,  but  flattering  by 
the  frank  and  searching  thoroughness 
with  which  it  is  made.  I  note  with  in- 
terest that,  unlike  some  foolish  critics, 
Mr.  Huneker  knows  Mary  Garden  as  a 
singer  of  unusual  charm,  not  only  as  a 
wondrous  "singing  actress."  I  can  not 
understand,  though,  why  he  proclaims 
ler  "invincibly  Yankee."  She  is  Scotch 
Dy  birth,  and  French  by  education,  and 
;he  language  which  she  projects  across 
;he  footlights  is — well,  Anglo-French. 
He  more  than  hints  that  she  is  a  rein- 
;',arnation  of  such  flaming  characters  as 
Thais,  Phryne,  Sappho,  and  the  admired 
Aspasia.  She  is  also  termed  an  orchid, 
;i  human  dynamo,  and  an  opal.  Having 
abelled  her  as  American  he  pronounces 
'ler  Gaelic.  Yet,  in  the  same  breath,  he 
ilwells  on  her  Gallic  art.  A  moment  later 
le  tells  us  that  she  swears  by  Duse.  Yes, 
iften  Mr.  Huneker  bewilders  one.  He 
ixtols  Miss  Garden's  sweeter  and  nobler 
Interpretations — they  are  nearly  cre- 
ations— her  exquisite  Melisande,  her  pa- 
ihetic  Jean  (in  "Le  Jongleur"),  her 
leautiful  Monna  Vanna.  He  detests  her 
when  she  appears  as  crazy  lemans  of  the 
'Aphrodite  type.    When  he  has  scratched 


and  patted,  praised  and  damned  her  in 
all  sorts  of  ways  and  keys  and  moods, 
Mr.  Huneker  sums  up,  "She  is  unique." 
And  so  for  all  her  flaws.  Miss  Garden  is. 

In  "Bedouins"  one  may  find  other  es- 
says, less  thorough  than  those  given  up 
to  Miss  Garden,  but  hardly  less  interest- 
ing. An  essay  about  "Melisande  and  De- 
bussy." Another  on  "The  Artistic  Tem- 
perament" (as  to  which  the  author  is,  be- 
yond doubt,  an  authority).  Another 
(rather  flippant  and  unworthy  of  the 
tribute  of  a  reprint)  is  entitled  "Caruso 
on  Wheels."  In  most,  the  author  hovers 
around  music — an  art  of  which  he  knows 
more  (and  writes  less)  than  almost  any 
other  critic  in  this  country.  As  usual, 
when  he  does  discourse  on  music  and  on 
artists  who  make  music,  he  often  treats 
of  them  in  terms  of  literature.  And,  as 
an  offset,  when  he  speaks  of  painting  or 
drama  he  expresses  his  ideas  in  musical 
formulas.  He  has,  throughout  his  life, 
been  a  voracious  reader  of  fiction,  drama, 
science,  and  philosophy.  His  memory  is 
remarkably  retentive.  But  he  does 
wrong,  I  think,  to  crowd  so  many  refer- 
ences into  his  essays.  George  Moore  and 
Huysmans,  Chopin,  Poe  and  the  Sar 
Peladan  are  hurled  at  one  at  every  oppor- 
tunity. It  matters  little  what  the  theme 
may  be.  The  author's  favorites  must  be 
quoted  and  re-quoted. 

Now  this,  though  it  impresses  one  at 
first,  in  the  long  run  becomes  annoying 
to  the  general.  It  may  be  true,  as  he 
himself  once  said  to  me,  that  he  "writes 
for  twelve  persons  only,"  not  for  the 
crowd.  We  may  assume,  despite  all  such 
assertions,  that  Mr.  Huneker  appeals  to 
a  large  audience.  If  not,  why  does  he 
contribute  to  the  dailies  ?  And  why  does 
he  reprint  what  they  have  published? 
Before  they  were  essays,  most  of  his 
writings  had  been  articles.  And  now, 
collected,  they  form  parts  of  a  real  book. 
Not  everything  in  "Bedouins"  bears  re- 
reading. Some  short  stories,  for  ex- 
ample, might  with  advantage  have  been 
left  out  of  this  volume.  Among  them 
(to  name  two)  are  the  three  slightly 
futile  tales  entitled  "Brothers-in-Law," 
"Grindstones,"  and  "Venus  or  Valkyr." 
Moreover,  those  who  most  admire  the 
author  may  deplore  the  resuscitation  of 
two  powerful  but  disturbing  little  stories 
which  deal  with  Satanism. 

The  short  stories  referred  to  will  dis- 
tress most  recent  souls,  though  they  will 
fascinate  some  searchers  after  the  occult. 
They  are  morbid,  and,  to  many,  will 
seem  dangerous,  though  one  is  founded, 
I  am  told,  on  actual  fact.  We  know  that 
there  were  Satanists  in  Paris,  in  the 
Quartier  Montparnasse.  We  had  heard 
that  there  were  Satanists  in  one,  at 
least,  of  our  American  cities.  To  go 
hunting  after  cases  of  the  kind  may 
please  Mr.  Huneker.  To  relate  what  he 
has  found,  with  the  allurements  of  his 
(Continued  on  page  372) 


Complete  Banking  Service 
in    Convenient    Localities 

55  Cedar  Street 
Broadway  at  73rd  St. 
Madison  Av.  at  75th  St. 
125th  St.  at  Eighth  Av. 

Customers  of  one  office  have  at  their 
disposal    the   facilities   of   all    offices. 

DEPARTMENTS 
Banking  Trust 

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The  Menace 


of 


Inflation 


This  article,  written  by 
Cjcorge  E.  Roberts,  a  for- 
mer Director  of  the  Mint, 
appeared  in  THE  RE- 
VIEW November  22,  1919. 

5,000  banks  have  been 
supplied  with  copies  of  this 
reprint  by  Federal  Reserve 
Banks.  Over  7,500  copies 
of  it  have  been  requested. 


5  copies  or  less,  free  on  request. 
Larger  quantities  at  cost. 


The  Review 

Reprint  Dept. 

140  Nassau  St.  New  York 


372] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2.  No.  48 


of  New  York.  ] 

y  of  New  \  ork,         J 


STATEMENT  OF  THE  OWNERSHIP,  MAN- 
AGEMENT,  CIRCULATION,  ETC.,  RE- 
QUIRED BY  THE  ACT  OF  CONGRESS  OF 
AUGUST   24,    1912,    OF 

THE  REVIEW 

Published  weekly,  at  New  York,  N.   \'.,  for  April   1, 
1920. 

State 
County 

Before  me  a  Notary  Public,  in  and  for  the  State 
and  county  aforesaid,  personally  appeared  Harold 
deWolf  Fuller,  who,  having  been  duly  sworn,  accord- 
ing to  law,  dejK)scs  and  savs  that  he  is  the  Editor  of 
THK  REVIEW,  and  that  the  following  is,  to  the  best 
of  his  knowledge  and  belief,  a  true  statement  of  the 
ownership,  management  (and  if  a  daily  paper,  the 
circulation),  etc..  of  the  aforesaid  publication  for  the 
date  shown  in  the  above  caption,  required  by  the  Act 
of  August  24,  1912,  embodied  in  section  443,  Postal 
Laws  and  Regulations,  printed  on  the  reverse  of  this 
form,,  to  wit: 

1.  That  the  names  and  addresses  of  the  publisher, 
editor,  managing  editor,  and  business  managers  are: 

Publisher — The  National  Weekly  Corporation,  140 
Nassau  Street,  New  York,  N.   Y. 

Editor— Fabian  Franklin,  617  West  lUth  Street, 
New   York.   N.   Y. 

Editor— Harold  deWolf  Fuller,  8  East  8th  Street, 
New  York,  N.  Y. 

Managing  Editor — None. 

Business  Managers — None. 

2.  That  the  owners  are:  (Give  names  and  addresses 
of  individual  owners,  or,  if  a  corporation,  give  its  name 
and  the  names  and  addresses  of  stockholders  owning 
or  holding  1  per  cent,  or  more  of  the  total  amount 
of    stock.) 

The  National  Weekly  Corporation:  Emile  Berliner, 
1458  Columbia  Road,  Washington,  D.  C;  R.  A. 
Carter,  130  East  15th  Street,  N.  Y.  C. ;  James  E. 
Clinton,  P.  O.  Box  7,  Boston,  Mass.;  E.  C.  Converse, 
14  Wall  Street,  N.  Y.  C;  R.  Fulton  Cutting,  32 
Nassau  Street,  N.  Y.  C;  Est.  of  J.  R.  De  Lamar,  43 
Exchange  Place,  N.  V.  C;  Charles  S.  Fairchild,  37 
Fifth  Avenue,  N.  Y.  C;  Emil  Fischl,  19  Nassau 
Street,  N.  Y.  C;  Fabian  Franklin,  617  West  113 
Street,  N.  Y.  C;  A.  P.  Hepburn,  57  Broadway, 
N.  Y.  C;  Archer  M.  Huntington,  IS  West  81st  Street, 
N.  Y.  C;  G.  M.  Hyams,  P.  O.  Box  5104,  Boston, 
Mass.;  Alfred  Jaretzki,  49  Wall  Street.  N.  Y.  C; 
Felix  E.  Kahn,  140  West  57th  Street,  N.  Y.  C;  Max 
Levy,  Wayne  Junction,  Pa.;  Louis  Marshall,  120 
Broadway,  N.  Y.  C;  Samuel  Mather,  Western  Re- 
serve Building,  Cleveland,  O. ;  Walter  E.  Maynard, 
501  Fifth  Avenue,  N.  Y.  C;  George  Merck.  45  Park 
Place,  N.  Y.  C;  James  H.  Post,  129  Front  Street, 
N.  Y.  C:  John  T.  Pratt,  27  Pine  Street,  N.  Y.  C; 
Thomas  T.  Richards,  52  William  Street,  N.  Y.  C; 
Manual  Rionda,  P.  O.  Box  4,  Wall  Street  Station, 
N.  Y.  C:  Russell  Robb,  147  Milk  Street,  Boston, 
Mass.;  Julius  Rosenwald,  Chicago,  111.;  Mortimer  L. 
Schiff,  52  William  Street,  N.  Y.  C;  Finley  J. 
Shepard,  120  Broadway,  N.  Y.  C;  William  Sloane, 
575  Fifth  Avenue,  N.  Y.  C;  Frederick  Strauss,  1 
William  Street,  N.  Y.  C;  Paul  M.  Warburg,  17  East 
80th  Street.  N.  Y.  C;  Edwin  S.  Webster,  147  Milk 
Street,  Boston,  Mass.;  William  Woodward,  5  Nassau 
Street,  N.  Y.  C. 

3.  That  the  known  bondholders,  mortgagees,  and 
other  security  holders  owning  or  holding  1  per  cent, 
or  more  of  total  amount  of  bonds,  mortgages,  or  other 
securities  are:      (If  there  are  none,  so  state.) 

None. 

4.  That  the  two  paragraphs  next  above,  giving  the 
names  of  the  owners,  stockholders,  and  security 
holders,  if  any,  contain  not  only  the  list  of  stock- 
holders and  security  holders  as  they  appear  upon  the 
books  of  the  company  but  also,  in  cases  where  the 
stockholder  or  security  holder  appears  upon  the  books 
of  the  company  as  trustee  or  in  any  other  fiduciary 
relation,  the  name  of  the  person  or  corporation  for 
whom  such  trustee  is  acting:,  is  given;  also  that  the 
said  two  paragraphs  contain  statements  *  embracing 
affiant's  full  knowledge  and  belief  as  to  the  circum- 
stances and  conditions  under  which  stockholders  and 
security  holders  who  do  not  appear  upon  the  books  of 
the  company  as  trustees,  hold  stock  and  securities  in  a 
capacity  other  than  that  of  a  bona  fide  owner;  and 
this  affiant  has  no  reason  to  believe  that  any  other 
person,  association,  or  corporation  has  any  interest 
direct  or  indirect  in  the  said  stock,  bonds,  or  other 
securities  than  as  so  stated  by  him. 

H.  deW.  FULLER,  Editor. 

Sworn  to  and  subscribed  before  me  this  31st  day 
of  March,  1920. 

HOWARD  CAMPBELL, 
Notary  Public,  Queens   County, 
Certificate  filed  in   N.  Y.  C.  No.  263. 
(My   commission   expires   March   30,    1921.) 


{Continued  from  page  371) 
warm  and  vivid  style,  seems  almost  crim- 
inal. 

That  a  man  like  Huysmans  should  have 
praised  "The  Vision  Malefic"  of  Mr. 
Huneker  long  years  ago  will  amaze  no 
one.  It  will  fret  most,  however,  to  be 
told  that  Tolstoi,  the  austere  and  ec- 
static Tolstoi,  paid  it  the  tribute  of  a 
dignified  rebuke.  In  times  like  ours, 
when  thousands  upon  thousands  in  a 
distracted  world  are  dabbling  with  peril- 
ous mysticisms,  an  author  should  think 
hard  and  then  think  harder  before  he 
ventures  to  reprint  such  disturbing 
stories  as  "The  Vision  Malefic,"  and  that 
other  excursion  into  the  diabolic,  "The 
Supreme  Sin." 

Charles  Henry  Meltzer 

Books  and  the  News 

Libraries 

THE  work  which  the  American  Library 
Association  did  during  the  war  is 
described  in  a  very  readable  volume  by 
Theodore  Wesley  Koch,  "Books  in  the 
War;  the  Romance  of  Library  War  Ser- 
vice," (Houghton,  1919).  The  most  con- 
siderable study  of  libraries  as  they  have 
developed  in  this  country  is  by  the  pub- 
lic librarian  of  St.  Louis,  Dr.  Arthur  E. 
Bostwick,  in  "The  American  Public 
Library"  (Appleton,  1910).  Similar 
books,  doing  the  same  thing  for  England, 
are  J.  J.  Ogle's  "The  Free  Library" 
(Allen)  and,  for  its  chapters  on  a  num- 
ber of  topics,  Richard  Garnett's  "Essays 
in  Librarianship  and  Bibliography" 
(Allen,  1899).  The  American  author 
previously  mentioned,  Arthur  E.  Bost- 
wick, has  written  in  "The  Making  of  an 
American's  Library"  (Little,'  Brown, 
1915)  a  brief  book,  speaking  of  the  pri- 
vate library,  and  the  effect  of  the  public 
library  upon  it. 

Beginners  in  the  art  of  managing  a 
library  are  often  referred  to  J.  C.  Dana's 
"A  Library  Primer"  (Library  Bureau), 
in  which  the  elementary  steps  are  briefly 
described.  The  architectural  points  which 
a  librarian  needs  to  know,  or  a  possible 
library  architect  may  be  glad  to  read, 
are  in  Charles  C.  Soule's  "How  to  Plan 
a  Library  Building  for  Library  Work" 
(Boston  Book  Co.,  1912). 

There  are  many  books  which  one  may 
read  for  the  pleasure  of  learning  a  little 
of  the  history  of  libraries — Ernest  A. 
Savage's  "Old  English  Libraries;  the 
Making,  Collection,  and  Use  of  Books 
During  the  Middle  Ages"  (McClurg, 
1912)  is  one  of  them.  Nothing,  iiowever, 
is  more  quaint  and  charming  than  Sir 
Thomas  Bodley's  "Life"  and  his  "First 
Draught  of  the  Statutes  of  the  Public 
Library  at  Oxon."  J.  C.  Dana  and  H. 
W.  Kent  edited  an  edition  in  their  "Lit- 
erature of  Libraries"  series    (McClurg, 


1907).  The  Statutes  must  have  been  the 
origin  of  many  of  the  tales  about 
librarians  who  guarded  their  books  like 
dragons. 

The  book  which  suggested  this  brief 
list  is  not  primarily  about  libraries,  but 
is  P.  B.  M.  Allan's  "The  Book-Hunter 
at  Home"  (Philip  Allan,  1920).  It  has 
a  long  chapter  about  libraries,  but  is 
really  intended  to  instruct  and  entertain 
the  book-collector — and  the  collector  who 
is  after  fairly  big  fish.  The  pleasant 
art  of  hunting  the  minnows  of  the  book 
world — the  books  which  bought  at  sec- 
ond-hand leave  one  some  change  from  a 
two-dollar  bill,  yes,  even  from  a  dollar — 
this  harmless  sport  is  always  beneath 
the  dignity  of  the  gentlemen  who  write 
of  book-collecting. 

Edmund  Lester  Pearson 

Books  Received 

FICTION 

Bailey,  H.  C.  Barry  Leroy.  Dutton.  $2.00 
net. 

Banning,  Margaret  Culkin.  This  Marrying. 
Doran. 

Bojer,  John.  Treacherous  Ground.  Moffat, 
Yard. 

Cadmus  and  Harmonia.  The  Island  of 
Sheep.     Houghton   Mifflin.     $1.50. 

Capes,  Bernard.    The  Skeleton  Key.    Doran. 

Chamberlain,  George  A.  Taxi.  Bobbs- 
Merrill. 

Fitzgerald,  F.  Scott.  This  Side  of  Paradise. 
Scribner.    $1.75  net. 

Gale,   Zona.     Miss  Lulu  Bett.     Appleton. 

Galsworthy,  John.  Tatterdemalion.  Scrib- 
ners.     $1.90  net. 

Haggard,  H.  Rider.  The  Ancient  Allan. 
Longmans.     $1.75  net. 

Holding,  Elizabeth  S.  Invincible  Minnie. 
Doran. 

Humphreys,  Mrs.  Desmond.  Diana  of  the 
Ephesians.     Stokes. 

Jepson,  Edgar.    Pollyooly  Dances.    Duffield. 

Maurois,  Andre.  The  Silence  of  Colonel 
Bramble.     Lane.    $1.25  net. 

McMasters,  Wm.  H.  Revolt.  Small,  May- 
nard. 

Spofford,  Harriet  P.  The  Elder's  People. 
Houghton  Mifflin. 

Washburn,  Claude  C.  Order.  Duffield. 
$2.00  net.. 

ESSAYS  AND  CRITICISM 

Mackenzie,  J.  S.  Arrows  of  Desire :  Essays 
on  British  Characteristics.    Macmillian.    $3.75. 

Macmichael,  William.  The  Gold  Headed 
Cane.    New  York:  Hoeber.    $3.75. 

Parker,  Carleton  H.  The  Casual  Laborer 
and  Other  Essays.    Harcourt,  Brace  &  Howe. 

Symonds,  John  Addington.  In  the  Key  of 
Blue  and  Other  Prose  Essays.     Macmillan. 

MISCELLANEOUS 

Bleyer,  Willard  G.  How  to  Write  Special 
Feature  Articles.     Houghton  Mifflin. 

Crowder,  Maj.-Gen.  E.  H.  The  Spirit  of 
Selective  Service.     Century. 

D'Annunzio,  Gabriele.  Tales  of  My  Native 
Town.     Doubleday,  Page. 

Grey,  Viscount.  Recreation.  Houghton 
Mifflin.    $1.25. 

Harrison,  Jane  Ellen.  Aspects,  Aorists  and 
the  Classical  Tripos.  Cambridge  Universitj 
Press. 

Klickmann,  Flora.  The  Lure  of  the  Pen 
Putnam. 

Shaw,  Leslie  M.  Vanishing  Landmarks 
Laird  &  Lee. 


THE  REVIEW 


513 


Vol.  2,  No.  49 


New  York,  Saturday,  April  17,  1920 


FIFTEEN  CENTS 


Contents 


Brief  Comment  373 

Editorial  Articles: 

The  Chances  at  Chicago  376 

Information  from  Russia  376 

The  Preservation  of  Our  Wild  Life  378 

A  Question  of  Longevity  379 
Theodore    Dreiser,    Philosopher.      By 

P.  E.  M.  380 
The  Case  of  Maurice  Maeterlinck.     By 

Joseph  Jastrow  381 
Gone   German    University    Days.     By 

G.  R.  Elliott  384 
The    Revival    of    the    Classic    Drama. 

By  James  M.  Beck  386 
Correspondence  388 
Book  Reviews: 
John  Redmond  390 
Studies  in  Honor  of  Dr.  Osier  391 
Gardens  and  Garden  Books  392 
New   American    Novels:    The    Indi- 
vidual Bobs  Up  392 
The  Tragic  Years  394 
Bulgarian  Apologia  395 
A  New  Brand  of  Modernism  396 
The  Masquerade  398 
The  Run  of  the  Shelves  400 
Books  That  Appear  in  the  Spring.     By 

Edmund    Lester    Pearson  402 
The  Ship's  Library.     By   Robert   Pal- 
frey Utter  404 
The  Nature  Lover.    By  William  Beebe  406 
Problems  of  Labor  and  Capital: 
II.  Honest   Ballots   for   Unions   and 
Employers'  Associations.   By  Mor- 
ris L.  Ernst  408 
Bcoks  and  the  News:    Primaries  409 
Educational  Section: 
The  University  President  410 
Universal  Training  412 
Education  for  the  Cotton  Industry  415 

"FHE  railroad  workers'  strike  is  a 

^    vivid  reminder  of  the  coal  strike. 

\.n  both  there  are  the  same  elements 

|)f  doubt  as  to  the  true  inwardness  of 

,he  move.    In  both  there  is  the  same 

absence  of  any  doubt  as  to  the  intol- 

hrableness  of  the  method  resorted  to. 

\.nd  in  both  there  is  the  same  element 

if  just  grievance  on  the  part  of  the 

trikers.    The  greatest  point  of  dif- 

erence  is  in  the  attitude  assumed  by 

he    heads    of    the    great    railroad 

brotherhoods.      The    strike    is    dis- 

inctly  of  "outlaw"  character,  and  the 

?rotherhood  chiefs  seem  to  be  thor- 

ughly    sincere    in    their    energetic 

'Pposition  to  it.     Moreover,  it  is  a 

atisfaction  to   note  that   President 

iCe,  of  the  Brotherhood  of  Railway 


Trainmen,  expressly  says  this  good 
word  for  the  railroads : 

There  have  been  rumors  that  the  new  or- 
ganization, known  as  the  Yardmen's  Associa- 
tion, and  made  up  of  deserting  members  of  the 
older  bodies,  was  inspired  by  the  railroads  as  a 
means  of  destroying  organized  labor.  But  I 
can  not  say  emphatically  enough  that  I  do  not 
beheve  this  true.  The  railroads  themselves 
have  honorably  kept  their  contracts  with  us, 
and  it  is  the  aim  of  the  Brotherhood  to  treat 
them  as  fairly.  To  this  end  I  have  issued 
orders  that  the  unlawful  strike  by  deserting 
members  be  broken  even  at  the  cost  of  placing 
loyal  Brotherhood  men  in  their  places. 

npHE  strike  deserves  the  designa- 
-*•  tion  of  "outlaw"  for  more  rea- 
sons than  one.  Primarily,  it  is  ap- 
plied, of  course,  to  indicate  that  the 
strike  was  inaugurated  without 
authority  of  the  recognized  labor  or- 
ganizations, and  in  defiance  of  their 
heads.  But  this  defiance  takes  the 
shape  not  only  of  insurgency  against 
those  leaders,  but  of  the  breaking  of 
the  contract  which  they  had  made  as 
representatives  of  the  men.  The  most 
serious  phase  of  the  outlawry,  how- 
ever, is  one  that  has  nothing  to  do 
with  any  question  either  of  contracts 
or  of  organization,  but  with  the 
method  of  the  strike  itself.  In  at- 
tempting to  gain  their  objects  by  a 
sudden  attack  upon  the  life  of  the 
community,  the  strikers  have  put 
themselves  into  the  position  of  a  pub- 
lic enemy.  Some  look  upon  the  move 
as  a  revolutionary  manifestation; 
most  probably  it  is  in  the  main  simply 
•  a  strike  for  wages,  which  the  revolu- 
tionary element  is  trying  to  make  the 
most  of.  But  whichever  it  is,  its 
threat  against  the  well-being  of  the 
whole  people  must  be  met  with  all  the 
energy  that  the  people  and  their  Gov- 
ernment can  command. 

A  S  regards  wages,  the  facts  are  not 
■^  sufficiently  known  to  warrant  a 
confident  statement;  but  it  looks  as 
though  the  men  were  justified  in  the 
assertion  that  their  wages  have 
lagged  far  behind  the  rise  in  the  cost 
of  living,  as  well  as  behind  the  ad- 


vances made  in  many  other  lines  of 
work.  And  there  is  one  special  point 
that  must  not  be  forgotten.  When 
the  President  appealed  to  the  rail- 
road men,  last  August,  to  refrain 
from  striking  until  the  Government 
had  been  given  a  chance  to  carry  out 
its  programme  for  reducing  the  cost 
of  living,  what  he  was  asking  for  was 
not  an  indefinite  postponement.  He 
and  his  advisers  were  looking  for- 
ward to  the  inauguration  of  a  great 
"drive"  to  bring  down  prices,  from 
which  they  expected  speedy  and  de- 
cisive results.  Seven  months  have 
passed  since,  and  prices  are  not  lower, 
but  distinctly  higher,  than  they  were 
then.  There  was  never  any  good  rea- 
son to  believe  that  the  measures 
which  the  Government  had  in  view 
would  have  any  appreciable  effect  in 
the  lowering  of  prices.  They  were 
directed  at  superficial  and  minor 
evils,  which  were  mere  symptoms  of 
a  deep-seated  difficulty.  The  hope 
that  anything  of  large  importance 
could  be  accomplished  in  those  ways 
has  long  been  abandoned,  and  the 
men  who  were  asked  to  wait  for 
something  that  has  not  happened, 
and  that  nobody  is  expecting  to  hap- 
pen in  the  near  future,  can  not  be 
blamed  for  demanding  that  their  case 
be  attended  to.  If  they  had  made  the 
demand  in  a  decent  and  proper 
manner,  it  would  undoubtedly  have 
gained  a  friendly  hearing  from  the 
public. 

Tj^NGLAND  and  France  are  passing 
'-^  through  a  critical  moment  in 
their  relations  to  each  other  and  to 
Germany.  The  situation  contains 
elements  that  can  not  be  thought  of 
without  grave  anxiety.  But  it  is  rash 
to  say,  as  does  Mr.  Frank  Simonds, 
that  "the  present  crisis  foreshadows 
the  end  of  that  alliance  which  saved 
Europe  by  insuring  German  defeat  in 
the  World  War."  If  the  maintenance 
of  that  alliance  were  necessary   to 


374] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  49 


France  and  not  to  England,  or  neces- 
sary to  England  and  not  to  France, 
this  dark  view  might  be  justified ;  but 
it  is  just  as  true  that  France  saved 
England  as  that  England  saved 
France.  The  trouble  between  them 
over  the  Ruhr  situation,  whatever  its 
deeper  causes,  arises  directly  from 
the  contrast  between  the  intensity  of 
French  apprehension  of  the  German 
danger  and  the  laxity  of  British  feel- 
ing about  it.  There  is  no  reason  why 
a  middle  ground  should  not  be  found, 
between  these  two  extremes  and 
more  in  accord  with  the  actual  facts 
than  either.  Both  countries  have  too 
much  at  stake  in  the  preservation  of 
the  Entente  for  either  of  them  to  sac- 
rifice it  if  there  is  any  way  to  pre- 
serve it — and  it  would  be  strange 
indeed  if  a  way  could  not  be  found. 
For  Americans  the  most  comforting 
element  in  the  situation,  at  this  mo- 
ment, is  the  apparently  well-estab- 
lished fact  that  our  own  Government 
has,  in  the  presence  of  a  most  delicate 
situation,  maintained  not  only  a  "cor- 
rect" but  a  really  helpful  attitude. 
To  keep  Britain  and  France  good 
friends,  and  America  a  good  friend 
of  both,  should  be  regarded  as  the 
most  vital  of  all  our  international 
aims. 

npHE  Navy  inquiry  has  revealed  no 
-'■  substantial  defect  of  organiza- 
tion. Indeed,  that  system  must  be  ex- 
cellent which  worked  reasonably  well 
under  a  chief  who  didn't  know  his 
own  mind.  The  main  trouble,  in  a 
word,  was  that  Secretary  Daniels 
would  not  promptly  accept  a  general 
strategic  plan,  but  preferred  to  feel 
his  way.  Admiral  Benson,  Chief  of 
Operations,  whose  task  it  was  to  per- 
suade the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  to 
adopt  a  plan  based  on  the  actual  sit- 
uation, was  unequal  to  the  feat.  A 
stronger  man  would  naturally  have 
resigned  and  made  the  situation  clear. 
Admiral  Benson  hung  on  patiently, 
and  urged  one  thing  at  a  time  on  the 
Secretary.  Thus  in  six  months  or  so 
the  Navy  achieved  the  necessary  team 
play.  The  delay  had  been  serious,  but 
not  fatal.  It  is  clear  that  the  Bureau 
of  Operations  was  negligent  in  not 
preparing  an  anti-submarine  plan 
from  the  moment  of  our  first  clash 


with  Germany.  The  Navy  was  un- 
fortunate in  having  a  Chief  of  Opera- 
tions who  could  not  cope  with  Mr. 
Daniels's  idiosyncrasies.  Yet  Ad- 
miral Benson  deserves  rather  sym- 
pathy than  censure.  He  was  dealing 
with  one  of  the  strongest  things  in 
the  world — the  will  to  procrastinate. 
Mr.  Daniels,  on  his  side,  could  not 
suddenly  divest  himself  of  the  men- 
tality of  a  petty  politician.  His 
indecision  and  confusion  of  mind  un- 
questionably slowed  down  our  naval 
effort  by  three  months  or  so — and  the 
critical  months  of  the  anti-submarine 
campaign. 

Navy  and  laity  will  join  in  the 
sentiment  that,  considering  that  Mr. 
Daniels  was  in  charge,  it  was  lucky 
things  went  as  well  as  they  did. 
Charge  the  delay,  confusion,  and 
needless  expense  to  Mr.  Wilson's 
cult  of  unpreparedness  and  to  Mr. 
Daniels's  psychology.  The  Navy  it- 
self displayed  an  energy  that  largely 
compensated  for  the  absence  of  any 
initial  policy.  The  organization  more 
than  responded  to  all  appeals.  The 
appeals  were  not  made  intelligently 
or  promptly.  War  is  merely  an  ex- 
tension of  policy,  and  until  we  had 
been  at  war  for  three  months  Mr. 
Daniels,  and  consequently  the  Navy, 
had  no  policy.  Such  is  the  chief  re- 
sult of  the  inquiry. 


I 


WOULD  rather  be  a  cow  than  be 


of  genuine  disillusion  are  now  begin- 
ning to  be  heard.  What  else  was  to 
be  expected  from  those  who  built  up 
hopes  of  an  entirely  new  order  of 
civilization  coming  into  being  after 
the  war?  It  is  the  price  of  a  "vision" 
which  they  are  now  paying.  The 
Review  has  repeatedly  called  atten- 
tion to  the  cruel  awakening  that 
would  come  to  trusters  in  such  false 
hopes.  China,  with  its  Shantung 
episode,  was  the  first  of  the  nations 
to  experience  it,  and  the  weaker  peo- 
ples, generally,  have  begun  to  see  that 
absolute  justice  is  not  to  be  obtained 
— or  even  defined — all  of  a  sudden. 
But  it  is  the  American  boosters  of  the 
President's  programme  who  have  re- 
ceived the  greatest  jolt.  If  the  Presi- 
dent himself  is  disillusioned,  he  is 
careful  to  hide  his  feelings.   Utopias 


of  any  magnitude  have  always  failed, 
and  one  great  reason  for  their  failure 
has  been  the  food  problem.  Food — 
the  lack  of  it — is  what  is  spoiling  Mr. 
Wilson's  dream.  While  conditions  in 
Europe  each  day  cry  louder  for  our 
help,  for  a  resumption  of  effective 
economic  conditions,  the  President 
holds  out  for  the  realization  of  every 
detail  of  his  huge  programme.  When 
a  man's  house  burns  down,  he  re- 
builds according  to  a  better  plan — 
if  he  can  afford  to.  If  the  house  is 
not  insured,  he  may  have  to  make 
shift  until,  after  some  years  of  plod- 
ding, he  can  rebuild  it  nearer  to  his 
ideal.  Europe  is  close  to  exhaustion. 
Are  we  to  go  on  bickering  over  the 
prospect  of  a  perfect,  or  nearly  per- 
fect, world  before  helping  to  bring 
some  sort  of  order  out  of  the  chaos? 
The  desire  (if  it  has  any  real  vitality, 
as  we  believe  it  has)  for  a  better 
civilization  to  come  later  on  will  not 
be  destroyed  by  our  getting  back  to 
a  peace  footing  and  lending  much- 
needed  assistance  now.  j 

THE  present  tower  of  high  prices  is  builded 
upon  something  infinitely  more  firm  than 
the  sand  of  the  profiteers.  It  is  built  upon  the 
ivory  of  twenty  or  thirty  million  consumers 
who  are  too  busy  consuming  to  produce. — 
Kansas  City  Star. 

Yes,  yes;  but  how  do  they  get  the  i 
money  with  which  to  pay  the  prices? 
Like  the  famous  Hebrides  Islanders 
who  make  their  living  by  taking  in 
each  other's  washing? 

T^HE  institution  of  freedom  of 
•*•  speech  and  of  the  press  suffered 
intrusions  in  time  of  war,  and  some 
good  people  have  been  alarmed  lest 
these  intrusions  threatened  the  very 
existence  of  our  democracy.  But  it 
will  not  be  abandoned  by  those  who 
have  for  generations  cherished  it. 
The  violent  protests  which  we  have 
heard  come  chiefly  from  an  entirely 
different  class  of  people.  They  come, 
indeed,  from  people  who  themselves 
are  most  intolerant  of  freedom  of 
speech  in  others.  They  are  not  in 
the  least  concerned  when  the  opin- 
ions and  the  appeals  of  the  sober, 
thoughtful,  and  truly  progressive  ele- 
ments of  a  community  do  not  re- 
ceive publicity.  They  are  only  con- 
cerned   with    securing    the    widest 


April  17,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[375 


forum  for  those  who  voice  unrest,  dis- 
content, disbelief  in  our  institutions, 
and  wild  revolutionary  doctrines. 

WHY  these  agitators  arrogate  to 
themselves  the  role  of  defend- 
ers of  the  freedom  of  speech  is 
made  clear  by  Mr.  N.  Bukharin,  chief 
spokesman  of  the  Bolshevik  regime  at 
Moscow.  In  1918  he  published  under 
the  title  of  "The  Communist  Pro- 
gramme" an  authoritative  exposition 
of  their  principles.  A  portion  of  this 
book  was  published  in  America  by  a 
revolutionary  organization,  but  it  was 
careful  to  omit  from  it  Chapter  VII, 
in  which  Mr.  Bukharin  states  the  Bol- 
shevik attitude  toward  freedom  of 
speech  with  an  unlooked-for  cynicism, 
a  cynicism  that  comes  out  like  a  yel- 
low streak  following  the  Bolshevik 
triumph.    Thus  Mr.  Bukharin  vvrites : 

If  we  have  a  dictatorship  of  the  proletariat, 
the  object  of  which  is  to  stifle  the  bourgeoisie, 
to  compel  it  to  give  up  its  attempts  for  the 
restoration  of  the  bourgeois  authority,  then  it 
is  obvious  that  there  can  be  no  talk  of  allow- 
ing the  bourgeoisie  electoral  rights  or  of  a 
change  from  soviet  authority  to  a  bourgeois- 
republican  parliament. 

The  Communist  (Bolshevik)  party  receives 
from  all  sides  accusations  and  even  threats 
like  the  following:  "You  close  newspapers, 
you  arrest  people,  you  forbid  meetings,  you 
trample  under  foot  freedom  of  speech  and  of 
the  press,  you  reconstruct  autocracy,  you  are 
oppressors  and  murderers." 

It  is  necessary  to  discuss  in  detail  this  ques- 
tion of  "liberties"  in  a  Soviet  Republic. 

At  present  the  following  is  clear  for  the 
workingmen  and  the  peasants.  The  Com- 
munist party  not  only  does  not  demand  _  any 
liberty  of  the  press,  speech,  meetings,  unions, 
etc.,  for  the  bourgeois  enemies  of  the  people, 
but,  on  the  contrary,  it  demands  that  the  Gov- 
ernment should  be  always  in  readiness  to  close 
the  bourgeois  press ;  to  disperse  the  meetings 
of  the  enemies  of  the  people ;  to  forbid  them 
to  lie,  slander,  and  spread  panic;  to  crush 
ruthlessly  all  attempts  at  a  restoration  of  the 
bourgeois  regime.  This  is  precisely  the  mean- 
ing of  the  dictatorship  of  the  proletariat. 

Another  question  may  be  put  to  us :  "Why 
did  the  Bolsheviki  not  speak  formerly  of  the 
abrogation  of  full  liberty  for  the  bourgeoisie? 
Why  did  they  formerly  support  the  idea  of  a 
bourgeois-democratic  republic?  Why  did  they 
support  the  idea  of  the  Constituent  Assembly 
and  did  not  speak  of  depriving  the  bourgeoisie 
of  the  right  of  suffrage?  Why  have  they 
changed  their  programme  so  far  as  these  ques- 
tions are  concerned?  " 

The  answer  to  this  question  is  very  simple. 
The  working  class  formerly  did  not  have 
strength  enough  to  storm  the  bulwarks  of  the 
bourgeoisie.  It  needed  preparation,  accumula- 
tion of  strength,  enlightenment  of  the  masses, 
organization.  It  needed,  for  example,  the 
freedom  of  its  own  labor  press.  But  it  could 
not  come  to  the  capitalists  and  to  their  govern- 
ments and  demand  that  they  shut  down  their 
own  newspapers  and  give  full  freedom  to  the 
labor  papers.  Everybody  would  merely  laugh 
at  the  workingmen.  Such  demands  can  be 
made  only  at  the  time  of  a  storming  attack. 
And  there  had  never  been  such  a  time  before. 
This  is  why  the  workingmen  demanded   (and 


our  party,  too),  "Freedom  of  the  press  I"  (Of 
the     whole     press,     including     the     bourgeois 

press.) 


rpHAT  the  solution  of  the  Danish 
-*-  crisis  is  not  exclusively  a  Social- 
ist victory,  but  rather  a  democratic 
victory  of  common  sense  over  chau- 
vinism, is  shown  by  the  constitution 
of  the  new  Ministry.  The  reinstate- 
ment of  Mr.  Hansen  as  Commissioner 
for  Slesvig  affairs  seems  even  to  in- 
dicate that  the  settlement,  from  the 
King's  standpoint,  is  a  compromise 
rather  than  a  surrender.  Mr.  Han- 
sen was  formerly  editor  of  Heymdal 
in  Apenrode,  in  which  capacity  he 
was  a  strong  protagonist  of  the  Dan- 
ish element  on  Germany's  northern 
frontier.  As  a  member  of  the  Zahle 
Government,  it  is  true,  he  advocated 
moderation,  until,  shortly  before  the 
plebiscite  in  the  first  zone,  he  deliv- 
ered an  address  at  Flensburg  in  which 
he  confessed  to  holding  the  opinion 
that  Flensburg  ought  to  be  Danish. 
Among  the  Germans  of  North  Sles- 
vig this  change  of  attitude  was 
looked  upon  as  a  time-serving  device 
evidencing  the  growing  influence  of 
the  annexionist  group  in  Denmark, 
and  not  as  the  expression  of  Mr.  Han- 
sen's real  conviction.  His  reappoint- 
ment seems  to  confirm  that  impres- 
sion. But,  all  the  same,  the  annexion- 
ists  can  claim  him  as  one  of  theirs 
by  reminding  him  of  his  Flensburg 
speech. 

P  E.  M.,  whose  spirited  article  on 
-*-  •  Mr.  Theodore  Dreiser  is  printed 
on  another  page,  was  somewhat 
abashed  (or  was  it  exhilarated?)  by 
our  invitation  to  write  about  so  slip- 
pery a  modern.  And  it  must  be  con- 
fessed that  even  in  the  diversified 
gallery  of  the  Shelburne  Essays  the 
portrait  of  Mr.  Dreiser  would  create 
a  scandal.  What  shall  a  critic  of  Mr. 
More's  classical  lines  do  with  one 
who,  as  is  pointed  out,  can  praise 
"The  Prince"  of  Machiavelli  as  the 
truest  of  books,  and  the  next  minute 
flock  enthusiastically  with  flabby 
humanitarians?  Yet  it  will  not  do  to 
pass  him  by  in  silence,  for  he  and  a 
few  others  of  his  kind  have  the  floor 
to-day.  We  suggest  that  our  best 
critics  might  well  defer  for  a  time 
the  study  of  the  Church  Fathers  and 


such  like  dignitaries  and  repair  to  the 
forum  of  present-day  problems.  The 
best  French  critics  have  never  been 
averse  to  tackling  all  comers. 

'T'HE  discussion  of  Mr.  Frank  E. 
-*■  Spaulding's  proposal  for  a  com- 
pulsory year  of  training  in  "civic 
responsibility"  has  very  definite  bear- 
ing on  the  conditions  of  the  present 
moment.  With  Princeton  students 
volunteering  in  a  body  for  service  on 
the  railroads,  with  Morristown  com- 
muters ("millionaires,"  no  doubt) 
firing  the  train  that  carries  them  to 
the  city,  it  is  evident  that  there  is  a 
point  beyond  which  the  public  is  not 
willing  to  suffer  while  the  grievances 
of  any  small  industrial  group,  how- 
ever just  they  may  be,  are  awaiting 
a  settlement. 

A  spirit  of  adventure,  the  ama- 
teur's keen  delight  in  discovering  that 
he  can  do  fairly  well  something  that 
he  has  not  regarded  as  his  proper 
job,  may  always  be  counted  on  to 
furnish  some  help  in  a  pinch  of  this 
sort.  But  if  such  crises  multiply  in 
number  and  severity  something  more 
will  be  needed.  If  society  finally 
breaks  down  because  it  has  grown 
too  complicated,  because  any  fool 
who  can  possess  himself  of  a  mon- 
key-wrench can  wreck  its  delicate 
mechanism,  it  will  be  society's  own 
fault  for  not  taking  in  time  steps 
which  will  make  its  functions  less 
highly  specialized  and  the  services  of 
its  members  more  readily  inter- 
changeable. To  any  plan  which  looked 
to  the  accomplishment  of  such  ends  a 
good  deal  of  opposition  might  be  ex- 
pected. But  nothing  like  an  organ- 
ized nation  of  professional  strike- 
breakers would  result  from  even  the 
fullest  establishment  of  it.  The  spirit 
of  adventure,  the  spirit  of  the  ama- 
teur, would  still  control,  and  this  is 
a  spirit  which  is  warmed  by  fires 
that  burn  brightly  but  can  not  be 
counted  on  to  burn  long.  So  far  as 
the  plan  functioned  publicly,  it  would 
function  only  to  meet  a  crisis  which 
is  potentially  destructive.  Meanwhile, 
the  chief  benefits  would  accrue  to  the 
individual.  Mr.  Spaulding's  plan,  at 
any  rate,  points  in  a  direction  which 
gives  promise  of  rewarding  further 
exploration. 


376] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  49 


The  Chances  at  Ch  i  cago 

'T'HE  political  sky  shows  little  sign 
-'■  of  clearing  up.  On  the  Demo- 
cratic side  there  is  almost  literally 
nothing  doing.  On  the  Republican 
side  there  came  a  sudden  flash  with 
the  Michigan  primaries,  which  quite 
dazzled  people  for  a  while,  but  which 
has  shed  little  if  any  real  light  on 
the  situation.  The  approaching  pri- 
maries in  New  Jersey  and  Illinois 
may  prove  significant,  but  there  is  no 
very  strong  reason  for  expecting  that 
they  will.  With  the  Republican  Con- 
vention less  than  two  months  off,  the 
field  continues  to  be  as  nondescript 
as  ever. 

Senator  Johnson's  victory  in  Michi- 
gan was  superficially  striking,  and 
certainly  was  a  surprise.  But  as  an 
index  of  the  state  of  mind  of  the 
country  it  has  no  importance  what- 
soever. First  and  foremost,  a  feature 
of  the  case  must  be  noted  which  has 
attracted  little  or  no  attention.  Quite 
apart  from  the  fact  that  the  victory 
is  wholly  accounted  for  by  the  highly 
peculiar  Detroit  vote,  it  was  essen- 
tially the  victory  of  a  united  vote 
against  a  divided  one. .  The  votes  cast 
in  the  entire  State  for  Wood,  Lowden, 
Hoover,  and  Pershing  were  in  the  ag- 
gregate far  greater  than  the  vote  cast 
for  Johnson.  His  vote  represented 
all  the  elements  of  radicalism  and  of 
discontent — including  many  forms  of 
racial  ill-feeling,  pro-German,  pro- 
Irish,  pro-Russian;  the  non-radical 
and  non-racial  vote  was  split  up 
among  the  other  four  candidates. 
Johnson  beat  Wood  by  a  plurality  of 
perhaps  45,000,  but  he  fell  short  of 
the  combined  vote  of  the  four  by  about 
55,000.  Now  the  fact  that  there  were 
four  important  candidates  in  the  field 
besides  Johnson,  all  of  them  repre- 
senting a  standpoint  sharply  con- 
trasted with  his,  is  merely  an  acci- 
dental feature  and  robs  the  result  of 
all  authority. 

But  the  significance  of  Johnson's 
victory  in  Michigan  is  further  dimin- 
ished by  consideration  of  the  part 
played  in  it  by  the  vote  of  Detroit. 
With  that  vote  left  out,  the  other  four 
Ciindidates  beat  Johnson  by  about 
32,000 ;  their  combined  vote  was  con- 
siderably more  than  the  double  of 


his.  And  the  reasons  for  Johnson's 
extraordinary  majority  in  Detroit 
are  highly  peculiar.  Not  only  is  that 
city  a  hotbed  of  radical  sentiment, 
but  Senator  Johnson's  aggressive  and 
spectacular  opposition  to  the  retain- 
ing of  American  soldiers  in  Siberia 
was  doubly  effective  in  winning  votes 
for  him  in  Detroit.  It  got  him  the 
Russian  vote  as  such,  and  it  got  him 
the  vote  of  thousands  of  friends  and 
neighbors  of  the  Detroit  boys  who,  as 
it  happens,  formed  a  large  part  of  our 
Siberian  troops.  When  to  all  these 
points  is  added  the  big  makeweight 
against  Wood  which  the  charge  of 
lavish  use  of  money  for  his  campaign 
had  naturally  produced,  coming  on 
the  heels  of  the  Newberry  conviction, 
it  is  obvious  how  little  ground  the 
Detroit  vote  furnishes  for  any  infer- 
ence as  to  the  state  of  mind  of  the 
country  at  large. 

If  any  inference  at  all  be  permissi- 
ble from  the  Michigan  elections  it 
would  seem  to  be  one  favorable  to 
the  chances  of  Mr.  Hoover  at  Chi- 
cago. With  almost  no  campaign,  and 
with  the  announcement  of  his  can- 
didacy hardly  a  week  old,  he  polled 
about  45,000  votes  in  Michigan,  al- 
most exactly  the  same  as  Governor 
Lowden,  and  more  than  half  as  many 
as  General  Wood.  This,  together 
with  the  showing  he  made  in  the 
Democratic  primaries,  in  spite  of  his 
having  announced  himself  as  a  Re- 
publican candidate,  gives  substantial 
proof,  if  any  were  needed,  of  the  exis- 
tence of  a  large  spontaneous  senti- 
ment for  Mr.  Hoover  among  the 
people  throughout  the  country.  But 
it  is  not  upon  this  circumstance  that 
the  inference  favorable  to  his  chances 
at  Chicago  rests,  for  the  vote  merely 
confirmed  what  was  already  sufl[i- 
ciently  well  known.  The  point  is  that 
anything  that  makes  Johnson  strong 
tends  to  make  Hoover  possible;  and, 
although  the  Michigan  figures  have 
little  evidential  value  as  regards 
Johnson,  they  certainly  have  estab- 
lished the  fact  that  a  strong,  fight 
is  going  to  be  made  for  him.  Mr. 
Hoover  will  have  no  show  at  all 
among  the  Chicago  delegates,  on  the 
face  of  things;  not  only  will  very 
few  of  them  be  committed  to  him,  but 
nearly  all  will  be  strongly  adverse  to 


taking  him.  His  only  chance  is  that 
of  his  being  turned  to  by  the  Con- 
vention as  the  clear  means  of  rescue 
from  a  dangerous  situation.  He  will 
not  be  nominated  in  order  to  prevent 
the  Democrats  from  nominating  him, 
and  we  do  not  believe  that  this  would 
have  been  at  all  likely  to  happen  even 
if  he  had  not  plainly  declared,  as  he 
now  has  done,  that  he  would  not  take 
the  Democratic  nomination.  But  he 
may  be  nominated  in  order  to  keep 
the  party  united;  and  the  more  for- 
midable the  manifestation  of  the 
Johnsonites  at  Chicago,  the  more  pos- 
sibility is  there  of  such  an  outcome. 


Information  from 
Russia 

TF  one  is  to  judge  from  the  numerous 
-*■  correspondents  who  have  recently 
been  permitted  to  visit  Russia  and 
send  out  the  results  of  their  observa- 
tions and  interviews,  the  rulers  of 
Moscow  are  now  seeking  publicity  in- 
stead of  concealment.  But  corre- 
spondents seem  to  have  been  person- 
ally conducted  with  the  utmost  care, 
and  it  is  evident  that  not  one  of  them 
was  admitted  without  careful  scru- 
tiny. The  matter  they  send  is  there- 
fore not  to  be  taken  at  its  face  value ; 
but  to  the  careful  student  of  Russia, 
who  has  a  background  of  Russian  ex- 
perience, and  who  analyzes  the  in- 
ternal evidence  of  the  articles,  they 
present  valuable  sources  of  informa- 
tion. 

The  most  prominent  and  intelligent 
of  these  recent  journalistic  visitors 
to  the  land  of  Communism  is  Mr.  Lin- 
coln Eyre,  and  the  series  of  articles 
by  him  in  the  New  York  World  con- 
tains a  mass  of  concrete  information. 
It  is  evident  that  he  was  able  to  put 
searching  questions  to  the  Soviet 
leaders  in  his  interviews,  and  that 
frequently  he  was  able  to  see  beyond 
the  screens  whereby  they  sought  to 
limit  his  vision.  Nevertheless,  they 
were  able  to  confuse  him  consider- 
ably, and  the  result  is  that  his  mate- 
rial must  be  carefully  scrutinized  and 
evaluated  in  order  to  get  a  just  esti- 
mate of  present-day  Russian  affairs. 

One  of  Mr.  Eyre's  recent  articles 
is  devoted  to  the  administration  of 
justice  under  the  Russian  Soviet  sys- 


f 


April  17,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[877 


tern.  He  describes  in  an  interesting 
manner  how  he  attended  the  session 
of  a  revolutionary  tribunal  trying  a 
noble  and  ten  priests  for  treason 
against  the  Soviet  Republic,  and  then 
goes  on  to  a  general  consideration  of 
judicial  procedure  and  crime  statis- 
tics. He  draws  the  conclusion  that 
order  now  prevails  and  that  crime  is 
on  the  decrease,  and  lays  considerable 
emphasis  on  the  improvement  of 
prison  conditions.  The  casual  reader 
will  gain  the  impression  that  the  Bol- 
shevik regime,  in  spite  of  its  utterly 
lawless  and  arbitrary  character,  had 
succeeded  not  only  in  establishing 
order,  but  in  raising  the  general 
moral  tone  of  the  country. 

Yet  Mr.  Eyre  unconsciously  dis- 
proves all  this  in  the  same  article. 
He  bases  his  conclusion  that  there  is 
less  crime  upon  a  comparison  of  sta- 
tistics, but  in  this  he  fails  to  take 
into  consideration  that  for  such  a 
comparison  statistics  must  refer  to 
the  same  things  and  must  have  a 
common  basis  of  interpretation.  Call- 
ing attention  to  a  sharp  diminution 
in  the  total  of  criminal  cases  tried, 
he  says:  "During  the  Soviet  fiscal 
year  1918-1919,  November  to  Novem- 
ber, there  were  only  47,120  persons 
tried  for  crime  in  Petrograd,  as 
against  160,000  in  1914.  The  popula- 
tion for  the  former  capital  in  the 
same  period  decreased  more  than  50 
per  cent.,  but  still  the  reduction  in 
crime  is  very  considerable."  The 
cases  of  those  tried  in  1914  were,  of 
course,  those  of  persons  accused  of 
offenses  against  a  regularly  estab- 
lished code  of  criminal  law.  The  cases 
in  1918-1919,  however,  are  entirely 
different,  as  shown  by  Mr.  Eyre's 
own  statement  to  the  effect  that 
"judges  are  obliged  not  only  to  ap- 
ply, but  to  create,  the  laws  under 
which,  according  to  the  Peoples'  Com- 
missaries' rule,  they  are  to  be  gov- 
erned 'by  a  sense  of  Socialist  concep- 
tion of  right.'  "  In  other  words,  Mr. 
Eyre  compares  the  statistics  of  crim- 
inal cases  before  regularly  organized 
courts  under  an  established  penal 
code  with  the  loose  and  valueless  rec- 
ords of  cases  before  revolutionary 
tribunals,  themselves  making  as  well 
as  administering  the  laws,  according 
to  some  rude  ideas  of  justice,  in- 


fluenced by  popular  emotion.  He 
does  not  even  call  attention  to  the 
fact  that  these  tribunals  were  for  the 
most  part  self-chosen  or  appointed  by 
irresponsible  Commissars,  or  that 
they  were  frequently  composed  of 
men  who  themselves  were  criminals 
but  recently  released  from  jail. 

Having  proved  to  his  own  satisfac- 
tion that  crime  is  on  the  decrease  in 
Russia,  Mr.  Eyre  proceeds  to  explain 
this,  on  the  ground,  first,  of  the  iron 
order  imposed  by  the  Soviets  in  the 
informal  ruthlessness  of  their  treat- 
ment of  criminals,  and  secondly,  of 
the  ban  on  vodka.  This  latter  reason 
is  distinctly  ludicrous.  The  ban  on 
vodka  was  imposed  in  1914  under  the 
old  regime,  ajid  was  made  effective, 
because  the  old  regime  had  in  its 
hands,  through  the  spirits  monopoly, 
the  complete  machinery  necessary  for 
its  control.  At  the  present  time  it  is 
a  notorious  fact,  frequently  attested 
in  the  official  Bolshevik  journals 
themselves,  that  vodka  is  being  manu- 
factured everywhere  clandestinely 
and  moonshine  spirits  abound.  Even 
the  Bolshevik  authorities  themselves 
complain  of  the  extent  of  drunken- 
ness among  the  Commissars,  and 
peasants  are  upbraided  for  turning 
grain  into  vodka  instead  of  sending  it 
to  the  starving  towns.  But  for  com- 
plete refutation  of  this  theory  that 
there  is  a  decrease  in  crime,  thanks 
to  the  abolition  of  vodka,  one  has  only 
to  refer  to  the  official  report  of  Mr. 
V.  Milutin  of  the  Supreme  Council 
of  National  Economy,  published  in 
its  official  organ.  Economic  Life, 
on  November  7,  1919.  After  stating 
that  the  sugar-beet  industry  has  fur- 
nished the  initial  step  in  the  creation 
of  the  rural  industries,  he  reports: 
"The  brandy-distilling  industry  oc- 
cupies the  next  place,  and  its  develop- 
ment has  been  begun  by  the  Supreme 
Council  of  National  Economy  during 
the  last  few  days."  In  other  words, 
the  manufacture  of  vodka  as  a  Gov- 
ernment monopoly  was  resumed 
last  year  and  is  considered  next  in 
importance  after  the  beet-sugar 
industry. 

One  could  multiply  such  examples 
at  will  in  Mr.  Eyre's  interesting 
articles  if  space  permitted.  One  ad- 
ditional   illustration,    however,    will 


suffice  to  show  the  limitations  of  a 
correspondent,  however  honest  in  his 
intentions,  if  he  speaks  no  Russian, 
has  no  background  of  Russian  expe- 
rience, and  is  dependent  upon  un- 
scrupulous Bolshevik  leaders  for  his 
information.  Much  has  been  written 
about  education  in  Russia  under  the 
Soviets,  and  the  radicals  have  cir- 
culated assiduously  the  fine-sounding 
but  utterly  baseless  reports  of 
Lunacharsky,  according  to  which  he 
had  opened  some  dozens  of  popular 
universities  and  ten  thousand  new 
schools,  and  had  devoted  billions  of 
rubles  to  education.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  an  examination  of  the  news 
items  in  the  official  Bolshevik  press 
shows  that  these  popular  universities 
were  closed  because  no  one  cared  to 
attend  them,  and  that,  so  far  from 
starting  new  schools,  thousands  of 
schools  were  discontinued  all  over 
Russia  from  lack  of  teachers.  What 
is  still  worse  is  that  in  such  schools 
as  remained,  the  only  Instruction  that 
is  given  is  that  devoted  to  instilling 
in  the  minds  of  the  children  Com- 
munistic ideas,  and  all  serious  educa- 
tion, even  of  the  simplest  sort,  is 
neglected.  All  this  is  inadvertently 
borne  out  by  Mr.  Eyre  in  the  very 
article  In  which  he  describes  at 
length  the  Bolshevik  claims  with  ref- 
erence to  education.  But  what  is  most 
interesting  of  all  is  his  description  of 
education  among  the  soldiers.  It  is 
here  that  the  Soviet  Government  has 
centred  its  greatest  efforts,  and  so 
Mr.  Eyre  states:  "It  was  claimed 
that  within  two  years,  if  demobiliza- 
tion did  not  intervene,  there  would 
not  be  a  single  uneducated  Red 
soldier."  Under  the  old  regime,  every 
soldier  was  given  a  simple  education 
during  his  military  service,  so  that 
the  idea  of  education  among  the  sol- 
diers is  not  a  new  one.  What  is  note- 
worthy is  that  at  the  present  time 
this  is  all  being  directed  along  the 
lines  of  Communist  propaganda,  and 
further  that  the  admission  is  inad- 
vertently made  of  a  lengthening  of 
the  term  of  service,  which  stamps 
the  Soviet  regime  as  definitely 
militaristic. 

Such  articles  as  those  by  Mr. 
Eyre,  who  may  be  considered  as  one 
of  the  best  of  the  journalists  that 


878] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  49 


have  been  permitted  to  visit  Soviet 
Russia,  illustrate  very  clearly  how 
necesstiry  it  is  to  analyze  and  pick 
to  pieces  the  material  which  is  being 
sent  out  of  Moscow.  If  such  a  task 
is  properly  performed,  much  valuable 
information  can  be  obtained  and  real 
light  thrown  upon  the  situation.  But 
if  one  takes  the  correspondence,  even 
of  thoroughly  reputable  writers, 
without  such  analysis  and  evaluation, 
a  wholly  distorted  impression  is  cre- 
ated, and  the  Bolshevik  authorities 
succeed  in  producing  the  effect  at 
which  their  propaganda  aims. 

The  Preservation  of 
Our  Wild  Life 

npHERE  is  scarcely  a  session  of  any 
•^  American  State  Legislature,  or 
of  Congress,  which  does  not  have  be- 
fore it  some  measure  for  the  alleged 
protection  of  fish,  wild  animals  of 
the  land,  or  birds.  And  yet  we  are 
told  by  the  most  trustworthy  authori- 
ties on  the  subject  that  many  species 
of  these  three  classes  of  wild  life — 
especially  those  sought  as  game  by 
the  sportsman — are  passing  swiftly 
toward  extinction  It  seems  quite  evi- 
dent, therefore,  that  the  legislation  so 
far  enacted  is  hopelessly  defective. 

Perhaps  the  main  difficulty  with 
Congress  and  the  State  Legislatures 
has  been  the  lack  of  a  suitable  body 
of  scientific  information  on  which  to 
base  a  complete,  consistent  and  effec- 
tive code  of  measures  for  wild  life 
conservation.  Some  single  phase  of  it 
is  brought  up,  such  as  the  limits  of 
the  open  season  for  bass  in  Ohio 
streams,  and  classes,  or  individuals, 
of  sportsmen's  leagues  immediately 
interested  supply  such  information  as 
will  make  for  their  view — generally 
a  narrowly  limited  and  one-sided  view 
— of  the  matter  in  hand.  The  legis- 
lator knows  not  where  to  turn  for 
any  complete  and  impartial  treatment 
of  the  subject,  and  the  result  is  likely 
to  be  the  triumph  of  the  most  skilful 
and  persistent  lobbying.  Good  legis- 
lation in  some  narrow  corner  of  the 
field  results,  now  and  then;  but  per- 
manent advance  along  the  entire  line 
is  impossible,  so  long  as  the  matter  is 
handled  in  this  piecemeal  way. 


The  situation  leads  us  to  suggest 
the  possibility  of  a  National  Com- 
mission on  the  Conservation  of  Wild 
Life.  Because  of  the  migratory 
habits  of  certain  forms  of  this  life, 
the  scope  of  such  a  commission  should 
include  the  whole  of  North  America. 
We  have  already  entered  the  field  of 
international  regulation  concerning 
this  subject,  and  must  enter  it  still 
further  to  secure  the  desired  ends. 
The  commission  would  be  expected  to 
consider  the  matter  in  every  impor- 
tant relation  which  it  might  be  found 
to  possess.  There  is,  of  course,  the 
direct  value  of  many  of  our  fishes, 
wild  animals,  and  birds  as  part  of 
our  food  supply.  What  regulations 
are  necessary  to  maintain  them  as  a 
permanent  element  in  the  feeding  of 
the  nation?  Others  serve  as  an  in- 
direct aid  in  the  food  supply,  such  as 
the  birds  which  feed  upon  insects 
injurious  to  fruit,  the  lesser  forms  of 
aquatic  life  which  furnish  needed 
food  to  edible  varieties  of  fish,  and 
animals  which  feed  upon  noxious 
forms  of  life.  Forestry  also  has  its 
vital  interest  in  the  preservation  of 
such  birds  as  feed  upon  borers  and 
insects  destructive  to  trees.  Another 
phase  of  the  subject  is  the  proper 
classification  of  birds  and  other  ani- 
mals which  are  predominantly  harm- 
ful, and  should  be  exterminated  either 
everywhere  or  in  particular  districts. 
Mistaken  legislation  has  more  than 
once  been  passed  in  this  branch  of 
the  field.  Information  is  wanted,  too, 
as  to  feasible  methods  of  counteract- 
ing harm  occasionally  done  by  birds 
and  animals  which  are  predominantly 
useful,  and  which  should  be  protected 
by  law. 

Such  a  commission  might  well  be- 
gin with  an  analytical  criticism  of  the 
mass  of  legislation  now  in  existence, 
showing  what  in  it  is  good,  what  is 
rightly  intended  but  wrongly  drawn, 
and  what  is  essentially  vicious,  either 
because  it  was  so  intended  by  its  pro- 
ponents, or  was  bedeviled  by  crafty 
amendments  in  course  of  passage. 
An  analysis  of  this  kind  would  be 
the  proper  clearing  of  the  ground  for 
the  proposal  of  a  body  of  State  legis- 
lation absolutely  uniform  in  its  pur- 
pose— ^the  permanent  maintenance  in 
normal  quantity  of  all  desirable  forms 


of  wild  life — and  differing  in  form 
just  where,  and  just  as,  local  condi- 
tions would  demand  a  difference,  for 
the  sole  purpose  of  securing  the  uni- 
form end.  One  of  the  most  difficult 
of  all  points  to  be  considered  would 
be  the  proper  adjustment  of  the 
rights  of  the  hunter  to  the  rights  of 
the  landowner,  particularly  the  owner 
of  lands  under  tillage,  over  whose 
fields  he  desires  to  hunt.  Theoreti- 
cally, the  cooperation  of  the  farmer 
in  the  preservation  of  game  birds  and 
animals  ought  to  come  as  a  matter  of 
course.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  has 
generally  been  very  hard  to  get,  just 
because  his  unquestionable  rights  are 
often  not  duly  respected  in  the  law 
itself,  and  are  very  generally  disre- 
garded by  hunters,  even  when  the 
law  under  which  they  are  licensed  is 
all  right  as  far  as  it  goes. 

Of  course  the  success  of  such  a 
commission  as  we  have  suggested 
would  depend  wholly  upon  the  fitness 
of  the  men  composing  it,  assuming 
a  sufficient  appropriation  to  meet  any 
reasonable  expense  in  the  prosecution 
of  its  work.  Every  one  of  its  mem- 
bers should  be  recognized  as  capable 
pf  appreciating  and  representing  the 
broad  national  interest  in  the  sub- 
ject, and  not  merely  the  point  of  view 
of  some  class  or  organization,  how- 
ever much  that  class  or  organization 
may  have  done  to  promote  the  public 
interest  in  wild  life  conservation,  or 
to  secure  the  passage  of  protective 
laws.  The  interest  at  stake  is  not  the 
interest  of  him  who  carries  the  rod 
or  gun,  of  the  "nature  lover,"  of  the 
farmer,  or  of  the  market-man,  but  of 
the  whole  people.  A  commission  is 
needed  which  would  be  broad  enough 
and  courageous  enough  to  tell  the 
hunter,  for  example,  that  his  hunting 
license  should  cost  several  times  what 
he  now  pays,  and  give  only  a  fraction 
of  the  privileges  which  it  now  gives; 
that  open  seasons  should  be  generally 
shortened;  and  that  certain  kinds  of 
game,  in  certain  places,  should  be 
subject  to  no  open  season  whatever 
for  a  number  of  years  in  succession — 
if  any  or  all  of  these  restrictions 
should  appear  necessary  to  the  con- 
tinued existence,  outside  museums 
and  game  "sanctuaries,"  of  the  wild 
life  now  threatened  with  extinction. 


\ 


April  17,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[379 


A  Question   of 
Longevity 

■pvR.  WILLIAM  H.  WELCH,  the 
■'--'  eminent  pathologist,  beginning 
his  seventy-first  year  with  undimin- 
ished vigor  and  activity,  has  natu- 
rally been  asked  some  questions  about 
old  age,  and  his  answers  have  both 
the  good  sense  and  the  cheerfulness 
which  all  who  know  him  would  have 
expected.  There  is  one  point,  how- 
ever, that  must  leave  a  critical  reader 
of  the  interview  in  a  certain  per- 
plexity of  mind.  Asked  about  "the 
Biblical  three-score  and  ten  years," 
Dr.  Welch  exclaimed:  "Oh,  but  we 
have  changed  that.  The  span  of  life 
has  been  lengthened.  Our  greater 
knowledge  of  life  and  its  preserva- 
tion has  added  twelve  and  a  half 
years  to  the  span  of  life  in  the  last 
century,  and  mostly  in  the  last  half- 
century."  But  he  goes  on  to  state 
the  familiar  statistical  fact  that  the 
gain  has  been  made  in  "the  early 
period  of  life,"  that  "infant  mortality 
has  been  greatly  reduced,"  that  "we 
have  learned  how  to  control  and  rem- 
edy conditions  and  diseases  which 
have  made  high  the  death  rate  among 
individuals  between  birth  and  the  at- 
tainment of  fifty  years  of  age,"  but 
that  in  the  way  of  promoting  longev- 
ity for  those  who  have  passed  their 
fiftieth  year  "little  has  been  accom- 
plished." 

Of  course,  this  offhand  answer  to  a 
reporter's  questions  was  not  intended 
to  be  taken  as  a  scientific  dictum. 
Yet  it  is  interesting  to  note  that,  on 
the  face  of  it,  the  second  part  of 
what  Dr.  Welch  says  eats  up  the 
first;  if  all  the  gain  that  has  taken 
place  relates  to  people  under  fifty, 
people  who  have  reached  or  are  ap- 
proaching their  three-score  and  ten 
are  in  the  same  case  as  they  ever 
were.  But  Dr.  Welch  is  not  likely  to 
have  said,  even  in  haste,  that  we  have 
"changed  all  that"  without  pretty 
substantial  basis,  and  one  is  tempted 
to  speculate  as  to  the  possibility  of 
reconciling  the  two  statements. 

He  who  judges  by  his  own  impres- 
sions will  feel,  as  Dr.  Welch  appar- 
ently does,  that  the  man  of  sixty  or 
seventy  is  not  as  old  as  he  used  to  be 


in  former  times.  Such  impressions,  to 
be  sure,  are  untrustworthy;  but  sta- 
tistics has  its  own  pitfalls,  and  so  has 
medical  observation.  Several  years 
ago,  before  the  great  war  had  cen- 
tred attention  upon  infinitely  more 
menacing  aspects  of  the  state  of  the 
world,  a  number  of  high  authorities 
were  persistently  urging  upon  pub- 
lic attention  the  deterioration  in 
American  vitality  which  they  found 
disclosed  in  the  statistics  of  mortality 
above  the  age  of  fifty  or  thereabouts. 
Their  conclusion  from  the  figures  was 
that  present  ways  of  life  had  a  lower- 
ing effect  upon  vitality  which  mani- 
fested itself  in  a  steady  increase  in 
the  percentage  of  deaths  among  peo- 
ple past  middle  age.  The  conclusion 
seemed  to  contradict  most  people's 
observation ;  yet  if  there  was  no  flaw 
in  the  reasoning  the  statistician  was 
clearly  entitled  to  the  last  word.  It 
was  pointed  out,  however,  that  there 
was  reason  to  doubt  the  adequacy  of 
the  statistical  inquiry;  and,  for  our 
part,  we  regard  Dr.  Welch's  remark, 
though  a  casual  one,  as  a  valuable 
confirmation  of  scepticism,  coming 
from  the  source  that  it  does. 

There  are  several  reasons  for 
doubting  the  conclusiveness  of  the 
figures  that  seem  to  contradict  the 
general  impression  as  to  the  improved 
vitality  of  middle-aged  and  elderly 
people.  Immigration  is  a  factor  that 
obviously  complicates  the  question. 
But  there  is  one  consideration,  less 
obvious  and  more  interesting,  that 
has  not  received  the  attention  it  de- 
serves. Paradoxical  as  it  may  seem, 
it  is  quite  possible  for  longevity  to 
be  advancing  all  along  the  line,  and 
yet  for  the  death  rate  among  people 
above  the  age  of  fifty  to  be  increas- 
ing. If  we  think  of  the  population 
as  divided  into  two  parts,  the  first 
consisting  of  those  among  whom  the 
conditions  of  life  and  work  are  so 
hard  as  seriously  to  shorten  life,  and 
the  second  consisting  of  those  that  are 
favorably  placed  in  this  regard,  an 
improvement  of  conditions  in  the  first 
class  might  have  just  the  paradoxi- 
cal effect  we  have  indicated.  For  a 
great  number  of  deaths  in  that  class 
which  had  formerly  taken  place  be- 
fore the  age  of  fifty  would  now  fall 
in  ages  above  fifty,  and  the  increased 


death  rate  in  those  ages  might  mean 
not  that  the  type  of  people  who  form- 
erly did  well  at  those  ages  are  now 
doing  worse,  but  that  a  type  of  people 
who  formerly  died  before  the  age  of 
fifty  now  live — and  therefore  also  die 
— at  ages  beyond  fifty.  Shorter  hours 
and  better  conditions  mean  longer 
lives  for  glass-blowers  or  miners — 
clear  gain  in  vitality ;  yet  in  the  mor- 
tality tables  it  would  look  as  though 
the  gain  in  vitality  for  ages  below  fifty 
(or  forty-five,  or  whatever  it  might 
be)  had  been  offset  by  a  loss  of  vital- 
ity in  ages  above  fifty. 

In  the  absence,  then,  of  an  authori- 
tative determination  of  the  question, 
we  incline  very  strongly  to  the  be- 
lief that  people  of  fifty,  and  sixty, 
and  seventy,  are  younger  than  they 
were  in  former  generations.  They 
are  both  better  cared  for  and  take 
better  care  of  themselves.  They  live 
under  better  sanitary  conditions ;  and 
when  they  fall  sick  they  have  better 
nurses  and  better  hospitals,  as  well 
as  the  advantages  of  the  splendid 
progress  of  medicine  and  surgery. 
Moreover,  in  spite  of  the  rush  of  mod- 
ern life,  people  take  life  easier  than 
they  did  twenty-five  or  fifty  years 
ago.  They  work  fewer  hours;  they 
take  more  holidays;  they  have  not 
only  greater  facilities  for  comfort, 
but  are  more  inclined  to  make  them- 
selves comfortable.  The  middle-aged 
business  man  of  to-day,  whether  play- 
ing golf  or  going  to  his  office  in  a 
Palm  Beach  suit,  not  only  looks  but 
feels  ten  years  younger  than  did  his 
predecessor  of  half  a  century  ago, 
who  sweltered  through  the  New  York 
summer  in  his  starched  shirt  and 
broadcloth  coat. 


THE  REVIEW 

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general  discussion 

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Copyright,     1920,     in     the     United    States    of 
America 
Editors 
FABIAN  FRANKLIN 
HAROLD  DE  WOLF  FULLER 
Associate  Editors 
Harry  Morgan  Avres     O.  W.  Firkins 
A.  J.  Barnouw  W.  H.  Johnson 

Jerome  LANoriELO 


380] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  49 


Theodore  Dreiser,  Philosopher 


THE  editors  of  the  Review  are  great 
jesters,  though  this  is  a  secret  not 
commonly  known,  and  it  was  in  a  moment 
of  unseemly  merriment  that  they  asked 
me  to  write  an  article  on  the  views  of 
Mr.  Dreiser  as  expounded  in  his  volume 
of  essays  entitled  "Hey  Rub-a-Dub- 
Dub."  Now,  as  these  same  editors  prob- 
ably suspect,  I  have  never  been  able  to 
read  to  the  end  of  one  of  Mr.  Dreiser's 
novels,  and  shall  never  again  try  to  read 
one;  but  under  their  cynical  compulsion  I 
have  read  these  essays,  and,  to  tell  the 
truth,  have  been  rather  interested  by 
them.  The  publishers,  Messrs.  Boni  and 
Liveright,  kindly  inform  all  prospective 
buyers  or  critics  of  the  book  just  what 
to  expect.  "If  philosophy  can  ever  be 
made  exciting,"  they  announce  on  the 
jacket,  "Mr.  Dreiser  has  here  achieved 
that  feat.  Here  is  Life — mysterious, 
terrible,  wonderful — and  Dreiser  look- 
ing at  it  unafraid"  (as  one  can  see  him 
in  the  photograph  furnished  with  the 
book).  Well,  these  publishers,  like  their 
friends  the  editors,  are  great  humorists, 
and  it  is  their  jest  to  evoke  the  picture 
of  Mr.  Dreiser,  in  a  Jersey  City  bed- 
room, confronting  Life,  the  mysterious 
and  terrible,  and  staring  the  monster  out 
of  countenance.  And  Mr.  Dreiser  him- 
self, who  may  or  may  not  have  provided 
the  publishers  with  the  notion  of  his 
heroic  eye-duel,  has  his  funny  side.  For 
instance,  he  has  a  humorous  way  of  deal- 
ing with  Logic.  "In  England,"  he  writes, 
"they  hung  men  for  sheep-stealing  a  few 
hundred  years  ago,  and  yet  sheep  were 
and  still  are  stolen  in  England.  It  is 
death  to  kill  your  neighbor,  and  yet  when 
did  man  ever  cease  killing  his  neighbor?" 
Argal,  the  statute  books  are  void  of 
effect  and  human  conduct  is  governed 
solely  by  "the  first  or  pyknotic  law  of 
energy  as  laid  down  by  Vogt." 

A  good  deal  of  amusement  might  be 
got  out  of  Mr.  Dreiser's  logic,  his 
pyknotic  scraps  of  learning,  and  his  por- 
tentous solemnity.  But  cui  bono?  Prob- 
ably he  would  not  laugh  at  his  own  jests, 
and  I  certainly  should  not.  And  so  I 
prefer  to  take  him  rather  seriously  as  a 
sign  of  the  times;  his  originality  and 
egotism  are  a  mere  pose,  while  in  reality 
he  is  voicing,  somewhat  hoarsely,  the  sen- 
timents of  a  large  class  of  men  who  take 
their  uneasy  muddle  of  ideas  for  phil- 
osophy. He  says  it  himself:  "Philoso- 
phers have  dreamed,  poets  have  written ; 
and  I,  mussing  around  among  religions, 
philosophies,  fictions,  and  facts,  can  find 
nothing  wherewith  to  solve  my  vaulting 
egoism,  no  light,  and  no  way  to  be  any- 
thing more  than  the  humblest  servitor." 

He  is  a  "servitor"  in  two  things.  In 
one  mood  he  is  the  voice  of  Nietzscheism : 
"The  race  has  always  been,  and  will  so 


remain,  of  course,  to  the  swift,  and  the 
battle  to  the  strong.  .  .  .  The  best 
that  can  be  said  for  the  theories  laid 
down  in  the  American  Declaration  is 
that  they  do  more  credit  to  the  hearts 
of  those  who  penned  them  than  to  their 
heads."  Nietzsche  is  right,  and  no  truer 
book  than  Machiavelli's  "Prince"  was 
ever  composed.  Even  the  masses  of  men, 
dull  as  they  are,  yet  know  in  their  hearts 
that  they  are  of  small  importance  here  or 
there.  Our  captains  of  industry,  as  we 
name  our  "blond  beasts,"  have  been  cun- 
ning and  greedy  and  relentless;  they 
have  bought  legislatures  and  robbed  the 
people;  they  have  been  a  failure  in  so  far 
as  they  have  not  realized  their  mission 
to  create  the  genuine  superman;  yet, 
after  all,  they  are  the  best  we  have,  and 
out  of  their  slyness  and  ferocity  are  pro- 
duced whatever  scant  gleams  of  art  and 
beauty  have  fallen  to  our  lot  in  a  demo- 
cratic country. 

All  this  is  harshly  expressed  by  Mr. 
Dreiser  and  with  a  needless  swagger,  but 
in  fact  it  is  a  view  of  Life  more  com- 
monly held,  though  often  inarticulately, 
by  poor  as  well  as  by  rich  than  we  like  to 
admit. 

And  so  Mr.  Dreiser,  swimming  with 
the  tide,  is  a  Nietzschean — on  one  page. 
On  the  next  you  will  find  him  the  sleek 
and  orthodox  humanitarian;  and  why 
not?  He  has  worked  as  a  day-laborer 
at  the  building  of  a  railroad,  and  been 
promoted  to  foreman  of  a  gang;  and  in 
both  positions  he  has  revolted  from  the 
grinding  burden  imposed  upon  the 
masses,  while,  as  it  seemed  to  him  in  the 
trenches,  their  employers  were  wallow- 
ing in  slothful  ease.  And  so,  in  a  mo- 
ment of  pity  and  dejection,  he  threw  up 
his  job  of  driving  foreman,  with  a  cry 
of  bitterness  against  the  injustice  of  life. 
One  is  rather  drawn  to  Mr.  Dreiser  by 
this  honest  report  of  his  experience; 
whatever  one  may  say  of  his  philosophy, 
he  put  into  personal  practice  the  sym- 
pathy which  generally  exhausts  itself  in 
vague  whimperings  or  wild  threats  or  at- 
tempts to  reform  somebody  else. 

This,  I  should  say,  is  the  distinguish- 
ing note  of  the  book,  this  oscillation 
between  a  theory  of  evolution  which  sees 
no  progress  save  by  the  survival  of  the 
rapaciously  strong  and  a  humanitarian 
feeling  of  solidarity  with  the  masses  who 
are  exploited  in  the  process.  It  even 
looks  occasionally  as  if  Life  had  called 
Mr.  Dreiser's  bluff. 

The  remarkable  thing  is  not  that  Mr. 
Dreiser  should  be  intellectually  in  this 
state  of  unstable  equilibrium,  but  that 
he  should  pose,  or  be  posed  by  his  pub- 
lishers, as  an  original  thinker.  The  fact 
rather  is  that,  like  a  good  many  other 
vociferous  egotists,  he  is  merely  tossed 


about  by  the  contrary  currents  of  popu- 
lar opinion.  In  his  chapter  on  "Some 
Aspects  of  Our  National  Character"  he 
has  written  rather  a  telling  indictment 
of  the  "psychological  flounderings  and 
back  somersaults"  of  the  American  peo- 
ple before  and  during  and  since  the  war. 
For  instance,  we  went  into  the  war  under 
the  plea  that  the  world  had  to  be  made 
"safe  for  democracy,"  yet  once  in  the 
war  we,  the  people,  submitted  to  an  au- 
tocracy worse  than  that  of  Russia,  and 
so  on,  and  so  on.  The  account  is  brilliant, 
and  humiliating;  but,  oddly  enough,  Mr. 
Dreiser  never  seems  to  guess  that  the 
flounderings  of  democracy— as  democracy 
now  is — are  the  sure  result  of  just  this 
polarization  of  the  popular  temperament 
between  Nietzscheanism  and  humanitar- 
ianism  of  which  he  himself  is  a  conspicu- 
ous example.  Nor  does  he  see  that  this 
swaying  from  one  extreme  of  emotion 
to  the  other  follows  naturally  on  the 
denial  of  all  those  laws  of  moral  ac- 
countability and  the  abrogation  of  all 
those  spiritual  values  which  we  sum  up 
under  the  name  of  religion. 

Oh,  I  know  that  Mr.  Dreiser,  like 
others  of  his  kind,  has  a  good  deal  to 
say  about  balance  and  equilibration  and 
that  sort  of  thing.  But  if  there  is  no 
purpose  in  the  unfolding  events  of  crea- 
tion, no  certain  law  of  justice  perceived 
by  faith  and  truer  intuition  through  the 
apparent  chances  of  life,  no  incorrupti- 
ble tribunal,  no  inner  rewards  and  penal- 
ties besides  those  which  a  man  can  grasp 
in  his  hands  and  feel  in  his  flesh,  no 
ideal  world  of  which  this  material  world 
is  the  illusory  shadow;  if  man  is  nothing 
more  than  a  product  of  chemic  and  me- 
chanic forces,  a  blind  cog  in  a  blind  ma- 
chine, if  the  great  achievement  of  phil- 
osophy is  "to  rid  the  human  mind  of  all 
vain  illusion  concerning  things  spirit- 
ual," if  life  is  a  mere  "social  or  chemic 
drift,"  to  be  reckoned  in  the  end  only 
"errant  and  nonsensical,"  if  "so-called 
vice  and  crime  and  destruction  and  so- 
called  evil  are  as  fully  a  part  of  the  uni- 
versal creative  process  as  are  the  so- 
called  virtues,  and  do  as  much  good" — if 
these  things  are  true,  what  compelling 
power  is  there  in  such  fine  words  as  "bal- 
ance" and  "equilibration"  and  the  like, 
and  what  remains  to  save  a  man  from 
oscillating  restlessly  between  the  poles  of 
his  temperament,  practising  a  more  than 
Nietzschean  hardness  when  his  cupidity 
is  excited,  urging  an  indiscriminate  hu- 
manitarianism  when  his  sympathies  are 
touched  without  too  much  cost  to  him- 
self? I  do  not  mean  to  imply  that  man- 
kind in  general  to-day  would  assent  to 
the  blatant  logic  of  materialism  which 
glares  in  Mr.  Dreiser's  eyes  when  he 
confronts  Life;  but  it  is  true,  neverthe- 
less, that  he  is  symptomatic  of  social 
disease,  in  so  far  as  masses  of  mankind 
have  lost  their  hold  on  any  save  mate- 
rialistic   values.      Just    to    this    extent 


April  17,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[381 


democracy  has  in  fact  become  a  victim 
of  evolutionary  philosophy,  and  Mr. 
Dreiser  is  a  victim  of  democracy.  But 
I  for  one  refuse  to  believe  that  the  equa- 
tion of  democracy  and  materialism  is 
necessary. 

In  one  respect  Mr.  Dreiser  has  out- 
stepped the  popular  mind,  though  in  this, 
too,  the  multitude  may  soon  be  at  his 
heels.  I  refer  to  his  unmitigated  alle- 
giance to  the  theories  of  the  man  whom 
our  inquisitive  college  youth  are  begin- 
ning to  speak  of  reverentially  as  "Frood." 
Mr.  Dreiser  has  much  to  say  about  the 
"shabby  little  pinchbeck  repressions"  of 
the  moralists.  "In  no  law  code  and  in  no 
religion  of  any  nation,"  he  declares,  "has 
the  sex  question,  the  need  of  moderation, 
duty  to  family  and  the  like,  been  ignored ; 
but  in  all  that  time  the  social  expression 
of  sex  has  never  been  so  much  as  modi- 
fied, let  alone  done  away  with."  (His 
facts  are  as  false  to  history  as  his  logic 
is  funny;  but  we  pass  that.)  And  then 
to  illustrate  this  truth,  as  he  holds  it, 
he  paints  a  lurid,  and,  alas,  not  wholly 
falsified,  picture  of  the  inconsistency  of 
one  of  our  traditionally  Puritan  towns, 
where  a  lofty  code  of  ethics  is  still 
preached   officially   and   decreed   legally. 


while  in  practice  the  literature,  the 
movies,  the  dancing,  and  the  women's 
dress  are  all  devised  to  keep  the  sexual 
emotions  in  a  state  of  excitation.  The 
actual  results  as  he  sets  them  forth  in 
"Neurotic  America"  are  not  pleasant 
reading — except  to  the  author.  A  rea- 
sonable man  might  suggest  that  the  way 
out  of  such  a  morbid  dilemma  would  be, 
not  to  repudiate  all  laws  of  repression, 
but  to  look  to  the  imagination,  where 
alone  restraint  can  be  normally  effective ; 
and  this  reform  in  the  realm  of  imagina- 
tion, he  might  add,  is  impossible  until 
men  have  been  taught  again  the  reality 
of  those  values  which  are  not  of  the 
body.  But  Mr.  Dreiser,  naturally,  will 
have  none  of  this ;  he  admits,  in  fact,  no 
quarrel  with  neuroticism,  but  only  with 
those  who  reject  the  full  consequences 
of  Freudianism  for  some  antiquated 
folly  of  faith  and  decency. 

We  are  told  that  Mr.  Dreiser  has  made 
philosophy  "exciting"  and  has  confronted 
Life  unafraid.  Perhaps  he  has  only  sunk 
down  in  terror  of  true  life  into  the  cur- 
rents of  decomposition  that  have  been 
flowing  in  dark,  ill-smelling  places  from 
the  beginning  of  time. 

P.  E.  M. 


The  Case  of  Maurice  Maeterlinck 


THE  gift  of  imagination  is  a  precious 
power,  likewise  an  insidious  lure. 
How  to  give  it  play  without  letting  it 
run  wild  is  a  persistent  problem.  The 
grindstone  routine  of  harsh  reality 
crushes  its  claims;  but  suppressed  in- 
stincts crowd  for  escape,  and,  along  with 
romance  and  day-dreams,  the  occult  of- 
fers satisfaction  to  those  weary  of  a 
severely  rational  diet.  Balanced  rations, 
bom  of  domestic  science  under  chemical 
rule,  are  disagreeably  nutritious,  monot- 
onous, and  unstimulating.  The  artist, 
the  poet,  and  the  dramatist  cater  to  an- 
other palate,  in  which  calories  are  irrele- 
vant and  taste  rules  supreme.  So  may 
,  it  ever  be ! 

The  troubles  of  the  denied  imagination 
make  a  sorry  tale,  to  be  recited  to  school- 
boards  and  other  hard-headed  officials  of 
the  intellectual  life.  The  present  inquiry 
concerns  the  surfeited  and  unregulated 
imagination  of  the  irreconcilables  with 
;  reality.  The  case  of  Maeterlinck,  the 
occultist,  commands  attention  by  reason 
I  of  its  compensation  in  the  dramatist. 
There  is  also  the  bourgeois  mysticism  of 
jthe  essays,  drifting  on  a  calm  moonlit 
isea  of  speculation,  scorning  harbors  and 
lighthouses  that  make  the  irregular  ven- 
jture  possible.  Questioning  in  his  fav- 
orite mood,  one  may  wonder  by  what 
;fateful  spell,  by  what  malicious  Lorelei 
|he  was  enticed  to  the  charted  realms 
jguarded  by  the  prosaic  sentinels  of 
Iscience!     There  is  no  need  to  suppose 


that  the  fertile  fantasy  of  the  dramas 
debouches  in  the  fantastic  credulity  of 
the  essays,  with  their  amazing  depar- 
tures from  the  ordinary  standards  of 
plausibility;  one  must  be  content  to 
record  that  logical  compunctions  have 
yielded  disastrously  to  the  aesthetic  satis- 
factions of  bizarre  belief. 

It  may  seem  needlessly  didactic  and 
cruel  to  apply  intelligence  tests  to  a 
poetic  mind.  Intelligence  testers  at 
times  find  great  disparity  between  the 
mental  and  the  physical  age;  when  the 
instincts  and  desires  of  maturity  appear 
without  the  responsible  control  of  rea- 
son, those  thus  defective  may  become  a 
menace  to  the  community.  The  lack  of 
relation  between  emotional  and  intel- 
lectual development  in  the  higher 
reaches  of  personality  can  not  be  simply 
plotted,  though  the  uncongeniality  of  the 
poetic  and  the  objective  temperament — 
what  William  James  called  the  "fem- 
inine-mystical" and  the  "scientific-aca- 
demic" mind — is  a  matter  of  common 
comment.  Ungenerous  as  it  may  appear 
towards  one  richly  honored  as  a  master 
dramatist  in  his  genre,  the  suspicion  can 
hardly  be  avoided  of  a  critical  de- 
fect in  logic  that  passes  the  bounds  of 
normality. 

The  imposing  Proceedings  of  the  So- 
ciety for  Psychical  Research  and  the 
Annates  des  sciences  psychiques  are  not 
responsible  for  such  temperamental  lean- 
ings— only   for   their   confirmation.      In 


the  older,  deeper  sense,  Maeterlinck  is 
not  an  occultist — not  a  searcher  or  re- 
searcher into  mysteries,  and  the  devotee 
of  a  cult — and  by  his  own  avowal  he  is  not 
a  spiritualist ;  he  is  a  collector  of  psychic 
rarities — a  miraculist  displaying  his 
trophies  under  the  seal  of  psychical  re- 
search. To  that  type  of  mind  the  miracu- 
lous must  be  real  because  it  is  so  inter- 
esting; the  apparently  incredible  must  be 
true  because  so  inviting.  The  world  of 
the  common  man  becomes  a  pitiable 
torso,  to  be  restored  to  its  pristine  integ- 
rity by  the  revelations  of  mediums  and 
the  "psychic  flashes"  of  rare  men  (or, 
more  commonly,  women)  and — be  it 
anticipated — equally  rare  horses.  Men 
of  science  live  pitiably  in  a  dark  cave, 
with  their  backs  to  the  entrance,  and 
their  eyes  closed. 

To  the  miraculist,  the  truly  signiflcant 
places  are  not  the  formal  chambers  of  the 
earthly  mansions,  nor  the  busy  floors  of 
the  workshops,  but  the  obscure  corners 
of  the  attic.  The  temple  of  wisdom  is 
to  be  built  of  rejected  stones,  and  pre- 
pared for  the  reception  of  "The  Un- 
known Guest."  We  have  "table-turning 
with  its  raps;  the  movements  and  trans- 
portations of  inanimate  objects  without 
contact;  luminous  phenomena;  lucidite 
or  clairvoyance;  veridical  apparitions  or 
hallucinations;  haunted  houses;  biloca- 
tions  and  so  forth ;  communications  with 
the  dead;  the  divining  rod;  the  miracu- 
lous cures  of  Lourdes  and  elsewhere; 
fluidic  asepsis;  and  lastly  the  famous 
thinking  animals  of  Elberfeld  and  Mann- 
heim." Ghosts  that  haunt  until  their 
mortal  remains  are  "decently  interred"; 
"scattered  limbs;  pale,  diaphanous,  but 
capable  hands"  suddenly  appearing  in  a 
physiological  laboratory  in  the  presence 
of  the  notorious  Palladino;  seeing  and 
hearing  at  any  distance  in  space;  fore- 
telling the  future;  solving  police  mys- 
teries by  trance-revelations;  reading  a 
life-history  by  a  lock  of  hair  or  a  scrap 
of  writing;  warning  of  danger  by 
mystic  voices;  presentiments;  premoni- 
tions; exploded  tales  of  Indian  jugglery; 
mathematical  and  philological  equine 
prodigies ; — anything,  everything,  that 
is  sufficiently  unusual,  incredible,  and 
discredited  is  invested  by  the  omnivor- 
ous miraculist  with  the  crucial  signifi- 
cance of  the  rare  psychic  ray  that 
penetrates  the  dark  ignorance  wherein 
ordinary  men  spend  their  dull  skeptical 
days. 

That  a  man  of  distinction  in  an  in- 
tellectual profession  should  be  convinced 
that  the  shallow  survivals  of  superstition 
to  which  he  subscribes  are  demonstrated 
and  momentous  facts,  should  undertake 
to  inform  the  public  that  many  of  them 
are  now  a  "matter  of  scientific  experi- 
ment," will  be  set  down  by  the  charitable 
as  a  naive  lack  of  critical  sense,  and  by 
the  plain-spoken  as  an  amazing  instance 


382] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  49 


of  twentieth-century  gullibility.  But  no 
enumeration  of  the  strangely  assorted 
wares  which  are  to  be  found  upon  the 
shelves  and  in  the  cupboards  of  M. 
Maeterlinck's  sanctum  can  convey  an  ade- 
quate sense  of  the  state  of  mind  of  the 
convert  who  finds  comfort  in  their  ac- 
cumulation. For  this,  we  must  go  to  the 
attests  of  their  genuineness  and  the  de- 
scriptions of  their  virtues. 

When,  in  September,  1913,  the  obscure 
M.  Maeterlinck  went  upon  his  pilgrimage 
to  the  miraculous  horses  of  Elberfeld,  his 
wife  (likewise  incognito)  took  a  letter 
of  his  to  a  clairvoyante  medium,  Mme. 
M.,  who — wonderful  to  relate — "without 
a  second's  hesitation,  declared  that  I  was 
very  far  away,  in  a  foreign  country 
where  they  spoke  a  language  which  she 
did  not  understand."  Also  that  the  un- 
known traveler  was  standing  in  a  court- 
yard examining  horses ;  also  that  he  was 
wearing  a  long  coat  (common  among 
hostlers).  In  this  remarkable  instance 
of  clairvoyance  there  are  "two  rather 
curious  mistakes,"  M.  Maeterlinck  ob- 
serves; the  one  that  he  was  no  longer 
in  the  stable-yard  when  Mme.  M.  saw  him 
there,  and  the  other  that  he  did  not 
wear  a  long  coat.  Otherwise,  the  vision 
is  scrupulously,  if  cautiously,  correct, 
even  to  the  insight  that  the  horses  were 
exhibited,  not  in  the  drawing-room  or  the 
counting-house,  but  in  the  courtyard. 
Whereupon  M.  Maeterlinck  comments : 

The  transmission  of  thought  is  remarkable; 
but  this  is  a  recognized  phenomenon,  and  one 
of  frequent  occurrence,  and  we  need  not, 
therefore,  linger  over  it.  The  real  mystery 
begins  with  the  description  of  a  place  which 
my  wife  had  never  seen  and  which  I  had  not 
seen  Mther  at  the  time  of  writing  the  note 
which  established  the  psychometrical  com- 
munication. Are  we  to  believe  that  the  ap- 
pearance of  what  I  was  one  day  to  see  was 
already  inscribed  on  the  prophetic  sheet  of 
paper;  or  more  simply  and  more  probably  tl;at 
the  paper  which  represented  myself  was 
enough  to  submit  either  to  my  wife's  sub- 
consciousness or  to  Mme.  M.,  whom,  at  that 
time.  I  had  never  met,  an  exact  picture  of 
what  my  eyes  beheld  three  or  four  hundred 
miles  away? 

On  a  later  occasion,  M.  Maeterlinck 
took  to  the  same  clairvoyante  a  letter 
containing  a  request  for  his  autograph. 
"She  began  by  describing  us,  my  wife 
and  myself,  who  both  of  us  had  touched 
the  paper  and  consequently  impregnated 
it  with  our  respective  'fluids.'  " 

On  the  one  hand,  we  shall  have  to  admit  that 
the  sheet  of  paper  handed  to  the  psychometer 
and  impregnated  with  human  "fluid"  contains, 
after  the  manner  of  some  prodigiously  com- 
pressed gas,  all  the  incessantly  renewed,  in- 
cessantly recurring  images  that  surround  a 
person,  all  his  past  and  perhaps  his  future,  his 
psychology,  his  state  of  health,  his  wishes,  his 
intentions,  often  unknown  to  himself,  his  most 
secret  instincts,  his  likes  and  dislikes,  all  that 
is  bathed  in  light  and  all  that  is  plunged  in 
darkness,  his  whole  life  in  short,  and  more 
than  his  personal  and  conscious  life,  besides 
all  the  lives  and  all  the  influences,  good  or  bad, 
latent  or  manifest,  of  all  who  approach  him. 
We  should  have  here  a  mystery  as  unfathom- 
able and  at  least  as  vast  as  that  of  generation. 


which  transmits,  in  an  infinitesimal  particle, 
the  mind  and  matter,  with  all  the  qualities  and 
all  the  faults,  all  the  acquirements  and  all  the 
history,  of  a  series  of  lives  of  which  none  can 
tell  the  number. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  we  do  not  admit  that 
so  much  energy  can  lie  concealed  in  a  sheet  of 
paper,  continuing  to  exist  and  develop  in- 
definitely there,  we  must  necessarily  suppose 
that  an  inconceivable  network  of  nameless 
forces  is  perpetually  radiating  from  this  same 
paper,  forces  which,  cleaving  time  and  space, 
detect  instantaneously,  anywhere  and  at  any 
distance,  the  life  that  gave  them  life  and  place 
themselves  in  complete  communication,  body 
and  soul,  senses  and  thoughts,  past  and  future, 
consciousness  and  subconsciousness,  with  an 
existence  lost  amid  the  innumerous  host  of 
men  who  people  this  earth.  It  is,  indeed,  ex- 
actly what  happens  in  the  experiments  with 
mediums  in  automatic  speech  or  writing,  who 
believe  themselves  to  be  inspired  by  the  dead. 
Yet  here  it  is  no  longer  a  discarnate  spirit,  but 
an  object  of  any  kind  imbued  with  a  living 
"fluid,"  that  works  the  miracle ;  and  this,  we 
may  remark  in  passing,  deals  a  severe  blow  to 
the  spiritualistic  theory. 

All  this  elaborate  obfuscation,  because 
a  shrewd  medium  guessed  and  "fished" 
and  pieced  together  a  simple  situation 
into  which  the  believer  injected  what 
trivial  mystery  it  may  be  made  to  as- 
sume. There  is  more  of  this  tinsel,  end- 
less tangled  skeins  of  it;  let  one  other 
sample  suffice : 

Nevertheless,  there  are  two  rather  serious 
objections  to  this  second  explanation.  Grant- 
ing that  the  object  really  places  the  medium 
in  communication  with  an  unknown  entity  dis- 
covered in  space,  how  comes  it  that  the  image 
or  the  spectacle  created  by  that  communica- 
tion hardly  ever  corresponds  with  the  reahty 
at  the  actual  moment?  On  the  oAer  hand, 
it  is  indisputable  that  the  psychometer's  clair- 
voyance, his  gift  of  seeing  at  a  distance  the 
pictures  and  scenes  surrounding  an  unknown 
ijeing,  is  exercised  with  the  same  certainty  and 
the  same  power  when  the  object  that  sets  his 
strange  faculty  at  work  has  been  touched  by 
a  person  who  has  been  dead  for  years.  Are 
we,  then,  to  admit  that  there  is  an  actual,  liv- 
ing communication  with  a  human  being  who  is 
no  more,  who  sometimes — as,  for  instance,  in 
a  case  of  incineration — has  left  no  trace  of 
himself  on  earth,  in  short,  with  a  dead  man 
who  continues  to  live  at  the  place  and  at  the 
moment  at  which  he  impregnated  the  object 
wiih  his  "fluid"  and  who  seems  to  be  unaware 
that  i:e  is  dead? 

The  insane  reveal  their  infirmities  not 
so  much  by  what  they  believe  as  by  the 
reasons  they  give  for  their  delusions  and 
the  confidence  with  which  they  hold 
them,  and  also  by  the  obvious  explana- 
tions which  they  overlook.  To  maintain 
that  a  powerful  medium  can  see  across 
a  few  hundred  miles  seems  a  mild  and 
rational  assumption  compared  with  this 
absurd  speculation  about  "fluids"  and 
energy  and  compressed  gas  and  genera- 
tion and  nameless  forces,  jumbled  into  a 
vapid  cloud  of  verbiage.  Without  quota- 
tion-marks the  reader  may  well  refuse  to 
believe  that  this  drivel  emanates  from 
the  author  of  "The  Blue  Bird"  and 
"Monna  Vanna."  Nor  is  this  a  diversion 
or  a  lapse  of  an  otherwise  sober  dis- 
course. The  writer  is  deadly  serious ;  to 
question  these  vagaries  is  heresy : 

I  consider  it  necessary  to  declare  for  the  last 


time  that  these  psychometric  phenomena,  aston- 
ishing though  they  appear  at  first,  are  known, 
proved,  and  certain,  and  are  no  longer  denied 
or  doubted  by  any  of  those  who  have  studied 
them  seriously.  I  could  have  given  full  par- 
ticulars of  a  large  number  of  conclusive  ex- 
periments ;  but  this  seemed  to  me  as  super- 
fluous and  tedious  as  would  be,  for  instance,  a 
string  of  names  of  the  recognized  chemical 
reactions  that  can  be  obtained  in  a  laboratory. 

There  is  mystery  here:  the  mystery 
that  the  dramatist  and  the  miraculist — 
at  least  so  unreserved  and  abandoned  a 
miraculist — should  occupy  the  same  tene- 
ment of  clay  and  use  the  same  cerebral 
hemispheres  for  their  writings.  Perhaps 
Andrew  Lang  suggested  the  explanation : 

There  are  also  people  who  so  dislike  our 
detention  in  the  prison-house  of  unvarying 
laws  that  their  bias  is  in  favor  of  anything 
which  may  tend  to  prove  that  science  in  her 
contemporary  mood  is  not  infallible.  As  the 
Frenchman  did  not  care  what  sort  of  scheme 
he  invested  money  in,  provided  that  it  annoys 
the  English,  so  many  persons  do  not  care  what 
they  invest  belief  in,  provided  that  it  irritates 
men  of  science. 

Or  did  George  Eliot  hit  the  mark  when 
she  observed  that  the  absurd  is  "a  per- 
fectly juicy  thistle"  to  certain  types? 

Gnats  and  camels,  mediums  and  horses, 
are  all  swallowed  without  any  sign  of 
strain.  The  prologue  of  the  miracle-play 
called  "The  Elberfeld  Horses"  goes  back 
to  Berlin  twenty  years  ago.  A  stallion 
earned  the  title  of  "Kluger  Hans"  by  con- 
vincing his  master  and  tutor,  Herr  von 
Osten,  as  well  as  a  host  of  better-educated 
Berliners,  that  a  horse,  under  proper 
schooling,  could  count,  add,  multiply,  sub- 
tract, divide,  convert  decimals  into  frac- 
tions, tell  time  by  the  watch,  name  the 
notes  on  the  musical  scale,  tell  what  tone 
is  missing  to  make  a  harmony,  spell  out 
the  name  of  an  object  or  a  picture,  give 
the  day  for  any  date,  repeat  a  sentence 
after  a  lapse  of  twenty-four  hours,  catch 
the  meaning  of  words  when  whispered — 
in  fact,  reach  the  intellectual  status  of  a 
fourteen-year-old  child.  Berlin  was  ex- 
cited, and  rushed  into  pamphlets  and 
controversy — a  favorite  Teutonic  indoor 
sport.  To  quiet  the  uncertainty,  a  com- 
mission was  appointed,  including  eminent 
university  professors  and  psychologists. 
By  a  shrewd  and  painstaking  analysis, 
they  solved  the  mystery.  As  the  ques- 
tioner finishes  the  question,  he  bends  his 
head  ever  so  slightly,  which  Clever  Hans 
has  learned  to  accept  as  a  signal  to  begin 
tapping  with  his  foot;  as  the  questioner 
follows  the  tapping,  his  interest  causes 
him  to  bend  forward  more  and  more,  and 
then  to  straighten  his  posture  when  the 
correct  number  is  reached,  which  is  the 
signal  for  Hans  to  stop.  Herr  von  Osten 
was  honest,  but  as  self-deceived  as  table- 
tippers;  the  signals  were  wholly  invol- 
untary, and  Hans  deserved  his  title,  and 
his  sugar  and  carrots,  for  his  part  in  the 
performance.  According  to  Maeterlinck, 
the  result  of  the  report  was  that  "people 
felt  a  sort  of  half-cowardly  relief  at  be- 


April  17,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[383 


holding  the  prompt  collapse  of  a  miracle 
which  was  threatening  to  throw  con- 
fusion into  the  self-satisfied  little  fold 
of  established  truths."  Von  Osten  died 
of  a  broken  heart.  Maeterlinck  is  his 
avenger. 

A  new  champion  of  equine  genius 
promptly  appeared.  Herr  Krall  of 
Elberfeld  discovered  two  Arab  steeds, 
Muhamed  and  Zarif  (as  is  well  known, 
we  derive  our  number  lore  from  the 
Arabs),  whose  mathematical  genius 
makes  Hans's  accomplishments  seem  a 
kindergarten  exercise.  After  three  weeks 
of  instruction,  Muhamed  could  count, 
add,  subtract,  multiply,  divide,  in  whole 
numbers  and  in  fractions;  in  the  second 
month  he  learned  to  reply  to  questions 
in  French  as  well  as  German;  within 
four  months  he  learned  to  spell;  thence 
by  leaps  and  bounds  he  galloped  to  erudi- 
tion. Having  read  these  accounts  Maeter- 
linck was  "wholly  persuaded  of  the 
genuineness  of  the  incidents"  before 
starting  upon  his  pilgrimage. 

At  length  he  stands  before  the  sacred 
animals.    Herr  Krall  speaks : 

"Muhamed,  attention !  This  is  your  uncle 
[pointing  to  me]  who  has  come  all  the  way 
to  honor  you  with  a  visit.  Mind  you  don't 
disappoint  him.  His  name  is  Maeterlinck. 
.  .  .  Now  show  him  that  you  know  your  let- 
ters and  that  you  can  spell  a  name  correctly." 
Muhamed  gives  a  short  neigh  .  .  .  strikes  first 
with  his  right  hoof  and  then  with  his  left 
the  number  of  blows  which  correspond  with 
the  letter  M  in  the  conventional  alphabet  used 
by  the  horses.  Then  one  after  the  other,  with- 
out stopping  or  hesitating,  he  marks  the  let- 
ters ADRLINSH,  representing  the  unexpected 
aspect  which  my  humble  name  assumes  in  the 
equine  mind  and  phonetics.  His  attention  is 
called  to  the  fact  that  there  is  a  mistake.  He 
readily  agrees  and  replaces  the  SH  by  a  G  and 
then  the  G  by  a  K.  They  insist  that  he  must 
put  T  instead  of  the  D ;  but  Muhamed,  con- 
tent with  his  work,  shakes  his  head  to  say 
NO  and  refuses  to  make  any  further  correc- 
tions. 

In  a  second  experiment,  Maeterlinck 
proposed  the  name  of  the  hotel  at  which 
he  was  registered,  Weidenhof:  which  ap- 
peared in  hoofiform  spelling  as  WEIDN- 
HOZ  (the  Z  upon  request  corrected  to 
an  F),  and  elicited  this  comment: 

"Observe,  by  the  way,  the  logic  of  his 
phonetic  writing:  contrary  to  his  habit, 
he  [Muhamed]  strikes  the  mute  E  after 
the  W,  because  it  is  indispensable;  but, 
finding  it  included  in  the  D,  he  considers 
it  superfluous  and  suppresses  it  with  a 
high  hand," — or  low  hoof. 

It  is  the  "by-the-ways"  that  reveal  the 
complete  abandonment  of  the  miraculist 
to  the  spell  of  conviction,  cost  what  it 
may.  The  philological  comment  is  fol- 
lowed by  a  rhapsody : 

Was  all  this  what  they  hid  in  their  eyes, 
those  silent  brothers  of  ours?  You  blush  at 
man's  long  injustice.  You  look  around  you 
for  some  sort  of  trace,  obvious  or  subtle,  of 
the  mystery.  .  .  .  It  is  as  though  a  sort  of 
higher  instinct,  which  knows  everything  and 
is  not  ignorant  of  the  miracles  that  hang  over 
our  heads,  were  reassuring  us  in  advance  and 


lielping  us  to  make  an  easy  entrance  into  the 
regions  of  the  supernatural. 

We  approach  the  climax  of  credulity. 
After  the  Mahlzeit,  the  experiments  are 
resumed : 

Pointing  to  me,  he  asks  Muhamed  if  he  re- 
members what  his  uncle's  name  is.  The  horse 
raps  out  an  H.  Krall  is  astonished  and  utters 
fatherly  reprimands  :  "Come,  take  care !  You 
know  it's  not  an  H."  The  horse  raps  out  an 
E.  Krall  becomes  a  little  impatient :  he 
threatens,  he  implores,  he  promises  in  turn 
carrots  and  the  direst  punishments  [at  the 
hands  of  the  groom,  for  Krall  does  not  punish 
the  horses,  for  fear  of  losing  their  confidence]. 
"Come  now,  are  you  going  to  be  more  care- 
ful and  not  rap  out  your  letters  anyhow?" 
Muhamed  obstinately  goes  his  own  way  and 
strikes  an  R.  Then  Krall's  open  face  lights 
up  :  "He's  right,"  he  says.  "You  understand : 
HER  standing  for  Herr.  He  wanted  to  give 
you  the  title  to  which  every  man  wearing  a 
top  hat  or  a  bowler  has  the  right.  He  does  it 
only  very  rarely  and  I  had  forgotten  about  it. 
He  probably  heard  me  call  you  Herr  Maeter- 
linck and  wanted  to  get  it  perfectly." 

While  this  ridiculous  fable  amply 
proves  the  completeness  of  Herr  Krall's 
delusions,  it  may  be  capped  by  a  still 
wilder  tale  told  by  Krall  and  swallowed 
whole  by  his  distinguished  guest;  that 
one  day  quite  spontaneously  "an  abso- 
lutely human  sentence"  came  letter  by 
letter  from  Zarif's  "ouija-board"  hoofs; 
"  'Albert  [the  groom]  has  beaten 
Hanschen'  [the  pony].  Another  time 
I  wrote  down  from  his  dictation, 
'Hanschen  has  bitten  Kama'  [a  young 
elephant].  Like  a  child  seeing  its  father 
after  an  absence,  he  felt  the  need  to  in- 
form me  of  the  little  doings  of  the 
stable." 

In  such  a  paranoiac  atmosphere 
miracles  generate  spontaneously.  Square 
roots  and  cube  roots  are  as  familiar  as 
turnips;  and  it  is  Maeterlinck's  shocking 
arithmetical  limitations  and  not  those  of 
Muhamed  that  stop  the  performance. 
Horses  explain  their  inability  to  speak  by 
striking  out:  Weil  ig  kein  Stim  hbe 
(because  I  have  no  voice).  The  4th  root 
of  7890481  is  given  as  53  even  when  the 
answer  is  unknown  to  the  questioner. 
But  it  is  the  explanations  that  disclose 
how  completely  they  who  enter  here  have 
abandoned  all  reason.  Horses  are  clearly 
mediums;  they  do  not  solve  these  prob- 
lems by  our  clumsy  systems  but  by 
"psychic  flashes";  telepathy  is  seriously 
discussed  as  a  partial  factor;  when  the 
horses  make  a  mistake  and  tap  73  for  37, 
the  question  arises  whether  this  is  due 
to  mirror-writing;  the  equine  subliminal 
consciousness  is  always  functioning  and 
supplies  that  mysterious  intuition  known 
as  horse  sense.  Nothing  less  than  a 
weary  reading  of  the  140-page  essay  can 
suggest  the  possessed  irresponsibility  of 
the  "facts"  and  the  extravagant  irrel- 
evance of  the  befuddled  explanations. 
But  the  insult  of  it  all  is  the  persistent 
attempt  to  square  these  accounts  with 
what  is  known  of  animal  psychology.  In 
the  good  old  credulous  days  Pegasus  and 


the  Unicom  were  accepted  on  faith;  their 
zoological  afliinities  were  not  a  problem. 
But  the  equine  Euclid  is  demonstrated 
"with  the  convincing  force  of  photo- 
graphic records,"  which  only  the  stupid 
prejudices  of  psychologists  refuse  to 
accept.* 

The  pilgrimage  to  Elberfeld  may  well 
prove  the  occultist's  undoing.  Despite 
their  versatile  gaits,  horses  can  not  side- 
step and  cover  their  tracks  as  mediums 
can.  Without  this  coveted  specimen  Mae- 
terlinck's collection  of  psychic  miracles 
might  have  imposed  upon  the  uncritical 
and  retained  its  prestige.  With  it  the 
quality  of  the  entire  collection  becomes 
suspicious.  Not  that  Maeterlinck  stands 
alone  in  succumbing  to  the  lure  of  animal 
mythology ;  many  another  well-known  in- 
tellectual has  come  to  test  the  intelligence 
of  the  horses  and  by  his  report  has 
shown  that  the  horses  tested  his — and 
found  it  wanting.  But  Maeterlinck  is  in- 
sistent. One  might  have  thought  that 
he  would  show  some  respectful  atten- 
tion to  the  report,  repudiating  equine 
geniuses,  signed  by  Professor  Stumpf, 
the  psychologist  of  the  University  of 
Berlin;  or  to  the  monograph  of  Dr. 
Pfungst,  which  was  deemed  worthy  of 
an  English  translation  with  a  laud- 
atory introduction  by  Professor  Angell, 
psychologist  of  the  University  of  Chi- 
cago. This  admirable  investigation, 
which  has  been  generally  accepted  as  con- 
vincing, is  dismissed  as  a  "monument  of 
useless  pedantry,"  based  on  "a  cumbrous 
and  puerile  theory."  The  irresponsibility 
of  the  verdict  offsets  its  imperinence; 
it  suggests  a  more  fundamental  dis- 
qualification for  judgment  than  a  blind 
prepossession  explains. 

Such  is  the  case  of  Maurice  Maeter- 

*With  apologies  to  the  reader  for  implying  that  any 
further  detailed  explanation  of  this  preposterous  farce 
IS  necessary,  let  it  be  briefly  stated  that  the  signs 
(whatever  they  are)  by  which  Muhamed,  like  Hans, 
knows  when  to  begin  and  when  to  stop  pawing  with 
both  left  and  right  foot,  are  irregularly  given  and 
easily  missed.  Consequently,  wholly  irrelevant  letters 
appear;  for,  in  his  eagerness,  the  horse  may  stop 
pawing  a  little  too  soon,  or  not  catch  the  clue  quite 
soon  enough.  The  arrangement  by  which  each  letter 
IS  indicated  by  a  combination  of  two  numbers  is  wholly 
arbitrary.  Thus  "Pferd"—A  word  commonly  asked 
for — IS  spelled"  by  the  phonetic  Muhamed  in  over 
thirty  different  ways.  That  the  questioner  and  not  the 
horse  perfoms  the  operation  (while  the  horse  is  intent 
only  upon  the  sign  which  spells  carrots)  is  amply 
shown  by  the  analysis  in  the  case  of  both  Hans  and 
of  Muhamed.  When  the  questioner  knew  the  answer 
to  the  question,  from  90  per  cent,  to  100  per  cent,  of 
the  horse's  answers  were  correct;  when  the  questioner 
did  not  know  the  answer,  from  6  per  cent,  to  10  per 
cent,  were  correct;  this  for  Hans,  as  appears  in  the  re- 
port of  Dr.  Pfungst.  For  the  Elberfeld  horses,  the 
successes  when  the  questioner  did  not  know  the  .-inswer 
were  from  8  per  cent,  to  1 1  per  cent.  The  small  residue 
of  successes  .may  well  be  due  to  the  constant  repeti- 
tion of  certain  combinations  (as  in  number  habits) 
and  the  increased  chance  of  the  favorite  tapping  pat- 
tern asserting  itself  at  the  right  time.  The  further 
fact  that  the  simplest  problems  are  answered  with  no 
greater  accuracy  than  the  most  complex  ones,  tliat  the 
horses  start  at  once  upon  the  answer  without  any 
hesitation,  that  they  do  not  look  at  the  figures  or 
boards  upon  which  the  problems  appear,  abundantly 
show  that  no  question  of  ealculatinif  or  reasoning 
enters. 

While  there  has  been  no  definitive  examination  of 
the  Elberfeld  horses,  the  critical  accounts  warrant  the 
conclusion  of  Professor  Watson  (who  includes  an  ac- 
count of  them  in  his  authoritative  book  on  "Behavior" 
for  the  sake  of  the  light  which  they  throw  upon 
animal  intelligence  as  well  as  upon  human  lack  of  it) 
that  their  responses  do  "not  rise  above  the  level  of 
those  given  by  Hans.** 


386) 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  49 


always  chasing  some  notion  or  other 
which  had  no  possible  relation  to  prac- 
tice— witness  German  transcendental 
philosophy — and  that  all  such  stuff  would 
not  amount  to  anything  in  the  end:  it 
was  all  "mere  ideas."  Perhaps  after 
further  reflection  upon  the  war  and  upon 
antecedent  history,  the  Anglo-Saxon 
mind  will  decide  that  mere  ideas  are 
the  fuel  of  all  great  fires ;  that  in  schools 
and  colleges  this  fuel  is  piled  up  day  by 
day,  waiting  for  sparks;  and  that  it 
would  be  good  economy,  even  if  certain 
more  "practical"  subjects  had  to  be  dis- 
placed in  the  process,  to  require  all  young 
students  to  take  a  course  in  elementary 
ethics  (and  religion,  when  possible)  as 
applied  to  political  life.    So  far,  however. 


this  point  has  not  been  loudly  emphasized 
in  plans  for  post-bellum  reconstruction. 
I  must  recall  words  uttered  in  London 
ten  years  ago  by  a  young  Englishman— 
a  representative  Oxford  graduate,  who 
had  spent  four  years  in  Germany,  and 
with  whom  I  was  comparing  notes — "0 
yes,  they  talked  all  that  political  tommy- 
rot  to  me,  too.  Mere  pedantry,  you  know. 
Just  pedantic  book-notions  that  never 
come  to  anything.  They'll  get  over  it. 
But  my  word,  what  a  joy  to  watch  them 
do  tennis!  Throw  themselves  into  it  as 
if  the  whole  of  civilization  were  at  stake. 
And  what  a  terrible  mess  they  do  make  of 
it,  eh?" 

G.  R.  Elliott 


The  Revival  of  the  Classic  Drama 


IN  a  recent  address  to  the  League  for 
Political  Education,  I  took  occasion 
to  speak  of  the  degradation  of  the  stage 
as  a  great  organ  of  public  instruction. 
A  fragment  from  this  speech  was  used 
as  the  basis  of  an  article  in  the  New 
York  Tribune,  of  Sunday,  February  15, 
and  among  those  who  commented  upon 
my  indictment  of  the  stage  in  recent 
years  was  Mr.  David  Belasco. 

I  confess  to  considerable  surprise  that 
Mr.  Belasco,  who  as  a  producer  has  had 
high  ambitions  for  the  stage,  while  ac- 
cepting my  premise,  seems  to  dissent 
from  the  conclusions  which  I  drew.  He 
appears  to  justify  the  frivolous  play  as 
though  it  were  the  chief  end  of  the  stage. 
He  says:  "It  is  a  theatrical  manager's 
duty  at  times  to  crowd  the  stage  with  as 
many  pretty  women,  as  much  youth,  and 
light  and  charm,  as  possible."  And  he 
proceeds  to  state  that  each  Friday  night 
finds  him  at  a  musical  comedy,  "as  near 
the  front  as  I  can  get,"  where,  as  he 
states,  he  is  refreshed  and  invigorated 
by  "the  love-making  of  the  handsome 
tenor  and  the  beautiful  soprano." 

I  did  not  question  that,  even  on  the 
stage,  a  little  nonsense,  now  and  then, 
is  very  much  relished,  and  the  real  ques- 
tion, which  Mr.  Belasco  did  not  discuss, 
was  as  to  the  relative  proportion  which 
the  amusing  should  bear  to  the  instruc- 
tive and  inspiring.  Shakespeare  could 
blend  both  in  one  play  to  great  advan- 
tage; but  it  may  be  cheerfully  admitted 
that  there  are  few  Shakespeares. 

Mr.  Belasco  proceeds  to  make  the 
amazing  statement  that  there  are  "fewer 
frivolous  plays  in  New  York  than  in  any 
other  big  city  in  other  lands."  If  this 
be  so,  then  the  titles  to  New  York  plays 
are  very  misleading,  and  matters  of 
great  pith  and  moment  can  be  found 
"Up  in  Mabel's  Room."  Mr.  Belasco 
finally  says  that  he  pays  out  twenty 
thousand  dollars  a  year  in  advance  royal- 
ties, and  yet  "can  not  get  the  sort  of  seri- 
ous play  that  I  want."    He  rejects  many. 


because,  in  his  judgment,  they  are 
"overly  serious  and  altogether  too 
gloomy." 

My  contention  was  that  most  of  the 
fifty  theatres  now  producing  plays  in 
New  York  devoted  their  energy  to  the 
exploitation  of  the  very  lightest  and  most 
frivolous  of  productions.  I  cheerfully 
recognize  that  there  are  some  honorable 
exceptions.  While  recognizing  that  the 
stage,  as  a  great  and  potent  instrumen- 
tality of  society,  has  as  one  of  its  func- 
tions to  amuse  and  entertain  the  public 
in  this  work-a-day  age,  yet  I  also  em- 
phasized that  its  larger  functions  were 
to  instruct  and  inspire,  and  that,  in  these 
latter  functions,  the  American  stage  had, 
in  recent  years,  largely  failed. 

Those  of  us  who  would  like  to  see  the 
stage  restored  to  its  true  position,  as 
one  of  the  four  great  pillars  of  society, 
may  well  feel  discouraged  when  the  fore- 
most of  American  producers  seems  to  at- 
tach so  little  importance  to  the  stage  as 
a  serious  medium  for  public  instruction 
and  inspiration. 

Feeling  some  curiosity  to  contrast  the 
opportunities  of  a  young  man  of  this 
day  to  hear  the  best  and  noblest  in  the 
drama  with  those  of  the  period  when  the 
writer  was  a  young  man,  I  took  occasion 
to  consult  my  diary  for  the  year  1883, 
and  I  found  that  in  that  year  I  had  seen 
in  my  native  city  (Philadelphia)  the  fol- 
lowing plays:  Robson  and  Crane  in  "A 
Comedy  of  Errors";  Salvini  in  "Lear" 
and  "Othello";  Janauschek  in  Schiller's 
"Mary  Stuart";  Salvini  in  "The  Civil 
Death";  Langtry  in  "She  Stoops  to  Con- 
quer"; Modjeska  in  "Cymbeline,"  "As 
You  Like  It,"  and  "Twelfth  Night"; 
Sheridan  in  "King  Lear";  Rose  Eytinge 
in  "A  Winter's  Tale";  Rhea,  the  noted 
French  actress;  Irving  and  Terry  in 
"The  Merchant  of  Venice,"  "Charles  the 
First,"  and  "Hamlet." 

Even  the  plays  then  produced  which 
were  not  classics  had  at  least  the  merit 
of  intelligence,  and  Boston,  New  York, 


and  Philadelphia  each  had  its  stock  com- 
pany with  an  extensive  repertory  of 
classic  and  modern  plays.  Why  can  not 
New  York  with  six  millions  of  people 
have  another  company  like  Daly's? 

As  the  fish  that  were  discovered  in  the 
dark  recesses  of  the  Mammoth  Cave  were 
found  to  be  blind,  because  they  had  never 
been  privileged  to  see  the  light,  the  dis- 
appearance of  the  classic  drama  has  been 
followed  by  the  passing  of  the  actor  who 
could  read  the  lines.  I  have  been  in- 
formed by  those  who  ought  to  know  that, 
to  establish  at  this  time  a  Shakespeare 
theatre  in  any  of  our  leading  American 
cities,  would  involve  the  preliminary 
necessity  of  training  a  school  of  actors, 
even  to  read  the  lines,  much  more  to 
interpret  the  roles.  Raw  material  is  not 
wanting.  To-day  there  are  more  good 
actors  and  actresses  than  ever  before. 
But  there  are  few  great  ones,  because  so 
few  great  plays  are  given. 

The  present  seems  to  be  the  psycholog- 
ical time  to  start  afresh  in  this  matter. 
After  the  Civil  War  was  ended,  there 
came  to  the  American  people  a  deep  seri- 
ousness, which  found  its  reflection  in  the 
revival  of  the  classic  drama.  Only  a 
few  years  after  Appomattox,  Edwin 
Booth  played  "Hamlet"  for  one  hun- 
dred consecutive  nights  in  New  York, 
and  then  followed  it  with  a  revival 
of  "Romeo  and  Juliet"  for  sixty-eight 
nights.  Thus  the  public  demand  for  two 
serious  Shakespearean  tragedies  was  so 
great  that  for  nearly  a  half-year  these 
plays  ran  successfully — and  New  York 
at  that  time  probably  did  not  number 
over  a  million  people. 

It  seems  fruitless  to  urge  these  ob- 
vious facts,  which  all  intelligent  men 
must  recognize  with  regret  and  humilia- 
tion, if  we  depend  upon  the  theatre  as 
a  business  enterprise.  The  knowledge 
of  the  syndicates  that  own  and  control 
nearly  all  the  American  theatres  consists 
largely  in  the  old  aphorism  that  "Shake- 
speare spells  ruin."  They  believe  that 
the  taste  of  the  public  is  confined  to  the 
class  of  plays  which  revolve  around  a 
bedroom,  as  that  eminent  theatrical  man- 
ager, Mr.  Vincent  Crummies,  caused  his 
dramatist  to  write  a  play  around  a  pump. 
But  it  might  be  suggested,  even  to  these 
gentlemen,  that  there  are  bedroom 
dramas  with  a  very  serious  purpose. 
"Othello"  is  one  of  them,  "Cymbeline," 
another. 

All  this  leads  me  to  believe  that  the 
work  that  requires  the  earliest  attention 
is  to  found  a  classic  theatre  by  com- 
munity effort  that  will,  so  far  as  one 
theatre  can,  lift  the  stage  above  the 
dull  and  sordid  mediocrity  of  its  pres- 
ent management. 

It  may  be  admitted  that  the  revival  of 
the  classic  drama  can  not  be  accomplished 
as  a  mere  business  enterprise,  or  through 
some  of  the  human  agencies  which  to- 
day control  the  American  stage.     They 


April  17,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[887 


much  prefer  the  moral  scum  of  the 
Great  White  Way.  The  appeal  should 
be  made  to  the  parents,  who  ought  to 
feel  not  a  little  real  concern  with  respect 
to  the  intellectual  as  well  as  the  aesthetic 
advancement  of  the  rising  genera- 
tion. 

The  more  serious  problem  presents  it- 
self as  to  how  a  competent  stock  com- 
pany could  be  recruited  at  this  time, 
when  there  are  so  many  competent 
actors  and  actresses  for  modern  plays, 
but  so  few  who  any  longer  have  any 
training  in  the  classic  drama.  Undoubt- 
edly such  a  theatre  would  necessarily  be 
a  matter  of  slow  growth.  It  would  be 
necessary  to  build  up  a  stock  company 
slowly,  and,  at  first,  with  disappointing 
results.  There  are,  however,  actors  who 
would  willingly  drop  the  trivial  parts 
they  now  play  and  attempt  something 
more  worthy  of  their  noble  profession. 
Those  who  saw  George  Gaul  last  season 
play  the  part  of  "Job"  in  the  dramatized 
version  of  that  wonderful  book  of  the 
Bible,  will  never  forget  the  consummate 
skill  with  which  he  read  the  most  re- 
markable poetry,  perhaps,  that  the  litera- 
ture of  the  world  knows.  I  have  fol- 
lowed the  theatre  from  the  time  of  E.  L. 
Davenport  down  to  the  present  time,  and 
have  seen  nearly  all  the  great  actors  of 
England  and  America  and  some  of  the 
great  actors  of  France  and  Germany,  and, 
in  my  judgment,  George  Gaul's  perform- 
ance of  "Job"  was  a  real  achievement, 
considering  that  the  play  had  almost  no 
action  and  that  the  actor  was  obliged 
to  rely  upon  the  skillful  rendition  of  his 
lines.  There  are  doubtless  many  Gauls 
in  the  profession  wasting  their  talents 
upon  trivial  parts.  It  certainly  would 
be  a  crowning  reflection  upon  the  Amer- 
ican stage  if,  from  the  thousand  actors 
and  actresses  who  have  not  yet  become 
stars,  a  company  could  not  be  recruited 
which,  with  adequate  training  and  with 
the  wise  guidance  of  students  of  Shake- 
speare, would  become  a  very  competent 
company. 

But,  after  all,  "the  play's  the  thing." 
Better  a  Shakespeare  play,  even  though 
inadequately  done,  than  not  to  have 
Shakespeare  played  at  all;  for  even  an 
indifferent  performance  of  "Hamlet"  is 
a  delight  to  those  who  have  seen  far 
greater  actors  in  the  role;  because  it  is  a 
delightful  reminiscence  of  all  the  Hamlets 
who  have  paced  the  battlements  of  Elsi- 
nore  while  waiting  the  coming  of  their 
ghostly  father.  Never  will  the  writer 
forget  the  impression  made  upon  his 
mind,  at  the  age  of  thirteen,  when,  from 
a  gallery  in  the  old  Walnut  Street  The- 
atre in  Philadelphia — once  the  home  of 
the  classic  drama — the  wonderful  mys- 
tery of  "Hamlet,"  as  interpreted  by  E.  L. 
Davenport,  sunk  into  his  soul.  He  can 
only  feel  sorrow  for  those  of  the  rising 
I  generation  whose  theatrical  pabulum  con- 
sists   of   "Nightie   Night,"    "Roly    Boly 


Eyes,"  "The  Midnight  Whirl,"  "Linger 
Longer  Letty,"  etc. 

To  many,  the  revival  of  the  classic  the- 
atre will  seem  an  impossible  dream.  We 
shall  be  quickly  reminded  of  the  disas- 
trous failure  of  the  New  Theatre,  which, 
while  devoted  to  serious  drama,  did  not 
have  as  its  raison  d'etre  the  revival  of 
the  classic  drama,  and  which  failed  for 
a  variety  of  reasons  to  which  it  is  not 
necessary  to  make  allusion.  My  faith  in 
the  possibility  of  developing  a  classic  the- 
atre, not  only  in  New  York,  but  in  a 
hundred  American  cities,  is  based  upon 
the  extraordinary  development  of  the 
public  taste  for  music.  It  does  not  re- 
quire a  long  memory  to  recall  the  time 
when  it  was  difficult  for  more  than  one 
symphony  orchestra  to  find  any  public 
response  in  New  York,  and  when,  in 
Philadelphia,  only  meagre  audiences 
greeted  the  orchestral  concerts  of  Theo- 
dore Thomas.  Even  the  opera  spelled 
ruin  quite  as  much  as  the  Shakesperean 
drama  is  proverbially  supposed  to  do.  In 
less  than  two  decades,  a  taste  for  music 
has  been  developed  that  is  marvelous.  In 
New  York,  five  symphony  orchestras  give 
successful  concerts,  and  seats  for  the 
opera — possibly  the  best  in  the  world — 
are  sold  out  in  advance  for  almost  daily 
performances  for  a  season  of  twenty- 
three  weeks.  In  New  York  the  thirst 
for  music  seems  to  be  well-nigh  un- 
quenchable. 

The  difference  between  the  two  situa- 
tions is  that,  while  the  taste  for  the 
symphony  concerts  had  to  be  developed, 
the  love  of  the  theatre  as  one  of  the 
great  primitive  passions  of  mankind  has 
always  been  with  us,  as  witness  the 
alacrity  with  which  the  public  frequent 
even  the  poorest  drivel  of  the  stage,  and 
the  popularity  of  the  moving-picture 
shows.  With  this  love  of  mimic  repre- 
sentation it  should  not  be  difficult  to  de- 
velop in  a  city  of  six  millions  of  people 
a  demand  for  a  classic  theatre  which 
would  be  distinguished  from  all  other 
theatres,  not  only  because  it  was  not 
conducted  for  profit,  but  also  because  it 
would  produce  no  play  that  was  not  at 
least  one  hundred  years  old.  Therefore, 
it  would  be  called  the  Classic  Theatre. 
This  would  open  an  extensive  rep- 
ertory— Shakespeare,  Sheridan,  Gold- 
smith, Moliere,  Racine,  Schiller,  Goethe 
— not  to  omit  the  masterpieces  of  the 
greatest  stage  that  the  world  has  ever 
seen,  that  of  Athens,  with  .^schylus, 
Sophocles,  and  Euripides. 

Fortunately,  there  are  unmistakable 
evidences  that  the  same  reaction  from  the 
frivolous  which  followed  the  Civil  War  is 
again  slowly  taking  place.  There  is  a 
reasonable  possibility  that  next  season 
will  witness  four  or  five  serious  attempts 
to  revive  the  classic  drama.  Already  the 
Vrooms  are  to  give  a  series  of  classic 
matinees.  Walter  Hampden,  whose 
"Hamlet"   matinees   were   so    successful 


last  season,  is  understood  to  be  develop- 
ing as  a  business  enterprise  a  stock  com- 
pany with  a  classic  repertory.  That 
ever  conscientious  actress,  Margaret 
Anglin,  whose  productions  of  classic 
Greek  plays  have  been  so  successful  on 
the  Pacific  Coast,  has  under  considera- 
tion a  somewhat  extended  season  in  New 
York.  Barrymore  has  given  us  "Rich- 
ard III,"  and  Sothern  and  Marlowe  have 
again  taken  the  stage  with  their  familiar 
Shakespearean  roles. 

Even  more  promising,  however,  is  the 
prospect  that  the  Stratford  Players  may 
visit  America  next  year.  This  company 
of  actors  represents  the  most  serious  at- 
tempt in  the  English-speaking  world  to 
put  Shakespearean  representation  on 
a  sound  artistic  basis.  They  have  dis- 
carded the  star  system,  and  their  ap- 
peal to  the  public  is  based  upon  the  care 
with  which  every  part  in  a  Shakespearean 
play  is  enacted.  Each  year  they  give 
two  seasons  in  Stratford,  one  an  early 
spring  season  and  then  a  long  summer 
season.  The  company  consists  of  fifty 
players  drawn  from  all  parts  of  England 
and  especially  trained  to  render  the  plays 
of  Shakespeare  not  for  the  mere  ex- 
ploitation of  a  star,  but  as  an  artistic 
whole.  These  players,  whose  chief  sea- 
son is  in  Shakespeare's  birthplace  and 
who  have  all  the  inspiring  influence  of 
an  artistic  enterprise  which  is  devoted 
more  to  the  memory  of  Shakespeare  than 
to  commercial  profits,  have  been  im- 
mensely strengthened  by  the  elimination 
of  some  who  had  outlived  their  useful- 
ness and  by  recruiting  younger  and 
fresher  talent  from  the  English  stage.  I 
have  received  a  letter  from  Sir  John- 
stone Forbes-Robertson  that  speaks  in  the 
highest  terms  of  the  artistic  excellence 
of  the  Stratford  Players.  It  is,  therefore, 
gratifying  to  know  that  there  is  this 
prospect,  and  that  efforts  are  now  being 
made  to  bring  the  Stratford  company  to 
America;  as  they  have  more  than  thir- 
teen Shakespearean  plays  in  their  rep- 
ertory, it  is  possible  that  the  American 
people  may  see  the  production  of  master- 
pieces which  have  not  been  seen  by  Amer- 
ican theatregoers  for  many  years. 

I  have  always  been  impressed  in  read- 
ing "Hamlet"  with  the  marked  distinc- 
tion which  Shakespeare  makes  in  his 
greeting  to  the  two  courtiers,  Rosen- 
crantz  and  Guildenstern,  and  to  the 
players.  To  the  former,  his  attitude  was 
the  formal  one  of  a  prince;  but  he  hails 
the  latter — not  once,  but  many  times — 
as  "friends."  Whether  the  Stratford 
Players  come  to  America  or  not,  if  the 
players  of  America  shall  use  their  in- 
fluence for  the  revival  of  the  classic 
drama,  and  especially  of  the  Shake- 
spearean drama,  then  the  public  not  only 
should,  but  assuredly  will,  say: 

Good,  my  lord,  will  you  see  the  players 
well  bestowed? 

James  M.  Beck 


388] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  49 


Correspondence 

Congress's  Right  to  Declare 
Peace 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review  : 

In  the  course  of  the  discussion  which 
has  been  aroused  in  Congress  by  the 
proposal  to  declare  hostilities  with 
Germany  at  an  end  by  joint  resolution, 
Senator  Thomas  of  Colorado  has  brought 
forward  evidence  showing  that  on  one 
occasion  the  Convention  which  framed 
the  Constitution  voted  down  unanimously 
a  motion  to  vest  Congress  with  the 
l)0wer  to  "make  peace."  This  evidence 
is  good  so  far  as  it  goes,  but  it  does 
not  support  all  of  Senator  Thomas's  de- 
ductions from  it,  nor  indeed  has  he  given 
a  quite  complete  account  of  it.  The  pro- 
posal in  question  was  made  and  rejected 
by  the  Convention  on  August  17,  1787. 
One  ground  for  its  rejection  was  that  the 
making  of  peace  would  naturally  fall,  not 
to  the  Executive,  as  Senator  Thomas 
would  have  it,  but  to  the  treaty-making 
body,  which  was,  by  the  plan  at  the  date 
before  the  Convention,  the  Senate  alone. 
And  the  principal  argument  which  was 
offered  against  the  proposal  Senator 
Thomas  ignores  altogether.  It  was  the 
argument  made  by  Ellsworth  and  re- 
peated by  Madison,  that  "it  should  be 
more  easy  to  get  out  of  war  than  into 
it" — the  obvious  deduction  being  that 
the  making  of  peace  ought  therefore  to 
be  lodged  with  a  less  cumbersome  body 
than  Congress.  The  Convention  was 
apparently  unacquainted  with  the  "sin- 
gle-track mind" ! 

The  mere  fact  that  Congress  is  not 
specifically  authorized  to  make  peace 
does  not  prove  that  it  does  not  possess 
powers  in  the  exercise  of  which,  on 
proper  occasions,  it  may  bring  peace 
about.  Congress  was  also  denied  by  the 
Convention  of  1787  the  power  to  charter 
corporations;  notwithstanding  which  it 
has  repeatedly  exercised  this  power,  and 
has  been  sustained  by  the  Supreme 
Court  in  so  doing.  Nor  again  does  the 
fact  that  peace,  whether  domestic  or  in- 
ternational, may  be,  and  ordinarily  is, 
attained  by  the  treaty  route  prove  that 
all  other  roads  thereto  are  closed.  To 
cite  some  parallel  cases:  certain  busi- 
nesses are  subject  to  both  the  taxing 
power  of  Congress  and  the  police  power 
of  the  States ;  treaties  may  be  abrogated, 
at  least  so  far  as  the  United  States  is 
concerned,  both  by  act  of  Congress  and 
by  agreement  between  our  Government 
and  the  other  parties  thereto;  certain 
international  conventions  may  be  en- 
tered into  by  the  President  alone,  upon 
authorization  by  Congress,  or  by  the 
President  and  Senate  without  such 
authorization;  certain  types  of  breaches 
of  the  law  may  be  cured  either  by  an 


executive  pardon  or  by  a  legislative  act 
of  indemnity;  and  so  on.  In  short,  it 
frequently  happens  that  the  same  legal 
result  may  be  produced  by  very  different 
powers  of  government;  nor  need  this 
fact  lead  to  confusion,  since  as  soon  as 
any  of  the  competent  powers  has  acted, 
the  result  is  produced. 

Congress  may  repeal  or  otherwise  cur- 
tail the  legal  operation  of  any  measure 
which  it  had  the  right  to  enact  in  the 
first  place,  though  naturally  it  can  not  re- 
peal the  acts   already   done   under   the 
sanction  of  such  measure  while  it  was 
still  operative.     Congress  can  not   now 
invalidate,  nor  does  it  wish  to,  what  was 
properly  done  by  virtue  of  its  declara- 
tion of  war  upon  Germany;  but  it  can 
withdraw  its  sanction  from  any  further 
hostilities  against  our  former  foe.     But 
the  proposed  Porter  resolution  has  also  a 
second    purpose,    namely,    to    force    the 
German   Government,   by  the  threat  of 
cutting  off  all  commercial  relations  with 
it — relations  which  are  now  going  on  in 
the    midst    of    "war" — to    proclaim    the 
cessation  on  its  part  of  hostilities  against 
this  country  and  the  renunciation  of  any 
claims  against   this   country   which   the 
German    Government   "would   not   have 
the  right  to  assert  had  ti.e  United  States 
ratified  the  Treaty  of  Versailles."     This 
provision,  at  least,  it  will  be  contended, 
amounts  to  an  attempt  on  the  part  of 
Congress    to    usurp    the    treaty-making 
power.     In  fact,  however,  the  proposal 
is    grounded   on    the    securest   of    prec- 
edents,   on    Madison's    Non-Intercourse 
Act,  on  the  "reciprocally  unjust"  clause 
of  the  McKinley  Tariff  Act,  which  was 
sustained  by  the  Supreme  Court  in  the 
case    of    Field    v.    Clark    (143    U.    S.) 
against   the   objection   just   recited,    on 
the  "maximum  and  minimum"  clause  of 
the    Dingley    Act,     on    the    Canadian 
Reciprocity    Act    passed    during    Presi- 
dent Taft's  Administration  and  at  his 
special  instance.    In  all  these  cases  Con- 
gress did  just  what  it  is  proposing  to 
do  at  the  present  moment;  it  was  using 
its  power  to  regulate  "commerce  with 
foreign  nations"  to  force  certain  coH- 
cessions  from  those  nations. 

Congress  has  the  right,  then,  simply 
by  virtue  of  its  power  to  repeal  its  pre- 
vious enactments,  to  declare  hostilities 
with  Germany  to  be  at  an  end,  and  its 
declaration  to  this  effect,  once  duly  en- 
acted, will  be  binding  upon  the  Courts 
and  the  Executive  alike.  Also,  it  has 
the  right  by  virtue  of  its  power  to  regu- 
late "commerce  with  foreign  nations" 
and  to  "pass  all  laws  necessary  and 
proper"  to  that  end,  to  curtail  or 
even  to  prohibit  American  trade  with 
Germany,  and  this  it  may  do  either 
forthwith,  or  conditionally  upon  the  oc- 
currence or  non-occurrence  of  certain 
events  the  ascertainment  and  proclama- 
tion of  which  may  be  left  with  the  Pres- 
ident. Both  these  propositions  rest  upon 


practice,  precedent,  and  unchallengeable 
principles,  while  the  opposing  view  rests 
upon  the  fallacious  supposition  that  since 
peace  in  a  legal  sense  would  undoubtedly 
ensue  upon  the  ratification  of  a  treaty 
of  peace  with  Germany,  a  treaty  of 
peace  is  the  only  way  to  obtain  it.  But 
there  is  more  than  one  road  leading  to 
peace,  as  to  Rome,  and  a  sovereign  gov- 
ernment, which  the  United  States  un- 
doubtedly is  in  the  field  of  foreign  rela- 
tions, must  be  regarded  as  having  access 
to  them  all,  until  at  least  it  can  be  shown 
to  have  been  cut  off  therefrom  by  some 
very  definite  Constitutional  prohibition 
such  as  no  opponent  of  the  Porter  reso- 
lution has  as  yet  produced.  There  is,  in 
other  words,  no  good  reason  either  in 
law  or  common  sense  why  Congress 
should  not  turn  off  the  current  which  it 
turned  on  three  years  ago  to-day,  and 
so  allow  Uncle  Sam  to  relax  his  wearied 
grip  from  an  altogether  useless  and  ex- 
cuseless  live  wire. 

Edward  S.  Corwin 
Princeton,  N.  J.,  April  6 

The  Excess  Profits  Tax 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

General  Wood,  President  Nicholas 
Murray  Butler,  and  the  New  York 
Times  have  ventured  to  criticize  the  ex- 
cess-profits tax,  and  the  Neiv  Republic 
has  rushed  to  the  defense.  The  argu- 
ment of  the  editors  seems  to  run  like 
this :  These  people  who  say  that  the  ex- 
cess-profits tax  is  bad  are  not  to  be 
trusted  in  any  way:  that  ought  to  be 
enough.  But  for  those  who  might  other- 
wise be  misled  it  may  be  pointed  out  that 
such  a  tax  does  not  discourage  produc- 
tion, because  it  takes  only  $2.40  out  of 
$12  excess  profit  on  $100  of  invest- 
ment. The  $2.40  is  not  added  to  the 
price  of  goods,  because  the  manufacturer 
will  charge  all  he  can  get  anyway,  and 
he  can  get  more  than  the  tax  just  now. 
The  real  remedy  is  not  less  excess-prof- 
its tax  but  more.  Take  one  hundred  per 
cent,  of  the  profit  above  an  adequate 
minimum — say,  ten  per  cent.,  or  even  fif- 
teen. Divert  more  and  more  of  the  prof- 
its of  "trusts"  and  "barons."  The  result 
must  be  that  the  plunderers  will  reduce 
prices.  There  is  nothing  to  be  gained  by 
making  profits  for  Uncle  Sam's  sole 
benefit. 

All  this  is  familiar  tactics.  Discredit 
your  opponents;  fix  unpopular  names  on 
them;  set  up  and  beat  down  a  man  of 
straw ;  above  all,  state  with  violence  some 
half-truths  and  suppress  everything  that 
disproves  their  application.  It's  not  dif- 
ficult and  it  works. 

In  that  respect  it  differs  from  the  ex- 
cess-profits tax,  which  doesn't  work.  And 
the  income  super-tax,  which  doesn't  work. 
And  every  other  tax  intended  to  put  un- 
due burdens  on  a  few,  which  never  works. 
Nobody  in  his  senses  contends  that  the 


April  17,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[889 


excess-profits  tax  cuts  any  figure  in 
prices  when  the  economic  situation  per- 
mits the  producers  of  goods  to  secure 
enormous  profits.  When  demand  far 
exceeds  supply  the  tax  becomes  negli- 
gible. Nor  does  any  one  suppose  that 
such  a  tax,  in  times  like  these,  discour- 
ages any  corporation  from  producing  all 
it  can  under  the  circumstances  of  inef- 
ficient labor,  short  coal  supply,  and  other 
handicaps.  But  it  is  conceivable  that 
even  General  Wood,  President  Butler, 
and  the  New  York  Times  may  be  telling 
the  truth  when  they  say  that  the  excess- 
profits  tax  will  be  added,  at  least  in  part, 
to  prices  when  a  more  normal  situation 
returns. 

Nobody  has  ever  succeeded  in  beating 
into  the  heads  of  a  certain  kind  of  "econ- 
omist" that  8  per  cent,  or  10  per  cent,  on 
capital  invested  is  not  necessarily  an  ade- 
quate return  in  all  cases.     And  yet  for 
at  least    a    century    there    has    been    a 
strong  inducement  to  every  form  of  in- 
dustry to   turn   back   earnings   into   the 
business,  because  nearly  every  enterprise 
that  did  not  do  that  has  failed.     Those 
which  grew  strong,  including  such  of  the 
railroads  as  have  not  been  through  re- 
ceivership, put  earnings  into  extensions 
and  improvements.    Now  all  that  is  to 
be  changed.     High   authority    has   pro- 
nounced that  shippers   can   not  be  ex- 
pected to  provide  interest  on   invested 
capital  and  new  capital  besides.    The  un- 
derlying theory  of  excess-profits  taxation 
in  peace   time   must   be   that    manufac- 
turers and    dealers    ought    to    make    no 
more    than    a    "fair"    profit    (whatever 
that  may  be)  on  invested  capital.    With 
the  exception  of  a  very  moderate  allow- 
mce  for  depreciation,  the  Act  of  Con- 
gress does  not  permit  deductions  for  re- 
)lacements  and  none  at  all  for  extensions 
)f  plant.     Then  the  new  capital,  which 
nust  be  had  if  there  is  to  be  healthy 
growth,  must  come  from  the  profits  re- 
naining  after  payment  of  taxes.     The 
imount  needed  for  this  purpose  differs 
n  different  industries  and  it  may  vary 
rom  year  to  year.     It  may  very  much 
xceed   10  per  cent,   on   the  capital   in- 
ested  in  some  industries.  There  can  be 
0  fixed  "adequate  minimum"  unless  it  is 
ut  so  high  as  to  cover  the  most  needy 
ases. 

The  New  Republic  points  to  the  recent 

ailroad  law  and  suggests  that  nobody 

lought  of  allowing  even  as  much  as  8 

er  cent,  profit.    True.     And  it  remains 

)  be  seen  how  it  will  work.     If  profits 

le  to  be  limited  to  a  small  return  on 

ipital,   there  must  be  some  guarantee 

lat  they  will  be  steadily  earned  and  paid 

jfore   investors  will   care  to   put   new 

oney  into  railroads.     It  may  be  that 

le  recent  Act  of  Congress  provides  such 

guarantee,  though  there  is  as  yet  no 

sible  eagerness  to  buy  railroad  securi- 

3s.    If  that  guarantee  is  not  provided. 


the  railroads  must  fail  and  the  New 
Republic  will  clamor  for  Government 
ownership  and  the  Plumb  plan. 

The  manufacturer  does  not  expect,  and 
he  certainly  will  not  get,  any  guarantee 
whatever.  If  he  can  not  strengthen  his 
position,  he  knows  what  will  happen ;  he 
will  fail,  as  so  many  others  have  before 
him.  He  is  not  allowed  to  deduct  the 
cost  of  strengthening  his  business  before 
his  taxes  are  levied.  Then  it  must  come 
out  of  net  earnings,  after  taxes,  and  go 
into  the  price  of  goods  after  we  have 
reached  the  time  when  cost  of  produc- 
tion counts.  It  is  conceivable  that  the 
gentlemen  who  have  incurred  the  sov- 
ereign contempt  of  the  New  Republic 
have  perceived  this  and  would  prefer  to 
have  our  house  set  in  order  while  there 
is  still  time. 

But  all  this  is  beside  the  point.  It  is 
the  man  of  straw,  set  up  to  be  knocked 
down.  The  real  issue  would  be  incon- 
venient for  the  "economists"  who  prefer 
to  deal  in  half  truths.  That  issue  was 
adequately  stated  by  Mr.  Glass,  when  he 
was  Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  Speak- 
ing of  the  excess-profits  tax  in  his  an- 
nual report,  he  said,  "It  encourages 
wasteful  expenditure,  puts  a  premium 
on  overcapitalization  and  a  penalty  on 
brains,  energy,  and  enterprise,  discour- 
ages new  ventures  and  confirms  old  ven- 
tures in  their  monopolies."  Everybody 
who  has  had  experience  of  its  actual 
effects  knows  that  this  is  true.  Will  any 
one  contend  that  these  results  have  had 
no  effect  on  prices?  Will  any  one  assert 
that  they  will  not  have  a  marked  effect 
in  preventing  a  return  to  lower  prices 
when  other  conditions  permit?  To  those 
who  are  not  "economists"  it  certainly 
seems  likely  that  extravagant  manage- 
ment, inertia,  and  safety  in  an  en- 
trenched position  will  make  goods  dearer. 

Secretary  Glass  failed  to  carry  his 
criticism  to  its  logical  conclusion.  Ex- 
actly the  same  objections  are  valid  with 
respect  to  the  super-tax  on  earned  in- 
comes. Everybody  who  has  come  in 
contact  with  its  actual  effects  is  aware 
that  it  encourages  waste,  puts  a  penalty 
on  brains,  energy,  and  enterprise  and 
discourages  new  ventures.  But  fortu- 
nately General  Wood,  President  Butler, 
and  the  New  York  Times  have  appar- 
ently confined  their  criticism  to  the  ex- 
cess-profits tax.  One  can  imagine  the 
New  Republic  dealing  faithfully  with 
them  if  they  had  ventured  to  touch  the 
sacrosanct  super-tax ;  one  can  foresee  the 
sneers,  the  imputation  of  sinister  mo- 
tives, the  magnificent  assumption  of 
wisdom,  and  one  can  be  grateful  for  be- 
ing spared  the  spectacle. 

But  there  is  cause  for  gratitude  in 
the  threat  with  which  the  second 
article  on  this  subject  concludes.  "Ex- 
cess-profits taxes  offer  one  solution  of 
the  problem  of  monopoly.    There  is  one 


other  solution  compatible  with  democ- 
racy. That  is  nationalization.  Every- 
thing else  has  failed."  Really  our  polit- 
ical leaders  ought  to  be  told  this.  Per- 
haps they  ought  to  paste  it  in  their  hats. 
It  is  so  neat  and  sonorous.  Let  us  draw 
comfort  from  the  existence  of  two 
possible  solutions.  One  might  have  sup- 
posed that  there  was  not  even  one. 
Philip  Dexter 
Boston,  Mass.,  April  3 

Compulsory  Medicine 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

We  are  facing  a  deplorable  condition 
of  the  times  in  respect  to  compulsory 
medicine.  Commercialism  has  so  sur- 
rounded, invaded,  arrogated  the  fields  of 
intelligent  personal  prerogative,  that 
good  citizenship  wonders  where  it  will 
stop.  The  privilege  of  preserving  health 
has  been  practically  assailed,  and  the 
healthy  are  confronted  with  so  many 
forms  of  compulsory  medicine  that  good 
judgment  rejects  them  all,  not,  however, 
without  being  assured  by  some  pseudo- 
authority  that  legal  penalty  will  follow. 

The  question  before  the  public  is  a 
large  one,  but  a  simple  one  of  sense  and 
justice  after  all.  It  is  this:  Are  labora- 
tory foundations  which  are  endowed  by 
multi-millionaires  in  the  name  of  philan- 
thropy to  be  the  nucleus  of  experimental 
activities  beginning  with  the  lower  and 
higher  animals  and  extending  to  free 
human  beings  who  may  be  assembled  for 
the  purpose  in  various  grades  of  submis- 
sion? Is  there  any  science  in  it?  Any 
art?  Any  humanity?  Any  philanthropy? 
No.  The  whole  fabric  as  to  its  exploita- 
tion for  benefit  of  human  health  is  an 
affliction.  Witness  tuberculosis,  influenza, 
and  numerous  infections  in  our  camps 
and  armies  following  inoculations  of 
healthy  recruits  for  diseases  which  are 
known  to  be  non-existent  under  properly 
regulated  sanitation. 

The  human  organism  is  very  tenacious 
of  its  integrity  as  against  foreign  in- 
vasion. It  revolts  when  its  blood  and 
other  tissues  are  contaminated,  especially 
so  when  that  contamination  is  most  in- 
appropriate as  to  immediate  demand. 
The  need  of  the  organism  is  evidenced 
by  very  delicate  signs,  and  it  is  the 
height  of  unscientific  imposition  to  in- 
stitute laboratory  theories  and  practice, 
wholly  speculative  as  they  are,  to  replace 
the  best  ideals  of  normal  hygienic  habits 
of  life  as  a  basis  of  health,  as  well  as 
sane  medical  aid  from  the  physician  in 
times  of  sickness  to  restore  health. 

We  can  not  have  our  children  infected 
by  any  therapy  which  forces  into  the 
bloodstream  an  agent  of  any  kind.  The 
foreign  element  is  a  menace,  since  it  is 
foreign;  when  it  is  also  a  product  of 
disease  it  is  doubly  dangerous.  The 
Shick  test,  diphtheria  antitoxin,  typhoid 


390] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  49 


prophylaxis,  all  the  serums  and  vaccina- 
tions are  to  be  regarded  with  more  than 
suspicion,  for  they  have  already  too  large 
a  mass  of  testimony  to  their  discredit. 

Public  health  demands  that  public 
places  be  kept  clean  and  sanitary  beyond 
anything  which  obtains  at  present.  Pub- 
lic health  will  not  endure  human  infec- 
tion from  any  agents  whatever,  though 
they  be  industriously  promulgated  by  all 
the  endowed  systems  of  so-called  medical 
research. 

John  Hutchinson,  M.D. 

New  York,  April  10 

The  New  Home  Rule 
Proposals 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review  : 

Is  not  the  following  a  reasonable  inter- 
pretation of  the  Irish  situation,  as  it 
stands  at  present? 

The  British  Government  is  bound  by 
the  Home  Rule  Act  of  1914.  The  condi- 
tions which  led  to  the  adoption  of  that 
Act  have  been  altered  during  the  prog- 
ress of  the  war  by  the  disloyalty  of  the 
Nationalist,  and  Sinn  Fein  people  of  the 
South,  and  by  the  patriotic  loyalty  of 
Ulster.  To  carry  out  the  provisions  of 
that  Act  and  to  place  Ulster  under  the 
control  of  a  Dublin  Parliament  without 
her  consent  and  contrary  to  her  wishes 
would  be  a  return  for  her  loyalty  which 
is  inconceivable  and  would  be  a  harm 
alike  to  the  people  of  Ulster,  to  the  Brit- 
ish nation,  and  to  the  friends  of  Great 
Britain  throughout  the  world.  The 
question  which  Mr.  Lloyd  George  must 
solve  is  how  to  dispose  of  the  obligations 
resting  upon  the  Government  under  the 
Act  of  1914.  Every  proposal  hitherto 
made  to  the  disaffected  element  in  Ire- 
land has  been  rejected,  and  every  pro- 
posal that  can  be  made — consistent  with 
the  welfare  of  the  Empire — is  likely  to 
be  rejected.  To  meet  this  situation  the 
Prime  Minister  has  tendered  a  measure 
which  represents  the  extreme  concession 
which  the  Government  can  offer.  The 
South  will  reject  it.  Were  Ulster  to 
reject  it  she  would  be  placing  herself 
upon  the  same  basis  of  disaffection  as 
the  South.  Sir  Edward  Carson  under- 
stands and  supports  the  purposes  of  the 
Prime  Minister.  Ulster  therefore  as- 
sents. When  the  South  rejects,  as  it 
undoubtedly  will,  the  Government  will 
be  freed  from  all  obligations  under  the 
Act  of  1914,  and  can  then  deal  untram- 
meled  with  the  Irish  situation  as  the  wel- 
fare of  the  Empire  may  require.  All 
friends  of  Great  Britain — and  they 
doubtless  include  a  great  majority  of  the 
citizens  of  the  United  States — must  sym- 
pathize with  the  British  nation  in  its 
difficulties,  and  must  hope  for  an  early 
and  rational  solution  of  them. 

Alba  B.  Johnson 
Philadelphia,  March  22 


Book  Reviews 

John  Redmond 

John  Redmond's  Last  Years.  By  Stephen 
Gwyiin.  New  York :  Longmans,  Green 
and  Company. 

AMID  the  abundant  and  increasing 
literature  on  Irish  affairs  it  is 
seldom  indeed  that  there  comes  into  a  re- 
viewer's hand  a  literary  treasure  such  as 
this.  It  is  not  simply  a  fascinating  and 
convincing  sketch  of  Redmond  in  the 
final  phase  of  his  career,  though  if  it 
were  estimated  on  this  ground  alone  it 
must  be  ranked  among  the  finest  achieve- 
ments of  recent  times  as  a  psychological 
portrait  of  a  public  man.  It  is  also  a 
study  of  the  conflicting  currents  of  Irish 
life  during  a  period  which  was  crowded 
with  events  of  world-wide  significance, 
and  in  which  the  clue  to  the  inner  mean- 
ing of  what  has  happened  may  well  elude 
even  the  most  patient  and  industrious  of 
outside  inquirers.  Much  that  has  been 
given  to  us  upon  this  subject  is,  on  the 
face  of  it,  either  inflamed  rhetoric  or 
well-intentioned  literary  incompetence, 
and  it  leaves  us  as  far  as  ever  from  real 
insight  into  the  situation  it  tries  to  pre- 
sent. Mr.  Gwynn  writes  as  one  having 
knowledge  and  authority.  He  has  had  ac- 
cess to  Redmond's  private  papers  covering 
the  whole  period  under  review.  He  is 
not  biased  by  religious  creed,  for  he  is  a 
southern  Protestant,  of  a  family  that  has 
long  been  distinguished  in  the  social 
circles  of  Dublin.  As  a  Nationalist  Mem- 
ber of  Parliament  he  was  himself  among 
the  first  to  respond  to  his  leader's  pa- 
triotic call  in  August,  1914,  and  his  judg- 
ment upon  the  upheaval  in  Ireland  since 
then  is  given  us  from  the  point  of  view 
of  one  who  served  for  years  with  an 
Irish  regiment  at  the  front.  On  his 
periods  of  leave  from  service  he  con- 
stantly revisited  the  House  of  Commons 
to  watch  the  turbid  political  whirlpool 
that  was  mingling  its  waters  with  the 
flowing  river  of  national  effort,  and  he 
sat  as  a  member  of  the  ill-fated  Irish 
Convention  of  1917  whose  fair  promise 
of  public  spirit  was  so  soon  darkened  by 
the  mists  of  sectional  intrigue.  He  is 
thus  able,  so  far  as  any  man  can  be,  to 
tell  us  how  Redmond's  later  policy  was 
conceived,  how  it  was  pursued,  and  how 
it  was  balked.  Incidentally  we  learn 
from  him  much  about  those  forces, 
hostile  to  Redmond,  whose  achievement 
is  to  be  seen  in  the  chaotic  Ireland  that 
lies  before  us  to-day.  And  though  strong 
language  may  rise  often  to  the  reader's 
lips  as  he  follows  the  record,  it  is  the 
spirit  of  charity  by  which,  as  the  best 
tribute  to  his  dead  leader's  example,  the 
biographer  is  unfailingly  inspired. 

Perhaps  what  strikes  one  first  in  the 
book  is    just    this    judicial    balance    by 


which  it  is  everywhere  marked.  Mr. 
Gwynn  is  keenly  aware  of  the  tempta- 
tions against  which  he  must  struggle  as 
he  depicts  the  last  years  of  John  Red- 
mond. He  had  to  write  the  last  sad 
chapter  of  a  public  life  which  he  in- 
tensely admires,  and  he  was  writing  it 
within  a  few  months  of  the  tragic  gloom, 
amounting  almost  to  martyrdom,  in 
which  it  closed.  He  had  to  explain  the 
causes  by  which  a  noble  enterprise  was 
defeated,  the  prejudices  by  which  a  high 
scheme  of  constructive  statesmanship 
was  misunderstood,  and  the  implacable 
passions  by  which  an  exalted  character 
was  maligned.  If  the  execution  of  this 
literary  task  had  not  been  made  impera- 
tive by  its  obvious  bearing  upon  certain 
problems  that  have  waited  too  long  for 
settlement,  it  is  safe  to  say  that  this 
writer,  with  his  vivid  sense  of  its  diffi- 
culties, would  have  deferred  the  attempt 
until  a  more  propitious  season.  The  soil 
is  indeed  still  too  hot  and  too  convulsed 
for  an  historian's  quite  steady  tread. 
But  we  have  all  reason  for  thankfulness 
to  one  who  has  ventured  a  work  of  such 
immediate  urgency,  bringing  to  it  a 
power  of  sustained  self-control  for  which 
we  so  often  look  in  vain  even  where 
lapse  of  time  and  cooling  of  tempers 
have  made  historical  work  comparatively 
simple. 

Mr.  Gwynn,  knowing  the  risk  that  a 
disciple  may  idolize  his  master  and  vilify 
his  master's  enemies,  is  always  careful  to 
point  out  wherein  Redmond  may  be 
judged  deficient,  and  the  strength  which 
belongs  to  much  that  was  urged  against 
him  from  the  camp  of  his  opponents.  The 
figure  drawn  for  us  in  this  book  is  that 
of  a  great  Party  Chairman,  devoted  heart 
and  soul  to  the  twin  causes  of  Irish  self- 
government  and  Anglo-Irish  reconcilia- 
tion, a  leader  far-sighted,  with  admirable 
tact,  unfailing  courtesy,  an  almost  unique 
gift  for  presiding  over  and  guiding  de- 
bate. But  joined  to  these  qualities 
through  which  he  shone  in  every  public 
meeting,  and  which  even  his  Ulster  ene- 
mies in  the  Convention  of  1916  were 
among  the  first  to  acknowledge,  were 
some  less  fortunate  characteristics  that 
made  one  remember  his  Norman  descent 
and  his  own  deep-seated  conservatism. 
Owing  to  a  temperamental  aloofness, 
Redmond  was  less  accessible  than  he 
might  with  advantage  have  been  to  in- 
dividual members  of  his  own  group,  so 
that  he  sometimes  misjudged  the  depth 
of  new  currents  and  the  changes  which 
were  in  process  underground.  "It 
needed  some  courage,"  says  Mr.  Gwynn, 
"to  go  to  him  with  a  question  in  policy, 
and  if  you  went,  the  answer  would  be 
simply  a  'Yes'  or  'No.'  "  His  was  not  a 
notably  "magnetic"  leadership;  he  some- 
times annoyed  those  whom  he  might 
easily  have  won  over  by  taking  them 
more  into  his  confidence;  he  lacked  ir 


April  17,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[391 


some  degree  the  personal  touch.  Thus 
within  his  own  party  he  was  admired 
rather  than  idolized,  the  object  of  liking 
and  profound  respect,  rather  than  of  love 
and  passionate  enthusiasm.  His  high 
standard  of  honor  made  him  recoil  from 
all  that  he  thought  of  as  intrigue,  so  that 
he  shrank  at  the  same  time  from  frankly- 
opening  his  mind  to  the  legitimate  in- 
fluence of  others.  The  integrity  which 
was  part  of  his  own  nature,  and  which 
he  assumed  in  those  opponents  to  whom 
he  held  out  the  hand  of  fellowship  in 
August,  1914,  made  him  forget  how  few 
were  capable  of  his  own  vision,  and  how 
slowly  the  unclean  methods  of  party 
strife  are  discarded. 

The  problems  upon  which  one  most  de- 
sires light  are  such  as  these:     Why  did 
Redmond's  appeal  for  recruits  succeed  so 
magnificently  during  the  first  eighteen 
months  of  the  war,  and  then  so  disas- 
trously fail?    What  were  the  forces  that 
so  sapped  his  strength  as  to  reduce  with- 
in four  years  a  solid  Parliamentary  block 
of  eighty-three  to  an  insignificant  group 
of  seven?     How  far  was  he  justified  in 
the  belief  that  the  increasing  displace- 
ment of  the  constitutional  Nationalists 
by  the  violent  Sinn  Feiners  was  due  to 
mismanagement  by  the  British  Cabinet? 
Mr.  Gwynn  has  supplied  the  most  in- 
telligible and  the  most  credible  answer 
which  has  yet  been  put  before  us.    Red- 
mond, as  his  biographer  sees  him,  was 
confronted  with  two  kinds  of  hostility. 
On  the  one  side  was  the  party,  small  at 
the  beginning  of  the  war  though  destined 
to  reach  ominous  proportions  before  long, 
in  which  hatred  of  England  and  distrust 
of  English  promises  had  become  an  un- 
conquerable passion.     On  the  other  side 
was    the    party    of    Ulster    extremists, 
backed  by  the  least  reputable  of  the  Eng- 
lish Tory  Opposition,  to  whom  a  recon- 
ciled Nationalist  Ireland  would  be  a  posi- 
j  tive  offense.    It  was  the  business  of  the 
I  first  of  these  parties  to  prevent  enlist- 
ments in  the  south  and  west,  as  it  was 
the  joy  of  the  second  to  prove  that  such 
enlistments  were  not  taking  place.     Mr. 
I  Gwynn  thinks  that  Lord  Kitchener,  in- 
I  valuable  in  the  field,  was  lamentable  at 
■such  a  time  as  Secretary  for  War,  but 
it  was  as  Secretary  for  War  that  he  in- 
sisted upon  acting.    He  knew  how  to  use 
all   other   forms   of   force,   but   not   the 
force  that  belongs  to  timely  conciliation. 
Hence  the  wretched  failure  in  the  man- 
agement of  Irish  recruiting,  the  use  of 
Protestant  and  Unionist  propagandists  in 
ntensely  Nationalist  districts,  the  refusal 
!o  recognize  and  officially  equip  the  Na- 
ional  Volunteers,   the  staffing  of  Irish 
'atholic  brigades  with  officers  alien  in 
sentiment  to  all  the  men  whom  they  com- 
nanded,  and  innumerable  other  blunders 
0  which  Redmond  again  and  again  called 
ittention  in  vain.    Lord  Kitchener's  wild- 
est hope  was  for  ten  thousand  recruits 
rom  Redmond's  following!     Even  when 


this  number  had  been  multiplied  many 
times,  he  would  accept  no  advice  from 
the  leader  who  had  so  far  surpassed  his 
expectations.  Mr.  Asquith's  promises  in 
his  Dublin  speech  were  thus  consistently 
falsified;  one  scheme  after  another  to 
bring  the  organization  of  Ireland  defi- 
nitely under  Ireland's  natural  and  thor- 
oughly loyal  chiefs  was  adopted  only 
to  be  again  cast  aside  at  the  bidding  of 
politicians.  The  inevitable  result  fol- 
lowed. Sinn  Fein  gained  by  leaps  and 
bounds.  Redmond  with  his  constitution- 
alism was  branded  as  a  failure,  while  Sir 
Edward  Carson  with  his  counsels  of  vio- 
lence had  been  a  conspicuous  success.  A 
southern  and  western  Carsonism  became 
the  new  gospel.  The  Government  had 
discredited  its  friends  and  stimulated  its 
enemies.  As  one  reads  Mr.  Gwynn's 
pages  one  recalls  the  trenchant  summing 
up  by  Macaulay  generations  ago  of  that 
spirit  which,  then  as  now,  spoiled  the 
British  administration  of  Ireland;  "wait- 
ing that  you  may  once  again  hit  the 
exact  point  at  which  you  can  neither  re- 
fuse with  safety  nor  concede  with  grace." 
It  is  a  sad  story,  but  a  very  plain  one. 
It  is  sad  in  its  outcome  for  the  fate  of 
the  best  and  truest  leader  whom  Ireland 
has  had  within  living  memory,  sadder 
still  in  that  effect  upon  Anglo-Irish  re- 
lations which  all  men  can  now  see,  and 
which  some  are  making  remorseful  ef- 
forts to  undo.  Mr.  Gwynn  again  and 
again  reminds  us  how  hard  was  the  Cab- 
inet's task,  how  little  time  amid  the 
burdens  of  the  war  could  be  spared  for 
inquiry  into  the  situation  across  the 
Channel,  how  much  allowance  we  must 
make  for  the  men  in  Downing  Street  who 
had  to  ride  the  whirlwind  and  direct  the 
storm.  Mr.  Asquith  and  Mr.  Lloyd 
George  may  be  excused  if  they  missed 
their  way  when  they  had  to  choose  be- 
tween forfeiting  one  sort  of  support  and 
forfeiting  another,  at  a  moment  when  so 
much  was  at  stake,  and  the  maximum 
support  was  so  sorely  needed.  Lord 
Kitchener  must  not  be  too  harshly 
blamed  if  he  was  not  a  statesman  as  well 
as  a  soldier.  Of  the  politicians,  both 
Carsonite  and  Sinn  Fein,  who  involved 
the  Government  in  such  desperate 
dilemmas,  and  who  seem  to  have  been 
fishing  on  their  own  party's  behalf  in 
those  troubled  waters,  the  reader  of  this 
biography  will  have  to  judge,  and  the 
materials  for  such  a  judgment  are  before 
him.  But  the  more  carefully  this  record 
is  read  and  studied,  the  deeper  will  be 
the  reverence  of  all  true  men,  both  Irish 
and  English,  for  the  heroic  figure  of  Red- 
mond, greater  in  the  high  purpose  which 
failed  than  even  in  those  unforgettable 
services  of  a  long  political  life  which  had 
succeeded.  His  follower  and  friend  has 
erected  a  noble  memorial  to  one  who,  like 
those  of  old,  had  to  live  and  die  in  faith, 
not  having  received  the  promises. 

Herbert  L.  Stewart 


Studies  in  Honor  of  Dr.  Osier 

CON'TRIBUTIONS     TO      MEDICAL     AND     BIOLOGICAL 

Research.  Dedicated  to  Sir  William 
OsLER,  Bart.  M.D.,  F.R.S.,  in  honor  of  his 
Seventieth  Birthday,  July  12,  1919,  by  his 
pupils  and  co-workers.  2  vols.  New  York : 
Paul  B.  Hoeber. 

SIR  WILLIAM  OSLER  practised  and 
taught  his  art  in  three  countries 
and  in  four  universities.  He  had  pupils 
and  he  won  friends  everywhere.  A  mis- 
cellany offered  in  commemoration  of  the 
birthday  of  such  a  man  could  not  well 
be  less  than  the  volumes  before  us:  well 
printed,  for  he  loved  a  well-made  book; 
possessed  of  literary  distinction,  for  he 
was  himself  a  charming  writer  on  a 
wide  range  of  subjects,  and  at  the  time  of 
his  death  president  of  the  Classical  As- 
sociation, succeeding  Professor  Sir  Gil- 
bert Murray ;  and  finally,  though  rigidly 
technical  in  parts,  confining  itself  to 
no  narrow  view  of  the  field  of  medicine. 
Osier's  own  range  was  as  broad  as  hu- 
manity itself.  Accordingly,  of  the  hun- 
dred and  fifty  articles  fully  half  deal  with 
historical  medicine,  education,  books,  so- 
cial problems,  and  the  humanities. 

"The  Eye  of  the  Burrowing  Owl,"  by 
Dr.  Casey  Wood,  arrests  one  by  the  title 
and  the  vivid  color  of  the  illustration — 
it — this  glowing  eye — reminds  one  of 
Mr.  Butler's  painting  of  the  Solar 
Eclipse.  The  article  is  an  interesting 
contribution  to  natural  history  as  well 
as  to  comparative  anatomy. 

Dr.  Charles  Singer  and  Dorothea 
Singer  of  Oxford  have  also  a  fascinating 
color  print  of  "A  Miniature  Ascribed  to 
Mantegna."  It  depicts  an  operation  by 
Cosmas  and  Damian,  the  patron  saints  of 
medicine.  A  patient  wearing  a  look  of 
placid  enjoyment  has  just  had  his  can- 
cerous leg  removed  and  replaced  by  the 
leg  taken  from  a  dead  Moor.  The  ap- 
proximation is  perfect  and  the  operation 
a  success. 

Here  is  a  verse  showing  something  of 
what  Cosmas  and  Damian  suffered: 

Victi,  torti,  carcerati, 
Crucifixi,   lapidati, 
Sagittati,   cruciati, 

Per  tormenta  varia : 
Ignem,  aquam  transierunt, 
Ferro  mortem  pertulerunt, 
Dulce  mori  sic  duxerunt 

Pro  coelesti  gloria. 

There  are  only  six  war  articles,  but 
these  are  authoritative  and  valuable. 

The  late  Professor  E.  E.  Southard  haa 
an  article  which  is  entitled  "Prothymia; 
a  Note  on  the  Morale-Concept  in  Xeno- 
phon's  Cyropedia."  Dr.  Southard  bases 
his  paper  on  a  long  and  well-balanced 
discussion  on  the  art  of  war  between 
Cyrus  and  his  father  Cambyses.  Prothy- 
mia is  a  word  which  Southard  would 
suggest  as  indicating  at  least  the  morale 
situation  in  Xenophon's  day.  Xenophon 
was  a  master  of  morale,  and  he  used 
definite  behavioristic  means  to  secure  it. 
His  prothymic  procedures  were  enheart- 


392] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  49 


ening,  inspiriting  measures  within  the 
domains  of  the  emotions  and  the  will. 
Southard  was  fond  of  neologisms,  and 
he  often  made  a  good  one. 

Dr.  Burton  Holmes  contributes  a  page 
devoted  to  a  "Votum  Medici"  (The 
Doctor's  Prayer).  It  begins  with  the 
difficult  aspiration: 

Ut  conata  mea  sine  ratione  lucrandi 
Aut  perpendi  perficiam. 

It  contains  a  sentiment  which  applies  to 
all  good  citizens: 

Ut  onus  ofHci  suspiciam  potius,  et  muneribus 
Quae  ad  me  atque  ad  homines  pertineant 
Maxime  perfungar  quam  mihi  ipsi. 

In  another  page  Dr.  Gerster  pays  hom- 
age to  Osier  through  the  medium  of  a 
stanza  from  the  "Clouds"  of  Aristoph- 
anes. The  quoted  verse  expresses  in 
Greek,  Latin,  and  English  a  wish  that 
the  mellow  ripeness  of  genius  and  of 
cultured  wisdom  might  produce  more 
work  from  Sir  William.    It  was  not  to  be. 

Sir  Auckland  Geddes,  who  earlier  in 
life  was  a  teacher  of  anatomy,  during 
the  war  became  Minister  of  Reconstruc- 
tion, and  has  since  been  named  British 
Ambassador  at  Washington,  speaks  with 
authority  in  his  article  on  "Social  Re- 
construction and  the  Medical  Profes- 
sion." 

It  seems  to  be  a  law  that  once  Science  is 
SCIENCE,  the  emotions  of  human  betterment 
and  of  beauty  are  perverted.  We  have  seen 
all  that  in  Prussianized  Germans,  and  it  need 
not  now  be  labored. 

The  point  that  it  is  necessary  to  make  most 
clear  is  this :  In  the  world  with  which  states- 
manship has  to  deal,  mass  emotion  is  infinitely 
more  powerful  than  accurate  knowledge.  It 
follows  that  those  who  play  their  part  in  demo- 
cratic states  must  understand  the  human  emo- 
tions, more  especially  the  spiritual  emotions  of 
beauty,  human  betterment,  and  truth. 

Dr.  Fielding  H.  Garrison  contributes 
an  article  on  Physicians'  Letters.  The 
best  known  are,  of  course,  those  of  Guy 
Patin.  In  modern  times  the  quality  of 
such  letters  has  probably  declined,  but 
in  the  last  century  there  were  many  in- 
teresting collections.  Dr.  Garrison  quotes 
largely  from  a  correspondence  between 
Sir  Lauder  Brunton  and  the  late  Dr. 
John  S.  Billings. 

Dr.  Henry  Barton  Jacobs  in  an  article 
on  "Edward  Jenner,  a  student  of  Medi- 
cine, as  illustrated  in  his  letters,"  has 
drawn  a  most  interesting  picture  of  the 
intimate  life  and  varied  scientific  in- 
terests of  a  man  who  through  his  con- 
tribution to  vaccination  belongs  to  the 
world  as  well  as  to  medicine. 

Perhaps  the  most  charming  contribu- 
tion in  the  volume  is  a  proem  written 
by  Sir  Clifford  Albutt,  the  Regius  Pro- 
fessor of  Medicine  at  Cambridge  Uni- 
versity. His  tactful  and  eloquent  con- 
tribution to  his  colleague  at  Oxford  reads 
the  more  impressively  when  we  remember 
that  Sir  Clifford  is  a  man  over  eighty 
years  of  age. 

Charles  L.  Dana 


Gardens  and  Garden  Books 

A  Little  Garden  the  Year  Round.  By 
Gardner  Teall.  New  York:  E.  P.  But- 
ton and  Company. 

TIME  was  when  the  last  word  in 
garden  seductiveness  was  spoken  by 
the  seed  catalogues.  The  text,  forcing 
its  way  through  a  gigantic  vegetation, 
miraculously  contrived  to  suggest  an  even 
huger  hugeness,  profusion  even  more 
profuse,  than  was  pictured  by  obese 
tomatoes  (an  elderly  gentleman,  still 
smiling,  is  bowed  beneath  the  weight  of 
two  or  three  of  them),  fat-podded  peas 
that  have  burst  into  a  dentifricial  smile, 
and  roses  that  are  easily  to  be  distin- 
guished from  the  cabbages  by  their  color. 

Times  have  undoubtedly  changed. 
Catalogues  of  the  older  fashion  continue 
to  appear  and  people  continue  to  buy 
from  them,  for  the  world  has  long  since 
comfortably  reconciled  itself  to  the  fact 
of  dining  off  cauliflower  less  perfectly 
curded,  lettuce  not  quite  so  close-packed, 
and  onions  less  ambitious  to  emulate  the 
great  globe  itself  than  the  pictures  hold 
forth  promise  of.  And  man  still  loves 
to  stick  flower  seeds  into  the  earth  and 
sense  the  thrilling  fact  that  some  of  them 
do  indeed  come  up.  But  in  the  literature 
of  the  subject  we  demand  a  great  deal 
more.  We  demand  the  gardening  book. 
At  any  rate,  we  get  it  in  abundance  and 
often  of  very  high  quality. 

The  garden  book  does  not  picture 
flowers ;  it  pictures  gardens.  It  does  not 
dangle  before  us  the  hope  of  bumper 
crops;  it  speaks,  sometimes  just  a  little 
cloyingly,  of  the  spiritual  satisfactions 
that  come  to  one  who  is  the  genuine 
possessor  of  a  garden.  Such  books— and 
the  garden  magazines,  too — have  played 
a  large  part  in  the  change  that  has  come 
over  American  gardens  in  the  last 
quarter  century.  The  rediscovery  of  the 
hardy  perennials  of  our  great-grand- 
mothers, the  establishment  of  firm  struc- 
tural relation  between  garden  and  house, 
the  conversion  of  the  central  flower  bed 
into  borders,  the  massing  of  "spotty" 
shrubs  and  trees  into  richly  gradated 
walls  enclosing  a  little  universe  of  open 
grass  and  open  sky,  and  the  intelligent 
use  of  garden  furniture  have  combined 
to  make  the  garden  what  it  should  be,  a 
place  where  one  lives  out  of  doors,  pass- 
ing from  room  to  room,  each  with  its 
special  purpose  and  its  peculiar  charm. 

Mr.  'Teall's  book  is  a  good  specimen 
of  its  kind.  There  is  poetry  for  those 
who  want  it,  and  explicit  and  practical 
planting  directions,  and  some  good  pic- 
tures. It  is  impossible  not  to  feel  a  con- 
viction that  we  are  here  moving  along 
sound  lines.  Fashions  in  rock  gardens, 
in  pools,  in  trellises  may  change,  but  the 
elements  with  which  the  modern  gar- 
dener composes  are  those  which  have 
stood  the  test  of  centuries.  On  only  one 
point  are  books  of  this  sort  a  trifle  reti- 


cent— how  the  work  of  making  and  car- 
ing for  the  garden  is  to  be  done.  One 
of  them  a  few  years  ago  let  drop  the 
secret  somewhat  in  this  way:  Speaking 
of  the  desirability  of  marking  certain 
plants  to  be  kept  for  seed,  the  author,  a 
lady,  said  "my  maid  keeps  me  supplied 
with  boxes  containing  strips  of  different 
colored  cloth."  No  doubt  one  of  the  un- 
der-gardeners  tied  them  on  for  her  as 
she  directed.  If,  indeed,  one  did  all  the 
things  these  books  lay  out  for  the  oc- 
cupation of  the  ambitious  gardener  one 
would  do  little  else.  But  it  is  not  neces- 
sary, though  it  is  a  temptation  hard  to 
resist,  to  plan  more  nobly  than  one  can 
realize  with  a  single  pair  of  hands  and  not 
too  abundant  leisure.  The  logic  of  the 
modern  garden  vindicates  itself  in  that 
it  may  be  reduced  to  the  narrowest  strip 
and  still  remain  complete  and  satisfying. 
The  man  who  thinks  he  will  not  care 
for  gardening,  or  who  dreads  to  involve 
himself  lest  he  should  not  be  one  of  those 
— there  are  some — who  succeed  in  re- 
covering from  the  pleasant  malady,  must 
not  at  his  peril  open  this  book  of  Mr. 
Teall's  and  the  others  like  it.  Those  who 
are  gardeners  already  will  run  through 
it,  as  apparently  they  run  through  all  the 
others,  feeling  amply  rewarded  when 
they  get  a  single  fresh  suggestion. 

New  American  Novels :  The 
Individual  Bobs  Up 

Peter  Kindred.  By  Robert  Nathan.  New 
York :    Duffield  and  Company. 

This  Side  of  Paradise.  By  F.  Scott  Fitz- 
gerald. New  York:  Charles  Scribner's 
Sons. 

The  Cresting  Wave.  By  Edwin  Bateman 
Morris.  Philadelphia :  The  Penn  Publish- 
ing Company. 

Fairfax  and  His  Pride.  By  Marie  Van  Vorst. 
Boston :    Small,  Maynard  and  Company. 

Order.  By  Claude  C.  Washburn.  New  York: 
Duffield  and  Company. 

Revolt,  An  American  Novel.  By  William  H. 
MacMasters.  Boston :  Small,  Maynard 
and  Company. 

Bertram  Cope's  Year.  By  Henry  B.  Fuller. 
Chicago :    Ralph  Fletcher  Seymour. 

Miss  Lulu  Bett.  By  Zona  Gale.  New  York: 
D.  Appleton  and  Company. 

LOOKING  over  a  chance  assortment 
of  new  novels,  the  latest  American 
product,  one  may  discover,  rather  unex- 
pectedly, that  most  of  them  are  frankly 
individualistic.  With  two  shoulders  to 
the  war  and  one  to  peace  (as  such),  and 
a  careless  elbow  for  humanitarian  or 
proletarian  millennia,  they  proceed 
earnestly  with  the  old  but  not  yet  an- 
tiquated business  of  that  Everyman  upon 
whom,  as  far  as  he,  according  to  his 
secret  conviction,  knows,  the  earth  pivots 
and  the  stars  focus  their  beams.  They 
breathe  the  air  of  modernism,  but  it  is 
primarily  important  as  the  air  they  have 
to  breathe.  They  are  full  of  youthfu 
flutterings  after  theory  and  practice  as 
abstract  objects;  but  the  main  point  if 


April  17,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[393 


whether  youth  is  gaining  its  own  ends  of 
self  -  discovery  and  "self  -  expression." 
Often  they  are  the  attempts  of  mature 
youth  to  express  its  own  experiences  to 
date,  of  the  graduate  to  interpret  a  world 
still  apparelled  in  undergraduate  mys- 
tery. Andover  and  Lawrenceville,  Har- 
vard and  Princeton  (yes,  yes,  and  Yale!) 
are  being  dealt  with  as  minutely  and  as 
seriously  as  Harrow  and  Eton,  Oxford 
and  Cambridge  by  the  younger  novelists 
of  England.  It  must  be  owned  that 
young  America  writing  novels  owes 
much  of  its  inspiration  and  its  technique, 
or  lack  of  it,  to  the  example  of  young 
England.  At  all  events,  it  is  busy  with 
the  affair  of  its  own  self  in  its  own  home. 
From  among  the  novels  of  the  past  year 
or  so  any  diligent  novel-reader  will  re- 
call various  books  of  the  teens  and  the 
twenties  by  authors  of  a  suitable  age: 
such  as  "Peter  Middleton,"  by  Henry  K. 
Marks;  "The  Groper,"  by  Conrad  Aiken; 
"The  Iron  City,"  by  M.  H.  Hedges,  and 
"Youth  Goes  Seeking,"  by  Oscar  Graeve. 
To  these  but  now  are  added  eager  and 
brilliant  improvisations  (as  they  seem) 
like  "Peter  Kindred,"  by  Robert  Nathan ; 
"This  Side  of  Paradise,"  by  F.  Scott 
Fitzgerald,  and  "The  Cresting  Wave," 
by  Edwin  Bateman  Morris. 

All  of  them,  needless  to  say,  heroically 
eschew  the  official  hero,  the  worthy  or 
the  all-conquering  idol  of  the  discredited 
past.  They  will  to  deal  uncompromis- 
ingly not  quite  with  the  average  young 
man  or  woman  of  our  days,  but,  let  us 
say,  with  that  young  man  as  he  appears 
to  himself  and  his  females.  Above  all, 
let  not  firm  or  self-contained  character 
be  attributed  to  him.  Let  him  be  un- 
certain of  impulse  and  infirm  of  purpose, 
open  to  the  tempting  lure  of  every  sexual 
zephyr  or  intellectual  cross-current.  Give 
him  "temperament,"  give  him  talent,  let 
him  be  snob  and  cynic  and  poseur  by 
turns,  but  in  Heaven's  name  don't  let 
him  be  sure  of  anything  except  his  own 
mystical  importance.  So  like  you  and 
me,  if  we  would  only  admit  it!  .  .  . 
Notably  this  nearly  average  young  man  is 
parted  from  the  average  by  his  extraor- 
dinary hankering  to  write.  If  himself 
is  nothing  better  than  a  series  of  moods 
or  a  catalogue  of  recognizable  qualities, 
himself  must  still  be  "expressed,"  re- 
corded, set  down  in  black  and  white. 
He  lisps  in  numbers,  or  their  currently 
accepted  equivalent.  He  proses  faith- 
fully, in  the  latest  manner,  when  the 
innumerable  numbers  fail.  Usually  he 
writes  a  novel  before  we  are  done  with 
him.  No  doubt  writing  men  rightly 
write  about  writing  youths,  since  there 
is  a  direct  draft  from  experience.  But 
it  is  a  little  hard  on  mere  reading  men, 
one  may  suspect.  .  .  .  What  we  sigh 
over,  it  may  be,  in  these  ingeniously 
ingenuous  fables,  is  that  they  represent 
the  average  with  variations,  instead  of 
embodying    and    sublimating    and    indi- 


vidualizing the  average  or  the  typical 
in  the  really  creative  manner.  If  you 
read  half  a  dozen  salad  novels  of  this 
kind,  full  of  talent  and  cleverness,  and 
permit  your  mind  to  relax  for  a  moment, 
and  then  try  to  see  or  hear  one  of  their 
protagonists  in  fancy,  you  find  available 
only  a  vague  composite  figure,  ardent, 
sceptical,  self-centred  and  elaborately 
commonplace. 

So  it  is  with  "Peter  Kindred."  The 
boy  is  a  tolerably  nice  boy,  and  he  does 
and  thinks  and  says  the  things  a  toler- 
ably nice  boy  would.  We  do  not  deny 
that  he  is  true  to  fact.  But  what  of  it? 
Who  cares?  Since  the  author  has  failed 
to  make  us  care  about  him  as  a  person? 
Well,  there  is  the  feminine  reader,  with 
her  inexhaustible  maternal  instinct  for 
making  a  swan  of  a  goose;  she  can  be 
counted  on  to  do  the  author's  work  for 
him.  And  there  are  the  actual  nice  boys, 
thousands  of  them,  peopling  their  Har- 
vards  and  their  Princetons  and  perhaps 
eager  to  see  how  they  look  in  print ;  but 
one  doubts  it.  For  them  the  romantic 
superman  who  breaks  rocks  with  his  fist, 
or  the  "wiseguy"  who  cracks  the  world's 
nut  without  the  aid  or  handicap  of  a 
bachelor's  degree.  The  young  and  too 
clever  chronicle  "This  Side  of  Paradise" 
concerns  a  youth  of  more  accredited 
brilliancy.  Amory  Blaine  is  the  only 
son  of  an  abnormal  marriage,  and  "in- 
herited from  his  mother  every  trait  ex- 
cept the  stray  inexpressible  few  that 
made  him  worth  while."  He  is  born  a 
snob,  an  egotist,  and  a  philanderer.  He 
takes  his  well-bred  schooling  at  St.  Regis 
and  Princeton.  He  has  various  amours 
with  others  of  lower  degree.  He  finds 
himself  fairly  landed  at  last  in  the  blind 
alley  of  disillusion.  Even  women — 
"women — of  whom  he  had  expected  so 
much:  whose  beauty  he  had  hoped  to 
transmute  into  modes  of  art;  whose  un- 
fathomable instincts,  marvelously  inco- 
herent and  inarticulate,  he  had  thought 
to  perpetuate  in  terms  of  experience — 
had  become  merely  consecrations  to  thei  <■ 
own  posterity.  Isabelle,  Clara,  Rosalind, 
Eleanor,  were  all  removed  by  their  very 
beauty,  around  which  men  had  swarmed, 
from  the  possibility  of  contributing  any- 
thing but  a  sick  heart  and  a  page  of 
puzzled  words  to  write."  In  brief,  poor 
Amory  is  all  dressed  up,  intellectually 
and  aesthetically,  with  no  place  to  go. 
And  the  brave  lad  has  thrown  up  his 
job  as  copy-writer  in  an  advertising 
agency.  Now  he  turns  his  back  (tenta- 
tively) on  the  worship  of  beauty  and 
the  pursuit  of  art,  and  inclines  to  be 
"a  certain  sort  of  man."  It  is  true  that 
he  appears  to  be  still  quite  at  the  mercy 
of  his  own  language.  He  has  a  notion 
of  turning  radical  in  earnest,  and  he 
has  also  (at  the  same  time)  a  vague 
leaning  towards  the  Church  as  a  refuge. 
Perhaps  we  do  not  quite  share  his  au- 
thor's vision  of  him  as  a  new-made  "per- 


sonage"— as  one  who  without  at  all  know- 
ing where  he  is  going  is  at  last  dis- 
cernibly  on  his  way. 

However,  one  marks  with  some  pleas- 
ure that  these  new  novels  almost  in- 
variably end  with  the  rising  inflection.  It 
is  no  longer  the  fashion  to  leave  youth, 
at  the  end  of  a  few  chapters,  wallow- 
ing helplessly  in  a  quasi-Russian  bog  of 
"reality."  If  a  man  is  a  worm,  let  us 
at  least  see  him  lift  his  head  towards 
the  light.  "The  Cresting  Wave"  is  built 
upon  one  of  the  very  oldest  of  ideas  or 
morals:  namely,  that  it  is  better  to  be 
decent  than  successful,  better  to  serve 
than  to  grasp.  It  is  less  chronicle  and 
more  fable  than  the  stories  mentioned 
above,  the  immortal  fable  of  youth 
stretching  out  its  hand  without  scruple 
towards  wealth  and  pleasure,  and  finding 
them  ashes  in  his  palm.  Perhaps  my 
gratitude  to  young  William  Spade  for 
neither  trying  to  write  a  novel  nor  spout- 
ing free  verse  nor  hanging  about  cafes 
and  studios  in  search  of  "life"  prejudices 
me  unduly  in  his  favor.  He  is  a  straight- 
forward business  boy  who,  having  im- 
bibed the  current  doctrine  of  "success," 
goes  after  it  under  the  flexible  rules  of 
the  game.  In  the  end  he  is  man  enough 
to  turn  against  this  doctrine  and  the  ac- 
companying laxities  which  threaten  to 
"make  the  name  of  America  stand  for 
misrepresentation  and  fraud  and  short 
change  methods  throughout  the  world." 
And  he  swears  allegiance  to  the  older 
faith  in  which  his  father  was  bred,  in 
the  day  when  the  clipper  ships  spread 
spendidly  "the  world-wide  reputation  of 
American  thrift  and  fairness." 

The  Fairfax  of  "Fairfax  and  His 
Pride"  is,  alas,  still  another  mighty 
genius,  whose  achievement  we  must  take 
on  faith.  His  pride  is  Southern  and 
he  brings  it  North  with  him  to  New 
York,  where  he  has  come  to  make  his 
fortune.  He  aspires  to  enter  the  studio 
of  the  great  Swedish  sculptor  Ceders- 
holm.  He  forthwith  produces  offhand 
certain  work  which  the  great  man 
promptly  appropriates  as  his  own.  There- 
upon Fairfax  takes  the  road,  becomes  a 
railway  engineer,  marries  an  Irish  wait- 
ress. Years  later  he  resumes  his  career 
again  under  another  name,  wins  fame, 
and  at  last  is  free  to  take  to  himself 
the  little  cousin  Bella,  the  "honey-child" 
who  has  been  aimed  at  him  by  the  author 
from  the  first  page.  "His  personality 
had  not  yet  developed  to  the  point  where 
he  was  at  peace.  He  knew  that  such 
peace  could  only  come  to  him  through 
the  companionship  of  a  woman."  Lucky 
Bella.  .  .  .  "Order,"  by  Claude  C. 
Washburn,  and  "Revolt,"  by  William  H. 
Macmasters,  are  self-titled  novels  of 
ideas.  The  order  at  stake  in  the  first- 
named  story,  however,  is  not  the  social 
or  political  but  the  moral  order — conven- 
tion, if  you  will.  And  the  sadly  reaction- 
ary idea  appears  to  be  that  the  conven- 


394] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  49 


tion  of  personal  morality  may  not  be 
a  bad  thing,  after  all — that,  at  all  events, 
many  persons  actually  base  their  happi- 
ness on  its  maintenance.  A  charming  and 
predatory  Englishman  creates  a  flurry 
for  a  time  in  a  certain  elegant  American 
suburb,  plays  havoc  with  more  than  one 
feminine  temperament,  but  retires  de- 
feated by  the  quiet  forces  of  order  upon 
which,  despite  their  will,  life  really  rests 
for  these  women.  "Revolt,"  interesting 
as  a  symptom,  is  a  raw  and  energetic 
tract  concerning  the  struggles  of  the 
American  "people"  against  the  machina- 
tions of  the  capitalists  and  their  kept 
political  parties;  and  the  final  triumph 
at  the  polls  of  the  Presidential  candidate 
of  the  new  Revolutionist  party  which  is 
to  make  America  safe  for  all  duly  ac- 
credited "people."  The  narrative  is  sul- 
lied by  no  touch  of  characterization,  that 
subtle  diiferentiation  of  personalities 
which  will  no  doubt  be  clearly  recognized 
and  condemned  by  proletarian  critics  as 
the  trail  of  the  capitalistic  and  individ- 
ualistic serpent. 

Meanwhile  there  remain  artists,  even 
in  America,  whose  interest  lies  in  the 
interpretation  of  life  through  character. 
By  contrast  with  the  confused  ingenuity, 
the  elaborate  formlessness  and  inconclu- 
siveness,  or  the  thin  didacticism  which 
so  often  finds  shelter  under  the  charitable 
eaves  of  current  fiction,  two  novels  of  the 
moment  take  on  importance  for  that 
quaint  person  the  "serious"  reader.  In 
a  sense  they  are  all  foreground;  no  vast 
concerns  of  race  or  class  or  humanity 
crowd  in  upon  their  simplicity.  Time 
and  scene  are  then  and  there,  not  now 
and  here — then  when  America  remained 
at  ease  with  herself  and  the  world ;  there 
where,  as  it  seems,  the  chronicler 
chanced  to  pass  one  day  and  to  see  vividly 
a  bit  of  life  so  inconspicuous  that  we 
other  passers  might  have  glanced  upon  it 
without  seeing  it  at  all.  If  there  were 
such  a  thing  as  photography  in  story- 
telling, we  should  not  find  it  in  "Bert- 
ram Cope's  Year."  Mr.  H.  B.  Fuller's 
realism  is  the  real  thing;  in  seeming  to 
register  it  interprets  and  portrays. 
Therefore  your  initial  reservations  as  to 
Bertram  Cope's  importance  or  saliency 
as  a  subject  may  well  have  been  forgot- 
ten if  not  consciously  withdrawn  when 
the  full  portrait  is  before  you.  He  is  a 
nice,  clean  boy  of  the  midlands  who  not 
long  after  his  respectable  graduation 
returns  to  his  old  university  for  what 
turns  out  to  be  a  single  year's  service  as 
instructor.  He  has  literary  leanings,  but 
we  are  not  given  to  suppose  that  he  has 
anything  more  than  a  mild  talent  for 
writing  concealed  in  him,  and  are  on  the 
whole  grateful  that  it  remains  concealed. 
He  can  sing  pretty  well,  and  has  a  kind 
of  boyish  freshness  and  energy  which 
attract  people.  He  is  tolerably  successful 
with  his  work  and  happy  in  it,  but  we 
are  chiefly  concerned  with  his  extra-pro- 


fessional experiences.  These  are  limited 
enough  in  range,  and  follow  upon  his  be- 
ing "taken  up"  by  two  rather  wistful 
persons  of  middle  age  who  crave  contact 
with  his  invigorating  youth.  They  begin 
as  recognizable  types  of  the  customary 
university  entourage,  but  we  feel  them 
clearly  as  persons  before  we  are  done 
with  them.  Randolph,  the  not  quite 
elderly  bachelor,  a  broker  by  calling,  by 
avocation  a  collector  of  odds  and  ends, 
among  them  choice  specimens  of  the 
priceless  article  Youth;  Medora  Phillips, 
the  comfortably  "left"  widow,  whose 
taste  runs,  more  diffusively,  in  similar 
paths.  They  have  a  sort  of  rivalry  for 
the  intimacy  of  Bertram  Cope.  Both  fail ; 
and  half-laughingly  condole  with  each 
other  when  he  has  passed  along  casually, 
after  his  year  at  Churchton,  to  a  new 
post  in  the  "important  university  in  the 
East"  which  is  the  natural  next  step 
forward  in  his  modest  career.  For  the 
rest,  his  year  has  produced  blameless 
excursions  and  alarms  in  the  field  of 
young  love,  one  of  which,  we  gather, 
may  lead  to  an  actual  encounter  later 
on.  A  mild  affair  altogether  whose  sole 
and  sufficient  distinction  lies  in  the  deli- 
cate perfection  of  its  setting  forth. 

The  "Miss  Lulu  Bett"  of  Zona  Gale  is 
another  firmly  moulded  novel  of  the 
shorter  kind.  In  "Birth,"  its  immediate 
predecessor.  Miss  Gale  showed  a  surpris- 
ing growth  not  only  as  "localist"  but  as 
ironic  interpreter  of  character.  This 
story  is  firmer  in  tone  as  well  a?  more 
compact  in  form.  It  is  a  study  of  char- 
acter in  the  light  of  a  culminating  epi- 
sode. The  situation  of  the  spinster  aunt 
who  has  become  the  household  drudge 
and  is  more  or  less  put  upon  by  all  the 
members  of  the  family  she  serves  is 
among  the  staples  of  Victorian  fiction. 
Let  us  own  that  this  is  an  American- 
Victorian  family,  with  its  action  by  no 
means  necessarily  in  the  past.  Mr.  Dea- 
con, the  tiresome  paterfamilias,  with  his 
stale  jests  and  his  pompous  authority,  is 
familiar  enough  as  a  type.  But  Miss 
Gale  lifts  him  away  from  the  type  by 
revealing  the  pathos  of  his  limitations, 
and  the  slender  but  true  vein  of  emotion 
that  runs  alongside  his  petty  egotism 
and  petty  malice.  To  his  sister-in-law 
he  is  pitiless,  to  his  children  and  his  wife 
he  deals  out  indulgence  or  censure  purely 
as  his  whim  may  determine.  Yet  there 
is  a  warm  bond  between  him  and  the 
silly  wife,  and  she  is  tenderly  devoted 
to  her  cantankerous  old  mother  as  he  is 
to  the  foster-mother  to  whom  he  "owes 
what  he  is":  "In  both  these  beings," 
says  the  chronicler  with  a  kind  of  won- 
der, "there  was  something  which  func- 
tioned as  pure  love."  But  this  does  not 
help  Miss  Lulu  Bett,  with  whom  the  story 
as  narrative  is  concerned.  Hers,  sub- 
merged but  indestructible,  is  the  only 
strong  character  in  the  tale.  It  is  for 
us  to  see  it  come  to  the  surface,  and. 


first  vainly,  then  successfully  grasp  at  a 
rescuing  hand.  A  happy  ending,  which 
is,  after  all,  no  bar  to  any  but  the  most 
"uncompromising"  realism. 

H.   W.   BOYNTON 

The  Tragic  Years 

Now  It  Can  Be  Told.    By  Philip  Gibbs.    New 
York:    Harper  and  Brothers. 

"Some  day,"  we  said,  "the  history 
of  the  war  will  be  written;  then  we 
shall  know  the  truth  about  these  things." 
We  said  it  in  days  of  dark  confusion, 
when  we  were  trying  to  approximate 
truth  by  a  blind  process  of  averaging 
official  reports  from  both  sides  with 
rumors  and  guesses,  discounting  the  re- 
sult to  allow  for  overweening  hope,  and 
adding  ten  per  cent,  to  offset  sheer 
despair. 

"Now  It  Can  Be  Told"  says  the  title 
of  Mr.  Gibbs's  book.  "It"  is  the  thing 
as  he  saw  it,  which  can  be  told  now  with 
freedom  from  censorship,  too  soon  per- 
haps for  a  true  perspective,  but  not  too 
late  to  put  facts  and  impressions,  emo- 
tions, reactions  and  reflections  on  record 
before  they  fade,  "as  a  memorial  of  men's 
courage  in  tragic  years."  "The  purpose 
of  this  book,"  says  the  author,  "is  to  get 
deeper  into  the  truth  of  this  war  and 
of  all  war — not  by  a  more  detailed  narra- 
tive of  events,  but  rather  as  the  truth 
was  revealed  to  the  minds  of  men  in 
many  aspects,  out  of  their  experience; 
and  by  a  plain  statement  of  realities 
however  painful,  to  add  something  to  the 
world's  knowledge  by  which  men  of  good- 
will may  try  to  shape  .  .  .  some  new 
code  of  international  morality,  prevent- 
ing or  at  least  postponing  another  mas- 
sacre of  youth  like  that  five  years'  sac- 
rifice of  boys  of  which  I  was  a  witness." 
"I  have  not  painted  the  picture  blacker 
than  it  was,  nor  selected  gruesome  mor- 
sels and  joined  them  together  to  make  a 
jig-saw  puzzle  for  ghoulish  delight.  .  .  . 
I  have  tried  to  set  down  as  many  aspects 
of  war's  psychology  as  I  could  find  in  my 
remembrance  of  these  years,  without  ex- 
aggeration or  false  emphasis,  so  that  out 
of  their  confusion,  even  out  of  their  con- 
tradiction, the  real  truth  of  the  adventure 
might  be  seen  as  it  touched  the  souls  of 
men." 

The  things  that  touched  the  souls  of 
men — and  the  things  that  did  not,  and 
the  men  who  had  no  souls  to  touch — 
these  are  the  material  of  the  book.  It  is 
not  a  sensational  tale  of  horror,  though 
no  painted  horror  could  well  surpass  it. 
He  who  wants  cold-blooded  atrocities  will 
not  find  them  here;  they  are  curtly  dis- 
missed as  "not  authenticated."  Men's  | 
souls  were  raw  to  the  touch  throughout 
the  four  years  of  grinding  horror  in  the 
trench  and  volcanic  horror  in  battle;  that 
of  Mr.  Gibbs  at  least  did  not  become 
calloused,  or  subdued  to  what  it  worked 
in.     The  book  moves  on  a  current  of 


April  17,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[395 


sympathy  which  sometimes  dims  the 
glow  of  his  heat  against  those  who  lack 
understanding.  His  heart  is  with  the 
line;  he  can  scarcely  mention  the  staff 
save  in  words  that  bite,  "elderly  generals 
who  liked  their  little  stroll  after  lunch," 
"young  Regular  officers  released  from 
the  painful  necessity  of  dying  for  their 
country."  Montreuil  as  occupied  by 
G.  H.  Q.  becomes  the  "City  of  Beautiful 
Nonsense."  It  takes  General  Sir  John 
Harrington  to  reveal  the  science  of  war 
as  "not  always  a  fetish  of  elementary 
ideas  raised  to  the  nth  degree  of  pom- 
posity as  I  had  been  led  to  believe  by  other 
generals  and  staff  officers."  He  dips  his 
pen  in  acid  to  write  of  generals  who  com- 
pete with  one  another  on  paper  in  games 
that  rot  the  souls  of  men  in  trenches, 
blow  their  bodies  to  bits  and  churn  them 
into  the  mud,  with  no  result  but  the 
score  on  the  office  records,  of  profiteers, 
of  people  of  all  sorts  who  express  blood- 
thirsty sentiments  and  play  safe  at  home, 
of  "little  ladies"  in  fancy  dress  uniforms 
or  bare-backed  at  bazaars  or  dancing 
bare-legged  "for  the  dear  wounded." 
There  are  times  when  his  feeling  clearly 
belies  his  words.  He  depicts  with  all 
possible  skill  the  ghastly  tragic  confusion 
at  Loos,  the  fate  of  the  21st  and  24th 
Divisions,  and  that  of  the  Scots  on  Hill 
70.  He  cites  Lord  French's  own  despatch 
to  show  that  the  plan  and  timing  of  the 
attack  were  directly  responsible  for  the 
pitiful  and  useless  slaughter,  that  Lord 
French  was  directly  responsible  for  the 
plan  and  time-table.  By  that  time  it  is 
too  late  for  him  to  say: 

I  do  not  blame  Lord  French.  I  have  no 
right  to  blame  him,  as  I  am  not  a  soldier  nor 
a  military  expert.  He  did  his'  best  with  the 
highest  motives.  The  blunders  he  made  were 
due  to  ignorance  of  modern  battles.  Many 
other  generals  made  many  other  blunders,  and 
our  men  paid  with  their  lives.  Our  High  Com- 
mand had  to  learn  by  mistakes,  by  ghastly 
mistakes,  repeated  often,  until  they  became 
visible  to  the  military  mind  and  were  paid  for 
again  by  the  slaughter  of  British  youth.  A 
writing-man  who  was  an  observer  and  re- 
corder like  myself,  does  not  sit  in  judgment. 
He  has  no  right  to  judge. 

Judgment  it  is  none  the  less,  and  the 
reader  who  must  take  such  things  largely 
on  authority  finds  confidence  in  it  as  he 
goes  on.  Clearly  enough  Mr.  Gibbs  is  not 
that  cold-blooded  impossibility,  "an  im- 
partial observer,"  but  he  has  an  effect  of 
impartiality,  perhaps  the  best  sort,  com- 
ing from  the  quickness  and  breadth  of 
his  sympathy  embracing  all  suffering 
wherever  he  finds  it.  Against  Heinie  in 
the  trench  he  has  no  more  rancor  than 
had  Tommy  in  the  trench ;  that  he  saves 
for  those  who  fattened  on  the  war. 
Withal  he  had  almost  unparalleled  op- 
portunity to  see  and  judge.  With  im- 
perfect knowledge  and  observation  we 
may  sometimes  say  of  generalship  as  of 
divine  providence,  "Perhaps  if  we  could 
see  the  whole  we  might  see  in  this 
slaughter  or  that  a  justifying  purpose." 


As  often  as  not  Mr.  Gibbs  shared  the 
plan  of  battle  with  G.  H.  Q.  before  the 
first  attack,  and  had  full  information  as 
to  what  was  to  be  done  and  why,  and  of 
what  came  of  it  at  last  he  saw  all  that 
human  eyes  could  see.  He  went  through 
the  whole;  he  was  one  of  the  first  group 
of  unchartered  correspondents  in  civilian 
clothes  who  went  over  in  the  first  weeks 
of  the  war,  and  was  with  the  British 
forces  steadily  till  the  end  beyond  the 
Rhine.  If  his  sympathies  are  such  that 
you  feel  that  you  can  not  trust  his  judg- 
ment, at  least  you  gather  from  his  work 
material  on  which  you  may  form  a  judg- 
ment of  your  own. 

Americans  will  look  in  vain  in  the  book 
for  anything  more  than  mention  of  their 
exploits,  but  it  will  be  wholesome  read- 
ing to  any  who  think  they  "won  the  war." 
On  President  Wilson  we  have  comment 
much  like  that  of  Mr.  Keynes : 

President  Wilson  had  raised  new  hope 
among  many  men  who  otherwise  were  hope- 
less. .  .  .  His  Fourteen  Points  set  out  clearly 
and  squarely  a  just  basis  of  peace.  His  advo- 
cacy of  a  League  of  Nations  held  out  a  vision 
of  a  new  world.  .  .  .  Here  at  last  was  a 
leader  of  the  world  ...  In  the  peace  terms 
that  followed  there  was  little  trace  of  those 
splendid  ideas  which  had  been  proclaimed  by 
President  Wilson.  On  one  point  after  another 
he  weakened,  and  was  beaten  by  the  old  mili- 
tarism which  sat  enthroned  in  the  council- 
chamber,  with  its  foot  on  tne  neck  of  the 
enemy.  The  "self-determination  of  peoples" 
was  a  hollow  phrase  signifying  nothing.  Open 
covenants  openly  arrived  at  were  mocked  by 
the  closed  doors  of  the  Conference.  When  at 
last  the  terms  were  published  their  merciless 
severity  .  .  .  which  would  lead  as  sure  as  the 
sun  would  rise  to  new  warfare,  staggered 
humanity. 

The  book  is  interesting  from  begin- 
ning to  end;  that  is  part  of  its  quality 
as  journalism,  for  journalism  it  is, 
though  it  needs  not  be  ephemeral.  The 
essence  of  the  style  is  speed.  In  a  pass- 
age of  agonizing  tension  the  author  tells 
of  writing  his  long  newspaper  despatches 
against  time  at  the  end  of  a  wracking 
day  at  the  front.  This  habit  of  speed  has 
become  chronic.  The  narrative  rushes 
through  a  smother  of  words,  lifts  on  a 
wave  of  emotion  and  races  like  a  ship's 
engine.  It  has  the  effect  of  having  been 
sent  to  the  printer  sheet  by  sheet  with- 
out possibility  of  revision,  and  the  reader 
wonders  that  the  style  can  be  so  good  as 
it  is.  Mr.  Gibbs  says  things  well;  his 
fault  is  that  he  says  them  too  often. 
Passages  to  the  same  effect  as  some  of 
those  here  quoted  could  be  quoted  from 
almost  every  chapter.  He  says  a  good 
thing,  forgets  that  he  has  said  it,  and 
says  it  again.  Some  of  the  repetition  is 
clever  emphasis  that  drives  home  the 
point  while  the  speed  saves  the  effect  of 
boredom.  If  the  book  lasts  it  will  be  as 
a  record  of  matters  which  properly  be- 
long to  history,  but  with  which  history 
does  not  always  deal.  As  such  it  would 
be  much  more  valuable  if  it  had  an 
index. 


Bulgarian  Apologia 

Balkan  Problems  and  European  Peace.  By 
Noel  Buxton  and  C.  Leonard  Leese.  New 
York :    Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 

CRITICS  will  find  much  to  dispute 
in  this  presentation  of  the  reasons 
which  governed  Bulgaria's  entry  into  the 
war  on  the  side  of  the  Central  Empires, 
and  the  treatment  she  ought  to  have  re- 
ceived in  order  to  prevent  that  unhappy 
event.  Although  this  small  book  goes 
by  a  comprehensive  name,  which  seeks 
to  include  all  the  Balkan  peoples,  it  is 
essentially,  if  not  frankly,  interested  only 
in  Bulgaria.  Its  value  depends  on  the 
light  it  sheds  on  Bulgarian  aspirations 
rather  than  on  any  impartial  discussion 
of  new  material. 

The  book's  main  argument  is  that  Bul- 
garia could  have  been  brought  into  the 
war  on  the  side  of  the  Allies  by  paying 
her  price,   and  that  the  price  she  de- 
manded was  reasonable  and  just.    With 
the  first  half  of  the  thesis  there  can  be  no 
dispute.    But  leaving  out  of  account  the 
consequences  of  such  "practical  diplom- 
acy" there  is  a  fallacy  in  the  second  half 
of  Mr.  Buxton's  proposition — the  fallacy 
that  Macedonia,  Bulgaria's  sine  qua  non^ 
is  predominantly  and  indisputably  Bul- 
garian,  and   that   there   exists   a  clear 
ethnic  and  historic  Bulgarian   right  to 
that  province,  a  right  which  has  been 
obscured  through  all  latter  history  by 
the  machinations  of  Greece  and  Serbia,, 
carried  on  with  the  connivance  of  the 
great   Powers.     This   is  not   a   suitable 
occasion    for    arguing    the    subject    at 
length,  but  it  must  be  stated  that  the 
existence  of  such  a  right  is  not  clear. 
It  is  not  frivolous  to  remind  Mr.  Buxton 
that     the     inextricable     conglomeration 
of  many  ingredients  bearing  the  name 
maccdoine  was  not  so  called  without  rea- 
son.   Every  established  rule  goes  by  the 
board  in  Macedonia.     In  a  Macedonian 
family  bearing   a  Bulgarian   name,   for 
example,  one  of  the  sons  may  be  fighting 
in  the  Serbian  and  another  in  the  Greek 
army;  the  father  may  once  have  been  a 
Turkish  agent  and  may  still  profess  to 
be  a  follower  of  the  Prophet;  the  son  in 
the   Serbian   army  may  call  himself  a 
Vlach    and    belong    to    the     Orthodox 
Church,  while  the  Greek  son  may  think 
he  is  an  Albanian  and  a  good  Catholic. 

Bulgaria  was  the  earliest  of  the  rival 
contestants  to  go  into  Macedonia  with 
her  propagandists.  And  she  has  had 
several  special  pleaders  among  British 
statesmen  (most  of  the  present  genera- 
tion of  whom  have  at  one  time  or  other 
served  a  term  at  the  Sofia  Legation). 
Robert  College  at  Constantinople,  also, 
with  its  close  Bulgarian  ties,  has  the 
keen  interest  of  many  philanthropic  and 
influential  Americans;  that  M.  Pana- 
retoff,  the  Bulgarian  Minister  at  Wash- 
ington, was  once  a  professor  at  Robert 
College    proved    a    considerable    factor- 


396] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  49 


in  determining  the  American  attitude 
toward  his  Government  during  the  war. 
But  that  Bulgaria,  as  a  possible  ally,  was 
clearly  entitled  to  a  big  slice  of  the 
Macedonian  territory  of  Serbia,  already 
an  ally  and  fighting  the  battle  of  the 
Allies  alone,  while  British  and  French 
policy  went  blundering  up  and  down  the 
Balkans,  is  difficult  to  prove. 

Part  three  of  the  volume  begins  with 
the  following  bald  statement :  "It  is  not 
forgotten  that  a  political  assassination 
committed  in  the  cause  of  Greater  Serbia 
was  the  spark  which  set  Europe  ablaze." 
This  is  one  of  those  absolute  statements 
which  so  often  are  wrong.  The  world 
will  probably  never  know  what  the  au- 
thor here  assumes  we  all  know  so  well 
that  he  makes  no  effort  to  prove  it.  What 
forces  really  were  behind  the  murder  of 
Francis FerdinandatSarajevo?  Whatpart 
was  played  in  the  tragedy  by  the  Mag- 
yars, extravagant  haters  of  the  Archduke 
because  of  his  opposition  to  Magyari- 
zation  schemes  in  Croatia  and  Slavonia 
and  his  determination  not  to  permit  Mag- 
yar domination  of  the  Government  after 
he  came  to  the  throne?  What  part  was 
played  in  it  by  the  extreme  imperialists 
of  the  Dual  Monarchy  (almost  one  might 
say  of  the  Royal  House),  who  greatly 
feared  the  Archduke's  pet  scheme  of 
"Trialism,"  a  proposal  to  federate  Aus- 
tria-Hungary and  the  Jugo-Slav  provinces 
on  a  more  or  less  equal  footing?  How 
largely  was  the  murder  part  of  an  ill- 
advised  and  immature  plot  of  Slav  sub- 
jects of  Austria-Hungary,  how  largely 
the  work  of  irresponsible  anarchists,  how 
largely  instigated  by  the  war  party  in 
Germany,  working  through  Vienna  and 
Budapest?  It  is  a  profound  and  sinister 
mystery,  not  likely  ever  to  be  satisfac- 
torily solved.  If  we  assume  the  com- 
plicity of  Austrian  officials,  certain  ex- 
traordinary incidents  connected  with  the 
lack  of  precautions  taken  to  protect  the 
Archduke  in  a  town  notorious  as  a  centre 
of  anti-Hapsburg  feeling,  the  searching 
of  the  murdered  man's  pockets  by  the 
police,  the  hurried  and  unattended 
funeral,  can  be  better  understood;  but 
nothing  is  certain.  Probably  the  one 
agency  we  can  absolve  from  suspicion  is 
the  Serbian  Government  itself,  which 
was  in  a  peculiarly  bad  situation  to  meet 
such  a  crisis,  with  a  general  election 
impending  and  on  the  eve  of  the  con- 
summation of  important  foreign  negotia- 
tions. Serbia,  indeed,  stood  not  the  re- 
motest chance  of  profiting  by  such  an 
event  and  was  pathetically  unprepared  to 
meet  the  armies  of  a  great  power,  as  is 
evinced  by  her  readiness  to  go  all  lengths 
save  the  sacrifice  of  independence  itself 
in  order  to  avoid  the  war  in  which  she 
must  inevitably  be  overwhelmed.  M. 
Jonescu,  the  Rumanian  ex-Premier,  tells 
us  in  his  "Personal  Recollections"  how 
violently  the  theory  of  Serbian  instiga- 
tion was  propagated  in  London  during 


the  days  when  war  was  trembling  in  the 
balance,  and  the  steps  those  who  knew 
Vienna  well  had  to  take  to  counteract  the 
effects  of  this  Red  Herring.  In  the  last 
analysis  it  can  only  be  repeated  that  noth- 
ing is  certain — least  of  all  anything  to 
warrant  a  generalization  with  such  dis- 
tinct implications  as  that  which  Mr.  Bux- 
ton takes  for  granted  we  all  will  swallow. 
Hamilton  Fish  Armstrong 

A  New  Brand  of  Modernism 

Outspoken  Essays.  By  William  Ralph  Inge, 
Dean  of  St.  Paul's.  New  York:  Long- 
mans, Green  &  Co. 

THE  Dean  of  St.  Paul's  describes  his 
new  volume  of  essays  as  "out- 
spoken," and  the  word  is  none  too  strong. 
Here  is  a  voice  from  perhaps  the  most 
influential  pulpit  of  the  Anglican  Church 
calmly  rejecting  the  virgin-birth  and  the 
resurrection  of  Christ,  translating  the 
hope  of  immortality  into  some  metaphy- 
sical conception  of  an  impersonal  "eter- 
nity," and  deprecating  the  continuance  of 
the  Church  as  an  institution — it  is  in- 
deed outspoken.  But  frankly  avowed  as 
are  these  negative  views,  they  are  intro- 
duced rather  as  obiter  dicta.  Dean  Inge 
has  also  a  positive  message,  for  which  he 
prepares  the  way  by  showing  the  inade- 
quacy of  the  principal  modem  movements 
in  the  Church;  and  whatever  may  be 
thought  of  his  scepticism  and  of  his  ovm 
attempt  to  rise  through  doubt  to  a  posi- 
tion of  inexpugnable  faith,  his  destruc- 
tive analysis  of  the  various  other  at- 
tempts of  the  sort  is  the  work  of  a 
master  hand.  The  religious  papers  in 
this  volume — of  the  sociological  group 
we  shall  say  nothing — display  what  is 
rare  in  contemporary  English  literature, 
a  highly  trained  philosopher  in  the  pul- 
pit. 

The  exposition  begins  with  Bishop 
Gore  (probably  the  most  generally  es- 
teemed of  the  orthodox  Anglical  theo- 
logians) and  his  theory  of  a  Catholic 
Church  which  yet  shuts  itself  off  from 
communion  with  half  the  Christian 
world  by  its  repudiation  of  the  authority 
of  Rome,  and  which  looks  for  a  new 
empire  over  the  masses  by  courting  dis- 
establishment and  flirting  with  social- 
ism. "The  Church  of  England,"  Dean 
Inge  observes,  "has  been  freely  accused 
of  too  great  complaisance  to  the  powers 
that  be,  when  these  powers  were  oli- 
garchic. Some  of  the  clergy  are  now 
trying  to  repeat,  rather  than  redress, 
this  error,  by  an  obsequious  attitude  to 
King  Working-man.  But  the  Church 
ought  to  be  equally  proof  against  the 
vultus  instantis  tyranni  and  the  civium 
ardor  prava  jubentium.  The  position  of 
a  Church  which  should  sell  itself  to  the 
Labor  party  would  be  truly  ignominious. 
It  would  be  used  so  long  as  the  politi- 
cians of  the  party  needed  moral  support 
and  eloquent  advocacy,  and  spurned  as 


soon  as  its  services  were  no  longer  neces- 
sary." 

To  Dean  Inge  at  least  the  foundation 
of  reform,  if  the  Church  is  to  be  made 
alive  again,  must  be  laid  deeper  than 
Bishop  Gore's  plea  for  humanitarian  in- 
stitutionalism;  it  must  go  down  till  it 
reaches  the  rock  of  philosophic  belief. 
The  Dean  is  a  modernist,  but  not  of  the 
school  of  Loisy  and  Tyrrell  and  the  others 
who  have  usurped  the  name.  His  attempt 
to  get  below  the  doubts  now  troubling 
religious  faith  begins  with  a  criticism, 
sympathetic  but  unsparing,  of  Cardinal 
Newman,  whom  he  regards,  justly,  as  the 
father  of  the  whole  modernist  movement. 
"Newman,"  he  says,  "was  only  half  a 
Catholic.  He  accepted  with  all  the  fervor 
of  a  neophyte  the  principle  of  submission 
to  Holy  Church.  But  in  place  of  the  offi- 
cial intellectualist  apologetic,  which  an 
Englishman  may  study  to  great  advan- 
tage in  the  remarkably  able  series  of 
manuals  issued  by  the  Jesuits  of  Stony- 
hurst,  he  substituted  a  philosophy  of  ex- 
perience which  is  certainly  not  Catholic. 
.  .  .  To  deny  the  validity  of  reason- 
ing upon  Divine  things  is  to  withdraw 
one  of  the  supports  on  which  Catholicism 
rests.  .  .  .  For  Newman,  as  for  his 
disciples  the  Modernists,  theological 
terms  are  only  symbols  for  varying 
values,  and  he  holds  that  the  moment 
they  are  treated  as  having  any  fixed 
connotation,  error  begins.  It  is  no  won- 
der if  learned  Catholics  thought  that 
Newman  did  not  play  the  game."  Dean 
Inge  does  not  mean  to  impugn  Newman's 
sincerity  or  to  deny  the  depth  and  reality 
of  Newman's  faith;  his  point  is  rather 
that  Newman,  by  rejecting  the  orthodox 
rationalism  of  the  Catholic  theology  and 
introducing  in  its  place  a  symbolical 
pragmatism,  was  opening  the  door  to  a 
kind  of  double-faced  scepticism  from 
which  he  himself  would  have  shrunk 
back  in  detestation.  "It  is  one  thing  to 
admit  that  dogmas  in  many  cases  have 
a  pragmatic  origin,  and  quite  another 
to  say  that  they  may  be  invented  or 
rejected  with  a  pragmatic  purpose.  The 
healthy  human  intellect  will  never  be- 
lieve that  the  same  proposition  may  be 
true  for  faith  and  untrue  in  fact;  but 
this   is   the   Modernist   contention." 

What  is  meant  by  rejecting  or  invent- 
ing dogma  with  a  pragmatic  purpose 
Dean  Inge  expounds  at  length  in  the 
essay  on  "Roman  Catholic  Modernism." 
Thus,  according  to  M.  Le  Roy,  one  of  the 
ablest  apologists  of  the  movement,  the 
dogma  "God  is  our  Father"  does  not 
state  an  objective  fact  or  offer  a  ration- 
ally comprehensible  definition,  but  signi- 
fies that  we  are  to  behave  to  God  as 
sons  behave  to  a  father.  "Jesus  is  risen" 
means  simply  that  we  are  to  think  of 
him  and  act  as  if  he  were  living  amongst 
us.  The  dogma  of  the  Real  Presence  im- 
plies that  we  ought  to  have  the  same 
(Continued  on  page  398) 


April  17,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[397 


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THE 
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{Continued  from  page  396) 
feelings  before  the  consecrated  Host 
which  we  should  have  if  Christ  were 
really  present  before  us.  "The  same 
treatment  of  dogma,"  Dean  Inge  adds, 
"is  advocated  in  Mr.  Tyrrell's  very  able 
book  'Lex  Orandi.'  The  test  of  truth 
for  a  dogma  is  not  its  correspondence 
with  phenomenal  fact,  but  its  'prayer- 
value.'  "  That  is  to  say,  modernism  is  a 
transference  to  religion  of  the  als-ob, 
"as-if,"  development  of  Kant's  meta- 
physic;  having  no  knowledge  of  truth 
or  means  of  acquiring  truth,  we  are 
nevertheless  to  act  as  if  certain  things 
were  true.  "Let  the  dogmas  be  inter- 
preted in  this  way,"  exclaims  M.  Le 
Roy,  "and  no  one  will  dispute  them." 
Naturally!  But  such  a  form  of  prag- 
matic assent  is  merely  a  parasitic  growth 
on  the  faith  of  genuine  believers,  and 
can  have  no  power  over  the  conduct  of 
men  so  soon  as  the  genuine  faith  from 
which  it  draws  its  vigor  is  dead.  As 
Dean  Inge  says,  "the  crisis  of  faith 
can  not  be  dealt  with  by  establishing  a 
modus  Vivendi  between  scepticism  and 
superstition." 

We  have  not  the  space  to  set  forth 
Dean  Inge's  substitute  for  a  feeble  and 
intrinsically  insincere  pragmatism.  In 
brief  his  plan  embraces  two  recommen- 
dations. First,  for  the  institutional 
Church  he  would  propose  a  religion  of 
personal  mysticism,  and  would  do  away 
with  the  creeds  and  confessions  and 
rely  on  the  immediate  sense  of  spiritual 
values  in  the  soul.  That  may  sound  well 
and  may  seem  to  offer  an  escape  at  once 
from  orthodoxy  and  pragmatism;  but 
apart  from  the  extraordinary  spectacle 
of  a  man  in  Dean  Inge's  position  advo- 
cating the  suppression  of  institutions, 
it  is  clear  that  such  a  scheme  ignores 
the  great  and  wholesome  restraints 
which  flow  from  tradition  and  solidarity ; 
an  institution  may  become  a  prison- 
house  of  the  spirit,  but  a  pure  indi- 
vidualism makes  demands  on  human  na- 
ture far  beyond  its  strength  and  must 
end  in  spiritual  distraction  and  moral 
license.  Dean  Inge's  other  recommenda- 
tion would  seem  to  admit  as  much,  by 
offering  the  suggestion — we  do  not  know 
how  seriously  he  means  it  to  be  taken 
— of  a  new  institution,  or  at  least  asso- 
ciation, of  a  kind  and  a  new  creed  of  a 
kind.  The  reader  who  is  curious  to 
learn  the  full  regula  of  this  "league  for 
mutual  protection"  of  the  spiritually 
minded  against  a  debased  and  material- 
istic civilization  will  find  it  on  page 
twenty-eight.  Here  it  is  sufficient  to 
note  the  religious  basis  of  the  society. 
This  "will  be  a  blend  of  Christian 
Platonism  and  Christian  Stoicism,  since 
it  must  be  founded  on  that  faith  in  abso- 
lute values  which  is  common  to  Chris- 
tianity and  Platonism,  with  that  sturdy 
defiance  of  tyranny  and  popular  folly 
which  was  the  strength  of  Stoicism." 


Dean  Inge  has  written  a  remarkable 
book,  and  his  conclusions  are  more  prac- 
ticable than  they  may  seem  to  be  in  our 
abridgment. 

The  Masquerade 

Maskerade.      Door    Jo    van    Ammers-Kiiller. 
Amsterdam :  N.  G.  van  Kampen. 

IT  is  a  long-established  custom  among 
the  students  of  the  Dutch  universi- 
ties to  celebrate,  once  in  five  years,  the 
anniversary  of  their  Alma  Mater  with  an 
historical  pageant,  a  so-called  masquer- 
ade. The  title  of  Mrs.  Jo  van  Ammers- 
Kiiller's  latest  novel  must  be  understood 
in  that  sense  of  the  word,  so  far  as  the 
first  of  its  three  parts  is  concerned.  This 
centres  upon  the  students'  historical 
pageant  and  the  various  festivities  that 
are  attendant  on  it.  But  in  the  back- 
ground of  this  gay,  light-hearted  gala 
the  author  has  painted  a  darker  scene  of 
intrigues  and  hungering  desires,  the 
cruel  reality  behind  the  bright  show  of 
gaiety  and  pomp.  Thus  the  title  ac- 
quires a  second  meaning:  not  only  the 
costumes  of  a  bygone  age  make  this  life 
in  a  university  town  a  masquerade,  but 
also  the  outward  demeanor  of  those  who 
move  in  it,  worn  as  a  mask  to  hide  the 
inner  life  of  the  souL 

There  is  Mrs.  Van  Ravensberg,  the 
cool  and  stately  professor's  wife,  who 
taxes  all  her  mental  and  financial  powers 
for  the  attainment  of  the  one  great  aim, 
the  betrothal  of  her  daughters  to 
wealthy,  aristocratic  students.  There  is 
the  student,  Fritz  van  Warmelo,  who 
plays  a  cruel,  deceitful  game  with  her 
eldest  daughter  Hanny.  These  two  are 
the  most  typical  actors  in  the  great  so- 
ciety play  of  hypocrisy,  where  behind 
the  mask  of  amiable  faces  lives  the  fierce 
desire  for  money  and  sensual  pleasure. 
The  students  gratify  the  lusts  of  the  body 
in  riotous  nights  with  venal  women. 
Tine,  the  youngest  of  the  professor's 
daughters,  the  heroine  of  the  story,  has, 
at  one  time,  had  a  glimpse  of  that  other 
life  of  the  male,  at  a  fair,  in  a  merry- 
go-round,  where  a  girl  friend  belonging 
to  a  less  respectable  class  of  people  had 
taken  her  one  evening.  And  when  all 
those  men,  so  distinguished  and  well- 
mannered,  sit  conversing  at  the  dinner 
party  arranged  by  her  mother  with  diplo- 
matic intentions,  Tine  realizes  as  an  ob- 
session, behind  the  attractive  outward 
show,  the  dark  inner  life  which  every 
one  of  them  so  cautiously  conceals. 

With  great  talent  and  mastery  of  lan- 
guage the  author  suggests  to  her  readers 
how  this  constant  dissembling  strains 
the  relations  between  the  two  sexes,  how 
Tine,  the  warm  and  simple-hearted  girl, 
is  stunned  by  it  and  how  her  passion 
for  the  one  strong  man  who  irresistibly 
attracted  her  suddenly  fails  her  at  the 
very  moment  when  he  whom  she  has  once 
happened    to    see    with    "one    of    those 


April  17,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[899 


The  New  York 
University  Press 


The  Ground  and  Goal  of 
Human  Life 

By  CHARLES  GRAY  SHAW,  Ph.D.. 

Professor  of  Ethics  in  New  York 

University 

Cloth,  xii+S94  pages.     Price,  $3.50 

An  attempt  by  means  of  Individualism  to 
elaborate  a  super-scientific  and  super-social 
view  of  human  life. 

"The  book  bears  throughout  the  evidence 
of  Professor  Shaw's  forceful  individuality,  and 
will  certainly  have  a  distinct  field  of  useful- 
ness."— Frof.   IV.  E.   Hocking,  Harvard. 

"Full  of  erudite  reasoning  and  cogent 
thought." — San   Francisco   Chronicle. 

"In  the  background,  Professor  Shaw  presents 
a  rich  landscape  of  literary  experience." — The 
Dial. 

"A  valuable  work,  and  in  the  right  direction, 
teaching  good,  sound  doctrine  much  needed  to- 
day."—Fro/.    W.   H.   Sheldon,   Dartmouth. 


Values,  Immediate  and 

Contributory,  and  Tlieir 

Interrelation 

By  MAURICE  PICARD,  Ph.D.. 
lecturer  in  Philosophy  in  Barnard 
College.  In  press. 

This  book  purposes  to  discuss,  in  a  fresh, 
empirical,  and  concrete  manner,  two  great 
classes  of  values.  Its  premises  are  grounded 
in  biological  and  psychological  data,  rather  than 
in  transcendental  and  metaphysical  pre-supposi- 
tions.  The  origin,  the  development,  and  the 
co-existence  of  values  are  successively  treated. 
There  is  an  interesting  discussion  of  the  pos- 
sible value  of  false  judgments.  Altogether,  the 
book  lays  a  solid  foundation  for  research  in 
several  new  fields  of  philosophical  investigation. 


Efficient  Composition:  A 
College  Rhetoric 

By  ARTHUR  HUNTINGTON 
NASON,  Ph.D.,  Professor  of  English 
in  New  York  University. 

Cloth.    ;rwu+518  pages.    Price,  $2.50 

A  thought-provoking  textbook  for  the  ad- 
vanced student  of  rhetoric,  with  more  than  one 
substantial  contribution  to  the  philosophy  of 
composition;  yet  50  clear  in  structure  that  none 
can  fail  to  follow;  so  human  in  detail  that 
freshmen  have  been  known  to  read  more  than 
the  assignment. 


The  Evolution  of  Indus- 
trial Freedom  in  Prus- 
sia, 1845-1849 

By  HUGO  C.  M.  WENDEL,  Ph.D., 
Instructor  in  History  in  New  York 
University.  In  preparation. 


THE  NEW  YORK  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

32  Waverly  Place        New  York  City 


women"  confe.s.ses  his  love  for  her. 
Henceforth  her  life  is  a  constant  failure, 
a  suffering  from  lack  of  mental  balance, 
for  which  she  finds  only  a  partial  cure 
in  a  marriage  contracted  at  the  cost  of 
a  compromise  with  her  feelings.  The 
lyrical  element  is  uppermost  in  the  sug- 
gestive portrayal  of  Tine's  tragic  figure. 
The  descriptions  of  the  house  and  garden 
of  the  Van  Ravensbergs,  where  Tine  has 
her  still  fight  of  the  soul  with  life's 
cruelty,  are  touched  with  the  pathos  of 
autobiographic  reminiscence.  In  Tine  the 
author  has  revealed  herself.  This  tend- 
ency towards  self-portrayal  and  lyrical 
effusion,  though  the  source  of  many  beau- 
ties in  detail,  has  warped  the  book  as  a 
whole.  In  the  first  part  the  composition 
is  faultless,  and  to  it  the  title  in  both 
its  real  and  symbolic  meaning  is  fully 
applicable.  But  the  author,  once  en- 
grossed in  the  analysis  of  her  own  self, 
continues,  in  the  two  following  parts, 
the  psychological  study  of  Tine's  tor- 
tured soul  in  a  multitude  of  details,  often, 
indeed,  suggestive  and  interesting,  but 
out  of  all  proportion  to  the  introductory 
volume,  in  which  not  Tine  alone,  but  a 
great  many  other  women  and  men  were 
introduced  as  representative  figures  of 
that  life  of  pretense  which  the  author,  as 
her  title  shows,  intends  to  portray  as  a 
masquerade.  The  author,  by  gradually 
concentrating  her  interest  on  the  nervous 
suffering  of  Tine,  makes  the  reader  lose 
sight  of  the  vivid  scene  in  which  she 
was  to  be  the  most  pathetic  figure.  Not 
Tine  in  the  scene  but  the  scene  itself 
should  have  remained  the  centre  of  inter- 
est, and  the  harmony  of  the  whole  is 
disturbed  by  this  growing  prominence 
of  the  heroine  which  hides  the  scene 
from  our  sight. 

The  book,  though  far  from  faultless 
in  its  composition,  deserves  to  be  intro- 
duced to  a  wider  circle  of  readers  than 
the  limited  range  of  its  language  permits. 
Foreigners  will  take  a  special  interest  in 
it  because  of  the  typical  Dutch  milieus 
with  which  it  makes  them  acquainted. 
They  are  described  with  delicate  feeling 
and  sympathy  for  the  peculiar  poetry 
of  Dutch  surroundings,  which,  small 
though  they  are,  form  a  part  of  this 
wide  world,  and  in  which  the  same  great 
human  passions,  to  which  the  Hollanders, 
of  course,  react  in  their  peculiar  way, 
are  the  rulers  of  life  and  the  begetters 
of  its  sorrows  and  its  joys. 

J.  L.  Walch 

The  Hague 

{Continued  on  page  400) 


THE   REVIEW'S   EDUCATIONAL 

SECTION   IS   A  BI-WEEKLY 

FEATURE. 


James  Shirley,  Drama- 
tist :  A  Biographical  and 
Critical  Study 

By 

ARTHUR  HUNTINGTON  NASON 

Professor  of  English  in  New  York 

University. 

Among  the  dramatists  of  the  reign  of 
Charles  the  First,  James  Shirley  stands 
pre-eminent:  the  last  of  the  Eliza- 
bethans, the  prophet  of  the  Restoration. 
Born  in  the  spacious  times  of  great 
Elizabeth,  in  the  very  year  in  which 
Raleigh  and  Lord  Howard  of  Effingham 
took  and  sacked  Cadiz ;  schoolboy,  uni- 
versity man,  and  teacher,  in  the  reign  of 
James  the  First;  favorite  dramatist  of 
the  court  of  Charles,  friend  of  the  King 
and  champion  of  the  Queen ;  follower  of 
the  Duke  of  Newcastle  in  the  Civil 
War;  and  then,  through  the  Protectorate 
and  the  first  six  years  of  the  reign  of 
Charles  the  Second,  schoolmaster  again 
and  miscellaneous  writer:  James  Shir- 
ley, in  the  course  of  three  score  years 
and  ten,  embodied  in  himself  as  man  and 
dramatist,  something  of  the  chivalric 
spirit  of  the  Elizabethans,  something  of 
the  impetuous  loyalty  of  the  Cavaliers, 
something  of  the  fine  patience  of  the 
great  poet  of  the  Puritans. 

In  this  study  of  the  life  atid  works  of  Shircly, 
the  endeavor  is  threefold;  first  to  examine  the 
little  that  we  know  of  Shirley's  life,  to  deter- 
mine, fact  by  fact,  the  value  of  the  evidence, 
and,  on  a  basis  of  this  critical  examination,  to 
construct  a  chronology  more  accurate  than  has 
been  hitherto  available^  second  on  a  basis  of 
this  revised  chronology,  to  restudy  the  dramatic 
works  of  Shirley,  in  order  to  determine,  if  pos- 
sible, the  course  of  his  development  as  a  drama- 
tist; and,  third,  from  this  same  examination  of 
the  plays,  to  determine  the  distinctive  character- 
istics of  his  dramatic  works.  The  result  is  a 
new  and  most  interesting  picture  of  this  the 
principal  dramatic  poet  of  the  reign  of  Charles  I. 

Cloth,     .rvi+472  pages.     Choicely  illus- 
trated.   Price,  $5.00. 


THE  NEW  YORK  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

iSclling  Agents) 

32  Waverly  Place         New  York  City 


400] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  49 


The  Run  of  the  Shelves 

THERE  are  greater  achievements 
^  doubtless  in  the  world  of  drama  than 
Mr.  Charles  Rann  Kennedy's  "Army  with 
Banners"  (B.  W.  Huebsch),  but  one 
doubts  if  there  are  greater  exploits.  It 
blends  incongruities  and  actualizes  fan- 
tasies in  a  manner  that  allows  no  rest 
and  sets  no  bound  to  admiration.  Writ- 
ten in  1917,  it  was  produced  April  9, 
1918,  in  New  York  City  at  the  Theatre 
du  Vieux  Colombier.  As  a  play  it  is  far 
from  exemplary.  It  is  long  and  its  ac- 
tion is  naught,  and  the  culmination,  ar- 
riving finally  at  the  end  of  five  dilatory 
acts,  has  the  effect  of  being  prostrated 
by  the  fatigues  of  its  journey.  Some 
of  the  characters  speak  in  a  double  dic- 
tion which  from  moment  to  moment  is 
enriched  or  impoverished.  The  play  is 
mediaeval  in  setting,  quasi-modern  in 
manners,  and  millennial  in  its  purport. 
There  are  seven  characters,  of  whom  five 
are  earthworms  and  two  are  saints; 
one  of  the  saints  is  whimsically  meek 
and  one  is  piously  mischievous.  About 
three-fourths  of  the  play  consists  of  the 
raw  dialogue  of  low  characters;  the  rest 
is  in  a  fashion  apocalyptic.  How  are 
these  things  to  be  reconciled?  By  over- 
charging the  naturalism  till  it  becomes 
in  its  turn  a  form  of  extravagance  and 
by  turning  the  idealism  into  whimsi- 
cality by  the  insertion  of  quirks  and 
crotchets;  after  which  the  whimsicality 
and  extravagance  join  hands.  The  savor 
of  reality  in  a  play  which  flouts  the 
probabilities  at  every  turn,  the  savor 
of  delicacy  in  a  play  which  fairly  tram- 
ples the  refinements  under  foot,  are 
things  that  make  one  rather  proud  of 
Mr.  Kennedy.  The  play  closes  with  the 
coming  of  the  Lord  in  a  burst  of  sun- 
shine and  heavenly  music.  But  its  pos- 
session of  a  religious  bottom  may  be 
questioned.  Its  saints  are  quite  as  much 
elves  as  saints.  The  Christianity  which 
it  rebukes  is  sour  and  formal  and  lying 
and  greedy  beyond  a  doubt,  but  the 
Christianity  which  it  praises  is  caper- 
ing and  audacious  and  a  little  mocking 
and  condescending.  Admitting  that  the 
caterpillars  can  not  save  us,  we  may 
yet  be  oversanguine  in  the  hope  of 
salvation  from  the  butterflies;  1917  de- 
manded other  helpers. 

Miss  Flora  Klickmann,  of  London, 
whose  "Lore  of  the  Pen"  is  offered  to 
the  American  public  by  G.  P.  Putnam's 
Sons,  is  an  editor  who  undertakes  the 
tutorship  of  the  immature  and  unin- 
formed contributor.  Miss  Klickmann's 
experience  has  made  her  keenly  sensitive 
to  the  follies  of  aspirants;  it  has  ap- 
parently left  her  without  any  proper 
sense  of  the  general  folly  of  aspiration. 
It  is  very  hard  to  conceive  that  the  grade 
of  intelligence  to  which  her  instructions 


are  addressed  could  turn  those  instruc- 
tions to  the  profit  of  successful  author- 
ship. The  groundless  confidence  in 
himself  with  which  the  raw  contributor 
begins  is  often  succeeded  by  an  equally 
groundless  confidence  in  the  efficacy  of 
teachers,  and  the  book,  which  will  almost 
certainly  prosper,  will  prosper  in  too 
many  cases  by  the  extraction  of  cher- 
ished dollars  from  the  meagre  purses  of 
persons  whom  its  counsels  can  not  help. 
It  is  quite  true  that  people  capable  of 
writing  books  that  sell  sometimes  dis- 
play elementary  ignorance.  Miss  Klick- 
mann, for  instance,  in  the  second  sen- 
tence of  her  preface,  and  therefore  the 
second  of  her  book,  employs  the  solecism 
"as  though  the  difference  .  .  .  is"  and 
the  tautology  "newspaper  journalism." 
But  while  it  is  true  that  in  this  topsy- 
turvy world  the  learned  are  often  unin- 
formed and  the  gifted  often  incompetent, 
one  feels  that  one  should  reckon  on 
their  powers  even  when  one  is  coping 
with  their  aberrations.  Miss  Klickmann's 
work  is  adapted  not  only  to  people  with- 
out knoweledge  but  to  people  without 
brains.  There  is  an  iteration  of  the 
familiar,  an  elaboration  of  the  simple, 
an  elucidation  of  the  clear,  which  hardly 
agrees  with  Miss  Klickmann's  own  pic- 
ture of  a  "nervous,  hurrying  age"  in 
which  sentences  and  articles  must  be 
"sped  up."  It  is  curious  that  an  age 
so  hurried  should  find  time  for  so  many 
repetitions. 

Miss  Klickmann  is  zealous  for  train- 
ing and  presses  very  hard  the  familiar 
and  favorite  analogies  between  the  un- 
trained writer  and  the  untrained  violin- 
ist or  dressmaker.  Now  there  is  some 
truth,  but  more  fallacy,  in  these  com- 
parisons. The  equipment  of  a  strong 
writer  divides  itself  into  three  parts. 
There  is,  first,  the  part  he  shares  with 
other  educated  people,  a  very  large  ele- 
ment, since  his  instrument,  language, 
unlike  the  violin,  is  everybody's  instru- 
ment used  daily  and  hourly  in  every 
species  of  transaction.  There  is,  sec- 
ondly, the  part,  often  the  large  part, 
which  even  his  fellow-craftsmen  do  not 
share,  the  part  which  rests  on  his  pe- 
culiarities as  an  individual.  There  is 
lastly,  between  the  other  two,  and  re- 
duced to  a  narrow  strip  by  the  encroach- 
ments of  its  neighbors  on  either  side, 
the  third  part,  shared  with  his  fellow-ar- 
tists, but  not  shared  with  the  educated 
public.  The  slightness  of  thin  residue 
is  sufficiently  revealed  in  the  meagre- 
ness  and  indigence  of  almost  all  the 
pompous  textbooks  on  the  vaunted  art  of 
composition.  The  thinness  of  Miss 
Klickmann's  own  teaching  lends  more 
color  to  the  novice's  cheerful  supposition 
that  anybody  can  write  than  to  her  confi- 
dent assumption  that  teaching  is  indis- 
pensable. Both  notions  are  exaggera- 
tions, but  the  point  to  be  made  here  is 
that  the  relation  of  the  tyro  to  the  adept 


in  literature  is  not  the  relation  between 
the  novice  and  expert  in  shoemaking, 
breadmaking,  or  carpentry.  In  litera- 
ture, even  where  the  difference  in 
capacity  is  far  greater,  the  difference  in 
training  is  far  less.  So  small  is  the 
latter  difference  that  talent  is  often 
evinced  in  the  anticipation  by  instinct 
of  the  very  methods  which  practice  and 
theory  laboriously  drill — or  laboriously 
fail  to  drill — into  the  unpliant  and  un- 
furnished mind.  Teaching  of  composi- 
tion is  a  pitiful  thing.  Tolstoi  was  a 
shoemaker  and  a  man  of  letters;  it  is 
far  harder  to  write  good  books  than  to 
make  good  shoes :  yet  Tolstoi  would  have 
been  ashamed  to  teach  shoemaking  in 
the  fashion  in  which  he  would  have  been 
obliged  to  teach  writing. 

"The  Opium  Monopoly"  (Macmillan) 
is  the  title  of  a  little  book  by  Miss  Ellen 
H.  La  Motte  in  which  facts  and  figures 
are  given  to  show  the  extent  to  which 
the  British  Government  is  directly  re- 
sponsible for  the  production,  sale,  and 
distribution  of  nearly  all  of  the  world's 
supply  of  opium.  In  British  India  the 
growing  of  the  poppy  plant  is  officially  en- 
couraged by  the  Government;  the  manu- 
facture of  opium  from  its  juice  is  a 
Government  monopoly;  and  the  drug  is 
disposed  of  by  monthly  sales  to  the  high- 
est bidders.  The  largest  purchasers  at 
these  sales  are  the  Japanese  who,  while 
strictly  controlling  the  use  of  opium 
within  their  own  islands,  introduce  it 
into  Korea  and  smuggle  it  in  very  large 
quantities  into  China  through  the  ports 
of  Dairin  and  Tsingtao,  which  they  con- 
trol. In  the  Straits  Settlements  and  the 
Federated  Malay  States  more  than  fifty 
per  cent,  of  the  public  revenue  is  ob- 
tained from  the  traffic  in  opium;  in 
Hong  Kong  one-third.  In  British  India 
itself  something  over  $15,000,000  is  an- 
nually derived  directly  from  this  trade; 
and  this  does  not  include  the  "excises" 
on  drugs  and  liquors,  which  in  1915- 
1916  amounted  to  some  $50,000,000. 
Since  1917  Great  Britain  has  permitted 
China  wholly  to  exclude  Indian  opium 
from  its  markets,  but  in  the  "Settle- 
ments" and  "Concessions"  at  the  vari- 
ous treaty  ports  opium  divans  and  drug 
shops  licensed  by  the  foreign  Powers 
continue  to  supply  the  drug  to  those 
who  wish  to  use  it.  Miss  La  Motte's 
book  is  intended  as  a  severe  indictment 
of  Great  Britain's  policy  with  regard  to 
opium.  Her  account  would,  however,  be 
a  fairer  one  if  consideration  were  given 
to  the  British  side  of  the  case  as  pre- 
sented, for  example,  by  Sir  John 
Strachey  in  his  "India:  Its  Administra- 
tion and  Progress." 

Probably  the  introduction  for  most  of 
us  to  "mio  Cid"  was  made  through 
Southey's  "Chronicle  of  the  Cid,"  which 
melted   into   an   indistinguishable   mass 


April  17,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[401 


the  "Cronica,"  the  "Poema,"  and  the 
"Romances."  From  it  little  idea  of  the 
Poema  could  be  gained,  although  Southey, 
it  is  true,  printed  in  an  appendix  some 
really  wonderful  scraps  of  translation  by 
John  Hookham  Frere,  an  earlier  Fitzger- 
ald remembered  now  especially  for  his 
then  and  since  unapproached  renderings 
of  Aristophanes.  Into  such  a  perilous 
adventure  R.  Selden  Rose  and  Leonard 
Bacon  have  now  entered  with  the  "Lay 
of  the  Cid  translated  into  English  Verse" 
(University  of  California  Press)  one  of 
the  semi-centennial  publications  of  that 
university.  The  metre,  "warts  and  all," 
is  that  of  the  original,  but  it  would  have 
been  well  if  the  translators  could  have 
found,  as  Spanish  editors  have  done  and 
as  Hookham  Frere  did,  some  way  of 
marking  the  caesura.  The  translation  is 
left  to  speak  for  itself  without  notes  of 
any  kind,  and  the  short  introduction,  half 
historical,  half  literary,  has  almost  as 
little  bottoming;  there  is  not  a  word  on 
the  text;  there  are  two  words  on  the 
date,  and  the  inquisitive  reader  is  left 
with  almost  no  clues  to  further  informa- 
tion. He  may  well  wonder  who  is  the 
Pidal  casually  mentioned  on  p.  xii,  and 
he  should  know,  if  only  for  his  wonder 
and  gratitude,  that  the  "Poema,"  like 
"Aucassin  et  Nicolette"  and  Catullus,  is 
one  of  the  miraculous  survivals  through 
a  single  MS.  from  the  older  world.  He 
will  probably  know  himself  that  the  re- 
mark about  the  Cid,  quoted  on  p.  xiv, 
was  not  made  by  Don  Quixote,  but  by  the 
Canon  (Don  Quixote,  Parte  I,  Cap.  xlix). 
All  the  wisdom  in  that  wisest  of  Spanish 
books  was  not  that  of  the  Knight.  But, 
all  such  things  having  been  said,  the 
translation  is  a  solid  piece  of  work  and  to 
be  received  with  gratitude. 

FRENCH  NOTES 

After  an  interval  of  two  years  the  sale 
of  the  late  Jules  Claretie's  library,  which 
he  was  over  a  half  century  in  collecting, 
was  concluded  last  month  in  Paris.  The 
catalogue  for  this  sixth  section  of  the 
library  listed  283  volumes  devoted  to 
poetry  and  768  to  the  theatre.  Many  vol- 
umes on  these  subjects  were  disposed  of 
at  the  earlier  sales.  A  large  number  of  the 
plays  were  enhanced  in  value  by  eJivois 
d'auteur  and  by  inserted  autograph  let- 
ters. 

A  recent  number  of  the  Revue  des 
Deux  Mondes  contains  an  article  by  Pro- 
fessor Gustave  Lanson  on  Lamartine, 
apropos  of  the  centennial  of  his  "Medita- 
tions," where  the  name  Elvire  appears 
frequently  as  that  of  the  poet's  in- 
amorata. When  this  collection  of  elegies 
and  lyrics  first  appeared,  it  was  taken 
for  granted  by  the  more  sentimental 
readers  that  there  was  of  course  but  one 
Elvire.  But  M.  Lanson  shows  that  there 
were  not  less  than  four  women  who 
{Continued  on  page  402) 


DYNAMIC   SYMMETRY: 
THE   GREEK   VASE 

By  JAY  HAMBIDGE 
Editor  of  "The  Diagonal." 

An  explanation  of  the  fundamentals  behind  active  symmetry  in 
design.     Fully  illustrated. 

"The  rapid  spread  of  the  system  of  Dynamic  Symmetry 
will    lay    the    foundation    of    our    artistic    salvation." 

Walter  G.  Raffe. 

Cloth,  $5.00 

HELMETS  AND   BODY  ARMOR 
IN  MODERN  WARFARE 

By  BASHFORD  DEAN 

Curator  of  the  Armor  Collection  of  the  New  York  Metropolitan 
Museum  of  Art. 

The  first  authoritative  account  of  the  important  part  played  by 
armor  in  the  World  War.  This  volume,  with  its  many  unusual  and 
striking  illustrations,  is  published  by  permission  of  the  Unittd  States 
War  Department. 

Cloth,  $6.00 

A  GRAY  DREAM 

AND  OTHER  STORIES  OF  NEW  ENGLAND  LIFE 

By  LAURA  WOLCOTT 

Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  once  said  of  Laura  Wolcott's  work  that 
it  was  the  "best  since  Hawthorne."  The  sketches  in  this  book  are 
chiefly  of  New  England  life  in  the  thirties  and  forties,  a  stern  enough 
time,  but  lightened  up  by  the  author's  quiet  humor  and  kindly  obser- 
vation. Lovers  of  New  England  will  find  here  the  same  charm  and 
atmosphere  that  is  theirs  in  Cranford  and  Old  Chester. 

Cloth,  $2.25 


Spring  List  of  selected  titles  sent  on  request. 


YALE  UNIVERSITY   PRESS 

143  Elm  St.,  New  Haven,  Conn.  19  East  47th  St.,  New  York  City 


402] 


THE  REVIEW 


rVol.  2,  No.  49 


(Continued  from  page  401) 
touched  the  heart  of  the  sensitive  poet. 
M.  Paul  Souday's  commentary  is  that 
Lamartine  loved  more  than  once;  but 
this  does  not  mean  that  he  did  not 
love  profoundly."  But  M.  Lanson  lets 
it  be  seen  that  he  thinks  it  would  have 
been  better,  at  least  from  the  poetic 
standpoint,  if  there  had  been  but  one 
Elvire. 

Comcvdia,  the  Paris  theatrical  daily, 
states  in  a  recent  number  that  when 
the  Theatre  Frangais  produced  Victor 
Hugo's  "Hemani,"  after  a  long  interrup- 
tion, a  curious  incident  occurred.  It  will 
be  remembered  that  at  the  end  of  the 
fourth  act  the  group  of  soldiers,  con- 
spirators, and  nobles  acclaim  the  new 
emperor  with  "Hurrah  for  Germany!" 
But  at  the  dress-rehearsal  two  of  the 
actor-conspirators  refused  to  give  this 
shout,  whereupon  the  director  and  some 
of  the  older  players  tried  to  get  this 
ultra-patriotic  twain  "to  follow  the 
text";  but  in  vain,  especially  as  this 
same  theatre  at  a  recent  revival  of  "Kuy 
Bias"  substituted,  at  the  end  of  a  verse, 
campagne  for  Allemagne,  and  had  Queen 
Maria  of  Neuburg  say,  instead  of  "Pas 
■un  livre  allemand," 

Pas  un  livre  amusant,  tout  en  langue  espagnole, 
which,  by  the  way,  was  not  very  com- 
plimentary to  Spain  and  her  literature. 

In  the  Temps  for  March  5  and  the 
Revue  Contemporaine  for  February,  M. 
Paul  Souday  and  M.  Andre  Therive  differ 
as  to  whether'  Sainte-Beuve  and  Eenan 
were  on  really  friendly  terms.  The 
former  pronounces  their  friendship 
"touching  and  lasting,"  whereas  the  lat- 
ter contests  this  assertion  and  speaks  of 
"the  feline  duplicity  of  the  hermit  of 
Montparnasse."  In  the  Minerve  Fran- 
faise  of  last  October  M.  Therive  treated 
the  same  subject.  It  seems  to  us  that 
M.  Souday  comes  off  second  best  in  the 
argument. 

On  March  30  was  celebrated  at  Paris 
the  tenth  anniversary  of  the  death  of  the 
French  poet,  Jean  Moreas,  and  the  Revue 
Critique  and  the  Minerve  Fran^aise 
devote  special  numbers  to  his  memory. 
Though  the  publishing  department  of  the 
Mercure  de  France  has  issued  not  less 
than  eight  volumes  of  his — short  stories, 
essays,  plays  and  poems — there  still  re- 
mains among  his  papers  enough  finished 
material  to  fill  two  or  three  additional 
volumes,  which  his  literary  executor,  M. 
Raymond  de  la  Tailhede,  has  promised 
to  bring  out. 

A  peculiarly  interesting  man  has  just 
disappeared  from  the  scientific  world  of 
Paris.  M.  Marcel  Dieulafoy  was  a  civil 
engineer,  a  lieutenant-colonel,  a  member 
of  the  Institute,  and  a  traveler,  whose 


explorations  in  Persia  brought  about  the 
discovery  of  the  palaces  of  Darius  and 
Artaxerxes,  the  bas-reliefs  of  which  form 
part  of  his  celebrated  Asiatic  archaeo- 
logical collection  in  the  Louvre.  In  this 
last  work  he  was  ably  seconded  by  his 
wife,  who  always  wore  male  attire.  The 
tall,  slim  husband  and  the  rather  squatty 
wife,  both  neatly  attired  in  their  Prince 
Alberts,  gloved  and  topped  with  silk  hats, 
were  well-known  figures  in  the  Passy 
quarter  of  Paris,  Mme.  Dieulafoy  always 
awakening  the  often  indiscreet  curiosity 
of  the  passers-by  who  could  not  exactly 
make  out  "the  queer  little  gentleman." 

Last  August  the  President  of  China 
informed  the  University  of  Paris  that 
the  Pekin  Government  would  contribute 
annually  20,000  francs  for  the  establish- 
ment at  the  Sorbonne  of  a  department 
of  Chinese  studies,  and  last  month  the 
French  Government  announced  that  it 
would  contribute  a  like  sum.  President 
Deschanel  is  the  patron  of  the  new  de- 
partment, which  opens  with  three  courses 
of  lectures — the  History  of  Chinese  Civi- 
lization, the  Applied  Sciences  in  China, 
and  Chinese  Painting,  Music,  and  Poetry. 

During  the  war  the  American  Library 
Association  organized  a  fine  book  service 
for  furnishing  reading  matter  to  our 
Expeditionary  Forces  in  Europe.  Its 
headquarters  were  in  the  spacious  man- 
sion in  the  Rue  de  I'Elysee,  formerly 
occupied  by  the  Papal  Nuncio,  overlook- 
ing the  gardens  of  the  Elysee  Palace,  the 
White  House  of  France.  In  this  connec- 
tion Mr.  Herbert  Putnam,  the  Librarian 
of  Congress,  who  was  the  principal  agent 
in  bringing  this  about,  wrote  us  recently: 

The  library  is  remaining  at  the  Rue  de 
I'Elysee.  The  American  Library  Association 
has  undertaken  to  maintain  it  during  the  pres- 
ent year  and  residents  of  Paris,  that  is  to  say 
especially  members  of  the  American  and  Brit- 
ish "colonies,"  have  organized  a  Committee 
and  subscribed  nearly  200,000  francs  towards 
a  further  maintenance.  An  arrangement  has 
been,  or  is  being,  effected  between  this  Com- 
mittee and  the  authorities  of  the  American 
Library  Association,  which  will  insure  not 
merely  the  maintenance,  but  the  development 
of  the  collection  and  suitable  professional  ad- 
ministration of  it.  The  interest  of  the  Ameri- 
can Library  Association  is  something  more 
than  in  a  library  for  local  use;  it  is  in  a 
bureau  of  information  available  to  any  in- 
quirer from  any  part  of  Europe,  upon  Ameri- 
can library  methods,  and  the  promotion  of  the 
knowledge  of  American  institutions  and 
affairs,  in  addition  to  such  service  as  may  be 
rendered  to  American  commissions  that  may 
be  operating  in  Europe  in  relief,  commercial 
and  educational  undertakings.  Mr.  Burton  E. 
Stevenson,  head  of  the  Chillicothe,  Ohio, 
library,  who  so  efficiently  managed  the  Paris 
enterprise  during  the  war,  is  returning,  leav- 
ing in  temporary  charge  Mr.  Henry  O.  Sever- 
ance, librarian  of  the  University  of  Missouri. 
The  general  direction  of  the  administration 
still  remains  on  this  side;  not  with  me,  how- 
ever, for  I  withdrew  from  the  War  Service 
last  October;  but  with  Mr.  Carl  H.  Milam, 
"until  recently  head  of  the  public  library  at 
Birmingham,  Alabama,  who  succeeded  me  with 
the  residue  of  the  work. 


Books  That  Appear  in 
the  Spring 

AN  amiable  critic  of  current  literature 
has    complained    that    the    satirists! 
are  all  poking  fun  at  the  "new"  thingsj 
at  the  vers  libristes,  the  futurists,  the 
expounders  of  the  soviet.     This  is  most 
unfair,  he  thinks ;  the  province  of  satire 
is  to  ridicule  things  as  they  are,  the  worn-| 
out  systems  of  the  past.    He  might  have 
a  hard  time  to  prove  it — satirists  have 
fashion  of  tilting  now  at  the  new,  and 
now  at  the  old,  and  when  either  side  com^ 
plains,  or  whines  "We  don't  object  to  the 
ridicule,  but  to  the  manner  of  it,"  thatj 
side  is  confessing  the  weakness  of  itii 
position.     When    we    are    permitted    to 
select  the  weapons  of  our  enemy  we  have 
him  beaten  at  the  start.    If  the  radicals 
in    literature,    in    painting,    and    sculj 
ture,    or    in    politics,    can    not    survive 
laughter,  they  may  as  well  begin  to  shoui 
"Kamerad !" 

Is  it  because  what  they  call  radicalisr 
is  so  often  merely  a  campaign  towarda 
the  triumph  of  a  school?  If  I  were  in- 
vited to  choose  between  drinking  abH 
sinthe  with  M.  Gauguin,  Miss  Amy 
Lowell,  and  Mr.  Max  Eastman,  or  taking 
a  dish  of  tea  with  Sir  Edwin  Landseerj 
Miss  Felicia  Hemans,  and  George  III, 
should  be  hard  put  to  it,  the  company* 
would  be  so  delightful  at  either  table. 
Absinthe,  although  it  sounds  wicked,  is 
as  insipid  to  me  as  tea.  But  I  might 
expect  to  hear  as  much  liberalism,  as 
much  sympathy  with  freedom  and 
democracy,  in  one  place  as  the  other. 
M.  Gauguin's  friends  tell  me  that 
Heaven  didn't  know  everything  when  it 
made  man  somewhat  thinner  in  the  ankle 
than  the  thigh,  but  that  they  have 
changed  all  that.  Miss  Lowell's  admirers 
call  my  attention  to  the  fact  that  a  white 
beard  on  the  chin  of  Longfellow  is  the 
sign  of  toryism  and  reaction;  attached 
to  Walt  Whitman  it  means  democracy 
and  progress.  And  Mr.  Eastman,  grow- 
ing eloquent  against  tyrants  who  wear 
golden  crowns  or  plug  hats,  wishes  to 
commend  me  to  one  who  wears  a  greasy 
cap. 

George  Ade  is  one  of  the  satirists  com- 
plained about,  and  Heywood  Broun  is  the 
plaintiff.  Both  of  them  have  books  in 
the  spring  lists.  Mr.  Ade's  "Hand-Made 
Fables"  (Doubleday)  is  a  bit  more  mel- 
low, a  trifle  more  ponderous,  than  in 
the  days  (1899!)  when  his  first  fables 
were  published.  But  he  is  still  telling 
the  truth,  to  the  discomfort  of  pretense 
and  humbug.  When  I  listen  to  readings 
of  Rabindranath  Tagore  I  am  still  re- 
minded of  Mr.  Ade's  preacher  who  quoted 
the  great  Persian  theologian  Ramtazuk, 
"that  the  Soul  in  its  reaching  out  after 
the  Unknowable  was  guided  by  the 
Spiritual  Genesis  of  Motive  rather  than 


April  17,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[403 


by  mere  Impulse  of  Mentality."  Mr. 
Broun's  book  has  a  title  halfway  between 
Victor  Hugo's  "Things  Seen"  and  one  of 
Eugene  Field's  poems,  "Seeing  Things 
at  Night."  In  other  words,  he  calls  his 
book  "Things  Seen  at  Night"  (Har- 
court),  and  it  presumably  discusses  some 
of  the  plays — and  other  things — which  a 
dramatic  critic  may  expect  to  see.  Mr. 
Broun's  observations  of  books  and  plays 
are  better,  not  worse,  for  being  un- 
weighted with  solemnity,  and  his  humor 
never  deserts  him,  except  momentarily 
when  he  asks  to  have  the  artillery  of  the 
satirists  trained  only  upon  conserva- 
tives and  academicians. 

F.  P.  A.  has  a  rather  well-worn  catch- 
word for  the  title  of  his  new  book, 
"Something  Else  Again"  (Doubleday), 
but  the  selections  will,  as  usual,  present 
the  cream  of  his  newspaper  column,  and 
his  deftest  verse.  Of  Albert  Bigelow 
Paine's  compilation,  "Moments  with 
Mark  Twain"  (Harper),  it  is  certainly 
not  priggish  to  say  that  the  best  thing 
about  such  a  book  is  that  it  may  cause 
you  to  read  the  books  from  which  the 
extracts  are  taken.  Mr.  Paine's  life  of 
Mark  Twain  is  yet  to  be  esteemed  as  it 
deserves;  it  tells  of  adventures  more 
varied  than  Lockhart  related  in  his  Life 
of  Scott.  Both  books  have  their  tragic 
and  heart-breaking  chapters. 

If  you  can  enjoy  the  rebels  without 
hating  the  tories,  or  take  tea  with  the 
tories  without  despising  the  rebels,  you 
may  have  pleasure  in  the  nicety  of  Wal- 
ter De  La  Mare's  "Collected  Poems" 
(Holt),  or  in  Vachell  Lindsay's  new  book, 
the  very  name  of  which  is  glorious — 
"The  Golden  Whales  of  California" 
(Macmillan).  Walt  Whitman's  genius 
for  splendid  titles — flamboyant  titles,  I 
suppose  some  would  say — is  repeated 
here.  But  it  is  a  tame  thing  to  sit  down 
and  read  Mr.  Lindsay's  poems,  after 
hearing  him  recite  them.  In  "Others, 
for  1919"  (Brown),  edited  by  Alfred 
Kreymborg,  there  is  a  circus  in  verse, 
the  genuine  acrobats,  the  clever  clowns, 
and  the  mere  freaks.  It  is  to  poetry 
what  the  exhibition  of  the  Independent 
Artists  is  to  the  Academy.  How  many 
of  the  poseurs  therein  would  not  gladly 
write  such  iinished  verse  as  in  Arthur 
Guiterman's  "Ballads  of  Old  New  York" 
(Harper),  if  they  had  the  ability  and 
the  honest  respect  of  the  artist  for  his 
art? 

The  announcement  of  Winston 
Churchill's  "The  Green  Bay  Tree"  (Mac- 
millan) is  interesting  to  readers  who 
enjoy  the  religious-political  novel;  less 
earnest  souls  will  look  eagerly  for  "Mrs. 
Warren's  Daughter"  (Macmillian),  by 
Sir  Harry  Johnston.  This  is  Vivie  War- 
ren, daughter  of  Mrs.  Warren  of  in- 
famous repute,  in  Mr.  Shaw's  play,  and 
we  are  assured  that  she  comes  out  all 
right  in  the  novel.  Of  course  she  would ; 
(Continued  on  page  404) 


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404] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  4!) 


(Continued  from  page  403) 
she  was  so  coldly  virtuous  and  calculat- 
ing that  Jier  mother's  easy-going  lack  of 
all  respectability  was  tolerable  by  com- 
parison. Who  are  the  other  characters? 
in  "The  Gay-Dombeys,"  Sir  Harry  John- 
ston had  the  whole  Dickens  gallery  to 
draw  upon,  and  a  fascinating  book  he 
made — in  part  a  good  story,  and  in  part 
a  literary  and  political  puzzle.  Many  a 
pleasant  evening  could  be  spent  in  iden- 
tifying the  persons  of  the  tale.  In  Rider 
Haggard's  "The  Ancient  Allan"  (Long- 
mans) the  author  is  reversing  the  proc- 
ess of  the  Elsie  books — they  carried  Elsie 
from  childhood  to  her  grandmotherly 
days.  Now,  Allan  Quatermain,  friend 
and  comforter  when  our  worst  troubles 
were  improper  fractions  and  Harper's 
School  Geography,  is  being  projected  by 
his  creator  into  an  earlier  incarnation, 
in  the  reign  of  the  Emperor  Hwang. 
Wallace  Irwin  has  a  little  fun  with  the 
drawing-room  Bolshevists  in  "Trimmed 
with  Red"  (Doran),  while  Arthur 
Train's  "Tutt  and  Mr.  Tutt"  (Scribner) 
will  contain,  I  hope,  some  lawyers  and 
rascals  as  lively  as  those  in  "True  Stories 
of  Crime"  and  "The  Confessions  of 
Artemas  Quibble." 

It  is  customary,  in  commending  a  book 
to-day,  to  say  that  you  read  it  under  fire, 
in  a  trench  at  the  front,  with  German 
shells  bursting  round.  I  can  not  say 
I  read  Christopher  Morley's  "Kathleen" 
(Doubleday)  that  way,  when  it  first  ap- 
peared in  a  magazine,  but  I  did  read  it 
while  in  a  guardhouse  (not,  I  aver,  as 
a  prisoner)  and  sitting  under  a  stove- 
pipe which  had  just  been  drilled  with  a 
Springfield  bullet,  let  off  in  the  course  of 
experimentation  by  one  of  the  guard. 
"Kathleen"  is  a  capital  story  (Mr.  Morley 
refrains  from  mentioning  pipe-smoking, 
to  the  best  of  my  recollection) ,  and  it  kept 
me  from  pondering  too  nervously  upon 
how  soon  some  one  of  the  guard  might 
perforate  his  commanding  officer,  as  that 
person  sat  steeped  in  literary  calm,  be- 
hind the  thin  pine  boards  which  divided 
the  orderly  room  from  the  rest  of  the 
shack.  The  republication  of  two  books  by 
James  Branch  Cabell,  "The  Cords  of 
Vanity"  and  "The  Cream  of  the  Jest" 
(McBride),  recalls  the  stupid  prosecution 
of  his  "Jurgen."  Many  books,  sup- 
pressed or  attacked,  are  no  great  loss; 
their  persecution  is  an  affront  to  liberty, 
not  to  art.  In  the  instance  of  "Jurgen" 
it  is  different;  there  is  imagination, 
humor,  beauty  in  it,  and  a  suggestion  of 
eeriness  that  is  like  Dunsany's  best.  It 
was  unwisely  advertised  by  its  friends; 
fervid  persons  brandished  it  before  the 
"Puritans,"  with  the  lamentable  result. 
The  defense  of  it  has  sometimes  been 
disingenuous;  to  deny  its  double  mean- 
ings is  as  hypocritical  as  Comstockery 
itself. 

Professor  William  E.  Dodd's  "Wood- 
row  Wilson  and  His  Work"  (Doubleday) 


is  a  good  partisan  volume;  if  you  trust 
the  author  you  are  led  to  the  conclusion 
that  nobody  has  opposed  the  President 
except  those  actuated  by  greed  for  money 
or  thirst  for  human  blood,  but  it  is  a 
good  partisan  book,  nevertheless.  Sir 
George  Arthur's  "Life  of  Lord  Kitch- 
ener" (Macmillan)  is  promised.  "George 
von  L.  Meyer"  (Dodd),  by  M.  A.  De 
Wolfe  Howe,  and  "Some  Letter  of  Augus- 
tus P.  Gardner"  (Houghton),  contain 
interesting  sidelights  upon  our  foreign 
and  domestic  politics.  Observations 
upon  Presidents  Taft  and  Roosevelt  are 
contained  in  Mrs.  Larz  Anderson's 
"Presidents  and  Pies"  (Houghton),  and 
informal  biographical  material  about  Mr. 
Roosevelt  in  "Talks  with  T.  R."  (Hough- 
ton), by  John  J.  Leary,  Jr.,  and  "The 
Political  Adventures  of  Theodore  and 
Me"  (Macmillan),  by  William  Allen 
White. 

An  attempt  to  clear  away  the  ancient 
grudge  against  England  is  the  purpose 
of  Owen  Wister's  "A  Straight  Deal" 
(Macmillan).  Philippe  Bunau-Varilla  in 
"The  Great  Adventure  of  Panama" 
(Doubleday)  lays  the  refusal  of  Colom- 
bia to  ratify  the  treaty  with  this  coun- 
try to  German  intrigue.  It  needs  rather 
more  evidence  to  make  it  strong  enough 
— especially  as  the  defenders  of  the 
theory  that  our  Government  was  in  the 
wrong  about  Panama,  would  hardly  care, 
now,  to  find  proof  that  we  and  not  Co- 
lombia were  right.  Philip  Gibbs's  "Now 
It  Can  Be  Told"  (Harper)  searches  over 
the  notebooks  of  this  able  correspondent 
and  tells  us  what  the  censor  would  not 
permit  to  be  published  before  the  armis- 
tice. It  is  that  war  is  terrible;  high- 
explosive  shells  have  a  frightful  effect 
upon  the  human  body;  and  that  the  man- 
ners of  men  under  the  awful  strain  of 
war  are  not  always  nice.  A  useful  book 
if  it  serves  to  keep  anyone  from  think- 
ing that  war  is  glorious  and  much  to  be 
desired;  a  pestiferous  one  if  used  by 
pacifists  to  prove  their  contention  that 
the  safety  of  our  bodies  is  the  end  and 
aim  of  existence.  Sir  Reginald  Bacon's 
"The  Dover  Patrol"  (Doran)  is  one  of 
the  books  which  I  am  sure  I  wish  to  read, 
when  I  can  get  a  chance,  and  Bashford 
Dean's  "Helmets  and  Body  Armor  in 
Modem  Warfare"  (Yale  Univ.  Press) 
should  be  one  of  the  curious  literary  by- 
products of  the  war. 

A  new  Kipling  book  is  announced, 
"Letters  of  Travel"  (Doubleday).  "Modes 
and  Morals"  (Scribner),  by  Katharine 
FuUerton  Gerould,  is  another  annoyance 
to  the  radicals.  Professor  George  L. 
Kittredge's  "The  Old  Farmer  and  His 
Almanack"  (Harvard  Univ.  Press)  has 
happily  been  reprinted.  A  new  index  to 
St.  Nicholas  is  announced  (H.  W.  Wil- 
son Co.).  It  might  be  dangerous  to  own. 
I  have  a  few  volumes — covering  that 
golden  period  when  Cleveland  and  Har- 
rison were  Presidents — and  if  some  caller 


finds  them,  some  caller  who  was  of  the 
St.  Nicholas  age  in  the  years  1880  to 
1888,  I  get  no  more  out  of  him.  At  mid- 
night I  hand  him  his  hat  and  coat,  and 
push  him  out.  He  keeps  murmuring 
"Just  a  minute,  just  a  minute — here's 
that  story  by  Frank  Stockton  I  used  to 
read." 

Edmund  Lester  Pearson 

The  Ship's  Library 

I  CAME  aboard  the  transport  reviling 
my  luck.    My  locker  and  bedroll  were 
in  France  and   I   had  neglected  to  bid 
them     good-bye;     I     had    nothing    but 
musette  and  kit-bag,  in  which  I  had  been 
living   for   a   month.      The   limping   old 
Mudjekeewis  was  the   shabbiest  tub  in 
the  service,  slow,  devoid  of  comfort.   Her 
engines  took  a  day  off  every  week.    Her 
smoking  room  was  given  over  to  clack- 
ing typewriters  which  manufactured  col- 
ored tissue  paper  orders  for  the  decora- 
tion of  the  main  companionway.     The 
white  and  gold  music  room  was  no  place 
for  one  who  was  constitutionally  unable 
to  derive  solace  from  craps  or  poker.    But 
when  I  discovered  that  the  ship's  library 
had  survived  the  ravages  of  war,  I  be- 
gan to  see  the  hand  of  providence.    As 
I  reviewed  the  backs  of  the  fifty  and  odd 
most  respectable  volumes  in  tough  brown 
calf,  my  locker  and  bedroll  "fell  from  my 
back  and  began  to  tumble,  and  so  con- 
tinued to  do"  till  I  thought  of  them  no 
more.    I  was  free  as  air  in  spite  of  the 
livery  I  wore.    I  tossed  a  polished  copy 
of    "Mr.    Midshipman    Easy"    into    my 
berth,  cast  off  my  shining  greaves  and 
brass-mounted    regalia,    chinned   myself 
on  the  T-iron  that  ran  across  the  top 
of  the  stateroom,  swung  my  legs  over  the 
edge  of  the  berth  and  dropped  after  them. 
I  opened  the  porthole  to  the  deck  and 
the  summer  night,  disposed  tobacco  and 
other    necessities    in    the    wall-pockets, 
started  the  fire  in  a  well-crusted  briar 
bowl,  and  forthwith  I  was  in  company 
with  an  old  friend  whom  I  had  not  seen 
for  years — "By  nine  o'clock  that  evening 
Mr.  Jack  Easy  was  safe  on  board  his 
Majesty's  sloop  Harpy." 

With  him  I  sailed  for  uncounted  hours, 
a  midshipman  six  weeks  in  the  service 
who  practically  single-handed  captures  a 
vessel,  cuts  loose  on  a  cruise  in  her, 
quells  his  mutiny,  and  captures .  more 
ships.  It  is  like  a  child's  dream  of 
piracy,  like  the  picture  of  the  chubby 
four-year-old  with  cocked  hat,  sash,  and 
pistols,  standing  with  folded  arms  on 
the  quarter-deck  surrounded  by  bearded 
cutthroats  and  ruffians  who  bend  to  re- 
ceive orders  from  the  baby  lips.  The 
dream  rises  from  the  child's  desire  to 
escape  restraint.  Here  is  the  sailor  as 
an  overgrown  child,  slipping  free  of  the 
iron  discipline  of  the  navy  and  gamboling 
through  a  dream  of  heroic  conquest  of 


April  17,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[405 


Spaniards  and  French,  pirates  and 
bandits,  howling  gales  and  crashing  surf. 
"Jack  knew  that  his  life  depended  on 
holding  to  the  yard,  which  he  did,  al- 
though under  water."  Or  again,  "Our 
hero  and  his  comrade  had  both  drawn 
their  pistols,  and  just  as  they  burst  open 
the  door  the  old  gentleman  who  defended 
himself  against  such  odds  had  fallen 
down.  Jack  seized  one  of  his  assailants 
by  the  collar  of  his  coat  and  held  him 
fast,  pointing  the  muzzle  of  the  pistol  to 
his  ear;  Gascoigne  did  the  same  by  the 
other."  And  who  could  have  guessed 
that  the  old  gentleman  had  a  beautiful 
daughter  and  chests  of  coined  gold !  On 
and  on  it  flowed,  a  racing  stream  of  ac- 
tion, melodramatic  but  always  lively  and 
artlessly  engaging;  leagues  of  open  sea, 
with  sun,  wind,  and  cloud  that  fail  not 
from  the  face  of  it,  the  wind  on  your 
cheek  and  the  spray  in  your  teeth,  breezy 
stretches  of  flight  and  pursuit  across 
whole  oceans  of  blue  water.  It  was  mid- 
night and  more  before  my  three  room- 
mates came  in  and  began  to  unbuckle 
the  harness  of  war,  prating  of  sevens  and 
elevens,  of  broken  flushes  and  fallen  kings. 
A  barren  recital;  a  noise  and  a  shaking 
of  dry  bones!  What  were  their  paltry 
stakes  to  me?  Why,  there  were  fourteen 
thousand  Spanish  dollars  on  the  Nuestra 
Senora  del  Carmen  alone,  not  to  mention 
prize  money,  and  Donna  Agnes  was  safe 
aboard  the  privateer. 

But  the  privateer  was  sold,  Jack  Easy 
was  married  and  done  for,  and  it  be- 
hooved me  to  ship  again.  I  looked  in  vain 
for  "Wing  and  Wing" ;  I  longed  for  Clark 
Russell  (I  could  have  relished  "A  Three- 
Stranded  Yarn"),  but  was  fain  to  em- 
bark on  a  land  voyage.  I  took  up  with 
"Guy  Mannering,"  and  set  out  with  the 
Colonel  in  "the  brief  and  gloomy  twilight 
of  the  season,"  on  the  road  from  Dum- 
fries to  Kippletringan  "through  a  wide 
tract  of  black  moss  extending  for  miles 
on  each  side  and  before."  We  came 
safely  to  EUangowan ;  the  heir  was  born 
and  his  perilous  fate  foretold.  The  sound 
of  a  jazz  orchestra  recruited  from  among 
the  enlisted  men  came  down  the  gang- 
way like  the  chorus  of  a  summer  swamp, 
mosquitos,  peepers,  and  hylas — "zing, 
zing,  zing,  zing,  ze-e-e-!"  The  cigarettes 
of  the  deckwalkers  drifted  past  the  port- 
hole like  fireflies,  the  smoke  of  my  pipe 
swirled  out,  and  genial  scraps  of  pro- 
fanity floated  in.  From  the  walls  of 
EUangowan  we  "saw  a  lugger  with  all 
her  canvas  crowded  standing  across  the 
bay,  closely  pursued  by  a  sloop  of  war 
that  kept  firing  on  the  chase  from  her 
bows,  which  the  lugger  returned  with 
her  own  stern  chasers."  Dirk  Hatteraick 
landed,  Kennedy  met  his  death,  and  the 
heir  was  carried  off.  Meg  Merrilies  came 
and  went  with  stately  maledictions  and 
oracular  scraps  of  ballads.  Dominie 
Sampson  expressed  his  elementary 
(Continued  on  page  406) 


pHILIPPE  BUNAU-VARILLA,  the  engi- 
■*■  neer  of  the  old  French  Panama  Canal  Com- 
pany ^  Organized  the  Panama  revolution  ^ 
Signed  the  Hay-Bunau-Varilla  treaty  between 
Panama  and  the  United  States  ^  And  finally 
was  wounded  in  defence  of  his  country  at 
Verdun. 


There  never  was  a  more  romantic  story 

than  his  of  "the  great  adventure  of  Panama"  and  its 
connection  with  the  Great  War — of  the   trail   of  the 

Kaiser's  government  in  the  Caribbean — of 
starting  a  Revolution  from  the  Waldorf- 
Astoria — of  his  relations  with  Roosevelt  and 
Hay,  and  the  final  happy  ending  of  one  of  the 
great  dramas  of  history. 


THE  GREAT  ADVENTURE 
OF  PANAMA 

And  its  Relation  to  the  World  War 


By  PHILIPPE  BUNAU-VARILLA 

Published  by 


$^ -75  ^^  ^^^  bookstores 
DOUBLEDAY,   PAGE  &  CO  ,  Garden  City,  N.  Y. 


406] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  49 


(Continued  from  page  405) 
thoughts  in  ponderous  Latin,  and  his 
elementarj-  emotions  in  ponderous  capers. 
Mr.  Pleydell  brought  himself  and  a  brace 
of  wild  duck  to  supper,  and  whispered 
to  the  cook  his  "poor  thoughts"  about 
the  sauce.  With  them  all  I  was  well  con- 
tent. The  cover  of  any  novel  of  Scott's 
opens  like  a  magic  casement  on  a  fair 
prospect  of  a  safe  passage  to  the  islands 
of  the  blest  and  a  happy  sojourn  there. 
Only  you  mustn't  be  in  a  hurry.  If  you 
expect  sixty  miles  an  hour,  high  tension, 
and  the  clatter  of  a  flat  wheel,  you  won't 
get  what  you  want.  Don't  embark  on 
the  old  three-decker  if  you  have  the 
speed-mania  of  realism.  I  like  realism 
as  I  like  beer;  it  is  a  good  drink,  and 
there  are  times  when  it  is  just  the  thing, 
but  when  the  table  is  spread  with  silver 
let  beer  remain  below  stairs.  The  true 
romantics  bring  me  the  vintages  of  Bur- 
gundy. Scott  is  Chambertin — or  Riche- 
bourg — anyway,  he  is  the  king  of  them 
all.  Stevenson  is  Clos  de  Vougeot,  either 
still  red  or  sparkling.  From  Anthony 
Hope  I  get  an  occasional  glass  of  spar- 
kling Volnay — and  even  the  ordinaires 
come  from  the  Cote  d'Or.  Sip  them 
gently;  let  them  settle  into  your  being 
with  finality,  with  warmth  and  a  happy 
glow — if  you  want  to  get  drunk  quickly 
and  have  it  over  with,  choose  another 
bottle.  I  was  loth  to  tuck  the  book  in 
among  the  cork  jackets  over  my  head  at 
the  midnight  incursion  of  noisy  room- 
mates. The  F.  A.  lieutenant  had 
"cleaned  'em  up,"  and  we  were  to  have  a 
nightcap.  I  had  supped  with  Mr.  Pley- 
dell and  had  my  liquor  in  a  smuggler's 
cave,  but  I  accepted  my  modest  share  of 
his  winnings  since  I  could  not  share  mine 
with  him. 

Again  I  explored  the  narrow  shelves. 
The  steward  began  to  recommend  his 
wares.  "John  Halifax,  Gentleman"? 
Bah ! — Richardson  and  milk !  "The  First 
Violin"?  No,  Bronte  and  water.  "West- 
ward, Ho!";  "The  Cloister  and  the 
Hearth"?  Just  the  thing;  take  them 
both — no  restriction  on  hoarding  food 
for  the  imagination.  Here  are  scenes 
roomy  and  bustling;  for  stage  the  one 
has  the  whole  Spanish  Main,  the  other 
the  entire  continent  of  Europe.  Of  "The 
Cloister  and  the  Hearth"  my  memory 
from  earlier  readings  held  only  dramatic 
scenes  of  action,  the  escape  from  the 
tower,  the  fight  with  the  bear,  the 
stealthy  hand  pinned  to  the  doorpost  by 
a  bolt  from  Denis's  crossbow.  Now  I 
think  of  it  as  the  Middle  Ages  passing 
in  review,  a  flickering  stream  of  life  in 
every  form,  under  all  conditions,  crowded 
inns  and  swarming  streets  of  villages 
and  cities,  hut  and  palace,  university  and 
monastery,  highway  and  footpath.  It 
is  not  a  placid  stream ;  too  often  I  found 
myself  shooting  a  series  of  rapids  with 
nerves  taut  and  muscles  braced.  I  was 
tempted  to  lay  it  aside  till  a  time  when 


I  might  want  a  thriller  and  be  too  lazy 
to  seek  one  at  the  movies,  but  it  was 
impossible  to  leave  such  a  tale  half  told. 
With  the  calming  aid  of  the  even  rise 
and  fall  of  the  ship  under  me,  and  restful 
periods  of  vacant  gazing  through  the 
porthole  to  watch  the  sea's  "long  moon- 
silvered  roll,"  I  came  safe  and  rather 
breathless  to  the  end — and  promptly 
shipped  with  Amyas  Leigh  for  the  Span- 
ish Main.  Here  were  stalwart  fair- 
haired  heroes,  militant  Christians  such 
as  think  little  and  mope  never.  Either 
they  are  right  by  instinct  or  else  mag- 
nificently wrong.  They  are  chivalrous 
and  romantic,  but  they  do  not  concern 
themselves  very  greatly  or  very  long 
about  love.  They  have  no  time  to  stand 
tied  to  apron  strings;  great  deeds  are 
toward,  and  women  and  children  had 
better  stand  out  of  the  way.  What  shall 
we  say  of  a  romance  in  which  a  heroine, 
all  that  the  heart  could  desire  in  the 
earlier  chapters,  is  burned  by  the  Span- 
iards as  a  Protestant  heretic  in  the  mid- 
dle of  the  book?  Merely  that  if  you 
read  the  tale  at  the  right  age  (what- 
ever your  years),  the  matter  does  not 
trouble  you  much;  it  is  lost  and  left  be- 
hind in  the  swift  forward  surge  of  the 
action,  the  bustle  and  activity  of  scenes 
of  arrival  and  departure,  brilliance  and 
pageantry  of  crowds  of  soldiers  and 
courtiers,  the  spirit  and  manhood  of 
sailor  and  knight,  magnificent  fighting 
by  sea  and  land,  and  the  peril  of  enforced 
marches  across  unknown  continents.  We 
thrill  with  these  exploits  when  wa  read 
them  in  the  unemotional  pages  of  his- 
tory; here  they  are  not  unemotional; 
Kingsley  presents  them  instinct  with  life 
and  color,  "vivid  and  resolute." 

On  the  last  night  of  the  voyage  there 
was  no  poker,  no  craps,  no  reading;  we 
stood  at  the  rail  watching  the  shore 
lights  come  up  out  of  the  dark  till  nearly 
one  o'clock,  when  we  anchored  off  Quar- 
antine. 

"When  I  get  my  discharge  papers," 
said  the  F.  A.  lieutenant,  "I'm  just  go- 
ing to  put  on  long  pants  and  narrow 
shoes,  and  put  my  feet  up  on  the  mantel- 
piece where  I  can  admire  them." 

"Me  for  the  overalls,"  said  the  Q.  M. 
captain,  "and  digging  in  the  garden." 

"My  specifications,"  said  I,  "call  for  a 
stationary  bed  with  a  reading  light,  and 
anybody  that  wants  to  can  bring  in  my 
meals." 

I  was  thinking  of  the  Clerk  of  Ox- 
ford who  preferred  his  twenty  books  to 
the  polyphonies  of  a  jazz  orchestra. 
They  were  old  books,  and  he  kept  them 
at  the  head  of  his  bed,  sagacious  man. 
Robert  Palfrey  Utter 


"BOOKS  AND  THE  NEWS"  FUR- 
NISHES,     EACH      WEEK,      A 
SELECTED  BIBLIOGRAPHY 
ON    TIMELY    TOPICS. 


The  Nature  Lover 

THE  nature  lover  of  1920,  whose  inter- 
est has  been  aroused,  and  attention 
focused  on  the  appearance  and  lives  of  the 
plants  and  the  animals  of  this  earth  of 
ours,  is  to  be  both  envied  and  pitied. 
Envied,  because  of  the  wealth  of  litera- 
ture and  illustration,  guiding  and  help- 
ful, at  hand;  pitied,  because  of  the  nar- 
rowed field  of  work  and  the  diminished 
necessity  for  personal  endeavor. 

In  past  years  one  would  rush  off  to  the 
nearest  berry  tangle  or  grove,  in  the 
early  morning  before  school,  find  birds 
and  describe  them,  recording  size,  color, 
song,  and  habits  on  stray  scraps  of  paper. 
Then,  at  the  week's  end,  go  to  the  Nat- 
ural History  Museum,  and  after  careful 
search,  and  analysis  of  notes  whose  sin- 
cerity outweighed  their  clarity,  there 
would  come  conviction  that  the  bird  was 
a  fox  sparrow  and  not  a  brown  thrasher! 
That  kind  of  thing  brought  the  same 
thrill  as  my  first  Baedekerless  walk  in 
London,  when  Westminster  took  form 
and  flashed  into  recognition  without 
warning  or  mapped  anticipation.  It  was 
an  alchemy  of  method  which  transformed 
the  drab  confidence  of  certainty  into  the 
poignant  delight  of  discovery. 

In  those  early  years  the  writings  of 
J.  G.  Wood  filled  one's  mind  with  much 
truth  and  considerable  error,  and  one 
revelled  in  the  lurid,  stiff-necked  crea- 
tures in  the  plates  of  De  Kay  and  others. 
Thoreau  and  Burroughs  were  text-books 
as  well  as  essays,  and  I  used  to  make 
classified  lists  of  the  birds  in  "Wake- 
Robin."  For  tales  of  animals  in  strange, 
foreign  lands  there  were  Fenn  and  Hud- 
son, Kingston,  Bates,  Waterton,  and 
Belt.  Years  afterward  came  the  identi- 
fication books,  with  colored  plates  and 
keys,  condensed  summaries  of  seasons 
and  songs,  patterns  and  plumage,  notes 
and  nests.  And  when  Chapman's  Hand- 
book appeared,  the  high-water  mark  was 
reached,  for  to-day  no  other  has  ap- 
proached it. 

But  the  law  of  compensation  is  inflexi- 
ble, and  the  places  where  formerly,  when 
eyes  failed,  one  could  resort  to  a  22-cali- 
bre  shot  cartridge,  are  now  become  a 
no  man's  land,  fenced  either  with  real 
barbed  wire,  or  with  blatant  signs  mak- 
ing trespassing  a  sin  and  flower-picking 
immoral.  So  to  every  succeeding  genera- 
tion the  country  near  at  hand  becomes 
less  like  wild  planet  land  and  more  like 
a  museum.  This  is  inevitable,  and  only 
those  who  love  nature  enough  to  make 
sacrifices  of  time  and  effort  win  through 
to  the  few  wild  places  left  in  far  distant 
corners  of  the  world. 

It  is  possible  to  detect  faint  adumbra- 
tions of  a  cycle  of  change  in  nature  inter- 
est. At  first  nature  books  were  for  read- 
ers in  libraries.  Gilbert  White  and  Audu- 
bon were  read  far  more  frequently  in  an 
arm-chair  before  a  fire  than  in  anticipa- 


April  17,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[407 


tion  of  a  coming  walk,  or  expected  direct 
acquaintanceship.  But  closer  contact 
began  to  be  established,  as  soon  as  people 
ceased  for  a  moment  their  struggle  for 
wealth  or  position,  and,  looking  out  upon 
the  strange  world  beyond  factory  and 
bank,  fashioned  the  queries  "What?"  and 
"Why?"  The  demand  began  to  be  met 
at  once,  and  ushered  in  the  era  of  iden- 
tification books,  the  colorful  host  of 
"How-to-Knows."  And  now  the  interested 
layman  can  call  by  name  many  of  his 
lesser  fellow  creatures,  bound  like  himself 
by  gravitation,  and  with  him  breathing 
and  eating  and  playing  upon  our  planet. 
"What?"  being  answered  in  part, 
"Why?"  still  remains,  and  to-day, 
strengthened  by  the  staff  of  identifica- 
tion, we  have  begun  to  trudge  hopefully 
along  the  path  of  interpretation. 

To-day  the  literature  of  biology  is  of 
appalling  extent.  A  specialist  finds  it  dif- 
ficult to  keep  up  even  with  the  writings 
of  his  own  limited  field.  Inquiry  in  any 
direction  reveals  regiments  of  volumes 
and  cohorts  of  periodicals  awaiting  the 
reader.  And  in  the  midst  of  this  techni- 
cal desert — a  desert  absolutely  necessary 
and  desirable  for  the  advance  of  knowl- 
edge— the  layman  finds  now  and  then  a 
rare  oasis  of  balanced  popular  literature, 
not  in  words  of  one  syllable,  nor  of  sen- 
timentalized nature,  but  of  real  litera- 
ture, of  facts  so  clothed  in  simple  dig- 
nity, so  interpreted,  that  their  appeal  is 
instant  and  universal.  I  recall  espe- 
cially Levink's  "Antarctic  Penguins," 
Hudson's  "Idle  Days  in  Patagonia,"  "The 
Story  of  Radium,"  Slosson's  "Creative 
Chemistry,"  Roosevelt's  "A  Book-Lover's 
Holidays  in  the  Open,"  as  well  as  the 
writings  of  Vernon  Kellogg,  Thompson 
Seton,  the  Peckhams,  Wheeler,  and  J. 
Arthur  Thompson. 

In  certain  ways  the  cycle  becomes  a 
closed  spiral,  and  to-day  we  can  often 
do  no  better  than  to  reach  up  to  the  books 
on  the  higher  shelves,  blow  the  dust  off 
the  tops,  and  reopen  those  wonderful 
pages  of  Audubon,  Fabre  in  the  original, 
Izaak  Walton,  Gilbert  White,  Darwin, 
and  Huxley. 

We  realize  eventually  that  the  law  of 
compensation  works  both  ways  and  the 
devastating  advance  of  civilization  out- 
strips itself  by  means  of  its  superlatively 
efficient  means  of  travel,  and  thus  brings 
the  very  wilderness  of  the  antipodes  to 
the  sophisticated  doryard  of  the  nature 
lover.  Roosevelt  has  summed  this  up  in  a 
single  perfect  paragraph: 

The  grandest  scenery  of  the  world  is  his  to 
look  at  if  he  chooses;  and  he  can  witness  the 
strange  ways  of  tribes  who  have  survived  into 
an  alien  age  from  an  immemorial  past,  tribes 
whose  priests  dance  in  honor  of  the  serpent 
and  worship  the  spirits  of  the  wolf  and  the 
bear.  Far  and  wide,  all  the  continents  are 
open  to  him  as  they  never  were  to  any  of  his 
forefathers;  the  Nile  and  the  Paraguay  are 
easy  of  access,  and  the  borderland  between 
(Continued  on  page  408) 


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THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  49 


From   NEWTON 
to  EINSTEIN 

By  BENJAMIN  HARROW,  Ph.  D. 

An  interesting,  clear,  simple,  non-mathe- 
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wisdom  of  the  present  and  the  past. 

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Problems  of  Labor  and  Capital 

II— Honest  Ballots  for  Unions  and  Employers'  Associations 

not  often,  to-day,  that  the  leadership 
either  in  the  union  or  in  the  employers' 
association  is  genuinely  representative. 
The  leaders  on  both  sides,  in  a  great 
majority  of  organizations,  are  elected 
without  a  sealed  ballot,  and,  if  there  is 
a  sealed  ballot,  there  is  no  guarantee 
of  an  honest  count.  The  secret  ballot 
and  an  honest  count  is  no  less  important 
in  industrial  reform  than  it  was  in  politi- 
cal reform.  Secrecy  and  honesty  should 
apply,  too,  quite  as  much  to  votes  on 
strikes  or  lock-outs,  as  the  election  of 
officers. 


A  RECENT  statement  issued  by  the 
Industrial  Council  for  the  Build- 
ing Trades  in  Great  Britain  reads  as 
follows : 

Industry  needs  no  truce,  no  compulsory  ar- 
bitration, no  provisions  for  postponement  of 
disputes.  What  it  needs  is  confidence  and  a 
courageous  forward  movement,  supported  by 
the  constructive  genius  of  both  sides  in  com- 
mon counsel.  Industrial  peace  must  come,  not 
as  a  result  of  the  balance  of  power  with  a 
supreme  court  of  appeal  in  the  background. 
It  must  arise  as  the  inevitable  by-product  of 
mutual  confidence,  real  justice,  constructive 
good-will. 

One  of  the  greatest  obstacles,  if  it  is  not 
the  greatest,  in  the  way  of  collective  bar- 
gaining agreements  is  the  lack  of  confi- 
dence on  both  sides.  This  lack  is  due 
in  great  measure  to  a  belief  on  each  side 
that  the  other  is  organized  in  an  undemo- 
cratic way  and  is  led  by  a  group  of  or- 
ganizers, in  the  case  of  the  union,  or  a 
clique  of  large  employers,  in  the  case  of 
the  employers'  association.  Confronted 
with  the  suggestion  that  collective  bar- 
gaining might  lead  to  industrial  peace, 
an  employer  engaged  in  an  industry 
which  has  never  attempted  collecti>7e  bar- 
gaining usually  declares  a  willingness  to 
deal  collectively  with  unions,  but  refuses 
to  deal  with  the  particular  union  in  his 
trade  because  of  the  type  of  leadership 
which,  it  is  alleged,  controls  the  work- 
men. It  is  a  common  belief  among  em- 
ployers— and  to  a  great  extent  the  facts 
justify  the  belief — that  the  members  of 
the  unions  do  not  freely  choose  their 
leaders,  that  they  are,  indeed,  often 
under  the  domination  of  agitators  and 
demagogues.  The  fact  that  many  leaders 
of  local  unions  have  been  successfully 
bribed  by  employers  in  the  past,  coupled 
with  the  fact  that  many  employees  con- 
fidentially state  to  their  employers  that 
they  should  prefer  to  continue  at  work 
were  they  not  in  fear  of  the  leaders  of 
the  union,  has  gone  far  to  destroy  the 
confidence.  The  labor  unions,  on  the  other 
hand,  with  no  less  justice,  have  lost 
faith  in  the  leadership  of  the  employers. 
They  have  contended  for  years  that 
in  all  employers'  associations  a  few 
large  employers  have  control  through 
a  small  executive  committee.  Organ- 
ized labor  is  of  the  opinion  that  small 
manufacturers  are  often  denied  a  voice 
in  the  management  of  the  employers' 
associations. 

Reasons  for  the  lack  of  confidence  on 
both  sides,  then,  exist  in  plenty.     It  is 


Instead,  we  have  a  situation  typically 
as  follows.  If  it  is  proposed  in  the 
union  to  make  a  demand  upon  the  em- 
ployers, an  employee  must  possess  ex- 
ceptional daring  publicly  to  address  the 
union  in  opposition  to  the  proposed  de- 
mands. On  a  question  of  a  strike,  it  is 
true,  there  is  apt  to  be  a  division  of 
opinion,  and  a  small  minority  might  fee- 
bly mumble  its  dissent.  But  in  many 
unions  the  more  representative  skilled 
workmen  not  only  fail  to  record  opposing 
votes  on  questions  of  prime  importance, 
but  actually  refrain  from  attending  the 
union's  meetings.  In  some  industries 
employees  opposing  a  demand  for  in- 
creased pay  or  shorter  hours  have  even 
suffered  assault  at  the  hands  of  their 
more  aggressive  fellows. 

The  situation  is  equally  serious  among 
the  employers.  Action  looking  toward  a 
lockout,  or  the  refusal  of  the  workmen's 
demands,  is  agreed  upon  either  by  a  ris- 
ing vote  or  by  a  call  of  "ayes"  and 
"nays."  Representatives  of  small  con- 
cerns, through  timidity  or  other  reasons, 
follow  perforce  what  appears  to  be  the 
sentiment  of  the  larger  concerns.  Fur- 
thermore, the  usual  constitution  and  by- 
laws of  the  employers'  associations,  with 
a  view  to  greater  efficiency,  create  execu- 
tive committees  vested  with  full  power 
and  not  subject  to  review  by  the  asso- 
ciation as  a  whole.  It  is  not  unusual  for 
such  an  executive  committee  of  five  to 
decline  a  proposal  of  arbitration  without 
even  presenting  the  question  to  the  sev- 
eral hundred  members  of  the  associa- 
tion. 

Though  the  honest  count  may  be 
harder  to  obtain  than  the  secret  ballot — 
so  it  has  proved  in  political  life — in  both 
the  employers'  associations  and  in  the 
unions,  the  secret  ballot  is  the  first  step 
toward  effective  understanding  between 


April  17,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[409 


them.  And  it  is  unlikely  that  either 
the  unions  or  the  employers'  associations 
would  be  heard  to  argue  against  the  man- 
datory installation  of  secretly  cast  and 
honestly  counted  ballots.  The  method 
of  enacting  legislation  which  would  make 
this  mandatory  in  such  organizations  is 
contingent,  possibly,  upon  bringing  under 
Government  supervision  all  organizations 
of  employers  or  employees.  The  plan 
most  generally  discussed  is  that  of  the 
compulsory  incorporation  of  unions  and 
of  employers'  associations.  Whether 
such  compulsory  incorporation  is  im- 
practicable and  likely  to  prove  barren  of 
the  results  sought  will  be  discussed  in  a 
subsequent  article.  The  alternative  pro- 
posal of  mere  compulsory  licensing  of  all 
employees'  and  employers'  associations 
will  be  set  forth.  The  choice  between 
them  should  be  made  to  depend  on  which 
gives  the  better  promise  of  establishing 
swiftly  and  finally  a  control  of  the  affairs, 
both  of  the  union  and  of  the  employers' 
associations,  which  is  not  only  genuinely 
representative  at  this  moment  of  its  elec- 
tion but  continues  to  be  representative 
through  seeking,  frequently  and  in  all 
frankness,  validation  of  its  acts  at  the 
hands  of  the  body  which  created  it. 
Morris  L.  Ernst 

Books  and  the  News 

Primaries 

THE  primary  elections  have  trans- 
formed our  Presidential  campaigns 
into  something  resembling  a  general  elec- 
tion in  England.  As  they  extend  over 
a  period  of  five  or  six  months  it  is  pos- 
sible to  see  their  merits  and  defects. 
Their  virtues,  as  contrasted  with  the  old 
convention  system,  were  negatively  dis- 
played in'  1912,  when  the  managers  of 
the  Republican  Party  contrived  to  give 
the  members  of  the  party  a  candidate 
who  it  was  clear  was  not  wanted.  Their 
defects,  in  doubling  the  work,  expense, 
and  effort  of  the  campaign,  are  always 
apparent.  Perhaps  their  greatest  merit 
is  that  indicated  by  Mr.  Charles  Willis 
Thompson,  in  the  book  mentioned  below : 
they  tend  to  make  a  candidate  honestly 
declare  himself,  and  so  do  a  great  deal  to 
destroy  that  hoary  old  humbug  of  Ameri- 
can politics,  based  upon  a  perversion  of 
the  historical  facts  about  Washington — 
the  "reluctant"  candidate,  "in  the  hands 
of  his  friends,"  protesting  against  his 
nomination  in  public,  but  privately  pull- 
ing every  string  in  sight.  Whatever 
else  might  happen,  this  sham,  in  all  his 
shades  and  degrees,  would  have  to  dis- 
appear if  there  were  complete  Presiden- 
tial primaries. 

Frederick  W.  Dallinger,  in  "Nomina- 
tions for  Elective  Office  in  the  United 
States"    (Longmans,    1897)    contributed 
(Continued  on  page  410) 


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IT  is  significant  that  never  has  the  social  and 
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Some  Aspects   of  Interna- 
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Steps  in  tlie  Development 
of  American  Democracy 

By  Andrew  Cunningham  McLaughlin 

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The  Church  and  World 
Peace 

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A  strong  and  timely  discussion  of  the  church 
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The  Rebirth  of  Korea 

The  Reaioakening   of  Its  People,  Its  Causes  and 
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By  Hugh  Heung-wo  Cynn 

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"In  Memoriam" 

An  Interpretation  for  tfie  Times 

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410] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  49 


(Continued  from  page  409) 
to  the  series  of  Harvard  Historical 
Studies  an  excellent  history  of  the  de- 
velopment of  the  nominating  system.  He 
describes  the  abuses  of  the  caucus  and 
the  primary,  the  abuses  of  the  conven- 
tion, and  the  proposed  remedies.  The 
book's  one  fault  to-day,  of  course,  is  its 
date  of  publication. 

Somewhat  later,  but  still  before  the 
Presidential  primaries  had  been  tested, 
there  appeared  one  of  the  few  books  de- 
voted singly  to  the  primary — Charles  E. 
Merriam's  "Primary  Elections"  (Uni- 
versity of  Chicago  Press,  1909).  This 
is  a  small  book,  of  about  three  hundred 
pages,  but  it  traces  the  primary  in  this 
country  from  its  earliest  forms;  it  has 
a  bibliography  referring  to  articles  and 
to  separate  chapters  in  books;  and  it 
summarizes  the  laws  in  various  States 


so  far  as  there  were  any  such  laws  when 
the  book  was  published. 

In  the  "Proceedings  of  the  Academy 
of  Political  Science,"  January,  1913, 
Volume  III,  No.  2,  may  be  found  a  report 
of  a  debate  upon  the  primary — a  debate 
in  which  Professor  A.  B.  Hart  partici- 
pated, and  various  active  politicians  of- 
fered their  comments.  An  extensive 
study  of  the  primary  in  one  State  may 
be  found  in  "The  Direct  Primary  in  New 
Jersey,"  by  Ralph  S.  Boots  (Published 
by  the  Author,  1917).  This  also  contains 
a  bibliography. 

In  the  Debaters'  Handbook  Series 
Clara  E.  Fanning  has  edited  "Selected 
Articles  on  Direct  Primaries"  (Wilson, 
1918).  This  is  very  good  for  its  compila- 
tion of  articles  and  arguments  for  and 
against  the  direct  primary,  its  list  of 
further  references,  and  its  tabulation  of 


the  opinions  of  politicians.  It  is  more 
up  to  date  than  most  other  publications 
on  the  subject;  many  of  its  discussions 
are  based  upon  the  actual  workings  of 
the  system,  rather  than  upon  theories. 

Charles  Willis  Thompson's  "The  New 
Voter"  (Putnam,  1918)  has  a  chapter  on 
the  direct  primary;  it  also  discusses  in 
the  form  of  conversations  the  "things 
he  and  she  ought  to  know  about  politics 
and  citizenship,"  and  should  prove  di- 
gestible to  the  reader  who  usually  finds 
politics  tough  and  dry.  Another  new 
book,  on  a  related  topic,  is  "How  the 
World  Votes;  the  Story  of  Democratic 
Development  in  Elections"  (2  vols.  C.  A. 
Nichols  Co.,  1918),  by  Charles  Seymour 
and  D.  P.  Frary.  It  describes  political 
parties  and  elections  all  over  the  world. 

Edmund  Lester  Pearson 


EDUCATIONAL  SECTION 


The  University  President 


AT  the  moment,  it  is  said  that  no 
fewer  than  seventeen  presidents  of 
American  colleges  and  universities  have 
resigned  or  announced  their  intention  of 
resigning.  With  so  many  important  posi- 
tions soon  to  be  filled  again — the  presi- 
dency of  Yale,  of  Cornell,  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Minnesota,  and  so  on — the 
question  of  the  right  man  for  leader  in 
^ucation,  and  the  proper  functions  of 
such  a  man,  calls  for  thoughtful  discus- 
sion. It  is  not  often  discussed  on  the 
basis  of  principle  alone,  and  it  should  be 
discussed  on  no  other.  Personality,  tact, 
qualities  that  defy  analysis,  pertain  to 
the  individual  case;  they  do  not  enter 
into  a  general  consideration  of  the  topic. 
First  of  all,  should  the  position  of  col- 
lege or  university  president  exist  at  all? 
Certainly  not,  with  the  indiscriminate 
functions  now  attached  to  it.  Strive  as 
he  may  to  save  himself  as  a  leader  of 
scholars  and  a  promoter  of  scholarship, 
the  American  college  president — at  the 
beck  and  call  of  the  undergraduate,  the 
parent,  the  impecunious  instructor  clam- 
oring for  an  increase  in  his  stipend,  the 
world  clamoring  for  tangible  "results," 
and  expecting  vast  external  growth  in 
the  "plant" — finds  himself  unable  to 
keep  up  more  than  a  show  of  the  con- 
templative life,  and  sooner  or  later — in- 
sensibly and  slowly,  or  promptly  and  with 
open  eye — makes  his  compromise  with 
the  crowd  and  with  Mammon;  if  indeed 
he  has  not  fully  compromised  himself  be- 
forehand in  order  to  win  the  position. 
The  position  as  it  now  exists  is  truly 
anomalous.  It  originated  in  the  small 
colonial  institution  that  was  modeled 
after  the  English  college,  and,  by  ac- 
cident as  it  were,  has  been  transferred 


to  institutions  that  have  grown,  at  least 
in  externals,  to  resemble  the  populous 
and  many-sided  university  of  Conti- 
nental Europe,  with  a  polytechnic  school 
superadded.  The  president  of  an  Amer- 
ican university  combines  the  functions 
of  the  head  of  a  small  college  with  those 
of  the  Vice-chancellor  of  an  English  uni- 
versity and  those  of  the  Rector  of  a 
German,  though  not  with  those  of  the 
head  of  the  College  de  France.  But  the 
term  of  the  Vice-chancellor  of  Oxford  is 
four  years,  ordinarily  enough  to  spoil  his 
best  energies  for  the  rest  of  his  life,  as 
was  the  case  with  Jowett.  And  the 
tenure  of  office  for  the  Rector  of  a 
German  university  is  one  year.  The  post 
has  often  been  refused  by  eminent  men, 
such  as  the  geographer  Ratzel,  who  pre- 
ferred not  to  interrupt  their  usefulness 
in  research  and  publication  even  for  so 
brief  an  interval.  No  man  can  adequately 
perform  the  duties  of  an  American  uni- 
versity president  as  they  are  now  gen- 
erally conceived,  having  come  to  be  what 
they  are  by  force  of  circumstances, 
through  the  numerical  growth  and  ever- 
increasing  complexity  of  institutions, 
and  through  the  process  of  uncritical 
imitation,  each  man  deeming  that  he 
must  undertake  all  the  activities  of  his 
predecessor  and  of  his  fellows  who  are 
similarly  placed. 

The  first  thing  to  suffer  is  his 
scholarship.  The  rare  individual  like 
Pepper  of  Pennsylvania,  or  Harper  of 
Chicago,  working  nineteen  hours  a  day, 
and  able  to  tire  out  three  stenographers, 
may  succeed  in  preserving  an  active  in- 
terest in  the  specialty  for  which  he  was 
trained.  As  a  rule,  however,  an  eleva- 
tion to  the  presidency  of  a  large  institu- 


tion has  ended  the  participation  of  the 
new  incumbent  in  systematic  research, 
and  therewith  his  complete  understand- 
ing of  the  men  who  form  the  true  kernel 
of  the  university. 

There  is  much  to  be  said  for  abolish- 
ing the  position ;  for  university  admin- 
istration by  some  form  of  commission 
government,  with  a  changing  committee 
and  a  rotating  chairman.  But  since  we 
are  not  likely  to  see  it  generally  abol- 
ished in  the  near  future,  the  question  of 
what  is  expedient  under  present  condi- 
tions becomes  more  pressing.  How  can 
the  position  be  transformed  from  one 
that  no  productive  scholar  dare  accept 
into  one  the  incumbent  of  which  will 
not  lose  his  scholarly  soul? 

In  two  ways.  First,  by  limiting  the 
tenure  of  office  to  four  or  six  years.  Sec- 
ondly, by  relieving  the  president  of 
every  function  (save  his  duty  to 
scholarship)  of  which  he  can  easily  be 
relieved.  The  budget  of  the  university, 
for  example,  though  subject  to  his  ap- 
proval— yet  not  to  his  alone,  nor  even 
his  in  the  main — should  not  be  his  pro- 
duction. He  should  not  in  effect  have 
the  financial  responsibility  of  the  organ- 
ization; and,  above  all,  it  should  not  be 
considered  his  duty  to  secure  funds  for 
the  institution.  And  again,  the  respon- 
sibility for  the  relations  of  the  institu- 
tion with  all  sorts  of  individuals — stu- 
dents, their  parents,  and  the  like — should 
not  be  his.  Three-fourths  of  the  duties 
now  performed  by  him  should  be  the 
affair  of  a  secretary  of  the  university 
and  a  secretarial  staff.  At  a  Continental 
university  there  is  a  clerical  force  that 
the  average  person  sees  but  twice  a  year 
(Continued  on  page  412) 


April  17,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[411 


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An  entertaining  discussion  of  the  organiza- 
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THE  TURN  OF  THE  TIDE 

By  Lt.-Col.  Jennings  C.  Wise 

An  authoritative  account  of  the  operations 
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ARMY  MENTAL  TESTS 

j       By  C.  S.  Yoakum  and  R.  M.  Yerkes 

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I I  practical  application  of  intelligence  tests.    This 
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THE  GIRL 
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412] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  49 


(Continued  from  page  410) 
who  render  most  of  the  services  with 
which  the  time  of  our  university  leaders 
is  squandered;  that  force  is  not  a  part 
of  the  administration  proper. 

By  relieving  the  president  of  unneces- 
sary burdens,  we  should  make  it  possible 
for  him  to  know  his  faculty.  A  man  in 
his  position  may  commonly  be  fairly  well 
acquainted  with  one  thousand  persons; 
but  the  thousand  or  five  hundred  mem- 
bers of  a  university  faculty  are  not 
usually-  the  persons  whom  the  president 
knows  well,  or  desires  to  know  best.  The 
present  nature  of  his  position  leads  him 
to  wish  for  an  influential  acquaintance 
outside  the  institution.  He  is  likely  to 
know  all  the  trustees  better  than  he 
knows  all  the  faculty.  He  usually  knows 
but  a  few  of  his  faculty  well.  He  ought 
to  know  everj'  one  of  them,  down  to  the 
newest  assistant,  before  knowing  any  one 
else  in  the  world.  As  it  is,  instructors 
come  and  go,  meeting  the  head  or  chair- 
man of  a  department  often  after  the 
barest  contact  with  the  president,  some- 
times with  none  whatever. 

By  relieving  him  of  all  needless 
burdens,  we  should  also  render  him  free 
for  a  certain  amount  of  intensive  study 
in  the  field  that  was  his  before  he  be- 
came president;  such  freedom  is  even 
more  necessary  than  that  he  should  try 
to  teach.  In  this  way  he  would  retain 
his  ability  to  estimate  the  promise  of 
candidates  for  positions  on  the  faculty, 
and  especially  of  those  at  the  bottom  of 
the  ladder,  from  whose  ranks  are  to  be 
drawn  the  professors  of  the  future. 

Meanwhile,  if  the  duties  of  the  uni- 
versity president  are  to  be  reconstructed, 
a  much  better  system  should  be  intro- 
duced for  the  selection  of  faculties,  and 
the  advancement  of  the  men  already  com- 
posing them;  that  is,  if  there  can  be 
said  to  be  any  system  at  present.  Pro- 
motion should  in  some  sense  be  an  affair 
of  the  academic  community,  not  a  de- 
partmental one.  This,  as  well  as  the  se- 
lection of  new  professors  who  are  called 
from  other  institutions,  should  be  ar- 
ranged at  least  by  a  committee  of  the 
faculty  concerned,  with  the  advice  and 
consent  of  the  president.  His  should  be 
the  veto  power,  but  his  vote  in  favor  of 
a  candidate  should  not  be  worth  more 
than  the  vote  of  a  member  of  the  com- 
mittee who  understands  the  subject  to 
be  taught.  As  an  executive,  he  should 
see  to  it  that  competent  men  examine 
every  line  the  candidate  has  written,  in 
order  to  determine,  in  the  first  place, 
whether  the  man  is  at  bottom  a  scholar, 
and,  in  the  second,  whether  he  has  the 
ability  to  communicate  that  sound  learn- 
ing which  is  a  part  of  character. 

Our  country  has  run  too  far  in  the 
direction  of  what  is  called  "administra- 
tion." Everywhere  we  have  developed  a 
kind  of  genius  for  rendering  administra- 
tion  complex   and   difficult.     That   the 


national  tendency  has  invaded  the  realm 
of  education  hardly  needs  remark;  there 
the  mechanism  of  administration  has  be- 
come so  involved  as  almost  to  throttle 
independent  scholarship.  Given  the  real 
scholar  and  teacher,  the  mechanism  of 
teaching  is  simple.  And  whatever  "ad- 
ministration" may  signify  at  Washing- 
ton, or  in  the  collection  of  an  income-tax, 
in  the  university  it  means,  not  govern- 
ment, but  service. 

The  chief  function  of  the  university 
president  is  to  be  the  intellectual  leader 
of  the  institution — of  its  faculty,  who 
are  the  intellectual  leaders  of  the  stu- 
dents. His  first  duty  is  to  create  a  cur- 
rent of  ideas  in  the  organism  of  which 
he  is  the  head.  In  choosing  our  univer- 
sity leaders,  let  us  go  to  Europe  in 
order  to  learn  what  sort  of  men  are 
taken  on  the  Continent  for  the  heads  of 


educational  institutions,  and  what  they 
do  after  they  have  been  raised  to  places 
of  eminence.  And  having  chosen  real 
scholars,  let  us  make  it  possible  for  them 
to  retain  their  scholarly  leadership  while 
they  occupy  the  posts  to  which  they 
have  been  advanced.  Make  the  pay  in 
money  less,  and  the  pay  in  honor  more. 

The  president  of  an  American  univer- 
.  sity  is,  or  should  be,  the  intellectual 
leader  of  what  is  at  once  an  aristocracy 
and  a  democracy  of  intellect  and  spirit. 
A  true  democracy  is  possible  among 
scholars.  How  strange  that,  in  this 
American  commonwealth,  the  one  place 
where  true  democracy  might  hope  to 
flourish  so  frequently  tends  to  become  a 
pure  bureaucracy,  or  an  affable  tyranny 
in  the  guise  thereof. 


Professor 


Universal  Traininpf 


THE  war  has  taught  us  the  possibili- 
ties of  universal  training  for  civic 
responsibilities.  An  excellent  article  on 
the  subject  in  the  April  Atlantic  by  Mr. 
Frank  E.  Spaulding  has  now  the  addi- 
tional merit  of  timeliness.  Four  years 
ago  somewhat  similar  suggestions  were 
made  timidly  here  and  there,  but  the 
country  had  not  yet  been  shown  what 
the  instruction  of  the  draft  army  could 
accomplish;  even  the  advocates  of  pre- 
paredness, with  the  emergency  of  war 
before  them,  felt  that  anything  not 
strictly  military  was  out  of  considera- 
tion. Now,  with  the  war  over  and  with 
peace  nevertheless  no  nearer  than  when 
war  was  on,  the  moment  is  peculiarly 
"psychological"  for  people  to  think  na- 
tionally on  such  a  subject  as  education. 
A  new  crop  of  cures  for  national  ills, 
political,  economic,  social,  springs  up 
almost  every  night;  but,  fortunately,  the 
American  people,  in  spite  of  their  good- 
natured  toleration  of  quacks,  have  the 
habit  of  looking  solidly  to  education  for 
permanent  results. 

Whatever  may  be  the  pros  and  cons  of 
purely  military  training,  not  many  per- 
sons who  visualize  the  problems  that  face 
us  remain  still  unconvinced  of  the  educa- 
tive value  of  a  year  of  compulsory  train- 
ing of  some  sort.  It  would  serve  as  a 
redeemer  of  those  physically  below  par. 
It  would  make  sure,  as  isolated  school- 
ing with  its  variations  could  never  do, 
that  every  man  before  he  reached  vot- 
ing age  spoke  the  English  language  and 
knew  something  of  American  institu- 
tions and  ideals.  It  would  supply,  if 
properly  conducted,  technical  skill  to  mil- 
lions who  would  otherwise  go  untrained 
or  poorly  trained.  Much  more  than  this, 
it  would  bring  together  from  every  walk 
in  life  and  subject  to  an  indelibly  demo- 
cratic influence  young  men  at  the  most 
formative  period  of  their  lives. 

Indeed,  it  is  not  conversion  to  the  gen- 


eral idea  that  people  need  so  much  as  a 
specific  plan.  This  Mr.  Spaulding  gives. 
His  article,  moreover,  is  not  merely  a 
statement  of  a  plan  for  universal  train- 
ing, but  reviews  admirably,  if  briefly,  the 
whole  problem  of  its  title,  "Educating 
the  Nation."  The  year  of  training  for 
"civic  responsibility"  would  therefore 
come  as  a  related  part  of  the  whole 
scheme,  concluding  logically  the  years 
devoted  to  "essential  elementary  knowl- 
edge, training,  and  discipline"  and  to 
"occupational  efficiency."  Thus  con- 
ceived and  viewed  in  perspective,  it  takes 
on  a  reasonableness  which  it  would  in 
many  cases  lack  if  it  were  an  isolated 
year  stolen  from  a  man  already  in  full 
career.  The  plan  has  further  merits:  it 
provides  a  sufficient  flexibility  to  meet 
the  needs  of  those  who  would  go  to 
college  and  of  those  who  would  not,  as 
well  as  of  those,  at  present  the  majority, 
who  would  not  even  complete  the  regu- 
lar secondary  stage.  Another  important 
point  is  the  advocacy  of  a  Federal  De- 
partment of  Education,  with  its  head  a 
member  of  the  Cabinet.  In  this  connec- 
tion the  author  speaks  of  "a  certain  de- 
gree of  national  direction,"  when  he  ap- 
pears to  mean  "an  uncertain  degree"; 
but  this  uncertainty  is  not  to  be  regretted 
for  the  present:  in  fact,  it  will  scarcely 
be  possible  to  determine  the  degree  till 
the  office  is  in  working  existence. 

One  serious  defect  of  the  plan  is  that 
the  final  year  of  training  is  to  provide 
only  for  the  "male  youth  of  the  land." 
Even  though  military  training  is  part 
of  the  scheme,  women  gave  abundant  evi- 
dence during  the  late  war  that  they  were 
indispensable  in  war  work  which  re- 
quired special  instruction.  Further- 
more, why  should  they  be  deprived  of  the 
benefits  which  the  plan  would  bestow,  and 
why  should  the  country  not  enjoy  a 
quickened  sense  of  service  in  the  "better 
{Continued  on  page  414) 


April  17,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[413 


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Salve  Mater 

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414] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  49 


THE  HUDSON  COAL  CO. 


CELEBRATED 

LACKAWANNA 

THE  ARISTOCRAT  OF  ANTHRACITE 


1823 


1920 


HAS  NATURAL  QUALITIES  AND  MAN-MADE  REFINEMENT 


D.  F.  WILLIAMS 

Vice-President  and  General  Sales  Agent 


W.  F.  SHURTLEFF 

Assistant  General  Sales  Agent 


SCRANTON,  PA. 


(Continued  from  page  412) 
half"  of  its  citizens?  A  couple  of  gen- 
erations ago  the  men  might  have  replied 
gallantly  to  such  a  question,  "Ah,  the 
women !  They  do  not  need  it !"— but  now 
that  we  have  reduced  woman  to  a  human 
being,  who  works  and  experiences  cere- 
bration, who  pays  taxes,  who  votes  or  is 
about  to  do  so,  we  must  care  also  for 
her  education  in  civic  responsibility.  Not 
only  are  there  many  lines  of  technical 
work  in  which  she  takes  an  important 
part;  she  needs  also  the  physical  benefit, 
above  all  the  democratizing  experience 
of  mixing  for  a  year  with  young  women 
from  all  walks  of  life.  It  may  be  con- 
tended, to  be  sure,  that  to  double  the 
number  to  be  provided  for  would  double 
the  cost,  while  to  supply  special  training 
for  women,  so  different  from  that  for 
men,  would  greatly  complicate  the  prob- 
lem. Such  a  contention  may  have  a  tem- 
porary, practical  cogency,  but  it  has  no 
more  logical  force  than  a  contention 
in  favor  of  restricting  the  number  of 
men  called  to  one-half  the  actual  num- 
ber available.  Sooner  or  later  the  year 
of  training  should  include  both  sexes. 

This  would  not  be  true,  of  course,  if 
the  training  were  to  be  purely  military, 
but  though  there  is  provision  for  mili- 
tary training  in  the  Spaulding  plan — 
perhaps  wisely  if  it  is  to  meet  with  favor 
at  the  present  time — the  emphasis  is 
rightly  placed  on  training  for  civic  re- 
sponsibilities in  time  of  peace.  It  is  not 
merely  that  military  training,  by  itself, 
is  not  constructive  or  productive  in  the 
normal  life  of  a  community  or  nation, 
or  that,  as  the  imminence  of  war  recedes, 
it  tends  to  become  perfunctory,  even  vi- 
cious; the  best  training  for  war,  as  for 
peace,  it  has  been  found,  involves  a 
great  deal  that  can  not  even  remotely 
be  called  military.  One  of  our  schools, 
during  the  war,  was  greatly  agitated 
over  the  question  of  what  sort  of  war- 
work  it  should  adopt.  The  boys  naturally 
wanted  to  be  as  military  as  possible,  but 
they  did  not  take  kindly  to  close-order 
drill,  recommended  by  an  army  oflRcer. 
It  happened  just  then  that  a  great  man, 
back  from  the  front,  visited  the  school 
and  reported  that  he  had  left  the  British 
soldiers  in  Houtholst  Wood  chopping 
trees  and  building  pontoons.  Noticing 
that  there  was  a  serious  shortage  of 
fuel  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  school, 
he  said,  "Why  don't  you  chop  wood,  like 
the  British  soldiers?"  —  then  added 
wisely,  "You  can  call  yourselves  an  en- 
gineer corps  if  you  like."  This  is 
scarcely  the  whole  field  of  military  effort, 
to  be  sure,  but  it  may  serve  to  remind 
the  fearful  that  military  training  may 
be  more  constructively  useful  than  its 
name  would  imply,  and  to  remind  the 
zealous  champions  of  isolated  military 
training  that  any  scheme  of  universal 
service  which  does  not  provide  mainly 
for  the  occupations  of  peace  will  fail. 


April  17,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[415 


There  is  one  important  point  on 
which  Mr.  Spaulding  might  have  placed 
a  different — or  at  least  an  additional — 
emphasis.  "In  no  sense,"  he  says, 
"would  this  year  be  a  year  out  of  the 
life  of  each  one,  a  year  simply  donated 
to  the  service  of  the  nation,  or  to  prepara- 
tion for  such  service.  Quite  the  con- 
trary: this  year,  considered  solely  from 
the  standpoint  of  the  individual's  advan- 
tage, would  prove  to  be  the  most  profit- 
able year  in  the  life  of  every  young 
man."  It  may  be  quite  necessary  to  call 
attention  to  the  benefits  which  the  indi- 
vidual will  enjoy  (and  they  are  unques- 
tionable) if  only  to  meet  the  objections 
which  might  be  made  my  many  members 
of  the  A.  E.  F.,  who  apparently  represent 
much  of  the  opposition  to  universal  train- 
ing at  least  of  a  purely  military  char- 
acter. That  is,  it  might  be  impossible 
to  "sell  the  idea"  if  the  man  who  is  to 
pay  taxes  to  support  it,  and  is  to  give 
his  time  as  well,  does  not  clearly  realize 
that  he  will  benefit  personally.  The  most 
important  feature  of  any  such  plan, 
nevertheless,  is  the  fact  that  every  citi- 
zen will  have  not  merely  an  opportunity 
but  an  obligation  to  give  himself,  to  give 
more  than  mere  cash,  to  his  country. 
During  the  recent  draft,  though  many 
received  great  benefits  and  appreciated 
the  fact,  none  went  with  the  delusion 
that  he  was  going  primarily  for  the  bene- 
fit to  himself.  It  was  an  act  of  service, 
and  from  it  resulted  an  exaltation  which, 
though  too  often  temporary,  did  actually 
make  many  men  into  finer  stuff.  It  is 
a  grave  question  whether  this  idea,  fun- 
damental in  any  plan  of  universal  ser- 
vice, can  be  "infiltrated"  successfully  if 
the  work  is  launched  with  other  avowed 
motives.  Without  universal  service  as 
the  idea  behind  universal  training,  any 
plan  is  likely  to  be  still-bom. 

Walter  S.  Hinchman 

Education  for  the  Cotton 
Industry 

As  one  passes  from  Richmond,  Vir- 
ginia, to  Birmingham,  Alabama,  one 
is  never  long  out  of  hearing  of  the 
whistle  of  the  cotton  mill.  By  its  sound, 
over  half  a  million  people  are  called  to 
their  daily  toil,  largely  people  of  Anglo- 
Saxon  lineage,  called  from  an  agricultural 
life  among  the  hills  and  mountains  of 
North  Carolina,  Georgia,  and  Tennessee 

DIVIDEND  NOTICE 

Westinghouse  Electric 

&  MANUFACTURING  COMPANY 

A  Dividend  of  two  per  cent.   ($1.00  per  share)  on 

the  COMMON  Stock  of  this  Company,  for  the  quarter 

ending  March  31,  1920,  will  be  paid  April  30,  1920,  to 

stockholders  of  record  as  of  April  2,  1920. 

H.  F.  BAETZ,  Treasurer. 
New  York,  March  24,  1920. 


down  into  the  industrial  centres  of  the 
Piedmont.  The  homes  of  these  opera- 
tives are  a  part  of  the  mill  property,  and 
the  mill  superintendent  is  in  many  re- 
spects their  absolute  monarch,  benevolent 
or  otherwise  according  to  the  individual 
bent  of  his  character.  These  superintend- 
ents, and  the  lesser  officials  under  them, 
are  men  who  have  risen  from  the  ranks 
during  the  generation  now  passing  away, 
and  the  call  for  new  leaders  to  take  their 
places  is  heard  throughout  the  textile  mill 
region. 

The  most  hopeful  answer,  so  far,  is 
the  founding  of  the  Textile  Industrial  In- 
stitute, of  Spartanburg,  South  Carolina. 
In  connection  with  it,  a  model  cotton  mill 
has  been  constructed,  providing  a  self- 
help  department  for  students  and  a  prac- 
tical laboratory  for  textile  work,  thus 
constituting  an  endowment  for  the 
school.  It  is  claimed  to  be  the  best  built, 
best  equipped,  and  best  organized  cot- 
ton mill  in  existence,  and  will  be  oper- 
ated as  a  kind  of  "service  station"  for 
the  cotton  industry  of  the  entire  South. 
Incidentally,  it  is  experimenting  with  the 
plan  of  eliminating  the  cost-increasing 
middle-man  by  selling  its  product  direct 
to  the  consumer  through  the  parcels  post. 
Its  promise  of  helpfulness  to  the  entire 
cotton  industry  is  vouched  for  by  the  fact 
that  cotton  mills  generally,  as  well  as  the 
manufacturers  of  cotton  working  ma- 
(Continued  on  page  416) 


Investment 
Offerings 

THE  well-diversified  list 
of  bonds,  notes,  and  pre- 
ferred stocks  contained  in 
the  current  issue  of  our 
monthly  booklet,  Invest- 
mc  nt  Recommendations, 
will  assist  you  in  making 
opportune  investments  with 
attractive  yields. 

Our  Bond  Department 
will  be  pleased  to  send  you 
this  booklet  on  request,  and 
to  consult  with  you  con- 
cerning your  individual  in- 
vestment requirements. 

Guaranty  Trust  Company 
of  New  York 

140  Broadway 

Fifth  Ave.  &  43rd  St.       Madison  Ave.  &  60tli  St. 
268  Grand  St. 


Capital   and   Surplus... 
Resources  more  than.. 


$50,000,000 
$800,000,000 


Oldest  Banking  House  in  the  United  States 


The  house  of  Alex.  Brown  &  Sons  was  founded  in  the  year  1 800 — 
1 20  years  ago. 

For  more  than  a  century  the  house  has  steadfastly  maintained  the 
highest  standards  of  financial  service  for  its  customers. 

Investments  are   offered   only   after  the  most  careful  and  efficient 
investigation. 

Large  estates  can  best  be  protected  and  are  frequently  much 
benefited  by  a  special  study  conducted  b^  investment  experts. 

This  is  particularly  true  at  the  present  time  on  account   of 
changed  values  due  to  the  war  and  subsequent  conditions. 

We  make  investment  studies   without  charge,   recommending 
such  changes  as  conditions  or  new  tax  laws  render  advisable. 

The  strictest  confidential  relations  are  adhered  to  in  our  trans- 
actions with  customers. 


Alex.  Brown  &  Sons 

(Oldest  Banking  House  in  the  Untied  Stales) 

Baltimore,  Maryland 


416] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  49 


THE  ROAD  TO  UNITY 

AMONG  THE 
CHRISTIAN  CHURCHES 

By  CHARLES  W.  ELIOT,  LL.D. 

President  Emeritus  of  Harvard 

University. 

This  address  demonstrates  that  creeds 
and  dogmas  have  always  failed  to  pro- 
duce either  uniformity  or  permanence  in 
religious  thought  and  practice  and  pre- 
dicts that  if  the  divided  churches  would 
submerge  their  theoretical  differences 
they  would  find  society  generally  favor- 
able to  union  for  the  worship  of  God 
and  the  service  of  man. 

It  is  particularly  fitting  that  this  book 
should  appear  at  the  moment  when  the 
attention  of  the  laymen  of  the  several 
denominations  is  concentrated  upon  the 
future  welfare  of  the  churches. 

So  Pages.  $i.oo  Net. 

$1.10  by  Mail. 


Books  of  Permanent  Worth 
Send  for  Complete  Catalogue. 

THE  BEACON  PRESS 

25  Beacon  Street      Boston,  Mass. 


RADICAL  propaganda 
finds  in  the  present  period 
of  world  changes  a  greater 
opportunity  for  its  spread  and 
potent  influence  than  it  has 
ioiown  heretofore. 

THE  REVIEW  was 
founded  to  dispute  the  teach- 
ings of  the  intellectual  radical 
journals.  They  have  made 
dangerous  headway  even 
among  loyal  Americans. 

THE  REVIEW  is  making 
real  headway  in  the  work  of 
tempering  radical  aspirations 
to  the  condition  of  true  liber- 
alism and  of  promoting  con- 
structive measures  instead  of 
destructive  experiments. 


THE  REVIEW 
$5  a  year 

140  Nassau  St., 
Xew  York 


{Continued  from  page  415) 
chinery,  have  made  liberal  donations  to 
its  construction. 

This  model  mill,  just  going  into  oper- 
ation, is  to  be  operated  entirely  by  the 
student  body  of  the  Textile  Industrial  In- 
stitute. The  plan  divides  them  into  two 
sections,  each  with  its  own  superintend- 
ent, overseers,  section  hands,  loom  fixers, 
and  operatives.  These  organizations  will 
operate  the  plant  on  alternate  weeks.  For 
the  week  of  work  in  the  mill,  the  student 
receives  pay  sufficient  to  support  him  for 
two  weeks.  The  section  in  charge  in  any 
given  week  is  subdivided  into  two  shifts, 
each  working  ten  hours  a  day,  but  for 
four  hours  of  this  time  the  shifts  over- 
lap. By  this  arrangement  the  student 
runs  his  job  alone  for  six  hours,  runs  it 
and  teaches  a  student  of  lower  rank  for 
two  hours,  and  works  as  a  learner  on  a 
new  job,  under  a  more  advanced  student, 
for  the  remaining  two  hours.  In  this 
way  no  student  is  put  in  charge  of  any 
new  work  until  he  has  had  a  turn  at  it 
under  direct  supervision  of  one  who  has 
already  had  experience.  Everything  from 
the  opening  of  the  bale  of  raw  material 
to  the  taking  of  mailbags  of  the  finished 
product  to  the  train  will  be  done  by  stu- 
dents, and  no  student  will  be  admitted 
to  the  classroom  work  who  is  not  willing 
to  work  alternate  weeks  in  the  model  mill. 

In  its  classroom  work  the  Institute 
does  not  aim  to  give  a  general  education, 
but  frankly  confines  itself  to  its  narrow 
specialty.  Its  text-books  are  those  of  the 
textile  industry  alone,  with  the  exception 
of  a  somewhat  broader  outlook  in  the 
commercial  department,  where  the  prin- 
ciples of  cost  accounting,  etc.,  of  course 
have  a  more  general  application.  As  the 
primary  purpose  is  to  provide  leaders  for 
the  industry,  not  simply  to  increase  the 
efficiency  of  the  rank  and  file,  the  class- 
room work  gives  opportunity  for  special- 
ization in  such  branches  as  loom-fixing, 
designing,  bleaching,  dyeing,  merceriz- 
ing, carding,  and  spinning.  On  the  finan- 
cial side,  it  is  not  the  intention  to  treat 
the  model  mill  as  a  mere  adjunct  of  the 
school,  not  necessarily  self-supporting, 
but  to  keep  it  steadily  on  an  efficient  pro- 
duction basis. 

Grace  Orb 

MISS  ORB  describes  a  very  commend- 
able educational  project,  all  the 
more  commendable  because  it  is  just 
what  it  purports  to  be — education  for  a 
highly  specialized  purpose  only — and  be- 
cause it  is  just  where  it  ought  to  be — 
within  the  precincts  of  the  cotton  indus- 
try itself,  dealing  with  those  who  have 
already  given  themselves  to  that  special 
industry,  and  not  attempting  to  form 
an  integral  part  of  a  more  general  and 
fundamental  course  of  education.  No 
thoughtful  person  would  wish  to  belittle 
the  importance  of  special  education  of 
just  this  type.     But  it  should  pass  for 


what  it  is — technical  preparation  for  a 
particular  task,  and  not  that  education 
of  broader  scope  which  must  be  sought 
from  studies  not  so  closely  harnessed  up 
with  the  material  necessities  of  the  pres- 
ent hour.  The  important  thing  is  to 
realize  that  they  are  two  different  things. 

THE  University  of  the  State  of  New 
York  is  engaged  in  active  coopera- 
tion with  the  public  schools  for  the  con- 
servation of  birds  and  trees.  A  recent 
bulletin,  sent  to  all  the  schools,  is  filled 
with  material  well  adapted  to  interest 
school  children,  from  the  pens  of  John 
M.  Clarke,  of  the  State  Museum;  Homer 
D.  House,  State  Botanist;  Edward  F. 
McCarthy,  of  the  State  College  of  For- 
estry, and  George  D.  Pratt,  Conserva- 
tion Commissioner.  The  birds,  we  are 
told  in  this  bulletin,  are  the  main  re- 
liance for  holding  in  check  the  noxious 
insects  which  constitute  the  greatest 
menace  to  the  food  supply  of  mankind. 
The  Visual  Instruction  Division  of  the 
University  has  a  list  of  700  lantern  slides 
to  lend,  illustrating  162  species  of  the 
birds  of  New  York,  made  from  living 
specimens  of  the  birds  themselves,  their 
nests  and  eggs  in  normal  position,  their 
habitat,  etc.  A  proper  utilization  of  this 
opportunity  would  be  of  immeasurable 
value  in  putting  bird  conservation  on 
an  intelligent  basis. 

MISS  L.  W.  HILL,  formerly  director 
of  physical  education  at  Wellesley 
College,  called  much  needed  attention  at 
the  recent  State  Conference  of  Massa- 
chusetts high  school  principals  to  the 
"Relations  of  Correct  Muscular  Habits 
to  Personal  Efficiency."  Of  one  hundred 
and  ninety-seven  high  schools  which  re- 
sponded to  a  questionnaire  one  hundred 
and  twenty-three  reported  that  they  had 
no  gymnasiums,  and  of  these  ninety  re- 
ported no  courses  in  physiology,  hy- 
giene, or  health  habits.  These  figures, 
though  they  do  not  cover  all  the  schools 
of  the  State,  are  fairly  representative 
of  a  region  which  in  educational  matters 
is  among  the  most  forward-looking. 

What  is  perhaps  equally  significant, 
physical  education,  where  it  does  exist, 
is  often  little  more  than  a  name.  It  is 
not  merely  that  competent  instructors 
and  adequate  equipment  are  rare.  In 
many  schools  where  there  is  a  possibility 
of  better  things  physical  training  is  still 
classed  with  athletics  as  something  to 
be  permitted  if  the  pupil  has  satisfied 
the  scholastic  requirements.  It  may  be 
that  our  Puritan  inheritance  tells  us  to 
distrust  anything  which  might  prove  to 
be  fun.  At  all  events,  it  is  unusual, 
almost  unknown,  to  find  a  school  where 
a  pupil  is  given  more  physical  training, 
even  more  athletics,  because  he  is  doing 
poorly  in  his  studies ;  though  such  a  pre- 
scription might  conceivably,  if  not  com- 
monly, be  the  best  one. 


THE  REVIEW 


nv1 


Vol.  2,  No.  50 


New  York,  Saturday,  April  24,  1920 


FIFTEEN  CENTS 


Contents 


Brief  Comment  417 

Edftoriat  Articles: 

"The  Review"  and  the  Treaty  420 

Governor  Smith's   Opportunity  421 

The  Vatican  422 

Turks  and  Germans  423 

Greek  at  Oxford  424 

Lord  Bryce  on  Turkey  and  Armenia      425 

The  Naval  Inquiry.     By  S.  P.  425 

The  Bolsheviks'  Horn  of  Plenty.     By 

Jerome   Landfield  428 

Correspondence  430 

Book  Reviews: 

"The  Real  Nature  of  Man"  433 

America   Unveiled  434 

Italy  Warm  and  Cold  434 

The  Autumn  of  the  Middle  Ages  435 

The  Run  of  the  Shelves  436 

Heine's  Buried  Memoirs.    By  Michael 

Monahan  438 

"Impressions  de  Voyage."     By  Caspar 

F.  Goodrich  440 

Drama: 
Andreyev  at  the  Neighborhood  Play- 
house.    By  O.  W.  Firkins  441 
Problems  of  Labor  and  Capital: 
III. — Compulsory  Filing  of   Collec- 
tive Bargaining  Agreements.    By 
Morris  L.   Ernst  442 
Books  and  the  News: 

New  American  Books.     By  Edmund 

Lester  Pearson  443 


GENERAL  WOOD'S  campaign  for 
the  Presidential  nomination 
rests  fundamentally  upon  what  he 
■has  done.  The  signal  success  of  his 
administration  in  Cuba,  his  leader- 
ship in  the  organizing  of  officers' 
training  during  the  years  preceding 
the  war,  and  his  efficiency  in  the 
execution  of  every  duty  that  has  de- 
volved upon  him  constitute  a  very 
respectable  claim  to  support.  But  a 
candidate,  either  for  nomination  or 
for  election  as  President,  is  judged 
not  only  by  what  he  has  done  but 
quite  as  much  by  what  he  says.  In 
response  to  a  formal  request  by  the 
New  York  Tribune,  General  Wood 
has  answered  the  question  "What  do 
you  regard  as  the  most  important 
issues  of  the  Presidential  campaign  ?" 
in  two  columns  of  utter  banality.  If 
he  had  said  in  a  few  words  that  he 
regarded  it  as  premature,  or  for  any 
reason  unwise,  to  define  the  issues  at 
this  time,  the  answer  might  have  been 
disappointing,  but  it  would  not  have 


been  ridiculous.  To  talk  about 
twenty  things,  and  say  nothing  worth 
while  about  any  of  them,  is  a  desolat- 
ing performance.  It  would  not  take 
many  exhibitions  of  that  kind  to  put 
General  Wood  out  of  the  running. 

TI/TR.  HOOVER,  if  he  should  be  nom- 
-'-'-*■  inated  at  Chicago,  will  have  one 
specific  advantage  that  will  make 
great  play  in  the  campaign.  All  the 
candidates  will  doubtless  talk  about 
cutting  down  the  enormous  expenses 
of  the  Government,  but  Hoover  is  the 
one  man  whose  promises  on  that  sub- 
ject will  be  taken  at  anything  like 
par.  Not  that  others  may  not  be 
equally  sincere,  and  also  fairly  able; 
but  bringing  down  the  vast  structure 
of  governmental  expense  is  a  task 
which  calls  for  much  more  than  sin- 
cerity and  fair  ability.  The  public 
has  been  too  often  disappointed,  in 
the  States  and  in  the  nation,  to  put 
more  than  a  very  faint  trust  in  the 
expectations  aroused  by  even  the 
most  well-meaning  pledges  of  econ- 
omy. The  prospect  of  a  budget  sys- 
tem, now  very  favorable,  is  an  en- 
couraging element,  to  be  sure ;  but  no 
system  will  automatically  work  out 
the  great  task  before  us.  In  the  field 
of  administration  and  coordination, 
in  the  field  of  scientific  adjustment  of 
ways  and  means,  Mr.  Hoover  is  a 
master.  It  is  coming  to  be  recog- 
nized, too,  that  Government  expendi- 
ture is  a  not  inconsiderable  factor  in 
the  high  cost  of  living.  The  candi- 
date who  embodies  in  his  own  person 
a  real  pledge  of  improvement  in  this 
vital  matter  will  have  a  preferential 
standing  with  the  voters  which  it  will 
take  mighty  solid  claims  on  the  part 
of  his  opponent  to  overcome. 

ONE  of  Senator  Johnson's  man- 
agers states  that  he  is  "author- 
ized to  say  for  the  Senator  that  it  is 
not  intended  to  let  him  be  nominated 
for  a  hitching-post."  Whether  the 
contemptuous  designation  of  "hitch- 


ing-post" is  justified  or  not,  Mr.  John- 
son is  quite  right  in  declaring  that  he 
wants  the  Presidential  nomination  or 
nothing.  The  Vice-Presidency  is  in 
fact  an  oflfice  of  very  great  impor- 
tance, for  experience  has  but  too 
often  taught  us  that  the  succession 
to  the  Presidency  is  not  a  merely 
theoretical  attribute  of  it.  The  nom- 
inee for  Vice-President  ought  to  be  a 
man  of  Presidential  calibre.  But  by 
the  same  token  he  ought  to  be  a  man 
whose  candidacy  is  in  keeping  with, 
and  not  in  contrast  to,  that  of  the 
head  of  the  ticket.  The  very  worst 
thing  that  the  Chicago  Convention 
could  do  would  be  to  make  its 
ticket  a  "good  Lord,  good  Devil" 
combination. 

TJERESY-HUNTING  legislation  at 
■'■-'-  Albany  may  have  one  conse- 
quence which  will  put  the  New  York 
lawmakers  into  the  class  of  those  who 
build  better  than  they  know.  They 
are  doing  their  best  to  discredit 
the  existing  political  institutions  of 
America,  but  it  is  quite  possible  that 
their  performance  may  result  in  giv- 
ing an  unexpected  "boost"  to  one  of 
the  most  essential  of  those  institu- 
tions. The  bills  which  are  designed 
to  exclude  the  Socialist  party  from 
the  official  ballot,  and  to  disqualify 
the  individual  members  of  that  party 
from  holding  public  office,  appear 
quite  clearly  to  collide  with  the  civic 
rights  guaranteed  to  all  citizens  by 
the  Constitution  of  the  State  of  New 
York.  If  those  two  bills  are  passed, 
there  can  be  very  little  doubt  that  the 
courts  will  promptly  and  emphatic- 
ally make  waste  paper  of  them,  and 
then  won't  it  be  delightful  to  see  what 
the  radicals  will  have  to  say  about 
that  fossilized  remnant  of  mediaeval- 
ism,  the  American  judiciary ! 

T  LOYD  GEORGE  and  Millerand 
^  are  fighting  a  duel  at  San  Remo, 
with  their  Italian  and  Belgian  col- 
leagues in  attendance  as  witnesses. 


418] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  50 


Opportunism  is  pitted  against  con- 
sistency, each  buttressed  with  an 
equal  amount  of  sagacity.  The 
tactician  of  expediencies  has  found  a 
strong  antagonist  in  the  Frenchman, 
who  stubbornly  refuses  to  join  him 
in  his  living  from  hand  to  mouth. 
Lloyd  George  looks  a  day,  Millerand 
a  generation,  ahead,  and  confronted 
with  so  widely  different  perspectives, 
they  will  hardly  succeed  in  viewing 
in  the  same  light  the  objects  of  their 
common  observation.  The  policy 
towards  Germany  is  one,  the  treat- 
ment of  Turkey  is  another.  A  year 
ago  Lloyd  George  used  the  threat  of 
an  economic  blockade  to  meet  the 
danger  of  Spartacism  in  Germany; 
to-day  he  has  recourse  to  it  again  as 
a  preventive  against  a  militarist  re- 
volt. France  always  insisted,  and 
still  insists,  on  the  necessity  of  mili- 
tary coercion  to  repress  any  attempt 
on  Germany's  part  to  violate  the 
peace  terms  she  has  signed.  In  the 
Turkish  problem  French  suspicion  of 
British  aims  is  at  the  bottom  of  the 
dissension.  As  to  the  chief  puni- 
tive measures  to  be  taken  the  two 
Premiers  seem  to  be  in  perfect  agree- 
ment, but  the  question  how  to  deal 
with  the  new  situation  that  will  arise 
after  the  signing  of  the  treaty 
threatens  to  prove  a  source  of  fresh 
discord. 

SUBSTITUTES  for  cocktails"  the 
disappointed  hard  drinker  would 
doubtless  call  the  little  sallies  into 
the  emotional  which  are  now  so 
plentiful.  Warm  regard  for  Bolshe- 
vism, which  is  insinuated  here  and 
there  by  decorous  people,  is  the  most 
peculiar  phase  of  this  outburst.  It  is 
not  explained  by  the  confused  in- 
formation coming  from  Russia.  It 
springs  from  the  heart  and  the  im- 
agination. The  overthrow  of  the 
Tsar's  Government  let  loose  an  idea 
of  brotherhood  which  proved  to  be 
all  too  stimulating  to  many  mortals. 
Somehow,  somewhere  Liberty  was  to 
set  up  its  residence  on  earth,  and  the 
tyranny  practised  by  the  Bolsheviks 
has  not  been  quite  able  to  destroy 
the  vision.  One  recalls  the  lookers- 
on  at  the  festival  of  the  Romanticists 
during  the  few  decades  after  the 
French    Revolution.      Pantisocracy, 


Shelley's  new  plan  of  government,  the 
dreams  of  the  Schlegels  thrilled  in 
those  days  the  hearts  of  many  who 
had  no  intention  of  practising  the 
new  proposals  for  living.  From  these 
they  merely  extracted  a  heady  sort 
of  vicarious  experience.  If  there  is 
haunting  beauty  to  be  found  in  the 
Bolsheviks'  order  of  government,  we 
pray  that  some  artist  may  perpetuate 
it  in  verse  or  fiction  so  that  the  emo- 
tional in  man  may  worship  it  at  a 
distance  instead  of,  as  now,  flirting 
dangerously  with  it  as  a  possible  in- 
gredient of  our  democracy. 

TT  is  difficult  these  days  not  to  be 
■'-  the  bedfellow  of  a  radical,  espe- 
cially the  sentimental  radical.  As  a 
liberal,  you  may  be  constantly  fight- 
ing his  views,  and  yet  as  you  confront 
the  various  practical  issues  of  the 
day,  there  he  is  by  your  side.  You 
opposed  the  Treaty  in  the  form  in 
which  it  came  from  Versailles,  and 
so  did  he — but  for  a  different  reason. 
You  have  a  kindly  feeling  for  Mr. 
Hoover,  so  has  he.  You  think  that 
the  five  Socialists  should  not  have 
been  excluded  from  the  Albany  As- 
sembly, so  does  he.  You  disapprove 
of  giving  soldiers  the  bonus,  he  does 
too.  Yet  the  more  he  is  with  you,  the 
more  you  are  against  him.  For  you 
realize  how  dangerous  is  his  propa- 
ganda, which,  in  the  name  of  liberal- 
ism, is  seeking  not  only  to  prevent 
the  return  to  power  of  reactionary 
forces,  but  to  wipe  out  those  preroga- 
tives of  the  individual  which  have 
been  the  cornerstone  of  our  democ- 
racy. The  situation  is  one  which  re- 
quires all  good  Americans  to  have  a 
real  reason,  and  not  merely  a  vague 
feeling,  for  the  politics  which  they 
espouse. 

T^HE  movement  to  put  the  men  of 
■'•  the  nation  into  overalls  discovers 
at  the  outset  one  grave  disadvantage 
— the  first  step,  and  one  which  bids 
fair  to  cost  more  and  more,  is  the  pur- 
chase of  a  suit  of  overalls.  Denim, 
being  made  of  cotton,  is  not  cheap 
now,  and  by  the  time  the  ingenuity  of 
tailors  has  had  opp-^rtunity  to  con- 
spire with  the  natural  \rT\ity  of  man 
a  really  natty  suit  of  overalie  will  cost 
almost  anything  you  choose  to  pay. 


If  the  weather  is  warm  enough  to 
wear  the  new  garment  in  lieu  of  a 
suit  of  alleged  wool,  well  and  good; 
cotton  is  the  only  wear  for  hot 
weather.  But  if  the  overalls  are 
worn  in  the  old-fashioned  way  over 
one's  ordinary  clothes,  economy  sick- 
ens and  dies.  There  is  more  to  be 
hoped  from  a  general  consent  to  go 
on  wearing  old  clothes.  Possibilities 
in  that  direction  have  not  yet  begun 
to  be  realized.  The  patched  suit,  the 
battered  hat,  the  quite  impossible 
shoes  have  not  yet  appeared.  Let 
them  come  forth.  The  business  de- 
mands courage,  but  it  need  involve 
no  lowering  of  morale.  The  spirit  of 
the  summer  holiday  will  put  us 
through,  the  spirit  which  delights  to 
honor  the  camper  whose  sartorial 
ruin  is  most  nearly  complete.  It  is 
not  necessary  to  make  this  the  occa- 
sion for  the  upbuilding  of  an  elab- 
orate clothes  philosophy,  though 
there  may  accrue  to  society  some  in- 
direct benefits  from  anything  which 
will  remind  both  those  who,  formerly 
ill-dressed,  are  now  at  least  expen- 
sively dressed  and  those  who,  accus- 
tomed of  old  to  go  well-clad,  now  hold 
their  patch  a  badge  of  honor,  that 
clothes  do  not  make  the  man.  What- 
ever benefit  accrues  will  be  chiefly  to 
the  individual,  who  thus  has  it  in  his 
power  to  save  a  little  money  for 
something  else,  and  who  in  many 
ways  will  profit  through  having  the 
advantage  of  this  particular  bit  of 
economy  brought  strikingly  to  his 
mind. 

A  NOTHER  army  that  has  not  de- 
■^^  mobilized  with  the  cessation  of 
major  hostilities  is  the  Salvation 
Army.  They  go  marching  on,  and, 
that  they  may  march  the  better,  they 
are  planning  to  ask  the  public,  in 
May,  for  ten  million  dollars.  To 
make  up  this  sum  a  good  many  pen- 
nies will  have  to  rattle  into  the  old 
tambourine,  but  a  good  many  pennies 
are  needed  if  such  enterprises  as  the 
recently  dedicated  Memorial  Train- 
ing College  in  the  Bronx  are  to  be 
successfully  carried  forward.  Be- 
yond doubt,  the  pennies  will  be  forth- 
coming in  a  sufficient  abundance. 
The  Salvation  Army  has  made  good. 
The   immortal   cruller  proclaims  it. 


April  24,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[419 


Success,  however,  is  not  without  its 
perils,  and  the  Salvation  Army  might 
profitably  ponder  the  history  of  the 
Friar  movement,  which,  though  it  is 
a  matter  of  some  eight  hundred  years 
ago,  still  carries  a  lesson  that  is  worth 
heeding. 

CWEDEN'S  experiment  with  an  ex- 
^  clusively  Socialist  Cabinet  will  be 
watched  by  her  neighbors  with  in- 
tense interest.  The  Socialism  of  the 
new  Ministers  is  of  that  moderate 
type  which  during  the  war  did  not 
refuse  to  share  the  responsibility  for 
the  Government  with  the  liberal 
party.  The  political  crisis,  which  put 
an  end  to  the  cooperation  of  the  entire 
left,  was  brought  on  by  the  friction 
between  Liberals  and  Socialists  over 
the  municipal  taxes  bill  proposed  by 
the  Socialist  Minister  of  Finance 
Thorsson.  Hjalmar  Branting's  ac- 
ceptance of  the  King's  request  to 
form  a  new  Ministry  was  the  logical, 
though  not  generally  expected,  solu- 
tion of  the  crisis.  Branting's  pro- 
gramme, as  outlined  by  him  to  a 
correspondent  of  the  Associated 
Press,  has  little  of  the  revolution- 
ary in  it.  Socialization  of  certain 
branches  of  production  and  commerce 
is,  of  course,  a  plank  in  his  plat- 
form, but  the  question  will  first  be 
thoroughly  investigated  by  commit- 
tees composed  not  entirely  of  friends 
of  such  social  legislation,  but  also  of 
able  men  of  other  opinion.  He  wants 
the  Parliament  to  determine  to  what 
extent  the  development  or  evolution 
of  the  country  shall  go  in  accord  with 
the  Socialist  programme.  Without 
the  Liberals'  support  the  Socialists 
will  not  be  able  to  realize  their  leg- 
islative plans.  It  remains  to  be  seen 
whether  Branting's  moderation  can 
resist  the  pressure  from  the  left  wing 
of  his  party  which,  if  Minister  Thors- 
son's  taxation  schemes  should  be  de- 
feated, will  demand,  as  they  openly 
declare,  the  dissolution  of  the  Parlia- 
ment and  new  elections  so  as  to  ob- 
tain an  absolute  Socialist  majority  in 
both  Chambers.  "This  Government 
is  for  the  whole  of  the  people  and  not 
a  party  government,"  said  Branting 
to  his  interviewer.  The  Premier's 
more  radical  comrades  will  put  his 
impartiality  to  a  severe  test. 


ly/fR.  MIRZA'S  communication  on 
•^"  the  Anglo-Persian  treaty,  which 
appears  in  our  correspondence  col- 
umns, combines  with  an  expression  of 
distrust  in  England's  sincerity  a  just 
appreciation  of  the  cultural  task 
which  the  English-speaking  people 
perform.  The  Persian  nation  has  a 
great  history,  and  is,  for  the  part  it 
played  in  the  distant  past,  entitled  to 
the  respect  due  to  culture  and  age. 
But  former  greatness,  the  traces  of 
which  are  preserved  in  its  monu- 
ments, lays  obligations  on  the  people 
which  it  has  failed  to  fulfill.  The 
peasant  and  the  fellah  are  in  a  miser- 
able plight,  and  the  men  in  power  are 
ready  to  barter  their  own  honor  and 
their  country's  freedom  for  money. 
In  a  country  where  high  and  low  are 
thus  demoralized  the  right  of  self- 
determination  should  be  applied  with 
the  greatest  caution.  For  the  deter- 
mining factor  would  be  the  small  in- 
telligentsia from  which  the  backshish- 
taking  Cabinet  members  are  re- 
cruited, and  the  peasant's  and  the 
fellah's  lot  would  remain  just  the 
same.  English  supervision  of  the 
government,  though  humiliating  for 
the  educated  class,  may  redound  to 
the  welfare  of  a  larger  portion  of  the 
people  than  would  benefit  by  absolute 
political  independence.  We  do  not 
defend  the  treaty  by  which  Great 
Britain,  contrary  to  the  spirit  of  the 
League  of  Nations  Covenant,  has 
gained  control  of  Persian  affairs,  but 
disapproval  of  the  course  taken 
should  not  make  us  blind  to  the  ad- 
vantages which  may  be  won  at  the 
goal. 

"jVTIGRATORY  birds  are  no  longer 
^^^  at  the  mercy  of  the  most  lax 
State  legislation,  or  absence  of  legis- 
lation, with  which  their  habits  may 
bring  them  into  contact.  The  Su- 
preme Court  has  handed  down  a  de- 
cision sustaining  the  migratory  bird 
act,  passed  by  Congress  in  1918.  This 
act  put  into  effect,  with  suitable  pen- 
alties, our  treaty  with  Great  Britain, 
negotiated  shortly  before,  for  the  pro- 
tection of  birds  whose  seasonal  move- 
ments involve  both  British  and 
United  States  territory.  The  law  was 
attacked  by  authorities  of  Missouri, 
on  the  ground  that  it  interferes  with 


the  sovereignty  of  the  State  and  the 
property  rights  of  its  citizens.  The 
decision  is  an  important  victory  for 
the  policy  of  wild  life  conservation, 
and  clears  the  field  for  whatever  Con- 
gressional action  may  still  be  neces- 
sary to  protect  migratory  birds  from 
extinction  on  American  soil. 

■pXTERMINATION  of  any  form  of 
■'-'  bird  life  not  positively  harmful 
is  becoming  more  and  more  repug- 
nant to  right-thinking  people;  but 
when  it  threatens  the  most  beautiful  of 
all  birds,  just  because  they  are  beauti- 
ful, the  wrong  is  greatly  aggravated. 
Add  to  this  the  most  revolting  cruelty 
in  the  methods  by  which  extermina- 
tion is  being  accomplished,  and  it 
might  seem  that  nothing  could  delay 
the  adoption  of  preventive  measures. 
But  where  both  feminine  fashion  and 
selfish  financial  interests  are  involved, 
the  problem  is  not  so  simple,  as  we 
have  learned  from  the  long  fight 
necessary  to  secure  such  protective 
legislation  as  has  been  adopted  in  our 
own  country.  In  England,  just  be- 
fore the  war.  Sir  Charles  Hobhouse 
had  pushed  to  the  committee  stage 
in  the  House  of  Commons  a  bill  to 
restrain  what  the  Spectator  de- 
nounces as  "the  barbarous  and 
grossly  uneconomic  trade"  in  bird 
plumage  for  millinery  purposes,  but 
the  stress  of  war  legislation  crowded 
the  matter  out.  The  fight  has  now 
been  renewed,  through  bills  intro- 
duced into  the  House  of  Commons 
by  Colonel  Yate,  and  into  the  House 
of  Lords  by  Lord  Aberdeen,  with  an 
apparently  fair  chance  of  favorable 
action.  At  present  London  is  the 
great  feather  market  of  the  world, 
and  about  the  best  the  interests  in- 
volved can  say  by  way  of  defense  is 
that  if  the  trade  is  driven  from  Eng- 
land, it  will  go  to  Paris  and  Amster- 
dam. One  recalls  the  defense  which 
Cowper  put  into  the  mouths  of  the 
slave  traders  long  ago: 

Besides,    if    we    do,    the   French,    Dutch    and 

Danes 
Will  heartily  thank  us,  no  doubt,  for  our  pains. 

The  editor  of  the  Spectator  suggests 
that  women  who  wear  the  feathers  of 
the  albatross  should  read  "The  An- 
cient Mariner"  once  a  year,  to  develop 
a  duly  haunting  sense  of  remorse. 


420] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  50 


"The  Review"  and 
the  Treaty 

MR.  JAMES  M.  BECK'S  letter  in 
the  Review  for  April  10  has 
brought  out  several  interesting  letters 
which  appear  in  our  issue  of  to-day, 
some  upholding  and  some  opposing 
Mr.  Beck's  view  of  Senator  Lodge  and 
of  the  treaty.  One  of  our  correspond- 
ents makes  a  point  concerning  the 
whole  position  of  the  Review  through- 
out the  treaty  debate  which  is  worthy 
of  special  attention.  He  complains 
that  our  treatment  has  not  been 
"definite  and  clear"  and  has  been 
lacking  in  a  "large  conception"  of 
the  subject.  We  freely  admit  that 
there  is  a  great  deal  of  truth  in  this 
criticism.  But  we  do  not  feel  that  we 
have  anything  to  apologize  for. 

From  beginning  to  end  there  has 
been  in  our  mind  one  dominant 
thought.  The  world  was  in  the  pres- 
ence of  a  situation  of  such  appalling 
gravity  that  any  language  that  could 
be  applied  to  it  would  fall  short  of 
the  reality.  To  bring  to  bear  upon  it 
the  united  wisdom  and  good  will,  the 
united  power  and  resources,  of  the 
leading  nations  of  the  world  was  from 
the  start,  and  is  to-day,  the  supreme 
need  of  the  hour.  If  anyone  had  pre- 
dicted on  the  day  of  the  armistice 
that  division  of  opinion  in  the  United 
States  was  going  to  result  in  inter- 
national paralysis  extending  over  a 
period  of  eighteen  months  or  two 
years,  and  that  at  the  end  of  that  time 
our  country  would  still  be  in  the  non- 
descript position  that  now  confronts 
us,  he  would  have  been  pronounced 
a  ridiculous  pessimist.  But  if,  in 
some  way,  people  had  become  con- 
vinced that  there  was  real  danger 
of  such  an  outcome — that,  in  fact, 
this  thing  was  sure  to  happen  unless 
we  got  together  on  some  practicable 
basis — what  would  have  been  the  at- 
titude of  men  of  sense  upon  the  ques- 
tion? Can  there  be  any  doubt  that 
they  would  have  stood  together  as 
one  man  and  insisted  that  a  way  be 
found  to  avert  such  a  calamity? 

"Large  conceptions"  are  very  well 
in  their  place.  But  there  are  times 
when  that  is  truly  the  largest  concep- 
tion which  centres  itself  upon  the 


practical  need  of  the  moment.  Mr. 
Wilson  had  been  feeding  the  world 
on  the  East  wind  of  his  large  con- 
ceptions, with  practical  results  that 
there  is  now  little  joy  in  contemplat- 
ing. Then  came  the  "100  per  cent. 
Americans"  of  the  type  of  Borah  and 
Johnson,  with  their  large  conceptions 
of  America,  the  hem  of  whose  gar- 
ment must  not  be  soiled  by  any  touch 
of  obligation  to  work  in  concord  with 
other  nations  to  save  the  world  from 
chaos.  Mr.  Wilson's  large  conception 
was  to  the  effect  that  by  a  stroke  of 
the  pen  all  the  nations  of  the  world 
could  be  brought  immediately  into 
Utopian  harmony.  Mr.  Borah's  and 
Mr.  Johnson's  large  conception  was 
that  that  same  stroke  of  the  pen 
would  reduce  America  to  a  state  of 
servile  dependence,  a  condition  in 
which  her  best  blood  was  to  flow  on 
Old-World  battlefields  at  the  behest 
of  a  council  of  foreign  statesmen.  It 
was  a  small  conception,  perhaps,  that 
both  these  views  were  the  product  of 
an  inflamed  imagination.  It  was  an 
uninteresting  view  to  hold  that  the 
League  Covenant  was  neither  the 
herald  of  the  millennium  nor  the 
doom  of  liberty.  But  to  one  who 
did  hold  it,  nine-tenths  of  the  dis- 
putes upon  which  the  great  flood  of 
oratory  and  argument  has  been  ex- 
pended were  matter  of  indifference 
in  comparison  with  the  supreme  need 
of  practical  action. 

That  supreme  need  the  Review  has 
recognized  from  the  beginning.  The 
one  reservation  that  it  has  felt  to  be 
important  to  make  in  the  Covenant 
was  that  relating  to  Article  X.  Upon 
the  exact  definition  of  the  obligation 
which  that  Article  imposes,  with,  and 
without  the  proposed  reservations, 
and  of  the  degree  of  obligation  which 
we  ought  to  be  willing  to  accept, 
we  have,  to  the  best  of  our  ability, 
repeatedly  expressed  our  views.  We 
have  regarded  nothing  else  in  the 
way  of  reservations  as  vitally  neces- 
sary, and  have  said  so. 

What  we  have  regarded  as  vitally 
necessary  is  that  President  and  Sen- 
ate should  get  together  on  any  basis 
that  was  possible.  It  must  be  remem- 
bered that  before  the  treaty  was  com- 
pleted the  two  points  chiefly  insisted 
on  by  objectors  to  the  original  form 


of  the  Covenant  were  that  our  partic- 
ipation should  be  terminable  upon 
short  notice,  and  that  the  Monroe 
Doctrine  should  be  safeguarded.  In 
the  treaty  as  submitted,  both  these 
points  had  been  conceded;  in  a  form 
open,  indeed,  to  some  objection,  but 
surely  the  slight  modification  required 
offered  no  fatal  obstacle  to  the  adop- 
tion of  the  treaty.  With  these  points 
covered,  and  with  Article  X  inter- 
preted or  modified  by  a  reasonable 
reservation,  there  was  nothing  in  the 
Covenant  which,  in  a  dispassionate 
view,  furnished  occasion  for  patriotic 
alarm — unless,  indeed,  such  alarm 
was  justified  by  any  form  of  League 
whatsoever.  Borah  and  Johnson 
were  fundamentally  opposed  to  any 
League ;  their  position,  whether  right 
or  wrong,  was  a  perfectly  intelligible 
and  respectable  one.  The  Lodge  posi- 
tion, on  the  other  hand,  was  one  that 
made  mountains  out  of  molehills ;  and 
we  saw  little  profit  in  applying  a 
microscope  to  the  molehills. 

The  great  question  before  the  na- 
tion, from  first  to  last,  was  this :  Was 
there  any  possible  way  of  putting  the 
treaty  through  without  danger  to  the 
future  of  the  country?  Mr.  Wilson 
had — very  wrongly  in  our  judgment 
— made  the  League  Covenant  part  of 
the  treaty.  To  reject  the  Covenant 
and  save  the  treaty  was  absolutely 
out  of  the  question.  It  only  remained 
to  consider  whether  any  reservations 
which  Mr.  Wilson  and  the  Allies 
might  reasonably  be  asked  to  accept 
would  suffice  to  make  the  treaty 
safe  for  America.  Borah  and  John- 
son have  consistently  answered  this 
with  an  emphatic  No.  The  Repub- 
lican "mild  reservationists"  answered 
it  with  a  distinct  Yes.  Mr.  Lodge  has 
all  along  been  virtually  saying  both 
Yes  and  No.  It  is  true  that  on  the 
face  of  the  record  he  stands  opposed  |l 
to  the  "irreconcilables"  and  in  favor 
of  acceptance  with  reservations.  We 
believe  that  in  fact  he  has  been  de- 
sirous of  such  acceptance.  But  he 
has  not  made  the  country  feel  that 
he  was  sincerely  devoted  to  that  ob- 
ject. Probably  at  least  half  the 
people  who  applaud  what  he  has  done 
are  thankful  to  him  not  because  he 
has  modified  the  Covenant,  but  be- 
cause  in   their   opinion   he  has  de- 


April  24,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[421 


stroyed  it.  Not  for  one  moment  has 
he  made  the  country  feel  that  he  re- 
garded the  adoption  of  the  treaty  as 
an  object  of  supreme  moment.  Yet 
nothing  would  have  been  easier,  if 
such  was  really  his  conviction,  than 
to  make  it  perfectly  clear  to  all.  Had 
he  done  so,  he  would  have  had  behind 
him  the  overwhelming  support  of 
public  sentiment. 

The  country  has  never  sympathized 
with  President  Wilson's  position  that 
the  Covenant  must  be  adopted  with- 
out the  dotting  of  an  i  or  the  cross- 
ing of  a  t.  Had  Mr.  Lodge  made  it 
plain  from  the  start  that  there 
were  certain  definite  and  reasonable 
changes  that  he  wanted,  but  that  if 
these  were  made  he  and  those  who 
followed  him  would  be  heart  and  soul 
for  the  treaty,  he  would  have  put  the 
President  into  an  absolutely  unten- 
able position.  Mr.  Wilson's  obstinacy 
might  have  been  proof  against  even 
such  a  situation ;  but  the  blame  would 
have  rested  squarely  and  exclusively 
on  his  shoulders.  Mr.  Lodge  has  pre- 
sented the  figure  not  of  a  great  cap- 
tain leading  his  forces  towards  a  clear 
objective,  but  of  a  guerrilla  chief 
harrying  his  opponent  by  a  series  of 
haphazard  manoeuvres,  and  winding 
up  at  the  end  in  a  position  dictated 
by  chance  rather  than  by  design.  In- 
deed, at  the  close,  he  presented  the 
queer  spectacle  of  matching  the 
President's  insistence  that  not  an  i 
should  be  dotted  nor  a  t  crossed,  by 
his  own  insistence  that  unless  every 
i  was  dotted  and  every  t  crossed  just 
as  he  had  done  it  the  treaty  could  not 
be  allowed  to  go  through. 

An  intense  conviction  that  the 
League  of  Nations  is  a  bad  thing,  root 
and  branch,  is  full  justification  for 
the  position  of  the  irreconcilables. 
And  a  conviction  far  less  extreme 
would  in  ordinary  times  justify  an 
indefinite  amount  of  hesitation  or  ob- 
struction. But  in  the  situation  of  the 
world  as  it  was  at  the  close  of  the 
great  war,  and  has  continued  ever 
since,  all  considerations  of  re- 
mote possibilities  of  evil  shrink  into 
nothingness  alongside  the  stupendous 
evils  that  have  come,  and  that  will 
continue  to  come,  through  our  failure 
to  take  our  place  alongside  the  other 
great  nations  in  the  restoration  of 


settled  conditions  in  a  distracted 
world.  To  discuss  the  treaty  as 
though  it  were  a  fresh  proposal,  upon 
which  every  one  could  seek  to  engraft 
his  own  views  of  what  is  theoretically 
best,  is  to  substitute  for  the  duties  of 
statesmanship  the  exercises  of  a  de- 
bating society.  There  is  no  little  re- 
semblance between  the  clamor  for 
perfection  in  the  treaty  and  the 
clamor  of  the  pacifists  during  the  war 
for  an  exact  definition  of  its  aims. 
The  business  during  the  war  was  to 
make  war ;  the  business  after  the  war 
was  to  make  peace,  and  gradually  to 
restore  the  world  to  a  normal  condi- 
tion and  a  normal  state  of  mind.  If 
anybody  can  see  in  the  minutiae  of 
the  various  minor  reservations  an  ob- 
ject as  important  as  that,  he  is  quite 
welcome  to  the  enjoyment  of  his 
"large  conception."  As  for  ourselves, 
the  bigness  of  the  immediate  duty 
has  quite  dwarfed  any  interest  we 
might  otherwise  have  taken  in  the 
intellectual  disputations  to  which 
those  minutiae  have  given  rise. 

Governor  Smith's 
Opportunity 

"W7HAT  seemed  at  the  opening  of 
"  the  session  of  the  New  York 
Legislature  to  be  a  hasty  act  of  folly 
has  proved  to  be  the  precursor  of  a 
series  of  deliberate  violations  of  the 
first  principles  of  American  liberty. 
Four  bills,  all  of  them  bearing  the 
name  of  Mr.  Lusk,  chairman  of  the 
Senate  Legislative  Committee,  and 
aimed  at  the  suppression  either  of  So- 
cialistic teaching  or  of  Socialistic  ac- 
tivity in  the  political  field,  have  been 
running  a  triumphant  course  in  the 
Legislature.  Two  of  them  have  been 
passed,  and  there  is  no  doubt  of  the 
speedy  passage  of  the  other  two.  It 
rests  with  the  Governor  to  decide 
whether  these  bills  shall  actually  dis- 
figure the  statute-book  of  the  State 
of  New  York,  at  least  with  the  con- 
sent of  its  chief  executive. 

No  greater  opportunity  for  an  act 
of  courage,  and  of  signal  importance 
to  the  future  of  American  institu- 
tions, has  presented  itself  to  any 
American  Governor  in  many  years. 
What  evil  genius  has  taken  posses- 


sion of  the  Legislature,  and  impelled 
it  to  the  adoption  of  a  course  repug- 
nant to  the  deepest  feelings  of  every 
man  who  knows  what  civil  liberty  is, 
we  can  not  undertake  to  determine. 
But  we  feel  confident  that  a  ring- 
ing word  from  Governor  Smith,  as- 
serting the  inviolable  principles  of 
freedom  and  the  fundamental  rights 
of  citizens  in  a  republic  would  meet 
with  an  enthusiastic  response,  and 
break  the  spell  under  which  the 
bulk  of  the  members  of  the  Legisla- 
ture have  been  following  the  lead  of 
a  few  shallow  politicians. 

It  requires  no  legal  learning,  nor 
anything  but  an  ordinary  sense  of  the 
spirit  of  our  institutions,  to  realize 
the  sinister  nature  of  these  bills.  But 
fortunately  the  Bar  Association  of 
the  City  of  New  York  has  a  standing 
committee  whose  duty  it  is  to  report 
on  the  character  of  proposed  legisla- 
tion of  importance.  This  committee, 
consisting  of  nine  eminent  lawyers, 
chosen,  of  course,  with  no  reference 
to  any  such  question,  has  registered 
its  unsparing  condemnation  of  the 
bills.  Of  the  education  bills,  the  com- 
mittee says: 

These  bills  may  be  aptly  described  as  bills 
to  Prussianize  the  educational  system  and  the 
intellectual  activities  of  the  State  of  New 
York,  although  it  may  well  be  doubted  whether 
the  late  Imperial  German  Government,  de- 
stroyed by  the  over-development  of  its  regu- 
latory powers,  even  in  its  heyday  ever  perpetu- 
ated such  a  frank  and  undisguised  attempt  at 
casting  into  a  rigid  mould  the  thought  and 
intellectual  development  of  its  subjects. 

The  essential  feature  of  one  of  the 
education  bills  is  that  which  forbids 
the  operation  of  any  school,  or  the 
giving  of  a  course  of  instruction  on 
any  subject,  except  under  a  license 
from  the  Board  of  Regents,  which 
license  shall  not  be  granted  unless 
the  Regents  are  satisfied  that  the  in- 
struction proposed  will  not  be  "detri- 
mental to  the  public  interest."  The 
obvious  consequence  of  this,  as  the 
Bar  Association  committee  says,  is 
that  the  members  of  that  board  are 
to  be  permitted  to  suppress  any  and 
all  opinions  with  which  their  precon- 
ceived ideas  do  not  correspond.  The 
other  education  bill  empowers  the 
Commissioner  of  Education  to  revoke 
the  certificate  of  qualification  of  any 
teacher  in  the  public  schools  if,  in 
his  opinion,  the  teacher  is  not  "loyal 


422] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  50 


to  the  institutions  of  the  United 
States  and  of  the  State  and  laws 
thereof."  And  upon  the  exercise  of 
this  blanket  power  of  indefinite  pro- 
scription no  check  is  placed,  since 
there  is  no  provision  for  a  hearing 
on  proceedings  for  the  granting  or 
for  the  revocation  of  a  certificate. 

The   two   political   bills   are   even 
more  extraordinary  in  their  charac- 
ter.   One  of  them  excludes  from  the 
definition  of  a  party  under  the  Elec- 
tion law  any  organization  which  ad- 
vocates "principles,  doctrines,  or  poli- 
cies" that  "tend,  if  carried  into  effect, 
to  the  destruction,  subversion  or  en- 
dangering  of   the   existing   govern- 
menls  of  the  United  States  and  of  the 
State  of  New  York,  and  of  the  rights, 
privileges    and    institutions    secured 
under  such  constitutions."  The  other 
bill  makes  ineligible  to  public  office 
any  person  who  is  a  member  of  such 
organization.    There  is  evidently  no 
limit    to    the    possibilities    of    this 
proscriptive  decree.    There  is  hardly 
any   change   of   a   really   important 
kind  that  does  not  tend  to  endanger 
some  of  the  "rights"  or  "privileges" 
or  "institutions"  which  at  a  given 
time  are  secured  by  the  Constitution 
of  the  State  or  of  the  United  States. 
If  such  a  law  had  been  in  operation 
before  the  Civil  War,  no  advocate  of 
the  abolition  of  slavery  could  have  sat 
in  Congress,  or  even  in  a  State  Legis- 
lature.    Members  of  any  association 
devoted  to  the  propagation  of  Henry 
George's  doctrine  of  the  single  tax 
would  be  ineligible  to  public  office  to- 
day if  the  principle  of  this  bill  were 
put  into  execution.    And  there  have 
been  times  when  in  the  opinion  of 
large  numbers,  sometimes  indeed  of  a 
majority,  of  the  people  of  some  of  our 
States,    members    of    the    Catholic 
Church  came  very  distinctly  under 
the  ban  which  the  bill  pronounces. 
But  without  invoking  these  examples 
— which,  however,  are  by  no  means 
fantastic — it  ought  to  suffice  for  any 
man  grounded  in  the  principles  of 
liberty  to  recognize  that  the  bill  is 
intended  to  suppress  the  voice  and  to 
extinguish  the  political  rights  of  those 
of  our  fellow-citizens  who  honestly 
believe  in  the  principles  of  socialism. 
If  the  bills  become  law  the  State  of 
New  York  will  have  the  shameful  dis- 


tinction of  having  set  the  first  exam- 
ple of  a  kind  of  tyranny  to  which  not 
only  the  liberal  nations  of  Europe,  but 
the  despotic  government  of  Prussia, 
had  not  found  it  necessary  to  take 
recourse. 

The  most  flagrant  evil  of  these 
measures  lies  in  their  departure  from 
the  American  tradition,  their  betrayal 
of  the  principles  of  liberty.  But  they 
are  as  pernicious  from  the  standpoint 
of  expediency  as  from  that  of  prin- 
ciple. Every  enemy  of  our  institu- 
tions will  have  reason  to  rejoice  in 
their  passage.  The  Socialist  and  the 
Communist  will  find  in  them  the  seed 
of  thousands  of  conversions.  Even 
more  welcome  will  their  enactment  be 
to  the  unavowed  Socialists  and  Com- 
munists who,  without  perhaps  know- 
ing just  what  they  are  after,  delight 
in  discrediting  the  existing  order. 
They  will  exultingly  point  to  these 
laws  as  confirmation  of  all  that  they 
have  been  saying  about  the  eclipse  of 
liberty  in  America.  Those  who  have 
felt,  as  we  have,  that  these  assertions 
were  in  the  main  exaggerations  and 
vain  imaginings  will  find  it  impossible 
to  deny  that,  so  far  as  the  Legislature 
of  the  leading  State  in  the  Union  is 
concerned,  the  charges  have  received 
substantial  confirmation.  Those  are 
doing  the  best  work  for  the  strength- 
ening of  our  Government,  and  for  re- 
sistance to  the  Socialist  danger,  who 
speak  out  without  mincing  matters 
upon  this  course  of  folly  and  outrage. 
The  New  York  Tribune  in  particular 
is  splendidly  performing  this  duty. 
Again  and  again,  in  the  course  of  this 
anti-Socialist  madness,  the  Tribune 
has  lifted  up  its  voice  in  most  em- 
phatic protest.  Of  the  Lusk  bills  it 
declares  that  "they  represent  apos- 
tasy to  all  the  deep  principles  of 
Americanism."  In  spite  of  all  that 
has  happened,  we  still  believe  that  the 
action  of  the  New  York  Legislature 
is  a  political  freak,  and  that  "the 
deep  principles  of  Americanism"  will 
before  long  triumphantly  reassert 
themselves.  To  Governor  Smith  is 
given  the  rare  privilege  of  making 
himself  the  spokesman  of  those  prin- 
ciples in  a  way  that  will  be  of  vital 
service  to  his  State,  and  that  will  gain 
for  him  the  respect  and  admiration 
of  the  whole  country. 


The  Vatican 


f\P  the  two  great  international  or- 
^-^  ganizations,  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  and  the  Socialist  Interna-  ' 
tionale,  it  is  the  Church  alone  that 
has  stood  the  test  of  the  war.  The 
rigidity  of  the  Socialist  doctrine  drove 
a  wedge  between  its  orthodox  and 
its  temporizing  adherents.  But  the 
Mother  Church  has  not  lost  part  of 
its  fold  to  a  third  Catholic  Interna- 
tionale. It  has,  on  the  contrary,  come 
out  of  the  war  with  its  power  and 
prestige  considerably  increased,  in  | 
spite  of  the  overthrow  of  ancient 
dynasties  which  had  always  been 
looked  upon  as  pillars  of  the  Curia. 
The  fall  of  the  Hapsburgs,  the  re- 
duction of  Austria  to  a  small  and 
powerless  state,  the  change  from 
monarchic  to  republican  government 
in  Germany,  meant  a  diminution  of 
influence  for  the  Vatican  necessitat- 
ing an  entire  re-orientation.  But  the 
Roman  Church  has  always  shown 
great  pliability  in  adapting  itself  to 
unavoidable  reverses.  The  readiness 
with  which  the  German  Centre  Party 
accepted  co-responsibility  for  the 
Government  with  the  Socialists  af- 
fords a  striking  example  of  that 
elasticity  which  easily  yields  where 
resistance  would  bring  on  disaster. 
In  Belgium  also  Roman  Catholic  Min- 
isters sit  in  the  Cabinet  which  counts 
Socialists  and  Liberals  among  its 
members.  And  in  Italy  Signor  Nitti 
receives  the  support  of  the  Roman 
Catholics  newly  organized  as  a  politi- 
cal party.  The  universal  fear  of  the 
red  danger  has  facilitated  this  change 
in  political  conduct,  as  the  other 
parties  readily  accepted  the  coopera- 
tion of  the  Catholics,  who,  as  mem- 
bers of  an  international  church,  were  m 
better  organized  than  they  to  oppose  '| 
the  spread  of  Communist  tendencies. 
The  Vatican,  therefore,  could  view 
with  indifference  its  exclusion  from 
the  counsels  of  the  Peace  Confer- 
ence. The  veto  of  Italy,  which  pre- 
vented the  Curia  from  being  repre- 
sented at  Versailles,  could  not  prevent 
its  power  from  affecting  the  destinies 
of  the  new  Europe.  France  had  to 
recognize  it  officially  by  the  resump- 
tion of  diplomatic  relations  with  the 
Vatican.       The    anti-clericalism    of 


April  24,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[423 


Combes  had  proved  a  cause  of  weak- 
ness to  France  during  the  war;  it 
had  alienated  clerical  sympathies  in 
neutral  countries,  and  thus  prepared 
a  fertile  soil  for  German  agitation 
against  France.  A  reconciliation  with 
Rome  would  strengthen  the  country's 
international  position.  The  return  of 
Alsace-Lorraine  afforded  a  welcome 
pretext  for  such  a  step.  For  these 
provinces  the  Concordat  was  still  in 
force,  and  as  their  population  is  pre- 
ponderantly and  devoutly  Catholic 
it  would  have  been  a  reckless  and 
foolish  policy  to  arouse  its  resentment 
by  extending  the  effects  of  the  rup- 
ture with  Rome  to  the  recovered  ter- 
ritory. So  Millerand  chose  the  wiser 
course,  which  is  no  "truckling  to  the 
papacy,"  as  VHumanite  called  it,  but  a 
step  in  the  interest  of  France.  For 
by  the  use  of  this  pretext  it  regained 
the  good-will  of  the  Vatican,  which 
the  French  Government  needs  in  re- 
establishing its  former  right  to  ex- 
tend its  protection  over  the  Catholic 
missions  in  the  Near  East.     As  the 

»  League  of  Nations'  mandatory  over 
Syria,  France  would  lack  prestige  in 
the  eyes  of  the  Christians  of  that 
country  if  her  protectorate  over  those 
missions  were  not  recognized  by  the 
Holy  See. 

In  her  policy  with  regard  to  Po- 
land, France  has  a  natural  ally  in 
Rome.  The  revival  of  Poland  is  a 
compensation  to  the  Vatican  for  the 
fall  of  the  Hapsburg  and  German 
dynasties.  For  the  Poles,  in  their 
long  resistance  against  the  encroach- 
ments of  the  Greek  Orthodox  Church 
of  Russia  and  German  Protestantism, 
have  tenaciously  adhered  to  their 
Roman  Catholic  creed  and  may  be 
reckoned  among  the  faithfulest  of 
Rome's  fold.  French  political  inter- 
ests in  the  satisfaction  of  Poland's 
ambitions  coalesce  with  the  interests 
of  the  Vatican  in  the  establishment 
of  a  strong  Roman  Catholic  state. 

England  also  can  ill  afford  to  ig- 
nore the  influence  of  Rome.  It  has 
been  said  that  the  last  word  in  Irish 
politics  is  with  the  Roman  Church. 
The  approaching  conference  between 
the  Irish  Bishops  and  the  Curia  may 
have  a  beneficial  effect  on  the  solu- 
tion of  the  Irish  problem.  A  deliber- 
ate campaign  of  murder  can  not  com- 


mand the  approval  of  the  Church.  If 
by  the  influence  of  the  prelates  in 
Rome  the  action  for  Home  Rule  is 
restricted  within  legal  bounds,  it  will 
be  possible  for  the  British  Govern- 
ment to  yield  where,  under  present 
conditions,  yielding  would  be  inter- 
preted as  an  admission  of  fear. 

Thus  the  Holy  See  brings  its  influ- 
ence to  bear  on  the  gravest  problems 
that  Europe  is  called  upon  to  solve  in 
the  near  future.  No  invitation  to 
join  the  League  of  Nations  has  been 
sent  to  the  Pope.  Not  representing  a 
nation.  His  Holiness  was  not  eligible 
to  its  membership.  But  the  Church 
of  which  he  is  the  spiritual  head,  and 
which,  unlike  the  League,  has  a 
strong  hold  on  the  hearts  of  the 
masses,  plays  a  real  and  effective  part 
as  a  bond  of  union  among  the  nations. 

Turks  and  Germans 

T^HERE  is  a  close  analogy  between 
•*■  Greece  and  France  in  the  posi- 
tions they  have  assumed  toward  Tur- 
key and  Germany  respectively.  The 
war  of  revenge,  against  which  the 
French  Government  is  moving  heaven 
and  earth  to  guard  the  country,  is  no 
less  to  be  feared  by  Greece  from  the 
side  of  Turkey.  But  Greece  is  not 
allowed  to  take  her  own  precautions 
against  Turkish  reprisals,  as  France 
did  a  fortnight  ago.  Lest  the  resis- 
tance of  the  Turks  should  be  intensi- 
fied by  their  being  placed  under  the 
control  of  a  hated  neighbor,  the  En- 
tente will  supervise  Turkey's  future 
behavior ;  but,  as  the  Entente  shrinks 
from  the  sacrifice  which  such  a  super- 
vision entails,  it  hopes  to  reduce  the 
necessity  of  it  by  a  reduction  of  the 
terms  to  be  imposed  upon  Turkey. 

It  is  questionable  whether  leniency 
will  have  the  effect  of  making  the 
Turk  more  amenable,  and  a  less  dan- 
gerous neighbor  for  Greece.  The  les- 
son which  Germany's  recent  history 
has  taught  us  makes  one  skeptical  on 
that  score.  Just  when  the  Entente, 
at  the  instigation  of  London,  had 
initiated  a  more  lenient  policy 
towards  Germany,  involving  eco- 
nomic support  for  the  country's  re- 
construction, the  Junker  and  mili- 
taristic elements  made  an  attempt  to 
restore  the  old  order,  which  was,  and 


would  again  be,  a  menace  to  France. 
To  these  people  the  shame  of  defeat 
is  intensified,  rather  than  softened, 
by  a  clemency  which  they  themselves 
would  not  have  shown  had  they  been 
victors.  Besides,  the  parties  which 
are  bent  on  revenge,  the  Nationalists 
in  Turkey,  the  Junkers  in  Germany, 
are  in  opposition  to  the  Government 
which  bears  the  responsibility  for 
submitting  to  the  imposed  peace 
terms.  A  successful  attempt  on  their 
part  at  ousting  the  submissive  Gov- 
ernment will  endanger  the  execution 
of  the  peace,  whether  its  terms  be 
justly  severe  or  lenient.  No  mercy 
from  the  side  of  the  Entente  will 
withhold  them  from  making  that  at- 
tempt. 

The  disclosures  of  Marshal  Foch 
about  the  camouflaged  army  which, 
under  Noske  regime,  was  organized 
in  Germany,  furnish  an  amazing 
proof  of  insincerity  on  the  part  of 
the  former  Cabinet.  It  matters  little 
whether  Noske  was  dupe  or  accom- 
plice. He  was  officially  responsible 
for  the  carrying  out  of  the  peace 
terms  providing  for  the  reduction  of 
the  army,  and  the  violation  of  these, 
whether  in  spite  of  his  control  or 
with  his  connivance,  tends  to  prove 
that  the  militarist  party  is  still  a  real 
power  in  the  country.  The  failure 
of  Herr  Miiller's  Government  to  pun- 
ish the  leaders  of  the  Kapp  revolu- 
tion is  another  indication  of  its  lack 
of  authority  over  the  partisans  of 
the  old  regime. 

In  Turkey  matters  are  of  a  similar 
ambiguity.  The  Government  which 
is  to  sign  the  treaty  is  powerless  in 
Anatolia,  where  Mustapha  Kemal 
with  his  nationalist  forces  defies  both 
the  Sultan  and  the  Allies.  Kemal, 
unlike  Ludendorff,  makes  no  attempt 
at  camouflage.  He  will  deny  the 
binding  force  of  peace  terms  signed 
by  the  Cabinet  in  Constantinople.  If 
the  Entente  shall  fulfill  its  promise  of 
protection  for  Greeks  and  Armenians, 
it  is  not  .by  the  mitigation  of  peace 
terms  that  it  can  do  so,  but  only  by 
showing  Kemal  its  determination  to 
enforce  them,  if  necessary,  by  violent 
means.  The  victory  gained  at  po 
great  a  sacrifice  can  not  be  main- 
tained by  cheapening  the  price  to  be 
paid  by  the  defeated. 


424] 


THE  REVIEW 


Greek  at  Oxford 

ARISTIDES,    we    are    told,    was 
-^    ostracized  from  Athens  because 
certain  classes  of  his  fellow  Athenians 
were  annoyed  to  hear  him  continually 
spoken  of  as  "the  just."    There  are 
those  to-day  who  would  gladly  ostra- 
cize what  is  left  to  us  of  ancient 
Greece,  for  a  similar  reason.    It  irks 
them  to  hear  Greek  continually  men- 
tioned as  a  superior  instrument  of 
higher  education.    To  persons  in  this 
frame  of  mind,  the  news  that  students 
may  hereafter  compete  for  the  aca- 
demic honors  of  Oxford  University 
without  the  study  of  Greek  doubtless 
comes  as  a  source  of  joy.    Aha !  The 
enemy  has  at  last  been  forced  from 
his    chief    stronghold!     Nwnc     est 
bibendum    (bibulousness   metaphori- 
cal, of  course)  nunc  pede  libera  pul- 
sanda  teUus. 

But  it  would  be  rash  to  assume  that 
Oxford  and  Old  England  are  thinking 
to  drop  out  of  their  future  that  part 
of  Greek  life  and  thought— its  mar- 
velously  effective  language  and  eter- 
nally vital  literature— which  has  been 
so  fruitful  an  element  in  making  Eng- 
land and  Oxford  what  they  have  been 
in  the  past,  and  what  they  are  to-day. 
The  statute  recently  passed  by  the 
Oxford  Congregation  does  make  it 
possible  that  the  honors  of  Oxford 
may    be    taken    hereafter    without 
Greek.     That  the  privilege  will  be 
followed,  however,  by  a  very  serious 
reduction  in  the  attention  given  to 
Greek  studies  is  not  an   inevitable 
conclusion.     In  the  newer  universi- 
ties of  Great  Britain,  where  classical 
studies   have   not  been   compulsory, 
there  has  been  of  late  a  very  marked 
grovd;h  of  interest  in  both  Latin  and 
Greek.    In  the  six  midland  and  north- 
ern English  universities,  for  instance, 
the  number  of  students  in  both  these 
tongues  has  more  than  doubled  in  re- 
cent years ;  and  the  pages  of  the  Edu- 
cational Supplement  of  the  London 
Times,  during  the  past  few  weeks, 
contain  evidence  that  the  discussion 
of  the  new  Oxford  statute   has  at 
once  set  in  motion  a  very  active  agi- 
tation   in    favor    of    Greek   studies. 
Says  a  recent  writer  in  the  Times : 


[Vol.  2,  No.  50 


the  world  will  cease  to  rely  on  a  compulsion 
tnat  was  outworn,  and  come  to  rely  on  a 
teaching  which  can  not  be  outworn— the  teach- 
mg  that  Greek,  and  all  that  Greek  implies  is 
a  gift  which  the  new  democracy  can  not 
forgo. 


The  Oxford  decision  will  mean  not  less 
Oreek,  but  more,  since  all  who  love  Greek  and 
who  realize  what  it  has  meant,  and  means   to 


The    currents    of   human    history 
have  so  run  as  to  throw  upon  the 
great  universities  of  England  the  re- 
sponsibility of  educating  men  for  the 
solution  of  many  of  the  most  vital 
problems  of  all  time.     In  the  build- 
ing up  of  her  mighty  empire,  her 
military  and  naval  commanders,  her 
colonial  officials,  her  diplomatic  rep- 
resentatives and  the  agents  of  her 
great    business    organizations,    have 
had  to  meet  and  adapt  themselves  to 
every   important  race  and   type   of 
human  kind.    In  organizing  the  lands 
and  peoples  gradually  incorporated 
into  her  empire,  and  fitting  them  for 
eventual  autonomy  in  local  interests 
and  increasing  participation  in  im- 
perial control,  she  has  had  to  adapt 
herself  to  almost  countless  types  of 
local    government,    and    to    develop 
numerous   and   constantly   changing 
variations  in  the  relation  of  outlying 
parts  to  the  central  body.    Such  have 
been  her  tasks,  and  unless  she  had 
met  them  with  a  fair  degree  of  suc- 
cess, the  chances  are  that  the  world 
to-day  would  be  shivering  in  the  chill 
shadow    of    an    uncurbed    Prussian 
despotism.    And  the  eflfective  leader- 
ship in  these  great  tasks  which  have 
meant  so  much  to  the  world's  prog- 
ress, not  to  that  of  England  alone, 
has  been  taken  in  an  extraordinary 
degree  either  by  Oxford  men,  or  by 
men  educated  after  the  Oxford  type, 
in  which  the  intellectual  achievements 
of  the  Greeks — the  most  acute,  most 
original,  and  most  versatile  of  all  an- 
cient races— have  always  formed  a 
very  important  part. 

One  example  out  of  many,  the  mar- 
velous administrative  career  of  Lord 
Cromer  in  the  reorganization  of  a 
corrupt  and  impoverished  and  chaotic 
Egypt,  finding  rest  and  renewal  of 
strength  and  keenness  of  insight  for 
his  all  but  superhuman  task  in  the 
pages  of  the  Greek  poets,  orators  and 
philosophers,  shows  how  little  valid- 
ity there  is  in  the  assertion  that 
classical  studies  disconnect  the  mind 
from  the  life  of  to-day,  and  unfit  the 
student  for  participation  in  its  prac- 
tical problems.    In  a  recent  pamphlet     I 


issued  by  the  Bankers  Trust  Com- 
pany of  New  York,  setting  forth  the 
opinions  of  leading  financial  authori- 
ties in  Great  Britain  on  the  tremen- 
dous problems   of  post-war  finance 
and  the  restoration  of  Europe,  the 
foremost   place   is    assigned    to   the 
views  of  Walter  Leaf,  Chairman  (or 
President,    as   we    say)    of   London 
County,     Westminster     and     Parr's 
Bank,  which  carries  deposits  of  over 
a  billion  dollars,  and  which  was,  of 
course,  one  of  the  strong  supports  of 
British  finance  during  the  war.    But 
to  many  men  in  various  lands,  Walter 
Leaf  is  known  chiefly,  if  not  solely, 
by  his  accomplishments  in  the  field 
of  Homeric  scholarship. 

With  the  supposed  aid  of  the  Ox- 
ford   compulsory    requirement    now 
eliminated,  the  friends   of  classical 
studies  will  feel  an  obligation  to  ac- 
tive propaganda,  and  this  will  possi- 
bly prove  to  be  the  more  effective 
method  of  the  two.  It  must  be  remem- 
bered that  Greek  has  not  been  com- 
pulsory in  the  English  schools,  and 
that  the  students   of  these  schools 
were  not  confined  to  Oxford  for  their 
future  education.     On  the  whole,  we 
may  be  fairly  confident  that  England 
will  remain  essentially  true  to  the 
conservatively  progressive  principles 
on  which  her  civilization  has  been 
built  up,  and  that  while  she  will  ad- 
mit into  her  educational  system  such 
new  elements  as  may  prove  desirable, 
she  will  not  eliminate  that  which  has 
proved  its  fundamental  and  continu- 
ing value  by  many  generations  of  ex-       i 
perience.     Greek   is   an   intellectual 
leaven  of  which  no  high  modern  civil- 
ization can  afford  wholly  to  deprive 
itself. 


THE  REVIEW 

A  weekly  journal  of  political  and 

general  discussion 

Published  by 

The  National  Weekly  Cokporation 

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ford  St.,   Strand,   London,   W.   C.   2,   England. 
Copyright.     1920.     .h     the     United    States    of 
America 
Editors 
FABIAN  FRANKLIN 
HAROLD  DE  WOLF  FULLER 
„  Associate  Editors 

Harry  Morgan  Ayres     O.  W.  Firkins 
A.  J.  Barnouw  w.  H.  Johnson 

Jerome  Landfield 


April  24,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[425 


Lord  Bryce  on  Turkey  and  Armenia 


[Mr.  R.  Fulton  Cutting  has  received,  and 
lias  kindly  permitted  us  to  publish,  the  follow- 
ing letter  from  Lord  Bryce,  of  whose  expert 
knowledge  of  the  Turkish  Empire  and  deep 
concern  for  the  future  of  Armenia  no  Ameri- 
can needs  to  be  informed.] 

Dear  Mr.  Cutting: 

IN  reply  to  your  questions  I  send 
you  an  outline — brief,  because  I 
am  pressed  by  urgent  work — of  the 
causes  which  have  brought  about  the 
present  situation  in  the  Near  East, 
and  of  the  steps  which  the  friends  of 
the  Eastern  Christians  deem  neces- 
sary for  their  safety. 

The  Turkish  Empire  has  been  the 
storm  centre  of  European  politics  for 
a  century,  because  the  treatment  by 
the  Turkish  Government  of  the  sub- 
ject Christian  races  has  been  an 
evergrowing  scandal  and  horror. 
The  oppression  and  cruelty  of  Turk- 
ish rule  caused  the  Crimean  War  in 
1853;  the  Russo-Turkish  War  in 
1877-78 ;  the  War  between  the  Greeks 
and  the  Turks  in  1897;  and  the 
Balkan  Wars  of  1912-13,  these  last 
having  had  a  good  deal  to  do  with 
the  outbreak  of  the  Great  War  of 
1914.  The  leading  European  Powers 
repeatedly  summoned  the  Turks  to 
reform  their  Administration,  and  the 
Turks  repeatedly  promised  to  do  so, 
but  never  attempted  to  fulfill  their 
promises.  Whenever  resentment  at 
oppression  flamed  out  into  an  insur- 
rection of  the  subject  races,  the 
Turkish  Government  had  only  one 
expedient.  It  was  massacre — indis- 
criminate massacre,  accompanied  by 
horrible  cruelties.  They  massacred 
the  Greeks  in  1822,  and  the  Bul- 
garians in  1876,  and  the  Armenians 
in  1894-95-96,  and  again,  on  a  far 
vaster  scale  (for  nearly  a  million 
perished),  in  1915.  Emboldened  by 
the  impunity  which  they  have  en- 
joyed, they  have  now  begun  afresh 
the  work  of  massacre  in  Cilicia, 
where  many  thousands  of  Armenian 
Christians  have  been  slaughtered  in 
the  last  few  weeks. 

Their  motive  and  their  policy  are 
simple  and  scarcely  concealed.  They 
want  to  have  an  Empire  inhabited 
only  by  Moslems,  and  their  way  of 
accomplishing  that  is  to  exterminate 


the  Christians — men,  women,  and 
children.  The  British  Blue  Book  of 
1916,  containing  the  evidence,  largely 
drawn  from  American  sources  and 
from  German  missionaries,  consti- 
tutes the  most  hideous  record  of 
slaughter  and  enslavement,  of  out- 
rages perpetrated  upon  women  and 
children,  that  history  recounts.  No 
provocation  had  been  given,  and  all 
Christian  subjects  who  could  be 
reached  were  destroyed — Nestorians, 
Assyrians,  Chaldeans,  and  in  some 
districts  Greeks  also,  as  well  as 
Armenians.  The  regions  where  these 
things  were  done  have  been  left  since 
the  war  ended  in  the  hands  of  the 
Turks,  because  the  Allies  had  not 
troops  enough  to  occupy  them.  The 
two  chiefs  among  the  bloodthirsty  ruf- 
fians who  directed  the  massacres  from 
Constantinople,  Enver  and  Talaat, 
have  escaped,  but  their  followers  and 
partisans  have  regained  control  in 
Constantinople  and  are  terrorizing 
the  remnants  of  the  Christian  popu- 
lation throughout  Asiatic  Turkey. 
Nearly  eighteen  months  have  elapsed 
since  the  armistice  and  the  terms  of 
the  treaty  are  not  yet  settled.  The 
delay  is  excused  on  the  ground  that 
the  Allies  hoped  the  United  States 
would  take  a  mandate  from  the 
League  of  Nations  for  Armenia,  or 
for  Constantinople,  or  for  both.  But 
the  non-ratification  by  America  of 
the  treaty  with  Germany  has  pre- 
vented any  decision  as  to  the  part  (if 
any)  that  America  will  take  in  the 
settlement. 

Two  questions  have  arisen.  What 
is  to  be  done  with  Constantinople 
and  what  is  to  become  of  Armenia? 
Eighteen  months  ago  everyone  sup- 
posed that  the  Turkish  Power  would 
be  extinguished  in  both.  It  was  a 
danger  to  the  peace  of  Europe,  it  was 
a  curse  to  its  subjects.  Its  faults 
were  incurable,  because  the  Turk,  as 
a  ruler,  is  an  irreclaimable  savage. 
Yet  to-day  there  are  those  who  plead 
that  the  Turkish  savage  should  be 
allowed  to  remain  in  Constantinople 
because  there  are — it  is  said — Indian 
Moslems  who  would  be  offended  if  the 
Sultan  were  turned  out  of  the  city 


which  his  ancestors  conquered  from 
the  Christians  some  centuries  ago.  It 
is  amazing  that  any  weight  should  be 
allowed  to  this  arrogant  pretension 
of  persons,  alleging  themselves  to 
speak  on  behalf  of  Indian  Moslems,  to 
dictate  the  policy  of  the  Allies,  and 
let  the  massacres  of  innocent  Chris- 
tians go  unpunished.  And  it  is  all 
the  more  amazing  because  Constan- 
tinople is  not  a  sacred  city  to  the 
Moslems  like  Mecca  or  Medina  or 
Jerusalem.  It  is  not  even  a  Moslem 
city — the  bulk  of  the  population  hav- 
ing always  been  Christian.  The  In- 
dian agitation  has  been  a  factitious 
one,  got  up  mainly  from  political  mo- 
tives, and  never  ought  to  have  been 
yielded  to.  We  are  not  surprised  to 
hear  that  the  decision  to  let  the 
Sultan  stay  has  been  received  with 
amazement  and  indignation  in  Amer- 
ica. It  has  been  generally  hoped 
here  that  the  influence  of  the  United 
States  in  the  councils  of  the  Allies 
would  have  averted  such  a  disaster. 

There  remains  the  question  of 
Armenia.  To  leave  the  Turk  in 
power  there  would  be  not  only  a  dis- 
aster but  a  crime.  It  would  also  be 
a  grave  breach  of  faith  with  the 
Armenians,  who  were,  after  the  mas- 
sacres of  1915,  asked  by  the  Allies  to 
fight  on  their  side,  and  thousands  of 
whom  did  volunteer,  and  fought  val- 
iantly, and  died  in  the  Allied  cause. 
The  Turk  has  soaked  the  Near  East 
in  blood  and  reduced  much  of  it  to 
desolation.  More  than  half  the  Chris- 
tian inhabitants  have  perished,  and  a 
large  part  of  the  Moslem  inhabitants 
— Kurds  and  others — have  also  been 
driven  by  the  Turkish  Government 
from  their  homes.  The  Armenians 
are  an  energetic  and  industrious 
people;  and  if,  as  is  expected,  the 
refugees  whom  American  liberality 
has  been  keeping  alive  out  of  reach 
of  the  Turk  during  the  last  four 
years  are  enabled  to  return  to  their 
ruined  villages,  they  may  in  time  re- 
pair the  losses  suffered.  But  they 
must  have  a  helping  hand.  Some 
civilized  Power  must  undertake  to 
furnish  officers  who  can  organize  a 
gendarmerie  to  supply  officials  who 
can  set  up  some  sort  of  administra- 
tion, to  furnish  funds  to  set  the 
people  on  their  feet  again.     We,  in 


426] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  50 


Britain,  having  already  undertaken 
to  look  after  Mesopotamia  and  Pales- 
tine, the  responsibility  for  which  no 
one  else  was  willing  to  assume,  can 
not  undertake  Armenia  also.  Let  me 
say  in  passing  that  it  seems  to  be 
supposed  in  America  that  we  have 
made  a  profit  out  of  the  war  by  tak- 
ing Mesopotamia.  It  is  all  the  other 
way.  So  far  from  making  any  gain 
we  have  incurred  a  heavy  liability, 
with  no  prospect  in  sight  of  any 
return.  There  was  not  and  there  is 
not,  so  far  as  I  can  see,  any  desire  in 
England  to  occupy  these  countries; 
they  were  taken  merely  because  they 
could  not  be  allowed  to  go  to  rack  and 
ruin.  They  are  in  no  sense  Turkish 
but  Arab,  and  there  is  no  Arab  Gov- 
ernment capable  of  administering 
them. 

We  who  are  friends  of  the  East- 
ern Christians  rejoice  to  know  from 
the  recent  meeting  in  New  York,  and 
from  many  other  American  sources, 
how  strong  and  general  is  the  feeling 
in  the  United  States  for  the  libera- 
tion of  Armenia.  I  have  just  re- 
ceived assurances  from  Canada  that 
the  feeling  there  is  no  less  active  and 
general.  Though,  owing  to  an  un- 
fortunate chain  of  circumstances, 
America  has  not  so  far  found  her- 
self in  a  position  officially  to  express 
her  sympathy  and  actively  exert  her 
influence,  we  can  not  but  hope  that 
this  influence  will,  somehow  or  other, 
make  itself  felt.  How  that  is  to  be 
done  you  can  judge  better  than  we. 
As  to  the  difficulties  which  have  pre- 
vented the  British  people  (who,  as  I 
believe,  feel  as  strong  a  sympathy  as 
you  do  with  the  Eastern  Christians 
and  as  strong  a  detestation  of  Turk- 
ish rule)  from  securing  all  they  de- 
sire, I  could  say  much,  but  perhaps  it 
is  better  to  refrain.  Meantime  it  is 
believed  that  the  Allied  Powers  pro- 
pose to  liberate  what  was  Turkish 
Armenia,  and  we  trust  this  decision 
will  include  the  Armenian  part  of 
Cilicia,  which  has  been  the  scene  of 
the  most  recent  massacres.  It  is, 
moreover,  essential  to  the  peace  of 
the  East  that  the  militant  Pan- 
Islamic  propaganda,  so  dangerous  to 
that  peace,  should  not  be  allowed  the 
vantage  ground  which  a  Turkish 
dominion  contiguous  to  Persia  and 


Central  Asia  would  furnish.  The 
urgent  and  still  unsolved  question  is 
— who  shall  undertake  a  mandate 
under  the  League  of  Nations  to  find 
a  staff  of  officers  fit  to  reorganize  ad- 
ministration and  look  after  the  main- 
tenance of  internal  order?  Whether 
the  League  undertakes  this,  or 
whether  some  minor  Power  can  be 
persuaded  to  do  so,  money  will  be 
needed  until  the  country  can,  after  a 
few  years,  begin  to  pay  its  way.  Four 
or  five  million  dollars  a  year  might 
suffice,  but  the  European  Allies  are 
now  staggering  under  a  load  of  debt, 
and  the  League  is  not  yet  in  posses- 


sion of  funds.  Whatever  the  difficul- 
ties may  be,  some  solution  must  be 
found.  It  is  surely  impossible  for 
civilized  Christian  nations  to  let  these 
unhappy  countries  fall  back  under  the 
heel  of  their  oppressors,  impossible 
not  to  extend  a  helping  hand  to  those 
ancient  Christian  races  who  have 
now,  after  protracted  suffering 
borne  with  unfailing  constancy,  an 
opportunity  of  regaining  freedom 
and  peace.     I  am, 

Very  faithfully  yours, 


James  Bryce 


London,  March  25 


The  Naval  Inquiry 


'T'HE  naval  inquiry  precipitated  by 
•'■  Admiral  Sims's  criticisms  is  pro- 
ducing the  usual  exchange  of  person- 
alities and  equivocations.  And  it  has 
been  ill  reported  in  the  press.  As  it 
nears  its  conclusion,  however,  it  ap- 
pears clearly  that  Admiral  Sims  has 
substantiated  all  his  main  positions. 
His  criticisms  are  directed  to  the  first 
seven  or  eight  months  after  the  dec- 
laration of  war,  and  are  solely  con- 
cerned with  the  conduct  ot  naval 
affairs  at  Washington.  There  are 
three  main  allegations : 

First — the  war  caught  the  Navy 
unprepared. 

Second — ^there  was  for  months 
after  war  was  declared  no  general 
plan  of  operations. 

Third — as  Force  Commander  for 
European  waters  he  was  unduly  in- 
terfered with,  insufficiently  informed, 
and  often  not  properly  supported. 

As  to  the  general  unpreparedness 
of  the  fleet  at  the  outbreak  of  the  war, 
it  was  merely  a  part  of  the  deliber- 
ate neglect  of  the  nation's  military 
security  by  the  Administration.  Sec- 
retary Daniels  had  the  temerity  to 
declare  that  the  ships  were  "ready 
from  stem  to  stern."  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  it  took  three  months  to  get  the 
fleet  fairly  ready  and  to  start  thirty- 
two  destroyers  for  Ireland.  They  got 
there  about  the  middle  of  July.  For 
three  months  previous  the  Allies  had 
been  losing  towards  a  million  of  ton- 
nage a  month,  much  of  which  might 
have  been  saved  had  our  destroyers 


been  ready  to  jump  quickly  into  the 
critical  area  off  Ireland.  Admiral 
Sims's  estimate  that  prompt  aid  in 
the  anti-submarine  campaign  would 
have  shortened  the  war  by  three 
months  is  conservative. 

Details  of  the  neglected  condition 
of  the  fighting  fleet  were  supplied 
by  Admirals  Fulham  and  Plunkett. 
Eager  as  a  boy  to  build  new  ships, 
Secretary  Daniels  was  never  inter- 
ested in  manning  them.  Admiral  Ful- 
ham's  battleships  on  the  Pacific  sta- 
tion were  all  in  reserve;  his  battle- 
cruisers,  though  supposed  to  have 
their  peace  complement,  were  so  un- 
dermanned as  not  to  be  able  to  move 
from  dock.  In  June  of  1916  Admiral 
Fulham  wrote  the  Chief  of  Opera- 
tions that  a  declaration  of  war  then 
"would  find  the  navy  in  a  state  of 
pandemonium  and  absolute  ineffi- 
ciency." Repeatedly  Secretary  Dan- 
iels had  cut  out  of  Navy  bills 
proposals  for  necessary  increase  of 
personnel.  In  May,  1917,  with  war  on 
for  a  month,  Secretary  Daniels  pro- 
posed suspension  of  enrollment  in  the 
Reserve  Force.  At  that  moment  the 
Navy  had  about  half  the  men  neces- 
sary to  run  the  ships,  and  there  was 
in  sight  no  other  way  of  procuring 
them. 

That  the  Navy  itself  was  as  ready 
as  its  reduced  forces  permitted  goes 
without  saying.  That  is  the  Navy's 
constant  job,  and  it  is  used  to  it. 
That,  with  war  a  possibility  from  the 
autumn  of  1914,  Secretary  Daniels 


April  24,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[427 


not  only  made  no  effort  to  man  his 
ships,  but  opposed  his  naval  advisers 
at  every  point  when  they  pleaded  for 
men,  is  the  index  of  his  incapacity  for 
his  high  place.  Even  the  apologists 
for  the  Administration  only  argue 
that  the  neglect  of  our  military  busi- 
ness from  1914  to  1917  was  philan- 
thropically  intended,  or  fall  back  on 
the  still  lamer  contention  that  Con- 
gress and  the  nation  would  not  have 
permitted  our  existing  regiments  to 
have  been  recruited  and  our  existing 
ships  to  have  been  manned  to  war 
strength.  With  either  apology  his- 
tory will  make  short  work.  Admiral 
Sims's  most  serious  allegation  is  that 
the  Navy  Department  entered  the 
war  without  a  working  plan  of  opera- 
tions, and  had  nothing  approaching 
such  until  July,  1917.  This  is  proved 
to  the  hilt. 

We  appear  to  have  the  testimony  of 
Admirals  Wilson,  Fletcher,  and  Rod- 
man to  the  contrary,  but  only  appar- 
ently. Admiral  Fletcher  inadver- 
tently let  the  cat  out  of  the  bag.  There 
was  a  plan — was  it  not  in  three  hun- 
dred typewritten  pages?  Had  it  not 
gained  mellowness  through  three 
years  of  waiting?  Speaking  strictly 
by  the  book,  there  was  a  plan.  It  took 
no  account  of  exclusive  submarine 
warfare,  was  based  on  the  presupposi- 
tion of  free  use  of  all  types  of  ships. 
It  had  no  reference  to  the  actual  sit- 
uation at  our  entrance  into  the  war. 
Nobody  ever  thought  of  acting  on  it. 
But  it  was  a  perfectly  good  plan,  con- 
sidered apart  from  events  and  the  ac- 
tual emergency.  Admiral  Rodman, 
with  a  sea  dog's  waggishness,  speaks 
of  the  plan  as  being  "later  modified 
to  meet  existing  conditions."  He  fails 
to  state  that  any  modification  of  the 
plan  resulted  from  natural  and  pro- 
gressive decay  of  the  three  hundred 
pages  in  the  musty  files  of  the  Bu- 
reau of  Operations. 

Captain  Harris  Laning's  testimony 
whisks  this  smoke  screen  down  the 
wind.  He  was  in  Operations,  pre- 
cisely the  strategic  bureau,  until 
July,  1917,  and  thereafter  in  the  exec- 
utive and  personnel  branch,  the  Bu- 
reau of  Navigation.  In  that  brief 
and  forceful  utterance  of  which  few 
flag  officers  seem  capable,  he  tells 
the   exact  facts.     On   February   18, 


1917,  war  being  certain,  he  wrote  to 
Admiral  Benson: 

We  have  little  or  no  preparation  for  han- 
dling a  situation  like  the  present,  where  the 
immediate  menace  is  confined  to  submarine 
effort.  Without  any  other  plan  in  mind  than 
that  developed  to  meet  a  situation  in  no  way 
similar  to  the  present  situation,  the  Navy 
Department  as  a  whole  is  proceeding  with  its 
task  as  if  there  were  nothing  new  in  the  situa- 
tion. .  .  .  Aren't  we  failing  in  our  duty  if  we 
don't  do  all  we  can  to  meet  the  emergency? 
The  first  step  to  meet  it  is  to  have  a  plan  and 
an  organization  ready  to  carry  it  out.  Can't 
we  have  it? 

After  a  fortnight  Admiral  Benson 
requested  Captain  Laning  and  other 
subordinates  to  present  plans.  On 
March  13,  as  he  admits  on  the  very 
defective  information  then  possessed 
by  the  Department,  Captain  Laning 
presented  his  plan.  It  was  a  reason- 
able defensive  plan  based  on  the  facts 
of  submarine  warfare.  It  would 
have  afforded  a  basis  immediately  for 
economical  action  and  could  readily 
have  been  modified  to  meet  the  unan- 
ticipated need  of  an  offensive  in 
foreign  waters.  Such  was  Admiral 
Benson's  judgment  when  with  slight 
modifications  he  approved  the  Laning 
plan  and  laid  it  before  Secretary  Dan- 
iels, who  disapproved  it.  Thus  the 
Navy  worried  along  without  a  plan. 

About  the  middle  of  April  Admiral 
Sims  sent  the  Department  from  Lon- 
don the  fullest  information  about  the 
appalling  submarine  sinkings.  It  was 
a  reasonable  estimate,  as  things  were 
going,  that  England  would  be  starved 
out  in  a  matter  of  five  months.  Ac- 
cordingly Admiral  Sims  proposed  the 
first  plan  based  on  knowledge  of  the 
actual  military  situation.  All  ship- 
ping for  England  and  the  theatre  of 
war  had  to  pass  near  southern  Ire- 
land. There  the  sinkings  were  most 
serious.  Accordingly  he  recommended 
that  all  suitable  light  craft  should 
be  sent  over  for  aggressive  operations 
in  this  critical  area.  Within  a  week 
Washington  offered  him  six  destroy- 
ers. In  despair  he  appealed,  on  April 
27,  to  Ambassador  Page,  through 
whose  representations  he  received, 
after  the  middle  of  July,  thirty-two 
destroyers  that  rendered  the  first 
naval  aid  to  the  Allies. 

Here  Captain  Laning's  testimony 
affords  an  edifying  bit  of  chronology. 
In  the  face  of  the  fact  that  most  of 
our  destroyers  might  have  to  go  to 


Ireland,  the  Navy  estimates  went  to 
Congress  without  any  considerable 
appropriation  for  anti-submarine 
craft.  Captain  Laning  called  Secre- 
tary Daniels's  attention  to  this  grave 
defect,  and  requested  an  emergency 
appropriation  of  $250,000,000  to 
cover  the  case.  It  was  a  moment 
when  Congress  would  have  given  the 
Navy  whatever  it  asked.  Secretary 
Daniels  declined  to  transmit  the  re- 
quest to  Congress.  The  result  was 
that  the  contracts  for  the  new  de- 
stroyers were  not  placed  until  we  had 
been  six  months  at  war. 

The  layman  should  not  need  to  be 
told  of  the  necessity  of  an  operating 
plan.  Until  the  Navy  knew  what 
ships  were  to  be  made  ready,  where 
they  were  going,  what  service  was 
expected  of  them,  it  could  not  make 
the  necessary  calculations  for  per- 
sonnel, ordnance,  and  supply.  The  re- 
sult was  a  scramble  of  all  the  navy 
bureaus  to  achieve  a  maximum  pro- 
gramme and  not  be  caught  short. 
In  time  and  money  it  was  a  terribly 
wasteful  process,  but  it  was  the  only 
one  Mr.  Daniels  left  open.  Thus  the 
Navy  staff  overrode  law  and  regula- 
tions, competed  with  each  other  and 
with  the  army,  disregarded  the  Secre- 
tary, and  heroically  bungled  through 
to  a  belated  success. 

The  testimony  abounds  in  delicious 
bits  about  the  methods  of  ignoring 
Mr.  Daniels.  He  frequently  ordered 
recruiting  stopped.  Of  course  we 
went  ahead.  We  needed  the  men. 
Admiral  Palmer  testified.  The  Sec- 
retary refused  authority  for  train- 
ing stations,  and  such  magnificent 
organizations  as  Pelham  and  Great 
Lakes  arose  almost  surreptitiously. 
His  incompetence  had  the  saving 
grace  of  amiability.  He  didn't  mind 
being  ignored.  Often  he  was  un- 
aware of  what  was  going  on  with- 
out his  authority,  and  whenever  he 
saw  any  unauthorized  effort  going 
well  he  gracefully  took  the  credit  for 
it.  His  head  never  grasped  his  job, 
his  restlessness  hindered  others  from 
doing  it  for  him  effectively,  but  his 
heart  was  in  the  right  place. 

On  July  19,  1917,  three  months 
after  the  war  began,  the  Navy  at 
length  transmitted  a  general  plan  to 
Admiral  Sims. 


428] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  50 


Into  the  failure  of  the  Navy  De- 
partment to  give  loyal  support  to 
Admiral  Sims  we  need  not  go  elabo- 
rately. The  facts  as  brought  out  by 
the  correspondence  amply  bear  out 
the  charges.  They  refused  him  a 
staff  for  months  and  then  sent  him  an 
inadequate  one;  they  declined  to  let 
him  give  provisional  ensignships  to 
willing  and  competent  Americans 
abroad.  They  diminished  his  pres- 
tige with  his  own  force  by  withhold- 
ing the  usual  right  of  promotion. 
They  negotiated  over  his  head  with 
the  French  and  British  Admiralties. 
They  failed  to  inform  him  of  addi- 
tions to  his  fleet.  They  interfered 
with  his  local  tactical  dispositions. 
It   is   a    discreditable    chapter,    due 


mostly  to  blundering.  From  day  to 
day  Washington  hardly  knew  its  own 
mind.  Yet  Admiral  Sims  is  right  in 
insisting  that  their  attitude  of  dis- 
trust was  such  that  their  only  correct 
course  was  to  have  removed  him.  He 
had  at  once  the  chagrin  and  the  relief 
of  seeing  Admiral  Rodman  come 
over  in  the  autumn  of  1917  to  check 
him  up.  Admiral  Rodman  reported 
just  what  Admiral  Sims  had  been  re- 
porting for  six  months.  Washington 
believed  Admiral  Rodman,  and  de- 
cided to  act  as  if  the  Navy  were  at 
war,  and  things  began  to  go  well. 
Admiral  Sims's  strategy  was  adopted 
in  its  essentials.  He  had  at  least  the 
inner  rewards  of  him  who  endureth. 

S.  P. 


The  Bolsheviks'  Horn  of  Plenty 


ALTHOUGH  Bolshevist  propaganda  in 
this  country  is  persistent  and  care- 
fully coordinated,  and  its  volume  is  very 
great,  there  is  little  of  it  that  may  be 
regarded  as  deserving  rebuttal.  In  fact, 
to  undertake  to  answer  it  would  only  be 
to  dignify  it  unduly  and  give  it  un- 
merited attention.  But  occasionally 
there  appears  an  article  which  is  so  cun- 
ningly contrived  and  so  prominently 
placed  as  to  carry  weight  in  the  business 
community  and  which,  therefore,  can  not 
be  allowed  to  pass  unnoticed.  Such  an 
article  is  that  which  appeared  in  the 
Nation  of  April  10  under  the  title  of 
"Our  Future  Trade  with  Russia,"  writ- 
ten by  Mr.  Albert  Coyle,  who  is  described 
as  a  prisoner  taken  by  the  Soviet  army 
last  summer  from  the  American  forces 
on  the  Archangel  front,  and  to  whom  is 
ascribed  a  knowledge  of  the  Russian  lan- 
guage which  "opened  many  interesting 
doors." 

The  general  thesis  of  Mr.  Coyle's  ar- 
ticle does  not  differ  greatly  from  the 
view  held  by  economists  everywhere. 
Russia  has  a  vast  reserve  of  undeveloped 
natural  resources  both  in  foodstuffs  and 
in  raw  materials.  Reconstruction  in 
Europe  is  dependent  upon  the  develop- 
ment and  exportation  of  these  resources. 
For  this  development  and  exportation, 
the  rehabilitation  of  Russian  railways  is 
prerequisite.  So  far  there  is  no  dis- 
pute. But  when  Mr.  Coyle  develops  his 
thesis  and  draws  the  conclusion  that 
these  desirable  results  can  be  obtained 
by  recognizing  the  Soviet  Government 
and  opening  up  immediate  trade  rela- 
tions, he  furnishes  data  and  follows  a 
line  of  reasoning  that  display  either 
ignorance  or  dishonesty. 

In  introducing  his  subject,  he  calls 


attention  to  the  strain  under  which  the 
Soviet  Government  has  been  laboring 
during  the  past  two  years  and  then  mar- 
vels that  it  has  emerged  victorious,  "ac- 
tually stronger  economically  than  at  the 
outset,  and  immediately  prepared  to  con- 
duct commerce  with  the  rest  of  the 
world."  If  Mr.  Coyle  would  take  the 
trouble  to  consult  the  files  of  the  official 
journals  published  by  the  Soviet  Govern- 
ment during  the  past  few  months,  he 
would  learn  that  they  frankly  admit, 
first,  that,  economically,  owing  to  non- 
production,  Russia  is  on  the  verge  of  a 
complete  collapse  and  in  infinitely  worse 
condition  than  in  November,  1917;  and 
secondly,  that  the  Soviet  Government  is 
not  "immediately  prepared  to  conduct 
commerce  with  the  rest  of  the  world." 
Reference  to  later  paragraphs  in  Mr. 
Coyle's  own  article  corroborates  this. 

Calling  attention  to  the  "iron  regimen" 
of  the  Soviet  Government — and  "iron" 
is  a  very  mild  appellation  for  it — he 
points  to  its  two  results:  "(1)  The 
amassing  of  large  stocks  of  foods  and 
raw  materials  which  could  not  be  trans- 
ported for  consumption  or  utilized  for 
manufacture;  and  (2)  the  creation  of 
the  greatest  vacuum  of  consumers'  wants 
that  the  civilized  world  has  ever  known." 
The  first  of  these  two  statements  is  sim- 
ply not  true.  Large  stocks  of  foodstuffs 
have  not  been  amassed,  because  the  peas- 
ants in  the  regions  occupied  by  the  Bol- 
sheviks have  ceased  to  cultivate  more 
land  than  was  necessary  to  provide  for 
their  own  needs  and  have  carefully  con- 
cealed their  small  stocks  against  Soviet 
requisition.  The  regions  in  question  are 
for  the  most  part  those  which  normally 
import  a  portion  of  their  foodstuffs  from 
the  more  fertile  black  land  region.    It  is 


ludicrous  for  the  Soviet  authorities,  on 
the  one  hand,  to  claim  that  large  stocks 
of  foodstuffs  have  been  amassed  and,  at 
the  same  time,  complain  bitterly  of  the 
starvation  of  the  cities.  The  harvest  of 
last  summer  was  indeed  a  fine  one,  and 
the  southern  regions,  then  in  control  of 
Denikin,  produced  a  surplus  which  com- 
petent observers  estimated  at  3,000,000 
tons.*  These  regions  have  now  fallen 
into  the  hands  of  the  Bolsheviks  and  in 
all  probability  the  peasants  have  suc- 
ceeded in  concealing  their  grain  so  well 
that  little  will  inure  to  the  benefit  of  the 
Soviet  authorities. 

Mr.  Coyle's  second  conclusion  as  to 
Russia  now  being  the  "greatest  vacuum 
of  consumers'  wants  that  the  civilized 
world  has  ever  known"  is  one  of  the 
very  few  true  statements  in  the  article. 

Following  his  introduction,  Mr.  Coyle 
sets  forth  an  array  of  statistical  mate- 
rial calculated  to  deceive  the  public  into 
believing  that  he  is  giving  a  scientific 
basis  for  his  argument.  His  data,  how- 
ever, strongly  suggest  the  familiar  style 
of  the  stock-selling  prospectuses  of  "get- 
rich-quick"  concerns,  and  his  figures  will 
not  bear  analysis.  So,  for  example,  he 
states  that  the  largest  coal  field  in  the 
world  is  the  Kuznetsk  in  Siberia,  where- 
as the  explorations  made  there  are  not 
sufficient  to  determine  anything  of  the 
kind ;  but  even  if  it  were,  it  is  so  distant 
as  to  have  no  influence  upon  European 
Russia.  Certainly  it  will  furnish  no  coal 
for  export.  The"  Donetz  basin  in  South 
Russia  is,  to  be  sure,  the  largest  coal 
field  in  Europe,  and  in  it  is  found  a  very 
considerable  proportion  of  anthracite.  In 
the  future  this  field  may  be  developed  to 
export  coal  to  Europe,  but  it  is  interest- 
ing to  read  what  Mr.  Coyle  writes  with 
reference  to  present  conditions.  He 
states  that  during  the  first  few  months 
of  1919,  4,000,000  poods  of  anthracite 
had  already  been  mined  from  the  Donetz 
basin.  4,000,000  poods  means  only  about 
73,000  tons,  not  an  important  production 
for  several  months  in  the  largest  coal 
field  in  Europe.  The  fact  is  that  under 
the  first  Revolution,  owing  to  labor 
troubles  and  sporadic  attempts  at  work- 
ingmen's  control,  the  production  fell 
greatly  below  the  normal  of  about  2,250,- 
000  tons  per  month.f  But  the  real  ruin 
of  the  Donetz  production  followed  the 
assumption  of  power  by  the  Bolshevik 
regime ;  it  is  this  that  explains  the  pro- 
duction for  the  first  few  months  of  191S 
to  which  Mr.  Coyle  refers.  When  tht 
Volunteer  Army  under  Denikin  recov-, 
ered  the  Donetz  coal  basin,  production 
was  immediately  increased  to  more  thar 
ten  times  the  Soviet  production,  so  as  tc 


*See  Report  on  Economic  Situation  in  South  Rui 
sia,  by  B.  Ivanov,  to  the  Russian  Council  of  Trad< 
and  Industry,  London,  December  2,   1919. 

tThe  1 9 14  coal  production  in  the  Donetz  Basir 
was  1,683,800,000  poods,  or  about  30,000,000  tons 
Annual  of  Ministry  of  Finances,  1915,  page  503. 


April  24,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[429 


take  care  of  railway  and  local  needs,  and 
this  would  have  been  still  further  in- 
creased had  transportation  facilities  been 
available  for  its  export.  The  statements 
of  Mr.  Coyle  concerning  the  Moscow  coal 
basin,  peat,  and  schist  beds  are  still  more 
ludicrous.  He  mentions  that  the  Mos- 
cow coal  basin  last  year  produced  38,000,- 
000  poods  of  bituminous  coal.  Trans- 
lated into  English,  this  means  700,000 
tons,  but  there  is  practically  no  bitumi- 
nous coal  in  the  Moscow  region.  The  coal 
there  is  lignite,  or  brown  coal,  which  is 
of  very  inferior  value  as  a  fuel  and  can 
only  be  used  in  connection  with  higher 
grades.^  The  million  tons  of  peat  pro- 
duced, together  with  this  lignite,  was  so 
unsatisfactory  that  the  factories  stopped 
for  want  of  fuel  and  the  people  of  Mos- 
cow suffered  terribly  from  the  cold  last 
winter.  His  report  that  the  discovery 
of  immense  schist  beds  in  Samara  and 
Simbirsk  regions  has  opened  up  an  im- 
portant supply  of  fuel  and  tar  products 
suggests  particularly  the  prospectus  of 
the  "get-rich-quick"  promoter.  There 
are,  to  be  sure,  some  oil-bearing  schists 
in  the  neighborhood  of  the  Volga.  They 
have  been  known  for  years,  and  it  may 
be  possible  that  some  day  in  the  future 
a  means  will  be  found  for  extracting  the 
oil  from  them  at  a  cost  that  will  make  it 
a  commercial  enterprise.  Just  now,  how- 
ever, the  geological  report  concerning 
them  was  resurrected  from  the  archives 
for  propaganda  purposes. 

Space  is  lacking  to  take  up  in  detail 
Mr.  Coyle's  other  statistical  misinforma- 
tion, and  this  analysis  of  the  fuel  situa- 
tion must  suffice  to  show  his  general 
method.  But  attention  must  be  called 
briefly  to  his  report  on  textiles,  because 
upon  this  he  bases  the  conclusion  that 
the  Soviet  Government  has  in  its  posses- 
sion materials  to  exchange  for  foreign 
goods.  He  states  that  the  report  of  the 
Supreme  Economic  Council  shows  that 
the  Turkestan  cotton  crop  this  year  is 
5,000,000  poods  (365,000  bales).  It  may 
be.  The  normal  production  was  more 
than  four  times  this  amount  and,  at  that, 
provided  but  two-thirds  of  Russia's  own 
consumption,  the  remainder  being  im- 
ported from  abroad. §  He  then  says: 
"Flax  increased  to  4,000,000  poods, 
which,  including  reserves,  makes  a  total 
of  5,500,000  poods,  about  half  of  which 
will  be  utilized  by  Russian  industry  and 
the  balance  held  for  export."  The  flax 
production  of  Russia  in  1913  was  32,- 
455,500  poods,  II  so  that  the  "increase"  to 
4,000,000  poods  is  remarkable.  In  1913 
the  domestic  consumption  was  about  one- 


tCf.  Russian  Year  Book,  1915;  p.  194.  Also  B. 
Ivanov,  Report,  previously  cited. 

§Russian  cotton  crop  of  season  1915-16  was  20,- 
600,000  poods,  or  1,487,000  bales.  In  season  1914-15 
Russia  produced  1.242.000  bales  and  imported  528,000 
bales.      Van   der   Muhlen,    Cotton  Industry   of  Russia. 


half  of  this,  or  16,000,000  poods.**  It 
will  be  interesting  to  find  out  how  Mr. 
Coyle  arrives  at  the  deduction  that  one- 
half  of  5,500,000  poods  will  suflBce  for 
Russia's  needs  and  permit  the  balance  to 
be  exported.  The  2,750,000  poods  in- 
dicated (50,000  tons)  would  make  but 
a  small  impression  in  the  foreign  market, 
but  even  in  regard  to  this  Mr.  Coyle  is 
overoptimistic— to  put  it  mildly.  If  he 
had  read  the  Petrograd  Izvestia,  the  offi- 
cial Soviet  journal,  for  January  13,  1920, 
he  would  have  found  the  following  sta- 
tistics in  regard  to  amounts  of  flax  and 
their  location: 

Soviet  Codpera- 
District.                          Warehouses.      lives. 

Vologda  31,416  89,081 

Kostroma- Yaroslav 148,972  92,727 

Bezhetsky    401,408  707432 

Rzhev   2l3,5i4  569,868 

Vladimir-N.    Novgorod..       67,038  6,936 

Smolensk   205,279  595,775 

btaroruss   107,670  215,540 

Vitebsk  45,827  13,734 

Total  1,221,124      2,291,093 

By  their  own  showing,  then,  the  Soviet 
Government  and  the  Soviet  Controlled 
Cooperatives  have  but  3,500,000  poods  of 
flax,  and  that  is  scattered  all  over  Russia. 

The  subject  of  textiles  should  not  be 
passed  without  calling  attention  to  an- 
other egregious  error.  He  says:  "In 
order  to  clothe  the  army,  these  [textile] 
mills  have  had  to  be  kept  in  operation, 
several  of  the  largest  still  being  under 
the  able  superintendence  of  the  English 
spinners  who  directed  them  before  the 
Revolution."  The  truth  is  that  these 
mills  have  not  been  kept  in  operation  and 
that  the  attempt  of  the  Soviet  Govern- 
ment to  nationalize  them  and  operate 
them  under  a  central  administration  re- 
sulted in  closing  down  practically  all  of 
them  a  year  ago.  As  to  the  "able  super- 
intendence of  the  English  spinners,"  I 
can  quote  to  him  a  cablegram  received 
last  week  from  Mr.  B.,  formerly  pro- 
prietor of  a  mill  of  100,000  spindles,  who 
has  just  escaped  into  Finland.  He  wires : 
"Plant  perfect  order.  Liquid  assets 
squandered.    Spindles  stopped  year  ago." 

So  much  for  Mr.  Coyle's  statistical 
data.  Let  us  turn  to  some  of  his  gen- 
eralizations and  conclusions.  He  calls  at- 
tention to  the  fact  that  the  American 
businessman  has  not  been  blind  to  the 
value  of  Russian  commerce,  but  that 
there  have  been  "good  and  sufficient  rea- 
sons why  he  has  permitted  Germany  and 
Britain  to  corner  approximately  two- 
thirds  of  Russia's  import  and  export 
trade."  These  good  and  sufficient  rea- 
sons he  finds  to  be,  first,  the  "various  im- 
port duties  to  provide  sufficient  crown 
revenues";  secondly,  that  German  and 
British  firms  had  cornered  many  of  the 
most  lucrative  markets  in  such  a  way 


WNational  Economy,    1914,  page   112. 
Ministry  of  Finances. 


Published  by 


**Araount  of  flax  exported  in  1913,  16,632,000  poods 
(about  275,000  tons).  Annual  of  Ministry  of  Fi- 
nances,   1915,   page  553. 


"that  the  American  found  himself  facing 
a  closed  game  preserve";  and  thirdly, 
that  American  firms  were  also  at  a  great 
disadvantage  because  of  their  inability 
to  secure  competent  representatives  who 
knew  the  Russians  and  their  language. 
As  to  the  first  point,  Mr.  Coyle  needlessly 
goes  out  of  his  way  to  play  upon  popu- 
lar prejudice.  The  tariff  duties  imposed 
under  the  ministries  of  Vishnegradsky 
and  Witte  were  not  to  provide  crown 
revenues  and  were  never  so  disposed. 
They  were  imposed  as  a  part  of  the  pro- 
tectionist programme  designed  to  stimu- 
late Russian  domestic  production.  As  to 
his  second  point,  it  has  only  to  be  ex- 
plained that  the  reason  why  the  Germans 
succeeded  in  the  Russian  market  was  not 
because  of  special  privilege  or  by  pos- 
sessing "a  closed  game  preserve."  It  was 
simply  because  the  Germans  studied  the 
markets,  acquainted  themselves  with  the 
Russian  needs,  and  met  these  needs  in 
an  intelligent  and  energetic  manner. 
British  trade  was  largely  confined  to  ex- 
porting coal  to  Russia  and  importing  cer- 
tain raw  materials.  It  had  little  to  do 
with  manufactured  articles.  His  third 
point  is  unfortunately  true. 

He  then  goes  on  to  state  that  the  Rev- 
olution has  suddenly  swept  away  all  of 
these  barriers,  and  that,  since  foreign 
trade  is  now  a  monopoly  of  the  state,  all 
tariffs    are    illogical    and    unnecessary. 
Furthermore,  "since  the  state  now  owns 
all   sources  of  natural  wealth,   foreign 
concerns  have  lost  their  corner  on  cer- 
tain valuable  markets  and  commodities." 
Evidently  when  he  wrote  this  sentence  he 
overlooked   the   fact   that,    a   few   para- 
graphs before,  he  had  quoted  the  words 
of    Chicherin    to    the    effect    that    the 
Soviet  Government  was  ready  to  grant 
concessions  and  permit  foreign  capital  to 
exploit  the  mines  and  forests  of  Russia. 
Mr.  Coyle  is  firmly  of  the  opinion — at 
least  he  says  so — that  if  the  Soviet  Gov- 
ernment is  recognized,  trade  can  begin 
at  once.    In  his  words  "there  is  only  one 
country  which  can  immediately  exchange 
with  us  value  for  value.    And  that  coun- 
try is  Russia."    But  a  little  further  on 
in  his  article,  he  slips  into  the  contradict- 
ory statement,  "we  must  not  forget  that 
Russia's  export  commodities  are  not  now 
in  storage  at  ports  of  clearance.        In 
many   cases    their   sources   are   several 
thousand   miles    inland    and    they   could 
not  be  immediately  transported  in  large 
quantities."     To  meet  this  contingency 
he  recommends  the  extension  of  a  short- 
term  credit  to  the  Soviet  Government  "to 
enable  it  to  utilize  our  first  shipments  of 
rolling  stock  for  the  collection  and  trans- 
portation of  goods  it  wishes  to  exchange 
with  us."     Considering  that  the  Soviet 
authorities  have  repudiated  the  foreign 
debt  of  Russia,  and  that  includes  $187,- 
000,000  lent  by  our  Government,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  millions  of  Russian  Gov- 
ernment obligations  held  by  private  citi- 


430] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  50 


zens  in  America,  this  proposal  to  extend 
a  short-term  credit  to  a  defaulting  cred- 
itor shows  charming  naivete.  One  won- 
ders what  the  frugal  French  peasants, 
who  lent  their  hard-earned  savings  to 
the  Russian  Government  to  build  the 
Trans-Siberian  and  other  railroads, 
would  think  about  it. 

A  further  conclusion  of  Mr.  Coyle  is 
that  "if  we  immediately  send  Russia 
sufiBcient  farm  machinery,  we  shall  not 
only  facilitate  the  collection  of  the  July 
harvest  in  the  Southern  black  soil  belt, 
but  also  enhance  the  Northern  yield  in 
September  and  October."  Considering 
the  length  of  time  required  to  manufac- 
ture and  transport  this  agricultural  ma- 
chinery to  Russian  ports,  Mr.  Coyle's 
estimate  shows  a  childlike  optimism ;  but 
when  one  also  realizes  that  even  if  the 
machinery  reached  Russian  ports  this 
summer,  it  could  not  be  transported  to 
the  interior  and  distributed  until  the 
railway  system  had  been  rehabilitated, 


the  absurdity  is  still  more  manifest. 
Even  here  we  have  another  statement  of 
Mr.  Coyle's  in  corroboration,  for,  speak- 
ing of  the  textile  industry,  he  says,  "yet, 
due  to  lack  of  transportation,  new  gar- 
ments in  the  provinces  are  practically  un- 
known outside  of  the  army."  The  trans- 
portation of  Russia  will  not  suffice  to 
carry  garments,  and  yet  he  proposes 
to  distribute  agricultural  machinery 
throughout  the  country! 

Is  any  further  comment  on  the 
Nation's  much  advertised  "authoritative" 
article  necessary?  Making  every  allow- 
ance for  the  Bolshevist  sympathies  of 
that  journal,  I  can  not  believe  that  its 
staff  is  so  devoid  of  intelligence  that  the 
patent  contradictions  and  misstatements 
in  the  article  could  have  escaped  their  at- 
tention. Since  the  public  is  likely  to  be 
gravely  misled,  will  not  Walter  Lippman 
and  Upton  Sinclair,  guardians  of  news- 
paper truth,  please  take  notice? 

Jerome  Landfield 


Correspondence 

Reactions  to  Mr.   Beck's   Letter 


Major  Putnam  Objects 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review  : 

In  the  Review  for  April  10  you  have 
brought  into  print  a  letter  from  Mr. 
James  M.  Beck,  in  which  he  makes  pro- 
test in  regard  to  certain  criticisms, 
in  your  editorial  "The  Wreck  of  the 
Treaty,"  of  the  action  of  Senator  Lodge. 
It  is  Mr.  Beck's  opinion  that  this  criti- 
cism is  without  justification. 

During  the  years  after  the  sinking 
of  the  Lusitania,  Mr.  Beck  rendered  loyal 
and  patriotic  service,  in  cooperation  with 
the  citizens  who  constituted  the  Ameri- 
can Rights  League  and  others,  in  arous- 
ing the  righteous  purpose  of  the  country 
in  order  that  America  might  do  its  duty 
in  the  world's  war.  Mr.  Beck  held  with 
us  that  America  was  shamefully  late  in 
coming  into  the  war,  and  that  this  de- 
lay of  two  years  or  more  in  our  war 
action,  and  a  further  delay  of  more  than 
twelve  months,  due  to  our  lack  of  intelli- 
gent preparedness,  after  the  decision  for 
war  had  been  arrived  at,  in  beginning 
the  cooperation  of  America,  brought 
upon  Europe  and  upon  America  itself  a 
serious  risk  of  domination  by  Prussian 
imperialism. 

At  the  time  of  the  discussion  in  regard 
to  America's  cooperation  in  the  war, 
Mr.  Beck  was  prepared  to  recognize  that 
America  had  a  duty  to  perform  as  a 
member  of  the  family  of  nations,  in 
helping  in  the  fight  to  maintain  civiliza- 
tion and  to  protect  national  liberties  and 
representative  government  on  both  sides 
of  the  Atlantic.  He  was  doubtless 
ready  also  to  recognize  that  such  action 


was  not  only  a  duty  but  constituted  a 
vital  interest  for  the  Republic.  It  is 
difficult  to  understand  why  he  and  his 
group  should  not  realize  that  a  similar 
duty  rests  upon  the  Republic  in  regard 
to  cooperation  with  our  late  AUiet?  for 
assuring  the  peace  of  Europe  and  of 
the  world. 

The  responsibility  for  the  shameful 
delay  in  taking  our  part  in  the  organiza- 
tion of  the  world  for  peace  rests  with 
Senator  Lodge  and  his  associates. 

Mr.  Beck  himself  appears  to  be  of 
opinion  that  the  present  situation  of 
America  is  unsatisfactory,  not  to  say 
humiliating.  Having  made  great  sac- 
rifices in  the  war  and  rendered  enor- 
mous service  to  Europe  and  the  world, 
America  is  now  without  a  friend  among 
the  non-aggressive  states  of  the  world. 

The  President's  management  of  the 
treaty  has  been  ill-advised  in  the  ex- 
treme. He  ought,  of  course,  to  have 
taken  with  him  to  Paris  representatives 
of  the  Republican  Party  to  be  selected 
by  the  leaders  of  the  party.  If  men 
like  Senator  Root,  Mr.  Taft,  and  Sena- 
tor Lodge  himself  had  been  asked  to  co- 
operate in  the  framing  of  the  treaty  in 
Paris,  the  compact  would  have  come  to 
this  country  not  as  a  Democratic  meas- 
ure, but  as  a  national  decision.  The 
blame  for  the  rejection  of  the  treaty, 
an  action  which  leaves  the  United  States 
outside  of  the  civilized  world,  rests,  how- 
ever, with  Lodge  and  his  Republican  as- 
sociates. The  Committee  on  Foreign 
Affairs,  as  made  up  under  Republi- 
can direction,  included  a  group  of  bitter 
opponents  of  the  League,  men  who  had 


opposed  America's  action  in  the  war.  It 
is  difficult  to  see  the  justice  of  praising 
the  leadership  of  Senator  Lodge  when 
the  result  of  this  leadership  has  been 
to  allow  the  action  of  the  Senate  and  the 
policy  of  the  country  to  be  determined 
by  a  group  of  fourteen  or  fifteen  ob- 
structionists led  by  such  a  "statesman" 
as  Senator  Reed,  of  Missouri. 

The  treaty  as  presented  to  the  Sen- 
ate is  not  Mr.  Wilson's  treaty,  although 
Lodge  and  his  associates  have  so  de- 
scribed it.  The  difficulty  with  Lodge's 
leadership  is  that  he  has  made  the  issue 
a  personal  matter  between  himself  and 
Mr.  Wilson.  He  said  frankly:  "I  am 
fighting  Mr.  Wilson."  The  wise  and 
proper  action  of  the  United  States  has 
been  interfered  with,  and  civilization 
itself  has  been  blocked  because  of  the 
self-sufficiency  of  two  men.  President 
Wilson  and  Senator  Lodge. 

The  treaty,  however,  as  presented  to 
the  Senate,  is  a  message  from  Europe. 
Mr.  Wilson  has  simply  acted  as  a  mes- 
senger in  bringing  the  document  with 
him  from  Paris.  No  single  state  con- 
cerned has  found  itself  satisfied  with  the 
provisions  of  this  treaty,  but  all  the 
states,  excepting  only  the  United  States, 
have  been  ready  to  sacrifice  their  own 
personal  preferences  rather  than  not  to 
see  some  compact  or  agreement  put  into 
shape.  Several  of  these  states  are  ac- 
cepting, in  coming  into  the  League,  risks 
and  burdens  much  greater  than  any  that 
could  come  upon  the  United  States,  tht 
strongest  and  richest  nation  in  the 
world.  If  each  of  the  other  Allies  had 
undertaken  to  nationalize  the  agreement 
as  the  United  States  Senate  considered 
it  essential  to  Americanize,  and  even  to 
Hibernianize,  the  agreement,  there  would, 
of  course,  have  been  no  possibility  of 
arriving  at  any  conclusion  at  all :  the  de- 
bates would  have  gone  on  indefinitely. 
The  opponents  of  the  treaty  include  not 
a  few  patriotic  citizens  like  Mr.  Beck 
whose  apprehensions  and  criticisms 
bring  very  keenly  to  memory  the  pro- 
tests and  arguments  of  the  opponents  of 
the  Constitution  in  the  great  debates  of 
1787-89.  The  opponents  of  the  League 
include  also,  however,  practically  all  of 
the  groups  which  opposed  America's  ac- 
tion in  the  war.  Mr.  Hearst,  with  the 
influence  of  his  chain  of  newspapers,  the 
pro-Germans,  the  pacifists  under  the 
direction  of  papers  like  the  Nation  and 
the  New  Republic,  the  men  who  cm- 
tended  that  "America  had  no  duties  in 
Europe"  and  who  look  upon  the  world 
from  what  may  be  called  a  "district" 
point  of  view,  men  of  whom  Senator  Reed 
is  a  type,  the  Socialists  and  the  I.  W.  W. 
— all  these  are  opponents  of  the  League, 
and  it  can  hardly  be  satisfactory  to  a 
patriotic  citizen  like  Mr.  Beck  to  find 
these  men  in  accord  with  his  position 
and  with  the  purpose  of  Senator  Lodge. 

The  letter  that  a  month  or  two  back 


April  24,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


came  to  us  from  Lord  Grey  was  pathetic 
in  its  appeal.  The  demand  for  help 
was  as  urgent  as  that  brought  by  Mr. 
Balfour  in  the  spring  of  1917.  England 
can  not  carry  alone  the  burden  of  ad- 
justing the  problems  of  Europe.  She 
needs,  and  has  a  right  to  depend  upon, 
the  cooperation  of  the  United  States. 
Lord  Grey  said  in  substance:  We  do 
not  think  it  worth  while  to  question  the 
changes  proposed  in  the  treaty.  We  will 
put  to  one  side  the  discourtesy  and  lack 
of  confidence  shown  in  these  reservations. 
The  essential  thing  is  to  get  now  the 
help  that  is  needed  and  to  have  America 
do  its  part  in  helping  to  adjust  the  prob- 
lems of  the  world. 

We  Americans  should  recognize  that 
this  is  not  only  a  duty,  but  an  essential 
interest  for  the  Republic.  The  action 
that  will  enable  this  duty  to  be  performed 
and  these  interests  to  be  protected  has 
been  blocked,  as  said,  because  of  the 
President's  bad  management  and  self- 
sufficiency  and  because  Senator  Lodge 
and  his  associates  have  persisted  in  mak- 
ing the  issue  personal  and  partisan.  We 
can  not  accept  the  view  that  leadership 
of  this  kind  is  wise  or  patriotic,  or  that 
it  gives  any  evidence  whatsoever  of  in- 
telligent, or  even  decent  statesmanship. 
George  Haven  Putnam 
New  York,  April  15 


[481 


A  Rap  for  "The  Review" 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

If  you  will  permit  me  to  speak  plainly, 
I  would  say  that  Mr.  Beck  has  afforded 
the  Review  opportunity  to  see  itself  as 
others  see  it.     All  the  way  through  the 
matter  of  the  "League  of  Nations"  the 
Review  has  been  less  good  than  it  should 
have   been.      It   should   have   seen    that 
there   were   three   different    grounds    it 
might    have    taken:    that    the    League 
should  be  adopted — and  shown  the  rea- 
sons;   that    the    League    should    not    be 
adopted — and  shown  the  reasons;  or  that 
the    welfare    of    our    Government    as    a 
political  structure  demanded  some  of  the 
things  proposed  and  could  not  admit  of 
others — and  made  them  clear.     But  the 
Review  was  not  definite  and  clear  in  the 
1   matter  in  any  large  conception  of  it,  and 
consequently  failed  to  rise  to  its  oppor- 
tunity. 

C.  D.  HiGBY 
Erie,  Pa.,  April  14 

Thanks  to  Senator  Lodge 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

On  subscribing  for  the  Review,  I  took 
occasion  to  congratulate  myself  and  your 
other  readers  upon  the  existence,  char- 
acter, and  purpose  of  such  a  paper.  You 
kindly  assured  me  in  reply  that  you 
would  be  glad  to  hear  from  me  at  any 
time. 

I  can  at  least  express  the  great  satis- 


faction which  I  take  in  the  Review  when 
I  wish  to  add  one  to  those  "whom  no 
man  can  number"  in  dissent  from  your 
estimate  of  Senator  Lodge  and  his  serv- 
ice  for  our  nation.  I  am  confident  that 
Mr.  James  M.  Beck  expresses  the  grate- 
ful convictions  of  the  great  majority  of 
your  readers  and  of  the  whole  people. 

I  write  this  because  it  is  a  gratifica- 
tion to  express  a  personal  appreciation 
of  this  eminent  statesman  and  his  suc- 
cess in  keeping  us  out  of  a  disastrous 
national  entanglement— while  it  gives 
me  opportunity  to  say  how  much  I  like 
the  Review. 

A.  F.  Beakd 
New  York,  April  11 

As  to   American   Independence 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

Mr.  Beck's  letter  in  defense  of  Senator 
Lodge  was  much   appreciated   in   large 
part  by  many.     But  what  some  of  us 
would  like  to  know  is  wherein  the  lute 
victory  of  the   Senate  over  the  Presi- 
dent resulted  in  "saving  the  independence 
of  America."    We  can  not  see  that  either 
England,  France,  or  Italy  has  sacrificed 
its    independence   or    its    national    sov- 
ereignty by  entering  the  League,   and 
certainly  what  is  freedom   enough   for 
those  nations  which  stood  so  much  more 
of  the  brunt  of  the  war  than  we  did 
should  be  freedom  enough  for  us.    And 
what  some  of  us  are  far  more  concerned 
about   than   the  question  of  our   inde- 
pendence  or   our   rights,    important   as 
this  may  be,  is  the  question  of  our  inter- 
dependence and  our  obligations   to  civ- 
ilization.    We  dislike  to  think  of  .our- 
selves  as  too  good  or  "too   proud"   to 
soil  our  hands  with   "purely  European 
questions,"  for  in  these  days  there  are 
no  purely  European  questions.     What- 
ever  is   vital   to   civilization   or   to    the 
peace  of  the  world  is  our  concern,  and 
many  of  us  are  considerably  ashamed 
of   the   stand   which   our   once   honored 
country  seems  to  be  taking  in  the  face 
of  to-day's  world-unrest. 

Jared  S.  Moore 
Western  Reserve   University, 
Cleveland,  Ohio,  April  14 


—proof  of  attempted  bribery  so  rank  as 
to  excite  feelings  of  disgust  in  the  mind 
of  the  unpartisan  citizen. 

That  Ford  employed  the  same  tactics 
during  the  campaign  is  no  excuse;  on 
the  contrary,  it  doubles  the  offense 
against  the  law  and  public  decency. 

To  make  the  affair  even  more  sin- 
ister, Newberry's  manager  (jointly  con- 
victed) issued  and  published  a  statement 
as  soon  as  the  verdict  was  rendered,  iii 
which  he  defied  the  judge  and  public 
prosecutor,  and  flouted  the  law  under 
which  the  conviction  was  had. 
"J^r^  Goldman,  Berkman,  or  other 
Reds,"  deported  or  undeported,  ever 
uttered  more  seditious  words  or  done 
anything  more  calculated  to  bring  the 
administration  of  justice  into  contempt? 

W.  E.  V. 
Princeton,  N.  J.,  March  25. 


The  Newberry  Trial 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

The  scant  comment  of  the  New  York 
press,  with  one  or  two  trenchant  excep- 
tions, on  the  Newberry  conviction  is 
ominous  when  it  is  recalled  that  a  jury 
in  the  Federal  Court  found  him  guilty, 
together  with  a  score  or  more  of  his 
party  adherents,  of  conspiracy  against 
the  Corrupt  Practices  Act. 

The  testimony  at  the  trial,  which 
lasted  many  weeks,  showed  a  vast  outlay 
of  money  in  every  conceivable  way,  from 
subsidizing  the  press  to  giving  gasoline, 
unasked,  to  ministers  of  rural  churches 


Wild  Life  Preservation 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

I  strongly  endorse  every  word  of  your 
editorial  of  April  17,  on  "The  Preserva- 
tion of  Wild  Life."  Your  proposal  for  a 
national  commission  on  ways  and  means 
IS  a  great  idea,  and  I  hope  that  I  shall  live 
to  see  it  carried  into  effect,  on  an  ideal 
basis.  Whenever  the  5,000,000  sports- 
men and  hunters  of  America  can  be  made 
to  realize  the  fact  that  their  own  sport 
is  on  the  toboggan  slide  and  going 
straight  to  Oblivion,  they  will  want  just 
such  a  saving  factor  as  you  propose. 

The  present  destruction  of  game, 
through  absurd  hunting  licenses,  wicked' 
bag  limits,  and  (some)  criminal  open 
seasons,  I  regard  with  great  alarm  and 
anxiety.  In  a  short  time  my  views  will 
be  in  type,  and  ready  for  distribution. 
I  believe  that  the  game  shooters  of 
America  now  must  cut  down  their  kill- 
ings by  50  per  cent,  or  they  will  extermi- 
nate their  own  game  and  sport.  Will 
they  do  this  before  it  is  too  late? 

A  national  commission,  as  broad  and 
as  well  grounded  as  you  propose,  could 
serve  a  host  of  admirable  purposes — pro- 
vided the  States  would  pay  heed  to  its 
warnings  and  advice.    Perhaps  some  day 
it  will  represent  the  last  call  to  the  ex- 
terminators to  "Beware!"  and  "Put  on 
the  brakes!"    Naturally,  the  Commission 
should  consist  of  fearless  experts,   and 
be,   like  Caesar's  wife,  above  suspicion. 
Its    members    should    be    as    Theodore 
Roosevelt  was— never  afraid,  and  seldom 
cautious.     If  it  could  not  make  up  its 
mind  to  act  with  all  the  boldness  that 
emergencies  demand,  then  it  should  not 
be  born.     If  it  would  hew  to  the  line, 
"cry   aloud,   and   spare   not,"   then   the 
friends  of  wild  life  should  prepare  for  it 
a  rousing  welcome;  for  on  that  basis  it  is 
sorely  needed  at  this  critical  hour. 

William  T.  Hornaday 
New  York,  April  18 


432] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  50 


The   Anglo-Persian    Treaty 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

The  probability  of  Great  Britain's 
making  a  protectorate  of  Persia  through 
the  instrumentality  of  this  treaty  has 
been  frequently  mentioned  in  the  press 
and  diplomatic  circles.  The  fact  that  it 
was  negotiated  while  the  Peace  Confer- 
ence was  discussing  "the  real  blessings 
and  permanent  advantages  of  concord 
between  the  nations,"  which  was  to  guar- 
antee forever  the  "political  independence 
and  territorial  integrity  of  great  and 
small  nations  alike,"  has  aroused  dis- 
pleasure not  only  in  Persia,  but  in  Amer- 
ica and  France  and  in  England  as  well. 

Positive  denial  is  made  by  Lord  Cur- 
zon  with  regard  to  having  a  protectorate 
over  Persia,  but  the  fact  is  that  this 
treaty,  although  recognizing  the  inde- 
pendence of  Persia,  takes  away  by  its 
terms  all  of  her  independent  rights  and 
robs  her  of  her  sovereignty.  This  opin- 
ion is  frankly  admitted  by  the  Paris 
Temps  which,  in  commenting  upon  this 
question,  says  "Since  Persia  promises  to 
confide  its  army  only  to  British  officers 
and  its  finances  only  to  British  special- 
ists, it  has  no  longer  force  or  resources 
to  exercise  its  sovereignty." 

In  view  of  these  realities,  this  treaty 
appears,  therefore,  of  sufficient  import- 
ance to  quote  here  its  full  contents. 

On  August  9,  1919,  the  following 
treaty  was  signed  by  the  Persian  Gov- 
ernment and  His  Britannic  Majesty's 
Minister  at  Teheran: 

It  is  hereby  agreed  between  the  Persian 
Goyemment  on  the  one  hand  and  His  Britannic 
Majesty's  Minister  acting  on  behalf  of  his 
Government,  on  the  other  hand,  as  follows : 

1.  The  British  Government  reiterates  in  the 
most  categorical  manner  the  undertakings 
which  they  have  repeatedly  given  in  the  past 
to  respect  absolutely  the  independence  and 
integrity  of  Persia. 

2.  The  British  Government  will  supply,  at 
the  cost  of  the  Persian  Government,  the  serv- 
ices of  whatever  expert  advisers  may,  after  a 
consultation  between  the  two  Governments,  be 
considered  necessary  for  the  several  depart- 
ments of  the  Persian  administration.  These 
advisers  shall  be  engaged  on  contracts  and  en- 
dowed with  adequate  powers,  the  nature  of 
which  shall  be  a  matter  of  agreement  between 
the  Persian  Government  and  the  advisers. 

3.  The  British  Government  will  supply,  at 
the  cost  of  the  Persian  Government,  such 
officers  and  such  munitions  and  equipment  of 
modern  type  as  may  be  adjudged  necessary 
by  a  joint  commission  of  military  experts, 
British  and  Persian,  which  shall  be  assembled 
forthwith  for  the  purpose  of  estimating  the 
needs  of  Persia  in  respect  to  the  formation 
of  the  uniform  force  which  the  Persian  Gov- 
ernment purposes  to  create  for  the  establish- 
ment and  preservation  of  order  in  the  coun- 
try and  its  frontiers. 

4.  For  the  purpose  of  financing  the  reforms 
indicated  in  clauses  two  and  three  of  this 
agreement,  the  British  Government  offers  to 
provide  or  arrange  a  substantial  loan  for  the 
Government  of  Persia  for  which  adequate 
security  shall  be  sought  by  the  two  Govern- 
ments in  consultation,  in  the  revenues  of  the 
customs,  or  other  sources  of  income  at  the  dis- 
posal of  the  Persian  Government.  Pending 
completion   of   negotiations    for    such   a   loan, 


the  British  Government  will  supply  on  account 
of  it  such  funds  as  may  be  needed  for  initiat- 
ing the  salient  features  of  reforms. 

5.  The  British  Government,  fully  recogniz- 
ing the  urgent  need  which  exists  for  the  im- 
provement of  communications  in  Persia,  both 
with  a  view  to  the  extension  of  trade  and  the 
prevention  of  famine,  is  required  to  cooperate 
with  the  Persian  Government  for  the  encour- 
agement of  Anglo-Persian  forms  of  transport ; 
subject  always  to  the  examination  of  the  prob- 
lem by  experts  and  to  agreement  between  the 
two  Governments  as  to  the  particular  projects 
which  may  be  most  necessary,  practicable  and 
profitable. 

6.  The  two  Governments  agree  to  the  ap- 
pointment forthwith  of  a  joint  committee  of 
experts  for  the  examination  and  revision  of 
the  existing  customs  tariff  with  a  view  to  its 
reconstruction  on  a  basis  calculated  to  accord 
with  the  legitimate  interests  of  the  country  and 
to  promote  its  prosperity. 

Primarily,  this  treaty  is  claimed  to  be 
unconstitutional  and  legally  of  no  effect 
from  the  Persian  point  of  view,  as  it  was 
concluded  at  a  moment  when  there  was 
no  parliament*  (Mejliss)  to  ratify  it. 
Secondly,  it  was  negotiated  at  the  time 
when  the  British  troops  were  in  posses- 
sion of  the  Persian  territory.  Thirdly 
and  finally,  the  present  Persian  Cabinet 
is  not,  constitutionally  speaking,  recog- 
nized by  the  Persian  people.  Their  ap- 
pointment, in  order  to  be  effective,  must 
be  confirmed  by  the  Persian  Parliament. 
This  Cabinet  has  not  as  yet  been  pre- 
sented by  the  Shah  to  the  Mejliss,  and 
the  fact  that  the  majority  of  the  Cabinet 
members  are  devout  adherents  of  the 
old  pre-constitutional  regime  of  Persia 
and  subject  to  backshish  makes  them  not 
only  unpopular  but  extremely  suspicious. 
According  to  the  information,  which  is 
believed  to  be  quite  accurate,  the  pres- 
ent Persian  Cabinet  not  only  disregards 
constitutional  powers  and  limitations, 
but,  since  its  term  of  office,  has  exiled, 
merely  on  account  of  disagreeing  with 
their  views,  over  sixty  former  ministers 
and  members  of  the  Mejliss.  Among  this 
list  there  are  the  names  of  Mohtashemas 
Saltaneh,  several  times  member  of  the 
Foreign  and  the  Finance  Department; 
Mamtazol  Molk  (Gen.  Mortza  Khan), 
ex-minister  of  Persia  to  the  United 
States,  and  ex-Minister  of  Education  at 
the  time  of  his  exile;  Mamtazol  Dovel, 
ex-president  of  Mejliss;  IJIostashor-ed- 
Dovleh,  ex-Minister  of  the  Interior.  It 
is  thus  seen  that  the  Persian  troubles 
are  not  from  without  but  from  within. 
All  the  blame  rests  on  the  dishonest  and 
unreliable  government  officials  whose 
business  is  in  giving  or  receiving  back- 
shish, and  deceiving  the  Persian  people. 

As  for  the  material  help  that  Persia 
can  obtain  from  England  at  the  present 
time,  there  seems  to  be  a  great  deal  of 
pessimism.  Some  people  believe  that  it 
will  take   Great  Britain  many   decades 


before  she  can  recoup  herself  financially 
from  the  effects  of  the  Great  War,  and 
in  advancing  money  to  Persia  just  now 
she  must  have  a  motive  in  view.  It  is 
said  that  England  will  advance  annually, 
at  seven  per  cent,  interest,  2,000,000 
pounds  for  a  period  of  twenty  years,  and, 
as  a  guarantee  for  the  payment  of  this 
loan,  Persia  will  pledge  all  her  revenue 
and  customs  receipts.  That  Persia  does 
not  get  sufficient  consideration  to  war- 
rant her  in  making  this  treaty  is  to  say 
the  least.  In  fact,  England  with  only 
2,000,000  pounds  obtains  control  of  a 
country  with  an  area  of  638,000  square 
miles,  an  empire  more  than  twice  the 
size  of  the  State  of  Texas. 

In  view  of  what  has  happened  in  Per- 
sia in  the  past  with  regard  to  that 
famous  tobacco  concession  of  1890,  which 
caused  the  assassination  of  Nasred-Din 
Shah  in  1896  for  selling  this  important 
product  of  Persia  to  the  British  capi- 
talists for  money  to  be  used  for  his  own 
pleasures,  and  in  view  of  that  Anglo- 
Russian  Agreement  of  1907,  which 
divided  Persia  between  Russia  and  Eng- 
land under  the  terms  of  "Spheres  of 
influence"  and  "Specific  penetrations," 
which  was  the  cause  of  the  Persian  up- 
rising, what  assurance,  it  may  be  asked, 
can  there  be  that  the  same  course  of 
procedure  will  not  take  place  with  ref- 
erence to  this  new  treaty  if  it  is  put  in 
operation?  There  is  only  one  thing  to 
prevent  it,  and  that  is  the  revolution. 

The  seriousness  of  such  a  cataclysm 
can  hardly  be  overestimated.  An  up- 
rising in  Persia  against  the  British  rule 
would  spread  like  fire  in  India  and  Egypt. 
It  would  have  a  sweeping  effect  upon 
millions  of  inhabitants  in  these  coun- 
tries. As  the  English  hold  in  these 
lands  is  no  firmer  than  the  walls  of 
Jericho,  a  strong  revolutionary  wind  can 
shake  it  flat  to  the  earth.  Persia  has 
always  found  much  sympathy  in  India, 
not  only  on  the  ground  of  close  ethnic 
relations,  but  on  account  of  cogent  re- 
ligious ties  (both  being  the  Shies  and 
followers  of  Mohammed).  A  revolution- 
ary movement  would,  therefore,  be  effec- 
tively supported  by  the  Shies  and  wel- 
comed by  the  Sunnies.J 

On  the  other  hand,  it  must  be  remem- 
bered that  the  safety  of  the  world  de- 
pends on  the  English-speaking  people, 
therefore  a  strong  English  rule  with  the 
cooperation  of  the  United  States  will  un- 
doubtedly secure  the  natural  rights  of 
the  Persians,  and  it  will  much  improve 
the  condition  of  the  peasant  and  the 
fellah  who  are  now  in  a  miserable  plight. 
YOUEL  B.  MiRZA 

Washington,  D.  C,  April  15 


•Art.  24  of  the  Persian  Constitution  states  that 
"Treaties,  Conventions,  the  Granting  of  Concessions 
or  Monopolies,  either  commercial,  industrial  or  agri- 
cultural, whether  the  other  party  be  a  native  or  a 
foreigner,  can  only  be  done  with  the  approval  of  the 
National  Assembly   or   Parliament. 


tCf.  Gibbon's  *'The  New  Map  of  Asia,"  p.  277. 

JThe  number  of  Mohammedans  is  variously  esti- 
mated at  from  three  hundred  fifty  to  four  hundred 
million.  They  arc  divided  into  several  branches  and 
sub-branches,  but  the  Sunnies  and  Shies  are  the  great- 
est of  all  Islamic  political  parties.  Persians  and 
Mohammedans  of  India  are  Shies. 


April  24,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[433 


Book  Reviews 

'The  Real  Nature  of  Man" 

Education  During  Adolescence.  By  Ransom 
A.  Mackie.  New  York:  E.  P.  Dutton  and 
Company. 

THE  bibliography  of  some  two  hun- 
dred and  sixty  numbers  appended  to 
this  book  confirms  the  reviewer's  con- 
viction that  the  recent  German  and 
American  literature  of  education  is  a 
new  scholasticism,  no  less  tautologous  in 
its  supererogatory  verbosity  than  the 
old — and  much  less  logical  and  more 
futile,  its  divagations  being  controlled 
by  nothing  so  definite  and  coherent  as 
the  basic  study  of  Aristotle. 

Mr.  Mackie  is  a  fervent  disciple  of 
President  Stanley  Hall  and  composes  his 
book  for  the  greater  glory  of  that  "focus 
of  international  interest  and  admiration," 
who  sets  the  seal  of  official  approval  upon 
his  own  apotheosis  in  a  commendatory 
introduction.  A  medley  of  extracts  and 
resumes  taken  from  the  writings  of 
President  Hall  himself  and  of  lesser  con- 
tributors to  the  pedagogical  seminary 
floats  on  a  turbid  stream  of  denuncia- 
tion of  "the  stone  wall  of  conservatism" 
and  the  older  culture  with  its  supposed 
shibboleths  of  exclusive  classics  and 
mathematics  and  discipline  for  disci- 
pline's sake.  The  new  era  for  which  this 
older  education  will  no  longer  suffice  is 
to  introduce  a  psychogenetic  pedagogy 
based  on  the  psychology  of  adolescence 
which  will  ask  as  the  genetic  psycho- 
logists have  long  been  doing,  "what  is 
the  real  nature  of  man,"  and  proceed  to 
"reevaluate  everything  in  terms  of  man's 
innate  capacities  and  spontaneities." 
From  this  revolution  will  come,  among 
other  things,  the  practical  suppression 
of  Latin,  which  "cripples  the  vernacular," 
the  reading  of  magazines  and  such  books 
as  Ellwood's  "Sociology  and  Modern  So- 
cial Problems"  instead  of  the  English 
classics,  and  the  substitution  of  the 
"crispy,  staccato,  lingua  franca  of 
youth"  for  "the  language  and  style  of 
Burke,  Macaulay  and  Addison  which 
would  not  be  tolerated  in  Congress." 

Iteration  is  the  method  employed  to 
drive  home  these  saving  truths.  On 
few  pages  are  we  allowed  to  forget  that 
education  must  study  the  needs  and  na- 
ture of  the  child,  not  the  logic  of  the 
subject,  that  it  is  preparation  for  life, 
not  preparation  for  college,  that  adoles- 
cence is  effervescence  and  abhors  pre- 
cision, that  it  is  indispensable  to  "vital- 
ize" the  school  and  "socialize"  the  recita- 
tion. The  polemic  against  Latin  is  as 
incessant  as  it  is  in  the  class  rooms  of 
the  schools  of  education.  Herbert  Spen- 
cer's elementary  arguments  are  repro- 
duced with  the  elegant  variations  and  the 
dainty  metaphors  of  Professor  Alexan- 
der Chamberlain,  and  with  no  hint  of  the 


considerations  by  which  they  must  be 
qualified  or  of  the  literature  in  which 
they  have  been  answered.  The  invidious 
appeal  to  the  high  school  to  revolt  against 
the  tyrannous  domination  of  collegiate 
prescription  is  reiterated  with  utter  dis- 
regard of  the  actual  facts  of  the  pres- 
ent situation.  And  neither  President 
Hall  nor  his  disciple  feels  any  scruple  in 
presenting  the  problem  of  "disciplinary 
values"  in  its  crudest  and  most  ques- 
tion-begging form  with  no  warning  to 
the  reader  of  the  extent  to  which  all 
psychologists  who  respect  their  reputa- 
tions have  "hedged"  in  the  matter  by 
liberal  concessions  to  the  teachings  of 
plain  common  sense  and  experience. 

Education,  as  in  other  books  of  this 
class,  is  taken  in  the  lump.  TJie  occa- 
sional perfunctory  recognition  of  differ- 
ent kinds  of  education  is  sustained  by  no 
effective,  continuous  discrimination  of 
the  various  types,  grades,  and  economic 
social  or  cultural  subdivisions  of  educa- 
tion in  the  concrete.  It  is  just  educa- 
tion. The  new  education  is  to  be  pri- 
marily and  predominantly  vocational. 
Some  leisure  may  remain  for  more  gen- 
eral and  cultural  studies,  provided  that 
they  are  modern,  social,  and,  above  all, 
inexact.  The  studies  that  may  be  pre- 
scribed or  approved  for  all  students  are 
contemporary  English,  carefully  guarded 
from  all  contamination  by  English  clas- 
sics or  confusing  Latin  etymologies, 
sociology  or  civics,  and  history,  studied 
by  the  problem  method  and  in  the  social- 
ized class  room.  By  the  problem  method 
in  economics  pupils  "can  analyze  expendi- 
tures of  their  own  families"  and  "formu- 
late the  expenditure  of  fifteen  hundred 
dollars  a  year  for  a  family  containing 
four  children."  Applied  to  history  the 
problem  method  (in  defiance  of  Quintil- 
ian  and  Mr.  Trevelyan's  "Clio,  a  Muse") 
casts  everything  in  the  form  of  a  propo- 
sition to  be  proved.  "Prove  that  the  time 
from  1783  to  1789  was  'the  critical 
period'  in  American  history."  "Prove 
that  the  Renaissance  was  a  period  of  tre- 
mendous change  in  Europe."  "We  de- 
voted eight  days  to  this  problem."  "In 
the  third  lesson  we  proved  that  there 
was  a  revival  of  architecture  in  the 
Renaissance."  Though  the  new  psy- 
chology has  exploded  the  superstition 
that  there  is  any  disciplinary  value  or 
mental  training  in  classics  and  mathe- 
matics, it  appears  that  it  is  otherwise 
with  history  taught  in  this  fashion.  "It 
supplies  a  kind  of  intellectual  training 
that  can  be  secured  in  but  few  other 
ways."  It  even  apparently  reinstates  the 
discredited  "faculty  psychology,"  since  it 
"enlarges  the  student's  mind,  cultivates 
his  perception,  stimulates  his  memory, 
and  trains  his  judgment." 

Such  unvocational  study  of  literature, 
sociology,  and  history  can  do  no  harm 
if  redeemed  in  the  socialized  class  room 
from  the  tyranny  of  pedantic  dictation 


from  above  and  the  superstitious  ac- 
curacy which  is  the  vice  of  the  classicist. 
President  Hall's  experience  as  a  writer 
has  convinced  him  in  his  own  immortal 
apophthegm  that  "accuracy  atrophies." 
If  he  had  delayed  to  verify  his  references 
and  correct  his  own  or  his  typewriter's 
spelling  of  the  queer  words  which  his 
desultory  reading  and  his  Germanized 
culture  deposited  in  his  notebooks,  the 
stream  of  inspiration  might  have  dried 
up  before  those  mighty  reservoirs 
"Adolescence,"  "Jesus  the  Christ,"  and 
"Educational  Problems,"  were  filled.  In 
his  own  words,  again,  "the  school-bred 
habit  of  accurate  and  painstaking  fa- 
miliarity with  a  few  things  such  as  pro- 
fessors of  literature  inculcate  .  .  . 
would  greatly  slow  down  my  pace  and 
cool  my  ardor."  His  study  of  the 
adolescent  mind  has  convinced  him  that 
adolescence  is  naturally  expansive  and 
recalcitrant  to  the  restraints  of  accuracy. 
And  the  fosterings  of  this  salutary  de- 
fense-reaction in  the  youth  of  American 
high  schools  is  the  first  task  of  a  re- 
formed and  psycho-genetic  education  that 
spurns  the  yoke  of  Latin  and  mathe- 
matics. It  is  perhaps  in  unconscious 
subservience  to  this  aim  that  these  pages 
still  retain  a  few  of  the  gems  that  so 
profusely  adorn  President  Hall's  own 
more  ambitious  work.  The  "consensus 
of  opinion"  may  serve  once  more  to  illus- 
trate the  uselessness  of  Latin.  A  "floating 
plankton"  may  remind  the  reader  that, 
as  Xenophon  said  of  Socrates,  though  the 
master  regarded  such  knowledge  as  use- 
less, he  was  not  himself  unacquainted 
with  it.  And  the  defiant  repetition  of 
the  statement  that  Plato  "reproached" 
Aristotle  as  a  reader  shows  how  li*tle 
the  true  philosopher  is  to  be  awed  from 
the  career  of  his  humor  by  the  carping 
cavils  of  a  classicist. 

There  are,  of  course,  some  good  ideas 
in  the  book  and  much  praise  of  things 
that  in  due  place  and  proportion  are 
praiseworthy.  The  "socialized  recita- 
tion," for  example,  may  be  a  helpful  de- 
vice if  regarded  only  as  a  corrective  of 
the  kind  of  teaching,  if  it  still  survives, 
that  calls  for  a  verbatim  recitation  of 
paragraph  3  on  page  50  of  the  history  or 
the  grammar.  But  every  teacher  who, 
in  Rooseveltian  phrase,  is  worth  his  salt, 
knows  that  without  intelligent  direction 
and  the  check  of  peremptory  closure, 
class-room  discussion  rapidly  degenerates 
into  the  time-wasting  triviality  of  the 
experience  meeting.  Even  Plotinus 
found  this  out  when  he  socialized  the 
discussion  of  Platonic  love  in  his  class 
room. 

Good  or  plausible  ideas  are  as  plentiful 
as  blackberries.  No  one  who  takes  notes 
in  a  library  can  miss  them.  And  noth- 
ing is  easier  than  to  praise  idealism, 
modernism,  reform,  "life,"  and  "vitaliza- 
tion"  in  the  abstract,  and  denounce  in 
general  terms  pedantry,  prescription,  and 


434] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  50 


conservatism.  It  is  the  work  of  intelli- 
gence to  coordinate,  harmonize,  relate, 
and  adjust  conflicting  ideas  and  ideals, 
and  to  praise  and  censure  educational 
methods  and  practices  with  nice  dis- 
crimination of  time,  place,  measure,  and 
purpose.  I  find  nothing  of  that  kind  of 
reasoning  in  this  book,  and  little  in  the 
literature  of  which  it  is  a  sample. 

If  this  be  thought  a  harsh  and  illiberal 
judgment,  I  will  apologize  when  anyone 
points  out  in  the  book  any  ideas  that 
are  at  once  new,  true,  and  significant ; 
any  truths  that  are  not  either  truisms 
or  irresponsible  exaggerations  of  partial 
aspects  of  truth;  any  considerable  se- 
quence of  coherent  argument  or  discus- 
sion that  takes  due  account  of  excep- 
tions and  qualifications,  or  does  even- 
balanced  justice  to  the  consideration  of 
every  side  of  the  question.  Meanwhile, 
the  author  and'  President  Stanley  Hall 
may  cheer  themselves  by  the  reflection 
that  one  dissentient  ceview  will  do  little 
harm.  The  book  will  doubtless  be  wel- 
comed as  a  "contribution  to  educational 
science"  by  the  spokesmen  of  the  large 
and,  I  sometimes  fear,  growing  public 
that  flocks  to  the  lectures  of  Sir  Oliver 
Lodge,  that  subscribes  to  the  memory- 
training  course  of  the  gentleman  who 
remembers  the  names  and  the  telephone 
numbers  of  the  Rotary  Club  of  Seattle, 
and  is  not  offended  by  full-page  adver- 
tisements of  Pelmanism  from  the  pen  oT 
one  who  but  a  few  years  ago  was  the 
oflScial  guide  of  American  patriotic 
opinion. 

Paul  Shorey 

America  Unveiled 

OuK  America.    By  Waldo  Frank.    New  York : 
Boni  and  Liveright. 

ONE  strives  with  patient  endeavor  to 
learn  what  all  this  foaming  cascade 
of  syllables  is  about.  It  appears  that 
things  are  in  a  dreadful  mess  and  have 
been  so  for  the  last  two  hundred  years. 
Puritanism,  pioneering,  and  materialism 
would  seem  to  be  the  chief  causes.  A 
great  Darkness  lies  upon  the  land.  But 
let  no  real  lover  of  America  despair. 
The  night  is  pierced  here  and  there  by 
the  gleam  of  signal  fires,  lit  by  revolu- 
tionary minute  men,  and  within  the  mass 
of  the  dark  people  the  impulse  of  new 
aspirations  begins  to  stir.  "The  Old 
Guard — martyrs  like  Eugene  Debs,  Wil- 
liam Haywood,  Emma  Goldman — re- 
ligious, nostalgic  for  prisons — find  at 
last  the  brains  and  culture  of  a  younger 
generation  to  fertilize  their  martyrdom." 
"Nostalgic  for  prisons"  is  a  fetching 
phrase,  which  brings  up  visions  of  the 
Prisoner  of  Chillon,  Torquato  Tasso,  the 
Man  with  the  Iron  Mask,  Silvio  Pellico, 
and  other  victims  of  long  immurement 
in  earless  dungeons.  But  fetching  as  it  is, 
the  observant  reader  can  not  but  wonder 
what  it  is  doing  here.    For  homesickness 


for  prisons  is  not  a  common  complaint, 
and  it  is  developed,  if  at  all,  in  only 
one  way.  Now  it  happens  that  of  the 
trio  named,  Mr.  Debs,  prior  to  his  recent 
conviction,  had  undergone  only  one  im- 
prisonment— a  six  months'  term  in  Wood- 
stock jail  nearly  twenty-five  years  ago, 
in  the  summer  and  autumn  of  1895 ;  Mr. 
Haywood,  kidnapped  from  Colorado,  had 
been  held  in  the  Boise  penitentiary  until 
he  was  freed  by  a  jury  verdict;  while 
Miss  Goldman,  more  lucky  or  more  tact- 
ful than  the  others,  had  been  conspicu- 
ously scant  of  the  experience  necessary 
for  acquiring  this  dower  of  martyrdom. 
How,  then,  might  they  have  acquired 
this  imputed  nostalgia?  The  author 
scorns  to  explain.  And  by  what  charac- 
teristic symptoms  has  it  been  shown? 
There  is  no  answer.  Is  there,  the  observ- 
ant reader  may  ask,  in  any  speech  or 
writing  of  either  of  the  two  who  had 
suffered  brief  terms  of  imprisonment 
— and.  neither  is  what  might  be  called  a 
reticent  man — any  expression  of  regret 
for  the  loss  of  a  loved  home,  any  reminis- 
cence of  regaining  freedom  with  a  sigh? 
Again  there  is  no  answer.  One  may 
wonder,  also,  if  the  true  and  unmistak- 
able symptoms  of  this  "nostalgia  for 
prisons"  are  to  be  found  in  the  resort 
to  all  legal  means  of  defense;  in  consent 
to  the  solicitation  of  defense  funds;  in 
application  for  writs  of  habeas  corpus; 
in  appeals  from  verdicts  and  decisions. 
May  not  such  activities  rather  seem,  to 
the  ordinary  person,  the  symptoms  of  a 
form  of  claustrophobia — of  a  stubborn 
and  unreasoning  prejudice  against  any 
confinement  whatever?  But  it  is  too 
much  to  require  of  a  revolutionary  writer 
— a  harbinger  of  the  Great  Dawn — that 
he  cancel  a  phrase  so  fondly  conceived 
out  of  regard  for  an  objection  so  trivial. 
That  the  words  have  only  a  dubious  in- 
trinsic sense  and  no  fitness  to  the  in- 
stances given  is  a  small  matter;  what 
counts  is  the  fetchingness  of  the  phrase. 
There  is  much  more  of  this  kind  of  thing. 
This  America  is  a  land  whose  people 
bear  the  singular  distinction  of  being  in 
both  their  first  childhood  and  their  sec- 
ond. They  "are  still  in  the  baby  stage 
of  playing  with  their  toes"  (p.  196),  and 
yet  "Everywhere  is  the  impotence  of 
senility"  (p.  230).  The  penury  of  Amer- 
ica is  manifold.  The  people  have  no 
soul,  no  spiritual  or  aesthetic  energy.  "All 
of  the  peasant  and  proletarian  peoples  of 
Europe  have  this  deep  potential  energy, 
religious,  esthetic.  .  .  .  Here  Amer- 
ica, of  all  lands,  is  poorest"  (p.  231). 
America  has,  indeed,  nothing  except  mo- 
tion pictures.  "The  whole  world  now 
has  its  cinemas.  America  alone  has 
nothing  else"  .(P-  214).  Its  universities 
are  "for  the  most  part  the  incubators 
of  reaction"  (p.  209) — a  curious  com- 
ment in  view  of  the  fact  that  virtually 
all  the  parlor  Bolsheviki  are  college  bred. 
Its  press  is  venal,  and  the  multitude  who 


might  naturally  catch  the  meaning  of  the 
gifted  revolutionary  seers  and  prophets 
is  unable  because  it  "is  too  enslaved  and 
enfeebled  by  the  poisonous  pabulum  with 
which  Busine.ss  persistently  has  fed  it" 
(p.  209).  But  there  is  no  need  to  go  on. 
It  is  all  bad  (except  for  Walt  Whitman, 
"Bill"  Haywood  (p.  228,  230),  Oswald 
Garrison  Villard  (p.  228),  Van  Wyck 
Brooks,  the  late  Randolph  Bourne,  and  a 
few  others),  has  always  been,  and  will  al- 
ways be  unless  something  is  done  about  it. 
There  is  some  discrepancy  between  the 
unrelieved  pessimism  shown  on  some 
pages  and  the  qualified  hopefulness 
shown  on  others ;  but  no  attempt  at  har- 
monizing this  difficulty  can  be  made  here. 
On  the  whole,  the  book  is  a  terrific  in- 
dictment. Not  in  many  a  day  has  so  re- 
sounding a  slap  been  delivered  on  the 
wrist  of  your  Uncle  Samuel. 

Almost  anybody,  it  may  be  thought, 
gifted  with  a  lack  both  of  inhibitions  and 
of  misgivings,  could  write  such  a  book. 
But  to  think  so  is  to  fall  into  grievous 
error.  This  offering  is,  for  the  time,  a 
unique  accomplishment.  It  reaches  to 
heights,  depths,  and  lateral  expanses  of 
the  fantastic  not  heretofore  attained,  and 
at  times  it  seems  to  be  pushing  out  for  a 
fourth  dimension.  Its  fellow  is  not  likely 
to  appear  for.  some  time. 

W.  J.  Ghent 

Italy  Warm  and  Cold 

Souls  Divided  (Ella  non  rispose).  By  Ma- 
tilde  Serao.  Translated  from  the  Italian 
by  William  Collinge,  M.A.  New  York : 
Brentano's. 

Tales  of  My  Native  Town.  By  Gabriele 
D'Annunzio.  Translated  by  Prof.  Rafael 
Mantellini.  Ph.D.  Introduction  by  Joseph 
Hergesheimer.  New  York :  Doubleday, 
Page  &  Company. 

IT  may  be  held  that  what  divides  the 
Latin  from  the  Anglo-American  is 
less  a  diversity  of  feeling  than  a  diversity 
of  taste  or,  to  speak  more  modestly,  of 
habit.  We  northerners  do  not  give  our- 
selves away  with  gestures  and  superla- 
tives. Our  eyes  are  not  permitted  to 
flash  or  our  tongues  to  hasten.  We  are 
at  some  pains  to  master  an  air  of  good- 
humored  but  skeptical  tolerance.  We  are 
terribly  afraid  lest  somebody  suspect 
that  we  do  not  see  the  joke  and  we  are 
incessantly  though  furtively  on  the  watch 
for  that  joke,  which  we  know  must  be 
about  somewhere,  in  any  place,  at  any 
time.  A  Martian  might  discover  in  us  a 
sort  of  frozen  adolescent  self-conscious- 
ness such  as  older  races  have  outgrown 
and  cast  off.  He  might  find  something 
of  pathos  in  the  waste  energy  we  put 
to  the  concealment  of  passion,  whether 
for  love,  for  beauty,  or  for  virtue.  Or  he 
might  find  that,  on  the  whole,  the  famous 
joke  was  "on  us" — Romeo  the  cub  and 
Juliet  the  flapper  being  visible  to  him, 
and  very  much  at  home,  somewhere  on 
our  premises. 


April  24,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[485 


"Souls  Divided,"  the  English  version 
of  "Ella  non  rispose,"  is  described  by  its 
sponsors  as  "an  impassioned  love  story 
of  an  unusual  kind."  I  do  not  see  in 
what  sense  it  is  unusual  unless  in  quality. 
Stories  of  this  general  kind  have  been 
written  often  enough  in  English,  and 
have  had  their  great  audiences;  but  for 
a  long  time  these  have  been  audiences  of 
the  vulgar.  It  is  for  shop-girls  and 
stenographers  of  the  tenderer  sort  that 
our  movies  and  newspaper  syndicates 
turn  open  without  stint  the  flood  gates 
of  sentiment.  Only  among  such  a  class 
does  Shakespeare's  race  now  frankly  pre- 
pare to  shed  its  tears  when  the  prompter 
calls.  Not  a  single  gleam  of  humor 
"saves"  this  Italian  study  of  ill-fated 
passion.  No  code  of  restraint  subdues 
the  record  to  the  cautious  murmur  ex- 
acted of  ourselves  by  literary  breeding. 
It  is  all  upon  the  high  horse  of  romantic 
feeling,  a  prolonged  outburst  of  the  emo- 
tion we  "Anglo-Saxons"  still  endure  from 
the  poets,  whose  business  it  is,  in  lyrical 
moments,  to  give  themselves  away, 
though  we  hardly  brook  even  the  shortest 
flights  of  prose.  Paolo,  the  lover,  who  is 
forever  done  for  by  a  voice,  and  Diana, 
the  beloved,  who  sacrifices  all  for  duty  to 
her  family  and  never  tells  her  love  till 
it  is  too  late  for  the  lover  to  hear  the 
sad  secret — these  are  the  very  staff  of 
tragic  romance.  Standards  of  literary 
breeding  are  variable,  but  the  "human 
heart"  is  a  constant.  The  author  must 
have  been  justified  in  her  prophecy  that 
her  book  would  win  response  from  sim- 
ple souls  the  world  over — "souls  who 
shall  have  shed  silent  and  solitary  tears 
of  human  pity  with  me,  and  for  me,  over 
the  luckless  love  of  Diana  and  Paolo." 

Mr.  Hergesheimer's  introduction  to 
"Tales  of  My  Native  Town"  has,  excel- 
lent as  it  is,  something  of  the  tone  of 
apology,  or  apologia  which  so  often  is 
heard  in  oflScial  introductions  and  pref- 
aces. This  wonderful  article  (the  theme 
runs  commonly)  by  so  famous  a  hand, 
shows  certain  traits  of  the  author  which 
have  been  taken  exception  to  by  prudes 
or  provincials :  they  are  not  blemishes  to 
the  generous  eye.  Moreover,  in  addition 
to  the  qualities  for  which  the  Master  has 
been  given  general  credit,  here  are  others 
which  the  dull  world  has  ignored. 
Gabriele  d'Annunzio,  for  example,  is 
"perfectly  within  his  privilege"  in  ex- 
pressing the  minutise  of  lust,  disease,  and 
physical  abnormality — good  medicine,  we 
take  it,  for  a  race  like  ours  which,  with 
a  "natural  but  saccharine  preference  for 
happiness,"  systematically  veils  the  un- 
pleasant. And  further,  whatever  his  cold- 
ness and  brutality  of  method,  his  work 
is  animated  by  "a  saving  spirit  of  pity, 
the  valid  humanity  born  of  understand- 
ing." I  wish  I  could  feel  this,  as  Mr. 
Hergesheimer  does.  For  me  D'Annun- 
zio's  coldness  is  inherent.  His  intellec- 
tual understanding  of  his  fellow-beings 


seems  fatally  limited  by  the  fact  that  his 
real  ardor  is  for  himself  or  for  such 
causes — beauty,  freedom,  amorism,  as 
may  have  the  good  fortune  to  be  identi- 
fied with  himself.  D'Annunzio  "the 
man"  worships  the  Italy  which  has  pro- 
duced D'Annunzio  and  set  a  stage  for 
him.  D'Annunzio  the  artist  worships 
what  Mr.  Hergesheimer  calls  "the  beauty 
of  sheer  living  as  a  spectacle"  because  it 
offers  itself  to  be  conveyed,  as  a  specta- 
cle, by  his  supremely  skillful  hand.  Con- 
veyance, on  the  whole,  is  the  word.  Mr. 
Hergesheimer  rightly  contrasts  these 
tales  with  the  short  stories  of  American 
convention.  They  are  not  trimly  com- 
pleted bits  of  action,  but  "coherent  frag- 
ments" :  "He  has  not  lifted  his  tales  into 
the  crystallized  isolation  of  a  short  story ; 
they  merge  from  the  beginning  and  be- 
yond the  end  into  the  general  confusion 
of  existence,  they  are  moments,  signifi- 
cantly tragic  or  humorous,  selected  from 
the  whole  incomprehensible  sweep  of  a 
vastly  larger  work,  and  presented  as 
naturally  as  possible.  However,  they  are 
not  without  form,  in  reality  these  tales 
are  woven  with  an  infinite  delicacy,  an 
art,  like  all  art,  essentially  artificial.  But 
a  definite  interest  in  them,  the  sense  of 
their  beauty,  must  rise  from  an  intrinsic 
interest  in  the  greater  affair  of  being. 
It  is  useless  for  anyone  not  impressed 
with  the  beauty  of  sheer  living  as  a  spec- 
tacle to  read  'Tales  of  My  Native  Town.'  " 
Granted;  but  it  hardly  follows  as  the 
night  the  day  that  all  persons  who  are 
duly  impressed  with  the  beauty  of  sheer 
living  are  bound  to  find  it  in  these  par- 
ticular tales,  or  sketches  by  a  mighty 
sensualist  dreamer  of  our  day.  In  their 
English  dress,  certainly,  they  are  not 
overwhelming.  One  can  with  a  fairly 
good  conscience  own  to  the  impression 
that,  with  all  their  marvel  of  detail,  sev- 
eral of  them  are  oppressively  squalid  and 
even  tedious:  squalor  and  tedium  hav- 
ing, of  course,  their  part,  a  relative  part, 
in  the  spectacle  of  living. 

H.  W.  BOYNTON 

The  Autumn  of  the  Middle 

Ages 

Herfsttij  der  Middeleeuwen.  Door  J.  Hui- 
zinga.  Haarlem  :  H.  D.  Tjeenk  Willink  & 
Zoon. 

THE  study  of  the  past  has  its  chief 
fascination  in  what  it  reveals  about 
the  origins  of  the  present.  It  is  the 
germ  of  the  new  that  we  look  for  in  the 
old.  The  discovery  of  early  manifesta- 
tions of  the  romantic  spirit  in  the  age  of 
Swift,  of  the  Renaissance  in  the  poetry 
of  the  Thirteenth  Century,  give  zest  to 
our  study  of  "Gulliver's  Travels"  and 
the  "Roman  de  la  Rose."  The  systematic 
search  in  mediaeval  history  for  early 
symptoms  of  modern  culture  made  it 
seem  as  if  the  culture  of  the  Middle 
Ages  was  only  the  advent  of  the  Renais- 


sance. But  in  history,  no  less  than  in 
nature,  death  is  coincident  with  the  birth 
of  a  new  life.  Old  forms  of  culture  die 
off  at  the  same  time  and  in  the  same 
soil  in  which  the  new  find  the  food  for 
their  efflorescence.  The  historian,  there- 
fore, is  not  restricted  to  one  way  only 
of  envisaging  the  past.  The  writer  of 
"Herfsttij  der  Middeleeuwen"  has  chosen 
to  study  the  fifteenth  century  in  France 
and  the  Netherlands  as  the  decline  of  an 
era  towards  death  and  dissolution,  seeing 
the  gorgeous  pageant  of  its  life  overcast 
by  the  shadow  of  the  approaching  night. 

In  Mr.  Huizinga  the  artist  and  the 
scholar  work  together.  While  looking  at 
the  past,  the  one  is  no  less  susceptible  to 
its  picturesque  beauty  than  the  other  is 
fascinated  by  its  lore.  The  scholar 
guards  the  artist  against  romantic 
vagaries,  and  the  artist  colors  the 
scholar's  record  with  the  realism  of  his 
vision.  It  is  the  artist,  again,  who  has 
taught  the  other  to  reject  the  economic 
interpretation  of  history  as  the  only  true 
and  complete  presentment  of  the  past. 
The  book,  though  the  author  refrains 
from  stressing  that  claim,  is  a  brave  and 
brilliant  attempt  to  discover  the  essence 
of  life  no  less  in  the  flattering  dream 
which  the  livers  loved  to  make  of  it  than 
in  the  crass  realities  which  their  dream 
had  to  color.  A  careful  and  unimpas- 
sioned  study  of  mediaeval  legal  documents 
has  taught  us  that  the  romantic  picture 
of  the  chivalrous  late  Middle  Ages  was  a 
distorted  vision  of  that  period.  Feudal- 
ism and  chivalry  had  had  their  day  be- 
fore the  close  of  the  thirteenth  century. 
It  was  the  commercial  power  of  the  com- 
munes and  the  power  of  the  kings  sup- 
ported by  it  which  were  the  ruling  fac- 
tors in  the  political  life  of  the  fourteenth 
and  fifteenth  centuries.  But  the  people 
whose  lives  made  up  the  history  of  that 
age  were  themselves  not  conscious  of 
this  social  decline  of  the  nobleman's 
status.  They  still  recognized  in  a  mar- 
tial nobility  the  chief  element  of  the 
social  structure.  The  glamor  of  prowess 
colored  their  vision  of  the  time  they 
lived  in,  and  for  our  knowledge  of  its 
cultural  life  that  illusion  has  the  value 
of  historic  truth. 

This  book,  then,  is  a  picture  of  the 
fifteenth  century,  not  as  the  economic 
interpreters  of  history  have  taught  us 
to  see  it,  but  as  the  people  of  the  age 
saw  it  themselves.  The  record  of  their 
illusions  and  delusions  is  the  author's 
theme,  and  his  sources  not  the  dusty 
documents  of  the  archives,  but  the  litera- 
ture of  the  poets  and  the  records  of  the 
chroniclers,  the  journalists  of  those  early 
days.  Georges  Chastellain  was  one  of 
them,  the  greatest  of  all  Burgundian  his- 
torians. He  was  a  Fleming  by  birth,  a 
native  of  the  district  of  Aalst.  But  he 
wrote  in  French,  being  the  recorder  of 
princely  deeds  and  knightly  adventure. 
His  work  is  the  truest  mirror  of  the  life 


436] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  50 


and  the  thought  of  his  time  as  they  ap- 
peared to  a  shrewd,  clear-sighted  on- 
looker. This  man,  bred  in  the  fields  of 
Flanders,  the  home  of  a  proud  democracy, 
still  lived  by  the  belief  that  God  had  made 
the  people  to  labor,  to  till  the  soil,  or  to 
live  by  trade,  the  clergy  to  teach  the 
true  faith,  and  the  nobility  to  exalt  vir- 
tue, to  maintain  justice,  and,  by  their 
deeds  and  moral  life,  to  be  a  mirror  to 
others.  The  traditional  vision  of  society 
lingered  on,  uncorrected  by  its  glaring 
contrast  with  reality.  This  clever  repre- 
sentative of  his  age  and  people  did  not 
even  see,  in  his  naivete,  that  his  own 
chronicle  belied  that  fanciful  picture  of 
divine  ordination,  so  little  was  the  criti- 
cal faculty  developed  in  its  intellectual 
elite.  Among  the  nobility  whose  deeds 
of  prowess  he  lauded  were  men  who  had 
risen  from  the  ranks  of  the  "tiers  etat," 
or,  as  he  called  it,  "le  tiers  membre  qui 
de  soy  n'est  gaires  capable  de  hautes 
attributions,  parce  qu'il  est  au  degre 
servile."  And  among  the  bourgeoisie  he 
knew  people  with  a  truer  conception  of 
honor  than  his  own  chronicle  shows  the 
nobility  to  have  known  and  practised.  To 
the  mediaeval  mind  life,  from  its  highest 
to  its  lowest  manifestations,  is  fixed  in 
immovable,  eternal  forms,  and  these 
forms,  not  their  contents,  are  the  essen- 
tial thing. 

Experience  can  not  destroy  this  con- 
ception of  society  as  a  tripartite  struc- 
ture, of  which  each  part  has  its  perma- 
nent attributes.  That  prevalence  of 
form  over  substance  pervades  all  medi- 
aeval thought.  Every  notion  becomes 
isolated,  and  is  given  a  form  and  a  fixed 
place  in  the  immutable  hierarchy  of 
things,  every  function  receives  its  visi- 
ble organ.  The  King  of  England  had 
among  his  "magna  sergenteria"  an  office 
for  holding  the  king's  head  when  he 
crossed  the  Channel  and  got  seasick. 

The  art  of  the  period  reflects  that 
same  tendency  to  visualize  everything 
conceivable.  In  the  paintings  of  the  Van 
Eycks  the  presentation  of  the  elements 
of  sacred  lore  has  been  carried  to  the 
highest  point  of  realism,  each  detail 
being  the  setting  for  a  wealth  of  more 
diminutive  miniatures.  The  mystical 
content  evanesces  and  leaves  its  brilliant 
outward  show  behind.  It  is  an  art  of 
consummate  skill  in  execution,  but  void 
of  ideas.  In  the  opinion  of  the  author 
the  naturalism  of  the  Van  Eycks,  which 
is  usually  explained  as  an  early  symp- 
tom of  the  approaching  Renaissance,  is 
the  maturest  growth  of  the  late  mediaeval 
spirit,  not  a  beginning  but  an  end.  Its 
material  perfection  could  not  be  im- 
proved upon,  and  as  it  was  inexpressive 
of  the  deeper  emotions  of  life,  it  lacked 
the  living  element  from  which  a  new  art 
could  take  its  birth. 

This  character  of  finality,  of  comple- 
tion beyond  renewal,  attaches  also  to 
the  moral  and   religious  life  of  those 


days.  Of  a  whole-hearted  enjoyment  of 
life's  gifts,  such  as  Rabelais,  the  robust 
herald  of  a  new  age,  was  to  preach  in  the 
next  centuiy,  the  era  of  Gerson  and 
Thomas  k  Kempis  was  no  longer  capa- 
ble. What  it  had  left  of  passion  and 
vitality  burst  out  in  mystic  exaltation  or 
in  bestial  debauch.  Gerson,  himself  too 
balanced  a  pessimist  to  be  subject  to 
these  outbursts,  was  well  aware  of  the 
fact  that  both  extremes  sprang  from  the 
same  root:  "Amor  spiritualis  labitur  in 
nudum  camalem  Amorem."  The  soul, 
having  been  absorbed  in  the  contempla- 
tion of  God,  lost  its  will,  the  Divine  will 
only  remaining,  and  in  that  state  of  ex- 
altation the  mystic  could  not  commit 
sin,  though  he  should  follow  carnal 
cravings.  Such  was  the  belief  of  the 
Fratres  liberi  spiriti,  of  the  Turlupins, 
and  similar  sects  of  hysterical  madmen 
who,  while  professing  to  serve  God,  lived 
a  life  of  diabolical  debauch.  Gerson,  the 
famous  Chancellor  of  the  University  of 
Paris,  wrote  a  "Discours  de  I'excellence 
de  virginite,"  taking  his  argument  from 
a  deeply  pessimistic  picture  of  man's 
misery.  Contempt  of  the  world  is  praised 
as  the  wisest  attitude  towards  life,  and 
life's  propagation  condemned  as  a  folly. 
In  the  austere  features  of  the  kneeling 
donors  on  the  triptychs  of  the  Van  Eycks 
one  can  read  their  denial  of  the  beauty 
and  the  glory  of  life,  which  the  Renais- 
sance was  joyfully  to  assert. 

The  Run  of  the  Shelves 

THERE  are  two  million  men  in  the 
^  United  States  whose  feeling  toward 
books  on  the  war  is  that  of  the  raconteur 
waiting  for  the  other  fellow  to  finish  a 
story  in  order  to  begin  on  his  own.  Every 
one  saw  and  felt  things  well  worth  telling 
to  the  fellow  who  wasn't  there ;  nine  out 
of  ten  hope  to  write  books  of  personal 
reminiscence.  Two  men  who  have  done 
it  with  no  unusual  qualifications  so  far 
as  their  experiences  go  are  Captain  Ewen 
C.  MacVeagh  and  Lieutenant  Lee  D. 
Brown  of  G-3  and  G-1,  respectively. 
Headquarters  Staff,  Second  Corps,  who 
write  jointly  of  "The  Yankee  in  the  Brit- 
ish Zone"  (Putnam).  They  are  an- 
nounced as  "trained  observers,"  and  the 
reader  concedes  the  title,  adding  that  of 
trained  or  naturally  facile  writers,  for 
they  have  dressed  their  material  with 
real  skill.  They  find  for  it  an  ostensible 
core  in  the  discussion  of  Anglo-American 
relations  in  the  Amiens  sector,  where  the 
Second  Corps  was  brigaded  with  the  Brit- 
ish, a  subject  that  would  not  make  more 
than  a  magazine  article  were  it  not  at- 
tractively clothed  in  personal  reminis- 
cence and  anecdotal  history,  a  rippling 
obligate  to  war  of  information  and  anec- 
dote cleverly  played  up  each  to  the  other. 
It  deals  with  nothing  essential ;  the  world 
can  move  on  without  it  except  as  it  may 


add  a  drop  of  lubrication  to  the  gears 
where  American  affairs  mesh  with  Brit- 
ish. Read  it  and  you  have  seen  nothing 
happen,  but  you  have  haunted  the  point 
de  liaison  between  British  and  American 
troops,  loafed  in  company  street  and  of- 
ficers' mess,  wherever  Yank  and  Tommy 
mixed  and  mixed  'em  up.  You  have  idled 
amiably  for  a  time  on  the  sunny  side  of 
war,  but  it  is  a  very  real  side  of  war,  a 
pleasant,  comfortable  rest  camp  for  the 
reader  who  has  been  personally  conducted 
through  much  of  the  other  side.  In  one 
way  the  book  stands  as  a  model  to  aspir- 
ing compilers  of  reminiscences.  The  per- 
sonality of  the  authors  is  nowhere 
directly  presented.  It  is  always  elusively 
just  below  the  surface,  seen  only  in 
glimpses  between  surface  reflections, 
until  the  curiosity  of  the  reader  is  gen- 
uinely aroused  and  finds  only  meagre 
satisfaction. 

For  the  great  tribe  of  collectors  of 
Stevensoniana,  Mr.  George  E.  Brown's 
"Book  of  R.  L.  S."  (Scribners)  will  be  a 
precious  vade  mecum.  Here,  under  al- 
phabetical heads,  information  is  given 
regarding  the  publication  of  essays  and 
books,  the  places  connected  in  one  way 
or  another  with  Stevenson's  life,  and  the 
friends  he  met  on  the  way.  A  good  deal 
of  human  interest  is  packed  into  this 
little  encyclopaedia,  as  indeed  human  in- 
terest is  almost  synonymous  with  the 
mystic  initials,  R.  L.  S.,  whatever  may 
be  the  critical  judgment,  outside  of  Scot- 
land, finally  pronounced  on  the  owner 
of  those  initials  as  a  writer. 

"Villa  Elsa"  (Button),  by  Stuart 
Henry,  who  most  decidedly  does  not  han- 
dle his  subject  with  gloves,  is  described 
in  its  sub-title  as  "a  study  of  German 
family  life."  The  publisher  explains  it 
as  "a  genuine  study  at  first  hand  of  the 
real  Germany  of  the  twentieth  century 
by  an  American  writer  who  lived  there 
for  many  years,"  and  the  author  gives, 
in  a  private  letter,  this  account  of  him- 
self and  his  book: 

Despite  its  form  as  a  novel,  with  love,  spies 
and  action,  it  is  meant  to  be  a  profoundly  seri- 
ous book.  I  not  only  lived  and  studied  in 
Deutschland  but,  for  a  quarter  of  a  century, 
have  had  much  to  do  with  German  business- 
men. This  has  forced  me  to  learn  to  know 
German  character  more  thoroughly  than  the 
usual  "literary  feller"  or  critic  who  has  had 
small  chance  to  get  acquainted  with  Germans, 
either  intimately  or  in  their  large  cross-sec- 
tions. Needless  to  say  I  regard  the  problem 
of  the  German  race  as  a  mighty  serious  and 
dangerous  one,  not  to  be  lightly  tossed  off 
through  smug  indifference  or  clever  epigrams. 

In  "Beaumarchais  and  the  War  of 
American  Independence"  (Boston:  Bad- 
ger) Miss  Elizabeth  S.  Kite  clearly  sets 
forth  the  facts  concerning  Beaumar- 
chais's  invaluable  contribution  to  the 
success  of  the  American  Revolution.  One 
of  his  biographers,  the  French  Senator, 
M.  Lintilhac,  wrote  in  1887:     "We  are 


April  24,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[437 


surprised  that  no  descendant  of  Beau- 
marchais  was  invited  to  represent  France 
at  the  unveiling  of  the  Statue  of  Lib- 
erty, upon  whose  pedestal  his  name 
would  not  be  out  of  place  alongside  that 
of  Lafayette.  With  John  Bigelow,  I  may 
well  ask  if  Americans  have  done  their 
whole  duty  towards  the  memory  of  Beau- 
marchais."  It  is  plain  from  Miss  Kite's 
two  volumes  that  we  have  not. 

Even  so  early  as  1775,  Beaumarchais 
foresaw  the  gravity  of  the  conflict  be- 
tween the  colonists  and  the  mother  coun- 
try and  pointed  out  to  the  French  Gov- 
ernment where  its  interests  lay.  Little 
by  little  it  shared  his  view  and  told  him 
to  go  ahead  and  aid  the  insurgents,  but 
without  compromising  the  French  Gov- 
ernment, which  gave  him  a  subvention 
of  a  million  francs.  Before  the  end  of 
1776  he  had  brought  together  with  all 
possible  secrecy  his  first  cargo,  consist- 
ing of  200  cannon,  some  mortars,  25,000 
rifles,  and  200,000  pounds  of  powder. 
After  running  many  risks,  his  three 
ships  reached  America.  Beaumarchais 
received  no  payment,  however,  nor  did 
Congress  even  thank  him.  He  had  put 
5,000,000  francs  into  the  undertaking, 
and  sent  an  agent  to  America,  who,  after 
remaining  there  three  years,  returned 
empty-handed.  To  prevent  a  fiasco  and 
an  international  scandal  the  French  Gov- 
ernment again  came  to  his  aid  with  a 
subvention.  Beaumarchais's  chief  occu- 
pation throughout  1783  was  the  removal 
of  the  obstacles  in  the  way  of  the  play- 
ing of  the  "Marriage  of  Figaro,"  but  he 
did  not  neglect  his  claims  against  Amer- 
ica. The  bills  of  exchange  which  he 
had  received  from  Congress  in  1779  were 
far  from  satisfying  him.  Four  times — 
in  1781,  1787,  and  1793— Congress  sent 
agents  to  verify  his  accounts;  but  noth- 
ing came  of  it,  and  forty  years  passed 
before  his  family  finally  succeeded  in 
obtaining  800,000  francs  of  the  2,280,000 
which  were  claimed. 

Miss  Kite  modestly  says  in  her  preface 
that  her  volumes  are  based  wholly  on  the 
printed  works  of  Frenchmen  bearing  on 
the  subject,  one  of  which,  however,  she 
failed  to  see,  for  the  simple  reason  that 
it  was  passing  through  the  press  in  Paris 
while  her  own  books  were  being  printed 
in  Boston.  M.  Jules  Marsan's  "Beau- 
marchais et  les  Affaires  d'Amerique" 
(Edouard  Champion)  prints  for  the  first 
time  some  thirty  letters  of  Beau- 
marchais, all  of  which  are  connected  with 
the  American  episode  in  his  life  and  all 
of  which  strengthen  in  various  particu- 
lars Miss  Kite's  contention. 

"Le  Livre  Pratique  des  Spirites" 
(Paris:  Revue  Contemporaine) ,  by  M. 
Achille  Borgnis,  who  Informs  the  French 
public  that  he  is  a  "laureate  of  tho  New 
York  Institute  of  Sciences,"  marks  him 
as  being  either  very  naive  or  very  tricky, 
perhaps  both.     He   holds    spiritualistic 


sittings  in  his  own  apartments,  sup- 
ported by  "a  young  lady  who  plays  rhe 
piano,"  by  "my  secretary,  M.  Maurice, 
who  has  charge  of  the  lights,"  and  by 
"a  medium  who  has  been  tried  and  found 
to  have  the  power."  To  these  sittings 
he  admits  only  "those  who  are  believers 
or  who  are  neutral  and  open  to  convic- 
tion"; all  "scoffers  must  be  vigorously 
refused  admittance."  No  wonder  that 
under  such  conditions  this  "guide,"  as 
he  calls  himself,  and  "laureate  of  the 
New  York  Institute  of  Sciences,"  aided 
by  the  young  lady  of  the  piano,  the  sec- 
retary of  the  lights,  and  the  medium  of 
the  cabinet,  obtains  "manifestations  that 
astonish  all  those  who  participate  at  my 
sittings."  Cicero  materialized  on  one  oc- 
casion, and  we  are  given  a  picture  of  his 
apparition.  In  fact,  there  are  nearly  a 
score  of  these  pictures  scattered  through 
the  book;  but  their  value  disappears  to 
"a  scoffer"  when  he  learns  that  "these 
are  not  the  results  of  direct  photography, 
but  are  produced  from  drawings  made 
during  the  sittings.  The  spirits  informed 
me  that  they  were  opposed  to  being  pho- 
tographed. However,  when  I  begin  a 
new  series  of  sittings,  it  is  my  intention 
to  employ  photography."  On  one  occa- 
sion Mary  Queen  of  Scots  appeared  on 
the  scene,  when  she  spoke  in  this  rather 
unidiomatic  language:  "In  spite  of  sad 
circumstances,  I  wish  you  and  every- 
body happy  Christmas."  Another  favor- 
ite materialization  is  that  of  "a  fakir, 
a  fine  Hindoo";  and  one  is  tempted  to 
ask  if  the  "fakir"  may  not  be  M.  Borgnis 
himself. 

That  seventeenth-century  worthy,  Lam- 
bertus  van  den  Bosch,  headmaster  of  the 
Latin  school  at  Dordrecht,  must  have 
been  a  popular  master  in  the  eyes  of  the 
Dutch  youngsters  who  studied  the  clas- 
sics under  the  sway  of  his  ferule.  He 
seems  to  have  preferred  contemporary  to 
ancient  literature,  as  is  the  way  of  the 
adolescent  age  of  all  generations.  And 
his  was  not  a  sneaking  love  of  profane 
modern  writers,  indulged  "en  neglige" 
and  disavowed  where  his  dignity  as 
a  scholar  had  to  keep  up  appearances; 
unblushingly  he  proclaimed  it  on  the  title 
pages  of  numerous  translations,  the  best 
of  which  was  one  of  Don  Quixote,  the 
first  to  appear  in  Dutch,  and  never  sur- 
passed for  picturesqueness  of  language 
by  any  later  rendering.  The  quality  of 
the  rest  of  his  work  is  in  inverse  ratio 
to  the  number  of  his  writings,  and  in 
Holland  it  would  be  a  hazardous  under- 
taking for  a  publisher  to  bring  out  a 
reprint  of  a  work  by  Van  den  Bosch,  his 
Don  Quixote  alone  excepted.  An  Ameri- 
can scholar,  however,  has  found  it  worth 
his  while  to  edit  a  drama  of  the  old 
schoolmaster.  But  Prof.  Oscar  James 
Campbell's  purpose  is  not  the  literary  re- 
habilitation of  the  author,  but,  as  the 
title  explains,  to  ascertain  "The  Position 


of  the  Roode  en  Witte  Roos  in  the  Saga 
of  King  Richard  III"  (University  of  Wis- 
consin Studies  in  Language  and  Litera- 
ture. Number  5).  Not  the  Dutch  play 
itself,  but  its  possible  English  source  and 
the  relation  of  that  source  to  the  extant 
English  plays  on  the  same  subject  is  the 
editor's  excuse  for  his  interest  in  Van 
den  Bosch's  rhetorical  and  lifeless  drama. 
In  an  interesting  introduction  to  the 
reprint  the  writer  compares  the  Dutch 
play,  which  was  printed  at  Amsterdam  in 
1651,  with  the  chronicle  tradition  and 
with  the  three  dramas  referred  to  above: 
the  Latin  "Richardus  Tertius"  of 
Thomas  Legge  (c.  1573),  the  "True 
Tragedy  of  Richard  the  Third"  (c.  1590), 
and  Shakespeare's  version  of  the  story. 
The  upshot  of  his  ingenious  investiga- 
tion is  thus  summarized  by  the  author: 

The  resemblance  which  the  Dutch  play 
shows  in  turn  to  the  Chronicles  and  then  to 
each  of  the  three  English  plays  in  points  pecu- 
liar to  them,  shows,  first,  that  the  Roode  en 
Witte  Roos  belongs  to  the  English  dramatic, 
as  distinct  from  the  historical,  tradition  of 
Richard  III. 

Professor  Campbell  accounts  for  this 
many-sided  relationship  by  postulating 
the  former  existence  of  a  fourth  English 
play  which  must  have  held  a  middle 
ground  between  the  Senecan  production 
of  Legge  and  the  Shakespearean  concep- 
tion. 

This  lost  play  Shakespeare  must  have  known 
and  used,  now  and  then,  to  point  material 
which  he  derived  largely  from  Holinshed.  This 
fact  would  help  to  explain  the  strong  Senecan 
flavor  of  Richard  III,  which  has  led  numerous 
critics  to  believe  that  it  must  be  the  direct  de- 
scendant of  an  earlier  play. 

In  the  case  of  Van  den  Bosch,  how- 
ever, our  extensive  knowledge  of  his  life 
and  work  must  be  taken  into  account; 
Professor  Campbell,  in  this  respect,  has 
taken  his  task  too  easily.  "A  man,"  he 
writes,  "who  made  a  business  of  miscel- 
laneous translation  as  did  Van  den  Bosch 
was  obviously  not  a  trained  dramatist. 
A  play  bearing  his  name  is  perhaps,  then, 
even  more  certain  to  be  a  translation 
than  his  other  admitted  adaptations." 
But  the  possibility  of  the  Roode  en  Witte 
Roos  being  an  independent  dramatization 
by  Van  den  Bosch  of  a  chronicle  version 
can  not  thus  lightly  be  dismissed.  The 
play  in  question  and  a  translation  of  the 
English  morality  "Lingua"  were  not  his 
only  contributions  to  dramatic  literature, 
as  the  writer  seems  to  assume.  In  1645 
he  published  "Carel  de  Negende,  anders 
Parijsche  Bruyloft,"  for  which  no  other 
source  has  been  found  than  "Thuani  His- 
torisB  Sui  Temporis,"  and  in  1649  he 
dramatized  an  episode  from  Hooft's  prose 
history  of  Florence  under  the  rule  of  the 
Medicis  in  "Rampzalige  Liefde  ofte 
Bianca  Capellis."  The  fact  that  Van  den 
Bosch  had  twice  made  an  independent  at- 
tempt to  remodel  historical  prose  into 
drama  before  he  wrote  the  "Roode  en 
Witte  Roos"  affords,  at  any  rate,  an  ar- 


438] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  50 


gument  in  favor  of  the  assumption  that 
his  third  historical  drama  was  the  prod- 
uct of  the  same  method.  The  resem- 
blances which  the  writer  has  pointed  out 
between  the  Dutch  and  the  English  plays 
are  not  so  striking  as  to  make  a  thorough 
comparison  of  the  former  with  all  the 
chronicle  versions  superfluous. 

Professor  Campbell's  translation  of  the 
Dutch  text  is,  on  the  whole,  a  successful 
performance.  Where  he  has  misunder- 
stood a  passage,  it  is  not  an  insuflicient 
knowledge  of  the  Dutch,  but  rather  the 
involved  rhetoric  of  Van  den  Bosch, 
which  is  at  fault. 

M.  Romain  Rolland,  who  is  again  re- 
siding in  Paris,  writes  in  a  recent  letter: 

If  I  exiled  myself  for  a  few  years  to  the 
land  of  Jean  Jacques,  believe  me  it  was  not 
because  I  had  a  penchant  for  the  Swiss  mind 
and  still  less  for  its  present  literature,  which, 
except  in  the  case  of  the  genial — I  here  use 
the  word  as  the  adjective  of  genius — Spitteler, 
does  not  appear  to  me  to  be  very  interesting. 
I  went  there  in  order  to  let  it  be  seen  publicly 
that  I  did  not  approve  of  a  fratricidal  war, 
which  the  future  will  be  all  the  more  inclined 
to  pronounce  monstrous  when  all  its  fatal  con- 
sequences begin  to  appear. 

Heine's    Buried 
Memoirs 

AMONG  the  lost  or  suppressed  works 
of  genius  none  has  offered  a  more 
tantalizing  bait  to  literary  curiosity  than 
Heine's  Memoirs  of  his  own  life,  fre- 
quently alluded  to  in  his  letters  and  other 
writings.  As  Heinrich  Heine  wrote  very 
much  and  always  charmingly  about  him- 
self, the  acute  reader  will  not  suppose 
that  I  am  overlooking  the  pages  of  auto- 
biography entitled  "Confessions,"  which 
were  dictated  about  a  year  before  his 
death.  My  present  aim  is  to  direct  at- 
tention to  a  work  of  Heine's  prime — not 
one  of  his  last  and  decadent  period. 

As  far  back  as  1837  the  poet  refers  to 
this  work  in  a  letter  to  his  publisher, 
Julius  Campe.  "I  am  busy  day  and 
night,"  he  writes,  "with  my  great  book, 
the  romance  of  my  life,  and  now  for  the 
first  time  I  feel  the  full  value  of  the 
papers  that  were  lost  in  the  fire  at  my 
mother's  house.  I  had  intended  to  pub- 
lish this  book  later,  but  .  .  .  it  is  to 
be  the  next  book  given  to  the  public.  You 
know  I  am  no  braggart,  and  I  prophesy 
the  most  extraordinary  results"  (from 
this  book).  A  few  months  later,  writing 
to  his  Uncle,  Salomon  Heine  (with  whom 
he  was  then  in  uncertain  relations),  the 
poet  thus  alludes  to  the  work:  "I  have 
taken  care  that  when  we  are  all  in  our 
graves  my  whole  life  shall  be  known  for 
what  it  has  been." 

The  book  so  portentously  referred  to 
was  long  a  subject  of  apprehension  to 
Heine's  wealthy  relatives  in  Hamburg,  to 
whom  he  was  something  of  an  enfant 


terrible  and  by  whom  his  literary  genius 
was  held  in  small  esteem ;  and  the  poet's 
occasional  hint  at  publication  may  have 
been  intended  to  keep  them  in  proper  dis- 
position toward  himself.  I  do  not  like 
to  believe  that  he  deliberately  used  it 
in  terrorem,  at  least  until  the  break  that 
followed  Uncle  Salomon's  death.  It 
should  be  added,  however,  that  there 
were  many  other  persons,  outside  the  in- 
timate Hamburg  circle,  who  heard  with 
quakings  of  the  spirit  any  rumor  as  to 
the  threatened  publication. 

In  1839  Heine  writes  to  Campe  that  he 
has  decided  to  postpone  the  bringing  out 
of  his  Memoirs;  but  in  1840,  writing  to 
him,  Heine  admits  having  used  a  part 
of  them  in  his  work  on  Borne,  a  rather 
inferior  production,  in  spite  of  some  bril- 
liant pages,  and  disfigured  by  personal 
malice;  it  was  later  in  great  part  sup- 
pressed. 

In  1840  we  get  a  significant  and  med- 
itated statement  as  to  the  Memoirs  in  a 
letter  to  Campe,  as  follows : 

I  am  quite  happy  and  calm  inwardly.  I  am 
used  to  abuse,  and  I  know  that  the  future  is 
mine.  Even  if  I  were  to  die  to-day  there  re- 
main four  volumes  of  the  story  of  my  life, 
my  Memoirs,  which  show  forth  all  my 
thoughts  and  endeavors,  and  if  only  for  their 
historical  matter,  for  their  true  exposition  of 
the  most  mysterious  of  transitive  periods, 
will  go  down  to  posterity.  The  new  generation 
will  want  to  see  the  swaddling  clothes  that 
were  its  first  covering. 

This  seems  to  indicate  that  Heine  had 
finally  resolved  upon  a  posthumous  pub- 
lication of  the  book. 

In  1845  the  bitter  dispute  with  his 
cousin,  Karl  Heine,  relative  to  a  financial 
provision  for  the  poet  (Uncle  Salomon 
was  now  dead),  broke  out,  and  besides 
causing  Heine  great  anguish  of  mind, 
hastened  his  end  by  the  reaction  upon  his 
physical  state.  Writing  to  J.  H.  Detwold, 
Heine  mentions  a  first  offer  of  compro- 
mise by  Karl,  the  condition  being  that 
he  submit  the  MS.  of  the  Memoirs  to  be 
"supervised"  at  Hamburg. 

He  writes  to  Campe  (October,  1845) : 

I  am  still  in  a  most  unpleasant  position  as 
regards  my  cousin,  Karl  Heine,  for  I  do  not 
agree  with  the  form  of  payment.  I  will  not 
agree  to  conditions —  I  will  not  forgo  the 
least  particle  of  my  dignity  as  an  author  or  of 
the  freedom  of  my  pen,  even  if  as  a  man  I 
allow  myself  to  be  subjected  to  family  con- 
siderations. 

A  few  months  later  he  informs  Campe 
that  he  had  tried  the  way  of  kindness 
pointed  out  to  him  by  friends  and  by 
his  own  heart,  in  order  to  arrive  at  a 
settlement  with  his  cousin;  while  the  lat- 
ter persisted  in  his  injustice.  Heine  adds 
these  memorable  words : 

I  have  followed  my  softer  feelings,  while  the 
cold  voice  of  experience  hissed  in  my  ears 
that  rarely  is  anything  won  from  the  hard  men 
of  money  by  tears  and'  supplications  in  this 
world,  but  only  by  the  sword.  My  szvord  is 
my  pen. 

In  the  same  letter,  he  says: 
Yes,  I  have  been  working  for  some  days  at 


a  horrible  memoir  in  which  the  insolence  of 
Karl  Heine  is  shown  up.  I  shall  drop  my  ac- 
tion [he  was  threatening  to  go  to  law  with  his 
cousin],  so  that  it  may  be  seen  that  it  is  no 
longer  a  question  of  money.  ...  I  am  calm, 
for  I  have  done  everything  that  a  man  can  do 
for  love  of  his  wife,  and  more. 

Again  he  writes  to  Campe  (1845) : 

As  for  the  undertaking  which  I  am  prepared 
to  sign,  it  does  not  matter  much  how  binding 
you  make  it.  /  shall  never,  at  any  price,  de- 
liver up  anything  that  I  zvrite  to  the  censorship 
of  my  relations. 

In  this  final  stage  of  the  negotiations 
between  the  poet  and  his  family  it  is 
significant  that  not  a  word  is  said  as  to 
the  destruction  of  any  existing  manu- 
script Memoirs. 

The  upshot  of  the  inheritance-quarrel 
was  that  Heine  obtained  a  satisfactory 
settlement  both  for  himself  and,  follow- 
ing his  decease,  for  his  wife  Mathilde. 
On  the  other  hand,  though  he  is  reticent 
as  to  the  point,  it  seems  probable  that  he 
complied  with  certain  of  Karl's  wishes 
respecting  the  Memoirs. 

What  these  wishes  were,  or  what  the 
conditions  of  the  agreement  reached  by 
the  poet  and  his  kinsman,  is  not  pre- 
cisely known.  But  after  Heine's  death 
the  manuscript  fell  into  the  hands  of 
Uncle  Salomon's  family,  who  made  such 
disposition  of  it  as  they  saw  fit.  It  is 
believed  that  for  many  years  past  the 
papers  have  been  sealed  up  in  the 
archives  of  the  Imperial  Library  at 
Vienna.  Nor  has  official  reserve  ever 
suffered  a  hint  to  escape  as  to  when,  if 
ever,  publication  will  be  permitted. 

William  Sharp,  in  his  "Life  of  Heine," 
alludes  to  certain  Memoirs,  "which  the 
poet  tells  us  that  he  himself  destroyed." 
Evidently  Mr.  Sharp  is  here  at  fault,  and 
most  likely  his  reference  is  meant  to 
cover  "the  papers  that  were  lost  in  the 
fire  at  my  mother's  house" — as  quoted 
above  from  Heine's  letter  (1837)  to  his 
publisher,  Julius  Campe. 

That  Heine  expected  his  Memoirs 
would  be  published  after  his  death  and 
counted  upon  it  to  the  very  end,  is  placed 
beyond  doubt  by  a  piece  of  strong  evi- 
dence. I  allude  to  the  incident  related  by 
Camille  Selden  in  her  little  book  of 
reminiscences  of  Heine,  entitled  "The 
Last  Days."  "Camille  Selden"  was  the 
pen-name  used  by  a  young  German  lady, 
not  otherwise  clearly  Identified,  who 
acted  as  reader  for  the  poet  in  the  last 
stage  of  his  illness.  She  is  said  to  have 
been  a  person  of  culture,  charm,  and 
beauty,  as  beseemed  the  "Mouche"  of 
the  latest  poems,  and  the  poet  seems  to 
have  felt  a  remarkable  tenderness  for 
her.  Lovers  of  literature  must  always  be 
grateful  to  this  Unknown  for  giving  the 
poet  his  last  romance  and  his  latest 
inspiration. 

(3amille  Selden,  then,  relates  how  she 
entered  Heine's  room  one  day  early  in 
that  fatal  February,  1856,  after  he  had 
(Continued  on  page  440) 


April  24,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[439 


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[Vol.  2.  No.  .50 


{Continued  from  page  488) 
undergone  a  dreadful  attack  of  his 
disease  affecting  both  mind  and  body, 
and  found  him  scribbling  furiously  on 
large  sheets  of  paper  with  a  pencil  that 
seemed  to  her  sharp  as  a  deadly  weapon. 
She  continues : 

I  heard  a  cruel  laugh — ^the  laugh  of  satiated 
revenge.  I  looked  at  Henri :  "I  have  them," 
he  cried,  "dead  or  living,  they  shall  not  escape. 
The  tiger's  claws  shall  survive  the  tiger." 

Heine  thus  referred  to  his  Memoirs  on 
which  he  had  been  even  then  working; 
and  the  story,  though  a  shade  melodra- 
matic, may  be  accepted  as  true.  There  is 
no  lack  of  testimony  that  he  attached 
great  importance  to  this  "book  of  his 
life,"  as  he  called  it.  Most  significant 
witness  is  offered  by  Alfred  Meissner,  to 
whom  Heine  once  showed  a  box  of  MSS., 
remarking:  "Look  you!  There  are  my 
Memoirs.  Therein  I  have  been  collecting 
for  many  years  a  series  of  portraits  and 
frightful  silhouettes.  Many  know  of  this 
box,  and  tremble.  In  it  is  shut  up  one 
of  the  best,  but  by  no  means  the  last,  of 
my  triumphs." 

Such  is  the  unsatisfactory  tale  of 
Heine's  personal  Memoirs,  which  the  con- 
noisseurs of  literary  scandal  value  at  a 
higher  rate  than  the  lost  "Confessions" 
of  Byron.  There  can  be  little  doubt  that 
the  matter  of  these  unpublished  manu- 
scripts is  worthy  of  Heine's  fame,  for  the 
writing  was  begun  when  his  powers  were 
at  the  full.  And  as  he  scarcely  ever 
wrote  anything  without  literary  value, 
even  in  his  character  of  the  modern 
Aretino,  the  harsh  and  long-continued  in- 
terdict on  his  own  life-story  must  be  re- 
sented by  every  lover  of  literature. 
•    Michael  Monahan 

"Impressions  de  Voyage" 

A  STAY  of  but  twenty-four  hours  at 
Honolulu  is  scant  warrant  for  a 
discussion  of  the  affairs  of  our  Pacific 
Ocean  outpost ;  still,  if  enjoyed  by  a  visi- 
tor returning  after  an  absence  of  many 
years,  it  may  furnish  grounds  for  a  com- 
parison between  his  recollection  of  what 
was  then  and  his  impressions  of  what  is 
now. 

There  has,  happily,  been  no  change  in 
the  natural  aspects  of  the  enchanting 
island  of  Oahu,  which  holds  the  capital 
of  the  Hawaiian  group.  The  bold 
promontory  of  Diamond  Head  marks,  as 
of  old,  the  point  where  vessels  coming 
from  the  East  swing  around  to  the  north- 
ward and  head  for  the  narrow  channel 
which  leads  across  the  bar  to  the  docks 
at  the  city  of  Honolulu.  The  noble  sky- 
line of  the  mountains  that,  running  east 
and  west,  divide  the  island  into  the 
smaller  plain  between  them  and  the  sea 
from  the  wider  plain  between  them  and 
the  northern  end  of  Oahu.  At  right 
angles  to  this  chain  runs  another  and 
loftier  ridge  close  to  the  western  edge 


of  the  island.  At  the  intersection  of 
these  two,  the  land  falls  away  into  a 
more  level  expanse  whose  peculiar  yel- 
lowish green  proclaims  its  devotion  to 
the  culture  of  the  sugar  cane.  The  sum- 
mits of  these  mountains  are  arid  and 
treeless,  but  running  up  their  valleys 
the  varied  colors  of  the  vegetation  be- 
speak an  intensive  cultivation  of  the 
rich,  red  volcanic  soil.  Palms  wave  their 
crested  plumes  at  intervals,  dividing 
banana  groves,  orange  orchards,  pine- 
apple farms,  and  market  gardens,  or 
adorning  country  places.  The  famous 
"punch  bowl,"  once  a  crater,  overlooks 
the  city,  while  behind  it  and  a  little  to 
one  side  is  the  Nuuanu  Valley,  which 
climbs  up,  up,  up,  some  1,200  feet  to 
"Mt.  Pali,"  a  gap  in  the  east  and  west 
mountain  range  just  mentioned.  In 
the  twinkling  of  an  eye  there  bursts 
upon  the  vision  one  of  the  finest  views 
known  to  the  writer,  himself  a  traveler 
with  no  slight  experience.  A  tier  of 
high  peaks  frames  the  picture  on  the 
left.  From  the  observer's  feet  the  land 
drops  almost  sheer  to  the  northern  plain, 
a  succession  of  splendid  plantations,  each 
wearing  its  own  distinctive  hue,  stretch- 
ing down  to  the  blue  ocean  which,  after 
churning  itself  into  milk-white  foam 
streaked  with  unusual  opalescent  hues 
where  it  meets  an  outlying  coral  reef,  rolls 
on  to  break  into  surf  on  the  white  sand 
beach  dotted  with  bathers.  The  cease- 
less roar  of  the  waves  tells  the  inhabi- 
tants that  the  sea  is  ever  ready  either 
for  works  of  benevolence  or  appalling 
disaster,  as  suits  its  varied  mood.  The 
whole  of  this  enchanting  spectacle  is 
bathed  in  brilliant  light,  except  where 
the  scurrying  trade-wind  clouds  throw 
their  shadows  on  the  land,  ofttimes  dis- 
charging a  burden  of  mist  and  rain,  and 
frequently  using  the  sun's  rays  to  add 
a  rainbow  to  a  panorama  already  quite 
perfect.  What  the  traveler  sees  from  the 
Pali  is  well  worth  the  trouble  of  the 
long  journey  from  home  to  Honolulu. 
The  writer  recalls  but  one  comparable 
landscape — the  "Chinese  View,"  lying 
between  "The  Gavin"  and  "The  Sugar 
Loaf,"  near  Rio  de  Janeiro. 

During  the  fifteen  years  elapsing  since 
he  spent  a  Christmas  in  this  exquisite 
island,  the  writer,  due  to  the  brevity 
of  his  halt,  could  only  note  sundry  sur- 
face indications.  Even  in  this  respect 
he  may  err  widely;  he  makes  no  claim 
to  accuracy  in  these  random  "impressions 
de  voyage."  A  distressing  symptom — as 
he  saw  it — was  the  decrease  in  the  na- 
tive population,  possibly  relative  and  not 
absolute,  and  the  astounding  growth  of 
the  Oriental  elements.  The  Chinese  and 
the  Japanese  are  fast  absorbing  all  the 
smaller  businesses.  Japanese  women 
clad  in  kimonos  and  straw  sandals  are 
everywhere,  and  the  supply  of  Japa- 
nese babies,  slung  in  shawls  behind  their 
mothers'  backs,  seems  inexhaustible. 


How  the  city  has  increased  in  the  past 
fifteen  years!  Apparently,  three  or  four 
fold.  Where  farms  and  market  gardens 
formerly  marked  the  slopes  behind  it, 
handsome  villas  are  now  built  and  build- 
ing. No  wonder,  either,  for  here  one 
may  live  in  a  delicious  and  practically 
unvarying  climate  of  warm,  not  hot, 
days,  cool  nights,  and  in  a  Garden  of 
Eden  offering  rides,  drives,  picnics  in 
every  direction,  and  boasting  a  country 
club  from  the  veranda  of  which  one  over- 
looks an  alluring  golf  course  melting 
away  into  an  incomparable  vista  of  ver- 
dant loveliness  which  ends  only  in  the 
distant  sea  horizon  of  darkest  blue. 

It  was  inevitable,  of  course,  but  the 
sturdy  native  pony  is  almost  never  seen 
now;  the  motor  has  displaced  him  and  in 
numbers  which  surpass  one's  power  of 
guessing.  Think  of  Honolulu  with  traf- 
fic policemen  at  each  street  crossing! 
Shades  of  Captain  Cook!  Motors  in 
turn  have  demanded  and  secured  better 
roads  everywhere,  so  that  the  trip 
around  Oahu  which,  on  horseback,  once 
required  several  days  of  the  writer's 
time — a  glorious  experience  it  was,  by 
the  way — is  now  easily  made  by  auto- 
mobile between  lunch  and  dinner. 

The  trolleys  have  kept  pace  with  the 
growth  of  the  town;  the  lagoon,  once 
known  as  Pearl  Harbor,  is  gradually 
being  developed  into  a  naval  station, 
with  the  largest  of  our  drydocks 
already  completed.  The  agricultural 
resources  of  Oahu  might  have  been 
expected  to  attract  a  strenuous  com- 
mercialism, but  those  who  knew  the 
Hawaiian  Islands  in  days  gone  by  may 
be  pardoned  when  they  miss  the  once 
simple,  easy  life  that  has  given  place 
to  the  fierce  competition  of  trade  and 
the  introduction  of  grave  ethnical  prob- 
lems arising  from  the  need  of  coolie 
labor.  What  pangs  and  travail  the  solu- 
tion may  bring  upon  this  community  re- 
main to  be  seen.  Already  a  strike  by 
the  local  Japanese  Federation  of  Sugar 
Workers  sounds  the  warning  note  of 
what  may  occur. 

None  the  less,  the  tourist,  from  the 
porch  of  the  modern  Moana  Hotel, 
watches  the  bathers  on  the  safe  beach  at 
Waikiki  and  the  native,  standing  erect  on 
a  plank  far  out,  at  tremendous  speed  rid- 
ing towards  the  shore,  driven  on  its  in- 
coming crest  by  the  rushing  breakers  as 
they  climb  over  an  outlying  reef. 

His  meditations  are  interrupted  by 
the  resident  at  his  side  who,  after  ex- 
plaining that  the  Cook  and  Castle  fami- 
lies are  noted  for  their  wealth,  claims 
supremacy  for  Honolulu  in  that  it  alone 
has  a  diamond  head,  a  pearly  harbor,  the 
largest  punch  bowl  in  the  world,  a  Castle 
on  every  corner,  while  all  its  Cooks  are 
millionaires. 

Caspar  F.  Goodrich 
At  Sea,   between  Honolulu  and   Guam, 
Washington's  Birthday. 


April  24,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[441 


Drama 

Andreyev  at   the   Neighbor- 
hood Playhouse 

THE  Neighborhood  Playhouse  appears 
to  have  a  quick  eye  for  that  rather 
elusive  thing — the  popular  element  in  the 
literary  drama.  I  could  not  have  ex- 
pected that  Andreyev  would  succeed  in 
Manhattan,  nor  that  Americans,  whom 
the  classics  impress  so  little,  would  be 
quick  to  respond  to  a  travesty  on  the 
classics.  But  the  welcome  given  to  the 
"Beautiful  Sabine  Women"  on  Grand 
Street  is  more  than  adequate;  it  is  lav- 
ish. The  success  is  not  reduced  by  the 
unusual  and  seemingly  untoward  cir- 
cumstance that  the  parties  to  the  action 
are  not  persons  but  groups — husbands, 
wives,  captors,  who  employ  persons  as 
their  spokesmen  and  delegates.  The 
Greek  chorus,  which  was  actor  as  well  as 
choir,  habituates  us  to  the  use  of  one 
such  group,  but,  except,  dimly,  in  the 
"Suppliants"  of  .Eschylus  and  Mr.  Gals- 
worthy's "Strife,"  I  scarcely  recall  a  sec- 
ond instance  in  which  the  collision  of 
two  or  more  groups  has  released  the 
dramatic  impulse  of  the  play. 

The  three  acts  are  compressible  into 
one;  indeed  Acts  II  and  III  might  be 
fairly  described  as  a  very  slow  curtain  to 
Act  I.  The  obvious  satire  turns  on  the 
willingness  of  women  to  be  snatched 
from  the  milksop  by  the  daredevil,  and 
their  unwillingness  to  confess  this  will- 
ingness to  the  insolent  captor.  Their 
surrender  at  the  close  of  Act  I  is  plain, 
and  the  Sabine  husbands,  whose  reclama- 
tions are  particularized  in  the  two  en- 
suing acts,  are  such  evident  and  arrant 
nobodies  that  their  burlesque  march  to 
Rome  is  seen  from  the  start  to  be  a 
march  towards  ignominy. 

The  play  is  called  a  satire,  but  satire 
has  called  farce  to  its  aid,  or,  to  speak 
more  precisely,  farce  has  been  called  in 
to  the  aid  of  the  playmaker  but  to  the 
injury  of  the  satirist.  I  have  no  quarrel 
with  farce ;  I  am  perfectly  amicable  even 
to  that  grade  of  farce  which  permits  it- 
self allusions  to  registered  letters  and  to 
encyclopaedias  in  the  Rome  of  the 
eighth  century  B.C.  The  jumbling  of 
epochs  need  not  be  harmful;  what 
really  harms  is  the  jumbling  of  purposes. 
The  original  purpose  of  this  play  was 
not  farcical,  but  comic;  it  meant,  on  the 
surface,  at  least,  to  bring  out,  through 
comedy,  the  resistance  of  the  mind  of 
woman  to  that  masculine  coercion  to 
which  the  frame  of  woman  and  also  the 
heart  of  woman  acknowledge  their  docil- 
ity. The  two  purposes  do  not  combine, 
and  the  farce  halts  the  comedy. 

It  is  said  that  behind  the  farce  and 
comedy  lurks  political  allegory.  The 
(Continued  on  page  442) 


THE  HUDSON  COAL  CO. 


CELEBRATED 

LACKAWANNA 

THE  ARISTOCRAT  OF  ANTHRACITE 


1823 


1920 


HAS  NATURAL  QUALITIES  AND  MAN-MADE  REFINEMENT 


D.  F.  WILLIAMS 

Vice-President  and  General  Sales  Agent 


W.  F.  SHURTLEFF 

Assistant  General  Sales  Agent 


SCRANTON,  PA. 


442] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  50 


THE  PRINCETON  UNI- 
VERSITY PRESS  was  in- 
corporated in  1910,  "in  the 
interests  of  Princeton  Uni- 
versity, to  establish,  main- 
tain and  operate  a  printing 
and  publishing  plant  for  the 
promotion  of  education  and 
scholarship."  Since  that  time 
it  has  published  nearly  one 
hundred  books,  all  recom- 
mended by  a  committee  com- 
posed of  members  of  the 
Princeton  faculty  as  worthy 
contributions  to  their  sub- 
jects. On  its  list  of  authors 
appear  the  names  of  Grover 
Cleveland,  E  1  i  h  u  Root, 
Joseph  Choate,  Theodore 
Roosevelt,  Arthur  Woods, 
Paul  Elmer  More,  Edwin 
Grant  Conklin,  George  W. 
Goethals,  Allan  Marquand, 
Leonard  Wood,  William 
Starr  Myers,  and  many 
others.  The  subjects  dealt 
with  include  art,  history,  poet- 
ry, business,  finance,  politics, 
government,  essays,  philoso- 
phy, education,  psychology, 
and  social  betterment.  Or- 
ders are  received  from  the 
four  corners  of  the  globe; 
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into  French,  Spanish,  and 
Japanese;  the  demand  for 
them  on  the  part  of  intelli- 
gent readers  is  broadening 
constantly;  in  England  they 
are  all  published  by  the  Ox- 
ford University  Press. 

We  should  be  glad  to  send 
you  a  booklet  we  have  pre- 
pared, describing  our  work 
and  progress  in  greater  de- 
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logue of  publications,  and  an- 
nouncements of  new  books 
as  they  appear. 


PRINCETON  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 
PRINCETON,  N.  J. 


(Continued  from  page  441) 
Romans  are  Russian  reactionaries,  the 
Sabines  are  Constitutional-Democrats, 
and  the  Sabine  women  are  promises — 
promises  the  substance  and  force  of 
which  the  reactionaries,  in  the  first  dec- 
ade of  this  century,  snatched  away  from 
the  Constitutional-Democrats.  Whether 
Andreyef  is  voucher  for  this  key  I  can 
not  say;  one  would  like  to  think  that  he 
was  aware  of  the  shallowness  of  this 
form  of  depth,  a  form  that  can  not  even 
claim  the  characteristic  ijierit  of  shal- 
lows— transparency.  I  was  glad  that  the 
joy  of  the  Neighborhood  Playhouse  audi- 
ence, which  was  a  complete  and  satisfy- 
ing joy,  was  undisturbed  by  problems  of 
interpretation.  Even  in  a  Roman  play 
one  hardly  cares  to  take  the  part  of 
haruspex  or  soothsayer.  Moreover,  in 
such  combinations,  the  allegory  serves  as 
sinker  to  the  nonsense  much  oftener  than 
the  nonsense  acts  as  float  to  the  allegory. 
The  acting  was  rapid  and  spirited,  and 
the  evenness  of  its  quality,  which  was 
noticeable,  did  not  prevent  the  observer 
from  finding  or  fancying  a  slight  margin 
of  superiority  in  the  female  parts.  I 
found  beauty  in  Mr.  Frank  Stout's 
bright,  vivid,  and  as  it  were,  exclamatory 
setting;  but  I  should  have  liked  it  bet- 
ter in  "Hernani"  or  "Siegfried"  than  in 
the  "Beautiful  Sabine  Women."  Against 
that  haunting  and  romantic  background, 
the  farcicalities  in  the  play  seemed  as 
irrelevant  as  the  chicken-bones  and  egg- 


shells which  the  shuddering  Ruskin 
found,  in  the  wake  of  excursionists,  on 
the  Alpine  glaciers. 

The  "Glittering  Gate,"  a  one-act  piece 
by  Lord  Dunsany,  opened  the  programme. 
A  burglar,  on  some  ledge  or  scarp  of  no- 
where, picks  the  locks  of  Heaven's  gate 
before  our  eyes.  The  boldness  of  the 
invention  is  remarkable,  and  the  dis- 
tance that  our  realistic  Anglo-Saxondom 
has  traveled  in  the  last  twenty-five  years 
is  measured  by  the  fact  that  its  boldness 
startled  nobody.  We  were  all  quite  ready 
to  believe.  If  we  did  not  quite  believe 
in  spite  of  our  readiness,  I  think  it  was 
because  we  waited — and  waited  vainly — 
for  Lord  Dunsany  to  set  us  the  example. 
Faith  is  somehow  not  his  attribute.  He 
has  a  real,  though  slight,  originality ;  but 
when  he  throws  open  the  door  upon  some 
sombre  vista  of  eccentric  and  enticing 
picturesqueness,  he  says,  "Look  in" 
rather  than  "Come  in."  In  this  play  the 
burglar  literally  opens  the  gate,  but  be- 
hind it  nothing  is  to  be  seen  but  blue 
space  and  the  clearness  of  the  unap- 
proached  stars.  The  lesson  is  wise  and 
timely.  Heaven  baffles  the  aggressions 
of  men  less  by  resistance  than  by  re- 
moval; Utopia  vindicates  its  etymology. 
The  setting,  by  Mr.  Warren  Dahler, 
which  was  half  the  play,  was  a  good 
half;  and  the  acting,  if  it  did  not  satisfy, 
sufficed. 

0.  W.  Firkins 


Problems  of  Labor  and  Capital 

III.  Compulsory  Filing  of  Collective  Bargaining  Agreements 

THAT  the  public  is  the  third  party, 
not  to  be  ignored  in  the  warfare  be- 
tween unions  and  employers,  becomes 
clearer  after  each  struggle  between  them. 
Even  where  the  public  welfare  is  only 
remotely  concerned  both  labor  and  em- 
ployers recognize  the  advantage  of  satis- 
fying what  is  known  as  "public  opinion." 
Both  unions  and  employers'  associations 
spend  fortunes  in  advertising  with  the 
hope  that  the  weight  of  evidence  may 
incline  it  to  their  side.  More  than  this 
should  be  done:  all  collective-bargaining 
agreements,  with  all  their  modifications 
and  amendments,  should  be  made  a  mat- 
ter of  public  record.  Such  agreements 
should  be  filed  with  the  governmental 
agency  having  charge  of  the  mediation 
and  arbitration  of  disputes,  such  as,  for 
example,  the  Bureau  of  Mediation  and 
Arbitration  of  the  Industrial  Commis- 
sion of  the  State  of  New  York.  If  the 
agreement  is  inter-state  in  scope,  then 
the  proper  depositary  is  the  correspond- 
ing Federal  bureau. 

The  advantages  of  such  public  filing 
are  many.  In  the  first  place,  it  will  fur- 
nish a  public  record  of  inestimable  value 


to  attorneys  and  others  who  are  called 
upon  to  prepare  contracts  between  one 
or  more  employers  and  groups  of  em- 
ployees. Although  the  legal  profession 
has  ready  access  to  many  other  types  of 
contracts,  such  as  leases,  deeds,  wills,  and 
trust  agreements,  which  have  been  tested 
in  the  courts  for  generations,  there  is 
nowhere  in  existence  a  compilation  of 
collective-bargaining  contracts.  In  spite 
of  the  accumulation  of  information  which 
is  at  the  hands  of  the  legal  profession 
on  other  subjects,  many  contested  cases 
arise  annually  merely  because  the  in- 
tention of  the  parties  has  not  been  clearly 
expressed.  It  is  not  surprising  that  in 
the  comparatively  new  type  of  contract 
involved  in  a  collective-bargaining  agree- 
ment, in  itself  a  difficult  instrument  to 
draw,  disagreement  and  confusion  should 
arise. 

In  the  second  place,  the  public  agencies 
which  have  been  charged  with  the  settle- 
ment of  industrial  disputes  have  been 
comparatively  ineffective  because  of  the 
fact  that  they  are  called  into  the  con- 
flict between  the  employers  and  the  em- 
ployees after  it  is  already  well  advanced. 


f^pril  24,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[448 


rhrough  the  public  recording  of  all  such 
nstruments,  the  agency  charged  with 
nediation  and  arbitration  would  have  a 
alendar  of  prospective  "trouble-dates" 
ind  could  in  advance  use  its  machinery 
0  reform,  modify,  or  continue  the  agree- 
nent  then  in  existence.  Many  collective 
igreements  provide  for  notice  of  renewal 
ir  of  proposed  modifications  at  dates 
)revious  to  expiration  of  the  contract.  A 
bureau  of  Mediation  could  apply  this  ef- 
ective  device  on  a  large  scale. 

Finally,  many  industrial  disputes  are 
iggravated,  if  they  are  not  actually 
aused,  by  a  belief  on  one  side  or  the 
ither,  or  both,  that  the  original  agree- 
nent  has  been  modified  by  oral  state- 
aents  or  correspondence.  In  practically 
very  industrial  disturbance,  following  a 
leriod  of  comparative  peace  under  col- 
ective  agreements  between  unions  and 
mployers,  there  appears  a  clear-cut  issue 
is  to  the  terms  of  the  existing  agree- 
nent.  The  public  recording  of  all  such 
Igreements  would  estop  either  party 
rom  claiming  that  the  agreement,  as 
ecorded,  was  not  the  entire  contract  be- 
ween  the  parties,  since  no  modifications 
ir  amendments  that  had  not  been  filed 
ould  be  regarded  as  valid. 

This  proposal  is  subject  to  certain 
[ueries.  If  the  filing  of  all  such  written 
greements  is  mandatory,  will  there  not 
le  created  a  desire  to  avoid  reducing  to 
/riting  the  terms  of  the  understandings? 
['he  negative  answer  to  this  question  lies 
n  an  examination  of  our  everyday  busi- 
less  practices.  Transactions  on  the 
tock  exchanges,  and  the  sale  or  con- 
ignment  of  precious  stones,  for  example, 
re  conducted  without  writings  or  even 
eceipts,  and  conversely,  where  the  per- 
onal  relations  of  the  parties  has  not  per- 
nitted  a  development  of  confidence, 
everything  tends  to  be  reduced  to  writ- 
ng.  The  advantages  resulting  from 
lear,  unequivocal  understandings,  and 
he  impossibility  of  operating  under  an 
■ral  collective-bargaining  agreement  con- 
aining  provisions  as  to  hours,  wages, 
.pprentices,  holidays,  overtime  pay, 
ights  of  discharge,  and  innumerable 
•ther  provisions  relating  to  conditions  of 
employment  is  not  within  the  realm  of. 
lispute. 

Again,  would  each  and  every  collective 
.greement  become  filable?  Should  a  prof- 
t-sharing  plan  in  a  single  plant  or  office 
)e  made  public?  The  answers  to  such 
luestions  can  be  found  in  the  adoption 
if  the  following  principle :  Every  agree- 
nent  between  three  or  more  employees 
ind  one  or  more  employers,  if  reduced  to 
vriting,  and  if  it  aifects  the  terms  of 
employment,  should  be  filed.    There  is  no 

pparent  desire  on  the  part  of  the  em- 
iloyers  for  secrecy  in  matters  of  profit- 
haring  schemes.  In  fact,  employers 
eem  to  be  vieing  with  each  other 
0  procure  publicity  in  such  matters. 
V'here  then  lies  the  danger?    If  the  plan 


goes  so  far  as  to  give  all  employees  the 
right  to  an  accounting,  or  if  not  that,  at 
least  discloses  the  net  profits  of  the  em- 
ployer, may  it  not  be  presumed  that  the 
employer  who  has  advanced  so  far  in 
this  direction  will  also  find  no  objection 
to  the  public  recording  of  agreements? 
On  the  part  of  organized  labor  the  pub- 
lic filing  of  agreements  will  doubtless 
meet  with  approval.  In  addition  to  the 
specific  advantages  of  such  a  plan,  the 
organized  labor  movement  will  be  ben- 
efited by  the  seeming  stamp  of  Govern- 
ment approval  which  will  result  from 
such  public  filing. 

Morris  L.  Ernst 

Books  and  the  News 

New  American  Books 

To  name,  as  I  have  been  asked  to  do, 
ten  or  a  dozen  American  books  of  the 
past  three  or  four  months,  is  sure  to 
make  one  keep  on  the  watch  for  the  na- 
tional point  of  view,  to  think  carefully 
what  is  really  American,  and  what  is  imi- 
tative. Sometimes  the  imitative  book  rep- 
resents a  passing  American  tendency. 
How  many  of  the  novels  and  essays  that 
you  read  are  American,  and  how  many 
of  them  are  English?  You  may  be  sur- 
prised if  you  make  a  count.  Books  reach 
across  national  boundaries — fortunately 
(Continued  on  page  444) 


THE  LIFE  OF 

LEONARD 
WOOD 


By  JOHN  G. 
HOLME 


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444] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  50 


I 


Essential 

for  every  university  and 
public  library : 

Essential 

for  every  student  of 
English  Drama: 

Nason's 

** JAMES  SHIRLEY, 

DRAMATIST" 

the  only  adequate  bio- 
graphical and  critical 
study  of  the  principal 
dramatic  poet  of  the 
reign  of  Charles  I. 


Cloth,    xvi+472  pages.    Choicely  iltus- 
Irated.    Price,  $5.00. 


THE  NEW  YORK  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

{StUiHg  Agtntt) 

32  Waverly  PUce        New  York  City 


{Continued  from  page  443) 
— so  much  that  an  investigator  of  recent 
biographical  works  in  English  said  that 
the  four  best  biographies  of  the  past  year 
or  two  were  an  American  and  an  English 
autobiography,  the  life  of  an  Englishman 
by  an  American,  and  the  life  of  an  Amer- 
ican by  an  Englishman.  These  were: 
Henry  Adams's  "Education,"  W.  H.  Hud- 
son's "Far  Away  and  Long  Ago,"  Pro- 
fessor Cross's  "History  of  Henry  Field- 
ing," and  Lord  Charnwood's  "Abraham 
Lincoln." 

For  the  new  American  books,  "The 
Letters  of  Henry  James"  (2  vols.  Scrib- 
ner,  1920)  is  named  with  misgivings, 
and  yet  not  without  the  feeling  that  it 
belongs  in  the  list.  An  American  who 
died  a  British  subject,  and  had  the  in- 
signia of  the  Order  of  Merit  brought  to 
him  on  his  sick-bed,  may  seem  a  strange 
choice.  Certainly  no  American  is  will- 
ing to  give  up  other  Americans,  like 
Sargent  and  Whistler,  also  exiles,  who 
contributed  to  the  art  and  culture  of 
other  lands,  and  of  the  whole  world. 
Henry  James's  exasperating  obscurity, 
which  appears  in  many  of  these  letters, 
did  not  keep  him  from  thinking  clearly 
enough  on  the  war.  And,  an  arch-stylist, 
he  never  was  deceived  by  the  myth  about 
the  "exquisite  English  style"  in  which 
our  diplomatic  correspondence  with  Ger- 
many was  conducted,  from  1914  to  1918. 

John  Spargo's  "The  Psychology  of  Bol- 
shevism" (Harper,  1920)  should  be 
added.  In  "The  Anthology  of  Magazine 
Verse  for  1919"  (Small,  1920),  edited  by 
W.  S.  Braithwaite,  we  have  a  reflection 
of  the  current  poetry,  and  in  Vachell 
Lindsay's  "The  Golden  Whales  of  Cali- 
fornia" (Macmillan,  1920),  a  single, 
striking  volume,  strong  in  its  American 
flavor.  The  crash  of  its  jazz  poem  about 
Daniel  and  the  lions  could  never  be 
duplicated  by  anybody  born  far  from  the 
sound  of  negro  camp-meetings.  Rock- 
well Kent's  pictures  for  his  "Wilderness ; 
a  Journal  of  Quiet  Adventure  in  Alaska" 
(Putnam,  1920)  are,  sometimes,  con- 
scious, grandiose,  and  too  near  William 
Blake  for  comfort.  Often,  however,  they 
are  excellent;  the  end-papers  best  of  all. 

To  keep  up  with  recent  magazine  fic- 
tion read  ""The  Best  Short  Stories  of 
1919"  (Small),  edited  by  Edward  J. 
O'Brien.  For  essays,  "Modes  and 
Morals"  (Scribner,  1920),  by  Katharine 
Fullerton  Gerould,  have  the  rai-e  quality 
of  irony.  Mr.  Huneker's  "Bedouins" 
(Scribner)  belongs  in  this  list,  and 
W.  E.  B.  Du  Bois's  "Darkwater"  (Har- 
court,  1920),  for  its  interpretation  of  the 
negro.  Although  not  a  new  book,  in  the 
customary  sense,  A.  Edward  Newton's 
"The  Amenities  of  Book  Collecting" 
(Atlantic  Monthly  Press),  deserves  in 
its  new  edition  a  second  reading.  If  you 
missed  it  at  first,  so  much  the  better  for 
your  enjoyment  now. 

Edmund  Lester  Pearson 


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Chakles  E.  Haydock,  Vice-President  and  Manager 

Mrs.    Key  Cammack Assistant  Secretary 

Russell  \'.  Worstell Assistant  Secretary 


TRUSTEES 


Otto  T.  Bannard 
S.  Reading  Bertron 

iames  A.  Blair 
lortimer  N.  Buckner 
James  C.  Colgate 
Alfred  A.  Cook 
Arthur  T.  Cumnock 
Robert  W.  de  Forest 
John  B.   Dennis 
Philip  T.   Dodge 
George   Doubleday 
Samuel  H.  Fisher 
John   A.   Garver 
Benjamin  S.  Guinness 
F.  N.  Hoffstot 


Buchanan   Houston 
Frederic  B.  Jennings 
Walter  Jennings 
Darwin   P.   Kingslcy 
John  C.  McCall 
Ogden  L.  Mills 
John  J.   Mitchell 
James  Parmelee 
Henry  C.   Phipps 
Norman  P.   Ream 
Dean   Sage 
Joseph  J.  Slocum 
Myles  Tierney 
Clarence  M.  Woolley 


Members  of  the  Nero   York  Clearing  House  Asso- 
ciation  and   of   the   Federal   Reserve   System 


LEONARD 
WOOD 

ON  NATIONAL 
ISSUES 


Complied  by 
EVAN  J.  DAVID 


$1.50  at  all  booksellers 


DOUBLEDAY,    PAGE     8e    CO. 


4' 


i^t^ 


/ 


THE  REVIEW 


Vol.  2,  No.  51 


New  York,  Saturday,  May  1,  1920 


FIFTEEN  CENTS 


Contents 


Brief  Comment  445 

Editorial  Articles: 
Lawmakers  Found  Wanting  448 

If  the  Overallers  Are  in  Earnest  449 

The  Newberry  Verdict  450 

Branting  Prime  Minister  451 

Behind  the  Financing  of  China.     Part 

IV.     By  Charles  Hodges  452 

Propaganda  and  the  News.     By  W.  J. 

Ghent  453 

Asia,    Europe,    and    Bolshevism.     By 

Dr.  Paul  Rohrbach  455 

M.    Millerand,    the    French    Premier. 

By  Othon  Guerlac  456 

Correspondence  457 

Book  Reviews: 

Champ  Clark's  Reminiscences  460 

Satire   and   Soothing-Syrup  461 

Ireland's  Future  461 

Adventures  in  the  Past  463 

The  Run  of  the  Shelves  463 

Drama: 
The   Unreviving  London   Stage  and 
Its  Revivals.     By  William  Archer    465 
On     Profiteer    Hunting.       By     Henry 

Hazlitt  466 

Jazz  a  Song  at  Twilight.    By  Clement 

Wood  468 

Educational  Section  470 

Books  and  the  News:    Sport.    By  Ed- 
mund Lester  Pearson  472 


'T^HE  distinctive  development  of  the 
■*-  past  ten  days  in  the  Presidential 
nomination  field  has  been  the  in- 
creased prominence  of  President 
Wilson.  His  letter  on  the  treaty  to 
one  of  the  Kansas  delegates-at-Iarge 
to  San  Francisco;  Mr.  Jim  Ham 
Lewis's  warning,  in  his  address  at 
the  Kansas  Convention,  that  "the 
country  must  be  ready  to  see  the  con- 
vention at  San  Francisco  put  Wilson 
as  its  candidate  before  the  nation  as 
a  protest"  against  the  defeat  of  the 
treaty;  the  announcement  made  by 
the  New  York  World  that  the  Presi- 
dent intends  to  return  the  treaty  to 
the  Senate  "some  time  this  summer," 
accompanied  by  reservations  of  his 
own — all  these  things  point  to  some- 
thing like  a  certainty  that  Mr.  Wil- 
son, if  his  health  holds  out,  will  play 
a  very  big  part  in  the  political  de- 
velopments of  the  next  few  months. 
If  the  last  of  these  statements  is  well 
founded,  the  one  thing  to  be  hoped 


for  by  all  patriotic  Americans  is  that 
the  President's  proposal,  whatever  it 
may  be,  will  be  considered  and  acted 
upon  solely  according  to  its  merits, 
and  not  as  a  continuation  of  the  un- 
happy contentions  of  the  past  ten 
months.  As  to  the  Presidential  cam- 
paign itself,  it  seems  ta  us  as  clear  as 
it  ever  was  that  no  profitable  method 
can  be  found  for  turning  it  into  a 
referendum  on  the  treaty.  If  Mr. 
Wilson  should  not  be  a  candidate,  the 
issue  would  be  merely  confusing ;  and 
if  Mr.  Wilson  should  be  a  candidate, 
while  the  issue  of  the  treaty  would 
undoubtedly  be  a  genuine  and  live 
one,  it  would  be  overshadowed  by  the 
personal  issues  involved  in  the  ques- 
tion of  his  own  re-election. 

/COMMENTING  on  the  results  of 
^  the  Michigan  primaries,  we 
pointed  out  that  the  proper  view  of 
Senator  Johnson's  vote  was  to  regard 
it  as  cast  for  him  on  the  one  side  as 
against  four  prominent  candidates  on 
the  opposite  side ;  and  we  stated  that 
"Johnson  beat  Wood  by  a  plurality 
of  perhaps  45,000,  but  he  fell  short 
of  the  combined  vote  of  the  four  by 
about  55,000."  The  complete  returns 
have  been  slow  to  come  in.  They 
show  that  while  Johnson's  plurality 
over  Wood  was  almost  precisely  what 
the  earlier  returns  indicated,  the  com- 
bined vote  of  the  four  surpassed 
Johnson's  by  a  much  larger  figure 
than  we  stated.  Johnson  polled 
156,939  votes;  Wood  112,556;  and 
Wood,  Lowden,  Hoover,  and  Pershing 
polled  an  aggregate  vote  of  245,458. 
Thus  Johnson  fell  short  of  the  com- 
bined vote  of  what  may  well  be  called 
the  four  normal  Republican  candi- 
dates by  nearly  90,000;  his  vote  was 
156,939  out  of  a  total  of  402,397  for 
the  five.  Johnson  is  cast  for  a  big 
role  at  Chicago ;  but  he  does  not  com- 
mand majorities,  or  anything  like 
majorities,  in  many  States. 


TJUNCOMBE  is  the  only  wear  for 
-'-'  a  Presidential  campaign — that 
must  be  the  conviction  of  the  House 
Democrats  and  "insurgent"  Repub- 
licans who  have  concocted  a  bill  to 
raise  money  for  the  proposed  bonus 
by  means  of  a  retroactive  war-profits 
tax.  The  bill  would  impose  a  tax  of 
80  per  cent,  upon  the  whole  amount 
by  which  the  income  of  an  individual 
or  corporation  for  each  of  the  years 
1917,  1918,  1919,  and  1920  exceeded 
pre-war  income.  This  sort  of  raid  on 
incomes  of  past  years  which  have 
already  yielded  to  the  Government 
what  it  thought  fit  to  exact,  and 
which  have  been  spent  or  used  upon 
the  supposition  that  the  recipient  had 
them  at  his  disposal,  is  so  preposter- 
ous that  there  is  not  the  slightest 
danger  of  its  being  actually  imposed 
by  any  Congress  and  President  that 
may  be  elected  next  autumn,  unless 
the  country  goes  crazy  in  the  interval. 
The  bill  is  not  meant  to  be  passed, 
but  to  serve  as  a  "good  enough 
Morgan  till  after  the  election."  But 
it  won't  be  even  that. 

r\EPRAVED  as  we  all  know  the 
'-^  American  press  to  be,  some  of  us 
will  be  surprised  at  the  exposure 
of  its  calculating  wickedness  which 
comes  from  Italy.  But  the  truth  must 
be  faced,  however  disagreeable  and 
unexpected.  Occasional  items  of  a 
disturbing  character  in  regard  to 
labor  unrest  in  Italy  have  been  ap- 
pearing in  the  newspapers,  but  most 
people,  in  their  innocence,  have 
looked  upon  them  as  stray  items  of 
news,  like  so  many  similar  ones  re- 
lating to  other  countries,  including 
our  own.  But  the  Giornale  d'ltalia 
understands  the  thing  better.  A 
campaign  of  false  news,  it  tells  us,  is 
being  carried  on  by  American  news- 
papers against  Italy,  and  the  motive 
for  it  is  obvious.  "Naturally,"  it 
says — and  there  is  a  world  of  mean- 


446] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  51 


ing  in  the  word — "naturally,  the  prin- 
cipal reason  of  this  campaign  is  to 
depreciate  still  further  the  value  of 
the  lira,  thus  imposing  on  us  usurious 
prices  for  products  which  we  are 
forced  to  buy  from  abroad."  That 
news  is  systematically  suppressed, 
that  nobody  is  allowed  to  hear  a  word 
from  radical  leaders,  that  the  labor 
men's  side  of  a  strike  dispute  is  never 
to  be  found  in  the  news  columns  of 
our  capitalist  press — with  all  this  we 
have  long  been  familiar.  But  even 
our  most  wide-awake  reformers  have 
not  suspected  a  depth  of  depravity 
which  would  cause  those  organs  of 
Satanic  plutocracy  to  manufacture  a 
series  of  false  news  dispatches  for 
what  is,  after  all,  even  to  Mr.  Morgan 
or  Mr.  Rockefeller,  the  comparatively 
minor  object  of  lowering  the  value  of 
the  lira. 

fyHE  League  of  Nations  has  re- 
-■■  fused  to  accept  a  mandate  for 
Armenia  on  the  ground  of  inadequate 
resources.  An  advertisement  in  a 
Detroit  weekly  reveals  the  cause  of 
this  lack  of  funds :  "The  League  of 
Nations,  Wall  Street,  and  other  finan- 
ciers are  paying  Wood's  campaign 
expenses  to  get  your  vote.  Vote  for 
Johnson,  who  smashed  the  fake 
League  of  Nations,  who  stands  for 
free  speech,  a  free  press  and  free 
America,  Ireland  included."  This 
makes  it  quite  clear  why  the  League 
can  not  become  a  mandatory  for 
Armenia.  But  it  does  not  explain 
whence  the  League,  since  it  was 
smashed  by  Johnson,  derives  the 
financial  strength  to  support  Wood's 
campaign.  Or  was  this  self-con- 
tradictory statement  inserted  with 
the  express  purpose  of  showing  what 
free  speech  is  capable  of  under  a 
Johnson  regime? 

A  T  the  San  Remo  Conference, 
•^  peace  between  London  and  Paris 
was  renewed  by  a  give-and-take  on 
either  side,  though  in  this  transac- 
tion between  the  stubborn  Millerand 
and  the  pliable  Lloyd  George  it  was 
the  Frenchman  who  made  the  smaller 
sacrifice.  By  yielding  on  the  subject 
of  the  German  payments,  which  will 
nov/  be  fixed  at  a  lump  sum,  and  by 
promising  that  France  will  declare  in 


unmistakable  terms  that  she  has  no 
intention  of  annexing  the  left  bank 
of  the  Rhine,  he  received  in  return 
Lloyd  George's  support  of  his  insis- 
tence on  the  disarmament  of  Ger- 
many, and  the  continuance  of  the 
Commission  of  Control  which  the 
British  Premier  wanted  to  be  dis- 
charged. Millerand  has  scored  yet 
another  point  by  eliciting  from  Lloyd 
George  a  flat  denial,  which  it  seems 
difficult  to  reconcile  with  recent  ut- 
terances of  his,  that  he  wished  to 
have  the  treaty  with  Germany  re- 
vised. 

'T'HE  renewal  of  peace  between  the 
•*•  Premiers  will  have  a  stabilizing 
effect  upon  affairs  in  Germany.  The 
lack  of  authority  of  Herr  Mtiller's 
Government  is  in  part  due  to  the  agi- 
tation of  those  who,  foreseeing  an 
estrangement  between  England  and 
France,  opposed  the  Government's  en- 
deavors to  execute  the  peace  terms. 
The  frustration  of  their  hopes,  and 
Lloyd  George's  outspoken  support  of 
Millerand's  refusal  to  have  the  treaty 
revised,  will  deprive  that  opposition 
of  its  backbone  and  help  to  strengthen 
the  Berlin  Government.  Whether  it 
will  gather  strength  enough  to  carry 
out  the  disarmament  in  the  teeth  of 
the  army's  resistance  remains  to  be 
seen.  The  fate  of  Germany  lies  now 
in  the  hands  of  Ludendorff  and  his 
party.  If  they  consider  it,  in  their 
blindness,  a  patriotic  duty  to  refuse 
obedience  to  the  Government,  civil 
war  and  foreign  intervention,  to 
which  Lloyd  George  is  now  pledged, 
will  be  the  results.  The  Prussian 
militarists  have  never  impressed  the 
world  by  their  political  foresight,  but 
the  situation  created  at  San  Remo  is 
CO  clear-cut,  and  the  consequences  of 
an  infraction  of  the  treaty  so  plain 
to  be  seen,  that  even  these  purblind 
meddlers  of  the  old  regime  can  not 
fail  to  perceive  them  and  act,  or 
rather  refrain  from  action,  accord- 
ingly. 

npHE  silence  of  the  insurgent  press 
•*-  regarding  the  new  Soviet  labor 
code  is  dark  and  profound.  Even 
such  journals  as  have  heretofore 
made  a  practice  of  printing  certain 
documents  of  an  alleged  revelatory 
character,  in  order  to  shame  and  defy 


the  hated  capitalist  press,  have  balked 
at  the  labor  code.  Of  course,  a  Soviet 
code  which  transforms  all  male  labor 
into  slave  labor  may  be  thought,  even 
by  the  most  frantic  pro-Bolshevist 
editor,  to  be  a  trifle  extreme  and 
therefore  something  to  be  kept  from 
its  readers.  But  having  swallowed 
so  many  camels  in  the  way  of  Bolshe- 
vist outrage  upon  human  rights, 
to  strain  at  the  gnat  of  labor  en- 
slavement must  seem  to  ordinary  per- 
sons a  bit  absurd.  Of  the  two  stock 
justifications  for  such  measures,  with 
which  the  pro-Bolshevist  editor  has 
heretofore  always  been  ready,  the 
first,  "protection  against  counter- 
revolution," is  obviously  unhandy  for 
the  case  in  point.  But  the  other,  "the 
exercise  of  proletarian  self-disci- 
pline," fits  like  a  glove.  For  a  long 
time  it  has  been  evident,  from  the 
columns  of  the  less  mealy-mouthed 
of  our  insurgent  contemporaries,  that 
the  essence  of  "proletarian  self-dis- 
cipline" lay  in  unhesitating  obedience 
to  any  arbitrary  order  of  the  oli- 
garchy of  thirty-four.  Why  the 
present  silence?  Why  the  failure  to 
apply  the  rule,  or  theory,  or  princi- 
ple, to  a  comparatively  trifling  mat- 
ter like  the  enslavement  of  labor? 
Here  is  a  puzzle  which  only  Time  will 
solve. 

TT  was  a  noble  gesture,  quite  in  the 
■*-  grand  style,  with  which  the  Free- 
man, the  latest  entrant  in  the  field  of 
insurgent  journalism,  qualified  its  ac- 
ceptance of  the  welcome  extended  it 
by  the  Nation.  "Thank  you  very 
kindly,"  it  said,  in  effect.  "Your  lan- 
guage attests  the  generosity  of  your 
heart,  but  unfortunately  it  reveals 
some  grave  defects  of  understanding. 
You  welcome  us  to  the  field  of  'liberal 
journalism.'  Know,  then — and  may 
this  statement  serve  not  merely 
as  a  gentle  reproof  to  yourselves  but 
as  a  stern  warning  to  others — that 
we  are  not  liberals;  we  are  radicals. 
There  is  a  fundamental  difference  be- 
tween the  two,  which  a  schoolboy 
should  be  whipped  for  not  knowing. 
Thank  you  again  most  kindly,  but  in 
the  future  please  be  a  little  more 
circumspect  in  your  use  of  terms." 
Thereupon  the  differences  are  care- 
fully expounded.    It  appears  that  lib- 


May  1,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[447 


erals  believe  in  the  political  state, 
whereas  radicals  scorn  it  and  all  its 
works;  and  it  further  appears  that 
liberals  recognize  but  two  factors  in 
wealth  production,  labor  and  capital, 
whereas  radicals,  with  scientific  pre- 
cision, recognize  in  addition  a  third 
factor,  the  land.  Far  be  it  from  us, 
even  though  we  doubt  the  sufficiency 
of  the  distinction,  to  challenge  it 
openly.  But  if  one's  attitude  toward 
the  political  state  is  a  prime  test,  then 
the  Nation,  in  this  verdict  of  exclu- 
sion from  the  ranks  of  the  radicals, 
has  suffered  a  cruel  and  unusual  pun- 
ishment. More  than  once  it  has  em- 
phatically proclaimed  the  uselessness 
of  the  state  and  the  need  of  merging 
ourselves  in  that  large  and  joyous 
nebulosity,  the  Great  Society.  We 
can  not  but  admire  the  grand  man- 
ner of  the  Freeman  in  this  important, 
episode ;  but  at  the  same  time  we  feel 
bound  to  protest  against  a  hasty  and 
an  unjust  judgment. 

CTRANGE,  as  we  have  had  occa- 
^  sion  to  remark  before,  are  the 
mental  workings  of  sentimental  radi- 
calism. One  of  the  editors  of  the  Sur- 
vexj,  reviewing,  in  a  recent  issue,  a 
biography  of  Debs,  admits  the  legal 
guilt  of  the  Socialist  leader.  "But 
after  that  is  admitted,"  he  says,  "the 
contrast  between  our  attitude  toward 
the  German  Socialist,  Dr.  Liebknecht, 
and  Eugene  V.  Debs  is  striking. 
When  Liebknecht  went  to  jail  because 
his  Socialist  principles  opposed  all 
wars  America  applauded  an  honor- 
able man.  Our  toleration  does  not  ex- 
tend to  Debs  even  though  he  is  a  much 
milder  type  of  Socialist  than  Lieb- 
knecht turned  out  to  be.  History  is 
full  of  such  irony."  But  where,  either 
in  the  classical  or  in  the  derived  sense 
of  the  term,  is  the  irony  ?  That  Debs 
is  a  "much  milder  type  of  Socialist" 
than  the  Liebknecht  of  the  winter  of 
1918-19,  who  sought  the  armed  over- 
throw of  a  representative  Govern- 
ment, would  be  difficult  to  prove  in 
the  face  of  his  passionate  indorse- 
ment not  only  of  Liebknecht  but  of 
Lenin.  Indeed,  his  most  devoted  par- 
tisans will  indignantly  resent  the 
attribute  of  revolutionary  mildness 
given  him.  But  this  point  aside, 
there  is  the  plain  fact  that  the  Lieb- 


knecht of  1915-16  denounced  the  mili- 
tary aggression  of  the  German  Gov- 
ernment, while  Debs  in  1918  de- 
nounced the  measures  taken  by  the 
United  States  Government  against 
that  aggression.  To  straight-minded 
folk  the  distinction  is  clear  enough. 
One  course  of  conduct  tended  to  frus- 
trate the  German  Emperor,  while 
the  other  tended  to  sustain  and 
strengthen  him.  The  popular  attitude 
was  a  logical  response  to  the  facts: 
Liebknecht  was  applauded,  while 
Debs  was  condemned.  If  history  is 
full  of  such  instances,  so  much  the 
better  for  history,  with  its  attesta- 
tion to  the  general  common  sense  of 
mankind. 

"DETWEEN  the  two  extreme  no- 
■'-'  tions  that  a  man  with  a  diploma 
has  finished  his  education  and  that 
before  he  can  begin  it  he  has  a  good 
deal  to  unlearn,  lies  the  truth  that  he 
has  indeed  made  some  progress  but 
must  still  keep  iri  touch  with  the 
progress  of  the  schools  or  lose  much 
of  the  ground  he  has  gained.  Prince- 
ton's proposal  to  send  to  all  her  grad- 
uates full  reports  of  the  work  that 
is  being  done  by  her  professors  is 
evidence  of  the  growing  realization 
of  the  necessity  of  "continuation" 
schooling.  In  another  field  the  New 
York  Post-Graduate  Medical  School 
has  for  nearly  forty  years  provided 
increasingly  effective  graduate  in- 
structions for  the  practising  physi- 
cians of  the  country.  When  it  is  con- 
sidered how  much  has  been  accom- 
plished by  this  institution  on  an  en- 
dovraient  which  yields  only  $20,000  a 
year,  the  hope  is  well  grounded  that, 
with  an  endowment  of  two  million,  it 
can  set  up  in  New  York  a  centre  to 
which  medical  men  throughout  the 
world  who  formerly  looked  to  Vienna 
and  Berlin  will  gladly  and  profitably 
repair. 

SIGNS  multiply  that  the  birds  are 
at  last  coming  into  their  own. 
The  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court 
upholding  the  Migratory  Bird  law, 
and  thus  making  effective  the  policy 
inaugurated  by  the  British-American 
treaty  of  1918,  has  been  followed  by 
the   announcement  that  the   Rocke- 


feller Foundation  has  deeded  to  the 
State  of  Louisiana  85,000  acres  of 
land,  partly  swamp  and  partly  dry, 
to  be  used  as  a  refuge  for  migratory 
birds  and  a  game  preserve.  It  is  a 
magnificent  gift,  and  an  evidence  of 
sound  and  farsighted  judgment  on 
the  part  of  the  trustees  of  the  Foun- 
dation. The  land  available  and  favor- 
ably situated  for  such  preserves,  or 
"sanctuaries,"  without  sacrifice  of 
other  interests,  is  ample  in  quantity, 
if  suitably  protected,  to  prevent  the 
actual  extinction  of  any  species  of 
our  birds  and  land  animals.  It  is  to 
be  hoped  that  the  next  few  years  will 
see  an  enormous  increase  in  the  total 
area  and  general  distribution  of  these 
tracts  of  absolute  safety,  where  the 
"open  season"  is  twelve  months  long, 
and  belongs  to  the  birds  and  animals, 
not  to  the  hunter. 

npHE  reduction  of  illiteracy  among 
-^  children  of  from  10  to  14  years 
of  age  in  the  eleven  Southern  States 
during  1900-1910  was  approximately 
33  per  cent,  and  it  is  believed  that 
the  new  census  will  show  another 
marked  decline.  The  last  decade  has 
shown  a  great  increase  in  child-wel- 
fare laws.  In  1910,  except  for  inade- 
quate measures  in  Kentucky  and 
North  Carolina,  there  was  no  compul- 
sory school  attendance  law  in  any  of 
these  eleven  States.  Now  every  one  of 
them  has  such  a  law.  Notable  changes 
have  also  been  made  in  health  laws 
and  child-labor  laws.  Very  recently, 
Alabama,  which  for  so  long  a  time 
had  stood  out  determinedly  against 
child-welfare  laws,  enacted  four 
measures  of  importance.  Child  labor 
under  14  years  is  now  prohibited,  and 
an  eight-hour  maximum  day  for  chil- 
dren up  to  16  years  is  ordained;  a 
department  of  child  welfare,  with  a 
child-labor  division,  has  been  created ; 
extensive  improvements  have  been 
made  in  the  compulsory  education 
law,  and  the  local  health  administra- 
tion bodies  have  been  reorganized 
for  more  effective  functioning.  The 
fight  for  child  welfare  has  been  a  long 
and  stubborn  one;  but  it  is  now  re- 
sulting in  a  succession  of  victories 
which  a  decade  ago  only  the  most 
hopeful  looked  for  in  so  short  a  time. 


448] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  51 


Lawmakers  Found 
Wanting 

IF  the  future  of  representative  gov- 
ernment in  America  were  to  be 
judged  by  recent  experience  at  the 
capitals  of  the  nation  and  of  its  fore- 
most State,  it  would  present  a  dismal 
outlook.  The  case  of  Albany  is  so 
hopelessly  bad  that  it  gives  no  occa- 
sion for  discussion.  Confronted  with 
extraordinary  need  for  helpful  con- 
structive measures,  the  New  York 
Legislature  has  failed  to  do  anything 
to  which  even  party  advocates  can 
point  with  any  semblance  of  satisfac- 
tion. To  those  looking  upon  its 
record  with  dispassionate  judgment, 
it  can  almost  be  summed  up  in  the 
statement  that  the  Legislature  has 
done  those  things  which  it  ought  not 
to  have  done,  and  left  undone  those 
things  which  it  ought  to  have  done. 
Even  if  it  be  granted — as  may  indeed 
be  true — that  the  one  striking  bit  of 
legislation  passed  (apart  from  the 
heresy-hunting) ,  the  bills  for  the  re- 
lief of  tenants  in  the  housing  crisis 
at  New  York  City,  was  a  good  and 
useful  measure,  the  credit  which  can 
be  assigned  to  the  Legislature  for  it  is 
of  the  slightest.  For  the  bills  were 
passed  in  response  to  a  tremendous 
wave  of  popular  pressure,  and  might 
just  as  well  have  been  passed  if  the 
State  had  been  under  a  government 
by  mass  meeting,  and  not  by  represen- 
tatives selected  to  exercise  thought 
and  judgment  on  public  affairs.  Hav- 
ing done  what  the  people  demanded 
in  their  exigency,  the  Legislature  did 
not  stir  a  finger  to  better  the  sit- 
uation out  of  which  the  exigency  had 
arisen. 

At  Washington  the  long-drawn-out 
nightmare  of  the  treaty  discussion 
in  the  Senate  has  naturally  over- 
shadowed all  other  aspects  of  the  Con- 
gressional session.  There  has,  of 
course,  been  much  valuable,  as  well 
as  necessary,  work  done  in  relation 
to  many  of  our  governmental  inter- 
ests. But  there  has  not  been  per- 
ceptible any  large  purpose,  either  in 
the  direction  of  a  return  to  normal 
conditions  of  governmental  expendi- 
ture, or  in  that  of  other  great  meas- 
ures called  for  by  the  extraordinary 


circumstances  of  the  time.  Under 
the  pressure  of  a  fixed  time-limit,  a 
railroad  bill  has  been  passed  which 
is  as  good  as  could  have  been  ex- 
pected, and  for  their  efficient  work 
upon  which  some  Senators  and  Rep- 
resentatives, notably  Senator  Cum- 
mins, deserve  high  praise.  But  few 
will  claim  that,  whatever  may  have 
been  done  in  a  number  of  particular 
and  even  important  fields.  Congress 
has  risen  to  anything  remotely  ap- 
proaching the  need  of  the  time.  As 
for  the  matter  of  the  treaty  itself, 
fully  as  we  are  convinced  that  the 
heaviest  burden  of  responsibility  for 
its  failure  must  rest  upon  President 
Wilson,  it  is  impossible  to  point  to 
the  conduct  of  the  Senate  as  a  whole, 
or  to  the  leadership  of  either  party 
in  it,  as  presenting  a  shining  contrast 
to  the  attitude  of  the  President. 

In  the  circumstance  that  both  at 
Albany  and  at  Washington  Legis- 
lature and  Executive  stood  in  party 
opposition  to  each  other,  there  is 
ground  for  consolatory,  but  also  for 
disturbing,  reflection.  That  opposi- 
tion undoubtedly  suffices  to  explain  a 
great  part  of  the  impotence  that  we 
have  witnessed.  One  may  comfort 
oneself  with  the  thought  that  the 
paralyzing  effect  of  such  a  situation 
is  the  exception,  not  the  rule,  in  our 
system  of  government.  But  the  ex- 
ception is  too  frequent  to  be  viewed 
with  complacency.  Granting  that,  the 
separation  of  powers  which  is  funda- 
mental in  our  Constitutional  struc- 
ture results  in  a  balance  of  good,  it  is 
impossible  to  shut  one's  eyes  to  the 
price  which  has  to  be  paid  for  the 
attainment  of  that  good.  It  has  been 
part  of  the  misfortune  of  Mr.  Wil- 
son's career  that,  recognizing,  as  he 
has  always  done,  the  great  draw- 
backs of  this  separation  of  powers, 
he  has  acted  upon  the  assumption 
that  he  could  remove  those  drawbacks 
by  ignoring,  or  almost  ignoring,  the 
fact  that  the  separation  exists.  So 
long  as  the  ship  of  state  was  sail- 
ing in  smooth  waters,  the  theory  that 
he  actually  was  captain  and  helms- 
man and  mate  all  in  one  worked 
fairly  well;  but  in  the  time  of  storm 
and  stress  that  simple  method  of  ex- 
orcising all  difficulties  very  naturally 
ceased  to  be  effective.    So  long  as  we 


have  our  present  system,  we  have  got 
to  work  according  to  its  rules ;  if  the 
system  is  to  be  changed,  it  must  be 
changed  deliberately.  And  it  should 
never  be  forgotten  that  the  other  sys- 
tem— the  British  parliamentary  sys- 
tem— has  its  own  checks  and  bal- 
ances, though  of  a  very  different  na- 
ture from  ours.  To  introduce  the  pre- 
dominance of  the  Premier  without  his 
responsibility,  is  a  plan  whose  bold- 
ness is  not  greater  than  its  crudity,     j 

Unfortunately,  whatever  consola- 
tion  may  be  got  from  ascribing  some 
part  of  the  failure  either  at  Wash- 
ington or  at  Albany  to  party  dishar- 
mony between  the  legislative  and  the 
executive  power,  a  vast  amount  of  it 
remains  unaccountable  in  that  way. 
It  was  to  no  such  cause  that  Speaker 
Sweet's  preposterous  programme  con- 
cerning the  Socialists  was  due,  nor 
the  following  that  he  received  in  the 
Assembly.  In  the  Senate  at  Washing- 
ton, the  absence  of  impressive  and 
coherent  leadership  in  the  treaty  fight 
is  not  to  be  explained  by  the  fact  that 
the  majority  of  the  Senate  was  Re- 
publican while  the  President  was 
Democratic;  nor  was  the  utter  non- 
entity of  Democratic  leadership  in 
the  Senate  attributable  to  that  cause. 
The  truth  is  that  we  are  at  this 
moment  in  an  extremely  poverty- 
stricken  condition  as  to  the  quality 
of  our  representative  assemblies.  It 
is  quite  possible  that  the  average 
calibre  of  the  members  of  Congress 
and  of  such  a  body  as  the  New  York 
Legislature  is  as  good  as  ever  it  was ; 
and  in  point  of  political  morality  and 
personal  honesty  the  standard  is 
probably  much  higher  than  it  has 
been  in  the  past.  But  of  outstanding 
personality,  of  men  who  mean  some- 
thing more  than  the  humdrum  every 
day  member,  there  is  a  woeful 
scarcity.  There  is  hardly  a  man  in 
either  house  of  Congress — not  to 
speak  of  the  New  York  Legislature — 
whose  words  are  eagerly  looked  for, 
or  whose  judgment  exercises  power- 
ful influence  upon  any  considerable 
section  of  the  public.  Whether  this 
is  a  passing  condition  or  a  permanent 
one,  there  is  little  means  of  judging; 
but  it  is  a  patent  fact,  and  one  which 
sober  Americans  can  not  afford 
lightly  to  dismiss  from  their  thoughts. 


May  1,   1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[449 


If  the  Overallers  Are  in 
Earnest 

TT  seems  fairly  clear  by  this  time 
■*•  that  overalls  are  not  in  them- 
selves destined  to  spell  salvation.  It 
is  chiefly  as  a  symbol  of  the  desire — 
and  what,  we  judge,  is  practically  far 
more  important,  the  necessity — for 
economizing  that  the  overall  move- 
ment is  generally  discussed.  If  that 
desire  exists  in  sufficient  degree 
— still  more  if  that  necessity  exists  in 
sufficient  degree — something  is  going 
to  happen  of  considerable  importance, 
overalls  or  no  overalls.  But  it  ought 
not  to  be  impossible  to  utilize  the  sud- 
den burst  of  general  interest  in  the 
subject  for  the  promotion  of  a  clearer 
understanding  of  the  problem. 

Probably  of  all  the  motives  as- 
signed for  the  overall  movement  the 
one  most  frequently  and  conspicu- 
ously put  forvs^ard  is  the  determina- 
tion to  check  retail  "profiteering." 
There  is  reason  to  believe  that  re- 
tail profits  are  in  a  large  range  of 
cases  higher  than  there  is  any  need 
of  their  being.  Hovv^  much  higher, 
and  to  what  extent  the  excess  is  to 
be  attributed  to  anything  which  justly 
deserves  the  opprobrious  epithet,  are 
questions  wide  open  to  conjecture. 
But  certain  it  is  that  of  the  millions 
of  persons  who  have  welcomed  the 
overall  movement,  the  majority  are 
convinced  that  a  large  part  of  what 
they  are  suffering  is  due  to  the  exor- 
bitant profits  of  retailers. 

But  to  fight  these  profits,  if  they 
are  anything  like  so  unreasonable  as 
is  generally  believed,  a  method  is 
open  far  more  effective  than  any  spas- 
modic display  of  abnormal  frugality 
can  offer.  There  is  no  reason  to  sup- 
pose that  people  in  general  will  con- 
tinue long  to  exercise  that  virtue 
which,  under  the  pleasing  excitement 
of  a  concerted  drive,  they  may  for  a 
time  enthusiastically  exhibit.  A  cer- 
tain amount  will  indeed  have  been 
saved,  and  that  is  so  much  to  the 
good ;  provided  it  is  really  saved  and 
applied  to  the  reduction  of  debt,  or 
the  increase  of  production.  But  pres- 
ently we  shall  have  retail  "business 
as  usual"  again,  and  percentages  of 
retail  profits  will  be  about  the  same 


as  before.  On  the  other  hand,  if  the 
protest  against  these  profits  has  a 
sound  basis,  and  if  the  overallers  are 
sufficiently  in  earnest  to  be  willing  to 
put  thought  and  pains,  as  well  as  feel- 
ing, into  their  movement,  they  can 
produce  results  of  a  far  more  perma- 
nent character. 

It  is  a  most  striking  circumstance 
that,  through  all  this  agitation  over 
retail  profiteering,  one  hears  hardly  a 
word  of  the  possibility  of  consumers' 
cooperation.  It  is  true  that  coopera- 
tive stores  never  have  been  able  to 
make  much  headway  in  our  cities, 
but  this  has  been  largely  due  to  the 
fact  that  on  the  whole  the  well-being 
of  our  people  has  been  such  as  to 
make  the  10  per  cent,  saving,  or  there- 
abouts, which  is  all  that  the  Rochdale 
stores  in  England  have  been  able  to 
effect,  too  unimportant  in  the  eyes  of 
our  free-and-easy  people  to  stimulate 
them  to  the  skilled  and  continuous 
effort  required  for  the  successful 
management  of  such  an  enterprise. 
But  matters  are  very  different  now. 
Millions  of  persons  in  the  middle 
walks  of  life  are  suffering  keenly 
from  the  inadequacy  of  their  unin- 
creased,  or  slightly  increased,  in- 
comes to  meet  the  enormous  advance 
in  prices,  so  that  even  a  saving  of 
10  per  cent.,  if  it  can  be  effected,  will 
be  a  matter  of  great  importance  to 
them.  And  if  anything  like  what  is 
usually  alleged  about  the  retail  busi- 
ness of  these  war  and  post-war  years 
is  true,  a  far  greater  saving  ought  to 
be  possible.  Furthermore,  the  very 
conditions  which  make  life  so  hard 
for  thousands  of  persons  of  the  sal- 
aried classes  would  make  available 
for  important  parts  of  the  work  of 
management  the  services  of  large 
numbers  of  men  and  women  who  are 
seeking  a  change  from  their  present 
under-paid  occupations. 

To  start,  and  to  carry  on  with  effi- 
ciency and  success,  a  cooperative 
store  requires,  besides  a  firm  and 
clear-cut  purpose,  the  devoted  labor 
of  a  considerable  number  of  compe- 
tent and  trustworthy  managers  of  the 
undertaking.  If,  however,  the  overall 
movement  is  something  more  substan- 
tial than  a  bit  of  child-like  enthu- 
siasm for  a  novelty,  and  if  the  griev- 
ance against  the  retailers  is  a  real 


one,  surely  there  ought  to  be  forth- 
coming a  sufficient  number  of  persons 
willing  and  able  to  perform  those 
functions  for  reasonable  pay.  Never- 
theless, from  what  we  know  of  the 
American  temper  in  such  matters,  we 
should  be  loth  to  express  any  expec- 
tation that  the  thing  will  be  done,  or 
even  seriously  attempted.    But  there 
is  another  thing  that  might  be  done 
to  effect  the  same  object,  and  which 
makes  a  far  less  exacting  demand 
whether  on  seriousness  of  purpose, 
on    thoughtfulness    in    planning,    or 
on  special  personal  qualities  in  those 
who  carry  on  the  undertaking.     A 
great  stock  company  might  be  formed 
upon    ordinary    business    principles, 
but    dedicated    to    the    purpose    of 
establishing  reasonable  rates  of  re- 
tail profits.     Every  person  who  has 
joined,    either    literally    or    figura- 
tively, in  the  overall  movement  ex- 
pects  to   save,   by  economy   in   the 
course  of  the  next  few  months,  a  tidy 
little  sum  of  money.     In  the  city  of 
New  York  alone  there  may  well  be 
supposed    to    be — if    the    movement 
amounts  to  anything  at  all — a  million 
persons  who  should  save  not  less  than 
an  average  of  fifty  dollars  each.     It 
would    take    much    less    than    fifty 
million  dollars  to  start  a  great  general 
store,  or  chain  of  stores.    Even  one 
such  store,  with  a  capital  of  two  or 
three  million  dollars,  would,  if  suc- 
cessful, set  an  example  that  would  be 
of  powerful  and  cumulative  effect  in 
the  control  of  prices.     There  have 
been  times  when  the  objection  might 
have  been  raised  that  such  a  store 
would  be  disastrously  handicapped  by 
discrimination  against  it  on  the  part 
of  manufacturers  and  jobbers.     But 
such  discrimination  would  to-day  be 
made    impossible   either   by   specific 
provisions  of  the  law  or  by  the  im- 
perious demand  of  public  opinion. 

The  question  before  the  people  is 
partly  one  of  fact  and  partly  one  of 
their  own  earnestness  and  competence 
to  deal  with  facts.  It  is  easy  to  keep 
howling  about  profiteers.  It  is  easy 
to  egg  on  the  officers  of  the  law  to 
hunt  down  here  and  there  some  in- 
dividual who  is  no  more  a  criminal 
than  anybody  else  in  the  same  line  of 
business,  and  send  him  to  jail  or 
drive  him  to  suicide.     It  is  easy  to 


450] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  51 


parade  in  overalls,  and,  as  the  experi- 
ence of  the  other  day  showed,  still 
easier  to  stand  on  the  sidewalk  and 
watch  other  people  parade  in  them. 
What  people  do  not  find  easy  is  to 
do  a  little  sober  and  continuous  think- 
ing. Apart  from  that  unfamiliar  and 
distasteful  exertion,  it  is  really  just 
as  easy  to  form  a  stock  company  as 
it  is  to  do  any  of  those  other  more 
congenial  stunts.  It  remains  to  be 
seen  whether  the  modicum  of  think- 
ing and  working  necessary  for  the 
purpose  is  going  to  be  done. 

The  Newberry  Verdict 

"WTE  print  on  another  page  a  letter 
"  from  Mr.  Hal  H.  Smith,  counsel 
for  Mr.  Blair,  who  was  treasurer  of 
the  Newberry  committee  and  dis- 
burser  of  the  fund  which  led  to  the 
indictment  and  conviction  of  Mr. 
Newberry,  Mr.  Blair,  and  others  con- 
nected with  the  campaign.  Mr. 
Smith  objects  to  the  editorial  com- 
ment in  the  Review  for  March  27  on 
the  outcome  of  the  trial. 

His  first  objection  is  that  it  was 
stated  that  Mr.  Newberry's  letters 
showed  that  "he  had  full  knowledge 
of  the  large  sums  used  and  gave  con- 
stant advice  as  to  their  expenditure." 
As  to  this  point,  we  may  quote  from 
the  charge  of  Judge  Sessions,  as  re- 
ported in  the  Detroit  News  at  the 
time: 

If  the  jury  was  satisfied  that  Mr.  Newberry, 
at  or  about  the  time  he  became  a  candidate, 
was  made  aware  of  the  cost  of  the  campaign, 
and  that  it  would  be  in  excess  of  the  amount 
allowed  by  law,  and  if  he  thereafter  advised, 
counseled,  procured  or  participated  in  the  un- 
lawful expenditure,  they  would  be  warranted 
in  holding  him  guilty. 

On  the  evidence  presented,  including 
a  mass  of  letters  and  telegrams  from 
Mr.  Newberry,  the  jury  was  satisfied 
that  Mr.  Newberry  had  taken  active 
and  unlawful  part  in  the  expenditures 
under  investigation.  As  to  the  effect 
of  these  letters  and  telegrams,  one  of 
the  jurors  was  quoted  by  the  Asso- 
ciated Press  representative,  imme- 
diately after  the  rendering  of  the  ver- 
dict, as  saying:  "The  defense  itself 
had  supplemented  the  scanty  Govern- 
ment proof  that  Mr.  Newberry  him- 
self had  taken  an  active  part  in  the 
campaign,   and   shown   by  his   own 


writing  that  he  directed  almost  every 
important  move."  The  words  of  the 
Review,  in  their  natural  interpreta- 
tion, were  in  harmony,  we  think,  with 
the  evidence  given  and  with  the  ap- 
parent interpretation  of  that  evidence 
by  the  Judge  and  the  jury.  We  did 
not  say,  of  course,  that  Mr.  New- 
berry had  advised  or  directed  the 
commission  of  a  specific  criminal  act. 
The  offense  lay  not  at  one  specific 
point  but  in  a  totality  of  items  of 
which  most,  if  not  all,  would  have 
been  separately  permissible,  so  far  as 
the  criminal  law  is  concerned.  In 
point  of  morals,  the  Review  could  not 
make  the  same  concession. 

And  this  brings  us  to  Mr.  Smith's 
second  objection,  that  it  was  said  that 
"the  wealth  of  Mr.  Newberry  himself 
was  lavishly  used  in  violation  of  the 
law  and  of  political  decency."  The 
exact  words  of  the  Review  were,  "the 
wealth  of  Mr.  Newberry  himself,  his 
family  and  his  friends,  was  lavishly 
used  in  violation  of  the  law  and  of 
political  decency."  The  difference  is 
quite  evident:  we  were  referring  to 
the  campaign  fund,  and  its  use,  as  a 
whole. 

Of  course  the  criminal  law  must 
be  strictly  interpreted,  and  the  ac- 
cused must  have  the  benefit  of  every 
doubt.  Yet  the  jury  promptly  arrived 
at  a  verdict  of  con  Miction.  But  when 
the  Review  spoke  of  the  violation  of 
political  decency,  it  had  in  mind  far 
more  than  the  criminal  law  can  ever 
hope  adequately  to  cover.  If  neither 
Federal  nor  State  law  had  forbidden 
the  expenditure  of  the  entire  sum  in- 
volved, we  should  still  feel  obliged  to 
characterize  such  expenditure  as  a 
violation  of  political  decency.  The 
very  lavishness  of  it  was  intended  to 
frighten  away  possible  competing 
candidates.  Mr.  Newberry  himself 
wrote,  during  the  campaign,  "I  am 
glad  Mr.  Warner  is  scared  out.  As 
long  as  we  keep  up  our  publicity 
work,  it  will  be  harder  and  harder 
for  a  new  man  to  get  a  start."  We 
shall  not  stop  here  to  enumerate  the 
various  forms  of  expenditure  testi- 
fied to  in  the  trial  and  described  by 
Mr.  Newberry  and  his  supporters  as 
"publicity  work,"  or  advertising. 
"Definition"  of  these  terms  ceases  to 


define,  if  it  is  stretched  sufficiently  to 
include  such  activities  as,  for  exam- 
ple, the  paying  for  solicitation  of 
names  for  the  nomination  of  an  extra 
candidate  to  oppose  Mr.  Ford  in  the 
Democratic  primaries.  Such  uses  of 
money  always  have  been  corrupting 
to  any  electorate,  and  can  never  be 
anything  else. 

We  can  not  agree  with  Mr.  Smith, 
however,  in  the  opinion  that  the  jury 
convicted  the  defendants  merely  on 
"the  theory  that  the  expenditure  of  a 
large  sum  of  money  was  wrong." 
Both  Congress  and  the  Michigan  Leg- 
islature have  put  that  theory  into  the 
form  of  very  definite  statute  law,  and 
it  was  under  this  that  the  jury  ren- 
dered its  verdict.  Nor  can  we  find 
any  evidence  that  the  trial  itself  was 
"a  hideous  concession  to  popular 
clamor  and  to  the  prejudice  against 
wealth."  We  venture  the  opinion 
that  most  men  of  wealth  are  them- 
selves fully  convinced  that  a  restraint 
on  this  particular  employment  of 
wealth  is  altogether  wholesome  and 
necessary. 

Into  direct  bribery — "corruption" 
as  it  would  be  thought  of  under  the 
forms  of  criminal  law  as  developed  in 
the  past — men  like  Mr.  Newberry 
would  not  enter.  That  particular 
kind  of  "moral  turpitude"  can  not 
rightly  be  laid  to  their  charge.  But 
it  is  their  misfortune  not  to  have 
grasped  the  higher  conception  of  duty 
and  propriety  in  such  matters  which 
is  gradually  bringing  the  law  to  a 
higher  level,  and  with  which  political 
practice  must  conform  just  as  fast 
as  it  becomes  law,  if  no  faster.  Can- 
didates for  office  should  note,  too,  that 
the  day  has  closed  when  they  could 
come  off  morally  clear  in  the  court  of 
sound  public  opinion  through  the  plea 
that  they  were  ignorant  of  what  their 
own  agents  were  doing.  It  is  their 
positive  duty  to  know,  and  the  public 
good  demands  that  they  be  held  to 
that  duty.  A  political  campaign  con- 
ducted in  brutal  disregard  of  these 
nicer  moral  distinctions,  which  can 
not  always  be  easily  covered  by  posi- 
tive law,  may  be  far  more  corrupting 
in  ultimate  effect  than  the  coarser 
crimes  of  direct  bribery  and  intimida- 
tion. 


May  1,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[451 


"W 


Branting   Prime 
Minister 

HEN  the  Communists  main- 
tain," writes  Karl  Kautsky  in 
his  "Terrorismus  und  Kommunis- 
mus,"  "that  democracy  is  in  practice 
the  domination  of  the  bourgeoisie, 
one  might  answer  them  that  the 
dictatorship  of  the  proletariat  is  in 
practice  a  return  to  pre-bourgeois, 
barbaric  club-law.  Democracy,  with 
its  universal  suffrage,  is  not  the 
domination  of  the  bourgeoisie.  The 
latter,  in  its  revolutionary  period, 
did,  indeed,  introduce  a  class  fran- 
chise, but  after  a  long  and  heavy 
struggle  the  proletariat  obtained  uni- 
versal suffrage.  This  is  a  fact  of 
common  knowledge,  which  the  Com- 
munists, however,  seem  to  have  for- 
gotten. Democracy,  with  its  universal 
suffrage,  points  the  way  by  which  the 
class  war  may  be  changed  from  a  war 
with  the  fist  into  a  war  with  the 
brain,  where  only  that  class  can  con- 
quer which  is  its  opponent's  intel- 
lectual and  moral  superior.  Democ- 
racy is  the  only  way  towards  that 
higher  form  of  society  which  social- 
ism means  to  civilized  man." 

Kautsky  is  the  Nestor,  and  the 
most  learned,  not  only  of  German  but 
of  European  Socialists,  and  his  word 
still  carries  authority  among  the 
leaders  of  the  Labor  parties  of  vari- 
ous nationalities.  His  vindication  of 
democratic  government  as  against 
proletarian  dictatorship  is  shared  by 
a  large  majority  of  the  intellectual 
exponents  of  Socialism.  It  is  every- 
where a  minority  that,  captivated 
by  this  magic  catchword  of  uncer- 
tain meaning,  clamors  for  their 
party's  accession  to  the  Third  Inter- 
nationale of  Moscow.  In  Switzer- 
land a  resolution  to  that  effect  was 
actually  carried  by  the  Socialist  Con- 
gress, but  defeated  again  by  a  refer- 
endum among  the  members  of  the 
party.  A  similar  resolution,  moved 
by  the  delegates  from  Paris,  was  re- 
jected by  the  French  Socialist  Con- 
gress at  Strassburg.  At  the  Easter 
Congress  of  the  Belgian  Socialists 
only  one-fourth  of  the  votes  were  cast 
for  the  resolutions  proposed  by 
Jacquemotte,  the  spokesman  of  the 


Leninists.  The  majority  agreed  with 
Kamiel  Huysmans,  who  declared 
that  "the  advocates  of  the  Third 
Internationale  can  only  divide  the 
proletarians."  This  is,  in  fact,  their 
only  achievement:  they  have  caused 
a  cleavage  in  Labor  by  their  ad- 
vocacy of  a  Russian  Socialism  which 
can  not  appeal  to  the  average  work- 
men of  Western  Europe  who,  in 
spite  of  Marxian  doctrines  and  re- 
ligiously memorized  definitions  of 
capitalism,  class  war,  etc.,  has  much 
more  in  common  with  the  bourgeois 
of  his  own  country  than  with  the 
"free"  proletarian  of  Russia. 

In  Sweden  evolutionary  Socialism 
has  reached  a  stage  which  it  has  not 
attained  in  any  other  country  of 
Europe.  The  development  has  been 
extraordinary  in  its  rapidity.  It  is 
only  a  few  years  ago  that  Premier 
Staaff,  the  leader  of  the  Liberal 
party,  was  forced  to  resign  and  hand 
the  reins  of  Government  to  a  con- 
servative successor,  and  now  the  So- 
cialist Hjalmar  Branting  is  at  the 
head  of  affairs,  with  a  Cabinet  of  So- 
cialist Ministers  only.  The  Swedish 
nation  does  not  yet  stand  on  the 
threshold  of  the  Socialist  millen- 
nium. "The  general  ideas  of  the  So- 
cial-democratic party  have  not  gained 
sufficient  adherence  among  the  people 
and  their  representatives  to  make  a 
Government  like  this  Socialistic  one 
of  ours  a  parliamentary  necessity." 
In  these  words  Branting  admitted 
the  precarious  position  of  his  Cab- 
inet, which  compels  him  to  restrict 
his  Socialistic  programme  to  those 
projects  which  he  may  expect  to 
realize  with  the  help  of  the  Liberal 
party,  such  as  the  reform  of  munici- 
pal taxation,  treatment  of  the  housing 
problem,  reform  of  the  defense  sys- 
tem necessitated  by  Sweden's  acces- 
sion to  the  League  of  Nations,  and 
socialization  of  some  branches  of 
production  and  commerce,  which  is 
tentatively  thrown  in  along  with  the 
rest. 

A  bourgeois  Government  under 
Socialist  disguise,  Branting's  Cab- 
inet is  called  by  the  radical  wing  of 
his  party.  There  is  some  truth  in 
the  taunt.  But  those  who  make  it 
should  at  least  admit  that  Branting 
and  his  colleagues  have  not  donned 


the  disguise  to  conceal  their  identity 
from  a  hostile  bourgeois  mob,  but  only 
to  win  the  goodwill  and  support  of  a 
peace-loving  nation  whose  democratic 
constitution,  of  bourgeois  make,  has 
enabled  them  to  rise  to  their  present 
position.  It  is  up  to  them  to  con- 
vince the  people,  by  the  practical  re- 
sults of  their  legislative  and  admin- 
istrative activity,  of  the  excellence  of 
the  Socialist  doctrine.  The  proof  of 
the  pudding  is  in  the  eating;  by 
merely  hearing  the  recipe  read  the 
people  can  not  be  persuaded  of  its 
excellence. 

That  the  left  wing  of  the  party  dis- 
approves of  Branting's  acceptance  of 
the  Government  need  not  be  wondered 
at.  It  is  a  matter  of  general  experi- 
ence that  the  Socialist  who  shoulders 
responsibility  for  the  management  of 
the  country's  affairs  loses  his  dog- 
matic rigidity  and  is  apt  to  slide  back 
to  bourgeois  moderation.  To-day's 
conservative  rulers  are  the  radicals  of 
yesterday,  when  they  were  not  yet  in 
power.  Hence  the  fear  of  the  ex- 
tremists lest  the  party  by  coming 
into  power  should  stray  from  its  dog- 
matic seclusion  and  become  fused 
with  the  bourgeois  liberals  and  rad- 
icals. In  order  to  prevent  such  fall- 
ing off  the  extremists  have  stated 
their  minimum  demands,  and  if  Mr. 
Branting  does  not  comply  with  these 
at  their  own  speed  they  will  probably 
call  a  political  strike  to  force  his 
hands.  These  reformers  of  Lenin's 
school  will  not  believe  that  Rome  was 
not  built  in  a  day,  nor  will  they  be- 
lieve, which  is  worse,  that  in  a  day 
Alba  Longa  could  be  destroyed. 


THE  REVIEW 

A  weekly  journal  of  political  and 

general  discussion 

Published  by 

The  National  Weekly  Corporatioh 

140  Nassau  Street,  New  York 

Fabian  Franklin,  President 

Harold  de  Wolf  Fuller,  Treasurer 


Subscription  price,  five  dollars  a  ^ear  in 
advance.  Fifteen  cents  a  copy.  Foreign  post- 
age, one  dollar  extra;  Canadian  postage,  fifty 
cents  extra.  Foreign  subscriptions  may  be  sent 
to  Messrs.  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  Ltd.,  24,  Bed- 
ford  St.,   Strand,    London,   W.   C.   2,   England- 


Copyright^ 


1920,     in     the     United     States 
America 


of 


Editors 

FABIAN  FRANKLIN 

HAROLD  DE  WOLF  FULLER 

Associate  Editors 

Harry  Morgan  Ayres     O.  W.  Firkins 

A.  J.  Barnouw  W.  H.  Johnson 

Jerome  Landfield 


452] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  51 


Behind  the  Financing  of  China 


(IN  FOUR  PARTS — PART  IV) 

THE  reopening  of  the  closing  door 
in  the  Far  East  is  the  purpose  of 
the  revived  American  financial  activ- 
ity which  resulted  in  the  Consortium. 
Its  success  or  failure  determines  the 
fate  of  Japan's  persistent  efforts  to 
revive  the  spheres  of  influence  which, 
since  1900,  have  been  demonstrated 
to  be  inimical  to  the  peaceful  develop- 
ment of  the  Chinese  Republic.  Its 
significance  is  fully  grasped  by  the 
Elder  Statesmen  and  their  star- 
chamber  associates  dominating  the 
Cabinet  from  behind  the  throne.  And 
it  is  for  that  reason  that  they  speak 
of  Japan's  "special  position"  in  the 
Far  East.  Japan's  "special  position" 
is  incompatible  with  the  Consortium. 

Had  it  not  been  for  the  war,  Japan 
would  appear  to-day  as  a  minor 
economic  factor  with  no  other  than 
political  claims  for  participating  in 
the  inevitable  cooperative  financing 
of  China  so  nearly  consummated  in 
1914.  Japan  is  aware  that  the  war 
broke  down  the  balance  of  power  in 
the  Far  East.  Its  prolongation  gave 
the  Japanese  military  party  the  op- 
portunity to  resuscitate  the  discred- 
ited diplomacy  which  based  itself 
on  regional  monopolies  under  rival 
Powers.  If  this  involves  the  impair- 
ment of  China's  integrity,  it  involves 
also  the  virtual  leadership  of  Japan. 

The  problem,  then,  is  whether 
Japan's  affirmation  of  her  "special 
position"  can  be  reconciled  with  a 
necessarily  cooperative  financing  of 
China.  Its  solution  must  take  into 
account  the  generally  successful 
tactics  of  the  Japanese  statesmen. 
(1)  They  attempt  to  block  the  pro- 
posal prejudicial  to  their  interests  by 
direct  opposition.  (2)  If  this  fails, 
they  skilfully  turn  to  indirect  methods 
of  obstruction.  (3)  As  a  last  resort, 
they  unqualifiedly  accepted  the  pro- 
I>osal  "in  principle,"  and  then  drive 
the  best  bargain  they  can  with  re- 
gard to  its  application  in  practice. 
(4)  This  compromise  becomes  the 
starting  point  for  a  new  set  of 
manoeuvres  with  hope  that  the  thou- 
sandth chance  may  prove  the  reward 
of  a  venturesome  statecraft. 


The  repudiation  by  Japan  of  the 
terms  of  the  Inter-Group  Agreement 
of  May,  1919 — her  nullification,  in 
fact,  of  the  Consortium — carried  Jap- 
anese statesmen  to  the  point  where 
American  pressure  forced  them  to  a 
compromise.  Her  original  opposition 
had  been  based  on  the  determination 
of  the  military  party  in  Tokyo  to  keep 
intact  the  Japanese  hegemony  over 
Manchuria,  Mongolia  adjacent  to  the 
Three  Eastern  Provinces,  and  pre- 
sumably the  ex-German  rights  in 
Shantung.  Bowing  to  the  inevitable, 
Japan's  Foreign  Office  was  instructed 
to  seek  the  best  way  out. 

It  is  no  secret  that  the  British  Gov- 
ernment, late  in  November,  1919 — 
doubtless  prompted  by  her  Japanese 
ally — cited  the  Ishii-Lansing  Agree- 
ment as  justifying  the  exclusion  of 
Mongolia  and  Manchuria  from  the 
scope  of  the  Consortium  under 
our  implied  recognition  of  Japan's 
"special  position."  Our  Government 
at  once  informed  Britain  that  such 
recognition  was  not  intended  to  imply 
a  monopoly  or  a  priority  of  economic 
or  industrial  rights.  Attention  was 
expressly  directed  to  the  concluding 
clauses  of  this  much-discussed  agree- 
ment, which  specifically  and  without 
qualification — the  State  Department 
so  declared — preserved  the  principle 
of  equality  of  commercial  and  indus- 
trial opportunity  through  the  whole 
of  China.  This,  of  course,  was  but 
the  State  Department's  formal  re- 
iteration of  ex-Secretary  Lansing's 
public  testimony  giving  the  lie  to  the 
sedulously  circulated  official  state- 
ments of  the  Japanese  Government 
that  the  United  States  had  accept- 
ed the  "special  position"  doctrine  in 
1917. 

The  reasonable  interpretation  of 
Japan's  reaffirmation  of  the  Con- 
sortium is  that  she  recognizes  the 
case  has  gone  against  her.  Granted 
Japan  has  been  given  considerable 
latitude  in  the  definition  of  her 
vested  interests  in  North  China,  the 
fact  remains  that  the  United  States 
has  retained  ample  means  to  bring 
the  Japanese  War  Office  cabal  to 
time.    And  without  much  more  than 


she  obtains  under  the  present  state  of 
the  Consortium,  her  dream  of  empire 
in  Eastern  Asia  must  remain  in  great 
part  a  dream.  The  future  of  her  rail- 
and-iron  policy  lay  in  the  acquisition 
of  the  dormant  Russian  rights  for 
future  construction  in  North  Man- 
churia and  Mongolia,  as  well  as  in  her 
unfettered  ability  to  weave  a  web 
stretching  from  Shantung  into  Cen- 
tral Asia  on  China's  other  flank.  But 
these  are  schemes  upon  which  no 
"substantial  progress"  has  been 
made ;  accordingly,  Japan  really  loses 
the  key  to  her  expansion  westward 
on  the  continent  planned  for  the  next 
hundred  years. 

Japan's  attitude  as  defined  in  her 
semi-official  pronouncements  springs 
from  her  need  to  protect  "vital  Jap- 
anese interests."  Under  the  old  con- 
ditions, it  is  true,  ruthless  competi- 
tion among  the  Powers  did  threaten 
Japan's  position  in  the  East.  But 
under  the  Consortium  all  legitimate 
interests  of  Japan  are  conserved. 
The  Consortium  does,  however, 
threaten  the  strategic  points  of  Jap- 
anese expansion  within  her  neigh- 
bor's domains.  Japanese  imperial- 
ism, pushed  into  a  corner,  justifies 
itself  by  declaring  that  other  nations 
in  the  past  have  employed  aggressive 
tactics  against  China.  Obviously,  for 
the  peace  of  the  future  a  broader 
point  of  view  than  this  is  needed  in 
the  Far  East.  Japan,  or  any  other 
Power,  can  not  set  herself  against  the 
cooperative  handling  of  the  Chinese 
problem,  which  is  striving  to  redress 
old  wrongs  and  insists  upon  re- 
nouncing new  aggressions. 

The  Consortium  will  once  more 
make  the  Open-Door  policy,  formu- 
lated by  Secretary  Hay  two  decades 
ago,  a  vital  factor  in  support  of 
China's  integrity.  It  is  essential  to 
peace  in  the  Pacific.  Under  American 
leadership  the  Consortium  means  the 
democratizing  of  money-power  in  the 
East.  The  State  Department — bar- 
ring the  possibility  of  the  President's 
reversing  our  position  as  a  token  oi 
friendship  which  is  to  lead  Japar 
into  better  ways — has  achieved  itf 
ends ;  for  Japan  has  been  aligned  with 
us  on  the  fundamental  propositior 
that  China's  future  development  musi 
be  handled  by  joint  action.    In  so  fai 


May  1,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[458 


as  the  Consortium,  with  American 
leadership,  can  demonstrate  to  Jap- 
anese business  that  its  future  is 
brightest  under  conditions  which  as- 
sure to  Japan  China's  friendship,  the 
support  of  the  Powers,  and  a  vast 


share  in  the  work  itself,  it  offers  a 
way  to  break  the  grip  of  the  War  Of- 
fice junto.  That  means  everything  to 
China,  to  ourselves,  and  to  a  stable 
world. 

Charles  Hodges 


Propaganda  and  the  News 


fT^HE  chorus  of  protest  against  the 
■'-  alleged  suppression  or  falsifica- 
tion of  news  by  the  capitalist  press 
has  its  ridiculous  as  well  as  its  seri- 
ous phase.  No  person  who  has  de- 
voted himself  to  unpopular  causes, 
no  person  who  has  employed  himself 
in  the  gathering  and  handling  of 
exact  information,  will  deny  that 
there  is  ample  cause  for  complaint. 
Unfortunately,  however,  the  com- 
plainants do  not,  as  a  rule,  come  into 
court  with  unsoiled  hands.  They 
are  mainly  the  revolutionary,  rad- 
ical, and  pseudo-liberal  journals 
that  are  playing  the  same  game 
they  attribute  to  others.  What  they 
really  object  to  is  the  suppression 
or  falsification  7iot  of  facts  per  se, 
but  of  facts  or  fabrications  con- 
ceived by  them  to  be  favorable  to 
their  own  programmes,  causes,  or 
theories.  By  their  own  habitual 
practice  they  confirm  this  statement. 
From  the  frothiest  revolutionary 
sheet  to  the  most  pretentious  of  the 
critical  journals  they  pick  and  choose 
the  material  useful  to  their  purposes 
and  trim  unuseful  material  to  the 
same  end.  To  the  inconvenient  fact 
they  are,  as  a  rule,  coldly  inhospi- 
table or  actively  belligerent.  They 
ignore  it,  or  they  assault  it,  and 
mutilate  it  beyond  recognition.  They 
are  the  advocates  of  a  double  stand- 
ard. For  themselves  to  sort  and  re- 
ject and  trim  is  highly  ethical.  They 
do  it  in  the  name  of  truth,  justice, 
democracy,  loyalty  to  the  people  (or 
to  the  working  class),  and  devotion 
to  the  cause  of  one  or  another  of  a 
score  of  "isms."  But  for  the  cap- 
italist press  to  do  a  similar  thing, 
with  no  pretense  to  a  higher  moral- 
ity, is  anti-social. 

One  must  distinguish  between  the 
two  general  classes  of  journals  which 
are  parties  to  this  controversy — the 
one,  usually  a  daily,  which  is  chiefly 


a  purveyor  of  news,  and  the  other, 
usually  a  weekly,  which  is  chiefly  a 
purveyor  of  opinion  and  propaganda. 
Of  course,  neither  keeps  to  an  ex- 
clusive field;  the  daily  has  its  edi- 
torials, and  even  the  most  opinion- 
ated of  the  weeklies  gives  space  to 
what  it  calls  news.  The  propaganda 
journal,  while  reserving  the  right  to 
give  its  readers  only  what  it  thinks 
is  meet  and  fit  for  them,  denies  this 
right  to  the  news  journal  and  insists 
that  the  latter  furnish  an  adequate 
and  impartially  written  record  of 
happenings. 

The  contention  is,  on  the  whole, 
sound,  even  though  the  circum- 
stances under  which  it  is  made  are 
so  absurd.  We  have  a  right  to  de- 
mand of  the  purveyors  of  news  that 
they  give  us  the  facts.  It  is  the  gen- 
eral conviction  that  they  do  not  do 
this.  Their  delinquency  is  not  so 
great  as  Mr.  Upton  Sinclair  pictures 
it  in  "The  Brass  Check,"  or  as 
Mr.  Walter  Lippmann,  by  repeated 
innuendo,  implies  it  to  be  in  "Liberty 
and  the  News."  It  is,  however,  a 
real  one.  Men  disagree,  of  course, 
as  to  what  matters  are  inadequately 
or  unfairly  treated  in  the  news;  but 
they  agree  that  the  news  is  qualita- 
tively or  quantitatively  affected  by 
the  editorial  attitude.  The  average 
reader  who  is  in  accord  with  the  edi- 
torial attitude  on  a  particular  sub- 
ject usually  finds  the  news  treat- 
ment of  that  subject  satisfactory; 
the  reader  who  is  not  in  accord  finds 
the  treatment  inadequate  or  unfair. 
The  ignorance  and  inexperience  of 
reporters,  the  complexity  of  subjects 
or  situations  dealt  with,  the  conflict 
of  testimony  from  which  news  ac- 
counts must  be  written,  the  some- 
times amazing  obtuseness  of  copy- 
readers  (who  prepare  the  "stuff"  for 
the  printers) — these  and  other  fac- 
tors contribute  to  the  result.  But  to 


most  men,  and  especially  to  those 
who  are  or  have  been  on  the  inside, 
the  factor  of  the  editorial  attitude  is 
chief. 

I  can  not  undertake,  for  the  pres- 
ent, to  sustain  this  view,  which  is  dis- 
puted by  the  defendants,  further  than 
to  say  that  the  editors  and  writers 
on  the  propaganda  journals  furnish 
in  themselves  a  sufficient  confirma- 
tion. It  would  be  singular  if  the 
proneness  to  manipulate  the  news  to 
accord  with  their  policies,  which 
they  so  clearly  show,  should  not  in 
some  degree  at  least  be  shared  by  the 
editors  and  writers  of  the  news  jour- 
nals. Nor  can  I  now  enter  upon  a 
consideration  of  remedies.  The  mat- 
ter about  which  I  am  here  mainly 
concerned  is  a  comparison  of  the  re- 
liability of  information  given  on  the 
one  hand  by  the  nev^s  journals  and 
on  the  other  hand  by  the  journals  of 
open  or  disguised  propaganda. 

One  who  seeks  the  truth  about  any 
happening  in  which  a  political  or  a 
social  issue  is  involved  must  give  his 
days  and  nights  to  the  scrutiny  of 
many  sources  of  information.  What 
one  newspaper  or  periodical  fur- 
nishes him  is  contradicted  or  omitted 
by  another;  and  for  every  point  of 
view  there  is  offered  a  special  set  of 
alleged  facts.  One  must  test  and 
compare;  one  must  strive  to  know 
the  interest — material,  doctrinal,  or 
sentimental — which  the  journal  or 
its  special  writer  holds  in  the  mat- 
ter ;  and  if  one  can  not  get  this  from 
outside  sources,  one  must  learn  to 
detect  it  between  the  lines  of  the  ac- 
count. It  is  an  endless  and  an  awful 
task;  but  if  an  approximation  to  the 
truth  is  really  wanted,  the  task  will 
be  undertaken. 

The  testimony  here  offered  is  that 
of  one  who  has  spent  a  great  number 
of  his  days  in  the  gathering  and  com- 
piling of  what  is  known  as  exact  in- 
formation. It  is  also  the  testimony 
of  one  who,  by  conviction  and  long 
habit,  is  a  partisan  of  a  particular 
school  of  social  radicalism;  and,  still 
further,  of  one  whose  interest  in  the 
manifold  phases  of  radicalism  has 
made  him  an  avid  reader  of  prop- 
aganda. The  mournful  judgment 
must  be  recorded  that  most  of  the 
stuff  labelled  "information"  appear- 


454] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  5 


ing  in  the  radical  and  pseudo-liberal 
press  is  utterly  unreliable.  Much  of 
it  is  flagrantly  false;  much  of  it  is 
fragmentary,  true  enough  in  itself 
but  false  in  its  implication;  much  of 
it  is  trimmed,  colored,  "doctored"  to 
accord  with  a  particular  view.  Some- 
times, indeed,  the  insurgent  period- 
ical prints  facts  or  figures  of  great 
value  which  have  been  suppressed  or 
distorted  by  the  regular  news  jour- 
nals; but  for  every  service  of  this 
kind  that  it  renders  it  perpetrates  a 
score  of  offenses  against  the  truth. 

There  is  every  reason — except  an 
ethical  one — why  this  should  be  so. 
The  bias  of  the  insurgent  reader  and 
the  bias  of  the  insurgent  editor  are 
usually  in  accord,  and  the  result  fol- 
lows. The  reader  wants  facts,  near- 
facts,  or  fabrications  that  sustain  his 
social  theory,  'that  confirm  his  sus- 
picions, that  feed  his  prejudices,  and 
that  warm  up  his  antipathies.  The 
editor  or  writer  on  an  insurgent 
periodical  who  does  not  understand 
this  truth  and  conform  to  it  finds 
himself  without  a  job. 

The  capitalist  news  journal  ap- 
peals to  a  more  general  audience.  It 
must,  in  the  nature  of  things,  give 
a  fairer  presentation  of  the  news. 
There  are,  it  is  true,  in  most 
newspaper  offices  certain  recognized 
tyrannies  that  must  be  obeyed — the 
department-store  tyranny,  the  index 
expurgatorius  of  "enemies  of  the 
paper,"  and  that  other  index — ^the 
list  of  good  men  and  true,  "friends 
of  the  paper,"  who  must  always  be 
spoken  of  with  respect.  There  is, 
also,  the  obvious  fact  that  most  daily 
newspapers — especially  those  which 
are  members  of  the  Associated  Press 
— are  upholders  of  the  capitalist  sys- 
tem, and  that  that  system  is  not  de- 
liberately made  to  appear  at  a  dis- 
advantage in  the  news.  But  though 
the  editors  and  owners  are  com- 
mitted to  the  prevailing  system,  all 
the  reporters  and  news  writers  are 
not.  Indeed,  many  of  them  are  rad- 
icals of  one  sort  or  another.  The 
popular  notion  (as  it  appears  in  the 
insurgent  journals)  that  all  of  these 
persons  are  more  or  less  conscious 
prostitutes,  selling  their  souls  in 
order  that  they  may  hold  their  posi- 
tions, is  insulting  fiction.    There  are 


men  enough,  and  too  many,  indiffer- 
ent as  to  what  they  write  so  long 
as  it  brings  rewards;  but,  as  a  rule, 
it  may  be  said  that  the  reporter  on 
a  capitalist  news  journal,  at  once 
sympathizing  with  insurgency  and 
indulging  in  the  luxury  of  a  con- 
science, who  does  not  know  how  to 
write  his  reports  fairly  without 
jeoparding  his  job,  is  deficient  in 
common  sense.  In  his  attempt  to 
wTite  honestly  he  fares  immeasur- 
ably better  than  he  would  if  he  were 
employed  on  a  Socialist,  radical,  or 
pseudo-liberal  journal. 

Insurgent  editors  and  writers 
acknowledge  the  fairness  of  the  cap- 
italist news  service  when  it  suits 
them  to  do  so — when  the  material 
given  is  useful  to  their  purposes. 
They  depreciate  or  denounce  it  when 
the  material  is  inconvenient.  With 
all  allowances  made  for  the  obvious 
derelictions  of  the  regular  news  jour- 
nals, it  is  still  to  be  said  that  they 
print  the  news.  Along  with  much 
that  is  trivial,  much  that  is  mere 
baseless  gossip,  and  much  that  is  de- 
liberately colored,  they  print  most  of 
the  worth-while  information  (other 
than  statistical — and  some  of  that) 
upon  which  we  rely.  The  news  ac- 
counts in  the  insurgent  journals  are, 
in  the  main,  notoriously  undepend- 
able;  they  are  discounted,  even  by 
the  insurgent  following,  when  sin- 
cerely seeking  the  truth. 

Instances,  covering  no  more  than 
the  last  two  years,  of  the  stupidly 
dishonest  ways  in  which  the  news 
is  manipulated  or  suppressed  by  the 
insurgent  journals  could  easily  be 
piled  up  in  sufficient  volume  to  fill 
an  entire  issue  of  the  Review. 
Strikes,  the  I.  W.  W.,  Russia,  Mex- 
ico, Germany,  the  Allies,  the  Peace 
Conference,  Belgium,  Czechoslovakia 
are  subjects  upon  which  a  partic- 
ular activity  of  commission  or  omis- 
sion is  habitually  shown.  The  en- 
thusiastic credence  given  to  the  tes- 
timony of  hand-picked  and  pap-fed 
correspondents  regarding  Russia,  and 
the  entire  ignoring  of  the  testimony 
of  the  most  intelligent  and  trust- 
worthy Socialist  regarding  that  land, 
has  been  characteristic  of  the  insur- 
gent, and  particularly  the  Socialist, 
press,  since  November,  1917.  A  sim- 


ilar policy  has  been  followed  regard 
ing  Mexico,  though,  very  recently 
through  the  breaking  out  of  an  amus 
ing  controversy  in  the  columns  of  on 
of  the  most  radical  of  the  revolutior 
ary  journals,  some  essential  fact: 
well  known  to  others,  have  been  con 
municated  to  the  insurgent  work 
They  were,  of  course,  unwelcom 
facts,  and  the  informant  was  sharpl 
rebuked  by  his  opponent. 

Then  there  are  Belgium  an 
Czechoslovakia.  All  Socialist,  sem: 
Socialist,  "radical  democratic,"  an 
"intellectual  radical"  journals  migh 
be  supposed  to  be  interested  in  th 
fact  that  these  countries,  under  go\ 
ernments  in  which  democratic  Socia' 
ists  have  a  large  measure  of  powei 
are  making  rapid  progress.  The  tes 
timony  regarding  Belgium  is  vc 
luminous;  regarding  Czechoslovak 
hardly  less  so.  Of  the  latter  countr 
Charles  R.  Crane  has  been  recentl 
reported  as  saying  that  "it  is  politi 
cally  the  sanest  and  healthiest  spot  i 
Europe."  In  the  days  before  191 
the  insurgent  papers,  and  partieu 
larly  the  Socialist  party  papers,  woul 
have  given  columns  and  pages  to  th 
exploitation  of  such  news.  But,  as 
matter  of  fact,  nearly  every  Socialis 
paper  and  almost  all  the  papers  in  th 
other  branches  of  insurgency  hav 
wholly  ignored  the  subject.  Why 
Because  all  these  papers  are  ii 
greater  or  less  degree  the  partisan 
of  Bolshevism.  To  praise,  even  t 
mention,  the  orderly,  legalistic  Socia 
Democratic  progress  in  Belgium  am 
Czechoslovakia  would  be  impliedl; 
to  condemn  the  sort  of  thing  that  ha 
happened  in  Russia.  To  omit  all  men 
tion  is  the  safer  course ;  and  besides 
it  gives  more  space  in  which  to  de 
nounce  the  capitalist  press  for  it 
suppression  of  the  truth. 

As  a  constructive  radical,  I  shoul 
prefer  to  believe  that  the  greater  vii 
tue  of  practice,  no  less  than  of  prt 
cept,  is  to  be  found  in  at  least  som 
of  the  organs  of  radicalism.  Bu 
long  experience  and  a  reasonabl 
close  application  to  the  subject  con 
pel  me  to  say  that  in  this  matter  c 
the  manipulation  of  the  news  th 
radical  journals  are  much  worse  tha 
the  capitalist  journals. 

W.  J.  Ghent 


May  1,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[455 


Asia,  Europe,  and  Bolshevism 


Is  Russian  Bolshevism  a  danger  for  the 
non-Russian  world?  Yes,  and  no. 
For  some  Powers  it  is  a  great  one,  for 
others  it  is  hardly  a  danger  at  all.  As  a 
military  power  it  no  longer  signifies 
much,  and  its  armies  can  be  dangerous 
only  to  internally  feeble  states.  Except 
in  a  limited  way,  its  propaganda  west- 
ward has  little  force  remaining.  Towards 
the  East,  on  the  other  hand,  its  propa- 
ganda has  gained  in  strength,  and  Great 
Britain,  now  the  real  ruler  of  West, 
South,  and,  part  at  least,  of  Middle  Asia, 
will  be  the  first  to  notice  its  effects. 

The  situation  in  Soviet  Russia  is  very 
peculiar.  To  the  foreign  onlooker  the 
Bolshevist  state  gives  an  impression  of 
tremendous  power.  It  has  defeated,  one 
after  another,  the  Russian  generals  who, 
from  the  south,  the  east,  and  the  west, 
made  an  attempt  to  restore  the  old  Rus- 
sia. Yudenich,  who  advanced  within 
sight  of  Petrograd,  possessed  no  real 
strength,  at  most  20,000  unreliable 
troops,  and  the  victory  over  him  was 
gained  by  the  Bolsheviki  with  the  tanks 
which,  in  the  spring  of  1919,  the  French, 
when  evacuating  Odessa,  had  left  behind 
on  the  quay  of  the  harbor.  Kolchak  and 
Denikin  were  much  stronger,  but  they 
failed  owing  to  peasants'  risings  in  their 
rear.  The  best  work  for  the  Soviet  Gov- 
ernment against  Denikin  was  done  by 
the  Ukrainian  peasants  who  were  stirred 
to  resistance  by  the  uncompromising 
Great-Russian  nationalism  of  Denikin 
and  his  opposition  to  the  national 
spirit  of  the  Ukraine.  Hence  the  land 
he  had  reclaimed  from  the  Red  forces 
was  left,  in  the  rear  of  his  advancing 
army,  to  a  hostile  population,  which 
lamed  his  action  against  the  Reds. 

Military  campaigns  on  a  large  scale 
against  a  well-equipped  enemy  are  im- 
practicable for  the  Bolsheviki  because  of 
the  dilapidation  of  the  Russian  railroads. 
Local  lines  are  not  worked  any  more, 
and  on  the  main  lines  run,  a  few  times  a 
week,  exclusively  Government  trains,  in 
which  private  travelers  can  obtain  pass- 
age by  means  of  excessive  bribes  or  by 
forged  passports.  Nor  could  the  am- 
munition factories  produce  the  supplies 
that  would  be  required  for  a  real  fighting 
campaign.  They  are  kept  going  by  the 
lure  of  what  under  present  Russian  con- 
ditions may  be  called  fantastically  luxu- 
i  rious  board  and  lodging  for  the  work- 
:  men.  In  spite  of  all  its  violent  measures 
I  to  stimulate  production  the  Soviet  Gov- 
ernment has  not  succeeded  in  keeping 
the  remnants  of  Russian  industries  fit 
for  the  upkeep  and  supply  of  numerous 
armies.  All  figures  which  they  publish 
about  their  fighting  forces  are  greatly 
exaggerated.  Besides,  the  Soviet  troops 
would  be  a  poor  match  for  an  efficient 


and  well-equipped  enemy.  Their  dis- 
cipline has  been  restored  by  barbaric 
severity,  but  no  troops  can  fight  well 
which  know  themselves  greatly  inferior 
to  the  enemy  in  material  equipment. 

The  weakest  spot  of  Bolshevism  in 
Russia  (apart  from  the  fact  that  the  re- 
suscitation of  its  industry  is  a  task  be- 
yond its  strength)  is  the  passivity  of  the 
peasants,  who  form  more  than  80  per 
cent,  of  the  population  in  Soviet  Russia. 
The  peasant  cares  not  for  Bolshevism 
and  Communism;  he  has  left  the  old 
Russian  community  of  the  village,  the 
"mir,"  a  few  strong  and  well-to-do  in- 
dividuals having  usurped  control  of  the 
villages  and  kept  the  poor  and  the  dis- 
possessed in  subjection.  The  peasants 
lack,  indeed,  all  urban  manufactures,  but 
they  can  provide  for  their  clothing  and 
their  food  from  what  they  produce  them- 
selves; only  a  few  iron  utensils,  such  as 
needles  and  axes,  they  have  to  buy  at 
exorbitant  prices.  Economic  conditions 
in  rural  districts  of  Soviet  Russia  are 
most  primitive,  but  the  peasant  subsists 
independently  of  the  Bolsheviki,  who 
control  only  the  principal  towns  and  the 
railroads.  In  making  a  forecast  of 
Russia's  future  one  must  not  lose  sight 
of  the  fact  that  the  bourgeoisie,  the  great 
landowners,  the  capitalists  of  the  cities, 
and  the  industries  are  altogether  ruined, 
that  the  landowners  can  never  return, 
and  that  a  peasant  democracy  of  a  crude, 
semi-Asiatic  type  is  the  most  likely  form 
of  constitution  for  Russia  after  the  fall 
of  Bolshevism.  The  duration  of  the 
Soviet  Government  will  largely  depend 
on  its  skill  to  eke  out  the  dwindling  rem- 
nants of  railroad  stock  and  industrial 
plants.  It  need  not  fear  any  military 
aggression  from  outside,  as  the  new 
border  States  evolved  from  the  old  Russia 
lack  the  necessary  power,  and  the  work- 
ers of  both  England  and  France  are  set 
against  armed  intervention  in  Russia.  It 
is  easy  to  see  why  the  Soviet  Government 
is  so  anxious  to  resume  commercial  rela- 
tions with  the  Western  World.  A  re- 
cuperation of  means  of  transportation 
and  a  revival  of  Russian  industry  by  the 
establishment  of  new  plants  would  seat 
the  Bolsheviki  more  firmly  in  the  saddle. 
But  it  is  a  mistake  to  expect  that  Soviet 
Russia,  in  its  turn,  will  be  able  to  meet 
large  orders  for  the  European  market. 
There  is  no  surplus  of  grain,  as  the 
peasants  produce  no  more  than  they  need 
themselves.  There  is  plenty  of  wood  in 
the  forests  of  the  north,  but  the  lack 
of  means  for  its  transport  puts  it  out  of 
the  reach  of  the  foreign  trader. 

In  spite  of  its  internally  weak  position, 
the  Soviet  Government  is  energetically 
active  on  all  sides.  In  the  west  its  chief 
object  of  aggression  is  Poland.    If  mili- 


tary superiority  were  to  turn  the  scale, 
Russia  would  not  be  able  to  cope  with 
Poland,  but  the  rulers  in  Moscow  know 
that  the  Polish  army,  the  Polish  work- 
men, and,  in  part,  the  Polish  peasants 
are  not  impervious  to  the  political  prop- 
aganda of  the  Bolsheviki.  The  Polish 
army  is  numerically  stronger  than  the 
forces  which  the  Soviet  Government,  by 
an  extreme  effort,  could  muster  against 
it.  It  is  also  better  equipped  and  has 
some  eminent  French  staff  officers.  But 
as  a  fighting  instrument  against  a  Bol- 
shevist army  it  is  unreliable,  and  an  of- 
fensive of  Soviet  troops  on  the  Polish 
front  would  probably  be  accompanied  by 
labor  revolts  and  peasants'  riots  in  Po- 
land itself.  Another  factor  making  for 
internal  weakness  is  the  inclusion  of  so 
many  non-Polish  races  within  the  new 
Polish  frontiers.  A  Bolshevist  advance 
would  probably  not  be  brought  to  a 
standstill  until  it  had  reached  the 
German  provinces  of  Poland,  where  the 
people  are  more  advanced  and  more  ac- 
customed to  an  established  political  order. 
Germany  herself  may  be  expected  to  have 
no  difficulty  in  resisting  a  Bolshevist  in- 
vasion, as  the  new  German  army,  the 
Reichswehr,  can  be  relied  upon  and  is 
superior  in  military  efl5ciency  to  the 
forces  of  the  Soviet  Republic. 

But  the  Bolshevists'  schemes  are  far 
more  ambitious  in  the  east  than  in  the 
west.  Asia  is  to  be  won  for  Bolshevism. 
This  idea  is  less  fantastic  than  it  might 
seem  at  first  glance.  In  Asia  the  Bolshe- 
viki want  to  strike  a  blow  at  England. 
Lenin  recently  delivered  an  address  at 
Moscow,  in  which,  among  other  things, 
he  said  that  the  Communist  propaganda 
among  Oriental  peoples  must  be  changed 
and  adapted  to  their  peculiar  psychology. 
In  order  to  vanquish  Europe,  Bolshevism 
ought  to  force  for  itself  a  way  towards 
the  Far  East,  and  there  crush,  first  of  all, 
the  power  of  Great  Britain.  England  now 
rules  from  the  Caucasus  to  India;  but 
she  does  not  only  rule,  she  exploits  the 
Asiatic  peoples.  Under  her  direct  or  in- 
direct government  she  unites  nearly  the 
entire  Mohammedan  population  of  Asia. 
The  Islamic  world  knows  only  one  antag- 
onist: England.  Early  last  winter  Mo- 
hammedan representatives,  who  had  come 
to  Moscow  in  the  deepest  secrecy,  entered 
there  into  a  compact  with  the  Soviet 
Commissaries  for  the  purpose  of  a  joint 
propaganda  in  behalf  of  the  "liberation 
of  Asia"  from  the  Bosphorus  to  Malacca, 
and  to  the  northernmost  frontiers  of 
China.  In  the  autumn  of  1919  the 
Soviet  Government  had  already  estab- 
lished a  special  committee  for  Turkestan 
and  Afghanistan.  The  Commissary  for 
Asia  in  the  Foreign  Ofliice  at  Moscow  is 
a  Mohammedan,  Karachan.  The  rail- 
roads running  from  Russia  to  the 
Afghan  frontiers  are  almost  entirely  in 
the  hands  of  the  Bolsheviki.  In  Mos- 
cow they  have  established  a  university 


4o6] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  51 


for  Bolshevist  propaganda  in  Asia,  for 
which  the  Soviet  Government  has  appro- 
priated fifty  million  rubles  in  gold  and 
one  billion  paper  rubles.  Young-Turkish 
delegates,  emissaries  of  Mustapha  Kemal 
Pasha,  Afghans,  Persians,  Caucasians, 
Indians,  Chinese,  come  and  go  at  Mos- 
cow and  in  the  Asiatic  sub-committees  of 
the  Soviet  Government,  and  the  Islamic 
agitation  joins  with  that  of  the  Bolshe- 
viki  in  the  cry:  "Away  with  the  sup- 
pressors !"  who  to  the  Bolsheviki  are  the 
capitalists,  to  the  Moslems  the  foreigners 
and  faithless. 

The  strength  of  the  Bolshevist  ad- 
vance in  Asia  is  in  the  absence  among 
the  Orientals  of  any  feelings  of  nation- 
ality, which  form  the  principal  check  to 
their  progress  in  Europe.  According  to 
the  Bolshevist  press  of  Moscow,  a  propa- 
ganda train,  with  the  well-knovra  female 
agitator  Balabanowa  (to  judge  from  her 
name,  a  woman  of  Tatar  descent)  at  the 
head  of  the  mission,  left  Moscow  recently 
for  the  Orient.  The  train  was  given  the 
name  "The  Red  East."     The  mission  is 


equipped  with  an  abundance  of  material 
for  agitation,  among  other  things  with 
movie  films,  and  numbers  a  great  many 
popular  orators  of  various  nationalities 
and  creeds,  Tatars,  Kirghizes,  Bash- 
kirs, Afghans,  Persians,  Indians,  able  to 
speak  the  numerous  tongues  of  Asia,  and 
driven  by  ardent  fanaticism.  Their  aim 
is  the  overthrow  of  British  power  in 
Asia.  That  achieved,  they  hope  for  a 
crushing  reaction  in  Europe.  Eccentric 
though  these  plans  may  seem,  and  verg- 
ing on  the  fantastic,  they  must  not  be 
underestimated  oi;  ridiculed.  The  Eng- 
lish are  far  from  regarding  them  as 
harmless.  The  growing  anxiety  about 
the  Bolshevist  danger  in  Asia  finds  a 
vent  in  the  British  press.  The  surest 
test  as  to  whether  the  Bolsheviki  make 
successful  progress  in  the  East  will  prob- 
ably be  the  Entente's  change  of  attitude 
with  regard  to  the  revision  of  the  peace 
treaties  with  Central  Europe. 


Dr.  Paul  Rohrbach 


Berlin 


M.  Millerand,  the  French  Premier 


ALTHOUGH  the  average  reader  over 
here  is  more  interested  in  Presi- 
dents than  in  Premiers,  on  the  other  side 
of  the  Atlantic  it  is  the  Premiers  that 
count  and  not  the  Presidents.  That  is 
why  M.  Millerand  received  very  little 
attention  as  long  as  he  was  only  a 
Prime  Minister.  A  prize  fighter  and  a 
midnight  folly  dancer  easily  beat  him  in 
the  space  granted  by  our  dailies  and  in 
the  curiosity  of  the  public.  Now,  how- 
ever, that  he  has  tackled  and  settled  a 
big  railroad  strike  and  appeared  before 
Europe  as  the  most  outspoken  and  reso- 
lute advocate  of  the  full  enforcement  of 
the  treaty  of  Versailles,  his  name  is  be- 
ginning to  emerge  in  the  world's  lime- 
light. 

M.  Millerand  is  a  Parisian  born  in 
Paris,  a  most  uncommon  thing  nowadays 
among  those  who  call  themselves  Pari- 
sians. That  was  in  1859  and  makes  him 
just  two  years  younger  than  M.  Paul 
Deschanel.  Little  is  known  about  his 
early  life  except  that  he  studied  in  two 
good  lycees  of  the  capital,  took  his  law 
degree  at  the  University,  and  entered  the 
bar,  where  he  obtained  an  honor  which 
seems  in  France  to  be  the  first  sign  of  a 
great  political  career:  he  was  elected 
"secretary  of  the  conference,"  the  con- 
ference being  a  sort  of  debating  society 
organized  and  administered  by  the  Paris 
lawyers.  Before  him  Grevy  and  Ribot, 
and  after  him  Poincare  and  Barthou 
bore  the  same  title. 

When  he  entered  politics,  in  the  early 
eighties,  and  began  to  write  for  the 
newspapers,  the  French  Government  was 
being  run  by  the  men  who  to-day  are 
looked  upon   as   the   patriarchs   of  the 


Third  Republic — men  who  have  boule- 
vards named  after  them  and  statues 
erected  in  their  honor  both  in  Paris  and 
in  the  provinces.  But  Gambetta  and 
Jules  Ferry,  who,  after  their  death,  were 
universally  acknowledged  as  \/ise  states- 
men, were  then  the  object  of  the  most 
bitter  attacks  of  an  impatient  youth. 
Paris  was  as  it  always  has  been  from 
the  dawn  of  history,  a  city  of  opposition. 
Hardly  any  one  who  was  not  an  extrem- 
ist, in  one  direction  or  another,  had  any 
chance,  of  election.  The  most  popular 
papers  were  those  which  carried  on  a 
continuous  and  often  scurrilous  cam- 
paign against  the  Government.  The 
municipal  council  was  controlled  partly 
by  wild  demagogues  and  ex-communists, 
and  the  deputies  of  the  capital  came 
mostly  from  the  extreme  parties. 

Millerand  was  brought  up  in  that  at- 
mosphere; being  a  Parisian,  he  naturally 
was  of  the  opposition  and,  more  than 
likely,  enjoyed  with  all  his  contempora- 
ries the  witty  and  scathing  articles  in 
which  Rochefort  was  then  showing  up 
now  Gambetta,  now  Jules  Ferry.  Clem- 
enceau  especially  was  in  those  days  the 
hero  of  the  young  radicals.  Millerand 
enlisted  under  his  banner  and,  for  the 
first  few  years  after  his  entrance  in  Par- 
liament, sat  under  him  at  the  extreme 
left  and  learned  from  him  the  deadly 
warfare  in  which  Clemenceau  was  past 
master. 

Perhaps  it  is  his  temperament,  per- 
haps also  his  experiences  of  early  life, 
that  threw  him  in  the  opposition,  first 
with  the  radicals  and  afterwards  with 
the  Socialists.  At  any  rate,  as  a  young 
lawyer,  he  became  immediately  the  ad- 


vocate of  the  revolutionary  groups  who 
were  then  being  prosecuted  by  a  con- 
servative Government  which  believed  in 
the  "big  stick."  His  first  criminal  case 
was  in  1882  when  he  defended  some 
striking  miners  of  Montceau  les  Mines 
guilty  of  violence.  His  name  became 
widely  known.  Like  Viviani  and  Briand 
later,  he  was  to  be,  from  that  time  on, 
the  favorite  criminal  lawyer  of  all  the 
militant  workingmen. 

When  he  joined  Socialism,  around  1890, 
Socialism  was  getting  to  be  all  the 
rage.  Students,  literary  men,  profes- 
sors, artists  were  flocking  to  the  ranks  of 
the  new  faith.  Jaures  abandoned  for  it 
the  moderate  and  opportunist  party, 
where  he  could  have  had  anything  he 
wanted,  and  Millerand  left  what  he 
thought  was  a  sterile  parliamentary 
guerrilla  for  what  he  considered  a  widei^ 
and  more  worthy  field  of  activity. 

To  show  that  he  meant  business,  he 
lent  the  already  great  authority  of  his 
name  and  his  talent  to  the  Socialist 
ticket.  In  1892  he  went  to  Lille  to  sup- 
port the  candidacy  of  one  of  the  most 
pronounced  Marxists,  Paul  Lafargue, 
and,  the  following  year,  he  was  elected 
as  a  Socialist  by  the  same  district  that 
had  voted  for  him  as  radical  and  later 
was  to  elect  him  again  as  a  half-con- 
servative. When,  a  few  years  later,  the 
Socialists  needed  a  man  to  expound  their 
doctrine,  it  was  to  Millerand  that  they 
appealed. 

He  explained  one  day  his  adherence  to 
Socialism  by  his  ambition  to  give  to  the 
Socialist  party  "more  cohesion  and  more 
discipline,  a  better  sense  of  realities  and 
also  to  render  France  and  the  Republic 
the  service  of  disciplining  these  masses 
too  easily  accessible  to  the  appeal  of  vio- 
lence." He  said  that,  however,  ten  years 
later,  when  he  was  already  leaving  the 
party,  having  failed  in  his  endeavor  to 
discipline  it.  He  stayed  with  it  until 
1900  and,  although  he  did  not  commit 
himself  too  much,  he  shared  in  the  glory 
of  his  party  when,  under  Jaures  and 
Pressense,  it  waged  the  admirable  fight 
for  justice  in  favor  of  a  poor  Jewish  of- 
ficer, victim  of  clerical  and  military  fa- 
naticism. That  was  the  "heroic  period" 
of  French  Socialism,  period  of  militancy, 
of  enthusiasm,  and  of  illusions,  a  period 
during  which  the  Socialists  won,  at  times 
the  admiration  of  all  liberal  republicans 

For  its  noble  attitude  the  Socialisi 
party  was  rewarded  in  the  person  of  Mil 
lerand.  When  in  1899  Waldeck-Rousseai 
formed  his  Ministry  of  "republican  de 
fense"  to  liquidate  the  Dreyfus  affair,  h< 
took  this  Socialist  into  his  Cabinet.  I 
was  a  bold  stroke;  hence  the  scandal  am 
the  uproar  were  great.  If  Millerand  hai 
remained  an  extreme  radical,  that  wouli 
have  seemed  very  plausible;  but  he  wa 
a  Socialist,  a  sensible,  practical,  business 
like  Socialist,  to  be  sure,  but  an  orthodo: 
Socialist  nevertheless.     Was  it  not  Mil 


May  1,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[457 


lerand  who,  a  few  years  before,  in  1896, 
at  St.  Mande,  had,  in  an  epoch-making 
address,  laid  down  the  law  of  the  party, 
the  immovable  dogmas  the  acceptance  of 
which  was  compulsory  if  one  was  to  be 
counted  a  Socialist?  And  among  those 
doctrines  was  the  gradual  suppression  of 
private  ownership,  the  abolition  of  the 
wage-earning  system,  etc.,  etc.  M.  Wal- 
deck-Rousseau  overlooked  the  St.  Mande 
speech.  He  knew  Millerand  to  be  a 
sound,  hard-working,  pragmatic  type  of 
man;  he  had  heard  him  many  times  in 
the  courts.  He  knew  he  must  give  the 
Socialists  a  place  in  his  Cabinet  and  he 
chose  the  Socialist  who  seemed  the  least 
afflicted  with  "ideology." 

It  did  not  take  long  for  Millerand  to 
find  out  that  his  party  was  not  quite  as 
accommodating  as  himself  about  this  col- 
laboration with  the  "bourgeois"  Govern- 
ment. In  convention  after  convention, 
from  1901  to  1903,  his  case  was  brought 
up,  discussed,  his  actions  condemned,  his 
personality  upbraided.  He  appeared  once 
as  an  accused  man  to  hear  Herve  (who 
now  admires  him  unreservedly)  indict 
him  for  desertion  and  treason  to  the 
"cause."  Millerand  attended  for  a  while 
these  tribunals  of  the  Holy  Socialist  In- 
quisition, defended  himself  as  best  he 
could  until,  in  January,  1903,  he  was  of- 
ficially expelled.  He  called  himself,  from 
that  time  on,  an  independent  Socialist, 
whatever  that  may  mean,  and  it  means 
very  little  if  we  are  to  judge  by  the  case 
of  the  two  other  "independent"  ones, 
Briand  and  Viviani,  who  have  also  lost 
the  faith  and  who  seemed  since  to  have 
found  the  bourgeois  Government  a  pretty 
good  makeshift,  while  waiting  for  the 
millennium  that  they  once  preached. 

It  is  only  fair  to  state  that,  during 
his  passage  in  the  Ministry  of  Commerce, 
this  Socialist  carried  out  some  of  his 
ideas  of  social  reform;  law  on  protection 
to  women  and  children,  law  on  the  lia- 
bility of  employers,  law  that  gave  the 
ten-hour  day  to  more  than  a  million 
workmen,  bills  on  compulsory  arbitration, 
bills  for  workingmen's  pensions ;  all  this 
shows  that  he  had  not  betrayed  his 
friends  during  his  two  years  of  coopera- 
tion with  the  "bourgeois."  It  is  neces- 
sary to  state,  likewise,  that  he  has  always 
condemned  recourse  to  violence.  To  the 
miners  of  the  Loire  he  dared  to  say,  in 
1902,  that  Socialism  should  expect  "the 
liberation  of  humanity  from  its  own  ef- 
forts and  from  its  own  free  and  tenacious 
endeavor"  and  not  from  a  revolutionary 
outburst. 

That  is  enough  to  prove  that  Millerand 
was  getting  ready  for  an  active  and  con- 
sistent cooperation  with  the  parties  of 
"orderly  progress."  In  1910  he  was  the 
Minister  of  Public  Works  of  M.  Briand, 
and  in  1912  the  Minister  of  War  of  M. 
Poincare.  From  that  time  on,  his  last 
Socialist  friends  abandoned  him.  His 
effort,    two    years    before    the    war,    to 


awaken  and  maintain  the  military  spirit 
in  France  by  the  musical  parades  every 
Saturday  night,  and  by  a  special  atten- 
tion given  to  the  morale  of  the  soldiers, 
made  him  the  butt  of  the  sarcasms  and 
quips  of  his  former  associates.  Millerand 
was  accused  of  being  a  "nationalist," 
and  the  accusation,  if  it  be  one,  is  not 
absolutely  wrong.  The  Parisian  has  al- 
ways combined  an  ardent  chauvinism 
with  very  advanced  political  views. 
Millerand's  name  is  undoubtedly  linked 
with  the  patriotic  revival  that  charac- 
terized the  years  preceding  the  war. 

However  that  may  be,  Millerand's  pas- 
sage in  the  War  Office  had  won  for  him 
the  confidence  of  the  army  and  of  its 
chiefs.  When  Caillaux  and  later  Viviani 
came  into  power,  he  was  replaced  by 
some  one  else.  But,  at  the  end  of  the 
first  month  of  the  war,  his  methodical 
mind,  his  intelligence,  and  tenacious  labor 
brought  him  back  to  the  same  depart- 
ment, where  it  then  took  a  man  capable 
of  coping  with  the  colossal  problems  with 
which  France  was  then  confronted.  M. 
Millerand  made  good  in  the  organization 
of  the  task  of  giving  the  army  quanti- 
ties of  ammunition  that  had  to  be  pre- 
pared on  a  scale  never  dreamed  of  before. 
His  services  were  not  forgotten,  even  if 
they  were,  in  the  course  of  events,  dis- 
pensed with.  He  gave  way  to  Gallieni 
when  the  disappointments  of  the  cam- 
paign brought  a  change  in  the  Govern- 
ment. 

He  did  not  stay  long  out  of  govern- 
mental activity.  When,  in  1919,  a  few 
clumsy  officials  were  threatening  to  make 
a  mess  of  the  delicate  and  momentous 
work  of  the  administration  of  Alsace- 
Lorraine,  when  again  it  took  a  man  out 
of  the  ordinary  to  start  things  right  in 
the  new  province,  to  facilitate  the  transi- 
tion and  to  decide  on  the  compromises 
necessary  between  the  old  regime  and 
the  new,  Clemenceau  turned  to  his  former 
lieutenant,  who  had,  since  those  early 
days,  like  his  chief  himself,  learned  much 
about  the  art  of  government.  There,  too, 
he  made  good  and  his  prestige  was  at 
its  highest.  Therefore,  when  Clemen- 
ceau retired  and  the  new  President  of 
the  Republic  had  to  choose  his  first 
Prime  Minister,  Millerand  was  on  all 
sides  mentioned  as  the  logical  candidate. 

At  the  elections  of  November,  1919,  he 
had  been  elected  in  Paris  on  the  ticket 
which  was  known  as  the  "national  block" 
and  which  contained  members  of  almost 
every  party  except  the  Socialists.  It  was 
a  paradox  to  have  Millerand,  the  former 
radical  and  the  ex-Socialist  leader,  elected 
on  such  a  conservative  ticket.  The  other 
paradox  was  to  have  Deschanel,  the  fore- 
most opponent  of  radicalism,  appeal  to 
Millerand  to  form  the  first  Cabinet  of 
his  presidency. 

The  Ministry  that  he  brought  together 
seemed  at  first  disappointing.  He  had 
been     concerned     more     in     gathering 


around  him  competent  workers  than  par- 
liamentary stars.  He  even  had  the  au- 
dacity to  seek  his  associates  outside  of 
the  members  of  Parliament.  For  Minis- 
ter of  Finances  he  took  a  banker,  for 
agriculture  an  agronomist,  for  the  minis- 
try of  liberated  regions  an  administra- 
tor who  already  knew  the  difficulties  and 
needs  of  that  department.  The  reception 
given  him  was  not  enthusiastic.  But  the 
very  slim  majority  that  he  received  on 
his  first  appearance  soon  grew  to  large 
proportions.  His  shortcomings  in  the 
formation  of  his  Cabinet  were  soon  for- 
gotten when  the  Parliament  saw  him  gov- 
ern and  heard  him  express  his  views  on 
his  policy  towards  labor,  on  the  carrying 
out  of  the  treaty,  on  the  French  policy 
in  the  Near  East. 

At  San  Remo  he  is  representing  the 
unanimous  sentiment  of  the  French  peo- 
ple with  the  exception  of  the  very  group 
of  which,  twenty-five  years  ago,  he  was 
the  most  prominent  spokesman. 

And  that  is  the  third  paradox  of  hia 
career:  to  see  this  erstwhile  foe  of  capi- 
talism ruling  France  with  the  support 
of  all  the  conservatives  inside  and  out- 
side of  Parliament. 

That  is  an  object  lesson  on  the  vagaries 
of  Socialism  that  ought  not  to  be  over- 
looked, and  which  has  its  value  even  out- 
side of  France. 

Othon  Guerlac 

Correspondence 

Zachary  Taylor  and  Herbert 
Hoover 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

In  1848  the  Whig  party  nominated 
General  Taylor  for  the  Presidency.  His 
availability  was  simply  due  to  the  fact 
that  he  had  been  a  hero  in  the  Mexican 
War.  He  was  not  a  member  of  any 
political  party  and  was  wholly  without 
any  partisan  preferences.  He  had  never 
even  voted  for  a  Presidential  candidate. 
The  only  claim  that  the  Whigs  had  upon 
him  was  the  fact  that  he  once  stated 
that  if  he  had  ever  voted  at  all,  he  would 
have  cast  his  ballot  for  Henry  Clay  in 
1844.  The  General,  with  a  certain  naive 
superiority  to  partisanship,  accepted  the 
nomination  from  any  and  every  organi- 
zation that  put  him  forward  as  a  candi- 
date. He  even  went  so  far  as  to  accept 
nomination  from  a  company  of  Southern 
Democrats  who  were  dissatisfied  with 
the  nomination,  by  their  own  party,  of 
Lewis  Cass  for  the  Presidency.  This  got 
General  Taylor  into  considerable  trouble 
with  the  anti-slavery  Whigs  of  the  North, 
but  the  difficulty  was  smoothed  over,  as 
he  was  too  available  a  candidate  to 
discipline. 

As  you  remember,  General  Taylor  was 
elected,  and  for  the  fifteen  months  dur- 


458] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  51 


ing  which  he  occupied  the  Wliite  House 
he  made  a  very  good  Chief  Executive. 

Herbert  Hoover  has,  of  course,  a  much 
greater  claim  to  be  regarded  as  a  Repub- 
lican than  General  Taylor  ever  had  to  be 
regarded  as  a  Whig,  but  among  the  ques- 
tions that  have  been  asked  by  Hoover's 
opponents  is  one,  "Has  he  ever  voted  at  an 
American  Presidential  election?"  He  has 
done  so,  whereas  General  Taylor  had  not. 

X 

New  York,  April  28 

The  Bonus 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review  : 

This  morning  I  went  down  "automo- 
bile row"  and  noticed  the  almost  inter- 
minable string  of  autos  of  the  most  ex- 
pensive makes.  I  talked  with  a  college 
professor  of  physics  and  he  told  me  that 
the  average  American  was  so  flush  with 
money  that  he  bought  a  car  for  its  up- 
holstery and  varnish,  with  slight  atten- 
tion to  the  scientific  construction  of  its 
engine.  I  lunched  at  the  club  and  heard 
men  talk  of  transactions  involving  thou- 
sands of  dollars  as  if  talking  of  chalk 
and  marbles.  I  happened  to  be  caught  in 
the  outrush  from  a  matinee  performance 
and  noted  the  smug,  complacent,  over- 
dressed air  of  the  men  and  women. 

And  then  I  came  home  and  read  in  the 
Review:  "...  the  public  is  not 
going  to  be  pleased  with  the  spectacle 
of  men  of  whom  it  longs  to  be  proud 
scrambling  in  the  gutter  for  coppers." 
And  then  I  wondered  if  I  had  not  got 
hold  of  the  Nation  by  mistake.  I  read 
that  paper  for  twenty-five  years  and  gave 
it  up  because  of  just  about  such  rot  as 
the  above  quotation. 

I  sat  at  table  with  a  young  man  to-day 
who  had  been  to  the  war,  but  those  lines 
and  creases  were  never  on  that  face 
when  I  knew  him  best,  before  the  war. 
I  have  seen  others  maimed  and  limping 
through  life;  others,  kith  and  kin  of 
mine,  abide  in  the  soil  in  France,  blessed 
martyrs  to  a  noble  cause,  and  I  envy 
them.  I  have  seen  acquaintances  of 
mine,  men  who  spoke  little  English,  some 
voluntarily  and  others  through  compul- 
sion, going  off  to  fight  for  us  who  re- 
mained at  home.  And  I  have  seen  the 
new  look  of  intelligence,  a  newer  and 
broader  conception  of  America,  beaming 
in  their  faces  on  their  return. 

I  am  a  teacher  by  trade,  and  I  need 
not  tell  your  readers  what  that  means  in 
a  financial  way,  but  I  am  loath  to  be- 
lieve that  one  of  my  class  of  laborers 
would  begrudge  a  penny  used  to  make 
life  easier  or  happier  for  the  men  who 
went  to  the  front  that  the  principles 
which  we  teachers  have  taught  these 
many  years  might  live  and  flourish  in 
this  country.  Nor  can  I  believe  that  rich, 
prosperous  America — America  with  a 
memory    and    with    a   conscience — feels 


otherwise.  The  spokesman  of  the  ex- 
service  men  may  have  been  indiscreet  in 
his  utterances.  We  owe  compensation 
to  our  soldiers  and  sailors,  and  it  is  a 
wicked  shame  to  compare  them  to  beg- 
gars "scrambling  in  the  gutter  for  pen- 
nies." 


Chicago,  April  10 


E.  L.  C.  Morse 


[Mr.  Morse's  appreciation  of  what  the 
American  soldier  has  done  for  us  is 
shared,  even  though  he  might  not  be  able 
to  express  it  so  well,  by  every  American 
worthy  of  the  name.  It  is  probable  that 
if  the  Government  had  mustered  out  the 
soldiers  with  considerably  more  than  the 
belated  and  paltry  $60  they  received, 
some  of  the  present  demand  for  addi- 
tional compensation  would  not  now  be 
heard.  If  the  Government  had  not  fallen 
down  on  the  work  of  rehabilitation,  the 
present  demand  would  be  still  more 
reduced.  If  a  way  could  have  been 
found  to  prevent  the  undue  enrichment, 
whether  in  profits  or  in  wages,  of  those 
who  are  now  squandering  their  money 
on  automobiles  and  other  luxuries,  that 
demand  would  be  less  widely  heard.  But 
if  all  these  things  had  been  done  and  not 
done,  there  would  still  be  a  demand  for 
money  made  on  behalf  of  the  soldier, 
this  year,  next  year,  and  for  the  next 
fifty  years.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  de- 
mands of  that  sort  are  in  great  part 
manufactured  by  a  comparatively  few  in- 
dividuals and  are  seconded  in  large  meas- 
ure by  boys  with  no  other  idea  in  their 
head  than  the  naive  one  that  if  something 
good  is  going  round  they  want  theirs, 
while  they  are  opposed  by  a  majority 
of  the  thoughtful  men  who  wore  the 
uniform.  If  we  oppose  such  a  movement 
it  is  not  because  our  feeling  toward  those 
who  represented  America  in  the  field  and 
on  the  seas  is  a  whit  less  cordial  than 
Mr.  Morse's.  Our  opposition  rests  on 
large  grounds  of  sound  public  policy, 
some  of  which  are  set  forth  in  the  edi- 
torial on  "Justice  and  the  Bonus"  in  the 
Review  for  April  10.    Eds.  THE  Review.] 

A  Woman's  View  of  the 
Bonus 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

The  doughboy  had  no  monopoly  of 
hardships.  Not  only  did  millions  who 
stayed  at  home  during  the  war  suffer 
from  the  increased  cost  of  living,  as  you 
say,  but  an  incalculable  number  rendered 
services  and  incurred  dangers  quite  equal 
to  those  of  drafted  soldiers.  Let  me 
give  two  examples  out  of  a  multitude 
which  might  be  cited. 

I  myself  throughout  the  war  (not 
merely  after  the  tardy  entrance  of  the 
United  States),  and  while  engaged  in 
the  fairly  arduous  task  of  earning  a 
modest  living,  spent  literally  all  of  my 


leisure  and  strength  and  a  good  deal 
of  money  in  a  monotonous  and  very 
obscure  form  of  war  work  for  which  I 
never  have  received  and  never  shall  re- 
ceive any  other  reward  than  that  of 
knowing  that  I  did  my  bit  to  win  the 
war.  Shortly  before  the  armistice  my 
doctor  told  me  that  if  I  did  not  end 
this  drain  on  my  strength,  which  was 
resulting  in  serious  illness,  I  should  die, 
and  die  soon.  I  have  not  yet  recovered 
from  those  terrible  years;  perhaps  I 
never  shall.  I  am  not  aware  that  there 
is  any  movement  on  foot  to  give  me  a 
bonus  or  "adjusted  pay." 

Soon  after  the  United  States  declared 
war  a  friend  of  mine,  a  woman  of  25, 
gave  up  the  interesting  and  congenial 
occupation  by  which  she  was  earning 
her  living  and  from  a  senae  of  patriotic 
duty  went  to  do  very  delicate  and  dan- 
gerous work  in  a  smokeless  powder  fac- 
tory, where,  as  she  well  knew,  any  min- 
ute might  bring  death.  Her  wages  were 
$15  a  week,  enough  to  feed  and  lodge 
her,  but  not  to  cover  all  her  expenses. 
The  last  time  I  saw  her,  some  months 
after  the  end  of  the  war,  she  was  look- 
ing for  a  job.  I  know  of  no  plan  to  give 
her  a  bonus  or  "adjustment  of  pay." 

The  American  soldiers  were  incom- 
parably the  best  paid  in  Europe  (their 
pay  was  just  twenty  times  that  of  their 
French  comrades) ;  they  were  excellently 
fed,  clothed,  and  eared  for ;  they  had  the 
very  enviable  opportunity  of  foreign 
travel  and  of  observing  one  of  the  su- 
preme crises  of  human  history  at  close 
range,  and  when  one  contemplates  the 
picture  of  Y.  M.  G.  A.,  Y.  W.  C.  A.,  Red 
Cross,  and  Salvation  Army  vieing  with 
each  other  to  tempt  the  doughboy's  pal- 
ate with  home-made  dainties  and  to  res- 
cue him  from  ennui  with  concerts  and 
the  movies,  and  then  turns  to  look  at 
other  armies,  for  example,  at  the  Ser- 
bians during  the  appalling  retreat  to 
Albania,  an  American  begins  to  feel  a 
little  shamefaced.  No  American  soldier 
had  to  suffer,  as  did  French,  Belgians, 
Serbians,  and  Rumanians,  the  moral  an- 
guish of  leaving  his  family  and  orop- 
erty  a  prey  to  enemy  invasion ;  no  Amer- 
ican troops  fought  for  as  much  as 
eighteen  months,  only  a  minute  fraction 
of  them  went  through  a  winter  cam- 
paign, and  large  numbers  never  reached 
the  fighting  line  at  all.  It  was  the  po- 
tential, not  the  actual,  exploits  of  the 
American  army  which  turned  the  scale 
of  victory. 

Those  soldiers  who  have  come  back  to 
us  crippled  or  mutilated  richly  deserve 
adequate  pensions  and  the  best  of  "re- 
construction" work,  but  if  the  country  is 
going  to  give  a  bonus  for  losses  and 
suffering  caused  by  war  service,  let  all 
who  lost  and  suffered  be  rewarded — 
which  brings  us  to  the  reductio  ad  ab- 
surdum.  B.  D.  C. 

New  York,  April  11 


May  1,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[459 


A  Case  of  Relaxed  Vigilance 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

The  thinking  public,  to  say  nothing  of 
the  medical  profession,  will  view  with 
astonishment  and  just  indignation  your 
publication  of  the  diatribe  of  Dr.  John 
Hutchinson  in  the  Correspondence  col- 
umns of  the  Revietv  for  April  17. 

To  the  uninstructed  the  words  of  one 
doctor  are  as  valid  as  any  other's,  and  to 
such  this  wholesale  attack  on  all  that  is 
modem  in  progressive  and  preventive 
medicine  will  gain  great  weight  from 
its  appearing  in  your  journal.  Is  the 
Review  to  be  classed  as  an  antivaccina- 
tion  journal?  If  the  thing  is  published 
as  a  jest  I  submit  that  this  is  not  made 
sufficiently  apparent,  and  is  very  ill 
judged  and  ill  timed.  Did  you  look  up 
Dr.  Hutchinson's  qualifications  as  a 
critic  of  scientific  medicine?  If  the  pol- 
icy of  the  Review  is  exemplified  by  this 
publication,  I  should  like  to  be  informed 
of  the  fact. 

Thos.  R.  Boggs 
Baltimore,  Md.,  April  19 

The  Newberry  Verdict 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

The  writer  is  a  subscriber  to  the 
Review.  I  have  been  very  much  pleased 
with  the  general  tone  of  its  editorials 
and  its  articles.  I  felt  that  it  had  a 
very  important  place  in  American  jour- 
nalism and  have  taken  occasion  to  say 
to  my  friends  that  it  ought  to  be  en- 
couraged, but  I  can  not  refrain  from  ex- 
pressing my  disapproval  of  the  editorial 
comment  in  your  issue  of  March  27th  on 
the  subject  of  the  Newberry  trial. 

I  say  this,  appreciating  the  fact  that 
I  may  be  prejudiced  in  this  matter,  for  I 
was  counsel  for  the  treasurer  of  the 
Newberry  committee,  Mr.  Frank  W. 
Blair,  who  disbursed  for  that  committee 
$178,000.  The  editorial  indicates  that 
the  knowledge  of  the  person  who  wrote 
it,  as  to  what  took  place  at  the  trial,  was 
extremely  inaccurate. 

For  instance,  it  is  said  that  Senator 
Newberry's  letters  showed  that  "he  had 
full  knowledge  of  the  large  sums  used 
and  gave  constant  advice  as  to  their  ex- 
penditure." I  think  the  most  that  the 
prosecution  claimed  in  this  respect  was 
that  Senator  Newberry's  letters  showed 
that  he  was  in  close  enough  touch  with 
the  campaign  so  that  he  must  have 
known  that  more  than  |3,750  was  ex- 
pended, but  no  one  has  claimed  that  he 
gave  "constant  advice  as  to"  the  expendi- 
ture of  such  sums.  In  fact,  the  letters 
were  offered  by  the  defense  because  they 
did  not  refer,  in  any  place,  to  the  ex- 
penditure of  any  money. 

Again  it  is  said  that  the  wealth  of 
Mr.  Newberry  himself  was  lavishly  used 
in  violation  of  the  law  and  of  political 


decency.  There  was  not  a  word  of  evi- 
dence in  the  case  that  Mr.  Newberry's 
wealth  was  used,  as  there  was  nothing 
to  connect  his  name  with  the  contribu- 
tions. His  brother  and  his  friends  made 
contributions  and  that  money  was  used. 
We  might  disagree  as  to  the  defi- 
nition of  "political  decency,"  but  it  is 
well  to  remember  that  the  court,  on  its 
own  motion,  struck  from  the  case  the 
count  of  the  indictment  which  dealt  with 
political  corruption. 

It  was  undisputed  that  more  than 
$3,750  was  used  in  the  campaign.  Up- 
wards of  $50,000  was  expended  for  ad- 
vertising, directly  to  the  newspapers. 
Perhaps  an  equal  amount  was  expended 
in  the  distribution  of  literature.  Ap- 
proximately $40,000  was  paid  out  in  vari- 
ous counties  for  the  distribution  of  peti- 
tions, of  cards,  of  literature,  hiring  halls 
and  holding  of  meetings.  All  of  these 
expenditures,  and  in  fact  every  dollar 
of  the  expenditures,  were  within  the 
Michigan  statute  known  as  the  "Corrupt 
Practices  Act,"  if  they  are  expended  by 
the  committee  and  not  by  the  candidate. 
The  charge  was  that  the  defendants  and 
Senator  Newberry  conspired  together  to 
cause  to  be  expended  more  than  $3,750. 
It  was  on  this  technical  charge  that  the 
defendants  were  convicted.  Perhaps  I 
ought  not  to  say  this.  I  do  not  believe 
the  jury  thought  there  really  existed 
such  a  conspiracy.  What  they  did  do 
was  to  convict  these  men  on  general  prin- 
ciples, upon  the  theory  that  the  expendi- 
ture of  a  large  sum  of  money  was  wrong. 
This  is  exactly  the  part  of  your  editorial 
to  which  I  take  exception. 

Has  it  come  to  pass  that  one  who  is 
not  known  to  the  public  and  who  resorts 
to  otherwise  perfectly  legal  methods  of 
advertising,  and  whose  friends  resort  to 
otherwise  perfectly  legal  methods  of  ad- 
vertising to  bring  his  name  to  the  atten- 
tion of  the  public,  is  thereby  a  criminal  ? 
It  is  easy  to  talk  of  the  use  of  wealth  in 
politics,  and  I  agree  with  you  that  when 
that  wealth  is  employed  to  corrupt  the 
public,  it  should  be  punished;  but  when 
it  is  used  only  to  bring  home  to  the  pub- 
lic the  merits  of  the  candidate,  and  when 
the  recognized  avenues  of  the  press  and 
the  post  office  are  so  employed,  how  has 
the  public  been  corrupted? 

In  this  particular  case,  Mr.  Ford  was 
known  to  everyone,  and  Mr.  Newberry, 
who  to  our  minds  has  always  been  a  much 
more  deserving  citizen,  was  not  known. 
By  what  means  does  he  become  a  success- 
ful candidate  for  office  if  not  by  legiti- 
mate advertising,  and  why  should  his 
friends  be  condemned  if  they  expend  the 
funds  necessary  to  advertise  him  and 
procure  his  election? 

Of  course,  the  singular  thing  of  this 
case  was  that  Senator  Newberry  and  his 
friends  were  convicted — at  least  that  was 
the  technical  verdict — of  conspiring  to 
cause  Senator  Newberry  to  cause  to  be 


expended  more  than  $3,750.  The  court 
holds  that  he  did  not  have  to  be  the 
originating  cause;  if  he  participated  in 
the  activities  of  the  campaign  that  re- 
sulted from  that  expenditure,  with  a 
knowledge  of  that  expenditure,  then  he 
had  caused  it  to  be  expended  just  as 
much  as  if  he  had  solicited  the  subscrip- 
tion in  the  beginning. 

You  can  easily  determine  where  this 
theory  would  leave  a  candidate  for  office. 

I  did  not  intend  to  discourse  at  length 
on  this  trial.  It  is  to  me  a  hideous  con- 
cession to  popular  clamor  and  to  the 
prejudice  against  wealth.  I  regret  very 
much  that  the  Review,  which  I  thought 
was  above  such  things,  has  fallen  in  with 
this  popular  view  and  has  given  to  it  the 
endorsement  of  its  conservative  columns 
and  deservedly  wide  influence. 

Hal  H.  Smith 

Detroit,  Mich.,  April  19 

C.  T.  Winchester 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

It  is  with  regret  that  I  note  that  none 
of  the  literary  weeklies  has  so  far  men- 
tioned the  recent  death  of  Professor  C. 
T.   Winchester,   for   nearly   fifty   years 
head  of  the  department  of  English  litera- 
ture   at   Wesleyan    University,    Middle- 
town,  Conn.    I  say  with  regret  because  he 
was  one  of  the  small  band  of  truly  liter- 
ary teachers  of  literature.    To  sit  in  his 
classroom  was  at  once  an  education  and 
an  inspiration.     His  voice  was  like  one 
of    those    voices    at    Oxford    of    whom 
Arnold  wrote  so  eloquently  in  his  essay 
on  Emerson.    In  our  American  universi- 
ties, in  our  departments  of  English  litera- 
ture, we  now  have,  if  you  will,  "more 
knowledge,  more  light,"  but  such  a  voice 
as  that  of  Winchester  is  most  rare.    In 
very    few    cases    is    the    great    author 
tried  by  his  peer.    Shakespeare  becomes 
a  curiosity  of  Elizabethan  English,  and 
we  learn  everything  about  Chaucer  ex- 
cept  his    literary   qualities.      Professor 
Winchester  was  a  peer  of  literary  great- 
ness.   To  read  his  books,  "Principles  of 
Literary   Criticism"   and   "A   Group  of 
English   Essayists   of  the   Early   Nine- 
teenth Century,"  is  to  be  acutely  con- 
scious  of  this.     His  exquisite  literary 
taste  and  judgment,  his  rare  faculty  of 
imparting   literary    enthusiasms — which 
never  included  mediocre  authors — drew 
to  him  a  band  of  disciples  limited  only 
by  the  number  of  students  in  attendance 
at  Wesleyan.     Several  times  he  refused 
flattering  offers  from  great  universities. 
His  work,  he  said,  was  at  Wesleyan. 

The  loss  of  such  a  teacher  of  literature 
is  a  calamity ;  but  in  the  shadow  of  those 
mountains  which  he  loved,  beyond  the 
Connecticut  River  below  Middletown,  his 
memory  will  need  no  laurel. 

Harry  T.  Baker 

Gaucher  College,  Baltimore,  Md.,  April  23 


460] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  51 


Book  Reviews 

Champ  Clark's  Reminis- 
cences 

My  Quakter  Century  of  American  Politics. 
By  Champ  Clark.  Two  volumes,  illus- 
trated. New  York:  Harper  and  Brothers. 
1920. 

WHAT  the  majority  of  readers  are 
most  likely  to  appreciate  in  these 
volumes  is  their  wealth  of  interesting 
anecdotes  and  incidents,  not  only  of  pol- 
itics but  in  many  other  fields,  and  by 
no  means  confined  to  the  twenty-five 
years  named  in  the  title, — all  told  in  a 
way  that  is  quite  Champ  Clark's  own,  in 
spite  of  his  incorrigible  overworking  of 
a  great  many  commonplace  expressions, 
as  for  example  in  the  following  reference 
to  a  case  of  murder:  "The  times  were 
sadly  out  of  joint,  everything  was  topsy- 
turvy, and  in  some  way,  through  some 
sinister  influence,  he  went  unwhipped  of 
justice,  though  he  richly  deserved  to 
stretch  hemp."  Murders,  duels,  and  fist- 
fights  claim  at  least  as  high  a  percentage 
of  his  space  as  they  do  in  the  actual  life 
of  the  period  with  which  he  deals,  to  say 
nothing  of  exciting,  though  less  bloody, 
encounters  of  opposing  counsel  in  his 
own  law  practice,  or  suggested  by  it. 
One  chapter  is  devoted  by  title  to  "cloak 
room  stories,"  but  a  very  large  share  of 
the  work  might  have  been  put  under  that 
heading  without  raising  any  question  of 
propriety  in  the  mind  of  the  reader. 

Literary  allusions  and  quotations 
abound.  In  the  very  first  chapter,  the 
fact  that  the  author  was  born  on  the 
fateful  7th  of  March,  1850,  calls  for 
^Vhittier'8  "Ichabod"  in  full;  his  boy- 
hood loss  of  a  dog,  on  a  false  charge  of 
sheep-killing,  brings  in  Senator  Vest's 
"beautiful  Oration  on  the  Dog,"  along 
with  Byron's  "  'Tis  sweet  to  hear,"  etc. ; 
his  Kentucky  boyhood  sports  draw  four 
lines  from  "Locksley  Hall;"  his  "surgical 
operation,"  as  he  calls  it,  on  his  own 
name,  Beauchamp  cut  down  to  Champ, 
brings  in  the  inevitable  line  from  Shake- 
speare; his  own  early  circumstances  in- 
troduce, by  way  of  a  quotation  from  Lin- 
coln, Gray^s  words,  "the  short  and  simple 
annals  of  the  poor;"  a  wise  saying  from 
Patrick  Henry  enters  from  the  pages  of 
Wirt's  biography,  presented  to  him  by 
his  father;  and  the  Duke  of  Wellington's 
alleged  ten-word  description  of  the  bat- 
tle of  Waterloo  introduces  his  own  state- 
ment about  "pounding  away"  at  certain 
things,  which  he  desired  to  accomplish. 
And  in  this  same  first  chapter  are  in- 
cidental allusions  to  the  Proverbs  of 
Solomon,  the  Epistles  of  St.  Paul,  Rob- 
ert Southey,  Charles  Dickens,  William 
Pitt,  Charles  James  Fox,  George  D.  Pren- 
tice, Horace  Greeley,  Carl  Schurz, 
Colonel  Roosevelt,  Colonel  Watterson, 
and    a   host    of   others    who    stand    on 


the  border-line  between  literature  and 
politics. 

Mr.  Clark's  lively  interest  in  "scholar- 
ship" suggests  that  he  might  have  be- 
come, if  never  a  consecutive  logical 
thinker,  at  least  a  man  of  much  erudi- 
tion, had  he  consistently  followed  an 
early  bent  in  that  direction.  In  Ken- 
tucky University  he  studied  Greek  un- 
der Professor  Neville,  whom  he  calls  "the 
third  handsomest  man  I  ever  saw,"  and 
at  the  end  of  the  first  year  he  stood  by 
the  side  of  William  Benjamin  Smith,  the 
mathematician  and  biblical  scholar  to  be, 
with  a  grade  of  100.  "That  was  one  of 
the  happiest  days  of  my  life — happier 
than  when  I  was  elected  to  my  first  of- 
fice, happier  than  when  I  was  first  elected 
to  Congress  or  elected  Speaker,  happier 
than  any  other  days  of  my  life,  except 
the  day  when  I  was  married,  and  the 
days  on  which  my  children  were  born." 
A  little  shooting  affair,  fortunately  not 
fatal,  growing  out  of  stronger  provoca- 
tion than  his  Kentucky  temper  could 
brook,  separated  him  from  Kentucky  Uni- 
versity before  graduation,  and  his  col- 
lege education  was  completed  at  Bethany 
College,  in  West  Virginia.  How  far  he 
carried  his  classical  studies  he  does  not 
say,  but  in  his  occasional  use  of  bits  of 
Latin  he  does  not  always  remember  that 
"circumstances  alter  cases,"  grammatical 
as  well  as  otherwise.  Nevertheless,  Pro- 
fessor West,  of  Princeton,  was  justified 
in  quoting  him  as  a  good  friend  of  clas- 
sical studies.  To  the  late  Dr.  William 
Everett,  Mr.  Clark  appropriately  assigns 
a  very  high  place  in  Congressional 
scholarship.  In  his  mind,  the  most 
"astounding  revelations"  of  Dr.  Everett's 
learning  were  instances  of  "first  aid"  to 
congressmen  in  trouble  with  the  pro- 
nunciation of  unusual  words.  B.  Gratz 
Brown  is  attested  as  one  of  the  most 
scholarly  of  Missouri's  gqyernors  by  the 
fact  that  "he  wrote  a  book  on  higher 
mathematics  as  a  mental  recreation." 

In  characterization,  whether  of  men  or 
things,  Mr.  Clark  runs  freely  to  superla- 
tives. Congressman  DeArmond  had  "the 
sarcastic  faculty  perhaps  more  largely 
developed  than  in  any  other  man  that 
ever  sat  in  either  branch  of  Congress." 
Of  Blaine,  "A  more  brilliant  man  never 
figured  in  American  politics,"  and  his 
"Twenty  Years  in  Congress"  is  "the  best 
historical  work  ever  written  by  an  Amer- 
ican." Charles  James  Fox  was  "the 
greatest  debater  that  ever  spoke  the 
English  tongue,"  and  Burke,  "taken  up 
one  side  and  down  the  other,  was  perhaps 
the  greatest  transatlantic  orator  that 
ever  spoke  the  English  tongue."  Trans- 
atlantic, mind  you;  for  in  our  own  land, 
within  the  life  of  our  Republic,  "the 
divine  gift  of  moving  the  mind  and  heart 
by  the  power  of  spoken  words  has  been 
bestowed  upon  more  men  than  in  all  the 
rest  of  the  world  since  the  confusion 
of  tongues  at  the  unfinished  tower  of 


Babel."  "One  of  the  finest  epigrams  ever 
uttered,"  Mr.  Clark  heard  from  the  lips 
of  George  H.  Pendleton,  as  follows: 
"The  sweetest  incense  that  ever  greeted 
the  nostrils  of  a  public  man  is  the  ap- 
plause of  the  people."  This  suggests  a 
translation  of  a  certain  passage  in  the 
"Antigone"  of  Sophocles,  heard  in  the 
college  days  of  the  reviewer,  "An  un- 
seen odor  steals  upon  my  ear." 

It  would  be  easy  to  pick  some  pretty 
serious  flaws  in  Speaker  Clark's  code  of 
political  morals,  but  they  are  of  the  head 
rather  than  the  heart.  He  is  honest  and 
patriotic  "up  one  side  and  down  the 
other,"  but  there  is  gradually  developing 
a  revised  definition  of  honesty  and  pa- 
triotism in  politics,  which  frowns  on 
many  things  that  seem  wholly  unobjec- 
tionable to  him  and  to  the  older  school 
to  which  he  belongs.  He  denounces  some 
unnamed  congressman  said  to  have  sold 
■his  quota  of  garden  seeds  and  pocketed 
the  price,  instead  of  distributing  them 
to  his  constituents,  as  "a  miserable 
scoundrel  for  whom  the  penitentiary  is 
too  good;"  but  he  is  blind  to  the  essen- 
tial dishonesty  of  the  whole  seed  distribu- 
tion business,  nor  does  he  realize  that 
he  is  discrediting  his  own  moral  insight 
when  he  tells  of  his  efforts  to  secure  Gov- 
ernment appointments  for  one  or  another 
of  his  constituents,  either  to  reward 
them  for  personal  services  to  him,  or  to 
remove  them  as  possible  rivals  for  his 
own  position.  He  thinks  of  himself,  and 
is  eager  to  be  thought  of,  as  a  reformer; 
and  yet  his  understanding  of  the  prob- 
lems of  political  and  social  reformation 
is  such  that  he  can  say  of  William  Ran- 
dolph Hearst,  "No  great  reform  has  been 
accomplished,  or  even  advocated,  in  this 
country,  in  a  quarter  of  a  century,  with- 
out the  powerful  and  aggressive  aid  of 
his  newspapers  and  magazines." 

Mr.  Clark  might  well  have  spared  his 
two  or  three  pages  of  lamentation  over 
the  "political  suicide"  of  John  G. 
Carlisle,  who  lost  his  hold  on  his  Ken- 
tucky constituents  by  his  support  of  the 
gold  standard,  during  the  second  Cleve- 
land administration.  Carlisle  was  a  far 
abler  man  than  Mr.  Clark,  and  when 
forced  by  the  exigencies  of  his  official 
position  to  go  to  the  bottom  of  the  finan- 
cial problem,  and  its  immediate  relation 
to  the  country's  welfare,  his  logical  mind 
brought  him  at  once  out  of  the  haze  in 
which  Bryan,  Clark,  and  so  many  others 
continued  to  wander,  and  enabled  him  to 
render  a  service  of  immeasurable  value 
to  the  country  at  a  very  critical  time. 
Carlisle  knew  in  advance  what  the  cost 
of  that  service  would  be  to  him  person- 
ally, and  he  had  the  courage  and  char- 
acter to  pay  that  cost  without  flinching. 
His  memory  calls  for  no  word  of  pity  in 
the  matter  but  only  of  praise.  The  care- 
ful student  of  history  will  lament  the 
blindness  of  his  constituents,  and  his 
splendid  self-sacrifice. 


May  1,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[461 


Satire  and  Soothing-Syrup 

Hand-Made  Fables.  By  George  Ade.  Illus- 
trated by  John  T.  McCutcheon.  New 
York :    Doubleday,  Page  and  Company. 

^'/^GOLD  and  silver  fluctuates,"  said 
\y  Mr.  Dooley,  "up  wan  day,  down 
another;  but  whisky  stands  firm  and 
strong,  unchangeable  as  the  skies,  im- 
movable as  a  rock,  at  fifteen  or  two  i'r  a 
quarther.  If  they  want  something  solid 
as  a  standard  of  value,  they'll  move  the 
Mint  over  to  the  internal  rivinue  office 
an'  lave  it  stay  there." 

It  was  a  generation  ago  that  he  said  it, 
in  the  days  of  free  silver  and  sixteen  to 
one.  Now  the  bottom  of  the  whisky  bar- 
rel has  dropped  out,  and  the  price  has 
blown  up,  but  Dooley  still  issues  his  ob- 
servations which  pass  current  at  their 
face  value.  The  Katzenjammer  Kids  are 
old  enough  to  have  kids  of  their  own,  but 
still  they  do  their  juvenile  turn,  as  did 
their  forebears.  Max  and  Morris,  for  a 
generation  before  them.  Alphonse  and 
Gaston  now  exhibit  their  manners  as 
Percy  and  Ferdy,  and  Gloomy  Gus,  to 
keep  abreast  of  the  times,  has  become 
Gasoline  Gus.  Fables  in  Slang  have  not 
shown  a  fluctuation  in  twenty  years. 
Change  and  decay  in  all  around  we  see, 
but  humor  stands  firm  and  strong,  un- 
changeable as  the  skies,  immovable  as  a 
rock.  If  you  need  something  solid  as  a 
stabilizer  amid  the  pitching  and  rolling 
of  all  about  you,  try  the  new  crop  of 
Hand-Made  Fables.  It  makes  a  man  feel 
at  home  in  his  generation,  and  not  out 
of  place  in  that  of  his  children. 

At  first  glance  it  invites  comparison 
with  the  past.  On  the  jacket  are  two 
vignettes  of  McCutcheon's  in  his  familiar 
wood-block  style,  by  no  means  so  rough- 
hewn  as  they  would  appear.  In  one  a 
lady  with  hour-glass  waist,  swathed  to 
the  chin  in  a  basque  and  to  the  heels  in 
a  flaring  skirt,  is  ogled  by  a  man  in  frock 
coat  and  high  hat,  who  carries  gloves  and 
cane.  In  the  background  is  a  horse-car 
which  an  agitated  citizen  pursues  in 
frantic  haste;  presumably  there  will  not 
be  another  for  an  hour.  In  the  other 
street  scene  the  lady  wears  a  few  clothes 
somewhere  between  her  chest-measure 
and  her  knees.  She  is  accompanied  by 
grandma  similarly  arrayed.  The  ogler 
turns  to  look  at  them  over  the  loose  back 
of  a  belted  coat,  but  the  long  narrow 
bows  of  his  shoes  point  forward.  The 
second  glance  disarms  any  comparison 
with  the  present.  The  preface  informs 
us  that  "although  the  period  in  which 
these  fables  appeared  enveloped  the  Great 
War  and  lapped  over  the  Great  Unrest, 
the  author  has  proceeded  upon  the  theory 
that  old  Human  Nature  continues  to  do 
business,  even  during  a  cataclysm."  Thus 
directed,  the  reader  takes  from  the 
shelves  the  crop  of  twenty  years  ago, 
"More  Fables,  1900,"  and  is  not  surprised 
to  find  that  if  the  two  books  were  to 


masquerade  in  one  another's  clothes, 
there  would  be  little  to  betray  the  trick. 
And  the  fact  sets  him  to  wondering 
about  the  titles.  Slang,  so  the  purists 
tell  us,  is  characteristically  ephemeral. 
Fables  in  slang  should  teach  by  humor; 
they  class  themselves  as  satire,  and  if 
satire  is  successful  it  should  be  content 
to  pass  from  memory  with  the  abuses  it 
has  destroyed.  What  we  seem  to  have  in 
these  books  is  an  ostensibly  ephemeral 
form  in  frothy  language,  whose  most 
striking  characteristic  is  its  durability — 
like  a  carved  statue  of  a  glass  of  soda- 
water  with  the  bubbles  forever  winking 
at  the  brim.  To  all  appearances  we  are 
lashed  with  satire;  in  effect  we  are  fed 
with  soothing  syrup. 

If  slang  is  the  ephemerid  of  language, 
then  twenty  years  are  in  its  sight  but  as 
a  day.  Mr.  Ade  calls  his  diction  slang, 
but  if  slang  is  the  current  phrase,  clean- 
cut  when  newly  minted,  but  soon  worn 
smooth  and  discarded,  then  his  ware  is 
not  so  much  slang  as  the  embroidered 
phrase,  the  vernacular  writ  large.  He 
rarely  mints  a  phrase  that  gains  cur- 
rency, and  phrases  already  current  are 
blank  canvas  for  his  embroidery,  or 
empty  bladders  for  him  to  inflate  and 
gild.  Sometimes  the  phrase  is  cryptic- 
ally concealed  under  the  embroidery,  as 
"convert  the  Fliv  into  a  Baby  Doll." 
More  often  his  work  is  like  structural 
ornamentation,  and  if  the  original  meta- 
phor has  any  real  imaginative  basis,  he 
follows  the  original  lines — the  term 
"scream"  as  applied  to  "loud"  clothing 
returns  to  something  like  the  original  in 
"if  Colours  could  be  converted  into 
Sounds  her  Costume  would  have  been  a 
Siren  Whistle."  In  "More  Fables"  only 
two  genuine  bits  of  current  slang  im- 
press the  reader  of  to-day;  "chestnut" 
because  he  is  surprised  to  find  it  surviv- 
ing so  late  as  1900;  and  "no  one  could 
tell  him  where  to  get  off,"  first  surprises 
one  that  it  is  so  old,  second  that  old  as 
it  is  it  is  neither  dead  nor  respectable. 
The  new  volume  has  such  verbs  as  "to 
periscope,"  to  "mop  up,"  and  a  few  other 
new  expressions.  Half  a  dozen  have  died, 
six  have  been  bom ;  where  is  the  noisome 
corruption  of  language  of  which  the 
purists  complain,  and  where  the  winged 
and  barbed  phrase  fresh  every  hour  of 
which  slang  loves  to  boast ! 

See  then  the  humorist  with  his  tongue 
in  his  cheek  dealing  with  the  permanent 
elements  of  human-  nature  in  language 
essentially  unchanged  since  the  Spanish 
War,  which  we  open  with  popping  of 
corks  and  gulp  in  haste  lest  the  bubbles 
should  cease  hissing.  He  does  it  by  a 
process  that  might  be  called  playing 
both  ends  against  the  middle.  The  first 
of  the  Hand-Made  Fables  would  seem  to 
teach  that  somehow  good  may  be  the 
latter  end  of  total  abstinence;  the  twen- 
ty-fifth apparently  indicates  just  the  op- 
posite.    Like  Senators  and  popular  pro- 


verbs they  can  be  set  off  in  neutralizing 
pairs.  Sometimes  the  sting  of  the  satire 
and  the  counter-irritant  come  in  the  same 
fable,  as  in  the  case  of  the  local  reformer 
who  is  ostracized  by  200  per  cent,  of  his 
fellow  citizens  who  afterward  wait  on 
him  to  ask  him  to  return  to  his  func- 
tions; or  that  of  the  returned  exile  who 
first  judges  in  sorrow  that  the  world  he 
knew  of  old  has  reformed,  then  to  his 
shame  that  it  has  not.  The  inference  is 
that  common  sense  lies  between  extremes. 
The  effect  is  satire  that  everyone  enjoys 
because  no  one  is  hit;  the  shell  always 
lands  on  your  next-door  neighbor's  house, 
and  you  whoop  when  you  see  the  splint- 
ers fly,  and  he  is  whooping  too  because 
he  thinks  it  is  your  house. 

Ireland's  Future 

Ireland  a  Nation.  By  Robert  Lynd.  New 
York:    Dodd,  Mead  and  Company. 

The  Clanking  of  Chains.  A  Story  of  Sinn 
Fein.  By  Brinsley  MacNamara.  New 
York :    Brentano's. 

MR.  LYND  is  a  brilliant  London  jour- 
nalist, literary  editor  of  the  Daily 
News,  a  member  of  the  group  of  young 
Irishmen  who  have  carried  not  only  their 
artistic  talents  but  their  unquenchable 
love  of  their  native  country  into  the  voca- 
tion of  literature  across  the  Channel. 
When  the  present  writer  used  to  meet 
him  twenty  years  ago,  he  was  a  central 
figure — almost  an  oracle — among  college 
students  in  Belfast  who  were  breaking 
away  from  the  "Ulster  tradition."  In 
depicting  Ireland  he  has  the  sure  touch 
of  one  who  grew  up  among  the  scenes  he 
has  to  describe,  and  who  now  looks  back 
upon  them  after  mixing  with  the  wider 
world.  In  this  book  Mr.  Lynd  expounds 
the  Irish  national  spirit  to  English  and 
American  readers,  and,  if  his  pages  have 
at  times  the  intractable  vehemence  which 
belong  to  his  nationality,  they  are  no 
less  lit  up  with  the  wit  and  sparkle  that 
seldom  desert  a  man  of  his  race. 

He  gives  us  a  vivid  account  of  the 
sources  of  discontent  in  "John  Bull's 
Other  Island,"  an  informing  study  of 
the  Sinn  Fein  movement  from  its  incep- 
tion down  to  the  revolt  of  1916,  a  dis- 
section of  the  Ulster  problem  with  some 
very  mordant  criticism  of  that  gospel  of 
violence  whose  first  aspect  was  Carson- 
ism  and  which  reappeared  among  the 
Irish  Volunteers.  Passing  from  political 
subjects,  Mr.  Lynd  resumes  his  favorite 
calling  of  literary  critic,  and  in  five  chap- 
ters, entitled  "Voices  of  the  New  Ire- 
land," he  sketches  the  varying  moods  of 
the  Irish  literary  renaissance.  P.  H. 
Pearse,  Mrs.  J.  R.  Green,  T.  M.  Kettle, 
Dora  Sigerson,  George  Russell  (known  to 
all  magazine  readers  as  "A.  E.")  are 
discussed  with  a  clearness  and  a  discern- 
ment which  must  appeal  to  everyone, 
apart  from  either  sympathy  or  resent- 
ment towards  the  views  with  which  these 


462] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  51 


writers  are  identified.  It  is  a  book  of 
much  charm,  with  many  good  things  that 
remind  us  of  Mr.  Chesterton  at  his  best, 
and  one  may  conjecture  that  G.  K.  C. 
has  had  a  very  strong  influence  in  mould- 
ing Mr.  Lynd's  style.  The  reader  does 
not  need  to  be  warned  that  this  influence 
has  its  dangers.  We  may  say  of  Mr. 
Chesterton,  as  someone  has  said  of 
Wordsworth,  that  "he  is  great  when  he 
is  on  the  heights,  but  then  he  is  so  often 
not  on  the  heights." 

The  chief  fault  to  be  found  with  this 
volume  is  one  that  appears  in  its  very 
title.  If  "Ireland  a  Nation"  is  not  a 
question-begging  phrase,  it  is  at  least 
one  that  requires  very  careful  explaining 
for  those  who  hate  to  mask  realities  be- 
hind names.  Mr.  Lynd  likes  Lord  North- 
cliffe's  scheme  for  making  Ireland  a 
Dominion  rather  than  Mr.  Asquith's 
Home  Rule  Act.  "But,"  he  says,  "it 
suffers  from  the  defect  that  it  implies 
that  England  has  the  right  to  impose  on 
Ireland  a  settlement  other  than  Ireland 
herself  desires."  What  he  would  him- 
self propose  is  to  put  the  Act  of  1914 
into  immediate  operation,  and  leave  the 
members  of  a  freely  chosen  Dublin  par- 
liament to  "hammer  out  a  constitution 
for  their  country,  republican  or  colonial, 
according  to  the  national  will."  About 
the  present  discordance  of  this  "national 
will,"  about  the  prevailing  orgy  of  crime, 
about  the  probable  consequences  to  the 
world  of  setting  up  a  Sinn  Fein  republic, 
he  has  almost  nothing  to  say!  These 
matters  are  to  him  apparently  irrelevant, 
so  long  as  the  rubric  of  "self-determina- 
tion" is  followed.  Unhesitating  Home 
Rulers  may  agree  in  fixing  the  chief 
blame  for  the  existing  chaos  just  where 
Mr.  Lynd  fixes  it.  But  we  had  to  deal 
with  facts  as  they  are,  and  one  of  the 
curses  of  our  age  is  just  this  reliance 
upon  some  slogan  which  we  think  we  are 
using,  but  which  is  in  truth  using  us. 
By  all  means  let  us  vent  our  rage  against 
the  narrowness  of  Unionists.  But  let  us 
not  forget  what  Ibsen  has  so  suggestively 
taught  us  about  the  blind  worship  of 
cast-iron  formulae. 

Mr.  MacNamara  in  "The  Clanking 
of  Chains"  has  furnished,  no  doubt 
without  intending  it,  a  useful  cor- 
rective to  Mr.  Lynd.  Whether  he  meant 
this  as  a  novel  with  a  purpose  may 
perhaps  be  questioned,  and  the  pur- 
pose— if  there  was  one — is  not  quite  easy 
to  diagnose.  The  book  is  in  the  first 
instance  a  picture  of  the  rival  movements 
and  tendencies  of  Irish  life  during  the 
years  from  1913  to  1917.  One  might 
have  predicted  that  before  long  that 
seething  period  would  be  presented  in  a 
work  of  fiction,  and  Mr.  MacNamara  has 
the  gift  for  this  in  a  high  degree.  The 
scene  is  laid  in  the  village  of  Ballycullen, 
where  the  hero — Michael  Dempsey — is  a 
young  clerk  in  a  grocery  store,  who  feeds 
his  mind  each  evening  by  candlelight 


"upon  the  more  ferocious  portions  of 
Irish  history."  He  acquires  an  intense 
hatred  for  the  English  invaders,  works 
himself  into  ecstasy  about  his  country's 
martyrs,  and  broods  darkly  upon  an  Irish 
triumph  in  the  future  which  will  be  at 
the  same  time  revenge  for  the  past.  In 
a  play  about  Robert  Emmet  and  Sara 
Curran,  staged  by  the  Ballycullen  Dra- 
matic Class,  he  declaims  Emmet's  speech 
with  a  fervor  that  astounds  his  audience. 
Old  Parnellites  and  doughty  survivors  of 
Fenian  and  Land  League  times  display  a 
delight  mingled  with  hopelessness.  And 
of  course  there  is  a  girl,  who  sees  Emmet 
reincarnated  in  Dempsey,  with  a  coming 
Tom  Moore  who  shall  celebrate  herself 
as  Sara  Curran.  Michael  is  enraptured 
with  Sinn  Fein  in  its  earlier  and  quite 
peaceful  form,  when  the  motto  "Our- 
selves Alone"  meant  no  more  than  a  gos- 
pel of  self-reliance  and  self-development 
as  against  depending  on  England  and 
English  political  alliances.  Thus  his  pro- 
gramme is  at  first  one  of  arousing  in- 
terest in  Irish  history,  Irish  folklore, 
Irish  language,  Irish  industries,  that  the 
soul  of  a  nation  so  long  half  dead  may 
be  made  to  renew  its  life.  He  is  no 
preacher  of  armed  revolt,  but  limits  him- 
self to  such  modest  schemes  as  getting 
the  Ballycullen  smokers  to  use  only 
matches  made  in  Ireland!  Some  mock, 
however.  The  liquor  men  dislike  the 
provision  of  literary  and  historical  at- 
tractions that  may  compete  with  the  bar. 
The  local  sergeant  of  police  is  impressed 
with  the  greatness  of  the  British  Em- 
pire, and  thinks  it  would  be  better  to 
urge  all  young  Irishmen  to  join  "the 
Force,"  so  that  meetings  should  be  "com- 
posed of  peelers  rather  than  patriots." 
The  job-hunters  see  more  jobs  if  the 
country  remains  under  the  British 
Crown,  and  are  strong  supporters  of 
constitutional  Home  Rule.  The  farmers, 
who  have  bought  out  their  land  under 
the  Wyndham  Act,  have  ceased  to  trouble 
themselves  about  nationality,  and  think 
the  Emmet  stuff  is  out  of  date.  Even 
the  girl  begins  to  wonder  whether  Sara 
Curran  was  not  well  advised  to  marry 
a  British  officer,  and  tentatively  walks 
out  with  another  young  man  who  be- 
lieves in  making  the  best  of  things  as 
they  are.  At  these  ominous  signs 
Michael  Dempsey  loses  heart.  The  Car- 
sonite  drilling  in  Ulster  stirs  him  to 
the  thought  of  an  Ireland  fighting  for 
herself,  and  his  joy  knows  no  bounds 
when  he  learns  of  the  Curragh  Camp 
mutiny.  "Was  it  not  really  in  keeping 
with  the  old,  heroic,  rebel  traditions?" 
Ireland,  he  thinks,  can  be  saved  only  by 
those  who  will  die  for  her.  But  the 
nationalists  of  Ballycullen  are  too  strong 
for  him  and  an  attempt  to  upset  the 
local  organization  leads  to  his  being  har- 
ried out  of  the  village.  With  a  heavy 
heart  he  goes  abroad,  and  his  fickle 
fiancee  goes  with  him. 


The  story  is  very  vivid  and  very  in- 
teresting. Irish  village  life  is  satirized 
with  considerable  skill.  But  one  wonders 
what  exactly  Mr.  MacNamara  intends  us 
to  infer.  He  seems  very  bitter  about 
the  faults  of  the  Redmondite  League, 
and  what  apparently  makes  him  hopeless 
regarding  Ireland's  future  is  her  servi- 
tude to  the  party  tradition,  party 
methods,  party  dreams.  Even  that  pure 
and  bracing  air  which  belonged  to  the 
original  Sinn  Fein  has,  he  thinks,  been 
polluted  by  reversion  to  the  mental  habits 
of  the  stifling  parliamentary  past,  so  that 
those  who  would  be  free  are  still  em- 
barrassed in  every  effort  by  the  clanking 
of  old  chains.  Emigration  seems  to  be 
his  own  counsel  to  the  better  spirits,  as 
it  was  Dickens's  counsel  in  "David  Cop- 
perfield"  to  the  disappointed  English 
Chartists.  But  then,  as  now,  this  was  a 
counsel  of  despair,  and  it  is  not  by  those 
who  despair  that  a  constructive  solution 
can  ever  be  reached.  Just  as  the  British 
Labor  Party  has  devised  a  better  plan 
than  universal  expatriation  for  the  work- 
ingmen,  so  the  resources  of  civic  wisdom 
may  surely  yet  find  something  better  for 
Ireland  than  that  her  best  sons  should 
quit  her  shore.  John  Redmond  made  a 
gallant  effort,  and  though  amid  the 
delirium  of  the  war  he  failed  when  just 
on  the  point  of  success,  one  may  hope 
that  the  same  high  principles  of  concilia- 
tion will  be  tried  again  when  the  at- 
mosphere has  cleared.  If  Mr.  MacNa- 
mara will  look  into  Mr.  Lynd's  book  he 
may  see  that  there  are  chains  quite  dif- 
ferent from  those  of  which  he  has  writ- 
ten, but  quite  as  fatal  to  a  genuine  set- 
tlement. 

In  these  disordered  times  there  is 
perhaps  no  fetter  which  clanks  more 
destructively  round  the  neck  of  those 
who  would  make  progress  than  the  fet- 
ter of  some  old  maxim  that  men  follow 
in  the  dark.  Nationhood,  self-determina- 
tion, and  the  like  are  some  men's  food 
and  other  men's  poison.  That  each  people 
should,  so  far  as  compatible  with  the 
world's  safety  and  well-being,  fix  its  own 
form  of  government  is  obviously  just, 
and  we  may  well  cry  shame  upon  those 
who  would  say  of  it — as  of  the  Conscrip- 
tion Law — ""This  shall  not  apply  to  Ire- 
land." But  it  is  also  a  maxim  that  can 
be  pressed  to  the  world's  undoing.  If 
it  is  to  mean  that  every  little  group 
which  chooses  to  magnify  its  group- 
antagonisms  must  be  constituted  into  an 
independent  state,  and  that  every  selfish 
whim  can  be  turned  into  a  sacred  right 
by  being  called  "national  aspiration," 
then  we  have  evolved  the  surest  recipe 
on  record  for  promoting  international 
quarrels.  It  is  idle  to  object  by  saying 
"Where  will  you  draw  the  line?"  We 
must  draw  this  here,  as  everywhere  else, 
by  intelligent  forecast  of  consequences, 
using  the  best  light  we  have. 

Herbert  L.  Stewart 


May  1,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[463 


Adventures  in  the  Past 

LucA  Sarto:  A  Novel.  A  History  of  His 
Perilous  Journey  into  France  in  the  Year 
Fourteen  Hundred  and  Seventy-One.  By 
Cliarles  S.  Brooks.  New  York:  The  Cen- 
tury Company. 

His  Majesty's  Well-Beloved  :  An  Episode  in 
the  Life  of  Mr.  Thomas  Betterton  as  Told 
by  His  Friend,  John  Honeywood.  By 
Baroness  Orczy.  New  York :  George  H. 
Doran  Company. 

The  Burning  Glass.  By  Marjorie  Bowen. 
New  York :   E.   P.  Button  and  Company. 

The  Forging  of  the  Pikes  :  A  Romance  of 
the  Upper  Canadian  Rebellion  of  1837. 
By  Anison  North.  New  York :  George  H. 
Doran  Company. 

The  Matrix.  By  Maria  Thompson  Daviess. 
New  York:  The  Century  Company. 

IF  it  is  the  habit  of  reviewers  to  speak 
condescendingly  of  the  historical  novel 
or  to  dismiss  it  with  more  or  less  good- 
humored  disdain  as  "costume  romance," 
it  is  also  the  habit  of  a  considerable  num- 
ber of  story-tellers,  year  after  year,  to 
go  steadily  and  self-respectingly  about 
their  natural  business  of  reanimating  or 
regalvanizing  the  past,  as  the  case  may 
be.  And  this  of  course  means  that  a 
considerable  number  of  novel-readers,  a 
steady  if  not  clamorous  constituency, 
continue  to  find  the  home  of  their 
fancy  in  the  past.  Call  it  cowardice,  or 
languor  if  you  will,  a  dodging  away  from 
"reality"  into  the  scented  and  rose- 
lighted  land  of  never-more.  But  under- 
stand what  your  disdain  lets  you  in  for, 
how  it  cuts  you  off  (in  theory)  from 
generous  enjoyment  of  many  of  the 
greatest  story-tellers  and  their  stories. 
Reflect  whether  "Ivanhoe"  and  "Henry 
Esmond"  and  "Westward  Ho !"  mean . 
nothing  more  than  names  and  moods 
outgrown,  to  us  who  are  adult  and  of  the 
twentieth  century.  Which  would  we  the 
more  readily  part  with  or  could  we  the 
more  comfortably  spare,  in  that  con- 
sciousness of  experience  from  which  our 
lives  draw  secret  nourishment:  "The 
Three  Musketeers"  or  "Anna  Karenina?" 
— "Tono-Bungay"  or  "The  Talisman?" 

A  test,  to  be  sure,  rather  than  a  main 
question.  In  a  sense  it  is  precisely  not 
the  question.  For  if  we  could  have  done 
with  comparing  the  incomparable,  we 
should  retain  contempt  for  neither.  .  .  . 
The  historical  novel,  at  all  events,  by 
no  means  cries  out  for  defense,  if  one 
can  judge  from  the  continued  support  it 
receives  from  publishers  become  by  all 
accounts  more  cautious.  People  write 
books,  and  publish  them,  because  people 
read  them.  And  it  is  still  possible  for  a 
writer  like  Charles  S.  Brooks,  having 
gained  recognition  as  a  whimsical  essay- 
ist, to  lay  the  scene  of  his  first  novel 
safely  in  the  past  and  on  foreign  soil. 
When  you  settle  down  to  spin  a  yarn  of 
an  Italian  artist's  sword  and  garter  ad- 
ventures in  fifteenth-century  France, 
you  leave  behind  all  concern  with  the  dis- 
position of  your  neighbor's  wash,  thongh 


it  dangles  before  your  eyes  through  the 
square  of  your  study  window.  Sordid 
fact  and  humdrum  reason  are  kicked  un- 
der the  table;  and  for  racy  incident  and 
vivid  detail  you  have  the  alternative  of 
turning  some  yellowed  page  or  frankly 
scratching  your  head — nobody's  business 
which.  Mr.  Brooks  has  capably  turned 
out  a  costume  romance,  a  spirited  and 
amusing  if  not  inspired  narrative  of  ad- 
venture-cum-politics.  He  does  not  shrink 
from  staging  his  scene  in  the  France 
where  Quentin  Durward  once  journeyed 
and  loved.  The  Louis  of  the  cruel  hands 
and  craven  heart,  with  his  leaden  images 
and  his  personal  squalor,  once  more  ap- 
pears. If  what  we  gather  about  the  pass- 
ing of  Scott  is  true,  Mr.  Brooks  is  safe 
in  handling  his  Louis  as  if  he  had  never 
been  painted  before:  it  is  the  right 
method  anyhow.  For  the  simple-hearted 
and  simple-headed  Quentin  we  have  here 
a  picaresque  rascal,  Roman  artist  and 
ruffler,  who  appears  to  have  read  his 
Hewlett.  The  tale  as  a  whole  quite  cheer- 
fully lacks  the  richer  fabric  of  motive 
and  action  which  distinguishes  (if  any- 
thing really  does)  a  living  historical 
romance  from  a  'sdeathly  diversion  of 
the  moment.  As  for  style,  the  fabulist  is 
somewhat  happier  than  most  experiment- 
ers in  this  field.  He  contrives  (as  Stev- 
enson confesses  one  must  do)  a  quite 
artificial  but  fairly  plausible  jargon  to 
convey  an  illusion  of  the  past;  and  onjy 
now  and  then  (as  who  but  Hewlett  does 
not?)  drops  into  modernism:  a  slight 
knock  in  the  engine. 

From  rapier  and  dungeon  to  powder 
and  patches,  in  "His  Majesty's  Well-Be- 
loved." Place,  London,  century  the  mid- 
seventeenth,  atmosphere  a  blend  of  court 
and  theatre,  plot  a  web  of  polite  intrigue 
involving  Tom  Betterton,  Mary  Saunder- 
son,  and  divers  nobilities  and  royalties 
who  play  their  parts  capably  if  without 
especial  conviction.  The  Baroness  Orczy 
is  an  old  hand  at  this  kind  of  story,  has 
the  machinery  under  control  and  the 
lingo  pat.  Her  experiment  in  the  use  of 
capitals  is  not  happy;  they  seem  to  be 
scattered  about  with  a  loose  hand: 
"There  was  a  sooty  chimney-sweep, 
whom  I  knew  to  be  an  honest  Man,  and 
the  broom  Men  and  their  Boys,  and  many 
law-abiding  Pedestrians  who,  fearful  of 
the  crowd,  were  walking  in  the  traffic 
way,  meekly  giving  the  wall  to  the  more 
roisterous  throng."  Such  a  trick  merely 
peppers  the  page  without  enriching  its 
flavor.  This  also  is  plainly  a  costume 
romance:  a  clever  enough  fabrication  in 
its  highflown  to  highfalutin  style.  The 
author  of  "The  Burning  Glass"  is  an- 
other inveterate  explorer  of  the  romantic 
past.  Notwithstanding  her  frequent 
crudity  of  manner,  she  has  always  some- 
thing of  value  to  offer — usually,  as  here, 
a  portrait  vividly  conceived  and  vigor- 
ously if  not  quite  powerfully  executed. 
Here  is  the  likeness  of  Mademoiselle  de 


Lespinasse  towards  the  end  of  her  short 
and  troubled  years;  the  enchantress,  the 
fine  lady,  grande  amoureuse.  Highflown 
also  is  this  tale,  without  relief  of  humor 
(a  commodity  the  writer  lacks)  and  yet 
by  no  means  machine-made:  an  absorbed 
imaginative  study  of  character  in  its 
environment. 

Portraiture  is  what  the  author  of  "The 
Matrix"  has  attempted  chiefly.  Close 
upon  Mr.  Bacheller's  story  of,  or  includ- 
ing, the  youthful  Lincoln  comes  this  tale 
of  Lincoln's  parents.  It  is  told  in  a 
reverent,  perhaps  an  over  reverent  spirit 
by  one  who  was  "bom  and  reared  in  the 
same  little  Bluegrass  valley  which  was 
the  cradle  of  the  great  romance."  It  is 
the  story  mainly  of  that  Nancy  Hanks 
about  whom  legends  still  linger  in  that 
country.  "All  that  I  am  or  ever  hope  to 
be,  I  owe  to  my  angel  Mother,  blessings 
on  her  memory"  is  a  saying  of  Lincoln's 
which  gives  the  keynote  to  this  book.  It 
is  not  the  author's  fault  if  she  has  pro- 
duced a  pious  memorial  rather  than  a 
living  portrait.  In  "The  Forging  of  the 
Pikes"  we  are  upon  fresher  ground. 
Primarily,  with  its  theme  in  the  roots  of 
Canada's  political  past,  it  is  a  story  for 
Canadians.  But  though,  as  the  author 
modestly  surmises,  "it  will  probably  be 
the  love-story  of  Alan  and  Barry  that  will 
attract  the  greater  number  of  readers," 
there  is  plenty  of  vitality  in  the  larger 
action.  So  that  though  it  chances  to 
take  place  in  the  Upper  Canada  of  eighty 
years  ago,  it  may  be  of  interest  to  any 
reader  on  either  side  of  the  water  who 
has  followed  the  struggles  between  the 
"Reformers"  and  "Tories"  of  his  own 
day.  The  style  is  flowing  and  simple  and 
has  an  agreeable  if  not  strictly  synchron- 
ous flavor  of  Pepys. 

H.  W.  BOYNTON 

TheRun  of  the  Shelves 

MR.  EDWARD  O'BRIEN'S  "Best 
Short  Stories  of  1919"  (Small, 
Maynard  and  Company)  is  the  fifth  of 
his  annual  compilations.  There  are 
twenty  stories;  five  from  the  Century 
against  two  from  Harper's,  which  cul- 
tivates the  short  story,  one  from 
Scribner's  and  none  from  the  Atlantic 
Monthly.  The  stories  run  to  shortness 
or  to  length ;  the  sixty-minute  story,  once 
normal  for  the  magazine,  is  here  the  ex- 
ception. The  demand  for  the  supernat- 
ural is  apparently  eager  and  the  supply 
punctual. 

Mr.  O'Brien's  standards  define  them- 
selves with  precision,  and  a  summary  of 
his  tests  will  serve  as  test  for  Mr. 
O'Brien.  He  has  no  eye  for  style.  The 
emergence  of  a  genuine  style  among 
his  tales  in  Mr.  Cabell's  somewhat  too 
debonair  and  condescending  "Wedding- 
Jest"  is  as  startling  in  its  isolation  as  the 
blooming  of  the  winter  thorn  at  Glas- 


46-t] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  51 


tonbur>'-  Mr.  Hergesheimer  in  the 
"Meeker  Ritual"  is  apparently  standing 
his  style  in  the  corner;  even  from  the 
corner  it  is  audible.  Mr.  O'Brien  is 
tolerant  of  veneer  and  aflfectation;  one 
would  more  readily  condone  an  entire 
bareness  (the  total  absence  of  style,  like 
other  totalities,  is  respectable) .  The  sec- 
ond point  in  literature  to  which  Mr. 
O'Brien  is  insensitive  is  tone.  The  tone 
of  the  whole  book  is  that  of  the  sidewalk, 
the  sidewalk  that  avoids  the  gutter  and 
misses  the  lawn. 

The  third  and  final  want  is  the  sense 
of  workmanship.  This  is  the  surprise. 
The  story  as  craft,  as  trade,  has  been 
made  so  much  of  in  our  day  both  in 
literary  and  unliterary  circles  that  one 
blinks  a  little  at  the  unconcern  with 
which  a  reputable  compiler  admits  to  his 
book  stories  that  are  ridgy,  that  are 
baggy,  that  are  pasty,  that  are  shape- 
less. Miss  Yezierska's  "Fat  of  the  Land," 
Mr.  O'Brien's  favorite,  is  half-built. 
Lovers  of  technique  may  rejoice  that  Mr. 
Horace  Fish's  "Wrists  on  the  Door,"  one 
of  the  best  tales  in  the  collection,  is  well 
made;  but  their  joy  ought  to  be  clouded 
by  the  discovery  that  Mr.  H.  M.  Jones's 
"Mrs.  Drainger's  Veil,"  another  of  the 
best  tales,  is  unmistakably  clumsy. 

Mr.  O'Brien,  however,  has  qualities 
which  are  as  incontestable  as  his  limita- 
tions. He  has  a  keen,  if  not  infallible, 
sense,  of  the  powerful  in  motive,  the 
original  and  trenchant  in  conception. 
Stories  have  many  aspects,  but  their  con- 
quering aspects  are  few  and  simple ;  they 
win  oftenest  by  their  thews.  Mr.  O'Brien 
is  a  judge  of  thews.  He  has  a  second 
merit,  of  less  extent  but  greater  eleva- 
tion. He  likes  the  fact — the  everyday, 
present-day  fact.  That  he  relishes  a  tinc- 
ture of  miracle  in  this  actuality  is  un- 
deniable, but  this  does  not  overset,  or 
even  wholly  offset,  the  counter  truth  that 
he  enjoys  a  savor  of  realism  in  his 
miracle.  In  stories  like  Miss  Brownell's 
"Dishes,"  Mr.  Hallet's  "To  the  Bitter 
End,"  Mr.  Ingersoll's  "Centenarian,"  and 
Miss  Yezierska's  "Fat  of  the  Land,"  a 
taste  for  the  common,  at  least  as  the 
wrappage  or  selvedge  of  the  uncommon, 
is  healthily  and  laudably  apparent.  Mr. 
O'Brien^s  collection  will  be  of  service  to 
those  readers  who  are  wise  enough  to 
grasp  its  limitations. 

"A  World  Remaking  or  Peace 
Finance,"  by  Clarence  W.  Barron 
(Harper),  consists  of  a  series  of  articles 
written  mainly  in  the  spring  of  1919 
describing  economic  and  social  conditions 
in  Britain,  together  with  remarks  on  the 
Peace  treaty.  Socialism,  inflation,  and 
kindred  topics. 

Mr.  Barron  is  a  trained  observer  and 
generalizes  soundly  from  what  he  has 
observed.  Thoroughly  versed  in  eco- 
nomic problems,  to  which  he  has  devoted 
a  lifetime  of  study,  he  is  able  to  reach 


down  through  the  welter  of  phenomena 
to  the  fundamental  causes  of  things  and 
set  them  forth  in  a  way  that  the  lay 
reader  can  comprehend.  His  book  is 
designed  for  readers  of  this  class.  There 
is  nothing  in  it  which  will  be  news  to 
those  whose  business  it  has  been  to  fol- 
low closely  the  economic  vicissitudes  of 
belligerent  Europe,  but  even  for  the  lat- 
ter there  is  attraction  in  the  group- 
ing of  facts  and  the  statement  of  their 
relations. 

Mr.  Barron  is  a  disciple  of  the  old- 
fashioned  "Placing-his-hand-u  p  o  n-my- 
shoulder-as-w  e-left-t  h  e-conference-hall- 
the-Emperor-said-to-me"  tradition  of 
journalism  and  there  are  many  little  af- 
fectations of  speech  scattered  through 
the  book  which  some  may  find  irritating. 
But  it  is,  nevertheless,  a  good  book  and 
well  worth  reading.  ■ 

Mr.  Noel  Leslie,  an  actor  known  to 
Boston  in  the  "Doctor's  Dilemma"  and  to 
New  York  in  the  "Rise  of  Silas  Lapham," 
is  the  author  of  "Three  Plays"  (Boston: 
Four  Seas  Company).  The  plays  are  set 
with  an  actor's  solicitude,  and  each  be- 
gins with  a  promise  which  is  overcast  by 
partial  disappointment.  In  "Waste,"  a 
dying  girl  is  supplanted  by  her  own  sister 
in  the  affections  of  her  betrothed.  This 
is  touching,  and  might  be  very  touching, 
if  the  extreme  bleakness  of  the  general 
situation  did  not  absorb  and  deaden  this 
particular.  The  "War  Fly"  begins  forci- 
bly with  a  sombre  and  mysterious  din- 
ner ;  the  interest  rises  to  a  devil  and  sinks 
to  a  fly  at  almost  the  same  moment,  and 
the  little  counteracts  the  large.  "For 
King  and  Country"  has  moments  of  true 
pathos,  but  the  love-story  is  imperfectly 
cemented  with  other  and  stronger  ap- 
peals, and  the  ending  leaves  a  fissure  in 
the  play. 

The  latest  effort  to  identify  Shake- 
speare— this  time  he  is  Edward  de  Vere, 
Earl  of  Oxford — is,  perhaps  significantly, 
from  the  pen  of  J.  Thomas  Looney. 

The  record  of  a  single  regiment  in  mod- 
ern operations  is  rather  like  the  tracing 
of  a  thread  across  thepattern  of  a  brocade; 
and  if  it  is  worth  anything  it  must  be 
done  one  stitch  at  a  time.  The  chronicler 
has  to  deal  with  minute  materials — com- 
panies and  platoons,  and  even  the  fate 
of  single  men;  and  whatever  his  final 
form,  there  must  underlie  his  work  a  me- 
ticulous accuracy  as  to  time  and  place. 
Captain  W.  Kerr  Rainsford  has  made 
such  a  narrative  ("From  Upton  to  the 
Meuse,  With  the  307th  Infantry" ;  Apple- 
ton),  which  is  unusual  enough,  and  has 
succeeded  in  making  it  clear,  expressive, 
and  entertaining — thanks  in  good  part  to 
a  never  failing  sense  of  humor.  We  must 
give  credit,  too,  for  his  having  provided 
the  maps  necessary  to  follow  his  narra- 
tive— a  too  unusual  provision  in  books 
about  the  war. 


The  actual  task  in  the  Argonne  is  made 
far  more  clear  by  his  precise  and  matter- 
of-fact  statement  than  by  any  of  the 
pretentious  verbiage  with  which  we  are 
only  too  familiar:  Compare,  for  in- 
stance, his  account  of  the  "Lost  Battal- 
ion" incident  with  the  half-bravado,  half 
whitewashing  presentations  in  the  press 
or  in  official  propaganda  reports.  This 
sobriety  and  measure  is  in  fact  the  pe- 
culiar note  of  the  book,  and  its  general 
tone — towards  all  matters,  large  and 
small,  towards  American  and  Allied — is 
perfect.  It  is  rare  to  find  a  history  of  a 
particular  unit  which  avoids  disparage- 
ment or  invidious  comparisons — and 
there  is  none  of  the  boasting  which  has 
made  certain  Divisional  histories  little 
more  than  swashbuckling  on  the  type- 
writers. Captain  Rainsford  does  not 
even  praise  his  comrades — but  merely 
sets  forth  what  they  have  done.  One  of 
his  particular  criticisms,  however,  may 
be  quoted  here: 

A  fruitful  cause  of  trouble  was  an  almost 
criminal  inexactness  on  the  part  of  many  in- 
fantry officers  in  map  reading.  ...  It  was  the 
one  salient  poin*  on  which  the  training  of  in- 
fantry officers  was  found  to  be  deficient.  Many 
a  company  commander  or  liaison  officer  was 
entirely  capable  of  waving  a  vague  finger  over 
a  valley  marked  on  the  map,  while  stating  that 
the  troops  in  question  were  "on  that  hill,"  and, 
if  pressed  to  be  more  precise,  he  would  give  as 
their  coordinates  figures  which  represented  a 
point  neither  in  the  valley  to  which  he  was 
pointing  nor  on  the  hill  on  which  they  were. 

This  failing  was  in  no  way  peculiar  to 
the  author's  regiment;  it  was  notorious 
and  universal,  and  was  responsible  for 
more  things  than  it  is  pleasant  to  con- 
sider. 

Two  more  of  the  numerous  elementary 
books  dealing  with  questions  of  public 
health  are  "Home  Nursing,"  by  Abbie  Z. 
Marsh  (Blackiston  Son),  and  "The 
Health  of  the  Teacher,"  by  William  Es- 
tabrook  Chancellor  (Forbes).  Miss 
Marsh's  book  is  brief,  well  written,  and 
reliable.  It  will  no  doubt  be  of  real  ser- 
vice to  many  mothers  of  families,  espe- 
cially when  hospital  facilities  may  be 
difficult  or  impossible  of  attainment.  Dr, 
Chancellor's  book  is  a  poor  affair.  There 
is  much  advice  of  a  very  detailed  and 
particular  kind.  Those  who  want  specific 
dietary  instructions  will  find  them  here; 
there  is  nothing  uncertain  or  indefinite 
in  his  directions.  For  a  "city  teacher," 
woman  aged  40  years,  sinewy  motor, 
body-coefficient  2,  in  April  damp  weather" 
a  six  o'clock  dinner  is  described  in  detail. 
Among  other  things  it  includes  a  baked 
apple  "21/2  inches  in  diameter"  and  ice 
cream  "made  with  cream,  and  two  large 
cookies."  If,  as  the  preface  states,  the 
author  has  for  years  given  his  lectures 
in  a  known  American  college  and  school 
of  education,  one  can  not  but  feel  sin- 
cere regret  that  so  many  persons  have 
been  mistaught  in  matters  pertaining  to 
th«  health  and  care  of  their  bodies. 


May  1,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[465 


Drama 

The   Unreviving    London 
Stage  and  Its  Revivals 

THE  British  drama  is  making  a  very 
slow  recovery.  The  infrequency  of 
my  communications  to  the  Review  is 
simply  due  to  the  fact  that  there  is  little 
or  nothing  worth  writing  about.  None 
of  our  playwrights  of  the  first  rank  have 
produced  anything.  We  were  to  have  had 
a  play  by  Sir  James  Barrie  about  this 
time,  but  it  has  been  postponed  on  ac- 
count of  the  illness  of  Miss  Fay  Comp- 
ton.  One  or  two  pleasant  trivialities 
have  been  produced,  which  I  shall  men- 
tion later  on.  But  the  memory  of  man 
scarcely  runneth  to  the  time  when  a  play 
of  any  serious  pretensions  made  its  way 
to  the  London  stage.  Yet  people  are 
positively  gasping  for  something  to 
"break  their  minds  upon."  We  are  all 
convinced  that  a  great  revival  must  fol- 
low the  war,  but  we  have  not  even  got 
the  length  of  pointing  in  any  definite 
direction  and  saying  "Lo,  here!"  or  "Lo, 
there!"  Instead  of  a  revival  we  have  re- 
vivals— of  the  Euripides-Murray  "Tro- 
jan Women"  and  "Medea";  of  "Julius 
Caesar"  (a  Gilbert-Miller-Ainley  effort, 
only  moderately  successful) ;  of  "Othello" 
and  "The  Merchant  of  Venice";  of  Mr. 
Shaw's  "Arms  and  the  Man,"  "Pygma- 
lion," and  "Candida,"  and  of  Sir  James 
Barrie's  "Admirable  Crichton." 

One  of  the  things  that  sometimes  fills 
the  students  of  the  theatre  with  despair 
is  the  wild  talk  about  things  theatrical 
that  passes  current  among  cultured  out- 
siders. An  instance  is  afforded  by  a  re- 
cent review  in  the  Times  Literary  Supple- 
ment of  Mr.  Hornblow's  "History  of  the 
Theatre  in  America."  The  writer  (un- 
known to  me)  complains  that  Mr.  Horn- 
blow's  work  is  a  chronicle,  not  a  philo- 
sophic history,  and  illustrates  his  point 
as  follows: 

Take  the  recent  war :  the  chronicler  of  the 
theatre  will  string  a  list  of  productions  and 
players.  To  the  historian  the  interesting  thing 
will  be  the  social  causes  which  filled  the 
stages  of  London  with  rubbish  and  the  audi- 
torium of  many  a  once  august  London  theatre 
with  pleasure-seekers,  while  the  old  patrons 
kept  severely  away ;  and  next  the  quick  revival 
of  a  better  drama  and  the  return  to  some 
theatres  of  the  old  patrons  and  the  old  sense 
of  style,  oddly  mingled  with  new  social  factors 
and  habits. 

This  passage  is  so  amazingly  remote 
from  the  facts  as  to  lead  one  to  wonder 
in  what  realm  of  a  priori  figments  the 
writer  has  been  living.  It  is  eminently 
desirable  that  there  should  have  been 
"many  august  London  theatres"  sup- 
ported by  faithful  bodies  of  "patrons" 
who  were  not  mere  "pleasure-seekers" 
in  the  vulgar  sense  of  the  term.  Had 
such  theatres  existed,  it  is  highly  prob- 


able that,  during  the  war,  they  would 
have  been  given  over  to  comparative 
"rubbish,"  by  which  the  austere  and 
non-pleasure-seeking  patrons  would  have 
been  flooded  out.  And,  had  this  been  the 
case,  we  might  fondly  have  hoped  for  a 
"quick  revival  of  a  better  drama"  after 
the  war,  and  "the  return  to  some  theatres 
of  the  old  patrons  and  the  old  sense  of 
style."  But  the  whole  picture  is  a 
Freudian  dream,  a  vision  of  the  night, 
the  wish  being  father  to  the  thought.  It 
is  true,  of  course,  that  the  public  taste 
— or  at  least  the  managerial  taste,  which 
more  or  less  creates  the  public  taste — 
set  towards  frivolity  during  the  war.  But 
it  is  not  true  that  there  were  any — and 
much  less  "many" — theatres  of  "august" 
traditions,  which  were  invaded  by  the 
tide  of  frivolity,  to  the  displacement  of 
their  severely  intellectual  habitues.  It  is 
not  true  that  any  particular  "sense  of 
style"  prevailed  in  any  theatre  or  thea- 
tres, and  was  displaced  by  the  war. 
Least  of  all  is  it  true  that  there  has  been 
"a  quick  revival  of  better  drama"  and  a 
restoration  of  the  "sense  of  style."  All 
these  are  imaginary  phenomena,  and  the 
philosopher  who  should  give  an  account 
of  their  "social  causes"  would  be  a  phil- 
osopher of  Laputa. 

It  is  at  least  seventy  years  since  any 
theatre  in  London  made  any  pretence  of 
faithfulness  to  an  "august"  tradition. 
There  was  some  faint  show  of  the  re- 
establishment  of  something  of  the  kind 
in  the  Irving  management  at  the  Lyceum 
and  the  Vedrenne-Barker  management 
at  the  Court:  but  both  of  these  were 
false  starts  and  came  to  an  end  years 
before  the  war.  For  the  rest,  the  most 
obvious  phenomenon  of  the  theatrical 
world  is  a  state  of  constant  flux,  which 
prevents  the  establishment  of  any  local 
tradition,  "august"  or  otherwise.  Thea- 
tres are  constantly  passing  from  hand  to 
hand  and  totally  changing  their  style  of 
production.  The  only  exceptions  are  such 
houses  as  the  Gaiety  and  Daly's,  which 
have  been  faithful  for  a  long  series  of 
years  to  musical  farce.  The  management 
of  Sir  George  Alexander  and  Sir  Her- 
bert Tree  gave  to  the  St.  James's  and 
His  Majesty's,  respectively,  a  certain 
character:  the  one  for  social  drama  of 
the  Pinero  type,  the  other  for  spectacu- 
lar plays  and  revivals.  It  was  not  the 
war,  but  the  illness  and  death  of  Sir 
George  Alexander,  that  left  the  St. 
James's  for  some  time  in  the  hands  of 
wild-cat  enterprises;  but  it  was  never 
invaded  by  mere  war  frivolities.  As  for 
His  Majesty's,  has  it  not  been  occupied 
for  four  years  by  a  production  which 
may  be  called  the  apotheosis  of  the  Tree 
tradition— "Chu  Chin  Chow"  to  wit? 
The  only  other  London  theatre  which 
can  be  said  to  have  any  tradition  is  the 
Haymarket — a  comedy  house — and  its 
standard  has  been  fairly  maintained 
throughout  the  war.    At  no  point,  then, 


can  we  find  any  basis  for  the  vision  of 
"high-brow"  patrons  driven  out  of  "au- 
gust" theatres  by  war  frivolity;  and  still 
less  is  there  any  sign  of  their  "quick" 
return  to  their  old  haunts,  to  be  rejoiced 
by  a  revival  of  "the  old  sense  of  style." 
The  article  reveals  the  difliiculty  of  get- 
ting even  very  intelligent  people  to  take 
a  realistic  view  of  the  theatre. 

The  writer  goes  on  to  say  that  Mr. 
Homblow  "sees  clearly  and  describes 
with  understanding  the  social  conditions 
which  have  led  to  the  decline  of  the 
American  theatre  since  the  last  decade 
of  the  nineteenth  century!"  This  is 
rather  surprising  to  me,  in  as  much  as 
I  regard  that  period  as  one  of  very  rapid 
advance.  But  it  would  be  an  imperti- 
nence in  me  to  do  more  than  state  that 
view  for  what  it  is  worth. 

One  of  the  very  few  conspicuously  suc- 
cessful productions  of  the  spring  season 
is  "Mr.  Pim  Passes  By,"  a  light  comedy 
by  Mr.  A.  A.  Milne  of  Punch,  in  which 
our  leading  comedy  actress.  Miss  Irene 
Vanbrugh,  returns  to  the  London  stage 
after  a  long  absence.  "Light"  is  too 
mild  a  term  for  it — such  is  its  insub- 
stantiality  that  many  of  us  doubted  on 
the  first  night  whether  even  its  agreeable 
wit  and  Miss  Vanbrugh's  genius  would 
carry  it  to  success.  Olivia  Marden  is  a 
bright  and  clever  woman,  married  to 
a  brainless  but  well-meaning  country 
squire  to  whom  she  is  much  attached. 
She  has  been  most  unhappily  married  be- 
fore, to  a  drunkard  and  scoundrel  who 
died  in  Australia.  One  fine  morning,  a 
doddering  old  gentleman  named  Garra- 
way  Pim  wanders  into  Marden  Lodge  on 
some  trivial  errand.  In  the  course  of 
desultory  conversation,  he  says  some- 
thing which  leads  Olivia  to  believe  that 
her  first  husband  is  still  alive.  The  in- 
telligence naturally  causes  some  dismay 
in  the  Marden  household;  but  though 
the  dismay  is  natural,  one  can  not  say 
the  same  of  the  conduct  of  the  parties 
concerned.  Fortunately,  it  is  needless  to 
go  into  the  question,  for  in  the  course  of 
the  afternoon  Mr.  Garraway  Pim  wan- 
ders back  again,  and  it  appears  that  he 
has  mixed  up  two  names,  so  that  Olivia 
is  as  innocent  of  bigamy  in  fact  as  in 
intention.  One  would  have  said  that 
there  was  barely  matter  for  a  one-act 
play  in  this  brief  misunderstanding.  It 
is  only  fair,  therefore,  to  recognize  the 
art,  or  knack,  with  which  Mr.  Milne 
spreads  it  out  over  three  acts  to  the  com- 
plete satisfaction  of  his  audiences. 

The  Little  Theatre,  wrecked  by  a  Ger- 
man bomb,  has  been  rebuilt  and  reopened 
under  the  management  of  Messrs.  Ve- 
drenne  and  Vernon.  Their  first  venture, 
"Mumsee,"  by  Edward  Knoblock,  has 
been  but  moderately  successful.  It  in- 
troduces us  to  an  Anglo-French  family, 
resident  in  a  French  country  town  at  the 
time  of  the  German  invasion.  The  eldest 
son  is  a  youth  of  weak  character  and  a 


466] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  .51 


confirmed  gambler.  He  drifts  into  the 
clutches  of  a  German  spy  and  is  induced 
to  sell  him  some  military  information. 
Being  discovered,  he  ought  to  meet  with 
an  ignominious  death;  but  a  sympathetic 
British  officer  gives  him  a  chance  to 
expiate  his  crime  by  carrying  a  despatch 
to  a  point  of  danger  from  which  he  can 
not — and  does  not — return  alive.  So  far, 
we  have  a  very  passable  war  play,  not  un- 
skillf ully  handled.  But  Mr.  Knoblock  has 
not  been  content  to  write  a  military  melo- 
drama :  he  has  tried  to  concentrate  inter- 
est upon  the  character  of  the  young  man's 
mother,  the  "Mumsee"  of  the  title,  an 
embodiment  of  the  heroic  spirit  of 
France.  This  was  in  itself  not  a  bad 
idea;  but  when  Mr.  Knoblock  sought  to 
make  Mumsee  the  heroine  of  a  romantic 
love-story,  his  daring  outran  his  dis- 
cretion. Her  very  name  emphasizes  her 
maternity;  and  as  she  has  four  grown- 
up children,  we  must  credit  her  with  at 
least  forty-five  summers — and  winters  to 
match.  What  is  our  amazement,  then, 
when  a  grizzled  and  battered  Anglo-In- 
dian Colonel  pleads  guilty  to  a  hopeless 
passion  for  her,  and  when  the  author,  in 
the  last  act,  positively  kills  off  the  father 
of  her  four  children  in  order  that  she 
may  be  virtuously  happy  with  Husband 
No.  2!  It  may  be  set  down  as  a  maxim 
of  stagecraft  that  a  prudent  author  will 
not  undertake  to  enlist  our  sympathies 
for  a  pair  of  lovers  whose  united  ages 
run  to  over  a  hundred. 

A  curious  bucolic  comedy  named  "Tom 
Trouble"  has  been  produced  by  Mr.  Lewis 
Casson,  a  free-lance  manager  of  some  dis- 
tinction. The  author's  name,  "John  Bur- 
ley,"  is  probably  fictitious.  The  place 
is  a  Yorkshire  village,  and  the  play  opens 
with  an  exceedingly  vivacious  and  well- 
written  scene  of  rustic  courtship.  After 
a  lovers'  quarrel,  the  girl,  in  a  fit  of 
pique,  falls  an  easy  prey  to  the  Don 
Juan  of  the  district.  The  question  then 
is  whether  her  seducer  will  marry  her; 
but  he  is  killed  in  an  accident  before  the 
point  is  decided.  Thereupon  her  original 
lover  returns  to  her,  overlooking  her 
divagation;  and,  from  the  Yorkshire 
point  of  view,  all  ends  happily.  The  play 
is  marked  by  the  simplicity,  the  brevity, 
the  lack  of  structural  development,  which 
we  note  in  the  Irish  drama;  but  it  is  by 
no  means  without  talent.  We  learn  that 
in  this  Yorkshire  district,  experimental 
marriages,  not  to  be  ratified  in  church 
unless  they  prove  fruitful,  are  a  recog- 
nized social  institution — as  they  are  in 
Thomas  Hardy's  "Isle  of  Slingers."  It 
is  an  odd  sign  of  the  times  that  this  free- 
and-easy  custom  should  not  only  be 
openly  discussed  on  the  stage,  but  that 
the  heroine's  father,  a  well-to-do  farmer, 
should  be  represented  as  triumphantly 
vindicating  it  in  a  discussion  with  the 
parish  clergyman. 

The  Haymarket  has  scored  a  success 
with    a   light   and   bright   comedy,    en- 


titled "The  Young  Person  in  Pink,"  by 
Miss  Gertrude  Jennings,  a  lady  whose 
very  real  wit  and  observation  have 
hitherto  been  displayed  only  in  one-act 
pieces.  In  the  first  act  we  find  a  "young 
person  in  pink"  wandering,  in  a  rather 
suspicious  fashion,  in  St.  James's  Park. 
Her  proceedings  attract  the  unfavorable 
notice  of  the  park  keeper;  but  her  beauty, 
distinction,  and  evident  innocence  appeal 
to  the  chivalry  of  the  young  Lord  Stev- 
enage, who  finds,  on  inquiry,  that  she 
has  totally  lost  her  memory,  and  has  no 
idea  who  she  is.  Lord  Stevenage  claims 
for  her  the  protection  of  Lady  Ton- 
bridge,  a  woman  twice  his  age,  to  whom 
he  has  incautiously  engaged  himself 
when  recovering  from  his  wounds — on  a 
day  when  his  temperature  was  many  de- 
grees above  the  normal.  Lady  Ton- 
bridge  affects  to  befriend  her,  but  in 
reality  behaves  to  her  in  an  odious 
fashion,  which  leads  to  the  breaking  off 
of  the  engagement,  and  leaves  Stevenage 
free  to  transfer  his  affections  to  his 
protegee,  who,  of  course,  proves  to  be  the 
daughter  of  a  Duke.  Probability,  as  you 
will  have  perceived,  is  not  the  distin- 
guishing virtue  of  the  piece;  but  it  is 
very  brightly  written,  contains  a  number 
of  amusing  character  sketches,  and  is 
admirably  acted.  It  is  entirely  a  woman's 
play.  Lord  Stevenage  being,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  the  park  keeper,  the  only  man 
in  it. 

The  Stage  Society  has  taken  its  cour- 
age in  both  hands  and  has  actually  pro- 
duce^ a  German  play — "From  Mom  to 
Midnight,"  by  Georg  Kaiser,  translated 
by  Major  Ashley  Dukes.  Kaiser  is  under- 
stood to  be  a  noted  communist,  and  is 
certainly  a  disciple  of  Frank  Wedekind, 
the  author  of  "Erdgeist,"  "Die  Buchse 
der  Pandora,"  and  other  somewhat  an- 
archic plays.  The  disciple,  however,  is 
a  little  less  morbid,  and  much  less  heavy- 
handed,  than  his  master.  The  hero  of 
this  play  is  a  bank  cashier.  Suddenly 
inebriated  by  the  heady  perfumes  of  a 
lady  whom  he  conceives  (erroneously)  to 
be  a  "dashing  Cyprian,"  he  steals  60,000 
marks  and  proposes  to  elope  with  her. 
Defeated  in  this  purpose,  he  goes  home 
in  time  to  see  his  aged  mother  die  of 
apoplexy ;  then  turns  up  at  a  "velodrome" 
where  he  offers  fantastic  prizes  for 
bicycle  races;  then  visits  a  disreputable 
cabaret  where  he  threatens  to  enter  upon 
the  career  of  a  "Jack-the-Ripper" ;  and 
finally  goes  to  a  Salvation  Army  meet- 
ing, where  he  takes  his  place  on  the 
penitent  bench,  causes  the  meeting  to 
end  in  a  scramble  for  his  ill-gotten 
wealth,  and,  being  betrayed  to  the  police, 
blows  out  his  brains.  All  this,  be  it 
noted,  occurs  between  morn  and  mid- 
night. There  is  a  streak  of  something 
very  like  insanity  in  the  conception  of 
the  play,  and  it  is  hard  to  discern  any 
merit,  whether  philosophical  or  artistic, 
in  its  crude  cynicism.     But  it  is  drawn 


with  the  bold  firm  strokes  of  a  "light- 
ning caricaturist,"  and  seems  to  repre- 
sent a  striving  after  a  new  technic  which 
is  not  without  its  interest. 

William  Archer 
London,  March  30 

On  Profiteer  Hunting 

THERE  is  a  "flying  squadron"  that 
flies  in  the  newspapers  in  heavy 
headlines,  and  it  is  hunting  the  profiteer. 
It  is  connected  with  the  Federal  Gov- 
ernment. It  is  in  earnest.  It  will  pro- 
tect the  poor.  It  is  investigating  cases 
of  overcharging  in  many  necessities, 
such  as  Chinese  beads,  French  paper- 
backed books,  and  white  net  gamps.  It 
recently  arrested  a  man  in  Brooklyn  for 
asking  $45  at  retail  for  a  raincoat  which 
is  supposed  to  have  cost  him  only  $23. 
The  disgrace  of  the  arrest  so  worked 
upon  the  man's  mind  that  he  committed 
suicide  on  the  same  day.  It  was  not 
alleged  that  the  man  misrepresented  the 
coats.  It  was  not  asserted  that  he  com- 
pelled anybody  to  pay  this  price.  It  was 
not  maintained  that  he  was  attempting 
any  monopoly.  It  was  not  charged  that 
he  kept  anyone  from  going  down  the 
street  and  getting  a  similar  coat  more 
cheaply.  Under  these  conditions,  if  his 
price  were  so  much  above  the  prices  of 
people  around  him,  one  would  imagine 
that  his  punishment  would  be  simply 
that  the  goods  would  remain  unsold.  But 
that  is  not  the  way  our  "flying  squad- 
rons" reasons.  It  is  flying  too  fast 
to  take  out  time  to  think. 

The  outbreak  of  the  hysteria  directed 
against  "profiteers"  has  reached  a  highly 
mischievous  point.  Present  conditions  are 
unfortunate  and  regrettable,  especially 
as  applied  to  rents  and  to  the  housing 
shortage,  but  these  conditions  can  be 
remedied  only  by  calm  thought  and  ex- 
pert knowledge,  not  by  high  emotions. 
Denunciation  of  "profiteers,"  and  threats 
against  them,  are  not  only  useless  but 
harmful.  If  they  did  nothing  more  than 
divert  attention  from  the  true  remedies 
they  would  be  harmful  enough,  but  they 
are  apt  to  lead  to  measures  that  are  posi- 
tively dangerous. 

If  profiteers  are  now  charging  "all 
they  can  get,"  it  must  never  be  lost  sight 
of  that  they  are  always  charging  all  they 
can  get,  and  that  they  were  just  as 
greedy  before  the  war  as  they  are  now. 
The  same  amount  of  heartlessness  thai 
exists  to-day  has  existed  since  the  be- 
ginning of  economic  history,  and  as  11 
is  not  a  new  factor,  it  obviously  can  nol 
be  an  explanation  of  present  prices. 

Most  popular  agitation  about  prices  is 
based  purely  on  the  price  to  which  th( 
public  has  become  accustomed.  Hot;^ 
many  people  know  offhand  the  "cost  o1 
production"  of  common  articles,  such  as 
a  newspaper,  a  car  ride,  a  pair  of  shoes 
(Continued  on  page  468) 


May  1,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[467 


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Rousseau  and 
Romanticism 

By  IRVING  BABBITT 

Traces  a  great  international  movement  and  studies  it 
in  its  bearing  on  the  problems  of  the  immediate  present. 

"Extraordinarily  able."        Manchester  Guardian. 

"An  extremely  learned  and  stimulating 
book."  Scotsman. 

"Whatever  may  be  our  final  attitude  towards 
the  author's  conclusions,  we  cannot  but  re- 
gard 'Rousseau  and  Romanticism'  as  mas- 
terly. .  .  .  We  are  almost  impelled  to  declare 
that  it  is  the  only  book  of  criticism  worthy 
the  name  which  has  appeared  in  English  in 
the  twentieth  century."  Athenaeum. 

"As  a  study  in  comparative  literature,  this 
work  is  beyond  question  the  most  thought- 
provoking  j'et  produced  in  America.  ...  It 
should  stir  to  the  depth  the  sluggish  waters 
of  American  criticism."  New  York  Post 

At  all  Bookstores.     $f.oo  net. 

Boston    HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  CO.    New  York 


Please  mention  The  Rivkw  in  writing  to  aofertisers. 


468] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  51 


{Continued  from  page  466) 
a  hat,  a  loaf  of  bread?  Yet  when  the 
price  of  any  one  of  these  goes  up,  there 
is  certain  to  be  clamor  and  wrath  and 
denunciation.  That  a  price  is  three  or 
four  times  what  it  was  four  years  ago 
is  considered  prima  facie  evidence  of  rob- 
bery. 

Nor  is  cost  of  production  itself,  even 
when  known,  a  proper  index  on  which  to 
base  a  "fair"  price.  In  the  long  run 
prices  are  governed  by  costs  of  produc- 
tion, but  in  any  given  season  prices  are 
unrelated  to  cost  of  production,  and  are 
determined  solely  by  supply  and  demand. 
This  is  well  illustrated  by  the  crops. 
WTien  the  fanner  plants  his  crop  he  is 
not  only  uncertain  of  what  the  next 
year's  world  demand  will  be,  but  he  can 
know  very  little  about  the  world's  sup- 
ply. He  does  not  know  how  much  com- 
peting farmers  here  and  in  other  coun- 
tries are  going  to  plant;  he  does  not 
know  what  weather  conditions  over  the 
world  are  going  to  be,  and  how  they  will 
affect  output.  When  his  crop  is  har- 
vested his  price  will  be  determined  by 
the  world  competition  of  buyers  and  of 
sellers.  The  price  may  be,  and  often  is, 
below  cost  of  production;  but  the  in- 
dividual fanner  can  not  hold  his  stock 
for  a  price  that  will  bring  cost  of  pro- 
duction plus  a  "fair"  return.  The  result 
of  trying  to  do  so  would  be  merely  that 
nobody  would  buy  his  stock  at  all;  he 
would  suffer  a  total  loss.  His  only  re- 
course is  to  sell  his  stock  for  what  it 
will  bring.  At  these  times  nobody  in- 
quires as  to  the  farmer's  cost  of  pro- 
duction. There  is  no  agitation  to  pay 
him  the  difference  between  cost  of  pro- 
duction and  the  price. 

What  is  true  of  farm  products  is  true 
of  all  manufacturing  lines  in  which  com- 
petition exists.  Prices  are  fixed  at  any 
given  time  purely  by  supply  and  demand, 
and  if  cost  of  production  is  not  used  to 
fix  an  arbitrary  price  in  times  of  busi- 
ness adversity,  it  should  not  be  so  used 
in  times  of  prosperity.  The  influence  of 
cost  of  production  will  naturally  and  in- 
evitably make  itself  felt,  without  public 
agitation  or  regulation.  When  farmers 
receive  too  little  for  a  given  crop  in  one 
year,  they  will  plant  less  of  that  crop 
in  the  succeeding  year,  sa  that  a  smaller 
supply  will  bring  prices  above  cost  of 
production.  When,  as  now,  certain  lines 
of  business  are  receiving  profits  far  in 
excess  of  cost  of  production,  the  result 
must  be  that  manufacturers  in  that  line 
will  constantly  strive  to  increase  their 
output  in  order  to  increase  such  high 
profits;  and  that  outsiders  will  be  at- 
tracted into  the  same  business,  thus  fur- 
ther increasing  output.  This  will  bring 
down  prices  more  effectively  than  any 
public  regulation,  and  it  will  increase  the 
supply  of  goods  at  the  same  time.  Al- 
ways provided  that  real  competition  ex- 
ists, people  in  any  line  of  business  who 


are  demanding  "excessive"  prices,  though 
they  may  be  creating  temporary  dis- 
tress, are  unconsciously  performing  a 
public  service,  for  they  are  stimulating 
increased  production  in  that  line.  This 
a  priori  conclusion  is  supported  a  poste- 
riori. There  was  no  more  notorious  price 
increase  last  year  than  that  in  men's 
clothing.  Government  statistics  show 
that  from  January,  1919,  to  January, 
1920,  the  number  of  workers  engaged  in 
the  men's  clothing  trade  increased  54.2 
per  cent,  the  largest  increase  of  any  in- 
dustry. 

Persons  who  believe  that  the  present 
situation  couH  be  cured  "if  they  would 
only  jail  a  few  of  these  profiteers"  might 
do  well  to  consider  an  historic  precedent. 
In  his  monograph  on  "Fiat  Money  In- 
flation in  France,"  the  last  edition  of 
which  appeared  in  1914,  the  late  Andrew 
D.  White  speaks  of  some  of  the  accom- 
paniments of  that  inflation  of  more  than 
a  century  ago : 

The  washerwomen  of  Paris,  finding  soap 
was  so  dear  that  they  could  hardly  purchase 
it,  insisted  that  all  the  merchants  that  were 
endeavoring  to  save  something  of  their  little 
property  by  refusing  to  sell  their  goods  for 
the  wretched  currency  with  which  France  was 
flooded,  should  be  punished  with  death.  Marat 
declared  loudly  that  the  people,  by  hanging 
shopkeepers  and  plundering  stores,  could 
easily  remove  the  trouble.  The  result  was 
that  on  the  28th  of  February.  1793,  at  8  o'clock 
in  the  evening,  a  mob  of  men  and  women  be- 
gan plundering  the  stores  and  shops  of  Paris. 
At  first  they  demanded  only  bread  •  soon  they 
insisted  on  coflfee  and  rice  and  sugar ;  at  last 
they  demanded  everything  on  which  they  could 
lay  their  hands — cloth,  clothing,  groceries  and 
luxuries  of  every  kind.  Two  hundred  such 
stores  were  plundered.  Finally  order  was  re- 
stored by  a  grant  of  7  million  francs  to  buy 
off  the  mob. 

On  September  29,  1793,  France  passed  the 
law  of  the  Maximum.  First — the  price  of  each 
article  of  necessity  was  to  be  fixed  at  one  and 
one-third  times  the  price  in  1790.  Secondly, 
all  transportation  was  to  be  added  at  a  fixed 
rate  per  league.  Third,  five  per  cent,  was  to 
be  added  for  the  profit  of  the  wholesaler. 
Fourth,  ten  per  cent,  was  to  be  added  for  the 
profit  of  the  retailer.  Nothing  could  look 
more  reasonable.  Great  was  the  jubilation. 
The  report  was  presented  and  supported  by 
Barrere.  He  insisted  that  France  had  been 
suffering  from  a  Monarchial  commerce  which 
only  sought  wealth,  while  what  she  needed  and 
what  she  was  now  to  receive  was  a  Republican 
commerce — a  commerce  of  moderate  profits 
and  virtuous.  .  .  . 

The  first  result  of  the  Maximum  was  that 
every  means  was  taken  of  evading  the  fixed 
price  imposed,  and  the  farmers  brought  in  as 
little  produce  as  they  possibly  could.  This 
increased  the  scarcity,  and  the  people  of  the 
large  cities  were  put  on  an  allowance.  Tickets 
were  issued  authorizing  the  bearer  to  obtain 
at  the  official  prices  a  certain  amount  of 
bread  or  sugar  or  soap  or  coal  to  cover  im- 
mediate necessities. 

But  it  was  found  that  the  Maximum,  with 
its  divinely  revealed  four  rules,  could  not  be 
made  to  work  well — even  by  the  shrewdest 
devices.  In  the  greater  part  of  France  it 
could  not  be  enforced.  As  to  merchandise  of 
foreign  origin  or  merchandise  into  which  any 
foreign  product  entered,   the   war  had   raised 


it  far  above  the  price  allowed  under  the  first 
rule,  namely,  the  price  of  1790,  with  an  addi- 
tion of  one-third.  Shopkeepers  therefore  could 
not  sell  such  goods  without  ruin.  The  result 
was  that  very  many  went  out  of  business,  and 
the  remainder  forced  buyers  to  pay  enormous 
charges  under  the  very  natural  excuse  that 
the  seller  risked  his  life  in  trading  at  all.  That 
this  excuse  was  valid  is  easily  seen  by  the 
daily  lists  of  those  condemned  to  the  guillotine, 
in  which  not  infrequently  figured  the  names 
of  men  charged  with  violating  the  Maximum 
laws.  Manufactures  were  very  generally 
crippled  and  frequently  destroyed,  and  agri- 
culture was  fearfully  depressed.  To  detect 
goods  concealed  by  farmers  and  shopkeepers, 
a  spy  system  was  established  with  a  reward  to 
the  informant  of  one-third  of  the  value  of  the 
goods  discovered.  To  spread  terror,  the  Crim- 
inal Tribunal  at  Strassburg  was  ordered  to 
destroy  the  dwelling  of  anyone  found  guilty 
of  selling  goods  above  the  price  set  by  law. 
The  farmer  often  found  that  he  could  not 
raise  his  products  at  anything  like  the  price 
required  by  the  new  law,  and  when  he  tried 
to  hold  back  his  crops  and  cattle,  alleging  that 
he  could  not  afford  to  sell  them  at  the  prices 
fixed  by  law,  they  were  frequently  taken  from 
him  by  force,  and  he  was  fortunate  if  paid 
even  in  the  depreciated  fiat  money — fortunate, 
indeed,  if  he  finally  escaped  with  his  life.  .  .  . 
To  reach  tlie  climax  of  ferocity,  the  Con- 
vention decreed  in  May,  1794,  that  the  death 
penalty  should  be  inflicted  on  any  person  con- 
victed of  "having  asked,  before  a  bargain  was 
concluded,  in  what  money  the  payment  was  to 
be  made."  About  a  year  later  came  the  aboli- 
tion of  the  Maximum  itself. 

Mr.  White's  account  shows  the  result 
of  public  clamor  and  emotion  when  car- 
ried to  their  logical  extreme.  During 
tions  in  France  was  completely  over- 
looked. There  is  a  danger  at  the  pres- 
ent day  that  high  feeling  against 
profiteers  may  similarly  lead  attention 
away  from  the  real  cause  of  present 
prices,  and  hence  from  their  true  cor- 
rective. 

Henry  Hazlitt 

Jazz  a  Song  at  Twilight 

AMERICA'S  chief  contribution  to  the 
arts  so  far,  say  the  learned  ones,  is 
ragtime;  or,  in  vulgar  parlance,  jazz. 
This  cosmic  syncopation  is  affecting 
man's  activities.  Rooted  axioms  waver; 
nations  adopt  intoxicating  figures  like 
the  Turkey-Trotsky,  the  Lenin  Leaning, 
the  Bryan  Grape-juice  Waddle.  Later 
Slavic  music,  Cubist  Art,  Vorticist  Sculp- 
ture, Vachel  Lindsay's  chants  and  Amy 
Lowell's  shredded  rhythms — what  are 
these  but  jazz? 

Recently  we  ran  across  the  advance 
sheets  of  a  distinctly  modern  volume  of 
music,  "Home  Jazzes."  An  energetic 
adapter  has  redone  the  old  songs  in  the 
crepitative  metre.    We  quote   a  few  of 

Concerning  radical  readjustment  between  the  peoples: 

"The  Brotherhood  of  Man" 

This  book  by  Dr.  A.  R.  L.  Dohme  is  an  earnest  study 
of  general  economic  and  political  conditions.  Dr. 
Dohme  concludes  with  an  interesting  practical  outline 
for  a  World  State  and  new  human  relationships. 
By   mail,   $1.10. 

THE  NORMAN.  REMINGTON  COMPANY 
Publishers  -  Baltimore 


May  1,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[469 


the  ragged  melodies,  beginning  with  an 
old  favorite: 

Home,  home,  saccharinic  home. 
Place  to  lay  your  dome, 

Lay   your   dome, 

Lay  your  dome. 
There's   no  place — no   show  place — 

Or  "go"  place— or  slow  place — 
There's  no  place  like  home — 

What? 
Home! 

The  nationalistic   note  appears   in  this 
brief  chorus: 

Come  back  to  Erin  for  a  Sinn  Fein  rag; 
Use  the  ballot — or  a  mallet — for  the  old  green 
flag. 
We'll  print  our  books  in  Gaelic, 
So  we  can  never  failic, 
Till  we  win  at  last  that  Home  Rule,  Sinn  Fein 
ragl 

"Annie  Laurie"  sticks  closer  to  the  ac- 
cepted jazz  forms: 

Down    in   bonny   Scotland   where   the   thistles 

grow 
There's  a  little  kiddie  with  a  brow  like  snow, 
She  hasn't  any  frosty  mitt,  I'd  have  you  know, 

She's  a  bear— Theda  Bare — Oh,  my  I 
(Slower)   And  on  Maxwelton's  brae 
Amid  the  new-mown  hay. 
She's   waiting  'neath  a   Scottish   sky : 

(Chorus) 
Annie — Annie  Laurie, 
My  heart's  in  a  flurry, 
Let's   get   preacher,    license,    ring, 

And  do  that  thing! 
Annie — Annie  Laurie, 
You  will  ne'er  be  sorry. 
My  classy  lassie,   un-surpassy. 

Let's  do  the  Highland  Matrimonial  Fling! 

We  regret  we  can  not  quote  the  intoxi- 
cating strain  of  "Drink  to  Me — Only 
with  Thine  Eyes,"  "The  Auld  Lang  High 
Syne,"  "The  Battle  Hymn  of  the  New 
Republic,"  "Shimmying  To-night  on  the 
Old  Camp  Ground,"  "The  Jazz-Jangled 
Banner,"  or  the  pathetic  stanzas  of  "I 
Cannot  Sing  the  Old  Songs — the  Law 
Will  Not  Permit  It."  Instead,  we  give 
the  unexpurgated  chorus  of  "Love's  Old 
Sweet  Jazz" : 

Just  a  jazz  (it's  just  a  jazz)  at  twilight. 
In  the  shy  light. 
Not   a   high    light. 
Life's  a  muddle,  kiss  and  cuddle, 

Ba-by  dar-ling. 
While  the  shadows  flicker  all  the  quicker 
As  though  liquor  filled  'em; 
Though  the  way  (although  the  way)  be  weary. 
Rather  dreary. 
Simply  bleary. 
Still  to  us  at  twilight 

Through  the  shy  light 
From  the  skylight 
Comes  the  jazz — 

(THE  JAZZ!) 
For  it  has 

(IT  HAS!) 
A  sneaky,  squeaky,  shrieky  Bolsheviki 
Sort  of   razz ; 
It's  the  jazz — 

(THE  JAZZ!) 
For  it  has 

(IT  HAS!) 
An  easy,  squeezy,  Japanesy, 
Fuimy,  bunny,  hug  me,  honey. 
Can't  embarrass,   Peace-at-Paris, 
Razzle-dazzle  JAZZ! 

Clement  Wood 


THE  HUDSON  COAL  CO. 


CELEBRATED 

LACKAWANNA 

THE  ARISTOCRAT  OF  ANTHRACITE 


1823 


1920 


HAS  NATURAL  QUALITIES  AND  MAN-3VIADE  REFINEMENT 


D.  F.  WILLIAMS 

Vice-President  and  General  Sales  Agent 


W.  F.  SHURTLEFF 

Assistant  General  Sales  Agent 


SCRANTON,  PA. 


470] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  51 


EDUCATIONAL  SECTION 


The   War    and    the 
Rhodes  Scholarships 

THE  war  has  produced  important 
changes  in  the  working  of  the  Rhodes 
Scholarship  scheme.  In  the  first  place, 
it  has  brought  about  a  new  and  very 
much  keener  interest  in  the  scholarships 
on  the  part  of  students  in  this  country. 
In  the  second  place,  it  has  caused  sweep- 
ing changes  in  the  regulations  of  the 
University  of  Oxford.  And  in  the  third 
place,  the  war,  if  not  the  cause,  has  at 
any  rate  been  the  occasion  of  radical 
alterations  in  the  machinery  by  which 
Rhodes  Scholars  are  selected  in  the 
United  States. 

Oxford  has  been  affected  profoundly 
by  the  war.  An  elaborate  system  of 
short  courses  has  been  arranged  for  men 
whose  education  was  interrupted  for  five 
years  and  who  have  not  now  the  time 
(nor  in  many  cases  the  money)  to  spend 
in  taking  a  degree  in  the  ordinary  way. 
The  requirement  in  the  Greek  language 
has  been  abolished  for  admission  and 
for  all  degrees.  Oxford  has  instituted 
the  Ph.  D.,  has  altered  the  old  regula- 
tion which  defined  "residence"  as  sleep- 
ing .within  a  mile  and  a  half  of  Carfax, 
is  preparing  to  admit  women  to  degrees, 
and  is  asking  the  Government  for  sup- 
port which,  if  granted,  will  probably 
carrj'  with  it  such  measure  of  govern- 
ment control  as  will  make  the  uni- 
versity in  a  sense  a  state  institution. 

First  in  importance  among  these 
changes  is  the  establishment  of  the 
Ph.  D.  degree,  which  is  already  attract- 
ing to  the  Rhodes  Scholarships  in  larger 
numbers  a  type  of  student  not,  indeed, 
unknown  among  Rhodes  Scholars  in  the 
old  days,  but  much  more  rare  then  than 
he  is  likely  to  be  in  the  future.  Facili- 
ties for  research  have  always  existed  in 
Oxford,  but  not  until  now  has  the  uni- 
versity offered  a  degree  which  would  be 
generally  recognized  in  other  countries 
as  indicating  the  successful  completion 
of  an  original  investigation.  The  Oxford 
doctorates  (the  D.  Litt,  the  D.  S.  C., 
and  the  D.  C.  L.)  have  hitherto  been  un- 
obtainable before  middle  life,  when  their 
value  to  an  American  scholar  would  be 
negligible. 

While  Oxford  has  always  offered  op- 
portunities for  research,  there  has  not 
been  in  the  past  a  systematic  organiza- 
tion of  research  work  and  definitely  de- 
fined requirements  necessary  for  the  ad- 
ministration of  graduate  work  on  any 
except  a  small  scale.  It  has  been  this 
lack  of  the  organization  of  graduate 
work  which,  even  more  than  the  lack  of 
a  doctor's  degree,  has  deterred  the  type 
of  American  student,  who  formerly  went 


to  Germany,  from  going  to  Oxford.  In- 
dividual assistance  from  the  most  emi- 
ment  men  in  the  university  has  always 
been  given  to  students  engaged  in  re- 
search with  a  generosity  which  would 
have  been  impossible  had  these  students 
been  more  numerous.  But  such  help  has 
been  largely  informal;  the  graduate 
student  has  been  left  "on  his  own"  to 
work  out  his  thesis  and  to  prepare  him- 
self for  what  was  likely  to  be  a  severe 
examination  for  his  degree. 

It  must  not  be  expected  that  with  the 
institution  of  the  Ph.  D.  degree  the  Uni- 
versity of  Oxford  will  be  able  in  a  day, 
or  in  a  year,  to  improvise  the  type  of 
organization  which  is  to  be  found  in  the 
larger  American  graduate  schools.  In 
one  very  important  respect  the  situation 
there  differs  from  that  in  an  Ameri- 
can university.  The  man  who  has  taken 
an  Oxford  B.  A.  with  honors  will  already 
have  done  much  more  highly  specialized 
work  in  his  particular  field  than  the 
American  A.  B.  Furthermore,  the  Ox- 
ford honors  man  will  have  already 
learned  to  work  independently  for  him- 
self in  a  way  which  is  not  usual  over 
here.  On  this  account  it  seems  likely 
that  work  for  the  Ph.  D.  at  Oxford  will 
be  less  elaborately  organized,  will  remain 
freer  and  more  independent  than  in 
many  cases  it  is  in  the  United  States. 
As  a  result  of  this  situation  it  follows 
that  the  American  student  who  has  done 
only  the  A.  B.  course,  is  not  ready  to 
begin  work  for  the  Ph.  D.  at  Oxford.  He 
should  have  taken  at  least  his  A.  M., 
should  have  acquired  some  experience  in 
independent  work,  and  must  produce  evi- 
dence of  "fitness  to  engage  in  research" 
before  he  is  ready  to  become  a  candidate 
for  the  Oxford  Ph.  D. 

So  far  as  Rhodes  Scholars  are  con- 
cerned, it  seems  extremely  likely  that 
the  Oxford  Ph.  D.  will,  for  the  most 
part,  be  combined  with  graduate  work 
in  the  United  States,  either  by  men  who 
begin  their  graduate  study  in  Oxford 
and  take  the  degree  over  here,  or  by  men 
who  begin  their  advanced  work  in  this 
country  and  go  on  to  Oxford  for  the 
Ph.  D.  American  Rhodes  Scholars  who 
have  only  just  graduated  from  college 
before  going  to  Oxford  will  be  well  ad- 
vised to  take  the  former  course,  spending 
two  years  at  Oxford  on  the  A.  B.  in  one 
of  the  Final  Honor  Schools,  and  begin- 
ning a  piece  of  research  in  their  third 
year  which  could  then  be  completed  in 
this  country  in  one  or  two  years,  as  the 
case  may  be.  On  the  other  hand,  Rhodes 
.Scholars  who  have  already  begun  to  work 
on  the  Ph.  D.  in  this  country  will  be  able 
to  finish  their  work  and  to  take  their  de- 
gree at  Oxford. 

Of  less  importance  among  the  changes 
at  Oxford  are  the  abolition  of  compul- 


sory Greek  and  the  provisions  for  grant- 
ing "Senior  Standing"  under  the  For- 
eign Universities  Statute.  Until  a  year 
ago  every  candidate  for  the  B.  A.  degree 
at  Oxford  was  required  to  show  a  "suffi- 
cient knowledge"  of  the  Greek  language. 
During  the  past  year  a  hot  battle  has 
been  waged  over  the  proposal  to  abolish 
this  requirement,  a  battle  which  was  only 
ended  on  March  2,  when  the  requirement 
was  defeated  by  a  majority  of  seventy- 
five  in  a  house  of  about  eight  hundred. 
The  new  entrance  regulations  provide 
that  the  Greek  language  shall  be  an  op- 
tional subject,  but  that  candidates  for 
the  B.  A.  degree  in  any  subject,  except 
mathematics,  natural  science,  or  juris- 
prudence, shall  be  required  to  offer,  either 
on  entrance  or  on  their  intermediate  ex- 
amination, a  portion  of  Greek  history  or 
literature  with  texts  studied  in  translor 
tion.  That  was  the  live  issue  in  the  re- 
cent contest,  whether  students  of  literary 
subjects  should  be  compelled  to  study 
Greek.  The  answer  of  Convocation 
might  be  given  in  the  words  of  Profes- 
sor Gilbert  Murray:  "If  by  Greek  you 
mean  the  Greek  language,  no;  if  you 
mean  Greek  civilization,  yes." 

Interesting  as  this  contest  is,  it  has 
comparatively  little  application  to  Ameri- 
can Rhodes  Scholars,  because  of  the  pro- 
visions for  granting  Senior  Standing 
(with  excuse  from  all  entrance  and  inter- 
mediate examinations)  to  graduates  of 
approved  foreign  universities.  Most 
Rhodes  Scholars  are  college  graduates 
when  they  go  to  Oxford,  and,  while  no 
list  of  institutions  which  are  to  be  con- 
sidered "approved"  under  this  statute 
has  yet  been  issued,  it  seems  probable 
that  the  majority  of  American  Rhodes 
Scholars  will  be  granted  Senior  Standing 
and  will  proceed  directly  to  the  special- 
ized study  of  the  subjects  in  which  they 
expect  to  take  their  degree. 

Last  in  order  but  perhaps  not  least  in 
importance  among  the  changes  wrought 
by  the  war  in  the  Rhodes  Scholarship 
scheme  is  the  new  plan  under  which  se- 
lections will  be  made  in  this  country.  The 
outstanding  character  of  this  plan  is  the 
simplication  of  the  procedure.  Examina- 
tions are  no  longer  required.  Selections 
are  made  on  the  basis  of  the  candidate's 
record  in  school  and  college,  supple- 
mented by  confidential  references  and  by 
a  personal  interview  with  the  Commit- 
tee of  Selection.  The  candidate  is  no 
longer  required  even  to  procure  testi- 
monials. He  simply  fills  out  an  applica- 
tion blank  giving  certain  information 
about  himself  and  giving  the  names  of 
men  to  whom  he  wishes  to  refer.  His 
record  is  then  investigated  by  the  com- 
mittee, the  more  promising  candidates 
are  summoned  for  a  personal  interview, 
and  the  selection  is  made. 


May  1,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[471 


Committees  of  Selection  in  the  various 
States  are  composed  of  ex-Rhodes  Schol- 
ars, of  whom  there  are  now  four  hundred 
in  this  country,  and  this  plan  brings 
their  love  of  Oxford  and  their  enthusiasm 
for  the  scheme  to  bear  upon  the  selection 
of  the  Rhodes  Scholars  of  the  future. 
Until  1919  the  ex-Rhodes  Scholars  had 
had  practically  no  part  in  the  working 
of  the  scheme  in  this  country.  Not  the 
least  of  the  benefits  of  their  participa- 
tion in  the  selections  comes  from  the  fact 
that  information  about  Oxford  and  about 
the  Scholarships  will  be  more  readily 
available  in  almost  every  State,  inasmuch 
as  the  men  who  are  administering  the 
Scholarships  have  themselves  been  at  Ox- 
ford. Ex-Rhodes  Scholars  feel  almost  to 
a  man  that  the  Scholarships  open  what 
is  perhaps  the  greatest  intellectual  oppor- 
tunity in  grasp  of  an  American  boy — an 
opportunity  all  the  more  valuable  in 
that  it  involves  not  merely  the  opening 
to  personal  success  but  also  qualifies  a 
man  to  do  his  part  towards  building  up 
an  understanding  between  the  members 
of  that  group  of  nations  which,  by  work- 
ing together,  can  do  most  for  the  sta- 
bility of  the  world  and  the  preservation 
of  free  institutions. 

Frank  Aydelotte 

(American  Secretary  to  the  Rhodes 
Trustees) 

THE  growth  of  constructive  educa- 
tional work  in  industrial  centres  is 
shown  clearly  by  the  March  Bulletin  of 
the  National  Association  of  Corporation 
Schools.  Many  have  realized  that  some 
such  work  was  going  on.  Few  realize, 
however,  just  what  sort  of  work  is  being 
done.  Still  fewer,  perhaps,  appreciate 
the  enormous  benefits  which  may  ac- 
crue, not  only  to  the  corporations  inter- 
ested, but  to  the  employees  and  so  even- 
tually to  the  country,  of  which  the  em- 
ployees make  up  the  larger  part.  Mem- 
bership in  the  company  clubs  of  this 
far-reaching  association  amounts  to  ap- 
proximately twenty-nine  per  cent,  of  the 
aggregate  number  of  employees.  These 
figures  are  made  from  the  reports  of 
only  fifty-three  establishments ;  but  when 
the  movement  spreads  to  practically  the 
whole  industrial  life  of  the  country,  as 
it  bids  fair  to  do,  the  work,  already  of 
great  importance,  may  prove  to  be,  in 
more  than  a  mere  quantitative  sense,  the 
chief  contribution  of  America  to  educa- 
tion. 

"The  object  of  such  clubs,"  as  their 
supporters  phrase  it,  "is  to  promote  so- 
cial activities  and  to  provide  a  medium 
through  which  better  understanding  may 
be  had  among  employees  and  among  those 
charged  with  management  and  oft 
times  including  stockholders."  The  work 
done,  though  it  varies  greatly  according 
to  the  special  needs  of  each  club,  usually, 
in  addition  to  community  houses,  country 
clubs,  and  libraries,  includes  hospital  ser- 


vice, health  supervision,  provision  for  in- 
surance and  savings  funds,  with  instruc- 
tions regarding  them,  night  schools,  and 
"Americanization"  classes  which  provide 
instruction  in  English  and  in  the  princi- 
ples and  forms  of  American  governfnent. 
Much  of  this  work,  to  be  sure,  individ- 
ual concerns  have  done  for  some  years. 
The  virtue  lies  not  in  the  addition  of 
particularly  new  ideas,  but  in  the  organi- 
zation of  rather  obvious  ideas  into  con- 
structive, well-articulated  work,  and  in 
the  cooperative  state  of  mind  which  such 
organization  implies.  Also,  something 
refreshingly  definite  and  practical  is 
being  done.  While  the  mails  have  been 
flooded  with  propagandist  literature,  cry- 
ing out  for  theories  good  and  bad,  for- 
ward-looking industries  have  quietly 
gone  about  their  important  business  of 
making  better  workers  and  so  better 
citizens  of  both  employer  and  employee. 
If  the  ills  of  modem  times  are  economic 
rather  than  political,  as  our  Socialist 
brethren  tell  us,  little  could  be  more 
promising  than  this  great  effort  to  teach, 
in  a  practical  way,  the  fundamental  con- 
ditions of  economic  development, 

Harry  F.  Atwood's  "Back  to  the  Re- 
public" (Chicago :  Laird  &  Lee)  is  a  mili- 
tant little  volume,  which  pleads  for  the 
golden  mean  in  governmental  organiza- 
tion and  policy.  But  it  is  not  couched 
(Continued  on  page  472) 


THE  NEW  YORK 
TRUST  COMR^NY 

Main  Office  Fifth  Avenue  Office 

26  Broad  Street       Fifth  Ave.  and  57th  St. 

NEW  YORK 


Capital  $3,000,000 

Surplus  and  Profits  $11,000,000 

Designated  Depositary  in  Bankruptcy  and  of  Court 
and  Trust  Funds 


OTTO  T.   BANNARD,  Chairman  of  tht  Board 

MORTIMER  N.  BUCKNER,  President 

F.  J.  Home,  Vice-Pres.  H.  W.  Shaw 

James  Dodd,  Vice-Pres.  h  •*;  ^y""  . 

H.  W.   Morse.  V.-Pr...  ^ .^^.^'^^^J'- 

Harry  Forsyth,  Treas.  Assistant  SecreUries 

Boyd  G.  Curts,  Sec'y  E.  B.  Lewis,  Asst  Treai. 


FIFTH  AVENUE  OFFICE 
Charles  E.  Haydock,  Vice-President  and  Manager 

Mrs.    Key  Cammack Assistant   Secretary 

Russell  V.  Worsteu. Assistant  Secretary 


TRUSTEES 


Otto  T.  Bannard 
S.   Reading  Bertron 
Tames  A.  Blair 
Mortimer  N.  Buckner 
James  C.  Colgate 
Alfred  A.  Cook 
Arthur  J.  Cumnock 
Robert  W.  de  Forest 
John  B.  Dennis 
Philip  T.  Dodge 
George  Doubleday 
Samuel  H.  Fisher 
John  A.  Garver 
Benjamin  S.  Guinness 
F.  N.  Hoffstot 


Buchanan   Houston 
Frederic  B.  Jennings 
Walter  Jennings 
Darwin  P.  Kingsley 
John  C.  McCall 
Ogden  L.  Mills 
John  J.   Mitchell 
James  Parmelee 
Henry  C.  Phipps 
Norman  P.  Ream 
Dean  Sage 
Joseph  J.   Slocum 
Myles  Tierney 
Clarence  M.  Woolley 


Members  of  the  New   York  Clearing  House  Asso' 
ciation   and    of   the   Federal   Reserve   System 


Oldest  Banking  House  in  the  United  States 


The  house  of  Alex.  Brown  &  Sons  was  founded  in  the  year  1 800 — 
1 20  years  ago. 

For  more  than  a  century  the   house  has  steadfastly  maintained  the 
highest  standards  of  financial  service  for  its  customers. 

Investments  are   offered   only  after   the  most  careful  and  efficient 
investigation. 

Large  estates  can  best  be  protected  and  are  frequently  much 
benefited  by  a  special  study  conducted  b^  investment  experts. 

This  is   particularly  true  at  the  present  time  on  account   of 
changed  values  due  to  the  War  and  subsequent  conditions. 

We  make   investment  studies   without  charge,   recommending 
such  changes  as  conditions  or  new  tax  laws  render  advisable. 

The  strictest  confidential  relations  are  adhered  to  in  our  tram- 
actions  with  customers. 


Alex.  Brown  &  Sons 

,  (Oldest  Banking  House  in  the  United  States) 

Baltimore,  Maryland 


472] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  51 


(Continued  from  page  471) 
in  the  velvet  whisperings  which  usually 
exude  from  the  friends  of  compromise. 
The  author  is  assertive  and  epigram- 
matic. He  wastes  no  sentences.  His  aim 
is  to  indicate  with  a  few  trenchant 
strokes  just  what  ideals  and  principles 
guided  the  American  Republic  to  great- 
ness in  the  nineteenth  century.  This 
done,  he  proceeds  with  his  plan  for 
eradicating  some  of  our  contemporary 
troubles.  Most  of  his  suggestions  are 
good  enough,  but  without  any  flavor  of 
novelty. 

Books  and  the  News 

Sport 

A  LIBRARIAN  of  my  acquaintance 
says  there  are  no  books  which  he 
recommends  with  more  diflddence  than 
the  ones  which  describe,  or  pretend  to 
describe,  outdoor  games  and  athletic 
exercise. 

There  are,  I  agree,  few  topics  on 
which  one  can  recommend  a  book  with 
less  chance  of  success.  But  his  talk 
set  me  hunting  for  books  about  out- 
door spwrt — not  so  much  for  the  man- 
uals, the  "How  to"  books,  as  for  the 
books  which  tell  something  of  the  joy 
of  the  game.  At  the  very  outset,  I 
found  one.  Since  the  time  when  "A 
Was  an  Archer,"  that  sport  has  naturally 


led  the  list,  and  while  I  fancy  that  few 
readers  of  the  Revieio  are  thinking  of 
going  in  for  archery  ("taking  it  up 
seriously"),  anybody  who  likes  a  charm- 
ing book  on  an  odd  subject  should  enjoy 
MauUce  Thompson's  "The  Witchery  of 
Archery"  (Scribner,  1879).  For  the 
author  began,  not  as  a  member  of  a 
toxophile  society,  but  as  an  Indian 
hunter  in  the  romantic  Floridian  wilds. 

Next  in  order  is  coaching,  and  for  that 
read  "Coaching  Days  and  Coaching 
Ways"  (Macmillan,  1914),  by  W.  Out- 
ram  Tristram;  read  it  for  pleasure,  for 
its  information,  and  for  Hugh  Thom- 
son's pictures.  "Cricket"  (Newnes), 
edited  by  Horace  G.  Hutchinson,  is  a 
history  of  the  game,  not  a  manual  of  in- 
struction. For  the  canoe,  there  are  books 
upon  its  "selection,  care  and  use,"  but 
its  chief  dwelling  place  in  literature  is 
Stevenson's  "Inland  Voyage." 

Fishing  occupies  one  of  the  big  sec- 
tions in  the  library  of  sport,  and  literary 
folk  have  done  well  by  it.  I  will  not  do 
the  obvious  thing  and  name  the  book, 
which,  as  my  librarian  friend  says, 
everyone  recommends  and  nobody  reads. 
Instead,  there  is  a  charming  volume  in 
Sir  Edward  Grey's  "Fly  Fishing"  (Dent, 
1899),  while  a  book  called  "Angling" 
(Scribner,  1896)  has  some  agreeable 
chapters  on  American  fishing  by  Leroy 
M.  Yale,  Robert  Grant,  C.  F.  Holder, 
and     others.       "The     Tent     Dwellers" 


Worldwide    Banking,   Shipping, 
Trade  Promotion  and  Travel 

Through  its  worldwide  chain  of  offices,  and  its  thousands  of  corre- 
spondents in  practically  every  commercially  important  city  of  the  world, 
the  American  Express  Company  affords  its  clients  the  following  com- 
bination of  services: 


BANKING: 


SHIPPING: 


Pufchase  and  sale  of  bills  o(  exchange ;  financing  of  imports  and  exports  by 
commercial  letters  of  credit  and  ottierwise,  {oreign  drafts  and  cable  transfers  ; 
travelers  cheques  and  travelers  letters  of  credit.  Time  and  current  accounts 
accepted  at  our  foreign  offices,  and  interest  allowed.  Collection  of  open  and 
documentary  accounts,  in  this  country  and  abroad.  Telegraphic  transfers 
made  and  money  orders  sold  in  the  United  States.  Foreign  government 
securities  bought  and  sold  and  held  in  custody. 

Shipping  and  freight  agents  and  custom  house  brokers;  through  Bills  of 
I  . J:..j  iaued ;  marine  and  war  risk  insurance  attended  to. 


Lading  i 


TRAVEL: 


TD     rv     D        u  Market  and  credit  information  on  any  country ;  staple  commodities  purchased 

TRADE  PROMOTION :  or  sold  on  commission ;  catalogs  and  credit  references  of  American  firms  filed 
at  foreign  offices. 

Tickets  to  and  reservations  in  all  parts  of  the  world.  Complete  travel  infor- 
mation. Frequent  conducted  lours  in  this  country,  abroad  and  abound  the 
world. 

Head  Office:  65  Broadway 

NEW  YORK 

AMERICAN  EXPRESS  COMPANY 


(Harper,  1908),  by  Albert  Bigelow 
Paine,  is  of  the  right  kind,  and  tells  of 
fishing,  camping,  woods-life,  and  other 
matters  with  comments  upon  such  inter- 
esting topics  as  the  edibility  of  the 
brown  owl. 

For  golf  there  is  an  amusing  book, 
"The  Mystery  of  Golf"  (Macmillan, 
1912),  by  Arnold  Haultain,  on  what  may 
be  called  the  philosophy  of  golf.  Horace 
G.  Hutchinson's  "The  Golfing  Pilgrim  on 
Many  Links"  (Scribner,  1898)  contains 
pleasant  essays  about  the  links  of  Scot- 
land, England,  and  Europe,  while  "The 
Winning  Shot"  (Doubleday,  1915),  by 
Jerome  D.  Travers  and  Grantland  Rice,  is 
full  of  informal  paragraphs  and  verses 
about  the  game. 

The  school  of  fox-hunting  novelists 
have  celebrated  the  horse  in  dozens  of 
volumes.  T.  F.  Dale's  "The  Game  of 
Polo"  (Constable,  1897)  is  historical  and 
general,  and  appeals  to  me  as  readable. 
So  does  Charles  E.  Trevathan's  book  on 
the  turf  in  this  country,  called  "The 
American  Thoroughbred"  (Macmillan, 
1905).  Swimming  is  scandalously  neg- 
lected, except  by  the  writers  of  the  "How 
to"  books.  Mr.  A.  S.  Pier,  in  the  one 
adequate  essay  on  the  subject  I  know 
(you  will  find  it  in  his  "The  Young  in 
Heart"),  says,  "The  poets  have  astonish- 
ingly neglected  it — astonishingly,  I  say, 
for  it  supplies  one  of  the  most  sensuous 
human  experiences."  Here  is  the  prince 
of  sports — but  the  books  about  it  are  so 
many  texts,  describing  the  difference  be- 
tween the  trudgeon  and  the  Australian 
crawl. 

It  is  almost  the  same  with  tennis — only  i 
they  who  are  already  devotees  will  care  i 
to  read  such  books  as  J.  Parmley  Paret's  ( 
"Lawn   Tennis ;    Its   Past,   Present  and  I 
Future"    (Macmillan,  1904),  but  it  has  I 
historical  chapters  which  redeem  it.    So  < 
it  is  with  W.  P.  Stephens's  "American 
Yachting"  (Macmillan,  1904),  and  Herb- 
ert Stone's  "The  America's  Cup  Races" 
(Outing,  1914).    They  recall  great  days 
in  the  history  of  the  sport,  and  leave  you 
to  supply  its  fascination  from  your  im- 
agination, or  from  your  own  love  of  it. 
Walking  is  the  one  outdoor  sport  which 
requires  no  skill,  and  a  good  constitution 
rather  than  necessarily  great  muscular 
strength.      "Walking   Essays"    (Arnold, 
1912),  by  A.  H.  Sidgwick,  is  one  of  the 
genuine  discoveries  I  made  during  this 
search.     It  is  in  quite  the  right  spirit, 
and  you  are  recommended  to  the  essay 
on  "Walking   in  Literature,"  especially 
Note  A,  "On  the  Rates  of  Walking  of 
Various  Persons  in  'The  Egoist,'  "  chap- 
ters 25,  sqq. 

But  the  time  is  at  hand  when  one  need 
not  read  about  one's  favorite  sport,  but 
play  at  it,  and  who  would  care  for  books 
then?  To  read  about  a  game  is  like 
singing  songs  about  kissing — only  those 
do  it  who  can  not  practise  the  art  itself. 
Edmund  Lester  Pearson 


Hi 


THE  REVIEW 


Vol.  2,  No.  52 


New  York,  Saturday,  May  8,  1920 


FIFTEEN  CENTS 


Contents 


Brief  Comment 

Editorial  Articles: 
One  Year  of  "The  Review" 
A  Cost-of-Living  Exhibit 
Poles  and  Bolsheviki 
Squaring  Grandfather 


473 


476 
477 
477 
479 

Aggressive  Poland.    By  Leo  Pasvolsky  480 
Presidential     Inability.      By     Lindsay 

Rogers  481 
The  Radical  in  Fiction.    By  Frederick 

Tupper  483 
Correspondence  485 
Book  Reviews: 
Like  a  Fine  Old  English  Gentleman  487 
Talk  of  the  Best  487 
The  Man  of  Science  in  the  Future  488 
Cult  and  Comedy  489 
The  Run  of  the  Shelves  490 
The  Trembling  Year.    By  Robert  Pal- 
frey Utter  491 
Books  and  the  News:   France.   By  Ed- 
mund Lester  Pearson  492 
Empire  Building  by  Air — Cairo  to  the 

Cape.     By  Cuthbert  Hicks  494 
Drama: 
Ibsen   on   Grand   Street — Gilbert   on 

Broadway.    By  O.  W.  Firkins  494 
How  Can  America  Help  Europe?    By 

Guy  Emerson  498 


WHLL  the  Republican  Convention 
"  be  a  real  convention  or  merely 
a  tug  of  war?  That  is  at  this  mo- 
ment the  most  interesting  question 
for  those  who  are  trying  to  forecast 
the  possibilities  at  Chicago.  Not  long 
ago  it  was  almost  universally  assumed 
that  the  only  thing  which  the  dele- 
gates would  have  to  decide  was  whom 
they  would  like  to  have  for  President ; 
nomination  was  supposed  to  be  equiv- 

•  alent  to  election.  A  great  change  has 
come  over  the  situation  in  the  last 
month  or  two.  Whatever  the  pri- 
maries may  not  have  settled,  they 
have  brought  out  very  clearly  the  fact 
that  the  party  will  have  to  reckon 
with  very  serious  elements  of  disaf- 
fection, not  to  speak  of  the  possibility 
of  an  organized  bolt.  Accordingly,  if 
ithere  shall  be  at  Chicago  a  group  of 

'  sagacious  politicians  strong  enough 
to  determine  the  ultimate  result, 
their  primary  task  will  be  to  decide 


upon  a  candidate  who  will  command 
a  sufficient  following  of  Republicans 
and  independents  to  assure  victory  in 
November.  Is  any  such  group  in 
sight?  If  so,  does  it  represent  a  suf- 
ficient amount  of  practical  foresight 
and  of  political  virtue — the  combina- 
tion is  necessary  at  such  a  time  as 
this — to  give  promise  of  a  wise  de- 
cision? Nobody  knows.  Mr.  Pen- 
rose's little  flyer,  in  the  shape  of  a 
suggestion  of  Knox  for  President,  is 
certainly  not  a  cheerful  indication  of 
what  may  happen. 

'T'HE  platform-makers  will  have  as 
-'-  serious  a  problem  as  the  ticket- 
makers.  The  Republican  National 
Campaign  Committee  is  making  a 
stout  effort  to  help  construct  a  plat- 
form based  upon  real  consideration 
of  the  problems  of  the  day,  and  is 
utilizing  to  that  end  the  services  of 
an  able  staff.  It  has  received  a  mass 
of  answers  to  carefully  prepared 
questionnaires  addressed  to  persons 
who  may  be  supposed  to  have  some- 
thing worth  while  to  say  on  the  vari- 
ous subjects  in  question,  and  will 
doubtless  make  an  interesting  report 
on  them.  The  leading  candidates  for 
the  nomination  have  thus  far  said  lit- 
tle that  is  distinctive,  nor  does  there 
seem  to  be  much  prospect  of  their  do- 
ing so  before  the  eighth  of  June.  The 
one  issue  upon  which  something  like 
a  clear-cut  division  exists  between 
the  parties  is  that  of  the  League  of 
Nations ;  but  on  this  issue  the  Repub- 
lican party  is  divided  within  itself 
almost  as  sharply  as  it  is  divided  from 
the  opposite  party.  Looking  at  the 
situation  as  a  whole,  it  is  perhaps  cor- 
rect to  say  that  there  has  seldom  been 
a  time  when,  on  the  threshold  of  a 
Presidential  campaign,  the  actual 
alignment  of  the  two  parties  was  so 
ill-defined,  and  consequently  so  de- 
pendent upon  what  will  be  done  at 
the   conventions.     In  these   circum- 


stances, it  is  most  earnestly  to  be 
hoped  that  the  outcome  at  Chicago, 
as  to  both  candidate  and  platform, 
will  be  the  product  of  deliberate 
thought  and  not  the  chance  outcome 
of  convention  turmoil. 

■fl/TR.  MUNSEY  has  done  a  public 
■^'-'-  service  in  directing  attention 
to  the  seriousness  of  the  newsprint 
paper  question,  and  its  relation  to 
the  enormous  size  which  American 
newspapers  have  attained  in  recent 
years.  The  colossal  destruction  of 
forests  which  has  been  caused  by  this 
measureless  consumption  of  paper  is 
a  matter  which  touches  national  in- 
terests in  a  way  that  Congress  should 
no  longer  ignore.  Not  only  the  Sun- 
day newspapers,  but  the  principal 
weekday  papers  throughout  the  coun- 
try are  swollen  to  a  preposterous  size, 
and  Mr.  Munsey  makes  the  shocking, 
but  not  incredible,  statement  that  "we 
are  only  started  on  this  drunken  orgy 
of  paper  use."  Another  witness  be- 
fore the  Senate  Committee  informed 
it  that  consumption  of  newsprint 
paper  has  risen  from  three  pounds 
per  capita  in  1880  to  thirty-five 
pounds  in  1919.  It  requires  no  pre- 
diction of  a  further  development  of 
this  insatiable  appetite  to  stamp  it  as 
one  that  has  got  to  be  restrained. 
That  it  can  be  restrained  by  a  well- 
designed  scheme  of  taxation,  there 
can  be  no  doubt.  The  question  is 
whether  Congress  will  have  the  cour- 
age to  apply  the  remedy.  It  is  to  be 
hoped  that  the  Senate  committee  will, 
at  all  events,  point  the  way. 

THE  small  householder  who  buys 
potatoes  by  the  pound  is  now  pay- 
ing at  the  rate  of  more  than  twenty 
dollars  a  barrel.  Two  years  ago, 
when  the  price  of  potatoes  was  less 
than  half  this  dizzy  height,  every  one 
in  the  country  who  could  command  a 
plot  of  ground  was  earnestly  urged  to 


II 


474] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol  2,  No.  52 


raise  them.  Why  has  not  the  Govern- 
ment issued  a  similar  slogan  this 
year?  Two  years  ago,  it  is  true, 
potatoes  were  to  win  the  war.  But 
if  an  abundance  of  that  staple  would 
this  year  win  a  measure  of  content- 
ment for  a  thoroughly  disgruntled 
nation,  some  one  in  authority  has 
blundered.  No  doubt  we  all,  includ- 
ing the  powers  at  Washington,  have 
been  too  obsessed  by  the  thought  of 
profiteers  and  of  ways  to  smash  them 
to  consider  helping  ourselves  to  pota- 
toes by  the  only  sort  of  direct  action 
that  really  pays. 

fyHERE  is  a  faint  echo  of  Euphues' 
•'■  voice  in  the  speech  which  Sir 
Auckland  Geddes  addressed  to  the 
annual  meeting  of  the  Chamber  of 
Commerce  of  the  United  States  at 
Atlantic  City.  It  turned  on  the  cardi- 
nal question  how  Germany — and  all 
Europe  with  her — could  "be  weaned 
from  war  and  won  for  work."  The 
voice  of  Euphues  not  without  his 
England.  Nothing  had  surprised  him 
more.  Sir  Auckland  said,  than  the 
note  of  self-depreciation,  almost  of 
pessimism,  which  was  struck  in  so 
many  of  our  newspapers  and  in  the 
speech  of  so  many  men  whom  he  had 
met.  The  note  struck  by  England, 
in  the  person  of  her  official  spokes- 
man in  this  country,  was  one  of  hope 
and  self-confidence.  The  war,  he  said, 
had  worked  profound  changes  de- 
serving almost  the  title  of  a  revolu- 
tion :  "Ultimate  political  power  in 
England  now  rests  in  the  hands  of  the 
working  classes.  They  are  deter- 
mined to  work  out  new  relations  be- 
tween capital  and  labor.  They  seek 
to  the  limit  of  the  nation's  power  to 
secure  tranquility  in  Europe,  in  Asia 
Minor,  in  Asia,  and  Africa.  They  see 
clearly  that  to  secure  their  purpose 
they  have  to  end  the  rancors  and  ani- 
mosities-which  have  torn  Europe  and 
brought  her  to  the  brink  of  disaster." 
Here  is  outlined  a  worthier  task  for 
Labor  than  the  fomenting  of  a  world 
revolution  for  the  proletariat's  seiz- 
ure of  the  dictatorship.  The  world 
will  be  safer  under  the  guidance  of 
free  Labor  whose  power  is  the  ripe 
fruit  of  political  growth  than  under 
that  of  Russia's  so-called  self-ruling 
proletariat,    whose    dictators   forced 


their  power  to  precocious  maturity  in 
the  hothouse  heat  of  revolution. 

A  NEW  organization  has  been 
•^*-  formed  in  Dublin,  under  the 
chairmanship  of  Stephen  Gwynn, 
called  the  Government  of  Ireland 
Bill  Amendment  Group.  Only  a  few 
months  ago,  on  January  5,  Mr. 
Gwynn  contributed  an  article  to  the 
Manchester  Guardian  which  he  en- 
titled "A  Personal  View  of  the  Irish 
Proposals,"  "because  nobody  that  I 
know  shares  it  except  two  other  men, 
both  journalists."  It  is  an  achieve- 
ment for  Mr.  Gwynn  to  have  gained, 
in  so  short  a  time,  a  sufficient  num- 
ber of  supporters  of  his  trio  to  form 
a  group  strong  enough  to  conduct  a 
political  action.  It  may  be  taken  as 
inaugurating,  on  the  part  of  Irish 
intellectuals,  a  return  from  the  ad- 
vocacy of  extreme  demands  to  a  mod- 
erate and  conciliatory  attitude.  Mr. 
Gwynn  is  a  nationalist,  but  he  does 
not  approve  of  Sir  Horace  Plunkett's 
sweeping  condemnation  of  Lloyd 
George's  Home  Rule  bill.  He  is  more 
tolerant  towards  it  than  the  English 
home-ruler  Asquith,  who  assailed  it 
in  the  bitterest  terms.  He  recognizes 
that  the  distinctive  character  of 
Ulster  makes  some  application  of 
the  cantonal  system  of  government 
necessary  for  Ireland.  "This,  and  not 
the  immediate  attainment  of  more  or 
less  complete  powers,  is  the  true  end 
to  which  Nationalist  Ireland  should 
direct  thought  and  desire."  Lloyd 
George's  plan  of  divided  self-govern- 
ment applies  that  system  to  Ireland, 
and  Stephen  Gwynn  admits  that  this 
is  all  that  can  be  done  for  the  pres- 
ent towards  the  unification  of  his 
country.  The  status  and  the  freedom 
of  a  Dominion  can  not  be  attained  at 
one  jump. 

"DUT  Gwynn's  approval  of  Lloyd 
^-^  George's  fundamental  idea  does 
not  extend  to  the  details  of  the  bill. 
His  Amendment  Group  is  to  start 
propaganda  for  the  improvements 
which  must  make  it  a  workable  con- 
stitution. The  six-county  area  for 
Ulster  as  fixed  by  the  bill  must  be  en- 
larged with  Monaghan,  Cavan,  and 
Donegal,  which  are  an  intrinsic  part 
of  Ulster.     Their  exclusion  is  a  de- 


vice to  please  the  Orangemen,  who 
would  restrict  the  Ulster  area  to 
those  six  counties  where  they  possess 
predominance,  rather  than  extend  it 
so  as  to  enclose  those  three  pre- 
ponderantly Catholic  counties  where 
a  combination  of  Labor  and  Mr. 
Devlin's  Ulster  Nationalists  might 
impair  their  political  monopoly.  But 
Ulster  is  a  unit,  and  the  Catholics  of 
the  three  counties  rejected  by  the 
Carsonites  are  genuine  Ulstermen 
who  can  not  be  severed  from  their 
fellows  in  the  six  others  without  in- 
creased friction  tending  to  retard  the 
achievement  of  unity.  To  amend  the 
measure  in  this  sense  so  as  to  make 
the  unit  Ulster  officially  what  it  act- 
ually is,  will  be  the  chief  effort  of 
those  members  of  Parliament  who 
will  be  spokesmen  of  Mr.  Gwynn's 
Amendment  Group. 

COME  are  cocksure  that  the  May- 
^  day  bomb  plot  was,  as  a  Hibernian  i 
orator  might  put  it,  nothing  but  ai 
mare's  nest  hatched  in  the  Attorney  i 
General's  brain.  Others  are  equally] 
certain  that  Mr.  Palmer's  vigilance  l 
was  the  only  thing  that  saved  us.  AIll 
we  know  is  that  it  didn't  come  off. 

A    FEW  weeks  ago  we  ventured  theJ 
-^  opinion  that  the  solution  of  thej 
Danish  crisis,  from  the  King's  stand- 
point, was  a  compromise  rather  than^ 
a  surrender.    With  the  results  of  the! 
recent  elections  for  the  Folketing  be-i 
fore   us   we   can   now  say  that  the 
King's  action,  far  from  having  beer 
so  unpopular  as  to  make  a  surrender 
imperative  to  save  his  crown,  had  the 
approval  of  at  least  50  per  cent,  of 
the  nation.     The  party  of  Minister 
Zahle,  whose  dismissal  by  the  King 
brought  on  the  crisis,  saw  the  thirty- 
three    seats    which    it  held    in    the 
last  Folketing  reduced  to  seventeen 
whereas  the  Liberals  and  Conserva- 
tives gained  three  and  six  seats,  re 
spectively.    It  is  true  that  the  Slesvi^ 
question  was  not  the  only  issue.    l< 
offered  the  opposition  an  opportunitj 
to  strike  a  decisive  blow  at  a  Govern 
ment  which  had  made  itself  unpopu 
lar  among  all  except  the  Radical  anc 
Socialist  parties  by  its  continuatioi 
after  the  armistice  of  an  economii 
policy    necessitated    by    war    condi 


May  8,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[475 


tions.  As  a  protest  against  the  per- 
petuation of  state  interference  in  the 
economic  life  of  the  nation  the  vote 
of  the  electorate  is  no  less  remarkable 
than  for  the  sanction  it  gave  to  King 
Christian's  alleged  unconstitutional 
dismissal  of  the  Zahle  Cabinet. 

OEHIND  all  the  Italian  labor  tur- 
J-*  moil  lurks  the  menacing  figure 
of  Enrico  Malatesta.  The  sw^ing  of 
the  Socialist  movement  toward  the 
revolutionary  left  has  been  pro- 
nounced in  nearly  all  lands;  but  in 
no  country  has  it  been  so  extreme  as 
in  Italy.  Italian  Socialism  had  its 
origin  in  Anarchism,  and  not  until 
the  Genoa  congress  of  1892  vv^as  it 
able  to  divest  itself  of  the  traces.  Its 
later  troubles  grew  out  of  conflicts, 
not  between  Socialists  and  Anar- 
chists, but  between  Marxians  and  re- 
formers. Since  the  beginning  of  the 
war,  however,  it  has  rapidly  swung 
back  to  the  Bakuninism  of  its  early 
days;  and  its  unofficial  dictator  to- 
day is  no  other  than  Malatesta,  who 
was  once  a  lieutenant  of  Bakunin's 
and  who  later,  at  the  London  con- 
gress of  the  Internationale,  1896,  was 
expelled  for  his  Anarchism.  From 
his  London  refuge,  where  he  had 
lived  since  he  was  banished  from 
Italy  in  1913,  he  was  called  back  by 
the  insistent  demands  of  the  radicals, 
and  Premier  Nitti  acquiesced  in  his 
return.  Since  then  he  has  kept  things 
in  a  ferment.  His  authority  over  the 
radical  element  of  the  working  class 
appears  to  be  greater  than  that  of 
the  Socialist  party  executives,  and 
his  friends  boast  that  even  the  Gov- 
ernment dare  not  touch  him.  He  has 
now,  as  he  has  always  had,  but  one 
creed,  the  violent  overthrow  of  "capi- 
talist" government  and  the  substitu- 
tion of  communal  organization  of  in- 
dustry. To  the  party  executives  he 
is  a  septuagenarian  enfant  terrible; 
they,  too,  are  for  revolutionism,  Bol- 
shevism, or  any  other  "ism"  of  vio- 
lence and  turmoil;  but  they  want  to 
be  sure,  and  they  fear  that  Malatesta 
will  spoil  the  game. 

"■WrHAT'S  right  for  me  is  wrong 


w 


for    you,"    argues    the    child. 


Primitive  man  argued  that  way,  and 
to  the  limit  of  his  ability  enforced 


his  argument  with  a  club.  Fanatics 
of  all  stripes  still  continue  the  argu- 
ment, and  they  translate  it,  if  they 
gain  power,  into  law.  The  absolute 
suppression  of  free  speech,  free  press, 
and  free  assemblage  in  Russia  is 
revolutionary  virtue ;  the  punishment 
of  outright  sedition  in  America  is 
vicious  reactionism.  All  the  pro-Bol- 
shevist writers  and  speakers  are 
agreed ;  and  though  the  more  preten- 
tiously virtuous  exponents  of  uplift 
by  usurpation  cloak  their  meaning 
with  euphemisms,  the  more  straight- 
forward advocates  disdain  the  use  of 
weasel  words.  On  the  front  page  of 
the  Appeal  to  Reason  for  April  17  is 
an  interview  with  Eugene  V.  Debs  in 
which  the  argument  is  stated  in  plain 
terms.  "If  it  was  right,"  Debs  was 
asked,  "for  Russia  to  suspend  free 
speech  and  free  press,  was  it  not  also 
right  for  the  United  States  to  suspend 
free  speech  in  your  case  during  the 
war?"  "No,"  replied  Debs.  "The 
Russian  revolution  was  a  forward 
step.  American  participation  in  the 
war  was  a  reactionary  step.  In  sup- 
pressing me,  because  I  was  a  revolu- 
tionist, a  backward  step  was  taken." 
Naive,  infantile,  amusing,  what  you 
will ;  but  how  honorably  this  speech 
contrasts  with  the  intellectual  and 
ethical  thimble-rigging  of  the  preten- 
tiously pious  journals  of  uplift! 

TT  must  be  exasperating  to  the  in- 
-*-  surgent  editorial  fraternity  to 
have  Mr.  Irwin  Granich  talk  as  he 
does  through  the  columns  of  our  Bol- 
shevist contemporary,  the  Liberator. 
As  all  instructed  liberals  and  radicals 
know,  there  is  a  powerful  plot  against 
Mexico,  engineered  by  Wall  Street. 
The  plotters  systematically  poison 
the  minds  of  Americans  with  false 
information,  and  they  plan  to  over- 
throw the  wonderful  Constitution  of 
Mexico  and  to  reduce  the  Mexican 
people  from  their  present  free,  com- 
fortable, and  happy  state  to  the  de- 
graded condition  of  capitalistic  slaves. 
But  here  comes  Mr.  Granich,  a  Com- 
munist-Socialist, or  something  of  the 
sort,  who  knows  Mexico,  and  who 
says  that  from  the  standpoint  of  the 
common  man  the  Carranza  regime  is 
about  the  worst  thing  there  is  on  the 
planet.    There  is  widespread  misery, 


strikes  are  suppressed,  workmen  are 
shot  down,  the  franchise  is  a  joke, 
banditry  is  common,  official  graft 
is  rampant,  and,  to  top  it  all,  a 
fire-eating  Communist  journal  is  sub- 
sidized by  the  Government,  presum- 
ably for  its  influence  on  the  revolu- 
tionary gudgeons  of  the  United  States. 
The  report  accords  with  reliable 
testimony,  such  as  that  by  George 
Agnew  Chamberlain,  which  has  re- 
cently come  out  of  Mexico.  But  it 
is  not  the  kind  of  information  relished 
by  insurgent  editors,  who  prefer  the 
testimony  of  observers  who  have  been 
carefully  wet-nursed  on  their  travels 
by  Carranza  agents,  or  of  others  who, 
somewhere  east  of  Tenth  avenue, 
deduce  their  observations  from  the 
glorious  Mexican  Constitution.  That 
the  Liberator  should  publish  such 
statements  must  be  regarded  as  a 
sort  of  treason  to  "the  cause."  Not 
often  does  it  so  far  forget  itself. 
But  occasionally,  say  once  every  six 
months  or  so,  it  does,  from  a  habit  of 
careless  utterance,  permit  something 
to  get  past  which  brings  upon  it  from 
the  revolutionary  brotherhood  grave 
suspicions  of  "giving  information  to 
the  enemy." 

lyiULTIPLICITY  of  good  causes 
•^'-'-  that  want  much  should  not  be 
allowed  to  obscure  some  of  the  equally 
deserving  causes  that  are  asking  com- 
paratively little.  One  of  these  that 
should  by  no  mischance  be  forgotten 
is  the  American  Academy  at  Rome, 
which  is  in  immediate  need  of  $1,000,- 
000  for  the  work  in  which  it  has 
already  achieved  distinguished  suc- 
cess, and  for  the  development  of  new 
departments,  for  the  training  of  espe- 
cially promising  students  in  Land- 
scape Architecture  and  Musical  Com- 
position. Through  the  generosity  of 
Mr.  J.  P.  Morgan,  the  raising  of  this 
sum  will  automatically  clear  away  the 
debt  of  the  Academy  ($375,000)  to 
the  Morgan  estate,  since  one  dollar 
of  the  debt  will  be  cancelled  for  each 
dollar  subscribed  to  the  new  fund. 
Mr.  Edward  P.  Mellon,  52  Vanderbilt 
Avenue,  New  York  City,  is  receiving 
contributions  to  this  fund,  and  an- 
nounces that  Liberty  bonds  will  be 
credited  for  this  purpose  at  their  face 
value. 


476] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol  2,  No.  52 


One  Year  of  "The 
Review' 


>  > 


IN  a  card  of  invitation  addressed  to 
persons  whose  interest  it  was 
hoped  to  enlist  in  the  proposed  new 
weekly  journal,  the  aim  of  the  Revietv 
was  briefly  defined  as  that  of  helping 
to  maintain  "the  established  prin- 
ciples of  American  liberty."  With 
the  appearance  of  the  present  issue, 
which  completes  one  year  of  its  pub- 
lication, it  seems  proper  to  consider 
its  experience  from  that  standpoint. 
The  particular  form  which  events 
have  taken  in  the  course  of  this  mo- 
mentous twelvemonth  is  very  differ- 
ent from  what  anyone  could  have 
forecast.  But  running  through  its 
developments,  and  projecting  itself 
unmistakably  into  the  future  so  far 
as  one  can  see  it,  the  central  ques- 
tion remains  what  it  was  a  year  ago, 
and  what,  indeed,  thinking  people 
must  have  seen  it  to  be  long  before 
that.  Socialistic  agitation,  and  even 
the  threat  of  violent  revolution,  had 
been  with  us  for  many  years;  but 
what  distinguished  not  only  the  war 
period,  and  the  post-war  period,  but 
several  years  preceding  the  war,  was 
the  entrance  of  a  factor  which,  up 
to  a  comparatively  recent  time,  had 
played  no  considerable  role.  The  par- 
ticular danger  to  "the  established 
principles  of  American  liberty" 
which  the  projectors  of  this  journal 
had  in  mind  arose  from  the  growth 
of  an  undefined,  and  largely  sentimen- 
tal, radicalism  which,  with  no  clear 
object  in  view,  was  giving  cumulative 
aid  to  every  form  of  revolutionary 
agitation.  America  was  not,  and  is 
not,  in  danger  of  accepting  a  So- 
cialist or  Communist  programme  now 
or  in  the  near  future.  Against  the 
heavy  artillery  of  outright  Marxians 
or  Leninites  it  is  safe  enough. .  The 
inroads  which,  in  the  present  stage  of 
our  history,  we  really  have  to  fear 
are  those  of  the  light-armed  cavalry. 
The  dilettante  radicals  are  not  going 
to  batter  down  the  institutions  of 
the  country.  Their  work  is  not  de- 
struction, but  demoralization.  And 
in  that  work  the  absence  of  heavy 
artillery  is  not  a  drawback  but  a  tre- 
mendous advantage.     To  gird  at  all 


established  institutions,  to  point  the 
finger  at  everything  that  is  bad  and 
say  never  a  word  about  what  is  good 
— to  do  all  this  without  burdening 
themselves  with  the  responsibility  of 
any  avowed  advocacy  of  revolution- 
ary change — is  an  inviting  task  for 
minds  inclined  to  it,  and  finds  in  thou- 
sands of  still  less  disciplined  minds 
an  eager  response. 

If  the  essentials  of  American  life 
and  American  liberty  are  in  danger, 
it  is  from  this  quarter  that  the  dan- 
ger is  most  acute.  It  is  true  that  the 
discontent  and  unrest  which  have 
come  from  the  enormous  advance  of 
prices  has  reached  dimensions  which, 
like  that  advance  itself,  surpass  all 
expectations.  But  this,  after  all,  we 
have  reason  to  believe  is  but  a  pass- 
ing phase.  What  we  shall  continue 
to  have  with  us  is  that  speculative 
discontent,  that  vague  longing  for  a 
new  world,  based  not  so  much  on  any 
clear  prospect  that  it  holds  out  as  on 
an  easy-going  forgetfulness  of  what 
the  established  institutions  of  civili- 
zation do  for  us,  which  the  dilettante 
radicals  are  constantly  promoting. 
The  peril  against  which  we  have  to 
guard  is  not  so  much  the  strength 
of  the  attack  as  the  weakness  of  the 
defense.  Socialism  in  this  country 
has  made  its  gains  much  less  in  the 
shape  of  outright  converts  than  that 
of  sympathizing  half-thinkers.  Its 
prospect  of  ultimate  success  depends, 
above  all  else,  upon  the  extent  to 
which  this  demoralization  of  thought 
and  feeling  may  spread  and  the  ex- 
tent to  which  it  will  be  checked  by 
the  growth  of  sober  and  responsible 
thinking. 

Within  the  year  during  which  the 
Review  has  been  published,  a  cor- 
relative danger  to  "the  established 
principles  of  American  liberty"  has 
manifested  itself.  The  conventional 
thing  to  say  about  times  like  these 
is  that  revolutionary  agitation  breeds 
"reaction."  In  the  broad  sense  in 
which  this  word  is  usually  employed, 
we  see  no  sign  of  such  a  menace  to 
this  country.  In  relation  to  the  great 
questions  of  labor,  for  example,  or 
of  taxation,  while  we  may  not  ad- 
vance so  rapidly  as  some  desire,  or 
perhaps  so  rapidly  as  we  ought,  yet 
we  shall  certainly  not  fall  back  into 


the  attitude  which  ten  or  twenty 
years  ago  largely  dominated  our  af- 
fairs; indeed,  we  shall  not  go 
backward  at  all.  The  one  important 
development  which  can  justly  be  stig- 
matized as  "reactionary"  is  that 
which  has  taken  place  in  the  matter 
of  freedom  of  speech  and  freedom  of 
political  effort.  This,  we  confess,  has 
in  some  quarters  assumed  a  form 
more  sinister  than  we  had  thought 
there  was  reason  to  fear.  Such  at- 
tempts to  suppress  opposition  to  our 
existing  institutions  as  have  been 
made  in  the  sedition  bills  in  Con- 
gress, and  in  the  amazing  proceedings 
at  Albany,  are  just  cause  for  serious 
apprehension.  No  clearer  duty  rests 
upon  those  who  maintain  the  genuine 
tradition  of  liberalism  than  to  oppose, 
with  all  the  ability  and  earnestness 
at  their  command,  every  such  de- 
parture from  that  tradition.  The 
right  of  free  speech  is  not  absolute, 
and  the  Reviewhas  taken  more  than 
one  occasion  to  define,  to  the  best  of 
its  ability,  the  limitations  to  which 
it  is  justly  subject.  But  the  attempt 
to  suppress  opinions  as  such,  and  to 
preclude  the  representation  of  them 
in  American  legislative  bodies  by 
arbitrary  proscription,  is  at  once  a 
violation  of  the  spirit  of  our  insti- 
tutions and  a  confession  of  their  fail- 
ure. No  truer  service  can  be  done 
to  them  than  to  protest  against  such 
violation;  nor  do  we  doubt  that  the 
protest  which  has  come  from  so  many 
of  the  best  of  our  conservative  lead- 
ers and  organs  of  opinion  will  have 
the  effect  of  effectually  checking  a 
tendency  which  must  be  ascribed 
rather  to  thoughtlessness  and  igno- 
rance than  to  any  deep  and  perma- 
nent purpose. 

It  is  not  the  object  of  this  brief 
retrospective  article  to  review  the 
work  that  this  paper  has  attempted 
to  do  in  relation  to  the  various  spe- 
cific problems  of  the  time.  As  re- 
gards that,  we  can  not  but  feel  sin- 
cere gratification  in  the  acknowledg- 
ments which  have  come  to  us  from 
competent  critics,  a  few  of  which  are 
reproduced  on  another  page.  That 
our  endeavor  to  be  fair  in  the  dis- 
cussion of  every  controversial  topic 
is  so  generally  recognized,  is  a  source 
of  peculiar  satisfaction.    But  no  other 


May  8,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[477 


I 


service  that  we  may  have  been  able 
to  render  could  be  accounted  a  jus- 
tification for  the  founding  of  the 
Review  if  it  had  not  succeeded  in 
making  a  real  contribution  to  the 
strengthening  of  thinking  Americans 
in  their  allegiance  to  the  fundamen- 
tals of  American  liberty  and  order,  of 
American  vitality  and  prosperity. 
That  it  has  done  this  in  a  substantial 
and  effective  way  it  feels  that  there 
is  now  abundant  evidence.  The  idea 
is  expressed  by  one  of  our  corre- 
spondents in  a  way  upon  which  we 
could  not  improve: 

No  doubt  it  is  too  late  to  expect  any  con- 
sideral)le  nuiiil)er  of  conversions  from  the 
ranks  of  modern  radicalism,  but  this  is  a  mat- 
ter of  comparative  unimportance.  What  is 
important  is  that  Liberalism  should  know  that 
it  still  has  a  respectable  cause,  and  to  demon- 
strate that  fact  is  precisely  the  work  of  such 
publications  as  the  Review — a  work  which  it 
is  performing  with  ever  increasing  success. 

To  continue  in  this  work,  and  to  de- 
serve just  such  recognition  of  it,  is 
an  object  which,  at  the  end  as  at  the 
beginning  of  our  first  year,  is  ample 
inspiration  for  every  effort  that  we 
may  be  able  to  put  forward. 

A   Cost-of-Living 
Exhibit 

rpHE  United  States  Bureau  of  Labor 
-*-  Statistics  has  just  given  out  some 
figures  relating  to  the  increase  of 
the  cost  of  living  in  New  York  City 
which  might  well  furnish  occasion 
for  interesting  study.  That  the  cost 
of  living  for  families  of  moderate 
income  has  somewhat  more  than 
doubled  since  1914  is  no  news,  nor  is 
there  anything  very  novel  in  the  fig- 
ures showing  the  varying  ratios  in 
which  the  different  elements  that  en- 
ter into  a  family's  living  have  risen 
in  price.  But  the  little  table  which 
presents  these  facts  in  a  compact 
form  for  each  of  the  five  years, 
1915-19  inclusive,  brings  out  the 
points  more  clearly  than  is  usually 
the  case. 

The  most  striking  feature  of  it  is 
the  contrast  between  the  rise  of  prices 
for  clothing  and  that  for  housing. 
Clothing  went  up  steadily  from  the 
beginning  of  the  world  war,  and 
reached  an  enormous  height  at  the 
end  of  the  fifth  year;  housing,  on 
the  other  hand,  actually  cost  less  in 


1915  and  1916  than  in  1914,  and  even 
in  1919  was  only  23  per  cent,  higher 
than  in  1914.  The  actual  percentages 
of  increase  in  successive  years — De- 
cember of  each  year  being  compared 
with  December,  1914 — were,  in  the 
case  of  clothing,  4.82,  22.31,  54.21, 
131.25,  219.66,  a  constant  rise  wind- 
ing up  with  a  price  three  and  one- 
fifth  times  as  high  as  the  pre-war 
price  of  clothing.  In  the  case  of 
housing,  on  the  other  hand,  there  was 
a  slight  decline  in  1915  and  1916,  an 
advance  of  only  2.63  per  cent,  in  1917 
and  only  8.47  per  cent,  in  1918,  while 
even  in  December,  1919,  the  advance 
was  only  23.39  per  cent.;  so  that 
while  clothes  cost  nearly  three  and  a 
quarter  times  as  much  as  before, 
rents  were  not  quite  one  and  a  quar- 
ter times  what  they  had  been.  Some 
part  of  this  enormous  advance  in 
clothing  expenditure  may,  indeed,  be 
due  to  a  rise  of  standards  in  the  popu- 
lation concerned;  but  after  allowing 
for  this  the  character  of  the  contrast 
remains  unaffected. 

To  arrive  at  a  complete  explana- 
tion of  this  phenomenon  would  re- 
quire extensive  and  many-sided  in- 
vestigation ;  but  there  are  some  ele- 
ments of  that  explanation  which  nat- 
urally suggest  themselves,  and  which 
are  interesting  not  only  in  their  im- 
mediate bearing,  but  also  as  related 
to  the  general  question  of  money  and 
prices.  In  both  instances,  the  supply 
side  as  well  as  the  demand  side  of 
the  equation  is  important;  but  per- 
haps the  most  interesting  aspect  of 
it  is  that  which  bears  on  the  way  in 
which  an  increasing  volume  of  money 
operates  to  raise  prices. 

The  thing  is  not  automatic,  like  the 
rising  of  the  mercury  in  a  thermom- 
eter when  the  temperature  increases. 
It  comes  about  through  the  operation 
of  human  motives,  which  do  not  play 
equally  upon  all  the  possible  objects 
to  which  purchase  may  be  directed. 
When  a  great  multitude  of  people — 
through  a  rise  in  wages,  say — find 
themselves  in  possession  of  a  great 
many  more  dollars  than  they  had 
formerly  at  their  command,  they  do 
not  proceed  to  enlarge  their  expendi- 
ture in  every  direction,  and  certainly 
not  equally  in  every  direction.  It 
will  be  a  long  time  before  a  person 


whose  income  in  dollars  has  been 
unexpectedly  increased  will  think  of 
living  in  a  different  kind  of  dwelling 
from  what  he  has  been  accustomed 
to.  He  will  be  slow  to  make  any  im- 
portant change  as  to  his  daily  food. 
Of  all  the  things  which  form  an  im- 
portant part  of  his  consumption  and 
that  of  his  family,  the  one  which  re- 
sponds most  rapidly  to  what  looks  like 
a  bettered  income  will  probably  be 
clothing — including,  of  course,  haber- 
dashery and  millinery.  Throughout 
the  five  years  of  the  inflation  period, 
there  was  undoubtedly  a  strongly 
stimulated  demand  for  clothes,  while 
at  the  same  time  supply  was  increas- 
ingly difficult  to  obtain ;  on  the  other 
hand,  there  was  for  housing  only  a 
slightly  augmented  demand,  which, 
moreover,  from  the  time  of  our  coun- 
try's entry  into  the  war,  was  offset 
by  the  great  exodus  into  the  army. 
These  circumstances  seem  sufficiently 
to  account,  in  the  large,  for  the  fig- 
ures that  the  table  presents.  The  rise 
in  rents  which  has  taken  place  since 
the  armistice  is  also  quite  in  keeping 
with  these  considerations;  the  cessa- 
tion of  building  during  the  war,  the 
hindrance  to  its  resumption  after  the 
war  caused  by  the  risks  of  a  perma- 
nent investment  in  what  seemed  like 
abnormally  high-cost  building,  and 
the  return  of  the  soldier  population, 
combining  to  produce  an  acute  short- 
age without  the  aid  of  any  special 
demand  for  better  or  more  expensive 
housing  on  the  part  of  the  masses. 
The  whole  subject,  however,  would 
well  repay  close  and  thoroughgoing 
examination. 

Poles  and  Bolsheviki 

/^NE  day,  according  to  a  popular 
^^  anecdote,  the  Supreme  Council, 
being  tired  of  examining  the  claims 
brought  forward  by  exacting  nation- 
alities, arranged  an  amusing  in- 
termezzo by  inviting  international 
scholarship  to  competition  in  a  prize 
essay  on  the  elephant.  Among  the 
competitors,  who  were  given  a  year 
for  the  work,  was  a  Polish  zoologist, 
who  introduced  his  subject  with  these 
words:  "I'Elephant,  c'est  une  ques- 
tion polonaise."  The  inventor  of  the 
story   caricatured   not   unjustly  the 


478] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol  2,  No.  52 


centripetal  tendencies  of  the  Polish 
spirit  as  it  manifests  itself  to  the 
outsider  in  the  policy  the  country  has 
adopted  since  its  revival.  The  ag- 
grandizement of  Poland,  regardless 
of  considerations  of  justice  due  to 
other  nationalities  and  of  the  dangers 
resulting  to  Europe  from  such  disre- 
gard, seems  to  be  the  sole  object  of 
the  men  now  in  power  at  Warsaw. 
They  demand  no  less  than  the  entire 
area  covered  by  Poland  before  the 
first  partition  of  1772,  which  would 
make  them  rulers  over  a  territory 
twice  as  large  as  France,  and  over  a 
population  the  majority  of  which  is 
of  non-Polish  nationality.  If  the 
right  of  self-determination  can  not 
serve  their  purpose,  they  base  their 
claim  on  historical  rights,  or  on  the 
economic  homogeneity  of  Poland  and 
her  neighbors,  or  on  strategic  neces- 
sity, or  on  the  plea  that  Europe  can 
be  protected  against  the  Bolshevist 
dangers  by  no  better  means  than  a 
strong  Poland. 

Apart  from  the  question  whether 
the  inclusion  within  Polish  territory 
of  non-Polish  races  would  not  prove  a 
diminution  of  strength  instead  of  a 
reinforcement,  there  is  good  reason 
to  doubt  the  wisdom  of  an  annexa- 
tionist policy  which  uses  the  Russian 
menace  as  an-  excuse.  Of  the  ineffi- 
ciency of  the  Soviet  forces  we  now 
possess  sufficient  evidence  to  con- 
sider it  an  established  fact.  But 
there  is  much  ground  for  the  fear  that 
the  Polish  offensive  which  that  ineffi- 
ciency invited  may  tend,  in  spite  of 
the  successes  which  the  Poles  claim  to 
have  won,  to  restore  to  Trotsky's 
army  some  of  its  lost  backbone.  One 
of  the  causes  which  made  for  its  un- 
trustworthiness  and  rendered  it  a 
dangerous  weapon  for  the  Soviet 
rulers  to  wield  was  the  growing  influ- 
ence of  the  cadre  over  the  soldiery. 
That  cadre  consists  mainly  of  Tsar- 
ist officers  who  were  not  wholly 
averse  to  serving  in  the  Red  army  be- 
cause the  expansionist  aims  of  Bol- 
shevism coincided  with  their  dreams 
of  a  reintegrated  Russia.  Without 
them  the  Soviet  would  have  had,  for 
an  army,  an  undisciplined  mob; 
without  the  army  the  officers  could 
not  hope  to  realize  their  dream.  The 
reliability  of  the  army,  therefore,  de- 


pended mainly  on  the  loyalty  of  the 
cadre,  which,  in  its  turn,  depended  on 
the  Soviet's  perseverance  in  its  ag- 
gressive policy  against  the  apostate 
border  republics.  Since  the  imminent 
economic  collapse  of  Soviet  Russia, 
however,  made  peace  with  the  non- 
Russian  world  imperative,  the  Tsarist 
officers  had  little  reason  to  persist  in 
their  fidelity  to  the  Commissaries  of 
Moscow.  The  latter  saw  their  own 
safety  from  attempts  at  revolution 
by  officers  popular  among  their  troops 
in  a  speedy  demobilization  and  en- 
listment of  the  discharged  soldiery  in 
the  labor  armies  organized  by 
Trotsky,  where  they  will  be  placed 
under  the  control  of  reliable  comrades 
acting  as  economic  instructors. 

And  at  this  very  moment,  when  Red 
Russia  is  making  herself  defense- 
less lest  she  should  wound  herself 
with  her  own  weapons,  steps  in  Gen- 
eral Pilsudsky  as  the  protector  of  Eu- 
rope against  Bolshevism,  and  scores 
an  easy  victory  at  the  risk  of  uniting 
again  the  Tsarist  officers  and  the 
Soviet  Commissaries — from  different 
motives,  to  be  sure — in  a  common 
cause.  The  seventh  army,  which 
Trotsky  had  begun  to  convert  into  a 
labor  force,  was  summoned  back  to 
arms  and  mobilized  anew  after  the 
Polish  Government,  by  its  exorbitant 
conditions,  had  made  peace  with 
Soviet  Russia  impossible.  The  ulti- 
mate failure,  after  repeated  suc- 
cesses, of  the  three  Russian  generals 
who  tried  to  oust  the  Bolsheviki  with 
the  help  of  the  Entente  has  taught  us 
that  foreign  intervention,  with  the 
inadequate  means  the  Allies  have  been 
willing  or  able  to  spare,  has  tended 
to  seat  the  Moscow  Commissaries 
more  firmly  in  the  saddle.  A  reversal 
in  Russia  must  come  from  within, 
and  the  forces  which  are  able  to  bring 
it  about  must  be  free  from  any  sus- 
picion of  being  agents  of  a  Western 
Power. 

Poland  is,  for  those  two  reasons, 
disqualified  as  a  liberator  of  suffering 
Russia.  She  is  only  a  pawn  of  France 
on  the  European  chess-board,  al- 
though she  is  now  acting  as  if  she 
were  the  queen  in  the  game.  Apart 
from  the  reaction  this  move  will  have 
on  the  internal  situation  in  Russia, 
it  will  widen  the  breach  in  the  bar- 


rier of  border  states  which  French 
Generals  and  diplomats  had  con- 
ceived as  a  rampart  against  Bolshe- 
vism, and  a  wall  against  German 
penetration  of  Russia.  The  relations 
between  Poland  and  Lithuania  are 
tense  to  the  breaking  point  on  account 
of  the  Polish  claim  of  Lithuanian  ter- 
ritory. That  is  why  Lithuania,  after 
the  conference  of  border  states  held 
at  Warsaw  in  March  of  this  year,  re- 
fused to  negotiate  peace  with  Soviet 
Russia  in  conjunction  with  Poland, 
Finland,  and  Latvia.  These  two 
other  states,  not  being  neighbors  of 
Poland,  have  no  feelings  of  hostility 
towards  her,  but  those  with  whom  she 
lives  in  close  contact  have  more  rea- 
son to  throw  up  barriers  against  her 
aggression  than  to  form,  together 
with  her,  a  barrier  against  Bolshe- 
vism. The  Ukrainians  under  Petlura 
are,  indeed,  reported  to  have  joined 
the  Poles  in  their  recent  offensive,  in 
the  hope  of  clearing,  with  Polish  help, 
the  Ukraine  of  Bolshevist  rule.  But 
the  price  to  be  paid  for  their  rescue 
is  said  to  be  the  renunciation,  in 
favor  of  Poland,  of  all  Ukrainian 
claims  on  the  rich  oil  district  of  East- 
ern Galicia.  The  deal  can  not  possi- 
bly have  the  approval  of  the  people 
as  whose  representative  Petlura  at- 
tended the  conference  of  border  states 
at  Warsaw.  The  Ukrainians  are  no 
less  inimical  to  Polish  aggression 
than  they  are  to  Bolshevist  rule.  The 
greater  Poland  restored  in  its  pre- 
partition  extent  would  comprise  thir- 
teen million  Ukrainians  and  advance 
the  Polish  frontier  to  within  a  short 
distance  from  the  Ukrainian  capital 
Kiev.  Whatever  undertakings  Pet- 
lura, from  personal  motives  perhaps, 
may  have  given  to  Pilsudsky  at  War- 
saw, his  own  people  will  make  it  diffi- 
cult for  him  to  abide  by  his  word.  A 
Polish  victory  will  clear  the  Ukrain- 
ian house  of  one  intruder  but  bring 
another  to  the  gate.  Petlura,  there- 
fore, can  never  be  a  reliable  ally  to 
Poland.  The  force  of  circumstances 
will  compel  him,  sooner  or  later,  to 
turn  against  her,  as  he  turned,  un- 
willingly perhaps,  against  Denikin. 
And  thus  Bolshevism  bids  fair  again, 
as  after  the  betrayal  of  Denikin,  to 
reap  the  fruits  of  the  mistakes  and 
dissension  of  its  enemies. 


May  8,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[479 


Squaring    Grandfather 

pONSTANTIA,  we  heard  by  acci- 
^  dent  the  other  day,  has  "ac- 
cepted a  comrade."  True,  in  response 
to  the  scandalized  protests  of  elderly 
relatives,  some  sort  of  ceremony  was 
hastily  improvised,  but  the  young 
people  made  it  quite  plain  that  such 
mummery  meant  nothing  to  them. 
They  did  not  say  "it  meant  nothing 
in  their  young  lives."  In  neither  Con- 
stantia  nor  Dorastus  was  there  the 
slightest  trace  of  frivolity  or  vul- 
garity. Both  were  in  deadly  earnest 
and  quite  sure  of  their  ground.  They 
had  talked  it  all  out,  analyzed  them- 
selves and  each  other  with  laboratory 
thoroughness,  scrutinized  their  world 
with  the  eye  of  a  general  for  the  ene- 
my's weaknesses,  and  with  a  Napole- 
onic confidence  in  their  ability  to 
marshal  their  own  facts  precisely  at 
those  points  where  they  would  prove 
overwhelmingly  effective. 

Of  course,  there  was  no  reason  why 
Constantia  and  Dorastus  should  not 
marry.  Dorastus,  if  his  antecedents 
are  somewhat  vaguely  "European,"  is 
a  young  man  of  refinement  and  unde- 
niably clever.  Even  to  one  who  did 
not  quite  like  him  it  would  not  occur 
that  he  had  chosen,  if  indeed  he  could 
be  said  to  have  chosen,  Constantia 
for  the  sake  of  her  money.  Of  this 
Constantia  possesses  abundance,  in- 
herited from  her  dead  mother's 
father,  a  millionaire  whose  honest 
right  to  his  millions  it  occurred  to 
no  one  in  those  days  to  question.  The 
country,  indeed,  had  been  rather 
proud  of  him,  regarded  him  as  a  sort 
of  symbol  of  what  the  American  boy 
can  make  of  himself.  But  to  Con- 
stantia he  and  his  money — a  good 
part  of  it  hers  now — have  come  to 
symbolize  something  quite  different. 
She  would  not  deny  his  ability  nor  his 
good  nature — he  was  rather  a  genial 
old  cock — but  she  is  quite  sure  that 
for  whatever  he  did  in  the  world  he 
was  enormously  overpaid.  It  is  a  little 
difficult  to  get  Constantia  to  make 
herself  perfectly  plain  on  this  point, 
but  her  idea  seems  to  be  that  she  will 
use  grandfather's  millions  somehow 
to  square  grandfather  with  a  world 
which  he,  poor  man,  was  unaware  of 
having  offended. 


Just  how  this  is  to  be  accomplished 
will  no  doubt  develop  more  clearly 
as  she  goes  on.  Any  such  mediaeval 
notion  as  that  of  charity  is  of  course 
not  in  her  thoughts.  To  play  the 
pious  founder  or  the  lady  bountiful 
she  no  more  intends  than  she  intends 
discarding  her  cigarette  for  smelling 
salts.  Possibly  Dorastus  will  have 
further  suggestions,  and  the  friends 
they  have  in  common  still  more. 

He  could  not,  of  course,  tell  Con- 
stantia that  what  she  is  in  search  of 
in  "accepting  her  comrade"  is  ro- 
mance, that  what  she  is  really  trying 
to  do  with  grandfather's  money  is 
to  find  some  fresh  and  thrilling  way 
of  exercising  power.  One  can  not, 
indeed,  tell  Constantia  anything,  ex- 
cept such  things  as  she  wishes  to 
hear.  Tell  her  more  concerning  the 
social  perfection  of  far-away  Russia, 
and  her  face  will  light.  Apologize 
for  anything  as  it  exists  in  nearby 
America,  and  note  the  scorn  that  sits 
on  a  pretty  lip  which  seems  of  late, 
so  they  say,  to  have  grown  a  trifle 
hard.  There  is,  therefore,  no  man- 
ner of  use  in  trying  to  point  out  to 
Constantia  that  since  she  has  done,  or 
might  have  done,  everything  that  a 
whole  regiment  of  fairy  godmothers, 
be  their  wands  tipped  ever  so 
brightly,  could  possibly  do  for  her 
(since,  indeed,  ever  so  many  people 
who  are  nobody  in  particular  can  do 
quite  as  much  in  this  line  as  she) 
for  life  in  its  full,  fresh  savor  she 
must  look  elsewhere. 

To  play  Virginia  to  Dorastus's  Paul 
would,  however,  extinguish  them  both 
in  a  week;  the  tropical  island  would 
afford  no  sort  of  field  for  their  talents. 
To  sit  at  home,  either  in  her  father's 
house  or  in  her  own  and  Dorastus's — 
the  softer  the  cushion,  the  finer  the 
seam,  the  more  luscious  the  hothouse 
strawberries  and  Jersey  cream,  the 
more  intolerable  to  one  in  her  temper 
would  the  whole  business  become. 
Her  grandmother  distributed  soup 
and  flannels  and  good  advice;  her 
mother,  in  a  later  day,  went  "slum- 
ming." Constantia  will  naturally 
have  none  of  this  make-believe  for 
herself;  she  must  go  a-gipsying. 
Hardship — she  craves  it;  the  raw 
contacts  of  life,  hand  struck  in  hard 
hand — to  be  looked  up  to  amid  such 


circumstances  is  to  feel  the  full  joy 
of  the  fight;  if  she  went  to  jail  for 
it,  it  would  but  add  to  the  zest.  Un- 
able to  conquer  the  world  into  which 
she  was  born,  for  the  simple  reason 
that  she  found  the  world  already  de- 
livered captive  at  her  feet  as  soon  as 
she  could  be  aware  of  it,  she  scorns 
to  sigh  for  more  worlds;  she  will  in- 
vent one,  since  it  is  necessary. 

Presumably  this  mood  of  Constan- 
tia's  will  not  last  forever.  But  time 
is  a  concept  in  which  she  takes  very 
little  interest;  things  happen  for  her 
in  that  moment  just  ahead  which  we 
hasten  to  call  "now"  before  it  is  too 
late.  No  doubt  she  will  come  to  some 
sort  of  compromise  between  the 
power  which  her  money  plus  her 
brains  will  buy  her  in  the  new  world 
that  she  has  chosen  to  build  up  and 
the  comforts  of  the  old  world,  which 
she  will  discover  it  is  not  necessary 
wholly  to  abandon.  Possibly  Dorastus 
will  assist  her  to  the  discovery.  But 
in  that  hour,  we  fear,  she  will  make 
a  less  insistent  claim  upon  our  sym- 
pathy than  she  does  to-day,  so  young 
and  so  clever,  quaint  compound  of 
hope  and  disillusion,  part  martyr  and 
part  tyrant,  so  eager  for  life  and  so 
determined  to  refuse  life  until  it  is 
made  perfect  under  her  hand.  Many 
of  the  things  that  Constantia  wants 
she  will  doubtless  get;  at  what  ex- 
pense to  a  world  which,  in  certain  of 
the  aspects  she  herself  rather  pret- 
tily symbolizes,  she  does  not  reckon ; 
in  her  view,  things  could  not  possibly 
be  worse  in  any  case.  Getting  much 
of  what  she  wants,  whether  she  will 
find  herself  satisfied  is  another  mat- 
ter. It  is  by  no  means  certain  that 
she  wishes  to  be  satisfied ;  she  wishes 
to  want. 


THE  REVIEW 

A  weekly  journal  of  political  and 

general  discussion 

Published  by 

The  National  Weekly  Corporation 

140  Nassau  Street,  New  York 

Fabian   Franklin,  President 

Harold  de  Wolf  Fuller,  Treasurer 


Subscription     price,     five     dollars     a     year     in 
advance.     Fifteen  cents  a  copy.     Foreign  post- 
age,  one   dollar   extra;    Canadian   postage,   fifty 
cents  extra.     Foreign  subscriptions  may  be  sent 
to  Messrs.  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  Ltd.,  24,  Bed- 
ford  St.,   Strand,    London,    W.   C.   2,    England. 
Copyright,     1920.     in     the     United     States     of 
America 
Editors 
FABIAN  FRANKLIN 
HAROLD  DE  WOLF  FULLER 
Associate  Editors 
Harry  Morgan  Ayres     O.  W.  Firkins 
A.  J.  Barnouw  W.  H.  Johnson- 

Jerome  Landpield 


478] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol  2,  No.  52 


centripetal  tendencies  of  the  Polish 
spirit  as  it  manifests  itself  to  the 
outsider  in  the  policy  the  country  has 
adopted  since  its  revival.  The  ag- 
grandizement of  Poland,  regardless 
of  considerations  of  justice  due  to 
other  nationalities  and  of  the  dangers 
resulting  to  Europe  from  such  disre- 
gard, seems  to  be  the  sole  object  of 
the  men  now  in  power  at  Warsaw. 
They  demand  no  less  than  the  entire 
area  covered  by  Poland  before  the 
first  partition  of  1772,  which  would 
make  them  rulers  over  a  territory 
twice  as  large  as  France,  and  over  a 
population  the  majority  of  which  is 
of  non-Polish  nationality.  If  the 
right  of  self-determination  can  not 
serve  their  purpose,  they  base  their 
claim  on  historical  rights,  or  on  the 
economic  homogeneity  of  Poland  and 
her  neighbors,  or  on  strategic  neces- 
sity, or  on  the  plea  that  Europe  can 
be  protected  against  the  Bolshevist 
dangers  by  no  better  means  than  a 
strong  Poland. 

Apart  from  the  question  whether 
the  inclusion  within  Polish  territory 
of  non-Polish  races  would  not  prove  a 
diminution  of  strength  instead  of  a 
reinforcement,  there  is  good  reason 
to  doubt  the  wisdom  of  an  annexa- 
tionist policy  which  uses  the  Russian 
menace  as  an-  excuse.  Of  the  ineffi- 
ciency of  the  Soviet  forces  we  now 
possess  sufficient  evidence  to  con- 
sider it  an  established  fact.  But 
there  is  much  ground  for  the  fear  that 
the  Polish  offensive  which  that  ineffi- 
ciency invited  may  tend,  in  spite  of 
the  successes  which  the  Poles  claim  to 
have  won,  to  restore  to  Trotsky's 
army  some  of  its  lost  backbone.  One 
of  the  causes  which  made  for  its  un- 
trust worthiness  and  rendered  it  a 
dangerous  weapon  for  the  Soviet 
rulers  to  wield  was  the  growing  influ- 
ence of  the  cadre  over  the  soldiery. 
That  cadre  consists  mainly  of  Tsar- 
ist officers  who  were  not  wholly 
averse  to  serving  in  the  Red  army  be- 
cause the  expansionist  aims  of  Bol- 
shevism coincided  with  their  dreams 
of  a  reintegrated  Russia.  Without 
them  the  Soviet  would  have  had,  for 
an  army,  an  undisciplined  mob; 
without  the  army  the  officers  could 
not  hope  to  realize  their  dream.  The 
reliability  of  the  army,  therefore,  de- 


pended mainly  on  the  loyalty  of  the 
cadre,  which,  in  its  turn,  depended  on 
the  Soviet's  perseverance  in  its  ag- 
gressive policy  against  the  apostate 
border  republics.  Since  the  imminent 
economic  collapse  of  Soviet  Russia, 
however,  made  peace  with  the  non- 
Russian  world  imperative,  the  Tsarist 
officers  had  little  reason  to  persist  in 
their  fidelity  to  the  Commissaries  of 
Moscow.  The  latter  saw  their  own 
safety  from  attempts  at  revolution 
by  officers  popular  among  their  troops 
in  a  speedy  demobilization  and  en- 
listment of  the  discharged  soldiery  in 
the  labor  armies  organized  by 
Trotsky,  where  they  will  be  placed 
under  the  control  of  reliable  comrades 
acting  as  economic  instructors. 

And  at  this  very  moment,  when  Red 
Russia  is  making  herself  defense- 
less lest  she  should  wound  herself 
with  her  own  weapons,  steps  in  Gen- 
eral Pilsudsky  as  the  protector  of  Eu- 
rope against  Bolshevism,  and  scores 
an  easy  victory  at  the  risk  of  uniting 
again  the  Tsarist  officers  and  the 
Soviet  Commissaries — from  different 
motives,  to  be  sure — in  a  common 
cause.  The  seventh  army,  which 
Trotsky  had  begun  to  convert  into  a 
labor  force,  was  summoned  back  to 
arms  and  mobilized  anew  after  the 
Polish  Government,  by  its  exorbitant 
conditions,  had  made  peace  with 
Soviet  Russia  impossible.  The  ulti- 
mate failure,  after  repeated  suc- 
cesses, of  the  three  Russian  generals 
who  tried  to  oust  the  Bolsheviki  with 
the  help  of  the  Entente  has  taught  us 
that  foreign  intervention,  with  the 
inadequate  means  the  Allies  have  been 
willing  or  able  to  spare,  has  tended 
to  seat  the  Moscow  Commissaries 
more  firmly  in  the  saddle.  A  reversal 
in  Russia  must  come  from  within, 
and  the  forces  which  are  able  to  bring 
it  about  must  be  free  from  any  sus- 
picion of  being  agents  of  a  Western 
Power. 

Poland  is,  for  those  two  reasons, 
disqualified  as  a  liberator  of  suffering 
Russia.  She  is  only  a  pawn  of  France 
on  the  European  chess-board,  al- 
though she  is  now  acting  as  if  she 
were  the  queen  in  the  game.  Apart 
from  the  reaction  this  move  will  have 
on  the  internal  situation  in  Russia, 
it  will  widen  the  breach  in  the  bar- 


rier of  border  states  which  French 
Generals  and  diplomats  had  con- 
ceived as  a  rampart  against  Bolshe- 
vism, and  a  wall  against  German 
penetration  of  Russia.  The  relations 
between  Poland  and  Lithuania  are 
tense  to  the  breaking  point  on  account 
of  the  Polish  claim  of  Lithuanian  ter- 
ritory. That  is  why  Lithuania,  after 
the  conference  of  border  states  held 
at  Warsaw  in  March  of  this  year,  re- 
fused to  negotiate  peace  with  Soviet 
Russia  in  conjunction  with  Poland, 
Finland,  and  Latvia.  These  two 
other  states,  not  being  neighbors  of 
Poland,  have  no  feelings  of  hostility 
towards  her,  but  those  with  whom  she 
lives  in  close  contact  have  more  rea- 
son to  throw  up  barriers  against  her 
aggression  than  to  form,  together 
with  her,  a  barrier  against  Bolshe- 
vism. The  Ukrainians  under  Petlura 
are,  indeed,  reported  to  have  joined 
the  Poles  in  their  recent  offensive,  in 
the  hope  of  clearing,  with  Polish  help, 
the  Ukraine  of  Bolshevist  rule.  But 
the  price  to  be  paid  for  their  rescue 
is  said  to  be  the  renunciation,  in 
favor  of  Poland,  of  all  Ukrainian 
claims  on  the  rich  oil  district  of  East- 
ern Galicia.  The  deal  can  not  possi- 
bly have  the  approval  of  the  people 
as  whose  representative  Petlura  at- 
tended the  conference  of  border  states 
at  Warsaw.  The  Ukrainians  are  no 
less  inimical  to  Polish  aggression 
than  they  are  to  Bolshevist  rule.  The 
greater  Poland  restored  in  its  pre- 
partition  extent  would  comprise  thir- 
teen million  Ukrainians  and  advance 
the  Polish  frontier  to  within  a  short 
distance  from  the  Ukrainian  capital 
Kiev.  Whatever  undertakings  Pet- 
lura, from  personal  motives  perhaps, 
may  have  given  to  Pilsudsky  at  War- 
saw, his  own  people  will  make  it  diffi- 
cult for  him  to  abide  by  his  word.  A 
Polish  victory  will  clear  the  Ukrain- 
ian house  of  one  intruder  but  bring 
another  to  the  gate.  Petlura,  there- 
fore, can  never  be  a  reliable  ally  to 
Poland.  The  force  of  circumstances 
will  compel  him,  sooner  or  later,  to 
turn  against  her,  as  he  turned,  un- 
willingly perhaps,  against  Denikin. 
And  thus  Bolshevism  bids  fair  again, 
as  after  the  betrayal  of  Denikin,  to 
reap  the  fruits  of  the  mistakes  and 
dissension  of  its  enemies. 


May  8,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[479 


Squaring    Grandfather 

CONSTANTIA,  we  heard  by  acci- 
dent the  other  day,  has  "ac- 
cepted a  comrade."  True,  in  response 
to  the  scandalized  protests  of  elderly 
relatives,  some  sort  of  ceremony  was 
hastily  improvised,  but  the  young 
people  made  it  quite  plain  that  such 
mummery  meant  nothing  to  them. 
They  did  not  say  "it  meant  nothing 
in  their  young  lives."  In  neither  Con- 
stantia  nor  Dorastus  was  there  the 
slightest  trace  of  frivolity  or  vul- 
garity. Both  were  in  deadly  earnest 
and  quite  sure  of  their  ground.  They 
had  talked  it  all  out,  analyzed  them- 
selves and  each  other  with  laboratory 
thoroughness,  scrutinized  their  world 
with  the  eye  of  a  general  for  the  ene- 
my's weaknesses,  and  with  a  Napole- 
onic confidence  in  their  ability  to 
marshal  their  own  facts  precisely  at 
those  points  where  they  would  prove 
overwhelmingly  effective. 

Of  course,  there  was  no  reason  why 
Constantia  and  Dorastus  should  not 
marry.  Dorastus,  if  his  antecedents 
are  somewhat  vaguely  "European,"  is 
a  young  man  of  refinement  and  unde- 
niably clever.  Even  to  one  who  did 
not  quite  like  him  it  would  not  occur 
that  he  had  chosen,  if  indeed  he  could 
be  said  to  have  chosen,  Constantia 
for  the  sake  of  her  money.  Of  this 
Constantia  possesses  abundance,  in- 
herited from  her  dead  mother's 
father,  a  millionaire  whose  honest 
right  to  his  millions  it  occurred  to 
no  one  in  those  days  to  question.  The 
country,  indeed,  had  been  rather 
proud  of  him,  regarded  him  as  a  sort 
of  symbol  of  what  the  American  boy 
can  make  of  himself.  But  to  Con- 
stantia he  and  his  money — a  good 
part  of  it  hers  now — have  come  to 
symbolize  something  quite  difi'erent. 
She  would  not  deny  his  ability  nor  his 
good  nature — he  was  rather  a  genial 
old  cock — but  she  is  quite  sure  that 
for  whatever  he  did  in  the  world  he 
was  enormously  overpaid.  It  is  a  little 
difficult  to  get  Constantia  to  make 
herself  perfectly  plain  on  this  point, 
but  her  idea  seems  to  be  that  she  will 
use  grandfather's  millions  somehow 
to  square  grandfather  with  a  world 
which  he,  poor  man,  was  unaware  of 
having  offended. 


Just  how  this  is  to  be  accomplished 
will  no  'doubt  develop  more  clearly 
as  she  goes  on.  Any  such  mediaeval 
notion  as  that  of  charity  is  of  course 
not  in  her  thoughts.  To  play  the 
pious  founder  or  the  lady  bountiful 
she  no  more  intends  than  she  intends 
discarding  her  cigarette  for  smelling 
salts.  Possibly  Dorastus  will  have 
further  suggestions,  and  the  friends 
they  have  in  common  still  more. 

He  could  not,  of  course,  tell  Con- 
stantia that  what  she  is  in  search  of 
in  "accepting  her  comrade"  is  ro- 
mance, that  what  she  is  really  trying 
to  do  with  grandfather's  money  is 
to  find  some  fresh  and  thrilling  way 
of  exercising  power.  One  can  not, 
indeed,  tell  Constantia  anything,  ex- 
cept such  things  as  she  wishes  to 
hear.  Tell  her  more  concerning  the 
social  perfection  of  far-away  Russia, 
and  her  face  will  light.  Apologize 
for  anything  as  it  exists  in  nearby 
America,  and  note  the  scorn  that  sits 
on  a  pretty  lip  which  seems  of  late, 
so  they  say,  to  have  grown  a  trifle 
hard.  There  is,  therefore,  no  man- 
ner of  use  in  trying  to  point  out  to 
Constantia  that  since  she  has  done,  or 
might  have  done,  everything  that  a 
whole  regiment  of  fairy  godmothers, 
be  their  wands  tipped  ever  so 
brightly,  could  possibly  do  for  her 
(since,  indeed,  ever  so  many  people 
who  are  nobody  in  particular  can  do 
quite  as  much  in  this  line  as  she) 
for  life  in  its  full,  fresh  savor  she 
must  look  elsewhere. 

To  play  Virginia  to  Dorastus's  Paul 
would,  however,  extinguish  them  both 
in  a  week;  the  tropical  island  would 
afford  no  sort  of  field  for  their  talents. 
To  sit  at  home,  either  in  her  father's 
house  or  in  her  own  and  Dorastus's — 
the  softer  the  cushion,  the  finer  the 
seam,  the  more  luscious  the  hothouse 
strawberries  and  Jersey  cream,  the 
more  intolerable  to  one  in  her  temper 
would  the  whole  business  become. 
Her  grandmother  distributed  soup 
and  flannels  and  good  advice;  her 
mother,  in  a  later  day,  went  "slum- 
ming." Constantia  will  naturally 
have  none  of  this  make-believe  for 
herself;  she  must  go  a-gipsying. 
Hardship — she  craves  it;  the  raw 
contacts  of  life,  hand  struck  in  hard 
hand — to  be  looked  up  to  amid  such 


circumstances  is  to  feel  the  full  joy 
of  the  fight;  if  she  went  to  jail  for 
it,  it  would  but  add  to  the  zest.  Un- 
able to  conquer  the  world  into  which 
she  was  born,  for  the  simple  reason 
that  she  found  the  world  already  de- 
livered captive  at  her  feet  as  soon  as 
she  could  be  aware  of  it,  she  scorns 
to  sigh  for  more  worlds;  she  will  in- 
vent one,  since  it  is  necessary. 

Presumably  this  mood  of  Constan- 
tia's  will  not  last  forever.  But  time 
is  a  concept  in  which  she  takes  very 
little  interest;  things  happen  for  her 
in  that  moment  just  ahead  which  we 
hasten  to  call  "now"  before  it  is  too 
late.  No  doubt  she  will  come  to  some 
sort  of  compromise  between  the 
power  which  her  money  plus  her 
brains  will  buy  her  in  the  new  world 
that  she  has  chosen  to  build  up  and 
the  comforts  of  the  old  world,  which 
she  will  discover  it  is  not  necessary 
wholly  to  abandon.  Possibly  Dorastus 
will  assist  her  to  the  discovery.  But 
in  that  hour,  we  fear,  she  will  make 
a  less  insistent  claim  upon  our  sym- 
pathy than  she  does  to-day,  so  young 
and  so  clever,  quaint  compound  of 
hope  and  disillusion,  part  martyr  and 
part  tyrant,  so  eager  for  life  and  so 
determined  to  refuse  life  until  it  is 
made  perfect  under  her  hand.  Many 
of  the  things  that  Constantia  wants 
she  will  doubtless  get;  at  what  ex- 
pense to  a  world  which,  in  certain  of 
the  aspects  she  herself  rather  pret- 
tily symbolizes,  she  does  not  reckon ; 
in  her  view,  things  could  not  possibly 
be  worse  in  any  case.  Getting  much 
of  what  she  wants,  whether  she  will 
find  herself  satisfied  is  another  mat- 
ter. It  is  by  no  means  certain  that 
she  wishes  to  be  satisfied ;  she  wishes 
to  want. 


THE  REVIEW 

A  weekly  journal  of  political  and 

general  discussion 

Published  by 

The  National  Weekly  Corporation 

140  Nassau  Street,  New  York 

Fabian   Franklin,  President 

Harold  de  Wolf  Fuller,  Treasurer 


Subscription     price,     five     dollars     a    ^ear     in 
advance.     Fifteen  cents  a  copy.     Foreign  post- 
age,  one   dollar   extra;    Canadian   postage,   fifty 
cents  extra.     Foreign  subscriptions  may  be  sent 
to  Messrs.  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  Ltd.,  24,  Bed- 
ford  St.,   Strand,    London,    W.    C.   2,   England. 
Copyright,     1920.     in     the     United     States     of 
America 
Editors 
FABIAN  FRANKLIN 
HAROLD  DE  WOLF  FULLER 
Associate  Editors 
Harry  Morgan  Ayres     O.  W.  Firkins 
A.  J.  Barnouw  W.  H.  Johnson 

Jerome  Landfield 


480] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol  2,  No.  52 


Aggressive  Poland 


'T'HE  Polish  military  operations  in 
Ukraina,  which  began  last  week 
so  unexpectedly  and  developed  so 
swiftly,  represent  a  political  move- 
ment of  tremendous  importance.  Fol- 
lowing so  closely  upon  the  peace 
parleys  between  Warsaw  and  Mos- 
cow, they  are  much  more  than  the 
mere  resumption  of  hostilities  over 
boundaries.  The  proclamation  issued 
by  the  Pilsudsky  Government,  stating 
the  objects  sought,  makes  that  quite 
clear. 

A  new  element  has  entered  into  the 
situation.     The  Polish   troops  have 
set  out  with  the  avowed  purpose  of 
expelling  the  Soviet  troops  and  of 
reestablishing   the    Petlura    Govern- 
ment as  the  Government  of  an  inde- 
pendent   Ukraina.      What    Poland's 
purpose  is  in  engaging  upon  so  huge 
an  enterprise  may  be  inferred  by  con- 
sidering her  aspirations,  and  the  role 
assigned  to  her  by  the  great  Powers. 
The  reestablishment  of  Poland  as 
an  independent  state  has  always  been 
connected  with  the  idea  of  the  neces- 
sity of  a  buffer  state  between  Russia 
and  Germany.     Now,  a  buffer  state, 
in  order  to  be  secure,  either  must  be 
strong  enough   (on  its  own  account 
or  through  outside  backing)  to  with- 
stand possible  attacks,  or  must  make 
friends  with  one  of  its  neighbors. 
Neither  of  these  obvious  conditions 
was  arranged    for   in   the    creation 
of  Poland.     Numerically  small  and 
strategically      weak,      Poland      can 
scarcely  be  considered  as  a  powerful 
militarj'  barrier  between  much  larger 
and  stronger  Germany  and  Russia. 
The  great  Powers  backing  her  are  far 
away  and  cut  off  from  her.    As  for 
her   great   neighbors,    Poland   hates 
both    of    them    too    much    to    make 
friends  with  either. 

Finding  herself  in  such  a  position, 
Poland  has  begun  the  policy  of  gath- 
ering new  small  states  of  Eastern 
Europe  into  a  political  alliance ;  and, 
as  any  new  states  in  the  East  could 
only  be  carved  out  of  Russia,  it  was  to 
Poland's  advantage  to  work  for  Rus- 
sia's dismemberment. 

The  course  of  Russian  history  dur- 
ing the  past  months  has  been  of  great 


assistance  to  Poland  in  the  further- 
ance of  her  plans.  It  was  particularly 
so  in  the  northwestern  corner  of  the 
former  Russian  Empire,  in  the  so- 
called  Baltic  Provinces,  where  four 
definite  groups  aspire  to  the  dignity 
of  independent  statehood.  The  per- 
sistence of  the  Soviet  regime  in  Cen- 
tral Russia  and  the  policy  of  the  great 
Powers  have  given  them,  at  least 
temporarily,  the  dignity  that  they 
sought.  Three  of  these  new  states, 
Finland,  Esthonia,  and  Latvia,  Po- 
land has  hastened  to  recognize.  She 
has  gone  farther:  she  has  made 
treaties  with  them  of  such  a  nature 
as  to  make  herself  more  or  less  dom- 
inant on  the  Eastern  Baltic.  Lithu- 
ania is  apparently  out  of  this  alliance, 
because,  no  doubt,  of  the  territorial 
disputes  which  Poland  and  she  have 
carried  on. 

Such  an  arrangement  in  the  north- 
west is  ideal  for  Poland.  In  the  first 
place,  Great  Russia  is  thus  cut  off 
from  the  ports  of  the  Baltic  and  is 
permanently  crippled.  And  in  the 
second  place,  Poland  has  under  her 
potential  control  very  important  new 
states. 

Having  thus  completed  her  ar- 
rangements in  the  north  with  a  fair 
degree  of  success,  Poland  now  finds 
it  possible  to  turn  her  attention  to 
the  south.  Here  the  decisive  factor 
is  Ukraina.  United  with  Great  Rus- 
sia, Ukraina  would  add  greatly  to  the 
latter's  strength.  With  Ukraina  sep- 
arated. Great  Russia  would  be  really 
weakened,  reduced  temporarily  to  the 
status  of  a  comparatively  small,  land- 
locked state.  To  this  extent,  surely, 
Poland  is  interested  in  the  independ- 
ence of  Ukraina. 

But  there  is  another  and  a  larger 
advantage  that  attaches  itself  to  Po- 
land's interest  in  the  Ukrainian  in- 
dependence. Poland's  ambitious  lead- 
ers conceive  the  possibility  of  draw- 
ing Ukraina,  once  independent,  into 
the  Polish  sphere  of  influence.  With 
the  Baltic  under  Poland's  virtual 
domination,  and  with  the  Ukrainian 
resources  under  her  control,  what 
possibilities  are  not  open  to  her? 
And  why  not?    The  palm  of  Slavic 


supremacy  is  now  hanging  in  the  bal- 
ance. Russia  has  held  it  tightly  for 
centuries.  Now  Russia  is  prostrate 
and  broken.  There  is  no  doubt 
that  eventually  she  will  regain  her 
strength.  But  now  is  the  time  to 
make  Russia's  full  reconstruction  im- 
possible for  a  long  time  to  come.  If 
Poland  can  do  it,  then  Poland  will  be 
the  leader  of  the  Slavs,  that  huge 
fourth  element  of  Europe. 

There  is  no  doubt,  however,  that 
the  possibility  of  the  realization  of 
such  a  plan  is  a  mere  gambler's 
chance.  The  important  element  of 
weakness  in  it  is  the  character  of  the 
Ukrainian  movement  which  the  Poles 
are  now  supporting  with  the  strength 
of  their  arms.  There  is  no  indica- 
tion that  the  Petlura  movement  ever 
had  any  real  popular  support.  Simon 
Petlura  and  his  Government  came 
into  power  soon  after  the  armistice. 
It  was  at  the  time  when  the  Germans 
were  compelled  to  withdraw  their  as- 
sistance from  the  Government  of  Het- 
man  Skoropadsky,  which  had  been 
set  up  by  them.  No  longer  supported 
by  the  German  troops,  the  Skoro- 
padsky Government  was  swiftly 
enough  turned  out  by  the  rising  tide 
of  dissatisfied  peasants,  who  endured 
the  Hetman's  regime  only  as  long  as 
it  was  forced  upon  the  country  by 
the  German  bayonets.  Petlura  and 
several  of  his  associates  made  use  of 
the  peasants'  protest  to  establish  a 
short-lived  rule  in  Kiev.  But  the 
masses  of  the  people  never  rallied  to 
their  support,  and  it  did  not  take 
much  effort  on  the  part  of  the  Bol- 
sheviki  to  dislodge  them. 

Forced  to  flee  from  the  capital, 
Petlura  made  numerous  efforts  to 
gather  forces  about  him.  For  a  time 
his  chief  occupation  was  the  struggle 
against  the  Poles  for  the  fate  of 
Eastern  Galicia,  which  was  finally 
awarded  to  Poland  by  the  Supreme 
Council.  Petlura's  relations  with 
Denikin  were  also  unfriendly,  for  his 
stock  in  trade  was  Ukrainian  sep- 
aratism, while  Denikin  fought  for  the 
reunification  of  Russia.  How  Pet- 
lura finally  made  friends  with  the 
Poles,  against  whom  he  had  fought  so 
long  and  so  bitterly,  is  not  known  as 
yet.  Nor  is  it  really  very  important, 
except    on    one    point:    what    price 


May  8,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[481 


did  he  have  to  pay  for  the   Polish 
assistance? 

It  is  obvious  that  Petlura  has  little 
to  give,  except  very  sweeping  prom- 
ises for  the  future.  Eastern  Galicia 
is  already  Poland's.  It  is  scarcely 
conceivable  that  the  Poles  would  ask 
for,  and  that  Petlura  would  make, 
territorial  concessions.  Obviously  Pet- 
lura has  given  the  one  promise  that 
the  Poles  need  for  the  completion  of 
their  ambitious  plans :  he  must  have 
promised  to  place  Ukraina  under  Po- 
land's influence. 

But  there  is  no  reason  to  expect 
that  the  Petlura  movement  will  have 
a  larger  support  in  Ukraina  now  than 
it  had  previously.  The  period  of  the 
occupation  of  Ukraina  by  the  Volun- 
teer Army  has  furnished  enough  evi- 
dence of  the  fact  that  the  masses  of 
the  people  in  Ukraina  do  not  desire 
separation  from  Russia.  To  force 
separation  upon  them  through  the 
instrumentality  of  Petlura's  Govern- 
ment, upheld  by  Polish  troops,  is  an 
action  that  is  fraught  with  danger. 

Yet  it  is  conceivable  that  the  Polish 
operations  in  Ukraina,  if  successful 
in  a  military  way,  may  hasten  the 
downfall  of  the  Soviet  regime  in  Rus- 
sia. To  this  extent,  much  good  may 
come  oiit  of  the  affair.  For  the 
rest,  it  can  only  lead  to  the  accu- 
mulation of  resentments  and  en- 
mities, which  must  seek  to  discharge 
themselves  in  future  wars.  And  it 
will  have  bad  results  for  Poland  her- 
self. For  after  the  overthrow  of 
the  Soviet  Government,  through  the 
mounting  spirit  of  nationalism,  Rus- 
sia's existence  as  a  great  nation  will 
depend  upon  a  reunification  of  almost 
all  of  her  former  territory.  She  is 
not  prepared  to  give  up  her  su- 
premacy in  the  Slavic  world.  Though 
temporarily  shorn  of  some  of  her  ter- 
ritories, Russia  will  still  remain 
overwhelmingly  larger  than  Poland, 
whose  huge  dream  of  leadership  and 
power  is  built  on  the  sands  of  Rus- 
sia's temporary  weakness. 

In  a  few  more  years  Poland  may 
find  herself  clamped  in  an  iron 
vise,  formed  by  hostile  Germany  and 
furiously  resentful  Russia.  Such  a 
situation  must  result  in  violent  blood- 
shed. 

Leo  Pasvolsky 


Presidential  Inability 


[Mr.  Wilson's  improved  health  has  removed 
from  the  problem  of  the  disability  of  a  Presi- 
dent to  perform  the  duties  of  his  office  any 
pressure  of  present  urgency.  But  the  experi- 
ence of  the  half-year  during  which  his  illness 
was  serious  serves  as  ample  reason  for  dis- 
cussnig  this  important  and  delicate  question  on 
Its   merits.] 

SEVERAL  proposals  have  been  made  in 
Congress  to  decide  how  the  fact  of 
Presidential  inability  to  act  may  be  deter- 
mined, and  if  the  House  Judiciary  Com- 
mittee can  agree,  it  will  doubtless  make 
some  recommendation.  But  the  chances 
of  early  action  are  not  great,  since  the 
questions  of  constitutional  law  and  politi- 
cal policy  are  difficult  and  important  and, 
judging  from  the  attitude  of  Congress 
hitherto,  a  decision  will  be  long  delayed. 
Not  until  1886  did  Congress  amend  the 
Presidential  Succession  Law  of  1792, 
which  was  admittedly  inadequate  and 
perhaps  unconstitutional.  But  the  ques- 
tion should  be  answered:  if  the  Presi- 
dent is  unable  to  act,  who  is  to  determine 
how  administrative  decisions  are  to  be 
made  and  other  public  business  proceeded 
with,  in  order  that  the  Government  may 
not  suffer  a  collapse  similar  to  that  of 
recent  months  which  culminated  in  Secre- 
tary Lansing's  resignation? 

The  framers  of  the  Constitution  at- 
tempted to  guard  against  an  interregnum 
by  providing  that 

In  the  case  of  the  removal  of  tlie  President 
from  office,  or  his  death,  resignation,  or  in- 
ability to  discharge  the  powers  and  duties  of 
the  said  office,  the  same  shall  devolve  on  the 
Vice-President,  and  the  Congress  may  by  law 
provide  for  the  case  of  removal,  death,  resig- 
nation, or  inability,  both  of  the  President  and 
Vice-President,  declaring  what  officer  shall 
then  act  as  President,  and  such  officer  shall 
act  accordingly  until  the  disability  be  removed 
or  a  President  shall  be  elected. 

This  provision,  although  in  ambiguous 
terms,  at  least  considers  every  possibility 
except  the  death  of  the  President  or  Vice- 
President  subsequent  to  election  but 
prior  to  inauguration.  That  contingency, 
fortunately,  has  never  confronted  the 
country,  but  Congress  has  not  attempted 
to  take  measures  to  deal  with  it.  In 
five  cases,  owing  to  death,  the  Vice- 
President  has  become  Chief  Magistrate: 
Tyler,  Fillmore,  Johnson,  Arthur,  and 
Roosevelt.  Johnson  was  threatened  with 
removal,  but  no  President  has  ever  sug- 
gested resignation,  and  the  mention  of 
this  method  of  vacating  the  office  is  the 
only  joke  in  the  Federal  Constitution. 

The  Act  of  March  1,  1792,  provided 
that  the  President  of  the  Senate  pro  tem- 
pore and  the  Speaker  of  the  House  of 
Representatives  should  follow  the  Vice- 
President  in  succession  to  the  Presidency. 
There  were,  however,  a  number  of  ob- 
jections to  this  arrangement.  Its  con- 
stitutionality was  open  to  question,  since 


it  was  not  certain  that  the  Speaker  and 
President  pro  tempore  were  officers  of  the 
United  States  within  the  meaning  of  the 
term  as  used  in  the  Constitution.  In  the 
second  place — and  Madison  was  among 
those  who  pointed  this  out — if  one  of 
these  Congressional  officials  went  to  the 
White  House  there  was  no  requirement 
that  he  give  up  his  original  duties  and 
his  executive  and  legislative  functions 
might  conflict.  Thirdly,  between  Con- 
gresses there  is  no  Speaker  of  the  House, 
and  until  1890  the  President  of  the  Sen- 
ate pro  tempore  did  not  hold  over;  con- 
sequently, if  the  President  and  Vice- 
President  should  die  during  this  interim 
difficulties  would  ensue. 

There  were  a  number  of  attempts  to 
change  the  law.  In  1820  the  Senate 
Judiciary  Committee  was  ordered  to  re- 
port whether  any  changes  were  neces- 
sary. It  replied  unanimously  that  at  that 
time  it  was  inexpedient  to  legislate.  In 
1856  the  Committee  on  the  Judiciary 
reported  that  the  act  was  constitutional, 
but  suggested  that  if  there  should  be 
a  vacancy  in  the  offices  of  Speaker  and 
President  of  the  Senate  pro  tempore,  the 
Chief  Justice  of  the  United  States  (pro- 
vided he  had  not  presided  at  an  impeach- 
ment) and  then  the  associate  justices  of 
the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States 
should  succeed  according  to  seniority. 
No  action  was  taken  by  the  Senate  on 
this  report  and  the  matter  was  not 
pressed  until  1881. 

Before  Congress  met  in  December  of 
that  year  and  before  either  the  Speaker 
of  the  House  or  the  President  pro 
tempore  of  the  Senate  had  been  chosen, 
Garfield  died.  The  fact  that  for  some 
time  he  was  unable  to  perform  the  duties 
of  his  office,  caused  the  question  of  in- 
ability to  be  discussed;  and  when,  in 
1885,  during  Cleveland's  administration, 
Vice-President  Hendricks  died,  some 
legislative  action  was  felt  to  be  neces- 
sary. In  both  cases,  if  the  incumbents 
of  the  Presidential  office — Presidents 
Arthur  and  Cleveland— had  died  during 
the  Congressional  recesses  there  would 
have  been  no  one  to  take  their  places. 
More  than  that,  it  was  possible  for  the 
office  to  go  to  a  member  of  the  political 
party  which  had  been  defeated  in  the 
election,  for,  during  Cleveland's  term, 
Senators  Sherman  and  Ingalls  were 
Presidents  pro  tempore  of  the  Senate  and 
were  Republicans. 

On  January  19,  1886,  therefore.  Con- 
gress passed  a  law  providing  that,  if  the 
constitutional  provision  were  invoked, 
succession  to  the  Presidency  should  vest 
in  the  Vice-President,  the  Secretary  of 
State,  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  the 
Secretary  of  War,  the  Attorney  General, 
the  Postmaster  General,  the  Secretary  of 
the  Navy,  and  the  Secretary  of  the  In- 


482] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol  2,  No.  52 


terior  in  the  order  named, 
declared 


The  act  also 


That  whenever  the  powers  and  duties  of  the 
oflke  of  President  of  the  United  States  shall 
devolve  upon  any  of  the  persons  named  herein, 
if  Congress  be  not  then  in  session,  or  if  it 
would  not  meet  in  accordance  with  the  law 
within  twenty  days  thereafter,  it  shall  be  the 
duty  of  the  person  upon  whom  such  powers 
and  duties  shall  devolve  to  issue  a  proclama- 
tion convening  Congress  in  extraordinary  ses- 
sion, giving  twenty  days  notice  of  the  time  of 
meeting. 

This  statute,  however,  does  not  at- 
tempt to  settle  two  important  points.  In 
the  first  place,  it  seems  to  be  agreed  that 
Congress  has  the  power  to  order  a  special 
election  to  fill  a  vacancy.  The  Act  of 
1792  provided  that  an  election  should  be 
held,  but  the  question  was  left  open  in 
the  act  of  1886.  Senator  Hoar  offered 
an  amendment  giving  the  person  who 
succeeded  to  the  Presidency  the  right  to 
serve  until  the  expiration  of  the  regular 
term,  but  this  was  defeated  and  Congress 
apparently  reserves  the  right  to  order  an 
election  if  it  deems  wise.  If  a  President 
were  chosen  under  an  intermediate  elec- 
tion his  term  would  be  four  years  and 
that  would  destroy  the  present  syn- 
chrony between  the  executive  and  legisla- 
tive branches.  It  is  possible,  moreover, 
to  imagine  cases  of  conflict  between  the 
executive  and  legislature  when  Congress 
would  use  this  method  for  getting  rid  of 
a  President  to  whom  it  objected,  and  an 
acting  President  could  veto  a  measure 
providing  for  a  special  election.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  Constitution  unquestion- 
ably contemplated  that  only  persons 
chosen  by  the  Electoral  College  should 
serve  as  Presidents.  Fortunately,  how- 
ever, the  succession  has  never  gone  fur- 
ther than  the  Vice-President  and  the  dif- 
ficulties which  undeniably  exist  need  not 
be  solved  until  they  confront  us. 

The  second  and  more  serious  question 
is  the  meaning  of  "inability,"  and  here 
the  writers  are  in  almost  complete  dis- 
agreement. Professor  W.  W.  Willoughby, 
the  leading  authority  on  American  con- 
stitutional law,  simply  states  the  prob- 
lem and  does  not  attempt  to  answer  it: 

In  the  absence  of  a  definition  who  is  to  de- 
termine, and  what  conditions  are  to  be  held  to 
create,  an  inability  on  the  part  of  the  President 
to  perform  his  official  duties?  What  is  to  be 
done  in  case  the  President  is  temporarily  dis- 
abled by  sickness  or  accident,  or  insanity? 
Who  is  to  decide  and  by  what  criteria,  when 
this  disablement  is  so  serious  and  so  prolonged 
as  to  require  the  appointment  of  an  acting 
President  ? 

The  most  elaborate  discussion  of  these 
questions  is  to  be  found  in  the  North 
American  Review  for  November,  1881. 
Four  distinguished  constitutional  au- 
thorities contributed  to  an  interesting 
symposium  on  "Presidential  Inability," 
aproix>s  of  the  illness  of  President  Gar- 
field. The  President's  death  rendered 
unnecessary  any  decision  in  his  case,  but 
the  various  possibilities  were  fully  con- 


sidered and  widely  differing  opinions 
were  expressed. 

Senator  Trumbull  took  the  position 
that  as  no  proof  was  required  when  the 
president  died,  "so  in  the  case  of  inabil- 
ity the  fact  must  be  so  notorious  that 
there  can  be  no  reasonable  doubt  about 
it,  nor  that  an  urgency  exists  requiring 
immediate  action  on  important  matters, 
before  the  Vice-President  would  be  war- 
ranted in  assuming  the  duties  of  the 
President.  When  such  a  case  arises,  the 
people  will  not  only  acquiesce  in  the  dis- 
charge of  the  Presidential  duties  by  the 
Vice-President,  but  will  demand  that  he 
exercise  them." 

Senator  Trumbull  questioned  whether 
any  law  could  be  passed  improving  this 
situation.  Ours  is  a  people's  government, 
he  argued,  and  peaceful  succession  to  the 
highest  office  must  depend  upon  the  sup- 
port of  public  opinion.  This  support  is 
both  necessary  and  sufficient  in  cases  of 
inability  as  well  as  in  cases  of  election. 

Judge  Cooley,  the  eminent  writer  on 
constitutional  law,  urged  that  the  ques- 
tion of  inability  was  one  for  Congress  to 
determine.  "It  is  possible,"  he  said,  "for 
a  case  to  arise  so  plain,  so  unmistakably 
determined  in  the  public  judgment,  that 
public  opinion,  with  unanimous  concur- 
rence, would  summon  the  Vice-President 
to  act.  But  though  this  would  make 
him  acting  President  de  facto,  he  would 
become  acting  President  de  jure  only 
after  solemn  recognition  in  some  form 
by  Congress."  Such  recognition,  it  may 
be  said,  has  always  been  given,  even  if 
only  in  the  form  of  a  communication  tell- 
ing the  new  incumbent  of  the  Presidency 
that  Congress  has  organized  and  is  wait- 
ing for  his  message.  And  Judge  Cooley 
argued  that  since  Congress  has  the  power 
to  embarrass  and  to  tie  the  hands  of  the 
Vice-President,  Congress  is  competent  to 
declare  when  the  inability  exists. 

The  third  contributor  to  this  sym- 
posium was  Benjamin  F.  Butler,  who 
thought  that  the  question  of  inability 
was  a  judicial  one  on  which  Congress 
could  not  pass.  He  took  it  to  be  "axio- 
matic that  when  the  Constitution  imposes 
a  duty  on  any  officer,  to  be  done  by  him, 
he  must  be  the  sole  judge  when  and  how 
to  do  that  duty,  subject  only  to  his  re- 
sponsibility to  the  people  and  to  the  risk 
of  impeachment  if  he  act  improperly  or 
corruptly,"  and  if  in  certain  cases  the 
discharge  of  the  duties  of  the  President 
devolves  upon  the  Vice-President,  "he 
alone  must  judge,  under  the  grave  re- 
sponsibility of  his  position,  when  his 
duties  begin,  as  he  must  determine  how 
and  in  what  manner  he  will  exercise 
them." 

Professor  Dwight,  on  the  other  hand, 
took  the  view  that  public  opinion  would 
not  be  able  to  restrain  an  ambitious  man 
eager  to  occupy  the  Presidential  seat. 
He  suggested  that  "some  proper  legal 
proceeding  might  be  instituted  by  Con- 


gress, in  which  the  evidence  required  by 
law  might  be  presented  under  the  gen- 
eral power  to  carry  into  execution  all 
powers  vested  by  the  Constitution  in  any 
department  or  officer  of  the  Government." 

It  is  evident  that  these  views  do  not 
disclose  any  agreement  as  to  what  con- 
stitutes and  who  determines  Presidential 
inability.  Certain  opinions  expressed  by 
these  writers,  however,  may  be  accepted. 
The  support  of  public  opinion  is  neces- 
sary if  any  one  is  to  succeed  to  the 
Presidential  office;  the  responsibility  of 
the  Vice-President  is  heavy;  Congress 
must  approve,  or  a  dangerous  instance 
of  disunion  between  the  executive  and 
legislative  branches  might  occur.  The 
Constitution  unquestionably  contemplated 
temporary  inability,  and  it  can  be  pro- 
vided for  without  submitting  an  amend- 
ment to  the  States.  The  Vice-President 
and  the  Cabinet,  with  the  support  of 
Congress,  are  competent  to  determine  the 
matter. 

President  Wilson  ought  to  be  rather 
reluctant  to  criticize  any  efforts  which 
were  made  during  his  illness  to  prevent 
complete  governmental  inaction.  Cer- 
tainly the  disposition  of  every  one — Con- 
gress, the  Vice-President,  the  Cabinet, 
and  the  public — was  against  raising  the 
question  of  how  the  inability  should  be 
met.  That  it  existed  was  sure.  To  men- 
tion only  one  evidence,  twenty-eight  bills 
became  law  during  the  special  session  of 
Congress  owing  to  the  failure  of  the 
Executive  to  act  within  ten  days  (exclu- 
sive of  Sundays)  after  their  receipt  at 
the  White  House;  and  when  full  dis- 
closures are  made  as  to  the  nature  and 
times  of  the  President's  complete  inabil- 
ity to  act,  it  will  be  interesting  to  check 
them  up  with  the  dates  on  which  bills 
were  signed.  For  example,  the  President 
was  able  to  veto  the  Prohibition  En- 
forcement act  on  October  27,  but  he  did 
not  approve  two  statutes  which  became 
law  on  October  22  and  25,  and  he  failed 
to  sign  Public  Laws  Numbers  67  to  82 
inclusive  (October  28  to  November  18), 
with  the  exception  of  Number  73,  the 
first  General  Deficiency  Law  for  1920, 
which  was  signed  on  November  4.  After 
November  18  practically  all  of  the  bills 
became  law  with  the  signature  of  the 
President. 

The  Vice-President,  supported  by  Con- 
gress, could,  under  these  circumstances, 
I  think,  have  asserted  the  right  to  act 
for  the  period  of  the  emergency.  But  the 
Vice-President  is  an  anomalous  officer  of 
the  United  States,  who  presides  over  the 
Senate  while  he  waits  for  the  President 
to  die.  Although  by  the  Constitution 
he  succeeds  to  the  Presidency,  he  is,  in 
most  cases,  totally  unfamiliar  with  the 
problems  of  the  Administration.  In 
spite  of  the  fact  that,  for  long  periods, 
Mr.  Wilson's  Cabinet  was  ignored,  this 
body  was  the  best  qualified  to  deal  with 
the  problems  that  needed  consideration. 


May  8,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[483 


A  wise  President  might  have  asked  Sec- 
retary Lansing  to  call  his  colleagues  to- 
gether, and  I  can  not  see  that  the  in- 
formal Cabinet  meetings  constituted  a 
dangerous  precedent.  The  President, 
perhaps,  does  not  know  that  they  were 
the  only  evidence  to  the  public  that  there 
was  any  Government  in  Washington,  and 
they  may  have  saved  Mr.  Wilson  the  em- 
barrassment of  having  the  question  of 
inability  brought  to  a  settlement  by  Con- 
gress or  by  the  Vice-President,  in  re- 
sponse to  public  opinion. 

What  seems  to  be  required  in  the 
future  is  a  simple  statute  saying  that  if 
the  President  is  temporarily  unable  to 
act  he  shall  notify  the  Vice-President 
and  request  him  to  consult  with  the  Cabi- 
net— as  was  done  during  Mr.  Wilson's 
absence  abroad;  and  that  if  the  fact  of 
the  President's  inability  is  notorious,  and 
yet  this  action  is  not  taken  by  him,  the 
Vice-President  shall  meet  with  the  Cabi- 
net, informing  Congress  of  the  situa- 
tion, or  calling  it  into  special  session,  if 
this  is  necessary.     The  Supreme  Court 


of  the  United  States  could  not  be  com- 
pelled to  pass  on  the  question  without  a 
constitutional  amendment  enlarging  its 
jurisdiction,  and  in  any  event  it  would 
be  a  political  matter  similar  to  those 
which  the  court  has  hitherto  wisely 
avoided  taking  any  part  in. 

It  is  true  that  such  a  statute  as  the 
one  suggested  might  encourage  an  ambi- 
tious Vice-President  to  attempt  to  in- 
terpret a  temporary  indisposition  as 
constitutional  inability,  but  the  fear  of 
Congress  and  of  public  opinion  would,  I 
think,  be  an  effective  bar.  And,  after  all, 
it  would  simply  be  one  more  of  those 
political  arrangements  which  for  their 
success  depend  on  that  "natural  senti- 
ment" which  the  historian  Grote  called 
"constitutional  morality" :  "a  perfect  con- 
fidence in  the  bosom  of  every  citizen, 
amidst  the  bitterness  of  party  contest, 
that  the  forms  of  the  Constitution  will 
be  no  less  sacred  in  the  eyes  of  his 
opponents  than  in  his  own." 


Lindsay  Rogers 


The  Radical  in  Fiction 


"rpHE  Radical  in  Fiction,"  cast  by  the 
A  malice  of  some  strife-goddess  as  a 
topic  of  talk  into  the  midst  of  the  little 
circle  of  camp-followers  of  literature, 
threatened  to  prove  a  flaming  ball  of 
strife.  Fierce  old  Mastodon,  who  had 
well  earned  his  title  by  unswerving 
fidelity  to  the  megatherium  and  its  men- 
tal states,  passionately  hailed,  as  leader 
of  the  deed,  Satan,  him  whom  Milton 
drew.  Had  not  the  Arch-fiend  a  three- 
fold claim  to  priority  among  radicals? 
He  had  been  deservedly  deported  from 
Heaven  not  only  for  seducing  by  false 
and  blasphemous  argument,  still  the 
stock-in-trade  of  Communists  of  his  kid- 
ney ("Flatly  unjust  to  bind  with  laws 
the  free!"),  divers  erring  spirits,  fond 
a<d  foolish,  but  for  actually  taking  up 
arms  against  the  celestial  government — 
the  wonted  treason  of  his  present  crew. 
In  Hell  the  accursed  firebrand  had  fur- 
ther bred  sedition  by  utterances — still 
current  among  his  agents — full  of  "re- 
venge, immortal  hate  and  courage  never 
to  submit  or  yield"  at  a  Stygian  Coun- 
cil, the  prototype  of  many  Soviets.  And 
finally,  after  a  preparatory  flight  through 
Chaos,  a  vast  pulp  or  welter  of  radical 
sentiment  and  opinion,  this  first  of  dema- 
gogues had  turned  feminist  for  the 
nonce,  and,  with  the  guile  of  the  Ser- 
pent, had  shattered  the  earthly  paradise 
by  tempting  woman  to  eat  of  the  tree  of 
Knowledge. 

For  a  moment  we  held  our  breath. 
Then  our  sputtering  Lucifer,  born 
Streichholz  but  rechristened  in  1917, 
kindled  always  by  the  sparks  of  such 
children  of  light  as  Shelley  and  Heine, 
vehemently  extols  Prometheus,  the  first 


champion  of  mankind.  Was  it  not  he 
who  defied  the  despotism  of  Jove  the 
oppressor  and  sturdily  combated  the 
evils  that  reign  in  established  govern- 
ment? Was  not  humanity,  in  his  person, 
first  liberated  from  the  yoke  of  a  ruler 
and  regenerated  through  its  union  with 
love?  Did  not  this  protagonist  point  the 
way  to  that  golden  age,  when  man  will 
walk,  free,  uncircumscribed,  unclassed 
and  nationless,  exempt  from  awe,  wor- 
ship, degree,  king  over  himself  and  no 
other?  Surely  Prometheus  and  not 
Satan  was  the  first  radical. 

Then  our  prosaic  Verbalist,  who  wings 
no  luminous  flights  through  time  and 
space  even  in  pursuit  of  panting  words, 
but  clings  close  to  earth,  hatching  only 
those  eggs  of  wisdom  laid  in  the  pigeon- 
holes of  the  Oxford  Dictionary's  scrip- 
torium, dryly  cackles,  in  dogmatic  pro- 
test against  these  fantastic  origins,  that 
"radical"  and  "radicalism"  are  barely 
past  their  centenary.  "Just  a  hundred 
years  ago  last  October,  Sir  Walter  Scott 
explains  to  his  brother  that  'radical' 
is  a  word  in  very  bad  odor  here,  being 
used  to  denote  a  set  of  blackguards." 
The  Verbalist,  moreover,  remembers 
to  have  read  (smilingly  we  guessed 
where)  that  the  radicals  in  their  early 
days  were  called  "whites"  from  the  whit- 
ish brown  hat  worn  by  one  of  their 
leaders  in  1820.  "A  friend  of  mine,  a 
'Southern  gentleman.  Sir,'  recalls  that,  in 
his  earliest  boyhood,  when  the  ancient 
commonwealth  of  his  fathers  was  in  the 
dissolving  throes  of  so-called  Reconstruc- 
tion, 'radical'  connoted  always  the  car- 
pet-bagger or  the  renegade  who  climbed 
to  political  heights  on  African  shoulders. 


attended  invariably  by  the  epithet 
'black.'  Oddly  enough  in  the  Europe  of 
the  same  date,  ultra-radicals  and  anar- 
chists, from  the  use  of  the  red  flag  as  a 
revolutionary  emblem,  were  bescarleted. 
First  white,  then  black,  now  red — the 
name  seems  to  be  a  chameleon  changing 
its  hue  in  every  generation." 

"What  does  the  word  matter?"  Masto- 
don bursts  in.  "The  thing  itself  is  eter- 
nal, its  cursed  function  never  dies.  The 
Athenian  demagogue,  the  mob-orator  at 
Rome,  the  peasant  leader  of  mediaeval 
England,  the  French  Jacobin,  the  labor 
agitator  in  America  are  but  successive 
reincarnations  of  the  same  social  menace. 
The  inflammatory  Gracchi,  traitors  to 
their  birth  and  breeding,  are  resurrected 
with  undoubted  loss  of  stamina  in  the 
persons  of  those  present-day  intellectuals 
who  play  naughtily  with  Marxism  and 
Bolshevism  like  children  with  parlor 
matches  among  the  curtains.  And  what 
is  Big  Bill  Haywood  but  an  avatar  of 
Jack  Cade,  'arrogant  in  heart  and  stiff 
in  opinion,'  inciting  class  war,  redress- 
ing public  grievances  by  popular  vio- 
lence, and  seeking  to  wreck  the  state 
through  the  frenzy  of  an  unthinking  mul- 
titude. Is  this  multitude  a  whit  less 
factious,  fickle,  irrational,  dang  'vo, 
than  the  hydra-headed  monster  of 
Shakespeare?  In  mob  and  mob-leader  of 
every  age  we  meet  the  same  indifference 
to  established  institutions,  to  decent  tra- 
ditions, and  to  moral  obligations." 

"My  turn,  Mastodon!"  cries  Lucifer. 
"Of  what,  pray,  are  you  an  avatar  but 
of  some  old  feudal  patrician  denouncing 
rebellious  peasants  as  asses  disdaining 
the  curb  and  leaping  about  the  fields, 
terrifying  all  the  citizens  with  their  hee- 
haw, or  as  oxen  butting  with  their  horns, 
or,  more  fearsome  still,  as  monsters, 
bear-footed,  dragon-tailed,  and  breathing 
fire.  George  Meredith  drew  you  to  the 
life  as  'a  mediaeval  gentleman  with  the 
docile  notions  of  the  twelfth  century, 
complacently  driving  them  to  grass  and 
wattling  them  in  the  twentieth.'  Of 
what  use  are  you  and  your  nothing- 
learning,  nothing-forgetting  Anglo-Nor- 
man breed  to  a  person  of  to-day  trying 
to  think?  Indeed,  I  wrong  the  feudal 
mind  by  my  comparison,  because,  if 
William  Morris  be  right,  that  mind,  un- 
aware of  the  evils  of  modern  capitalism, 
heavily  penalized  profiteering  and  usury, 
and  disdained  specious  sophistry  in  its 
treatment  of  workingmen.  If  you  have 
read  'The  Dream  of  John  Ball'  you  will 
remember  how  -  shocked  is  that  single- 
minded  peasant-leader  when  he  is  told 
that  a  time  will  come  when  all  power 
will  be  in  the  hands  of  monopolists  and 
they  shall  be  rulers  of  all.  A  collared 
serf  was  freer  than  the  modem  work- 
ingman  as  you  would  have  him  be." 

Here  Middleways  took  the  word — 
academic  Middleways,  ever  sweetly  rea- 
sonable, proving  all  things  and  this  way 


484] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol  2,  No.  52 


and  that  dividing  his  mind.  "Let  us 
heed  the  Verbalist,  our  definer  of  terms, 
and  keep  within  the  limits  of  a  hundred 
years.  Even  then  the  word's  changing 
history  helps  us  little.  Don't  you  recall 
that  Roebuck  Ramsden,  of  Shaw's  'Man 
and  Superman,'  who  has  always  classed 
himself  as  'an  advanced  thinker,'  hangs 
on  his  walls  canonized  radicals  of  the 
Victorian  past — John  Bright,  Richard 
Cobden,  Herbert  Spencer,  Darwin,  Hux- 
ley, and  George  Eliot?  A  century  ago 
a  radical  was  one  who,  like  Cobbett,  de- 
nounced flogging  in  the  army  or  who, 
like  Leigh  Hunt,  derided  the  embonpoint 
of  the  Regent.  Only  whitey-brown, 
that!  Rereading  some  time  since  that 
amazing  medley  of  the  best  and  the 
worst,  Warren's  'Ten  Thousand  a  Year,' 
I  was  amused  to  watch  the  conservative 
author's  horror  of  the  dreadful  radical- 
ism of  the  thirties,  rampant  in  the  ill- 
advised  little  person  of  Tittlebat  Tit- 
mouse, when  he  not  only  champions  the 
Reform  Bill  ('The  Act  for  Giving  Every- 
body Everything'),  but  advocates  the  re- 
peal of  the  corn  laws,  the  lowering  of 
taxes,  the  granting  of  universal  suf- 
frage, and  the  conceding  of  civil  and 
reliffious  liberty  to  Roman  Catholics  and 
^-s — not,  after  all,  a  very  apoplec- 
tic programme.  A  few  years  later,  in 
Disraeli's  'Coningsby'  the  university- 
bred  youths  of  Conservative  families  and 
traditions  raise  the  banner  of  'Young 
England'  and  offer  in  alliance  their  white 
hands  to  the  grimy  paws  of  the  radicals." 

"Just  as  we  'intellectuals'  of  to-day 
unite  with  the  proletariat  against  the 
bourgeoisie,"  smirks  Lucifer. 

"With  this  immense  difference,  you 
fallen  angel,"  growls  Mastodon,  "that 
those  splendid  young  aristocrats  were 
seeking  to  annihilate  class-feeling — not, 
like  your  ungodly  crew,  to  promote  it — 
and  were  striving  not  to  wreck  the  state, 
but  to  rear  a  free  monarchy  established 
on  fundamental  laws  and  cherished  by 
political  fidelity  and  patriotic  ideals.  But 
Middleways  is  too  kind  to  the  radical  of 
a  century  since,  if  the  Hiram  Yorke 
of  Charlotte  Bronte's  'Shirley'  is  typical 
in  his  lack  of  veneration  for  parliaments 
and  establishments  with  their  enact- 
ments, forms,  rights  and  claims  and  in 
his  relentless  opposition  to  what  he  calls 
'the  unjustifiable  and  ruinous  war'  on 
which  his  country's  fortunes  depend. 
This  rebellious  pacifism  is  still  drearily 
familiar." 

"Perhaps  you  will  also  find  drearily 
familiar  the  mid-century  novel's  pictures 
of  the  industrial  conditions  that  drove 
men  to  Chartism,"  snaps  Lucifer  in  reply. 
"Open  anywhere  Disraeli's  'Sybil'  or 
Kingsley's  'Yeast'  or  Mrs.  Gaskell's 
'Mary  Barton'  and  'North  and  South,' 
and  you  will  meet  on  every  page  provoca- 
tion in  plenty  for  class  warfare.  Here 
are  workingmen  coming  with  full  hearts 
to  ask  their  employers  for  a  bit  of  fire 


and  bedding  and  warm  clothing  and  food 
for  their  children — for  much  less  than 
a  man's  share  in  a  man's  life — and  get- 
ting always  a  contemptuous  'No'  for  an 
answer.  Does  the  reader  wonder  when 
leaders  arise — you  call  them  radicals — 
who  seek  to  redress  wrongs  and  to  win 
rights,  by  force  if  needs  be?  Your  Felix 
Holt  and  his  namby-pamby  tribe  of 
would-be  reformers,  shrinking  from 
sterner  methods,  seem  to  me  the  veriest 
moss-backs.  We  no  longer  ask,  we  de- 
mand." 

"You  two  extremists  miss,"  declares 
Middleways,  "the  aim  and  end  of  all  this 
Victorian  writing.  Every  chapter  is  an 
implicit  plea  for  a  better  understanding 
between  employer  and  employed,  and  a 
lively  protest  against  your  unconciliatory 
Toryism  and  radicalism.  Whenever  in 
these  stories  capital  and  labor  talk 
frankly  with  one  another,  war  between 
them  is  averted.  'We  would  never  want 
no  soldiers  here,'  says  one  of  Disraeli's 
workingmen,  'if  the  masters  would  speak 
with  the  men.'  So  Mrs.  Gaskell  tells  us 
that,  when  her  manufacturer,  Thornton, 
was  brought  face  to  face,  man  to  man, 
with  one  of  the  masses  around  him,  em- 
ployer and  employee  began  to  recognize 
that  we  have  all  of  us  one  human  heart. 
Thus  these  famous  volumes  were  great 
liberalizing  and  humanizing  forces  be- 
cause they  sought  to  reconcile  elements 
that  are  even  now  in  conflict.  The  true 
artist  refrains  from  taking  sides.  Gals- 
worthy in  his  drama,  'Strife,'  preserves 
the  same  equilibrium  between  capital  and 
labor  as  Mrs.  Gaskell  seventy  years  be- 
fore, and  aims  at  the  same  conciliation. 
What  is  the  outcome  of  the  strike?  'A 
woman  dead  and  the  two  best  men  both 
broken.  And  the  terms  the  very  same 
that  were  drawn  up  and  put  to  both  sides 
before  the  fight  began.  All  this — all  this 
— and — and  what  for?  '  Comment  is 
needless.  These  are  the  facts:  make 
what  you  will  of  them." 

"Come  back  to  your  muttons,"  puts  in 
the  Verbalist.  "What  has  this  to  do 
with  the  word  'radical'?" 

"Everything,"  roars  Mastodon.  "The 
radical  of  fiction  as  of  fact,  be  he  evo- 
lutionist or  revolutionist,  socialist  or  in- 
dividualist, is  always  the  savage  foe  of 
the  'captain  of  industry'  and  redly 
anathematizes  things  in  possession. 
There  is  little  to  choose  between  the  Dr. 
Shrapnel  of  Meredith's  'Beauchamp' 
when  he  wildly  berates  'that  old  fatted 
iniquity — that  tyrant!  that  temper! 
that  legitimated  swindler  cursed  of 
Christ!  that  palpable  Satan  whose  name 
is  Capital,'  and  the  chief  striker,  Rob- 
erts, in  Galsworthy's  play,  denouncing 
'the  great  menace  of  the  future,  the 
bloodsucker  Capital — a  thing  that  buys 
the  sweat  of  men's  brows  and  the  tor- 
ture of  their  brains  at'  its  own  price.' 
Outrageously  unfair  is  this  to  those  most 
precious  things,  profit  and  privilege.  Yet 


Shrapnel  and  Roberts,  however  mis- 
guided and  fanatical,  are  honest  English- 
men who  fight  hard  in  the  open  for  what 
they  deem  the  rights  of  workingmen — 
not  treasonable  aliens,  enemies  of  the 
state,  who  plot  in  darkness  for  the  com- 
ing of  an  hour  of  nightmares,  when  or- 
ganized ignorance  will  dominate  a  disor- 
ganized world!  What  will  fiction  be  in 
that  twilight  of  the  gods?  Will  the 
Book  News  of  to-morrow's  Anarchia  fea- 
ture romances  of  young  love  in  wK^ch 
syndicalist  Romeos  will  woo  Bolshevistic 
Juliets,  while  the  rival  factions  of  mis- 
rule whet  their  stilettos  and  light  their 
fuses  against  the  background  of  a  flam- 
ing heaven — with  this  departure  from 
the  old  story  that  there  will  be  no  prince 
or  chief  magistrate  to  compose  the 
strife?" 

"As  a  prophet,  you  build  better  than 
you  know,  Boanerges,  for  of  late  we  have 
traveled  far  and  shall  soon  travel  far- 
ther," retorts  Lucifer.  "In  their  day 
Samuel  Butler  and  Bernard  Shaw  did 
yeomen's  service  by  denouncing  the 
blighting  evil  of  poverty.  How  the  fat 
of  soul  everywhere  squeaked  at  the  in- 
sult to  vested  interests  flung  by  Shaw's 
exposure  of  slum-landlordism  in  'Widow- 
ers' Houses' !  Now  Shavians  and  Fabians 
lag  as  far  in  our  rear  as  your  Roebuck 
Ramsden.  Mr.  Wells,  who  writes  essays 
and  calls  them  novels,  has  somewhere 
painted  a  picture  of  the  Great  State  of 
the  future,  essentially  socialistic,  owning 
and  running  the  land  and  all  the  great 
public  services,  sustaining  everybody  in 
absolute  freedom  at  a  certain  minimum 
of  comfort  and  convenience;  but  his  sight 
is  too  short  to  perceive  that  the  prole- 
tariat— the  Demos  which  Dickens  pitied 
and  which  Gissing  distrusted  and 
despised,  while  they  scrupulously  por- 
trayed its  misery — will  in  the  new  hour 
be  the  governing  class.  'Psychological 
realism  in  the  sphere  of  culture' — that's 
your  cant  phrase,  isn't  it? — the  silly 
amenities  and  the  subtleties  of  sophisti- 
cated leisure,  will  happily  pass  from  the 
novel  with  the  passing  of  the  gentleman. 
And  the  country-house  of  fiction — the 
head  and  front  of  all  this  offending — 
will  be  scrapped  like  the  baronial  castle 
of  old  Walter  Scott  and  Mrs.  Radcliffe. 
Life,  as  plain  men  and  women  live  it  and 
make  it,  will  busy  all  pens  in  the  good 
time  that's  coming." 

"A  plague  on  both  your  houses!"  in- 
terposes Middleways.  "You  myopic 
creatures,  Bourbon  and  radical,  have  both 
invoked  George  Meredith.  Do  you  forget 
the  allegory  that  men  have  read  into 
his  earliest  thing,  'The  Shaving  of  Shag- 
pat'?  Here  reigns  that  worst  of  despots, 
an  established  evil,  a  tyranny  of  lies, 
for  Shagpatism  represents,  so  say  these 
interpreters,  life  in  its  institutional  as- 
pect, full  of  errors,  superstitions,  and 
wrongs.  Shagpat's  charmed  lock  flaunts 
blazing   defiance  to   reform.     Had   you 


May  8,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[485 


been  there,  Mastodon,  you  would  have 
tenderly  fostered  its  growth  and  have 
loudly  acclaimed  its  beauty.  And  you, 
Lucifer,  would  have  smitten  off  the  head 
with  the  hair.  But  the  true  reformer, 
Shibli,  though  sensitive  to  abuses,  is  no 
iconoclast,  no  red-eyed,  root-and-branch 
destructionist.  He  seeks  only  a  cleansing 
in  the  interest  of  health  and  decency. 
He  is  equipped  with  insight — accurate 
knowledge  of  things  as  they  are;  ideal- 
•ism — clear  vision  of  things  as  they  ought 
to  be;  enthusiasm — strength  to  change 
things  as  they  are  into  things  as  they 
ought  to  be;  and  he  is  disciplined  by  the 
thwackings  of  the  world  and  of  self- 
criticism,  as  no  mere  thinker  ever  is. 
Thus  trained,  Shibli  goes  forth  to  his 
great  hour  of  struggle  and  triumph. 
With  lightning-like  stroke  the  sword  of 
results  descends,  and  day  is  on  the  bald- 
ness of  Shagpat.  About  all  of  us  here 
and  now  the  story  is  narrated." 

Frederick  Tupper 

Correspondence 

Lodge's  "Fight  Against 
Wilson" 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

In  a  letter  in  your  issue  of  April  24, 
Major  George  Haven  Putnam  quotes  Sen- 
ator Lodge  as  defining  the  nature  of  his 
opposition  to  the  League  submitted  by 
President  Wilson  in  these  words:  "I  am 
fighting  Mr.  Wilson."  This  statement 
has  been  going  about  in  various  forms. 
Last  December  I  sent  it  to  Senator  Lodge 
for  authentication,  and  here  is  his  reply, 
dated  December  13: 

The  quotation  you  have  marked  in  which  I 
am  reported  as  having  said :  "My  fight  is  not 
against  the  treaty  of  peace;  it  is  against  Wood- 
row  Wilson,"  is  of  course  entirely  false.  I 
never  said  anything  like  it  and  I  have  never 
even  thought  it.  There  is  no  personal  quality 
whatever  in  the  fight  I  have  made  on  the 
treaty.  I  have  been  thinking  only  of  my  coun- 
try. The  remark  attributed  to  me  is  not  only 
wholly  false  but  it  is  so  foolish,  so  obviously 
something  that  no  man  in  his  senses  would  say, 
that  I  can  only  regard  it  as  a  mere  political 
and  party  invention  to  do  me  harm.  I  should 
be  very  glad  if  you  would  deny  it  for  me 
whenever  and  wherever  you  hear  it  repeated. 

This  reply  was  published  in  the  In- 
dianapolis Netvs  at  the  time. 

Major  Putnam  says  that  "the  Presi- 
dent's management  of  the  treaty  has 
been  ill  advised  in  the  extreme,"  and 
that  the  treaty  has  been  blocked  "be- 
cause of  the  President's  bad  manage- 
ment and  self-sufficiency  and  because 
Senator  Lodge  and  his  associates  have 
persisted  in  making  the  issue  personal 
and  partisan."  His  conclusion  is  that 
the  responsibility  for  the  delay  "rests 
with  Senator  Lodge  and  his  associates." 

This  seems  rather  cloudy;  but  some 
other  things  are  clear.     One  is  that  the 


great  body  of  the  American  people  de- 
sire to  see  a  league  of  nations  tried  in 
place  of  that  old  rogue,  Balance  of  Power, 
which  has  nearly  wrecked  the  world. 
Another  is  that  if  the  Senate  had  failed 
to  exercise  its  judgment  upon  the  League 
and  to  act  accordingly,  it  would  have 
self-paralyzed  functions  imposed  upon  it 
by  the  Constitution.  Finally,  the  millions 
who  believe,  as  I  do,  that  the  Senate 
operated  upon  the  League  beneficially, 
and  who  see  Mr.  Wilson,  in  the  face  of 
the  fact  that  the  Allies  are  ready  to 
accept  all  changes,  wilfully  forcing  a 
decision  by  wager  of  ballot  between  the 
League  submitted  by  him  and  that  league 
with  the  Senate  reservations,  do  not 
hesitate  to  accept  the  challenge. 

Lucius  B.  Swin 
Indianapolis,  April  28 

Jew  and  Arab 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review  : 

The  decision  of  the  San  Remo  Con- 
ference to  award  the  Palestine  mandate 
to  Great  Britain,  limited  by  the  pro- 
visions of  the  Balfour  Declaration,  which 
provides  for  a  National  Jewish  Home  in 
that  land,  would  appear,  at  first  sight, 
to  render  academic  the  disputed  ques- 
tion of  the  present  rights  of  the  Jews 
to  the  home  of  their  ancestors.  How- 
ever, the  conviction  of  the  Zionists  that 
they  possess  these  historic  rights  really 
brings  the  matter  into  the  heart  of  prac- 
tical politics.  The  future  of  Palestine 
depends  largely  upon  the  rnanner  in 
which  they  emphasize  their  claims  in 
dealing  with  the  Arabs,  Moslem  and 
Christian,  who,  according  to  the  British 
Census  of  1919,  outnumber  them  in  a 
proportion  a  little  under  five  to  one. 
Against  what  they  regard  as  the  "Zion- 
ist peril,"  Moslems  and  Christians  have 
been  strongly  organized  for  over  a  year. 
When  in  Jerusalem  last  spring,  I  talked 
in  their  own  language  with  members  of 
an  Anti-Zionist  delegation,  representing 
the  towns  of  Nabliis,  Jaffa,  Jerusalem, 
etc.  Their  argument  was,  in  substance, 
as  follows: 

"The  sixty-five  thousand  Jews  now  in 
the  land  are  our  brothers,  and  sharers 
with  us  in  the  rights  of  actual  dwellers 
in  the  land.  Owing  to  the  paralyzing 
effects  of  Turkish  misrule,  our  economic 
development  has  been  arrested  for  hun- 
dreds of  years.  We  are  at  present  in  no 
condition  to  compete  with  foreign  ability 
and  with  foreign  gold.  We  fear  that 
few  of  us  could  resist  the  temptation 
presented  by  the  prices  which  will  be  of- 
fered for  our  lands.  Thus,  gradually,  the 
country  will  pass  away  from  our  hands. 
Give  us — say — twenty  years  in  which  we 
may  learn  to  stand  on  our  economic  feet, 
but  during  which  all  Jewish  immigration 
is  to  be  prohibited,  and  then  we  will  open 
the  doors  to  the  Jews.  If  by  that  time 
we  are  not  able  to  compete  with  them. 


our  inability  to  develop  the  land  our- 
selves will  have  been  proved." 

They  added  that  they  represented 
scores  of  thousands  to  whom  they  had 
pledged  their  word  that  the  Zionist  peril 
should  be  dispelled,  but  declared  that,  in 
case  of  failure,  they  would  not  be  re- 
sponsible for  the  disturbances  that  would 
follow.  Recent  reports  from  Jerusalem, 
giving  the  details  of  clashes  between 
Arabs  and  Jews,  prove  that  the  Anti- 
Zionist  sentiment  is  as  strong  as  ever. 

Now  that  the  mandatory  Power  is 
pledged  to  the  Balfour  Declaration,  some 
sort  of  modus  vivendi  will,  of  course, 
have  to  be  established.  As  to  this 
Declaration,  I  may  be  permitted  to  make 
a  quotation  from  a  recent  letter  of  mine 
to  the  New  York  Times : 

There  are  students  of  this  pronouncemenl 
who  feel  that,  far  from  being  definite,  its 
loose  wording  makes  it  capable  of  different  in- 
terpretations. Some  hold  .  .  .  that  Balfour's 
Jewish  National  Home  in  Palestine  is  identical 
with  an  independent  Jewish  State,  quite  un- 
related politically  to  the  rest  of  Syria.  Others 
find  in  the  phrase  merely  the  encouragement 
to  free  Jewish  immigration,  with  especial  eco- 
nomic concessions.  Still  others  sec  in  it  no 
more  than  a  promise  that  the  Jews  shall  enjoy 
the  religious  and  other  privileges  accorded  to 
other  foreign  nations. 

Just  what  interpretation  Great  Britain 
will  give  to  this  elusive  Declaration  the 
future  alone  will  disclose. 

To  repeat  myself,  a  successful  modus 
operandi  depends  on  the  attitude  of  the 
Zionists  themselves.  From  the  begin- 
ning the  practical  weakness  of  the  move- 
ment has  been  in  the  small  attention  paid 
to  the  actual  dwellers  in  the  land.  What 
is  known  to-day  as  Zionism  was  in- 
augurated in  1897  by  the  book  of  Dr. 
Herzl,  entitled  "A  Zion  State."  Consult 
that  little  book,  and  you  will  find  the 
word  Palestine  occurring  but  once — 
towards  the  close,  as  I  remember — and 
then  with  Argentina  given  as  an  alterna- 
tive. This  Utopia  wher«  the  Jews  were 
to  find  opportunity  for  unimpeded  de- 
velopment is  all  through  the  book  re- 
ferred to  as  "over  there."  i!tle  or 
nothing  is  said  of  any  native  .>  'i' 
"over  there"  and  the  impression  made  ou 
the  reader  is  of  a  country  practically  un- 
inhabited. Later  Herzl,  first  on  practical 
considerations,  given  the  necessity  of  a 
popular  rally-cry,  and  afterwards  appar- 
ently from  conviction,  fixed  definitely  on 
Palestine.  However,  the  records  of  the 
Zionist  Congresses,  from  the  first,  held 
in  1898,  down  to  the  time  of  the  Turkish 
Constitution  of  1908,  touch  upon  the 
status  of  the  dwellers  in  the  land  in  the 
vaguest  terms.  Conversing  with  promi- 
nent local  Zionists  in  Jaffa  and  Jeru- 
salem as  late  as  1909,  I  found  the  same 
vagueness  prevailing  in  regard  to  this 
question. 

The  Constitution  of  1908  brought  the 
Zionists  face  to  face  with  the  local  issue, 
and  the  fact  that  the  natives  of  Palestine 
form  an  element  to  be  regarded  seriously 


486] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol  2,  No.  52 


has  been  met  with  a  growing,  but  as  yet 
inadequate,  consideration. 

Yesterday  I  heard  an  eloquent  and 
moving  address  on  Zionism  by  Rabbi 
Wise,  one  of  its  most  prominent  ad- 
vocates. He  emphatically  repudiated  the 
charge  of  "the  injustice  of  Zionism."  He 
declared  that  never  would  the  United 
States  be  called  upon  to  send  a  Commis- 
sion to  enquire  into  the  treatment  of  the 
Arabs  by  the  Jews.  In  a  few  words  to 
me  later  (to  which  I  am  sure  he  will 
not  object  to  my  referring)  he  affirmed 
his  love  for  the  Arabs.  But  I  hope  the 
Rabbi  will  pardon  me  if  I  deprecate  the 
form  in  which  he  expressed  that  love  in 
his  speech.  He  said,  "The  Arab  may  re- 
main in  Palestine."  As  he  spoke  I 
thought  of  the  rich,  though  now  de- 
cayed, Arab  civilization  which  was  en- 
trenched in  Palestine  for  centuries.  1 
thought  of  the  great  families,  descend- 
ants of  the  Prophet,  descendants  of 
Khaled  the  Sword  of  God,  possessors  of 
names  to  conjure  with  ever  since  the 
Arab  conquest.  I  thought  of  my 
friend,  Ibrahim  Effendi  ul-Khalidi,  com- 
missioner for  my  excavations,  whose 
mere  presence  in  my  Philistine  camp 
made  that  camp  immune  from  any  dis- 
turbance on  the  part  of  Bedawin  or 
Fellahin.  And  these  are  the  people  who, 
by  the  gracious  permission  of  the  Zion- 
ists, "may"  continue  to  live  in  the  land 
of  their  ancestors!  No,  no,  my  dear 
Rabbi,  change  your  tone.  Ask  for  the 
privileges  of  a  guest — a  guest,  if  you 
will,  who  once  was  host  and  who  may 
be  host  again — and  you  will  meet  with 
royal  Arab  hospitality.  Change  your 
tone  for  the  very  sake  of  the  noble  ideals 
contained  in  your  programme,  for  not 
till  then  can  your  people  do  the  work  for 
the  inhabitants  of  Palestine— Moslem, 
Christian,  and  Jew  alike — which  I  am 
persuaded  you  wish  them  to  do. 

Frederick  Jones  Buss 

New  Haven,  Conn.,  April  26 

Mr.  Dreiser's  "Battle  for 
Truth" 

-To  che^ditors  of  The  Review: 

Like  Mr.  Paul  Elmer  More,  I,  too,  am 
impatient  of  Theodore  Dreiser's  "uneasy 
muddle  of  ideas."  I  do  not  ask  every 
novelist — in  order  to  enjoy  reading  his 
books — to  be  an  Edith  Wharton;  I  can 
see  much  to  admire  in  the  .stark  brutality 
of  Sherwood  Anderson;  I  read  and  re- 
read with  enthusiasm  the  brisk,  search- 
ing, human  pages  of  Edna  Ferber;  but 
there  is  in  Dreiser's  work  a  certain 
unwholesome,  turgid  quality  that  dis- 
gusts me. 

As  the  performing  of  a  surgical  opera- 
tion demands  both  skill  and  strength,  so 
the  effective  use  of  realism  in  art  de- 
mands a  clear-cut  cleanness  of  soul 
and  an  unfaltering  devotion  to  truth. 
Through  Dreiser's  pages,  underlying  his 


descriptions  of  sensuality  and  material 
success,  I  seem  to  see  the  author's  fur- 
tive gusto,  the  sly  licking  of  lips,  the 
poorly  concealed  envy  of  the  very  things 
which  he  professes  to  hold  in  contempt. 
But  however  one  may  dislike  the  writings 
of  Dreiser,  it  is  commonly  supposed  that 
behind  the  writing  Is  a  rugged,  honest 
soul  who  courageously  expresses  the  faith 
that  is  in  him,  notwithstanding  the  "per- 
secution" of  lovers  of  good  English,  con- 
servative publishers,  censors,  and  others 
who  at  one  time  were  charged  with  tak- 
ing the  bread  from  his  mouth.  It  is 
only  a  few  years  since  a  group  of  mem- 
bers of  the  Authors'  League  asked  for 
contributions  for  the  brave  and  hounded 
author,  to  enable  him  to  continue  his 
battle  for  the  truth.  I  did  not  subscribe 
— not  because  I  did  not  admire  his  writ- 
ings, which  was  reason  enough — but  be- 
cause I  had  worked  with  Dreiser  several 
months  as  associate  editor  to  the  maga- 
zine of  which  he  was  editor-in-chief.  If 
during  that  period  he  held  any  strong 
convictions  for  which  he  was  willing  to 
suffer,  or  possessed  any  moral  stamina 
that  would  cause  him  to  stand  by  his 
guns  for  anything  save  self-interest,  then 
he  very  successfully  kept  it  from  me. 
And  I  am  not  particularly  unobservant. 
Shortly  after  I  resigned  my  position — 
because  the  editor-in-chief  had  not  the 
most  elementary  notions  concerning  the 
integrity  and  sanctity  of  an  author's 
own  language — I  received  a  letter  from  a 
young  writer  on  the  New  York  Times 
saying  that  he  was  bringing  suit  against 
the  magazine  for  non-payment  of  an 
article  which  had  been  ordered  by  me, 
and  asking  if  I  would  testify  in  his 
behalf.  This  I  agreed  to  do.  The  case 
came  to  trial.  After  I  had  given  my 
testimony,  what  was  my  surprise  to 
have  Dreiser  deny  that  I  had  ever  been 
Associate  Editor  of  the  magazine,  or  as- 
sociated with  it  in  any  editorial  capac- 
ity whatever!  Notwithstanding  my 
amazement,  it  took  me  only  a  second  to 
reach  into  my  bag  and  hand  the  presid- 
ing judge  the  original  letter  written  and 
signed  by  Dreiser  offering  me  the  posi- 
tion of  Associate  Editor,  stating  terms, 
duties,  etc.  I  had  no  premonition  that 
the  defense  would  take  that  line;  in  my 
innocence,  I  had  supposed  that  the  article 
might  be  unjustly  belittled,  or  that  my 
right  to  accept  or  reject  an  article  might 
be  falsely  questioned,  but  that  my  entire 
connection  of  months  with  the  editorial 
office  would  be  denied  in  toto,  that  was  a 
bit  too  strong  even  for  my  imagination! 
However,  looking  over  some  papers  in 
order  to  verify  some  dates,  I  had  come 
across  the  letter  appointing  me,  and  had 
fortunately  slipped  it  into  my  bag.  I 
never  saw  a  more  disgusted  judge.  He 
asked  Dreiser  if  he  were  the  author  of 
the  letter,  and  receiving  an  affirmative 
reply,  brought  the  case  to  a  close  and 
rendered  a  decision  for  the  plaintiff. 


As  we  were  leaving  court,  Dreiser 
put  out  his  hand  to  me,  which  I  refused 
to  take.  He  flushed,  but  was  inclined 
to  take  the  whole  thing  as  a  joke.  "How 
could  you  deliberately  try  to  discredit 
me  like  that?"  I  asked,  indignantly.  "It 
wasn't  my  judgment,"  he  answered,  as 
if  that  let  him  out  entirely,  "it  was  the 
lawyer's  idea.  Besides,"  he  added  with 
a  grin,  "I  didn't  think  you'd  have  that 
letter  with  you,  or  I  wouldn't  have 
done  it." 

Can  anyone  wonder  that  it  is  difficult 
for  me  to  see  in  Theodore  Dreiser  a 
martyr  for  Truth?  What  a  pitiful  sum 
was  involved  to  have  succeeded  in  punc- 
turing the  honor  of  a  great  man !  True, 
all  this  took  place  thirteen  years  ago; 
but  Theodore  Dreiser  was  no  immature 
youth,  he  was  married ;  and  even  had  he 
been  a  much  younger  man,  does  it  not 
seem  as  if  at  least  the  germ  of  greatness 
would  have  shown  in  that  daring  soul 
that  later  was  to  champion  the  cause  of 
Humanity  "confronting  Life  unafraid"! 
Annie  Nathan  Meyer 

Netv  York  City,  April  30 

Keeping  Tab  on  the  Pro- 
fessor 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

In  a  university,  as  in  any  business 
organization,  it  is  important  that  the  ad- 
ministration should  know  the  conditions 
under  which  work  is  being  done.  A  rec- 
ord of  the  clock  hours  and  the  student 
hours  for  each  member  of  the  instruc- 
tional staff  is  information  which  should 
be  in  the  executive  office  and  which  may 
be  used  as  often  for  remedying  overwork 
as  for  criticising  loafers.  A  college  presi- 
dent who  does  not  know  what  his  men 
are  doing  is  very  likely  to  make  mis- 
takes. 

So  far  as  I  have  had  opportunity  of 
observing,  these  records  have  not  been 
used  as  levers  for  changing  the  status  of 
instructors  or  their  salaries.  For  the 
same  reason  the  executives  should  know 
the  conditions  obtaining  in  various 
rooms,  especially  those  which  are 
crowded.  Plans  and  estimates  for  new 
buildings  can  be  more  reasonably  con- 
structed if  one  has  a  fairly  accurate 
knowledge  of  existing  conditions.  The 
relative  crowding  of  different  rooms  and 
buildings  tells  us  where  to  begin  in  our 
new  building  programme.  We  also  rec- 
ognize the  fact  that  the  capacity  of  the 
recitation  room  is  greater  than  that  of 
the  laboratory  of  the  same  size,  and  this 
in  turn  greater  than  that  afforded  by 
shop  or  engine  room. 

I  fail  to  see  why  we  should  stick  our 
heads  in  the  sand,  ostrich-like,  and  de- 
cline to  get  facts  for  fear  we  shall  be 
tempted  to  use  them  wrongly. 

C.  H.  Benjamin 
Dean  of  Purdue  University 

Lafayette,  Ind.,  March  9 


^ 


May  8,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[487 


Book  Reviews 

Like  a  Fine  Old  English 
Gentleman 

Some  Aversions  of  a  Man  of  Letters.     By 
Edmund     Gosse.       New     York :       Charles 

Scribner's  Sons. 

THOUGH  Mr.  Gosse  is  a  man  of  letters 
without  a  thesis  and  with  little 
provocative  quality,  he  has  developed,  in 
fifty  years  devoted  to  books,  much  quiet 
charm.  He  leads  one  through  these  vari- 
ous essays  with  an  easy  and  experienced 
suavity  which  persuades  one  from  the 
outset  that  suitable  things  are  going  to 
be  said  and  well  said,  with  gentlemanly 
animation  but  without  undue  emphasis. 
He  is  so  true  an  Englishman  that  his 
heart  will  ever  respond  with  an  extra 
beat  at  the  thought  of  Raleigh's  tragic 
story.  He  is  himself  so  much  of  the 
poet-scholar  that  he  can  never  cease  to 
value  the  spade-work  or  the  cheery  notes 
of  those  rather  dusty  brothers,  the 
Wartons,  back  there  in  the  dull  mid- 
eighteenth  century  whistling  up  the 
dawn  of  romanticism.  He  is  so  much  a 
Victorian  that  he  is  not  quite  ready  to 
acquiesce  in  the  conspiracy  of  silence 
which  this  generation  has  formed  against 
the  once-splendid  reputations  of  Bulwer 
and  Disraeli.  A  lover  of  old  writers,  he 
is  yet  so  friendly  to  new  ones  that  he 
weaves  a  fine  garland  of  poems  by  soldier 
bards,  which  "Englishmen  will  not 
allow  to  be  forgotten."  He  is  so  much  a 
classicist  that  he  comments  with  real 
relish  on  Lord  Cromer's  translations 
from  Moschus;  and  so  much  an  aristo- 
crat that  he  enters  with  perfect  sym- 
pathy into  the  literary  recreations  of  a 
retired  British  proconsul.  Having  oc- 
casion to  speak  of  Lord  Redesdale's  heir, 
who  fell  in  the  war,  he  writes:  "His 
eldest  son.  Major  the  Hon.  Clement  Mil- 
ford";  and  one  feels  a  pleasant  glow  of 
satisfaction  in  the  assurance  that  this 
is  precisely  the  way  in  which  one  should 
mention  the  eldest  son  of  Lord  Redes- 
dale.  Taste,  tact,  and  temper  designated 
Mr.  Gosse  from  his  youth  as  the  man  to 
call  upon  when  a  poet  laureate  died  or 
when  the  hundredth  anniversary  of  a 
classic  fell  to  be  celebrated  or  when  a 
new  citizen  was  to  be  admitted  to  good 
and  regular  standing  in  the  Republic  of 
Letters. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  perform  these 
'  functions  after  a  fashion;  but  it  re- 
quires a  fine  and  rare  art  to  perform 
them  well.  It  requires  an  art  rooted 
in  the  best  traditions  and  nourished  by 
habitual  contact  with  men  who  un- 
feignedly  value  in  literature  a  certain 
vital  decorum,  the  unfailing  mark  of 
works  worthy  of  permanent  remem- 
brance. Mr.  Gosse  possesses  this  art;  and 
therefore   his   commemorations   are   not 


perfunctory  but  recreative  with  the  true 
academic  unction.  His  literary  character 
and  predilections  were  formed  just  be- 
fore the  fashion  of  the  Victorian  age 
took  its  strong  bias  towards  charlatanry 
and  infected  young  writers  with  the 
strident  vices  of  journalism.  He  came 
in  with  a  group  of  knights  of  the  pen, 
many  of  them  Scotchmen — Lang,  Dob- 
son,  Archer,  Colvin,  Henley,  Stevenson — 
who  clung  to  the  old  "religion  of  letters"; 
identified  their  style  with  their  honor, 
looked  upon  a  page  of  prose  with  amorous 
but  exacting  eye,  and  made  their  pleasure 
their  profession.  The  gusto  of  amateurs 
and  the  skill  of  patient  craftsmen  unite 
to  constitute  the  special  charm  of  this 
group  at  its  emergence,  in  its  springtime, 
when  these  dashing  young  talents  were 
studying  old  French  verse  and  wearing 
out  copies  of  Herrick  in  the  pockets  of 
their  velveteen  jackets — before  the  indi- 
vidual members  had  grown  apart,  and 
grown  up,  and  grown  old,  and  danger- 
ously facile  and  overproductive.  Mr. 
Gosse,  who  now  speaks  of  himself  as  an 
aged  mourner  preparing  to  attend  the 
obsequies  of  the  Victorian  time,  fluted  his 
lyrics  in  those  vernal  days  with  the 
rest  of  them.  Yet  forty  years  ago,  when 
he  was  just  turned  thirty,  he  was  already 
marked  by  R.  L.  Stevenson,  that  happy 
blend  of  Villon  and  Calvin,  as  a  natural 
born  academician,  one  manifestly  des- 
tined, all  in  due  time,  to  become  librarian 
to  the  House  of  Lords.  In  1879  Steven- 
son wrote  with  playful  thrust,  apropos 
of  some  decorous  and  mellow  utterance  of 
his  friend:  "My  dear  Gosse,  I  have 
greatly  enjoyed  your  article  which  seems 
to  me  handsome  in  tone,  and  written  like 
a  fine  old  English  gentleman." 

In  forty  years  Mr.  Gosse  has  lost  none 
of  the  virtue  of  his  youth.  In  the  mean- 
while that  virtue  has  been  steadily  dis- 
appearing from  contemporary  English 
literature.  And  so,  without  thesis  or 
other  provocative  qualities,  he  gives  us 
a  delightful  collection  of  essays,  dis- 
tinguished in  that  it  is  handsome  in 
tone  and  written  like  a  fine  old  English 
gentleman.  In  his  half  century  of  letters 
he  has  seen  many  prosperous  reputations 
ruined  by  the  vicissitudes  of  fashion; 
and  he  raises,  without  explicitly  answer- 
ing, the  question  whether  there  is,  after 
all,  any  fixable  standard  of  taste.  The 
answer  which  he  has  accepted  for  himself 
is  everywhere  implicit  in  the  sustained 
amenity  of  his  tone,  which  one  finds 
especially  charming  when  he  is  drawing 
from  the  life,  as  in  his  portraits  of  Lady 
Dorothy  Nevill,  Lord  Cromer,  and  Lord 
Redesdale.  Any  one  who  desires  to  vivify 
his  conception  of  a  "fine  old  English 
gentleman"  should  turn  in  this  book 
to  the  pages  where  Mr.  Gosse  and 
the  Consul-General  from  Egypt  con- 
verse together  over  the  fragments  of 
Empedocles. 

Stuart  P.  Sherman 


Talk  of  the  Best 

The  Island  of  Sheep.  By  Cadmus  and 
Harmonia.  Boston:  Houghton  Mifflin 
Company. 

ARISTOTLE  used  to  say  that  educa- 
tion was  an  ornament  in  prosperity 
and  a  refuge  in  adversity.  It  is  im- 
possible to  read  this  delightful  book  with- 
out being  convinced  of  the  fact.  We  are 
told  that  Cadmus  is  a  well-known  English 
writer  and  man  of  action,  and  we  can 
easily  believe  it.  Here  is  the  philosophic 
mind  which  only  years  can  bring,  not 
merely  those  of  the  individual  himself  but 
also  those  of  the  race  of  which  he  is  an 
exponent,  and  to  this  inevitable  product  of 
time  are  added  the  positive  elements  of 
wide  reading,  broad  and  minute  observa- 
tion, and  calm  and  wonderfully  detached 
reflection.  Yet  more,  the  tranquillity  of 
the  minds  which  produced  this  work  is 
imparted  realistically  to  all  the  char- 
acters to  whom  we  are  introduced: 
however  strenuous  their  reasoned  con- 
clusions, we  feel  that  in  every  instance 
the  aim  has  been  to  free  them  from  per- 
sonal and  selfish  characteristics  and  to 
obtain,  so  far  as  is  humanly  possible,  a 
glimpse  of  the  increasing  purpose  which 
runs  through  the  ages. 

The  time  is  indeed  out  of  joint,  and 
presumptuous  is  he  who  may  think  that 
he  is  born  to  set  it  right.  We  are  afraid 
that  not  all  the  guests  of  Colonel  and 
Mrs.  Lamont  on  the  Island  of  Sheep  are 
free  from  all  trace  of  this  vice,  yet  much 
may  be  condoned  where  motives  are  fine 
and  sincere.  A  more  agreeable  company 
we  can  not  imagine.  The  scene  is  the 
north  of  Scotland.  Before  the  guests  ar- 
rive we  are  introduced  to  Colonel  Lamont, 
in  a  pleasant  arbor  looking  down  on 
spring  meadows  which  sloped  towards 
the  western  sea.  He  is  reading  Matthew 
Arnold : 

And  by  the  sea,  and  in  the  brakes, 

The  grass  is  cool,  the  seaside  air 

Buoyant  and  fresh,  the  mountain  flowers 

More  virginal  and  fresh  than  ours. 

And    there,    they    say,    two    bright    and    aged 

snakes, 
Tliat  once  were  Cadmus  and  Harmonia, 
Bask   in  the  glens  or  on  the   warm   seashore, 
In  breathless  quiet,  after  all  their  ills. 

He  looked  up  from  his  book,  "Singularly 
like  us,  my  dear,"  he  observed  to  his 
wife.  She  admits  that  she  feels  aged, 
"but  not  very  bright."  The  war  is  over, 
and  though  peace  may  have  its  victories 
no  less  renowned  than  war,  it  also  has 
its  problems  no  less  disturbing.  "This 
old  world,"  says  Colonel  Lamont,  "has 
got  such  a  twist  that  I  can't  see  it  set- 
tling down  in  our  time.  I  wish  to  heaven 
I  knew  where  we  all  stood."  It  is  not  his 
taxes  that  he  is  worrying  about — he 
wouldn't  mind  paying  fifteen  shillings  in 
the  pound  for  the  rest  of  his  days.  It  is 
the  country  that  exercises  him.  The  war 
has  been  won ;  but  for  what  ?  "We  have 
won,  of  course,  but  we  don't  seem  to 


I 


488] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol  2,  No.  52 


know  that  we've  won.  Those  damned 
politicians  are  at  the  job  again.  I 
thought  we  had  washed  all  that  out." 
And  Bolshevism,  remarks  Mrs.  Laniont. 
And  ever}-  little  faction  on  the  globe 
wanting  to  turn  itself  into  a  state,  he 
rejoins.  And  our  own  labor  people  so 
discontented,  she  continues,  and  all  this 
business  of  the  League  of  Nations,  was 
his  conclusion  of  the  antiphony. 

Speedily,  however,  a  livelier  note  is 
struck.  The  guests  arrive  in  rapid  suc- 
cession— politicians,  soldiers,  labor  lead- 
ers—American, French,  and  English  in 
nationality — and  among  them  a  sprink- 
ling of  ladies  of  interrogative  instincts. 
We  could  wish  none  of  the  company 
awaj',  with  the  possible  exception  of  Mr. 
Albert  Wyper,  a  progressive  journalist, 
with  a  soft  shapeless  face,  a  humorless 
eye,  and  an  untidy  person,  who  intro- 
duces himself  with  the  remark,  "I  have 
found  a  new  theory  of  Democracy  in  a 
French  review  and  am  writing  a  letter 
to  the  New  Republic  on  the  subject." 
Will  some  one  tell  us  why  a  malign  fate 
has  identified  "progressive,"  a  word 
not  unpleasing  in  itself,  with  such 
characteristics? 

And  now  we  find  ourselves  in  a  flood 
of  discussion,  and  our  only  grudge 
against  Cadmus  and  Harmonia  is  that 
they  allow  it  to  last  only  a  niggardly  few 
days — a  full  month  would  be  not  too 
much !  No  sooner  do  the  guests  sit  down 
to  their  first  repast  than  the  keynote  is 
struck.  In  a  high,  clear  voice  Mrs. 
Aspenden,  "a  lady  given  to  good  works," 
discourses  of  history.  "I  have  been  read- 
ing all  about  this  place,"  she  announces. 
"Do  you  know  that  St.  B  randan  came  here 
on  his  great  voyage?  It  is  his  Island  of 
Sheep  where  he  found  the  lamb  for  the 
Paschal  sacrifice.  There  is  a  beautiful 
passage  about  it  translated  out  of  some 
old  Latin  chronicle.  He  sailed,  you  re- 
member, out  of  tempestuous  seas  and 
came  suddenly  to  a  green  isle  of  peace 
with  sheep  feeding  among  the  meadows." 
"I  like  the  story,"  remarks  Mr.  Chris- 
topher Normand,  who  is  a  singularly  in- 
gratiating character.  "To  come  out  of 
stormy  seas  to  a  green  isle  of  quietness ! 
It  is  what  all  are  seeking.  Democracy  is 
a  great  and  wonderful  thing,  but  it  does 
not  make  for  peace."  "There !"  exclaims 
Lady  Sevenoaks,  "I  knew  it.  Already  we 
have  reached  that  odious  subject." 

They  have  indeed.  But  it  has  taken 
us  so  long  to  set  the  scene  that  we  can 
not  rehearse  the  dialogue.  Nor  do  we 
want  to;  the  reader  will  thank  us  for 
letting  him  discover  for  himself  the  rare 
charm  of  this  book.  Passion  is  excluded, 
though  there  is  plenty  of  idealism,  and 
an  abundance  of  hard,  shrewd  wit.  Na- 
tional characteristics  are  exceedingly  well 
portrayed.  We  are  proud  of  the  courage 
of  our  countrywoman,  Mrs.  Lavender, 
who,  when  asked  to  vouch  for  the  state- 
ment by  Mr.  Jonas,  a  labor  leader,  that 


"things  are  easier  in  America  because 
they  tell  me  that  classes  are  fluid  there 
and  their  boundaries  are  always  shift- 
ing," replies,  "True.  William  was  raised 
in  a  shack  in  Idaho,  and  if  the  present 
rate  of  taxation  goes  on,  my  boys  will 
be  getting  back  to  that  shack."  And  we 
may  confess  a  previous  acquaintance  with 
Mr.  Merryweather  Malone,  an  American 
politician  with  Irish  antecedents,  who  on 
being  accused  of  having  acquired  an 
Oxford  accent,  replied,  "We've  all  got  a 
bit  of  it,  ever  since  Abel.  It  was  that 
that  made  Cain  mad."  This  is  of  a  piece 
with  his  "I'm  of  Irish  stock  myself, 
and  for  our  sins  we've  got  a  good  many 
like  me  in  the  States.  That  poor  little 
island  is  living  on  a  bogus  past  and  try- 
ing to  screw  some  pride  out  of  it,  while 
she's  forgetting  to  do  anything  to  be 
proud  of  right  now.  The  ordinary  Irish- 
man is  ashamed  of  himself  and  he  has 
not  the  honesty  to  admit  it.  No  man's 
any  good  unless  he  has  something  to 
swagger  about,  and  Ireland  has  not  any- 
thing except  a  moth-eaten  ragbag  of 
wrongs.  That's  her  confounded  anti- 
quarian habit  of  mind." 

Let  it  be  understood  that  in  these 
quotations  we  have  hardly  touched  the 
fringe  of  the  discussion  embodied  in  this 
work.  Nor  has  any  attempt  been  made 
to  disclose  to  the  reader  the  felicities  of 
style  and  argument  which  meet  us  on 
every  hand.  It  is  sufficient  to  say  that 
there  is  "here  a  fineness  akin  to  a  for- 
gotten art.  How  does  it  all  end?  We 
refuse  to  say.  Perhaps  we  do  not  know ; 
perhaps  Cadmus  and  Harmonia  do  not 
know.  Can  any  valid  conclusion  be  drawn 
from  the  following  facts?  "The  only 
hope  for  Democracy,"  says  Mr.  James 
Burford,  an  ex-Labor  Member  of  Parlia- 
ment, "is  to  make  it  an  aristocracy." 
Shortly  afterwards  someone  suddenly 
asks,  "Where's  Burford?"  Mrs.  Lament 
answered,  "I  think  he  has  gone  for  a 
walk  with  Phillis  [her  niece]  in  the 
garden." 

F.  J.  Whiting 

The  Man  of  Science  in  the 
Future 

The  Outlook  for  Research  and  Invention. 
By  Nevil  Monroe  Hopkins.  New  York : 
D.  Van  Nostrand  Company. 

THIS  book  reflects  the  enthusiasms  of 
a  man  who  has  given  his  life  to  the 
prosecution  of  engineering  projects,  and 
who  has  come  in  the  passing  of  years  to 
appreciate  with  great  vividness  the  fun- 
damental significance  of  scientific  research 
for  national  progress.  Despite  some  cu- 
rious blunders  touching  matters  of  fact, 
it  has  in  it  much  that  is  informing  re- 
garding the  actual  status  of  American 
research  and  its  more  obvious  defects. 

Taking  his  point  of  departure  from  a 
somewhat    precarious    psychology,     the 
author  exhibits  in  a  very  striking  way 


the  accidental  conditions  under  which 
men  at  present,  by  a  very  haphazard 
process  of  social  selection,  are  picked  out 
for  research  careers,  and  he  makes  a 
good  case  for  the  belief  that  great  masses 
of  the  finest  research  talent  remain  ster- 
ile because  of  the  poverty  of  our  present 
devices  for  identifying,  stimulating,  and 
developing  it.  The  story  which  he  tells 
of  the  indifference  of  the  American  pub- 
lic, both  educated  and  uneducated,  to  the 
place  of  scientific  research  in  national  life 
is  somewhat  depressing,  but  well  within 
the  truth.  He  shows  that  our  national 
vanity  regarding  American  inventiveness 
rests  on  rather  less  substantial  founda- 
tions than  is  commonly  believed,  and 
over  against  this  fact  is  to  be  put  the 
relatively  meagre  accomplishments  in 
the  application  of  fundamental  scien- 
tific methods  and  ideas  to  practical  in- 
dustrial processes.  Were  our  industrial 
products  thrown  open  to  a  more  equal 
competition  with  those  of  other  nations, 
this  fact  would  be  brought  home  to  us  far 
more  keenly  than  with  our  high  tariff 
walls  has  hitherto  been  in  general  pos- 
sible. His  chapter  on  the  tropical  devel- 
opment of  research  during  the  war,  and 
the  part  played  by  the  National  Research 
Council  in  this  movement,  is  extremely 
informing  and  decidedly  encouraging  in 
its  implication  of  an  aroused  popular  ap- 
preciation of  scientific  men  and  their 
methods. 

The  reader  may  well  wish  that,  in  con- 
nection with  his  discussion  of  patents, 
the  author  had  gone  more  nearly  to  the 
root  of  our  whole  patent  system,  the 
beneficence  of  whose  operations  under 
present  conditions  is  decidedly  open  to 
question.  He  indulges  in  some  admirably 
sound  advice  to  inventors,  which  will 
doubtless  fail  to  reach  most  of  those  by 
whom  it  is  chiefly  needed.  There  are  few 
more  pathetic  chapters  in  the  history  of 
intellectual  endeavor  than  those  portray- 
ing the  year-long  struggles  of  many  in- 
ventors to  perfect  devices  which  were 
defective  in  the  essential  scientific  ideas 
upon  which  they  were  based,  a  fact  to 
which  the  ignorance — and  often  secret- 
iveness — of  the  inventor  has  rendered 
him  tragically  oblivious.  Important  and 
successful  inventions  represent  long  and 
courageous  endeavor,  working  with  two 
great  tools — creative  imagination  and 
sound  scientific  knowledge,  the  latter  far 
more  important  than  the  average  individ- 
ual at  all  appreciates. 

One  need  not  be  wholly  Philistine  to 
call  in  question  the  low  estimate  put  by 
the  author  upon  humanistic  methods  of 
educational  training  and  his  wholly  opti- 
mistic view  regarding  the  utilization  of 
scientific  materials  as  the  essential  nu- 
cleus of  our  educational  programme. 
Those  who  have  faced  the  actual  job  of 
teaching  in  our  schools  and  cofleges,  how- 
ever sympathetic  with  the  author's  gen- 
eral position,  could  disabuse  his  mind 
of  certain  fallacious  preconceptions. 


May  8,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[489 


The  book  contains  some  interesting 
speculations  on  the  limits  of  scientific 
discovery,  on  the  applications  of  re- 
search in  the  industries,  and  comes  to  an 
end  with  a  somewhat  scrappy  but  not 
uninteresting  list  of  problems  awaiting 
solution,  which  appears  to  have  been 
gathered  as  the  result  of  enquiry  from  a 
considerable  group  of  scientific  men. 

The  volume  belongs  to  a  class  of  books 
which  suffer  somewhat  in  the  appeal  that 
they  are  capable  of  making  to  the  hu- 
manistically trained  intellectuals,  because 
of  a  certain  rawness  of  cultural  outlook 
as  tested  by  the  conventional  standards 
of  the  literary  and  humanistic  critic.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  is  replete  with  indica- 
tions of  wide  and  substantial  scholarship 
in  various  scientific  branches,  it  is  com- 
posed with  a  somewhat  infectious  enthu- 
siasm for  the  beauties  of  science,  and 
perhaps  the  best  thing  which  can  be  said 
for  it  is  that  it  is  likely  to  be  the  fore- 
runner of  not  a  few  more  substantial  and 
more  convincing  presentations  of  the 
same  general  field.  The  time  is  ripe  for 
a  distinctly  epoch-making  treatise  on  this 
whole  subject. 

Cult  and  Comedy 

The   Anchor:    A   Love    Story.     By   Michael 

Sadler.     New  York:   Robert  M.  McBride 

and  Company. 
Time    and    Eternity:     A    Tale    of    Three 

Exiles.    By  Gilbert  Cannan.     New  York: 

George  H.  Doran  Company. 
Love  and  Mr.   Lewisham.    The  Story  of  a 

Very   Young  Couple.     By   H.   G.   Wells. 

New  York:   George   H.   DorSn  Company. 

T  seems  to  have  been  within  the  mem- 
ory of  the  living  that  readers  of  Wil- 
liam Black  and  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward 
were  startled  and  delighted  by  the  ap- 
pearance of  certain  "young"  English 
novelists  named  Wells  and  Bennett,  A 
little  later  came  the  "younger"  English 
novelists,  Cannan,  and  Walpole,  and  Mack- 
enzie, and  the  rest  of  the  family  who 
bear  each  other  so  strong  a  family  like- 
ness. And  now,  within  a  year  or  two,  has 
appeared  a  group  of  youngest  inter- 
preters for  whom  ardent  publishers  and 
complaisant  reviewers  are  claiming  much 
and  predicting  more.  Distinction  is  a 
favorite  word  in  these  estimates.  Punch 
achieves  an  amusing  superlative.  It  de- 
clares that  Michael  Sadler's  "The  An- 
chor" reaches  an  "unusual  level  of  dis- 
tinction." Perhaps  that  is  it.  Perhaps 
its  level  of  distinction  is  what  chiefly 
impresses  or  depresses  us  in  this  young- 
est fiction.  They  are  all,  these  perform- 
ers, so  "extraordinarily  clever"  (as  the 
Daily  Express  calls  Mr.  Sadler)  ;  so 
knowing,  so  uniformly  unconventional, 
.so  fluent  .  .  .  so  young.  The  back 
jacket  of  "The  Anchor"  has  a  well-writ- 
ten blurb.  Change  the  proper  names  to 
fit  the  instance,  and  you  have  the  fairly 
satisfactory  description  of  an  imaginary 
composite  novel   made   up   of   all   twen- 


I 


tieth  century  British  novels  to  date.  Add 
that  Laddie  is  of  Winchester  and  Oxford 
and  pursues  as  a  journalist  in  Paris  and 
London  his  "young  man's  adventures  in 
love  and  self-discovery."  .  .  .  "Lad- 
die McAllister,"  continues  the  blurbist, 
"is  the  kind  of  young  man  most  of  us 
know;  brilliant,  acutely  self-conscious,  a 
bit  unstable,  but  lovable,  he  is  in  danger 
of  becoming  a  mere  intellectual  drifter. 
His  unconscious  search  for  an  'anchor' 
is  complicated  by  his  relations  with  two 
women  of  antithetic  influence,  and  by  his 
friendship  for  Dermot  Hill,  a  quaint  and 
engaging  Irish  radical." 

Yes,  Laddie  is  one  kind  of  man  most 
of  us  know:  he  is  youth,  he  is  egotism, 
he  is  temperament  and  all  that.  But  it 
is  odd  and  not  quite  normal  that  he 
should  be  the  only  kind  of  man  these 
youngest  novelists,  on  either  side  of  the 
water,  seem  to  know  or  to  be  interested 
in.  Is  there  no  natural  medium  worth 
dealing  with  between  the  red-blooded 
idiot  of  movie  romance  and  this  mentally 
and  morally  cross-eyed  darling  of  the 
younger  clan?  The  truth,  as  I  make  it 
out,  is  that  in  interpreting  youth  this 
modern  school  fails  to  transcend  youth, 
fails  of  the  maturity  which  beholds 
youth  in  its  beauty  and  its  piteousness, 
a  marvelous  phase  of  life,  but  not  the 
whole  of  it  or  even  surely  the  best  of  it. 
Youth  justifies  itself,  is  its  own  sufficient 
excuse  and  palliation ;  not  therefore  need 
its  follies  and  fecklessnesses,  its  piracy 
and  poltroonery,  be  solemnly  elevated  for 
worship.  The  Laddie  of  "The  Anchor" 
is  a  commonplace  credible  young  chap, 
rather  more  decent  sexually  than  is  the 
fashion  among  his  literary  kind,  recog- 
nizable enough  as  "the  kind  of  young 
man  most  of  us  know."  Perhaps  he  is  even 
the  kind  of  young  man  most  of  us  have 
been.  But  why  dig  us  up  again?  Aren't 
we,  in  that  phase,  getting  to  be  an  old 
and  dull  spectacle?  We  admit  every- 
thing: why  keep  rubbing  it  in  upon  a 
politely  yawning  world?  Forget  it:  and 
tell  us  a  story  about  the  fellow  we  might 
have  been.  He  is  the  man  for  our  money. 
In  some  such  reactionary  strain  I  find 
myself  perusing  again  and  again  this 
perennial  chronicle  of  the  more  or  less 
decent  young  Briton  taking  his  first  flut- 
ter at  life  in  a  London  of  newspaper  of- 
fices and  studios  and  variously  com- 
plicating females.  For  Laddie,  there  is 
a  Janet  much  too  good.  Hearken  to  him 
in  the  act  of  proposing  marriage: 

"Janet — I  fell  in  love  with  you  here— 
the  first  time  I  ever  saw  you  in  the  flesh. 
I  am  now  going  to  ask  you  to  consider 
marrying  me.  The  prospect  is  unattrac- 
tive— even  more  unattractive  than  it 
looks.  ...  I  am  not  a  waster.  That 
is  to  say  I  work  hard  and  am  intelligent 
and  sane.  Such  vices  as  I  have  are  nega- 
tive. But  I  am  an  uncreative  artist,  if 
you  will  allow  so  priggish  an  expression. 
I  mean  I  love  beauty  but  can  not  work  off 


that  love  in  the  creation  of  other  beauty. 
Consequently  I  am,  in  certain  things, 
rather  unstable.  If  you  will  take  me  on 
— and  I  need  you,  Janet,  absolutely,  piti- 
fully almost — take  me  on  and  stand  by 
me,  I  shall  learn  to  stand  by  you.  You 
are  so  strong,  so — oh,  my  dear,  there  are 
no  words! — but  you  are  safe-harbour, 
anchorage,  something  firm  to  cling  to, 
and— I  think  that's  all." 

Undeniably  a  pill  for  Janet;  and  an 
artificial  misunderstanding,  based  upon  a 
Potiphar's  wife  charge  against  Laddie, 
increases  the  size  of  the  bolus.  But  she 
downs  it  at  last ;  and  the  discovery  of  his 
innocence  is  thereafter  immaterial :  "As 
if  it  mattered  what  you  have  been  or  will 
be,"  cries  Janet  in  the  ear  of  her  prig- 
ling.    "You  just  are.    Dear  heart — " 

All  this,  you  say,  is  simple  and  senti- 
mental enough — why  adduce  it  as  a  mod- 
ern instance?  To  which  the  reply  might 
be  that  it  is  not  inherently  more  senti- 
mental than  the  majority  of  contem- 
porary chronicles  of  this  kind  in  which 
the  lad  takes  Potiphar's  wife,  as  it  were, 
in  his  stride.  The  sentimentality  of  such 
fiction  lies  in  its  slavish  worship  of 
youngness — the  mere  state  and  act  of  be- 
ing young,  of  muddling  through  youth. 
Mr.  Gilbert  Cannan,  of  course,  lays  him- 
self open  to  no  charge  of  Victorianism. 
Nor  does  he  always  deal  with  the  fum- 
blings  and  yearnings  of  the  salad  years. 
Stephen,  of  "Time  and  Eternity,"  is  in 
his  thirties,  by  the  calendar.  But  we 
have  to  take  Mr.  Cannan's  word  for  that. 
To  all  intents  Stephen  is  the  eccentric 
apprentice  at  life,  just  as  the  young 
gentleman  in  "Pink  Roses"  was  the 
amiable  dabbler.  His  youth  is  static; 
and  so,  we  presently  observe,  is  that  of 
his  Valerie  and  even  of  the  gray  experi- 
enced Per9katov.  These  are  official 
children  of  the  modern  world,  looking 
upon  it  with  astonished  rebellious  eyes. 
A  young  Englishman,  a  girl  from  South 
Africa,  a  Russian  Jew,  they  are  exiles  in 
London  as  they  would  be  anywhere. 
Exiles— but  where  is  their  land?  I  for 
one  can  not  make  out,  unless  it  be  in  that 
not-world  of  passionately  protestant 
youth  where  respectability  and  injustice, 
old  saws  and  outworn  principles,  mar- 
riage, war,  duty  have  no  place.  Hap- 
lessly offset  against  them  is  the  honest 
but  hysterical  young  romantic,  Ducie,  the 
British  "decent  sort,"  not  heroically  cast 
though  capable  of  heroic  violence,  as 
when  he  seizes  an  insolent  slacker  by  the 
neck  and  throws  him  "a  dozen  yards" — 
surely  the  record  put  for  slackers.  A 
morsel  of  his  strength  he  uses  later  to 
strangle  Valerie — maybe  this  is  as  good 
a  way  as  any  to  dispose  of  her,  though 
it  leaves  Stephen  temporarily  at  a  loose 
end.  Valerie  has  "given  herself"  to 
Stephen,  with  much  talk  about  not  be- 
lieving in  marriage  or  dreaming  of  a 
permanent  union  between  them.  Here 
they  are  together:  no  doubt  the  thor- 


490] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol  2,  No.  52 


outrhly  modern  reader  will  perceive  what 
it  is  all  about: 

.  .  .  His  only  dread  was  lest  he 
should  fail  her,  as  he  most  certainly 
would  if  he  tried  to  understand  her  from 
anything  external,  her  appearance,  her 
actions,  her  moods,  or  even  her  thoughts. 

She  said : 

"If  you  were  not  what  I  thought  I 
should  kill  you." 

"What  do  you  want  me  to  be?" 

"\Vhat  you  are." 

He  accepted  that  she  would  kill  him  as 
the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world. 
After  the  love  they  have  shared,  any  be- 
trayal of  it,  however  slight,  would  be 
worse  than  death.  Indeed,  life  outside 
the  wonder  they  had  created  seemed  so 
fantastic  as  to  be  a  continual  desecration : 
soldiers,  battle,  exhortations  to  patriot- 
ism, food  queues,  revolution  in  Russia — 
all  seemed  like  incidents  in  a  stage  play; 
the  capricious  movements  of  the  crowd 
and  the  incidental  characters  surround- 
ing the  drama  of  passions  which  knew 
their  object  and  would  attain  them  or 
destroy. 

He  protested  a  little  faintly : 

"But  I  don't  ask  you  to  be  anything 
but  what  you  are." 

"I  am  what  I  am,"  said  Valerie, 
firmly. 

Which  seems  to  settle  matters  very 
satisfactorily.  Firmness  is  a  great  thing. 

I  chanced  to  turn  from  these  books  to 
"Love  and  Mr.  Lewisham."  It  was 
written  twenty  years  ago.  Someone  is 
said  to  have  asked  Mr.  Wells,  not  long 
since,  which  of  his  own  books  he  liked 
best.  He  reached  for  a  copy  of  "Love 
and  Mr.  Lewisham,"  and  said  that  he 
did  not  know  that  he  had  ever  done  any 
better  writing  than  that.  I  took  up 
this  first  American  edition  of  the  story 
with  the  half-defined  notion  that  here  I 
should  find  something  in  line  with  my 
"youngest"  novels  of  the  moment — 
something  at  least  in  the  way  of  fore- 
cast, for  who  if  not  Wells  set  the  ball 
of  modernity  rolling?  .  .  .  Yes,  here 
is  the  young  man  in  London,  fumbling 
at  life  and  love,  with  two  women  in  the 
offing.  .  .  .  And  then  we  rub  our 
eyes.  Was  modernity  so  old-fashioned  a 
business,  twenty  years  ago?  Or  was  this 
the  final  indulgence  of  a  delightful 
romancer  before  modernity  "got"  him? 
Here  at  all  events  he  employs  the  very 
materials  of  which  his  literary  grand- 
children make  such  bitter  or  defiant  copy, 
in  the  gentlest  most  believing  way.  His 
comedy  remains  a  comedy,  the  ancient 
comedy  of  all  for  love  and  the  world  well 
lost.  Lewisham's  dreams  of  social  re- 
form, of  personal  fame,  of  a  distin- 
guished career  in  science,  have  been 
pushed  aside  by  circumstance.  He  will- 
ingly and  not  ignobly  resigns  them  that 
he  may  bear  his  part  as  husband  of  a 
wife  and  son  of  a  mother  and  father  of 


a  son.  The  book  is  full  of  sweet  humor, 
more  tender  than  that  of  "Mr.  Polly" 
and  more  simple  than  that  of  "Tono- 
Bungay" — the  two  stories  (written  some 
ten  years  later)  with  which  I  should 
place  "Love  and  Mr.  Lewisham"  as  the 
purest  product  of  Mr.  Wells  as  a  story- 
teller. 

H.  W.  BOYNTON 

The  Run  of  the  Shelves 

THE  movement  for  a  memorial  to  the 
late  Professor  Sir  William  Ramsay, 
K.  C.  B.,  F.  R.  S.,  is  making  progress 
both  in  England  and  in  France.  Early 
in  the  war  British  science  lost  in  him 
one  of  its  great  leaders.  No  short 
notice  could  attempt  to  describe  his  ac- 
tivities in  chemistry,  but  his  researches 
were  equally  remarkable  in  the  more 
abstruse  sides  of  the  science  and  in  those 
that  attracted  popular  attention.  To  the 
public  Ramsay  will  remain  best  known 
for  two  extraordinary  researches.  Be- 
fore his  work,  it  was  believed  that  the  at- 
mosphere consisted  only  of  a  mixture  of 
oxygen,  nitrogen,  and  a  few  other  well- 
known  gases.  Starting  on  the  puzzle 
that  there  was  a  minute  difference  in 
weight  between  nitrogen  as  separated 
from  the  oxygen  of  the  air  and  nitrogen 
as  prepared  from  pure  chemicals,  Ram- 
say, after  work  of  remarkable  delicacy, 
discovered  and  isolated  five  new  elements 
in  the  atmosphere — argon,  neon,  xenon, 
krypton,  and  helium.  Helium  had  been 
known  through  spectroscopy  to  exist  in 
the  sun.  When  the  sun's  atmosphere 
was  examined  with  the  spectroscope, 
physicists  had  seen  a  blazing  green  line 
that  corresponded  with  no  known  element. 
Just  as  St.  Paul  forced  the  attention  of 
the  Athenians  by  bringing  to  them  the 
"Unknown  God,"  so  Ramsay  electrified 
the  scientific  world  when  he  isolated  and 
discovered  in  the  ordinary  air  the  exist- 
ence of  this  element  and  reproduced  in 
his  laboratory  the  same  spectrum  line. 

When  the  Curies  discovered  and 
isolated  radium,  Ramsay  was  one  of  the 
pioneers  to  work  on  it,  and  realized  the 
alchemist's  dream  of  proving  the  possi- 
bility of  the  break-up  of  the  atom.  He 
showed  that  radium,  though  an  element, 
decomposes,  giving  off  the  gas  helium, 
and  thus  led  the  way  to  the  discovery 
of  the  number  of  elements  through  which 
radium  changes.  The  work  was  a  miracle 
of  minute  analysis  which  involved  the 
handling,  through  countless  processes,  of 
almost  imperceptible  quantities  of  gas. 

Sir  William  Ramsay  was  never  blind 
to  the  close  connection  of  science  with 
everyday  life.  When  the  war  broke  out, 
he  devoted  himself  to  the  application  of 
science  to  the  needs  at  the  front,  and 
he  was  the  first  to  insist  that  cotton,  as 
the  basis  of  explosives,  must  be  made 
contraband   of  war.     By  so   doing,   he 


greatly  embarrassed  the  German  manu- 
facturers of  explosives  and  directly  con- 
tributed to  the  final  victory.  The 
memorial  will  consist  of  a  fund  for  the 
provision  of  Ramsay  Research  Fellow- 
ships, tenable  wherever  the  necessary 
equipment  may  be  found,  and  for  the 
establishment  of  a  Ramsay  Memorial 
Laboratory  of  Chemical  Engineering  in 
connection  with  University  College, 
London. 

The  fourth  number  of  Etudes  Ital- 
iennes  (Paris:  Leroux),  which  has  just 
reached  this  country,  completes  the  first 
volume  of  this  French  quarterly.  It  pays 
this  high  compliment  to  Dr.  Ernest  H. 
Wilkins,  Professor  of  the  Romance  Lan- 
guages at  Chicago  University: 

We  warmly  approve  of  his  active  campaign 
for  the  development  of  Italian  studies  in  the 
American  educational  system.  .  .  .  With  their 
practical  ways  and  their  proneness  to  do 
things  promptly  and  on  a  large  scale,  are  our 
American  colleagues  about  to  give  to  the  Ital- 
ian language  in  the  training  of  American  youth 
the  place  which  we  in  France  still  hesitate  to 
give  it? 

The  youth  of  Sarah  Bernhardt  is 
perennial.  Though  seventy-six-years  old, 
she  has  just  finished  delivering  a  series 
of  public  lectures  at  Paris  on  the  "Grands 
Semeurs  d'Idees,"  the  closing  one  being 
devoted  to  Edmond  Rostand,  "the  most 
obstinate  believer  in  the  final  victory." 
The  gifted  actress  declaimed  some  of 
the  poet's  finest  verse,  and  her  voice  is 
described  as  being  as  "golden  as  ever." 
And  this  has  been  followed  up  by  "the 
divine  Sarah"  actually  appearing  on  the 
boards  again,  as  she  is  now  giving 
nightly  performances  at  her  own  Paris 
theatre  of  Racine's  "Athalie." 

Besides  offering  the  University  of 
Paris  an  annual  sum  of  money  for  the 
new  Chinese  Department,  the  Pekin 
Government  has  now  signified  its  inten- 
tion of  depositing  in  the  Sorbonne 
library  a  hundred  thousand  manuscripts, 
probably  the  most  remarkable  collection 
outside  of  China. 

M.  Maurice  Barres  relates  that  when 
Moreas  was  on  his  death-bed,  he  said  to 
the  former:  "There  aren't  classicists 
and  romanticists;  that's  all  nonsense.  I 
am  sorry  to  be  in  such  poor  health  that 
I  can't  explain  this  to  you." 

The  Anglo-French  Review,  of  London, 
whose  chief  aim  is  to  draw  France  and 
England  more  closely  together,  seems  to 
be  prospering.  Beginning  with  the 
April  number,  it  contains  sixteen  more 
pages  than  the  earlier  numbers.  One 
of  the  French  articles  is  by  Leon  Bour- 
geois, President  of  the  League  of  Na- 
tions, "where  we  soon  hope  to  find  repre- 
sentatives of  the  United  States,"  he  says. 
M.  Rene  Puaux,  the  Paris  publicist, 
writes  on  "La  Turquie  et  I'Entente,"  and 


11 


May  8,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[491 


has  this  to  say  of  our  non-participation 
in  the  matter:  "The  absence  of  the 
United  States  was  a  great  disappointment 
to  the  English  Government.  America's 
acceptance  of  the  mandate  for  Constanti- 
nople and  Armenia  has  long  appeared  to 
be  the  ideal  solution  of  the  difficulty. 
British  statesmen  gave  it  their  warmest 
approval,  and  the  withdrawal  of  America 
has  compromised  the  whole  question.  It 
is  easily  understood  that  the  additional 
responsibility  thrown  on  France  and 
England  by  this  lack  of  collaboration  on 
the  part  of  the  United  States  has  been 
a  source  of  considerable  anxiety  to  those 
two  Governments."  There  are  three  ar- 
ticles on  Prohibition,  the  last  by  Dr. 
Leonard  Williams,  one  of  the  leading 
London  physicians,  being  entitled  "Pause 
for  Pussyfoot,"  in  which  it  is  stated  that 
"the  white  man  is  not  at  home  on  the 
American  Continent  ...  the  race  will 
die  out  .  .  .  the  black  man  will 
shortly  be  complete  master  of  the  United 
States,  and  the  white  man  become  a  rare 
bird";  and  all  this  will  be  due  to  "this 
experiment  of  Prohibition."  John  Gould 
Fletcher  contributes  a  poem,  "In  the  City 
of  Night,"  which  he  dedicates  "to  the 
memory  of  Edgar  Allan  Poe." 

A  writer  in  the  Temps  hails  Montes- 
sori's  plea  for  periodical  instruction  in 
silence  as  a  fortunate  reaction  against 
the  verbosity  of  pedagogues,  which 
causes  hypertrophy  of  the  children's 
memory  at  the  cost  of  their  reasoning 
faculty  and  their  critical  sense.  A  bath 
of  silence  is  what  the  brain  needs  most 
of  all.  Too  much  talking  is  going  on 
all  over  the  world,  but  especially  in  Latin 
countries.  There  people  get  intoxicated 
with  the  spirit  of  words.  If,  from  child- 
hood, people  were  taught  the  virtue  and 
the  practice  of  silence,  sound  common 
sense  would  not  so  often  be  wasted  by 
"la  melomanie  de  la  phrase."  But,  un- 
fortunately, it  is  the  wagging  tongue 
itself  which  must  help  us  to  fight  its  in- 
temperance. Conferences,  meetings,  re- 
ports, with  their  immoderate  waste  of 
words,  are  the  only  means  of  persuading 
the  talking  crowds  of  the  boon  of  silence. 

Of  Heine's  "Buch  der  Lieder"  the  six- 
tieth edition  recently  appeared  in  Berlin. 
The  same  firm,  Hoffman  &  Campe,  which 
published  the  original  issue,  brought  out 
this  latest  edition  of  the  book.  The  pub- 
lishers claim  to  have  brought  half  a 
million  copies  into  circulation. 

Boris  Brasol's  "Socialism  vs.  Civili- 
zation" (Scribner)  consists  of  six  chap- 
ters. Chapter  I  describes  the  theory 
and  the  aims  of  Marxian  socialism; 
Chapter  II  criticises  the  Marxian  sys- 
tem; Chapter  III  describes  the  social- 
istic experiment  in  Russia;  Chapter  IV 
discusses  the  socialistic  excuses  for  its 
failure;  Chapter  V  sketches  the  social- 


istic agitation  abroad  and  at  home,  and 
Chapter  VI  contains  the  author's  positive 
suggestions  for  remedying  the  defects  in 
the  existing  order.  In  offering  opinion 
on  his  book  a  sharp  distinction  should  be 
drawn  between  the  first  four  chapters 
and  the  last  two ;  the  book  would  be  twice 
as  good  with  the  last  two  eliminated. 

In  his  study  and  criticism  of  Marxian 
socialism  Mr.  Brasol  states  the  case 
lucidly  and  persuasively.  This  sort  of 
thing  has  been  done  before  and  well 
done — by  Simkhovitch  for  instance  and 
by  Skelton — but  it  is  always  worth  doing 
again  when  it  is  done  well,  and  Mr. 
Brasol  has  done  it.  His  description  of 
the  Russian  "experiment"  is  interesting 
as  a  broad  outline  sketch,  although  it 
adds  little  or  nothing  to  the  knowledge 
already  possessed  by  an  intelligent  reader 
of  the  daily  press.  Indeed,  it  recalls  at 
times  the  kinds  of  articles  contributed  to 
the  Saturday  Evening  Post  by  writers  of 
the  Marcosson  clan.  Nevertheless,  it  will 
do  very  well.  But  when  we  come  to  the 
account  of  the  "socialistic"  agitation  at 
home  and  abroad  and  to  the  final  chapter 
—"Revolution  or  Reconstruction" — there 
is  a  swift  and  sharp  decline  in  both  the 
interest  and  the  value  of  the  book. 

Take,  for  instance,  Mr.  Brasol's  pro- 
posals for  "reconstruction."  He  advo- 
cates a  "counter  propaganda"  to  Social- 
ism by  lecture  and  pamphlet,  answering 
argument  and  reason  by  argument  and 
reason.  So  far  so  good.  But  he  wants 
to  "curb"  revolutionary  propaganda,  he 
wants  to  "deport"  revolutionary  agita- 
tors, he  wants  to  continue  war-time  re- 
strictions on  immigration,  he  wants  to 
prevent  (by  law)  strikes  in  "key  indus- 
tries," and  to  make  "picketing"  illegal. 
He  wants  a  "National  Institute  of  Pro- 
duction," under  State  and  Federal  aus- 
pices to  correlate  industry  and  increase 
productivity.  In  discussing  the  "labor" 
situation  he  deals  rapidly  with  "bo- 
nuses," "conciliation,"  and  such  matters, 
but  seems  to  be  unaware  of  the  problems 
commonly  described  in  the  phrase  "in- 
dustrial democracy."  None  of  this  is 
very  helpful.  Some  of  it  reads  a  little 
like  the  kind  of  "happy  thoughts"  that 
come  to  one  sometimes  in  connection  with 
problems  which  one  imperfectly  under- 
stands. 

Georges  Eekhoud,  the  foremost 
French-writing  novelist  of  Flanders,  the 
author  of  "La  Nouvelle  Carthage," 
"L'Autre  Vue,""Les  Fusilles  de  Malines," 
was,  after  the  armistice,  dismissed  as 
instructor  at  the  Brussels  Academy  of 
Plastic  Arts.  He  had  incurred  official 
disgrace  by  his  pro-Flemish  attitude  dur- 
ing the  German  occupation.  Unlike  his 
countryman,  Maurice  Maeterlinck,  who, 
though  born  at  Ghent,  in  the  heart  of 
Flanders,  has  abused  the  Flemings  as 
"rustres"  and  "lourdauds,"  Eekhoud  has 
not  become  estranged  from  his  own  peo- 


ple by  the  fame  which  his  writings  have 
won  him  in  France.  As  a  protest  against 
the  disgraceful  treatment  of  a  great 
artist  and  patriot  an  imposing  indigna- 
tion meeting  was  held  on  March  27,  in 
the  Lyrical  Theatre  at  Brussels.  Both 
French  and  Flemish  writers  of  Belgium, 
artists,  teachers,  students,  men  of  all 
classes  and  professions,  joined  in  an  im- 
pressive homage  to  the  victim  of  official 
ostracism. 

Dr.  A.  Eekhof,  Professor  of  Theology 
in  the  University  of  Leiden,  is  prepar- 
ing for  publication  a  history  of  the  Pil- 
grim Fathers'  life  in  Holland,  from  1608 
to  1620.  The  book  will  derive  its  chief 
interest  from  facsimiles  of  original  doc- 
uments discovered  by  the  author  in  the 
Dutch  archives,  amongst  others  the 
only  known  signature  of  John  Robinson, 
which  has  supplied  a  key  to  fresh  dis- 
coveries in  England,  and  the  last  will  of 
John  Robinson's  widow,  Bridget  White, 
made  in  the  year  1643.  Two  of  the 
Pilgrim  Fathers,  William  Brewster  and 
Thomas  Brewer,  had  a  printing  business 
in  Leiden,  of  whose  output  little  was 
known  until  now.  Dr.  Eekhof,  however, 
has  been  fortunate  in  finding  two  book- 
lets that  came  from  their  press,  a  dis- 
covery which  will  make  his  book  attrac- 
tive to  bibliophiles  and  all  those  who  are 
interested  in  the  history  of  printing.  It 
will  be  a  lasting  contribution  to  the 
tercentenary  celebration  of  the  Pilgrim 
Fathers'  landing  at  Plymouth,  in  which 
Holland  intends  to  take  a  prominent  part. 

The  Trembling  Year 

"AS  yet  the  trembling  year  is  uncon- 
-tV  firmed,"  says  the  poet  of  "setherial 
Mildness."  He  was  the  poet  of  a  formal 
age,  yet  now  and  then  he  looked  the  fact 
in  the  face. 

Winter  oft  at  eve  resumes  the  breeze. 

Chills    the    pale    morn,    and   bids    his    driving 

sleets 
Deform  the  day  delightless. 

My  neighbors  express  it  in  more  pungent 
metaphor — "Looks  's  if  we  was  goin'  to 
have  winter  all  summer,"  says  Uncle 
Everett,  with  a  twinkle  in  his  eye.  It  is 
his  version  of  Swift's  comment  on  the 
talent  for  the  obvious  which  leads  to 
complaints  about  the  weather:  "It  is 
always  too  hot  or  too  cold,  too  wet  or 
too  dry;  but  however  God  Almighty  con- 
trives it,  'tis  all  very  well  in  the  end." 

At  the  death-bed  of  winter  we  watch 
with  tense  longing  for  his  release.  We 
may  at  first  think  him  dying  when  he 
sleeps,  but  after  he  has  wakened  to  suc- 
cessive bursts  of  sound  and  fury  we  are 
fain  to  think  him  sleeping  when  he  dies. 
The  snow  shrinks  to  long  streaks  mark- 
ing the  north  faces  of  swales  and  ridges. 
Days  rise  clear  with  beneficent  sunshine, 
and  sky  that  you  will  swear  is  a  different 
color  from  that  of  last  week;  but  by  ten 


492] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol  2,  No.  52 


o'clock  clouds  threaten,  and  before  long 
snow  flurries  drive  past  on  level  winds. 
But  at  sunrise  crows  converse  loudly  that 
hitherto  have  floated  silently  from  top  to 
top  of  tall  pines;  bluejays  become  noisy 
and  conspicuous;  nuthatches  talk  cheer- 
full}';  chickadees  begin  to  practise  their 
two  spring  notes ;  starlings  at  a  distance 
bring  you  to  a  halt  listening  for  a  new 
song  that  is  not  of  winter.  Slants  of 
sunlight  from  a  higher  angle  make  you 
think  you  see  a  livelier  iris  in  colored 
mists  of  willow  and  poplar  twigs.  Sun- 
day walkers  triumphantly  exhibit  budded 
pussy  willow,  but  to  me  he  is  a  prophet 
without  honor,  for  he  dwells  on  my  own 
premises,  and  year  after  year  I  have  seen 
him  slyly  bud  a  few  twigs  on  a  warm  day 
after  early  cold  in  November  and  trust  to 
his  fur  to  carry  him  through.  In  the 
open  the  snow  dwindles  to  untidy  patches 
like  old  newspapers  blown  about  and 
lodges,  but  for  a  month  yet  it  will  linger 
as  a  silver  undertone  to  blue  veils  in  the 
hills.  Wet  streaks  on  the  trunks  of 
maples  come  not  from  melting  ice  but 
from  bleeding  branches  broken  in  winter 
gales.  Sugar  maples  don  their  spring 
buckets,  and  flies  and  bees  that  come  to 
taste  the  sap  tell  me  that  birds  may  now 
come  and  find  food.  Then  just  after  the 
middle  day  of  March  comes  a  morning 
when  I  snap  broad  awake  with  a  perva- 
sive sense  of  well-being  as  from  good 
news  felt  but  not  remembered.  It  is  the 
murmurous  rejoicing  of  the  bluebirds,  so 
eagerly  awaited  that  it  has  entered  my 
ears  with  pleasure  before  it  reached  my 
consciousness.  I  go  to  the  window  and 
see  them  drifting  northward  in  short 
flights  from  bough  to  bough  of  the  bare 
maples  against  a  sunrise  sky.  Thereafter 
my  mind  is  at  peace;  any  further  activity 
of  winter  I  know  to  be  his  death  flurry, 
at  which  the  year  may  tremble  but  not  I. 
Windless  days  come  with  skies  that 
shed  warmth  like  a  benediction.  At  the 
foot  of  a  south-facing  brick  wall,  cro- 
cuses bloom  close  to  the  ground.  Daffodils 
impale  dead  leaves  and  lift  them  on  the 
points  of  their  spears.  The  rhubarb 
pushes  the  mold  upward  with  gnarled 
crimson  fists  which  meet  the  sunshine 
and  relax  to  show  the  tight-packed  con- 
volutions of  the  new  leaves.  On  the  edge 
of  the  ditch  skunk  cabbage  protrudes  its 
mottled  horns.  Then  for  a  week  the  sun 
sheds  no  blessing.  The  wind  howls  from 
the  north;  the  earth  stiffens  about  the 
crocuses  and  their  heads  are  smothered 
in  snow.  Next  come  slants  of  white  rain 
dissolving  the  new  snow,  and  the  song- 
sparrow  sings  bravely.  The  tone  of  the 
fields  has  deepened  from  dead  khaki  to 
olive  drab  and  forestry  green.  Regi- 
ments of  cornel  and  willow  shoots  make 
vague  blurs  of  crimson  and  chrome  yel- 
low. Red  maple  buds  have  turned  back 
their  tiny  blood  and  orange  scales,  and 
make  clouded  color  through  the  rain.  By 
degrees  the  rain  softens  to  cold  mist.  A 


breeze  stirs  the  curtains  of  the  mist, 
tosses  them,  sweeps  them  away  in  shreds. 
The  whole  air  moves,  and  the  fog  takes 
up  its  march  toward  the  eastern  hills. 
The  sky  is  revealed  as  fleets  of  slaty 
clouds  beating  eastward  on  a  reef  breeze 
with  patches  of  open  blue  widening  and 
closing  in  their  wakes. 

Not  all  the  myriad  shades  of  young 
green  that  ethereal  mildness  in  its  course 
spreads  on  our  hillsides  can  transcend 
the  beauty  of  the  mist-like,  subtly 
blended  colors  of  bare  twigs  in  this  time 
of  the  trembling  year.  At  no  other  sea- 
son is  there  such  variety  of  shade  and 
tone  save  in  autumn — but  autumn  flaunts 
her  clothes,  the  young  year  trembles 
through  diaphanous  veils.  Colors  that 
are  plain  to  name  when  you  look  at  them 
closely  in  small  bits,  under  any  effect  of 
blur,  such  as  distance,  atmosphere,  or 
indirect  vision,  blend  in  combinations 
that  defy  one's  vocabulary.  I  know  an 
elderly  pitch  pine,  the  trunk  of  which, 
when  "with  hands  in  my  pockets  I 
saunter  up  close  and  examine  it"  has 
clearly  two  main  colors,  terra  cotta  and 
silver  gray.  If  I  look  just  past  the  trunk 
at  something  beyond,  the  effect  is  the 
same  as  if  I  look  at  it  from  a  distance; 
the  color  becomes  a  nameless  pink  com- 
pounded of  silver  and  terra  cotta.  So  it 
is  with  the  thickets  of  bushy  alder  and 
birch,  which  run  the  scale  of  color  from 
pale  mauve  to  wine-dark  purple  accord- 
ing to  permutations  or  combinations  of 
light,  moisture,  and  distance.  Near  by 
and  seen  against  the  sun,  alder  twigs  are 
a  dark  indeterminate  brown,  and  the  sun 
glints  white  on  the  glossy  bark.  At  a 
little  distance,  with  the  sun  to  one  side, 
you  see  the  white  of  the  sun-glint  mingle 
with  the  color  of  the  bark  to  make  mauve. 
The  pinker  tones,  mauve,  violet,  lavender, 
appear  when  the  bushes  are  near  by  and 
in  stronger  light;  distance,  shadow,  or 
atmosphere  (moisture,  dust,  or  smoke  in 
the  air)  gives  them  more  blue. 

Such  colors,  hesitant  and  undeter- 
mined, are  fit  vesture  for  the  trembling 
season,  but  one  there  is  more  daring  than 
anything  of  autumn,  which  if  it  were  not 
of  fairyland  would  set  the  world  on  fire. 
On  a  little  knoll  that  catches  a  level  ray 
from  the  late  afternoon  sun,  I  have  found 
a  pool  of  spirit  light  blended  of  moon 
and  opal,  glowing  with  the  incandescence 
of  a  sunset  cloud.  It  comes  from  a  quilt 
of  moss;  I  have  found  no  one  yet  to  tell 
me  its  name,  but  the  children  know  it  for 
its  forest  of  thread-like  stems  each  up- 
holding its  little  vase  which  in  summer 
they  love  to  undress,  taking  off  the  tiny 
Tam  o'  Shanter  cap  and  woolly  shirt.  The 
sunlight  mingles  and  touches  to  fire  the 
colors  of  the  glossy  stems,  ranging  from 
crimson  through  orange  and  chrome  to 
pale  green.  They  dissolve  their  color  in 
the  light  as  in  liquid  or  in  lambent  flame, 
a  radiance  incredible  in  anything  so  tiny. 
True  Thomas  himself,  "spying  ferlies  wi' 


his  ee"  as  he  lay  on  Huntley  bank,  saw 
no  gayer  sight  unless  it  was  through  just 
such  fairy  woods  blazing  with  the  fire 
of  spring  that  he  saw  the  Queen  come 
riding. 

Now  less  oft  at  eve  does  winter  resume 
the  breeze;  morn  is  no  longer  pale  and 
seldom  chilled,  and  if  the  day  is  delight- 
less  it  is  no  recurrence  of  driving  sleet 
that  deforms  it.  Willows  along  the  river 
rise  like  rounded  clouds  of  faint  green 
smoke.  Shad  and  wild  cherry  float  drifts 
of  blossoms  like  pale  sunshine  in  woods 
and  hedgerows.  "Brightness  falls  from 
the  air"  where  the  sugar  maple  hangs 
out  its  delicate  tracery  of  pale  green 
blossoms.  The  trembling  year  is  quite 
confirmed. 

Robert  Palfrey  Utter 

Books  and  the  News 

France 

WHILE  some  of  the  public  men  who 
greeted  King  Albert  in  America 
thought  it  necessary  to  remind  him  that 
we  do  not  really  believe  in  kings,  there 
came  from  Speaker  Gillett,  in  Congress, 
a  truthful  and  manly  acknowledgment  of 
our  debt  to  the  nations  which  suffered 
the  first  and  hardest  blows  against  civil- 
ization. He  introduced  the  King  as  "our 
friend,  our  ally,  and  our  defender."  To 
Belgium  and  to  France,  as  the  cham- 
pions of  liberty,  must  go  the  gratitude 
of  every  lover  of  liberty.  The  "intellect- 
uals," in  England  and  America,  signally 
fail  to  show  that  they  possess  any  in- 
tellects whatever,  when  they  try  to  prove 
their  devotion  to  human  freedom  by 
defending  Germany,  and  snarling  at 
France. 

The  true  France,  and  the  relations 
towards  her  which  will  be  maintained  if 
believers  in  democracy  prevail  in  Amer- 
ica and  Great  Britain,  have  been  set 
forth  in  a  number  of  books  by  writers 
in  both  countries.  An  English  view, 
written  during  the  war  by  Laurence 
Jerrold,  is  "France  Today"  (Murray 
1916),  a  study  of  various  sides  of  French 
life,  government,  and  politics.  Elizabeth 
Shepley  Sergeant's  "French  Perspec- 
tives" (Houghton,  1916),  and  Edith 
Wharton's  "French  Ways  and  their 
Meaning"  (Appleton,  1919)  are  brief 
books.  Mrs.  Wharton,  for  writing  this 
book,  is  denounced  as  a  snob  by  a  critic 
in  the  Neiv  Republic,  who  naturally  re- 
sents a  good  word  for  any  countries  ex- 
cept Germany  and  Bolshevik  Russia. 
Visits  during  the  war  resulted  in  Wini- 
fred Stephens's  "The  France  I  Know" 
(Chapman,  1918).  Another  English 
book  is  "My  French  Year"  (Mills  & 
Boon,  1919),  by  Constance  E.  Maud. 
Herbert  Adams  Gibbons,  in  "France  and 
Ourselves"  (Century,  1920),  publishes 
{Continued  on  page  494) 


May  8,  1920] 


THE  REVIEAV 


[493 


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THE  LIGHT  HEART 

By  Maurice  Hewlett 

This  is  the  latest  stirring  talc  of  the  Norse  country  by  the 
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mancers. It  is  a  vigorous  story — the  kind  Americans  like — 
full  of  action  and  adventure  and  about  interesting  people. 

Price,  $2.00 

ALL  AND  SUNDRY 

By  E.  T.  Raymond 

E.  T.  Raymond  is  the  author  of  that  delightful  collection  of 
pithy  word-pictures,  "Uncensored  Celebrities."  "All  and 
Sundry"  is  another  highly  amusing  collection  of  uncensored 
celebrities  describing  such  famous  contemporaries  as  Wood- 
row  Wilson,  the  Prince  of  Wales  and  Foch.        Price,  $2.25 


WILDERNESS 
SONGS 

By  G.  H.  Conkling 

Songs  and  poems  of  Amer- 
ica of  today.         Price,  $1.50 


THE  CAIRN 
OF  STARS 

By  Francis  Carlin 

Irish  songs  by  the  author 
of  "My  Ireland."   Price,  $1.50 


Among  the  Spring  Leaders 

THE  GIRL  FROM  FOUR 
CORNERS 

By  Rebecca  N.  Porter 

"A  golden  California  romance  to  put  you  into  the  mood  of 
spring."     Now  in  its  second  printing.  Price,  $1.75 

THE  TURN  OF  THE  TIDE 

By  Lt.-Col.  Jennings  C.  Wise 

Former  Secretary  of  State  Robert  Lansing  says  this  book 
is  "a  real  contribution  to  the  literature  of  the  war." 

Price,  $1.50 

MANY  MANY  MOONS 

By  Lew  Sarett 

Poems  and  songs  of  the  North  Woods'  Indians,  with  an  in- 
troduction by  Cari   Sandburg.  Price,  $1.50 

JANE  AUSTEN 

By  O.  W.  Firkins 

"A  book  about  Jane  Austen  both  new  and  worth  reading"  is 
the  verdict  of  The  New  Republic.  Price,  $1.75 

9th  Printing 

ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

By  Ford  Charnwood 

".\  monograph  that  gives  a  masterly  analysis  of  Lincoln's 
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494] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol  2,  No.  52 


{Continued  from  page  492) 
essaj-s  whose  aim  is  to  interpret  Amer- 
ica and  France  to  each  other.  Robert  E. 
Dell's  "My  Second  Country"  (Lane, 
1920)  resulted  from  the  war,  but  goes 
far  beyond  the  war  in  its  historical 
studies;  he  avails  himself  of  the  free- 
dom of  a  lover  of  France  to  indicate  the 
dangerous  situation  in  which  the  war  has 
placed  her.  Clara  E.  Laughlin's  "The 
Martyred  Towns  of  France"  (Putnam, 
1919)  is  healthful  reading,  especially  for 
those  who  are  overeager  to  kiss  and 
make-up  with  an  utterly  unrepentant 
Germany. 

Some  of  the  pleasant  books  of  travel, 
and  of  comment  upon  French  life, 
written  in  the  days  before  1914,  are 
Henry  James's  "A  Little  Tour  in 
France"  (Houghton,  1884),  Mary  King 
Waddington's  "Chateau  and  Country 
Life  in  France"  (Scribner,  1908),  Edith 
Wharton's  "A  Motor  Flight  through 
France"  (Scribner,  1919;  first  pub- 
lished, 1908),  E.  V.  Lucas's  "A  Wan- 
derer in  Paris"  (Macmillan  1909),  W.  C. 
Brownell's  French  Traits"  (Scribner), 
and  Barrett  Wendell's  "The  France  of 
Today"   (Scribner,  1907). 

For  a  book  on  the  government,  there 
is  Ex-President  Poincare's  "How  France 
is  Governed"  (McBride,  1913).  A  re- 
cent history  of  France,  in  one  volume, 
which  includes  the  great  war,  is  William 
Sfceams  Davis's  "History  of  France" 
(Houghton,  1919). 

Edmund  Lester  Pearson 

Empire  Building  by  Air 
— Cairo  to  the  Cape 

ANEW  form  of  empire-building  is  in 
progress.  The  old  venturers  who 
charted  unknown  seas  in  quest  of  adven- 
ture and  knowledge — those  who  threaded 
their  slow  way  across  untrodden  conti- 
nents— their  day  is  done.  The  sea  and 
the  earth  have  had  their  share;  it  is  the 
turn  of  the  skies.  The  empire-builder  of 
to-day  has  a  new  element  to  play  with, 
new  means  of  swiftly  linking  up  the 
uttermost  comers  of  the  earth. 

In  the  course  of  one  year  the  ends  of 
the  British  Empire  have  been  reached  by 
aircraft  from  England,  and  the  Atlantic 
has  been  spanned.  News  comes  that  the 
journey  of  over  five  thousand  miles  from 
Cairo  to  the  Cape  has  now  been  ac- 
complished. Twenty-five  years  ago  and 
more  it  was  the  dream  of  Cecil  Rhodes 
to  build  a  railway  from  Cape  Town  to 
Cairo — but  geography  prevented  it.    The 

Concerning  radical  readjustment  between  the  peoplea: 

"The  Brotherhood  of  Man" 

This  book  by  Dr.  A.  R.  L.  Dohmc  is  an  earnest  study 
of  general  economic  and  political  conditions.  Dr. 
Uohme  concludes  with  an  interesting  practical  outline 
for  a  World  Sute  and  new  human  relationships. 
By   mail,  $1.10.  ^ 

THE  NORMAN,  REMINGTON  COMPANY 
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airplane  has  at  last  given  reality  to  his 
dream.  And  dreams  not  only  his.  To 
reach  Cairo  by  air  one  passes  over  the 
Icarian  Sea,  and  the  airway  to  India  lies 
above  Palestine,  where  Isaiah  saw  the 
vision  of  the  six-winged  Seraphim,  and 
on  through  Assyria,  where  winged  crea- 
tures adorn  the  palaces. 

The  new  transport  has  already  made 
the  fame  of  Sir  Frederick  Sykes,  the 
Controller  of  Aviation  in  Great  Britain. 
It  was  he  who  had  the  vision  to  perceive 
that  Cairo  must  become  the  hub  from 
which  radiate  the  air-routes  of  the  East. 
The  preliminary  planning,  as  in  the 
transatlantic  and  Australian  flights,  con- 
sumed laborious  months.  Three  survey 
parties,  charged  with  laying  out  the  most 
suitable  air-route  over  Africa,  were 
despatched  in  December,  1918. 

The  route  by  air  from  Cairo  to  the 
southernmost  point  of  South  Africa  is, 
as  they  laid  it,  5,200  miles.  Reckoning 
100  miles  an  hour  as  a  fair  average  fly- 
ing speed,  only  fifty-two  hours  of  actual 
flying  time  will  be  required  to  traverse 
the  entire  continent,  a  week's  journey. 
The  total  distance  by  present  means  of 
communication  is  6,223  miles,  for  which 
anything  between  sixty  to  seventy-five 
days  is  required,  according  to  ground 
conditions  in  certain  sections. 

Altogether  forty-three  airdromes  have 
been  made — many  of  them  over  4,000 
feet  above  sea  level.  The  difficulties  en- 
countered by  the  survey  parties  would 
have  been  practically  insurmountable  but 
for  the  loyal  help  of  the  natives.  In 
places  it  was  necessary  to  cut  airdromes 
out  of  dense  jungle,  to  fell  thousands  of 
trees  and  dig  up  their  roots,  while  the 
soil  of  innumerable  ant  hills  had  to  be 
removed  in  native  baskets.  Some  of 
these  ant  hills  are  often  60  feet  in  height 
and  between  35  and  45  feet  in  diameter. 
At  N'dola,  in  Northern  Rhodesia,  seven 
hundred  natives  were  working  from 
April  to  August  of  last  year  and 
roughly  25,000  tons  were  removed.  Blast- 
ing was  tried  but  was  found  to  be  un- 
suitable. 

Flying  risks  are  perhaps  not  so  grave 
as  in  the  Australian  flight,  but  they  are 
great  enough.  It  is  in  the  central  zone  of 
the  journey  that  the  chief  difficulties 
occur.  Most  of  this  is  covered  with 
dense  bush  and  tropical  forest,  and 
landings  at  other  than  the  prepared 
grounds  will  be  exceedingly  dangerous,  if 
not  impossible.  In  some  parts  there  is 
no  land  transport,  which  makes  it  diffi- 
cult to  provide  the  necessary  stores  at 
the  airdromes.  Moreover,  at  some  places 
the  tsetse  fly  prevents  the  use  of  cattle,  so 
that,  failing  the  provision  of  light  motor 
transport — for  which  special  roads  would 
have  to  be  prepared  over  some  sections — 
native  bearers  will  have  to  be  used  for 
the  carriage  of  stores.  Lions,  deadly 
snakes,  white  ants,  mosquitoes,  and  other 
bloodthirsty  creatures,  together  with  a 


shortage  of  water  and  an  unhealthy  cli- 
mate, do  not  add  to  the  joys  of  ordinary 
travel,  and  the  fact  that  the  survey 
parties  completed  their  work  in  twelve 
months  in  the  face  of  such  obstacles  says 
much  for  their  hardihood. 

Each  airman  proposing  to  make  the 
journey  is  furnished  with  elaborate  route 
directions  comprising  information  as  to 
the  prevailing  winds  and  weather  condi- 
tions at  various  points;  description  of 
any  conspicuous  landmarks  such  as  may 
enable  the  airdrome  to  be  more  readily 
located,  of  all  obstacles,  and  of  the  nature 
of  the  country  surrounding  each  landing 
ground;  and  the  distance  and  location 
from  each  airdrome,  of  the  nearest  rail- 
way, telegraph,  doctor,  or  hospital,  and 
drinking  water  supplies.  He  has  also 
been  supplied  with  a  diagrammatic 
weather  chart  prepared  by  the  Meteo- 
rological Section  of  the  British  Air  Min- 
istry after  special  investigation  of  the 
prevailing  weather  conditions  along  the 
route,  showing  the  normal  type  of 
weather  to  be  expected  during  the  vari- 
ous seasons  of  the  year.  So  far  as  is 
possible,  pilots  will,  during  the  progress 
of  the  journey,  receive  reports  of  the 
actual  weather  conditions  ahead  of  them. 

All  the  pilots  have  to  do  is  to  fly  and 
keep  on  flying;  but  in  their  flights  they 
would  do  well  to  hover  for  one  respectful 
instant  above  a  grave  on  the  heights  of 
the  Matoppo  Hills. 

CuTHBERT  Hicks 

{Late  of  the  British  Air  Ministry) 


Drama 


I 


Ibsen  on  Grand  Street— Gil- 
bert on  Broadway        | 

A  PERFORMANCE  of  "John  Gabriel 
Borkman"  was  given  on  April  24 
at  the  Neighborhood  Playhouse  by  the 
School  of  Drama  of  the  Carnegie  Insti- 
tute of  Technology.  It  was  not  a  per- 
formance in  which  the  lovers  of  Ibsen 
or  lovers  of  the  exhibit  of  promise  in 
amateurs  could  take  any  unqualified  de- 
light. The  two  leading  women  had  un- 
disciplined voices  that  sank  in  quality  as 
they  rose  in  power.  Mr.  C.  F.  Steen  as 
Borkman  was  fortunate  in  a  rich  and 
wisely  governed  voice,  but  his  personality  i  ■ 
suggested  the  fallen  cleric  or  neglected  j  I 
poet  rather  than  the  Sir  Epicure  Mam- 
mon who  Borkman  really  is.  The  other 
parts  were  never  less  than  excusable  or 
more  than  acceptable,  with  the  single 
exception  of  Vilhelm  Foldal,  which  Mr. 
Theodore  Viehman  acted  with  a  piping 
innocence  that  was  sound  and  plea.sing. 
The  performance,  of  which  I  missed  the 
first  act,  was  rapid  and  superficial;  the 
meaning  has  to  be  coaxed  out  of  Ibsen;  j 
and  while  deliberation  is  perilous,  I  sus- 
pect that  it  is  by  facing  and  mastering 

{Continued  on  page  497)  ,     [ 


I 


May  8,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[495 


MACMILLAN     SPRING     NOVELS 

St.  John  Ervine's  New  Novel 

THE    FOOLISH    LOVERS 

By  the  author  of  "John  Ferguson" 

In  this  story  of  a  headstrong,  dominating  young  Irishman  and  the  effect  on  his  Hfe  of  the  conflicting  influences 
of  various  women,  Mr.  Ervine  has  done  some  of  his  finest  wori<.  It  is  a  realistic,  convincing  delineation  of 
contrasting  character — of  the  contest  between  a  strong  but  unguided  will  and  the  subtle  persuasions  of  diversely 
disguised  self-interest.     To  be  ready  next  week. 


THE  IMPERFECT  MOTHER 

J.  D.  BERESFORD'S  New  Novel 

The  story  of  a  woman  of  middle  age  who 
leaves  her  family  to  elope  with  a  fascinating  but 
characterless  lover,  of  her  later  meeting  with 
her  son  at  a  time  when  both  are  in  need  of  af- 
fection and  sympathy  and  of  their  final  breach, 
brought  about  by  the  selfishness  of  her  love. 
This  penetrating  study  of  character  and  tem- 
perament is  bound  to  stir  the  most  widespread 
interest. 

JOHN  FERGUSON 

By  St.  JOHN  ERVINE.   New  edition  with 
an  Introduction  by  the  Author. 

"Never  have  the  tragedies  of  everyday  life  been 
presented  in  dramatic  form  more  truthfully  or 
more  poignantly." — The  Dial. 

"The  conspicuous  merits  of  the  play  consist  in 
its  perfect  naturalness,  its  progressive  interest, 
the  consistency,  variety,  and  vitality  of  its  per- 
sonalities, the  deep  emotional  interest,  of  situa- 
tions of  its  hidden  machinery.  This  work  puts 
Mr.  Ervine  in  the  first  rank  of  living  dramatists." 
— The  Nation. 

LABOR'S  CHALLENGE  TO 
THE  SOCIAL  ORDER 

By  JOHN  GRAHAM  BROOKS 

This  careful  and  exhaustive  study  of  the  causes 
and  character  of  the  present  widespread  unrest 
is  written  in  a  sane  and  judicial  spirit.  An  in- 
clusive analysis  of  past  and  present  conditions 
and  a  thought  provoking  discussion  of  the  possi- 
bilities of  the  future  make  this  a  work  of  the 
utmost  importance  and  timeliness. 


MRS.  WARREN^S 
DAUGHTER 

Sir  HARRY  JOHNSTON'S  New  Novel 

Following  in  the  footsteps  of  "The  Gay-Dom- 
beys"  this  new  novel  has  as  its  central  character 
a  personage  from  another  well-known  author's 
work.  It  is  the  intensely  interesting  story  of 
Vivien,  daughter  of  Mrs.  Warren,  from  the 
point  where  Bernard  Shaw  leaves  her  in  his 
play,  "Mrs.  Warren's  Profession,"  and  of  her 
"effort  to  attain  to  an  honorable  position  in  the 
face  of  her  great  handicap. 

A  STRAIGHT  DEAL,  or 
THE  ANCIENT  GRUDGE 

OWEN  WISTER'S  New  Book 

A  book  of  facts  about  England  and  the  British 
Empire,  written  with  the  avowed  intention  of 
creating  a  better  feeling  and  understanding  be- 
tween English  and  Americans.  Careful,  thor- 
ough and  authoritative,  the  work  covers  a  very 
wide  field  and  is  startling  in  its  revelations  of 
England's  attitude  toward  this  country  today  and 
in  many  serious  situations  in  the  past.         $2.00 

THE  STRANGER 

By  ARTHUR  BULLARD 

The  meeting  of  East  and  West  furnishes  the 
background  for  this  new  sort  of  love  story,  shot 
through  with  Oriental  color  and  mysticism  and 
reflecting  the  author's  intimate  acquaintance  with 
native  life  and  ways  in  the  old  Mohammedan 
strongholds  of  North  Africa  and  the  Near  East. 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY,      Publishers,      NEW  YORK 


Please  mention  The  Review  in  writing  to  advertisers. 


496] 


THE  REVIEW  [Vol  2,  No.  52 


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[497 


(Continued  from  page  494) 
that  peril  that  success  in  Ibsen  per- 
formances is  achievable.  The  students 
tried  to  play  "John  Gabriel  Borkman" 
for  its  Broadway  values,  values  which 
Broadway  perceives  to  be  insufficient. 

The  play  does  not  show  Ibsen's  own 
dramaturgy  at  its  best.  Borkman  is 
naturally  the  central  figure,  but  his  re- 
lation to  the  main  crisis  in  Act  III  is 
almost  peripheral.  His  death  from  physi- 
cal exposure  in  Act  IV  ends  a  good  deal, 
but  solves  or  settles  nothing.  More- 
over, death  by  the  elements  in  psychical 
play  is  an  impropriety,  and,  if  the  ven- 
ture into  the  air  be  symbolic,  death  by 
symbolism  in  a  realistic  play  seems 
equally  improper. 

But  the  drama  has  real  merits.  Bork- 
man is  vigorously  imagined;  what  is 
more,  he  is  one  of  the  few  characters 
in  the  Ibsen  social  plays  whose  own  im- 
aginations are  vigorous.  It  is  curious 
that  this  dreamer  should  be  a  business 
man,  and  that  the  artists,  Solness  and 
Rubek,  should  be  plodding  and  mechani- 
cal beside  him.  He  fails  in  business, 
as  they,  in  their  diverging  fashions,  fail 
in  art;  and  all  three  by  a  startling  coinci- 
dence, perish  in  a  symbolic  re-ascent  to 
irrecoverable  heights,  Solness  on  his 
tower,  Rubek  and  Borkman  on  the-  hill 
or  mountain.  All  three  men  carry  hope 
into  despair,  and  Borkman  in  particular, 
so  muscular  in  paralysis,  so  indomitable 
in  prostration,  attracts  and  dominates 
while  he  grovels  and  repels.  This  note 
of  failure  impresses  us  strangely  in  its 
reiteration  by  a  successful  artist  in  the 
height  and  blossom  of  his  fame. 

There  are  seven  characters  in  "John 
Gabriel  Borkman"  (omitting  servants) ; 
in  other  words,  there  are  seven  avidi- 
ties. They  chase,  they  seize;  their  very 
love  is  predatory.  For  a  parallel  I 
should  have  to  refer  to  Gogol's  "In- 
spector-General," or  to  those  Plautine 
and  Terentian  comedies  in  which  the 
characters  are  all  teeth.  The  thing 
spares  neither  sex  nor  age.  In  its  hope- 
less survival  in  the  elderly  man  whose 
career  it  has  darkened  and  defiled,  it  is 
grim  enough;  but  perhaps  its  emergence 
is  even  more  awful  in  the  tenderly  reared, 
gentle,  and  even  amiable  lad,  whose  in- 
nocence it  has  not  wholly  dimmed.  Even 
the  delicate  young  girl  is  not  fangless. 
There  is  a  vivid  moral — a  moral  which 
Ibsen  may  or  may  not  have  purposed  or 
endorsed — in  the  circumstance  that  all 
this  greed  is  fruitless  or  calamitous.  The 
ruin  in  the  old  is  manifest;  in  the  young 
the  havoc  is  foredoomed :  Ibsen  has  not 
hesitated  to  make  the  elopement  as  farci- 
cal as  it  is  wicked,  and  the  future  lowers 
or  leers  at  us  through  the  transparence 
of  its  useless  veil.  In  the  end  the  deso- 
lation is  complete;  the  two  haggard 
women  have  lost  the  man,  the  boy,  for 
whose  hearts  they  have  ruthlessly  con- 
tended.   One  is  dead,  the  other  vanished ; 


and  their  hands  meet  in  unavailing  fel- 
lowship across  the  barren  memory  and 
the  lifeless  frame. 

Two  special  matinees  were  given  last 
week  at  the  Knickerbocker  Theatre  by 
the  Actors'  Fidelity  League  for  the  bene- 
fit of  the  Vacation  Association,  which  is 
mindful  of  working  girls.  There  was 
presented  a  faxiciful  one-act  sketch  by 
Mr.  Oliphant  Down  called  the  "Maker  of 
Dreams,"  in  which  Mr.  Kyle,  the  dream- 
maker,  was  fittingly  genial,  though  a 
little  too  robust  for  his  stock-in-trade; 
Mr.  Ruben  was  black-haired,  white-faced, 
and  scarlet-lipped,  and  the  midge-like 
Miss  Ruth  Chatterton  appeared  in  an 
equal  brevity  of  gown  and  speech.  The 
names  of  Mr.  George  M.  Cohan  and  Mr. 
William  Collier  were  capitalized  in  a 
double  sense  for  the  benefit  of  the  pro- 
gramme; but  neither  they  nor  the  rea- 
sons for  their  absence  were  forthcoming. 
Mr.  George  Copeland  was  expert  at  the 
piano. 

W.  S.  Gilbert's  "Pygmalion  and 
Galatea"  was  the  mainstay  of  the  enter- 
tainment. The  attractions  of  this  play 
are  considerable;  its  theme  is  pointed, 
its  adaptation  to  the  stage  is  dexterous, 
its  comedy  is  zestful,  and  its  satire  on 
civilized  practices,  notably  war,  is  the 
more  deadly,  and  therefore  the  more 
helpful,  for  the  superlative  innocence  of 
its  mouthpiece.  The  blank  verse  keeps 
out  of  the  way  with  a  beautifully  humble 
perception  of  the  fact  that  keeping  out 
of  the  way  is  the  first  duty  of  blank 
verse  in  modem  comedy.  But  there  are 
incongruities  enough  to  qualify  one's 
pleasure.  A  statue  comes  to  life.  This 
is  believable  only  in  a  very  romantic  or 
a  very  sportive  mood.  The  dramatist's 
mood  is  not  in  the  least  romantic;  hence 
sportiveness  becomes  the  breath  and  be- 
ing of  the  play.  But  what  place  is  there 
in  a  sportive  fabric  for  the  blinding  of 
the  scarcely  peccant  husband,  for  Pyg- 
malion's final  cruelty  toward  Galatea, 
for  the  heartbreak  of  Galatea's  willing 
relapse  into  the  shielding  insensibility 
of  stone — one  of  the  bitterest  and  at  the 
same  time  most  beautiful  indictments  of 
life  that  misanthropy  has  ever  framed? 
This  is  all  somehow  misplaced.  The 
buoyancies  of  Sir  William  Gilbert's 
roguish  little  comedy  shudder  at  the 
advent  of  these  spectres  like  Florizel  and 
Perdita  in  the  merrymakings  of  the 
"Winter's  Tale"  at  the  approach  of  the 
gloomy  and  irate  Polixenes. 

But  the  incongruities  do  not  end  here. 
Mr.  Archer  has  pointed  out  with  entire 
correctness  the  dramatic  impropriety  of 
Galatea's  retort,  "What,  a  paid  assassin !" 
to  Pygmalion's  definition  of  a  soldier. 
What  does  Pentelic  marble  know  of  paid 
assassins?  A  statue  animated  a  few 
hours  ago  can  have  no  knowledge — not 
even  knowledge  enough  to  give  point  to 
its  ignorance.  But  its  ignorance  must 
(Continued  on  page  498) 


f^Readers  of  "Parnassus  on 
Wheels"  will  be  glad  to  know  that 
the  whimsical  little  tale  of  Roger 
Mifflin  and  his  caravan  bookshop 
is  now  in  its  seventh  edition. 

CHRISTOPHER 
MORLEY 

is  headed  for  a  secure  place  in  our 
literature.  His  unique  charm  has 
won  for  him  a  large  public. 

The  success  of  his  latest  book, 
"Kathleen,"  is  gratifying  proof  of 
his  growing  popularity.  His  books 
are: 

The  Haunted  Bookshop 

Kathleen 

Parnassus  on  Wheels 

Shandygaff 

DOUBLED  AY,  PAGE  &  CO. 


NEW  EDITION 


The  History  of  the 
I.  W.  W. 

By  Dr.  PAUL  FREDERICK 
BRISSENDEN, 

Special  Agent,  United  States  Depart- 
ment of  Labor,  438  pp.  octavo,  paper 
covers,  $3.50  net;  cloth,  $4.00  net;  post- 
age for  two  pounds. 

"Invaluable  to  all  those  interested  in  the 
rise  of  this  sensational  organization." — 
The  New  York  Times. 

"Most  important  study  ever  made  and 
recorded  of  the  L  W.  W." — The  New 
York  Call. 

Everyone  wishing  to  understand  the  un- 
derlying causes  of  current  industrial  un- 
rest should  read  this  book. 

Syndicalism  in  France 

By  LOUIS  LEVINE,  Ph.D., 

Special  writer,  New  York  World. 

229  pp.  octavo,  paper  covers,  $1.50  net ; 
cloth,  $2.00  net;  postage  for  twenty 
ounces. 

LONGMANS,   GREEN  &    CO. 

Publishers 
NEW      YORK 


498] 


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James  Parmclee 
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Dean  Sage 
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Myles  Tierncy 
Clarence  M.  Woolley 


Members  of  the  New   York  Clearing  House  Asso- 
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(Continued  from  page  497) 
be  pointed.  One  may  pity  even  Sir 
William  Gilbert  in  the  throes  of  the 
baffling  double  problem  of  keeping 
Galatea's  knowledge  down  to  the  point 
enforced  by  probability  and  up  to  the 
point  required  by  comedy.  A  more 
venial  inconsistency  is  the  combination 
of  Greek  costume  with  English  manners. 
When  Pygmalion,  very  properly,  sends 
Galatea  to  his  sister's  house  for  the 
night,  we  are  moved  to  search  for  his 
address  in  the  British  Who's  Who. 

The  all-star  performance  was  by  no 
means  of  solar  brilliancy.  The  best  part 
was  probably  Miss  Gladys  Hanson's  hand- 
some, sweeping,  and  imperious  Cynisca. 


Pygmalion,  in  Mr.  Lester  Lonergan's 
bluff  interpretation  was  rather  a  man 
about  town  than  an  artist.  Miss  Fay 
Bainter  as  Galatea  looked  well  and  posed 
well,  and  combined  artlessness  with  in- 
stinctive dignity;  but  her  elocution  was 
a  little  too  obviously  moulded,  and  there 
was  a  half -doll-like,  half -nun-like,  quality 
in  her  work  that  took  the  savor  out  of 
her  lovemaking.  Mr.  Sidney  Toler  and 
Miss  Katherine  Hayden  were  competent 
in  unexacting  parts  and  Mr.  J.  W.  Ran- 
some  and  Miss  Zelda  Sears  as  the  art- 
patron  and  his  wife  had  a  loudness  in 
their  behavior  which  their  costumes  re- 
echoed. 

0.  W.  Firkins 


How  Can  America  Help  Europe? 


THE  British  Ambassador,  Sir  Auck- 
land Geddes,  in  an  address  before 
the  Chamber  of  Commerce  of  the  United 
States  on  April  28,  urged  the  participa- 
tion of  the  United  States  in  the  re- 
habilitation of  Europe.  He  expressed 
the  conviction  that  Germany  and  all 
Europe  would  get  back  to  work  and  life 
after  more  or  less  suffering.  "Perhaps 
there  will  be  disorder,"  he  said,  "there 
may  be  upheavals,  but  the  people  will  win 
through."  He  added,  "The  great  ques- 
tion you  [in  the  United  States]  have  to 
decide  is  this:  Are  you  going  to  stand 
by  and  wait  for  Europe's  troubles  to 
come  after  you,  as  come  they  will,  or 
are  you  going  to  help  Europe  to  win 
through  to  reasonable  conditions?  I  do 
not  mean  help  Europe  politically,  but  as 
a   long-range  business   proposition." 

If  this  question  is  directed  to  Ameri- 
can business  men,  the  almost  universal 
answer,  based  upon  our  desires,  would  be 
in  favor  of  helping  Europe.  The  only 
difficulty  is  how  to  render  the  help  so 
that  it  will  be  of  permanent  benefit  both 
to  Europe  and  to  ourselves. 

In  October,  1919,  distinguished  dele- 
gations of  business  men  and  bankers 
visited  this  country  from  England, 
France,  Italy,  and  Belgium,  to  attend  the 
International  Trade  Conference  at  At- 
lantic City.  On  that  occasion  the  utmost 
friendliness  for  the  problems  of  Europe 
was  expressed  by  an  assemblage  as  fully 
representative  of  American  business  as 
any  that  ever  came  together  in  this 
country.  Ever  since  then  the  matter  has 
been  receiving  the  closest  possible  study, 
and  yet  no  far-reaching  progress  ap- 
pears to  have  been  made.  Just  what  have 
been  the  obstacles  to  carrying  out  in 
fact  what  the  business  leaders  of  a  great 
and  rich  nation  almost  universally  de- 
sire in  theory  to  accomplish? 

Let  us  regard  the  matter  briefly,  first 
from  the  point  of  view  of  Europe,  and 
secondly  from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
United  States. 


From  the  European  standpoint  we  see 
the  greater  Allied  nations  making  heroic 
efforts  to  get  back  to  work.  In  repeated 
statements  the  Allied  Premiers  have  rec- 
ognized the  necessity  of  balancing  their 
budgets.  They  realize  the  necessity  of 
increased  production  in  order  to  provide 
goods  for  export  to  offset  their  abnormal 
imports.  To  a  great  extent,  however, 
thei^"  efforts  have  been  handicapped  by 
the  desires  of  men  to  work  shorter 
hours  at  the  one  period  perhaps  in  the 
history  of  the  world  when  enthusiastic 
and  unremitting  labor  is  most  called  for. 
Gradually  the  exports  of  these  countries 
are  increasing  and  their  imports  de- 
creasing, England  is  making  rapid  prog- 
ress in  this  regard,  and  is  amply  capable 
of  taking  care  of  herself.  Among  the 
Continental  countries  perhaps  the  best 
record  is  being  made  by  Italy,  whose  posi- 
tion, as  recently  described  in  this  coun- 
try by  Professor  Attolico,  the  resident 
High  Commissioner,  indicates  a  thorough 
practical  knowledge  of  the  necessity  of 
reducing  inflated  currencies  and  produc- 
ing up  to  the  maximum  of  national 
ability. 

With  the  Central  and  East  Central 
countries  of  Europe  the  situation  is  dif- 
ferent. Recent  eye-witnesses  of  these 
conditions  tell  a  story  which  has  no 
parallel  in  human  annals.  Millions  of 
people  are  starving,  fields  are  untilled, 
factories  are  idle  because  of  the  lack 
of  raw  materials,  freight  cars  are  not 
allowed  to  pass  from  one  country  to  an- 
other because  of  the  lack  of  mutual  con- 
fidence and  trust.  Between  two  of  the 
newly  created  countries,  instead  of  a 
mutual  interchange  of  commodities,  there 
exists  a  barrier  of  barbed  wire  and  ma- 
chine guns.  Poland  has  a  million  men 
on  the  Bolshevik  front  and,  in  common 
with  neighboring  countries,  is  flooded 
with  millions  of  refugees  from  the  hor- 
rors of  the  Russian  regime.  The  idea 
of  extending  ordinary  commercial  credits 
to  such  countries,  or  of  making  transac- 


May  8,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[499 


tions  with  those  countries  the  basis  for 
the  indiscriminate  issuance  of  invest- 
ment securities  to  the  American  public, 
is,  of  course,  not  to  be  entertained. 

We  have  a  stake  in  this  situation.  The 
civilization  of  America  could  not  con- 
tinue if  the  civilization  of  Europe  were 
to  break  down.  The  development  of 
European  markets  is  a  vital  question  for 
American  exporters.  Just  at  present, 
with  an  intensified  domestic  demand,  we 
may  look  with  temporary  unconcern  on 
the  decline  of  American  exports  to 
Europe.  But  ultimately,  all  sentiment 
aside,  we  must  for  our  own  interest  and 
protection  give  consideration  to  the  de- 
velopment of  markets  in  Europe.  If  this 
is  not  a  matter  to  be  discussed  on  a 
credit  basis,  is  it  a  matter  which  the 
United  States  Government  should  con- 
sider in  a  less  negative  way  than  it  has 
done  during  the  past  year? 

The  normal  attitude  of  business  men 
in  times  of  peace  is  opposed  to  Govern- 
ment interference  in  business  affairs.  We 
have  more  or  less  assumed  that  our  Gov- 
ernment should  now  step  out  of  active 
cooperation  in  European  financing,  and 
the  American  business  public  as  a  whole 
has  approved  the  decision  of  the  Govern- 
ment not  to  extend  further  direct  credits 
to  European  nations.  What  are  we  to 
do,  however,  when  we  all  admit  that  the 
European  situation  calls  for  assistance 
in  the  shape  of  raw  materials,  when  an 
appeal  which  touches  closely  both  our 
hearts  and  our  minds  is  made  to  us  from 
across  the  water,  and  when  very  little 
basis  exists  for  transactions  on  strict 
business  lines?  Does  the  situation  in- 
volve not  primarily  economic,  but  rather 
political  and  social,  elements  of  vital 
significance  to  the  American  people  as  a 
whole? 

The  United  States  Government  has  in- 
vested on  behalf  of  the  American  people 
nearly  ten  billion  dollars  in  Europe.  We 
can  only  expect  repayment  of  this  money 
when  Europe  has  returned  to  a  produc- 
ing basis.  Is  not  the  United  States  Gov- 
ernment as  a  lender  of  credit  interested 
directly  in  the  rehabilitation  of  its 
debtors  ? 

There  is  a  further  factor  bearing  on 
the  Government  attitude  in  this  trying 
situation.  Under  the  terms  of  the  Treaty 
of  Versailles  there  were  created  in 
Europe  a  number  of  new  political  units 
which  are  of  unproved  economic  strength. 
The  unsettlement  of  these  countries  must 
have  a  continuing  effect  upon  the  orderly 
progress  of  the  larger  and  more  stable 
nations  of  Europe.  Without  entering  at 
all  into  the  political  controversy  sur- 
rounding the  ratification  by  the  United 
States  Senate  of  the  Treaty  of  Peace  and 
the  League  of  Nations,  it  must  be  ob- 
vious that  until  some  coordinating  body 
is  established  in  Europe  we  can  not  ex- 
pect to  see  the  economic  stability  which 
is  the  only  basis  for  the  transaction  of 


actual  business  and  credit  operations  on 
a  large  scale. 

Are  we,  then,  facing  a  vicious  circle? 
Are  we  taking  the  position  that  we  can 
not  extend  credits  to  Europe  for  the 
purchase  of  raw  materials  in  the  United 
States  until  Europe  returns  to  a  stable 
basis,  with  budgets  balanced  and  exports 
on  the  increase,  while  Europe  takes  the 
position  that  budgets  can  not  be  bal- 
anced and  production  stimulated  until 
raw  material  is  made  available  by  the 
United  States?  The  normal  processes  of 
business  have  not  been  able  to  cut  this 
Gordian  knot.  From  a  straight  invest- 
ment standpoint  the  American  business 
community  has  been  in  a  most  unsatis- 
factory position,  even  if  the  security  as 
a  basis  for  the  extension  of  credits  to 
Europe  had  been  clearly  available  at  all 
times. 

From  the  American  standpoint,  it  is 
true  that  under  the  Edge  Act  the  ma- 
chinery of  credit  has  existed  for  some 
time.  But  even  those  who  have  had  most 
deeply  at  heart  the  desire  to  help  Europe 
in  its  desperate  situation  have  not  up  to 
this  time  felt  like  setting  up  machinery 
which  would  not  operate,  thus  holding 
out  hopes  to  Europe  which  would  be 
doomed  to  disappointment. 

Why  has  it  been  felt  that  the  ma- 
chinery would  not  operate?  This  point 
can  be  touched  upon  only  briefly,  but 
it    involves   three   main   considerations. 


First,  let  us  suppose  that  a  large  cor- 
poration under  the  Edge  Act  is  estab- 
lished with  capital  paid  in  by  banks  and 
other  interested  organizations  and  in- 
dividuals. Where  is  the  management  to 
come  from?  We  have  in  this  country 
comparatively  few  men  of  wide  foreign 
experience  who  are  capable  of  extending 
safe  credits  abroad.  The  few  trained 
men  are  all  overworked  at  present  in  the 
banks  and  investment  houses  of  the 
country.  Secondly,  suppose  the  manage- 
ment were  to  be  obtained,  is  it  clear  that 
the  kind  of  sound  business  which  such  a 
corporation  would  undertake  to  do  could, 
in  fact,  be  done?  Is  it  not  true  that  the 
credit  need  in  Europe  to-day  is  greatest 
where  the  credit  risk  is  greatest?  Would 
it  not  be  necessary,  in  order  to  meet  the 
real  crux  of  the  European  situation,  to 
extend  credits  which  would  not  be  safe, 
judged  by  the  usual  standards  of  credit 
practice?  The  third  point  follows  nat- 
urally from  the  second.  Let  us  suppose 
that  a  corporation  were  established  with 
$50,000,000  capital,  and  that  this  $50,- 
000,000  were  used  up  in  the  extension  of 
credits  abroad.  This  would  be  a  mere 
drop  in  the  bucket.  Now  a  corporation 
established  under  the  Edge  Act  is  author- 
ized to  issue  debentures  for  sale  to  the 
general  public  up  to  ten  times  its  capital 
and  surplus.  Under  this  provision  the 
supposed  corporation  would  be  author- 
( Continued  on  page  500) 


BROWN  BROTHERS  &  CO. 


Philadelphia 


Established  1818 

NEW  YORK 


Boston 


International   Investments 

Our  booklet  on  International  Investments,  now  in 
its  third  edition,  shows  the  relation  of  such  in- 
vestments to  the  foreign  exchanges  and  gives  an 
outline  of  certain  foreign  loans  issued  in  dollars. 

Copy  on  request 


BROWN,  SHIPLEY  &    COMPANY 


Established  1810 


Founders  Court,  Lothbury 
LONDON,  E.  C. 


Office  for  travelers 
123lPaU  Mall,  LONDON,  S.  W. 


500] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol  2,  No.  52 


THE  HUDSON  COAL  CO, 


CELEBRATED 

LACKAWANNA 

THE  ARISTOCRAT  OF  ANTHRACITE 


1823 


1920 


HAS  NATURAL  QUALITIES  AND  MAN-MADE  REFINEMENT 


I  D.  F.  WILLIAMS 

Vice-President  and  General  Sales  Agent 


W.  F.  SHURTLEFF 

Assistant  General  Sales  Agent 


SCRANTON,  PA. 


{Continued  from  page  499) 
ized  to  issue  $500,000,000  of  debentures. 
Are  we  prepared  to  offer  such  debentures 
to  the  American  public  as  an  investment, 
assuming  that  we  could  issue  them  on  a 
basis  of  return  commensurate  with 
rates  obtainable  on  prime  domestic  de- 
bentures? Could  the  business  commun- 
ity afford  at  the  present  time  to  invite 
the  small  investors  of  this  country  to 
come  into  this  situation  without  stating 
to  them  frankly  that  they  were  entering 
not  a  field  of  investment,  but  one  of  spec- 
ulation? And  if  we  frankly  offer  the 
securities  as  a  speculation,  will  the  small 
investor  be  interested  to  an  extent  which 
will  have  a  substantial  effect,  assuming, 
as  we  must,  that  under  the  present  sys- 
tem of  super-taxes  the  large  investor  is 
to  a  great  degree  out  of  the  market? 

These  are  some  of  the  difficulties 
which  must  be  faced  in  attempting  to 
solve  the  European  problem.  The  man 
would  be  heartless  who  would  say  that 
it  ought  not  to  be  solved,  even  though 
our  domestic  demands  for  capital  are 
overwhelming  at  the  present  time.  The 
United  States  is  a  member  of  the  family 
of  nations  and  must  give  heed  to  the 
sufferings  of  its  friends  and  associates. 
The  man  would  be  foolish  who  would 
say  that  the  problem  had  no  solution. 
Somehow,  and  in  some  way,  it  must  be 
solved.  But  we  should  be  doing  an  ill 
service  to  Europe  and  should  set  back 
immeasurably  the  education  of  the 
American  people  in  foreign  investments, 
which  is  one  of  the  most  vital  necessi- 
ties for  the  future  development  of  Amer- 
ican trade,  if  we  were  to  proceed  now 
in  a  hasty  and  unsound  manner.  The 
whole  situation  needs  to  be  constantly 
studied  with  an  open  mind,  and  if  our 
earlier  conclusions  with  regard  to  the 
leadership  of  the  United  States  Govern- 
ment must  be  temporarily  revised  to 
meet  an  emergency  situation,  we  should 
not  hesitate  to  revise  them. 

The  European  puzzle  has  been  receiv- 
ing the  deep  and  earnest  study  of  the 
bankers  of  America.  They  have  not 
been  unfaithful  to  their  responsibilities 
in  this  regard,  but  inexorable  facts  of  a 
political  and  social,  as  well  as  an  eco- 
nomic significance,  have  determined  the 
financial  history  of  the  world  during  the 
last  eighteen  months.  Unfortunately, 
this  history  could  not  be  shaped  by  the 
impulses  which  have  come  from  the 
hearts  of  American  businessmen. 

The  eyes  of  millions  will  be  focused  on 
the  forthcoming  conferences  to  be  held 
in  Brussels  and  in  Paris.  If  these  con- 
ferences develop  no  constructive  plans 
they  must  be  followed  by  others  until 
in  some  way,  some  sound  and  permanent 
way,  the  problem  is  carried  forward 
toward  solution.  The  subject  requires 
from  now  on  the  continued  sympathetic 
attention  of  the  ablest  minds  in  America. 
Guy  Emerson 


K^' 


THE  REVIEW 


Vol.  2,  No.  53 


New  York,  Saturday,  May  15,  1920 


FIFTEEN  CENTS 


Contents 


Brief  Comment  501 

Editorial  Articles: 
Johnson  and  the  Chicago  Convention  504 
Idealism  in  Vacuo  505 

The  Faith  that  is  in  Us  506 

By-Governments  in  Germany  507 

Give    Hungary    a    Chance.       By    Ex- 
aminer 508 
The  Jubilee  of  the  Metropolitan  Mu- 
seum.    By   Frank  Jewett  Mather, 
Jr.                                                              510 
Two  Plans  for  a  National  Budget.    By 

Ralston  Hayden  513 

Correspondence  516 

Book  Reviews: 
An  Undiplomatic  Diplomat  518 

Vachel  Lindsay,  Edgar  Lee  Masters, 

and   Others  518 

Two  Major  Fabulists  520 

"Him  of  Cordova"  521 

The  Run  of  the  Shelves  522 

Impressions  de  Voyage  II.    By  Caspar 

F.   Goodrich  522 

Educational  Section: 
English  Grammar  Schools.    By  Wal- 
ter S.  Hinchman  523 
The  Stock  Exchange  and  the  "Corner 

in  Stutz."    By  T.  F.  W.  524 

Books  and  the  News: 
America  and  England.     By  Edmund 
Lester  Pearson  528 


pOOR  America !  How  many  twisted 
■*•  sentiments  are  expressed  in  your 
name!  "If  we  are  to  exercise  the 
kind  of  leadership  to  which  the 
founders  of  the  Republic  looked  for- 
ward and  which  they  depended  upon 
their  successors  to  establish,  we  must 
do  this  thing  with  courage  and  un- 
alterable determination,"  says  the 
President,  meaning  that  we  must 
sign  the  treaty  without  reservations. 
We  had  supposed  that  Washington 
truly  represented  the  Americanism 
of  his  day,  yet  even  the  freest  in- 
terpretation of  his  words  furnishes 
no  authority  for  such  an  unrestricted 
alliance  as  that  for  which  the  Presi- 
dent pleads.  Mr.  Hillquit,  for  one, 
is  certain  that  Mr.  Wilson  has  for- 
sworn his  American  heritage.  "We 
[the  Socialists]  are  practically  alone 
in  upholding  the  somewhat  anti- 
quated   American    ideal    of    govern- 


ment of  the  people,  by  the  people,  for 
the  people."  Poor  America!  Are 
you,  too,  to  be  "dismembered"  by 
such  taking  of  your  name  in  vain? 

WHAT  is  the  matter  with  the  "cap- 
italist press"  ?  Does  it  not  know 
that  it  ought  to  suppress  any  such 
outgiving  as  that  of  Mr.  W.  Jett 
Lauck,  the  statistician  representing 
the  railway  unions  before  the  Rail- 
road Labor  Board?  And  if  it  can't 
be  suppressed,  it  ought  to  be  tucked 
away  under  a  little  headline  in  some 
obscure  page  of  the  paper.  Instead 
of  that,  all  the  great  New  York  dailies 
which  Big  Business  hires  to  keep  the 
people  in  ignorance  display  the  thing 
conspicuously,  under  striking  head- 
lines, and  without  a  word  of  intro- 
duction or  comment  to  break  its  force. 
Here  are  the  headlines,  for  instance, 
in  the  New  York  Times: 

SAY  HUGE  PROFITS 
RAISE  LiyiNG  COST 

Rail  Unions  Present  Data  to  Labor  Board, 
Accusing  Capital  of  Profiteering 


NOT  DUE  TO  HIGHER  WAGES 


Where  Pay  Rose  Only  15%  Some  Retail  Prices 
Went  Up  300%,  They  Assert 


MASS  OF  FIGURES  SHOWN 


What  is  the  use  of  carefully  conceal- 
ing from  the  people  what  some  tenth- 
rate  Socialist  orator  may  have  said 
in  Paterson,  and  then  giving  them 
this  perilous  stuff  to  feed  on?  It 
looks  as  though  our  plutocratic  rulers 
were  not  getting  anything  like  their 
money's  worth  out  of  the  editors 
whom,  as  everybody  knows,  they  own 
body  and  soul. 


/~\UT  of  the  real  world  in  which  we 
^-^  are  living  come  two  responses  to 
the  voice  which  Mr.  Wilson  has  lifted 
up  in  the  unreal  world  in  which  he 
dwells,  that  are  worthy  of  special 
note.  Mr.  Taft,  in  his  usual  quiet  and 
lucid  manner,  states  the  cardinal 
facts  about  the  treaty  as  they  stand : 

The  Lodge  reservations  leave  the  treaty 
nearly  as  effective  as  it  is  without  them.  The 
reservations  affect  only  Article  3i  By  in- 
sisting on  the  feature  of  the  treaty  which  can- 
not be  ratified  by  the  Senate,  Mr.  Wilson  has 
endangered  the   entire   Versailles  peace. 

The  Lodge  reservations  preserve  the  three 
great  things  in  the  treaty;  first,  the  limita- 
tion of  armaments ;  second,  the  settlement  of 
national  differences  peaceably;  third,  open 
diplomacy.  Article  X  is  not  destroyed  but 
only  limited  by  the  reservations.  The  obliga- 
tion of  the  United  States  to  participate  in  in- 
ternational crises  is  left  to  the  discretion  of 
Congress. 

AH  the  other  countries  in  the  League  are 
bound  by  Article  X,  but  are  nevertheless  will- 
ing to  allow  the  United  States  to  enter  under 
the  reservations  proposed.  Mr.  Wilson,  how- 
ever, refuses. 

Mr.  Bryan  dwells  not  upon  the  partic- 
ulars of  the  compromise,  but  upon 
the  no  less  pertinent  fact  of  the  dem- 
onstrated state  of  American  political 
opinion  concerning  it,  and  concludes : 

Democratic  friends  of  the  League  of  Na- 
tions should  join  Rej)ublican  friends  of  the 
League  and  by  so  doing  take  the  issue  out  of 
the  campaign  and  speak  peace  to  war-distracted 
Europe. 

If  these  counsels  of  common  sense 
were  to  prevail,  if  the  obstruction  of 
the  President's  autocratic  obstinacy 
could  be  removed,  the  gain  to  the 
country  and  the  world  would  be  great 
beyond  the  possibility  of  computation. 

IITR.  HOOVER'S  statement  about 
^^  the  sugar  situation  is  full  of 
practical  wisdom.  While  blaming 
the  Administration  for  not  having 
bought  last  year's  Cuban  sugar  crop, 
he  lays  the  emphasis  chiefly  upon 
what  can  be  done  for  the  present  and 
the  future.  We  are  participating,  he 
says,  in  the  world  shortage  of  sugar 
due  to  decreased  European  produc- 
tion, and  our  merchants  are  bidding 
against  European  Governments  for 


502] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  53 


its  purchase.  One  means  of  remedy 
to  which  he  points  is  for  our  Govern- 
ment to  enter  into  negotiations  with 
the  larger  European  Governments  to 
stop  bidding  against  each  other  and 
so  secure  our  fair  share  of  the  avail- 
able supply.  But  he  does  not  ignore 
the  fact — although  he  does  not  suffi- 
ciently recognize  it — that  we  are 
actually  getting  (however  high  the 
price)  very  much  more  than  our 
proper  share.  Mr.  Hoover  proposes 
that  our  consumption  of  sugar  be  re- 
duced by  immediate  rationing  of  the 
non-essential  consumers.  He  thinks 
that  the  manufacturers  of  candy, 
sweet  drinks,  and  other  non-essen- 
tials would  voluntarily  cooperate  to 
this  end  as  they  did  during  the  war. 
It  occurs  to  us,  however,  that  if  the 
Governnient  got  control  of  the  for- 
eign supply — as  undoubtedly  Con- 
gress  could  enable  it  to  do  even  with- 
out recourse  to  any  war  power — it 
would  have  the  reins  in  its  own  hands 
in  the  matter  of  rationing.  On  the 
subject  of  sugar  profiteering  Mr. 
Hoover  says : 

The  profiteering  is  international.  The  situa- 
tion is  as  much  disliked  by  the  vast  majority 
of  our  manufacturers  and  distributers  as  by 
the  public,  foe  they  do  not  like  even  to  be 
accused  of  profiteering.  The  situation  can- 
not be  remedied  by  the  Attorney  General's  con- 
ception that  forces  of  this  character  can  be 
handled  by  putting  a  few  people  in  jail. 

Mr.  Hoover  may  or  may  not  have  had 
some  thought  of  Chicago  in  his  mind 
when  he  said  these  things;  but  noth- 
ing is  more  certain  than  that  if  he 
were  in  the  White  House  he  would 
act  along  just  such  lines  in  any  prob- 
lem of  the  kind. 

npHE  Polish  offensive,  successfully 
-*-  led  by  General  Pilsudski,  recalls 
to  mind  the  hopes  of  a  speedy  over- 
throw of  the  Soviet  Government  en- 
tertained at  the  time  of  General 
Yudenich's  military  advance  upon 
Petrograd.  The  recollection  contains 
a  warning  against  sanguine  expecta- 
tions. We  shall  probably  witness  a 
rallying  of  Russians,  regardless  of 
political  convictions,  against  the 
menace  from  abroad,  tending  to  re- 
inforce the  resistance  of  the  Red 
armies.  The  capture  of  Kiev  is,  in- 
deed, an  important  success  for  the 
Poles,  which  will  not  fail  to  make 
impression  upon  such  neighbors  as 


are  coveting  part  of  the  Russian 
bear's  skin.  Rumania,  for  one,  seems 
bent  on  joining  the  victorious  cam- 
paign and  seizing,  across  Bessarabia, 
the  port  of  Odessa.  But  to  encourage 
such  aggression,  as  appears  to  be  the 
tendency  in  Paris,  is  a  reckless  policy, 
opposed  to  the  spirit  of  the  League  in 
which  France  takes  a  prominent  part, 
and  involving  great  dangers  for  the 
future.  For  it  alienates  from  Europe 
those  liberal  Russian  elements  which 
it  is  hoped  will  one  day  recover  power 
at  Moscow. 

THE  factor  of  chief  interest  in  the 
further  development  of  the  Pol- 
ish campaign  is  the  attitude  of  the 
Ukrainians.  Will  Petlura,  reinstated 
in  power  at  Kiev,  remain  loyal  to 
his  ally  and,  if  so,  will  he  have  suffi- 
cient authority  to  convince  the  people 
of  the  wisdom  and  the  advantages  of 
his  policy?  These  are  the  questions 
on  the  answer  to  which  the  success 
or  failure  of  Pilsudski's  offensive  will 
ultimately  depend.  To  owe  a  debt  of 
gratitude  to  one's  enemy  intensifies 
the  passion  of  hatred,  and  it  will  re- 
quire no  small  amount  of  skill  and 
tact  on  the  part  of  the  Poles  to  spare 
the  mortified  pride  of  their  debtors. 
The  debt  is  twofold.  The  Polish  help 
will  have  to  be  acknowledged  in  a 
tangible  form  as  well.  What  sacrifice 
Petlura  has  undertaken  to  make  for 
Poland's  support  is  still  uncertain. 
That  Pilsudski  should  have  been  sat- 
isfied with  a  renunciation  by  the 
Ukraine  of  all  her  claims  on  East 
Galicia,  provisionally  assigned  to 
Poland,  is  very  unlikely.  When  it 
comes  to  paying  his  promissory  note, 
the  Ukrainian  alliance  and  Petlura's 
personal  prestige  will  be  put  to  a 
hard  test. 

'T'HE  French  Federation  of  Labor 
•*■  sounds  a  hopeful  note  in  its  ap- 
peals to  the  workers.  And  its  mem- 
bers appear  to  strike  work  in  ready 
response,  although  they  are  told  that 
they  must  not  allow  themselves  to  be 
distracted  by  less  essential  aims,  such 
as  more  pay  and  less  work,  as  this 
would  only  belittle  the  movement  and 
scatter  its  strength.  It  is  not  their 
individual  welfare  the  workers  are 
asked  to  help  improve,  but  the  wel- 


fare of  the  country,  which  can  not 
be  saved,  the  leaders  assert,  by  the 
reconstruction  programme  of  the 
Government.  Only  the  nationaliza- 
tion of  railroads  and  the  adoption  of 
the  rest  of  the  Socialist  programme 
can  effectively  meet  the  problems  now 
baffling  the  responsible  rulers  in 
Paris.  That  the  nation  has  little 
faith  in  the  Socialist  gospel  became 
apparent  at  the  last  elections.  But 
the  scepticism  of  the  patient  should 
not  prevent  the  miracle  worker  from 
applying  his  cure.  The  initial  treat- 
ment is  of  the  simplest.  It  consists 
in  doing  nothing  whatsoever,  and  in 
preventing  Work,  the  real  physician, 
from  attending  on  the  sufferer.  It 
is  the  method  of  the  New  Thoughters 
applied  to  economic  life.  But  the 
danger  is  great  that,  by  the  time  the 
patient  is  deemed  sufficiently  seasoned 
for  the  miracle  to  take  effect,  his 
body  may  be  too  exhausted  to  rise 
from  its  paralysis. 

TN  the  happy  days  of  the  Great  So- 
-*-  ciety  we  are  to  depend  upon  social 
ostracism,  community  pressure,  and 
all  that  sort  of  thing,  rather  than 
upon  law,  as  the  corrective  of  anti- 
social action.  So  at  least  we  judge 
from  the  speculations  of  Pluralists, 
left-wing  Liberals,  "philosophical" 
Anarchists,  and  various  other  kinds 
of  social  seers  who  have  dipt  into  the 
future  and  seen  the  wonders  that  will 
be.  It  is  curious,  therefore,  to  note 
the  wail  of  protest  that  goes  up  from 
these  circles  over  present-day  exer- 
cises of  this  social  pressure.  Mr.  J. 
A.  Hobson,  writing  in  the  London 
Nation,  expatiates  on  the  difficulty 
of  an  English  Liberal  in  understand- 
ing the  American  idea  of  freedom. 
The  Englishman  demands  the  free- 
dom to  dissent.  The  American,  on 
the  contrary,  demands  only  the  free- 
dom to  conform.  He  has  the  "herd 
mind";  he  is  fanatically  intolerant; 
he  has  a  brutal  disregard  of  the 
claims  of  private  conscience,  a  con- 
tempt for  the  rights  of  the  minority, 
and  he  denies  the  right  of  effective 
criticism  of  public  policy.  America 
is  repressive  in  her  laws,  but  still 
more  repressive  in  her  extra-legal 
community  pressure.  "Conformity  or 
trouble"  is  the  popular  slogan,  and 


May  15,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[503 


woe  be  to  the  non-conformist,  es- 
pecially in  times  of  "war  madness." 
Apparently  the  social  force  which  is 
sure  to  function  so  ideally  in  the  days 
of  the  Great  Society  is  a  most  tyran- 
nical thing  just  now. 

THE  alleged  facts  given  by  Mr. 
Hobson  to  support  his  interpreta- 
tion would  better  have  been  omitted. 
They  have  been  gleaned  from  various 
journals  of  radical  propaganda  and 
are,  like  his  generalizations,  more  or 
less  fantastic.  Unquestionably  dur- 
ing the  war  there  were,  at  times  and 
in  places,  violent  and  high-handed  in- 
stances of  mob  pressure.  They  were 
shameful  and  inexcusable.  But  so 
much  being  said,  there  is  also  this 
to  say:  first,  they  were  exceptional; 
and  secondly,  the  provocation  was 
sometimes  extreme,  and  would  have 
been  so  regarded  in  any  society 
strong  enough  to  hold  itself  together. 
Social  pressure  can  not  be  restricted 
to  a  few  carefully  chosen  fields  of  ac- 
tion. If  it  expresses  itself  against 
the  child-beater  and  the  wife-de- 
serter, it  is  quite  as  likely  to  express 
itself  against  the  slacker,  the  plotting 
alien,  the  close-fisted  usurer,  and  the 
vociferous  revolutionist.  One  may 
rightly  denounce  its  excesses,  as  any 
other  kind  of  excesses.  But  to  pro- 
test against  its  exercise  in  the  field 
of  sedition,  on  the  ground  that  it  in- 
vades the  "rights  of  the  minority," 
is  to  demand  for  the  minority  a 
special  privilege.  A  "right"  for  a 
minority  that  enables  it,  in  a  life-and- 
death  matter,  to  annul  or  obstruct 
the  will  of  the  majority  is  no  right 
but  a  charter  of  exceptional  power. 
The  protection  of  minorities  is  the 
security  of  democracy;  but  the  ag- 
grandizement of  minorities  is  its 
doom.  To  whatever  Utopia  we  may 
come,  the  community,  in  its  own 
extra-legal  way,  is  likely  always  to 
have  something  to  say  to  the  ele- 
ment that  sets  itself,  in  vital  matters, 
against  the  thing  regarded  as  neces- 
sary and  right. 

r)Y  whom  is  Japan  governed?  By 
■'-'  the  War  Office,  says  Mr.  Charles 
Hodges,  who  recently  gave  the  read- 
ers of  the  Revieiv  a  peep  behind  the 
financing   of   China.     According   to 


him  Premier  Hara  and  Baron  Uchida 
of  the  Foreign  Office  are  mere  stalk- 
ing-horses behind  which  the  military 
diplomats  skilfully  conduct  their 
manoeuvres.  The  charge  is  borne  out 
by  the  recent  occupation  of  Vladi- 
vostok and  the  Maritime  Province, 
which  is  contrary  to  the  wishes  of 
the  entire  press  of  the  country,  and 
a  flagrant  repudiation  of  Mr.  Hara's 
often  repeated  formula  that  Japan 
has  no  territorial  or  political  am-> 
bitions  in  Siberia.  The  War  Office 
has  tried  to  justify  the  action  of  Gen- 
eral Takayanagi  by  the  charge  that, 
while  negotiations  were  on  foot  be- 
tween Russian  and  Japanese  com- 
manders, Russian  soldiers  got  out  of 
hand  and  attacked  the  Japanese.  We 
can  only  say  that,  if  this  attack  was 
not  provoked,  it  came  at  an  extremely 
opportune  moment — after  the  Amer- 
icans had  evacuated  Siberia  and  be- 
fore the  Soviet's  peace  proposals  had 
been  answered — to  serve  as  a  pre- 
text for  an  obviously  preconcerted 
operation  in  the  course  of  which  all 
the  Russian  forces  in  the  district 
were  attacked  by  the  Japanese  and 
disarmed  after  a  day  or  two's  fight- 
ing. "The  Japanese  military  coup 
can  only  be  explained,"  says  the 
Japan  Advertiser,  "on  the  assump- 
tion that  it  was  a  predetermined 
step  in  the  execution  of  a  deliberate 
policy  which  appears  to  conflict  with 
the  views  of  the  Cabinet." 

pLANS  for  rushing  through  Con- 
-*-  gress  a  two  billion  dollar  bonus, 
or  donative,  for  the  soldiers  are 
not  progressing  favorably.  Each 
scheme  proposed  for  charming  the 
necessary  funds  into  the  public  purse 
raises  diflSculties  that  should  finally 
make  plain  the  impracticability  of 
the  whole  scheme.  It  is  time  for  Con- 
gressmen to  ask  themselves  whether 
they  may  not  lose  more  than  they 
gain  by  voting  the  donative.  Such  a 
course  will  win  them  by  no  means  all 
the  soldier  vote  and  it  will  lose  them 
the  votes  of  a  great  many  other  citi- 
zens whose  good  feeling  towards 
the  ex-service  men  is  not  a  bit  less 
genuine  and  deep  than  theirs.  Mean- 
while, the  delays  in  caring  for  the 
maimed  are  being  looked  into.  Will 
their  chances  of  receiving  proper  and 


speedy  attention  be  better  after  two 
billion  dollars  have  been  squandered 
in  the  form  of  a  bonus?  Mr.  Taft 
has  put  his  judgment  of  the  matter 
plainly:  "This  bill  should  not  be 
passed." 

TVTHY  cooperative  societies,  which 
"^  in  a  number  of  other  countries 
have  thrived  so  well,  have  done  so  ill 
in  the  United  States,  has  long  been  a 
matter  of  much  speculation.  It  seems, 
however,  that  the  tide  has  turned,  and 
that  during  the  last  decade  there  has 
been  a  considerable  growth.  There 
have  been,  as  is  well  known,  striking 
instances  of  the  success  of  producing 
societies,  such  as  the  California  Fruit 
Growers'  Exchange  and  various  live- 
stock shippers'  organizations;  but  it 
is  not  so  well  known  that  there  has 
been  a  great  increase  in  the  number 
of  successful  consumers'  societies. 
The  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics  has 
now  under  way  a  survey  of  the  coop- 
erative movement  in  this  country, 
and  though  the  volume  of  data  so  far 
gathered  is  but  meagre,  enough  is 
available  to  indicate  the  existence  of 
about  3,000  of  these  societies,  with  a 
combined  business  of  some  $200,000,- 
000  a  year.  In  the  Monthly  Labor  Re- 
view for  March,  Florence  E.  Parker 
summarizes  the  results  of  the  study 
so  far  made.  Most  of  the  cooperative 
stores  sell  at  prevailing  market 
prices,  and  the  monetary  benefits  to 
the  members  come  in  the  form  of  divi- 
dends, based  on  the  amount  of  the 
individual's  purchases — this  being  the 
way  in  which  the  great  Rochdale  co- 
operative system  in  England  has 
always  operated.  The  average  for 
the  stores  dealing  in  general  mer- 
chandise is  6  per  cent.  Indirectly, 
of  course,  there  is  a  further  monetary 
benefit;  for  the  presence  of  a  co- 
operative store  tends  to  prevent 
profiteering  in  the  neighborhood.  But 
cooperation  has  other  benefits  than 
the  merely  monetary  ones:  training 
in  business  methods,  training  in  citi- 
zenship, encouragement  of  latent 
abilities  in  management,  habituation 
to  altruistic  modes  of  thought  and  ac- 
tion. Not  unreasonably  have  many 
thoughtful  students  looked  to  cooper- 
ation as  the  solution  of  many  of  our 
most  vexing  social  problems. 


504] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  53 


Johnson  and  the  Chi- 
cago Convention 

SENATOR  JOHNSON  will  be  a 
formidable  figure  in  the  Repub- 
lican National  Convention.  The 
strength  he  has  shown  in  the  popular 
vote  in  Eastern  as  well  as  Western 
States  establishes  that  fact  beyond 
dispute.  Into  the  details  it  is  need- 
less to  enter,  for  the  real  question  is 
not  that  of  his  chance  of  getting  the 
nomination.  That  chance  there  is 
every  reason  to  believe  to  be  very 
slight.  The  convention  at  Chicago 
will  have  to  take  Johnson  into  serious 
account  not  as  a  possible  nominee, 
but  as  a  vital  factor  in  determining 
who  else  shall  be  the  nominee;  and 
the  strength  that  he  has  been  able  to 
muster  in  the  primaries  will  likewise 
be  a  potent  consideration  in  the  shap- 
ing of  the  platform. 

Two  months  ago,  it  seemed  to  al- 
most all  observers  that  the  Republi- 
can campaign  would  be  a  walkover; 
to-day  no  such  feeling  is  possible.  Not 
that  the  Democratic  party  has  made 
any  gain,  either  in  its  standing  be- 
fore the  country  or  in  the  develop- 
ment of  any  hopeful  candidate.  On 
the  contrary,  so  far  as  that  is  con- 
cerned, the  elimination  of  Hoover  as 
a  Democratic  possibility  has  simpli- 
fied the  situation  for  the  Republi- 
cans. The  change  in  the  political  sky 
has  come  from  within,  not  from  with- 
out, the  Republican  party  itself.  The 
Johnson  vote  shows  very  plainly  that 
the  party  can  not  count  with  certainty 
on  being  able  to  present  a  solid  front 
to  its  opponent;  still  less  on  being 
able  to  poll  the  doubtful  or  independ- 
ent vote  in  any  such  preponderant 
measure  as  seemed  certain  a  short 
time  ago.  In  what  proportions  the 
vote  for  Johnson  is  to  be  ascribed  to 
ordinary  political  preferences,  and  in 
what  proportion  to  a  singular  medley 
of  various  forms  of  discontent  and 
revolt,  may  be  open  to  question.  But 
the  intensity  of  feeling,  as  well  as  the 
numerical  strength,  attested  by  his 
following  in  the  primaries,  makes  it 
quite  certain  that  a  great  mass  of 
voters  are  ready  to  throw  overboard 
any  Republican  candidate  whom  they 
may  find  not  to  their  liking. 


There  is  no  prospect  that  this  state 
of  mind  will  be  bettered  by  the  pro- 
ceedings at  the  Convention.  On  the 
contrary,  Johnson  will  make  just  the 
kind  of  fight  best  calculated  to  in- 
tensify it.  And  if  nothing  occurs  by 
way  of  offset,  the  Republican  party 
will  have  a  tough  job  on  its  hands  in 
the  campaign,  in  case  the  Democrats 
put  up  an  attractive  platform  and  a 
vote-getting  candidate.  Johnson  has 
indicated  that  he  will  not  bolt;  but 
whether  he  stays  in  the  party  or  not, 
there  is  nothing  to  compel  his  fol- 
lowers to  stay  in  it.  The  pro-Ger- 
mans, the  pro-Irish,  and  the  pro-Rus- 
sians who  flocked  to  his  standard  in 
the  primaries  are  not  permeated  with 
any  profound  affection  for  the  Re- 
publican party,  and  would  cheerfully 
take  out  their  disappointment  at  Chi- 
cago in  the  shape  of  a  vote  for  the 
Democratic  ticket,  if  San  Francisco 
gives  them  a  chance.  The  same  is 
true  of  other  varieties  of  Adullamite 
which  helped  to  swell  his  vote — and 
that  of  La  Follette — at  the  primaries ; 
and  it  is  in  a  great  measure  true  also 
of  the  straight  radical  element  in  his 
following.  The  problem  before  the 
Republican  leaders  at  Chicago  is  that 
of  a  possible  serious  division  in  their 
own  party,  with  several  weeks  inter- 
vening for  the  Democrats  to  guide 
themselves  by  its  indications  before 
making  their  decision — though,  of 
course,  it  is  also  true  that  the  Demo- 
crats face  the  possibility  of  dissension 
equally  serious. 

A  week  or  two  ago  we  should  have 
said  that  this  state  of  things  would 
be  sure  to  compel  a  most  serious  con- 
sideration of  Mr.  Hoover's  candidacy, 
although  very  few  of  the  delegates 
would  be  personally  inclined  to  vote 
for  him,  and  still  fewer  would  be 
pledged  to  him.  With  victory  dis- 
tinctly in  doubt,  the  knowing  ones  at 
Chicago  will  of  necessity  bend  their 
minds  to  the  task  of  finding  out  the 
means  of  removing  that  doubt.  Of 
all  the  men  who  are  in  the  running 
for  the  nomination.  Hoover  is  the 
only  one  whose  candidacy  would  set 
in  motion  forces  that  would  power- 
fully tend  to  retain  in  the  party,  or 
to  draw  towards  it,  elements  which 
are  now  doubtful,  and  of  which  the 
loss  would  gravely  threaten  the  loss 


of  the  Presidency.  Any  other  of  the 
candidates  would  mean  to  those  who 
are  holding  aloof  merely  the  Repub- 
lican party's  candidate,  though  per- 
haps a  particularly  good  one;  Mr. 
Hoover  would  mean  the  Republi- 
can party's  candidate  plus  Herbert 
Hoover.  And  after  the  kind  of  fight 
that  is  pretty  sure  to  take  place  at 
Chicago,  a  candidate  whom  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  voters,  without  dis- 
tinction of  party,  ardently  desire  to 
elect  on  account  of  their  high  hopes 
of  what  he  would  do  for  the  country 
and  the  world,  would  be  an  invalu- 
able asset  to  the  party  that  nominated 
him. 

Unfortunately  for  Mr.  Hoover's 
prospects  at  Chicago,  however,  the 
developments  of  the  past  two  weeks 
have  put  a  different  color  on  the  situa- 
tion. However  gratifying  it  may  be 
to  his  followers  that  he  polled  fully 
200,000  votes  in  the  California  pri- 
mary, the  fact  that  Johnson  beat  him 
by  150,000  is  a  terrible  bar  to  his 
nomination.  The  mere  fact  that,  in  a 
contest  between  two  Californians, 
the  one  that  had  a  long-established 
hold  on  State  politics  came  out  victor 
by  a  large  majority  would  not  in  itself 
be  decisive;  the  trouble  comes  from 
the  circumstance  that  to  prefer  the 
vanquished  to  the  victor  would  mean 
in  this  case  to  accentuate  Johnson's 
grievance,  and  accordingly  to  in- 
crease the  danger  of  mischief  from 
the  hostility  or  the  sulking  of  the 
Johnson  following.  If  Mr.  Hoover 
had  kept  out  of  the  primaries  alto- 
gether, he  would  be  in  a  far  better 
position. 

Apart  from  the  personal  aspect  of 
the  struggle,  there  is  one  cardinal 
question  of  policy  which  has  assumed, 
within  the  past  fortnight,  quite  a  new 
character.  The  strength  that  the 
Johnson  movement  has  appeared  to 
exhibit — in  spite  of  its  relatively  poor 
showing  in  Indiana  and  in  Maryland 
— has  intensified  anti-League  tenden- 
cies in  the  Republican  camp.  We  do 
not  believe  that  the  votes  in  the  pri- 
maries prove  anything  as  to  the 
judgment  of  Republican  voters  gen- 
erally on  the-Ftrtaject  of  the  League. 
But  it  will  be  difficult  to  deny  their 
negative  significance.  What  has  hap- 
pened can  not  be  reconciled  with  the 


May  15,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[505 


idea  that  there  exists  any  general  and 
deep-seated  resentment  against  the 
course  of  the  Republican  Senators  in 
insisting  upon  the  Lodge  reserva- 
tions. And  it  will  be  in  the  highest 
degree  difficult  to  draw  the  line  even 
at  that  point,  in  opposition  to  the 
stand  of  the  irreconcilables,  with 
Johnson  and  Borah  at  their  head  and 
with  Knox  and  Penrose  backing  them 
up.  That  the  outcome  of  the  contest 
on  the  League  will  be  an  elastic  dec- 
laration, leaving  the  ultimate  posi- 
tion to  future  developments,  is  likely- 
enough;  but  the  same  motives  that 
will  dictate  such  an  outcome  in  the 
platform  will  be  a  powerful  make- 
weight against  the  nomination  of 
Hoover. 

Three  full  weeks  still  intervene  be- 
fore the  delegates  gather  at  Chicago, 
and  it  is  not  impossible  that  the  at- 
mosphere will  undergo  a  change  in 
that  interval.  Even  more  likely  is 
it  that  when  the  delegates  get  to- 
gether, they  will  come  to  realize 
more  clearly  than  they  do  now  the 
uncertainty  of  the  party's  victory, 
an  idea  which  to  the  politicians, 
as  well  as  to  the  country  at  large, 
has  until  within  a  short  time  been 
quite  unfamiliar.  What  will  be  the 
result  of  a  sober  consideration  of 
this,  it  is  impossible  to  forecast.  In 
the  meanwhile,  there  is  one  aspect  of 
the  situation  which  might  well  re- 
pay a  little  public  attention.  Presi- 
dential primaries  are  still  a  novelty 
in  our  political  arrangements,  and  it 
behooves  us  to  consider  whether 
they  are  justifying  either  the  high 
hopes  which  some  had  built  upon 
them  or  the  expenditure  of  energy 
and  preoccupation  which  they  in- 
volve. Would  not  the  actual  thought 
of  the  country,  alike  upon  issues  and 
upon  candidates,  have  had  a  better 
opportunity  both  for  expression  and 
for  ascertainment  without  the  inter- 
position of  the  primaries?  Is  not 
the  element  of  chance,  as  well  as  that 
of  intrigue  and  of  all  sorts  of  mean- 
ingless or  factitious  combinations, 
increased  through  the  operation  of 
the  primary  game?  We  would  not 
venture  to  be  dogmatic  on  the  sub- 
ject, but  we  are  inclined  to  answer 
both  of  these  questions  in  the 
affirmative. 


Idealism  in  Vacuo 

TF  one  could  forget  everything  that 
^  has  happened  since  November  11, 
1918,  one  might  be  thrilled  by  the 
President's  appeal  to  his  party  and 
challenge  to  its  adversary.  "It  is 
time,"  Mr.  Wilson  exclaims,  "that 
the  party  should  proudly  avow  that 
it  means  to  try,  without  flinching  or 
turning  at  any  time  away  from  the 
path  for  reasons  of  expediency,  to 
apply  moral  and  Christian  principles 
to  the  problems  of  the  world."  The 
time  for  not  flinching  and  for  disre- 
garding considerations  of  expediency, 
if  such  a  time  there  ever  was,  has 
faded  into  what  already  seems  a  dim 
and  distant  past.  Turn  to  the  Presi- 
dent's speech  in  New  York  on  Sep- 
tember 27,  1918.  "It  will  be  neces- 
sary," he  declared,  "that  all  who  sit 
down  at  the  peace  table  shall  come 
ready  and  willing  to  pay  the  price, 
the  only  price,  that  will  procure  a 
secure  and  lasting  peace";  and  that 
price  included  "not  only  impartial 
justice,  but  also  the  satisfaction  of 
the  several  peoples  whose  fortunes  are 
dealt  with."  The  League  of  Nations 
was  to  be  the  means  of  making  secure 
not  some  kind  of  settlement  or  other, 
but  the  beautiful  and  perfect  settle- 
ment thus  foreshadowed.  That  the 
thing  was  impossible  was  all  along 
sufficiently  evident.  But,  impossible 
or  not  in  the  anticipation,  it  has  cer- 
tainly wholly  disappeared  from  the 
fulfillment.  The  flinching,  the  turn- 
ing aside  "for  reasons  of  expediency," 
began  at  Versailles.  Of  the  thou- 
sands who  were  ready  enough  to 
take  for  reality  a  dream  of  to-morrow, 
there  are  few  indeed  who  will  accept 
a  dream  of  yesterday  as  a  substitute 
for  the  bald  truth  of  to-day. 

Not  less  discordant  with  Mr.  Wil- 
son's dream  is  what  has  happened 
not  in  the  councils  of  diplomats  but 
in  the  actions  of  the  peoples.  "Na- 
tional purposes,"  he  declared  in  that 
same  speech,  "have  fallen  more  and 
more  into  the  background,  and  the 
common  purpose  of  enlightened  man- 
kind has  taken  their  place."  Ask  the 
Italians,  ask  the  Jugo-Slavs,  ask  the 
Rumanians,  ask  the  Greeks,  ask  the 
Poles,  ask  the  Irish,  whether  they 
have  become  completely  indifferent  to 


"national  purposes"  and  are  concerned . 
only  with  "the  common  purpose  of 
enlightened  mankind."  Or  again, 
take  the  very  instrumentality  through 
means  of  which  the  great  dream  was 
to  be  fulfilled.  Long  before  the  strug- 
gle began  in  the  Senate,  long  before 
America  loomed  up  as  the  chief  ob- 
stacle that  Mr.  Wilson  was  to  en- 
counter in  the  execution  of  his  grand 
design,  the  central  idea  of  the  League 
as  originally  conceived  had  been  aban- 
doned. Although  Mr.  Wilson,  even 
so  late  as  his  Manchester  speech  on 
December  30,  1918,  had  declared  that 
the  United  States  "will  join  no  com- 
bination of  power  that  is  not  a  com- 
bination of  all  of  us,"  the  League 
from  its  very  inception  wholly  ex- 
cluded the  Central  Powers  and  Rus- 
sia, and  was  constructed  upon  a  basis 
of  dominance  by  the  five  Powers 
whose  martial  strength  had  achieved 
the  victory.  As  for  the  terms  im- 
posed upon  the  vanquished,  however 
just  or  however  necessary,  they  left 
the  defeated  nations  in  just  such  con- 
dition of  prostration,  and  with  just 
such  feelings  of  bitterness,  as  have 
been  the  result  of  devastating  wars 
in  all  those  past  ages  in  which  men 
were  still  walking  in  the  darkness  of 
national  animosities  and  rivalries, 
of  national  fears  and  suspicions. 

All  this  is  no  reason  why  we  should 
not  strive  to  raise  the  world  to  a 
higher  plane  of  action,  and,  above  all, 
to  lessen  in  every  possible  way  the 
danger  of  reoccurrence  of  the  appall- 
ing calamities  of  war.  But  it  should 
be  a  reason  for  recognizing  that  the 
duty  of  a  statesman  is  to  strive  for 
what  is  attainable,  not  to  exhort  for 
what  is  palpably  unattainable;  still 
less  to  put  to  hazard  the  good  that  is 
clearly  within  his  grasp,  upon  the 
most  tenuous  of  gambler's  chances  of 
attaining  something  better. 

At  no  time  since  the  President  re- 
turned from  Europe  has  he  evidenced 
the  slightest  feeling  of  responsibility 
for  the  awful  loss  which  his  obstinacy 
might  inflict  upon  the  world.  Last 
summer  he  could  have  had  the  treaty 
ratified  with  reservations  which,  ex- 
cept from  the  point  of  view  of  one 
blindly  addicted  to  the  carrying  out 
of  his  own  wish,  evidently  left  the 
League  but  slightly,  if  at  all,  impaired 


506] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  53 


in  its  potentialities  for  good.  The 
feeling  of  the  country  was  then 
strongly  with  Mr.  Wilson.  Had  he 
yielded  something,  public  opinion 
would  have  seen  to  it  that  he  got  the 
rest.  Week  by  week,  month  by  month, 
not  only  the  prestige  of  the  President, 
but  the  authority  of  the  League  idea 
has  steadily  declined.  The  latter  has 
happened  for  bad  reasons  as  well 
as  for  good;  but  it  has  happened. 
The  delay  and  the  wrangling  have 
given  opportunity  for  fanatics  and 
demagogues,  as  well  as  for  sincere 
and  earnest  upholders  of  what  they 
conceive  to  be  America's  own  require- 
ments, to  incite  hostility  to  the  treaty. 
Sinn  Feiners  and  pro-Germans,  So- 
cialists and  Bolshevists,  have  gathered 
head  in  their  opposition.  Nowhere 
is  there  any  sign  that  attachment 
to  the  Covenant  without  reserva- 
tions has  grown;  on  the  contrary, 
thousands  of  sincere  Americans  have 
been  won  over  to  the  idea  that  res- 
ervations are  necessary.  But  so  far 
as  Mr.  Wilson  is  concerned,  nothing 
whatever  has  happened.  He  nails  his 
colors  to  the  mast.  Let  the  ship  go 
down  if  it  will,  but  never  let  it  be 
said  that  Woodrow  Wilson  has  yielded 
a  jot  or  tittle  to  save  it.  Some  may 
be  tempted  to  say  that  this  is  magnifi- 
cent, if  it  is  not  statesmanship;  for 
our  part,  we  can  not  find  that  mag- 
nificent which  must  be  ascribed  at 
least  as  much  to  colossal  self-esteem 
as  to  any  more  honorable  origin. 


The  Faith  that  is  in  Us 

"rpHE  trouble  with  the  Review," 
■*•  wTites  one  of  our  readers,  de- 
clining to  renew  his  subscription,  "is 
the  same  as  that  which  the  Apostle 
Paul  found  with  the  Church  of 
Laodicea."  The  trouble  with  the 
Church  of  the  Laodiceans  was  that 
it  was  "neither  cold  nor  hot,"  but 
"lukewarm."  Whether  our  candid 
friend  bases  his  judgment  on  the 
general  character  of  the  Review  or 
on  its  attitude  in  regard  to  some 
cardinal  issue,  we  are  left  to  con- 
jecture. We  think  we  may  safely 
assume,  however,  that  what  he  has 
in  mind  is  not  that  fairness  in 
controversy  which  so  many  of  our 


correspondents  have  recognized  as  a 
virtue,  but  the  actual  position  the 
Review  has  taken  upon  several  phases 
of  the  struggle  against  Socialism 
and  disloyalty.  There  are  doubtless 
others  who  find  the  same  objection. 
But  their  state  of  mind,  we  take  it, 
is  not  unlike  that  which,  as  we  have 
been  reliably  informed,  is  prevalent 
among  many  of  the  good  up-State 
members  of  the  New  York  Legislature 
in  regard  to  Mr.  Hughes.  "What  has 
come  over  the  Governor,"  these  peo- 
ple say,  "has  he  turned  Social- 
ist?" But  surely  nothing  can  be 
less  Laodicean  than  such  a  protest  as 
Mr.  Hughes  made  against  the  pro- 
scriptive  mania  which  took  possession 
of  the  Legislature  at  Albany  during 
its  recent  session.  Mr.  Hughes  was 
not  lukewarm,  he  was  hot;  and  he 
was  hot,  not  because  of  any  feeling 
in  favor  of  the  Socialists,  but  be- 
cause of  a  most  intense  feeling  in 
favor  of  the  institutions  which  the 
Socialist  movement  is  designed  to 
destroy. 

If  intolerance  were  the  true  meas- 
ure of  loyalty,  if  readiness  to  resort 
to  extreme  measures  at  the  first 
alarm  were  the  true  test  of  faith  in 
our  institutions,  then  that  man 
would  be  the  best  American  who  was 
ready  to  go  the  greatest  length  in 
suppressing  Socialist  publications,  in 
excluding  Socialists  from  legislative 
bodies,  in  enacting  laws  giving  to 
administrative  officers  sweeping  and 
arbitrary  powers  for  the  hounding 
down  of  every  kind  of  dissenters.  But 
to  our  mind  it  is  not  those  who  op- 
pose such  measures,  but  those  who 
uphold  them,  that  are  the  men  of 
little  faith.  If  our  institutions  are 
built  upon  sand,  then,  to  be  sure,  we 
must  gather  in  frantic  alarm  at  the 
first  sign  of  storm.  But  if  they  are 
built  upon  a  rock,  we  must  trust  to 
the  strength  of  the  foundations  to  re- 
sist its  onset.  And  the  figure  does 
less  than  justice  to  the  actual  situa- 
tion; for  what  the  headlong  defend- 
ers, whether  at  Albany  or  at  Wash- 
ington, are  so  ready  to  do  is  to  loosen 
the  foundations  themselves  for  the 
sake  of  finding  material  with  which 
to  meet  the  attack.  Proscription  and 
intolerance  may,  indeed,  afford  tem- 
porary relief  from  immediate  danger ; 


but  they  lessen  for  good  and  all  the 
resources  upon  which  we  must  rely 
for  permanent  safety. 

Nor  is  the  question  solely  one  of 
method  or  policy.  Speaking  for  our-  ' 
selves-^and  we  believe  we  may  speak 
also  for  the  men  of  whom  Mr.  Hughes 
is  a  type — we  feel  it  quite  safe  to  say 
that  we  are  far  more  deeply  attached 
to  the  fundamentals  that  are  at  stake 
in  the  issue  of  Socialism  against  in- 
dividualism than  are  those  who  so 
readily  forget  the  traditions  of  lib- 
erty in  their  eagerness  to  avert  im- 
mediate peril  to  the  existing  order. 
Let  some  proposal  be  made  which  has 
in  it  the  most  dangerous  germs  of 
paternalism,  but  which  does  not  on 
its  face  bear  the  Socialist  brand — a 
proposal  which  looks  comfortable  and 
desirable  from  the  standpoint  of  im- 
mediate interest — and  you  may  be 
sure  that  many  of  those  who  are  keen- 
est in  the  heresy  hunt  will  welcome 
it  without  a  qualm.  What  we  are  l 
concerned  about  is  the  essentials  of  f 
that  structure  of  Government  and  so- 
ciety which  has  been  built  up  by  a 
people  of  self-reliant  freemen ;  and  we 
mean  to  defend  that  structure  against 
danger,  whether  it  be  threatened  by 
the  hostility  of  enemies  or  by  the 
thoughtlessness  or  ignorance  of  those 
who  regard  themselves  as  its  friends. 

The  future  of  democracy  in  Amer- 
ica is  hanging  in  the  balance.  It  is 
our  hope,  and  our  confident  belief, 
that  it  will  come  out  triumphant  from 
this  time  of  trial.  But  if  it  is  to  do 
so,  we  must  be  willing  to  abide  the 
test.  We  must  show  reason  for  the 
faith  that  is  in  us.  We  must  be  will- 
ing to  let  all  comers  do  their  best  to 
show  that  it  is  not  worth  preserving, 
and  we  must  do  our  best  to  show  not 
that  it  is  without  fault,  but  that  with 
all  its  faults  it  is  a  precious  heritage 
which  it  would  be  madness  to  cast 
aside.  If  it  be  Laodicean  to  hold  that 
this  can  be  done,  if  it  be  Laodicean 
to  believe  that  it  will  be  done,  then 
we  are  Laodiceans.  But  if  constancy 
of  purpose  and  sincerity  of  conviction 
are  to  be  measured  rather  by  a  steady 
and  quiet  adherence  to  the  faith  than 
by  violent  and  spasmodic  manifesta- 
tions of  panic  or  intolerance,  then  we 
can  not  admit  the  justice  of  the  im- 
peachment. 


May  15,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[507 


By-Governments  in 
Germany 

THE  development  of  affairs  in  Ger- 
many since  the  farcical  five  days' 
rule  of  Dr.  Kapp  bodes  little  good 
for  the  Government  which,  after  that 
reactionary  intermezzo,  was  consti- 
tuted as  the  result  of  a  compromise 
with  the  German  trade  unions.  The 
general  strike  called  with  the  sanc- 
tion, if  not  at  the  request,  of  Herr 
Bauer's  Cabinet,  for  the  defense  of 
the  Constitution  against  the  counter- 
revolutionary menace,  proved  an 
equally  effective  weapon,  as  soon  as 
that  menace  was  averted,  for  render- 
ing the  lawful  Government  submis- 
sive to  the  will  of  Labor.  Herr 
Legien  refused  to  sheathe  the  sword 
until  the  Government  which  it  had 
served  to  defend  had  yielded  to  his 
demands.  The  ultimatum  of  the  Trade 
Unions,  as  whose  spokesman  he 
acted,  required,  among  other  things, 
that  they  should  be  consulted,  for  this 
once  to  be  sure,  in  the  reconstruction 
of  both  the  Imperial  and  the  Prus- 
sian Ministries,  and  that  a  People's 
army  should  be  formed  from  mem- 
bers of  trades  unions  only. 

A  writer  in  the  New  Europe,  on 
the  assumption  that  "it  is  the  lack  of 
a  direct  voice  in  the  state  which  fre- 
quently pushes  trade  unions  into  the 
uneconomic  path  of  strikes,"  ex- 
presses his  belief  that  "the  squaring 
of  the  two  conceptions,  of  the  old 
state  relying  on  a  non-professional 
local  basis  and  of  the  professional 
unions,  may  supply  a  fruitful  chap- 
ter in  modern  constitutional  develop- 
ment. The  experiment  made,  in  sev- 
eral countries  in  Europe,  with  pro- 
portional representation  which,  elimi- 
nating the  local  constituency,  makes 
the  squaring  of  the  two  conceptions 
superfluous,  has  shown  how  simple 
and  easy  that  constitutional  develop- 
ment is.  Any  group  of  professionals 
whose  members  are  scattered  over 
the  country  can,  under  that  system, 
vote  as  a  unit  at  the  polls  and,  ac- 
cording to  its  numerical  strength, 
send  one  or  more  of  its  candidates  to 
Parliament,  there  to  defend  the  inter- 
ests of  their  particular  profession.  A 
railwaymen's  brotherhood,  an  actors' 


union,  an  association  of  school  teach- 
ers, a  farmers'  league,  a  policemen's 
federation  can  each  acquire,  in  this 
way,  a  direct  voice  in  the  state.  But 
nowhere  has  the  principle  been  ac- 
cepted that  these  many  voices  shall, 
except  through  their  power  in  the 
Parliament,  have  a  say  in  the  forma- 
tion of  the  Government. 

It  is  this  fear  lest  the  Government's 
compliance  with  Legien's  ultimatum 
should  create  a  dangerous  precedent 
for  repeated  assaults,  from  the  side 
of  the  unions,  upon  the  independence 
of  the  Government,  which  has  be- 
come an  element  of  dissension  be- 
tween the  coalition  parties  supporting 
the  tottering  governmental  structure. 
There  is  little  hope  of  a  continued  co- 
operation, after  the  elections,  between 
Majority  Socialists,  Democrats,  and 
Catholics,  and  it  will  be  by  the  merest 
chance  if  the  building  erected  on  such 
infirm  pillars  does  not  collapse  be- 
fore that  time.  The  old  opposition 
within  the  Centre  party  against  the 
policy  inaugurated  by  Erzberger  in 
1917,  which  raised  its  head  again 
after  the  latter's  fall,  is  gathering 
additional  strength  from  the  Govern- 
ment's weakness,  and  this  agitation 
among  the  Centrists  for  a  rupture 
with  the  Majority  Socialists  is  the 
signal  for  a  renewal  of  the  Catholic 
movement  in  the  Rhineland  against 
the  centralized  state  under  the  con- 
trol of  Berlin. 

But  it  is  not  only  in  the  Rhineland, 
where  anti-Prussian  sentiment  makes 
for  disloyalty  to  the  Prussianized  em- 
pire, but  also  in  the  south  of  Ger- 
many that  the  Government's  lack  of 
backbone  is  causing  a  reaction  un- 
favorable for  Berlin.  In  a  com- 
munique jointly  issued,  some  weeks 
ago,  by  the  Governments  of  Bavaria, 
Wiirttemberg,  Baden,  and  Hesse,  a 
protest  was  raised  against  the  dis- 
bandment  of  the  "Einwohnerwehren," 
which  the  Government  will  be  forced 
by  the  Entente  to  carry  through. 
Their  maintenance,  the  message  de- 
clares, is  a  matter  of  the  most  vital 
importance  to  the  South  German 
States.  It  is  not  this  protest,  which, 
indeed,  is  serious  enough  in  itself, 
but  the  way  in  which  the  Governments 
in  question  thought  fit  to  enter  it, 
that  is  an  oriiinous  sign  for  the  au- 


thority of  Berlin.  The  South  German 
States  are  duly  represented  in  the 
Reichsrat,  where  their  spokesmen  can 
advocate  their  dissentient  opinions. 
By  choosing  the  unusual  way  of  a 
joint  official  communique  they  gave 
to  their  protest  the  character  of  a 
move  against  the  Central  Govern- 
ment, whose  authority  seems  to  be 
challenged  by  an  interstate  alliance 
within  the  Empire.  The  declaration 
of  the  Bavarian  Minister-President 
that  Bavaria,  even  at  the  risk  of  a 
rupture,  would  maintain  its  stand- 
point, was  hardly  calculated  to  dispel 
that  impression. 

A  difficult  task,  therefore,  awaits 
Comrades  Muller  and  Koster  at  the 
Spa  Conference.  Nominally  repre- 
senting the  Imperial  Government, 
they  will  feel  the  force  of  their  own 
arguments  impaired  by  the  painful 
consciousness  that  whatever  they 
yield  or  gaih  will  be  challenged,  if 
not  disavowed,  by  a  power  at  home 
which  they  lack  the  means  of  con- 
straining. If  they  pledge  themselves 
to  the  disbandment  of  the  "Einwoh- 
nerwehren," the  whole  of  South  Ger- 
many will  be  united  in  resistance 
against  the  orders  to  that  effect  from 
Berlin ;  if,  on  the  other  hand,  the  im- 
probable should  happen,  and  they 
should  succeed  in  persuading  Mille- 
rand  to  consent  to  the  retention  of 
those  forces,  they  will  be  faced  with 
another  ultimatum  from  Labor,  re- 
minding them  of  their  pledge  that 
only  members  of  the  Trade  Unions 
shall  be  deemed  worthy  of  maintain- 
ing order  at  home  and  safety  on  the 
borders.  The  interference  of  by-Gov- 
ernments threatens  to  paralyze  all 
initiative  of  the  central  authority  in 
Berlin. 


THE  REVIEW 

A  weekly  journal  of  political  and 

general  discussion 

Published  by 

The  National  Weekly  Corporation 

140  Nassau  Street,  New  York 

Fabian   Franklin,  President 

Harold  de  Wolf  Fuller,  Treasurer 


Subscription     price,     five     dollars     a     year     in 
advance.     Fifteen  cents  a  copy.     Foreign  post- 
age,  one   dollar   extra;    Canadian   postage,   fifty 
cents  extra.     Foreign  subscriptions  may  be  sent 
to  Messrs.  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  Ltd.»  24,  Bed- 
ford  St.,   Strand,    London,    W.   C.   2,   England. 
Copyright,     1920,     in     the     United     States     of 
America 
Editors 
FABIAN  FRANKLIN 
HAROLD  DE  WOLF  FULLER 
Associate  Editors 
Harry  Morgan  Ayres     O.  W.  Firkins 
A.  J.  Barnouw  W.  H.  Johnson 

Jerome  Landfield 


508] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  53 


Give  Hungary  a  Chance 


A  GOOD  deal  of  newspaper  and 
periodical  space  is  devoted  in 
these  days  to  denunciation  of  the 
Hungarian  Government.  If  these  ar- 
ticles, published  in  the  Nation,  the 
New  Republic,  and  various  Socialist 
papers,  were  merely  a  collection  of 
scandalous  stories  like  that  about 
Lieutenant  Freiszberger,  who  amused 
himself  one  evening  by  hanging  eight 
men  in  his  own  bedroom  {Nation, 
April  5),  they  would  not  be  worth 
answering,  because  the  good  sense  of 
American  readers  could  be  trusted  to 
class  them  along  with  the  tales  of 
Baron  Munchhausen.  But  they  are 
so  clever  a  combination  of  truth, 
complete  falsehood,  and  dangerous 
half-truths  that  it  would  be  unfair 
to  Hungary  to  pass  them  unnoted. 
The  United  States  is  technically  at 
war  with  Hungary  still,  but  it  is  char- 
acteristic of  Americans  to  demand 
fair  play  even  for  an  enemy,  and  it 
should  be  the  aim  of  the  American 
press  to  point  out  and  support  Eu- 
ropean efforts  towards  reconstruc- 
tion of  economic  life  wherever  they 
occur,  rather  than  to  dwell  on  the 
inevitable  faults  of  a  new  Govern- 
ment that  has  not  yet  gained  full  con- 
trol of  the  disorganized  nation. 

The  various  anti-Hungarian  arti- 
cles purport  to  be  discussions  of  the 
present  Government  of  Hungary,  yet 
every  bit  of  evidence  concerns  a 
period  before  the  present  Govern- 
ment assumed  office  in  the  middle  of 
February  of  the  present  year.  The 
origin  of  the  statements  made  is  in- 
teresting. They  are  almost  invari- 
ably drawn  from  Az  Ember,  a  radical 
paper  published  in  Vienna  by  Hun- 
garian political  refugees,  or  from 
the  Arbeiterzeitung,  another  Vienna 
paper  controlled  by  the  extreme  So- 
cialists. Any  one  who  is  familiar 
with  the  present-day  Vienna  press 
knows  the  depths  to  which  it  has  fall- 
en; knows  also  how  often  the  sen- 
sational news  printed  in  these  two 
papers  has  been  investigated  by  Al- 
lied missions  and  shown  to  be  entirely 
without  foundation.  Yet,  without  in- 
vestigation, the  wild  statements  of 
Az  Ember  are  retailed  to  American 


readers  as  sober  fact.  These  articles, 
reprinted  in  America,  not  only  ig- 
nore dates  but  ignore  the  relation- 
ships of  the  various  Hungarian  lead- 
ers mentioned.  Friedrich  and  Horthy 
are  always  coupled  as  though  their 
policies  and  ideals  were  the  same,  but 
as  a  matter  of  fact  Horthy,  the  pres- 
ent ruler,  dislikes  Friedrich  and  all 
that  he  stands  for,  and  endured  him 
for  a  time  for  political  reasons,  just 
as  President  Wilson,  for  a  much 
longer  time,  endured  his  association 
with  Mr.  Bryan.  Friedrich  exerts 
no  influence  in  the  present  Hungarian 
Government  and  holds  no  office.  He 
is  a  man  of  very  small  calibre,  nar- 
row-minded, reactionary.  He  came 
into  power  partly  through  pushing 
himself  to  the  fore  at  a  time  when 
Hungary  had  no  big  men  to  take 
charge  after  the  Bela  Kun  gang  es- 
caped with  their  plunder ;  and  partly 
because,  as  a  vociferous  opponent  of 
Socialism,  he  represented  in  the  pop- 
ular mind  the  antithesis  of  Bolshe- 
vism. Sir  George  Clerk  firmly  re- 
fused to  recognize,  in  the  name  of 
the  Supreme  Council,  any  Govern- 
ment of  which  Friedrich  was  the 
head,  and  only  permitted  him  to  have 
a  place  in  that  Government  because 
he  so  clearly  represented  the  opinion 
of  the  vast  majority  of  the  Hun- 
garian people.  Horthy  is  a  very  dif- 
ferent personality.  He  was  the  head 
of  the  Hungarian  army  and  had  won 
the  unanimous  approval  of  the  coun- 
try by  his  loyalty  to  Hungary  in  his 
dealings  with  the  Rumanians  and  by 
the  moderation  of  his  policies.  He 
has  not  yet  shown  himself  a  great 
man,  but  he  is  a  thoroughly  honorable 
man  who  is  trying  to  do  his  best 
under  very  difficult  circumstances. 
He  was  never  a  supporter  of  the 
Archduke  Joseph.  He  did  not  in- 
vite the  ex-Emperor  to  reestablish 
the  Hungarian  monarchy,  but  may 
well  have  been  in  correspondence  with 
him  for  the  purpose  of  securing  his 
formal  abdication.  Such  are  the  two 
men  who  are  usually  classed  as  part- 
ners in  crime. 

The  following,  in  a  few  words,  is 
an  attempt  to  tell  the  truth  about 


Hungarian  conditions,  an  attempt 
made  from  the  American  point  of 
view,  not  from  the  radical  Socialist 
point  of  view.  It  is  based  on  facts, 
not  rumors,  and  is  more  concerned 
with  pointing  out  the  good  than  the 
bad,  although  it  aims  not  to  ignore 
the  bad  where  it  exists. 

The  reason  for  most  articles  in  the 
American  press  on  the  evils  of  the 
present  Hungarian  administration  is 
the  flow  of  rumors  from  Vienna  as  to 
Hungarian  treatment  of  the  Jews.  It 
would  be  absurd  to  deny  the  fact  that 
Hungary  is  anti-Jewish;  it  is.  It 
would  be  absurd  to  assert  that  Jews 
always  receive  fair  treatment  in  Hun- 
gary; they  do  not.  But  before  the 
Hungarian  Government  is  condemned 
on  this  account  it  is  well  to  look  the 
facts  straight  in  the  face.  The  Jews, 
of  whom  there  are  many  in  Hungary, 
are  far  better  businessmen  than  the 
Magyars,  and  have  got  into  their 
hands  most  of  the  banking  and  gen- 
eral industrial  life  of  the  country. 
For  Magyar  men  of  business  to  hate 
them  for  this  is  unfair  and  deplorable, 
but  is  human  nature.  The  hatred  of 
the  Magyar  peasant  for  the  Jew  has 
more  foundation.  The  Jews  control 
a  large  part  of  the  agricultural  lands 
and  they  have  got  that  control 
through  the  exploitation  of  the  peas- 
ants, lamentably  ignorant  in  money 
matters.  In  the  larger  dealings  the 
Jews  of  Hungary  have  succeeded 
through  superior  business  acumen ;  in 
the  smaller  dealings  they  have  suc- 
ceeded through  usury  and  sometimes 
through  trickery.  They  were  the 
most  obvious  profiteers  during  the 
war,  and  the  people  hate  them  also  for 
that.  They  swarmed  into  Budapest 
from  Galicia  at  the  time  of  the  Rus- 
sian advance  and  have  refused  to  go 
back  to  their  homes  because  they  like 
better  the  small  business  opportuni- 
ties of  the  city.  But  Budapest,  like 
Vienna,  is  overcrowded  and  desper- 
ately short  of  food.  Its  population 
has  almost  doubled.  For  this  reason 
it  has  been  necessary  to  concentrate 
in  camps  in  the  country  thousands  of 
refugees,  the  majority  of  whom  hap- 
pen to  be  Jews.  But  these  refugees 
are  not,  as  is  often  asserted,  starving 
and  dying  in  typhus-infested  camps. 
The  Hungarian  Government  is  doing 


JNIay  15,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[509 


the  best  it  can  for  them,  and  a  com- 
mission sent  by  the  International  Red 
Cross — an  organization  famous  for 
its  fearless  outspokenness — reported 
the  camps  to  be  in  excellent  condition, 
sanitary,  well-managed. 

The  Jewish  question  would  have 
been  serious  enough  for  the  reasons 
stated.  It  is  critical  because  Jews 
were  the  leaders  in  the  communist 
regime  and  because  in  consequence 
the  average  Magyar  sees  in  every 
Jew  a  potential  Bolshevist.  Years  of 
dislike  have  been  intensified  by  the 
terrible  memories  of  the  Soviet  and, 
try  as  it  will,  the  Government  can 
not  prevent  all  manifestations  of  a 
hatred  made  more  dangerous  through 
fear.  But  in  spite  of  this  there  have 
been  no  pogroms.  There  have  been 
murders.  In  Kecskemet  the  Inter- 
Allied  missions  estimated  that  twen- 
ty-five or  thirty  persons  were  mur- 
dered. But  the  statement  in  the  Na- 
tion that  "the  acts  of  Horthy's  White 
Army  exceed  any  excesses  of  the  Bol- 
sheviki"  is  not  only  a  lie  but  a  stupid 
lie,  because  all  the  facts,  as  distin- 
guished from  slanderous  rumors,  dis- 
prove it.  A  good  example  of  specific 
rumors  quoted  as  fact  by  the  Ameri- 
can Socialist  press  is,  as  the  Nation 
phrased  it,  "the  treatment  of  certain 
well-known  Hungarian  intellectuals — 
specifically  the  condemnation  to  death 
of  Andreas  Lazko."  Leaving  aside 
the  fact  that  the  plural  is  used  for 
the  single  case  cited,  the  truth  is  that 
Andreas  Lazko  has  not  been  con- 
demned to  death,  has  not  even  been 
arrested,  but  is  living  quietly  in  Hun- 
gary. This  information,  obtained 
directly  from  the  American  Commis- 
sioner in  Budapest,  ought  to  give 
pause  even  to  those  whose  aim  in 
life  is  to  defame  every  Government 
that  is  not  radically  socialistic. 

Neither  Az  Ember  nor  the  A^'beiter- 
zeitung  can  endure  the  fact  that  in 
the  elections  in  Hungary  the  Socialists 
failed  to  make  any  showing  whatever. 
A  certain  Mr.  Bagger,  writing  in  the 
Netv  Republic  of  March  17,  produced 
a  somewhat  labored  argument  to 
prove  that  the  elections  were  not  fair, 
but  this  argument  is  contrary  to  the 
statements  of  Americans  who  were  on 
the  ground.  It  is  true  that  some  ad- 
herents    of    the     fallen     Bolshevist 


regime  were  in  prison  on  criminal 
charges,  but  the  number  was  negli- 
gible and,  had  they  been  at  large, 
they  could  not  have  affected  the  issue. 
The  truth  was  and  is  that  the  only 
Socialists  in  Hungary  are  found 
among  the  laboring  classes  in  the 
cities.  At  the  most  generous  estimate 
they  do  not  number  over  five  per 
cent,  of  the  population,  and  the  re- 
maining ninety-five  per  cent,  were 
determined  to  do  away  with  all  dan- 
ger of  a  Socialist  regime.  Like  the 
Bolshevist  Pravda  in  Petrograd,  how- 
ever, the  Socialist  papers  of  Vienna 
can  not  endure  the  rule  of  the  ma- 
jority unless  the  majority  happens  to 
agree  with  their  own  views.  Their 
purpose,  therefore,  is  to  discredit  the 
Government  of  a  majority  which,  in 
Hungary,  very  nearly  represents  the 
will  of  all  of  the  people,  and  to  do 
this  they  stoop  to  all  kinds  of  fan- 
tastic slander,  attacking  even  the  rep- 
resentatives of  the  United  States. 

On  December  17,  1919,  the  Ar- 
beiterzeitung  said  of  the  Kecskemet 
massacre : 

An  American  Commission  which  visited 
Kecskemet  found  sixty-two  corpses  lying  un- 
buried  and  hanging  on  the  trees  of  a  neighbor- 
ing forest.  This  paper  is  in  a  position  to  prove 
by  an  official  document  that  this  wholesale 
murder  was  committed  by  order  of  the  func- 
tionaries of  the  Hungarian  State  with  the 
knowledge  of  the  highest  authorities  and  of 
the  Ministry  of  Justice,  and  that  it  was  hushed 
up,  though  the  number  of  victims  is  said  to  be 
about  five  thousand.  The  Allied  Powers  are 
about  to  conclude  peace  with  this  Government 
of  murderers  and  thus  to  receive  them  into 
the  community  of  civilized  humanity.  The 
Rumanians  kept  these  men  in  check,  but  hardly 
had  they  left  when  the  slaughtering  began. 
English,  French,  and  Americans  did  not  permit 
them  to  protect  the  lives  of  these  miserable 
people.  The  American  Colonel  Yates  under- 
takes the  supreme  control  over  the  Brachialge- 
walt,  that  is,  the  new  forces.  And  now  under 
the  Stars  and  Stripes  of  the  United  States, 
who  could  hold  back  these  monsters,  the  mur- 
derous work  will  go  on. 

This  statement  was  sent  by  the  Amer- 
ican Commissioner  in  Vienna  to  Gen- 
eral Bandholtz  in  Budapest,  who  an- 
swered : 

Every  statement  in  this  article  as  received 
and  regarding  Americans  is  false.  No  Ameri- 
can Commission  visited  Kecskemet.  Col. 
Yates  returned  to  his  permanent  duties  in  Ru- 
mania over  three  weeks  ago.  The  American 
member  of  the  Inter-Allied  Military  Mission 
was  reliev'ed  from  same  on  December  13. 
Report  that  Col.  Yates  undertakes  supreme 
control  over  the  new  forces  and  that  murder- 
ous work  is  going  on  under  the  Stars  and 
Stripes  of  the  United  States  is  inexpressibly 
false  and  libelous,  and  it  is  requested  that 
prompt  and  eificacious  action  be  taken  to  ade- 
quately punish  the  perpetrators,  to  force  the 
Arbeitcr::citung  to  retract  its  false  statements. 


and  to  prevent  a  repetition  of  such  a  scurrilous 
publication. 

The  Arbeiterzeitung  made  a  half- 
hearted retraction  of  this  particular 
tale,  but  both  it  and  Az  Ember  have 
continued  to  publish  equally  libelous 
and  false  statements  and  to  attack 
at  will  the  so-called  "capitalistic  Gov- 
ernment of  the  United  States,"  and 
its  various  agents  in  Central  Europe, 
when  the  result  of  the  investigation 
of  these  agents  does  not  agree  with 
the  preconceived  ideas  of  the  papers 
in  question. 

That  the  Government  of  Horthy 
has  made  every  honest  effort  to  be 
fair,  to  restore  prosperity  and  order 
in  what  is  left  of  Hungary,  every  can- 
did neutral  observer  admits ;  that  this 
Government  will  be  able  to  restrain 
the  Hungarians  from  propaganda  and 
even  military  adventure  to  regain 
some  portion  of  its  lost  territories, 
is  not  certain,  and  indeed  the  Gov- 
ernment feels,  with  the  people,  that 
these  territories  have  been  unfairly 
taken  away.  It  is  also  unlikely  that, 
in  spite  of  all  efforts,  Horthy  will  be 
able  to  prevent  further  murders  of 
those  believed  by  the  Hungarian  peo- 
ple to  be  the  cause  of  most  of  their 
misery.  All  that  can  be  aflSrmed  is 
that  Horthy  will  work  harder  along 
these  lines  and  with  more  chance  of 
success  than  did  the  Governments 
which  intervened  between  the  fall  of 
Bela  Kun  and  the  recent  elections.  He 
is  an  honest,  high-minded  man.  If 
he  has  the  strength  to  be  a  dictator 
until  normal  conditions  are  restored 
he  will  have  bravely  carried  his  coun- 
try through  a  critical  period  and  will 
give  the  people  new  hope. 

It  must  be  remembered  also  that 
Horthy  has  not  only  popular  sentiment 
to  work  against  but  the  grim  fact  of 
continually  rising  prices.  The  crown, 
from  an  international  point  of  view, 
is  worth  practically  nothing.  It  still 
remains  the  standard  of  value  in  Hun- 
gary and  the  prices  of  local  products 
have,  therefore,  not  gone  up  as  arbi- 
trarily as  have  the  prices  of  imported 
products.  The  Nation  puts  on  the 
present  Government  the  responsi- 
bility for  the  cost  now  of  forty-five 
crowns  a  day  in  the  hospitals,  as 
compared  with  the  cost  of  ten  crowns 
a  day  under  Bela  Kun.     The  reason 


510] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  53 


for  this  is  that  Bela  Kun  and  the  Ru- 
manians managed  to  do  away  with- 
all  the  medicines,  surgical  dressings, 
and  appliances  in  the  various  hospi- 
tals. Bela  Kun  also  flooded  the  coun- 
try with  worthless  money.  He  ad- 
mitted that  the  charge  of  ten  crowns 
a  day  had  no  relation  to  the  cost  of 
caring  for  patients  in  the  hospitals, 
and  he  tried  to  limit  the  admissions 
only  to  the  working  classes.  The  pres- 
ent cost  of  forty-five  crowns  is  no 
more  than  the  ten  crowns  charged 
at  the  beginning  of  the  Bolshevist 
regime,  so  far  as  the  value  of  money 
is  concerned,  especially  when  it  is 
remembered  that  the  Government 
has  been  compelled  to  procure  all  of 
its  hospital  materials  from  abroad. 
This  is  only  one  example  of  the  rise 
in  prices  which  inevitably  bears  very 
hard  on  all  classes  of  the  population, 
but  which  can  not  be  imputed  to  any 
fault  peculiar  to  the  Hungarian  Gov- 
ernment. 

Neither  can  the  tragic  condition 
of  the  refugees  in  Hungary  be 
brought  up  against  the  Government. 
These  poor  people,  living  as  they  are 
in  box  cars  and  in  caves  in  the  hills, 
have  been  driven  away  from  their 
homes  in  the  territories  now  owned 
by  Rumania,  Czechoslovakia,  and 
Serbia.  They  are  an  absolute  charge 
of  the  state,  and  the  state,  with  very 
limited  resources,  is  doing  everything 
possible  to  alleviate  their  sufferings. 

It  is  quite  true  that  the  Govern- 
ments of  the  Archduke,  of  Friedrich, 
and  of  Huszar  had  less  power  than 
the  Government  of  Horthy,  but  as 
pointed  out  above,  even  those  weak 
Governments  prevented  the  massa- 
cres which  were  greatly  feared.  It 
is  pleasant  also  to  be  able  to  credit 
them  with  some  definite  attempts  to 
treat  all  classes  fairly  and  to  work 
for  the  benefit  of  the  suffering  and 
the  oppressed.  The  American  Relief 
Administration  sent  a  child  welfare 
committee  to  Hungary  in  August, 
1919.  This  committee  did  what  it 
could  with  its  limited  resources  to 
alleviate  the  abject  misery  which  was 
found  to  exist  after  the  Soviet  Gov- 
ernment collapsed.  It  was  not  au- 
thorized to  carry  on  regular  work 
until  October,  1919.  In  closing  its 
work,    which    has   been    carried   on 


steadily  since  then,  it  has  issued  a 
very  illuminating  report,  and  even 
those  who  hate  the  anti-Socialist  Gov- 
ernment of  Hungary  can  not  accuse 
the  American  Relief  Administration 
of  trying  to  curry  favor  by  fair 
words,  inasmuch  as  its  work  is  over. 
This  report  says,  among  other  things : 

The  Hungarian  Government  has,  from  the 
beginning,  shown  the  greatest  interest  in  the 
work  and  has  given  its  steadfast  support.  In 
October,  1919,  the  Government  voted  five  mil- 
lion crowns  for  administrative  expenses  and 
agreed  to  furnish  forty-four  tons  of  flour  and 
five  tons  of  fat  weekly  to  supplement  the 
American  programme.  Although  there  was  at 
times  only  a  three-days'  supply  of  flour  and 
fats  in  Budapest,  the  Hungarian  Government 
has  never  failed  in  its  deliveries  of  flour  and 
fat  for  child  welfare  work. 

Later  on,  this  allocation  by  the  Hun- 
garian Government  was  increased. 
The  pamphlet  of  the  American  Re- 
lief Administration  states  clearly 
that  no  distinction  was  made  of  race, 
creed,  or  social  status.  Children 
were  fed  if  they  were  hungry  and 
undernourished,  and  it  was  the  poor 
of  Hungary,  and  the  poor  only,  who 


benefited  from  this  work ;  yet  the  So- 
cialist press,  reprinting  in  America 
the  fantastic  tales  emanating  from 
Vienna,  has  the  impudence  to  assert 
that  in  Hungary  to-day  it  is  only 
necessary  to  be  poor  to  be  persecuted. 
Hungary  has  been  bitterly  punished 
for  its  share  in  the  war.  Its  terri- 
tory has  been  reduced  seventy-three 
per  cent. ;  millions  of  Hungarians  are 
under  alien  rule ;  the  country  has  been 
stripped  by  Rumanians  and  Bolshe- 
vists; the  ancient  arrogance  of  the 
Magyars  has  been  punished  to  the 
full.  The  country  should  be  given 
.  the  opportunity  for  orderly  develop- 
ment. It  does  not  want  Socialism, 
and  there  is  no  more  reason  why  the 
rest  of  the  world  should  impose  So- 
cialism on  Hungary  than  why  it 
should  impose  monarchy  on  the 
United  States.  Let  the  world  guide 
and  counsel  fairly  and  unselfishly.  It 
might  at  least  refrain  from  slander 
and  give  Horthy  his  chance. 

Examiner 


The  Jubilee  of  the  Metropolitan 

Museum 


To  celebrate  the  fiftieth  anniversary  of 
its  founding  the  Metropolitan  Mu- 
seum has  rearranged  its  collections, 
temporarily  incorporating  with  them 
hundreds  of  precious  objects  borrowed 
from  private  collectors.  The  exhibition 
thus  becomes  a  record  of  the  influence  of 
the  Museum  and  a  hint  of  its  expecta- 
tions. What  is  remarkable  about  the 
display  is  it  comprehensiveness.  In  most 
separate  departments,  the  Museum  still 
falls  below  what  is  expected  in  a  first- 
class  museum  abroad,  but  an  equally 
catholic  display  could  be  obtained  in 
London,  Paris,  or  Berlin  only  by  draw- 
ing on  several  museums.  Even  in 
separate  branches — Egyptian  and  Far 
Eastern  art,  the  industrial  art  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  arms  and  armor,  musical 
instruments — the  Museum  offers  collec- 
tions hardly  surpassed  in  Europe. 

It  is  my  pleasant  task  to  trace  the  fifty 
active  years  that  have  resulted  in  this 
achievement.  My  own  interest  began 
when  at  ten  years  old  I  was  introduced 
to  General  di  Cesnola's  smirking  Cy- 
priote gods,  then  still  in  the  old  Douglas 
Mansion,  on  East  Fourteenth  street. 
Forty  years  of  the  growth  of  the  Museum 
are  quite  vivid  to  me.  So,  while  for 
sober  facts  I  shall  depend  on  Miss  Wini- 


fred E.  Howe's  excellent  history,  I  shall, 
even  at  the  risk  of  indiscretion,  say 
something  of  the  remarkable  personali- 
ties who  controlled  this  development. 

There  is  no  great  invention,  be  it  tele- 
graph or  sewing  machine,  without  a  rival 
inventor.  In  this  case  the  pale  honors 
go  to  the  New  York  Historical  Society. 
Having  considerable  collections,  from 
1860  to  1870  it  endeavored  to  get  the 
city  to  provide  it  with  a  building  in  Cen- 
tral Park  where  it  might  maintain  a 
general  museum  of  history  and  art.  The 
society  lacked  the  energy  to  put  the 
scheme  through.  Theoretically  this  was 
a  pity,  for  the  neglected  collections  of 
the  society  were  until  nearly  1900  at 
once  richer  than  those  of  the  Metropolitan 
and  more  suitable  as  a  nucleus.  But 
the  race  is  ever  to  the  strong,  and  the 
New  York  Historical  Society  was  beaten 
to  the  goal  by  a  new  set  of  hardy  volun- 
teers. The  Museum  germinated  amid  the 
gayety  of  an  American  festival  at  Paris, 
July  7,  1866.  Somewhere  between 
punches  and  dancing  in  the  tents  on  the 
Pre  Catalan,  John  Jay,  whose  address 
the  London  Times  noted  as  "lively  and 
amusing,"  proposed  a  "National  Institu- 
tion and  Gallery  of  Art";  and  a  com- 
mittee was  appointed.  It  eventually  re- 
ported informally  to  the  Union  League 


May  15,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[511 


Club.  Its  Art  Committee,  October  14, 
1869,  recommended  a  private  foundation, 
opining  that  "it  would  be  folly  to  depend 
upon  our  governments,  either  municipal 
or  national,  for  judicious  support  or  con- 
trol in  such  an  institution;  for  our  gov- 
ernments, as  a  rule,  are  utterly  incom- 
petent for  the  task."  They  recommended 
also  that  laymen,  and  not  artists,  should 
control  the  Museum. 

There  was  a  month  of  preparation, 
and  on  November  23,  1869,  a  great  meet- 
ing, to  which  all  the  artistic  and  literary 
clubs  of  New  York  were  invited,  was 
held  in  the  Union  League  Club.  Some 
three  hundred  gentlemen  attended.  The 
venerable  William  Cullen  Bryant  pre- 
sided and  made  a  notable  address.  A 
committee  of  fifty  was  appointed,  which 
was  subsequently  increased  to  one  hun- 
dred and  sixteen.  John  Taylor  Johnston 
was  appointed  President  the  last  day  of 
the  year  1870,  and  guided  the  destinies 
of  the  bantling  Museum  for  nineteen 
years.  The  Museum  was  incorporated 
April  13,  1870.  About  a  year  later  the 
Park  Commissioners  were  authorized  to 
provide  a  building.  Thus  the  arrange- 
ment by  which  the  City  should  house 
the  Museum,  but  the  trustees  control 
its  policy,  was  firmly  inaugurated.  But 
it  took  seven  years  to  build  the  first 
fragment  of  art  gallery  on  the  Central 
Park  site.  Meanwhile  the  Museum,  being 
in  the  position  of  having  no  works  of 
art  to  show,  and  no  place  to  show  them 
if  it  had,  became  the  object  of  unamiable 
ridicule  by  the  press. 

It  was  plainly  necessary  to  show  some- 
thing. A  trustee,  William  Y.  Blodgett, 
rose  audaciously  to  the  situation,  bought, 
on  the  off  chance  of  being  repaid,  two 
collections  of  old  masters,  mostly  Dutch 
and  Flemish,  and  amounting  to  174  pic- 
tures. The  price,  for  those  days  heavy, 
was  $116,000.  The  Dodworth  building  at 
681  Fifth  Avenue  was  leased  for  three 
years,  and  what  had  been  a  fashionable 
dancing  academy  became  a  shrine  of  art. 
The  Museum  was  faithful  to  its  origins  in 
the  Pre  Catalan.  On  Washington's  Birth- 
day, 1872,  Mr.  Blodgett's  old  masters, 
with  a  remarkable  loan  collection  from 
many  sources,  were  displayed  to  all 
comers.  And  all  comers  soon  amounted 
to  about  seventy  a  day  for  the  first  three 
months.  It  may  be  worth  noting  that 
of  the  first  lot  of  old  masters  seventy- 
seven  survived  the  weeding  out  of  forty- 
two  years  and  were  still  on  exhibition 
in  1914.  Under  the  severest  of  tests 
Mr.  Blodgett's  buy  looks  like  a  reasonably 
good  one,  while  his  enterprise  gave  an 
indispensable  fillip.  Had  he  not  acted, 
things  might  have  gone  badly  with  the 
new  Museum. 

Considering  this  somewhat  casual  but 
sufficient  start  with  the  wisdom  of  hind- 
sight, it  seems  strange  that  it  occurred 
to  nobody  to  work  in  community  of  in- 
terest  with   the    New   York   Historical 


Society.  Its  very  important  collections  of 
Chaldean  and  Egyptian  antiquities,  the 
miscellaneous  paintings  inherited  from 
the  Art  Union,  the  Bryan  Collection  of 
primitives,  seem  to  have  been  regarded 
with  suspicion  when  regarded  at  all. 
Even  now  these  remarkable  collections 
are  little  visited.  The  Metropolitan 
Museum  may  have  decided  wisely  in 
not  attempting  to  give  interest  to  what 
the  public  had  already  agreed  to  ignore. 

The  same  year,  1872,  that  saw  the 
modest  opening  in  the  Dodworth  Build- 
ing, President  John  Taylor  Johnston  paid 
at  his  own  risk  $60,000  for  the  Cesnola 
Collection  of  Cypriote  antiquities.  Gen- 
eral Louis  Palma  di  Cesnola  had  a 
creditable  past  as  a  soldier  of  Italy  in 
the  War  of  Liberation  and  the  Crimea. 
He  became  an  American  citizen,  served 
in  the  Civil  War,  and  thereby  got  his 
heart's  desire  in  a  Consulate  at  Cyprus. 
There,  without  scientific  precautions  of 
any  sort,  he  gathered  in  by  excavation 
and  purchase  an  enormous  collection  of 
the  nondescript  art  of  that  mongrel 
island.  Archseologically  the  material, 
representing  a  meeting  point  of  Chal- 
dean, Phoenician,  Egyptian,  and  Grecian 
influences,  was  new  and  interesting.  It 
made  a  considerable  stir  when  taken  to 
London,  and  the  British  Museum  wanted 
a  selection  from  it.  General  Cesnola 
wished  to  keep  it  together  under  his 
own  name  and  to  have  it  go  to  America. 
He  persuaded  President  John  Taylor 
Johnston  to  give  him  $60,000  for  the 
assortment.  Probably  the  vision  of  add- 
ing to  military  and  consular  glories  the 
directorate  of  a  great  museum  already 
hovered  in  the  General's  astute  Italian 
imagination.  In  any  case,  he  returned 
to  Cyprus  with  his  money,  dug  and 
bought  more  actively  than  before,  and 
again  in  1876  sold  collection  No.  2  to 
the  Metropolitan  Museum  for  another 
$60,000.  "These  purchases  of  President 
Johnston  were  fateful.  It  turned  out 
that  the  General  went  with  his  Cypriote 
things.  Secretary  of  the  Museum  in 
1877,  director  from  1879  to  1904,  he  was 
to  guide  and  limit  its  policy  for  over 
twenty-five  years.  It  should  be  recalled 
to  his  credit  that  whatever  his  expecta- 
tions in  making  these  sales  to  the  Metro- 
politan, he  gladly  sacrificed  large  imme- 
diate profits  to  keeping  his  collections 
in  America,  and  intact. 

Personally,  I  believe  the  purchase  of 
the  Cypriote  collections  was  a  great  blun- 
der. It  put  a  vast  mass  of  provinciaf  and 
ugly  objects  of  art  where  they  would  on 
the  whole  do  the  least  good.  Any  suc- 
cess the  collection  had  was  one  of  curi- 
osity. Even  its  archaeological  value  was 
diminished  by  the  way  in  which  it  had 
been  assembled  without  adequate  records 
or  control.  From  the  point  of  view  of 
taste,  nothing  could  have  worse  mis- 
represented the  glories  of  early  Ionian 
art.     We  see  the  exhibited  remnant  of 


the  collection  to-day  shrunk  to  the  pro- 
portions of  a  minor  department  within 
the  general  classical  field.  The  evident 
advantage  of  the  purchase  was  that  it 
gave  the  Metropolitan  something  distinc- 
tive that  its  older  rivals  lacked.  It 
meant  prestige  of  a  kind.  Having  been 
bred  in  awe  of  the  Cesnola  collection,  I 
shall  say  no  more  than  that  under  the 
personal  conditions  involved,  its  purchase 
was  a  natural  step,  and  that  the  theoreti- 
cally better  alternative  of  buying  beauti- 
ful things  was  perhaps  not  at  the  mo- 
ment practicable. 

I  feel  about  the  same  way  towards  the 
energetic  activity  in  assembling  archi- 
tectural casts  which  marked  the  middle 
years  of  the  Museum.  It  is  simply  heart- 
breaking to  think  what  the  cost  and  over- 
head represented  by  these  bulky  objects 
would  have  bought  in  fine  originals  in 
those  days  of  cheap  prices.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  money  might  not  have  been 
forthcoming  for  mere  originals,  and,  had 
it  been,  who  was  then  capable  of  buying 
them  safely?  Some  day  or  other  the 
diminishing  casts  of  the  Museum  will 
be  reassembled  in  some  New  York 
Trocadero.  Meanwhile  they  have,  as 
Chaucer  might  have  said,  "served  their 
day  as  for  their  tyme." 

It  is  touching  to  realize  that  until 
General  Cesnola  was  made  secretary  in 
1877,  the  Museum  staff  was  the  trustees. 
These  busy  men  of  affairs  arranged  the 
loaTi  exhibitions,  packed  and  unpacked 
the  collections  in  the  moves  from  the 
Dodworth  building  to  the  Douglas 
Mansion,  and  thence  to  Central  Park. 
Naturally,  the  Museum  got  both  the 
graces  and  defects  of  a  family  enter- 
prise which  long  clung  to  it  and  have 
not  yet  wholly  disappeared.  So  we  must 
account  for  the  long  opposition  to  Sun- 
day opening,  attained  only  in  1891,  for 
the  retention  of  General  Cesnola  long 
after  his  usefulness  was  past,  for  tardi- 
ness in  grasping  the  need  of  expert 
curatorship. 

No  consideration  of  the  Museum  from 
its  final  removal  to  Central  Park,  in  1879, 
to  1904  is  possible  without  an  estimate  of 
that  remarkable  and  potent  character. 
General  Cesnola.  To  him  everybody  re- 
acted positively.  He  was  constantly  at- 
tacked for  one  reason  or  another.  Once 
he  had  to  defend  a  libel  suit  against 
his  chief  antagonist  M.  Feuardent.  The 
issue  was  whether  the  Cypriote  things 
had  been  bedeviled.  The  matter  was 
brought  into  court,  but  twelve  good  men 
and  true  decided  that  the  General  was 
without  fault.  At  one  time  or  another 
young  and  hopeful  newspaper  critics  en- 
deavored to  dislodge  the  General.  Clar- 
ence Cook  began  in  1882  and,  so  far  as  I 
know,  I  finished  in  1902.  It  was  a  fas- 
cinating game,  for  the  General  was  a* 
broad  and  shining  mark,  but  we  only  suc- 
ceeded in  binding  his  trustees  to  him 
with  hooks  of  steel. 


512] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  53 


The  trouble  with  the  General  may  be 
brieflj'  expressed.  He  well  knew  the 
limitations  of  his  own  archaeological 
knowledge,  and  visitor  or  curator,  he 
wanted  no  one  about  his  Museum  who 
knew  more  than  himself.  He  became  a 
Cerberus.  Generally  he  lurked  perdu  and 
very  hard  at  work.  But  if  you  heard  a 
canine,  or  rather  leonine,  clamor  through 
the  corridors,  you  might  be  sure  that  a 
guard  had  caught  some  miscreant  study- 
ing the  collections  and  had  reported  the 
offence  to  the  director.  The  cataloguing 
fell  into  arrears,  the  labels  were  often 
curious.  The  General  was  only  too  con- 
scientious, according  to  his  own  lights. 
He  managed  the  vast  and  growing  con- 
cern with  a  staff  of  only  three,  exclud- 
ing an  occasional  curator  of  sculpture. 
Such  work  as  Mr.  Storey,  Mr.  d'Hervilly, 
and  Mr.  Reynolds  did  was  prodigious. 
The  late  Mr.  Reynolds,  in  particular,  re- 
joiced in  the  title  of  Curator  of  Textiles 
and  Classical  Antiquities.  Like  every- 
body else,  he  was  a  general  utility  man. 
His  chief  business  was  to  record  and 
label  the  exhibits.  For  one  of  his  in- 
dustrj',  recording  was  child's  play;  he 
naturally  knew  the  location  of  any  object 
in  the  Museum.  Labelling  was  a  harder 
matter.  Often  he  did  not  know  pre- 
cisely what  a  new  object  was,  and  there 
were  no  books  in  the  Museum  to  aid  him. 
Whenever  he  brought  a  critical  doubt 
to  the  General  the  order  was  label  it! 
LABEL  it!  LABEL  it!  This  naturally 
resulted  occasionally  in  such  labels  as 
"Curious  Christian  Object."  Mr.  Storey 
shared  the  General's  antipathy  to  stu- 
dents and  the  traveling  connoisseur  who 
rechristens  pictures  gave  him  profound 
distress.  Of  this  hard-worked  and  abso- 
lutely devoted  staff,  that  delightful  and 
accomplished  gentleman  Mr.  d'Hervilly 
alone  had  a  well-developed  sense  of 
humor.  If  he  has  left  diaries  of  those 
heroic  days,  they  should  be  incomparable 
reading. 

In  the  intervals  of  the  vain  assaults 
upon  the  General,  and  partly  because  of 
them  perhaps,  the  Museum  grew  apace. 
President  Johnston  retired  in  1889,  and 
Henry  S.  Marquand  succeeded  him. 
Twice  during  his  administration  the 
Museum  was  substantially  enlarged.  A 
man  of  fine  personal  taste,  possessor  of 
one  of  the  best  general  collections  of  his 
day,  lover  of  rugs,  enamels,  and  choice 
handicraft  of  all  sorts,  Mr.  Marquand  in- 
troduced into  the  policy  of  the  Museum 
the  ideal  of  quality.  Besides  numerous 
collections  of  industrial  art,  he  gave  in 
1892  fifty-three  paintings  of  high  char- 
acter. "The  Rembrandts,  Van  Dycks, 
Halses,  with  the  superb  Vermeer,  Turn- 
er's "Salt  Ash"  were  so  many  master- 
pieces that  required  no  apologies  or  ex- 
«plaiiation.  People  began  to  realize  the 
difference  between  an  art  museum  and 
a  collection  of  antiquities.  In  short,  he 
brought  into  the  work  the  priceless  ele- 


ment of  taste.  He  attached  no  burden- 
some restrictions  to  his  gifts.  These  are, 
to-day,  in  their  logical  places  in  the  gal- 
leries, where  they  best  serve  the  art 
lover  and  commemorate  their  art-loving 
donor.  By  establishing  a  membership  at 
ten  dollars  a  year  the  support  and  good 
will  of  the  Museum  were  put  on  a  broader 
basis.  Great  gifts  came  in,  the  John 
Crosby  Brown  gift  and  foundation  for 
musical  instruments,  the  Catherine  Loril- 
lard  Wolfe  bequest  of  148  modern  paint- 
ings with  a  considerable  endowment,  and 
in  1901  the  sensational  bequest  of  over- 
six  million  dollars  by  J.  S.  Rogers.  No- 
body ever  heard  of  him.  He  was  merely 
one  of  the  new  ten  dollar  members. 
Legend  has  it  that  he  was  once  graciously 
treated  by  General  Cesnola,  who  did  not 
know  anything  about  him,  in  a  casual 
visit  to  the  galleries.  If  so,  the  General 
expended  his  graciousness  to  good  pur- 
pose. The  Rogers  gift  immediately  put 
the  Museum  into  the  first  rank  as  a 
buyer.  The  trustees  were  immediately 
enabled  to  negotiate  such  purchases  as 
the  Boscoreale  frescoes  and  the  Dino  col- 
lection of  armor.  President  Marquand 
died  in  1902.  President  Rhinelander 
succeeded  him.  No  steps  were  taken  to 
make  the  necessary  reorganization  and 
increase  of  staff.  The  executive  capacity 
of  General  Cesnola  and  his  tiny  staff 
were  taxed  to  the  utmost  merely  to  keep 
things  going.  It  wore  down  even  his 
energy.  In  1904  he  and  President  Rhine- 
lander  died  within  a  few  months  of  each 
other.    The  old  regime  was  at  an  end. 

J.  P.  Morgan,  colossus  of  art  collectors, 
and  already  a  trustee  and  a  generous 
giver,  succeeded  to  the  Presidency,  and 
called  to  undertake  the  great  work  of 
reorganizing  the  Museum  Sir  Caspar 
Purdon  Clarke  of  the  South  Kensington 
Museum.  He  was  an  amiable  personality, 
thoroughly  in  sympathy  with  scholar- 
ship, and  most  eager  to  extend  the  pub- 
lic influence  of  the  Museum.  His  own 
specialty  was  Indian  arts  and  crafts. 
Under  him  the  growth  was  largely  in 
the  applied  arts.  Mr.  Morgan  soon  put 
on  loan  the  Hoentschel  collection,  com- 
prising the  applied  and  decorative  arts 
of  Europe  from  early  in  the  Christian 
era  to  the  year  1800.  A  new  wing  was 
built  to  accommodate  this  loan,  the 
greater  part  of  which  through  Mr.  Mor- 
gan's considerate  liberality,  or  that  of 
his  son,  was  eventually  given  to  the  Mu- 
seum. The  ideal  of  comprehensiveness, 
which  had  ever  hovered  before  the 
founders,  was  now  relatively  attained. 

Sir  Caspar  brought  into  the  Museum 
a  delightful  atmosphere  of  friendliness 
and  hospitality.  His  courtesy  to  us  of 
the  press  was  unlimited.  He  denied  him- 
self to  no  visitor.  I  recall  leaving  the 
Museum  with  him  after  hours.  He 
showed  me  a  portfolio  which  he  said 
contained  correspondence  to  occupy  him 
at  home  till  midnight.     I  pleaded  with 


him  to  interpose  secretaries  between  him- 
self and  unauthorized  visitors  like  myself 
with  trivial  errands.  He  answered  that 
he  was  a  public  official  and  must  see  all 
comers.  This  high  if  impracticable  sense 
of  duty  wore  him  out  in  three  or  four 
years.  We  killed  him  with  curiosity  and 
kindness.  Meanwhile  he  had  given  the 
Museum  a  genuine  departmental  or- 
ganization. Expert  curators  appeared  in 
Painting,  Classical  Archaeology,  Decora- 
tive Art,  Armor,  and  Egyptology;  the 
gigantic  work  of  sorting,  relabelling,  re- 
exhibiting,  and  cataloguing  the  collections 
was  vigorously  undertaken.  In  all  these 
matters  Dr.  Edward  Robinson,  Assistant 
Director  since  1905,  a  veteran  archaeolo- 
gist and  long  director  of  the  Boston  Art 
Museum,  was  a  leading  spirit.  Mr.  Rob- 
ert W.  de  Forest,  the  new  secretary  of 
the  trustees,  aided  Mr.  Robinson  in  far- 
reaching  plans  for  education  and  pub- 
licity. A  Bulletin  was  founded  and  im- 
mediately attained  authority  among  simi- 
lar publications.  *  Skilled  guidance  was 
provided  for  visitors,  and  an  alliance 
sought  with  the  city  schools.  Money 
poured  in  abundantly  for  acquisitions, 
while  the  rising  cost  of  maintenance  re- 
mained a  recurrent  embarrassment,  as 
it  still  is.  Over  all  this  presided  the 
genial  exotic  spirit  of  Sir  Caspar,  with 
his  South  Kensington  enthusiasms.  I  re- 
call standing  with  him  before  Sir  John 
Millais'  saccharine  portrait  of  the  youth- 
ful Ellen  Terry.  Sir  Caspar  remarked 
that  the  chromolithograph  of  this  picture 
hung  in  a  million  British  homes.  I  hope 
I  seemed  duly  impressed.  An  incident 
which  perhaps  reveals  the  tinge  of 
Philistinism  in  the  man  also  shows  his 
real  desire  to  make  the  Museum  count 
for  the  public.  He  was  a  generous  spirit 
glad  to  fill  his  halls  and  study  rooms 
with  those  who  knew  more  than  him- 
self. He  assiduously  built  up  a  library 
and  photograph  collection  which  to-day 
are  models  of  their  kind.  He  was  keenly 
conscious  of  his  duties  towards  contem- 
porary art.  Here  George  H.  Hearn's 
splendid  gift  of  paintings  by  American 
artists,  with  a  generous  fund  for  acquisi- 
tions, greatly  strengthened  his  policy. 
It  meant  immediate  good  will  from  an 
important  class  of  artists  and  art  lovers, 
even  if  in  theory  this  selection  from 
modern  art  might  better  be  left  to  an 
especial  institution — an  American  Lux- 
embourg. Gifts  in  Sir  Caspar's  six  fruit- 
ful years  were  too  numerous  even  to  be 
briefly  itemized.  Notable  among  them 
was  Mr.  Thomas  F.  Ryan's  gift  of  a 
whole  gallery  of  sculptures  and  sketches 
by  Rodin. 

In  review,  the  administration  of  Sir 
Caspar  seems  a  transitional  one.  His 
most  responsible  curatorships  were  held 
by  foreigners  like  Roger  E.  Fry  and 
W.  R.  Valentiner.  Both  attacked  their 
task  with  zeal  and  knowledge,  and  each 
had   the    insight   to   select   the   capable 


]May  15,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[513 


American  successor  who  now  holds  his 
place.  In  particular,  Dr.  Valentiner, 
protege  of  that  most  astute  of  directors. 
Dr.  Bode,  did  a  most  valuable  service  in 
enlisting  the  good  will  of  the  new  gen- 
eration of  art  collectors  to  the  Museum. 
When  the  war  called  him  back  to  quite 
different  pursuits, he  was  sincerely  missed 
on  all  hands.  When  Sir  Caspar  died  in 
1910,  the  directorate  inevitably  fell  to 
Mr.  Robinson,  who  had  ably  conducted 
the  affairs  of  the  Museum  during  his, 
chief's  long  invalidism. 

Now  is  not  the  time  to  review  the 
recent  years  of  the  Museum.  Suffice  it 
to  say  that  they  have  been  years  of 
aggressive  and  successful  work  in  pub- 
lic education,  of  great  gifts,  in  particu- 
lar of  critical  cataloguing.  In  fact,  Mr. 
Robinson's  greatest  work  has  been  to  in- 

'  sist  on  scholarly  competence  in  his  staff. 
He  has  been  fortunate  in  finding  trained 
curators  in  America,  and  through  a  sys- 
tem of  voluntary  apprenticeship  has,  with 
his  secretary,  Mr.  Henry  W.  Kent,  in- 
stituted the  first  museum  school  in 
America.  This  farsighted  move  has  as- 
sured a  highly  trained  personnel  to  the 
rapidly  increasing  art  museums  of  the  in- 
terior. Mr.  Robinson  also  set  himself 
to  loosening  the  burdensome  conditions 
with  which  many  of  the  old  gifts  had 
been  saddled.  It  was  the  custom  to  re- 
quire segregation  of  such  gifts,  to  the 
destruction  of  all  logical  classification. 
Generally  it  sufficed  to  obtain  the  consent 
of  heirs  to  the  distribution  of  the  sep- 
arate collections.  It  soon  became  ap- 
parent that  the  objects  were  far  more 
effective  when  put  in  their  proper  com- 
pany, and  also  that  the  memorial  idea 
is  better  met  by  scattering  through  the 
general  collection  fine  objects  each  of 
which  bears  the  name  of  the  donor.  The 
educational  effect  of  all  this  was  tremen- 
dous. Wills  like  that  of  the  late  Isaac 
D.  Fletcher  leaving  his  collections  un- 
conditionally show  the  new  spirit.  From 
this  point  of  view  I  regretted  the  ac- 
ceptance of  the  Altman  gift  in  1914, 
spendid  as  it  was,  and  advised  Mr.  Rob- 
inson and  certain  friends  among  the 
trustees  to  let  the  alternative  in  Mr. 
Altman's  will — an  independent  museum 
— be  carried  out.  It  was  the  chance  to 
settle,  once  for  all,  the  issue  of  segrega- 
tion, while  the  Altman  collection,  which 
in  its  own  museum  would  have  been  an 
increasing  joy,  will  now  be  an  increasing 
embarrassment.  My  official  friends  could 
not  grasp  the  truth,  quite  patent  to  me, 
that  no  museum  has  reached  its  moral 
majority  which  is  not  willing  for  good 
reason  to  decline  a  ten  million  dollar  gift. 
Among  useful  extensions  during  Mr. 
Robinson's  administration  have  been  the 
new  curatorships  in  Far  Eastern  Art 
and  in  Prints.     Both  departments  have 

I  developed  with  extraordinary  swiftness 
and  success.  The  accession  of  Mr.  Rob- 
ert W.  de  Forest  to  the  Presidency   in 


1912,  after  Mr.  Morgan's  death,  has  been 
marked  by  an  acceleration  of  the  educa- 
tional work  of  the  Museum  and  by  bring- 
ing it  into  relations  with  current  artistic 
industries.  Of  its  kind  the  Metropolitan 
Museum  is  probably  the  most  active  mu- 
seum in  the  world.  It  passes  its  semi- 
centenary  with  best  prospects  and  high- 
est hopes. 

If  I  may  prophesy  for  its  near  future, 
it  will  give  up  certain  family  practices, 
natural  from  its  origins,  but  now  detri- 
mental. It  will,  for  example,  cease  to 
charge  its  trustees  with  that  task  of 
buying  for  which  they  are  ill  fitted.  It 
will,  under  proper  controls,  turn  the 
buying  over  to  its  trained  staff,  so  that 
prompt,  energetic,  and  economical  buying 
shall  be  practicable.  This  will  stop  what 
has  been  a  considerable  waste  of  money 
and  time.  In  short,  the  best  celebration 
that  the  trustees  could  make  for  the 
Jubilee  would  be  the  abolition  of  their 
obsolete  Accessions  Committee.  Possibly 
the  best  Jubilee  resolution  for  the  staff 
would  be  a  more  systematic  policy  with 
respect  to  growth.  The  Museum  has 
grown  amazingly.  The  present  need  is 
to  reduce  the  quantity  of  exhibits  and 
increase  the  quality.  Much  of  this  is 
being  done  automatically  by  replace- 
ments. There  remains  to  be  worked  out 
a  more  definite  policy  towards  study  or 
reserve  collections,  and  a  method  of 
utilizing  for  other  institutions  the  enor- 
mous mass  of  hidden  minor  treasures. 
In  this  matter  I  assume  more  confidently 


the  risky  prophetic  role,  because  I  know 
the  mettle  of  the  Museum  staff  and  trus- 
tees. They  are  not  men  to  linger  in  ruts 
or  fall  back  on  past  performance.  They 
celebrate  the  Jubilee  of  the  Metropolitan 
Museum  less  as  laudators  of  its  extraor- 
dinary past  than  as  men  charged  with 
its  great  future. 

Such  growth  in  extent  and  artistic 
importance  as  the  Metropolitan  Museum 
has  attained  in  its  fifty  years  of  life  has 
been  approached  only  in  Berlin  and  has 
nowhei-e  been  equalled.  It  is  perhaps 
the  most  remarkable  example  of  the  effi- 
cacy of  American  private  enterprise  in 
the  field  of  spirit.  As  an  achievement 
it  is  far  more  noteworthy  than  the  great 
one-man  foundations.  It  represents  an 
extraordinary  faith,  which  has  indeed 
moved  mountains — the  faith  of  scores 
and  hundreds  of  trustees,  donors,  and 
officials.  It  represents  also  a  noteworthy 
relation  of  confidence  and  loyalty  be- 
tween the  City  and  a  private  corpora- 
tion. The  City  has  housed  and  largely 
maintained  the  Museum  without  inter- 
fering politically  with  its  management, 
and  the  trustees  have  ever  rewarded  that 
confidence  by  an  unlimited  devotion  and 
generosity.  The  Metropolitan  is  more 
than  a  great  museum;  it  is  a  peculiarly 
American  institution.  In  such  coopera- 
tion between  the  state  and  private  initia- 
tive consists  our  American  tradition  and 
lies  our  American  hope. 

Frank  Jewtett  Mather,  Jr. 


Two  Plans  for  a  National  Budget 


TWO  concrete  plans  for  a  national 
budget  and  audit  system  are  under 
consideration  by  Congress.  One  of  these 
plans  is  embodied  in  the  Good  bill  (H.R. 
9783),  which  passed  the  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives almost  unanimously  October 
21,  1919,  and  in  the  accompanying  reso- 
lution providing  for  important  changes 
in  the  rules  of  the  House  (H.  Res.  324). 
The  other  project  is  to  be  found  in  the 
McCormick  amendment  to  the  House 
measure,  reported  to  the  Senate  last 
month  by  the  junior  Senator  from  Illi- 
nois, which  completely  re-writes  the  Good 
bill.  In  the  ordinary  course  of  events 
the  amended  bill  will  go  to  conference, 
and  in  due  time  the  result  will  be  a  com- 
promise budget  and  audit  act.  Should 
the  best  features  of  both  proposals  be 
retained,  and  the  Good  resolution  or  its 
equivalent  be  adopted  by  the  House, 
Congress  will  have  created  a  national 
financial  system  which  will  combine  the 
most  successful  elements  of  British  and 
Continental  budgetary  procedure  with 
certain  outstanding  advantages  of  our 
present  financial  practice,  and  which  will 
be  wholly  in  harmony  with  American 
governmental  institutions. 


A  comparison  of  the  Good  bill  with 
the  substitute  Senate  measure  reveals 
radical  differences  in  their  respective 
provisions  for  two  of  the  three  phases 
of  governmental  finance — for  the  prep- 
aration and  presentation  of  the  annual 
estimates  for  receipts  and  expenditures, 
and  for  the  checking  up  on  the  expendi- 
ture of  money  appropriated.  The  most 
vital  of  these  differences  is  in  the  loca- 
tion of,  and  the  placing  of  responsibility 
for,  the  budget  bureau  which  each  bill 
proposes  to  create.  The  Good  bill  places 
this  bureau  "in  the  office  of  the  Presi- 
dent," makes  its  director  a  Presidential 
appointee  without  Senatorial  confirma- 
tion, and  conceives  it  as  a  "mere  agency 
of  the  President"  in  exercising  the 
powers  conferred  upon  him  by  the  act. 
"If  duplication,  waste,  extravagance,  and 
inefficiency  exist  in  any  branch  of  the 
service,  the  President  will  be  responsible 
for  them  if  he  includes  in  his  budget  an 
estimate  for  their  continuance,"  Mr. 
Good  says.  The  bureau  of  the  budget  is 
to  ferret  out  such  conditions,  and  the 
President,  acting  on  the  bureau's  reports 
and  recommendations,  is  to  remedy  the 
evils  and  see  to  it  that  each  department 


514] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  53 


asks  Congress  for  what  it  needs  and  no 
more.  In  short,  the  President  is  to  be- 
his  own  chief  financial  officer,  immedi- 
ately responsible  for  the  formulation  and 
recommendation  of  the  annual  financial 
and  work  programme  of  his  administra- 
tion. "The  primarj-  purpose  of  the  bill," 
writes  its  author,  "is  to  insure  the  prep- 
aration and  submission  of  such  a  pro- 
gramme by  the  Chief  Executive." 

The  McCormick  plan  places  the  budget 
bureau  in  the  Treasury  Department.  A 
commissioner  and  two  assistant  commis- 
sioners of  this  bureau  are  to  be  ap- 
pointed by  the  President,  by  and  with 
the  advice  and  consent  of  the  Senate, 
and  provision  is  made  for  the  employ- 
ment of  expert  and  clerical  assistants  by 
the  commissioner.  The  latter  clearly  is 
intended  to  be  the  chief  expert  in  econ- 
omy and  efficiency  in  the  national  ad- 
ministration. The  amended  bill  provides 
that  it  shall  be  his  duty,  "in  the  period 
prior  to,  and  upon  submission  to  him,  of 
the  budget  estimates  of  the  several  de- 
partments and  establishments,  to  make 
a  detailed  study  of  the  organization, 
activities,  and  methods  of  business  of 
the  several  administrative  services  of  the 
Government  for  the  purpose  of  deter- 
mining those  changes  which,  in  his  opin- 
ion, should  be  made  in  the  existing  or- 
ganization, activities,  and  methods  of 
business  of  such  services  or  in  the  ap- 
propriation of  moneys  for  the  support 
and  conduct  of  the  work  of  such  services, 
or  in  the  assignment  of  particular  activ- 
ities to  particular  services,  or  in  the  re- 
grouping of  services  departmentally  with 
a  view  to  securing  greater  efficiency  and 
economy  in  the  conduct  of  public  affairs." 

In  outlining  the  method  by  which  the 
annual  estimates  are  to  be  prepared,  the 
McCormick  bill  provides  that  one  of  the 
assistant  secretaries,  or  other  chief  as- 
sistant, in  each  department,  shall  be 
designated  by  the  departmental  chief  to 
have  direct  supervision  of  those  services 
which  have  to  do  with  the  purely  busi- 
ness operations  of  the  department,  to 
perform  the  duties  of  a  general  business 
manager  and  financial  secretary,  and  to 
supervise  the  formulation  of  all  budget 
estimates  for  the  department.  On  or  be- 
fore October  1,  the  head  of  each  depart- 
ment, having  studied,  analyzed,  and  re- 
vised these  estimates,  is  required  to 
submit  them  to  the  Commissioner  of  the 
Budget  in  a  form  to  be  prescribed  by  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  together  with 
explanations  of  any  requests  for  new 
items,  or  for  increases  in  old  ones.  All 
of  the  budget  estimates  for  the  ensuing 
fiscal  year,  together  with  the  recom- 
mendations of  the  Commissioner  of  the 
Budget,  shall  be  submitted  to  the  Secre- 
tary of  the  Treasury  on  or  before  No- 
vember 1  of  each  year.  The  latter 
official  shall  then  "revise,  consolidate, 
unify,  coordinate,  reduce,  or  otherwise 
change  any  item  or  items  of  the  budget 


estimates  submitted  to  him  by  the  Com- 
missioner of  the  Budget  .  .  .  as  he 
may  deem  necessary  to  effect  economies 
and  to  prevent  waste,  extravagance,  loss, 
or  duplication,"  and  on  or  before  Novem- 
ber 20  shall  submit  the  entire  revised 
budget  to  the  President.  Under  seven 
heads  the  bill  provides  that  this  budget 
shall  give  a  complete  picture  of  the  finan- 
cial situation  of  the  Government,  past, 
present,  and  prospective. 

The  President  is  then  authorized  to 
"revise  the  budget  submitted  to  him  by 
the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  by  the 
increase,  reduction,  or  elimination  of 
any  item  therein  contained,  by  the  addi- 
tion of  new  items,  which,  in  his  opinion, 
are  needed  for  the  proper  conduct  of 
the  affairs  of  the  Government,  by  the 
consolidation  or  grouping  of  items,  or  by 
making  any  other  changes  ...  in 
any  other  feature  of  the  organization  and 
operations  of  the  several  services  which, 
in  his  opinion,  will  lead  to  increased 
economy  and  efficiency  in  the  conduct  of 
public  affairs."  Then  the  President 
shall,  on  or  before  December  10,  "submit 
to  Congress  the  Budget,  as  revised  and 
approved  by  him,  including  a  statement 
of  what,  in  his  opinion,  are  the  revenue 
and  expenditure  needs  of  the  Govern- 
ment and  how  those  needs  should  be 
met." 

It  will  be  seen  that  this  procedure 
aims  to  make  the  Secretary  of  the  Treas- 
ury responsible  for  the  formulation  of 
the  budget  in  the  first  instance,  and  that 
the  budget  bureau  is  intended  to  equip 
him  to  do  this  work  effectively.  It  is 
the  President,  however,  who  is  ultimately 
responsible,  because  not  only  must  he 
personally  decide  serious  issues  between 
the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  and  the 
other  Cabinet  officers,  but  he  must  pre- 
sent the  finished  programme  to  Congress 
as  his  own. 

Administrators,  legislators,  and  lay  ex- 
perts are  sharply  divided  upon  the  ques- 
tion whether  the  director  of  the  budget 
should  be  immediately  subordinate  to  the 
President,  or  to  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury;  and  where  the  best  opinion  is 
so  evenly  balanced,  it  is  likely  that  either 
scheme  would  work  with  a  fair  degree 
of  satisfaction.  Undoubtedly,  however, 
one  actually  is  preferable  to  the  other, 
and  the  writer  believes  very  strongly 
that  this  happens  to  be  the  same  one 
that  is  the  more  closely  in  accord  with 
the  historic  conception  of  the  two  great 
offices  involved.  In  the  days  of  Wash- 
ington and  Adams,  Hamilton  and  Gal- 
latin, the  Presidency  was  really  an  execu- 
tive rather  than  an  administrative  office 
— it  was  the  office,  in  fact,  of  the  Chief 
Executive — while  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  was  the  real  fiscal  officer  of  the 
Government.  As  the  business  of  the  na- 
tion enormously  increased  in  volume  and 
in  complexity,  the  Presidents  were 
threatened  with  inundation  by  an  ever 


rising  tide  of  administrative  and  politi- 
cal detail.  The  point  was  finally  ap- 
proached at  which,  as  Mr.  Wilson  pointed 
out  years  ago,  no  ordinary  man  could  be 
President  and  live,  despite  the  fact  that 
most  of  the  administrative  functions  of 
the  office  had  been  "put  in  commission." 
To-day  it  may  be  said  that  the  degree 
to  which  the  President  is  to  be  the  Chief 
Executive  contemplated  by  the  Constitu- 
tion, and  the  success  with  which  he  is 
to  solve  the  great  political  and  adminis- 
trative problems  to  which  the  world  ex- 
pects him  to  address  himself,  will  de- 
pend in  large  part  upon  his  ability  to 
delegate  to  others  just  such  administra- 
tive details  as  are  involved  in  threshing 
out  the  annual  estimates. 

This  is  not  to  say  that  the  loose- 
jointed,  uncoordinated  administrative 
machine  with  which  we  have  become 
familiar  should  not  be  tightened  up,  or 
that  the  ultimate  responsibility  for  the 
efficient  and  economical  operation  of  that 
machine  should  not  rest  squarely  upon 
the  President.  Far  from  it.  The  first 
point  of  articulation,  however,  should  be 
somewhat  below  the  White  House.  In- 
stead of  decreasing  the  responsibility  ox 
the  President,  this  would  increase  it,  be- 
cause it  would  throw  into  clearer  perspec- 
tive the  greater  issues  in  which  alone 
he  would  have  to  intervene,  while  at  the 
same  time  he  would  be  equally  subject  to 
criticism  should  he  offer  a  work  and 
financial  programme  carelessly  prepared 
as  to  details. 

In  proposing  to  make  the  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury  the  initial  point  of  ad- 
ministrative articulation,  the  McCormick 
bill  conforms  to  the  practice  of  almost 
every  other  nation,  and  with  the  old  feel- 
ing that  our  Secretary  of  the  Treasury 
is,  or  should  be,  the  chief  financial  min- 
ister of  the  Government.  And  if  it  de- 
parts from  the  popular  conception  of 
equality  between  the  members  of  the 
President's  Cabinet,  it  is  far  more  nearly 
in  line  both  with  American  traditions 
and  with  public  sentiment  to-day  to  con- 
fer definitely  stated  and  universally  un- 
derstood powers  upon  one  of  our  great 
established  political  officers  than  to 
create  a  new  functionary,  with  undeter- 
mined status,  powers,  and  responsibility, 
and  to  trust  to  events  to  establish  him 
in  satisfactory  relations  with  the  Presi- 
dent, the  Cabinet,  the  Congress,  and  the 
country.  This,  beyond  cavil,  is  what  the 
Good  bill  would  do.  It  has  been  said 
that  the  new  official  would  become  the 
administrative,  as  the  existing  private 
secretary  to  the  President  has  become 
the  executive,  or  political,  secretary  to 
the  Chief  Executive.  It  is  self-evident 
that  in  any  event  he  would  be  either  one 
of  the  most  powerful  men  in  Washing- 
ton or  little  more  than  a  high-priced 
clerk — aut  Caesar  aut  nihil.  Is  the  crea- 
tion of  such  a  functionary  based  upon 
sound  principles' or  upon  American  tra- 


May  15,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[515 


ditions?  Would  it  commend  itself  to 
the  American  people? 

The  McCormick  amendment  differs 
from  the  original  Good  bill  also  in  pro- 
.  viding  that  the  commissioner  and  the 
I  two  assistant  commissioners  shall  be  ap- 
pointed for  six-year  terms,  one  to  be 
selected  every  second  year.  This  method 
of  appointment  will  compel  a  certain 
permanence  and  continuity  in  the  direct- 
ing personnel  of  the  budget  bureau,  and 
at  the  same  time  it  recognizes  the  poten- 
tially political  character  of  the  offices. 
While  no  new  administration  can  make  a 
clean  sweep  of  the  commission,  it  can 
ultimately  name  two  of  its  members,  and 
it  is  hoped  that  the  arrangement  will 
mean  practically  a  permanent  tenure  for 
commissioners  who  are  both  expert  and 
non-partisan. 

In  providing  for  the  creation  of  an  ac- 
counting department,  an  establishment 
independent  of  the  executive  departments 
and  under  the  control  and  direction  of  the 
Controller  General  of  the  United  States, 
both  the  Good  bill  and  the  McCormick 
amendment  offer  definite  plans  for  ac- 
complishing the  third  step  in  the  proc- 
esses of  national  finance.  Both  abolish 
the  offices  of  Controller  and  Assistant 
Controller  of  the  Treasury,  and  of  the  six 
auditors  for  the  several  departments,  and 
centralize  in  an  accounting  department 
the  auditing  and  accounting  functions 
which  are  now  performed  by  various 
agencies  in  the  Treasury  and  other  de- 
partments; both  provide  for  an  inde- 
pendent audit  of  the  accounts  of  the 
Government  by  officials  responsible  to 
Congress  and  not  to  the  President;  and 
both  require  periodic  and  special  reports 
to  Congress  covering  all  matters  relating 
to  the  receipt  and  disbursement  of  funds. 
It  is  thus  expected  that  Congress  will  be 
able  to  ascertain  financial  and  other  con- 
ditions in  the  departments  from  an  in- 
dependent source,  instead  of  having  to 
be  content  with  the  evidence  of  officials 
and  employees  of  the  executive  services 
themselves. 

The  chief  differences  in  the  accounting 
departments  contemplated  by  the  two 
bills  lie,  first,  in  the  organization  and 
tenure  of  the  staff  of  higher  officials, 
and,  secondly,  in  the  distribution  of  func- 
tions within  the  department.  The  Good 
bill  provides  for  a  Comptroller  General 
and  an  Assistant  Comptroller  General, 
who,  though  appointed  by  the  President, 
by  and  with  the  advice  and  consent  of  the 
Senate,  can  be  removed  only  by  concur- 
rent resolution  of  Congress,  after  notice 
and  hearing,  when  "inefficient,  or  guilty 
of  neglect  of  duty,  or  of  malfeasance  in 
office,  or  of  any  felony,  or  of  conduct  in- 
volving moral  turpitude,  and  for  no  other 
cause  and  in  no  other  manner  except  by 
impeachment."  The  retiring  age  for  both 
officers  is  fixed  at  seventy  years.  Under 
the  Senate  amendment  the  Comptroller 
General  and  three  Assistant  Comptrollers 


General  would  be  appointed  by  the  Presi- 
dent, with  Senatorial  confirmation,  for 
five-year  terms,  one  being  appointed  each 
year,  and  would  be  removable  "only  for 
cause."  If  the  object  of  Congress  is  to 
create  an  auditing  agency  which  will 
be  independent  of  executive  control,  or 
even  of  the  suspicion  thereof,  and,  so  far 
as  possible,  "out  of  politics,"  there  can 
be  no  question  but  that  the  Good  plan 
is  far  superior  to  that  of  Senator  Mc- 
Cormick. And  certainly  a  non-partisan, 
independent  auditing  and  accounting  of 
national  financial  transactions  is  not  only 
in  accord  with  the  best  theory  and  prac- 
tice the  world  over,  but  is  what  is  de- 
sired by  both  Congress  and  the  Ameri- 
can public  to-day. 

As  to  the  distribution  of  functions  and 
responsibility,  the  Good  plan  follows  the 
British  precedent  in  concentrating  au- 
thority in  the  Comptroller  General,  while 
the  McCormick  substitute  prescribes  in 
detail  the  functions  of  each  of  the  higher 
officials  of  the  accounting  department, 
and  even  sets  up  an  additional  board  of 
appeals  to  review  decisions  of  the  First 
Assistant  Comptroller  General  as  to  the 
validity  of  accounts  or  claims  against  the 
Government.  It  is  to  be  gravely  doubted 
whether  this  decentralizing  of  power  and 
responsibility  will  result  either  in  greater 
fairness  and  honesty,  or  in  higher  effi- 
ciency in  the  performance  of  the  func- 
tions of  the  department. 

The  passage  of  either  the  Good  or  the 
McCormick  measure,  or  of  a  compromise 
bill,  will  be  a  great  advance  towards 
governmental  economy  and  efficiency  in 
the  United  States.  But  no  budget  re- 
form will  be  more  than  half  complete 
until  the  financial  procedure  of  the  House 
of  Representatives  is  thoroughly  over- 
hauled. "Congress  will  not  perform  its 
full  duty  by  requiring  the  executive  de- 
partments to  adopt  business  methods  if 
it  refuses  to  lay  down  the  same  rule  for 
the  transaction  of  the  business  properly 
coming  before  it,"  declared  the  Good  com- 
mittee in  laying  before  the  House  its 
resolution  providing  for  drastic  reforms 
in  the  financial  procedure  of  that  body. 
The  adoption  of  this  resolution,  or  its 
equivalent,  will,  in  fact,  be  the  real  test 
of  the  good  faith  of  the  House  in  its 
almost  unanimous  expression  of  an  ar- 
dent desire  for  a  national  budget  sys- 
tem. Not  unnaturally,  the  resolution  has 
been  held  over  pending  the  passage  of 
the  budget  bill,  and  during  the  interim 
the  House  should  be  made  to  understand 
that  if  it  values  its  reputation  for  intelli- 
gence and  common  honesty  it  can  not 
afford  to  dally  or  to  take  half  measures 
in  this  matter. 

The  Good  resolution  makes  three 
changes  in  the  rules  of  the  House:  (1) 
It  centres  in  one  Committee  on  Appro- 
priations, composed  of  35  members,  the 
authority  to  report  all  appropriations, 
and  takes  from  the  Committees  on  Agri- 


culture, Foreign  Affairs,  Indian  Affairs, 
Military  Affairs,  Naval  Affairs,  the  Post 
Office  and  Post  Roads,  and  the  Commit- 
tee on  Rivers  and  Harbors  the  authority 
now  vested  in  those  committees  to  report 
appropriations;  (2)  it  provides  means 
for  limiting  the  power  of  the  Senate  to 
increase  appropriations;  (3)  it  permits 
the  raising  of  a  point  of  order  at  any 
time  on  any  appropriation  item  carried 
in  any  bill  or  joint  resolution  reported 
by  any  committee  not  having  jurisdiction 
to  report  appropriations.  The  commit- 
tee reporting  the  Good  resolution  ob- 
serves : 

It  is  at  once  apparent  that  the  principal 
change  proposed  in  the  rules  of  the  House  is 
the  one  centering  all  appropriations  in  a  single 
committee.  .  .  .  The  adoption  of  this  resolu- 
tion will  permit  the  Committee  on  Appropria- 
tions, consisting  of  35  members,  to  divide  its 
work  between  the  subcommittees  which  it  will 
create,  so  that  the  budget  can  come  before  Con- 
gress in  one  measure.  The  consideration  of 
that  measure  will  involve  a  full  and  compre- 
hensive discussion  in  Congress  of  the  big  prob- 
lem of  government  finance.  The  financial  obli- 
gations of  the  Government  viewed  in  this  way 
will  have  a  tendency  to  sober  the  temper  of 
Congress  when  it  comes  to  passing  legislative 
bills  that  may  mean  the  taking  up  of  new 
Government  activities  which  will  require  future 
appropriations. 

The  Good  committee  did  not  overstate 
the  importance  of  the  reform  which  it 
has  proposed.  For  years  the  multi- 
plicity of  appropriation  committees  has 
been  recognized  as  the  centre  of  the 
vicious  circle  of  Congressional  finance. 
The  proposed  changes  will  break  this 
circle.  In  addition  they  will  make  pos- 
sible a  great  debate  upon  the  entire  policy 
of  the  Government  as  expressed  in  its 
financial  programme,  and  will  afford  op- 
portunity for  effective  Congressional 
criticism  of  the  Administration.  It  will 
permit  Congress  to  become,  to  some  ex- 
tent, what  the  Mother  of  Parliaments 
always  has  been,  the  "great  inquest  of 
the  nation." 

The  committee  considered  the  advis- 
ability of  adopting  the  cardinal  point  of 
British  financial  procedure  by  which  the 
Government  estimates  may  be  reduced 
but  may  not  be  increased  by  the  legis- 
lature, and  upon  sound  grounds  decided 
against  the  change.  For  Congress  to 
bind  itself  not  to  appropriate  any  money 
not  requested  by  the  executive  would  be 
to  abdicate  one  of  the  clearest  duties  im- 
posed upon  it  by  the  Constitution,  and 
to  sweep  away  what  remains  of  the 
separation  of  powers  which  is  at  the  base 
of  our  governmental  structure.  The 
limitation  under  which  the  House  of 
Commons  acts  in  appropriating  money  is 
workable  only  as  a  part  of  the  parlia- 
mentary system,  or  in  a  despotism.  If  it 
is  desired  to  introduce  it  into  the  United 
States  the  proper  way  is  by  a  revision 
of  the  Constitution,  not  by  Congressional 
act  or  resolution. 

Ralston  Hayden 


»16] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  53 


Correspondence 

The  Pope  on  Socialism 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review  : 

I  enclose  herewith  a  translation  made 
bv  a  friend  of  mine,  a  Jesuit  Father,  of 
a"  letter  dated  March  11,  1920,  written 
by  Pope  Benedict  to  the  Bishop  of 
Bergamo.  I  thought  this  might  interest 
your  readers  as  being  of  very  recent  date 
and  being  an  authoritative  definition  of 
the  attitude  of  the  Catholic  Church 
toward  Socialism  and  its  explanation  of 
the  "varieties  of  orders  in  civil  life." 

L.  F.  L. 
New  York.  May  7 

Venerable  Brother: 

At  the  outset  we  wish  all  to  know  that 
the  course  which  you  have  recently 
taken  has  our  most  hearty  approbation. 
When  the  din  of  arms  had  been  quieted 
and  the  masses  had  gone  back  to  their 
work  which  had  been  interrupted,  you 
held  a  council  in  your  diocese  and 
founded  an  office  for  promoting  the  in- 
terests of  the  various  classes  of  work- 
ingmen.  This  is  an  institution  which 
is  truly  excellent  and  is  destined  to  bear 
good  fruits,  if  it  is  governed  by  right 
principles,  which  are  those  taught  by  re- 
ligion. Else  what  disturbance  of  the 
state  it  may  cause  is  only  too  manifest. 

Those  who  are  at  the  head  of  such  an 
institute  on  which  the  safety  of  the 
state  greatly  depends,  before  all  must 
ever  keep  before  their  eyes  and  most  re- 
ligiously follow  the  doctrines  of  Christ- 
ian wisdom  on  the  social  question  which 
have  been  set  forth  in  the  memorable 
Encyclical  Rerum  Novarum  and  in  other 
letters  of  the  Apostolic  See.  Let  them 
bear  in  mind  especially  the  following 
principles:  in  this  race  of  life,  which  is 
short  and  subject  to  miseries  of  every 
kind,  no  one  is  permitted  to  be  per- 
fectly happy;  happiness  true,  absolute, 
and  eternal,  as  the  recompense  for  a  life 
well  spent,  is  held  out  for  us  in  heaven; 
to  that  all  we  do  must  look;  this  is  the 
cause  why  we  must  take  more  care  of 
our  duties  than  our  rights;  yet  also  in 
this  mortal  life  it  is  right  to  eliminate, 
as  far  as  we  can,  hindrances  of  our 
happiness  and  to  seek  to  better  our  con- 
dition; nothing  promotes  the  common 
welfare  more  than  the  concord  and 
hearty  cooperation  of  all  classes ;  and  the 
greatest  of  conciliators  is  Christian 
Charity.  Therefore  let  the  leaders  see 
how  ill  considered  for  the  good  of  the 
workingmen  are  the  schemes  of  those 
who,  while  promising  to  better  their 
condition  of  life,  proffer  themselves  as 
helpers  only  for  gaining  possession  of 
these  frail  and  fleeting  things,  and  not 
only  neglect  to  moderate  their  minds 
by    admonitions    about    their    Christian 


duties,  but  make  them  more  hostile  to 
the  rich,  and  do  this  with  that  violence 
and  bitterness  of  language  by  which 
men  alien  to  us  have  had  the  habit  of 
stirring  up  the  multitudes  to  overthrow 
civil  society.  Venerable  brother,  to  avert 
this  great  peril,  it  will  be  the  part  of 
your  vigilance  to  admonish  all  who  are 
truly  seeking  the  interests  of  the  work- 
ingmen as  you  have  placed  them  in  office 
to  do,  that  they  must  keep  far  from  the 
intemperance  usual  in  the  words  of  So- 
cialists and  that  they  must  infuse  a  deep 
Christian  spirit  into  all  their  work  for 
action  and  propaganda  in  defense  of  this 
cause.  If  they  fail  in  this  spirit,  they 
may  do  great  harm  to  the  cause,  cer- 
tainly they  can  do  no  good  for  it.  It  is 
a  pleasure  for  us  to  hope  that  all  will 
heed  your  words.  But  if  any  one  shall 
refuse,  without  hesitation  you  will  re- 
move him  from  the  office  which  you  have 
entrusted  to  him. 

But  those  who,  through  the  munificence 
and  beneficence  of  Providence,  have  re- 
ceived more  must  give  more  for  this  pro- 
posed Christian  elevation,  as  it  is  called. 
All  who  are  eminent  by  their  station  in 
life  or  by  their  mental  culture  must  not 
refuse  to  stand  by  the  workingmen  with 
their  counsel,  influence,  voice.  In  their 
dealings  with  workingmen,  those  who 
have  abundant  wealth  must  not  exact 
extreme  justice  but  follow  the  rule  of 
equity.  We  even  earnestly  urge  them  in 
this  to  show  themselves  indulgent  and, 
so  far  as  they  can,  to  make  generous 
and  liberal  concessions  and  remittances. 
How  fittingly  fall  on  their  ears  the 
words  of  the  Apostle  to  Timothy: 
"Charge  the  rich  of  this  world  to  give 
easily,  to  communicate  to  others."  By 
this  means  the  minds  of  the  poor  which 
have  been  alienated  by  belief  in  the 
greed  of  the  rich,  will  be  gradually  rec- 
onciled to  the  latter.  However,  those 
whose  station  and  fortune  are  inferior 
must  understand  well  that  variety  of 
orders  in  civil  society  arises  from  nature 
and  in  the  end  is  derived  from  God's 
will:  "for  He  made  the  little  and  the 
great"  (Wisdom  VI.  8),  and  He  did 
this  most  fittingly  for  the  welfare  of 
both  individuals  and  the  community. 
Let  them  be  persuaded  that  no  matter 
how  high  they  may  rise  to  better  things, 
by  their  own  industry  and  the  aid  of 
the  good,  there  will  ever  remain  for 
them,  as  also  for  other  men,  no  small 
portion  of  sufferings.  Whence  if  they 
are  wise,  they  will  not  aspire  in  vain  to 
things  higher  than  they  can  reach,  and 
they  will  endure  quietly  and  constantly 
evils  which  they  can  not  escape,  for  the 
hope  of  blessings  which  are  everlasting. 

Therefore,  we  beg  and  beseech  the 
citizens  of  Bergamo  to  be  consistent 
with  their  past  filial  love  and  reverence 
for  this  Apostolic  See  and  not  to  let 
themselves  be  deceived  by  the  fallacies 
of  men  who  promise  wondrous  things 


and  by  these  promises  seek  to  tear  them 
away  from  the  faith  of  their  fathers,  so 
that  afterwards  they  may  be  able  to 
drive  them  to  use  violence  and  inaug- 
urate universal  confusion  and  disorder.  , 
The  cause  of  justice  and  truth  is  not  de- 
fended by  aggressive  violence  and  the 
subversion  of  order.  Those  arms  are  of 
such  a  nature  that  those  who  use  them 
wound  themselves  the  most  grievously. 
Against  such  pernicious  enemies  of 
Catholic  faith  and  civil  society,  it  is  the 
duty  of  priests  and  especially  of  the 
pastors  to  contend  with  bravery,  hearty  1 1 
union  with  each  other,  and  zealous  obe-  II 
dience  and  reverence  towards  you,  ven- 
erable brother.  Let  none  of  them  think 
that  this  is  a  matter  which  is  alien  to 
the  ministry  of  their  sacred  order  be- 
cause it  is  economic,  for  in  this  matter 
itself  the  salvation  of  souls  is  in  peril. 
Whence,  we  wish  them  to  count  this 
among  their  duties,  to  contribute  all  the 
study,  vigilance,  and  labor  they  can 
exert,  to  social  training  and  action,  and 
to  cherish  with  every  kind  of  aid  those 
who  in  this  matter  are  working  for  our 
advantage.  But  at  the  same  time  they 
must  both  diligently  teach  those  en- 
trusted to  their  care  the  precepts  for  a 
Christian  life  and  inform  them  about 
the  deceits  of  the  Socialists  and  aid 
them  to  increase  their  estates,  always, 
however,  inculcating  the  lesson  taught  by 
the  constant  prayer  of  the  Church:  that 
we  may  so  pass  through  blessings  which 
are  temporal  that  we  may  not  lose  those 
which  are  eternal. 

Senator  Weeks  on  Lodge 
and  Wilson 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

I  am  enclosing  my  check  for  five  dol- 
lars to  renew  my  subscription  to  the 
Review,  which  I  have  read  with  interest 
and  with  which  I  have  generally  been 
in  agreement. 

As  I  am  writing  for  the  above  pur- 
pose,  I  can  not  refrain  from  saying  a 
word  about  the  correspondence  which  you 
have  been  publishing  relating  to  the  con-        , 
duct  of  the  League  controversy  in  the        | 
Senate,    commencing    with    Mr.    Beck's        ' 
letter  and  followed  by  many  others.     I 
am  especially  led  to  make  this  comment        [ 
in  justice  to  Mr.  Lodge,  who  has  been        | 
many  times  charged  with  playing  poli- 
tics in  connection  with  the  League  con- 
troversy, a  charge  which  is  renewed  by 
Mr.   Putnam   in  your  number   of  April 
24,    in   which   he   quotes   Mr.    Lodge   as 
having  said,  "I  am  fighting  Mr.  Wilson." 
Whatever  may  be  said  pro  or  con  in 
regard   to   Mr.   Lodge's   conduct   of  the 
Senate's  consideration  of  the  League,  it 
is  unthinkable  to  anyone  who  knows  him 
that  he  should  have  ever  used  that  ex- 
pression or  anything  similar  to  it;  be- 
cause such  a  statement  would  be  beneath 


>[ay  15,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[517 


even  the  cheapest  politician,  to  say  noth- 
ing of  a  statesman  of  long  experience  and 
international  reputation.  As  a  matter 
of  fact.  Senator  Lodge  has  specifically 
denied  having  made  such  a  statement, 
and  I  feel  confident  that  he  has  not  only 
never  said  it  or  anything  like  it,  but  has 
never  even  thought  it. 

Very  few  who  have  not  had  e.xperience 
in  a  legislative  body  can  appreciate  the 
difficulties  of  steering  an  important  bill 
through  the  maze  of  differences  of  opin- 
ion which  exist,  not  only  in  obtaining  a 
definite  result,  but  in  keeping  the  dis- 
cordant elements  in  a  temper  to  finally 
permit  positive  action.  Senator  Lodge's 
success  in  this  controversy  has  been  most 
notable  and  has  been  commented  on 
favorably  by  nearly  everyone  who  has 
had  occasion  to  follow  the  Senate's  action. 
My  belief  is  that  it  will,  in  history,  be 
considered  the  most  notable  achievement 
he  has  ever  accomplished  in  a  long  and 
distinguished  career. 

The  real  difficulty  has  been  with  the 
President  himself,  who  maliciously  mixed 
the  League  with  the  Treaty  and  who  has 
been  unwilling  to  even  make  the  conces- 
sions which  the  Allies  were  willing  to  ac- 
cept. I  do  not  think  it  is  unfair  to  him 
to  say  that  it  is  the  general  opinion  that 
he  has  been  governed  in  this  whole 
controversy  by  personal  considerations 
rather  than  his  country's  best  interest. 
John  W.  Weeks 

Washington,  D.  C,  May  8 

Senator  Lodge  and  Sinn  Fein 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

My  first  impulse  after  reading  Mr. 
Beck's  letter  in  the  Revieiv  of  April  10, 
finding  you  had  printed  it  without  com- 
ment, was  at  once  to  enter  the  lists  in 
your  behalf.  Second  thought  gave  as- 
surance that  more  powerful  hands  than 
mine  would  pick  up  the  gage:  Major 
Putnam's  letter  and  your  own  editorial 
in  the  issue  of  April  24  leave  nothing  to 
be  desired,  except  in  one  important 
particular.  Mr.  Beck  quotes  your  in- 
dictment : 

Mr.  Lodge  has  shown  himself  neither  a 
larKe-minded  statesman  nor  a  competent  party 
leader,  and  he  has  given  countenance  to  many 
abominable  moves  in  the  game. 

and  adds, 

This  would  have  been  more  convincing  if 
you  had  given  any  specifications  for  so  severe 
a  criticism  of  one  of  the  most  experienced 
and  scholarly  statesmen  now  in  the  public 
life  of  this  country. 

Assuredly  Mr.  Lodge's  support  of  the 
"Irish  Republic"  was  "an  abominable 
move  in  the  game,"  and  I  agree  with  Mr. 
Beck  to  the  extent  that  it  should  receive 
very  specific  mention.  It  is  the  more 
ine.xcusable  precisely  because  he  is  "one 
of  the  most  experienced  and  scholarly 
statesmen,"  none  knowing  better  than 
he  the  consequences  to  be  expected  from 


such  action.  The  immediate  result  of 
the  move,  desired  and  obtained,  was  of 
course  the  detachment  of  Senator  Walsh 
from  his  party.  But  the  far  more  seri- 
ous result  was  to  give  to  the  Sinn 
Fein  conspiracy  a  footing  in  practical 
politics  which  it  could  hardly  have  at- 
tained without  Mr.  Lodge's  support. 
Apart  from  all  considerations  of  ordi- 
nary decency  towards  a  friendly  nation, 
in  view  of  our  close  relations  with  Great 
Britain  and  the  obligations  we  have  been 
placed  under  since  1914  owing  to  our 
lack  of  preparation  against  war,  Mr. 
Lodge's  attitude  seems  peculiarly  base. 
To  what  lengths  he  is  willing  to  go  in 
support  of  Sinn  Fein  hatred  of  England 
and  the  efforts  to  embroil  us  in  a  war 
of  unimaginable  horror  it  is  hard  to  say. 
Meanwhile  let  him  give  a  thought  to  the 
growing  strength  of  the  Loyal  Coalition 
— and  its  votes — and  reflect  whether 
there  are  not  more  of  us  who  are  ready 
to  fight  our  Irish-American  enemies  than 
our  British  friends. 

Harold  B.  Warren 
Cambridge,  Mass.,  May  4 

The  War  and  French 
Students 

[The  w'riter  of  this  letter  is  the  head  of  the 
famous  ficole  Normale  Superieure.  He  is  a 
member  of  the  French  Academy  and  one  of 
the  leading  historians  of  France.] 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

Last  October  a  series  of  special  en- 
trance examinations  was  held  for  the 
returning  soldiers.  We  were  all  very 
curious  to  know  how  our  young  men 
would  acquit  themselves  after  the  inter- 
ruption in  their  studies  occasioned  by 
the  war,  and  we  were  prepared  to  be 
rather  indulgent.  Now  let  me  give  some 
of  the  results  of  these  examinations,  as 
handed  in  to  me  by  the  examiners. 

In  the  department  of  philosophy,  the 
average  mark  "is  superior  to  that  ob- 
tained in  previous  Normal  School  exami- 
nations," reports  one  of  my  colleagues, 
"the  candidates  showed  a  solid  acquaint- 
ance with  their  subject  and,  above  all,  a 
real  strength  of  expression,  proofs  of 
their  having  followed  a  life  full  of  varied 
experiences  which  had  made  their  young 
minds  exceptionally  mature." 

In  history,  the  candidates  "thoroughly 
comprehended  the  questions  and  an- 
swered them  with  precision,  some  of  the 
young  men  showing  a  really  surprising 
maturity  of  thought,  while  numbers  of 
them  expressed  themselves  with  vigor 
and  authority." 

The  report  concerning  the  Greek  ex- 
amination contains  a  rather  amusing  re- 
mark. The  author  translated  was  that 
very  Attic  orator  Lysias,  whose  text  the 
candidates  somewhat  modernized,  and 
we  found  in  their  papers  such  up-to-date 
words  as  conference,  congress,  meeting, 
etc.      Some   of   the   students    dispersed 


headlines  through  their  paper  "The  Ar- 
rival of  the  Fleet  at  the  Seaport  of 
Piraeus,"  "The  Treason  of  Theramenes," 
etc.  All  this  was  not  very  Attic  and  the 
examiner  could  not  always  suppress  a 
smile;  but  his  report  reads:  "Superior 
qualities,  maturity  of  mind,  good  judg- 
ment, decision  of  character,  very  re- 
markable qualities  of  manliness." 

The  examiner  in  Latin  has  been  in  the 
habit  for  several  years  of  deploring  the 
falling  off  of  interest  in  that  study.  But 
this  year  he  is  delighted  and  declares 
that  the  examination  "has  given  him  the 
joy  of  a  real  surprise." 

In  French  "the  examination  reached  a 
remarkably  high  standard,  most  of  the 
candidates  displaying  a  maturity  of  mind 
and  a  firmness  of  judgment  worthy  of 
the  greatest  praise." 

The  examiners  show  a  tendency  to  feel 
rather  blue  about  the  German  papers, 
whereas  for  the  English  ones  they  are  in 
the  best  of  moods,  "the  candidates  falling 
in  with  the  spirit  of  the  text  and  employ- 
ing an  English  which  is  as  clear  as  it  is 
idiomatic." 

This  testimony,  which  I  might  give  at 
still  further  length,  is  very  interesting 
in  itself,  since  it  shows  that  our  French 
universities  and  high  schools  will  have 
capable  young  professors  in  the  future 
as  in  the  past,  facts  which  I  recommend 
to  the  consideration  of  our  pessimists  at 
home  and  to  our  friends  and  fellow-pro- 
fessors in  foreign  parts  who  sometimes 
may  have  doubts  as  to  our  future. 

Ernest  Lavisse 

Paris,  France,  March  11 

The  Wits  of  Queen  Anne's 
Time 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

To  professors  of  English  literature 
desperate  for  a  mode  of  approach  that 
will  interest  undergraduates  in  the  wits 
of  Queen  Anne's  time,  I  suggest  this  en- 
try in  Swift's  Journal  to  Stella,  March 
27,  1713: 

"I  went  afterwards  to  see  a  famous 
moving  picture,  and  I  never  saw  any- 
thing so  pretty.  You  see  a  sea  ten  miles 
wide,  a  town  on  t'other  end,  and  ships 
sailing  in  the  sea  and  discharging  their 
cannon.  You  see  a  great  sky  with  moon 
and  stars,  etc.     I'm  a  fool." 

A  little  timely  pep  might  be  added  by 
citing  a  letter  to  Swift  from  Colonel 
Robert  Hunter,  Governor  of  New  York, 
March  14,  1713: 

"Here  is  the  finest  air  to  live  upon 
in  the  universe,  and  if  our  trees  and 
birds  could  speak,  and  our  assemblymen 
be  quiet,  the  finest  conversation  too. 
Fe.rt  omnia  tellus,  but  not  for  me." 

Fert  omnia  tellus,  but  not  for  us 
either,  alas. 

S.  B.  G. 

University  of  Nebraska,  April  3 


518] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  53 


Book  Reviews 

An  Undiplomatic  Diplomat 

Recxeation.    By  Viscount  Grey  of  Falloden, 

K.  G.  Boston:  Houghton  Mifflin  Co. 
TVTHEN  war  broke  out  in  1914,  nat- 
W  ural  and  universal  curiosity  was 
excited  regarding  the  representative 
men  of  the  belligerent  nations,  in  whose 
hands  lay  the  fate  of  the  world.  Our 
newspapers  and  magazines  teemed  with 
articles  and  illustrations.  Among  the 
faces  of  warriors,  kings,  and  statesmen, 
there  was  none  more  fit  to  haunt  the 
memor>'  than  the  face  of  the  British 
Foreign  Secretary,  Sir  Edward  Grey. 
The  eyes  had  the  black,  cavernous  depth 
of  Foe's,  of  Foe's  beholding  in  proces- 
sion all  the  images  of  terror  from  his 
wild  tales  pass  before  him.  It  was  the 
face  of  a  man  seeing  a  ghost,  a  million 
ghosts;  and  nearly  a  million  of  his 
countrymen  were  to  die  by  war  before 
five  years  were  gone. 

The  personality  behind  this  mask  of 
horror  was  a  riddle  to  friends  and  foes. 
The  man  chosen  by  a  great  nation  to 
deal  with  friendly,  rival,  or  hostile 
Powers  knew  no  language  but  his  own, 
and  never  left  his  native  island.  Now, 
if  Buffon's  adage  has  any  truth  in  it, 
this  enigmatic  man  has  revealed  himself 
in  a  little  book  of  some  forty  printed 
pages.  Last  year  he  delivered  an  ad- 
dress at  Harvard  on  recreation,  certainly 
not  a  tragic  theme,  which  is  now 
published  for  the  benefit  of  a  wider 
audience. 

Of  artifice,  literary,  or  any  other,  in 
the  plan  or  style,  there  is  not  a  trace. 
The  writer  begins  at  the  beginning,  an- 
nouncing his  subject,  recreation,  in  the 
first  paragraph;  he  goes  on  to  the  end, 
and  then  stops.  The  diction  is  plain  and 
simple,  almost  to  the  point  of  baldness. 
There  are  no  flights  and  no  flowers.  An 
occasional  touch  of  quiet  humor  bright- 
ens the  discussion  of  a  serious  topic  in 
a  serious  way.  The  age  is  a  pleasure- 
seeking  age;  whether  it  finds  pleasure 
is  another  matter.  Recreation  is  not  the 
most  important  thing  in  the  world;  but, 
wisely  taken,  it  makes  for  happiness. 
Games,  sport,  gardening,  reading,  as 
forms  of  recreation,  are  treated  briefly, 
the  obvious  advantages  of  each  being 
pointed  out  in  a  few  words.  Disciples  of 
Izaak  Walton  will  judge  with  charity 
the  confession  of  his  passion  for  fishing. 

In  October  I  used  to  find  myself  looking 
forward  to  salmon  fishing  in  the  next  March 
and  beginning  to  spend  my  spare  time  think- 
ing about  it.  I  lay  awake  in  bed  fishing  in 
imagination  the  pools  which  I  was  not  going 
to  see  before  March  at  the  earliest,  till  I  felt 
I  was  spending  too  much  time,  not  in  actual 
fishing  but  in  sheer  looking  forward  to  it.  I 
made  a  rule,  therefore,  that  I  would  not  fish 
pools  in  imagination  before  the  first  of  Janu- 
ary so  that  I  might  not  spend  more  than  two 
months  of  spare  time   in  anticipation   alone. 


This  is  not  the  tortuous  utterance  of  a 
modern  Metternich;  it  is  frank,  human, 
almost  naive,  the  admission  of  an  en- 
thusiasm. 

There  is  nothing  new  in  his  advice 
about  reading.  There  can  not  be,  at  this 
time  of  day.  He  recommends  poetry  and 
philosophy,  but  does  not  wish  to  force 
them  upon  the  reluctant.  His  own  se- 
lection of  books  for  recreation  is  first. 
Gibbon,  then,  a  classic  novel,  then,  a 
"modern"  work,  not  closely  defined.  Plato 
he  read  at  Oxford  without  much  appre- 
ciation ;  but,  in  his  riper  years,  he  found 
that  the  great  Greek  seemed  to  "kill" 
other  philosophical  writers.  He  could 
not  find  the  same  pleasure  in  them. 

Perhaps  the  most  interesting  feature 
of  this  address  is  the  account  of  his  out- 
ing in  England  with  Mr.  Roosevelt.  It 
is  used  to  enforce  his  advice  about  plan- 
ning one's  recreation  ahead.  Before 
Mr.  Roosevelt  started  on  his  famous 
travels  in  Africa,  he  planned  to  be  in 
England  in  the  spring,  in  order  to  hear 
the  song  of  certain  birds.  Viscount  Grey 
took  him  down  to  Litchborne,  at  the  ap- 
pointed time,  and  the  birds  did  not  dis- 
appoint the  distinguished  pair.  Very 
English  was  the  Englishman's  fear  that 
his  visitor  might  be  bored.  He  thought, 
"Perhaps,  after  all,  he  will  not  care  so 
very  much  about  birds,  and  possibly 
after  an  hour  or  so  he  will  have  had 
enough  of  them.  If  that  be  so  and  he 
does  not  care  for  birds,  he  will  have 
nothing  but  my  society,  which  he  will 
not  find  sufficiently  interesting  for  so 
long  a  time."  It  is  equally  character- 
istic of  the  American  temperament  that 
Mr.  Roosevelt  was  not  only  keenly  in- 
terested in  the  English  song-birds  but 
he  had  informed  himself  about  them 
before  coming  to  England,  and  needed 
only  to  hear  them,  to  complete  that  de- 
partment of  his  knowledge. 

Towards  the  close  of  the  address,  the 
style  rises  above  its  natural  and  delib- 
erate plainness.  In  speaking  of  Nature 
the  Consoler,  he  expresses  what  so  many 
have  felt  during  the  war. 

Our  feelings  were  indeed  aroused  by  the 
heroism  of  our  people,  but  they  were  also  de- 
pressed by  the  suffering.  In  England  every 
village  was  stricken,  there  was  grief  in  almost 
every  house.  The  thought  of  the  suffering,  the 
an.xiety  for  the  future  destroyed  all  pleasure. 
It  came  even  between  one's  self  and  the  page 
of  the  book  one  tried  to  read.  In  those  dark 
days  I  found  some  support  in  the  steady 
progress  unchanged  of  the  beauty  of  the  sea- 
sons. Every  year,  as  spring  came  back  unfail- 
ing and  unfaltering,  the  leaves  came  out  with 
the  same  tender  green,  the  birds  sang,  the 
fldwers  came  up  and  opened,  and  I  felt  that 
the  great  power  of  nature  for  beauty  was  not 
affected  by  the  war.  It  was  like  a  great  sanc- 
tuary into  which  we  could  go  and  find  refuge 
for  a  time  from  even  the  greatest  trouble  of 
the  v/orld,  finding  there  not  enervating  ease,  but 
something  which  gave  optimism,  confidence, 
and  security. 

And  the  eyes  which  took  such  delight 
in  the  visible  world  are  now  dim. 


An  English  poet  made  his  heroic  Eng- 
lish King  describe  himself  as  "a  fellow 
of  plain  and  uncoined  constancy."  The 
phrase  describes  Grey  of  Falloden.  To 
his  enemies,  he  was  the  arch-deceiver,  . 
of  more  than  Machiavellian  craft,  he  was 
"Liar  Grey."  He  did  indeed  deceive,  but 
it  was  because  he  always  told  the  truth, 
and  could  tell  nothing  but  the  truth. 

Apart  from  its  matter,  this  little  book 
is  a  triumph  of  the  American  printer's 
art.  Type,  paper,  dimensions  of  page, 
press-work,  binding,  would  make  it  a  dis- 
criminating bibliophile's  treasure,  had 
it  no  other  merit. 

Archibald  MacMechan 

Vachel  Lindsay,  Edgar  Lee 
Masters,  and  Others 

The    Golden    Whales    of    California.     By 

Vachel    Lindsay.     New  York:   The   Mac- 

millan    Company. 
Starved  Rock.    By  Edgar  Lee  Masters.    New 

York :    The  Macmillan  Company. 
The  Coat  Without  a  Seam.    By  Helen  Gray 

Cone.      New    York :    E.    P.    Button    and 

Company. 
Chords  from  Albireo.     By  Danford  Barney. 

New  York :  John  Lane  Company. 
Picture-Show.     By  Siegfried  Sassoon.     New 

York :  E.  P.  Button  and  Company. 
Georgian  Poetry,  1918-1919.  New  York:  G.  P. 

Putnam's    Sons. 

RESISTANCE  to  Mr.  Vachel  Lindsay 
is  eventually  futile.  One  is  glad  of 
its  futility.  Something  in  me  that 
actively  questioned  or  passively  antag- 
onized his  spell  has  given  way  before  the 
"Golden  Whales  of  California."  Who 
can  resist  an  inundation?  The  "Golden 
Whales"  is  a  triumph  of  individuality. 
To  advise  men  indiscriminately  to  trust 
their  own  natures  is  a  little  as  if  one 
should  advise  them  indiscriminately  to 
bet  on  their  own  horses.  Everything  de- 
pends on  the  horse;  everything  depends 
on  the  nature.  But  when  a  nature  that 
is  trustworthy  is  trusted,  and  requites 
the  trust,  the  spectacle  is  refreshment 
and  delight  to  the  beholders.  The 
"Golden  Whales"  brings  to  me  my  first 
clear  and  unqualified  acknowledgment  of 
the  greater  Lindsay. 

In  this  writer  there  have  always  been 
two  elements:  the  poet,  and  what  I  shall 
unceremoniously,  but  not  disrespectfully, 
call  the  urchin.  The  poet  is  a  gentle- 
manly poet;  the  urchin  is  a  good  fellow, 
but  he  is  a  little  boisterous,  a  little  mis- 
chievous, more  or  less  unkempt  and 
unshod,  and  his  life  is  an  unending  Hal- 
lowe'en. If  the  neighborhood  has  been 
more  amused  than  shocked  at  his  pranks, 
it  has  also  been  more  amused  than  edi- 
fied; it  has  not  taken  him  so  very  seri- 
ously. The  poet  and  the  urchin  lived 
apart;  they  could  not  find  each  other. 
They  have  found  each  other,  in  my  judg- 
ment, in  the  "Golden  Whales,"  and  their 
meeting  is  the  signal  for  Mr.  Lindsay's 
emergence  into  the  upper  air  of  song. 


.Alay  15,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[519 


Let  me  cite  the  first  lines  in  the  book : 

Yes,  I  have  walked  in  California, 
And   the   rivers   there   are  blue   and   white, 
Thunderclouds  of  grapes  hang  on  the  moun- 
tains. 
Bears  in  the  meadows  pitch  and  fight. 
(Limber,  doublc-joinlcd  lords  of  fate, 
Proud  native  sous  of  the  Golden  Gale.) 
And  flowers  burst  like  bombs  in  California, 
Exploding    on    tomb   and    tower. 
And    the    panther-cats    chase    the    red    rabbits, 
Scatter  their  young  blood  every  hour. 
And  the  cattle  on  the  hills  of  California 
And  the   very   swine  in  the  holes 
Have  ears  of  silk  and  velvet 
And  tusks  like  long  white  poles. 
And  the  very  swine,  big  hearted, 
Walk  with   pride  to  their  doom 
For  they  feed  on  the  sacred  raisins 
Where  the  great  black  agates  loom. 

I  think  that  is  a  passage  in  which 
Wordsworth,  himself  rather  Lindsayan 
in  his  reckless  combination  of  the 
Apocalypse  and  Mother  Goose,  would 
have  heard  "old  Triton  blow  his 
wreathed  horn."  This  is  the  very  splen- 
dor and  festival  of  the  grotesque,  the 
union  of  the  infantije  (in  no  depre- 
ciatory sense)  with  the  gigantic;  giants, 
by-the-by,  are  the  special  property  of  in- 
fants. It  is  the  day  before  creation  with 
the  materials  for  the  mighty  enterprise 
littering  the  sky-floor  with  their  tumbled 
riches;  and  if  there  is  a  smack  of  the 
banjo  or  of  the  bagpipe  in  the  accom- 
paniment of  the  morning  stars,  that,  for 
the  making  of  a  world  like  ours,  is  only 
an  added  seasoning  and  congruity. 

The  third  poem,  quite  as  captivating, 
though  less  poetical,  is  "John  L.  Sullivan, 
the  Strong  Boy  of  Boston."  I  have  never 
read  a  poem  quite  like  "John  L.  Sullivan," 
a  poem  which  catches  a  civilization  in  its 
net,  or,  more  exactly,  strings  a  civiliza- 
tion, in  the  giant  beads  of  a  motley  but 
somehow  magnificent  necklace,  on  the 
bright  thread  of  its  lyric  joviality.  The 
poet  calls  the  time  provincial,  "dear  pro- 
vincial 1889,"  and  he  is  right.  But  it  is 
an  uncompelled,  a  chosen,  provinciality, 
the  country  life  of  a  man  who  owns  a 
house  in  town.  Mr.  Lindsay,  American, 
Illinoisian,  Springfieldian,  as  he  intrep- 
idly and  riotously  is,  has  affiliations  with 
the  universal.  If  your  goal  is  the  centre 
of  the  earth  you  may  start  as  well  from 
Springfield,  Illinois,  as  from  Paris, 
Petrograd,  or  Cairo.  Even  the  poet's 
Bryanism  has  sonorities  in  which  the 
chords  are  sempiternal.  He  heard  in 
that  movement  "time-winds  out  of  Chaos 
from  the  star-fields  of  the  Lord."  The 
poem  from  which  I  quote  with  its  clang- 
orous and  marching  title  of  "Bryan, 
Bryan,  Bryan,  Bryan"  is  printed  or  re- 
printed in  the  culled  and  discerning 
pages  of  the  new-born  London  Mercury. 
That  fact  has  a  kernel. 

I  quite  agree  with  Mrs.  Marguerite 
Wilkinson,  critic  of  poetry  for  the  New 
York  Times,  that  Mr.  Masters  is  of  all 
contemporary  poets  the  most  difficult  to 
review.  "Starved  Rock"  is  the  sort  of 
book  that  should  furnish  promptings  and 


incitements  to  the  wakeful,  or  even  to 
the  drowsy,  reviewer,  yet  I  have  rarely 
felt  so  unprompted,  so  unincited,  as  in 
its  presence.  Critics  do  not  like  to  con- 
fess that  they  are  baffled,  or  even  wor- 
ried; yet  I  was  on  the  point  of  making 
either  one  or  both  of  these  confessions 
when  the  review  that  I  wanted  to  write 
broke  upon  me  in  its  luminous  entirety. 
Perhaps  I  shall  review  the  man  rather 
than  the  book,  but  "Starved  Rock,"  as 
Mr.  Masters  himself  tells  us,  is  an  emi- 
nence from  which  one  overlooks  the  sur- 
rounding country. 

Mr.  Masters  is  a  man  of  undoubted 
ability,  though  much  of  his  output  is  less 
than  able.  He  is  even  a  man  of  un- 
doubted poetical  ability,  though  much  of 
his  ability  is  not  poetic.  But  the  imper- 
fection of  his  culture,  the  want  of  self- 
discipline,  the  mixture  of  indolence  and 
assiduity,  evinced  in  the  lavishness  of  his 
untrammeled  outpour,  the  entertainment 
of  vague  faiths  and  aspirations  which 
his  skepticism  cramped  and  chilled,  but 
could  not  extirpate,  the  prompt,  facile, 
and  uncritical  responsiveness  to  the 
movements  confusedly  afloat  in  the  tur- 
bid air  of  a  distracted  age — all  these 
things  are  indications  of  a  mind  whose 
organization  nature  did  not  quite  com-, 
plete.  The  mind  is  not  quite  equal  to  its 
job;  its  works  are  approximations. 

But,  it  will  be  said,  what  about  "Spoon 
River"?  The  question  is  a  probing  one. 
"Spoon  River,"  whatever  its  faults  or 
limitations  (and  its  faults  are  serious 
and  its  limitations  trenchant),  is  pos- 
sessed of  certainty.  Its  poetry  may  be 
questioned,  but  its  faculty  for  business, 
its  executive  thoroughness,  is  incontest- 
able. •  The  fitting  of  means  to  ends,  the 
coincidence  of  design  and  achievement, 
is  consummate.  Some  timely  incentive, 
some  favoring  circumstance,  perhaps  the 
Greek  Anthology,  perhaps  Mr.  William 
Marion  Reedy,  gave  Mr.  Masters  for  once 
that  property  in  his  subject  which  his 
later  volumes  have  proved  to  be  inter- 
missive  and  exceptional.  It  is  this  dif- 
ference between  the  man  and  his  chief 
work  that  makes  him  a  puzzle  and  plague 
to  the  reviewer.  Mr.  Masters  found  in 
"Spoon  River"  what  all  writers  need — 
a  method  that  protected  him  from  him- 
self. In  freedom  he  would  have  gone 
astray,  but  he  bound  himself,  like  Odys- 
seus, to  the  mast.  The  misfortune  of  his 
later  work  has  been  the  absence  of  some 
astute  counsellor  to  warn  him  when  to  be 
deaf — and  when  to  be  dumb. 

In  "Starved  Rock,"  the  reader  will  not 
starve,  though  he  will  scarcely  feast. 
There  are  the  usual  monologues,  of  which 
only  two  are  slimy;  there  are  the  dis- 
coveries of  the  desirability  of  doing  what 
you  please — discoveries  in  which  Mr. 
Masters  has  been  anticipated  by  the 
savages  and  the  pterodactyls.  There  are 
bulky  and  hazy  philosophies,  cosmicisms, 
idealisms,    feeble    sedatives    for    bitter 


griefs.  There  is  an  excellent  bit  of  jour- 
nalism, self-described  in  the  title,  "Saga- 
more Hill,"  in  which  the  lugubriousness 
that  lies  in  wait  for  Mr.  Masters  in  the 
intermissions  of  his  onslaughts  is  hap- 
pily relaxed.  There  are  landscapes  of  an 
alluring  but  unsatisfying  picturesque- 
ness,  a  picturesqueness  that  seems  mainly 
verbal,  whose  horizons  are  the  edges  of 
the  page.  There  are  instances  of  that 
lyric  pliancy  and  invitation  which  sur- 
prise the  ear  among  the  ruder  notes 
of  Mr.  Masters,  and  there  are  rare 
moments  of  true  inspiration  like  the 
following : 

Change  now  is  yours  beyond  the  waters,  nights 

Of  waiting  and  of  doubt  have  dimmed  desire. 

Our  hands  are  calm  before  the  dying  fire 

Of  lost  delights. 

Babylon  by  the  sea  knows  us  no  more. 

Between  the  surges'  hushes 

When  on  the  sand  the  water  rushes 

There   is   no   voice   of   ours   upon   the   shore. 

Miss  Helen  Gray  Cone  has  a  substan- 
tially perfect  technique.  The  possessor 
of  a  perfect  technique  is  a  being  set 
apart,  not  only  among  capable  poets,  but 
among  supreme  poets.  The  great  are 
rarely  perfect:  to  which  charge  a  retort, 
if  not  a  rebuttal,  might  be  found  in  the 
assertion  that  the  perfect  are  rarely 
great.  The  highest  originalities  are  not 
open  to  Miss  Cone,  but  her  feeling  is 
delicate  and  true,  and,  in  all  the  agita- 
tions of  the  late  war,  there  is  no  tremor 
in  the  mounting  flame.  Her  work  should 
find  its  own  public,  and  even  the  lordly 
public  that  looks  askance  at  poetry  of  this 
type  should  be  sensible  of  the  vigor  in 
the  two  stanzas  which  I  quote: 

The   world  is   a   broken   ball, 

Stained  red  because  it  fell 
Out  of  bounds,  in  a  game  of  kings, 

Over  the  wall  of  hell: 

And  now  must  the  spirit  of  man 

Arise  and  adventure  all — 
Leap   the    wall   sheer   down    into   hell 

And  bring  up  the  broken  ball. 

It  is  the  object  of  Mr.  Danford  Bar- 
ney's "Chords  from  Albireo"  to  evoke 
moods  rather  than  impart  ideas — such  is 
the  purport  of  Mr.  Lawrence  Mason's 
tentative  but  laudatory  preface.  In  a 
word,  we,  as  gentlemen  and  men  of  taste, 
are  not  to  protest  if  Mr.  Barney  is  unin- 
telligible. To  this  I  think  the  simple  but 
sufficing  answer  is  that  poetry  is  a 
branch  of  literature,  that  literature  is  a 
mode  of  speech,  and  that  men  speak  to 
be  understood.  Mr.  Barney's  moods  are 
conveyed  to  Mr.  Mason  by  sounds.  But 
if  words  generate  ideas  and  sounds  gen- 
erate moods,  and  Mr.  Barney  prefers  to 
give  us  moods  without  ideas,  the  conse- 
quence is  plain :  he  should  give  us  sounds 
without  words ;  "Cuckoo,  jug-jug,  pu-we, 
to-witta-woo"  should  be  the  formula  for 
his  poetry. 

I  spent  ten  times  as  much  mental  ef- 
fort on  Mr.  Barney's  "A  Woman  Pass- 
ing" as  I  should  have  spent  on  an  equal 
quantity   of  Tennyson  or  Wordsworth. 


520] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  53 


Now  if  one  is  striving  to  reduce  the  part 
of  the  understanding  in  the  reception  of 
poetrj-,  surely  the  oddest  of  all  conceiv- 
able methods  that  one  could  choose  to 
accomplish  that  result  would  be — to  in- 
crease its  burdens.  I  have  a  simple, 
wholesome,  rustic  notion  that  if  a  man 
works  a  horse,  he  should  feed  it.  My 
complaint  against  Mr.  Danford  Barney 
is  that  my  understanding  is  a  horse 
which  he  overworks — and  starves.  All 
this  would  not  have  been  worth  saying 
in  this  place,  had  Mr.  Barney  been  desti- 
tute of  poetical  capacity. 

The  critical  and  the  uncritical  public 
seem  united  in  their  admiration  for  the 
poetrj-  of  Mr.  Siegfried  Sassoon.  When 
habitual  dissidents  agree,  perhaps  the 
dissenter  from  both  should  hold  his 
peace.  I  am,  moreover,  entirely  willing 
to  concur  with  both  these  publics  in  the 
admission  that  Mr.  Sassoon's  strong, 
simple,  honest  detestation  of  war  is  a 
manly  thing  which  manhood  the  world 
over  should  esteem.  War  brightens  in 
the  prospect  and  softens  in  the  retro- 
spect so  much  that  we  need  to  keep  by 
us  a  man  for  whom  war  is  everlastingly 
in  the  present  tense.  When  it  comes  to 
sheer  poetry,  however,  I  find  in  Mr. 
Sassoon  but  two  outstanding  merits,  a 
feeling  for  phrase  and  a  sense  of  the 
occult,  both  present  in  the  degree  which 
redeems  verse  from  insignificance  with- 
out lifting  it  to  distinction.  His  literary 
judgment  is  singularly  undeveloped. 

I  stood  with  the  Dead,  so  forsaken  and  still; 
When  dawn  was  grey  I  stood  with  the  Dead 

is  an  excellent  beginning  for  one  kind 
of  poem.  "'Fall  in!'  I  shouted;  'Fall 
in  for  your  pay !' "  is  a  passable  conclu- 
sion for  another  kind.  But  the  use  of 
the  two  as  beginning  and  ending  of  the 
same  poem  indicates  that  the  author  is 
"unlesson'd,  unschooled,  unpractis'd"  in 
his  own  art.  The  one  poem  which  I  am 
inclined  to  except  from  the  gravamen 
of  these  strictures  and  restriction  is 
called  "Sick  Leave,"  and  is  found,  not 
in  "Picture-Show,"  but  in  "Georgian 
Poetry,  1918-1919." 

To  this  "Georgian  Poetry"  my  final 
word  pertains.  I  read  the  first  number 
of  this  anthology  years  ago  with  un- 
feigned admiration.  The  same  qualities, 
the  same  authors,  reappear  in  part  in 
the  current  volume,  but  my  admiration, 
though  not  dead,  does  not  recover  its  old 
alacrity.  These  poets  have  unquestion- 
able merits.  From  the  infirmities  of  the 
later  and  lesser  Victorians  their  libera- 
tion is  complete.  They  hate  the  gen- 
eral, the  banal,  the  trivial^^all  of  which 
are  sound  and  righteous  hatreds.  In 
phrase  they  love  the  condensed  and  the 
concrete — both  of  which  are  virtuous 
and  salutary  loves.  But  there  is  a  con- 
trast, if  not  a  conflict,  between  their 
temper  and  their  ideal.  Their  temper 
is  calm,  measured,  resolute — almost  an 


eighteenth  century  temper.  Their  ideal 
is  the  vivid,  the  striking,  the  extreme — 
almost  an  Elizabethan  ideal.  Naturally 
enough,  their  eighteenth  century  temper 
is  not  quite  at  home  in  the  handling  of 
this  Elizabethan  ideal.  Hence  the  vivid- 
ness, which  is  by  no  means  altogether 
wanting,  comes  to  reside  less  in  the  ideas 
than  in  the  language,  less  possibly  in  the 
language  than  in  the  vocabulary.  Their 
dictionary  is  as  dynamic  as  Shake- 
speare's, but  their  style  isn't.  Their 
watchword  is  deliberate  intensity.  That 
is  not  an  unpromising  watchword;  it 
made  the  Divine  Comedy.  But  in  Dante, 
in  whom  incandescence  was  the  normal 
state,  the  deliberation  did  not  chill  the 
intensity.  In  England,  under  George  the 
Fifth,  the  dissipation  of  heat  proceeds 
more  rapidly. 

0.  W.  Firkins 

Two  Major  Fabulists 

Woman  Triumphant  (La  maja  desnuda). 
By  Vicente  Blasco-Ibaiiez.  Translated 
from  the  Spanish  by  Hayward  Keniston. 
With  a  Special  Introductory  Note  by  the 
Author.  New  York:  E.  P.  Dutton  and 
Company. 

Treacherous  Ground.  By  Johan  Bojer. 
Translated  from  the  Norwegian  by  Jessie 
Muir.  New  York :  Moffat,  Yard  and 
Company. 

THESE  books  are  the  result  of  a 
natural  process  which,  after  we  have 
been  more  or  less  fortuitously  "landed" 
by  some  new  foreign  genius,  promptly 
picks  us  up  and  puts  us  in  the  basket. 
They  are  minor  as  well  as  earlier  pieces 
of  work.  But  the  authors,  in  this  case, 
think  them  worth  our  trouble  and  even 
worth  some  special  gloss  at  their  own 
hands.  The  Spaniard  supplies  an  intro- 
duction to  the  English  version,  and  the 
Norwegian  replies  in  full  to  the  queries 
of  a  reviewer  for  the  New  York  Evening 
Post.  So  we  know  what  each  of  them 
intended  by  his  book  and  what  he  thinks 
it  means. 

"Woman  Triumphant"  is  recalled  by 
its  writer  as  a  novel  which  caused  "a 
scandalous  sensation"  when  it  appeared, 
many  years  ago,  in  Spain.  It  was 
thought  to  be  a  sort  of  libel  or  satire 
on  two  well-known  figures  in  Madrid 
society.  The  introduction  defends  it 
against  this  charge  as  well  as  against  a 
possible  charge  of  immorality.  In  fact, 
its  treatment  of  sex  matters  is  cautious 
by  comparison  with  much  that  we  are 
getting  from  English-writing  contem- 
poraries. To  a  point,  its  matter  is 
familiar.  A  young  painter  at  the  turn- 
ing of  his  career  marries  a  good  but 
Philistine  woman.  For  a  time  he  bows 
before  her  as  the  embodiment  of  Beauty. 
But  she  is  jealous  of  what  she  perceives 
to  be  the  true  object  of  his  worship. 
She  turns  him  from  his  destined  fulfill- 
ment as  a  painter  of  the  nude,  and  forces 
him  to  become  a  fashionable  success,  as 


a  maker  of  portraits.  Her  jealousy  still 
feeds  itself  on  suspicion  of  his  sitters; 
and  the  time  comes  when  it  is  justified. 
A  somewhat  notorious  beauty  with  a 
fatuous  husband  becomes  his  mistress. 
Thus  far  we  tread  a  familiar  path.  It 
is  with  the  wife's  death  that  the  im- 
portant action  begins,  a  purely  mental 
and  spiritual  or,  as  the  slang  goes,  psy- 
chological action.  If  I  ever  re-read  any 
of  this  book,  it  will  be  the  hundred 
pages  of  Part  III ;  the  earlier  parts  might 
be  summed  up  in  two  paragraphs.  The 
author's  interpretation  of  the  tale  is  un- 
consciously confined  to  the  conclusion: 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  woman 
here  is  the  wife  of  the  protagonist.  It  is  the 
wife  who  triumphs,  resurrecting  in  spirit  to 
exert  an  overwhelming  influence  over  the  life 
of  the  man  who  had  wished  to  live  without 
her.  .  .  .  Renovales,  the  hero,  is  simply 
the  personification  of  human  desire,  this  poor 
desire  which,  in  reality,  does  not  know  what 
it  wants,  eternally  fickle  and  unsatisfied. 
When  we  finally  obtain  what  we  desire,  it  does 
not  seem  enough.  "More,  I  want  more,"  we 
say.  If  we  lose  soniething  that  made  life  un- 
bearable, we  immediately  wish  it  back  as  in- 
dispensable to  our  happiness.  Such  are  we : 
poor,  deluded  children  who  cried  yesterday 
for  what  we  scorn  to-day  and  shall  want  again 
to-morrow;  poor,  deluded  beings  plunging 
across  the  span  of  life  on  the  Icarian  wings  of 
caprice. 

In  such  a  mood  does  the  author  re-peruse 
and  expound  his  tale.  It  is  not  his  de- 
termining mood,  or  there  would  be  no 
great  public  for  him.  And  it  is  not  the 
determining  mood  of  his  story.  For 
what  moves  us  in  it  is  that  for  all  their 
blundering  and  wantonness,  something 
real  and  abiding  has  sprung  from  the 
union  of  Renovales  and  his  maja.  In  this 
the  woman  triumphs,  and  life  triumphs 
through  her. 

"Treacherous  Ground"  was  written  in 
1908.  Blasco-Ibaiiez  has  recently  said, 
"Johan  Bojer  is  a  Maupassant  of  the 
North,  an  impassioned,  rapid  thinker, 
with  Latin  clarity  .  .  .  Such  a  fiery, 
passionate  way  of  telling  a  story."  One 
might  as  well  declare  Blasco-Ibanez  a 
Bojer  of  the  South.  Bojer  has  had  his 
Gallic  phase,  and  owns  to  an  early  dis- 
cipleship  of  Zola.  But  his  clarity  is  the 
northern  clarity  and  his  passion  the 
northern  passion:  his  is  the  cold  fire  of 
the  North.  He  is  of  the  race  of  Ham- 
sun, of  Nexo,  of  Lagerlof — above  all,  of 
Ibsen.  "Treacherous  Ground"  is  very 
much  in  the  Ibsen  tradition.  Like  "The 
Face  of  the  World"  and  "The  Great 
Hunger,"  it  shows  an  idealist  and  y 
dreamer  faring  hardly  in  his  contact  ' 
with  "life."  Here,  though,  we  take  in 
a  way  the  negative  side.  Erik  Evje  is  a 
self-deceived  dreamer,  a  sentimentalist, 
selfish  like  all  his  kind,  who  confounds 
egotism  with  idealism.  He  tries  various 
pursuits,  the  church,  medicine,  labor  re-  ■ 
form,  and  finds  them  in  turn  unworthy 
of  him.  He  has  an  old  mother  at  home 
on  their  remote  estate  who  is  ready  to 
turn  over  everything  to  him.    Very  well. 


May  15,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[521 


he  will  be  a  reformer  and  philanthropist 
in  his  own  country.  But  his  schemes  for 
the  improvement  of  his  fellow-men  are 
tangled  up  in  conceit  and  indolence.  His 
beneficiaries  are  to  become  his  victims; 
and  for  him  there  is  nothing  left  but 
drink.  The  tale  has  the  bite  and  "follow 
through"  of  an  Ibsen  play,  a  "Wild  Duck" 
or  an  "Enemy  of  the  People."  It  lacks, 
accordingly,  the  rich  sympathy  of  "The 
Great  Hunger."  As  for  its  idea  or  moral, 
Bojer  has  given  his  own  elucidation  of 
it.  Erik  Evje's  Nemesis  comes  when, 
confronted  with  his  folly,  he  sacrifices 
everything  rather  than  "lose  his  crucifix," 
and  so  "be  alone  with  his  sins.  He  feels 
responsible  for  the  sins  he  has  himself 
committed,  but  he  is  not  willing  to  as- 
sume responsibility  for  the  ideal  which 
has  put  the  welfare  of  a  number  of 
human  beings  at  stake  .  .  .  Tyranny 
does  not  always  appear  in  royal  purple. 
The  greatest  tyrant  is  the  dreamer  who 
tries,  come  what  may,  to  reform  the 
world  in  accordance  with  his  own  dreams. 
I  tried  in  'Treacherous  Ground'  to  create 
a  concrete  example  of  a  dreamer  who  is 
a  tyrant.  I  had  in  mind  an  idealist  who 
is  an  egoist,  an  uplifter  who  tries  to 
forget  his  own  sins  by  charging  them  up 
to  society." 

Read,  O  liberator,  0  new-republican, 
0  freeman  and  denational — read,  and 
perpend ! 

H.  W.  BOYNTON 

"Him  of  Cordova" 

Seneca.     By    Francis    Holland.     New    York : 
Longmans,  Green  and  Company. 

MR.  HOLLAND'S  biographical  essay, 
originally  designed  to  preface  a 
translation  of  Seneca's  letters  to  Lucilius, 
is  now  allowed  to  appear  "on  the  chance 
that  here  or  there  some  readers  may  be 
found  to  share  my  interest  in  the  sub- 
ject." His  full  and  agreeably  written 
narrative  of  the  life  of  the  philosopher- 
statesman  should  win  readers  for  Seneca. 
And  if  Mr.  Holland's  translation  of  the 
Epistles  is  not  to  be  published,  Dr. 
Gummere's  version  in  the  Loeb  Library 
is  at  hand.  What  Mr.  Holland  ought  to 
do  is  to  publish  a  not  too  bulky  volume 
of  extracts.  Skilfully  excerpted  and  ar- 
ranged, the  world  which  has  taken  so 
kindly  to  Epictetus  and  Marcus  Aurelius 
would  quickly  find  a  place  in  its  heart 
for  Seneca.  For  he,  like  them,  and  like 
Socrates  before  and  Bacon  and  Addison 
since,  was  successful  in  bringing  philoso- 
phy from  the  clouds  and  home  to  men's 
business   and   bosoms. 

If  the  present  age  is  indifferent  to 
Seneca,  and  except  as  he  figures  in  the 
scholarship  of  the  Elizabethan  drama  it 
unquestionably  is  indifferent,  it  is  the 
first  of  twenty  centuries  so  minded.  To 
preceding  generations  the  very  contrasts 
presented  by  his  life  made  him  absorb- 
ingly interesting.     Preacher  of  poverty. 


he  was  many  times  a  millionaire:  advo- 
cate of  simple  living,  he  was  virtual 
ruler  of  the  world;  asserter  of  personal 
integrity  and  independence,  he  truckled 
to  a  Nero  when  he  could  no  longer  con- 
trol him.  Only  in  his  death,  calmly  open- 
ing his  veins  and  stepping  into  a  warm 
bath  to  hasten  his  sluggish  blood,  do 
precept  and  practice  come  together.  Sup- 
posed correspondent  of  St.  Paul's  (his 
charming  and  accomplished  brother 
Gallio,  at  any  rate,  came  into  personal 
contact  with  the  Saint  at  Corinth)  he 
is  hailed  as  more  Christian  than  the 
Christians;  a  later  age  condemns  him 
as  an  atheist.  Extravagantly  praised  and 
imitated  in  his  own  day  for  his  pointed 
style — his  modernity — he  is  despised  in 
the  next  generation  for  his  vulgarity 
and  verbal  antics.  In  the  whole  range 
of  letters  it  would  be  hard  to  find  a 
man  who  has  been  more  admired,  at- 
tacked, patronized,  laughed  at,  and  af- 
fectionately read  than  he. 

Viewed  as  a  part  of  an  ideally  recon- 
structed classical  world,  Seneca  is  neither 
a  large  nor  a  brilliant  figure.  In  tragedy 
he  seems  hardly  to  belong  to  the  genuine 
Roman  tradition  of  Ennius,  Accius,  and 
Pacuvius;  probably  even  as  a  writer  of 
rhetorical  tragedy  Ovid  surpassed  him; 
as  a  metrician  he  is  nothing  by  the  side 
of  Horace.  As  a  philosopher  he  can  not 
stand  with  Cicero  in  sweep  and  con- 
tinuity; in  a  history  of  Stoicism  even 
on  a  large  scale  he  is  dismissed  with 
scant  notice.  In  every  view  he  is 
epigonal,  second-rate,  a  little  tawdry, 
sensational  when  he  is  not  cold,  dry, 
staccato.  He  is  of  the  Silver  Age.  But 
as  the  Roman  world  recedes,  Seneca  re- 
mains a  promontory  long  discernible,  a 
sea-mark  by  which  the  hardy  spirits  of  a 
later  world  laid  their  course  back  to 
Rome.  Dante  gladly  admitted  him  to 
the  "philosophic  family."  Chaucer  read 
in  his  works,  and  for  the  Middle  Ages 
generally  he  pointed  many  a  moral.  Over 
the  new  birth  of  tragedy  he  presided: 
it  learned  to  walk  with  his  stride,  to 
mouthe  with  his  voice,  and  some  tricks 
of  his  gait  and  utterance  never  quite  left 
it.  Plutarch  was  his  only  rival  in 
Montaigne's  affection.  The  Epistles  to 
Lucilius  come  more  nearly  than  anything 
else  to  anticipating  the  modern  familiar 
essay.  "How  could  it  be  (as  that  worthy 
oratour  sayde)  but  that  walking  in  the 
Sonne  .  .  .  yet  needes  he  mought  be 
sunburnt."  So  the  dedicatory  Epistle  to 
Spenser's  "Shepheards  Calender,"  con- 
cerning its  author.  It  does  not  seem  to 
have  been  noted  that  the  "oratour"  here 
referred  to  is  Seneca.  They  are  many 
who  have  taken  rhetorical  color  from  his 
brilliance. 

As  a  figure  in  modern  literature  Seneca 
is  more  lastingly  significant  than  as  a 
classic.  His  face  is  toward  the  New 
World.  Columbus  is  said  to  have  set 
sail  with  a  verse  from  the  "Medea"  on 


his  lips,  and  Governor  Bradford,  dis- 
mally coasting  the  shores  of  New  Eng- 
land in  the  Mayflower,  is  reminded  of  an 
apt  passage  in  the  Epistles.  Seneca's  is 
one  of  the  few  voices  of  antiquity  to  be 
raised  in  behalf  of  slaves  and  in  con- 
demnation of  the  shows  of  the  arena, 
facts  of  which  students  of  Elizabethan 
drama  who  think  of  him  only  as  the 
author  of  some  peculiarly  bloody  and 
sensational  plays  ought  sometimes  to  re- 
mind themselves.  Mr.  Holland  is  prob- 
ably wrong  to  deny  to  Seneca,  in  passing, 
the  authorship  of  the  tragedies,  only  to 
attribute  them  to  another  man  of  the 
same  name.  The  verses  of  Sidonius 
Apollinaris  which  distinguished  between 
Seneca  the  philosopher  and  Imperial 
counsellor  and  Seneca  the  tragedian  may 
very  well  owe  their  origin  to  a  misun- 
derstanding of  Martial's  line  about  the 
two  Senecas,  father  and  son.  With  the 
exception  of  the  "Octavia,"  we  need  not 
deny  them  to  their  traditional  author. 
And  even  in  the  case  of  the  "Octavia," 
usually  ruled  out  because  Seneca  himself 
appears  as  one  of  the  characters,  a  strong 
argument  has  very  recently  been  made 
for  conceding  its  rightful  membership  in 
the  canon  where  the  tradition  of  full  fif- 
teen hundred  years  has  accorded  it  a 
place. 

Into  the  long  and  interesting  story 
of  Seneca's  literary  fortunes  it  is  no 
part  of  Mr.  Holland's  task  to  enter.  He 
is  placing  the  story  of  his  life  against 
the  background  of  Julio-Claudian  Rome. 
His  tone  is  that  of  a  discriminating  apolo- 
gist. Apologist  of  some  sort  it  is  now 
almost  impossible  not  to  be;  it  is  Seneca's 
misfortune  that  the  Roman  history  which 
has  come  down  to  us  was  written  from 
the  point  of  view  of  his  enemies,  while 
the  writings  of  his  friends  have  perished. 
For  some  things  in  his  career  apology 
is  not  easy;  his  flattery  of  Claudius,  for 
instance,  whose  "Pumpkinification"  he 
later  celebrated,  contained  in  his  "Con- 
solation to  Polybius"  which  he  wrote 
from  his  Corsican  exile.  The  philosopher 
may  have  professed  the  whole  world  his 
home,  but  the  man  knew  where  grew  the 
vines  his  hand  had  pruned.  As  for  his 
conduct  toward  Agrippina,  the  task  of 
managing  such  a  pair  as  the  daughter 
of  Germanicus  and  her  precious  off- 
spring, Nero,  asks  a  little  charity  in  the 
judgment.  No  man  who  both  preached 
and  practised  so  much  as  Seneca  could 
avoid  standing  occasionally  in  apparent 
contradiction  with  himself.  In  both  he 
was  a  practical  man  rather  than  heroic 
and  profound.  But  even  his  enemies 
credit  him  with  giving  to  Rome  the  best 
government  she  enjoyed  under  the  Em- 
pire. And  his  philosophy,  designed  to 
render  a  man  superior  to  the  assaults  of 
fortune,  was  good  doctrine  for  the 
troubled  days  which  followed.  It  is  not 
without  significance  for  ours. 

Harry  Morgan  Ayres 


522] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  53 


The  Run  of  the  Shelves 

"From  Friend  to  Friend"  (Button)  is 
the  title  of  a  small  book  of  final  reminis- 
cences from  the  pen  of  the  late  Lady 
Ritchie,  Thackeray's  daughter.  The  book, 
which  is  copious  on  Mrs.  Cameron,  Mrs. 
Sartoris,  and  Mrs.  Fanny  Kemble,  is 
sown  with  greater  names.  It  is  more 
enjoyable  than  many  books  of  reminis- 
cence, which  seem  to  lack  matter,  and 
to  be  pinched  and  downcast  in  their 
genteel  poverty.  Lady  Ritchie  abounds 
in  good-humor,  a  quality  which  most  of 
us  are  more  disposed  to  like  than  to 
praise.  She  writes  happily,  is  really 
fond  of  people,  never  seems  to  have  made 
the  Thackerayan  discoveries  that  the 
smile  of  hostesses  is  veneer  and  that  the 
smile  of  life  is  that  of  the  hostess.  Both 
smiles  are  occasionally  real;  perhaps  both 
were  real  for  Lady  Ritchie.  She  possesses 
style  of  a  kind,  though  in  what  nook  or 
chink  of  her  unpretending  English  it 
takes  up  its  shy  abode  we  should  need 
an  analyst  to  tell  us.  An  epoch  says 
"Good-bye"  to  us  in  these  closing 
reminiscences  of  a  prolonged  and  gra- 
cious life.  Why  are  we  so  kind  to 
departing  individuals,  even  to  departing 
nobodies  and  bores,  while  we  seem  to  let 
even  fruitful  and  worthy  epochs  perish 
without  commemoration  or  regret,  "un- 
houseled,  disappointed,  unaneled"? 

M.  Albert  Waddington,  correspondent 
of  the  Institute  and  professor  at  Lyons 
University,  says  in  the  preface  of  his 
"Histoire  de  Prusse"  (Paris :  Plon)  that 
"there  is  no  history  of  Prussia  in 
French,"  and  adds:  "I  have  taken  as 
my  model  what  M.  Lavisse  and  his  col- 
laborators have  so  well  accomplished,  and 
I  have  tried  to  do  in  a  more  modest  way 
for  Prussia  what  they  have  done  for 
France."  He  then  thanks  a  half  dozen 
German  scholars  "for  their  precious  aid." 
But  this  volume,  which  is  to  be  followed 
by  four  others — in  fact,  the  second  has 
just  appeared — was  published  before  the 
war.  Speaking  of  himself,  the  author 
says  in  an  unpublished  letter: 

I  was  born  at  Strassburg  just  ten  years  be- 
fore the  city  was  lost  to  France,  and  sorrow 
over  this  forced  separation  from  Alsace-Lor- 
raine caused  my  thoughts  to  dwell  continually 
on  the  hope  of  their  eventual  return  to  France. 
This  desire  decided  me,  as  soon  as  I  was  old 
enough  to  choose  a  career,  to  make  a  special 
study  of  Germany  in  general  and  of  Prussia 
in  particular,  in  order  to  be  in  a  position  to 
enable  my  fellow  countrymen  to  understand 
better  those  who  had  vanquished  us,  and  to 
perform  the  task  in  such  a  way  that  while  I 
brought  out  their  grave  faults— rapacity,  per- 
fidy, and  pride— I  would  not  hide  their  good 
qualities — love  of  order  and  discipline  and 
work.  So  I  spent  two  years  in  residence  and 
study  in  Germany,  and  all  my  teaching  in  the 
university  has  been  in  modern  history,  espe- 
cially in  the  history  of  the  Germanic  nations. 

We  should  add,  in  order  to  complete 
this  autobiographical  note,  that  during 


the  war  M.  Waddington  served  as  an 
interpreter  and  won  the  croix  de  guerre, 
and  that  M.  Waddington's  family  rela- 
tionships, connect  him  with  Madame 
Waddington,  known  to  all  readers  of 
Scribner's;  to  the  late  Eugene  Schuyler, 
to  Colonel  Harjes  of  the  Morgan  house, 
and  to  young  Jean  P.  Waddington,  a 
Cornell  graduate,  who  won  honors  on  the 
western  front. 

One  of  the  causes  of  the  intense  hatred 
for  the  Germans  which  exists  in  France 
is  due  largely  to  their  ruthless  destruc- 
tion of  the  churches,  and  this  feeling  is 
kept  alive  by  the  frequent  publication 
of  books  and  pamphlets  on  this  subject, 
in  which  the  illustrations  speak  to  the 
popular  heart  even  more  keenly  than 
does  the  text.  One  of  the  finest  of  the 
modern  provincial  churches  of  France 
was  that  of  Notre-Dame  de  Brebieres,  at 
the  little  town  of  Albert  in  Picardy.  In 
"Une  Glorieuse  Mutilee"  (Paris:  Bloud 
and  Gay),  the  cure.  Abbe  Gosset,  tells 
the  sad  story  of  its  destruction,  and  two 
score  photographs,  depicting  the  edifice 
as  it  was  in  1914  and  as  it  is  now,  drive 
home  the  bitter  words  of  this  indignant 
prelate,  and  may  awaken  a  desire  in  the 
reader  to  help  increase  the  subscription 
for  its  restoration. 

A  new  Section  of  the  Oxford  "Eng- 
lish Dictionary  on  Historical  Principles" 
(London:  Humphrey  Milford)  has  just 
appeared.  It  covers  a  part  of  the  letter 
V  and  is  edited  by  Dr.  W.  A.  Craigie, 
who  treats  1,571  words,  222  of  which  are 
now  obsolete  and  65  alien  or  not  fully 
naturalized.  The  vocabulary  is  pre- 
dominantly of  Romanic  origin,  and  con- 
sists largely  of  adoptions  of,  or  forma- 
tions on,  common  Latin  words  and  stems. 
Many  of  these  are  found  with  little 
change  of  form,  in  all  the  modern  Ro- 
manic languages.  Italian  has  contrib- 
uted a  few  words,  including  vista,  viva, 
and  volcano.  The  native  English  element 
is  represented  by  only  one  important 
word,  vixen.  Of  words  from  remote 
sources,  is  the  American  negro  voodoo. 
It  is  curious  that  vote  was  before  1600 
almost  exclusively  in  Scottish  use.  The 
lack  of  obvious  meaning  in  vouchsafe 
was  no  doubt  the  main  cause  of  the 
extraordinary  variety  of  forms  and  spell- 
ings in  which  it  appeared  down  to  the 
sixteenth  century.  Dr.  Craigie  gives 
over  fifty  examples  of  this.  Under 
vivisection  and  its  derivatives,  the  cam- 
paign in  England  against  this  practice 
comes  out  interestingly  in  the  illustra- 
tive quotations  for  which  this  dictionary 
is  famous.  Thus,  under  Voltairean  and 
its  derivatives  peculiar  life  is  given  to 
the  definitions  by  having  them  asso- 
ciated with  the  names  of  Gladstone, 
Morley,  Carlyle,  Canon  Liddon,  and  Mrs. 
Browning. 


Impressions  de  Voyage  II 

Thrice  have  I  been  in  Manila  while  the 
Spanish  flag  flew  over  these  islands  and 
twice  since  that  flag  was  replaced  by  the 
Stars  and  Stripes.  Even  since  my  last 
visit,  more  than  nine  years  ago,  tre- 
mendous changes  and  improvemente  have 
been  effected. 

Manila  was  a  horrid  but  picturesque 
pest  hole  in  the  '90's.  Its  streets  were 
largely  mud  ruts  in  the  wet  season  and 
narrow,  dusty  passages  during  the  North 
East  monsoon,  and  the  gutters  were  the 
only  sewers.  Now,  however,  all  are 
paved  and  kept  in  excellent  order;  sewers 
have  been  constructed ;  fairly  good  water 
from  the  hills  has  been  introduced  to 
take  the  place  of  unsanitary  surface 
wells.  The  moat  about  the  old  Span- 
ish walled  city,  breeding  ground  for 
mosquitoes,  has  been  filled  in  to  make  a 
pleasing  public  park  and  golf  links.  The 
mosquitoes,  which  once  swarmed  in  vast 
clouds,  are  hardly  to  be  seen  at  all.  The 
city  has  grown  enormously,  chiefly,  of 
course,  in  the  suburbs.  Everywhere  are 
handsome  and  spacious  buildings  of  an 
excellent  architectural  style  either  com- 
pleted or  in  course  of  erection.  Rein- 
forced concrete  seems  to  be  the  favored 
material. 

There  is  but  little  visible  of  the  former 
Spanish  element.  Only  at  rare  intervals 
can  a  purely  Spanish  face  be  recognized. 
Indeed  the  chief,  possibly  the  only,  trace 
left  of  the  Spanish  occupation  is  in  the 
rule  of  the  road — still  to  the  left.  The 
fashion  in  native  male  costume  used 
to  be  a  pina  shirt  worn  outside  the 
trousers  a  la  Dicky-Dicky-D'out.  It  sur- 
vives in  but  occasional  instances;  Euro- 
pean garb,  as  a  rule  of  white  cotton,  is 
now  the  vogue.  In  the  country  the  old 
costume  is  more  often  seen.  Formerly 
the  inhabitants  invariably  surrendered 
the  sidewalk  to  their  Spanish  masters. 
Now  they  take  pleasure  in  crowding 
Americans  into  the  gutter.  They 
interpret  liberty  and  equality  rather 
disagreeably. 

We  had  three  delightful  days  and  four 
cool  nights  at  Baguio,  the  summer  cap- 
ital, some  five  thousand  feet  up  in  the 
hills  of  northern  Luzon  among  the  pines. 
There  is  nothing  even  in  British  India 
superior,  if  indeed  equal,  to  Baguio, 
which  was  laid  out  by  Mr.  D.  N.  Burn- 
ham,  the  landscape  architect;  although 
it  lacks  Simla's  background  of  towering 
snow-capped  Himalayas,  beside  which 
Baguio's  peaks    seem  mere  hills. 

The  approach  is  by  a  road  which  zig- 
zags up  a  picturesque  gorge.  As  we 
climbed  steadily  upwards  in  a  motor  we 
passed  many  groups  of  Tagalogs  leading 
dogs  to  the  Sunday  market  to  be  sold  as 
a  delicacy  to  the  Igorotes  who  troop  in 
once  a  week  to  Baguio  from  districts  be- 


May  15,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[523 


yond.  In  spite  of  their  gastronomic 
idiosyncrasies  and  their  scant  attire,  we 
found  ourselves  inclining  to  the  general 
belief  that  these  Igorotes  are  a  better 
and  more  virile  lot  of  men  than  the  Taga- 
logs,  known  to  us  usually  as  Filipinos. 

To  reach  Baguio  one  takes  the  narrow- 
gauge  railway  which  runs  due  north  for 
about  120  miles  from  Manila  over  a  great 
alluvial  plain.  At  Dagupan  the  change 
was  made  to  automobile.  It  may  be  that 
we  made  the  journey  at  a  season  when 
the  rice  fields  are  purposely  left  fallow. 
Whatever  be  the  cause,  it  was  rather 
depressing  to  contrast  their  deserted  ap- 
pearance with  the  throngs  that  crowd  the 
streets  of  Manila.  Another  explanation 
for  the  absence  of  any  signs  of  cultiva- 
tion throughout  hundreds  of  square  miles 
of  paddy  may  lie  in  the  governmental 
regulation  of  the  price  of  rice,  which  has 
so  discouraged  the  farmer  as  to  force 
him  to  turn  his  attention  to  the  raising 
of  sugar  and  tobacco,  where  he  encoun- 
ters no  administrative  check. 

The  general  opinion,  as  I  gathered 
from  Americans  with  whom  I  talked,  is 
that  the  Filipinos  are  incapable  of  self- 
government.  This  harsh  judgment  may 
or  may  not  be  true.  Derisive  comment 
is  made  on  certain  measures  passed  at  a 
recent  special  session  of  the  Philippine 
Legislature,  such  as  granting  a  large 
pension  to  this  person  or  that  or  a  huge 
cash  gratuity  to  another,  the  provision 
for  the  acquisition  by  the  State  of  80 
per  cent,  of  the  stock  of  the  Manila 
Railway.  The  Government  is  importuned 
to  help  in  the  financing  of  a  hanging 
garden  surpassing  that  of  Babylon  in 
size  and  magnificence,  while  the  ordi- 
nance by  which  the  Government  takes 
over  all  oil  wells  is  soundly  berated.  But 
we  Americans  should  be  in  a  better  posi- 
tion to  find  fault  if  our  own  legisla- 
tive record  were  more  nearly  flawless. 

What  effect  on  Philippine  prosperity 
would  follow  our  withdrawal  and  the 
stoppage  of  annual  disbursements  of,  I 
understand,  thirty-odd  millions  of  gold 
dollars  for  naval  and  military  purposes 
can  only  be  conjectured.  "If  you  do  so," 
I  am  told,  "the  different  races  would  be 
cutting  each  other's  throats  without  de- 
lay and  the  Moros  would  move  into 
Manila.  At  least  America  should  keep 
a  military  force  here  to  protect  the 
Philippines."  It  may  sound  brutal  but  I 
advocate  giving  the  Filipinos  their  com- 
plete liberty — say  after  five  years'  notice. 
If  it  is  worth  having,  it  is  worth  fighting 
for.  Whether  they  are  or  will  be  grate- 
ful for  all  we  have  done  for  them,  or  for 
the  vast  sums  of  good  American  money 
spent  for  their  direct  and  indirect  ben- 
efit, I  can  not  pretend  to  say.  At  least, 
we  shall  have  done  our  full  duty  by  these 
wards  of  ours  and  have  achieved  an  ap- 
proving conscience. 

Caspar  F.  Goodrich 
Manila,  P.  I.,  March  21 


EDUCATIONAL  SECTION 


English  Grammar  Schools 

The  Manchester  Grammar  School.  Alfred 
A.  Mumford,  M.D.  New  York:  Long- 
mans, Green  and  Company. 

THOUGH  the  sudden  impetus  given  to 
education  at  the  beginning  of  the 
fifteenth  century  resulted  in  the  found- 
ing of  many  grammar  schools,  few  of 
them  have  survived  the  vicissitudes  of 
four  centuries  with  the  stability  of  the 
Manchester  Grammar  School.  One  learns 
of  the  existence  of  a  grammar  school  at 
Stratford  because  Shakespeare  may  have 
gone  there;  DeQuincey,  on  the  other 
hand,  was  little  more  than  an  incident 
in  the  long  and  honorable  history  of  the 
school  at  Manchester.  Not  that  there 
were  no  dark  periods,  with  rather  pa- 
thetic efforts  to  fumble  through  to  the 
light;  but  the  significant  thing  is  that 
the  school  did  always  emerge,  and  that 
its  latest  emergence  was  a  consciously 
constructive  effort,  without  fumbling. 
Dedicated  to  the  education  of  the 
common  people  of  Manchester,  it  never 
permanently  forgot  its  true  character,  in 
spite  of  yielding  to  occasional  tempta- 
tions to  imitate  the  more  comfortably 
successful  schools  of  an  "exclusive"  type. 
When  the  education  of  the  common 
people  in  the  last  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century  came  into  its  own,  the  Man- 
chester school  was  therefore  well  adapted 
to  take  a  prominent  part  in  the  national 
scheme.  It  now  numbers  above  a  thou- 
sand boys  and  goes  on  with  an  accumu- 
lated force  which  is  almost  as  strong,  in 
its  special  field,  as  the  social  tradition 
of  Eton  or  Winchester. 

The  composition  of  the  school  at  the 
present  time  is  interesting.  Fifteen  per 
cent,  are  "free  placers,"  while  another 
forty  per  cent,  come  from  the  public 
elementary  schools,  some  of  them,  how- 
ever, paying  the  "capitation  fees"  of  il5 
a  year  after  they  enter  the  Grammar 
School.  The  other  boys  come  from  vari- 
ous preparatory  schools  and,  with  only 
a  few  exceptions,  pay  the  fees.  There  is 
thus  established  what  in  America  would 
amount  to  a  combination  of  the  virtues 
of  the  public  school  and  the  private  day- 
school,  with  an  evident  elimination  of 
many  of  the  defects  of  each. 

The  present  character  and  composi- 
tion of  the  Manchester  Grammar  School 
are  naturally  more  intelligible  when 
one  has  some  knowledge  of  its  growth 
through  four  centuries.  Dr.  Mumford 
rightly  therefore  gives  considerable  at- 
tention to  the  history  of  the  school.  His 
pages  show  an  affectionate  interest  that 
reveals  intimacy  with  the  history  of  non- 
conformist Manchester  and  long  hours 
spent  among  the  quaint  records  of  the 
school  library.  Perhaps  on  this  account 
the  author  is  led,  especially  in  the  early 


chapters,  to  a  profusion  of  detail  which 
could  be  of  interest  only  to  an  "old  boy" 
of  the  school.  Indeed,  some  of  it  hardly 
justifies  itself  even  on  these  grounds. 
The  early  history  of  the  institution, 
meagre  and  rather  insignificant,  is 
padded  out  with  irrelevancies.  Heavy 
and  not  wholly  accurate  ecclesiastical 
history  (the  reader  is  given  the  im- 
pression, pp.  21-23,  that  all  England  went 
Calvinistic  in  Elizabeth's  time),  consid- 
erable space  given  to  Grotius  because  an 
old  copy  of  his  works  reposes  in  the 
school  library,  special  attention  to  the 
founding  of  the  Manchester  almshouse, — 
these  and  similar  digressions  swell  the 
early  chapters  to  forbidding  bulk;  while 
the  "barring-out"  (p.  130)  might  have 
appeared  to  the  author  less  deserving  of 
special  comment  if  he  had  recalled  that 
even  the  gentle  Joseph  Addison  took  part 
in  a  barring-out  and  that  Dr.  Johnson 
dismissed  it  as  "a  savage  license,  prac- 
tised in  many  schools,  towards  the  end 
of  the  last  (17th)  century."  The  volume, 
to  be  sure,  is  in  one  sense  a  sort  of 
memorial,  and  so  might  be  justified  in  its 
digressive  bulk,  were  it  not  for  the 
avowed  purpose  of  showing  how  the 
school  was  in  the  van  of  democratic  de- 
velopments in  education.  It  is  of  more 
than  local  interest,  the  author  tells  us, 
"because  of  the  constantly  repeated  ef- 
forts which  have  been  made  from  its 
foundation  to  free  the  school  from  the 
limitations  of  its  own  age  and  period 
and  keep  it  in  touch  with  the  wider 
needs  of  society."  The  parts  of  the  book 
which  deal  with  these  efforts  are  of 
distinct  value  to  anyone  interested  in 
education. 

The  school,  founded  by  Hugh  Oldham 
in  1515,  came  near  extinction  during  the 
fifty  years  after  the  death  of  its  founder. 
The  feoffees  appear  to  have  heeded  little 
the  hope  of  Oldham  that  the  sons  of 
Merchant  Adventurers  and  tradesmen 
should  be  brought  up  "in  virtue,  cun- 
ning, erudition,  literature,  and  good  man- 
ners." With  the  appointment  of  Dr. 
Cogan  to  the  high-mastership  in  1583, 
however,  the  school  renewed  its  vigor. 
The  chief  study  at  this  time  was  of 
course  the  classics,  but  music  received 
much  respectful  attention — an  attention 
worthy  the  consideration  of  modern  ed- 
ucators. The  school  grew  steadily  with 
the  advance  of  the  Puritan  movement; 
situated  in  a  centre  of  non-conformist 
activity  and  connected  through  it  with 
Leyden  and  Dutch  scholarship,  it  took  a 
position  of  more  than  local  importance 
and  began  to  send  poor  boys  to  Oxford 
and  Cambridge.  During  the  following 
century  it  fared  less  well.  Naturally 
the  new  interest  in  science  found  sup- 
port which  was  lacking  at  the  more 
aristocratic  foundations,   and  the  Wes- 


524] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  53 


leyan  Revival  had  a  quickening  eflfect  on 
the  school  and  its  neighborhood,  but  the 
easy-going  rationalism  which  settled  over 
most  English  institutions  of  learning 
during  the  eighteenth  centurj-  gradually 
dissipated  the  traditional  fervor  that  the 
Manchester  school  had  inherited  from  its 
Puritan  days.  This  and  the  increasing 
popularity  of  the  more  exclusive  board- 
ing-schools resulted  in  a  decrease  in 
numbers  which  in  the  Tory  days  of 
George  IV  amounted  to  a  serious  men- 
ace. The  Rev.  Jeremiah  Smith,  high- 
master  from  1807  to  1837,  sought  to  stem 
the  tide  by  remaking  the  school  into  "a 
high-class  boarding-school,"  with  strong 
Church  and  King  leanings  and  with 
preparation  for  the  universities  a  main 
feature.  This  course,  though  tempo- 
rarily successful,  ran  counter  to  the 
character  of  the  school,  and  Lord  Cot- 
tenham's  decree  in  1839  forbidding  uni- 
versity "exhibitions"  to  boarders  was 
followed  in  1848  by  a  final  decision 
that  boarders  be  abolished  altogether. 
All  the  older  trustees  resigned;  things 
looked  black  for  the  school.  This  de- 
velopment, however,  was  really  a  mercy, 
for  it  threw  the  institution  back  to  its 
natural  course,  and  the  genius  of  F.  W. 
Walker,  high-master  from  1859  to  1876, 
built  out  of  the  confusion  a  school  able 
to  fit  later  without  great  difficulty  into 
the  national  scheme  of  education. 

The  last  chapter  of  Dr.  Mumford's 
book  contains  much  valuable  material. 
As  he  was  for  a  long  time  medical  ex- 
aminer at  the  school,  his  testimony 
against  military  training  in  secondary 
schools  is  important.  Other  valuable  ex- 
pert testimony  is  that  given  in  regard 
to    the    irregular    development    of    the 


Bethlehem 

Bach    Festival 

May  28th,  4  p.  tn.  and  8  p.  m. 

CanUlBi  and  Motel 

May  29th,  1.30  p.  m.  and  4  p.  m. 

M*u  in  B  Minor 

LEHIGH  UNIVERSITY 

Bethlehem,  Pa. 


Applkatioos  are  inriled  (or  u  Initractonhip  in 
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la^nmea  and  have  had  college  experience  in  teaching. 
Letten,  with  reieienca  and  recommendation!,  may  be 
lent  to  the  Dean,  Dr.  W.  Sherwood  Fox,  Weat- 
em  Uoiveraity,  London,  Canada. 

Concerninf  radical  readjtiatment  l>etween  the  peoplea: 

"The  Brotherhood  of  Man" 

Thj»  book  br  Dr.  A.  R.  L.  Dohme  is  an  earnest  study 
of  (eneral  economic  and  political  conditions.  Dr. 
Dolime  concludes  with  an  interesting  practical  outline 
{or  a  World  State  and  new  human  relationships. 
Br  mail,  SI. 10. 

THE  NORMAN,  REMINGTON  COMPANY 
PubiUhars  -  Baltiaora 


adolescent.  A  sort  of  summary  of  his 
evidence  is  found  in  the  following 
sentences : 

All  vital  activities,  whether  bodily  or  mental, 
have  as  a  phvsical  basis  the  setting  free  of  a 
stream  of  energy.  Their  growth  does  not 
increase  bv  steady  and  gradual  stages  coinci- 
dent with  the  calendar  age  of  the  child  or  the 
adolescent,  but  by  fitful  and  somewhat  erratic 
leaps  whose  height  as  well  as  whose  time  of 
appearance  vary  greatly.  With  the  full  onset 
of  adolescence  a  great  and  sudden  increase  of 
energy  output  usually  takes  place,  which  may. 
be  restricted  to  one  or  few  of  the  functional 
systems  of  the  body  or  may  be  uniformly 
diffused,  though  this  is  rare.  The  rate  of  de- 
velopment of  one  system  or  function  by  no 
means  affords  a  guide  to  that  of  another,  and 
violent  forcing  the  pace  of  any  system  will  be 
accompanied  by  injury,  the  appearance  of 
which  will  be  delayed  but  will  not  be  prevented, 
for.  in  the  absence  of  unusual  vigor,  precocious 
growth  involves  premature  decay. 

This  of  course  is  not  a  new  discovery, 
but  it  states  clearly  as  well  as  authori- 
tatively a  point  to  which  educators  have 
so  far  given  quite  insufficient  heed. 

Walter  S.  Hinchman 

The   Stock   Exchange 

and  the  "Corner 

in  Stutz" 

IN  the  matter  of  the  New  York  Stock 
Exchange  and  the  "corner"  in  the 
stock  of  the  Stutz  Motor  Company,  the 
undisputed  facts  appear  to  be  as  follows : 

1.  The  stock  of  the  company— 100,000 
shares — was  listed  on  the  Exchange  and 
regularly  dealt  in  on  the  "floor." 

2.  In  March  of  this  year  a  spectacular 
rise  took  place  on  the  price  of  the  stock 
and  the  character  of  the  dealings  in  it 
was  such  as  to  attract  the  attention  of 
the  "Committee  on  Business  Conduct." 
This  body  is  a  sub-committee  of  the 
Board  of  Governors  of  the  Exchange, 
which  is  charged  with  the  duty  of  ex- 
ercising general  supervision  over  the 
business  methods  and  practices  of  mem- 
bers. 

3.  Investigation  by  this  committee  dis- 
closed the  fact  that  Allan  A.  Ryan,  a 
member  of  the  Exchange  and  head  of 
the  firm  of  Allan  A.  Ryan  &  Co.,  per- 
sonally owned  80,000  shares  of  Stutz 
Motor  stock  and  that  "he  and  his  family, 
friends,  and  immediate  associates  owned 
or  had  contracts  for  the  delivery  to  them 
of  stock  aggregating  110,000  shares,  or 
10,000  shares  more  than  the  entire  capi- 
tal stock  of  the  company"  (official  state- 
ment of  the  Governing  Committee  of 
the  Exchange  published  April  17,  1920). 

4.  The  "Committee  on  Business  Con- 
duct" thus  became  officially  aware  of 
the  existence  of  a  "close  corner"  in  Stutz 
Motor  stock.  It  thereupon  informed 
Ryan  "that  the  situation  must  not  con- 
tinue; that  he  alone  was  in  a  position  to 
put  an  end  to  the  corner  and  must  take 


whatever  steps  were  necessary  to  do  so." 
(Ibid.) 

5.  The  statement  of  the  Governing 
Committee  continues  as  follows:  "The 
situation  did  not  improve  and  no  effective  . 
steps  were  taken  by  him"  (Ryan)  "to 
end  the  corner.  At  the  meeting  with 
the  Business  Conduct  Committee  on  the 
morning  of  March  31,  Mr.  Ryan  stated 
the  terms  on  which  he  was  willing  to 
settle.  Those  terms  were  $750  per  share. 
The  Exchange  itself  had  no  power  to 
settle  the  outstanding  contracts  or  fix 
the  terms  which  would  be  proper  for 
settlement.  At  the  joint  meeting  of  the 
Business  Conduct  Committee  and  the 
Law  Committee  on  the  afternoon  of  the 
same  day,  he  stated  $500  as  his  settlement 
figure.  He  was  informed  that  even  in 
case  of  a  settlement  the  question  must 
be  raised  whether  the  stock  must  not 
be  stricken  from  the  list  because  it 
was  not  sufficiently  distributed  to  pro- 
vide a  free  and  open  market.  He  at 
once  declared  that  unless  he  was  assured 
that  the  stock  would  be  allowed  to  re- 
main on  the  list  and  that  no  action  would  i 
be  taken  in  respect  thereto,  he  would  not  " 
settle  for  $500  and  that  his  settling  price 
might  be  $1,000  or  more.  The  Business 
Conduct  Committee  and  the  Law  Com- 
mittee at  once  reported  the  facts  to  the 
Governing  Committee,  and  the  Governing 
Committee  by  unanimous  action  adopted 
the  resolution  suspending  dealings  in 
Stutz  Motor  stock."  (Ibid.) 

6.  The  effect  of  this  action  was  to 
prevent  the  rules  of  the  Exchange  from 
being  used  by  Ryan  to  make  the  "shorts" 
settle  under  penalty  of  "insolvency"  un- 
der the  rules  and  consequent  suspension 
from  membership  in  the  Exchange. 

On  April  5  Ryan  "at  his  own  request" 
(ibid.)  appeared  before  the  Low  Commit- 
tee of  the  Exchange  and  made  another 
offer  of  settlement,  which  settlement  was 
to  be  made  with  the  Exchange  Commit- 
tee and  enforced  by  the  Exchange  upon 
its  members.  The  Law  Committee  de- 
clined to  enter  into  negotiations  with  Mr. 
Ryan.  It  held  the  view  that  all  ques- 
tions arising  out  of  contracts  relating  to 
Stutz  Motor  stock  were  to  be  settled  be- 
tween the  parties  to  those  contracts 
.     .     .     (Ibid.) 

8.  The  issue  was  thus  fundamentally 
joined.  Ryan's  position  was  one  of  de- 
manding that  the  Exchange  Committee 
should  make  a  settlement  on  behalf  of 
the  "shorts" — and  enforce  this  settle- 
ment upon  them — and  that  thereafter 
Stutz  Motor  stock  should  remain  on  the 
"list."  The  Exchange  Committee's  posi- 
tion was  that  the  matter  was  one  which 
concerned  the  parties  to  the  contracts 
and  that  it  was  not  its  business  to  ar- 
range a  settlement  of  the  contracts;  also 
that  it  could  not  allow  its  rules  to  be 
made  the  means  of  enforcing  what  was 
admittedly  a  close  "corner";  also  that 
(Continued  on  page  526) 


May  15,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[525 


iRa€iKiBiBt\^MiliiibEjtS«MM^ 


Niag"ara's  Rival  /or 


Dependable  Po" 


Still 

Leading 


Professor  Crocker  and  Dr. 
Wheeler  were  the  first  to  apply 
generators  to  not  only  the  tele- 
phone and  telegraph — but  later 
to  the  wireless. 

In  1919  the  U.  S.  Govern- 
ment adopted  Crocker-Wheeler 
Motor  Generators  for  wireless 
in  conjunction  with  aeroplanes 
in  both  naval  and  land  use. 


^jMjLJ-^3.^^ 


President 


Crocker- Wheeler  Co. 

Ampere,  N.  J. 


New  York 

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526] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  53 


THE  HUDSON  COAL  CO. 


CELEBRATED 

LACKAWANNA 

THE  ARISTOCRAT  OF  ANTHRACITE 


1823 


1920 


HAS  NATURAL  QUALITIES  AND  MAN-MADE  REFINEMENT 


D.  F.  WILLIAMS 

Vice-President  and  General  Sales  Agent 


W.  F.  SHURTLEFF 

Assistant  General  Sales  Agent 


SCRANTON,  PA. 


(Conttmied  from  page  524) 
it  could  not  properly  admit  to  dealings  a 
stock  which  was  virtually  all  owned  by 
one  man,  for  there  could  not  be  a  free 
and  open  market  in  it  while  its  owner- 
ship was  thus  concentrated. 

The  entire  affair  was  thus  removed 
from  the  direct  purview  of  the  Exchange. 
After  nearly  three  weeks  of  manoeuvring, 
a  "voluntary  settlement"  was  reached  be- 
tween Ryan  and  the  "shorts,"  on  April 
24,  by  which  the  "comer"  was  dissolved 
and  the  episode  ended.  During  this 
period  Ryan  "resigned"  his  membership 
in  the  Exchange — his  "resignation"  has 
not  as  yet  been  acted  upon  by  the  Ex- 
change authorities^and  the  Stutz  Motor 
Company  withdrew  its  stock  from  the 
Exchange  list. 

Comment  upon  the  affair  has  naturally 
been  widespread.  Eliminating  from  the 
discussion  everything  but  the  facts,  it 
is  interesting  to  note  the  principles  in- 
volved and  to  test  in  the  light  of  those 
principles  the  propriety  of  the  course  of 
action  followed  by  the  Exchange.  The 
case  is  interesting  because  of  its  unique 
character.  There  have  been  "comers" 
in  the  past,  some  of  which  (as  in  1901) 
have  developed  accidentally  and  some  of 
which  have  been  carefully  engineered. 
But  the  Stutz  case  is  the  first  wherein 
an  absolutely  "close  corner"  has  been 
brought  officially  to  the  attention  of  the 
Exchange  authorities  and  offered  to  them 
for  adjudication  at  an  early  stage  of  the 
operation.  The  important  questions  are : 
Did  the  Exchange  authorities  take  proper 
action?   What  principles  are  involved? 

First  as  to  Stock  Exchange  rules: 
These  rules  require  that  stock  which  is 
sold  shall  be  delivered  on  the  following 
day  before  2:15  p.m.,  that  if  it  be  not 
delivered  by  the  sellet  to  the  purchaser 
before  that  time,  it  may  be  publicly 
"bought  in  under  the  rules"  by  the  pur- 
chaser for  account  of  the  seller  and  that 
failure  on  the  part  of  the  seller  to  de- 
liver stock  due,  or  to  pay  for  stock  so 
"bought  in,"  is  an  act  of  insolvency  which 
involves  suspension  of  membership  on 
the  part  of  the  defaulter.  Also  under 
the  rules  stock  may  be  borrowed  and 
must  be  returned  to  the  lender  upran  de- 
mand made  by  him  upon  the  borrower, 
and  if  not  so  returned  may  be  "bought 
in  under  the  rules,"  as  in  the  case  above 
described,  with  precisely  the  same  con- 
sequences. Failure  to  "return"  stock  or 
to  pay  for  stock  "bought  in  under  the 
rules"  by  the  lender  is  an  act  of  in- 
solvency involving  suspension  of  mem- , 
bership. 

WTien  admission  was  made  to  the  Busi- 
ness Conduct  Committee  of  a  "comer" 
in  Stutz  stock,  the  "shorts"  were  borrow- 
ing stock  from  the  Ryan  group,  who,  as 
above  stated,  held  110,000  shares  and 
"contracts,"  as  against  only  100,000 
shares  actually  in  existence.  Thus  the 
"shorts"  were  subject  to  demand  at  any 


May  15,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[527 


time  for  return  of  stock  under  penalty 
of  having  the  same  "bought  in  under  the 
rules,"  and  the  only  source  of  supply  for 
the  stock  was  the  group  from  whom  they 
were  borrowing.  This  group  was  thus 
in  a  position  where  it  could  compel  the 
"shorts"  under  the  rules  of  the  Exchange 
to  "cover"  their  commitments  at  any 
price  it  chose  to  dictate,  for  it  alone  was 
in  a  position  to  supply  stock  at  any 
price. 

Confronted  with  this  situation,  what 
course  should  the  Exchange  authorities 
have  pursued  in  justice  to  all  parties  con- 
cerned ? 

The  position  of  the  Ryan  group  and 
the  "shorts"  was,  in  fact,  a  case  of  a 
claim  by  the  former  for  damages  from 
the  latter  for  non-performance  of  a  con- 
tract which  was  in  effect  impossible  of 
performance.  Enforcement  of  the  "buy- 
ing in"  rule  would  enable  the  Ryan  group 
S  to  assess  the  amount  of  the  damages  and 
'  collect  them  under  penalty  of  insolvency 
and  suspension  from  membership  in  the 
Exchange.  For  stock  ordered  "bought  in" 
by  the  Ryan  group  for  account  of  the 
"shorts"  could  be  supplied  only  by  that 
group  at  such  price  as  it  might  choose 
to  exact,  and  the  price  exacted  would 
'  determine  the  damages  to  be  collected. 
This  would  clearly  be  an  inequitable 
method  of  settling  the  matter.  Moreover, 
there  were  open  other  ways  whereby 
the  rights  of  all  parties  were  conserved 
'  and  by  which  they  could  be  appraised  and 
I  determined.  Failing  settlement  by  volun- 
:  tary  agreement  between  them,  there  were 
available  the  courts  of  law  whose  com- 
petence in  the  matter  of  assessing  dam- 
ages for  non-fulfillment  of  contract  was 
complete  and  unquestionable.  With- 
drawal by  the  Exchange  of  the  use  of 
its  machinery  by  the  Ryan  group  would 
in  no  way  prejudice  the  rights  of  that 
group,  whereas  failure  to  withdraw  that 
machinery  might  gravely  prejudice  the 
rights  of  the  "shorts." 

The  Exchange  Committee's  course  was 
therefore  clear,  and  in  the  main  they  fol- 
lowed it.  At  the  first  meeting  between 
the  Business  Conduct  Committee  and 
Ryan  it  appears  (from  the  official  state- 
ment of  the  Exchange  itself  quoted 
above)  that  Ryan  was  told  that  he  must 
take  steps  to  end  the  corner,  and  it  ap- 
pears (from  a  statement  by  Ryan  issued 
April  12)  that  they  requested  Ryan  to 
continue  lending  the  stock  pending  such 
steps — the  "buying  in"  process  thus  be- 
ing temporarily  excluded.  Finally,  on 
March  31,  no  settlement  having  been 
effected,  the  Board  of  Governors  of  the 
Exchange  threw  the  whole  matter  out- 
side the  purview  of  the  rules  of  the  Ex- 
change, leaving  it  to  be  adjusted  either 
by  voluntary  agreement  or  by  due  process 
of  law.  Three  weeks  later  the  affair  was 
adjusted  by  agreement. 

That  the  Exchange  acted  in  accord 
with  the  principles  governing  the  case 


is  clear,  and  it  may  be  laid  down  as  a 
general  rule  that  in  the  case  of  a  "cor- 
ner" it  is  the  duty  of  the  Exchange — 
and  of  all  similar  bodies — at  once  to 
exclude  the  whole  affair  from  its  juris- 
diction. Whatever  ground  there  is  for 
criticism  of  the  Exchange  in  connection 
with  the  Stutz  case  is  to  be  found  in  the 
fact  that  the  suspension  of  all  dealing.s 
in  Stutz  stock  which  was  ordered  on 
March  31  was  not  ordered  on  the  day 
when  Ryan  first  admitted  to  the  Busi- 
ness Conduct  Committee  that  there  was 
a  comer  in  the  stock.  It  is  true  that 
extenuating  circumstances  may  fairly  be 
urged;  the  case  was  without  precedent 
and  the  desire  of  all  parties  to  accom- 
modate a  new  and  difficult  situation  was 
natural;  besides,  it  was  stipulated  that 
stock  was  to  be  lent  and  stock  loans  were 
not  to  be  called.  Nevertheless,  strict 
construction  of  the  principle  in  the  case 
would  have  required  immediate  suspen- 
sion of  all  dealings  so  far  as  Stock  Ex- 
change rules  were  concerned.  While  the 
delay  may  be  reasonably  excused  it  can 
not  be  justified  in  principle.  With  this 
exception  the  Exchange  must  be  ad- 
mitted to  have  handled  the  matter  cor- 
rectly and  in  full  accord  with  equity. 

Two  other  points  may  be  noted  in  con- 
nection with  the  Stutz  corner.  One  con- 
cerns the  re-admission  to  the  Exchange 
"list"  of  Stutz  stock.  The  oth^r  con- 
cerns the  process  of  "short  selling"  in 


general.  So  long  as  any  stock  is  owned 
entirely  by  a  single  individual  or  a  very 
few  individuals  it  is  not  susceptible  of 
a  "free  and  open  market."  Presumably 
the  ownership  of  Stutz  Motor  stock  is 
to-day  substantially  as  it  was  when  the 
corner  was  disclosed,  viz.  in  the  hands 
of  the  "Ryan  group."  No  stock  thus 
controlled  is  eligible  for  "listing"  on 
the  Exchange,  nor  should  it  be  eligible 
for  listing  upon  any  Exchange  which 
aims  at  maintaining  a  free  and  open 
market  for  securities  dealt  in  on  its 
"floor."  The  reasons  are  obvious  and 
need  not  be  recited. 

The  process  of  "short  selling"  (which 
involves  the  "borrowing  and  lending  of 
stocks")  is  very  imperfectly  understood 
by  those  who  have  not  had  access  to  the 
machinery  of  the  operation.  Its  essence 
is  in  the  "borrowing"  process.  The  im- 
portant thing  to  note  about  it  is  that 
every  "short  sale"  brings  into  existence 
a  "contract"  which  can  only  be  fulfilled 
by  a  purchase  of  stock  from  someone 
who  has  it  and  is  willing  to  sell  it.  Sup- 
pose that  in  the  case  of  a  given  com- 
pany there  are  1,000,000  shares  outstand- 
ing, owned  by  20,000  stockholders.  A 
speculator  sells  one  hundred  shares 
"short"  which  is  bought  by  someone. 
The  total  amount  of  stock  and  contracts 
now  in  existence  is  1,000,100  shares,  or 
100  shares  more  than  there  are  actually 
(Continued  on  page  528) 


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THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  oii 


THE  NEW  YORK 
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issued,  and  there  are  20,001  holders.  The 
"short  seller"  must  borrow  from  some- 
one 100  shares  to  make  good  his  con- 
tract of  sale.  He  now  owes  100  shares 
of  stock  at  a  fixed  price  to  a  third  party. 
Suppose  that,  instead  of  20,001  holders 
of  the  stock  and  contracts,  there  were 
only  one;  the  "short  seller"  would  then 
be  "cornered"  and  would  have  to  buy 
from  the  man  to  whom  he  owed  stock, 
the  stock  necessary  to  comply  with  the 
loan.  Thus  in  every  "short  sale"  of  stock 
there  is,  mathematically,  an  "overissue" 
of  stock  and  there  is,  theoretically,  a 
possibility  of  a  "corner."  The  reason 
why  "short  selling"  is  feasible  and  the 
reason  why  "corners"  are  so  rare  is  sim- 
ply the  fact  that  the  stocks  dealt  in  on 
the  Exchange  are  mostly  scattered  in 
ownership  so  that  it  is  almost  always 
possible  to  borrow  stock  or  to  buy  it. 
This  is  what  is  meant  by  a  "free  and 
open"  market. 
One  concluding  reflection  suggests  itself. 
The  Stutz  episode  aroused  in  some  quar- 
ters a  demand  for  "incorporation"  of 
the  Exchange.  An  "incorporated"  Ex- 
change could  not  have  dealt  with  the  mat- 
ter as  it  was  dealt  with  by  the  New 
York  Stock  Exchange.  It  does  not  re- 
quire much  imagination  to  picture  the 
series  of  injunctions,  demurrers,  and  the 
like  which  would  have  been  brought  into 
play  in  such  a  case  had  the  governing 
powers  of  the  Exchange  authorities  been 
subject  to  court  review,  and  the  pro- 
longed confusion  that  would  have  re- 
sulted. It  was  precisely  the  possession 
of  plenary  power  by  the  governors  of 
the  Exchange  that  enabled  the  matter 
to  be  dealt  with  quickly,  and,  in  the 
main,  upon  right  lines. 

T.  F.  W. 

Books  and  the  News 

America  and  England 

ONE  of  the  most  important  books  of 
the  spring  is  Owen  Wister's  "A 
Straight  Deal,  or  The  Ancient  Grudge" 
(Macmillan,  1920).  It  is  about  Anglo- 
American  relations,  and  it  sets  forth 
directly  and  emphatically  that  if  we  wish 
peace  to  prevail,  and  civilization,  as 
Americans  understand  it,  to  advance,  we 
will,  both  here  and  in  England,  con- 
tinue to  cultivate  friendship  between  the 
United  States  and  Great  Britain.  But 
if  Americans  prefer  the  triumph  of  Sinn 
Fein,  and  the  interests  of  Germans  and 
pro-Germans  to  the  peace  of  the  world, 
they  will  allow  themselves  to  be  in- 
fluenced by  the  Sinn  Fein-German  propa- 
ganda, will  nurse  ancient  grudges,  and 
credit  all  the  slanders  and  false  rumors 
set  afloat  against  England  by  these 
allies  of  the  Hun. 

These  books  may  be  used  to  counter- 
act falsehood.    This  is  what  an  English- 


man has  written  about  the  old  quarrel: 
"The  American  Revolution"  (Longmans, 
1899),  by  Sir  George  Otto  Trevelyan. 
And  this  by  an  American  on  English 
government:  "The  Government  of  Eng-  " 
land"  (Macmillan,  1912),  by  A.  Lawrence 
Lowell.  An  English  writer  on  the  same 
subject:  Sidney  Low's  "The  Governance 
of  England"  (Putnam,  1914).  A  soldier 
of  the  British  Army  wrote  about  the 
American  Expeditionary  Force  in  "The 
Last  Million"  (Houghton,  1919),  by  Ian 
Hay.  An  Englishman  describes  the  United 
States  in  "The  Future  in  America"  (Har- 
per, 1906),  by  H.  G.  Wells.  Two  books 
about  England:  "The  Lighter  Side  of 
English  Life"  (Foulis,  1913),  by  F. 
Frankfort  Moore,  and  "Our  English 
Cousins"  (Harper,  1894),  by  Richard 
Harding  Davis. 

For  the  relations  between  the  two 
countries:  Matthew  P.  Andrews's  "A 
Heritage  of  Freedom"  (Doran,  1918), 
and  Harry  H.  Powers's  "America  and 
Britain"  (Macmillan,  1918). 

Four  informal  and  readable  books  are 
Ian  Hay's  "Getting  Together"  (Double- 
day,  1917),  Price  Collier's  "England  and 
the  English  from  an  American  Point  of 
View"  (Scribner,  1910),  Frederick  De 
Sumichrast's  "Americans  and  Britons" 
(Appleton,  1914),  and  J.  G.  Cook's  "An- 
glophobia"  (Four  Seas  Co.,  1919). 

Four  books  about  the  historical  and 
political  events  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  world 
are:  William  A.  Dunning's  "The  British 
Empire  and  the  United  States"  (Scrib- 
ner, 1914),  Sinclair  Kennedy's  "The 
Pan-Angles"  (Longmans,  1914),  Andrew 
C.  McLaughlin's  "America  and  Britain" 
(Dutton,  1919),  and  Henry  Cabot 
Lodge's  "One  Hundred  Years  of  Peace" 
(Macmillan,  1913). 

Edmund  Lester  Pearson 

Books  Received 

FICTION 

Mix,  Jennie  I.  At  Fame's  Gateway.  Holt. 
$1.75  net. 

Morris,  E.  B.  The  Cresting  Wave.  Penn 
Publishing  Co. 

Van  Vorst,  Marie.  Fairfax  and  His  Pride. 
Small,  Maynard.    $1.75  net. 

The  Best  Short  Stories  of  1919,  and  the 
Yearbook  of  the  American  Short  Story. 
Edited  by  Eugene  J.  O'Brien.  Small,  May- 
nard. 

GOVERNMENT  AND  ECONOMICS 

Atwood,  Harry  F.     Back  to  the  Repu: 
Sixth  edition.     Laird  &  Lee. 

Bunau-Varilla,  Philippe.  The  Great  Adven- 
ture of  Panama.     Doubleday,  Page. 

Butler,  Nicholas  Murray.  Is  America  Worth 
Saving?   Scribner.     $2  net. 

Dawson,  Richard.  Red  Terror  and  Green. 
Dutton. 

Falkenhayn,  Erick  von.  The  German  Gen- 
eral Staff,  and  Its  Decisions.  1914-1916. 
Dodd,  Mead. 

Gaston,  Herbert  E.  The  Nonpartisan 
League.     Harcourt,  Brace  &  Howe. 

Gibbons,  Herbert  A.  France  and  Ourselves 
Century. 

Harrison,  Austin.     Before  and  Now.    Lane 


4 


•^ 


THE  REVIEW 


Vol.  2,  No.  54 


New  York,  Saturday,  May  22,  1920 


FIFTEEN  CENTS 


Contents 


Brief  Comment 

Editorial  Articles: 

America's  Duty 
Treaty  Manoeuvres 
Our  Merchant  Marine 
The  Socialist  Convention 
The  Turkish  Treaty 


529 

532 
532 
533 
534 

535 


The  Plot  Against  Mexico.     By  W.  J. 

Ghent  536 

Hiram  W.  Johnson  in  Fact  and  Fancy. 

By  Jerome  Landfield  537 

The   Military   Coup   in  Germany.     By 

Dr.  Paul  Rohrbach  540 

Switzerland    and    the    League    of    Na- 
tions.    By  Ottfried  Nippold  541 
Correspondence  542 
Book  Reviews: 
The  Beginnings  of  Modern  Italy         544 
Japanese  Rule  in  Korea  545 
The  Puzzle  of  National  Character        546 
True  Stories                                                 547 
The  Run  of  the  Shelves                               548 
My  Friend  the  Print  Seller.     By  Law- 
rence Williams                                         550 
Certificate  Borrowing  and  the  Floating 

Debt.    By  Jacob  H.  Hollander  552 

Drama: 
Sothern  and  Marlowe  at  the  Shubert 
Theatre.    By  O.  W.  Firkins  554 

Books  and  the  News: 
Living  Expenses.    By  Edmund  Les- 
ter Pearson  556 


1M"R.  HOOVER  has  completely  dis- 
^^  posed  of  Senator  Johnson's  sneer 
concerning  his  position  on  the  treaty. 
The  Senator  had  spoken  of  Mr. 
Hoover's  "recent  conversion  to  the  so- 
called  Lodge  reservations,  contempo- 
raneous with  his  Republican  candi- 
dacy," and  had  thought  fit  to  refer 
to  it  as  "evidence  of  the  flexibility 
and  elasticity  of  a  great  statesman's 
mind."  Not  a  very  brilliant  bit  of 
irony,  at  the  best ;  and  it  turns  out  to 
be  entirely  without  foundation,  for 
Mr.  Hoover  wrote  a  letter  to  the 
President  last  November,  urging  him 
to  accept  the  Lodge  reservations  so  as 
to  avoid  "the  great  dangers  of  voting 
the  treaty  out."  He  felt,  as  so  many 
other  earnest  advocates  of  the  League 
felt,  that  the  reservations,  some  of 
which  he  objected  to,  and  others  of 
which  he  regarded  as  "constructive, 
particularly  in  rendering  it  clear  that 
the  war  power  must  be  invoked  by 


Congress,"  would  not  prevent  the  ac- 
complishment of  the  great  object  of 
the  League.  "The  world  issues,"  said 
Mr.  Hoover,  "are  so  great  as  not  to 
warrant  the  risks  involved  in  delay 
in  getting  it  into  service,  in  the  hope 
of  procuring  a  few  per  cent,  more 
ideal  structure."  In  the  homely 
phrase  at  the  close,  we  seem  to  hear 
the  practical  engineer  speaking;  and 
all  the  way  through  we  see  the  words 
of  an  honest  man  anxious  for  a  great 
public  object,  and  not  of  a  seeker  for 
the  Presidency  or  any  other  office. 
Whatever  criticisms  may  be  made  of 
Mr.  Hoover,  the  very  last  that  will 
have  any  chance  to  stick  are  those 
which  impugn  his  sincerity,  or  which 
charge  him  with  going  out  of  his 
way  for  the  sake  of  capturing  the 
nomination. 

T^HE  New  Republic,  having  helped 
-'■  to  give  currency  to  a  reported  ut- 
terance of  General  Wood's,  of  such 
preposterously  violent  character  as  to 
be  calculated  to  do  him  great  injury 
in  the  minds  of  all  sensible  persons, 
now  sets  forth  with  great  fullness  the 
story  of  its  acceptance  of  that  report. 
The  article  closes  with  the  following 
words : 

The  New  Republic  is,  of  course,  glad  to  note 
General  Wood's  disavowal  of  such  lawless 
statements.  It  regrets  that  General  Wood  was 
not  fairly  quoted  by  the  correspondent  who 
was  present  at  the  address  and  it  regrets  hav- 
ing given  an  added  circulation  to  an  inaccurate 
report, 

which  sounds  like  a  fairly  good  ap- 
proximation to  an  apology,  but  the 
heading  of  the  article  is  "Was  Gen- 
eral Wood  Misquoted?"  which  makes 
the  thing  as  a  whole  not  much  more 
like  a  gentleman's  apology  than  2.75 
beer  is  like  real  beer.  It  appears  that 
the  Ne^v  Republic  went  to  a  great  deal 
of  trouble — and,  one  would  infer,  of 
expense,  too,  for  money  is  plentiful 
in  that  office — in  the  endeavor  to  find 
out  whether  the  report,  originally 
found  in  the  New  York  American, 


was  correct;  with  the  result  that 
finally  the  obnoxious  passage  was 
found  in  a  special  dispatch  from  Fort 
Collins  to  the  Rocky  Mountain  News. 
In  this.  General  Wood  was  reported 
as  saying: 

My  motto  for  the  Reds  is  S.O.S.— ship  or 
shoot.  I  believe  that  we  should  place  them  all 
on  ships  of  stone,  with  sails  of  lead  and  that 
their  first  stopping  place  should  be  hell. 

In  response  to  a  recent  inquiry  from 
a  reader  of  the  New  Republic,  Gen- 
eral Wood  states  that  he  never  said 
anything  of  the  kind  as  in  any  way 
expressing  his  own  view,  but  was 
quoting  what  Dr.  John  Wesley  Hill 
had  said,  as  showing  the  bitterness 
that  had  been  aroused  against  the 
Reds.  His  own  views,  the  General 
adds,  have  been  very  often  expressed 
as  follows: 

Aliens  who  are  avowed  enemies  of  our  gov- 
ernment and  who  seek  to  pull  down  our  insti- 
tutions, if  found  guilty,  after  a  fair  trial, 
should  be  sent  to  their  own  country.  I  have 
always  emphasized  very  strongly  that  there 
should  be  no  short-cut  or  irregular  methods; 
that  they  are  entitled  to  full  and  fair  trial  be- 
fore a  court  of  competent  jurisdiction. 

General  Wood's  long  record  of  honor- 
able public  service  has  been  notable, 
among  other  things,  for  dignity  and 
self-control,  sometimes  under  very 
trying  circumstances.  The  antecedent 
improbability,  therefore,  of  his  hav- 
ing uttered  a  sentiment  like  that 
ascribed  to  him  in  the  Fort  Collins 
dispatch  should  have  made  the  editors 
of  the  New  Republic  unwilling  to  ac- 
cept its  authenticity  without  the  most 
thorough  confirmation.  One  obvious 
means  of  testing  its  accuracy,  that  of 
writing  to  General  Wood  himself, 
does  not  seem  to  have  occurred  to 
them  as  worth  while;  and  now  when 
they  do  get  his  denial,  they  regard 
the  statement  of  an  unknown  re- 
porter for  the  Rocky  Mountain  News 
— very  possibly  the  same  man  who 
sent  the  report  to  Hearst — as  only  a 
shade  less  trustworthy  than  the  Gen- 
eral's denial.  Else  why  the  interroga- 
tion in  the  heading?     And  why  the 


530] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  54 


very  carefully  stinted  language  of  the 
apology?  We  fancy  that  the  New 
Republic  is  still  under  the  influence 
of  its  "will  to  believe,"  and  indeed 
that  it  expects  its  readers  to  do 
likewise. 

W7"ITH  frankness  and  humility 
"  worthy  of  a  Confucian  sage  a 
Mexican  official  of  the  latest  revolu- 
tion confesses  the  sins  of  his  dis- 
tracted country  and  asks  the  world 
to  have  patience  yet  a  little.  As- 
suredly, serior,  a  world  of  patience; 
the  United  States  most  of  all,  which 
has  no  wish  for  another  Ireland  on 
its  hands,  and  has  grown  a  little  wary 
of  attempting  to  pick  a  winner  in  the 
Mexican  free-for-all.  It  is  some  com- 
fort, at  any  rate,  that  the  Mexi- 
cans can  still  laugh — laugh  at  "Tea 
Flower"  Bonillas  and  his  bad  Span- 
ish, laugh  at  Don  Venustiano,  him- 
self chuckling  into  Chironian  whisk- 
ers over  the  success  of  his  splendid 
young  protege,  Juanito  Barragan. 
Senor  Blasco-Ibanez  does  us  a  serv- 
ice; he  humanizes  the  Mexicans.  Let 
us  laugh  with  him,  and  them ;  it  is  a 
great  aid  to  patience. 

'T'HE  career  of  Levi  P.  Morton,  dead 
■'■  at  ninety-six,  is  full  of  the  flavor 
of  America.  A  clerk  in  country 
stores,  dry-goods  merchant,  banker. 
Congressman,  Ambassador,  Vice- 
President,  country  gentleman,  and 
man  of  the  world,  he  might  have  be- 
gun amid  surroundings  even  more 
humble  than  the  parsonage  in  which 
he  was  bom,  and  he  might,  if  he  had 
been  a  man  of  genius  instead  of  a  man 
of  sterling  American  ability,  have 
gone  farther  along  the  road  whose 
end  is  history.  The  significance  of 
his  career  lies  in  its  balance — he  was 
not  merely  a  politician  and  not  merely 
a  man  of  business — and  in  the  well- 
nigh  perfect  adjustment  which  he 
was  able  to  establish  between  his 
abilities  and  his  opportunities.  He 
did  not  attempt  what  he  could  not  do, 
but  what  he  did  attempt  he  carried 
through  with  a  vitality  that  even 
played  Old  Time  himself  as  good  a 
match  as  he  often  meets  with.  Withal, 
he  was  never  too  busy  to  live.  There 
are  other  ways  of  living  than  his, 
but  for  most  people,  on  whatever 
scale  they  can  manage  it,  the  life  he 


lived  is  at  once  a  model  and  an  in- 
spiration. 

TT  would  seem  as  if  Signor  Nitti 
•■■  played  a  skillful  game  when,  on 
May  11,  he  made  the  life  of  the  Cab- 
inet dependent  on  the  rejection  of 
the  Socialist  motion  regarding  the  in- 
cidents which  had  recently  occurred 
among  the  personnel  of  the  Postal 
and  Telegraph  services.  He  thus  of- 
fered to  the  opponents  of  his  foreign 
policy  a  chance  of  defeating  him  on 
a  minor  question  of  internal  admin- 
istration, avoiding  thereby  a  definite 
condemnation  of  his  activities  as  a 
member  of  the  Supreme  Council.  His 
forced  retirement  in  consequence  of 
the  Popular  party  voting  with  the 
Socialists  brought  on  a  political  crisis 
which  only  served  to  demonstrate  his 
indispensableness  to  the  country. 
For  neither  the  Catholics  nor  the  So- 
cialists, who,  having  forced  the  crisis, 
were  responsible  for  its  solution, 
were  able  or  willing  to  form  a  new 
Government.  Though  allied  in  op- 
position against  Nitti,  they  refused 
to  join  hands  in  constructive  politics, 
and  no  party  in  the  Italian  Chamber 
is  sufficiently  strong  to  become  re- 
sponsible for  the  Government  en- 
tirely on  its  own  hook.  Within  a 
week  from  the  date  of  his  resigna- 
tion, Nitti  had  the  satisfaction  of  be- 
ing requested  by  the  King  to  form 
a  new  Ministry.  He  will  return  con- 
siderably stronger  for  this  short  re- 
tirement. 

fpHE  Cabinet  of  M.  Millerand  has 
■'■  requested  the  Minister  of  Justice 
to  open  legal  proceedings  against  the 
General  Federation  of  Labor  with  a 
view  to  its  dissolution,  the  charge 
being  that  it  has  gone  beyond  the 
limits  of  its  lawful  activity,  which  is 
the  defense  of  economic  interests, 
corporate  and  professional.  Its 
avowed  object  in  calling  the  strike 
was  to  enforce  upon  the  country, 
against  the  wishes  of  the  people  as 
expressed  in  the  last  Parliamentary 
elections,  a  hazardous  experiment  in 
social  reform  desired  by  a  minority 
of  workers  only.  In  reply  to  the  Gov- 
ernment's decision,  the  Federation 
has  issued  a  manifesto  which  tries  to 
parry  the  blow  by  representing  it  to 
the  workers  as  an  act  of  despair  of 


the  -Cabinet  and  an  admission  on  its 
part  of  the  strength  of  the  movement. 
Leon  Jouhaux,  in  taking  that  stand, 
puts  a  fair  face  on  a  foul  matter.  His , 
cause  is  evidently  lost,  and  the  move 
of  M.  Millerand  is  more  likely  to  be 
a  symptom  of  its  collapse,  offering 
the  Government  an  opportunity  of 
striking  a  decisive  blow  at  his  turbu- 
lent organization. 

T  ABOR  shortage,  combined  with  the 
-'-'  high  price  of  seed,  is  expected  to 
result  in  a  shrinkage  of  five  per  cent, 
in  the  acreage  planted  to  potatoes  this 
season,  according  to  reports  from  the  , 
field  agents  of  the  United  States  Bu- 
reau of  Markets.  There  are  few  I 
products  of  the  soil  in  which  average 
results  fall  farther  below  demon- 
strated possibilities  than  in  potatoes. 
Under  existing  circumstances,  it 
would  seem  to  be  the  duty,  or  per- 
haps we  should  say  the  welcome  op- 
portunity, of  the  Department  of 
Agriculture  at  Washington,  and  all 
State  agencies  of  similar  purpose,  to 
spread  to  the  utmost  a  knowledge  of 
modern  methods  of  increasing  the 
potato  yield  and  protecting  it  against 
its  various  enemies.  It  is  entirely 
possible  that  a  five  per  cent,  decrease 
in  acreage  may  be  followed  by  a  de- 
cided increase  in  production,  and  that, 
too,  with  a  very  slight  relative  in- 
crease in  labor. 

'T^HERE  is  real  pleasure  in  the  dis- 
■*-    covery  of  at  least  one  set  of  work- 
men   who    are    willing    to    combine 
shorter  hours  with  undiminished  pro- 
duction.      The     "congress"     of    the 
American  Multigraph    Company,  at 
Cleveland,   pledged   the    workers  to 
maintain  the  rate  of  production  at  the 
ten-hour   standard    if   the   company 
would  grant  the  nine-hour  day.   The| 
concession  was  made,  in  October  oi 
last  year,  and  the  pledge  was  faith- 
fully carried  out.    The  workmen  havej 
again  come  forward  with  a  requesi 
(not  a  demand)    for  an  eight-houi 
day,  pledging  themselves  to  a  peace- 
able return  to  the  nine-hour  systen 
in  case  of  failure  to  maintain  an  un- 
diminished rate  of  production.    Pre 
paratory  to  the  request,  a  committed 
appointed  by  the  "congress"  had  gon( 
carefully  over  the  data  of  productior 
and   discovered  possible  changes  o 


,^Jay  22,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[531 


method  by  which  the  rate  of  produc- 
tion might  be  increased.  Here  ap- 
pears to  be  a  case  in  which  workmen 
are  cooperating  with  their  employers 
on  the  plane  of  mutual  confidence  and 
common  sense,  rather  than  passion 
and  distrust. 

THAT  an  army  officer  ought  never 
to  open  his  mouth  on  social  or 
industrial  questions  is  a  stock  con- 
vention in  every  radical  editorial 
sanctum.  These  questions  are  beyond 
his  ken ;  he  can  not,  in  the  nature  of 
things,  know  anything  about  them; 
and  the  only  service  he  renders, 
when  he  speaks  of  them,  is  to  furnish 
hilarity  for  gods  and  men.  And  yet 
— not  always.  For  when  he  hap- 
pens to  say  something  that  seems  to 
confirm  a  radical  attitude  on  a  par- 
ticular matter  he  becomes  all  at  once 
a  perspicacious,  shrewd,  trained,  and 
experienced  observer  whose  word  is 
authoritative.  Take,  for  instance, 
Major-General  Graves  and  his  re- 
ported saying  that  98  per  cent,  of 
the  people  in  Siberia  favor  the  Bol- 
sheviki.  On  the  basis  of  the  returns, 
with  a  few  precincts  still  missing,  we 
can  safely  affirm  that  not  a  single 
radical,  liberal,  or  other  sort  of  in- 
surgent periodical  in  the  United 
States  has  failed  to  print  this  reputed 
saying,  with  more  or  less  exultant 
indorsement  of  both  speech  and 
speaker.  And  yet  every  person  in- 
formed about  Siberia  knows  that  the 
utterance  can  not  possibly  be  true. 
No  matter  how  often  and  how 
diversely  the  popular  sentiment  has 
shifted,  and  no  matter  how  demo- 
cratic, radical,  or  revolutionary  it 
may  at  any  time  have  been,  or  may 
now  be,  there  is  no  credible  evidence 
that  it  is  or  has  been  pro-Bolshevik. 
At  one  time  it  supported  Kolchak, 
and  at  a  later  time  it  turned  violently 
against  him.  But  the  shift  was  not 
to  Bolshevism;  it  was  a  reassertion, 
in  large  measure  at  least,  of  anti- 
Bolshevik  democracy.  In  the  mani- 
festo of  J.  Jaxushew,  president  of  the 
Siberian  Regional  Duma,  issued  last 
September,  though  Kolchak  is  bitterly 
denounced,  the  Bolsheviki  are  still 
"the  enemy  at  the  gates,"  whom  a 
year  before  the  "peasants  had  chased 
out  of  the  country."    There  is  no  con- 


clusive evidence  that  the  Bolsheviki 
are  in  any  greater  favor  in  Siberia 
now  than  they  were  then. 

'T'HERE   is  nothing  the  insurgent 


1 


editor,  so    eagerly    gulps    as    a 


seeming  disclosure.  He  knows  what 
his  readers  want,  and  it  is  his  busi- 
ness to  supply  them.  They  want  to 
hear  about  the  derelictions  of  the 
great  covenants  deviously  arrived  at, 
whispers  behind  locked  doors,  dark 
and  mysterious  origins  of  familiar 
things.  To  many  of  them  the  prob- 
able and  the  preposterous  are  one, 
and  if  the  disclosure  turns  out  to  be 
merely  a  mare's  nest  there's  no  loss : 
it  might  just  as  well  have  been  true, 
and  anyhow  it  has  furnished  its  thrill. 
These  evils  occur  under  capitalism; 
therefore  they  couldn't  possibly  occur 
under  some  other  "ism."  Count 
Czernin's  declaration  that  "Italian 
diplomacy  dominated  the  affairs  of 
the  Entente  during  the  war,"  moves 
the  New  Republic  to  the  sage  com- 
ment: "That  is  something  persons 
outside  of  the  diplomatic  game  never 
suspected,  but  if  one  puts  together 
such  bits  of  evidence  as  cropped  up 
and  passed  unnoticed,  Czernin's  state- 
ment looks  plausible."  Of  course  it 
looks  plausible.  To  the  insurgent  edi- 
tor how  else  could  it  look?  If  it  had 
read  that  the  sinking  of  the  Lusitania 
was  caused  by  the  devilish  machina- 
tions of  the  French  holders  of  Rus- 
sian bonds,  or  that  the  disaster  of 
Caporetto  was  brought  about  through 
the  dickerings  of  A.  Mitchell  Palmer 
with  Enver  Pasha  it  would  have 
looked  equally  plausible. 

"TT  is  a  great  mistake,"  said  Presi- 
-*•  dent  Masaryk,  President  of  the 
Czecho-Slovak  Republic,  in  his  birth- 
day address  to  the  National  Assem- 
bly, "to  imagine  that  the  social  revo- 
lution may  be  effected  by  the  subjuga- 
tion of  the  so-called  bourgeoisie.  Vio- 
lence, here,  too,  would  fail  in  its  pur- 
pose ;  violence  would  only  make  slaves, 
and  a  slave  never  and  nowhere  works 
willingly  and  efficiently."  Yet  this 
threatened  violence  and  compulsion 
is  an  inextricable  part  of  almost  all 
radical  programmes  for  human  up- 
lift, and  in  the  case  of  the  two  tem- 
porarily   successful    revolutions,    in 


Russia  and  Hungary,  the  threat  was 
instantly  translated  into  actuality. 
The  purpose  to  impose  a  rule  of  force 
on  the  unwilling  is  explicit  in  al- 
most all  revolutionary  formulae  and 
propaganda.  The  phraseology  is  that 
of  compulsive  power.  The  revolution- 
ists of  all  schools  intend  to  "seize 
and  hold,"  to  establish  the  "dictator- 
ship of  the  proletariat,"  to  enforce 
"proletarian  discipline,"  to  "subju- 
gate the  bourgeoisie,"  and  to  "crush 
out  opposition."  All  of  these  phrases 
are  expressions  of  the  primitive  de- 
light that  the  revolutionist  finds  in 
the  contemplation  of  a  state  of  things 
in  which  he  and  his  group  will  have 
power  to  compel  others  to  obedience. - 
It  does  not  matter  that  the  revolu- 
tionist delusively  calls  himself  a 
pacifist,  a  democrat,  an  equalitarian, 
or  any  one  of  a  dozen  other  terms 
that  imply  a  disapproval  of  force  and 
a  hope  for  the  rule  of  reason  and 
persuasion.  All  this  is  for  his  more 
remote  Utopia ;  what  inspires  him  for 
the  immediate  future  is  the  vision  of 
himself  and  his  fellows  exercising  un- 
limited powers  against  the  rest  of 
mankind. 

TN  "Neophilologus,"  a  Dutch  quar- 
■■-  terly  devoted  to  the  study  of  mod- 
ern languages,  we  find  the  reproduc- 
tion of  a  curious  portrait  of  Milton, 
which  has  come  to  light  in  Amster- 
dam. The  "Ryksmuseum"  possesses 
a  collection  of  lacquered  ware  por- 
traits by  an  Eighteenth  Century  Jap- 
anese artist,  one  of  which  presents 
the  features  of  the  poet  as  we  know 
them  from  Faithorne's  engraving. 
The  regicide  has  mixed  with  unfa- 
miliar company  in  the  Japanese 
workshop,  for  the  rest  of  the  oval- 
shaped  miniatures  are  mostly  royal- 
ties: Frederick  II.  of  Prussia,  Jo- 
seph II.,  Gustavus  Adolphus  et  al. 
The  artist  paid  an  unconscious  trib- 
ute to  Time's  conciliatory  power.  It 
is  sad  to  think  that  the  intrusion  of 
journalism  and  the  teaching  of  gen- 
eral history  have  robbed  the  modern 
Japanese  of  that  delightful  ignorance 
which  might  cause  an  artist  ingen- 
iously to  unite  in  a  fraternal  series  of 
portraits  the  features  of  Mr.  Wilson, 
Clemenceau,  Wilhelm  von  Hohenzol- 
lern  and  Gabriele  d'Annunzio. 


532] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  54 


America's  Duty 

To  any  one  who  has  taken  the 
trouble  to  think  of  the  appalling 
situation  in  Central  Europe,  Mr. 
Davison's  moving  appeal  and  power- 
ful statement  of  facts  were  but  a  con- 
firmation of  what  one  already  knew 
and  already  felt.  But  the  appeal  and 
statement  have  centred  the  attention 
of  the  country  on  the  subject,  and  the 
response  which  the  nation  will  make, 
in  acts  not  in  words,  will  be  a  meas- 
ure of  its  quality,  a  test  alike  of  its 
heart  and  of  its  mind. 

There  is  no  use  in  mincing  matters 
about  it.  We  are  not  doing  our  duty 
as  human  beings,  and  we  are  not  do- 
ing our  duty  as  a  great  and  rich  and 
powerful  nation.  To  dispose  of  the 
matter  by  saying  that  "we  have 
troubles  of  our  own"  is  to  say  that, 
facing  the  most  stupendous  need  the 
world  has  ever  known,  we  are  unwill- 
ing to  lessen  by  a  little  our  extrava- 
gances and  luxuries,  in  order  to  lessen 
by  a  great  deal  the  agonies  of  mil- 
lions of  our  fellow-men,  rendered 
helpless  by  a  world  calamity  that  has 
left  us  almost  unscathed. 

An  appropriation  of  five  hundred 
million  dollars,  even  if  it  were  an  out- 
right gift,  would  be  a  mere  bagatelle 
to  us,  in  comparison  with  the  immeas- 
urable good  it  would  do,  and  the  un- 
speakable urgency  of  the  need.  "I 
believe,"  says  Mr.  Davison,  "that  the 
apathy  and  indifference  which  pre- 
vail to-day  are  due  only  to  the  fact 
that  the  American  people  have  not 
grasped  the  dreadful  facts,"  and  he 
believes  that  when  once  "the  true 
bearings  of  the  situation  have  bitten 
into  their  consciousness,  they  will 
arise  and  act."  But  this  biting  in  is 
taking  an  unconscionably  long  time. 
Our  duty  is  to  act  now,  and  not  after 
more  millions  have  starved,  after 
whole  peoples  may  have  been  plunged 
into  chaos,  after  the  world's  unrest 
has  been  intensified  to  the  point  of 
imminent  deadly  peril,  from  which  we 
ourselves  shall  not  be  exempt. 

Mr.  Davison  outlines  a  definite 
practical  plan,  to  be  instituted  by 
Congress,  under  which  the  relief 
would  take  the  shape  not  of  mere 
alms,  but  of  constructive  aid  admin- 
istered by  a  commission  of  the  best 


men  America  can  command — "men  of 
the  type  of  General  Pershing,  Mr. 
Hoover,  or  ex-Secretary  Lane" — the 
commission  to  be  vested  with  com- 
plete power;  and  the  aid  would  be 
administered  upon  such  terms  of 
cooperation  on  the  part  of  the  coun- 
tries benefited  as  would  tend  to  bring 
about  not  mere  assuagement  of  dis- 
tress, but  genuine  restoration.  And 
when  our  Government  had  adopted 
the  plan,  it  should  "invite  other  Gov- 
ernments in  a  position  to  assist,  to 
participate  in  the  undertaking." 

Will  America  awake  to  her  duty? 
Will  she  rise  to  her  opportunity? 
For  the  opportunity  is  as  magnificent 
as  the  duty  is  compelling.  By  under- 
taking to  lead  in  this  great  work  of 
salvation,  by  devoting  to  it  an  in- 
significant fraction  of  what  we  stood 
ready  to  devote,  if  necessary,  to  the 
prosecution  of  the  war,  we  shall  be 
making  an  investment  in  goodwill 
which  alone  will  infinitely  more 
than  repay  the  outlay.  The  gratitude 
and  friendship  which  was  the  re- 
sponse of  Belgium  and  of  other  af- 
flicted countries  to  American  aid  in 
fighting  destitution  and  disease  dur- 
ing the  war  will  once  more  flow  to 
us,  on  an  even  greater  scale  and  in 
more  permanent  form.  Nor  will  the 
effect  of  this  goodwill  be  limited  to 
the  manifestation  of  sentiment,  for 
the  improvement  of  tone  and  feeling 
in  the  prostrated  countries  of  Cen- 
tral Europe  will  be  the  most  power- 
ful agency  that  can  be  imagined 
towards  the  prevention  of  anarchy 
and  war. 

If  we  have  not  lost  our  sense  of 
proportion,  if  we  do  not  place  a  trif- 
ling material  sacrifice  above  the  im- 
perious claims  at  once  of  humanity 
and  of  policy,  Mr.  Davison's  stirring 
appeal  will  not  have  been  made  in 
vain.  The  only  excuse  for  our  inac- 
tion is  that  the  terrible  need  and  the 
clear  duty  have  not  been  brought 
home  to  our  minds.  This  excuse  can 
no  longer  be  pleaded.  Mr.  Davi- 
son's words  are  a  trumpet  call  to  the 
nation's  conscience.  Let  every  one  of 
us  who  is  not  deaf  to  the  call  do  his 
utmost  to  drive  the  duty  home  to 
those  in  whose  hands  lies  the  decision 
between  duty  and  inertia,  between 
honor  and  shame. 


Treaty  Manoeuvres 

rpHE  Knox  resolution  declaring  the 
-*-  state  of  war  with  Germany  and 
Austria-Hungary  at  an  end  was  ' 
passed  in  the  Senate  last  Saturday 
by  a  majority  of  only  five.  Only 
three  Democrats  —  Senators  Reed, 
Shields,  and  Walsh  of  Massachusetts 
— voted  in  favor  of  the  resolution; 
and  two  important  dissenters  from 
it.  Senators  Nelson  and  McCumber, 
are  recorded  on  the  Republican  side. 
The  utter  hopelessness  of  any  attempt 
to  pass  the  resolution  over  the  Presi- 
dent's veto  is  thus  demonstrated, 
though,  of  course,  no  demonstration 
was  necessary.  Any  analysis  of  Mr. 
Knox's  elaborate  argument  in  favor 
of  his  motion  would  have  been,  at 
any  time,  of  strictly  academic  interest 
only;  and  now  even  that  can  hardly 
be  claimed  for  it.  Of  mere  argumen- 
tation on  theoretical  aspects  of  the 
treaty,  the  country  has,  in  all  con- 
science, had  enough ;  and  Mr.  Knox's 
argument  had  too  much  the  character 
of  a  lawyer's  brief,  and  too  little  the 
character  of  a  genuine  political  dis- 
cussion, to  make  it  intrinsically  a 
matter  of  high  public  interest.  In 
so  far  as  the  episode  of  the  introduc- 
tion and  debating  of  the  resolution 
may  have  had  real  interest,  it  was  as 
one  more  manoeuvre  in  the  long  series 
which  have  marked  the  history  of  i 
the  treaty  ever  since  it  was  presented 
to  the  Senate.  But  even  as  a  ma- 
noeuvre it  did  not  have  the  kind  of  in- 
terest that  attached  to  preceding 
moves  in  the  game;  for  it  did  not 
offer,  as  many  of  the  others  have 
done,  the  possibility  of  furnishing  a 
definition  of  the  issue  upon  which  the 
Republican  party  might  plant  itself 
in  the  whole  matter  of  the  treaty  and 
the  League. 

Before  the  resolution  disappears 
from  view,  however,  it  is  worth  while 
to  draw  attention  to  one  important 
point.  In  the  minds  of  the  people 
generally,  and  in  most  of  the  pleas 
made  for  the  resolution,  the  chief  ob- 
ject to  which  it  was  supposed  to  be 
directed  was  that  of  bringing  to  ar 
end  the  conditions  in  our  own  countrj 
which  are  predicated  upon  a  state  oJ 
war.  The  President  is  clothed  wit)- 
extraordinary  powers,  and  many  do 


May  22,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[533 


mestic  affairs  are  subject  to  abnor- 
mal regulations,  in  virtue  of  acts  of 
Congress  passed  during  the  war  and 
remaining  in  force,  according  to  their 
terms,  until  its  termination.  The 
declaration  of  a  state  of  peace  would 
bring  the  operation  of  these  acts  to 
an  end,  and  would  take  from  the 
President  the  extraordinary  powers 
which  they  conferred  upon  him.  In 
addition  to  the  desirability  of  this  ob- 
ject in  itself,  another  motive  has  un- 
doubtedly played  its  part  in  the  push- 
ing of  the  resolution.  From  the  party 
standpoint  it  has  been  thought  to  be 
good  politics  to  place  upon  the  Presi- 
dent the  odium  of  continuing  a  state 
of  war  when  Congress  had  declared 
its  desire  to  bring  that  condi- 
tion to  a  close.  But  obviously  the 
direct  object  could  be  attained  as  well, 
and  the  indirect  object  vastly  better, 
by  something  very  different  from  the 
Knox  resolution.  So  far  as  our  do- 
mestic conditions  are  concerned,  it 
would  be  quite  competent  for  Con- 
gress to  repeal  all  its  war  acts,  and 
further  to  declare  that  as  regards 
home  affairs  the  war  emergency  is  at 
an  end ;  this,  without  introducing  any 
question  of  international  relations. 
In  this  way,  in  the  first  place,  all  the 
complex  questions,  both  of  diplomacy 
and  of  constitutional  law,  would  have 
been  eliminated  from  the  case;  and 
secondly,  if  the  President  had  placed 
himself  in  opposition  to  that  proposal 
he  would  have  had  to  shoulder  the  re- 
sponsibility of  this  opposition  without 
being  able  to  plead,  as  of  course  he 
now  can,  that  Congress  had  gone  be- 
yond its  legitimate  province. 

Of  far  greater  interest,  from  the 
standpoint  of  treaty  manoeuvring,  is 
the  peace  plank  in  the  platform 
adopted  by  the  Indiana  Republicans. 
This  is  supposed  to  have  been  virtu- 
ally drafted  in  the  very  highest  coun- 
cils of  the  Republican  party — to  rep- 
resent the  strategy  of  Senator  Lodge 
and  Chairman  Hays  and  to  fore- 
shadow the  treaty  plank  of  the  ap- 
proaching Chicago  Convention.  That 
that  plank  would  be  "an  elastic  dec- 
laration, leaving  the  ultimate  posi- 
tion to  future  developments,  is  likely 
enough,"  we  said  last  week  was  highly 
probable;  and  the  Indiana  platform 
makes  it  almost  certain.    Nor  do  we 


feel  disposed  to  find  much  fault  with 
such  a  decision.  In  spite  of  all  that 
has  come  and  gone — or  rather  be- 
cause of  all  that  has  come  and  gone — 
the  condition  of  thought  on  the  sub- 
ject in  the  Republican  party,  and  in 
fact  in  the  country  at  large,  is  the 
reverse  of  definite;  and  there  is  no 
magic  in  a  platform  declaration  that 
can  transmute  uncertainty  of  purpose 
and  absence  of  conviction  into  their 
opposites.  Unfortunate  as  it  may  be, 
it  is  a  fact  that  sentiment  will  have 
to  crystallize,  and  policy  will  have  to 
become  defined,  in  the  course  of  the 
campaign  and  not  in  the  little  time 
that  intervenes  between  now  and  the 
meeting  of  the  Convention.  The 
choice  of  candidate,  however,  may 
have  a  powerful  effect  in  the  shaping 
of  the  issue,  and  it  is  earnestly  to  be 
hoped  that  the  man  chosen  will  have 
both  the  will  and  the  capacity  to  fur- 
nish a  kind  of  leadership  which  has 
thus  far  been  sadly  lacking. 

Whatever  view  be  taken  of  the 
rights  and  wrongs  of  the  long-drawn- 
out  struggle  in  the  Senate,  and  be- 
tween Senate  and  President,  the  one 
manifest  characteristic  of  nearly  all 
of  it  is  that  it  has  been  essentially 
a  series  of  manoeuvres — strategic 
moves  for  position,  sparring  for 
points.  From  a  very  early  stage  in 
the  proceedings,  it  has  been  evident, 
or  at  least  almost  evident,  that  the 
President  would  not  accept  the  Lodge 
position,  and  that  the  majority  of 
the  Republicans  in  the  Senate  would 
not  bow  to  the  President's  will.  What 
each  side  hoped  for  was  that  time 
would  operate  in  its  favor;  and  the 
object  of  particular  moves  was  not  to 
attain  the  particular  end  ostensibly 
in  question,  but  to  bring  about  a 
favorable  protraction  of  the  contest. 

The  one  exception  to  this  state  of 
things  was  presented  by  the  "mild 
reservationist"  group  of  Republican 
Senators.  They  were  really  hoping 
to  accomplish  the  end  which  they 
proposed,  and  they  really  had  good 
reason  to  think  that  the  end  was  at- 
tainable. If  they  had  received  encour- 
agement from  the  Democratic  side — 
or  if,  over  and  above  the  sincerity, 
and  in  some  instances  the  high  ability, 
with  which  they  urged  their  cause, 
they  had  had  a  certain  quality  of 


heroic  determination  in  which  they 
were  wanting — they  might  have 
proved  the  dominant  factor  in  the  sit- 
uation. To  Mr.  McCumber  is  due 
high  recognition  for  the  constancy 
which  he  has  displayed  throughout, 
the  readiness  he  has  shown  to  do,  at 
every  turn,  that  which  the  faithful 
pursuance  of  his  original  purpose 
called  upon  him  to  do. 

Apart  from  the  endeavors  of  the 
mild  reservationists,  we  have  wit- 
nessed merely  a  succession  of  grap- 
ples, which  might  indeed  have  re- 
sulted in  a  compromise,  which  would 
have  so  resulted  if  the  President  had 
been  accessible  to  reason,  but  which 
now  in  the  retrospect  assume  the 
character  of  a  mere  setting  of  the 
stage  for  what  is  to  happen  during  the 
campaign  and  after  the  election.  Over 
the  frightful  loss  which  the  world  has 
thus  suffered  there  is  nothing  to  do 
just  now  but  shrug  our  shoulders; 
let  us  hope  that  something  more 
promising  of  substantial  result  will 
begin  to  emerge  when  the  Convention 
at  Chicago  shall  have  completed  its 
work. 

Our  Merchant  Marine 

TN  the  matter  of  our  merchant  ma- 
rine,  there  has  not  yet  been 
marked  out,  in  Congress  or  else- 
where, a  clear  pathway  of  transition 
from  the  methods  forced  by  war  con- 
ditions and  necessities  to  a  permanent 
national  policy,  which  will  assign  a 
proper  place  to  private  enterprise, 
and  will  give  definite  assurance  as 
to  the  nature  and  extent  of  Govern- 
ment control  under  which  such  enter- 
prise may  be  exerted. 

As  an  aid  in  developing  such  a 
policy,  the  Bankers  Trust  Company, 
of  New  York  City,  has  compiled  an 
extremely  valuable  and  interesting 
little  volume,  under  the  title  of 
"America's  Merchant  Marine."  The 
first  few  pages  sketch  the  earlier  his- 
tory of  the  subject,  from  the  build- 
ing of  the  first  ship  at  the  mouth 
of  the  Kennebec,  down  through  the 
colonial  period  and  the  exciting  vicis- 
situdes of  the  Revolution,  the  Na- 
poleonic wars,  and  the  war  of  1812, 
down  to  the  summit  of  growth 
reached    in    1855,    when    American 


584] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  54 


yards  turned  out  more  than  two  thou- 
sand vessels,  with  an  aggregate  ton- 
nage of  over  five  millions.  At  that " 
point  the  turn  began,  with  England's 
superior  skill  in  constructing  large 
iron  steamships.  American  capital 
ceased  to  invest  in  wooden  ships,  and 
the  tonnage  built  in  American  yards 
fell  off  nearly  two-thirds  in  five  years. 
After  the  historical  sketch  come 
twenty  chapters  on  various  phases  of 
the  subject,  as  for  example,  Operat- 
ing Costs,  Labor  Factors,  the  Oil- 
burning  Ship,  Government  Aid, 
America's  World  Markets,  The  Great 
Lakes  Traffic,  American  Registry 
Laws,  Ship  Safety  Laws,  and  Marine 
Insurance.  Businessmen  involved, 
directly  or  indirectly,  in  overseas 
trade,  the  possible  investors  in  ship- 
ping shares,  and  especially  our  na- 
tional lawmakers  and  their  executive 
advisers,  need  at  the  present  time 
just  such  a  carefully  compiled  book 
of  facts  as  this. 

The  Socialist  Conven- 
tion 

IN  the  funeral  procession  of  Junia, 
sister  of  Marcus  Brutus  and  wife 
of  Caius  Cassius  in  former  years, 
Tacitus  tells  us  that  images  of  the 
most  illustrious  families  to  the  num- 
ber of  twenty  were  carried;  but  the 
images  of  Brutus  and  Cassius  out- 
shone them  all,  he  says,  because  (for 
obvious  political  and  personal  rea- 
sons) they  were  not  there.  It  is  a 
somewhat  similar  effect  that  the  So- 
cialists were  aiming  at,  in  their  na- 
tional convention  of  last  week,  when 
they  nominated  Eugene  Debs  to  lead 
them  in  the  coming  campaign.  His 
leadership  is  expected  to  be  all  the 
more  effective  because,  barring  the 
chance  of  a  pardon  from  the  Federal 
penitentiary  at  Atlanta,  he  will  not 
be  there.  There  is  little  reason  to 
believe,  however,  that  a  plea  of  mar- 
tyrdom re.sting  on  so  slender  a  base 
as  that  of  Mr.  Debs  will  make  any 
effective  appeal  to  voters  not  already 
convinced. 

Perhaps  the  best  claim  of  the  re- 
cent convention  to  "Americanism" 
could  be  based  on  its  close  imitation 
of  such  old  party  traditions  as  the 


minutely  detailed  denunciation  of  the 
other  side  (Democrats  and  Republi- 
cans lumped,  in  this  case)  and  the 
painfully  drawn  out  applause  when 
the  name  of  the  conquering  hero 
comes,  accompanied  by  the  march- 
ing of  the  delegates  around  the 
convention  hall,  in  a  kind  of  college 
boys'  snake-dance.  Should  not  the 
real  industrial  revolutionist  have 
whirled  far  enough  off  the  old  orbit 
to  have  shaken  himself  loose  from 
all  that?  What  conservatives  might 
call  an  entirely  hopeful  sign  was 
the  attitude  of  the  convention 
towards  the  present  situation  in 
Russia.  Formally,  it  expressed  its  ad- 
herence to  the  "Third  Internation- 
ale," but  it  just  as  formally  refused 
to  be  led  into  any  indorsement  of 
"the  dictatorship  of  the  Proletariat" 
as  a  test  of  that  adherence ;  and  vari- 
ous speakers,  including  Victor  Ber- 
ger,  indicated  very  plainly  not  merely 
their  conviction  that  such  a  dictator- 
ship would  not  work  here,  but  their 
knowledge  that  it  is  going  awry  in 
Moscow.  The  "conservatives"  were 
roundly  hissed  by  the  galleries,  but 
had  their  way  on  the  floor  in  formu- 
lating the  platform.  The  defeated, 
however,  as  a  salve  to  their  feelings, 
were  assured  by  Berger  and  Hillquit 
that  the  party  was  not  to  become 
more  moderate,  but  in  reality  would 
be  more  revolutionary  than  ever  be- 
fore. A  New  York  delegate,  James 
O'Neal,  asserted  that  "bourgeois 
democracy,  with  all  its  faults,  at  least 
allows  decision  on  important  matters 
by  the  civilized  method  of  the  ballot. 
Dictatorship  means  sheer  brute  strug- 
gle." In  the  hurly-burly  of  debate, 
one  of  the  delegates  made  an  implied 
admission  of  rather  damaging  char- 
acter in  the  assertion  that  common 
sense  is  the  principle  of  success,  and 
that  the  Socialists  must  mix  common 
sense  with  their  demands  if  success 
is  to  be  secured. 

No  complete  draft  of  the  platform 
is  as  yet  available,  with  the  many 
alterations  made  on  the  floor  of  the 
convention,  and  a  detailed  study  of 
its  provisions  must  come  later.  It 
declares  in  the  broadest  tqrms  for 
"the  socialization  of  industries,"  but 
does  not  carry  that  declaration  to 
the  entirely  logical  conclusion  of  de- 


manding that  the  farmer  shall  sur- 
render his  property  right  in  his  farm. 
An  outsider  is  naturally  tempted  to 
see  in  this  an  inconsistency  due  to  a 
desire  for  the  farmer  vote,  supposed 
to  be  among  the  discontented  ele- 
ments. The  convinced  Socialist,  how- 
ever, possibly  thinks  that  the  farm- 
er's eyes  are  not  yet  fully  open,  and 
that  a  merely  temporary  concession 
must  be  made  to  him  until  he  is  won 
over  by  seeing  the  beauty  of  con- 
fi.scation  as  applied  to  others. 

While  the  more  radical  element  of 
the  convention  suflfered  a  formal  de- 
feat at  every  point  where  the  test 
of  a  vote  was  forced,  the  inner  spirit 
of  the  body  as  a  whole  was  probably 
represented  by  the  defeated  side.  The 
concessions  were  born  of  expediency,  # 
rather  than  conviction.  The  voter 
who  really  believes  in  American  insti- 
tutions, as  framed  by  our  forefathers 
and  developed  by  generations  of  ac- 
tual working,  should  not  imagine  for 
a  moment  that  the  party  which  has 
come  first  into  the  campaign,  with 
Mr.  Debs  at  its  head,  is  merely  one 
among  several  groups  of  Americans 
desiring  to  put  perhaps  a  different, 
but  none  the  less  legitimate,  interpre- 
tation on  those  institutions.  Though 
the  Socialist  party,  making  a  virtue 
of  necessity,  may  show  itself  willing 
to  submit  to  the  forms  of  the  Consti- 
tution as  a  means  of  attaining  to 
power,  there  is  no  question  of  its  in- 
tent to  use  that  power,  if  attained, 
for  the  overthrow  of  the  Constitution 
as  we  know  it,  and  as  its  framers 
intended  it.  The  Debs  ticket  should 
have  the  support  of  none  but  those 
who  believe  that  our  Constitution  is 
a  failure  in  its  most  fundamental  fea- 
tures, and  that  the  abolition  of  pri- 
vate property — progressive  and  rapid, 
even  if  not  immediate  and  complete 
— is  the  proper  basis  on  which  to 
build  a  new  form  of  government  to 
take  its  place.  The  man  who  does  not 
believe  this,  and  yet  talks  of  voting 
the  Socialist  ticket  as  a  "protest,"  is 
thoughtlessly  playing  with  a  very 
dangerous  kind  of  fire.  To  give  the 
Socialist  full  liberty  to  state  his  pro- 
gramme and  support  it  by  argument 
is  one  thing;  to  lend  him  support,  by 
voting  his  ticket  as  a  mere  rebuke  to 
somebody  else,  is  quite  another. 


May  22,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[535 


The  Turkish  Treaty 

THE  Turkish  carpet,  in  which  the 
green  of  the  fertile  crescent,  the 
gray  of  the  Arabian  desert,  and  the 
blue  of  the  ^gean  were  the  most 
prominent  colors,  is  to  be  cut  up  and 
divided  among  various  claimants,  the 
Sultan  retaining  a  part  little  larger, 
compared  to  the  original  carpet,  than 
a  prayer  rug.  And  a  prayer  rug, 
rather  than  a  throne,  is  the  true  sym- 
bol of  his  future  status.  Shorn  of 
secular  power  over  all  but  his  Turk- 
ish subjects,  he  is  only  a  petty  po- 
tentate of  a  small,  uncivilized  people 
which  counts  for  little  among  the 
family  of  nations.  Only  as  Caliph, 
leader  of  the  mosque  prayers,  does  he 
remain  an  important  figure  in  the 
Asiatic  world.  As  such  his  power  is 
unchallenged.  Even  his  former 
Arab  subjects,  who  revolted  against 
him  and  shook  off  the  yoke  with  Brit- 
ish aid,  still  give  him  the  accustomed 
homage  as  the  Executive  of  Islam. 

With  this  functionary  the  Entente 
had  no  quarrel.  The  treaty  handed 
to  the  Turkish  delegation  in  Paris 
concerns  only  the  Sultan  of  the  Otto- 
mans, although  it  is  true  that  the 
clause  which  permits  the  mainte- 
nance of  Turkish  sovereignty  in  Con- 
stantinople was  framed  out  of  con- 
sideration for  the  sovereign  in  his 
capacity  of  Caliph.  This  permission, 
however,  is  not  given  unconditionally. 
Its  fulfillment  by  the  Entente  will  de- 
pend on  Turkey's  faithful  observance 
of  the  treaty ;  in  other  words,  Mehmed 
VI  as  Caliph  is  made  a  hostage  for 
his  own  good  behavior  as  Sultan  of 
the  Ottomans.  The  two  will  wink  at 
each  other  in  their  common  sleeve, 
the  Sultan  well  knowing  that  from 
breaking  the  agreement  no  harm  can 
come  to  the  Caliph,  as  the  same  rea- 
sons that  prevented  the  ousting  of 
him  this  time  will  still  hold  good  here- 
after. For  if  the  systematic  massa- 
cres of  Greeks  and  Armenians  were 
not  a  sufficient  reason  to  justify  the 
Turk's  expulsion  from  Europe,  the 
less  heinous  crime  of  infringing  the 
peace  treaty  will  not,  and  ought  not, 
to  be  so  punished,  unless  the  Entente 
should  demand  more  respect  for  its 
own  dictates  than  for  the  dictates  of 
humanity. 


However,  the  Sultan  is  left  but 
little  chance  of  breaking  his  word. 
Turkish  sovereignty,  though  main- 
tained in  Constantinople,  will  be  a 
shadow  only  of  its  former  self.  The 
real  sovereign  in  the  capital  will  be 
the  Great  Powers.  Since,  on  March 
16,  the  Allied  forces,  chiefly  English, 
took  possession  of  the  Ministries  of 
War  and  Marine,  of  the  arsenal  at 
Galata  and  all  military  depots,  of 
the  police  bureaus,  post  and  telegraph 
offices,  of  the  bridges  across  the 
Golden  Horn,  of  the  railway  station 
and  the  quays,  the  Sultan  and  his 
Ministers  have  lost  control  over 
the  city.  A  month  is  given  them  for 
the  consideration  of  the  treaty,  but 
though  it  should  take  them  only  half 
a  day,  as  it  probably  will,  to  come 
to  the  conclusion  that  they  can  not 
accept  it,  accept  it  they  will,  because 
the  Entente  has  the  power  to  force 
them  to  sign.  This  military  occupa- 
tion is,  indeed,  a  provisional  measure, 
but  it  does  not  follow  that  with  the 
withdrawal  of  the  visible  instruments 
of  power  the  Entente's  hold  on  the 
Government  will  simultaneously  be 
released.  The  treaty,  which  this 
military  display  will  help  to  enforce, 
will  then  become  the  instrument  by 
which  that  hold  can  be  maintained 
for  good.  It  gives  England,  France, 
and  Italy  a  permanent  and  complete 
control  of  Turkish  finances,  and  it  is 
a  commonplace  of  domestic  and  his- 
torical experience  that  he  who  holds 
the  strings  of  the  purse  holds  also 
the  reins  of  government.  Again, 
under  the  interallied  control  of  the 
Straits,  the  access  to  the  city  and  its 
communication  with  Anatolia  is  en- 
tirely in  the  hands  of  the  Powers. 
The  Sultan  and  his  Government  will 
be  mere  executives  of  these,  and  Eu- 
rope, though  disappointed  of  her  hope 
to  rid  herself  of  the  Turk,  will  have 
the  satisfaction,  at  least,  of  seeing 
order  restored  and  security  of  naviga- 
tion established  in  that  exposed  and 
vital  part  of  her  continent. 

It  is  not  the  Turkish  Government, 
therefore,  whose  decision  can  ma- 
terially affect  the  fate  of  the  treaty. 
A  veto  from  Washington  will  have 
greater  weight  than  one  from  the 
once  Sublime  Porte.  The  full  satis- 
faction  of   Greek  claims   in   Thrace 


as  against  those  of  Bulgaria,  the  ces- 
sion of  the  Dodecanesos  to  Italy,  and 
the  continuance  of  the  Sultan's  rule 
in  Constantinople  are  not  in  accord 
with  Mr.  Wilson's  well-known  views, 
and  will  probably  be  the  subject  of 
a  long  series  of  diplomatic  notes  lead- 
ing up  to  the  usual  compromise  be- 
tween principle  and  expediency.  The 
second  point,  we  confess,  is  an  ugly 
blot  on  the  treaty,  ill  according  with 
the  tenets  of  the  League  of  Nations, 
whose  name  is  so  frequently  men- 
tioned in  the  document,  and  we  should 
be  glad  to  see  Mr.  Wilson  succeed  in 
getting  the  treaty  amended  on  that 
minor  point. 

But  the  final  word  on  the  treaty 
will  be  spoken  by  Mustapha  Kemal. 
Though  the  peace  be  dictated  to  the 
Government  in  Constantinople,  it  is 
in  Anatolia  that  it  will  have  to  be 
enforced  against  his  resistance.  His 
influence  extends  beyond  the  field 
of  his  military  activity,  into  the  politi- 
cal sphere  of  the  capital.  Four-fifths 
of  the  deputies  of  the  Turkish  Cham- 
ber are  members  of  the  Nationalist 
party  Felah-i-Vatan,  or  Weal  of  the 
Fatherland,  which  thus  possesses  the 
power  to  hamper  the  activity  of  any 
Government  which  it  considers  to  be  a 
tool  of  the  Entente.  If  Kemal  re- 
mains successful  in  defjnng  the  Great 
Powers,  the  majority  in  the  Chamber 
will  derive  courage  from  his  example 
to  use  that  power  to  the  fullest  extent. 
Hence  on  the  military  exertion  of  the 
Entente  to  bring  him  and  his  Nation- 
alist following  to  reason  the  fate  of 
the  treaty  ultimately  depends.  A  dif- 
ficult guerrilla  warfare  in  Anatolia 
is  necessary  to  establish  peace  with 
Turkey  and  security  for  Greeks  and 
Armenians. 


THE  REVIEW 

A  vteekly  journal  of  political  and 

general  discussion 

Published  by 

The  National  Weekly  Cokporatioit 

140  Nassau  Street,  New  York 

Fabian   Franklin,  President 

Harold  ob  Wolf  Fuller,  Treasurer 


Subscription     price,     five     dollars     a     ^ear     in 
advance.     Fifteen   cents  a  copjr.     Foreign  post- 
age,  one   dollar   extra;    Canadian    postage,    fifty 
cents  extra.     Foreign  subscriptions  may  be  sent 
to  Messrs.  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  Ltd.,  24.  Bed- 
ford   St.,   Strand,   London,    W.    C.   2,    England. 
Copyright.     1920.     in     the     United     States     of 
America 
Editors 
FABIAN  FRANKLIN 
HAROLD  DE  WOLF  FULLER 
Associate  Editors 
Harry  Morgan  Ayres     O.  W.  FutKim 
A.  J.  Barhouw  W.  H.  JoBKSOir 

Jerque  Lahdfield 


536] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  Njo.  54 


The  Plot  Against  Mexico 


THE  sudden  collapse  of  the  Car- 
ranza  Government  from  a  popu- 
lar uprising  will  appear,  to  ordinary 
folk,  a  sufficient  proof  of  the  evil 
social  conditions  that  have  lately  pre- 
vailed in  Mexico.  A  push  and  a  kick, 
and  all  was  over.  Yet  for  the  last 
five  years,  and  particularly  for  the 
last  three  years,  since  the  adoption 
of  the  present  Constitution,  these  con- 
ditions have  been  constantly  misrep- 
resented by  the  insurgent  press  of  the 
United  States.  This  press  has  shown 
itself  coldly  indifferent  to  the  fright- 
ful sufferings  of  the  Mexican  people ; 
it  has  unquestioningly  accepted  and 
distributed  the  propaganda  of  paid 
agents  of  Carranza ;  it  has  ignored  or 
distorted  the  most  trustworthy  evi- 
dence ;  and  in  the  face  of  all  the  easily 
ascertainable  facts  it  has  kept  up  a 
"wolf!  wolf!"  cry  of  Wall  Street  in- 
tervention. 

Just  such  another  journalistic  epi- 
sode was  strung  along  the  ten  years 
ended  May  25,  1911.  Then  it  was 
the  conservative  press  in  solid 
front,  as  of  late  it  has  been  the 
insurgent  press.  Then  it  was  the 
Diaz  myth — a  benevolent  father-king, 
wearing  out  his  heart  and  soul  in 
devoted  service  to  his  backward  and 
not  overgrateful  people;  just  as  of 
late  it  has  been  the  Carranza  myth 
— a  fusion  of  Washington,  Lincoln, 
and  Mazzini,  but  with  nobler  vision 
than  these,  patiently  building  up  an 
earthly  Eden  while  undergoing  the 
constant  bedevilment  of  American 
capitalists.  The  same  mealy-mouthed 
language  of  palliation  and  excuse  was 
then  lavished  by  the  conservative 
press  on  the  jailings  and  shootings 
of  Diaz  as  of  late  has  been  lavished 
by  the  insurgent  press  on  the  jailings 
and  shootings  of  Carranza.  In  those 
days,  as  in  these  later  days,  hand- 
picked  observers  crossed  the  line 
southward,  where  they  were  taken 
under  protection  and  guidance  and 
sumptuously  fed  on  official  pap,  and 
whence  they  came  back  with  stand- 
ardized tales  of  peace,  prosperity,  and 
contentment.  And  in  those  days,  as 
in  these,  a  shrewd  old  ruler  knew 
where  to  put  his  money  to  get  results 


from  the  always  and  ever-to-be  bam- 
boozled American  people. 

I  think,  if  a  personal  word  is  per- 
missible, that  I  can  speak  on  this 
subject   with   some   knowledge    and 
some  right.     From  the  time  of  the 
first  prosecutions  of  Mexican  political 
refugees   in   the   southwest,   I   have 
taken  an  eager  and  a  sympathetic  in- 
terest in  all  that  concerns  the  Mexi- 
can people.     The  Diaz  propaganda, 
thickly  sown  though  it  was,  did  not 
deceive  me.     In  New  York  City   I 
was,  I  believe,  first  among  those  who 
sought  to  get  a  hearing  in  the  con- 
servative press  in  behalf  of  the  Mexi- 
can  liberals.     I   found   no  opening. 
One  editor,  too  young  and  too  indis- 
creet for  his  job,  accepted  one  of  my 
manuscripts,  but  the  owners  of  the 
magazine  suppressed  it.     The  pro- 
Diaz  censorship  was  at  the  time  com- 
plete.   Later,  in  a  few  cases,  it  was 
relaxed,  and  several  articles  by  vari- 
ous writers,  including  one  by  myself, 
appeared    in    the    periodical    press. 
Then,    mysteriously,    the    lid    came 
down  again,  and  it  stayed  down  vir- 
tually until  Diaz  was  ousted  by  Ma- 
dero.    During  the  ensuing  long  period 
of  turmoil  I  have  carefully  followed 
Mexican  events ;  I  have  also  followed 
the  insurgent  press  for  its  comment 
on  Mexico;  and  I  say  that,  with  a 
single  exception  which  will  be  noted 
later,  so  far  as  I  know  no  radical. 
Socialist,    revolutionist,    or    pseudo- 
liberal  paper  in  the  United   States 
has  made  the  slightest  attempt  to  tell 
the  truth  about  Mexico.  Most  of  these 
journals,  indeed,  have  busied  them- 
selves  with  misleading  propaganda 
and  with  the  denunciation  of  persons 
who  told  the  facts. 

These  facts  have  been  accessible  in 
greater  or  less  degree  to  any  one  who 
cared  for  them.  Conditions  under 
Carranza,  especially  during  the  last 
year,  can  be  readily  summed  up. 
These  conditions,  of  course,  were  not 
uniform  throughout  the  land.  What 
could  be  said  of  most  of  Mexico  would 
not  apply  to  Sonora,  Lower  Califor- 
nia, or  parts  of  Sinaloa.  Nor  would 
any  generalization  which  could  be 
framed  be  equally  true  of  all  the 


other  regions.    But  taken  in  the  lump, 
Mexico  was  ruled  by  a  dictator,  held 
in  power  by  the  aid  of  bandit  chiefs 
who  looted  the  big  estates  and  indus-      "I 
trial  properties,  terrorized  the  peo-       * 
pie,  and  refused,  as  a  rule,  to  suppress 
the  other  bandits  (the  anti-Carranza 
ones)  because  it  was  more  profitable 
to  dicker  with  them.    Mexican  refu- 
gees   say    that    though    they    were      | 
robbed  indiscriminately  by  both  gov-      ' 
ernmental     and     anti-governmental 
bandits,  the  latter  were  the  more  de- 
cent, and  usually  left  them  something 
to  eat.    The  Carranzistas  made  clean 
sweeps. 

There  was  general  insecurity  of  life 
and  person.  General  Salvador  Al- 
varado,  in  his  famous  letter  to  Car- 
ranza, some  months  ago,  declared 
that  between  the  outlaws  and  the  Car- 
ranzistas some  36,000  men  were  being 
killed  every  year.  "No  one  thinks 
of  the  man,"  he  said ;  "let  him  die  like 
a  dog  in  the  gutter."  For  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  the  people  there  was 
no  work  and  no  promise  of  any. 
There  was  great  destitution,  and 
there  were  no  sincere  efforts  on  the 
part  of  the  Government  to  relieve  it. 
Justice  was  for  sale.  "A  wave  of 
shameless  and  cynical  immorality," 
said  Alvarado,  "pervades  the  acts  of 
judges  and  fehysters,  who  sell  justice 
to  the  highest  bidder."  Elections 
were  a  farce.  There  was  not  even 
personal  safety  for  a  candidate  op- 
posing Carranza.  Only  by  the  most 
extraordinary  precautions  were  the 
friends  of  Obregon  able  to  save  his 
life  from  the  attempts  of  Carranza's 
thugs. 

Far  from  fostering  social  and 
labor  legislation,  Carranza  over- 
turned the  results  of  the  Alvarado 
and  Carrillo  regimes  in  Yucatan,  and 
he  set  himself  stubbornly  against  the 
remarkable  series  of  reforms  insti- 
tuted in  Sonora  by  Calles.  The  sum- 
mary of  these  reforms  prepared  by 
Juan  Ortiz  Mora  shows  Sonora  in 
the  creditable  light  of  a  most  pro- 
gressive State,  steadily  forwarding  a 
reconstructive  programme  against 
constant  obstructions  by  Carranza. 
As  for  organized  labor,  Carranza  was 
its  bitter  enemy.  His  remedy  for 
strikes,  though  from  motives  of  ex- 
pediency not  always  enforced,  was  the 


May  22<  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[587 


firing  squad  and  the  machine  gun 
battalion.  "By  slaying  and  imprison- 
ing workmen,"  says  Juan  Rico,  of  the 
Mexican  Labor  party,  "Carranza 
ended  the  general  strike  of  1916." 
The  testimony  on  this  matter  comes 
from  a  multitude  of  sources,  and  is 
irrefutable. 

On  top  of  all  this,  the  late  First 
Chief  subsidized  a  wildly  revolution- 
ist communist  monthly  magazine. 
Gale's.  No  intelligent  person  could 
fail  to  see  from  a  glance  at  this  jour- 
nal the  proofs  of  its  fraudulency.  It 
excoriated  the  American  Federation 
of  Labor.  It  denounced  even  "mod- 
erate Socialism."  It  declared  that 
soviet  communism  was  the  work- 
ers' only  hope.  It  extravagantly 
praised  Carranza  the  man,  and  the 
Carranza  Government.  But  the 
greater  part  of  its  space  was  taken 
up  with  violent  denunciations  of  al- 
leged American  projects  of  interven- 
tion. In  each  issue  this  intervention 
bogey  was  set  forth  in  all  its  hideous 
deformity,  and  then  bludgeoned, 
blacksnaked,  and  flayed  from  head  to 
toes.  Now  no  one  can  suppose  that 
Carranza,  the  dictator,  had  the  slight- 
est patience  with  the  soviet  doctrines 
of  this  journal.  Nor  can  any  in- 
formed person  believe  that  he  would 
have  allowed  this  journal  to  appear 
for  a  single  issue  if  radicalism  had 
been  its  sole  note.  But  any  one  can 
see  the  value  to  Carranza  of  a  Mex- 
ico City  journal  written  and  printed 
for  the  revolutionary  gudgeons  of  the 
United  States.  The  first-page  legend 
which  it  carried,  "20,000  circulation 
in  English,  5,000  in  Spanish,"  was 
probably  a  falsehood;  but  there  can 
be  no  doubt  that  by  far  the  greater 
number  of  copies  went  to  the  United 
States.  Despite  the  glaring  evidences 
of  its  fraudulency,  it  was  credulously 
accepted  by  American  radicals,  who 
sent  it  money  (in  reply  to  its  frantic 
appeals),  wrote  for  it,  and  promoted 
its  circulation.  I  assume  that  Obre- 
gon  has  already  suppressed  it  as  a 
notorious  swindle. 

These  facts,  as  I  have  said,  have 
been  in  greater  or  less  degree  ac- 
cessible to  all  who  cared  to  know 
them.  But  they  have  been  studiously 
ignored  or  else  angrily  denied  by  the 
insurgent  press  of  the  United  States. 


There  is  one  exception.  A  revolu- 
tionary Communist,  living  in  New 
York,  journeyed  to  the  land  of  the 
heart's  desire  as  pictured  in  the  idylls 
of  Lincoln  StefTens,  John  Kenneth 
Turner,  John  Reed,  L.  J.  de  Bekker, 
the  Rev.  Samuel  Guy  Inman,  and 
other  poets  of  the  impressionistic- 
romantic  school.  When  he  arrived  he 
looked  about  him.  He  was  completely 
disillusioned.  In  the  columns  of  the 
revolutionary  Liberator  for  January 
he  told  his  disheartening  tale.  It 
makes  out  a  case  against  the  Car- 
ranza Government  far  worse  than 
what  has  been  summarized  here.  The 
revelation  caused  a  pretty  row  in  the 
columns  of  the  Liberator,  but  so  far 
as  I  know  not  a  single  other  insurgent 
journal  has  mentioned  the  matter.  As 
late  as  May  5  the  New  Republic,  with 
matchless  ineptitude,  could  speak  as 
follows : 

Revolutionary  activity  in  Mexico  was  to 
be  expected,  since  the  Presidential  elections 
are  approaching.  It  is  a  Mexican  method  of 
electioneering,  more  dramatic  and  less  expen- 
sive than  the  methods  in  vogue  in  the  United 
States.  Usually  pains  are  taken  to  reduce 
the  danger  of  bloodshed  to  a  minimum.  In 
the  present  instance  the  center  of  revolution- 
ary activity  is  Sonora,  seventy-six  thousand 
square  miles  of  hill  and  desert  with  less  than 
three  hundred  thousand  population,  practically 
inaccessible    to    invading    forces    except    from 


the  United  States.  Auxiliary  centers  of  revo- 
lution appear  elsewhere,  but  the  press  reports 
of  troop  movements  and  engagements  oflfer  no 
proof  of  anything  like  a  determined  revolu- 
tionary force  like  those  which  overthrew  Diaz 
and  Huerta,  or  even  like  the  Villa  assault  upon 
Carranza.  But  the  noise  of  Mexican  politics 
arises  opportunely  for  the  purposes  of  those 
in  this  country  who  would  like  to  make  an 
issue  out  of  "cleaning  up  Mexico." 

Liberalism,  radicalism,  insurgency 
in  general,  accepted  a  Mexican  myth 
based  partly  upon  the  high-flown 
rhetoric  (as  well  as  on  the  confisca- 
tory provisions  in  Article  27)  of  the 
Constitution  of  1917  and  partly  upon 
the  tales  of  romantic  and  sometimes 
subsidized  travelers  and  rhapsodists. 
All  contrary  testimony  was  uniformly 
rejected.  Insurgent  journalism  has 
played  exactly  the  same  game  with 
regard  to  the  Government  of  Car- 
ranza that  it  has  played  with  regard 
to  the  Government  of  Lenin.  It  has 
shamelessly  juggled  the  facts.  Events 
have  shown  that  the  real  plot  against 
Mexico  was  the  plot  of  Carranza  and 
his  bandit  chiefs  against  the  Mexican 
people,  and  that  this  plot  was  in  this 
country  perversely  abetted,  to  the 
best  of  their  powers,  by  the  professed 
organs  of  truth,  justice,  and  brother- 
hood. I 
W.  J.  Ghent 


Hiram  W.  Johnson  in  Fact 
and  Fancy 


'T'HE    energetic    campaign    which 


1 


Hiram  W.  Johnson  is  waging  for 


the  Republican  nomination  is  attract- 
ing keen  attention  in  all  circles.  His 
phenomenal  showing  in  a  succession 
of  State  primaries  is  causing  anxiety 
among  many  who  a  few  months  ago 
did  not  take  his  candidacy  seriously. 
Indeed  it  now  looks  as  if  the  Califor- 
nia Senator  would  come  to  Chicago 
next  month  as  General  Wood's  most 
formidable  rival.  Politicians  profess 
to  minimize  the  results  of  the  pri- 
maries, pointing  out  that  they  repre- 
sent but  a  small  minority  of  the 
voters,  but  they  are  plainly  worried. 
Conservatives  interpret  his  success  as 
the  result  of  appeals  to  the  radicals 
and  the  elements  of  unrest,  calling  at- 
tention to  the  fact  that  his  strongest 
showing  has  been  made  in  industrial 
centres  where  the  greatest  discontent 


exists.  Still  others  consider  it  a  ver- 
dict of  popular  opinion  against  Wil- 
son and  the  League  of  Nations,  and 
point  also  to  his  pacifist,  Sinn  Fein, 
and  pro-German  following. 

Undoubtedly  all  of  these  considera- 
tions have  weight  and  must  be  taken 
into  account,  but  they  are  far  from 
furnishing  a  satisfactory  explana- 
tion. Anyone  who  attended  the  meet- 
ings addressed  by  Senator  Johnson 
in  New  York  and  Chicago,  could  not 
but  be  struck  by  the  preponderance 
of  these  obnoxious  elements  in  the 
audiences  and  the  direct  appeal  which 
the  speaker  made  to  them.  But  it 
is  inconceivable  that  they  are  suffi- 
ciently numerous  to  account  for  the 
Johnson  votes  cast  in  the  primaries. 
As  a  matter  of  fact  he  owes  his 
largest  support  to  the  prevalence  of 
what  jnay  be  termed  the  "Johnson 


538] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  54 


lesrend."  Widely  spread  over  the 
country  is  the  belief  that  Hiram 
Johnson  is  the  Hercules  that  cleaned 
the  Augean  stables  of  Californian 
politics  and  introduced  in  that  com- 
monwealth advanced  welfare  legisla- 
tion and  a  model  system  of  admin- 
istration. It  is  this  belief  that  has 
drawn  to  the  Senator  thousands  of 
good  men  and  women  who  have  be- 
come impatient  at  the  slowness  of 
progress  and  skeptical  of  most  men 
prominent  in  public  life.  These 
people  are  convinced  that  they  can 
find  in  Johnson  a  leader  that  will 
brush  away  the  cobwebs  at  a  stroke 
and  usher  in  a  new  and  happier  day. 

Is  there  any  real  foundation  for 
their  belief?  Has  the  Johnson  legend 
any  basis  in  fact?  Surely  it  is  of 
the  highest  importance  to  study  the 
record  and  ascertain  the  truth.  It 
Hiram  Johnson  performed  in  his 
native  State  the  services  thus  at- 
tributed to  him,  then,  indeed,  he  has 
a  valid  claim  to  be  considered  as  a 
worthy  candidate  for  the  highest  of- 
fice in  the  land  in  this  transcendent 
time  of  crisis.  If,  on  the  other  hand, 
he  is  sailing  under  false  colors  and 
profiting  by  a  reputation  which  he 
does  not  deserve,  then  all  the  world 
should  know  it.  It  is  the  purpose  of 
the  writer  to  analyze  Johnson's  career 
in  California  objectively  with  a  view 
to  determining  whether  his  acts,  ac- 
complishments, and  character  justify 
his  popular  reputation  in  the  eastern 
States. 

In  California  Hiram  W.  Johnson's 
political  career  has  been  brief  but 
spectacular,  and  those  most  opposed 
to  him  and  his  methods  will  not  deny 
him  the  credit  of  large  achievements. 
Prior  to  his  first  appearance  on  the 
political  stage  in  1910,  when  he 
was  elected  Governor,  he  had  been 
a  rather  inconspicuous  lawyer.  His 
legal  equipment  was  considered  me- 
diocre, and  his  abilities  lay  rather  in 
the  line  of  a  certain  dramatic  elo- 
quence and  the  power  of  vitriolic 
attack  in  addressing  a  jury  than  in 
clear  reasoning  or  constructive  argu- 
ment. Before  his  campaign  for  the 
Governorship  he  was  chiefly  known 
for  his  connection  with  two  cases,  the 
graft  prosecution  and  the  Dalzell 
Brown  affair. 


When  Francis  J.  Heney  undertook 
the  graft  prosecution  case,  Johnson 
also  entered  it,  but  soon  afterward 
withdrew,  the  alleged  reason  being 
that  he  fell  out  with  Rudolph  Spreck- 
els,  the  "angel"  of  the  prosecution, 
over  the  amount  of  his  fee.  Later, 
when  Heney  was  shot  and  tempo- 
rarily disabled,  Johnson  volunteered 
to  take  his  place.  Ruef  was  con- 
victed— as  he  was  certain  to  be  from 
the  moment  of  the  attack  on  Heney — 
and  this  at  once  established  the  popu- 
larity of  Johnson. 

The  other  case  was  that  of  the  de- 
fense of  Dalzell  Brown,  who  had 
looted  the  California  Safe  Deposit 
and  Trust  Company.  It  was  a  scan- 
dalous case  and  the  guilt  of  the  ac- 
cused was  beyond  question.  Johnson 
was  generally  believed  to  have  been 
employed  to  use  his  influence  and 
"pull"  with  the  district  attorney's 
office  to  get  his  client  off  with  a  light 
sentence.  A  judge  was  called  in 
from  the  country,  and  Brown  pleaded 
guilty  to  one  charge.  The  prosecut- 
ing officer  asked  for  a  nominal  sen- 
tence on  the  ground  of  the  assistance 
rendered  by  Brown  in  untangling  the 
false  entries  in  the  books  of  the  bank. 
Later  it  appeared  that  Brown  had 
done  nothing  of  the  sort,  but  had 
done  all  in  his  power  to  block  the  in- 
vestigation. There  was  little  doubt 
as  to  the  means  employed  by  his  at- 
torney in  securing  his  escape  from 
just  punishment. 

Then  came  the  split  in  the  Repub- 
lican party.  The  so-called  Lincoln- 
Roosevelt  League  was  formed,  with 
the  avowed  purpose  of  wresting  con- 
trol of  the  party  machinery  from 
those  who  had  long  held  it.  Johnson 
was  asked  by  the  League  to  run  for 
Governor,  but  declined.  The  then 
Governor,  James  Gillett,  was  de- 
servedly popular  and  there  was  little 
doubt  of  his  reelection  if  he  should 
decide  to  run  again.  When,  however, 
Gillett  announced  that  he  would  re- 
tire and  the  way  seemed  open  for  a 
plurality  candidate  to  succeed  in  the 
resulting  confusion,  Johnson  changed 
his  mind  and  accepted  the  leadership 
and  candidacy  of  the  Lincoln-Roose- 
velt League. 

He  made  his  campaign  on  the  is- 
sue of  the  Southern  Pacific  in  poli- 


tics, and  it  is  upon  this  that  much  of 
his  fame  outside  his  native  State 
rests.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  South- 
ern Pacific  was  already  out  of  politics, 
had  been  out  of  politics  for  two  years, 
when  he  started  his  campaign.  The 
facts  are  open  to  everyone.  Had  the 
Southern  Pacific  not  given  up  its  po- 
litical organizations  throughout  the 
State,  Johnson  would  have  had  no 
show  at  all.  But  the  legend  of  South- 
ern Pacific  political  control  was  still 
strong,  and  Johnson  played  upon  it  in 
vitriolic  attacks.  He  indulged  in 
spectacular  "shadow-boxing"  over 
the  grave  of  the  self-buried  giant.  It 
is  a  matter  of  record  that,  not  long 
before,  he  had  sought  employment 
with  the  Southern  Pacific  and  had 
been  turned  down. 

Reference  must  be  made  to  one 
other  issue  in  this  election  that  has 
been  misrepresented  in  the  East,  the 
issue  of  woman  suffrage.  It  has  been 
publicly  asserted  that  Johnson  was  an 
advocate  of  suffrage  and  was  largely 
responsible  for  giving  the  vote  to  the 
women  of  California.  Nothing  could 
be  further  from  the  case.  The  Con- 
stitutional amendment  for  suffrage 
was  before  the  electors  at  the  same 
election  in  which  he  was  running  for 
Governor,  but  in  all  the  speeches  he 
made  up  and  down  the  State,  never 
once  did  he  say  one  word  in  favor  of 
it.  On  the  contrary,  he  kept  dis- 
creetly silent,  except  in  private  con- 
versation, where  he  could  voice  his 
contempt  in  safety.  Though  repeat- 
edly urged  to  make  a  public  declara- 
tion on  the  subject,  he  declined  to  do 
so. 

The  campaign  resulted  in  his  elec- 
tion, together  with  a  Legislature  en- 
tirely subservient  to  him.  With  this 
in  hand,  he  started  to  build  up  a  po- 
litical machine  unique  in  the  annals 
of  American  politics.  Its  unique 
character  lies  in  the  fact  that,  while 
it  exercised  a  control  even  more  com- 
plete than  that  of  Tammany,  and 
utilized  the  corrupt  forces  of  vice 
and  graft  as  exemplified  in  the  ward- 
heelers  of  the  underworld  and  the 
waterfront,  it  was  built  up  "in  the 
name  of  the  Lord,"  and  counts  among 
its  supporters  many  of  the  most 
prominent  and  "forward-looking" 
men  of  California.    How  was  it  po3- 


May  22,   1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[539 


sible  to  achieve  such  an  anomalous 
result?  By  patronage,  pure  and 
simple,  albeit  sometimes  disguised 
beneath  the  cover  of  "v^^elfare"  com- 
missions. 
j  It  would  be  unfair  to  deny  Gov- 
I  ernor  Johnson  the  credit  for  much 
I  legislation  of  enlightened  character. 
California  was  far  behind  in  such 
I  matters,  and  if  perchance  Johnson's 
!  subservient  Legislature  deserved  the 
epithet  of  "freak,"  which  has  gen- 
i  erally  been  applied  to  it,  due  appre- 
i  ciation  must  be  recorded  for  the 
institution  of  many  needed  reforms. 
.  The  drawback  was  that  these  reform 
I  and  welfare  measures — good  as  well 
as  bad — were  carried  out  by  the  in- 
stitution of  numerous  highly  paid 
commissions,  which  cost  the  people  of 
the  State  exorbitant  sums  and  each 
of  which  became  a  source  of  patron- 
age to  the  Governor  for  his  ma- 
chine. This  patronage  was  abused 
in  a  shocking  manner.  A  large 
number  of  legislators  were  given 
lucrative  positions.  Saloon-keepers, 
professional  gamblers,  id  omne  genus, 
who  controlled  large  blocks  of  votes, 
were  taken  care  of  and  even  dom- 
inated the  Republican  county  com- 
mittee of  San  Francisco.  The  number 
of  State  employees  increased  by 
leaps  and  bounds,  and  the  expense 
of  running  the  State  Government 
jumped  from  $8,376,298  in  1910  to 
$15,681,943  in  1916.  One  illustra- 
tion of  the  increase  of  the  State  pay- 
roll for  political  purposes  may  be 
cited  as  typical.  In  1910  the  em- 
ployees on  the  San  Francisco  water 
front  (State  Harbor  Board)  num- 
bered 285  with  an  annual  pay-roll  of 
$379,936 ;  in  1916  these  had  been  in- 
creased to  604,  with  an  annual  pay- 
roll of  $702,359.  The  Harbor  Board 
controls  the  belt-line  railroad,  with 
four  miles  of  track  and  four  loco- 
motives. For  this  were  provided 
seven  yardmasters,  fifteen  firemen, 
forty-six  machinists'  helpers,  seven- 
teen electricians,  and  fifteen  en- 
gineers ! 

The  political  degradation  of  Califor- 
nia under  the  Johnson  machine  pre- 
sents a  dark  picture.  The  obedient 
Legislature  placed  the  additional 
burden  of  taxation,  necessary  to  meet 
the    vastly    increased    expenditures. 


upon  the  public  service  corporations 
and  fooled  the  people  into  believing 
that  this  came  out  of  their  fat  profits 
and  not  out  of  the  pockets  of  the  con- 
sumers. The  owners  of  these  cor- 
porations were  rendered  thoroughly 
docile  under  the  threat  of  confiscatory 
taxes  without  redress,  and  even  to- 
day, in  the  primary  just  held,  many 
of  them  came  tamely  to  heel,  realiz- 
ing their  impotence  to  kick  against 
the  pricks. 

The  story  of  Johnson  espousing 
the  Progressive  party  and  his  dis- 
franchising of  the  Republican  party 
in  California  forms  a  chapter  by  it- 
self, but  to  tell  it  would  transcend 
the  limits  of  this  article.  Here  is  no 
question  of  the  right  or  propriety  of 
changing  political  allegiance.  It  is 
the  question  of  utilizing  a  personal 
machine  to  seize  and  change  a  party 
organization.  Johnson,  through  his 
complete  control  of  the  Republican 
State  Committee,  secured  the  nomina- 
tion as  Presidential  electors  of  men 
pledged  to  vote  for  the  Progressive 
candidates,  and  prevented  the  names 
of  real  Republican  electors  from  ap- 
pearing on  the  ballot.  To  perpetuate 
his  control,  despite  the  collapse  of  the 
Progressive  party,  he  secured  the 
passage  of  an  infamous  primary  law 
that  permits  any  man  to  vote  in  the 
primary  of  a  party  regardless  of  his 
own  party  affiliation.  His  attacks  on 
the  Republican  party  were  violent 
and  offensive,  yet  when  it  served  his 
purpose  he  directed  his  followers  to 
vote  in  the  Republican  primaries,  and 
thereby  obtained  again  the  control  of 
the  Republican  party  organization  for 
the  purpose  of  securing  the  nomina- 
tion for  United  States  Senator.  An- 
other step  also  was  necessary.  The 
Constitution  of  California  forbade  a 
Governor  to  become  a  candidate  for 
Senator.  He  had  this  provision  re- 
pealed. The  iniquitous  primary  law 
made  possible  at  the  same  time  po- 
litical deals  and  trades  with  the 
Democrats. 

Such  was  the  situation  at  the  time 
of  the  Hughes-Wilson  campaign  and 
the  Johnson-Hughes  episode  in  Cal- 
ifornia, which  resulted  in  the  elec- 
tion of  Wilson.  In  California,  Hughes 
was  defeated  by  less  than  4,000 
votes;  Johnson  was  elected  Senator 


by  more  than  300,000.  This  astound- 
ing result  was  lamely  explained  in 
many  ways.  To  this  day  it  is  gen- 
erally believed  in  the  East  that  it  was 
due  to  the  stupidity  and  Bourbonism 
of  Republican  reactionaries,  whom 
the  people  rebuked  for  slights  to  their 
champion,  Johnson.  These  explana- 
tions obviously  do  not  explain.  John- 
son claimed  to  be  loyal  to  Hughes,  but 
had  this  been  true,  the  slightest  nod  to 
his  machine  would  have  made  the  vic- 
tory of  Hughes  certain.  California 
was  overwhelmingly  Republican,  and 
there  was  no  need  for  Hughes  to  in- 
clude it  in  his  itinerary,  certainly  not 
before  the  primaries,  where  the  Sen- 
atorial nomination  was  to  be  decided. 
W.  H.  Crocker,  Republican  National 
Committeeman,  made  an  earnest  plea 
that  Hughes's  visit  to  California 
should  be  delayed  until  after  the  pri- 
maries, lest  the  national  candidate 
should  be  injected  into  the  local  strug- 
gle. But  Hughes  came,  and  the 
studied  break  was  carefully  staged. 
Why  was  it  done?  To  many  the  an- 
swer seemed  simple.  If  Hughes  were 
elected,  four  years  later  he  would  un- 
doubtedly be  reelected,  or,  if  not,  a 
Democrat  would  succeed  him.  John- 
son's opportunity  for  the  Presidency 
lay  in  the  defeat  of  Hughes  and 
the  election  of  Wilson,  who  would 
scarcely  attempt  to  run  a  third  time. 
Johnson's  political  career  in  Cal- 
ifornia and  at  Washington  gives  a 
clear  index  to  his  character.  Alfred 
Holman  thus  sums  it  up  in  the 
Argonaut: 

Mr.  Johnson,  a  man  not  without  talent  and 
courage  and  with  exceptional  powers  of  public 
appeal,  is  first,  last  and  always  a  politician. 
He  is  a  statesman  only  in  the  sense  of  an  ex- 
tended experience  in  the  mechanism  of  prac- 
tical politics.  Of  world  affairs  he  knows  little 
and  cares  less.  He  has  no  convictions  founded 
in  broad  knowledge  or  in  moral  purpose.  His 
genius  is  that  of  destruction ;  his  talent  that  of 
denunciation.  His  policy,  when  not  limited  to 
expediencies,  is  dominated  by  his  hatreds. 
Early  in  his  career  he  discovered  the  campaign 
value  of  defamatory  onslaught,  and  he  has 
attuned  his  very  considerable  powers  of  ora- 
tory to  this  sinister  expedient.  Mr.  Johnson 
has  not  the  first  qualification  for  the  presi- 
dency. He  is  minus  the  breadth  of  mind, 
minus  the  knowledge  of  affairs,  minus  the  eco- 
nomical instinct,  minus  the  judicial  spirit, 
above  all  minus  the  character  requisite  in  the 
presidency  if  it  is  to  be  brought  back  to  its 
constitutional  status  and  re-established  in  the 
respect  of  intelligence  and  patriotism. 

This  is  a  harsh  arraignment,  but 
justification  may  be  found  for  it  in 
the  recent  primaries  in  California. 


540] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  54 


With  almost  the  whole  press  of  the 
State  at  his  beck  and  call  (no  less 
than  thirty-seven  editors  had  been  ap- 
pointed by  him  to  commissions),  a 
violent  tirade  of  misrepresentation 
and  insinuation  was  launched  at  his 
opponent,  Herbert  Hoover.  Every 
day  the  papers  carried  hints  to  the 
Democrats  that  they  could  vote  in  the 
Republican  primaries.  Hoover's  sup- 
porters, amateurs  in  politics  and 
starting  late,  carried  on  a  clean  cam- 
paign, eschewing  these  political  meth- 
ods. They  had  very  limited  funds  to 
spend,  which  were  devoted  to  sending 
out  letters  and  circulars  and  to  pay- 
ing for  some  advertisements  in  the 
Johnson  papers,  the  only  way  they 
could  reach  the  electorate.  The 
Hoover  campaign  expenditures  in 
California  were  probably  less  than 
one-fifth  those  of  the  Johnson  com- 
mittee, yet  they  at  once  provoked  the 
old  familiar  cry  of  "a  Saturnalia  of 


political  extravagance,"  a  smoke- 
screen to  conceal  the  prodigality  on 
the  other  side.  Despite  the  most 
powerful  political  machine  ever 
known  in  America,  despite  the  oppo- 
sition, the  unfair  opposition  of  prac- 
tically all  the  newspapers,  despite 
their  inexperience  and  lack  of  funds, 
despite  the  adherence  to  Johnson  of 
a  crowd  of  old-line  Republicans,  who 
thereby,  prior  to  the  appearance  of 
Hoover,  sought  to  insure  against  an- 
other betrayal  of  the  party  by  John- 
son at  Chicago,  nevertheless  the  sup- 
porters of  Hoover  obtained  for  him 
nearly  three  votes  for  every  five  votes 
cast  for  Johnson.  It  was  a  splendid 
showing,  and  the  protest  which  these 
210,000  votes  expressed  should  not  be 
without  eifect  in  opening  the  eyes  of 
the  East  to  the  true  nature  of  the 
Johnson  legend. 

Jerome  Landfield 


The  Military  Coup  in  Germany 


WAS  it  a  military  coup?  That  can 
not  be  subject  to  doubt  when  one 
considers  who  were  the  wirepullers.  A 
Social-Democratic  politician,  Herr  Oden- 
weiler,  from  Bad  Homburg,  had,  on 
March  13,  a  conversation  with  General 
Ludendorflf  at  Berlin  in  the  course  of 
which  the  General  requested  Herr  Oden- 
weiler  to  bring  him  into  contact  with 
the  Social-Democratic  Party  Managers 
and  the  executives  of  the  Trade  Unions. 
The  leaders  of  the  conspiracy  wanted, 
at  the  very  outset,  to  pacify  and  placate 
the  working  classes.  Among  other 
things,  Ludendorff  said:  "We  have  em- 
ployed Kapp  simply  because  we  had  no 
better  man.  We  need  one  with  iron 
nerves.  If  you  can  procure  us  any,  we 
are  willing  to  form  a  Government  also 
with  them." 

Ludendorff  acted,  of  course,  in  the  be- 
lief that  he  was  doing  his  country  a 
service,  but  a  conspiracy  against  the 
German  Constitution,  such  as  broke  out 
on  March  13,  must  be  judged  by  what 
actually  happened  and  not  according  to 
the  subjective  conviction  of  the  principal 
actors.  The  chief  agent  was  Ludendorff's 
former  assistant  in  the  war.  Colonel 
Bauer,  the  very  man  who,  on  December 
7,  1919,  assured  the  American  journal- 
ist, Karl  H.  von  Wiegand,  in  an  inter- 
view that  "with  the  exception  of  a  few 
hotspurs,  no  one  in  Germany  contem- 
plates restoring  the  monarchy  by  vio- 
lence." During  the  few  days  in  which 
Herr  Kapp  was  the  stalking-horse  for 


the  military  dictatorship  which  was  to 
be  established,  the  participants  in  the 
enterprise  publicly  denied  that  they  had 
any  monarchical  intentions.  But  these 
protestations  were  not  in  accordance  with 
Bauer's  interview,  the  tenor  of  which 
was  that  the  monarchic  movement  in  Ger- 
many was  growing  and  that  the  restora- 
tion of  the  monarchy,  in  a  form  copied 
from  the  English  model,  would  come  to 
pass  "automatically"  in  the  near  future. 
The  Colonel  even  disclosed  at  the  time 
a  regular  programme:  first,  the  election 
of  Hindenburg  as  President,  then  the 
removal  under  his  authority  of  the  ruins 
of  the  old  Empire,  and  finally  an  invita- 
tion to  Crown-Prince  Friedrich  Wilhelm 
to  take  possession  of  his  inheritance. 
Such  was,  doubtless,  also  the  plan  under- 
lying the  attempt  of  March  13.  When 
its  leaders  expressed  themselves  on  the 
question  of  the  monarchy  in  private  con- 
versation, their  denial  lacked  that  de- 
cision which  they  gave  to  their  public 
utterances.  Those  who  know  Hinden- 
burg's  character  can  not  believe  him  to 
have  been  initiated  in  the  conspirators' 
plans.  The  wirepullers  behind  the  scene 
had  intended  him  for  President  because 
the  m»ral  authority  and  personal  wor- 
ship which  the  Marshal  commands  even 
among  his  political  opponents  could  serve 
their  purpose  unknown  to  Hindenburg 
himself. 

The  conspiracy  might  have  become 
more  dangerous  if  it  had  not  broken  out 
prematurely.     Shortly  before,   the  ma- 


jority in  the  National  Assembly  decided 
that  the  elections  for  the  Reichstag 
should  take  place  in  the  late  autumn,  as 
soon  as  the  harvest  should  be  over,  and 
a  definite  legislative  programme  should  < 
have  been  dispatched.  This  was  against 
the  wishes  of  the  reactionary  monarch- 
ists and  conservatives.  They  wanted, 
on  the  contrary,  elections  at  the  earliest 
possible  date,  because  public  feeling,  dur- 
ing the  last  months,  had  been  unfavor- 
able to  the  Government.  The  cost  of 
living  kept  going  up,  the  recuperation 
of  national  production  proceeded  but 
slowly,  labor  showed  an  increasing  tend- 
ency towards  radicalism,  and  one  could 
often  hear  the  remark,  "Before  the  No- 
vember Revolution  things  were  in  better 
shape.  Since  then  they  have  gone 
steadily  downward."  The  average  Ger- 
man unconsciously  confused  the  conse- 
quences of  the  war  with  those  of  the 
Revolution,  and  the  pace-makers  of  the 
counter-revolution  made  the  most  of  this 
confusion.  Among  their  circle  it  was 
feared  that,  if  the  elections  were  post- 
poned until  the  late  autumn,  the  Gov- 
ernment might  succeed  meanwhile  in 
quieting  the  general  discontent  by  finan- 
cial reforms  by  levying  on  both  capital 
and  incomes,  and  by  obtaining  material 
alleviation  of  the  peace  terms. 

Hardly  better  pleased  were  the  con- 
spirators by  the  plan,  then  under  dis- 
cussion among  the  majority  parties,  to 
have  the  President  elected  not  after  the 
American  fashion  by  the  entire  nation, 
but  in  the  French  way  by  the  people's 
representatives.  That  would  preclude 
the  election  of  Hindenburg,  and  his  moral 
prestige  was  an  essential  factor  for  the 
realization  of  their  retrogressive  move. 
At  this  juncture  the  Minister  of  War 
and  Generalissimo  Noske  became  aware 
of  the  existence  of   the  conspiracy. 

Noske  was,  no  doubt,  the  most  ener- 
getic man  in  the  Government.  For  him 
the  outbreak  of  the  counter-revolution 
was  a  moral  defeat,  as  he  had  always 
guaranteed  that  the  officers  and  troops, 
according  to  their  oath  to  the  Constitu- 
tion and  the  personal  assurances  of  the 
Generals,  were  loyal  to  him,  the  Min- 
ister, whatever  their  feelings  and  con- 
victions might  be  regarding  the  old  Em- 
pire. His  security  was  such  that  even 
in  the  night  of  March  12,  when  he  in-  i 
spected  the  guards  in  front  of  the  Min- 
istries, he  did  not  yet  believe  in  the 
seriousness  of  the  situation,  and  held 
himself  convinced  that  he  could  frustrate 
the  conspirators'  plans.  But  when,  at 
3  o'clock  in  the  morning,  the  Govern- 
ment was  suddenly  faced  with  the  full 
danger,  Noske  said  the  troops  at  his 
command  were  four  times  outnumbered 
by  the  forces  then  marching  upon  Ber- 
lin. The  Government  troops  had  little 
inclination  to  fight  against  odds,  and 
received  the  order  to  retreat.  When  the 
conspirators  entered  Berlin,  they  found 


i 


May  22,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[541 


the  city  abandoned  and  most  of  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Government  gone. 

This  flight  of  the  Government  was  a 
disappointment  to  the  leaders  of  the 
counter-revolution.  It  invalidated  their 
claim  of  being  the  only  central  authority 
in  the  country.  The  second  obstacle  in 
their  way  to  success  was  the  refusal  of 
all  the  departments  both  of  the  Imperial 
and  Prussian  administrations  to  co- 
operate with  them.  The  two  assistant 
Secretaries  of  State  in  the  Foreign  Of- 
fice gave  the  self-appointed  Imperial 
Chancellor,  Dr.  Kapp,  to  understand  that 
they  would  not  heed  any  orders  from 
him.  Even  more  serious  was  the  hostile 
attitude  of  the  Ministry  of  Finance. 
Herr  Kapp  sent  an  adjutant  to  the  As- 
sistant Secretary  of  State  who,  since 
Erzberger's  fall,  had  been  responsible 
for  the  Department,  to  ask  for  a  draft  of 
ten  million  marks,  which  he  needed  for 
the  pay  of  the  troops.  The  Secretary's 
answer  to  the  officer  was  literally  as 
follows :  "Tell  Dr.  Kapp  that  I  have  no 
money  for  him,  and  that  he  shall  not 
get  a  single  penny  from  me."  But  the 
decisive  blow  to  their  hopes  was  given 
by  the  refusal  of  the  officers  and  soldiers 
in  the  provinces  to  join  the  rebels. 

A  backward  look  on  these  five  days 
of  the  Kapp  regime  suggests  a  three- 
fold conclusion.  It  reveals,  first  of  all, 
the  fatal  mentality  of  those  men  to 
whom,  in  the  war,  the  destinies  of  Ger- 
many were  entrusted.  General  Luden- 
dorff  betrayed,  by  his  remark  about  the 
need  of  men  with  iron  nerves,  that  he  had 
not  the  slightest  notion  of  the  spirit  pre- 
vailing among  the  people.  Only  an  abso- 
lute lack  of  political  sense  can  account 
for  his  absurd  belief  that  the  counter- 
revolution could  be  forced  through  with 
military  power  against  the  will  of  the 
people  in  its  present  mood.  We  under- 
stand now  why  this  man  and  men  of  his 
stripe,  such  as  Kapp,  Bauer,  and  von 
Liittwitz,  were  incapable,  during  the  war, 
of  reading  the  signs  of  the  time  which 
gave  them  warning  to  conclude  a  timely 
peace.  It  was  Dr.  Kapp  who  in  July, 
1917,  founded  the  "Fatherland  Party," 
which  had  for  its  purpose  the  continua- 
tion of  the  war  until  Germany  should 
have  vanquished  all  her  opponents.  That 
party  had,  at  the  time,  the  support  not 
of  the  masses,  which  then  had  already 
grown  tired  of  the  war,  but  of  a  large 
part  of  the  educated  classes.  But  the 
Pan-German  spirit  had  lost  its  hold  on 
these,  as  the  failure  of  Kapp's  revolu- 
tion has  proved  beyond  any  doubt.  When 
the  conspirators  realized  that  they  could 
not  expect  material  help  from  that  quar- 
ter, they  changed  their  tactics  and  sought 
contact  with  the  radical  wing  of  the 
Socialists.  They  offered  to  the  Inde- 
pendents the  use  of  their  troops,  if  they 
wished  to  form  a  Government.  Their 
idea  was  to  establish  a  Bolshevist  Ger- 
many, if  their  original  plan  failed,  and 


to  attempt  to  restore  Germany's  military 
predominance  with  the  help  of  Soviet 
Russia,  a  plan  of  despair  evidencing  a 
total  absence  of  political  intelligence.  Not 
even  the  bulk  of  the  moderate  Social- 
Democrats,  let  alone  the  bourgeois 
parties,  would  have  lent  support  to  such 
a  mad  excess  of  patriotism. 

The  second  conclusion  bears  on  the 
question  whether  the  radical  and  de- 
structive counter-move  of  the  general 
strike  was  necessary  to  repress  the  re- 
volt. It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that 
Labor,  under  the  first  impression  of  the 
coup,  when  Berlin  was  practically  cut  off 
from  all  communication  with  the  rest  of 
the  country,  and  the  real  situation  in 
the  individual  provinces  could  not  be  sur- 
veyed, should  have  reacted  in  the  way 
it  did,  honestly  believing  that  everything 
was  at  stake.  The  movement  was  spon- 
taneous. The  lawful  Government  did 
not  officially  call  the  strike,  but  seems 
to  have  recommended  it.  In  that  Ebert 
and  Bauer  made  a  mistake,  for  which, 
however,  they  are  not  to  blame.  For 
they  could  not  know  the  actual  strength 
of  their  own  position,  which  the  course 
of  events  proved  to  be  greater  than  they 
thought,  despite  the  many  mistakes  which 
they  had  made  and  which  precluded  the 
return  of  their  Government  in  its  former 
constitution.  But  these  mistakes  are  re- 
corded on  another  page  than  the  one 
which  contains  the  history  of  the  Kapp 
revolution. 

The  third  conclusion  is  that  these  pa- 
triots of  the  Ludendorff  type  have  caused 
the  Fatherland  a  material  loss  of  about 
two  billion  working  hours,  involving  a 
retardation  of  the  country's  reconstruc- 
tion and  of  the  fulfillment  of  its  obliga- 
tions. This  deplorable  effect  is  only 
grist  for  the  mill  of  the  Communists 
who  aim  at  the  overthrow  of  Germany's 
economic  organization  and  hope  to  usher 
in  the  world  revolution  with  the  help 
of  Bolshevist  Russia.  The  coup  has,  in- 
deed, offered  an  occasion  for  the  Ger- 
man people  to  show  the  world,  by  its 
disavowal  of  the  military  reaction,  that 
a  large  majority  of  the  nation  renounces 
its  past  ambitions.  It  may  justly  be  said 
that  this  was  the  first  unmistakable 
manifestation  of  the  existence  of  a  new, 
democratic  Germany.  But  also,  this 
democratic  Germany  will  have  a  hard 
struggle  to  prevent  a  large  part,  per- 
haps the  majority,  of  Labor  from  being 
lured  into  the  radical  camp  by  the  suc- 
cess of  the  general  strike,  which  has 
proved  its  effectiveness  as  a  political 
weapon.  The  nebulous  dreams  of  a  com- 
munistic state,  of  a  Soviet  Republic, 
and  an  alliance  with  Russia  have  taken 
a  more  definite  shape,  and  the  near  fu- 
ture will  probably  witness  a  series  of 
violent  coups  from  the  extreme  left.  An 
effective  antidote  would  be  an  increased 
import  of  raw  materials  and  foodstuffs. 
Only  that  Government  has  a  chance  of 


maintaining  itself  in  Germany  which  pro- 
vides the  people  with  the  means  and 
opportunities  of  remunerative  labor  and 
with  the  wherewithal  to  feed  and  clothe 
themselves.  In  this  respect  the  Entente 
is  in  a  better  position  than  the  German 
Government  to  avert  the  dangers  which, 
as  a  result  of  Kapp's  coup,  are  now 
threatening  the  country  from  the  left. 

The  late  experience,  finally,  has  em- 
phasized the  danger  involved  in  the  prin- 
ciple of  a  standing  army,  which  the 
Peace  Treaty  of  Versailles  has  imposed 
upon  Germany.  With  a  democratic  mili- 
tia no  coups  d'etat  can  be  attempted  by 
ambitious  or  reactionary  generals;  with 
a  professional  soldiery,  prone  to  violence 
and  restlessness,  such  attempts  have  a 
better  chance  of  success. 

Dr.  Paul  Rohrbach 

Berlin 

Switzerland  and  the 
League  of  Nations 

[The  following  article,  written  long  in  ad- 
vance of  the  plebiscite  of  May  16,  gives  an  ac- 
count of  the  conflicting  views  on  the  League 
of  Nations  which  the  results  of  the  referendum 
show  to  be  a  true  reflection.  The  author  was 
for  many  years  Professor  of  International  Law 
at  the  University  of  Berne,  is  now  an  active 
member  of  the  bar  of  that  city,  and  is  one  of 
the  best-known  Swiss  authorities  on  juris- 
prudence.] 

SWITZERLAND,  like  America,  has 
found  difficulties  in  the  way  that 
may  finally  lead  her  into  the  League  of 
Nations.  In  both  countries  membership 
in  such  an  alliance  seems  to  stand,  at  the 
outset,  in  contradiction  to  fundamental 
principles  of  a  traditional  foreign  policy. 
Without  attempting  to  judge,  or  to  pre- 
scribe, the  course  of  the  United  States, 
some  account  of  Switzerland's  efforts  to 
solve  the  problem  with  which  she  is 
faced  may  prove  useful. 

With  us,  though  the  Government  and 
both  Parliamentary  bodies  have  urgently 
recommended  adhesion  to  the  League,  it 
is  still  necessary  to  bring  about  a  clear 
conviction  in  the  minds  of  the  people. 
The  real  difficulties  began  precisely  at 
this  point.  It  is  no  easy  matter  to  en- 
lighten an  entire  nation.  It  is  difficult 
enough  to  make  our  intellectual  classes 
understand  the  present  international  sit- 
uation. But  to  make  everybody  under- 
stand it,  every  workman,  every  peasant, 
to  make  men  understand  it  who  have 
never  taken  any  interest  in  political 
questions,  that  is  an  undertaking  that 
demands  great  confidence  in  the  political 
good  sense  of  a  nation,  great  confidence 
in  democracy. 

What  makes  the  task  still  more  difficult 
is  the  fact  that  the  Covenant  of  Paris 
is  far  from  perfect.  No  one  was  gen- 
uinely elated  over  its  meagre  results  in 
bringing    about    obligatory    arbitration. 


542] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  54 


disarmament,  and  international  organiza- 
tion.    I  must  say,  so  far  as  1  am  con-  . 
cemed,  I,  too,  was  disappointed,  although 
I  had  worked  for  more  than  twenty-five 
years  for  the  advancement  of  interna- 
tional law  and  was  therefore  in  a  posi- 
tion to  realize  the  great  advance  that,  in 
spite   of   everything,    the   Covenant   of 
Paris  provided  for  the  world.    The  same 
could  be  said  of  all  sincere  advocates  ot 
a  League  of  Nations.     Time,  no  doubt, 
was  necessary  to  realize  the  great  ad- 
vantages  of  the   Covenant   in   spite   of 
eveo'thing  else,  to  realize  the  ameliora- 
tion it  provided  for  the  deplorable  in- 
ternational situation  of  the  entire  world 
after  this  war,  and  also  to  realize  the 
disadvantages  of  a  policy  of  separatism 
on  the  part  of  those  countries  deciding 
to  remain  outside  of  this  League.     Not 
until  all  this  was  realized  was  it  possible 
to  see  in  the  Covenant,  as  a  matter  of 
fact  and  in  spite  of  its  imperfections,  a 
tronendous  advance,  nothing  less  than 
salvation  for  humanity. 
-"  There  was  during  the  war  in  German 
Switzerland   a   great   deal    of    pro-Ger- 
manism.   Our  press  was  in  complete  sub- 
jection to  the  Empire  and  defended  with 
it  German  imperialism  and  German  mili- 
tarism in  all  its  evil  consequences.    It  is 
a  shame  for  us,  living  in  a  democratic 
country,  to  have  to  admit  that  the  readers 
of  our  newspapers  simply  believed  all 
the  falsehoods  that  our  press  imported 
from  beyond  the  Rhine.  We  did  not  have 
in  German  Switzerland  a  single  news- 
paper that  was  truly   independent  and 
that  maintained  the  Swiss  point  of  view 
in  every  respect.     (This  state  of  affairs 
induced  my  friends  and  myself  to  found 
a  new  paper,  the  Ncmc  Schweizer  Zei- 
tung.)    The  press,  which  was  more  Ger- 
man than  Swiss,  is  above  all  else  respon- 
sible for  the  fact  that  we  have  in  German 
Switzerland  many  thousands  who  have 
been,  and  still  are,  entirely  subservient 
to  Germanism.    These  thousands,  guided 
by  a  mediocre  press,  are  to-day  still  op- 
posed to  the  entrance  of  Switzerland  into 
the  League  of  Nations.     If  the  League 
had  been  decreed  from  Berlin  they  would 
probably    speak    and    think    differently. 
But  the  Covenant  comes  from  Paris,  and 
that  suflices  to  compromise  it  in  their 
eyes. 

It  is  of  interest  to  know  that  those 
who  are  hostile  to  the  League  of  Nations 
are  led,  if  we  leave  out  of  consideration 
the  small  provincial  press,  for  the  most 
part  by  a  number  of  our  military  com- 
manders who  were  counting  on  the  suc- 
cess of  German  militarism.  Disappointed 
with  the  result  of  the  war,  they  are  nat- 
urally opposed  to  what  they  call  an 
alliance  of  the  victors.  In  order,  how- 
ever, to  defend  their  point  of  view  in 
a  less  offensive  manner,  they  use  the  pre- 
text of  our  policy  of  neutrality  as  an 
argument  against  the  entrance  of  Switz- 
erland into  the  alliance.     Superior  offi- 


cers who  during  the  war  snapped  their 
fingers  at  our  neutrality  and  violated  it 
flagrantly  do  not  hesitate  to-day  to  use 
it  as  a  pretext  for  entirely  opposite  ac- 
tion. 

There  are,  besides  these,  still  other 
opponents  who  can  not  be  convinced. 
These  are  the  Socialist  workmen.  The 
Swiss  Socialist  party  takes  its  orders,  not 
from  Berne,  not  from  Ziirich,  but  from 
Moscow.  They  are  Bolshevists,  with  the 
exception  of  the  group  of  Swiss  So- 
cialists who  call  themselves  the  "Griit- 
liverein."  The  others — and  they  are 
unfortunately  the  great  majority — are 
followers  of  Lenin  and  are  therefore  op- 
posed to  a  League  of  Nations  the  ob- 
ject of  which  is  precisely  to  rescue  the 
world  from  Bolshevistic  anarchy.  They 
have  but  one  aim,  to  destroy  the  politi- 
cal regime  and  the  social  order  of  West- 
ern Europe. 

It  may  be  seen  from  what  I  have  said 
that  Swiss  militarism — in  the  Prussian 
sense  of  the  word — and  Swiss  Socialism 
— in  the  Russian  sense  of  the  word — go 
hand  in  hand  with  regard  to  the  ques- 
tion of  the  entrance  of  Switzerland  into 
the  League  of  Nations.  And  what  makes 
this  affiliation  still  more  interesting  is 
the  fact  that  these  people,  who  allow  the 
foreigner,  German  or  Russian,  to  dictate 
their  attitude,  in  order  to  justify  their 
attitude,  make  use  of  the  pretext,  the 
one  party  no  less  than  the  other,  that 
the  abandonment  of  our  neutrality  would 
mean  a  national  danger  to  our  country. 
They  are  infinitely  dangerous,  because 
they  exploit  the  emotions  of  our  people 
with  a  view  to  the  triumph  of  aspirations 
which  are  diametrically  opposed  to  the 
true  interests  of  the  country. 

Besides  such  opponents  of  the  Cove- 
nant, whom  I  call  insincere,  there  are  a 
considerable  number  of  very  good  pa- 
triots who  are  seriously  disturbed  be- 
cause they  have  not  sufficient  confidence 
in  the  Covenant  as  it  was  made  at  Paris 
and  who  are  alarmed  at  seeing  our  Gov- 
ernment depart  from  a  traditional  policy. 
Yet  it  is  clear  that  to-day  the  great  ma- 
jority of  our  intellectuals  and  members 
of  all  political  parties,  with  the  sole  ex- 
ception of  the  Bolshevists,  are  in  favor 
of  joining  the  League.  That  gives  us 
the  confidence  that,  in  spite  of  all  obsta- 
cles, the  popular  vote  of  the  sixteenth 
of  May  will  be  favorable  to  the  League. 
What  has  made  the  situation  much 
easier  for  us  is  the  fact  that  the  Coun- 
cil of  the  League  of  Nations  has  prom- 
ised us  that  within  the  League  we  can 
maintain  our  traditional  neutrality. 

The  Council  of  the  League  of  Nations;  while 
affirming  the  principle  that  the  idea  of  the 
neutrality  of  members  of  the  League  of  Na- 
tions is  incompatible  with  the  principle  that 
all  the  members  of  the  League  shall  act  in 
common  in  enforcing  its  obligations,  recognizes 
the  fact  that  Switzerland  is  in  an  unique  posi- 
tion and  is  actuated  by  a  tradition  of  several 
centuries    which    has    been    explicitly    incor- 


porated in  the  laws  of  nations  and  which  the 
members  of  the  League  of  Nations,  Signatories 
of  the  Treaty  of  Versailles,  have  duly  recog- 
nized through  article  435,  that  the  guarantees 
stipulated  by  the  Treaty  of  1815  and  espe- 
cially by  the  Act  of  November  20,  1815,  in  ' 
favor  of  Switzerland  constitute  international 
obligations  for  the  maintenance  of  peace.  .  .  . 
In  accepting  these  declarations  (of  the  Swiss 
Government),  the  Council  recognizes  that  the 
perpetual  neutrality  of  Switzerland  and  the 
guarantee  of  the  inviolability  of  her  territory 
as  incorporated  in  the  laws  of  nations,  espe- 
cially in  the  Treaties  and  the  Act  of  1815,  are 
justified  by  the  interests  of  universal  peace 
and  therefore   compatible   with   the   Covenant. 

We,  here  in  Switzerland,  are  sufficiently 
familiar  with  American  idealism  to 
know  that  it  is  absolutely  impossible  for 
a  nation  which  before  all  others  has 
been  a  guide  for  us  in  all  the  problems 
with  which  the  League  of  Nations  is 
concerned  to  remain  outside  of  it.  The 
hour  will  come  when  the  two  democra- 
cies, the  one  the  oldest,  the  other  the 
greatest,  in  the  world,  the  two  coun- 
tries that  have  set  the  precedent  for  the 
creation  of  a  League  of  Nations,  will  be 
members  of  this  organization  that  will 
lead  humanity  to  a  happier  and  a  nobler 
future.  I 

Ottfried  Nippold 

Berne,  April  25 

Correspondence 

"The  Faith  that  Is  in  Us" 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

Of  the  many  commendable  editorial 
utterances  which  have  appeared  in  the 
Review,  none  is  more  worthy  of  atten- 
tion than  that  in  your  issue  of  May  15, 
headed  "The  Faith  that  is  in  Us."  This 
is  the  true  gospel  of  wholesome  democ- 
racy, from  which  we  have  witnessed  so 
many  lamentable  departures  during  the 
last  few  years.  It  is  the  sane  middle 
ground  between  the  wild  extremism 
which  would  destroy  the  fruits  of  ages 
and  the  frenzied  reactionism  which  would 
annihilate  the  spirit  of  liberty  and 
progress. 

The  real  radicals  of  the  country,  the 
inheritors  of  the  spirit  of  Thomas  Jef- 
ferson and  Wendell  Phillips,  the  true 
liberals,  the  broadminded  conservatives, 
are  at  one  in  their  love  for  the  basic 
principles  of  democracy,  although  differ- 
ing widely  in  their  judgment  of  the  merit 
of  proposed  alterations  in  the  method  of 
applicaton.  It  is  a  burning  shame  that 
a  word  with  the  splendid  historic  mean- 
ing of  "radical"  should  be  almost  uni- 
versally misapplied  at  the  present  time. 
Those  who  seek  to  subvert  the  founda- 
tions of  the  Republic  are  not  radicals, 
but  revolutionary  destroyers.  Whatever 
our  different  shades  of  radicalism  or 
conservatism,  it  is  time  for  us  to  realize 
that  there  is  need  for  union  against  a 
twofold  enemy.    Liberty  and  order  must 


May  22,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[543 


walk  hand  in  hand.  The  reactionaries 
and  victims  of  the  current  mob  hysteria, 
begotten  of  a  pseudo-patriotism,  are  no 
less  a  menace  to  the  one  than  the  Bol- 
shevist spirit  in  all  of  its  guises  to  the 
other.  A  plague  of  both  their  houses! 
James  F.  Morton,  Jr. 
New  York,  May  14 

Misstatements  About  Mexico 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

I  have  read  with  interest  the  article 
in  the  Review  on  three  books  on  Mexico. 
It  is  a  subject  very  close  to  me,  as  I  have 
spent  a  good  many  years,  among  them 
the  happiest  of  my  life,  in  that  country, 
but  in  spite  of  my  long  sojourn  there,  I 
every  day  realize  my  ignorance  of  the 
subject,  and  am  correspondingly  amazed 
at  the  assurance  of  men  like  Mr.  de 
Bekker,  who,  after  a  five  weeks'  junket 
in  Mexico,  consider  themselves  suffi- 
ciently well  informed  to  instruct  the 
American  public  on  her  social,  political, 
and  economic  problems. 

As  might  be  expected,  his  book  fairly 
bristles  with  misstatements  which  would 
be  funny  if  they  did  not  contain  many 
malicious  insinuations  and  misrepre- 
sentations of  fellow  countrymen  estab- 
lished in  Mexico. 

Thus,  on  page  31  of  his  book,  "The 
Plot  against  Mexico,"  he  says:  "But 
how  does  Villa  maintain  himself? 
Partly  by  stealing  cattle,  partly  by  rob- 
bing ranches  and  mines,  but  chiefly 
through  the  charity  of  his  American 
friends." 

Not  a  particle  of  proof  is  produced  in 
support  of  this  assertion,  which  of 
course  is  merely  a  repetition  of  what  Mr. 
de  Bekker  heard  from  some  of  the  Mex- 
ican officials,  whose  guest  he  was  during 
his  trip.  If  Mr.  de  Bekker  had  taken  the 
trouble  to  study  Mexican  history,  he 
would  have  come  to  understand  the  ten- 
dency of  Mexican  politicians  to  throw 
the  blame  for  their  political  troubles 
upon  outsiders,  preferably  the  United 
States;  his  readiness  to  accept  without 
investigation  charges  made  by  parties 
obviously  biased  is  not  creditable. 

The  accuracy  of  Mr.  de  Bekker's  book 
may  be  judged  from  the  following  speci- 
men found  on  page  205:  "Spanish  land 
grants  conveyed  merely  the  surface  soil, 
reserving  mineral  rights  to  the  State. 
Coal,  natural  gas  and  petroleum  were 
not  specifically  included  because  their 
value  was  unknown."  Whatever  may 
have  been  the  law  of  Spain,  a  country 
which  lost  her  rights  over  Mexico  in 
1821,  the  Mexican  Mining  Code  of  1892 
states  specifically  that  "the  owner  of  the 
soil  is  entitled  to  work  freely,  without 
the  necessity  of  special  license,  the  fol- 
lowing mineral  substances:  Mineral 
fuels;  mineral  oils  and  waters,  rocks 
in  general  for  building  or  decorative 
purposes." 


Again,  on  page  55  he  says :  "Carranza 
has  run  the  Mexican  railways  at  a  profit 
and  without  raising  the  tariff  for  pas- 
senger traffic."  It  is  not  until  page  195 
that  he  admits  that  on  July  1,  1917,  the 
railroads  already  owed  over  71,000,000 
pesos  for  capital  and  interest  matured; 
it  is  almost  superfluous  to  add  that  not 
only  this  debt  but  the  interest  accrued 
on  bonds  since  then  remain  unpaid,  and 
that  there  have  been  no  replacements  of 
the  rolling  stock  worn  out  or  destroyed. 
With  bookkeeping  of  this  sort  it  is 
always  possible  to  figure  out  a  paper 
profit. 

Dr.  Samuel  G.  Inman,  who  lived  in 
Mexico  for  several  years,  can  not  even 
plead  ignorance  of  conditions  there  as 
an  excuse  for  such  a  statement  as  this, 
which  he  makes  on  page  118  of  "In- 
tervention in  Mexico."  "Property  has 
always  been  a  most  sacred  thing  to 
Anglo-Saxons.  The  loss  of  American 
lives  in  Mexico  will  not  be  the  reason 
for  our  intervening.  It  may  well  serve 
as  the  pretext,  but  the  real  reason  will 
be  in  order  to  protect  American  in- 
vestors. It  would  not  take  a  great  deal 
more  misrepresentations  by  the  Ameri- 
can press  about  the  chaos  that  exists  in 
Mexico  than  we  now  have  if  there  were 
only  another  border  raid  or  two,  quite 
easily  arranged,  to  make  the  majority 
(of  Americans)  honestly  vote  for  such  a 
war!" 

When  examined  as  to  this  statement 
by  Senator  Fall,  Inman  was  obliged  to 
admit  that  he  was  simply  quoting  de 
Bekker. 

"What  knowledge  have  you  about  ar- 
ranging raids  between  Mexico  and  this 
country?"  asked  Mr.  Fall. 

"I  haven't  any  knowledge  except  what 
has  been  published  in  various  papers 
and  books  that  these  raids  have  been 
financed  that  way." 

This  is  the  kind  of  information  on 
Mexico  which  the  American  public  gets 
from  certain  sources. 

Far  more  worthy  of  consideration  is 
Mr.  P.  Harvey  Middleton's  "Industrial 
Mexico,"  which  on  the  surface  at  least 
appears  to  be  a  serious  attempt  at  pre- 
senting the  economic  situation  of  that 
country,  though  the  execution  is  de- 
cidedly amateurish  and  Mr.  Middleton 
evinces  a  disposition  to  see  things  in  a 
rosy  light. 

For  instance,  speaking  of  the  pros- 
perity '  in  evidence  in  Mexico  City  in 
April  and  May  of  1919,  he  mentions  the 
well-patronized  restaurants.  I  dislike  to 
spoil  a  good  story,  but  at  the  very  time 
to  which  he  refers,  I  was  patronizing 
Mexico's  restaurants  myself  and  it  often 
happened  to  me  that  I  would  be  the  only 
guest.  Mr.  Middleton,  in  his  description 
of  Mexico's  seaports,  tells  of  the  amount 
of  money  that  has  been  spent  on  harbor 
improvements,  but  neglects  to  mention 
that  these  improvements  were  almost  all 


made  under  Porfirio  Diaz  and  that  since 
his  downfall  they  have  been  allowed  to 
go  to  pieces.  The  reference  on  page  265 
to  the  rapidly  growing  traffic  of  Vera 
Cruz  is  particularly  humorous  and  will 
no  doubt  be  appreciated  by  the  mer- 
chants of  that  port,  while  the  "new  and 
substantial"  wharves  there  of  which  he 
speaks  were  built  in  1901. 

Much  of  Mr.  Middleton's  eulogy  of 
Mexican  conditions  is  in  the  future 
tense,  as  when  he  speaks  of  the  numer- 
ous proposed  new  railroads  and  the  es- 
tablishment of  factories  and  foundries 
by  Japanese  or  Americans,  and  in  his 
chapters  on  stock  raising,  agriculture, 
lumbering,  and  sugar  production,  he 
complacently  ignores  a  state  of  affairs 
that  has  driven  from  their  homes  hun- 
dreds of  Americans  and  countless  thou- 
sands of  Mexican  farmers,  and  has  cost 
them  their  property  and  often  their 
lives.  Of  the  henequen  industry,  the 
utter  demoralization  of  which  was  no- 
torious, owing  to  the  manipulation  of 
the  Comision  Reguladora,  he  says,  in 
passing,  that  for  1919  "it  is  expected 
that  the  output  will  exceed  that  of  1918." 
At  the  time  of  his  writing,  something 
like  700,000  bales  of  henequen  remained 
unsold  in  the  warehouse  of  Yucatan. 

In  only  one  place  does  Mr.  Middleton 
issue  a  warning  as  to  the  dangers  of 
the  country,  as  when,  on  page  167,  he 
says:  "It  can  not  be  too  strongly  em- 
phasized that  bandits  and  rebels  are  still 
active  in  some  of  the  best  coffee  grow- 
ing districts,  and  no  American  should 
venture  either  his  money  or  his  person 
until  he  is  assured  of  adequate  protec- 
tion," a  statement  which  might  be  made 
with  equal  justice  in  regard  to  almost 
any  occupation  in  Mexico,  save  those 
which  can  be  carried  on  in  the  largest 
cities. 

The  scandalous  repudiation  of  670,- 
000,000  of  paper  money  is  glossed  over 
on  page  208  with  the  statement  that  the 
larger  part  was  redeemed  as  taxes,  rail- 
road fares,  etc.  The  truth,  known  to 
everyone  in  Mexico,  is  that  taxes  and 
duties  were  made  payable  in  gold;  later, 
a  surtax  of  a  hundred  per  cent,  was 
added,  payable  in  paper  money,  which 
in  this  way  was  withdrawn  from 
circulation. 

Surely,  "Industrial  Mexico"  will  never 
go  down  in  history  as  a  model  of  ac- 
curacy. 

G.  W.  Knoblauch 

New  York,  May  1 

The  Ability  of  France  to 
Pay  Her  Debts 

[The  author  of  the  following  letter  is  one 
of  the  most  distinguished  French  Senators  and 
one  of  the  leading  authorities  in  France  on 
agriculture.  He  was  deputy  from  the  Vosges 
from  1872  to  1903,  Minister  of  Agriculture 
from  1883  to  1885,  President  of  the  Chamber 


544] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  54 


of  Deputies   from   1888  to   1889,  and   Prime 
Minister  from  1896  to  1898.] 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review  : 

I  am  ver>'  glad  of  the  opportunity  to 
give  to  the  public  of  a  country  which 
stood  with  us  in  saving  civilization,  and 
with  which  we  wish  to  continue  to  go 
hand  in  hand,  the  gist  of  a  recent  speech 
of  mine. 

Here  in  France  we  are  weighed  with  a 
heavy  charge  caused  by  the  German  in- 
vasion and  the  necessary  debts  con- 
tracted in  order  to  win  the  victory.  It 
will  take  us  twenty  years  to  restore  the 
devastated  parts  of  our  country,  and  we 
must  go  on  borrowing  in  order  to  con- 
tinue this  reconstruction  work  and  to 
pay  these  debts.  There  are  doubters 
amongst  us  who  say  that  France  is  inca- 
pable of  paying  these  sums.  But  they 
are  wrong,  and  I  say  it  with  sincerity 
and  without  ostentation.  We  have  an 
asset  which  they  do  not  take  into  account. 
I  refer  to  the  return  to  France  of  Alsace 
with  all  its  great  riches,  especially  its 
potassium  mines,  its  recently  discovered 
oil  wells,  and  probably  other  sources  of 
wealth.  Lorraine  brings  back  to  us  iron 
mines  unsurpassed  by  those  in  any  other 
part  of  the  world.  These  riches  alone 
would  suffice  to  pay  off  our  national  debt. 
But  these  are  not  the  only  resources  of 
revenue.  The  principal  one  is  our  indus- 
tries which  create  capital  and  revenue. 
We  have  every  reason  to  believe  that  our 
industries  will  be  normal  again  in  a  few 
years.  Our  revenues  will  also  be  in- 
creased by  a  return  to  the  economical 
habits  peculiar  to  our  country.  Every 
unnecessary  expenditure  will  be  avoided. 
There  will  be  reforms  in  this  direction 
and  all  red  tape  will  be  eradicated.  There 
will  be  changes  in  our  parliamentary  sys- 
tem, too.  Great  attention  will  be  paid  to 
our  agriculture.  I  am  urging  that  com- 
mittees for  this  purpose  be  organized  in 
all  our  Departments,  and  that  our  farm- 
ers' wives  and  daughters,  who  saved  the 
country  from  famine  during  the  war,  be 
admitted  to  membership  on  these  com- 
mittees. And  finally  the  "sacred  union," 
which  was  observed  during  the  war,  will 
continue  during  the  peace,  while  every 
Frenchman  will  work  until  his  death. 
For  a  moment  last  autumn  I  was  disposed 
on  account  of  my  eighty  years  and  more 
to  decline  reelection  to  the  Senate.  But 
here  I  am  again  at  the  Luxembourg. 
Jules  Meline 
Paris,  March  10 

Conservation   of  Wild   Life 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

I  am  much  interested  to  note  in  your 
periodical  an  editorial  advocating  the 
formation  of  a  commission  for  the  con- 
servation of  wild  life.  This  idea  I  am 
heartily  in  favor  of.  Such  an  official 
organization  with  proper  authority  could 
tremendously  benefit  and  help  maintain 


our  wild  life.    I  trust  you  may  continue 
to  advocate  such  an  organization. 

The  Bureau  of  Biological  Survey  of 
the  Department  of  Agriculture  is  the 
one  Government  bureau  largely  devoted 
to  the  study  and  conservation  of  our 
wild  life,  under  restrictions,  however, 
which  prevent  it  from  accomplishing  as 
much  good  as  it  might  otherwise  bring 
about.  One  of  our  larger  activities  is 
the  administration  of  the  Migratory  Bird 
Treaty  Act,  the  constitutionality  of 
which  has  just  been  sustained  by  the 
Supreme  Court.  The  Migratory  Bird 
Treaty  Act  and  the  decision  give  us  a 
solid  foundation  for  the  conservation  and 
increase  of  our  useful  bird  life.  Accord- 
ing to  all  reports  this  work  has  already 
accomplished  much  good. 

E.  W.  Nelson 
Chief  of  Bureau 

Washington,  D.  C,  April  26 

Book  Reviews 

The  Beginnings  of  Modern 
Italy 

Italy  from  Dante  to  Tasso  (1300-1600).  By 
H.  B.  Cotterill.  New  York :  Frederick  A. 
Stokes  Company. 

PERHAPS  for  readers  accustomed  to 
see  propaganda  in  everything,  Mr. 
Cotterill's  book  may  seem  to  be  part  of 
a  subtle  plan  on  the  part  of  the  Italian 
Government  to  make  the  world  forget 
Fiume  and  Istria  and  remember  the 
Florence  and  Siena  that  have,  after  all, 
been  Italy's  greatest  asset.  The  volume 
bears  on  its  paper  cover  the  delicate  out- 
line of  Giotto's  Dante,  or  what  we  like 
to  think  is  Giotto's  Dante,  holding  his 
yellow  pomegranates  against  the  faded 
background  of  the  Bargello  Chapel.  It 
is  prefaced  by  the  familiar  portrait  that 
used  to  hang  in  the  window  of  every  pic- 
ture shop,  the  delicately  drawn  head  and 
shoulders  of  Beatrice  d'  Este,  the  gentle 
girl-wife  of  Lodovico  il  Moro,  with  its 
pearl-edged  cap  and  the  pendant  neck- 
lace, and  the  golden  circlet  binding  the 
hair.  Within  are  all  the  other  dear  and 
familiar  landmarks  of  Alinari  and  Brogi 
illustration — Ghiberti's  Baptistry  Door, 
the  Campo  Santo  at  Pisa,  the  tombs 
of  the  Vendramin  and  Mocenigo,  with 
others  less  familiar. 

To  attempt  in  a  volume  of  six  hundred 
pages  to  treat  popularly,  yet  with  due  re- 
gard for  scholarly  accuracy,  the  political 
history  as  "viewed  from  the  standpoints 
of  the  chief  cities,  with  descriptions  of 
important  episodes  and  personalities  and 
of  the  art  and  literature  of  the  three 
centuries"  from  Dante  to  Tasso  is  ob- 
viously a  large  order.  In  1300  Dante 
was  exactly  in  that  "middle  of  our 
mortal  life"  when  he  met  the  vision  of 
Virgil,  who  was  to  take  him  on  his  im- 


mortal journey.  In  1600  Tasso  had  been 
dead  for  five  years.  Between  these  two 
dates  there  grew  up  an  almost  legend- 
ary world,  packed  with  action,  rich  in 
color,  a  world  that  saw  the  development 
of  the  arts  to  the  highest  point  of  per- 
fection and  that  produced  some  of  the 
greatest  names  in  literature,  history, 
poetry,  and  science.  The  author  has 
adopted  an  excellent  and  satisfactory 
plan  for  compassing  his  enormous  field 
and  clarifying  the  immense  detail  that 
goes  to  make  up  the  history  of  these  per- 
haps most  significant  centuries  in  the 
world's  history.  For  each  century  he 
gives  an  historical  outline,  the  history 
of  the  principal  cities,  Rome,  Naples, 
Milan,  Florence,  Venice,  with  a  critical 
chapter  setting  forth  the  principal  liter- 
ary productions,  and  another  chapter  on 
the  art,  dealing  separately  with  paint- 
ing, sculpture,  and  architecture.  The 
historical  outlines  of  the  century  he  has 
given  in  thirty-year  divisions  in  an  at- 
tempt to  untangle  the  complicated  web 
of  Italian  politics.  The  book  was  evi- 
dently written  during  the  war  and  the 
author  is  frequently,  rather  amusingly, 
pleased  to  find  German  authorities  in 
error.  He  misses  no  opportunity  to  dis- 
pute with  so  distinguished  a  Teuton 
authority  as  Gregorovius  and  to  trace  to 
Germanic  influences  the  obvious  degrada- 
tions of  Italian  taste  in  decoration. 
Italian  history  shows  a  singular  contin- 
uity of  spirit.  Reading  these  fascinating 
pages  of  the  exploits  of  the  Visconti 
and  the  Sforze,  the  Montefeltri,  the 
Medici,  and  the  Gonzaghe,  one  sees  that 
D'Annunzio,  pouring  out  fiery  proc- 
lamations and  verses  in  his  Colonel's 
uniform,  is,  at  best,  but  a  modem  condot- 
tiere.  Four  centuries  ago  they  too  were 
not  only  soldiers  but  poets  and  painters 
and  aesthetes  and  patrons  of  art. 

From  1300  to  1600  are  the  centuries 
that  not  only  developed  the  arts  of 
sculpture,  painting,  architecture,  and 
poetry  as  evidenced  by  such  supreme 
names  as  Michael-Angelo,  Raphael, 
Titian,  Petrarch,  Poliziano,  Brunelleschi, 
Leonardo  da  Vinci,  but  that  developed 
and  conceived  to  a  greater  degree  than  is 
generally  recognized  the  republican  and 
national  ideals  of  the  Italian  peninsula. 
Most  books  on  Italian  history  are  his- 
tories of  the  rulers  and  not  of  the  people. 
The  people  appear  occasionally,  as  in  the 
dramatic  and  tragic  stories  of  the  Com- 
munes, especially  of  such  as  Cola  di 
Rienzo,  but  the  emphasis  still  falls  on  the 
triumphs  and  tyrannies  of  popes  and 
doges,  of  emperors  and  condottieri, 
rather  than  on  the  growth  and  develop- 
ment of  liberating  ideas  which  are  be- 
coming of  increasingly  greater  interest 
to  a  generation  that  has  gone  through 
a  great  war  and  is  rather  fed  up  on 
ducal  tombs  and  frescoed  chapels. 

The  national  concept  of  Rome  as  the 
centre  of  an  Italian  world  bounded  by 


May  22,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[545 


the  natural  geographical  limits  of  moun- 
tain  and   sea,    ruled   by   a   native   king, 
freed  from  the  authority  of  the  Church, 
which  lost  its  authority  when  it  lost  its 
simplicity — this  is  not  a  modern  doctrine 
but  a  fundamental  idea  in  Italian  litera- 
ture and  political   philosophy  since  the 
days  of  Dante.    Dante  merely  completed 
the    mediaeval    conception    that    saw    in 
Pope  and  Emperor,  representing  Church 
and  State,  not  sun  and  moon  but  two  suns 
of  equal  power,  authority,  and  holiness. 
Dante's  whole  political  philosophy  rests 
on  the  theory  of  the  absolute  separation 
of  two  necessary  guides,  Pope  and  Em- 
peror,   co-equal,    independent,    deriving 
each  his  authority  from  divine  sanction. 
To  Dante  the  hope  of  Italy  lay  in  the 
restoration  of  simplicity  to  the  Pope  and 
of  power  to   the   Emperor.     Petrarch's 
"Spirto    Gentil,"    addressed    to    Cola    di 
Rienzo,  Machiavelli's  "Deliverer,"  of  the 
last  chapter  of  the  "Prince,"  Fazio  degli 
Uberti's  "vertudioso  re,"  all  reflected  the 
eternal  hope  of  the  poets  for  a  united 
Italy  under  a  human  power,  free  from 
external  dominion.    Dante  saw  this  ideal 
realized  in  the  adored  person  of  Henry 
VII  of  Luxemburg,  the  "Messo  di  Dio," 
whom  he  put  into  Paradise  as  a  reward 
for  his  supreme  virtues  and  his  tragic 
ill  fortunes.     Petrarch,  the  first  to  love 
Italy  civilly  like  an  Italian  and  not  like 
a  Guelf  or  a  Ghibelline,  was  the  first  to 
perceive  and  to  express  the  real  essence 
of  the  new  humanism  and  the  growing 
enthusiasm   for   democracy.     He  heard 
the  voice  of  the  revolt  against  the  Middle 
Ages,   not   from   papal   or   royal   palace, 
but  from  the  Forum,  where  the  people 
were  becoming  accustomed  to  the  sound 
of  their  own  voices.    Cola  di  Rienzo,  the 
plebeian  archaeologist,  who  felt  himself 
the  reincarnation  of  the  spirit  of  Rome 
and  who  was  proclaimed  as  Tribune  of 
the  people  in  the  Campidoglio,   became 
for  Petrarch,  though  unhappily  but  for 
a  short  time,  the  embodiment  of  the  popu- 
lar ideal,  the  protector  of  Liberty,  "dolce 
e  desiato  bene."     Convinced  by  the  per- 
petual perfidy  of  foreign  dominators  that 
the  monarchy  was  the  only  means  of  re- 
storing the  Roman  republic,  the  voice  of 
Italian  patriotism  called  successively  to 
such  redeemers  as  Robert  of  Naples  and 
even  to  the  tyrannical,   liberty-destroy- 
ing dynasties  of  Milan  and  Ferrara  and 
Mantua,  seeing  in  the  power,  though  it 
be  that  of  a  tyrant,  at  least  the  power  of 
a  native  Italian  prince,  believing  that  the 
voluntary  renunciation  of  municipal  in- 
dependence was  compensated  by  the  sav- 
ing influence  of  a  strong  patron.     Hope 
culminated    in    Gian    Galeazzo    Visconti 
who,  because  of  his  great  territorial  con- 
quests,   seemed    to    embody    the    mon- 
archical principle  of  unity  under  a  native 
emperor   as    opposed    to   the    Florentine 
principle    of    communal    liberty    with    a 
loosely  federated  union  under  the  Pope. 
Thus    the    monarchical    concept    which 


would  break  up  municipal  strongholds, 
reduce  municipal  franchises,  and  join  the 
separate  provinces  under  a  strong  politi- 
cal head  became  a  principle  of  federation 
and  political  equilibrium  which  finally  re- 
sulted in  the  foundation  of  the  modern 
Italian  kingdom.  And  it  is  very  interest- 
ing to  see  that  in  the  eyes  of  modern  Ital- 
ians Victor  Emanuel  II,  the  native  Prince 
who  finally  mounted  the  throne,  became 
the  embodiment  of  the  ideals  of  Dante  and 
of  Fazio's  famous  prophecy  of  the  com- 
ing of  the  king  to  rule  over  the  Italian 
garden  "enclosed  by  mountains  and  its 
own  seas,  in  the  perpetual  succession  of 
whose  princely  dynasty  should  lie  safety 
and  hope  for  Italy." 

Beulah  B.  Amram 

Japanese  Rule  in  Korea 

Korea's  Fight  for  Freedom.  By  F.  A.  Mc- 
Kenzie.  New  York:  Fleming  H.  Revell 
Company. 

IN  1907,  Mr.  McKenzie,  the  well-known 
newspaper  correspondent,  published  a 
volume  entitled  the  "Tragedy  of  Korea," 
and  based  upon  personal  observations 
which  he  had  been  able  to  make  by  es- 
caping from  the  Japanese  authorities  at 
Seoul,  going  into  the  interior  of  Korea, 
and  studying  the  police  methods  which 
the  Japanese  were  employing  as  the  de 
facto  rulers  of  the  country.  He  has  now 
issued  a  new  volume,  including  some  of 
the  chapters  of  the  old  and  bringing  the 
account  to  date. 

It  is  now  some  months  since  the  Fed- 
eral Council  of  Churches  of  Christ  in 
America  felt  compelled  to  issue  a  report 
describing  the  atrocities  of  which  the 
Japanese  soldiers  had  been  guilty  against 
a  wholly  defenseless  people.  This  report 
was  especially  significant  in  view  of  the 
well-known  reluctance  upon  the  part  of 
all  church  organizations  to  animadvert 
on  political  conditions  in  countries  in 
which  they  maintain  missionary  stations. 
It  was  further  significant  that  one  of  the 
signers  of  the  report  was  Mr.  Sidney  L. 
Gulick,  who  for  years  had  been  known 
as  one  of  the  foremost  defenders  in  this 
country  of  what  he  conceives  to  be  the 
rights  of  the  Japanese.  Mr.  McKenzie, 
however,  charges  Mr.  Gulick  with  hav- 
ing exerted  every  possible  influence  to 
prevent  the  early  appearance  of  the  report 
which,  as  Secretary  of  the  Council,  he 
felt  compelled  to  sign,  with  the  result 
that  the  report  did  not  appear  until  some 
four  or  five  months  after  the  atrocities 
described  in  it  had  begun. 

As  to  his  own  point  of  view,  Mr. 
McKenzie,  in  his  Preface,  says : 

Some  critics  have  sought  to  charge  me  with 
being  "Anti-Japanese."  No  man  has  written 
more  appreciatively  of  certain  phases  of  Jap- 
anese character  and  accomplishments  than  my- 
self. ...  I  have  long  been  convinced,  however, 
that  the  policy  of  Imperial  expansion  adopted 
by  Japan,  and  the  means  employed  in  advanc- 
ing it,  are  a  grave  menace  to  her  own  perma- 


nent well-being  and  to  the  future  peace  of  the 
world.  I  am  further  convinced  that  the  mili- 
tarist party  really  controls  Japanese  policy, 
and  that  temporary  modifications  which  have 
been  recently  announced  do  not  imply  any 
essential  change  of  national  plans  and  ambi- 
tions. If  to  believe  and  to  proclaim  this  is 
"Anti-Japanese,"  then  I  plead  guilty  to  the 
charge.  I  share  my  guilt  with  many  patriotic 
Japanese  subjects  who  see,  as  I  see,  the  perils 
ahead. 

Mr.  McKenzie,  as  he  suggests,  is  not 
alone  in  the  belief  that  many  of  the  acts 
of  recent  years  which  have  brought  the 
Japanese  Government  as  defendant  be- 
fore the  bar  of  the  world's  moral  judg- 
ment have  been  due  to  the  fact  that  the 
civil  authorities  in  Japan,  and  especially 
those  entrusted  with  the  foreign  policies 
of  the  Government,  have  not  been  able  to 
control  the  actions  of  the  military  au- 
thorities, and  have  thus  often  found 
themselves  in  the  humiliating  position  of 
having  made  promises  that  have  not  been 
fulfilled;  of  having  made  statements  of 
facts,  which  have  later  appeared  to  be 
false;  and  of  having  been  forced  to  ac- 
cept lines  of  conduct  concerning  the  wis- 
dom, not  to  speak  of  the  morality,  of 
which  they  have  been  almost  surely  un- 
convinced. This  dominance  in  Japan  of 
the  militarists  was  especially  emphasized 
by  Professor  McLaren,  an  authority  on 
Japanese  political  institutions,  in  an  ad- 
dress which  he  recently  made  at  Cleve- 
land before  the  American  Historical  As- 
sociation. This  feature  of  Japan's  po- 
litical life  is  also  continually  referred  to 
by  such  journals  as  the  Japanese  Adver- 
tiser and  the  Kobe  Chronicle  in  explana- 
tion of  occurrences  which  seem  remark- 
able to  Americans  and  Europeans;  and, 
for  that  matter,  the  same  explanation  is 
frequently  given  in  the  Japanese  vernac- 
ular papers.  For  example,  in  a  recent 
issue  of  the  Tokyo  Asahi  it  was  reported 
that  the  Government  had  been  interpel- 
lated in  Parliament  as  to  whether  there 
was  any  basis  to  the  rumor  abroad  that 
while  the  Japanese  foreign  office  was  con- 
ducting diplomatic  affairs  through  proper 
channels,  the  military  authorities  were 
secretly  interfering.  In  reply,  Mr. 
Tanaka,  the  Minister  of  War,  had  replied 
that  there  was  no  foundation  for  such  a 
report.  The  Asahi,  however,  made  the 
following  comment: 

Perhaps  the  War  Minister  could  give  iio 
other  reply.  In  our  opinion  it  can  not  be  said 
that  the  rumor  has  no  foundation  whatever. 
Of  course,  it  may  be  untrue  that  the  Japanese 
military  officers  should  clandestinely  interfere 
in  the  affairs  of  other  countries  or  foment  in- 
ternal trouble.  We  believe  so  for  the  sake  of 
the  good  name  of  the  Japanese  soldier;  per- 
haps the  rumor  is  a  misapplication  of  the  state 
of  affairs  in  the  Balkans  and  in  Central 
American  states.  But  we  regret  to  have  to 
admit  the  broad  fact  that  Japan  has  military 
diplomacy  besides  that  of  the  Foreign  Office. 
What  of  our  diplomacy  towards  China?  Has 
it  never  happened  that  while  the  Foreign 
Office  was  making  arrangements  in  accord- 
ance with  a  definite  policy,  the  Japanese  mili- 
tary officers  in  China  took  a  different  course 
of   action   and   showed   much    activity   behind 


546] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  54 


the  scene?  Did  not  the  army  differ  from  the 
Foreign  Office  in  regard  to  our  policy  towards 
China  and  try  to  override  the  Foreign  Office 
with  the  assistance  ot"  the  Genro?  What  about 
Siberia?  The  Japanese  diplomatic  authorities 
and  military-  officers  in  Siberia  are  not  neces- 
sarily in  harmony;  on  the  contrary,  there  is  a 
wide'  gull  between  the  two.* 

The  great  power  exercised  in  Japan  by 
that  extra-constitutional  body,  the  Genro, 
is  well  known.  At  its  head  is  Prince 
Yamagata,  who  for  more  than  forty 
years  has  been  the  chief  of  the  military 
party.  Furthermore,  by  Imperial  man- 
date, it  is  provided  that  in  every  Cabinet 
the  portfolios  of  the  War  and  Navy  De- 
partments shall  be  held  by  military  offi- 
cers of  high  rank.  The  result  from  this 
provision  is  that  these  two  Departments 
have  the  power,  which  upon  occasion 
they  have  not  hesitated  to  exercise,  to 
prevent  the  formation  or  continuance  of 
a  Cabinet  not  acceptable  to  them,  by  re- 
fusing to  appoint  to  it,  or  by  withdraw- 
ing from  it,  their  representatives. 

It  is  a  regrettable  fact  that  the  Japa- 
nese people  do  not  seem  to  have  felt  a 
general  moral  indignation  at  the  acts 
of  their  military  forces  in  Korea — acts 
the  commission  of  which  they  do  not 
deny — but  they  do  seem  very  generally 
to  have  recognized  that  political  wisdom 
has  not  been  shown  by  their  Government 
in  its  management  of  Korean  affairs. 
The  continued  and,  indeed,  increasing  re- 
pugnance of  the  Koreans  to  Japanese 
rule  has  sufficiently  convinced  them  of 
this.  But  the  writer  has  been  able  to 
find  little  evidence  that  the  Japanese 
have  even  begun  to  question  the  wisdom 
or  the  moral  propriety  of  the  funda- 
mental policy  which  their  Government 
has  pursued  in  Korea.  This  policy  has 
been  essentially  the  same  as  that  which, 
before  the  war,  controlled  the  Prussian 
Government  in  its  dealings  with  the 
Polish  provinces.  Japan  has  sought  to 
crush  out  all  that  is  distinctive  in  Korean 
civilization  and  to  substitute  for  it  her 
own  culture  and  ideals.  The  only  politi- 
cal status  reserved  for  the  former  king- 
dom of  Korea  has  been  that  of  an  incor- 
porated administrative  area  of  the  Jap- 
anese Empire.  And  the  same  blindness 
that  has  made  it  impossible  for  the  Jap- 
anese to  understand  why  a  people  should 
be  unwilling  to  abandon  their  sovereignty 
and  their  nationality  in  return  for  the 
assumed  benefits  of  Japanese  rule  also 
accounts  for  what  seems  to  be  their  gen- 
uine surprise  that  the  Chinese  should 
not  be  willing  to  cooperate  with  them  on 
terms  which  would  mean  the  subjection 
of  Chinese  interests  to  Japanese  direc- 
tion and  control. 

These  observations  upon  Japan's  poli- 
cies in  Korea  have  a  significance  broader 
than  that  which  they  have  with  regard 
to  the  welfare  of  the  Koreans.  They 
have  a  direct  bearing  upon  the  question 


*Cf.   The  Japan  Advertiser,  January  30,  1920. 


whether  the  rest  of  the  world  may  look 
with  approval  upon  the  progressive  real- 
ization of  Japan's  imperialistic  ambitions 
throughout  the  Far  East.  They  raise 
the  question  whether  it  will  be  an  ad- 
vantage to  the  millions  of  Asiatics,  or, 
indeed,  to  the  rest  of  the  world,  that  the 
political  ideals  for  which  Japan  avowedly 
stands  should  find  further  scope  for  ap- 
plication. 

It  is  but  just  to  Japan  to  say  that  she 
had  recently  instituted  important  changes 
in  the  administration  of  Korean  affairs, 
the  two  most  important  of  which  are  the 
abolition  of  the  requirement  that  the 
Governor-General  of  the  peninsula  shall 
be  an  officer  of  high  rank  in  the  active 
military  service  and  that  the  gendarmerie 
shall  be  replaced  by  policemen.  There 
has,  however,  been  no  abandonment,  or 
suggestion  of  abandonment,  of  the  funda- 
mental aim  of  Japan — the  Japanization 
of  the  Koreans. 

W.   W.   WiLLOUGHBY 

The  Puzzle  of  National 
Character 

Arrows  of  Desire.    By  J.  S.  Mackenzie.    New 
York :    The  Macmillan  Company. 

IN  spite  of  Burke's  declaration  that  he 
did  not  know  how  to  do  it,  we  are 
perpetually  drawing  up  indictments 
against  whole  nations.  We  call  them  es- 
timates of  national  character.  The  Eng- 
lish, for  example,  are  reputed  dull,  slug- 
gish, unable  to  see  a  joke,  in  spite  of 
their  long  array  of  brilliant  wits,  Lamb, 
Praed,  Barham,  Thackeray,  Lang,  Gil- 
bert, Calverley,  J.  K.  Stephen,  Owen  Sea- 
man, Chesterton,  and  in  spite  of  having 
produced  the  greatest  and  most  popular 
master  of  the  comic,  since  Rabelais,  by 
name  Charles  Dickens.  If  any  idea  was 
firmly  fixed  in  the  English  mind,  it  was 
the  levity  of  the  French. 

The  English  have  a  scornful  insular  way 

Of  calling  the  French  light.  .  .  . 

...  Is  a  bullet  light, 

That   dashes   from   the  gun-mouth,   while  the 

eye 
Winks  and  the  heart  beats  one,  to  flatten  itself 
To  a  wafer  on  the  white  speck  on  a  wall 
A  hundred  paces  off?     Even  so  direct, 
So  sternly  undivertible  of  aim. 
Is   this   French  people. 

During  the  war,  it  was  a  common  obser- 
vation that  the  races  had  interchanged 
characteristics.  How  steadfast  the 
French  were,  let  the  long-drawn  agony 
of  Verdun  attest,  and  the  stone-wall  reso- 
lution never  to  submit  or  yield  of  the 
whole  French  people.  And  the  French 
noted  with  surprise  the  inexhaustible 
gayety  of  the  English  in  camp  and  their 
reckless,  headlong  elan  in  the  field.  How 
the  popular  estimates  of  German  charac- 
ter have  changed  need  not  be  detailed. 

It  has  remained  for  Dr.  J.  S.  Macken- 
zie, who  at  one  time  held  the  chair  of 
Logic  and  Philosophy  at  Cardiff,  to  dis- 


cover that  the  English  are  a  race  of 
poseurs.  That  is  the  form  his  indict- 
ment takes  in  his  series  of  essays,  with 
the  fanciful  title  from  a  line  of  Blake's. 
Henry  V,  as  represented  by  Shakespeare, 
is  a  typical  Englishman,  not  "Shakes- 
peare's conception  of  the  very  perfect 
knight"  (p.  20),  but  "a  character  of 
many  conflicting  'humors,'  leading  to  a 
succession  of  more  or  less  conscious 
poses"  (p.  24).  Dr.  Mackenzie  is  "well 
aware  that  this  is  not  the  view  that  has 
been  commonly  taken,"  but  he  would  not 
go  as  far  as  "Mr.  B.  Wendell"  (who  is 
barely  recognizable  as  our  own  and  only 
Barrett)  in  calling  "Henry  V"  a  dull  play. 
As  becomes  a  philosopher  and  logician, 
he  is  addicted  to  hedging,  that  is,  guard- 
ing himself  against  attack  or  retort,  by 
such  devices  as  the  verb  "seem,"  and  the 
phrase  "more  or  less."  "Shakespeare's 
answer  to  this  question  seems  to  have 
been"  (p.  24),  "that  kind  of  affection  at 
least  seems  to  be  distinctly  shown" 
(p.  26)  ;  "Henry  proceeds  to  consider 
practical  difficulties  in  a  way  that  seems 
to  imply"  (p.  32).  Even  more  virtue 
resides  in  "more  or  less";  it  is  a  most 
convenient  starting-hole  for  the  fox  of 
argument.  In  regard  to  Prince  Hal's 
declaration  in  his  speech  over  his  father's 
crown. 

You   won   it,   wore   it,  kept   it,   gave   it   me; 

Dr.  Mackenzie  writes,  "we  realize  that 
the  precious  air  of  humility,  though  not 
altogether  hypocritical,  was  a  more  or 
less  unconscious  pose"   (p.  29). 

To  "try  confusions"  with  such  a  rea- 
soner  is  like  trying  to  bind  Proteus. 

What  is  a  poseur?  Dr.  Mackenzie  says 
(p.  37),  "Henry  comes  more  and  more 
to  pose  as  the  simple  soldier,"  and  on 
p.  43,  he  reaches  this  astounding  con- 
clusion, "He  was  not  an  actor,  but  an 
unconscious  poseur."  Surely  the  essence 
of  posing  is  consciousness.  The  plain 
dictionary  meaning  of  poseur  is  "affected 
person,"  and  of  posing,  "assuming  an 
attitude  for  artistic  purposes."  How  can 
one  assume  an  attitude  for  a  specific  pur- 
pose, and  be  unconscious  of  so  doing? 
Such  logic  is  too  much  for  the. plain 
man.  There  can  be  no  argument  with- 
out new  definition  of  the  terms. 

Setting  aside  for  the  moment  these 
cobwebs  of  subtlety,  let  us  consider  the 
origin  of  "Henry  V,"  and  the  other  his- 
torical plays  of  Shakespeare.  When  Eng- 
land became  a  nest  of  singing-birds,  Eng- 
land was  a  tiny  nation  of  less  than  five 
million  people,  and  she  had  been  fight- 
ing for  the  bare  life,  against  the  huge, 
wealthy,  world  power,  Spain.  The  de- 
liverance of  1588  was  not  less  than  the 
deliverance  of  1918.  England  was  on  the 
brink  of  destruction  and  was  saved.  One 
result  was  a  great  outburst  of  national 
pride,  as  plainly  to  be  read  in  "The 
Faerie  Queene,"  as  in  Shakespeare's  his- 
torical dramas.    Patriotism  was  not  yet 


i 


May  22,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[547 


classed  as  a  vice ;  the  term  "chauvinism" 
was  not   invented.     To  rejoice  that  the 
enemies  of  the  nation  were  overthrown 
was  no  more  reckoned  a  sin  than  it  was 
in  the  days  of  Deborah,  and  Barak,  the 
son  of  Abinoam.    Moreover,  Shakespeare 
found  the  historical  Henry  V  emphati- 
cally a  good  king.    English  history  is  not 
a    flatterer    of    English    kings,    nor    is 
Shakespeare.      He    represents    them    as 
cruel,    tyrannical,    treacherous,    murder- 
ous, weak,  incapable  of  ruling,  inferior  to 
their  subjects   in   manhood.      He   found 
Henry  V  already  idealized,  the  figure  of 
an  heroic,  patriotic  king,  at  whose  famous 
victories  over  the  secular  foe  every  good 
Englishman    would    "whinny,"    as    one 
contemporary  critic  notes.  In  his  delinea- 
tion he  simply  continued  a  great  tradi- 
tion. 

In   order   to   make  this   heroic  figure 
human,  Shakespeare  makes  him  (blessed 
word!)    "democratic."     Prince  Hal  likes 
to   escape   from   the   dulness   and   strict 
etiquette  of   court,   and   get   into   touch 
with   reality   in   the  taverns.     He  likes 
fun;   he  likes   practical  jokes;    he   likes 
characters    such    as    Falstaff,    Fluellen, 
Williams,   that  typical   British    Tommy. 
When   it  comes  to  courting  a  princess, 
he  shies  ofl,  with  an  Englishman's  dis- 
like of  humbug,   from   doing   it   in  the 
high   style  and  making  a  speech.     Ap- 
parently Dr.  Mackenzie  sees  no  comedy 
in   this   delightful  wooing.     Before   the 
great  battle,   round  which   the  play  re- 
volves,  the   king  finds   reality  by  mak- 
ing the  rounds  of  the  sentries  and  see- 
ing how  they  feel,  with  their  backs  to 
the  walU    The  knowledge  drives  him  to 
his  knees.    In  the  twentieth  century,  the 
same  English  tendency  to  insist  on  their 
rulers  being  human  is  as  plain  as  in  the 
spacious  times  of  great  Elizabeth.     The 
behavior  of  George  V  during  the  war, 
the  Prince   of  Wales   on   his   tours   are 
cases  in  point.     It  was  not  an  English 
king  who  declared  that  he  was  the  State, 
or  assumed  the  title  of  "All-highest." 

The  other  essays  on  national  character, 
Scottish,  Welsh,  Irish,  leave  the  reader 
with  much  the  same  impressions  as  those 
obtained  by  the  six  blind  men  who  felt 
the  elephant's  tail,  tusks,  proboscis,  legs, 
and  side. 

Where  everyone  is  free  to  dogmatize, 
and  no  harm  done,  the  present  reviewer 
would  "seem"  to  aver  that  the  outstand- 
ing national  English  trait  is  a  sense  of 
humor  "more  or  less."  Where  is  vis 
comica  more  evident  than  in  Chaucer, 
Shakespeare,  Fielding,  Dickens,  all  of 
them  English  to  the  backbone?  In  this 
opinion,  a  forgotten  American  concurs. 
He  wrote,  in  a  forgotten  book: 


and  stout  oaken  cudgel.  They  have  thus  taken 
a  singular  delight  in  exhibiting  their  most 
private  foil)les  in  a  laughable  point  of  view; 
and  they  have  been  so  successful  in  their  de- 
lineations, that  there  is  scarcely  a  being  in 
actual  existence  more  absolutely  present  to  the 
public  mind  than  that  eccentric  personage,  John 
Bull. 


The  caricature,  or  national  emblem, 
which  Arbuthnot  invented  in  the  eigh- 
teenth century,  and  Irving  noted  in  the 
nineteenth,  is,  with  changed  head-gear, 
more  widely  known  than  ever  in  the 
twentieth.  It  probably  comes  nearer  the 
essential  truth  than  the  learned  and  in- 
genious volumes  of  this  Scottish  logician 
and  philosopher. 

Archibald  MacMechan 


True  Stories 


It  is  characteristic  of  the  peculiar  humor  of 
the  English,  and  of  their  love  for  what  is 
blunt,  comic,  and  familiar,  that  thev  have  em- 
bodied their  national  oddities  in  the  figure  of 
a  sturdy,  corpulent  old  fellow,  with  a  three- 
cornered  hat,   red   waistcoat,   leather  breeches 


Up  the  Mazaruni  for  Diamonds.  By  William 
J.  La  Varre.  (Veteran  Scout.)  Boston: 
Marshall  Jones  Company. 

The  Road  to  En-dor:  Being  an  Account  of 
How  Two  Prisoners  of  War  at  Yozgadi 
m  Turkey  Won  Their  Way  to  Freedom 
By  E.  H.  Jones,  Lt,  I.A,R.O.  With  Illus- 
trations by  C.  W.  Hill,  Lt.  R.A.F.  New 
lork:   John  Lane  Company. 

TTTIGHLY  as  he  may  esteem  the  art  of 
A-l   fiction,   every  novel-reader  has   ex- 
perienced the  relief  of  stepping  now  and 
again    into    the    free    air    of    the    "true 
story."     It   is   like  opening  a  door  out 
of  a  hothouse   into   a  garden.     A   true 
story,    to   be   worth   anything,   must   be 
much  more  than  a  helter-skelter  jotting 
down    of    facts.      A    good    narrative    is 
bound  to  be  an  arrangement.     But  the 
sorting  and  setting  forth  of  things  that 
have  happened  is  a  basically  different  af- 
fair  from   fiction.     We   can   dismiss   at 
once  the  wear  and  tear  of  assessing  the 
value  of  the  narrative  as  an  invention. 
So  far  the  art  of  the  story  is  simpler 
than  that  of  the  "fiction-story,"  to  em- 
ploy    the     newspaperman's     distinction. 
But  we  are  more  aware  than  we  realize, 
that  the  narrative  based  on  fact  is  an 
art  by  itself;  though  our  quaint  impulse 
is  to  express  our  praise  of  it  by  calling  it 
"as  good  as  a  story,"  that  is,  as  an  in- 
vented narrative  or  "fiction-story." 

Treasure-hunting  is  one  of  the  three 
or  four  classic  bases  for  "juvenile"  fic- 
tion. "Up  the  Mazaruni  for  Diamonds" 
appears  to  be  the  true  narrative  by  an 
American  boy  of  a  diamond-seeking  ex- 
pedition into  the  jungles  of  British 
Guiana.  In  his  foreword  the  explorer, 
Anthony  Fiala,  commends  the  spirit  in 
which  young  La  Varre  undertook  and 
carried  out  his  adventure.  It  sounds 
casual  enough  from  the  account  itself. 
One  day  in  the  spring  of  1917,  La  Varre 
(being  then  nineteen)  got  a  letter  from 
a  friend  named  Lewis  in  British  Guiana. 
Friend  Lewis  "needed  a  partner  in  a 
diamond-mining  venture."  Is  La  Varre 
"game  to  try  it  out  with  him"?  There 
will  be  plenty  of  hard  work  and  danger 
in  it,  "but  there  are  diamonds  here  to 


be  had  for  the  digging."    This  appealed 
at  once  to  friend  La  Varre.    "I  had  little 
trouble  in  arranging  this,"  he  remarks, 
and   wrote   him   that   I   would   come." 
Clearly,  the  stars  must  have  moved  kindly 
in    their    courses.      What   fiction-writer 
would  dare  begin  a  narrative  in  this  off- 
hand  fashion?     Instead  of  fifty  words 
he  would  use  a  chapter  explaining  how 
Bill  La  v.,  a  Virginian  by  birth,  had 
longed  from  infancy  to  be  an  explorer; 
how    (as   is   the  fact)    he   rose   to   the 
head  of  the  Boy  Scouts  of  New  York 
City;  how  he  sought  experience  in  the 
open  at  every  opportunity  and  diligently 
studied  the  science  and  arts  useful  to 
explorers.     And  finally,  with  a  deal  of 
ingenuity,  he  would  account  for  the  fact 
that  our  nineteen-year-old  hero  was  suflS- 
ciently  footloose  and  handfree  to  be  able 
to  arrange  a  perilous   and   presumably 
expensive  journey  into  the  southern  wilds 
without  diflficulty  or  delay.     Mr.   Fiala 
tells  us  the  other  things;  but  the  final 
mystery  remains  unexplained.    However, 
in  fifty  words  we  are  off  for  Barbados,' 
where  friend  Lewis  meets  us;  and  so  to 
Georgetown,    British    Guiana,    and    the 
treacherous    Mazaruni    River.      Far    up 
the  Mazaruni,  through  the  fever-stricken 
jungle,  lie  the  diamond  fields.    How  our 
two  adventurer-explorers  win  to  them, 
how  they  fare  there,  and  how  they  finally 
escape  with  their  lives  and  some  thirty 
thousand  in  diamonds,  is  the  substance 
of  a   remarkably  simple,   vigorous,   and 
interesting  story.    Ten  of  these  hundred 
and  forty  pages  are  given  to  the  diamond- 
mining  and  its  outcome;  the  rest  of  the 
book  presents  the  country,  the  people, 
and  the  conditions  of  living  and  traveling 
in  that  far  land.     This  is  proof  of  the 
adventurer's   mettle  to  Mr.   Fiala:   that 
"he  has  brought  back  from  the  field  in- 
formation which  will  help  others  who  in- 
tend to  traverse  similar  trails."  To  blaze 
one  tree  in  advance  is  always  the  primary 
object  of  your  true  explorer. 

"The  Road  to  En-dor"  is  a  true  story 
of  still  more  absorbing  interest.     There 
is  no  book  like  it.  Perhaps  there  is  no  book 
which  more  strongly  expresses  the  "An- 
glo-Saxon"   genius— though    the   author 
happens  to  be  a  Welshman.    A  lieutenant 
in  the  British   forces  captured  by  the 
Turks  at  Kut-el-Amara  in  1916,  he  was 
among  the  survivors  of  the  brutal  cross- 
country march,   or  drive,   which   landed 
the  survivors  in  prison  camp  at  Yozgad, 
300  miles   in   the  interior.     It  was  the 
Turkish  "punishment  camp"  for  British 
ofl^cers  of  all  grades  who  were  suspected 
of  meditating  escape.  Out  of  the  dullness 
of  camp  life  begins  the  action.  Lieuten- 
ant Hill  happens  to  receive  a  postcard 
from  Home  with  the  picture  of  a  Ouija 
board  on  it.     He  makes  one.     He  thinks 
experimenting  with   it  may  be  at  least 
a  new  game.     He  and  some  cronies  play 
with  it  for  several  weeks.     Their  inter- 


548] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  54 


est  is  kept  up  by  the  fact  that  the  glass 
(.used  as  a  pointer)  undoubtedly  moves. 
But   nothing  else  happens,  nothing  in- 
telligible is  spelt  out.    It  is  agreed  that 
after  one  more  night  of  attempt,  they 
would  give  it  up.     The  moment  comes 
for  the  last  "shot";  and  Jones,  lest  this 
faint  object  of  interest  be  taken  from 
his  friends,  makes  the  board  write  the 
name  "Sally";  and  the  fun  begins.  They 
work  with  their  eyes  shut,  but  Jones 
finds  that  he  has  unconsciously  memo- 
rized the  position  of  the  letters.     The 
"spoof"  works  merrily,  but  the  manipu- 
lator expects  to  be  caught.  To  his  amaze- 
ment he  is  not;  and  presently  the  time 
has  passed  for  voluntary  confession.  He 
begins  to  make  converts  to  spiritualism 
among  his  fellow-officers.     Then  notice 
is  taken  by  the  Turkish  Commandant  of 
certain  alleged  war-news  communicated 
telepathically  through  Jones.     The  idea 
comes    to   Jones   that   by    hoaxing    the 
authorities  he  may  somehow  pave  the 
way  for  escape.    And  so  the  big  game  is 
on.     With  amazing  patience  and  inge- 
nuity the  commandant  and  two  others  are 
enmeshed  in  a  scheme  by  which  Jones 
and  an  officer  whom  he  chooses  as  con- 
federate may  be  taken  to  the  coast  and 
given  opportunity  for  escape  by  water. 
This  plan  is  blocked  by  the  clumsiness  of 
a  well-meaning  fellow-prisoner.    The  re- 
maining hope  lies  in  feigning  madness. 
By  this  means,  they  cause  themselves  to 
be  sent  to  Constantinople ;  and,  after  long 
months  of  examination  by  experts  and 
surveillance  by  hospital  attendants  and 
others,   are   actually   sent   Home — some 
two  weeks  before  their  quiescent  fellow- 
prisoners  are  released  by  the  armistice. 
"We've  been  through  a  good  deal,  and 
for  very   little,"   is   Lieutenant  Jones's 
comment  as  he  shakes  hands  with  his 
comrade  on  reaching  English  soil.  .  .  . 
"Never  mind,"  answers  Hill.     "We  did 
our    best."      Their    best    has    included 
trifles  like  self-starvation  to  the  point  of 
collapse,   a  joint  self-hanging    (as   evi- 
dence of  madness)  from  which  they  are 
barely  rescued,  the  courting  of  physical 
violence  on  the  part  of  their  guards,  and 
so  on.    But  they  have  played  the  game, 
and  that  ends  it. 

Apart  from  its  interest  as  a  story,  the 
book  has,  and  means  to  have,  value  as 
evidence  against  the  spook  mania.  The 
author,  who  performed  so  many  marvels 
in  the  name  of  the  occult,  has  not  a  shred 
of  belief  in  any  aspect  of  the  spirit- 
ualist, or  psychical,  manifestations  which 
the  Sir  Oliver  Lodges  and  their  followers 
are  taking  so  seriously.  His  Preface  is 
headed  by  a  text  from  Huxley:  "The 
only  good  that  I  can  see  in  the  demon- 
stration of  the  truth  of  'spiritualism' 
is  to  furnish  an  additional  argument 
against  suicide.  Better  live  a  crossing- 
sweeper  than  die  and  be  made  to  talk 
twaddle  by  a  'medium'  hired  at  a  guinea 
a  stance."     And  the  author  makes  his 


own  vigorous  protest  later  on:  "God 
knows  I  have  feared  Death.  Yet  Death 
has  ever  had  for  me  one  strong  con- 
solation— it  brings  the  peace  that  pass- 
eth  all  understanding.  Like  rtie,  perhaps, 
you  have  watched  it  come  to  your  friends 
and  lay  its  quiet  fingers  on  their  grey 
faces.  You  have  seen  the  relaxation 
from  suffering,  the  gentle  passing  away 
and  then  the  ineffable  Peace.  And  is  my 
Peace,  when  it  comes,  to  be  marred  by 
this  task  of  shifting  tables,  and  chairs, 
and  glasses,  Sir  Oliver?  Am  I  to  be  at 
the  beck  and  call  of  some  hysterical, 
guinea-grabbing  medium — a  sort  of  tele- 
phone boy  in  Heaven  or  Hell?  I  hope 
not.  Sir.  I  trust  there  is  nobler  work 
beyond  the  bar  for  us  poor  mortals." 
H.  W.  BOYNTON 

The  Run  of  the  Shelves 

THREE  things  tend  to  abate  human 
pride  and  to  teach  the  Christian 
grace  of  humility — a  photographer's 
show-window,  the  monkey-house  in  the 
zoo,  and  the  modern  autobiography. 
Most  photographs  are  smirking,  self- 
conscious  imbecilities,  the  monkeys  never 
allow  us  to  forget  that  they  are  our 
poor  relations,  and  autobiographies,  from 
Rousseau  down,  are  too  often  so  many 
cases  of  indecent  exposure.  Autobiogra- 
phy requires  some  justification  for  its 
existence,  such  as  fdme,  achievement, 
noteworthy  experience,  contact  with 
great  men  or  great  events.  Darwin  turns 
the  whole  current  of  human  thought 
into  a  new  channel,  and  can  with  diffi- 
culty be  persuaded  to  pen  a  few  memo- 
randa of  his  career;  but,  uninvited  and 
undesired,  all  sorts  of  nobodies  rush  into 
print  with  "personal  and  private  things," 
for  the  edification  of  a  relatively  indif- 
ferent  public. 

On  meeting  some  married  pairs,  an 
almost  irresistible  impulse  arises  in  one 
to  ask,  "My  dear  sir,  how  did  you  come 
to  marry  that  woman?"  or,  "My  dear 
lady,  how  did  you  come  to  marry  that 
man?"  But  the  impulse  must  be  resisted 
or  human  intercourse  would  dissolve.  In 
regard  to  such  books  as  Mrs.  Helen  Bart- 
lett's  "Within  My  Horizon"  (Small,  May- 
nard),  the  question  is  "How  did  it  get 
into  print?"  Could  it  be  possible  that 
the  writer  herself  footed  the  printer's 
bill? 

A  writer  in  the  Figaro  makes  the  fol- 
lowing rather  unexpected  comment  on 
American  insight  into  French  literature : 

There  is  no  foreign  country,  I  think,  where 
our  literature  is  better  understood  or  fol- 
lowed more  attentively  than  it  is  to-day  in 
the  United  States ;  and  one  is  astonished  to 
find  some  of  our  modern  and  "difficult" 
authors  judged  in  that  country  with  an  origi- 
nality and  a  penetration  that  would  do  honor 
to   French   readers. 

After  the  Germans  had  made  Dinant 


a  martyr  town  and  a  place  of  pilgrimage 
for  Belgian  and  foreigner  by  its  de- 
struction and  by  the  massacre  of  hun- 
dreds of  its  inhabitants,  the  Governor- 
General,  Freiherr  von  Bissing,  ordered 
a  Professor  Heinrich  to  prepare  a  book 
on  Dinant,  which  was  to  describe,  with 
German  thoroughness,  the  topography, 
history,  and  architecture  of  the  place. 
To  this  scholarly  interest  of  the  torturer 
in  his  victim,  of  which  a  German  alone 
is  capable  in  his  "unverfrorenheit,"  we 
owe  a  valuable  monograph,  published  at 
Munich  by  the  Roland-Verlag  under  the 
title  "Dinant,  Eine  Denkschrift."  It  is 
difficult  to  understand  the  mentality  of 
people  who  take  a  pleasure  in  erecting 
memorials  to  their  own  crimes. 

The  son  of  the  former  Imperial  Chan- 
cellor von  Hertling  has  published  recol- 
lections of  his  father's  tenure  of  that 
high  office  under  the  title  "Ein  Jahr  in 
der  Reichskanzlei"  (Herdersche  Verlags- 
handlung).  If  the  book  relied  on  the  au- 
thor's gift  for  presenting  his  facts  and 
not  on  the  facts  themselves,  it  would 
hardly  reach  a  second  edition.  But  the 
facts  invite  an  interest  in  the  volume 
which  the  manner  of  presentation  can 
not  command.  Many  of  them  throw  a 
new  light  on  the  events  of  the  period 
from  the  summer  of  1917  to  the  autumn 
of  1918,  and  make  the  book  a  valuable 
complement  to  Ludendorff's  "Kriegserin- 
nerungen."  It  contains  some  hitherto 
unpublished  documents,  amongst  others 
a  remarkable  letter  of  Cardinal  Mercier 
dated  February  14,  1918,  and  a  plan  of 
the  Admiralty  for  a  new  sea  barrage 
against  America  of  June,   1918. 

Should  a  dramatist  be  allowed  the 
right  to  veto  an  inartistic  production  of 
his  work?  The  French  author  Lucien 
Descares  and  the  Compagnie  Generale 
du  Travail  have  widely  different  views 
on  this  matter.  A  play  by  Descares  was 
having  a  run  last  month  in  the  Theatre 
des  Arts  at  Paris.  The  Compagnie 
Generale  du  Travail,  being  informed  that 
one  of  the  parts  was  taken  by  an  actress 
who  was  not  registered  as  a  member  of 
that  organization,  demanded  that  she 
should  be  replaced  by  a  "cegetiste."  The 
manager  obediently  complied  and  as- 
signed the  part  to  a  "syndically"  de- 
serving actress.  But  the  author's  appre- 
ciation of  her  desert  was  gained  from  a 
totally  different  point  of  view  and  did 
not  fall  in  line  with  that  of  the  C.  G.  T. 
He  fondly  believed  that  considerations  of 
talent  should  override  the  question  of  con- 
formity to  union  rules  and  demanded  the 
return  of  the  dismissed  actress.  The 
manager,  compelled  to  choose  between 
yielding  to  his  fear  of  the  powerful 
union  or  to  his  respect  for  the  artist, 
gave  in  to  Descares.  But  the  interests 
of  unionized  labor  could  not  thus  be 
{Continued  on  page  550) 


May  22,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[549 


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engineers  manufactured  a  tele- 
phone a  model  of  which  is  still 
in  existence. 

Both  Professor  Crocker  and 
Dr.  Wheeler  manufactured 
batteries  for  telephone  and  tele- 
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THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  54 


(Continued  from  page  548) 
sacrificed  to  the  claim  of  art  without 
challenge.  The  C.  G.  T.,  acting  on  be- 
half of  the  cegctiste  actress,  sued  the 
manager,  on  a  charge  of  breach  of  con- 
tract, for  an  indemnity  of  fr.  5,000.  We 
shall  soon  hear,  no  doubt,  that  no  plays 
can  be  produced  in  Paris  which  are  the 
work  of  non-c6getist  authors.  In  this 
way  the  golden  era  of  the  proletarian 
theatre  is  being  brought  nearer. 

A  German  comrade,  Rudolph  Leon- 
hard,  explains  in  Die  Neue  Schau- 
biihne  why  this  proletarian  theatre  will 
be  far  superior  to  that  of  the  bourgeoisie. 
"The  latter  remains  ineffective  because 
its  audience  is  an  accidental  gathering  of 
people,  unknown  to,  and  out  of  sympathy 
with,  one  another,  so  that  even  a  power- 
ful drama  can  not  unify  them  in  emo- 
tion. They  are  brought  together  by  the 
expectation  of  the  play,  and  if  that  suf- 
fices to  keep  them  quiet  and  good-tem- 
pered within  the  same  walls,  what  rap- 
turous effect  must  the  performance  have 
on  an  audience  which  forms  a  closely 
knit  community  in  and  outside  the  thea- 
tre! The  proletariat  alone,  the  people 
of  the  future,  with  strong  feeling  and 
united  will,  forms  the  ideal  audience  for 
the  theatre."  We  should  have  thought 
that  the  beauty  of  art's  miracle  was  in 
its  very  power  of  purifying  the  hetero- 
geneous mass  of  their  conflicting  evil 
passions,  restoring  to  the  many  that  com- 
munal spirit  of  primitive  man  from 
which  all  art  has  sprung.  But  in  the 
proletarian  theatre  the  miracle  is  fore- 
stalled by  the  picking  of  its  audience. 
The  momentary  dramatic  emotion  has  its 
substitute  there  in  the  permanent 
brotherhood  of  the  audience.  But  would 
not  even  the  proletarian  prefer  the  thrill 
of  the  accidental  to  the  monotony  of  the 
permanent  ? 

"The  question  of  Thrace,"  by  J.  Saxon 
Mills,  M.  A.,  and  Matthew  G.  Crussachi, 
B.  A.  (London:  Edward  Stanford),  de- 
serves special  notice  now  that  the  treaty 
with  Turkey  is  the  subject  of  various 
comments  and  criticism  in  the  press.  The 
book  attempts  to  pe'suade  its  readers 
of  the  justice  of  the  Grecian  claims  on 
Thrace  by  the  most  direct  and  convincing 
argument:  the  presentation  of  ethno- 
graphic maps.  The  distribution  of  the 
colors  representing  the  various  races 
gives  an  immediate  and  comprehensive 
conception  of  the  ethnic  conditions  in 
the  Balkans,  such  as  the  laborious 
perusal  of  a  written  expose  can  never 
yield.  The  reliability  of  the  carto- 
graphic material  is  established  by  the 
fact  that  the  larger  part  of  it  is  based 
on  Bulgarian  data,  although  the  volume 
has  the  professed  purpose  of  refuting 
Bulgarian  claims.  Those  data  are  de- 
rived from  a  book  brought  out  in  1917 
by  Dr.  Dimitri  Rizoff,  then  Bulgarian 
Minister  at  Berlin,  entitled  "The  Bul- 


garians in  their  Historical,  Ethnographi- 
cal and  Political  Frontiers."  Rizoff  wrote 
with  a  view  to  proving  the  Bulgarian 
claims  as  against  Serbia  and  Rumania 
in  the  Dobrudja,  the  Morava,  and  Timok 
valleys  and  Macedonia,  but  -incidentally 
the  book  affords  very  substantial  evi- 
dence in  refutation  of  any  Bulgarian 
claim  to  Thrace.  To  those  who  are  in- 
terested in  the  Balkans  and  the  problems 
which  that  part  of  Europe  supplies  for 
the  League  of  Nations  to  solve,  "The 
Question  of  Thrace"  will  prove  a  helpful 
guide. 

There  are  two  ways  of  writing  a  book 
on  American  literature  for  the  use  of 
high  school  or  college  students.  Each 
may  recognize  that  the  most  instructive 
fact  about  our  literature  is  that  Amer- 
icans have  produced  it,  that  it  is  the  best 
medium  for  a  study  of  the  development 
of  American  intellectual  character  as  we 
now  understand  it.  One  book,  however, 
will  attempt  to  indicate  the  steps  in  that 
development  as  illustrated  by  the  most 
significant  writers,  subordinating  to  that 
purpose  the  presentation  of  information. 
The  other  will  offer  the  information 
chronologically  or  topically  arranged  but 
leave  most  of  the  necessary  interpreta- 
tion to  be  done  by  the  teacher  in  the 
class  room.  Percy  H.  Boynton's  "Amer- 
ican Literature"  (Boston:  Ginn  and 
Company)  is  a  book  of  the  first  sort, 
Walter  C.  Bronson's  with  the  same  title 
(New  York:  D.  C.  Heath  and  Company), 
of  the  second.  Each  has  the  merits  and 
defects  of  its  kind.  The  former  makes 
by  far  the  better  reading.  Sufficient 
space  is  given  to  such  figures  as  Jonathan 
Edwards,  Crevecoeur,  Emerson,  Long- 
fellow, Whitman,  and  Mark  Twain  to 
enable  the  author  to  state  vigorously 
what  he  conceives  to  be  each  man's  essen- 
tial contribution  to  intellectual  history. 
Critical  apparatus  is  conveniently  put 
into  chapter  appendices,  fortified  by  sug- 
gestions for  further  reading  and  discus- 
sion. Space  is  not  sufficient,  however, 
for  explicit  presentation  of  an  ordered 
conception  of  the  growth  itself.  Conse- 
quently the  book  reads,  at  times,  not  like 
a  history  but  like  a  series  of  more  or 
less  loosely  related  but  suggestive  essays 
on  American  authors.  Professor  Bron- 
son's book,  on  the  other  hand,  though  at- 
tempting "to  give  ...  a  literary 
atmosphere,  in  the  conviction  that  text- 
books on  literature  should  contribute 
directly  to  the  student's  culture  as  well 
as  to  his  knowledge  of  facts,"  does  in 
effect  give  him  more  facts  than  atmos- 
phere. It  runs  over  the  bead-roll  of 
American  authors  of  all  magnitudes,  and 
gains  or  suffers  accordingly.  It  includes 
much,  but  it  interprets  little,  and  that 
little,  through  compression,  in  terms 
rather  abstract  and  conventional.  As  a 
small  manual  for  reference,  however,  it 
is  excellent. 


My 


Friend  the   Print 
Seller  *  | 

THERE  is  an  old  print  shop  behind 
Grace  Church  that  has  been  a 
chosen  haunt  for  the  collector  of  en- 
gravings for  more  than  twenty  years. 
And  old  Goodbody,  the  presiding  genius 
of  the  place,  is  considered  by  many  of  his 
customers  to  be  the  most  interesting 
item  in  his  endless  collection.  He  has 
the  stock,  and  he  knows  probably  more 
about  prints  and  "states"  and  values  than 
most  of  the  fashionable  uptown  dealers 
will  ever  know. 

Old  Goodbody  is  a  man  of  infinite 
humor.  He  is  as  round  as  Mr.  Pickwick 
and  as  merry.  His  clear  gray  eyes  beam 
at  you  through  gold-rim  spectacles  while 
he  tells  you  a  tale  of  some  fortunate  find 
in  a  Brooklyn  attic,  or  introduces  you  to 
one  of  his  patrons  who  happens  to  be 
looking  for  the  same  kind  of  sporting 
prints  or  old  ships  you  are  after.  The 
shop  is  a  meeting  place  for  characters. 
Here  come  men  of  every  temper,  bent, 
and  bias  in  the  goodly  fellowship  of  print 
collectors,  from  the  picker-up  of  uncon- 
sidered trifles  to  the  expert  on  old 
masters,  who  turn  the  shop  into  a  riding 
school  for  their  hobbies.  I  have  met' 
every  kind  there;  artists,  actors,  lawyers, 
brokers,  cabinet  members,  sailors,  and 
doctors.  Among  all  the  professions 
doctors  seem  to  be  the  most  constant 
and  intelligent  buyers.  They  go  in  for! 
Whistler  or  Meryon  or  Seymour  Haden. ' 
There  is  something  about  the  clean,  sure 
lines  of  an  etching  that  appeals  to  their 
trained  eye  and  practised  hand.  The 
etching  needle,  like  the  lancet,  must  be 
deft  and  unerring,  and  the  work  of  a 
master  hand  is  never  lost  on  a  doctor. 
He  will  not  tolerate  the  second  rate. 

Since  the  days  of  Hogarth  the  print 
seller's  window  has  always  been  the  pooi 
man's  picture  gallery.  There  you  saw 
the  newest  political  cartoon,  the  carl 
catures  of  Gilray  and  Rowlandson,  ant 
the  latest  portrait  of  popular  actor  oi 
divine,  the  sweet  domestic  groups  o 
Moreland  or  the  spritely  quips  of  Cruik 
shank.  It  cost  you  never  a  pin  to  look 
You  could  laugh  or  curse  over  the  print: 

Concerning  radical  readjustment  between  the  peoples 

"The  Brotherhood  of  Man 

This  book  by  Dr.  A.  R.  L.  Dohme  is  an  earnest  ttuii 
of  general  economic  and  political  conditions.  D: 
Dohme  concludes  with  an  interesting  practical  outlin 
for  a  World  State  and  new  human  relationship: 
By    mail,   $1.10. 

THE  NORMAN,  REMINGTON  COMPANY 
Publishers  -  Baltimors 

Applications  are  invited  (or  an  InatractorMp  i 
French  and  Spanish.  Stipend,  $2000  or  $22C 
with  the  summer  school.  Young  Canadian  or  man 
Latin  origins  preferred,  but  applicants  musi  speak  bo 
languages  and  have  had  college  experience  in  leachin 
Letters,  with  references  and  recommendations,  may  I 
sent  to  the  Dean,  Dr.  W.  Sherwood  Fox,  Wes 
ern  University,  London,  Canada. 


I  May  22,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[551 


exhibited  quite  as  freely  as  the  dilettante 
at  your  elbow  who  could  afford  to  go  in- 
side and  buy  an  impression  for  his  cab- 
iiiet.  So  to-day  you  will  usually  find  a 
knot  of  idlers  gazing  in  at  Goodbody's 
window  display  with  much  the  same 
curiosity.  There  is  a  row  of  the 
Houbraken  heads  of  English  worthies 
hung  along  the  top  and  below  the  big 
Piranesi  plates  of  old  Rome. 

But  these  hold  me  only  a  moment  out- 
side. I  step  down  the  long,  gloomy  shop, 
lit  by  tiny  points  of  gas,  past  the  count- 
ers and  tables  heaped  with  interminable 
piles  of  prints,  the  cheap,  the  senti- 
mental, the  curious.  At  the  far  end  sits 
old  Goodbody,  the  light  shining  on  his 
bald  head  as  he  bends  over  his  table 
checking  up  a  catalogue  for  to-morrow's 
sale.  The  short  cigar  that  he  is  forever 
relighting  is  already  a  stump  and  I  share 
a  match  with  him  while  he  shows  his 
latest  bargain.  In  defiance  of  the  fact 
that  the  neatly  indexed  shelves  around 
us  are  groaning  with  old  portraits,  the 
drawers  and  portfolios  bursting  with 
mezzotints  and  etchings,  he  is  forever 
buying  more.  Of  course  there  are  a  few 
old  masters  that  he  keeps  for  his  own 
private  relish.  Albert  Durer  is  one  of 
these.  Here  is  an  artist-craftsman  whom 
he  loves  for  the  simple  directness  of  his 
line  and  the  romantic  invention  of  his 
subjects.  He  fingers  the  paper  as  ten- 
derly as  old  lace  and  hands  you  a  glass 
jto  study  the  delicate  beauties  of  "St. 
Hubert"  kneeling  before  a  stag,  with  a 
miraculous  crucifix  on  its  head,  or  the 
exquisite  skill  and  vigor  of  "St.  Jerome 
in  his  cell." 

There  is   one  process   of   Goodbody's 

trade  that  I  as  a  booklover  can  never 

luite  forgive.     It  is  to  find  him   some 

afternoon   ripping   a   pile   of   old   books 

ipart  to  get  out  the  engravings.    I  know 

:hat  the  letterpress  is  rubbish  and  the 

jrints  thus  brought  to  light  are  worth 

nore  than  the  books  can  ever  bring,  yet 

his  body-snatching  business  did  gag  me 

it  first.     The  people  who  revel  in  this 

jnholy    pursuit    are    known    as    "Gran- 

^erizers,"  from  the  Rev.  James  Granger, 

I  pious  vicar  of  Oxfordshire  who  pub- 

ished  in  1769  a  "Biographical  History 

)f  England"  in  which  he  strongly  urged 

he   value   of    a   collection   of    engraved 

)ortraits.      Thus    the    craze    for    extra- 

llustration  began.     It  has   grown   now 

|intil  these  vandals  think  nothing  of  de- 

•.troying  a  whole  set  of  books  in  order 

0  illustrate  one.    I  have  met  them  often 

it  Goodbody's  feverishly  thumbing  over 

mall  prints  of  historical  or  biographical 

nterest   with   which    to   extra-illustrate 

ome  favorite  author.     Whatever  their 

iubject  they  never  seem  to  get  quite  all 

'hey  know  must  have  been  engraved  for 

heir  purpose.    Napoleon  and  the  French 

levolution   are   prime   favorites.      Here 

:omes  a  customer   who  has  just   about 

(Continued  on  page  552) 


New  STOKES  Books 


POEMS  BY  A  LITTLE  GIRL 

HILDA  CONKLING 

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it  was  written  by  a  child  but  because  it  contains  beautiful  poetry." 

Miss  Amy  Lowell,  in  her  Preface,  says  of  this  verse  by  eight-year-old  Hilda, 
"I  wish  at  the  outset  to  state,  and  emphatically,  that  it  is  poetry,  the  stuff  and  essence 
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By  J.  THOMAS  LOONEY 

There  is  no  cipher,  no  cryptogram,  no  mystery  in  this  important  treatment 
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WILLIAM,  AN   ENGLISHMAN      By  cicely  Hamilton 

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prize  of  20,000  francs  as  the  best  novel  of  the  year  published  in  any  language 
should  not  have  been  taken  up  by  some  enterprising  American  publisher,"  says 
George  H.  Sargent  in  last  Saturday's  Boston  Transcript.  We  accepted  this  novel 
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tion.    Noiv  ready  at  all  bookshops,  net  $1.2$- 

443FourthAve.    FREDERICK  A.  STOKES  COM  PAN  Y     NewVork 


552] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  54 


(Continued  from  page  551) 
completed  his  set  of  portraits  for  Bos- 
well's    "Life    of    Johnson,"    which    will- 
probably  be  extended  to  twenty  volumes 
before  he  has  done. 

A   rainy  afternoon   is  the  best  time 
to  find  old  Goodbody  alone.    Then  he  is 
content  to  fold  his  legs  and  have  his  talk 
out,  while  the  air  grows  pleasantly  dim 
with  tobacco  smoke.    Such  stories  as  he 
can  tell  of  dealers  and  queer  customers 
and  adventures  with  old  Mr.  Keppel,  the 
veteran   print   seller,   who   often   called 
Goodbody  in  consultation  over  a  faked 
print  or  a  forgery.  There  are  shoplifters, 
too,  clever  gentry  who  collect  in  their 
own  secret  way  whatever  their  chance 
offers.     A  stolen  print,  however,  never 
gets  very  far  away  in  these  days  of  the 
telephone,   for  dealers   have   their   own 
private  marks,  and  the  thief  never  fools 
the    same    dealer    twice.      My    friend's 
knowledge  and   unvarying  honesty  has 
won  the  confidence  of  many  collectors 
who  will  not  buy  anywhere  without  his 
assurance  that  their  purchase  is  genuine. 
Behind  the  shop  are  a  couple  of  dark 
rooms  where  Goodbody  keeps  his  choicest 
treasures.     This  is  the  inner  shrine  of 
his  collection  which  is  not  opened  for  the 
casual  or  merely  curious  shoppers.  Some 
name  will  come  up  in  our  talk  and  to 
settle  a  point  he  will  beckon  me  into  the 
sanctuary,    switch    on    the    light    and 
display    for   my   special   delectation    an 
exquisite    impression    from    Whistler's 
"Venice  Set,"  a  Lapere  landscape  or  one 
of  C.  Y.  Cameron's  cathedral  etchings. 
Here  his  rare  prints  are  shown  in  glass 
cases  along  the  wall.     Higher  up  hang 
framed     engravings     of    prelates     and 
princes    of    old    France    and    mezzotint 
portraits  of  belles  and  statesmen  who  sat 
to  Reynolds  and  Lawrence.    There  is  still 
an  inner  room,  beyond  this  little  portrait 
gallery,  for  paintings,  drawings,  and  a 
great  variety  of  framed  lithographs  of 
old  New  York.    It  is  amazing  the  pricea 
these  early  views  and  maps  of  Manhattan 
bring.     Goodbody,  as  a  bom  and  bred 
New  Yorker,  has  a  sentimental  as  well 
as  a  collector's  interest  in  these  vanished 
landmarks.    A  color  print  of  the  Battery 
with  Castle  Garden  among  the  trees  will 
start  him  talking  of  Jenny  Lind's  first 
appearance  there.    The  scenes  on  Broad- 
way showing  Bamum's  Museum,  the  old 
Astor  House,  and  the  horse  busses  run- 
ning as  far  uptown  as  Union  Square,  all 
awaken  for  him  vivid  recollections  of  the 
time  when  skyscrapers  and  subways  were 
as  yet  undreamed  of. 

One  of  the  greatest  buyers  of  old 
prints  I  ever  met  at  Goodbody's  was 
the  late  Evert  J.  Wendell.  By  "great" 
I  mean  a  purchaser  of  mere  bulk,  for 
he  bought  literally  everything  he  could 
find  in  his  chosen  field,  the  drama.  At 
the  time  of  his  death  this  vast  hoard, 
stored  away  in  packing  cases,  filled  an 
e^itire  floor  in  a  loft  building.    The  whole 


mass  of  prints,  playbills,  books,  and 
photographs  was  bequeathed  to  the  Har- 
vard Library.  They  selected  the  best  but 
found  enough  duplicates  to  stock  a  score 
of  libraries  on  the  theatre.  It  took  three 
weeks  of  three  sessions  a  day  to  dispose 
of  the  remainder  at  auction.  Goodbody 
would  often  caution  his  patron  against 
buying  duplicates  of  a  print  when  he 
had  several  copies  of  it  already,  but  the 
warning  was  useless.  This  habit  of  ac- 
cumulation was  too  strong  to  resist.  An- 
other collector  of  the  drama  whom  I 
know,  was  a  more  cautious  buyer.  He 
waited  three  years  to  pay  Goodbody  his 
price  for  an  old  John  Street  Theatre 
playbill,  only  to  find  that  it  had  been 
sold  an  hour  before  he  got  to  the  shop. 
A  love  of  old  prints  grows  by  what  it 
feeds  on.  There  is  always  a  feast  at 
the  Museum  or  the  Public  Library  Print 
Room  and  a  variety  of  shows  at  the 
dealers  to  pique  your  appetite  and  im- 
prove your  taste.  You  look  and  long 
and  wonder  how  you  can  manage  to  pos- 


sess this  "cheap  luxury."  Charles  Lamb 
had  a  special  love  for  his  set  of  Ho- 
garths  in  their  neat  black  frames,  and 
he  tells  how  at  each  new  purchase  he 
and  Mary  "used  to  debate  two  or  three 
days  before,  and  to  weigh  the  for  and 
against,  and  think  what  we  might  spare 
it  out  of."  Among  his  prints  after 
Raphael,  Poussin,  and  the  older  painters 
was  a  graceful  head  by  Leonardo  da 
Vinci  which  he  had  christened  the  "Lady 
Blanch."  One  day  he  was  showing  this 
print  to  a  dull  gentleman  whose  matter- 
of-fact  soul  betrayed  him  into  a  remark 
that  must  have  delighted  Elia.  "After 
he  had  examined  it  minutely  I  ventured 
to  ask  him  how  he  liked  'My  Beauty'  (a 
foolish  name  it  goes  by  among  my 
friends)— when  he  very  gravely  an- 
swered me  that  'he  had  considerable 
respect  for  my  character  and  talents'  (so 
he  was  pleased  to  say),  'but  had  not 
given  himself  much  thought  about  the 
degree  of  my  personal  pretensions.' " 
Lawrence  Williams 


Certificate  Borrowing  and  the 
Floating  Debt 

[Dr.  Jacob  H.  Hollander,  Professor  of  On  April  30,  1920,  the  unfunded  pub- 
Political  Economy  at  Johns  Hopkins  Uiii-  ^c  debt  (exclusive  of  War  Savings  Se- 
versity,  has  long  given  special  attention  to  the  „„_;tip«^  wnq  t?  qq4  ?79  «!';';— nil  nut 
important  question  of  borrowing  by  United  curities)  was  $Z,y94,Z/Z,&&&— all  OUt- 
States  Treasury  certificates,  which  he  dis-  standmg  in  the  form  of  Treasury  certifi- 
cusses  in  the  following  paper.]  cates   of   indebtedness   bearing   interest 

THE  papers  on  "Inflation"  re:id  at  the  from  4%  to  51/4  per  cent.,  and  of  various 

recent  meeting  of  the  Academy  of  maturities  extending   up  to  March  15, 

Political  Science  give  an  enlightening  ac-  1921.     The  aggregate  of  Treasury  cer- 

count  of  the  relation  of  our  public  finan-  tificates  was  made  up  as  follows: 

cing  to  credit  expansion  and  high  prices.      Tax   $2,278,495,500 

Even    where    the    exposition    is    official      1;?*"    ■  ■  •; 455,204.500 

ii.       i-T.        i-i-  1.       •        -1.  Pittman  Act   250,375,000 

rather  than  thorough-going  it  possesses      Special  issues  i,i97,555 

an  important  documentary  value  as  set-  

ting  forth  the  purposes  governing  our  $2,994,272,555 
financial  administrators  during  and  after  The  manner  in  which  this  huge  "float- 
the  war.  ing  debt"  will  be  cared  for  in  the  next 
In  one  particular,  however,  the  ex-  twelve  months  is  of  the  gravest  national 
hibit  of  the  factors  responsible  for  infla-  concern.  On  the  one  hand  lies  the  hard 
tion  is  glaringly  defective.  A  signifi-  straight  course  of  liquidation  and  fund- 
cant  allusion  in  the  brief  but  trenchant  ing — the  course  which  England,  in  like 
comment  of  that  sturdy  champion  of  plight,  is  now  about  to  enter  upon  with  a 
sound  financial  practice,  A.  Barton  Hep-  fine  loyalty  to  her  best  financial  tradi- 
burn,  is  practically  the  only  reference  to  tions.  On  the  other  hand  is  the  easy 
the  part  that  the  Treasury's  war-time  tempting  descent  to  further  bank  loan 
and  after-war-time  practice  of  bank  bor-  renewal  with  its  certain  penalties  of  fis- 
rowing  by  means  of  certificates  of  indebt-  cal  danger,  business  embarrassment,  and 
edness  has  played  in  bringing  us  to  the  social  injustice.  Our  one  chance  of  fol- 
present  pass.  Emphasis  is  put  upon  the  lowing  the  first  course  and  of  avoiding 
use  of  bank  credit  by  the  general  public  the  second  is  to  understand  clearly  the 
in  Liberty  Loan  and  Victory  Note  buy-  evil  which  the  Treasury's  policy  of  cer-  ^ 
ing;  but  to  the  Treasury's  wholesale  re-  tificate  borrowing  has  caused  in  the  past 
sort  to  such  credit  in  its  certificate  bor-  and  the  mischief  which  it  threatens  for 
rowing,  during  and  since  the  war,  the  the  future. 

barest  reference  is  made.  The  omission  Bank  borrowing  as  practiced  by  the 
is  unfortunate  not  only  as  impairing  a  Treasury  during  the  war  and  as  resumed 
complete  analysis,  but  more  practically  in  on  August  1,  1919,  eight  months  after 
relation  to  the  Treasury's  impending  the  armistice,  and  continued  uninter- 
problem — sound  treatment  of  the  nation's  ruptedly  up  to  the  present  time,  has  con- 
floating  debt.  sisted  in  the  issue  of  certificates  of  in- 


May  22,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[553 


debtedness  nominally  in  anticipation  of 
war  loans  and  taxes,  but  more  recently 
in  renewal  of  maturing  unfunded  obliga- 
tions and  in  discharge  of  actual  deficit 
requirements.  Such  certificates  of  in- 
debtedness when  emitted  by  the  Treasury 
have  been  taken,  under  a  form  of  ad- 
ministrative compulsion,  almost  entirely 
by  the  banks  for  themselves  and  their 
customers.  In  either  event  they  have 
been  paid  for  by  the  banks,  again  almost 
entirely  by  credit.  The  purchasing  banks, 
qualified  as  Government  depositaries, 
have  credited  the  purchase  price  to  the 
account  of  the  Treasury  as  Government 
deposits  and  against  such  Government 
deposits  no  reserves  have  been  held. 
From  time  to  time,  as  required,  such  de- 
posits have  been  withdrawn  by  the 
Treasury  and  disbursed  through  the  Fed- 
eral Reserve  Banks  in  payment  of  pub- 
lic accounts,  ultimately  accumulating  in 
individual  deposit  accounts.  An  addi- 
tional volume  of  deposit  currency  has 
thus  been  created,  dictated  solely  by  the 
Treasury's  convenience  and  entirely  un- 
related to  commercial  requirement.  As 
I  have  elsewhere  stated,  if  the  green- 
backs of  our  Civil  War  period  are  prop- 
erly described  as  fiat  money,  it  is  right  to 
speak  of  Government  bank  deposits  made 
in  this  way  as  fiat  credit. 

Certificate  borrowing  has  had  an  un- 
wholesome eflfect  in  three  quarters — (1) 
the  price  level,  (2)  the  money  market, 
and  (3)  the  Treasury.  As  to  the  price 
level,  the  certain  tendency  of  certificate 
borrowing  has  been  to  aggravate  the 
problem  of  rising  prices  by  the  direct 
creation  of  additional  deposit  currency 
in  obedience  to  fiscal  convenience  rather 
than  to  business  needs.  Such  emissions 
of  bank  credit,  liberated  among  indi- 
vidual deposit  accounts,  have  operated, 
first,  to  increase  prices,  and  thereafter, 
to  delay,  restrict,  or  prevent  an  other- 
wise possible  fall. 

As  to  the  money  market,  the  signal 
advantage  of  certificate  borrowing  was 
avoidance  of  monetary  strain — as  long 
as  the  Treasury  pursued,  under  justifi- 
cation of  war-time  exigency,  its  policy 
of  a  mounting  balance  and  as  long  as 
the  banks  could  meet  withdrawals  from 
certificate-created  deposits  by  prefer- 
ential rediscounting  with  the  Federal 
Reserve  Banks.  This  artificial  ease  dis- 
appeared as  soon  as  the  reduced  Treas- 
ury balance  made  it  impracticable  for 
certificate  credits  to  be  left  for  any  con- 
siderable time  in  the  depositary  banks, 
and  the  profit-yielding  differential  on 
war  paper  was  wiped  out.  Thereafter, 
withdrawal  of  funds  subjected  the  re- 
sources of  the  banks  working  with  scanty 
reserves  to  strain  and  the  money  market 
to  pressure.  Eventually,  resort  was  of 
necessity  had  to  the  Federal  Reserve 
Banks,  with  a  consequent  further  re- 
duction in  the  reserve  ratio  and  ultimate 
(Continued  on  page  554) 


Owen   Wister's  New  Book 

Owen  Wister's  new  book  meets  a  need  which  has  long  been  felt  by 
thinking  Americans.  It  is  a  book  of  facts  about  England  £md  the 
British  Empire  written  with  the  avowed  intention  of  creating  a  better 
feeling  between  English  and  Americans. 

A  STRAIGHT  DEAL 

OR 

THE  ANCIENT  GRUDGE 

"Mr.  VVister  has  written  a  good  book;  and  in  writing  it  he  has  done  a  good 
deed  .  .  .  He  knows  the  English  at  home  and  abroad  and  he  is  an  American 
of  the  Americans.  He  is  therefore  unusually  well  equipped  to  discuss  the 
social  usages  and  national  peculiarities  of  both  countries;  and  he  is  very  direct 
in  doing  so." — A'^.  Y.  Times. 

Price  $2.00 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY,     Pubiuhcr,,     NEW  YORK 


A  ToM^er 

o    of 
Strength 

THE  STRENGTH  OF  THE 
BANKERS  TRUST  COMPANY  is 

founded  upon  the  bedrock  of  character, 
experience  andgreat  financial  resources. 

For  this  reason,  the  Company  has  come  to 
be  regarded  as  a  tower  of  strength  in  the 
financial  community.  Many  important  busi- 
ness concerns  are  looking  to  it  for  the  service 
and  co-operation  obtainable  only  from  an 
institution  of  unquestioned  dependability, 
complete  equipment  and  far-reaching  banking 
connections. 

Bankers  Trust 
Company 

Member  Federal  Jieseme  System 
New  York 

Resources 
Over  Four  Hundred  Million  Dollars 


554] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  54 


(Continued  from  page  553) 
recourse  to  deliberate  credit  restriction. 

As  to  the  Treasury,  certificate  borrow- 
ing exposed  us,  disadvantageously,  to 
the  hazards  of  a  floating  debt  policy. 
Four  months  ago  I  ventured  to  say: 

Were  the  prospect  encouraging  that  such 
floating  indebtedness  could,  in  the  near  future, 
be  either  extinguished  from  surplus  revenue 
or  funded  upon  more  advantageous  terms  than 
are  now  obtainable,  the  wisdom  of  delay  would 
at  best  turn  upon  the  question  of  whether  or 
not  such  ultimate  gains,  if  realized,  more  than 
counterbalanced  the  present  injuries  of  renewal. 
But  there  is  no  possibility  of  extinguishing 
floating  indebtedness  from  out  of  current  sur- 
plus, certainly  none  within  the  present  fiscal 
year;  and  the  prospect  of  radical  improve- 
ment in  the  investment  market  is  an  uncer- 
tain chance  more  congenial  to  speculative  ven- 
ture than  to  prudent   financial  administration. 

In  this  venture,  it  is  now  possible  to 
assert  definitely,  the  Treasury  has  lost. 
The  most  recent  issue  of  certificates  were 
placed  at  5*4  per  cent.,  with  an  imme- 
diate corresponding  reaction  upon  the 
market  value  of  all  other  Government 
obligations. 

These  are,  then,  the  conditions  which 
the  Treasury  faces:  Continued  adher- 
ence to  the  practice  of  certificate  bor- 
rowing with  the  likelihood  of  added  price 
inflation,  progressive  monetary  strain 
and  ultimate  fiscal  inconvenience — or  a 
frank  recognition  of  the  facts  of  the  case, 
and  courageous  resort  to  retrenchment, 
taxation,  and  funding. 

Jacob  H.  Hollander 


Drama 

Sothern  and  Marlowe  at  the 
Shubert  Theatre 

THE  performance  of  "Twelfth  Night" 
was  at  the  same  time  zestful  and 
mellow;  that  union  was  its  keynote,  the 
keynote  of  Miss  Marlowe's  Viola,  which 
was  the  heart  and  mainstay  of  the  pres- 
entation. No  performance  could  be  more 
active;  action  is  not  only  brought  out,  it 
is  brought  in.  When  Sir  Toby  expresses 
his  modest  intention  of  living  forever,  the 
text  gives  to  the  clown  the  natural  re- 
tort: "Sir  Toby,  there  you  lie."  This 
thrust,  purely  verbal  in  Shakespeare,  is 
made  the  occasion  for  the  lying  down  of 
Sir  Toby  on  the  stage  floor  and  the 
clown's  use  of  him  as  a  seat.  But,  though 
lavish,  the  action  is  hardly  extravagant; 
frolic  does  not  broaden  into  orgy.  The 
poetry  is  always  there,  or,  if  not  actually 
there  in  the  sorties  of  burlesque,  is  no 
further  off  than  the  church  from  the 
Clown's  dwelling. 

The  Malvolio  of  Mr.  Sothern  is  not  one 
of  his  larger  parts.  The  capers  of  sol- 
emnity are  always  diverting,  and  Mr. 
Sothern  extracts  plenty  of  amusement 
from  the  grimaces  of  the  puritanical 
steward.  But  Shakespeare's  Malvolio  is 
not  merely  puff-ball.  He  is  fatuous,  I 
grant,  but  not  inane ;  Mr.  Sothern's  Mal- 


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even  by  the  metal-eating  action  of  sea 
fog  or  city  smoke. 

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metal  products  produced  by  The  Inter- 
national Nickel  Company  from  a 
natural  alloy — 67%  nickel,  28%  copper, 
and  5%  other  metals.  These  products 
include  Monel  blocks,  Monel  rods, 
Monel  castings,  Monel  sheet,  Monel 
wire,  Monel  strip  stock,  etc. 


THE  INTERNATIONAL  NICKEL  COMPANY 

43  Exchange  Place,  New  York 

The  International  Nickel  Company  of  Canada,  Limited 
Toronto,  Ontario 


volio  is  inane  as  well  as  fatuous.  It  is 
true  that  in  the  last  scenes,  where  Mal- 
volio unquestionably  rises,  Mr.  Sothern 
seeks  to  rise  with  him.  In  the  Topas 
scene  he  nearly  re-creates  the  part,  but 
there  are  times  when,  between  his  grave 
and  moving  utterance,  he  inserts  sounds 
which  may  almost  be  described  as  whin- 
nies. The  effect  is  intentional,  but 
hardly  good.  Likewise  in  his  last  minute 
on  the  stage  he  is  strong,  and  Malvolio 
seems  about  to  pluck  a  dignity  from  the 
very  mire  and  pit  of  his  humiliations, 
when  Mr.  Sothern  reconsiders  and  re- 
stores the  old  Malvolio  by  a  parting  antic. 
The  actor  fears  lest  his  Malvolio  should 
not  be  fatuous  enough.  His  alarm  is 
groundless. 

Miss  Marlowe  has  imparted  to  her 
Viola  a  fine  originality,  a  delicate  con- 
sistency, and  a  surprising  variety  of  de- 
tail and  perfection  of  finish.  If  her 
Viola  is  not  precisely  Shakespearean,  it 
is  exactly  in  accord  with  certain  hints 
of  Shakespeare's.  The  dramatist's  Viola 
is  a  woman,  who,  while  tears  for  a 
brother's  death  still  mingle  with  the  sea- 
spray  on  her  face,  can  interest  herself 
in  the  fact  that  Orsino  is  a  bachelor. 
That  is  Miss  Marlowe's  Viola  to  the  life. 
Both  Violas  are  combinations  of  art- 
lessness  and  sophistication;  but  in 
Shakespeare's  the  groundwork  is  the  art- 
lessness;  in  Miss  Marlowe's  it  is  the 
sophistication.  Here  is  a  very  knowing 
Viola,  even  a  naughty  and  saucy  Viola, 
though  the  naughtiness  is  never  madcap 
and  the  sauciness  is  never  pert.  What 
is  crisp  in  the  common  actress  becomes 
mellow  in  her  hands. 

For  Miss  Marlowe  the  part  is  almost 
purely  humorous.  The  sensibility  is 
present  as  the  occasion  for  the  humor. 
For  instance,  I  had  always  taken  in  en- 
tire seriousness  Viola's  two  little  replies 
to  the  Duke:  "Of  your  complexion"  and 
"About  your  years  my  lord."  In  Miss 
Marlowe  they  are  comic,  pleasingly  comic. 
In  the  duel  scene  her  fright  is  genuine, 
but  she  mocks  at  her  fright  nevertheless. 
In  fact,  she  abounds  in  that  delicious 
self-mockery  which  is  the  only  decent 
apology  and  atonement  human  nature  can 
make  for  the  mockery  of  other  people. 
She  can  be  cooingly  innocent,  but  the  in- 
nocence itself  is  comedy;  the  child  in 
her,  like  the  man,  is  nothing  but  ap- 
parel. If  this  infiltration  of  sensibility 
into  humor  obscures  the  sensibility,  it 
bestows  on  the  humor  a  rare  delicacy  and 
richness.  Possibly  in  this  point  Miss 
Marlowe  goes  a  step  beyond  Shakespeare, 
but  Shakespeare  himself,  in  the  whole 
frame  and  temper  of  the  comedy,  has 
furnished  her  with  the  incentive.  The 
sentiment  in  the  play,  the  Duke's, 
Olivia's,  even  Viola's,  if  it  is  not  part  of 
the  joke,  is  at  all  events  part  of  the 
game.  Miss  Marlowe's  Viola  is  a  be- 
guiling incarnation  of  this  spirit. 

Mr.  Sothern's  Petruchio  is  best  in  the 


May  22,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[555 


earlier  scenes  of  "The  Taming  of  the 
Shrew";  Miss  Marlowe's  Katharina  in 
the  later.  The  scold  is  hardly  imitable 
by  Miss  Marlowe.  Vixenish  indeed, 
though  only  in  jets  and  sallies,  she  can 
be;  but  she  lacks  the  hardihood,  lacks  the 
constitution,  required  by  the  histrionic 
shrew.  She  has  the  effect  of  reminding 
herself  at  intervals  that  she  is  a  terma- 
gant. Her  strong  work  is  done  in  the  later 
scenes,  in  the  element  of  slyness  and  play- 
ful malice  in  the  reformed  Katharina, 
the  indulgence,  the  mockery,  the  con- 
descension, which  almost  put  the  rough 
master  in  the  position  of  a  rude  school- 
boy. There  is  scope  here  for  that  deli- 
cate embroidery  which  is  the  distinction 
and  attraction  of  her  art. 

One  finds  in  Mr.  Sothern's  Petruchio  a 
fine  heartiness  and  impetuosity.  From 
the  first  he  is  a  walking  riot,  but  a  riot 
in  which  the  man  is  seen  behind  the 
brawler  and  the  gentleman  divined,  if 
not  discerned,  behind  the  man.  He  is 
happy  in  the  first  scene  with  Katharina, 
where,  making  much  of  her  in  the  ab- 
stract, in  the  third  person,  so  to  speak, 
he  ignores,  smothers,  obliterates  her  as 
a  partner  or  opposite  in  conversation. 
He  surrounds  her,  both  literally  and  fig- 
uratively; there  is  no  egress  from  his 
arms  or  from  his  volubility.  In  the  later 
scenes  I  felt  the  presence  of  an  excess 
which  I  do  not  clearly  recall  in  the  per- 
formances of  earlier  times.  Torrential 
Mr.  Sothern  is  and  ought  to  be;  but  he  is 
also  battering,  and  I  doubt  the  rightness 
of  the  latter  trait.  The  deliciousness 
and  subtlety  of  the  part,  its  point  of  dif- 
ference from  the  vulgar  handling  of  a 
common  theme,  is  Petruchio's  good- 
humor  toward  Katharina,  a  tempestuous, 
but  still  a  real,  good-humor.  Shakes- 
peare himself  has  not  been  quite  unfalter- 
ing in  his  adhesion  to  this  excellent  ideal, 
and  the  actor  has  exaggerated  the  devia- 
tions of  Shakespeare. 

Mr.  Sothern's  Hamlet  does  not  grow 
old;  no  auditor  could  fasten  on  him  the 
words,  "He's  fat  and  scant  of  breath,"  in 
which  the  queen  showed  herself  possessed 
of  an  unmotherly,  but  not  unwomanly 
capacity,  for  retaliations.  He  is  active, 
dexterous,  and  versatile.  The  part  has 
been  studied  minutely  and  intensely ;  not 
a  comma  has  escaped  the  probe.  The  re- 
sult is  a  variegated,  a  profoundly  check- 
ered, Hamlet ;  the  part  lightens  and  dark- 
ens, flushes  and  pales,  mellows  and 
roughens,  from  passage  to  passage,  often 
from  moment  to  moment.  In  this  he  has 
Shakespeare  behind  him — behind  him  in 
a  quite  special  sense,  since  this  is  a  point 
in  which  he  has  pursued  Shakespeare, 
overtaken  him,  and  to  my  feeling  passed 
— I  would  not  say  surpassed — the  poet. 
He  has  even  passed  beyond  his  former 
self. 

If  an  example  is  wanted,  one  of  the 
things  that  went  straight  to  my  heart  in 
(Continued  on  page  556) 


THE  HUDSON  COAL  CO. 


CELEBRATED 

LACKAWANNA 

THE  ARISTOCRAT  OF  ANTHRACITE 


1823 


1920 


HAS  NATURAL  QUALITIES  AND  MAN-MADE  REFINEMENT 


D.  F.  WILLIAMS 

Vice-President  and  General  Sales  Agent 


W.  F.  SHURTLEFF 

Assistant  General  Sales  Agent 


SCRANTON,  PA. 


556] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  54 


(Continued  from  page  555) 
the  earlier  personation  was  the  "Except 
my  life,  except  my  life,  except  my  life," 
in  which  the  monotony  of  the  iteration 
carried  with  it  the  terrible  implication 
that  the  hatred  of  life  had  already  become 
grey  and  commonplace.  Mr.  Sothern 
now  makes  three  points  out  of  these 
three  phrases,  and  enlarges  and  enforces 
the  third  by  the  strong  measure  of  fling- 
ing himself  in  a  half-recumbent  posture 
upon  the  steps.  The  fashion  of  the  act 
is  excellent,  but  I  was  more  touched  by 
the  earlier  simplicity.  The  agility  of  an 
actor's  mind  and  frame  must  find  its 
correlate  and  limit  in  the  agility  of  the 
observer's  mind  and  eye.  For  my  part, 
I  can  not  feel  three  ways  in  three 
seconds. 

This  leads  to  a  word  on  the  invented 
and  inserted  business  in  the  play.  Every 
actor  does,  and  must,  introduce  action 
that  is  not  enjoined  by  the  text,  but 
there  is  a  clear  distinction  between  ac- 
tion that  reenforces  or  fulfills  Shakes- 
peare's recorded  word,  and  action  that  is 
not  only  unprescribed,  but  unsuggested; 
to  underline  and  interline  are  distinct 
processes.  For  example,  Hamlet's  affec- 
tionate gesture  toward  Ophelia  in  Act 
III,  Scene  I — by  no  means  peculiar  to 
Mr.  Sothern — practically  rebuilds  or  re- 
writes the  entire  scene;  it  turns  all  Ham- 
let's brutality  into  feint  and  semblance. 
Again  in  Act  I,  Scene  II,  Hamlet  bestows 


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{ antes  A.  Blair 
fortimer  N.  Buckner 
James  C.  Colgate 
Alfred  A.  Cook 
Arthur  J.  Cumnock 
Robert  W.  de  Forest 
John  B.  Dennis 
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TRUSTEES 


Buchanan   Houston 
Frederic  B.  Jennings 
Walter  Jennings 
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John  J.   Mitchell 
James  Parmelee 
Henry  C.  Pbipps 
Norman  P.  Ream 
Dean  Sage 
Joseph  J.   Slocitm 
Mylcs  Tierney 
Clarence  H.  Woolley 


Uemberi  of  Ike  New  York  Clearing  House  Asso- 
ciation  and   of   the   Federal   Reserve   System 


a  caress  upon  the  fool  whom  Mr.  Sothern 
.  has  imposed  upon  the  play  for  the  ex- 
press purpose  of  receiving  that  unauthor- 
ized caress.  I  am  of  two  minds  with  re- 
spect to  insertions  of  this  kind;  I  am  con- 
founded by  the  actor's  boldness  and  am 
thankful  for  his  mercy.  Hamlet  on  the 
stage  rather  daunts  and  confuses  me;  I 
am  reduced  to  a  sort  of  daze  by  the  gyra- 
tions of  that  mercurial  and  vertiginous 
young  man.  This  is  a  mask  undoubtedly, 
but  the  slits  in  the  mask  through  which 
the  tender  and  contemplative  Hamlet  is 
descried  are  too  few  and  too  narrow  for 
my  comfort.  On  this  point  Mr.  Sothern 
feels  as  I  do;  he  feels,  in  other  words, 
that  the  play's  Hamlet  is  much  less 
tender  than  Shakespeare's.  He  accord- 
ingly injects  a  little  more  Shakespeare 
into  the  play. 

I  am  a  little  surprised  by  the  extent 
of  Miss  Marlowe's  success  as  Ophelia. 
Ophelia  is  of  all  Shakespeare's  characters, 
with  the  possible  exception  of  Virgilia, 
the  most  inarticulate.  Miss  Marlowe,  on 
the  other  hand,  is  the  most  articulate  of 
actresses.  Articulation  means  in  essence 
the  division  of  the  flow  of  the  voice  into 
significant  elements.  Taken  in  a  broad 
sense,  this  division  is  the  specialty,  the 
virtue,  almost  the  excess  and  eccentricity, 
of  Miss  Marlowe.  The  final  speech  in 
"The  Taming  of  the  Shrew"  may  serve 
as  illustration.  It  is  greatly  to  her  credit 
that  a  pencil  so  exact  can  be  just  to  a 
figure  like  Ophelia's  which  is  half  a  blur. 
Even  the  hardest  speech  in  the  role,  the 
"0!  what  a  noble  mind"  (hardest  be- 
cause its  savor  of  official  panegyric 
seems  wholly  misplaced  in  Ophelia's 
mouth)  is  simplified,  is  liquefied  as  it 
were,  with  an  admirable  instinct  for  con- 
gruity.  She  is  happy  also  in  the  straying 
quality  of  the  mad  scenes,  the  quality 
which  binds  the  scattered  fragments  to- 
gether by  the  very  deftness  with  which 
it  marks  their  separation. 

O.  W.  Firkins 

Books  and  the  News 

Living  Expenses 

THREE  subjects  have  been  on  the 
front  pages  of  the  newspapers  prac- 
tically every  day  since  I  began  to  write 
these  book-lists.  These  are :  strikes,  the 
Treaty  of  Versailles,  and  the  high  cost 
of  living.  Books  have  been  suggested 
with  reference  to  the  first  two  of  them. 
Here  are  some  about  that  subject  which 
is  so  dreary  to  all  but  the  political  econo- 
mist, and  so  urgent  with  every  one  of 
us — living  expenses. 

A  general  treatise  is  J.  Laurence 
Laughlin's  "Money  and  Prices"  (Scrib- 
ner,  1919).  Frederick  C.  Howe's  "The 
High  Cost  of  Living"  (Scribner,  1917) 
and  Fabian  Franklin's  "Cost  of  Living" 
(Doubleday,  1915)  are  specific  discus- 
sions, as  are  Walter  E.  Clark's  "The  Cost 


of  Living"  (McClurg,  1915)  and  W.  Jett 
Lauck's  "Cost  of  Living  and  the  War" 
(Doyle  &  Waltz,  1918). 

A  few  of  the  books,  not  so  recent  in 
date,  are  Scott  Hearing's  "Reducing  the 
Cost  of  Living"  (Jacobs,  1914)  and 
"Financing  the  Wage-Earner's  Family" 
(Huebsch,  1913),  by  the  same  writerj 
John  A.  Hobson's  "Gold,  Prices  and 
Wages"  (Doran,  1913),  and  Harrison  H^ 
Brace's  "Gold  Production  and  Future 
Prices"    (Bankers'   Pub.   Co.,   1910). 

Some  later  ones  are  "The  Flow  of 
Value"  (Century,  1919),  by  Logan  Gj 
McPherson;  Irving  Fisher's  "Why  Is  the 
Dollar  Shrinking?"  (Macmillan,  1915); 
G.  H.  Gerber's  "The  High  Cost  of  Liv-^ 
ing"  (N.  Y.  Book  Co.,  1915) ;  Oswald  FJ 
Boucke's  "Rising  Costs  of  Living'^ 
(Banta,  1916) ;  Clyde  L.  King's  "Lower 
Living  Costs  in  Cities"  (Appleton,  1915)^ 
and  Winifred  S.  Gibbs's  "The  Minimun 
Cost  of  Living:  a  Study  of  Families  of 
Limited  Income  in  New  York  City"j 
(Macmillan,  1917). 

A  book  upon  a  related  and  pertinent 
topic  is  Ellen  H.  Richards's  "The  Cost 
of  Living  as  Modified  by  Sanitary  Sci- 
ence" (Wiley,  1910),  while  a  contribution 
to  the  belles  lettres  of  this  subject,  and 
perhaps  a  pleasant  relief  after  so  many 
graphs  and  tables,  is  "The  Art  of  Liv-' 
ing"  (Scribner,  1899),  by  Robert  Grant' 
Edmund  Lester  Pearson 

Current    Investment 
Publications 

A  twenty-eight-page  illustrated  booklet 
under  the  caption  "Greater  France  and  Three 
Cities"  (Bordeaux-Lyons-Marseilles)  was  re- 
cently issued  by  the  Guaranty  Trust  Company, 
New  York.  Its  pages  include  a  clear  and 
forceful  statement  of  the  resources  of  France 
and  her  three  southern   industrial  centres. 


"Some  Recent  Issues  of  Industrial  Pre- 
ferred Stocks"  is  the  title  of  a  booklet  just 
issued  by  Dominick  &  Dominick,  members  of 
the  New  York  Stock  Exchange,  115  Broadway, 
New  York.  The  recent  preferred  stock  issues 
of  forty  industrial  corporations  are  described 
and  explained.  The  arrangement  of  the  mat- 
ter is  designed  to  make  easy  thorough  com- 
parisons between  the  stocks  of  the  several 
companies  whose  issues  are   included. 


"A  Trust  Company  as  Transfer  Agent  and 
Registrar,"  a  new  booklet  published  by  the 
United  States  Mortgage  &  Trust  Company,  55 
Cedar  Street,  New  York,  presents  a  brief 
statement  of  the  manifold  advantages  of  such 
service  by  a  trust  company  fully  qualified  and 
equipped  to  act.  Its  appeal  is  addressed  par- 
ticularly to  those  organizing  new  corporations. 


"International  Investments  and  their  Rela- 
tions to  the  Foreign  Exchanges,"  a  booklet 
issued  by  Brown  Brothers  &  Company,  New 
York,  includes  the  description  of  a  number  of 
bond  issues  of  foreign  Governments  and 
municipalities,^  along  with  an  explanatory 
foreword.  This  publication  is  in  the  second 
edition. 


Readers  of  the  Review  desiring  copies  of 
any  of  the  booklets  noted  in  the  foregoing 
should  write  directly  to  the  issuing  house. 
Copies  are  free. 


u^^ 


THE  REVIEW 


Vol.  2,  No.  55 


New  York,  Saturday,  May  29,  1920 


FIFTEEN  CENTS 


Contents 


557 


'Brief  Comment 
Editorial  Articles: 
Two  Aspects  of  Mr.  Hoover's  Candi- 
dacy 560 
The  Wave  of  Price-Slashing                    560 
Stock  Dividends  Again  561 
I    Peace  for  Hungary                                     563 
,rhe  Problem  of  Palestine.    By  Edward 

Bliss  Reed  564 

The  Social  Revolution  in  France.     By 

Raymond  Buell  566 

\    Composing    Room    Colloquy.      By 

Weare  Holbrook  568 

k  Canadian  Ambassador  at  Washing- 
ton.    By  J.  K.  F.  568 
Correspondence  569 
Book  Reviews: 
What  to  Do  About  News  Juggling         571 
Is    There    a     Religious    Revival    in 

France?  572 

Germany  on  the  Eve  of  the  War  572 

Yeast  and  Phosphorus  573 

Minor  Dutch  Painters  574 

The  Run  of  the  Shelves  575 

Dramatic   Art   in   Holland.     By   J.    L. 

Walch  577 

Books  and  the  News:   Motor  Trips.  By 

Edmund   Lester   Pearson  578 

Educational  Section  579 

The    Collapse    of    Japan's    After-War 

Boom.     By  Charles  Hodges  582 


'T'O  consider  the  question  of  our  tak- 
^•■-  ing  a  mandate  over  Armenia  in 
the  light  of  a  financial  investment,  as 
Senators  Smoot  and  Borah  are  re- 
ported as  doing,  is  to  disgrace  the 
Senate  and  the  country.  The  des- 
perate plight  of  Armenia  is  one  which 
should  go  straight  to  our  hearts.  The 
jreat  majority  of  Americans,  we  are 
confident,  already  see,  or  could  easily 
ae  made  to  see,  that  nothing  should 
3e  left  undone  to  relieve  the  distress 
md  to  safeguard  the  rights  of  this 
inuch-tormented  people ;  and  he  must 
36  a  hidebound  politician  who  is  not 
stirred  by  President  Wilson's  message 
bo  the  Senate.  If  the  question  could 
oe  answered  by  resorting  to  the  direct 
mpulse  of  the  Senate  and  the  Ameri- 
i;an  people,  there  is  little  doubt  that 
;he  President  would  get  a  favorable, 
learty  response.  Unfortunately,  the 
ijroblem  is  not  as  simple  as  it  might 
seem,  and  is  precipitated  upon  the 


Senate  at  the  tail  end  of  a  distracted 
session,  when  it  is  impossible  to  give 
to  the  complexities  involved  anything 
like  the  proper  amount  of  thought. 
The  question  of  the  mandate  over 
Armenia  should  not  be  mixed  up  with 
party  politics,  as  it  is  almost  sure  to 
be  by  any  hasty  discussion  at  this 
time. 

ARCHBISHOP   KHOREN   of   Ar- 


/\ 


menia,  who,  prior  to  the  forma- 


tion of  the  present  Republic,  was 
president  of  the  National  Union  then 
ruling  the  country,  says  that  Presi- 
dent Wilson  virtually  promised  the 
Armenian  delegates  in  Paris  that 
America  would  take  the  mandate  for 
Armenia,  should  such  an  offer  be 
made.  The  Armenians  are  threatened 
with  war  and  fresh  massacres  from 
the  Turkish  and  the  Russian  side. 
The  Soviet  Government  of  Azer- 
baijan, therein  supported  by  the  Bol- 
shevist commissary  of  northern  Cau- 
casus, has  demanded  from  Armenia 
the  immediate  evacuation  of  the  dis- 
tricts of  Karabagh  and  Cangezour, 
while  the  Turks  are  making  prepara- 
tions to  attack  them  from  Erzerum. 
Turk  and  Bolshevik  together  will 
have  delimited,  in  their  Asiatic 
fashion,  the  frontiers  of  the  new  Ar- 
menia, we  fear,  before  Mr.  Wilson 
can  give  effect  to  his  acceptance  of  the 
task  assigned  to  him  by  the  Allies. 
Immediate  action  is  necessary,  as 
otherwise  there  will  soon  be  no  na- 
tion left  for  Mr.  Wilson  to  circum- 
scribe with  border  lines. 

WHEN  the  House  Foreign  Affairs 
Committee  asked  the  Secretary 
of  State  to  appear  before  it  for  the 
purpose  of  throwing  light  on  the  Irish 
resolutions  it  was  considering,  of 
which  the  principal  one  proposes  rec- 
ognition of  the  "Irish  Republic"  and 
the  sending  of  an  American  repre- 
sentative to  it,  the  object  of  the  com- 
mittee was  either  to  get  information 


or  to  put  the  President  in  a  hole.  In 
either  case,  Secretary  Colby's  letter 
was  an  entirely  proper  answer  to  the 
request  and  to  Chairman  Porter's 
letter  of  inquiry.  Anybody  that  needs 
information  as  to  the  propriety  of  rec- 
ognizing the  "Irish  Republic"  is  in- 
capable of  profiting  by  it.  And  of 
course  the  State  Department,  as  Mr. 
Colby  says,  is  in  possession  of  no 
facts  "which  should  deter  your  com- 
mittee from  any  action  which  is 
dictated  by  good  judgment  and  which 
it  may  feel  conscientiously  impelled 
to  take."  If  the  committee  does 
nothing  but  what  it  is  "conscienti- 
ously impelled"  to  do,  we  shall  hear 
nothing  more  of  the  resolution.  But 
the  "judgment,"  good  or  bad,  which 
Congress  has  exercised  on  Irish  reso- 
lutions has  related  to  the  political 
value  of  a  given  amount  of  buncombe, 
and  has  had  no  more  to  do  with  con- 
science than  with  astronomy. 

T^HE  whole  batch  of  heresy-hunting 
-*-  bills,  the  passage  of  which,  to- 
gether with  the  expulsion  of  the  five 
Socialist  Assemblymen,  was  the  prin- 
cipal achievement  of  the  New  York 
Legislature  at  its  recent  session,  have 
been  vetoed  by  Governor  Smith.  This 
action  will  redound  to  his  lasting 
credit,  and  will  doubtless  also  be  of 
advantage  to  the  Democratic  party  in 
the  coming  election.  In  the  reasons 
assigned  for  his  vetoes,  the  Governor 
hits  straight  from  the  shoulder.  Con- 
cerning the  monstrous  bill  designed 
to  rule  the  Socialist  party  off  the  of- 
ficial ballot,  he  first  points  out  the 
fatal  objection  relating  to  the  pro- 
scriptive  power  which  it  would  vest 
in  a  particular  court;  but  he  goes  on 
to  enunciate  the  broad  principle 
involved : 

The  voters  of  this  State  are  entitled  to  the 
privilege  of  choosing  their  own  candidates  and 
their  own  officials  and  to  enunciate  their  own 
platforms.  No  majority  should  have  the  right 
to  exclude  any  minority  from  its  just  partici- 
pation in  the  functions  of  government. 


558] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  55 


Likewise  on  the  school  censorship  bill 
he  says : 

It  is  unthinkable  that  in  a  representative  de- 
mocracj-  there  should  be  delegated  to  any  body 
of  men  the  absolute  power  to  prohibit  the 
teaching  of  any  subject  of  which  it  may  dis- 
approve. 

Altogether,  Governor  Smith  makes  a 
clean  sweep  of  the  curious  mass  of 
intolerance  to  which — at  first  under  a 
momentary  obsession,  and  afterwards 
apparently  through  obstinacy  or  fear 
of  seeming  inconsistent — the  Repub- 
lican leaders  at  Albany  and  the  bulk 
of  their  followers  committed  them- 
selves. The  State  of  New  York  is  to 
be  congratulated  on  having  its  statute 
books  unstained  by  legislation  of 
which,  before  long,  we  are  sure  that 
nearly  aU  of  its  citizens  would  have 
been  ashamed. 

CENATOR  JOHNSON,  defending 
*^  himself  from  a  grievous  charge, 
says  that  the  word  radical  is  one  of 
the  "war-torn  epithets"  that  are  be- 
ing "hurled  at  all  who  will  not  bow  to 
arrogant  power  or  exploiting  wealth." 
We  are  not  concerned  about  the 
meaning  of  "radical."  It  used  to 
mean  something  fairly  definite;  now 
it  serves  well  enough  to  describe 
a  group  of  persons  violently  and 
vaguely  disgruntled.  Measured  by 
this  test.  Senator  Johnson  easily  qual- 
ifies for  membership  in  the  group.  He 
has  the  radicals'  manner,  and  man- 
ner is  everything  in  these  matters; 
since  of  any  definite  body  of  intel- 
lectual doctrine  among  our  strong- 
feeling  American  radicals  there  is  no 
trace. 

"TfTE  gave  no  encouragement  what- 
"^  ever  to  the  Polish  Government 
in  its  offensive  and  expressed  no 
opinion,"  said  Bonar  Law,  as  the  Gov- 
ernment's spokesman,  in  reply  to 
questions  asked  by  members  in  the 
House  of  Commons.  The  second  half 
of  the  denial  amounts  to  a  refutation 
of  the  first,  because  for  the  British 
Government  not  to  express  any  opin- 
ion on  the  Polish  action  is  equivalent 
to  a  silent  approval  of  it.  The  Poles 
appear  to  take  it  as  such,  and  claim 
to  be  doing  work  deemed  necessary 
by  the  Entente.  And  their  official 
spokesmen  will  cling  the  more  firmly 
to  this  cat's  paw  version  of  Poland's 


offensive  if,  as  seems  not  improbable, 
the  initial  victory  is  gradually  turned 
by  subsequent  events  into  a  defeat. 

'C'RENCH  opinions  on  the  upshot  of 
^  the  conference  at  Hythe  vary 
greatly,  ranging  from  denunciation 
of  Millerand's  alleged  outwitting  by 
Lloyd  George  to  eulogies  of  his  dip- 
lomatic achievement.  The  criticism, 
however,  is  more  insistent  and  vocif- 
erous than  the  praise.  The  chief  ques- 
tion at  issue,  the  fixing  of  the  amount 
of  reparation  to  be  paid  by  Germany, 
is  still  left  pending,  as  the  tentative 
figure  of  a  hundred  and  twenty  billion 
marks  in  gold  will  be  submitted  to  the 
opinion  of  experts,  on  whose  report 
the  definite  decision  will  be  based. 
Nor  is  there  great  satisfaction  over 
the  arrangement  which  releases 
France  of  the  obligation  to  pay  her 
debt  to  England  in  case  of  Germany's 
failure  to  discharge  her  debt  to 
France. 

npHE  decision  taken  at  Hythe  to 
■'-  postpone  the  Spa  Conference  un- 
til after  the  German  elections  gives 
support  to  the  distrust  in  the  correct- 
ness of  the  statement  that  the  Ger- 
man delegates  will  not  be  allowed  to 
discuss  the  decisions  of  the  Allies. 
There  would  be  no  reason  for  holding 
that  Conference  at  all,  let  alone  for 
postponing  it  on  account  of  a  prospec- 
tive change  of  government  in  Ger- 
many, if  that  country's  representa- 
tives were  to  remain  without  the 
slightest  responsibility  for  what  the 
Conference  should  decide.  Herr 
Miiller  would  do  just  as  well  as  any 
other  German,  reactionary,  commun- 
ist, or  moderate,  who  may  rise  in  June 
to  the  head  of  affairs,  if  his  only  busi- 
ness at  Spa  were  to  receive  with  a 
stiff  bow  and  in  silence  the  dictates  of 
the  three  Premiers. 

'T'HE  German  and  neutral  press  is 
■*-  being  supplied  by  Berlin  head- 
quarters with  information  "from 
strictly  reliable  sources,"  with  rumors 
and  hearsays  as  to  the  programme 
which  the  German  delegates  at  Spa 
will  try  to  carry  through.  Retention 
of  Northern  Silesia  and  restitution  of 
part  of  the  mercantile  fleet  and  of 
some  of  the  German  colonies  are  said 
to  be  included  in  the  list.    The  relia- 


ble sources  will,  no  doubt,  go  on 
bubbling  until  the  opening  of  the  Con- 
ference, bringing  up  to  the  surface 
such  a  variety  of  demands  as,  if 
granted,  would  cancel  the  principal 
part  of  the  Peace  Treaty.  The  ob- 
ject of  this  active  rumor-floating  is 
obvious:  having  prepared  the  public 
in  Germany  and  neutral  countries  to 
expect  an  impressive  array  of  de- 
mands, the  German  Government  will 
seem,  by  comparison,  extremely  mod- 
erate when  the  actual  list  comes  to 
be  presented  at  the  Conference; 
whereas  the  Allies  can  then  be  de- 
cried as  being  set  on  ruining  innocent 
and  well-meaning  Germany,  on  the 
evidence  of  their  refusal  to  grant 
even  the  little  that  was  asked. 

'T'HE  gifted  seer  who  pens  the 
■*-  American  editorials  for  the  Man- 
chester Guardian  sets  forth  his  care- 
fully framed  judgment  that  the  recent 
outlaw  railway  strike  "may  be  said 
to  mark  the  definite  passing  of  con- 
servative unionism  and  to  foreshadow 
the  overthrow  of  Mr.  Samuel  Gom- 
pers."  It  may  be  so.  We  do  not  pro- 
fess to  know.  But  we  recognize  that 
there  ought  to  be  some  measure  of 
truth  in  a  saying  so  venerable  and  so 
often  repeated.  Away  back  in  1885 
it  was  the  invention  and  property  of 
the  Knights  of  Labor.  Later  it  came 
into  the  possession  of  Daniel  De  Leon, 
the  head  and  front  of  the  Socialist 
Labor  party,  and  from  the  early 
nineties  onward  was  used  in  hard  and 
frequent  service.  As  Partridge,  the 
almanac  maker,  was  wont  regularly, 
over  a  long  period  of  years, 

to  foredoom 
The  fate  of  Louis  and  the  fall  of  Rome, 

SO  De  Leon  regularly  predicted  the 
collapse  of  trade-unionism  and  the  ex- 
tinction of  Mr.  Gompers.  The  So- 
cialist partyites  (most,  but  not  all  oii 
them)  took  up  the  prediction,  the 
I.  W.  W.  followed,  and  more  lately  i1 
has  been  conscripted  to  serve  undei 
the  banners  of  the  New  Republic,  the 
Nation,  and  other  journals  of  thai 
sort.  That  it  has  crossed  the  seaf 
for  foreign  service  is  but  new  prool 
of  its  unimpaired  robustness.  Agf 
can  not  wither  it,  nor  custom  stale 
its  viridity.  Malatesta  will  take  ii 
next,  Trotsky  before  long;  and  aftei 


May  29,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[559 


the  Bashi-Bazouks  have  been  bolshe- 
vized  and  they  begin  to  look  over  this 
way  for  signs  and  omens,  they,  too, 
will  repeat  it  in  the  identical  form  in 
which  it  appeared  in  1885.  In  the 
meantime  Mr.  Gompers  can  be  found 
any  day  at  the  old  stand. 

MOST  of  the  big  chiefs  of  Soviet 
Russia,  including  Lenin  and 
Zinoviev,  contributed  to  a  special 
Easter  publication,  for  circulation 
•  among  the  faithful,  articles  on  the 
new  labor  code.  All  of  them,  accord- 
ing to  a  sympathetic  source,  explained 
I  "the  difference  between  compulsion 
land  disciplined  labor  in  the  capitalist 
state  and  the  same  in  the  Socialist 
state  by  saying  that  in  one  men  were 
working  for  employers,  and  in  the 
latter  each  man  was  working  for  the 
good  of  all,  including  himself."  It 
is  an  interesting  explanation,  but  one 
can  not  help  wondering  how,  among 
other  than  the  most  stupidly  credu- 
lous, it  was  received.  The  argument 
that  each  man's  toil  is  for  the  good  of 
all  was  quite  as  serviceable  in  the 
Tsar's  day  as  it  is  in  the  day  of  Lenin. 
And  as  for  the  matter  of  employers, 
they  are  increasing  in  number  all  the 
time  in  Soviet  Russia,  and  should  for- 
eign capital  accept  the  tempting  offers 
made,  the  number  will  be  immeasur- 
ably augmented.  Prospective  em- 
ployers, officially  assured  not  only  of 
valuable  concessions  but  of  a  steady 
supply  of  compulsory  labor,  merely 
await  a  signal  from  the  Allies  in  order 
to  begin.  The  Russian  worker  of 
even  ordinary  intelligence  must  there- 
fore look  at  the  official  explanations 
with  some  dubiety.  For  even  if  there 
were  no  private  employers,  he  knows 
that  forced  labor  is  forced  labor,  no 
matter  what  Lenin  calls  it.  "Disguise 
thyself  as  thou  wilt,"  said  Sterne  in 
the  episode  of  the  starling,  "still, 
Slavery,  still  thou  art  a  bitter 
draught."  No  degree  of  stupid  cre- 
dulity can  long  serve  to  hide  its 
reality. 

DELGIUM  is  showing  the  same 
■^  pluck  in  tying  up  the  broken 
threads  of  her  industrial  life  that  she 
displayed  in  holding  to  her  moral  in- 
tegrity, first  against  the  attempted 
bribes,  and  then  under  the  crushing 
heel,  of  the  invader.    The  Guaranty 


Trust  Company  of  New  York  has 
compiled  some  highly  gratifying  sta- 
tistics of  the  rapid  progress  already 
made  in  reconstruction.  Although 
2,000  kilometers  of  her  railways  and 
1,800  bridges  had  been  destroyed,  and 
60,000  cars  and  2,500  locomotives  had 
been  taken,  80  per  cent,  of  the  pre- 
war number  of  freight  trains  were 
moved  during  the  first  quarter  of 
1920,  and  60  per  cent,  of  the  pre-war 
passenger  trains.  Steel  mills  reached 
40  per  cent,  of  their  pre-war  produc- 
tion, textile  factories  80  per  cent., 
while  the  woolen  mills  reached  the 
normal  pre-war  level.  The  output  of 
the  Belgian  coal  mines  for  the  entire 
year  1919  was  over  80  per  cent,  of 
the  1913  production,  while  the  rate  so 
far  for  1920  is  above  that  of  1913. 
The  movement  of  exports  and  im- 
ports indicates  that  by  the  end  of  the 
present  year  Belgium  will  be  free 
from  the  necessity  of  appealing  to 
foreign  financial  markets  for  assist- 
ance. There  can  be  no  jealousy  over 
Belgium's  precedence  in  the  pathway 
of  post-war  reconstruction;  it  is 
thoroughly  fitting  that  she  should  be 
first  to  rise  again,  as  she  was  first  to 
suffer. 

1%/rR.  CLINTON  SCOLLARD  is, 
■'-*■'•  needless  to  say,  wholly  within 
his  rights  in  penning  "An  Epistle  to 
Alexander  Pope,"  which  appears  in 
the  May  Harper's.  But  he  invades 
others'  rights,  including  Pope's, 
when  he  makes  such  a  jingle  as  this: 

But  just  a  sort  of  rhyming  sham, 
As  formal  as  your  Twickenham. 

It  won't  do.  The  name  Twicken- 
ham, as  is  not  unknown  to  the  world, 
is  one  that  gives  the  word  of  promise 
to  the  eye  only  to  break  it  to  the  ear ; 
and  no  possible  twist  to  its  pronun- 
ciation can  furnish  a  rhyme  for 
"sham."  To  Pope  himself  it  was 
"Twitenham"  in  prose,  or  "Twit'nam" 
in  verse.  In  the  "Epistle  to  Dr.  Ar- 
buthnot"  we  have: 

All  fly  to  Twit'nam  and  in  humble  strain 
Apply  to  me  to  keep  them  mad  or  vain. 

"Twickenham"  is  "formal"  enough, 
as  Mr.  Scollard  rightly  avers;  but  it 
is  altogether  too  formal  for  the  use  he 
has  made  of  it.  So  we  protest.  And 
while  we  are  on  this  subject  we  may 
as  well  caution  Mr.  F.  P.  Adams  to 


look  out  for  one  of  the  contributors 
to  his  "Conning  Tower"  who  insists 
on  rhyming  "bowie"  with  Chloe.  Of 
course  that  will  do  here  in  Gotham, 
where  the  article  is  unknown ;  but  in 
the  Great  Southwest,  where  it  flour- 
ishes (or  is  flourished),  a  usage  so 
gross  will  hardly  pass  without  trou- 
ble. Gun  play,  or  even  bowie  play, 
has  followed  less  provocation.  In 
no  lyric  to  Chloe,  nor  yet  in  any 
threnody  on  the  death  of  John  Alex- 
ander Dowie  will  the  word  furnish  a 
serviceable  rhyme.  But  should  one 
want  to  sing  something  about  Le 
Grand  Monarque,  or  any  of  his  thir- 
teen predecessors  or  four  successors 
of  that  name,  then,  indeed,  he  may 
clinch  the  word  at  the  line's  end  as 
often  as  he  pleases. 

'T'HE  tentative  and  fitful  appearance 
-*■  of  the  straw  hat  in  spring — first 
one  in  the  streets,  then  a  dozen, 
then  none  at  all  if  the  day  proves 
inclement,  and  finally,  when  the 
weather  has  declared  itself  indubi- 
tably for  summer,  a  whole  sea  of  jolly, 
dancing  little  baskets — is  in  striking 
contrast  with  the  sudden'  and  com- 
plete disappearance  of  the  same  head- 
gear in  the  autumn.  It  is  a  foolish 
custom  that  proscribes  the  straw  hat 
after  September  fifteenth.  The  sun 
has  still  something  of  his  summer 
fervor,  which  he  will  show  on  occa- 
sion, to  the  end  of  the  month,  and 
for  good  St.  Martin's  sake  reserves 
a  taste  of  his  quality  even  for  No- 
vember. While  the  leaf  clings  to  the 
bough,  let  the  straw  hat  hencefor- 
ward remain  unmolested  on  the  head 
of  him  who  chooses  to  exercise  his 
God-given  reason  and  to  wear  it. 
Henceforward,  whoever  lays  aside  a 
still  wearable  hat  out  of  deference  to 
a  foolish  custom  should  be  held  a  fool 
for  his  pains ;  and  whoever  presumes 
with  his  more  courageous  neighbor 
"greatly  to  find  quarrel  in  a  straw" 
should  be  known  for  an  enemy  to  so- 
ciety. The  public  is  no  longer  a 
shackled  slave;  it  has  learned  its 
power  and  has  used  it.  The  tyranny 
of  a  few  Wall  Street  brokers'  clerks, 
who  may  be  supposed  to  have  been 
the  authors  of  the  by-no-means  an- 
cient taboo,  should  no  longer  be 
borne. 


560] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  55 


Two  Aspects   of  Mr. 
Hoover's  Candidacy 

TJTHEN  the  candidacy  of  Mr. 
"  Hoover  first  became  a  conspicu- 
ous subject  of  national  interest,  the 
Review  expressed  in  the  strongest 
possible  terms  its  appreciation  of  his 
superb  achievements  and  his  splendid 
character.  Those  achievements  and 
that  character  give  ample  assurance 
that  in  everything  that  pertains  to 
administrative  excellence  and  effi- 
ciency Mr.  Hoover  would  be  a  Presi- 
dent whom  the  country  would  be  most 
fortunate  in  having  at  the  head  of  its 
affairs.  Moreover,  the  situation  of 
the  country  at  the  present  time,  and 
also  its  relations,  financial  and  phil- 
anthropic, with  the  old-world  coun- 
tries struggling  up  from  a  condition 
of  unparalleled  difficulty  and  distress, 
make  the  exercise  of  those  abilities 
in  which  Mr.  Hoover  so  remarkably 
excels  a  matter  of  supreme  impor- 
tance. It  is  impossible  to  over- 
estimate the  benefits  that  might  flow 
from  his  proved  skill,  his  inexhaust- 
ible energy,  and  his  coordinating 
genius  in  the  handling  of  the  great 
concrete  problems  which  will  press 
upon  us  in  the  next  four  years. 

Feeling  so  strongly  as  we  did — and 
do — on  this  great  aspect  of  the  ques- 
tion of  Mr.  Hoover's  claims  to  the 
Presidency,  we  nevertheless  expressed 
a  doubt  relating  to  another  aspect  to 
which  we  could  not  shut  our  eyes. 
We  may  be  pardoned,  perhaps,  for  re- 
producing here  what  we  said  upon 
that  occasion  on  this  second  aspect  of 
the  question: 

Whatever  other  issues  there  may  be  in  the 
Presidential  campaign,  one  issue  is  bound  to 
run  through  it,  whether  explicitly  formulated 
or  not.  We  are  either  going  to  stand  by  the 
fundamental  principles  of  the  American  polit- 
ical and  economic  system,  or  we  are  going  to 
drift  away  from  them.  It  may  or  may  not  be 
that  Mr.  Hoover  has  profound  or  well-defined 
convictions  on  these  principles;  it  may  or  may 
not  be  that  he  realizes  the  essential  importance 
of  surrounding  himself  with  men  who  are  de- 
voted to  them.  We  can  not  afford  to  be  saved 
by  a  wonder-worker,  or  a  superman.  We  want 
to  get  the  benefit  that  such  a  man  is  capable  of 
conferring  on  us  in  a  time  of  great  and  ex- 
traordinary need,  but  we  do  not  want  to  pur- 
chase those  benefits  at  the  sacrifice  of  the 
permanent  character  of  our  institutions.  In 
a  word,  we  must  know  what  the  election  of 
Hoover  would  mean  politically,  before  we  can 
decide  whether  he  is  the  man  that  we  ought  to 
have   for   President. 

What  leads  us  to  hark  back  to  this 
is  the  publication  in  the  newspapers 


of  some  extracts  from  an  article  by 
Mr.  Hoover  which  is  to  appear  in  the 
forthcoming  July  number  of  System. 
In  this  article  Mr.  Hoover  says  many 
things  that  are  both  sensible  and 
humane  about  the  relations  between 
labor  and  capital,  and  between  both 
and  the  general  public.  But  he  also 
indulges  in  some  very  broad  general- 
ities, which  perhaps  he  set  down  with- 
out careful  deliberation,  but  which, 
coming  from  a  leading  candidate 
for  the  Presidency,  will  certainly  be 
taken  by  the  "man  in  the  street"  as 
meaning  all  they  say  and  probably 
more.  We  have  in  mind  especially 
this  passage. 

The  problem  goes  far  beyond  the  mere  set- 
tling of  disputes.  I  have  seen  growing  out  of 
the  masses  of  people  in  every  country  aspira- 
tions for  a  great  economic  change.  That 
change  broadly  will  be  that  those  who  work 
with  their  hands  will  obtain  a  larger  propor- 
tion of  this  world's  goods  and  those  who  work 
with  their  brains  will  obtain  less.  Those  who 
io  not  work  will  probably  obtain  nothing. 

Now,  it  is  highly  probable  that  those 
who  work  with  their  hands  will,  in 
the  course  of  an  economic  develop- 
ment which  is  already  well  under 
way,  obtain  a  larger  proportion,  and 
those  who  work  with  their  brains,  a 
smaller  proportion,  of  the  joint  prod- 
uct than  has  hitherto  been  the  case. 
And  there  is  no  harm  in  attention 
being  called  to  this  fact.  But  what 
does  Mr.  Hoover  mean  by  saying  that 
"those  who  do  not  work  will  probably 
obtain  nothing"  ?  Does  he  mean  that 
inheritance  is  to  be  abolished?  Does 
he  mean  that  interest  on  capital  is  to 
exist  no  more?  If  he  does  not  mean 
either  of  these  things,  it  is  difficult  to 
see  what  he  does  mean ;  for  he  could 
hardly  be  thinking  of  the  mere  triv- 
iality that  rich  men,  while  in  the  en- 
joyment of  income  from  property, 
should  be  compelled  to  work  a  certain 
number  of  hours  a  day,  as  con- 
templated in  the  childish  anti-loafing 
laws  which  for  a  time  were  a  popular 
fad.  The  sentence  may  have  been  a 
mere  slip,  but  if  so  it  was  a  very  bad 
slip,  and  not  the  kind  of  slip  that  a 
man  would  be  likely  to  make  who  has 
profound  and  well-defined  convictions 
on  the  fundamental  principles  of  our 
economic  and  political  system. 

It  is  in  no  spirit  of  hypercriticism 
that  we  dwell  on  this  element  of  doubt 
in  relation  to  Mr.  Hoover's  potentiali- 
ties.   Of  all  the  candidates  named  he 


is  the  only  one  whose  past  career 
gives  solid  reason  for  expecting  per- 
sonal achievement  of  extraordinary 
character,  and  of  surpassing  value  to 
the  nation.  But  precisely  because  of  ' 
his  strong  qualities,  and  especially  of 
his  life-long  habit  of  pursuing  to 
achievement  anything  he  undertakes, 
any  error  he  may  commit  in  his  atti- 
tude toward  the  fundamentals  of  our 
political  and  economic  life  will  be 
fraught  with  unbounded  possibilities 
of  evil.  The  influence  he  has  so  well 
deserved  by  his  acts  will  extend  to  his 
opinions.  If  those  opinions  are  crude 
or  undefined,  if  his  hold  on  funda- 
mentals is  not  sure  and  strong,  there 
is  no  telling  what  sacrifice  of  perma- 
nent good  may  result  from  his  lead- 
ership, however  admirable  it  may  be 
in  meeting  the  immediate  exigencies 
of  the  time. 

The  Wave  of  Price- 
Slashing 

nnHE  overalls  crusade,  of  little  con- 
-'-  sequence  in  itself,  has  proved  to 
be  of  great  significance  as  a  symbol. 
Determination  to  curtail  spending  has 
become  so  widespread  as  to  cause,  at 
least  in  the  case  of  clothing  and  simi- 
lar articles,  a  general  lowering  of  re- 
tail prices.  The  wave  of  price-cutting 
by  retailers  that  has  swept  over  the 
country  is  pretty  unanimously  ex- 
plained as  due  in  the  main  to  down- 
right necessity,  and  this  necessity  has 
been  created  by  a  combination  of  two 
factors — the  attitude  of  the  consum- 
ing public  and  the  attitude  of  the 
banks.  The  restrictions  on  credit, 
which  had  for  some  months  been  in- 
creasingly put  into  effect,  in  pur- 
suance of  the  policy  of  the  Federal 
Reserve  Board,  naturally  bore  with 
peculiar  force  on  the  situation  which 
confronted  dealers  stocked  with  a 
large  supply  of  goods  which  they  had 
expected  to  sell  at  high-water-mark 
prices,  and  which  the  public  refused 
to  buy.  Whether  the  mood  of  the 
public  would  have  held  out,  and  in  any 
event  gained  its  point,  is  matter  for 
conjecture ;  in  point  of  fact,  the  mer- 
chants were  in  large  measure  com- 
pelled to  convert  their  stocks  into 
money  at  reduced  prices,  for  want  of 


May  29,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[561 


any  other  way  of  getting  necessary 
funds. 

Whether  the  reduction  of  prices  is 
permanent,  and  whether,  if  so,  it  will 
be  attended  by  acute  depression  and 
disastrous  disturbance  of  business,  is 
also  a  matter  on  which  it  is  impossi- 
ble to  form  a  confident  judgment.  No 
question  is  more  difficult,  and  no 
problem  is  more  delicate,  than  that 
of  the  descent  from  a  scale  of  inflated 
prices.  Rise  of  prices  takes  care  of 
itself;  it  inflicts  serious  hardships  on 
consumers,  but,  broadly  speaking,  it 
does  not  result  in  economic  disasters. 
On  the  other  hand,  falling  prices  may 
bring  about  the  bankruptcy  of  many 
business  enterprises  and  the  slow- 
ing-up  of  others,  with  the  result  of 
causing  widespread  unemployment, 
which  in  turn  accentuates  and  ex- 
tends the  depression.  It  may  be  that 
we  shall  have  to  go  through  such  a 
stage;  and  the  problem  of  banking 
policy — as  tough  a  problem  as  it  ever 
has  to  tackle — is  to  effect  the  neces- 
sary restraint  upon  credit  so  cau- 
tiously in  point  of  degree,  and  so 
judiciously  as  regards  the  particular 
directions  in  which  it  is  applied,  that 
the  process  shall  be  attended  with  as 
little  damage  as  possible. 

While  reduction  of  prices  is  a  prime 
need  of  the  public,  it  is  agreed  on  all 
hands  that  increase  of  production  is 
an  equally  fundamental  need,  both  for 
its  own  sake  and  as  a  means  of  bring- 
ing down  prices.  If  prices  had  come 
down  through  an  increase  of  output 
of  the  goods  the  public  needs,  the 
state  of  things  would  be  compara- 
tively simple.  But  so  far  from  this 
having  happened,  it  seems  to  be  the 
fact  that  the  physical  volume  of  the 
nation's  production  is  decidedly  be- 
low nonnal,  and  was  less  last  year 
than  the  year  before.  Now  a  lower- 
ing of  prices  tends,  in  the  first  in- 
stance— whatever  may  be  the  case 
after  a  readjustment  has  been  effected 
all  round — to  discourage  and  diminsh 
production;  and  this  is  one  of  the 
reasons  why  in  many  quarters  doubt 
is  expressed  as  to  the  remedial  efficacy 
of  this  particular  kind  of  drive 
against  high  prices.  But  the  ques- 
tion, as  we  have  said,  is  too  complex 
to  admit  of  confident  prophecy. 

One  consideration  pertaining  to  it 


is  of  more  cheerful  augury.     Dimin- 
ished production  has  been  due  to  a 
great  number  of  causes — among  them 
strikes,   slack  labor,  disorganization 
of  transportation,  etc.    But  a  highly 
important  element  in  the  case  is  the 
impairment  of  capital  not  through  de- 
struction in  any  ordinary  sense,  but 
through  failure  to  keep  it  up  in  quan- 
tity and  character.    If,  as  is  usually 
and  probably  correctly  said,  we  have 
been  consuming  on  a  magnified  scale 
and  yet  producing  on  a  diminished 
scale,  how  has  the  consumption  been 
supplied?     There  would  seem  to  be 
but  one  answer — that  a  large  part  of 
the  productive  activity  that  should 
have  been  devoted  to  the  maintenance 
or  enlargement  of  capital  has  been 
directed  towards  the  supply  of  imme- 
diately consumable  commodities.  The 
railroads  furnish  an  example  of  this 
on  a  grand  scale ;  roadbeds  have  been 
wearing  down,  and  rolling-stock  has 
become  sadly  deficient.    But  the  same 
thing  must  have  gone  on  in  a  hundred 
directions.     The  building  of  houses, 
the  making  of  repairs,  the  upkeep  of 
machinery  and  the  installation  of  new 
machinery — in  these  and  many  other 
things  there  has  doubtless  been  such 
deficiency  as  to  affect  materially  the 
productive  capacity  of  the  country. 
And  the  point  we  have  in  mind  is 
that  if  the  country  is  entering  upon 
a  long  period  of  genuine  thrift,  then, 
whatever  may  be  the  momentary  con- 
sequence  of  the  new  departure,   its 
result  before  very  long  must  be   a 
great    increase    in    productive    effi- 
ciency.     The    money    which    people 
stop  squandering  they  will  not  hide 
away  in  stockings,  but  will  invest; 
and  that  means  that  the  productive 
energy  which  has  been  directed  to  the 
satisfaction  of  wasteful  expenditure 
will  be  turned  to  the  upbuilding  of 
productive  capital.    When  we  add  to 
this  the  even  more  direct  relief  that 
would  come  from  the  reduction  of  the 
vast  number  of  persons  now  engaged 
in  producing  luxuries — whether  it  be 
automobiles  or  millinery — and  their 
utilization  in  production  more  condu- 
cive to  the  general  welfare,  we  may 
see  in  the  thrift  movement,  provided 
it  is  a  genuine  one,  the  promise  of  real 
amelioration  of  the  conditions  under 
which  we  have  been  laboring. 


Stock  Dividends  Again 

'yHE  stock-dividend  tax  which  is 
■■■  provided  for  in  the  bill  reported 
by  the  House  Ways  and  Means  Com- 
mittee for  the  purpose  of  raising 
money  for  the  proposed  bonus,  will 
revive  interest  in  the  general  ques- 
tion of  taxation  of  stock  dividends. 
When  the  Supreme  Court  rendered 
its  decision  declaring  that  stock  divi- 
dends were  not  income,  and  therefore 
could  not  be  taxed  under  the  Income 
Tax  amendment  to  the  Constitution, 
we  set  forth  with  some  fullness  the 
reasons  why  we  regarded  that  deci- 
sion as  absolutely  sound.  Doubtless 
the  first  impression  of  many  persons 
on  reading  of  the  tax  now  proposed 
will  be  that  it  is  an  attempt  to  nullify 
the  Supreme  Court  decision,  but  such 
is  not  in  any  proper  sense  the  case. 

The  proposed  new  tax  is  not  a  tax 
upon  the  individual  receiving  the 
stock  dividends,  but  a  tax  on  the  cor- 
poration for  the  privilege  of  dealing 
with  its  stock  in  that  particular  way. 
The  distinction  is  not  a  mere  technical 
subterfuge,  but  a  real  distinction. 
The  Federal  Government  has  a  right 
to  lay  a  tax  upon  any  particular  kind 
of  corporation  action,  if  in  its  judg- 
ment such  tax  is  called  for  in  the 
public  interest.  If  a  ten  per  cent,  tax 
on  the  issuing  of  stock  dividends  is 
desirable  from  the  standpoint  of  pub- 
lic policy,  there  does  not  seem  to  be 
any  Constitutional  bar  to  its  enact- 
ment. A  stock  dividend  is  of  course 
not  income  to  the  corporation,  and 
the  proposed  taxation  of  it  could  not 
pretend  to  be  an  income  tax ;  the  pro- 
posed tax  is  an  excise  tax,  not  based 
upon  the  idea  of  income  at  all.  To 
our  mind  it  is  equally  clear  that  a 
stock  dividend  is  not  income  to  the  in- 
dividual receiving  it ;  this  is  the  point 
that  was  decided  by  the  Supreme 
Court.  The  point  that  would  be  raised 
by  the  corporation  tax  now  proposed, 
if  it  were  enacted  and  came  before 
the  Supreme  Court  for  decision, 
would  be  wholly  unrelated  to  the 
question  decided  in  the  recent  case. 

So  much  for  the  main  principle  of 
the  matter.  The  retroactive  feature 
of  the  proposal  brings  up  a  different 
order  of  considerations.  Whether 
Constitutional  or  not,  a  retroactive 


562] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  55 


tax  of  this  kind  is  wrong  in  principle, 
besides  being  open  to  grave  objection 
from  the  standpoint  of  practical  busi- 
ness policy.  The  corporations  which 
declared  stock  dividends  after  the 
Supreme  Court  had  rendered  its  de- 
cision were  acting  upon  a  state  of 
facts  which  they  had  every  reason  to 
regard  as  absolutely  settled  so  far  as 
concerned  any  action  taken  at  the 
time.  Any  tax  laid  upon  them  for 
action  thus  taken  would  be  essentially 
punitive,  whether  technically  so  or 
not;  and  would  therefore  be  open  to 
all  the  objection  that  lies  against 
ex  post  facto  laws  in  general.  The 
tax  upon  future  dividends  would  be 
deterrent,  but  not  punitive;  and  the 
question  whether  it  should  be  levied 
or  not  is  purely  a  question  of  good 
public  policy. 

The  effect  of  the  issue  of  a  stock 
dividend  is  solely  that  of  causing 
actual  money  dividends  of  a  given 
amount  to  have  the  appearance  of  a 
lower  percentage  rate  than  they 
would  otherwise  have.  A  company 
that  has  been  in  the  habit  of  declar- 
ing dividends  at  the  rate  of  eight  per 
cent,  a  year,  for  example,  issues  a 
stock  dividend  of  fifty  per  cent.,  and 
continues  its  eight  per  cent,  annual 
rate.  The  shareholders  will  there- 
after, as  theretofore,  receive  eight 
dollars  a  year  on  every  hundred-dol- 
lar share  they  possess,  but  this  will 
be  equivalent  to  twelve  dollars  on 
every  hundred-dollar  share  that  they 
held  before  the  stock  dividend  was 
declared.  •  Their  income  from  the 
shares  will  have  been  increased  by 
fifty  per  cent.,  and  on  this  increased 
income  they  will  be  taxed;  the  mere 
bits  of  paper  representing  the  stock 
dividend,  on  the  other  hand,  were  not 
to  them  income  at  all,  and,  as  the 
Supreme  Court  decided,  could  not  be 
taxed  as  income.  But  if  Congress 
desires  to  discourage  this  method  of 
concealing  from  superficial  view  the 
advance  that  has  taken  place  in  the 
rate  of  return  on  the  original  shares, 
it  has  a  right  to  do  so  by  taxing  the 
corporation  for  the  privilege.  Nor  is 
this  a  merely  legal  distinction.  The 
practical  difference  is  that  in  the  one 
case  you  break  down  the  Constitu- 
tional limitation  on  the  general  tax- 
ing power  of  the   Federal   Govern- 


ment, and  in  the  other  case  you 
do  not. 

The  matter  of  retroactive  taxes 
had  come  up  in  a  different  form  in  a 
previous  project  connected  with  the 
bonus.  It  had  been  proposed  to  levy 
a  fresh  tax  on  incomes  (though  only 
on  that  particular  part  of  incomes 
which  is  designated  as  "war  profits" 
or  as  "excess  profits")  covering  the 
entire  period  since  the  beginning  of 
the  war — a  tax  additional  to  that 
which  had  been  paid  year  by  year,  as 
existing  law  required.  The  question 
was  accordingly  raised,  "How  long  is 
income  income?"  Discussing  this 
question,  the  New  York  Evening  Sun 
made  these  pertinent  remarks : 

Plainly  the  receipts  or  profits  of  any  given 
year  from  investment  or  activity  are  income 
during  that  year.  But  can  they  be  regarded  in 
any  sense  as  income  in  the  succeeding  twelve 
months?  If  so,  will  they  be  still  income  in 
the  following  year  or  ten  years  hence?  Con- 
versely, if  the  gains  of  1919  are  still  income, 
and  those  of  1917  are  still  income,  why  not 
those  of  any  year  back  to  1913,  when  the 
income  tax  first  became  constitutional?  Where 
is  the  line  to  be  drawn  whereat  money  received 
ceases  to  be  income  and  becomes  personal 
property?  ...  If  the  line  is  a  movable 
one,  subject  to  relocation  at  the  whim  of 
Congress,  plainly  nothing  any  man  owns  is 
safe,  for  it  was  income  at  some  time,  even 
though  that  time  had  been  the  day  of  his 
birth. 

While  there  is  doubtless  room  for 
argument  on  the  subject,  it  seems 
fairly  plain  to  us  that  only  current 
income  can  properly  be  regarded  as 
income  for  purposes  of  income  tax- 
ation. If  a  law  passed  in  1933  can 
not  lay  a  tax  upon  what  was  income 
in  1913  but  has  since  either  been 
spent  or  become  capital,  neither  can 
it  do  so  in  the  case  of  the  income  of 
1923  or  of  1928 ;  there  is  no  difference 
in  principle  between  the  cases.  When 
it  comes  to  the  very  next  preceding 
year,  the  case  may  be  regarded  as 
somewhat  different,  but  rather  upon 
the  maxim  de  minimis  non  curat  lex 
than  for  any  other  reason. 

This  does  not  offer  any  obstacle, 
however,  to  the  taxation  as  income, 
in  a  given  year,  of  gains  that  may 
have  been  accruing  for  many  years 
but  which  did  not  take  the  shape  of 
income  until  the  current  year.  It  is 
a  more  or  less  disputable  question 
whether  the  gain  which  a  person 
makes  through  the  sale  of  property 
should  be  regarded  as  income  or  as 
increment  of  capital.  But  if  it  be  re- 


garded as  income,  as  it  is  under  our 
laws,  then  it  does  not  matter  how 
long  a  time  that  gain  has  taken  in 
accruing;  the  whole  of  it  is  income, 
just  as  much  as  if  it  had  accrued 
within  one  year,  or  within  one  month. 
The  gain  from  year  to  year  in  the 
market  value  of  the  property  was  not 
income,  and  was  not  treated  as  such ; 
the  whole  amount  of  the  gain  became 
income,  and  subject  to  taxation  as 
such,  when  it  was  realized  through  an 
actual  sale. 

There  is,  however,  a  further  point 
in  connection  with  this  which  is  of 
most  important  practical  bearing,  and 
which  ought  to  receive  the  attention 
of  our  lawmakers.  While  the  entire 
gain  realized  on  a  sale,  however  long 
the  property  may  have  been  held,  can, 
so  far  as  the  legal  aspect  of  the  ques- 
tion is  concerned,  be  regarded  as 
income,  yet  it  is  not  fair  to  treat  that 
gain  as  income  for  the  single  year  in 
which  the  sale  is  effected.  If  the 
income  tax  were  at  a  horizontal  rate, 
this  would  be  a  question  of  little  im- 
portance; but  with  a  graded  tax  it 
becomes  the  cause  of  obvious  and 
avoidable  injustice.  A  person  whose 
usual  income  is  $6,000  a  year,  say, 
may  sell  his  entire  possessions — the 
result  perhaps  of  many  years  of  care- 
ful management  and  saving — for  the 
purpose  of  investing  the  proceeds  in 
some  form  desirable  as  permanent 
provision  for  his  family  and  for  his 
own  old  age.  If  the  gain  he  realizes 
on  the  sale  is  $100,000,  he  has  to  pay 
a  very  heavy  supertax,  a  supertax  de- 
signed, of  course,  to  be  borne  only 
by  very  wealthy  persons,  persons 
whose  annual  income  is  something 
like  $100,000;  in  his  case  the  $100,- 
000  is  the  accumulation  of  perhaps 
twenty  or  thirty  years.  The  tax 
ought  to  be  reckoned  accordingly; 
the  whole  amount  ought  to  be  taxed, 
but  it  ought  to  be  taxed  not  as  $100,- 
000  acquired  in  one  year,  but  as 
$5,000  acquired  in  each  of  twenty 
years,  or  something  of  the  kind. 
This,  however,  is  a  question  of  equity, 
not  of  law ;  and  moreover  it  is  but  one 
example  of  many  imperfections  which 
exist  in  the  law,  and  which  call  for 
remedy  by  Congress,  acting  after 
thorough-going  consideration  by  the 
most  competent  experts. 


I 


May  29,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[563 


Peace  for  Hungary 

/^N  the  4th  of  June  the  Hungarian 
^  delegation  will  sign  the  peace 
treaty  in  the  Grand  Trianon  Pal- 
ace at  Versailles.  The  ceremony 
officially  closes  a  period  of  nearly 
four  hundred  years  in  which  the 
destinies  of  Hungary  were  knit  up 
with  those  of  Austria  and  the 
Hapsburg  dynasty.  It  was  in  1527 
that  the  Hungarians  offered  the 
Crown  of  St.  Stephen  to  Ferdinand 
of  Austria,  brother  of  Charles  V,  in 
order  to  strengthen  their  resistance 
against  the  Turk.  As  an  outpost  of 
European  civilization  against  the 
menace  of  the  Asiatic  intruder  Hun- 
gary, during  the  sixteenth  and  seven- 
teenth centuries,  gained  the  admira- 
tion and  gratitude  of  Europe.  But 
in  her  present  humiliation  she  shares 
the  fate  of  her  old  enemy,  with  whom 
she  was  joined  in  the  mad  attack 
upon  Western  civilization. 

Still,  it  can  not  be  said  that  the 
Supreme  Council  has  been  a  vindic- 
tive tribunal  in  drafting  Hungary's 
verdict.  The  territory  that  she  loses 
is  not  taken  from  her  as  a  punish- 
ment for  her  part  in  the  war,  but  in 
conformity  with  the  principle  of  na- 
tional self-determination  which  her 
ill-fated  complicity  made  it  possible 
to  put  into  practice.  If  the  old  Hun- 
gary had  been  a  country  of  Hun- 
garians, the  new  Hungary  would  not 
differ  from  it  in  size.  But  as  a  matter 
of  fact  only  55  per  cent,  of  its  in- 
habitants were  Hungarians,  and  ruled 
the  country,  before  the  war,  vdth 
utter  disregard  of  the  rights  of  other 
nationalities  as  guaranteed  them  by 
the  Hungarian  Nationality  Law  of 
1868.  By  means  of  later  additions, 
by  the  partiality  of  the  Magyar  law 
courts,  by  everyday  practice,  the 
spirit  of  this  liberal  law  evanesced, 
leaving  nothing  but  the  dead  letter. 
Ferdinand  of  Austria,  when  taking 
the  Hungarian  crown  in  1527,  had  to 
pledge  himself  not  to  destroy  the 
native  language:  "Nationem  et  lin- 
guam  vestram  servare  non  perdere 
intendimus."  For  refusing  to  Ru- 
manians, Slovaks,  and  Slovenes,  that 
respect  for  their  languages  which 
they  claimed  from  their  Hapsburg 
kings  for  their  own,  the  Hungarians 


have  now  to  pay  the  penalty.  By  re- 
sorting to  forcible  means  in  attempt- 
ing to  Magyarize  those  foreign 
minorities,  they  created  the  very  ele- 
ments of  hostility  which  made  for  the 
dissolution  of  the  kingdom. 

In  tracing  the  frontiers  of  the  new 
Hungary  the  Supreme  Council  has 
found  it  impossible  to  make  the  politi- 
cal boundaries  coincide  everywhere 
with  the  ethnic  divisions.  Islets  and 
peninsulas  of  Hungarian  nationality 
were  thus  severed  from  the  compact 
mass  of  the  nation  now  forming  the 
population  of  Hungary.  The  dele- 
gates in  Paris  protested  against  this 
inclusion  of  Hungarian  nationals 
within  neighboring  territories  in  the 
name  of  the  same  principle  which 
released  alien  minorities  from  Mag- 
yar rule.  The  Council's  reply  was  not 
an  absolute  non  possumus.  It  ad- 
mitted the  possibility  of  injustices 
committed,  and  pointed  the  way  to 
their  rectification  by  a  peaceable  pro- 
cedure of  international  law.  It  is 
this  conciliatory  attitude  that  gives 
the  Peace  Treaty  with  Hungary  a 
special  significance. 

The  "lettre  d'envoi,"  which,  to- 
gether with  the  text  of  the  treaty, 
M.  Millerand,  in  the  jiame  of  the 
Allies,  addressed  to  the  Hungarian 
delegation,  referred  to  the  problem  of 
the  frontiers  in  the  following  terms : 

If  the  delimitation  commissions,  in  the  course 
of  their  work,  should  come  to  the  conclusion 
that  the  provisions  of  the  treaty  create  any- 
where an  injustice  which  it  is  of  general  inter- 
est to  eliminate,  they  have  the  right  to  address 
a  report  on  the  subject  to  the  Council  of  the 
League  of  Nations,  which,  if  one  of  the  par- 
ties concerned  requests  it,  can  offer  its  ser- 
vices for  an  amicable  rectification  of  the  orig- 
inal frontier  line. 

But  the  reduction  to  a  minimum  of 
the  friction  between  Hungary  and 
her  former  subject  races  over  the 
tracing  of  the  lines  of  division  is  sub- 
sidiary to  the  question  how  to  restrict 
that  division  to  the  political  life  of 
the  nations,  so  that  economically  they 
may  recover  part  at  least  of  their 
former  unity.  In  order  to  promote  the 
resumption  of  the  pre-war  exchange 
of  products  between  the  new  created, 
aggrandized,  and  diminished  states, 
the  Council  has  added  a  new  para- 
graph to  Article  207  of  the  treaty : 

"In  order  to  enable  Poland,  Ru- 
mania, Jugoslavia,  Czechoslovakia, 
Hungary,  and  Austria  to  supply  one 


another  with  the  products  which,  un- 
til now,  were  exchanged  between  the 
territories  of  these  States,  and  which 
would  be  indispensable  to  the  produc- 
tion or  the  commerce  of  those  terri- 
tories, one  or  other  of  these  States 
shall,  within  six  months  from  the  com- 
ing into  force  of  the  present  treaty, 
open  negotiations  with  a  view  to  con- 
cluding separate  conventions  with  one 
or  other  of  its  neighbors."  ...  If 
the  negotiations,  within  six  months, 
have  not  led  to  tangible  results,  the 
State  which  has  taken  the  initiative 
"may  address  itself  to  the  reparations 
committee  and  request  it  to  expedite 
their  conclusion." 

In  one  instance  the  Supreme  Coun- 
cil has  not  left  it  to  the  initiative  of 
the  States  themselves  to  create  a  be- 
ginning, or  rather  a  resumption,  of  co- 
operation for  their  common  interest : 

Considering  the  vital  importance,  for  the 
basin  of  the  middle  Danube,  of  the  mainte- 
nance, in  general  outline,  of  the  existing  regime 
of  the  river,  the  Allied  and  Associated  Powers 
have  inserted  a  new  Article  293  in  the  treaty, 
under  which  a  Commission  for  the  middle 
Danube  is  instituted,  composed  of  a  represen- 
tative of  each  of  the  States  concerned  and  of 
a  president  appointed  by  the  Council  of  the 
League  of  Nations. 

Thus  the  treaty  which  codifies  the 
division  of  the  old  Hungary  supplies, 
at  the  same  time,  the  means  of  obviat- 
ing the  evil  effects  which  that  divi- 
sion would  otherwise  have  on  the 
international  situation  of  Southeast 
Europe.  Self-interest  may  induce  the 
nations  which  it  concerns  to  make  use 
of  those  means,  though  racial  ani- 
mosities should  throw  obstacles  in  the 
way  towards  a  rapprochement.  The 
Great  Powers  can  do  no  more  than 
help  and  advise  them  in  clearing  the 
road.  Whether  they  shall  follow  it  to 
their  common  goal  rests  with  the  na- 
tions themselves. 


THE  REVIEW 

A  weekly  journal  of  political  and 

general  discussion 

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Copyright,     J920,     in    the     United    States    of 
America 
Editors 
FABIAN  FRANKLIN 
HAROLD  DE  WOLF  FULLER 
Associate  Editors 
Harry  Morgan  Avres     O.  W.  Firkins 
A.  J.  Barnouw  W.  H.  Johnson 

Jerome  Landfielo 


564] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  Xo.  55 


The  Problem  of  Palestine 


'T'HE  Supreme  Council  at  San  Remo 
■'■  has  made  Great  Britain  the  man- 
datory over  the  Holy  Land,  writing 
into  its  mandate  the  Balfour  declara- 
tion that  in  Palestine  shall  be  estab- 
lished a  national  home  for  the  Jewish 
peoples  without  prejudicing  the  civil 
or  religious  rights  of  non-Jewish 
communities,  that  is,  of  nine-tenths 
of  the  present  population.  The  Zion- 
ists announce  that  Great  Britain  has 
given  them  every  assurance  that 
within  a  few  weeks  army  rule,  "which 
has  been  far  from  satisfactory  to  the 
Jews,  will  be  changed  to  a  sympa- 
thetic civil  rule."  From  now  on,  to 
quote  the  Zionist  propaganda,  the 
work  of  Zionism  is  to  prepare  Pales- 
tine for  the  vast  migration  that  will 
ensue  of  the  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  Jews  now  waiting  at  Odessa,  Con- 
stantinople, Constanza,  and  Vladivos- 
tok for  passage  to  their  new  home, 
and  for  the  much  greater  number 
that  will  come  eventually. 

The  signing  of  the  peace  treaty  at 
Versailles  did  not  put  an  end  to  the 
censorship,  for  it  did  not  put  an  end 
to  war.  Little  or  no  news  comes  from 
the  Near  East,  yet  brief  cables  from 
Palestine  have  hinted  at  a  strange 
prelude  to  the  establishment  of  the 
Jewish  national  home  which,  in  the 
words  of  Rabbi  Wise,  is  to  translate 
into  life  the  Jewish  dream  of  brother- 
hood. Evidently  the  non-Jewish  in- 
habitants of  Palestine  fear  that  they 
are  to  be  the  younger  brother  to 
whom  falls  but  a  slender  portion  of 
the  inheritance — or  none  at  all.  On 
February  27,  Moslems  and  Christians 
marched  through  the  streets  of  Jeru- 
salem in  formal  protest  against  the 
Zionist  demands  and  handed  their 
remonstrance  to  the  British  authori- 
ties and  to  the  consuls  of  other  na- 
tions represented  at  the  Holy  City. 
To  one  at  all  familiar  with  the  Near 
East,  the  united  action  of  members 
of  these  two  faiths  is  of  extraordi- 
nary significance.  On  the  same  day 
there  was  an  anti-Zionist  demonstra- 
tion at  Bethlehem.  On  March  8  Jeru- 
salem saw  a  much  more  impor- 
tant demonstration,  representing  not 
merely  the  capital  of  Palestine,  but 


the  surrounding  communities  and 
towns.  Led  by  the  Mayor  of  Jerusa- 
lem, accompanied  by  Arif  Pasha, 
President  of  the  Islamo-Christian  As- 
sociation, by  ex-deputy  Said  Effendi 
al  Husseini  and  many  other  notables, 
the  procession  marched  to  the  Mili- 
tary Governate,  the  consulates  of 
Italy,  France,  and  America,  and  re- 
newed the  protests  of  Palestine,  for 
which  they  claimed  to  speak,  against 
the  Zionist  plan  to  dominate  the  coun- 
try. When  the  procession  broke  up 
at  the  Joppa  Gate,  many  of  the  Chris- 
tians proceeded  to  the  Church  of  the 
Holy  Sepulchre  and  there  took  oath  to 
defend  their  country  against  the  Zion- 
ists. This  same  day,  at  Haifa,  the 
future  port  of  Palestine,  there  was  a 
similar  anti-Zionist  demonstration. 
On  Easter  Sunday  came  the  first 
bloodshed ;  fighting  between  Jews  and 
Arabs  was  carried  on  for  nearly  three 
days,  and,  if  newspaper  accounts  are 
to  be  trusted,  five  Jews  and  four 
Arabs  were  killed,  while  twenty-four 
Arabs  and  more  than  two  hundred 
Jews  were  wounded.  Martial  law, 
with  machine  guns  and  aeroplanes, 
finally  restored  order.  Not  for  many 
years  have  there  been  anti-Jewish 
outbreaks  in  Palestine. 

The  cause  of  demonstration  and 
rioting  can  be  understood  only  when 
the  plans  and  actions  of  the  Zionists 
are  comprehended.  It  is  unfortunate 
in  the  highest  degree  that  so  many 
Americans  know  little  or  nothing  con- 
cerning them.  Only  a  year  ago,  Mr. 
Norman  Hapgood  wrote  in  a  Zionist 
monthly,  "I  have  seen  no  request  to 
the  Powers  for  special  favors  to  the 
Jewish  population,"  and  the  general 
public  is  similarly  ill  informed.  In 
the  first  place,  it  is  of  the  utmost  im- 
portance to  understand  that  Zionism 
desires  in  Palestine  more  than  a  place 
of  refuge  for  oppressed  Jews.  The 
Jews  that  emigrate  there  will  not  go 
in  the  same  spirit  in  which  thou- 
sands of  Europeans  have  sought  our 
shores.  They  do  not  wish  merely  to 
aid  in  the  development  of  Palestine; 
they  desire  to  control  its  develop- 
ment, to  change  an  Arab  country  into 
a  Jewish  State.    Feisal,  the  foremost 


Arab  leader,  proposed  last  fall  a  regu- 
lated Jewish  immigration  to  Palestine 
where  Jews  should  have  equal  rights 
with  Arabs,  taking  part  in  the  gov- 
ernment in  proportion  to  their  popu- 
lation,  and  where  they  should  have 
full  control  of  Jewish  schools  and  the 
means  to  establish  a  Jewish  cultural 
centre.  To  quote  his  own  sensible 
words,  "We  naturally  should  prefer 
an  immigration  of  Jews  to  that  of  any 
other  people,  not  only  because  Jews 
have  vast  resources  by  which  the  land 
can  be  developed,  but  because  they 
are  Semites  like  ourselves."  In  an 
Arab  country  he  would  have  Zionists 
assured  of  "equal  rights,  equal  op- 
portunities, and  an  absolute  non-dif- 
ferentiation between  Arab  and  Jew." 
But  Zionists  do  not  wish  equality  of 
privilege  for  Christian,  Arab,  and 
Jew  such  as  we  should  offer  in  Amer- 
ica. They  wish  to  establish  not  a 
Palestinian,  but  a  Jewish  State,  that 
is,  a  government  dominated  by  mem- 
bers of  but  one  faith.  In  his  "Zion- 
ism and  the  Future  of  Palestine,"  a 
book  which  deserves  the  widest  cir- 
culation, Professor  Morris  Jastrow, 
Jr.,  has  given  a  clear  and  convincing 
study  of  the  fallacies  and  dangers  of 
political  Zionism.  He  points  out  the 
fact  that  a  Jewish  State  inevitably 
sets  up  a  barrier,  whether  we  express 
it  in  terms  of  religion  or  of  nation- 
ality. "As  a  writer  pithily  puts  it,  'if 
it  be  Jewish,  it  can  not  be  a  State; 
if  it  be  a  State,  it  can  not  be  Jewish.'  " 
There  is  then  a  religious  injustice  in 
the  Zionist  State  which  would  never 
be  tolerated  in  our  own  land  and 
which  stirs  Palestine  deeply. 

To  this  idea  of  a  State,  in  conflict 
with  modern  liberal  thought,  there 
must  be  added  the  economic  injustice 
of  Zionism.  Balfour's  "National 
Jewish  Home"  is  an  ambiguous 
phrase,  yet  the  Zionists  have  given 
it  a  very  exact  interpretation.  To 
them  it  means  but  one  thing — an  au- 
tonomous Jewish  State.  Palestine 
is  an  important  organ  of  English 
Zionists.  The  longest  article  in  its 
issue  for  March  13  is  a  reprint  from 
the  Manchester  Guardian  of  a  letter 
from  a  Zionist  in  the  Holy  Land.  No 
exception  is  taken  to  any  of  its  state- 
ments and  it  may  be  considered  as 
representing  Zionist  opinion  when  it 


,Mav  29.   1920] 


THE  ReViEW 


[565 


discusses  the  "minimum  require- 
ments" to  be  made  of  Great  Britain. 
To  cite  one  of  the  first,  for  the  next 
few  years  the  goal  of  a  Jewish  Pales- 
tine and  of  an  autonomous  common- 
wealth must  be  steadily  before  the 
eyes  of  the  mandatory  and  its  serv- 
ants and  "direct  their  course."  In 
general  it  has  been  assumed  that  a 
mandatory  Power  would  govern  a 
country  impartially;  the  "sympa- 
thetic" British  administration  is  to 
work  for  one  goal,  the  autonomous 
Jewish  State. 

Among  the  first  two  or  three  world 
leaders  of  Zionism  is  Dr.  Weizmann, 
the  head  of  the  English  Zionists.  At 
the  recent  extraordinary  convention 
of  the  Zionist  Organization  of  Amer- 
ica, held  in  New  York,  Professor 
Felix  Frankfurter  of  Harvard,  one 
of  the  most  prominent  American 
Zionists,  presented  a  resolution  of 
gratitude  to  Dr.  Weizmann  for  his 
leadership.  Endorsed  by  Americans, 
he  speaks  with  authority,  and  he  has 
recently  declared  that  the  autonomous 
Jewish  State  is  a  possibility  in  ten 
years.  This  is  no  hasty  judgment, 
for  to  quote  a  Zionist  journal.  Dr. 
Weizmann  "has  been  able  to  make 
his  calculations  with  the  aid  of  ex- 
I  parts  on  the  spot,  after  paying  full 
consideration  to  all  the  manifold  fac- 
tors involved." 

Let  us  double  Dr.  Weizmann's  es- 
timate. For  twenty  years,  under  the 
watchful  eye  of  Zionism,  Britain  is 
to  prepare  the  coming  of  the  Jewish 
[State,  and  the  Zionists  themselves 
Ihave  indicated  some  of  the  practical 
steps  to  that  end  which  the  manda- 
tory should  take.  Through  extortion 
and  robbery  of  the  natives,  a  large 
part  of  Palestine  came  into  the  pos- 
session of  the  Turkish  Crown.  Among 
Ithese  Crown  lands,  for  example,  are 
I  part  of  the  fertile  plain  of  Esdrselon, 
I  large  section  of  the  Ghor,  the  broad 
olain  of  the  Jordan  about  Jericho, 
md  a  wide  region  near  Beersheba. 
[f  the  mandatory  is  to  throw  open 
;hese  lands,  as  Indian  lands  in  Amer- 
j.ca  were  awarded  to  settlers,  nat- 
urally the  non-Jewish  Palestinians 
.vish  a  large  part  of  them ;  yet  to  cite 
igain  the  letter  in  Palestine,  Zionism 
•equires  "a  preference  in  the  settle- 
nent  of  the  waste  and  dead  lands 


and  of  the  State  domains,"  that  is, 
these  Turkish  Crown  lands.  Pales- 
tinians, then,  may  receive  only  what 
the  Zionists  do  not  want.  Similarly, 
in  the  construction  of  all  manner  of 
public  works,  greatly  needed  in  Pales- 
tine, "preference  shall  be  given  to  a 
public  utility  organization  represent- 
ing the  Jewish  people  and  the  Jew- 
ish Palestine." 

One  of  the  most  important  ques- 
tions before  the  country  is  the  proper 
method  of  developing  its  natural 
resources.  Oil  has  been  found  in 
the  region  of  the  Dead  Sea,  whose 
very  waters  are  rich  in  potas- 
sium; systems  of  irrigation  must  be 
installed  throughout  the  country; 
and  the  swift-rolling  Jordan  must  be 
made  to  furnish  electricity  to  run 
factories  and  illuminate  the  land. 
Whether  non-Zionists  may  direct  any 
of  these  projects  must  depend  entirely 
on  the  pleasure  of  Zionism,  if  its  de- 
mands, formally  presented  to  the 
Peace  Conference,  have  been  granted. 
These  demands,  typical  of  others,  re- 
quired for  Zionists  "priority  in  any 
concession  for  public  works  or  the  de- 
velopment of  the  natural  resources 
of  Palestine."  "Preference"  and 
"priority"  have  a  better  sound  than 
"monopoly." 

To  sum  up  these  "minimum  re- 
quirements," while  Great  Britain  is 
the  mandatory,  Zionists  should  have 
priority  on  waste  lands,  on  State 
lands,  in  the  construction  of  all  pub- 
lic works,  in  any  concession  for  pub- 
lic works,  or  the  development  of 
natural  resources.  For  a  beginning, 
this  should  help.  Within  a  few  years 
it  will  be  more  simple,  for  when  Great 
Britain  has  finished  its  work  of 
preparation  for  the  new  State  and 
turned  the  country  over  to  its  new 
rulers,  Zionism  has  but  to  say, 
"L'Etat,  c'est  moi." 

If  educated  Palestinians  who  real- 
ize the  scope  of  these  demands  have 
protested  indignantly  against  them, 
the  ignorant,  illiterate  fellahin  can 
readily  perceive  that  the  Zionist  State 
will  work  them  injustice.  For  ex- 
ample, Zionists  will  naturally  under- 
take all  manner  of  private  and  public 
works,  yet  on  these  works  organized 
Jewish  labor  in  Palestine  has  declared 
that  only  Hebrews  shall  be  employed. 


In  America,  this  would  be  called  a 
State  boycott  on  Arab  labor.  On  the 
other  hand,  during  the  interim  of  the 
British  mandate,  the  letter  reprinted 
in  Palestine  would  require  in  any  pub- 
lic works  undertaken  by  the  manda- 
tory an  "adequate  employment  of 
Jews  in  constructing  and  operating 
them." 

Even  before  Great  Britain  ob- 
tained the  mandate,  Palestinians  of 
all  classes,  educated  and  uneducated, 
well-to-do  or  poor,  have  been  irri- 
tated at  seeing  the  Zionists  display 
a  flag  they  had  made  with  the  simple 
'explanation  that  it  is  to  be  the 
flag  of  their  country.  They  hear 
the  "Hatikvoh"  and  are  informed 
that  the  Hebrew  words  and  music 
are  to  be  their  country's  national 
anthem.  They  hear  a  Palestinian 
Zionist  object  to  a  "mixed"  school 
at  Haifa,  a  public  school  in  the 
American  sense  of  the  word,  where 
Jews,  Moslems,  and  Christians  would 
be  on  an  equality,  on  the  ground  that 
a  school  for  Zionists  must  be  Hebrew 
in  spirit  as  well  as  in  language.  They 
see  Professor  Geddes  brought  from 
Scotland  by  Zionists  with  a  "commis- 
sion" to  draw  plans  for  the  recon- 
struction of  Jerusalem,  a  city  in  which 
the  Jews  are  in  the  minority,  and  they 
learn  that  similar  plans  are  being 
prepared  for  the  development  of 
Jaffa,  Haifa,  and  other  places.  They 
wonder  whether  they  are  to  be  heard 
at  all,  whether  they  are  even  to  be 
consulted  on  the  questions  of  recon- 
struction and  government  of  the  land 
they  possess.  They  should  not  won- 
der. Aliens,  chiefly  Russians,  Poles, 
and  Rumanians,  are  to  come  in  and 
possess  the  land  through  "prefer- 
ences" and  "priorities"  denied  Pales- 
tinians whose  families  have  lived  and 
worked  in  the  land  for  generations. 
Comprehending  this  part  of  the  Zion- 
ist programme,  Palestinians  believe 
they  can  see  what  will  be  their  fate 
when  Great  Britain  withdraws  en- 
tirely and  Zionism  is  in  full  control. 

The  military  rule  in  Palestine  is 
to  be  replaced  at  once  by  a  civil  ad- 
ministration. General  Bols,  Chief  of 
Staff  in  Allenby's  Palestine  campaign, 
is  at  the  present  moment  Chief  Ad- 
ministrator for  Palestine.  The  Arab 
newspaper,    Meraat-Al-Shark,    pub- 


566] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  55 


lished  at  Jerusalem,  gives  a  careful 
statement  from  General  Bols  repre- 
senting the  policy  of  the  British  mili- 
tary authorities.     In  this,   General 
Bols  states  that  the  Entente  Powers, 
with  America  and  France  at  their 
head,  had  approved  the  Balfour  dec- 
laration.   England  will  organize  the 
Zionist    immigration    within    limits 
and  certain  conditions  in  order  that 
this  immigraton  shall  not  injure  the 
economic    stability    of   the   country. 
General  Bols  had  been  informed  by 
Dr.    Weizmann    that    the    Zionists 
would  not  send  any   Jewish   immi-_ 
grants  unless  they   were  workmen, 
professional    men,    or    persons     of 
means  who  would  not  be  a  burden 
on  the  inhabitants  of  the  country. 
The  British  Government  will  protect 
the  ground  of  the  fellahin,  not  allow- 
ing any  man  to  sell  his  land  unless  it 
is  necessary ;  it  will  control  the  coun- 
try justly  and  will  guard  the  rights 
of  the  weak.     The  Entente  Powers 
have  no  intention  of  founding  a  Jew- 
ish Government  in  the  country.     Its 
inhabitants     will     rule     themselves, 
statutes  will  be  drawn  up  by  an  as- 
sembly chosen  by  a  majority  vote  of 
the  people,  and  guarantees  will  be 
given  for  the  rights  of  the  inhabitants, 
who  will  be  prepared  for  self-govern- 
ment.    As  for  the  Crown  Lands,  a 
commission  will  examine  the  whole 
question,  especially  the  claims  of  the 
fellahin  from  whom  much  of  the  land 
had  been  taken   unjustly.     General 
Bols  concluded,  "The  inhabitants  may 
be  assured  that  the  Government  is 
well-intentioned   towards   them   and 
holds  only  the  scales  of  justice  in  its 
hands."    From  an  American  or  Brit- 
ish point  of  view,  this  would  seem  an 
excellent  statement ;  the  idea  of  even- 
handed  justice  agrees  with  the  best 
traditions  of  both  countries.    To  the 
Zionists,  however,  this  military  ad- 
ministration has  been  "far  from  sat- 
isfactory." 

"The  Balfour  declaration,"  said 
Rabbi  Wise,  "is  only  a  scrap  of  paper, 
but  it  is  written  in  English."  Un- 
fortunately its  English  must  be  very 
ambiguous.  Friends  of  Palestine  may 
be  permitted  to  hope  that  its  phrase 
"the  civil  and  religious  rights  of  non- 
.  Jewish  communities"  is  perfectly 
clear  and  that  it  will  be  given  its 


natural  interpretation  of  no  discrimi- 
nation in  favor  of  any  race  or  creed. 
In  that  case,  all  "privileges"  and 
"priority"  claims  of  the  Zionists  must 
be  disregarded ;  yet  even  so,  Palestine, 
properly  organized  and  developed, 
can  become  a  home  land  for  scores  of 
thousands  of  Jewish  immigrants  who 
will  inevitably  rise  to  leadership  if 
they  prove  to  be  the  most  capable 
element  in  the  country.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  a  "sympathetic"  civil  admin- 
istration follows  even  such  "mini- 
mum" requirements  as  I  have  cited, 
the  rights  of  the  majority  of  Pales- 
tinians will  not  merely  be  prejudiced 
but  trampled  upon.  America  has  a 
great  responsibility  in  this  matter, 


inasmuch  as  eight-tenths  of  the  Zion- 
ist funds  raised  last  year  came  from 
this  country;  and  Zionists  have 
stated  that  America  will  have  to  sup- 
ply most  of  the  funds  until  the  new 
State  is  functioning,  that  is,  for  the 
next  decade  at  least.  Public  opinion 
should  support  the  enforcement  of  the 
one  clause  in  the  Balfour  declaration 
that  promises  security  to  the  great 
majority  of  Palestinians  who  are  not 
Zionists ;  otherwise,  the  riots  in  Jeru- 
salem will  prove  to  have  been  the  few 
scattered  drops  that  foretell  the  ap- 
proaching storm,  a  storm  that  may 
possibly  sweep  more  than  the  Near 
East. 

Edward  Bliss  Reed 


The  Social  Revolution  in   France 


THE  increasing  number  of  strikes  in 
France  and  the  equally  increasing 
vociferousness  of  the  radical  movement 
in  the  ranks  both  of  the  Socialist  party 
and  of  the  General  Confederation  of 
Labor,  have  naturally  aroused  serious  ap- 
prehension as  to  the  permanence  of  the 
French  social  order.  In  fact,  this  de- 
structive devolution  has  been  the  out- 
standing feature  of  French  political  life 
since  the  armistice.  During  the  war,  the 
Unified  Socialist  party  gradually  changed 
from  a  loyal  support  of  the  Government 
to  an  acrid  denunciation  of  Allied  "im- 
perialism." In  a  national  Congress  held 
at  Easter,  1919,  the  party  renounced 
all  participation  in  a  "bourgeois"  Min- 
istry and  refused  to  vote  credits  for  the 
support  of  any  but  a  Labor  Government. 
For  the  time  being,  however,  it  decided 
to  maintain  its  membership  in  the  old 
or  Second  Internationale.  The  Novem- 
ber elections  came,  and  when  the  ballots 
had  been  counted,  it  was  found  that  the 
Socialist  representation  in  the  Chamber 
of  Deputies  had  been  reduced  from  104 
to  68.  They  were  reconciled,  however, 
by  the  fact  that  they  had  polled  a  vote 
of  1,700,000—300,000  more  than  in  1914. 
The  new  electoral  law,  combining  the  bad 
features  of  the  old  majority  system  and 
of  proportional  representation,  had  neu- 
tralized these  additional  votes.  A  signif- 
icant result  of  this  defeat  was  that  it 
intensified  the  efforts  of  French  Labor  to 
secure  their  ends  by  "direct  action"  in- 
stead of  by  political  means.  As  they  were 
still  in  a  hopeless  minority  and  as  the 
electoral  laws  worked  against  them,  they 
believed  that  the  ballot  box  offered  but 
little  hope.  Hence  they  redoubled  their 
strike  activities. 

The  party  took  the  next  step  towards 
the   left    at    the    Strassburg    Congress 


(February,  1920),  where  it  decided  to 
withdraw  from  the  Second  Interna- 
tionale (to  which  it  had  proclaimed  a 
conditional  adherence  at  its  Easter  con- 
vention), and  to  enter  negotiations  for 
membership  in  the  Third  Internationale, 
created  by  the  Bolsheviki  at  Moscow. 
Thus  the  party  completed  the  labored 
process  through  which  it  had  passed 
from  a  patriotic  support  of  the  French 
Government  in  its  resistance  to  German 
aggression  to  an  almost  complete  asso- 
ciation with  Bolshevist  programmes  and 
sympathies. 

Within  the  ranks  of  the  Confederation 
Generale  du  Travail  the  same  devolution 
has  been  apparent.  For  this  organiza- 
tion had  also  rallied  to  the  support  of  the 
war.  Leon  Jouhaux,  its  secretary-gen- 
eral, had  served  on  various  war  commit- 
tees, and  was  appointed  as  a  labor 
delegate  to  the  French  Peace  Commis- 
sion. But  despite  the  patriotism  of  the 
leaders  of  the  C.G.T.,  a  small  group, 
headed  by  Pierre  Monatte,  carried  on  an 
insistent  propaganda,  until  the  revolu- 
tionaries within  the  organization  were  on 
the  way  to  victory  by  the  first  of  May, 
1919.  As  a  result  of  the  tactics  em- 
ployed by  the  Government  to  suppress 
the  labor  manifestations  in  Paris  at  that 
time,  M.  Jouhaux,  with  an  outburst  of 
invective  against  M.  Clemenceau,  re- 
signed from  the  French  Peace  Delega- 
tion. With  his  resignation  the  truce 
between  organized  labor  and  the  Govern- 
ment was  terminated  and  the  old-time 
warfare  resumed. 

The  General  Confederation  of  Labor 
illustrated  the  complete  desertion  of  its 
past  policy  of  restricting  its  activities  to 
economic  purposes  by  the  programme  it 
enunciated — before  the  labor  demonstra- 
tions of  May  1,  1920.    This  programme 


May  29,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[567 


called  for  (1)  the  nationalization  of  pub- 
lic services  and  mines,  (2)  the  right  to 
organize  for  Government  employees,  (3) 
disarmament,  (4)  withdrawal  of  troops 
from  the  right  bank  of  the  Rhine,  (5) 
the  discontinuance  of  colonial  expedi- 
tions, (6)  the  demobilization  of  the  Class 
of  1918. 

.  May  Day,  1920,  began  an  attempt  to 
institute  another  general  strike  in  an 
effort  to  secure  these  ends.  The  railway 
men  did  not  return  to  work  upon  the 
2nd  of  May.  On  the  5th  the  C.G.T. 
ordered  the  miners  to  stop  work;  shortly 
afterwards,  the  dockers,  transport  work- 
.  ers,  the  electricians,  and  gas  workers 
were  also  ordered  out.  Thus  the  C.G.T. 
had  embarked  on  a  vast  programme  to 
enforce  its  demands  for  nationalization 
by  direct  action.  It  seemed  that  it  was 
upon  the  point  of  tying  up  the  very 
arteries  of  French  industry  and  of  even 
placing  Paris  in  utter  darkness.  Must 
France  fall  into  the  hands  of  Labor? 
Must  it  succumb  to  this  "peaceful"  yet 
overpowering  revolution,  which  threat- 
ened the  very  fundamentals  of  existing 
society?  These  questions  the  Millerand 
Government  was  compelled  to  answer. 

France  is  not  afraid  of  the  issue  of 
nationalization;  in  fact,  it  was  the 
first  Clemenceau  Government  (1906-09) 
which  nationalized  the  Western  line. 
France  is  not  afraid  of  collective  owner- 
ship, as  the  match,  the  tobacco,  and  the 
munitions  industries  show.  But  the  real 
issue  which  is  now  being  fought  out  is 
whether  or  not  an  organization  compris- 
ing but  a  small  minority  of  the  popula- 
tion shall  depart  from  the  ordinary 
parliamentary  means  of  securing  political 
reforms,  and  force  its  demands  upon  the 
country  by  the  strangle-hold  of  direct  ac- 
tion and  the  general  strike.  This  is  the 
issue,  and  in'  seriousness  it  consti- 
tutes the  very  trial  of  parliamentary 
government. 

However,  the  misgivings  as  to  the 
stability  of  the  French  social  order,  be- 
cause of  the  destructive  aims  and  the 
great  strength  of  the  French  Labor 
movement,  are  apt  to  be  exaggerated  by 
public  opinion.  It  is  true  that  the  So- 
cialist party  had  an  active  membership 
of  57,159  in  1919.  But  when  one  recalls 
that  in  1912  the  party  had  63,000  mem- 
bers and  that  in  1870  the  International 
Workingmen's  Association  in  Paris  alone 
had  a  membership  of  between  70,000  and 
80,000,  the  present  strength  of  the  So- 
cialist party  is  by  no  means  appalling. 
And  who  is  there  who  will  say  that  the 
present  situation  equals  in  seriousness 
the  Wine  Revolt  of  1907? 

Secondly,  the  apparent  growth  in 
strength  of  the  Socialist  party,  as  meas- 
ured in  votes — an  increase  from  1,000,- 
000  in  1906  to  1,700,000  in  1919— can  be 
explained  by  the  comparatively  recent 
rapprochement  of  Socialism  and  Syndi- 
calism.    Although  both  of  these  move- 


ments have  the  same  ultimate  end,  they 
differ  radically  as  to  the  means  by  which 
the  Marxian  order  is  to  be  ushered  in. 
The  Socialist  party  looks  upon  the  po- 
litical conquest  of  Parliament  as  the 
natural  means  of  inaugurating  a  Social- 
ist state;  and  it  considers  a  parliament 
an  essential  component  of  its  conception 
of  the  new  order.  The  Syndicalists  (rep- 
resented by  the  C.G.T.),  on  the  other 
hand,  insist  on  direct  action  as  the 
only  means  strong  enough  to  win  the  de- 
mands of  Labor.  The  leaders  in  control 
of  the  C.G.T.,  just  before  the  war,  also 
limited  their  activities  to  improving  the 
lot  of  Labor,  and  paid  little  attention  to 
the  political  reforms  the  Socialist  party 
in  Parliament  was  endeavoring  to  insti- 
tute. But  as  a  result  of  the  growth  of 
radicalism  within  the  ranks  of  the  C.G.T. 
during  the  armistice,  thousands  of  lab- 
oring men  awakened  to  the  political  de- 
mands which  the  Socialist  party  was 
making.  And  when  the  November  elec- 
tions came,  these  men  cast  their  votes 
almost  solidly  for  Socialist  candidates. 
Thus  the  increase  in  Socialist  votes  is 
not  absolute — it  does  not  necessarily  rep- 
resent the  growth  of  radical  sentiment 
in  France;  it  merely  means  that  the 
C.G.T.,  composed  of  thousands  of  work- 
ingmen  who  hitherto  remained  aloof 
from  elections,  is  now  combining  forces 
with  the  Socialist  party.  The  efforts  of 
the  latter  party  to  secure  the  Eight- 
Hour  Day  law  has  increased  its  standing 
with  the  C.G.T.;  and  the  Socialist  fail- 
ure at  the  November  elections  has  also 
increased  the  reasons  for  them  to  adopt 
the  C.G.T.'s  "strike  theory." 

Thirdly,  the  very  size  of  the  C.G.T. 
is  diminishing  the  imminence  of  a  social 
revolution.  During  the  spring  of  1919 
a  great  "syndicalist"  movement  swept 
over  France,  engulfing  every  social  class 
(except  the  peasants)  from  college  pro- 
fessor to  choir  singer.  This  movement 
was  caused  largely  by  the  problem  of  la 
vie  chere.  Violating  the  terms  of  the 
Organization  law  of  1884,  which  pre- 
vented the  organization  of  labor  unions 
by  Government  employees,  the  National 
Association  of  Functionaries,  as  well  as 
nearly  every  subordinate  "amicale"  of 
Government  employees,  joined  the  C.G.T., 
in  order  to  give  strength  to  the  demand 
for  increased  salaries.  Even  the  jour- 
nalists and  the  dramatic  artists  followed 
suit.  This  astonishing  movement  among 
typically  bourgeois  classes  increased  the 
membership  of  the  General  Confedera- 
tion of  Labor  from  600,000  to  the 
tremendous  figure  (according  to  some 
estimates)  of  2,000,000.  The  presence 
of  these  moderate  elements  in  the  C.G.T. 
has  prevented  the  success  of  the  "po- 
litical" strikes.  The  bourgeois  member- 
ship of  the  C.G.T.  is  wholly  out  of 
sympathy  with  the  principles  of  "pro- 
letariat dictatorship."  It  has  nothing 
but  disgust  and  horror  for  the  experi- 


ences of  Bolshevism.  It  looks  upon  any 
movement  to  enact  such  a  regime  in 
France  with  the  greatest  apprehension. 
Consequently,  its  participation  in  the 
C.G.T.  will  only  be  for  "corporative" 
purposes. 

Fourthly,  the  very  character  of  the 
workingman  is  bringing  about  the  failure 
of  the  general  strike. 

This  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  only 
a  fraction  (from  20  per  cent,  to  50  per 
cent.)  of  the  men  obeyed  the  strike 
order,  that  many  soon  returned  to  work, 
and  that  the  industries  continued  to 
function.  Labor  does  not  intend  to  suffer 
the  losses  inevitably  attendant  upon 
strikes  for  the  mere  conquest  of  certain 
political  ideas.  The  cost  is  too  much. 
During  the  strike  period  which  started 
in  June,  1919,  the  metal  workers  lost  125 
million  francs  in  wages,  the  transport 
workers,  58,500,000,  the  miners  58,500,- 
000,  and  the  chemical  workers  29,000,000. 
To  justify  such  a  sacrifice,  some  definite 
economic  gain  from  a  strike  must  accrue. 
In  fact,  the  very  materialism  of  Marxian 
doctrines  precludes  martyrdom  for  vague 
ideals.  The  efforts  of  the  C.G.T.  have 
proved  that  direct  action  has  its  obvious 
limits — namely,  to  secure  strictly  eco- 
nomic and  corporative  ends — and  that 
parliamentary  and  constitutional  pro- 
cesses must  be  relied  upon  for  the 
achievement  of  purely  political  reforms. 

Finally,  the  Government  is  approach- 
ing the  situation  with  a  highminded  con- 
ception of  its  duty  towards  the  nation. 
A  National  Labor  Council  has  been  es- 
tablished, with  equal  representations 
upon  it  of  Capital  and  Labor.  A  bill  has 
been  introduced  to  compel  profit  sharing. 
A  still  more  important  measure  is  the 
Bill  for  the  Settlement  of  Labor  Disputes, 
which  M.  Jourdain,  Minister  of  Labor, 
introduced  into  the  Chamber  in  March, 
1920.  It  provides  not  only  for  voluntary 
conciliation  in  all  industries,  but  for 
compulsory  arbitration  and  the  prohibi- 
tion of  all  strikes,  before  the  arbitral  de- 
cision is  arrived  at,  in  the  following  in- 
dustries upon  which  the  life  and  health 
of  the  nation  depend:  (1)  means  of 
transportation,  (2)  gas  and  electricity 
works,  (3)  coal  mines,  water  and  power 
plants,  (4)  hospitals,  (5)' in  towns  over 
25,000  inhabitants,  funeral  establish- 
ments and  industries  involving  the  pub- 
lic health.  In  the  event  that  a  strike 
illegally  occurs  in  any  of  these  industries, 
the  Government  may  requisition  the 
plant  and  personnel,  and  impose  severe 
penalties. 

Although  it  may  be  impossible  to 
enforce  compulsory  arbitration  upon 
French  Labor  now,  especially  as  long  as 
employers  persist  in  violating  the  Eight- 
Hour  Day  and  other  labor  laws,  the 
Millerand  Government  seems  to  be  on  the 
way  to  a  solution  of  the  country's  press- 
ing industrial  problems. 

Raymond  Buell 


568] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  55 


A  Composing  Room 
Colloquy 

" /^ERALD!"  she  cried,  suddenly 
^^  freeing  herself  from  his  embrace. 
"It's  my  husband — Heaven  help  you! 
Quickly — over  the  garden  wall,  before 
he  sees!   Oh—" 

A  shot  rang  out  in  the  darkness.  He 
felt  a  screaming  pain  tinder  his  arm  os 
Ac  sank  to  the  ground.  Vaguely  he  could 
see  forms  above  him  swaying  like  weeds 
under  tcater.  He  felt  tired  .  .  . 
very  tired.  What  did  it  matter?  What 
did  anything  matter,  for  that  matter? 
He  had  lived  .  .  .  He  had  loved  .  .  . 
FINIS 

"You  notice  I  always  get  in  whenever 
there's  any  excitement  going  on,"  re- 
marked Em  Dash  complacently. 

"Yes,"  replied  Dottie,  "but  I  usually 
get  the  ultimate  word     ..." 

"You  have  spread  yourself  considerably 
in  the  last  few  years,"  Em  admitted. 
"Don't  you  think  there's  danger  of  your 
being  overdone?" 

"By  the  vers  libre  crowd,  you  mean?" 

"Yes,  and  by  the  British  novelists, 
too;  especially  those  realists." 

"Well,  why  not?  You  were  all  the 
rage  once,  Dash,  old  dear.  Remember 
'Tristram  Shandy,'  for  instance.  And 
as  for  poetry.  Browning  gave  you  a 
stiffer  work-out  than  Amy  Lowell  has 
ever  given  me  ...  so  far.  Think 
of  the  famous  dashes  in  history :  Peary's 
dash  to  the  North  Pole,  Cook's  hyphen  in 
the  same  direction,  Bryan's  dash  for — " 

"Pardon  me,"  Em  interrupted,  "but 
Brj'an  is  yours;  he  belongs  in  the  Prov- 
ince of  Three  Stops.  The  trouble  with 
you  is  this:  you're  too — indefinite. 
Punctuation  should  be  obvious,  open,  and 
aboveboard.  Now,  I  can  tell  you  just 
what  I  stand  for,  whether  it's  a  sob,  a 
gasp,  a  sudden  change  in  thought,  or 
just  an  ordinary  interruption." 

"So  can  I.  I  stand  for  ...  I 
stand  for      ..."    Dottie  hesitated. 

"See!"  cried  Em  triumphantly.  "You 
don't  know — ^you  can't  tell  me." 

"That's  just  it,"  Dottie  explained.  "I 
define  myself  by  my  inability  to  define 
myself.  I'm  a  caesura,  a  void,  a  sus- 
pended utterance,  an  adjournment  of 
ideas.  I'm  the  three  walnut  shells 
.  .  .  and  I  defy  you  to  find  the  pea. 
I'm  the  original  little  je  ne  sais  quoi." 

"Humph!  come  to  think  of  it,  you  are 
French.  You  used  to  be  a  gay  young 
thing  in  your  buff-cover  days,  too.  But 
as  soon  as  you  crossed  the  Channel  you 
began  to  act  like  a  regular  prude.  You 
eternally  butted  in  at  the  most  interest- 
ing moments,  you  covered  a  multitude  of 
sins  with  the  same  old  pattern,  until 
people  knew  just  what  was  going  to  hap- 
pen as  soon  as  they  saw  you  coming.  And 
gradually  they  lost  interest  in  you." 


"Ah,"  Dottie  murmured  fondly,  "the 
daj^  of  the  asterisqui!  .  .  .  but  I 
had  to  concede  to  Mudie's  sooner  or  later. 
And  don't  forget  George  Moore.  He 
goes  on  using  me  as  if  I  were  quite  as 
devilish  as  ever,  and  look  at  the  prices 
he  gets  for  his  books." 

"You  simple  little  constellation,"  said 
Em  with  contempt,  "you  don't  imagine 
that  George  uses  you  for  your  devilish- 
ness,  do  you?  He  three-dots  simply  to 
give  a  moral  tone  to  his  work.  Besides, 
you  are  not  only  restful  to  the  eye,  but 
to  the  mind — particularly  the  mind  of 
the  writer.  In  the  last  twenty  years 
your  character  has  changed  completely, 
and  I  believe  you  don't  realize  it.  Why, 
do  you  know  where  I  saw  you  the  other 
day?" 

"Where?"  asked  Dottie. 

"You'd  never  guess."  Em  looked  at 
her  scornfully.  "I  saw  you  in  the  Con- 
gressional Record!  I  think  you  were 
supposed  to  indicate  applause." 

Weare  Holbrook 

A    Canadian    Ambas- 
sador at  Washington 

SIR  ROBERT  BORDEN  has  at  last 
returned  to  Ottawa,  has  appeared  in 
the  House  of  Commons,  and,  what  is  more 
important,  has  delivered  a  speech.  Some 
people  were  unkind  enough  to  suggest 
that  he  had  been  simply  suffering  from 
a  "diplomatic  indisposition";  but  his  ap- 
pearance in  the  House,  and  especially  his 
delivery,  would  indicate  to  even  the  least 
observant  that  Sir  Robert  had  been  over- 
taxed. The  occasion,  however,  was  not  a 
propitious  one.  The  question  was  regard- 
ing the  course  taken  by  the  Government 
in  connection  with  the  appointmeilt  of  a 
Canadian  representative  at  Washington. 

Sir  Robert's  defense  of  the  Govern- 
ment's course  in  the  matter  amounts  to 
this :  "I  have  seen  the  oflScial  correspond- 
ence, the  proposals  and  the  decisions  of 
the  British  and  the  American  representa- 
tives regarding  Canada's  future  relations 
with  the  United  States;  it  is  indelicate 
and  undiplomatic  on  the  part  of  the  rep- 
resentatives of  the  Canadian  people  to 
ask  for  any  further  information."  When 
the  vote  was  taken,  the  Government, 
which  has  a  normal  majority  of  between 
thirty-five  and  forty,  escaped  defeat  by 
the  small  majority  of  five.  The  attitude 
of  the  Opposition  reflected  the  disinclina- 
tion of  the  Canadians  to  become  "deli- 
cate" and  "diplomatic." 

Canada's  relations,  commercial  and 
other,  with  the  United  States  are  so  inti- 
mate that  it  is  high  time  that  communica- 
tions between  the  Governments  at  Ottawa 
and  at  Washington  should  be  direct.  The 
roundabout  way  of  having  all  matters 
of  interest  to  the  two  countries  pass 
through  the  channel  of  the  British  Em- 


bassy at  the  American  capital  savors  too 
much  of  old-time  colonialism  to  suit  the 
spirit  and  the  needs  of  the  twentieth 
century.  Moreover,  Canada's  experience 
of  British  paternalism  in  the  case  of  ne- 
gotiations between  the  Dominion  and  the 
American  Republic  have  not  been  of  the 
happiest.  Hence  the  members  of  the 
Canadian  House  of  Commons  felt  that 
they  should  be  taken  more  fully  into  the 
confidence  of  the  Government  and  given 
some  slight  inkling  of  the  proposed  status 
of  the  intended  Canadian  Ambassador  to 
Washington.  The  debate  closed  without 
the  people  of  Canada  being  a  whit  the 
wiser  on  the  subject. 

It  does  appear,  however,  that  this  new 
official  of  the  Canadian  Government  will 
be  endowed  with  special  and  extraordi- 
nary prerogatives.  For  example,  while 
he  is  to  have  charge  of  all  matters  that 
affect  Canada  alone  (in  the  Dominion's 
relations  with  the  United  States) ,  he  will 
also  replace  the  British  Ambassador  at 
Washington,  should  the  latter  be  ill,  or 
absent,  or  in  any  way  unable  to  perform 
the  duties  of  his  high  office.  At  first 
blush  this  would  seem  to  be  a  promotion 
for  the  Canadian  representative  and  a 
mark  of  British  confidence  in  Canada. 
But  it  may  prove  to  be  a  very  question- 
able distinction,  and  one  fraught  with 
incalculable  complications  and  dangers. 
Suppose,  for  example,  that  during  the 
absence  of  the  British  Ambassador  a 
question  arises  in  which  the  interests  of 
England  and  those  of  Canada  are  in  con- 
flict ;  will  the  Canadian  representative  be 
expected  to  face  the  matter  from  the 
British  or  from  the  Canadian  point  of 
view?  Let  us  suppose  the  case  of  the 
British  Ambassador  being  recalled  by  his 
home  Government;  will  the  Canadian 
representative,  who  takes  up  his  duties 
for  him,  be  supposed  to'  continue  his 
policy,  or  to  inaugurate  another  more  in 
accord  with  the  views  of  the  British 
Government?  If  so,  what  becomes  of 
Canada  and  her  special  interests? 

In  a  word,  there  is  absolutely  no  ob- 
jection on  the  part  of  Canadian  people  to 
the  appointment  of  a  representative,  with 
plenipotentiary  powers,  at  Washington; 
quite  the  contrary,  the  closer  the  rela- 
tions between  the  Dominion  and  the 
American  Republic  the  better  for  both 
countries.  But  the  possibility  of  British 
responsibility  falling,  even  temporarily, 
on  the  shoulders  of  a  purely  Canadian  of- 
ficial arouses  a  question  in  many  minds;  a 
question  complicated  by  the  danger  of 
Cabinet  authority  (through  secret  diplo- 
macy) challenging  the  supremacy  of 
Parliament  and  heedless  of  the  voice  of 
the  people.  There  is  ground  for  hope, 
however,  that  in  practice  these  difl^icul- 
ties  will  not  arise  to  block  the  forward 
movement  along  the  highway  of  Cana- 
dian national  developments. 

J.  K.  F. 

Ottawa,  Canada,  May  18 


May  29,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[569 


Correspondence 

The  Lodge  Reservations 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

In  your  number  of  May  15  I  find  this 
statement:  "Mr.  Taft,  in  his  usual  quiet 
manner,  states  the  cardinal  facts  about 
the  treaty  as  they  stand": 

The  Lodge  reservations  leave  the  treaty 
nearly  as  effective  as  without  them.  The  reser- 
vations affect  only  Article  X.  .    .    . 

The  Lodge  reservations  preserve  the  three 
great  things  in  the  treaty :  first  the  limitation 
of  armaments  ....  Article  X  is  not 
destroyed  but  only  limited  by  the  reservations. 
The  obligation  of  the  United  States  to  partici- 
pate in  international  crises  is  left  to  the  discre- 
tion of  Congress. 

All  the  other  countries  in  the  League  are 
bound  by  Article  X. 

This  statement  may  be  lucid,  but  is  it 
not  misleading? 

The  Peace  Commissioners  went  to 
Paris  in  order  to  make  a  lasting  peace, 
which  should  make  future  war  as  nearly 
impossible  as  the  weakness  of  human 
nature  permits,  and  should  at  least  pro- 
tect the  world  against  further  attacks 
by  Germany. 

These  objects  could  only  be  accom- 
plished by  an  agreement  between  all  na- 
tions to  combine  against  any  one  which 
should  commence  war,  and  to  use  both 
military  force  (Art.  10)  and  economic 
pressure  (Art.  16)  to  control  the  of- 
fender. France  gave  up  terms  which 
she  thought  essential  to  her  protection 
because  she  felt  that  the  League  of  Na- 
tions and  the  separate  treaties  with  Eng- 
land and  the  United  States  by  which  they 
promised  to  defend  her  were  protection 
enough. 

Now  the  United  States  refuses  to  sign 
the  separate  treaty,  and  also  refuses  to 
join  the  other  nations  in  the  agreement 
to  use  any  force  against  a  nation  which 
breaks  the  peace,  and  insists  on  being 
left  entirely  free  to  do  as  it  pleases  in 
any  emergency,  precisely  the  position 
which  it  would  occupy  if  there  were  no 
treaty.  If  I  agree,  in  writing,  to  sell  you 
a  horse  on  condition  that  you  agree  to 
pay  me  the  price,  and  you  modify  it  by 
reserving  the  right  to  pay  or  not  as  you 
please,  is  such  a  reservation  properly  de- 
scribed by  saying  that  the  contract  "is 
not  destroyed  but  only  limited  by  the 
reservation?" 

Is  it  not  true  that  the  reservations 
also  destroy  any  obligation  under  Arti- 
cle 16? 

Does  any  one  suppose  that  France  will 
disband  her  army  in  the  face  of  Ger- 
many's present  attitude,  or  that  England 
will  do  the  same  with  her  navy,  while  the 
Senate  of  the  United  States  uses  its  influ- 
ence in  favor  of  Irish  secession?  Will 
either  nation  feel  disposed  to  rely  on  our 
help  instead  of  its  own  arms,  trusting 
that  Congress  may  disregard  the  votes 
of  Sinn  Feiners,  German  sympathizers, 


and  all  the  other  opponents  of  war  espe- 
cially in  aid  of  England  or  France,  which 

this  country  contains? 

Mr.  Taft  may  say  very  lucidly  that  the 
Lodge  reservations  preserve  "the  limi- 
tations of  armaments,"  but  is  it  not  clear 
that,  without  a  binding  league,  disarma- 
ment is  impossible?  If  we  will  put  our- 
selves in  the  place  of  the  French,  we 
should  never  dream  of  leaving  our  coun- 
try at  the  mercy  of  Germany,  and  if 
France  does  not  disarm,  no  country  will. 
MooRFiELD  Storey 

Boston,  Mass.,  May  18 

Party  Membership  and  the 
Vote 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

The  practice  of  associating  in  its  or- 
ganization those  unqualified  to  vote  is 
not  confined  to  the  Socialist  Party.  In 
every  Southern  State  the  qualifications 
for  voting  in  the  general  elections  are 
quite  distinct  from  the  qualifications  for 
voting  in  the  primaries.  For  example, 
my  native  State,  South  Carolina,  under 
its  present  Constitution  (1895),  re- 
quires that  the  voter  shall  be  able  to  read 
and  write,  or  that  he  pay  taxes  on  three 
hundred  dollars'  worth  of  property;  the 
Democratic  Party — the  only  party  active 
— requires  nothing  more  than  a  very 
rigid  oath  to  support  the  nominees  of  the 
party.  The  result  is  that  in  the  Demo- 
cratic Primary  140,000  men  vote;  where- 
as in  the  general  election  the  combined 
vote  of  all  parties  never  exceeds  60,000. 
I  suggest  that  our  legislators  consult  that 
section  of  the  country  least  subject  to 
the  extremes  of  the  passing  hour  before 
passing  legislation  restricting  party 
membership. 

F.  B.  SIMKI^fs 
Neiv  York,  May  25 

"Two  Plans  For  a  National 


Budget" 


To  the  Editors  of  The  Review  : 

While,  in  the  main,  I  agree  with  the 
excellent  article  "Two  Plans  for  a  Na- 
tional Budget"  in  your  issue  of  May  15, 
by  Mr.  Ralston  Hayden,  I  w^ant  to  call 
your  attention  to  what  seems  to  me  a 
serious  defect  in  his  reasoning  in  respect 
to  the  advantage  of  making  "the  Secre- 
tary of  the  Treasury  the  initial  point  of 
administrative  articulation,"  by  put- 
ting the  budget  bureau  in  the  Depart- 
ment of  the  Treasury.  He  himself  gives 
the  best  reason  why  this  should  not  be 
done.  The  budget  officer  would  be  "aut 
Csesar  aut  nihil,"  and  it  is  because  the 
Constitution  has  already  established  a 
Caesar  in  Washington  and  that  Caesar 
the  President,  that  I  approve  of  the  plan 
of  the  Good  bill.  "Render  unto  Caesar 
the  things  that  are  Csesar's"   is  a  rule 


which  Mr.  Hayden  himself  can  not  es- 
cape, since  he  says  that,  so  far  as  the 
formulation  of  the  budget  is  concerned, 
"it  is  the  President  who  is  ultimately 
responsible."  The  weakness  of  the  Mc- 
Cormick  bill  is  that  it  makes  the  Presi- 
dent responsible  without  giving  him  the 
means  to  carry  that  responsibility.  For 
if  he  is  to  decide  wisely  between  the 
conflicting  claims  of  his  ovm  Cabinet  offi- 
cers, he  must  have  some  means  of  ascer- 
taining for  himself  the  facts  upon  which 
he  is  to  decide.  According  to  the  Mc- 
Cormick  plan,  however,  to  settle  a  dispute 
between  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  as 
budget  officer  and  the  Secretary  of  War 
the  President  must  depend  on  informa- 
tion gathered  by  one  of  the  parties  to 
the  contest — the  Secretary  of  the  Treas- 
ury— and  has  no  means  of  instituting  an 
independent  investigation. 

Under  the  McCormick  bill  the  budget 
comes  into  the  Cabinet  as  the  proposal 
of  one  of  the  Cabinet  officers;  under 
the  Good  bill  it  comes  before  the  Cabinet 
as  the  proposal  of  the  President;  and  the 
jealousy  which  is  certain  to  arise  among 
other  members  of  the  President's  official 
family  by  the  interference  by  one  mem- 
ber of  that  family  in  the  affairs  of  the 
other,  will  be  avoided. 

Ex-President  Taft  agrees  with  Mr. 
Hayden  that  in  the  preparation  of  the 
budget  it  is  "aut  Caesar  aut  nihil": 

...  If  you  intend  to  have  exercised  the 
power  of  pruning  down  the  estimates  of  the 
various  departments,  so  as  to  create  a  budget 
that  will  be  economical,  you  have  got  to  give 
the  necessary  power  to  the  person  who  does 
it  or  put  that  function  into  the  hands  of  the 
man  who  has  as  much  prestige  and  power  as 
there  is  in  the  Government,  and  that  is  the 
President  of  the  United  States."  [Hearings 
before  the  Select  Committee  on  the  Budget  of 
the  House  of  Representatives  on  the  Establish- 
ment of  a  National  Budget  System,  66th  Cong., 
1st  sess.,  Sept.-Oct.,  1919.— Statement  of  Hon. 
William  H.  Taft,  pp.  464-470,  on  p.  468.] 

The  suggestion  that  the  McCormick 
bill  "conforms  to  the  practice  of  almost 
every  other  nation"  in  this  respect  is 
met  by  the  author's  own  answer  to  the 
proposal  that  the  Congress,  like  the  Brit- 
ish Parliament,  should  not  be  permitted 
to  increase  estimates.  In  one  instance, 
as  in  the  other,  such  a  system  "is  work- 
able only  as  part  of  the  parliamentary 
system,"  and  the  precedent  of  the  British 
parliamentary  system  is  no  more  applica- 
ble in  one  case  than  in  the  other.  I 
agree  entirely  with  Mr.  Hayden  in  his 
opinion  in  respect  to  limiting  the  power 
of  the  Legislature  to  increase  or  add 
items. 

Another  objection,  however,  to  putting 
in  the  hands  of  the  Secretary  the  power 
to  prepare  the  budget,  which  includes 
the  power  of  supervision  over  the  Ad- 
ministration, is  the  fact  that  he  is  now 
the  head  of  the  largest  civil  executive 
department  of  the  Government.  The  War 
Risk  Insurance  and  the  Internal  Revenue 
are  two  of  the  largest  bureaus  in  Wash- 


570] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  55 


ingrton,  and  they  only  form  a  part  of 
the  Department  of  the  Treasury ;  so  that, 
from  this  point  of  view,  the  Department 
differs  from  the  Treasury  in  Great 
Britain,  which  has  not  even  control  of 
the  Inland  Revenue.  The  secretary  will 
not  have  the  time,  any  more  than  the 
President,  to  scrutinize  and  carefully 
study  the  estimates  submitted  to  him, 
nor  will  other  heads  of  Departments  be- 
lieve that  he  has  scrutinized  the  esti- 
mates rdating  to  his  own  Department, 
among  the  largest  in  the  Government 
service,  as  closely  as  he  has  scrutinized 
those  in  the  other  departments.  Practi- 
cally, the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  is 
merely  another  wheel  introduced  into  the 
machine  between  the  commissioner  of  the 
budget  and  the  ultimate  authority,  the 
President.  His  present  duties  are  mani- 
fold and  important.  They  have  to  do 
with  the  financial  and  fiscal  affairs  of 
the  Government,  as  well  as  with  the 
manifold  other  operations  of  the  Depart- 
ment, not  with  the  efficiency  of  the  gov- 
ernmental organization,  and  it  is  impos- 
sible that  he  should  give  due  attention 
to  the  preparation  of  the  revision  of  the 
estimates  which,  to  be  effective,  means 
the  reorganization  of  the  whole  govern- 
mental machine,  to  prevent  overlapping 
and  waste,  and  to  keep  it  tuned  up  to 
efficient  operation. 

J.  P.  Chamberlain 
Legislative  Drafting  Research  Fund 
New  York,  May  17 

Salvaging  the  Facts  of 
Business 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

On  the  occasion  of  the  tenth  annual 
meeting  of  the  Special  Libraries  Asso- 
ciation, held  recently  in  this  city,  several 
hundred  librarians  and  research  workers 
connected  with  the  country's  leading 
financial,  industrial,  and  business  firms 
gathered  together  to  discuss  professional 
problems  and  to  consider  plans  for  the 
further  extension  of  library  and  research 
service  to  commerce  and  industry. 

The  Special  Libraries  Association  is 
affiliated  with  the  American  Library  As- 
sociation and  its  members  have  cooper- 
ated with  the  public  librarians  of  the 
country  in  drawing  up  the  recently  pro- 
posed Enlarged  Programme  of  Library 
Service.  Mr.  Carl  H.  Milam,  Director  of 
the  A.  L.  A.  Enlarged  Programme,  ad- 
dressed the  convention,  describing  recent 
progress,  and  a  joint  committee  of  the 
two  associations  was  authorized  for  the 
furtherance  of  this  important  work. 

Since  the  signing  of  the  armistice 
American  firms  have  given  increasing  at- 
tention to  the  study  of  business  problems, 
and  it  is  now  generally  maintained  that 
the  decisions  of  the  business  executive 
should  be  based  upon  a  knowledge  of  the 
underlying  facts.    The  importance  of  ac- 


curate record  keeping  has  been  greatly 
underestimated  by  many  business  firms 
in  the  past.  Important  documents  are 
mislaid  or  lost  and  little  or  no  effort 
has  been  made  to  collect  and  classify  the 
facts  and  data  bearing  upon  special  busi- 
ness problems.  Lacking  such  informa- 
tion, many  firms  have  found  it  necessary 
to  call  upon  experts  and  special  in- 
vestigators to  help  them  discover  "weak 
spots"  and  inefficiency. 

The  Special  Libraries  have  demon- 
strated their  ability  to  salvage  important 
information  and  so  to  classify  and  ar- 
range such  data  as  to  be  immediately 
available  to  aid  in  the  solution  of  current 
administrative  problems.  It  is  estimated 
that  there  are  more  than  2,000  American 
firms  that  have  felt  the  need  of  this  kind 
of  service  to  aid  in  the  development  of 
their  business. 

The  Special  Librarian  brings  a  new 
point  of  view  into  the  business  world. 
He  feels  the  romance  of  business  life  in 
the  fabrication  of  new  products,  the 
articulation  of  transportation  facilities, 
the,  vagaries  of  credit,  and  the  financing 
and  management  of  business  enterprise. 
All  these  activities  he  views  in  their  rela- 
tion to  the  community  and  to  the  nation, 
and  he  has  a  keen  appreciation  of  the 
need  to  understand  and  to  interpret,  not 
only  for  the  enlightenment  of  the  pres- 
ent generation,  but  for  those  that  are  to 
come. 

War-time  conditions  drew  American 
men  and  women  into  closer  contact  with 
the  processes  and  the  fabric  of  industrial 
and  business  life.  This  relationship  has 
resulted  in  a  more  intelligent  interest  in 
commercial  undertakings  and  an  increas- 
ing demand  for  business  information. 
That  American  business  firms  are  re- 
sponding to  this  demand  is  demonstrated 
every  day  by  the  creation  of  new  busi- 
ness libraries  and  bureaus  of  research 
and  information.  A  considerable  litera- 
ture of  business  is  rapidly  springing  into 
existence  whose  benefit  is  evident  in  the 
enthusiasm  and  increased  efficiency  of 
employees,  as  well  as  of  executives.  That 
the  business  library  has  come  to  stay 
there  can  be  little  doubt,  and  much  cer- 
tainly is  to  be  hoped  from  the  further 
extension  of  constructive  services  of  this 
kind. 

DoRSEY  W.  Hyde,  Jr. 
President,  Special  Libraries  Association 
Detroit,  Mich.,  April  21 

The  Sixth  Dante  Centen- 
nial 

[The  author  of  this  letter  is  the  son  of  the 
late  Augustin  Cochin,  the  Paris  friend  of 
Longfellow,  Garrison,  and  several  other  well- 
known  Americans  of  the  Civil  War  period, 
and  the  brother  of  M.  Denys  Cochin,  of  the 
French  Academy.  He  was  for  many  years  a 
member  of  the  Chamber  of  Deputies  and  is 
an  authority  in  France  on  Petrarch  and  Dante.] 


To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

Italian  historical  studies  are  very  pop- 
ular in  the  United  States.  The  finest 
Dante  collection  in  the  world  is  that  of 
Willard  Fiske,  at  Cornell  University,  of 
which  an  excellent  catalogue  appeared 
not  long  ago.  So  I  feel  sure  that  Ameri- 
can academic  circles  will  learn  with  inter- 
est of  the  movement  now  on  foot  in  Eu- 
rope to  celebrate  in  1921  the  sixth  centen- 
nial of  the  death  of  Dante  Alighieri. 

The  great  poet  died  on  September  14, 
1321,  and  all  Italy  is  preparing  to  com- 
memorate the  date.  The  Italian  uni- 
versities have  already  announced  som( 
handsome  publications,  particularly  the 
final  edition  of  the  "Divine  Comedy,"  the 
fruit  of  the  long  labors  of  the  learned 
Vandelli;  and  the  universities  of  France 
and  Belgium  are  not  deaf  to  the  cele- 
bration. 

It  is  remarkable,  also,  to  note  that  the 
first  steps  for  the  jubilee  were  taken  by 
the  Catholic  Church.  In  October,  1914, 
a  memorable  communication  was  ad- 
dressed by  Pope  Benedict  XV  to  the 
Archbishop  of  Ravenna  which  dwells  on 
"the  irreproachable  faith  of  Dante,"  de- 
spite the  impassioned  attacks  which  he 
directed  against  certain  heads  of  the  Holy 
See,  and  which  vindicates  the  great  poet 
in  the  eyes  of  the  Roman  Church  by 
referring  to  him  as  "Noster  Dantes." 

As  Dante  died  at  Ravenna,  that  city 
will  be  the  centre  of  the  religious  cere- 
mony. The  Holy  See  has  also  expressed 
the  desire  that  the  jubilee  should  be 
honored  by  Catholics  throughout  the 
world,  and,  to  this  end,  committees  have 
already  been  formed  in  France,  through 
the  initiative  of  the  Cardinal  Arch- 
bishop of  Paris,  and  in  Belgium  under 
the  auspices  of  Cardinal  Mercier,  who 
has  just  published  in  the  Revue  Univer- 
selle  a  scholarly  study  of  Dante  and  St. 
Thomas  of  Aquino.  Other  publications 
have  also  been  announced,  especially  a 
new  translation  of  the  "Divine  Comedy," 
by  the  scholar  and  poet  Andre  Perate, 
which  is  very  faithful  to  the  original, 
and  in  rythmic  prose.  It  will  appear  first 
in  a  de  luxe  edition,  with  wood  engrav- 
ings by  Jacques  Beltrand  after  Botti- 
celli, and  later  a  popular  edition  will  be 
brought  out.  There  will  also  be  pub- 
lished here  in  the  near  future  a  Bulletin 
which  will  present  the  unpublished  works 
of  several  noteworthy  writers  concerning 
Dante,  his  writings,  and  his  period.  This 
Bulletin  will  be  published,  with  appro- 
priate illustrations,  by  the  Librairie  de 
I'Art  Catholique,  Paris. 

I  trust  that  this  information  may  be  of 
some  interest  to  the  literary  readers  of 
your  periodical  and  that  we  may  soon 
have  the  satisfaction  of  learning  that 
the  universities  of  the  United  States 
are  also  preparing  to  celebrate  the 
jubilee  of  the  greatest  poet  of  the  world. 
Henry  Cochin 
23  Quai  d'Orsay,  Paris,  May  1 


1 

i 


May  29,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[571 


Book  Reviews 

What  to  Do  About  News 
Juggling 

Liberty  akd  the  News.  By  Walter  Lipp- 
mann.  New  York:  Harcourt,  Brace  and 
Howe. 

MR.  LIPPMANN  believes  that  as  long 
as  we  are  content  "to  argue  about 
the  privileges  and  immunities  of  opinion" 
we  are  wasting  time.  We  shall  neyer 
succeed  in  fixing  a  standard  of  tolerance 
for  opinions.  "In  going  behind  opinion 
to  the  information  which  it  exploits,  and 
in  making  the  validity  of  the  news  our 
ideal,  we  shall  be  fighting  the  battle 
where  it  is  really  being  fought."  Liberty 
is  not  so  much  a  condition  as  a  mechan- 
ism. "In  this  view  liberty  is  the  name 
we  give  to  measures  by  which  we  protect 
and  increase  the  veracity  of  the  informa- 
tion upon  which  we  act."  Our  aims 
should  be  the  protection  of  the  sources  of 
the  news,  the  organization  of  the  news 
so  as  to  make  it  comprehensible,  and  the 
education  of  human  response  so  that 
mankind  will  act  intelligently  in  the  light 
of  the  information  it  receives. 

Few  persons  will  agree  with  the  au- 
thor that  the  argument  about  the  privi- 
leges and  immunities  of  opinion  is  a 
waste  of  time.  It  is  an  argument  in  which 
most  persons  have  indulged  since  the 
tribal  days  of  the  race  and  which  seems 
to  wax  stronger  as  society  becomes  more 
complex.  The  fact  that  no  enduring 
standard  of  tolerance  can  be  found  has 
small  influence  on  the  disputants,  for 
the  argument  continues.  It  may  be  tem- 
porarily stifled,  as  in  Soviet  Russia,  or 
it  may  be  loftily  ignored  by  an  individual 
here  and  there  in  freer  climes;  but 
wherever  it  is  permitted  it  is  heard, 
and  though  its  finer  technicalities  are  of 
course  reserved  for  the  few,  its  more 
obvious  phases  are  the  subject-matter  of 
the  many. 

Drawing  the  line  on  expressions  of 
opinion  is  a  fundamental  need  of  social 
organization,  and  argument  as  to  the  lo- 
cation of  the  line  is  an  inevitable  conse- 
quence. No  state,  political  party,  church, 
guild,  cooperative  society,  or  trade-union 
can  avoid  the  necessity.  Each  of  these 
societies  knows  that,  for  its  own  preser- 
vation, it  must  prohibit  among  its  mem- 
bers expressions  deemed  harmful  to 
itself,  and  within  the  limits  of  its  power 
penalize  the  seditious.  There  are  per- 
sons who,  while  granting  this  right  to 
the  trade-union  or  the  church,  deny  it 
to  the  nation;  and  there  are  other  per- 
sons who,  while  granting  it  to  the  Lenin- 
Trotsky  duumvirate,  deny  it  to  the  demo- 
cratic republic  of  the  United  States.  But 
none  denies  it  absolutely,  and  so  long 
as  men  band   themselves   together   for 


any  purpose,  from  the  organization  of  a 
state  to  the  organization  of  a  hunting 
party,  they  will  set  metes  and  bounds  to 
the  conduct  of  the  membership ;  and  they 
will  consider  the  expression  of  non-con- 
formist opinion  as  a  vital  phase  of  con- 
duct. It  is  here  that  a  large  part  of  the 
battle  is  really  being  fought  and  always 
will  be. 

Still,  the  protection  of  the  sources  of 
the  news,  though  but  a  part  of  the  battle, 
is  a  most  important  part,  and  one  listens 
eagerly  for  a  hint  of  practical  method. 
The  evil  of  coloring,  distorting,  and  sup- 
pressing news  is  widespread  and  glaring. 
It  is  impossible  to  say,  from  a  close  read- 
ing of  this  book,  how  general  the  author 
conceives  this  evil  to  be.  He  seems  to 
think  the  capitalist  news  journals  the 
chief  offenders.  "The  current  theory," 
he  writes,  "of  American  newspaperdom 
is  that  an  abstraction  like  the  truth  and 
a  grace  like  fairness  must  be  sacrificed 
whenever  anyone  thinks  the  necessities  of 
civilization  require  the  sacrifice."  I  take 
it  that  he  means  capitalist  newspaper- 
dom; and  this  view  is  confirmed  by  his 
statement  that  "change  will  come 
".  .  .  only  if  organized  labor  and  mili- 
tant liberalism  set  a  pace  which  can  not 
be  ignored."  An  astigmatism  so  pro- 
nounced as  to  prevent  one  from  seeing 
the  persistent  juggling  of  news  by  the 
critical  and  pretentiously  ethical  jour- 
nals, does  not  promise  much  aid  in  the 
difficult  task  of  safeguarding  the  news 
supply. 

Yet  the  programme  which  the  author 
proffers  is  a  worthy  one.  Would  that  it 
could  be  attained!  Progress  toward  its 
attainment  will,  however,  require  consid- 
erable soul-searching  and  inner  reforma- 
tion on  the  part  of  responsible  persons 
connected  with  the  handling  of  the  news ; 
and  this  is  likely  to  require  rather  large 
drafts  on  the  bank  of  time.  A  con- 
sideration of  the  specific  details  makes 
the  attainment  seem  even  more  remote. 
Reporters  must  be  supermen,  rigorously 
trained  in  all  the  social  sciences,  in  the 
use  of  words  and  in  the  technique  of 
observation.  They  must  set  down  im- 
partially the  objective  fact.  The  news 
must  be  signed  or  documented,  so  that 
we  may  know  where  it  comes  from  and 
who  is  responsible  for  it. 

We  want  all  this  if  it  can  be  had.  But 
we  want  something  more.  We  want 
some  assurance  that  after  the  news  has 
come  from  an  expert  and  an  honest 
source  it  will  be  honestly  used;  that  it 
will  not  be  suppressed  to  make  room  for 
news  from  an  inexpert  source.  It  hap- 
pens, for  instance,  that  one  of  the  favor- 
ite witnesses  of  the  New  Republic  and 
other  insurgent  journals  regarding 
Soviet  Russia  has  been  Arthur  Ransome, 
a  gentleman  who,  according  to  Professor 
Samuel  N.  Harper,  rather  prided  him- 
self (at  least  up  to  November,  1917)  on 


his  inability  to  understand  politics.  In 
other  cases  these  journals  have  shown 
their  preference  for  the  hand-picked 
and  pap-fed  correspondent  over  the 
trained  and  informed  observer.  Under 
present  circumstances,  therefore,  it  can 
hardly  be  said  that  this  proposed  remedy 
offers  a  speedy  cure  for  a  confessedly 
bad  situation. 

"A  rigorous  discipline  in  the  use  of 
words"  would  no  doubt  help  enormously. 
It  is  quite  true  that  "education  that  shall 
make  men  masters  of  their  vocabulary 
is  one  of  the  central  interests  of  lib- 
erty" ;  and  no  doubt  this  truth  has  often 
occurred  to  the  baffled  reader  of  impos- 
ing arguments  in  the  critical  journals. 
But  reform  in  this  matter,  so  far  as 
the  radical  reformers  are  concerned, 
seems  a  long  way  ahead ;  and  the  present 
tendencies  in  this  field  toward  a  more 
copious  and  cloudy  verbiage  give  the 
observant  reader  only  the  sick  heart  of 
a  deferred  hope. 

Finally,  there  is  the  "education  of 
human  response."  This  is  a  task  upon 
which  the  best  and  the  wisest  of  man- 
kind have  been  assiduously  working  for 
"several  thousand  years.  As  a  proposal 
it  has  thus  small  measure  of  novelty. 
But  it  remains,  after  all,  about  the  most 
promising  proposal  made.  Its  results  so 
far  have  generated  in  some  souls  noth- 
ing but  pessimism;  in  others,  indiffer- 
ence; in  most,  only  a  chastened  and  sub- 
dued hope.  Yet,  to  keep  going,  we  must 
believe  in  it;  we  must  believe  that  with 
the  process  of  the  suns  men  in  the  mass 
are  rendered  more  intelligently  respon- 
sive to  truth  and  fact.  Even  the  most 
optimistic  person  will  at  times  doubt 
this  evolution;  but  he  will,  if  wise,  con- 
tinue, even  in  his  times  of  gravest 
dubiety,  to  act  as  though  it  were  true. 
Something  can  always  be  won  by  an  ap- 
peal to  the  innate  love  of  truth,  to  the 
instinct  of  fairness,  to  a  sense  of  the 
dignity  of  sober  reason  and  calm  judg- 
ment. This  appeal,  made  in  behalf  of  a 
single  standard  of  probity  in  furnishing 
the  news — a  standard  as  obligatory  upon 
the  harbingers  of  a  "new  world"  as  upon 
the  defenders  of  things  as  they  are — 
may  in  time  work  some  part  of  the 
miracle  that  is  expected  of  it. 

"Our  sanity,"  writes  the  author,  "and 
therefore  our  safety,  depend  upon  fear- 
less and  relentless  exposure  conducted 
by  self-conscious  groups  that  are  now  in 
a  minority."  True  enough ;  but  why  the 
restriction  to  the  minority?  It  is  equally 
important — indeed,  far  more  important — 
to  the  interests  of  social  organization 
that  the  self-conscious  majority  should 
expose  the  falsifications  and  distortions 
of  the  insurgent  groups.  An  increasing 
demand  for  a  single  standard  of  veracity 
in  the  news  will  start  us  well  on  the  way 
to  the  desired  goal. 

W.  J.  Ghent 


572] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  55 


Is  There  a  Religious  Revival 
in  France? 

GuEKRE  ET  Religion.    By  Alfred  Loisy.    Paris: 

Emile  Xourry. 
Mors  et  \"ita.  By  Alfred  Loisy.  Paris :  Emile 

Nourrj'. 
La    Paix    des    Xatioxs   et   la   Religion'    de 

l'A\-es-ir.   By  Alfred  Loisy.    Paris:  Emile 

Nourr>-. 
En  Licne.       By    Frederic    Rouvier.      Paris: 

Perrin. 
Lk  Clerce  et  la  Guerre  de  1914.    By  Lucien 

Lacroix.     Paris :     Bloud  and  Gay. 

IS  there  a  religious  revival  in  France? 
Abbe  Loisy  in  his  three  pamphlets  an- 
swers in  substance,  No,  while  M.  Rouvier, 
in  his  large  volume  of  over  550  pages, 
sa>'s  Yes,  and  Bishop  Lacroix  is  rather 
less  positive  in  both  directions.  All  three 
speak  with  authority :  Abbe  Loisy  is  the 
author  of  a  score  of  books  and  pamphlets 
on  religious  questions  and  is  to-day  Pro- 
fessor of  the  History  of  Religions  at  the 
College  of  France;  M.  Fr6d6ric  Rouvier 
has  published  half  a  dozen  books  and 
pamphlets  on  Catholic  subjects  which 
have  gone  through  many  editions;  and 
Mgr.  Lacroix,  Professor  at  the  Sorbonne, 
is  not  surpassed  by  either  of  the  forego- 
ing in  the  number  and  variety  of  his 
writings  on  ecclesiastical  subjects,  be- 
sides which  he  printed  "Yankees  et  Cana- 
diens,"  a  volume  of  impressions  of  a 
voyage  which  he  made  to  America  in 
1895. 

After  the  war  of  1870,  the  churches — 
Catholic  as  well  as  Protestant — acclaimed 
a  religious  revival  in  France;  but  the 
years  that  followed  showed  that  they 
were  mistaken.  In  the  last  half  of  his 
pamphlet,  "Mors  et  Vita,"  whose  purpose 
is  to  combat  the  idea  advanced  in  Paul 
Bourget's  "Le  Sens  de  la  Mort"  and 
Ernest  Psichari's  "Le  Voyage  du  Centu- 
rion" that  only  the  faithful  Roman  Cath- 
olic can  live  morally  and  die  bravely, 
Abbe  Loisy  examines  the  movement 
which  started  before  the  outburst  of  the 
war  and  which  pretended  to  be  a  "return 
to  the  Church,"  but  which  he  describes 
as  "a  current,  neither  wide  nor  deep,  of 
mysticism,"  a  sort  of  "nationalistic  Ca- 
tholicism quite  different  from  the  old 
traditional  Catholicism  which  is  still  of- 
ficially the  religion  of  the  Church  of 
Rome."  He  speaks  of  "the  transforma- 
tion, not  of  Catholicism,  which  changes 
slowly,  tardily,  and  in  spite  of  itself,  but 
of  our  society  which  more  and  more  tends 
rather  to  disengage  itself  from  Catholi- 
cism," and  he  holds  that  what  was  before 
and  during  the  war  will  survive  the  war 
— "a  religion  of  devotion  to  one's  country 
will  be  our  common  duty." 

In  "Guerre  et  Religion,"  Abbe  Loisy 
declared  as  early  as  1915  that  "the  war 
will  not  change  the  respective  positions 
of  the  religious  parties  in  France,"  and 
he  then  returns  repeatedly  to  this  idea 
of  religion  being  swallowed  up  in  patriot- 
ism.    "The  religion  which  rules  at  the 


front  and  which  for  a  very  great  number 
is  the  only  dominant  one  is  not  the  Cath- 
olic faith,  but  the  worship  of  country." 

In  answer  to  the  question  as  to  "what 
will  be  the  foundation  of  this  religion 
and  its  essential  idea,"  Abbe  Loisy 
replies  that  "all  domestic  religious  differ- 
ences sink  into  insignificance  in  compari- 
son with  the  question  of  the  future 
religion — the  religion  of  humanity,  which 
is  now  beginning  to  make  its  way  into 
the  world;"  which  he  defines  as  "a  re- 
ligion which  will  have  humanity  as  the 
object  of  its  faith  and  its  service;  not 
only  the  existing  humanity  but  that 
superior  ideal  in  which  we  delight  to 
contemplate  it  and  to  which  we  could  ele- 
vate it." 

Bishop  Lacroix  is  less  speculative  and 
less  emotional  in  his  examination  of  the 
problem  but  arrives  at  about  the  same 
conclusions  as  those  of  Abbe  Loisy. 

It  is  a  truth  taught  by  experience  that  the 
religious  sentiment,  which  too  often  in  times 
of  prosperity  slumbers  in  the  depths  of  our 
souls,  awakens  and  becomes  especially  fervent 
in  moments  of  trial.  .  .  .  Men  pray  better.  It 
can  not  be  denied  that,  particularly  at  the 
beginning  of  hostilities,  all  the  belligerents 
showed  an  increased  propensity  to  resort  to 
prayer,  the  like  of  which  finds  few  similar 
examples  in  the  history  of  humanity.  .  .  .  This 
unexpected  fervor,  this  unhoped-for  sympathy 
for  religion,  showed  itself  still  more  strikingly 
at  the  front. 

But  Bishop  Lacroix  has  to  admit  that 
the  religious  ardor  which  characterized 
the  first  days  of  the  war  gradually  cooled. 
He  gives  the  causes  for  the  change,  chief 
among  them  the  long  duration  of  the 
struggle.  The  soldiers  grew  accustomed 
to  the  ever-present  danger  and  were  less 
prone  to  look  to  the  supernatural  for  pro- 
tection; and  as  the  months  rolled  into 
years,  the  poilus  and  officers,  who  were 
piously  inclined  in  August,  1914,  were 
gradually  replaced  by  those  who  had  not 
felt  the  effects  of  that  initial  wave  of 
deep  sentiment.  "The  commanding  gen- 
erals began  to  take  less  and  less  interest 
in  the  chaplains."  And  when  the  soldier 
returned  home  for  a  few  days'  furlough, 
"he  found  that  the  religious  fervor  be- 
hind the  lines  did  not  equal  that  in  the 
trenches."  Of  the  energy  and  heroism 
of  the  priest  at  the  front  one  may  read 
at  length  in  Frederic  Rouvier's  "En 
Ligne." 

Mgr.  Lacroix  devotes  the  closing  sec- 
tion of  his  study  to  a  consideration  of 
"what  will  survive  the  war."  He  thinks 
that  "there  will  be  a  renewal  of  good 
feeling  among  the  people  for  the  clergy 
as  a  body  and  especially  for  those  of  them 
who  were  at  the  front,"  but  he  does  not 
predict  any  real  revival  of  religious 
sentiment. 

What  has  really  happened  in  the 
churches  of  France  since  the  armistice  is 
not  a  revival  of  interest  in  religion  per 
se,  but  a  renewal  of  the  old  politico-the- 
ological struggle  between  the  Vatican  and 


the  Republic.    The  renewal  of  diplomatic 
relations  may  be  interpreted  as  a  victorj' 
for  the  former;  but  the  end  is  not  yet. 
Theodore  Stanton 

Germany  on  the  Eve  of  the 
War 

The  Evolution  of  Modern  Germany.  By 
William  Harbutt  Dawson.  New  and  Re- 
vised Edition.    New  York:   Charles  Scrib- 

ner's    Sons. 

THE  publication  of  a  new  edition  of 
Mr.  Dawson's  admirable  book,  which 
has  been  a  standard  authority  since  its 
first  appearance  in  the  year  1908,  is  im- 
portant at  the  present  time  in  that  it 
calls  attention  to  the  social  and  eco- 
nomic forces  that  were  dominant  in  Ger- 
many before  the  war  and  gives  occasion 
for  the  revision  of  judgment  concerning 
German  life  and  character.  This  book, 
like  many  others  by  the  same  author,  was 
orginally  intended  to  contribute  toward  a 
better  understanding  between  Germany 
and  the  United  Kingdom,  and  although 
the  author's  views  have  been  greatly 
changed  in  recent  years,  he  scrupulously 
refrains  from  criticism  of  German  be- 
havior and  makes  no  forecast  of  future 
reconstruction.  Prophecy  is  discredited 
in  these  days,  but  intimate  description 
of  social  conditions  and  tendencies  is  of 
perennial  interest  and  value. 

Mr.  Dawson  does  not  indulge  in  anal- 
ogy, yet  his  picture  of  German  progress 
and  prosperity  before  the  war  reminds 
one  of  the  Niagara  River  above  the  falls, 
moving  on  between  its  banks,  proud  and 
confident,  until  the  moment  when  it 
plunges  into  the  abyss.  Again,  his  ac- 
count of  the  growth  of  Germany's  popu- 
lation suggests  the  pressure  exerted  on 
all  sides  by  the  accumulation  of  a  great 
body  of  water  impounded  in  a  reservoir 
and  the  disastrous  effects  of  inundation 
when  it  breaks  its  bounds.  In  1871  the 
population  of  the  newly  formed  German 
Empire  was,  in  round  numbers,  41,000,- 
000;  in  1910  it  was  65,000,000;  and  the 
annual  increase  of  over  800,000  per  an- 
num must  have  brought  the  total  up  to 
68,000,000  before  the  war  began.  The 
birth-rate,  it  is  true,  had  declined  from 
38  per  thousand  in  1871  to  28  per  thou- 
sand in  1913,  but  in  the  same  time  the 
general  death-rate  had  fallen  from  27  to 
15  per  thousand,  so  that  the  excess  of 
births  over  deaths  was  greater  in  1913 
than  in  1871,  though  less  than  in  the 
decade  1901  to  1910.  These  simple  facts 
measure  the  tremendous  growth  of  Ger- 
many in  almost  every  respect,  and  partly 
explain  the  feeling  of  Germans  that  they 
were  ringed  about  with  enemies,  and  the 
fear  among  the  surrounding  nations  of 
an  impending  German  invasion. 

At  first  glance  one  might  think  Mr. 
Dawson's  book  a  panegyric  on  modern 
Germany,  but  reading  between  the  lines 


May  29,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[573 


and  in  the  light  of  recent  events,  one 
finds  a  shady  side  to  most  of  their 
achievements,  even  as  all  things  human 
have  the  defects  of  their  qualities.  The 
population  of  Germany  after  the  war 
with  France  increased  by  leaps  and 
bounds,  until  she  could  no  longer  raise 
all  her  food  supplies,  and  the  time  was 
approaching  when,  as  Dr.  Paul  Rohrbach 
said,  it  would  be  necessary  to  import 
one-half  of  her  bread,  and  the  only  alter- 
native to  the  dreaded  "industrial  state" 
would  be  immigration  on  a  colossal  scale. 
The  Raiffeisen  cooperative  associations, 
the  protective  tariffs,  and  state  assistance 
had  done  much  for  agriculture,  but  the 
"land-flight"  of  agricultural  laborers  was 
increasing  until  both  large  and  small 
landowners  were  threatened  with  disas- 
ter. Manufacturing  had  grown  enor- 
mously, but  hardly  any  of  the  raw  ma- 
terials were  produced  in  sufficient  quan- 
tities at  home.  Germany's  shipping  and 
foreign  trade  had  grown  until  she  was 
second  to  England  alone,  but  her  great 
rival  was  her  best  customer  and  her 
trade  was  more  or  less  menaced  by  pref- 
erential tariffs.  Much  attention  had  been 
given  to  colonies  and  colonial  policy,  but 
most  of  the  German  colonies,  being  tropi- 
cal, were  unfit  for  European  settlers, 
while  Germany's  colonial  administration 
with  all  its  Kameralwissenschaft  was  an 
egregious  failure. 

Much  has  been  said,  and  justly,  in 
praise  of  Germany's  domestic  adminis- 
tration, with  its  system,  its  discipline, 
and  its  general  efficiency,  as  shown  not- 
ably in  the  well-managed  Prussian  rail- 
ways; but  it  tended  to  suppress  individ- 
uality and  initiative,  and  it  was  a  per- 
petual complaint  that  the  best  business 
men  were  found,  not  in  the  service  of  the 
state,  but  at  the  head  of  industrial,  com- 
mercial, and  financial  undertakings,  of- 
fering emoluments  beyond  the  means  of 
the  national  treasury.  Even  the  cartels 
and  syndicates,  which  dominated  the 
staple  manufacturing  industries,  were 
not  without  their  bad  features,  for,  while 
they  gave  Germany  great  power  in  for- 
eign markets,  through  price  control  and 
systematic  dumping,  they  did  it  at  the 
expense  of  the  domestic  consumer  and 
the  manufacturer  of  finished  products. 

German  labor  legislation,  especially 
the  laws  providing  for  industrial  insur- 
ance, had  many  admirable  features,  yet 
it  did  not  serve  to  allay  the  deep-rooted 
hostility  between  capital  and  labor. 
Moreover,  certain  vestiges  of  serfdom 
still  remain,  as  the  Prussian  "Servants' 
Ordinance,"  by  which  domestic  servants 
and  agricultural  laborers,  unlike  the  in- 
dustrial workpeople,  were  legally  dis- 
qualified from  combining  for  economic 
ends.  Then,  too,  the  general  attitude  of 
workmen  toward  the  plans  of  benevo- 
lent employers,  such  as  special  pension 
and  benefit  funds,  holiday  festivities,  as- 
sisted savings  banks,   woi-kmen's  dwell- 


ings, workmen's  colonies,  premiums,  and 
gratuities  of  all  kinds,  is  unappreciative 
if  not  absolutely  thankless.  Employers 
complain  loudly  of  the  "ingratitude"  of 
their  workpeople,  who  dislike  accepting 
as  a  gift  what  they  hold  is  theirs  by 
right,  and  prefer  to  secure  advancement 
through  their  own  unions,  especially  the 
Socialist  organizations,  which,  in  1912, 
embraced  more  than  half  of  the  organized 
workers  of  the  country.  On  the  other 
hand,  many  employers,  like  Herr  Kirdorf, 
former  head  of  the  Coal  and  Steel  Syn- 
dicate, the  Judge  Gary  of  Germany,  re- 
fused to  deal  with  labor  organizations 
of  any  kind,  and  even  advised  measures 
that  should  do  away  with  the  excessive 
turnover  of  labor  by  providing  for  every 
industry,  in  so  far  as  possible,  a  sta- 
tionary band  of  workers. 

In  other  respects,  also,  German  social 
conditions  before  the  war  were  far  from 
ideal.  The  Polish  question,  for  exam- 
ple, was  a  continual  aggravation,  and  the 
efforts  of  the  Prussian  Government  to 
Germanize  the  Polish  provinces  through 
compulsory  purchase  of  land,  settlements, 
interference  with  schools,  and  other 
harsh  measures  had  effects  the  very  oppo- 
site of  those  intended.  The  Poles  were  en- 
riched at  the  expense  of  the  German 
taxpayers;  a  Polish  artisan  and  mer- 
chant class  was  built  up;  Polish  agri- 
cultural laborers  migrated  to  the  indus- 
trial centres  of  West  Prussia  and  other 
districts  formerly  exclusively  German; 
and,  in  general,  the  whole  policy  tended 
to  make  bad  Germans  out  of  good  Poles. 

So  many  and  varied  were  the  internal 
troubles  and  perplexities  of  Germany, 
largely  due  to  her  rapid  increase  in 
wealth  and  population,  coupled  with  pop- 
ular education  and  the  growth  of  democ- 
racy, that  Mr.  Dawson,  like  many  other 
writers,  deplores  the  passing  of  the  good 
old  times  when  Germany  was  nothing 
but  a  geographical  expression ;  when  Ger- 
mans were  poor  in  the  world's  goods  but 
rich  in  faith,  with  ideals  and  illusions, 
humility,  sentimentality,  hospitality,  and 
gemiltlichkeit;  when  baron  and  pastor  re- 
ceived due  meed  of  reverence;  when  the 
employer  was  a  benefactor  and  the  for- 
eign traveler  a  friend;  when  Kant  and 
Fichte  ruled  in  philosophy  and  Goethe 
and  Schiller  in  literature;  when,  in  brief, 
there  was  universal  plain  living  and  high 
thinking  and  the  demon  of  ambition  had 
not  yet  entered  the  German  soul.  Doubt- 
less, the  primitive  Teuton  was  asleep  in 
those  days,  but  latterly  a  change  has 
come  over  the  spirit  of  his  dream.  In 
the  words  of  the  late  Professor  Paulsen: 
"Two  souls  dwell  in  the  German  nation. 
The  German  nation  has  been  called  a 
nation  of  poets  and  thinkers,  and  it  may 
be  proud  of  the  name.  To-day  it  may 
again  be  called  the  nation  of  masterful 
combatants,  as  when  it  originally  ap- 
peared in  history." 

Apologists    for    Germany    have    fre- 


quently called  attention  to  some  such 
dual  personality  among  the  Germans,  as 
though  the  mass  of  the  people,  by  nature 
peaceful  and  gemiltlich,  had  been  over- 
ruled by  a  few  junkers  and  industrialists, 
and  thus  misled  along  the  path  of  mili- 
tarism, navalism,  and  Weltpolitik.  Mr. 
Dawson  does  not  say  exactly  this,  al- 
though he  recognizes  the  differences 
which  exist  among  Germans  of  various 
regions  and  social  classes.  He  rather 
takes  the  view  that  the  logic  of  the  situa- 
tion pointed  toward  foreign  conquest  as 
the  most  promising  remedy  for  internal 
ills,  and  he  clearly  shows  that  not  merely 
the  Navy  League  and  the  Pan  Germans, 
but  university  professors,  churchmen, 
journalists,  and  even  the  leading  Social- 
ists were  united  in  the  opinion  that  Ger- 
many must  secure  her  "future  on  the 
ocean"  and  her  "place  in  the  sun,"  even 
though  the  new  policy  should  involve  the 
downfall  of  her  chief  rival — the  British 
Empire. 

J.  E.  Le  ROSSIGNOL 

Yeast  and  Phosphorus 

Passion:  A  Human  Story.  By  Shaw  Des- 
mond. New  York:  Charles  Scribner's 
Sons. 

Responsibility:  A  Novel.  By  James  E. 
Agate.  New  York :  George  H.  Doran 
Company. 

Peter  Jameson  :  A  Modern  Romance.  By 
Gilbert  Frankau.  New  York:  Alfred  A. 
Knop  f . 

IN  his  latest  volume  of  "Shelburne 
Essays,"  Mr.  More  has  a  paper  on 
"Decadent  Wit,"  which  was  occasioned 
by  a  book,  rather  worshipful,  on  "The 
Eighteen  Nineties."  Mr.  More  has 
small  patience  with  the  sickliness  of  that 
period;  nor  does  he  hesitate  to  assert 
that  its  false  theory  of  the  relation  be- 
tween filth  and  spirituality  is  still  active: 
"In  subdued  form,  befitting  what  remains 
of  the  reticence  of  the  English  tempera- 
ment, it  lurks  among  the  present-day 
inheritors  in  London  of  the  Yellow  Nine- 
ties." If  this  was  written  some  years 
ago  with  Shaw  and  Galsworthy  especially 
in  mind,  what  does  the  scholarly  censor 
make  of  Messrs.  W.  L.  George  and  James 
Stephens,  and  all  the  younger  fruitage  of 
the  medlar  school?  In  most  of  them,  he 
might  note,  the  English  temperament  is 
less  in  question  than  the  Scotch  or  Irish. 
Shaw  Desmond's  "Democracy"  was  a 
fiery  study  of  a  social  and  industrial  Eng- 
land trying  vainly  to  escape  the  tyranny 
of  the  past.  It  was  noteworthy  as  the 
book  of  a  radical  who  does  not  pretend 
omniscience — is  sure  of  no  solid  ground 
ahead  even  for  the  next  step.  "Passion" 
is  inscribed  to  "The  Children  of  the  New 
Age":  a  book  of  yeasty  turmoil  lighted 
by  a  kind  of  desperate  idealism.  The 
young  Irishman  in  London  who  is  its 
central  figure  and  narrator  is  a-quiver 
from  the  cradle  with  consciousness  of 
his  strange  position  in  a  world  which 


574] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  55 


has  been  made  without  his  advice  or  even 
his  permission.  Clearly  there  is  much 
to  be  done:  but  what?  The  arrange- 
ment of  his  nurser>'  is  not  what  it  might 
be,  the  servants  who  care  for  him  are  im- 
perfect, and  his  parents  leave  much  to 
be  desired.  An  English  public  school  is 
conducted  according  to  principles  fatally 
different  from  his  own.  Sex  is  a  rather 
nasty  fact  made  nastier  by  the  prudery 
of  the  Late  Queen  and  her  minions.  Big 
Business,  as  he  comes  to  know  it  pres- 
ently in  London,  is  not  good  enough  for 
him.  Despite  its  title,  the  theme  of  the 
book  is  Big  Business  rather  than  sex. 
In  Golgotha  House  and  in  Fear  Street 
our  Anglo-Irish  youth  serves  his  time 
as  "a  fighting  competitive  animal"  and 
as  an  amateur  fellow-citizen.  Presently 
he  turns  for  safety  to  love  and  its  mysti- 
cal enlightenment:  "And  as  I  listened 
to  the  Passion  of  the  Hours  and  to 
the  mighty  congregation  that  hurried 
towards  it,  I  knew  that  there  was  no 
death,  and  that  this  passion-play  was  the 
passion-play  eternal — knew  that  the  age, 
this  nervous,  passionate  age,  held 
leashed  in  its  heart  unknown  potentiali- 
ties—that this  rotten,  imaginative,  won- 
derful age  was  the  age  of  the  Big  Idea 
as  well  as  of  Big  Business — an  age  of 
struggle  and  despair,  of  defeats  and  vic- 
tories .  .  .  but  an  age  reaching  for- 
ward through  the  passion  of  men  like 
myself,  through  that  passion  of  love  ful- 
filled, to  splendors  yet  unborn ;  to  human 
beings  who  shall  be  as  gods  .  .  . 
And  through  it  all  the  face  of  the  woman 
and  the  cry  of  the  child  came  to  me — 
that  insistent,  pulsating,  whelming  cry — 
the  cry  of  passion,  and  of  life."  The 
book  is  full  of  that  eager,  hectic,  well- 
wishing  for  mankind  which  now  so  fre- 
quently passes  for  idealism.  We  can  but 
note  how  words  like  "rotten"  and  "imag- 
inative" come  together  in  the  visionary's 
mind. 

The  author  of  "Responsibility"  appears 
to  be  the  very  latest  article  in  British 
novelists.  England's  reviewers  have 
hailed  him  with  their  customary  enthu- 
siasm. The  Saturday  Review  calls  him 
"a  star  of  the  first  magnitude — Alde- 
baran  among  our  pasty  twinklers — "  alas, 
poor  twinklers,  each  of  whom  has  been 
greeted  as  a  star  in  his  brief  day, 
namely,  on  the  day  of  his  first  appear- 
ance. The  book  is  a  hodge-podge.  Dedi- 
cated to  Arnold  Bennett,  it  strives  to 
be  worthy  of  a  Clayhanger  age  and  is 
busy  enough  at  times  with  Wellsian 
topics,  including  socialism,  suffrage,  big 
business,  and  the  war.  Like  "Passion," 
this  is  an  autobiographical  tale,  in  the 
sense  that  the  central  person  tells  the 
story.  He  provides  also  a  long  and 
labored  "Introduction"  which,  like  much 
of  the  text,  is  strikingly  in  the  vein,  or 
style,  of  the  Yellow  Nineties :  a  mincing, 
smirking  style  which  invites  us  to  make 
much  of  the  stylist  and  to  listen  to  the 


tale  for  his  sake.  Paradox  and  non- 
conformity in  the  matter,  preciosity  in 
the  manner,  make  up  the  compound. 
Samuel  Butler  haunts  the  backscene, 
arm  in  arm  with  Oscar  Wilde.  The  per- 
sons of.  the  story,  above  a  certain  social 
level,  ail  talk  alike — that  is  to  say,  like 
the  author — witty  to  a  man,  after  the 
gentry  of  Shaw's  plays.  In  the  fore- 
ground, "realism,"  exulting  in  the  beauty 
of  squalor.  After  a  revolting  descrip- 
tion of  a  prize-fighting  scene,  comes  the 
inevitable  bounce:  "And  the  inherent 
beauty  ?  Oh,  convincingly,  imperishably, 
the  beauty  is  there."  And  of  the  music 
hall: 

"Lovely,  beyond  all  imagination  lovely 
in  sheer  incredibility  these  palaces  of 
the  people,  .  .  .  There  is  enchant- 
ment in  the  place  .  .  .  Enchantment 
in  the  quintessential  commonness.  To  it, 
mediocrity,  and  pell-mell!  Sentimental 
obscenity  telling  the  beads  of  passion 
flagrantly  factitious,  you  on  the  stage 
are  an  amusing  sister  to  the  high-born 
marketry  zealously  trumpeting  her  wares 
in  the  half-penny  press.  Enchantment 
everywhere,  in  vice  so  decently  veiled 
that  we  need  not  pretend  to  turn  our 
heads,  in  the  stolid  unobservant  police- 
man, in  the  doorkeepers  into  whose  soul 
the  pitiful  buffoonery  has  so  pitilessly 
entered." 

"Peter  Jameson"  has,  for  me  a  queerly 
belated,  almost  antiquated  quality.  It  is 
the  latest  if  not  the  last  of  the  Britlings. 
Peter  Jameson  is  a  well-bred  middle- 
class  Englishman,  comfortably  married, 
otherwise  comfortably  "off,"  and  greatly 
interested  in  business  as  a  sport.  The 
war  breaks  and  makes  him:  quite  two- 
thirds  of  the  book  is  given  to  his  ex- 
periences at  the  front,  which  read  very 
much  like  other  experiences  we  have  been 
hearing  of.  Once  again  the  filth  and 
squalor  of  war  are  set  forth  without 
mitigation  or  remorse  of  print.  And 
dovetailed  with  all  this  methodical 
naturalism  is  the  laboriously  romantic 
love-tale  of  Peter  and  the  spouse  who  is 
to  become  his  mistress  and  his  mate. 
"Oh,  boy,  boy,  I  believe  you  .  .  . 
You're  such  a  rotten  lover,  boy,"  is  her 
song  of  surrender.  Peter  has  returned 
from  the  war  a  sufferer  from  an  obscure 
form  of  shell-shock,  and  it  is  his  wife's 
father  who  urges  her,  for  Peter's  sake, 
to  "make  love  to  him  as  if  she  were  his 
mistress."  "The  words  themselves  con- 
veyed nothing  whatever  to  a  woman 
utterly  unversed  in  the  wiles  of  sex;  but 
they  filled  her  with  a  delicious  feeling 
of  fright."  .  .  .  Peter's  Patricia  is 
about  as  real  a  woman  as  Mr.  Wells's 
Ann  Veronica — a  tailor-made  she  .  .  . 
The  book  is  clever,  veracious  in  spots; 
oh,  so  anxious  to  get  at  the  truth  about 
life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happi- 
ness; and  quite  without  creative  vitality 
as  a  whole. 

H.  W.  BOYNTON 


Minor  Dutch  Painters 

Kunstler-Inventare.  Urkunden  zur  Ge- 
schichte  der  Hollandischen  Kunst  des 
XVIten,  XVIIten  und  XVIIIten  Jahr- 
hunderts,  von  Dr.  A.  Bredius.  Haag: 
Martinus  Nijhoff. 

IN  1915  Dr.  Bredius  brought  out  the 
first  volume  of  his  "Kiinstler-Inven- 
tare."  Since  then  four  other  volumes 
have  seen  the  light,  and  the  author,  who 
found  his  material  growing  under  his 
hands,  promises  the  issue  of  yet  another. 
In  these  six  volumes,  numbering  together 
over  2,000  pages,  are  contained  the  re- 
sults of  nearly  forty  years  of  indefat- 
igable research  in  the  State  and  Munic- 
ipal archives  of  Holland.  A  fascinating 
story  can  be  gleaned  from  these  dry  and 
dusty  documents.  Dr.  Bredius  prints 
them  with  scarcely  any  comment,  leav- 
ing to  the  reader  the  full  enjoyment  of 
calling  up,  with  the  help  of  his  own 
imagination,  the  intimate  picture  of  the 
past  which  these  pages  reveal  in  spare 
outline  and  faint,  though  suggestive, 
little  touches. 

Many  a  painter's  life  story  is  laid  bare 
from  the  cradle  to  the  grave,  the  goose- 
quill  having  recorded,  with  equal  exacti- 
tude, both  the  tearful  moments  of  bap- 
tism and  burial  and  the  minor  incidents 
of  the  intervening  span  of  life  which  re- 
quired a  notary's  official  interference. 
The  artist's  career  began  on  the  day 
when  his  parents  signed  the  contract 
which  bound  him  apprentice  for  a  num- 
ber of  years  to  his  first  master.  He  en- 
tered upon  it  at  an  early  age.  Abraham 
Furnerius,  who  died  in  his  twenty-sev- 
enth year  and  who  is  only  known  for 
his  exquisite  landscape  drawings,  was 
scarcely  thirteen  years  old  when  he  be- 
came Rembrandt's  pupil.  Uneventful 
lives  most  of  them  led  of  hard  work  for 
small  remuneration.  They  often  ended, 
as  Rembrandt's  did,  in  the  bankruptcy 
court,  and  many  a  painter's  furniture 
and  pictures,  left  by  him  at  his  death, 
were  seized  upon  by  relentless  creditors. 
But  now  and  then  we  get  a  glimpse  of  a 
more  romantic  career.  Michiel  van  de 
Sande,  on  record  in  a  document  of  1610 
as  a  citizen  of  Rotterdam,  appears  in 
1625  as  "Lieutenant  in  the  service  of  the 
Signoria  of  Venice,"  and  again,  four 
years  later,  as  a  recruiting  officer  in  the 
service  of  the  King  of  Sweden.  Either 
the  attraction  of  Italian  art,  or  the  love 
of  adventure,  or  the  hope  of  a  better  live- 
lihood elsewhere,  drove  him,  and  many 
of  his  fellows,  abroad. 

The  difficulty  for  a  minor  painter  of 
making  both  ends  meet  by  exclusive  ap- 
plication to  his  art  explains  why  so  many 
combined  the  art  dealer's  business  with 
the  painter's  profession.  An  illustrative 
case  is  that  of  Maerten  Adriaensz  Bal- 
keneynde,  of  Rotterdam,  who  at  his  death 
in  1631  left  a  collection  of  a  hundred 
pictures,  which,  in  business-like  fashion, 
were  inventoried  with  special  mention  of 


May  29,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[575 


their  proportions,  in  terms,  unfortu- 
nately, to  whose  meaning  we  have  lost 
the  clue.  Sometimes  it  was  the  artist's 
wife  who  owned  and  ran  the  business, 
while  her  husband  plied  the  brush. 
Cathalijntie  van  den  Dorp,  wife  of 
Anthony  Waterloo,  the  landscape  painter, 
willed  to  the  latter,  in  1641,  all  the  furni- 
ture and  silver,  besides  a  picture  by  Jan 
Martsen,  "that  being  a  piece  not  included 
in  the  business  stock."  From  a  curious 
document  of  1636  we  gather  that  the 
dealer's  stock  was  not  only  for  sale,  but 
could  also  be  rented  for  special  occasions. 
A  certain  Gerrit  Luycken  declared,  in 
that  year,  before  a  notary  in  Amsterdam 
that  he  had  received  on  loan  from  Elias 
Homis,  painter  and  dealer,  four  pictures 
with  which  to  decorate  his  house  on  the 
occasion  of  his  wedding  and  which  he 
promised  duly  to  return  when  the  festiv- 
ities were  over.  The  painter  Gerard 
Uylenburgh,  a  relative  of  Rembrandt's 
Saskia,  was  for  a  time  so  successful  as  a 
dealer  that  contemporary  poets  cele- 
brated him  in  verse  not  for  his  art  but 
for  his  enterprise  in  business,  especially 
in  importing  Italian  masters,  whose 
works  he  went  personally  to  Italy  to  pur- 
chase. The  eulogy  of  the  poets  is 
strangely  contrasted  with  what  we  learn 
from  the  documents  about  a  transaction 
of  his  with  the  Elector  of  Brandenburg, 
who  called  either  his  honesty  as  a  dealer 
or  his  knowledge  as  a  connoisseur  in 
question.  Of  thirteen  Italian  masters 
which  he  sold  to  that  prince  in  1671, 
twelve  were  returned  as  worthless  fakes. 
The  experts  called  by  Uylenburgh  in  his 
defense  were  of  a  different  opinion.  They 
found  some  good  Italian  works  among 
them  and  also  a  few  which  were  subject 
to  doubt  but,  though  not  perhaps  by  the 
artists  to  whom  Uylenburgh  ascribed 
them,  yet  valuable  pictures  of  good  qual- 
ity. When,  nevertheless,  the  Elector  re- 
fused to  take  them  back,  the  collection 
was  sold  by  public  auction  in  1673,  and 
it  may  well  be  that  Uylenburgh  paid  the 
poets  to  write  their  rhymed  eulogies  as 
an  advertisement  for  the  occasion.  Either 
the  notoriety  of  this  case  or  a  slump  in 
the  trade  caused  by  the  war  with  France 
brought  on  Uylenburgh's  financial  ruin. 
In  1675  he  appeared  in  the  bankruptcy 
court  and,  after  the  sale  of  all  his 
possessions,  emigrated  to  London,  where 
he  is  said  by  Houbraken  to  have  earned 
a  scanty  livelihood  as  an  assistant  of  Sir 
Peter  Lely.  The  catalogue  of  his  stock 
drawn  up  on  that  occasion  contains  a 
list  of  153  paintings  and  52  pieces  of 
sculpture.  The  notary's  clerk  has  played 
sad  havoc  with  the  Italian  names,  some 
of  which  are  hardly  recognizable  in  the 
forms  he  put  down,  apparently,  from 
dictation.  Parmiggianino  appears  as 
Perments,  Giorgione  as  Schorson,  Paolo 
Veronese  as  Paulus  Fernijs,  Guido  Reni 
as  Gridorin,  Caracci  as  Caras.  No  prices 
were  added,  but  from  the  evidence  given 


by  the  experts  we  gather  that  the  Italian 
masters  were  highly  valued  in  Holland 
at  that  time.  "If  the  pictures,"  they  said, 
"had  been  undamaged  and  exquisite 
samples  of  the  art  of  these  same  mas- 
ters, their  price  would  have  been  reck- 
oned not  in  hundreds  but  in  thousands  of 
guilders." 

That  is  more  than  even  Rembrandt 
ever  got  for  his  portraits,  500  guilders 
being  the  highest  price  that  he,  and  he 
alone,  could  charge.  In  the  early  eigh- 
teenth century  better  fees  were  paid,  as 
we  gather  from  the  documents  relating 
to  the  flower  painter  Jan  van  Huysum 
(tl749),  who  received  as  an  average  one 
thousand  guilders  apiece.  This  vogue  of 
van  Huysum's  painstaking  art  is  char- 
acteristic of  the  declining  taste  of  that 
period.  On  the  same  day  that  an  "extra 
fine  flower  vase"  by  Van  Huysum  was 
knocked  down  for  1,245  guilders,  a  pic- 
ture by  Albert  Cuyp  went  for  thirteen, 
two  by  Jan  Steen  for  thirty,  and  a  por- 
trait by  Rembrandt  for  twenty-five!  In 
England  Van  Huysum's  art  was  just  as 
popular.  A  younger  brother  of  his  set- 
tled in  London,  where  he  painted  copies 
of  Jan's  pictures  which  sold  as  genuine 
Jan  van  Huysums  at  £50  a  pair. 

Imitation  is  the  sincerest  form  of  flat- 
tery. A  fair  gauge  of  an  artist's  fame 
among  his  contemporaries  is  the  fre- 
quency with  which  his  work  was  copied. 
Among  the  pictures  which  the  Leiden 
painter,  Abraham  de  Pape,  at  the  time  of 
his  wedding,  declared  he  possessed  were 
eight  copies  after  Gerard  Dou.  A  skill- 
ful copyist  like  De  Pape  could  acquire 
the  manner  of  the  master  he  imitated 
sufficiently  well  to  palm  off  his  own  orig- 
inal work  as  woi-k  of  the  greater  master, 
or  if  he  did  not  do  so,  it  would  soon  be 
fathered  on  the  latter  by  an  unscrupu- 
lous dealer  or  an  ignorant  collector.  In 
the  Art  Institute  at  Chicago  the  writer 
of  this  article  saw,  not  long  ago,  a  beauti- 
ful picture  purchased  from  the  Demidoff 
collection,  a  scene  in  a  cavalry  stable, 
signed  D.  Teniers.  But  both  the  com- 
position and  the  color  betrayed  so  un- 
mistakably the  hand  of  Jacob  Duck  that 
he  felt  little  hesitation  in  discrediting 
that  signature  as  a  forgery  of  this  kind. 
Such  practices  may  account  for  the 
mysterious  disappearance  of  the  entire 
(Buvre  of  minor  artists  whose  names  alone 
have  survived  in  the  old  histories  of  paint- 
ing or  are  revealed  to  us  by  the  docu- 
ments from  the  archives.  In  a  private 
collection  at  The  Hague,  now  dispersed, 
hung  formerly  a  rare  painting  by  Lucas 
Luce,  clearly  signed  L.  Luce  f.  In  1914 
Dr.  Bredius  came  upon  this  very  same 
picture  in  the  gallery  of  Count  von 
Hallwyl,  in  Stockholm,  but  it  no  longer 
bore  the  signatui'e  of  L.  Luce  and  was 
catalogued  as  a  work  by  Simon  Kick! 

In  this  way  many  a  deserving  talent, 
not  strong  enough,  however,  to  impress 
an  individual  stamp  on  his  paintings,  has 


been  robbed  of  both  his  work  and  his 
name  by  the  fame  of  more  original  mas- 
ters, from  whom  they  drew  their  inspira- 
tion. Since  Dr.  Bredius  has  rescued  their 
names  and,  in  many  a  case,  particulars  of 
their  obscure  lives  from  utter  oblivion, 
we  possess  some  data  by  the  help  of 
which  it  may  be  possible  to  restore  to 
them  part  of  their  oeuvre  as  well. 

A.  J.  Baenouw 

The  Run  of  the  Shelves 

SOMEHOW  one  never  thought  of  Keats 
as  having  a  house ;  one  thought  of  him 
as  passing  uninterruptedly  back  and 
forth  from  stables  and  hospitals  to  the 
realms  of  gold.  For  the  last  three  years 
of  his  life,  before  he  went  to  Italy,  he 
had  rooms  in  a  house  at  Hampstead,  in 
the  other  half  of  which  dwelt  Fanny 
Brawne  and  her  mother.  It  was  at  its 
best  not  a  very  attractive  house,  but  it 
was  surrounded  by  a  garden  which  was 
sufficient  to  give — to  Keats — inspiration 
for  the  "Ode  to  a  Nightingale."  The 
garden  is  still  there,  and  within  doors 
a  sitting-room  and  a  bed-room  retain 
many  of  the  features  they  possessed 
when  the  poet  moved  about  them.  As  an 
alternative  to  the  impending  destruction 
of  the  house  it  is  proposed  to  raise  £10,- 
000  by  subscription,  which  will  serve  to 
make  of  the  place  a  permanent  and  suit- 
able memorial.  It  is  as  easy  to  be  cynical 
as  sentimental  about  such  a  project,  but 
it  does  seem  a  pity  to  pull  the  house  down 
as  if  it  had  been  occupied  by  one  whose 
name  had  indeed  been  writ  in  water. 
Anima  mundi,  sis  memor!  Subscriptions 
may  be  sent  to  the  Hon.  Treasurer,  Sir 
Sidney  Colvin,  Town  Hall,  Hampstead, 
N.  W.  3. 

Is  a  revival  of  John  Addington 
Symonds  under  way?  Not  long  since  we 
received  a  little  book,  "Last  and  First," 
containing  a  notable  study  of  Clough  and 
a  characteristic  essay  on  the  spirit  of  the 
Renaissance;  and  now,  from  the  Mac- 
millan  Company,  there  comes  another  vol- 
ume of  hitherto  uncollected,  and  in  part 
unprinted,  essays  called  from  the  first  of 
the  series  "In  the  Key  of  Blue."  Some 
of  the  essays  in  this  second  collection, 
those  particularly  which  record  certain 
personal  experiences  of  the  author  in 
rather  a  sentimental,  if  not  a  sickly,  vein, 
seem  to  us  scarcely  worth  resuscitating. 
But  others,  of  a  more  scholarly  sort,  rank 
with  Symonds's  best  work  and  deserve 
to  take  a  place  in  the  not  too  large  body 
of  permanent  English  criticism.  Such  is 
the  excellent  study  of  Fletcher's  "Valen- 
tine," which,  while  admitting  the  verbal 
excellence  of  the  English  romantic  drama, 
shows  how  completely  it  falls  down  in 
the  delineation  of  character.  Equally 
notable  is  the  distinction  drawn  in  the 
essay  on  "The  Dantesque  and  Platonic 


576] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  55 


Ideals  of  Love,"  in  which  the  author's 
largre  acquaintance  with  both  Greek  and 
Italian  literature  leads  him  to  make  dis- 
criminations often  missed  by  critics  of  a 
more  one-sided  culture.  Perhaps,  best  of 
all  the  chapters,  because  dealing  with  the 
least  familiar  subject,  is  the  eulogy  of 
the  forgotten  poet,  Edward  Cracroft 
Lef roy,  if  that  can  be  said  to  be  forgotten 
which  was  really  never  known.  It  would 
be  difficult  to-day,  we  presume,  to  find  a 
copy  of  Lefroy's  Sonnets.  Symonds 
quotes  from  them  so  freely  that  the 
owner  of  this  book  of  essays  may  con- 
gratulate himself  on  possessing  the 
best  of  a  poet  well  worth  treasuring  in 
memory. 

"Essays  on  Art,"  by  A.  Clutton-Brock 
(Scribners)  are  a  dozen  papers  collected 
from  the  London  Times  Literary  Supple- 
ment. Though  the  author  treats  with 
insight  such  personalities  as  Leonardo 
da  Vinci,  Poussin,  and  Mozart,  the  essays 
generally  bear  on  the  relation  of  the 
artist  to  society  and  to  morals.  Thus  he 
takes  sharp  issue  with  Whistler's  famous 
dictum  that  art  occurs  through  the  mere 
accident  that  an  artist  gets  born.  "I 
believe,"  writes  Mr.  Brock,  "that  the 
quality  of  art  in  any  age  depends,  not 
upon  the  presence  or  absence  of  indi- 
viduals of  genius,  but  upon  the  attitude 
of  the  public  towards  art."  Similar  is 
the  comment  on  Croce's  view  that  art  is 
merely  expression — the  artist's  explana- 
tion to  himself.  "If  the  artist  knew  that 
the  beauty  he  perceives  was  a  product 
of  his  own  mind,  he  could  not  value  it 
so  ...  in  the  beauty  of  art  there 
is  always  value  and  wonder,  always  a 
reference  to  another  beauty  different  in 
kind  from  itself;  and  we,  too,  if  we  are 
to  see  the  beauty  of  art,  must  share  the 
same  value  and  wonder."  We  are  denied 
this  experience  by  the  general  feminiza- 
tion of  taste  (Essay,  The  Pompadour), 
and  by  an  immoral  exaltation  of  processes 
over  persons.  Here  we  reach  the  Ger- 
mans and  the  war.  Of  humanity  reduced 
to  foolish  and  destructive  process,  Mr. 
Nevinson's  cubistic  war  sketches  seem 
to  the  author  a  very  proper  symbol.  The 
same  delusion  of  process  works  havoc  in 
art,  reducing  it  to  an  ostentatious  pro- 
fessionalism. Apropos  of  the  William 
Morris  celebration,  the  final  essay  dis- 
cusses Waste  or  Creation.  The  real 
quarrel  of  labor,  he  thinks,  is  less  with 
poverty  than  with  a  toil  which  the  laborer 
dimly  divines  to  be  unreasonably  con- 
ducted and  futile.  "He  may  think  he  is 
angry  with  the  rich  because  they  are 
rich;  but  the  real  source  of  his  anger  is 
the  work  they  have  set  him  to  do  with 
their  riches."  Enough  to  show  the  grav- 
ity— real  gravity — of  Mr.  Brock's  view. 
In  compensation  the  publishers  have 
made  the  book  small  enough  to  sit  com- 
fortably in  any  pocket.  With  the  strong 
ethical  perceptions,  Mr.  Brock  combines 


sensitiveness.  He  seeks  a  humanistic 
interpretation  of  art.  If  we  still  need  a 
remedy  for  the  individualistic  green  sick- 
ness of  the  "naughty  nineties,"  we  have 
it  here. 

The  prize  of  $500  for  the  best  volume 
of  poems  written  by  an  American  citizen, 
which  the  Poetry  Society  of  America  has 
for  the  past  two  seasons  given  through 
Columbia  University,  will  this  year  be 
awarded  directly  by  the  Society.  As  the 
prize  is  not  competitive  but  in  the  nature 
of  an  award,  books  need  not  be  entered 
for  it  as  in  the  ordinary  prize  competi- 
tion. The  judges  for  the  present  sea- 
son are  Professor  John  Livingston  Lowes 
of  Harvard  University,  author  of  "Con- 
vention and  Revolt  in  Poetry";  Edwin 
Arlington  Robinson,  and  Alice  Corbin 
Henderson,  Associate-Editor  of  Poetry: 
A  Magazine  of  Verse. 

The  Poetry  Society  of  America  offers 
the  William  Lindsey  Prize  of  $500  for 
the  best  unproduced  and  unpublished  full 
length  poetic  play  written  by  an  Ameri- 
can citizen.  By  "full  length"  is  meant  a 
play  that  will  occupy  an  evening.  No 
restrictions  are  placed  upon  the  number 
of  acts  or  scenes,  or  on  the  nature  of  the 
subject  matter.  The  judges  of  the  con- 
test will  be  George  Arliss,  Professor 
George  Pierce  Baker,  of  Harvard,  Clay- 
ton Hamilton,  Jessie  B.  Rittenhouse,  and 
Stuart  Walker.  Manuscripts  should  be 
sent  by  registered  mail,  the  author's 
registry  receipt  to  be  considered  suffi- 
cient acknowledgment.  They  must  be 
submitted  in  typewritten  form,  fastened 
along  the  left  edge  of  the  page  in  one 
volume,  and  signed  with  a  pen  name. 
An  enclosed  sealed  envelope  should  be 
inscribed  with  the  title  of  the  play  and 
the  pen  name,  and  contain  a  card  with  the 
correct  name  and  address  of  the  author, 
as  well  as  the  title  of  the  play.  This 
sealed  envelope  should  also  contain  one 
self-addressed  bearing  the  full  amount 
of  return  postage,  including  registry. 
The  contest  closes  July  1,  1921,  and  the 
successful  play  will  be  announced  at  the 
October  meeting  of  the  Poetry  Society. 
Manuscripts  should  be  addressed  to  the 
Drama  Committee  of  the  Poetry  Society 
of  America,  care  of  Stuart  Walker, 
Chairman,  Carnegie  Hall,  New  York 
City. 

Mr.  Coulson  Kernahan's  "Swinburne 
As  I  Knew  Him"  (John  Lane)  is  more 
agreeable  than  most  books  of  its  class. 
It  is  more  organic;  it  is  less  fragmen- 
tary. The  trouble  with  books  of  reminis- 
cence is  that  memory  is  not  only  a  sieve, 
as  we  all  know  to  our  cost,  but  a  grater: 
it  loses  much,  and  what  it  keeps,  it  keeps 
in  a  granular — not  to  say  a  powdery 
— form.  It  is  the  peculiarity  of  Mr. 
Kernahan's  mind  that  his  recollections 
band  themselves  together,  that  they  ac- 
quire— in  the  measure  permitted  by  the 


form — body,  breadth,  and  contour.  His 
is  not  what  we  may  call  the  pincushion 
type  of  reminiscence — the  mealy,  life- 
less mass,  prettily  encased,  into  which 
anecdotes  are  thrust  like  pins. 

There  is  possibly  a  danger  for  Mr. 
Kernahan  in  this  very  superiority.  The 
fullness  and  balance  of  his  narrative  may 
excite  ungenerous  suspicion  even  in  those 
who  are  friends  to  generosity.  Truth 
is  so  constitutionally  slipshod  that,  when 
the  tie  of  her  cravat  or  her  shoestrings 
is  geometric  in  its  regularity,  it  is  hard 
not  to  suspect  that  she  has  engaged  a 
valet.  Here,  for  example,  in  Chapter  IV 
are  four  pages  of  fashioned  and  finished 
English, which  are  supposed  to  have  fallen 
in  their  perfection  from  Philip  Marston's 
extemporizing  lips  and  to  have  been  re- 
ceived and  recorded  in  this  intact  per- 
fection by  Mr.  Philip  Kernahan's  super- 
human memory.  Be  this  suspicion  true 
or  not,  Mr.  Kernahan  has  done  that  rare 
thing — written  reminiscences  which  the 
reader  can  recall.  The  style  is  good  for 
its  purpose — broad,  roomy,  outreaching 
with  a  certain  informal  dignity  which 
never  hardens  into  pomp.  There  are 
four  letters  of  Swinburne  to  his  cousin. 
Lady  Henniker  Heaton,  one  of  which  is 
an  affectionate  refusal  to  act  as  god- 
father to  his  cousin's  child  from  the 
hatred  of  a  ceremony  which  views  a 
little  angel  as  a  "child  of  wrath." 

In  the  early  part  of  1873,  M.  Vic- 
torien  Sardou  offered  to  the  Vaudeville 
Theatre  of  Paris  a  play  entitled  "Uncle 
Sam."  The  rehearsals  began,  but  the 
French  authorities  learned  that  the  piece 
contained  passages  which  would  offend 
the  American  colony.  So  the  manager 
was  informed  that  unless  he  got  the  ap- 
proval of  the  American  Legation  the  play 
could  not  be  given.  But  when  our  Min- 
ister at  Paris,  Elihu  B.  Washburne,  was 
applied  to  in  the  matter,  he  gave  the  very 
diplomatic  reply  that  "this  was  not  one 
of  his  functions."  Thereupon,  M.  Jules 
Simon,  Minister  of  Public  Instruction,  in 
whose  department  was  lodged  the  power 
of  censorship,  prohibited  the  production 
of  the  play  in  France. 

Then  that  very  enterprising  New  York 
manager,  Augustin  Daly,  decided  to  bring 
out  "Uncle  Sam"  in  the  United  States, 
and  early  in  March  the  city  dailies  con- 
tained this  advertisement: 

Grand  Opera  House,  corner  of  23rd  Street 
and  8th  Avenue,  Monday.  March  17th,  first 
time  on  any  stage  of  Sardou's  prohibited 
comedy  of  "Uncle  Sam,"  which  will  be  given 
with  extraordinary  realistic  scenery,  magnifi- 
cent appointments  and  with  a  cast  that  can  not 
be  excelled. 

And  on  March  18  William  Winter  had 
this  to  say  in  the  Tribune: 

The  public  knew  before  that  "Uncle  Sam" 
was  abusive ;  they  know  now  that  it  is  dull.  .  .  . 
A  piece  of  blackguardism  .  .  .  The  Grub  Street 
allegation  that  American  women  arc  unchaste 


May  29,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[577 


and  that  every  one  of  them  has  her  price, — this 
is  substantially  the  allegation  of  "Uncle  Sam" 
...  A  satire  on  American  society  as  might 
suit  the  mental  calibre  of  stable  boys.  ...  As 
a  whole,  "Uncle  Sam"  was  a  fizzle. 

Mr.  Winter's  final  statement  proved  to 
be  correct,  for  the  play  was  given  for 
the  last  time  on  April  13.  It  did  not 
hold  the  boards  a  month. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  present  year 
M.  Brieux,  also  of  the  French  Academy, 
tried  his  hand  at  putting  Americans  on 
the  stage,  and  "Les  Americains  chez 
nous"  was  not  only  not  censored  but  it  is 
still  appearing  at  the  Paris   Odeon. 

M.  Brieux  has  been  good  enough  to  send 
us  a  copy  of  his  play  and,  after  reading 
it,  we  can  well  understand  why  it  has 
not  met  the  fate  of  the  production  of  his 
fellow  academician.  After  the  part 
which  our  soldiers  took  in  saving  France 
on  French  soil,  and  with  over  60,000 
buried  in  French  cemeteries,  the  Sardou 
method  of  treating  us  was  of  course  im- 
possible. But  M.  Brieux  rises  above  all 
such  considerations;  the  dedication  shows 
what  is  in  his  heart: 

Cette  piece  est  dediee  aux  femmes  des  Etats- 
Unis  qui  se  pencherent  sur  nos  douleurs. 
Humble  et  respectueux  hommage  de  recon- 
naissance d'un  Frangais. 

M.  Brieux  takes  an  international  and 
psychological  view  of  the  question  and 
distributes  his  praise  and  criticism 
equally  between  both  countries.  His  play 
closes  with  two  international  marriages 
confined  to  Americans  and  French,  and 
where  both  sexes  are  impartially  treated, 
there  being  a  French  bride  and  a  French 
groom,  and  an  American  bride  and  an 
American  groom.  In  a  word,  just  as  M. 
Sardou's  comedy  tended  to  push  the  two 
nations  apart,  M.  Brieux's  drama  con- 
duces to  draw  them  more  closely  to- 
gether. 

Alexandre  Dumas  had  a  modest  col- 
laborator in  his  friend  Auguste  Maquet; 
though  Maquet  had  a  share  in  the  com- 
position of  Dumas's  most  popular  pro- 
ductions, he  did  not  insist  on  his  name 
being  coupled  with  that  of  Dumas  on 
the  title  page.  Only  the  plays  which  he 
drew  from  the  novels  were  proclaimed 
as  the  joint  work  of  the  two.  The  heirs 
of  Maquet,  however,  are  prouder  of  his 
authorship  than  he  was  himself.  They 
demand  the  publication  of  his  name  on 
the  title  page  of  "Le  Comte  de  Monte- 
Cristo"  and  other  novels,  and  among  the 
heirs  of  Dumas  there  are  said  to  be  some 
who  are  not  averse  to  this  official  recog- 
nition of  the  dead  partnership.  Maquet 
died  eighteen  years  after  Dumas.  The 
latter's  ccuvre  becomes  public  property 
in  1924.  By  rendering  to  Maquet  the 
honor  which  the  Maquetists  claim  as  his 
due,  the  Dumasists  retain  for  eighteen 
years  more  a  claim  to  part  of  the  roy- 
alties which,  otherwise,  they  will  cease 
to  draw  altogether.  "La  vie  chere"  will 
make  it  hard  for  them  to  choose  between 


their    ancestor's    fame    and    their    own 
purse. 

The  Venus  of  Milo,  whose  beauty 
launched  so  many  thousand  ships  from 
these  shores,  has  never  been  seen  by 
her  American  admirers  in  the  lighting 
that  could  reveal  her  full  glory.  A  head- 
line quotes  Mr.  Robert  Aitken  as  having 
said  that  the  "Venus  de  Milo  in  the 
Louvre  is  worst  placed  of  all."  We  could 
not  discover  the  superlative  in  his  speech 
as  it  was  printed.  If  he  did  use  it,  he 
did  injustice  to  the  famous  Ariadne  of 
Dannecker  in  Frankfurt,  which  has  the 
distinction  of  being  the  worst  exhibited 
statue  in  Europe.  She  is  made  to  revolve 
on  her  pedestal  while  a  rainbow  of  light 
is  thrown  on  her  marble  whiteness.  To 
change  the  repose  of  the  sculpture  into 
a  gaudy  movie  show  is  the  worst  in- 
dignity one  can  offer  to  the  artist's  crea- 
tion. 

Since  neither  the  Paris  Peace  Con- 
ference nor  the  Secretariat  of  the  League 
of  Nations  published  an  official  collec- 
tion of  documents  relating  to  the  birth 
of  the  League,  the  International  Inter- 
mediary Institute  at  The  Hague  has 
undertaken  to  do  this  unofficially.  The 
success  of  the  League  depends  on  the 
confidence  of  the  members  in  the  im- 
partiality of  its  working  and  in  the  re- 
liability of  the  Covenant  itself.  Mrs.  C. 
A.  Kluyver,  who  performed  the  task  of 
compiling  these  "Documents  on  the 
League  of  Nations"  (Leiden:  A.  W. 
Sijthoff's  Uitgeversmaatschappij),  has 
supplied  the  means  wherewith  the  real 
sense  of  the  provisions  of  the  Covenant 
and  of  their  bearing  on  future  possi- 
bilities of  the  League  may  be  better 
understood,  an  understanding  which  is 
the  necessary  basis  for  the  mutual  confi- 
dence of  all  its  participants.  Mr.  C.  van 
Vollenhoven,  of  Leiden  University,  has 
written  a  preface  to  the  volume  in  which 
he  summarizes  the  chief  uncertainties 
and  ambiguities  proffered  by  the  twenty- 
six  articles  of  the  Covenant.  The  mate- 
rial published  by  Mrs.  Kluyver  does  not 
throw  much  light  on  these.  They  will 
have  to  be  cleared,  not  by  the  statements 
of  diplomats  and  politicians,  but  by  the 
practice  of  future  days.  In  the  collec- 
tion are  not  included  any  documents  re- 
lating to  Part  XIII  of  the  Peace  Treaty, 
which  deals  with  the  problem  of  Labor, 
nor  does  it  contain  any  material  reflect- 
ing the  growth  and  gradual  development 
during  the  war  of  the  conception  of  such 
a  League.  Otherwise  the  material  con- 
tained in  this  volume  provides  a  compre- 
hensive and  impartial  survey  of  the 
various  contributions  from  all  parts  of 
the  globe  towards  the  establishment  of 
the  League. 

"Ships  Across  the  Sea,"  by  Ralph  D. 
Paine  (Houghton  Mifflin),  deals  with 
both  the  regular  and  the  "trick"  navy. 


Adventure  is  the  ruling  note — quest  of 
subs  and  quest  of  spies,  but  Mr.  Paine 
hits  off  well  the  odd  mixes  that  the  war 
brought  about  in  fo'c's'l  and  ward  room. 
These  are  tall  tales  and  of  a  high  sea- 
going quality,  yet  they  keep  close  enough 
to  the  facts  of  the  armed  guard,  the  fly- 
ing boat  service,  and  the  interminable 
chase  of  the  destroyers.  From  a  literary 
point  of  view  "punch"  is  more  in  evi- 
dence than  finish  or  fine  shades  of  any 
sort.  Perhaps  a  yarn  shouldn't  be  very 
literary.  These  are  good  yarns,  with  a 
sufficient  backing  of  experience  and  fact. 

Dramatic    Art    in 
Holland 

DRAMATIC  art  is  in  less  esteem  in 
Holland  than  poetry  and  music.  The 
strong  Calvinistic  element  in  the  nation 
accounts  for  the  difference.  To  the 
puritanic  followers  of  Dr.  Abraham 
Kuyper  the  theatre  is  an  invention  of 
Satan,  which  one  had  better  not  mention 
at  all.  The  history  of  the  Dutch  stage 
during  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth 
centuries  is  a  long  concatenation  of 
wrangles  between  its  upholders  and 
the  zealous  orthodox  "dominees,"  who 
always  tried  to  persuade  the  municipal 
authorities  to  suppress  this  suggestive 
and  influential  form  of  art.  The  result 
was  that  at  the  beginning  of  the  last 
century  the  drama  as  an  artistic  mode 
of  expression  was  practically  non-exist- 
ent in  Holland. 

Another  cause,  whose  working,  it  is 
true,  is  not  confined  to  Holland,  joined 
with  this  puritanic  prejudice  to  keep 
the  stage  in  disrepute:  the  difficulty  of 
distinguishing  between  real  art  and  its 
counterfeit,  which  in  the  dramatic  field 
is  infinitely  greater  than  in  music, 
poetry,  and  painting.  The  public,  though 
it  may  buy  gaudy  oleographs  and  the 
lastest  music-hall  song,  is  not  unconscious 
of  the  fact  that  all  these  productions 
have  little  to  do  with  art.  But  in  its 
appreciation  of  the  drama  it  does  not 
make  such  a  distinction.  It  would  find 
it  difficult  to  imagine  that  Mengelberg, 
the  great  conductor  of  the  Amsterdam 
orchestra,  should  include  jazz  music  and 
ragtimes  in  his  repertoire  of  classical 
compositions,  but  that  same  public  sees 
nothing  astonishing  in  the  alternating 
production  by  one  and  the  same  company 
of  Shakespearean  drama  and  the  lowest 
German  farce. 

The  true  lovers  of  the  drama,  however, 
did  not  despair.  They  remembered  how, 
about  1890,  Dutch  music  was  at  almost 
as  low  an  ebb,  and  that,  thanks  to  the 
initiative  of  a  few  wealthy  and  enter- 
prising Amsterdammers,  Willem  Kes, 
and  after  him  Willem  Mengelberg,  were 
enabled  to  build  up  a  purely  artistic 
orchestra,  whose  fame  has  spread  far  be- 


578] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  55 


yond  the  Dutch  frontiers.  Mengelberg's 
genius  and  enthusiasm  raised  the  stand- 
ard of  musical  performance  all  over  the 
country;  and  the  lovers  of  the  drama 
thought  that,  in  the  same  way,  the  stage 
could  be  brought  to  mend  its  ways. 

The  task  which  they  undertook,  how- 
ever, was  infinitely  more  difficult,  as  they 
could  rely  on  the  support  of  only  a  small 
part  of  the  nation:  The  Calvinists  kept 
aloof,  and  the  Roman  Catholics  would  only 
hesitatingly  lend  their  aid  under  strict 
reservations  and  conditions.  But  in  spite 
of  these  drawbacks,  the  stage  has  been 
brought  nearer  to  the  ideal.  September 
1,  1908,  will  be  remembered  as  a  red- 
letter  day  in  the  records  of  the  Dutch 
theatre:  on  that  date  the  Netherland  So- 
ciety, Het  Tooneel  (The  Stage),  gave  its 
opening  performance  under  the  direc- 
tion of  Willem  Royaards,  the  man  who 
did  for  dramatic  art  what  Kes  and  Men- 
gelberg  had  achieved  in  music.  Some 
good  pioneer  work  had,  indeed,  been  done 
by  a  few  predecessors,  but  none  possessed 
his  unfailing  instinct  for  true  literary 
value  and  his  insight  in  the  secrets  of 
an  all-controlling  stage  management. 
Descending  from  an  old,  patrician  fam- 
ily, he  brought  his  native  distinction  into 
both  the  scenery  and  the  action  of  his 
plays,  which  won  him  the  interest  and 
the  support  of  aristocratic  circles  where, 
until  then,  all  theatrical  enterprise,  un- 
less it  came  from  Paris,  had  been 
ignored. 

From  other  quarters  Royaards  re- 
ceived encouragement  when  he  began  to 
revive  the  seventeenth  century  drama  of 
Joost  van  den  Vondel,  Holland's  great- 
est poetic  genius,  of  whose  "Lucifer"  Mr. 
Leonard  van  Noppen  produced  an  excel- 
lent English  translation  some  years  ago. 
Patriotic  feeling  was  gratified  by  this 
demonstration  of  the  high  artistic  value 
of  these  early  dramas,  and  saw  in  their 
revival  a  national  movement  worthy  of 
financial  and  moral  support,  and  the 
Catholics  especially,  who  love  to  call  the 
poet  theirs  because  of  his  conversion, 
late  in  life,  to  the  Mother  Church,  re- 
garded Royaards'  Vondel  performances 
as  an  honor  to  themselves  and  flocked  to 
the  theatre  to  attend  them. 

In  this  way  Royaards  succeeded  in 
transforming  the  theatre  from  a  place  of 
mere  amusement  into  a  temple  of  art,  an 
achievement  which,  last  year,  was  duly, 
though  not  very  appropriately,  recog- 
nized by  the  conferring,  honoris  causa, 
of  the  degree  of  doctor  of  Dutch  Phil- 
ology, by  the  University  of  Utrecht. 

The  Government,  shortly  after  this 
academic  recognition  of  the  nation's  in- 
debtedness to  the  stage  manager,  gave 
evidence  of  an  incipient  interest  in  the 
stage :  The  Minister  of  Education,  Art, 
and  Sciences  instituted  a  commission  to 
advise  him  on  the  question  of  subsidiz- 
ing dramatic  art.  This  official  admission 
of  the  importance  of  the  stage  as  a  na- 


tional institution  was  highly  gratifying 
to  all  who  take  •  its  welfare  to  heart. 
Their  satisfaction,  however,  was  greatly 
diminished  by  the  report  which  this 
commission  submitted  to  the  Minister. 
Those  members  who  belonged  to  the 
Right,  the  Clerical  block  which  does  not 
care  for  the  theatre  or  is  even  hostile 
to  it,  carried  in  the  committee  meetings 
a  complete  victory  over  their  politically 
less  experienced  colleagues  of  the  Left 
by  making  their  standpoint  prevail  that 
the  grant  of  a  subsidy  should  be  made 
conditional  on  requirements  of  a  re- 
ligious, political,  and  moral  nature.  If 
the  Minister  accepts  the  advice,  which  is 
but  all  too  probable,  the  Government  be- 
ing a  Clerical  one,  there  is  great  danger 
of  the  subsidy  being  refused  to  a  com- 
pany because  of  the  occurrence,  in  one 
single  play,  of  a  statement  which  is 
aimed  at  the  established  form  of  gov- 
ernment, or  which  might  be  deemed  to 
hurt  the  political  or  moral  feelings  of 
certain  people.  Every  year,  during  the 
debate  on  the  budget,  the  Calvinist  mem- 
bers of  the  Chamber  will  not  fail  to  bring 
their  pressure  upon  the  Minister  to  re- 
trench the  subsidies  on  account  of  all 
sorts  of  complaints,  and  though  there 
may  be  some  among  them  of  a  more  lib- 
eral disposition,  party  discipline  will  pre- 
vent them  from  voting  against  the  anti- 
stage  majority  of  the  Clerical  block. 

The  decision  of  the  committee  does 
not,  it  is  true,  establish  a  censorship  of 
the  stage.  The  companies  which  forfeit 
the  subsidy  retain  perfect  freedom  to 
produce  the  incriminated  play,  although 
the  burgomasters,  who  have  the  power 
of  prohibition,  will  feel  encouraged  by 
this  evidence  of  Governmental  displeas- 
ure to  make  use  of  that  power  with  less 
scruple  than  formerly,  especially  when 
plays  are  performed  that  clash  with 
their  own  political  convictions.  But  the 
loss  of  the  subsidy  will  make  it  hard  for 
such  companies  to  keep  up  the  competi- 
tion with  their  officially  approved  of 
rivals. 

The  advisory  commission  would  have 
placed  itself  on  higher  ground  if  it  had 
declared  the  artistic  value  of  a  play  to 
be  the  only  reliable  test.  Pure  art  is  in- 
compatible with  what  is  ugly  from  a 
moral  or  a  religious  point  of  view.  And 
if  it  had  adopted  the  principle  of  sub- 
sidizing only  such  companies  as  produce, 
exclusively,  artistically  important  drama, 
this  unique  opportunity  of  enhancing 
the  assthetic  and  social  prestige  of  the 
stage  would  have  been  made  the  most 
of.  Instead,  conditions  have  been  cre- 
ated for  a  new  political  conflict  over  the 
theatre,  as  bitter  and  barren  of  result  as 
the  recently  ended  conflict  over  the  free 
school,  which  has  vitiated  domestic  poli- 
tics in  Holland  for  the  past  two  dec- 
ades. 

J.  L.  Walch 

The  Hague 


Books  and  the  News 

Motor  Trips 

THE  blue  book  is  the  most  practical 
book  to  take  with  you  on  a  motor 
trip,  and  it  is  the  only  one  you  will  take, 
unless  you  are  unusually  fond  of  read- 
ing. But  in  the  early  days  of  summer, 
before  you  have  decided  on  your  route, 
or  while  you  still  wish  to  refresh  your 
memory  of  some  place  which  you  intend 
to  visit,  it  is  possible  to  get  information 
and  enjoyment  from  books  which  other 
explorers — in  motors  and  on  foot — have 
written  of  their  trips.  These  books  cover 
all  parts  of  the  country. 

Sarah  Comstock's  "Old  Roads  from  the 
Heart  of  New  York"  (Putnam,  1915) 
and  John  T.  Faris's  "Old  Roads  Out  of 
Philadelphia"  (Lippincott,  1917)  start 
the  city  dweller  on  short  trips.  To  go 
farther,  and  into  New  England,  there  is 
Louise  Closser  Hale's  motor-trip:  "We 
Discover  New  England"  (Dodd,  1915), 
"The  Lightning  Conductor  Discovers 
America,"  by  C.  N.  and  A.  M.  William- 
son (Doubleday,  1916),  and  Katharine 
M.  Abbott's  "Old  Paths  and  Legends  of 
New'  England"  (Putnam,  1904).  The 
same  author  describes  the  nearer 
regions  of  New  England,  chiefly  Connec- 
ticut, in  "Old  Paths  and  Legends  of  the 
New  England  Border"  (Putnam,  1907). 
Edwin  M.  Bacon  is  the  writer  of  two 
books:  "Literary  Pilgrimages  in  New 
England"  (Silver,  1902)  and  "Rambles 
Around  Old  Boston"  (Little,  1914).  One 
of  Mary  C.  Crawford's  interesting  books 
is  "Little  Pilgrimages  Among  Old  New 
England  Inns"  (Page,  1907),  while 
Walter  Emerson's  "The  Latchstring  to 
Maine  Woods  and  Waters"  (Houghton, 
1916)  is  readable  and  pleasing.  Two  of 
the  older  writers  may  be  represented  by 
Thoreau's  "Cape  Cod"  (Houghton)  and 
Celia  Thaxter's  "Among  the  Isles  of 
Shoals"  (Houghton,  1873),  although  I 
forget  whether  motorists — as  such — go 
any  nearer  to  the  Shoals  than  the  road 
through  the  Hamptons. 

David  M.  Steele's  "Vacation  Journeys 
East  and  West"  (Putnam,  1918)  is 
mostly  about  the  mountains  and  seaside 
of  New  England  and  New  York,  but 
there  are  chapters  on  the  far  West. 
"Chauffeur's"  (A.  J.  Eddy's)  "Two 
Thousand  Miles  in  an  Automobile"  (Lip- 
pincott, 1902)  is  about  New  York,  New 
England,  and  Canada.  One  of  Mr.  Clif- 
ton Johnson's  admirable  volumes,  "High- 
ways and  Byways  from  the  St.  Lawrence 
to  Virginia"  (Macmillan,  1913),  de- 
scribes, as  in  his  other  books,  rural  life  i 
and  wayside  conversation.  Pennsylvania 
and  Maryland  are  also  included  in  "We 
Discover  the  Old  Dominion"  (Dodd, 
1916),  by  Louise  Closser  Hale.  New  i 
York,  New  England,  and  the  South  fur- 
nish    chapters    for    Walter    Pritchard ' 


I 


May  29,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[579 


Eaton's  "Barn  Doors  and  Byways" 
(Small,  1913),  perhaps  the  most  charm- 
ing of  them  all.  S.  D.  Kirkham's  "East 
and  West"  (Putnam,  1911),  speaks  of 
Cape  Ann  and  Long  Island,  and  also  of 
Arizona  and  the  far  West.  Another  com- 
prehensive book,  with  line  pictures,  is 
Robert  H.  Schauffler's  "Romantic  Amer- 
ica" (Century,  1913).  Julian  Street  goes 
West  in  "Abroad  at  Home"  (Century, 
1914)  and  South  in  "American  Adven- 
tures"  (Century,  1917). 


For  the  South,  Margaret  W.  Morley's 
"The  Carolina  Mountains"  (Houghton, 
1913)  and  Mildred  Cram's  "Old  Seaport 
Towns  of  the  South"  (Dodd,  1917).  A 
houseboat,  not  a  motor  trip,  from  Chi- 
cago to  New  Orleans,  is  in  John  L. 
Matthews's  "The  Log  of  the  'Easy  Way'  " 
(Small,  1911).  For  the  West:  Agnes 
Laut's  "Through  Our  Unknown  South- 
west (McBride,  1913),  Enos  A.  Mills's 
"The  Rocky  Mountain  Wonderland" 
(Houghton,    1915),    and    John    Muir's 


"The  Yosemite"  (Century,  1912).  Three 
more  general  books  are  H.  G.  Rhodes's 
"In  Vacation  America"  (Harper,  1915), 
John  T.  Faris's  "Historic  Shrines  of 
America"  (Doran,  1918),  and  Clifton 
Johnson's  "What  to  See  in  America" 
(Macmillan,  1919),  which  has  a  chapter 
for  every  State  in  the  Union.  Emily 
Posts's  "By  Motor  to  the  Golden  Gate" 
(Appleton,  1916)  is  an  account  of  a  trip 
from  New  York  to  San  Francisco. 

Edmund  Lester  Pearson 


EDUCATIONAL  SECTION 


WE  remember  reading,  a  few  years 
ago,  an  indictment  of  democratic 
education  in  Denmark,  "Lighedens 
Land,"  the  land  of  equality.  The  writer. 
Dr.  E.  Lehman,  raised  a  warning  voice 
against  the  levelling  tendencies  of  the 
modern  educational  system.  Denmark, 
he  complained,  has  now  grammar  schools 
without  Latin  and  people's  schools  with 
a  smattering  of  languages  and  mathe- 
matics. For  to  level  means  to  lower  the 
standard  of  the  eminent  few  to  the  scale 
of  the  many.  The  greatest  possible  num- 
ber of  students  is  made  happy  with  the 
smallest  possible  education.  But  a  na- 
tion's worth  should  be  gauged  by  the 
height  of  its  greatest  men,  rather  than 
by  the  average  height  of  the  masses.  Our 
sentimental  nursing  of  the  average  has 
made  the  nation  like  to  a  dense  under- 
wood choking  the  noble  stems  that  try 
to  shoot  upward  in  their  growth.  Dr. 
Lehman  based  on  these  facts  a  sweep- 
ing condemnation  of  the  democratic  sys- 
tem. 

Professor  Irving  Babbitt,  writing  in 
the  English  Journal  of  February  on 
"English  and  the  Discipline  of  Ideas," 
does  not  blame  democracy  for  the  same 
faults  which  he  deplores  in  the  educa- 
tional system  of  this  country.  "True 
democracy,"  he  claims,  "consists  not  in 
lowering  the  standard  but  in  giving 
everybody,  so  far  as  possible,  a  chance 
of  measuring  up  to  the  standard."  The 
case,  therefore,  is  not  one  between 
democracy  and  aristocracy,  but  between 
true  and  false  democracy.  It  is  not 
democracy  that  is  at  fault,  but  the  faults 
of  that  democracy  which  is  now  blatant. 
Democracy  stands  or  falls  with  its  true 
or  false  conception  of  liberty,  and  ours 
preaches  one  that  is  "purely  centrifugal, 
that  would  get  rid  of  all  outer  control 
and  then  evade  or  deny  openly  the  need 
of  achieving  inner  control."  "Those  who 
stand  for  this  conception  of  liberty  call 
themselves  idealists;  they  not  only  spurn 
the  past  but  barely  tolerate  the  present; 
the  true  home  of  their  spirit  is  that 
vast,  windy  abode,  the  future."  Educa- 
tion entrusted  to  teachers  of  this  bent  of 
mind  fails  to  build  up  background  in  the 
students.    The  contact  with  the  past  will 


be  lost,  unless  a  reaction  sets  in  "to  pre- 
serve in  a  positive  and  critical  form  the 
soul  of  truth  in  the  two  great  traditions, 
classical  and  Christian,  that  are  crum- 
bling as  mere  dogma.  To  study  English 
literature  with  reference  to  its  intellec- 


tual content  will  do  more  than  anything 
to  make  it  a  serious  cultural  discipline. 
Teachers  of  English  have  a  choice  to 
make  between  a  humanistic  conception 
of  their  subject  and  the  current  natural- 
istic and  humanitarian  conceptions." 


The  Beginning  of  Education 


ALL  sentimental  journeys,  however 
different  the  fields  they  traverse,  end 
alike.  Intoxication  is  their  common 
origin.  A  fancied  summum  bonum  is 
their  common  aim.  Their  common 
destiny  is  to  arrive,  if  anywhere,  at  self- 
pity,  confusion,  despair,  and  unavailing 
sorrow.  There  is  the  sentimental  jour- 
ney amatorious,  with  which,  perhaps,  we 
are  most  familiar,  since  it  has  been  elab- 
orated in  fiction  ad  infinitum  if  not  ad 
nauseam.  This  is  the  sweetest  variety, 
being  generally  incomplete,  poised  in  a 
pink  dawn  of  surrender  before  realiza- 
tion. But  there  is  also  the  sentimental 
journey  revolutionary  with  several  varia- 
tions. There  is  the  Rousseau  sort,  mis- 
ery intoxicate  but  still  in  love  with  itself. 
There  is  the  Wordsworthian  sort  of  the 
Waterloo  period,  stubbornly  shutting  its 
eyes  and  turning  respectable.  There  is 
the  portentous  Byronic  sort  of  the 
Regency,  strutting,  glooming,  scoffing, 
complete  bud,  flower,  and  fruit.  "Get 
very  drunk,"  says  Byron, 

Get  very  drunk,  and  when 
You  wake  with  headache,  you  shall  see  what 
then. 

But  among  all  the  nuances  of  intoxica- 
tion none  is  more  alluring  than  that 
which  meanders  after  the  heavenly  maid 
education,  and  among  all  the  sentimental 
journeys  after  education  none  latterly 
has  been  more  piquant  than  that  which 
moves  with  all  the  Bostonian  elegance  of 
Henry  Adams. 

Whatever  the  lengths  to  which  the  sen- 
timental journey  is  made  to  go,  the  es- 
sential characteristics  of  the  sentimental 
soul  remain  the  same.  It  is  forever  like 
a  child  running  down  hill.  A  mysteri- 
ous power  lends  it  wings,  and  then  when 
its  head  gets  to  going  faster  than  its 
feet,  trips  its  heels,  and  bumps  its  nose 


in  the  dirt.  The  child  picks  itself  up, 
so  hurt,  so  balked  by  the  mystery  of  its 
flight  and  fall  that  it  weeps  and  could 
die  for  vexation  and  shame,  but  con- 
tinuing incorrigibly  to  live,  endures  by 
laughing  angrily  and  bitterly  at  itself, 
and  at  the  universe. 

Superficially,  of  course,  there  are  many 
differences  between  the  sentimental 
Byron  and  the  sentimental  Henry 
Adams,  but  in  the  case  of  each  the  truth 
that  hovered  about  him  without  ever 
alighting  turned  what  was  once  romantic 
to  burlesque.  Byron  had  imbibed  with 
the  children  of  his  generation  the  notion 
that  happiness  consisted  in  doing  what 
you  liked.  Nature  having  saved  you  the 
trouble  of  deciding  what  that  might  be, 
and  that  freedom  or  the  habit  of  emo- 
tional abandon  was  the  certain  means  to 
happiness.  Adams  had  inherited  the 
notion  that  personal  satisfaction  was  to 
be  found  in  personal  control  over  the  cur- 
rent of  human  affairs,  the  direction  of 
the  flow  being  called  progress,  and  de- 
termined, it  would  seem,  by  the  direc- 
tion in  which  you  happened  yourself  to 
be  going.  The  means  of  securing  such 
control  was  education  or  the  acquisition 
of  knowledge.  Now  social  circumstances 
gave  to  each  man  singularly  ample  op- 
portunity for  testing  his  particular  open 
sesame  with  the  result  that  each  found 
himself  impaled  upon  a  dilemma  from 
which  he  could  not  escape.  The  more 
Byron  did  what  he  liked  the  less  other 
people  liked  what  he  did;  the  less  other 
people  liked  what  he  did  the  less  he 
could  do  as  he  liked  or  the  less  he  liked 
it  when  he  had  done  it,  the  less  certain, 
in  other  words,  of  freedom  as  an  in- 
fallible means  to  happiness.  As  for 
Adams,  the  search  for  knowledge  led  him 
to    similar    confusion.      The    more    he 


580] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  55 


learned  the  less  he  discovered  himself  to 
know,  the  more  he  found  to  be  still  un- 
known, and  the  less  certain  he  became 
that  what  he  knew  or  could  know  was  of 
any  use  for  the  control  of  progress,  the 
less  certain  that  progress  could  be  con- 
trolled or  indeed  existed  at  all.  What 
both  Byron  and  Henry  Adams  thus  dis- 
covered was  not  new  and  need  not  have 
been  discouraging,  but  it  led  neither  of 
them  to  happiness  nor  to  power  but  only 
to  a  mixture  of  disconsolate  moods. 
Adams,  for  instance,  had  his  moments 
of  mysticism  when,  like  Byron,  he  could 
drop  an  Ave  Mary  after  and  before,  had 
too  big  lapses  into  the  old  yearning  when 
he  could  play  with  the  illusion  that  some 
unattained  knowledge  such  as  French  or 
mathematics  might  have  given  him  what 
he  had  missed.  Mostly,  however,  he 
despaired,  and  when  not  mourning, 
laughed  the  sardonic  laughter  of  a  dis- 
illusion which  he  took  pains  to  make  at- 
tractive in  the  perfect  idiom  of  the  best 
New  England  culture  touched  with  the 
acridity  of  an  Adams. 

Such  was  the  only  lesson  which  this 
sentimental  pilgrim  learned  in  his  quest 
for  education.  His  experience  was  not 
unique;  indeed,  his  book's  best  claim  to 
permanence  in  literature  is  probably  due 
to  the  faithfulness  with  which  it  repre- 
sents the  experience  of  many  men,  his 
countrymen  not  least  of  all,  with  that 
enterprise  of  which  they  have  made  so 
much  and  by  which  they  have  learned  so 
little.  At  least  two  matters  at  the  pres- 
ent moment  give  striking  evidence  of 
this  faithfulness.  On  the  one  hand,  in 
order  to  persuade  the  American  public 
to  pay  more  adequately  for  such  educa- 
tion as  it  receives  from  professors,  many 
of  us  find  it  necessary  to  keep  up  the 
delusion  that  education,  whatever  at  the 
time  being  we  may  call  by  that  name,  is 
the  universal  solvent  for  all  the  several 
and  particular  ills  from  which  the  pub- 
lic in  its  various  parts  may  suppose  the 
body  politic  to  be  suffering.  On  the 
other  hand,  professors,  instead  of  shar- 
ing that  delusion,  are  in  many  cases  leav- 
ing or  wishing  to  leave  their  profession 
in  order  to  escape,  poverty  perhaps,  but 
more  often  the  sense  of  failure  and  be- 
wildered doubt  which  our  romantic  hopes 
of  education  necessarily  entail.  Thus 
even  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  itself  no  in- 
considerable part  of  our  educational  sys- 
tem, has  just  published  to  all  the  world 
the  confession  of  a  professor  who  fears 
that  he  is  not  as  important  sitting  in  an 
academic  chair  as  he  might  be  if  en- 
gaged in  some  more  dramatic  form  of 
human  vanity. 

Now  the  experience  of  Henry  Adams 
as  professor  is  in  this  connection  par- 
ticularly illuminating.  When  he  began 
teaching.  Harvard  had  for  some  time 
ceased  operating  upon  the  simple  prin- 
ciple that  religious  salvation  was  the 
purpose  of  higher  learning,  but  was  by 


no  means  certain  as  to  what  should  take 
salvation's  place.  Culture  might  be  the 
proper  substitute,  but  possibly  culture 
amounted  to  little  more  than  a  slight 
spreading  out  of  the  provincial  dilettant- 
ism which  may  indeed  be  the  best  culture 
we  can  even  yet  attain.  Culture,  more- 
over, was  at  an  early  point  unsettled  by 
the  intrusion  of  science  purporting  to 
be  the  unfailing  Midas  touch  that  was  to 
turn  all  thought  to  truth.  Apostles  of 
science  would  at  any  time  have  admitted, 
to  be  sure,  that  we  might  feel  strange  to 
be  without  culture  or,  for  that  matter, 
religion  as  well,  but  science  and  hence 
education  in  science  were  what  chiefly 
mattered  if  the  world  was  to  progress — 
progress,  and  here  we  are  in  an  age  of 
iron,  coal,  and  petrol,  of  slums,  famine, 
and  pestilence,  of  self-determination  and 
mutual  extermination,  from  all  of  which, 
of  course,  a  good  education  is  at  last  to 
deliver  us.  Such  being  the  current  of 
ideas  in  the  colleges,  Henry  Adams  was 
supposed  to  teach  at  Harvard  something 
called  the  science  of  history,  and  when 
we  consider  what  his  own  education  had 
been,  we  need  not  wonder  that  Harvard 
gave  him  a  particularly  acute  fit  of  pessi- 
mism. Not  that  Harvard  was  particu- 
larly at  fault,  but  Adams,  though  he  con- 
fesses after  the  fact  to  many  misgivings, 
probably  began  like  most  professors  of 
our  time  by  wishing  at  the  bottom  of  his 
heart  to  think  of  himself  as  a  kind  of 
hierophant  inducing  contact  between  the 
mind  of  youth  and  the  prime  motor  of 
the  universe.  What  he  experienced  in- 
stead every  honest  professor  not  alto- 
gether new  to  his  job  knows  but  too  well : 
vague,  preoccupied  youths ;  faculty  meet- 
ings often  dropping  to  the  nadir  of  futil- 
ity; an  increasing  sense  of  his  own 
ignorance,  a  haunting  fear  that  he  was 
himself,  if  not  a  dry-as-dust,  then  a  do- 
nothing  in  a  world  where  there  was  much 
doing,  that  science  and  progress  and 
education  were  probably  nothing  but  a 
wild-goose  chase. 

What  can  a  professor  say  in  his  own 
soul  to  defeat  such  moods  as  these,  for 
from  such  moods  no  teacher  altogether 
escapes?  What,  now  that  the  public  is 
endowing  him,  with  a  higher  salary,  can 
he  do  to  endow  himself  with  greater 
faith  ?  Well,  it  seems  to  me  that  he  may 
begin  by  admitting  without  necessarily 
believing  all  that  the  Henry  Adamses  as- 
sert, and  then  without  straining  a  single 
point  of  logic  say  something  like  this: 
Despair  is  not  the  end  of  education  or  of 
the  business  of  being  a  professor  or  of 
the  hope  of  human  progress.  Despair  is 
nothing  but  the  end  of  a  sentimental 
journey,  and  at  the  end  of  a  sentimental 
journey  education  and  progress,  if  ever, 
begin.  Suppose  that  Adams  had  learned 
to  build  the  steam  engine  he  so  much  re- 
gretted his  inability  to  make.  He  would 
have  learned  chiefly  how  poor  a  thing 
it  was,  how  little  he  knew  about  engines. 


how  little  it  availed  to  build  them,  and 
how  little  of  anything  else  he  had  learned 
in  the  process.  Thus  might  it  have  been 
if  he  had  learned  to  build  anything  else 
under  the  sun — one  hundred  per  cent. 
Americans,  for  instance,  or  any  of  the 
myriad  other  things  that  educators  are 
from  time  to  time  exhorted  to  make  out 
of  children.  "But,"  says  the  author  of 
one  of  the  few  wise  books  in  the  world 
on  education,  "methinks  I  hear  the  phil- 
osophers saying  'tis  a  miserable  thing 
for  a  man  to  be  foolish,  to  err,  to  mis- 
take, and  to  know  nothing  truly.  Nay 
rather,  this  is  to  be  a  man."  In  other 
words,  human  knowledge  consists  pri- 
marily in  the  discovery  of  human  igno- 
rance and  weakness,  and  unless  we  can 
make  that  discovery  with  equanimity  we 
can  not  begin  education.  For  education, 
though  it  may  not  be  a  cure,  is  never- 
theless a  risk  like  any  other  enterprise, 
a  risk  of  our  lives,  our  dreams,  our  con- 
victions, and  all  our  goods.  It  may,  on 
the  other  hand,  be  a  cure  as  well  as  a 
risk,  but  whether  it  be  so,  whether  we 
can  learn  what  we  need  to  know  in  order 
truly  to  progress,  this  we  can  not  know 
except  by  trying,  and  may  never  know 
even  thus  until  all  trying  is  at  an  end. 
One  thing,  however,  and  perhaps  one 
thing  only  we  can  assert  with  some  con- 
fidence, and  that  is  that  despite  despair 
we  do  as  a  matter  of  fact  try  and  are 
not  satisfied  without  trying.  To  try,  and 
then  to  whine  or  to  scoff  at  the  little  we 
have  gained,  the  much  lost,  to  complain 
because  we  can  not  eat  our  cake  and 
have  it,  too,  is  to  be  a  sentimental  child. 
To  try,  accepting  the  risk,  is  to  begin 
one's  education.  To  try  willingly  is  to  be 
free;  to  try  cheerfully  is  to  be  happy. 
Admit  the  worst,  that  it  is  all  a  gamble 
whether  with  all  our  trying  we  can  ever 
know  anything  truly,  and  we  must  admit, 
too,  that  this  gamble  is  as  good  as  any 
other  a  man  may  stake  his  life  upon,  that 
one  may  as  well  risk  his  life  on  being 
a  professor  or  on  getting  education  as 
on  being  a  maker  of  steam  engines  or  of 
war  or  of  money  or  of  what  you  will, 
even  though  playing  the  one  game  rather 
than  any  of  the  others  convict  one  of  the 
kind  of  folly  which  Erasmus  praises. 
"For  there  are  two  obstacles  to  the 
knowledge  of  things.  Modesty  that  casts 
a  mist  before  the  understanding,  and 
Fear  that,  having  fanci'd  a  danger,  dis- 
swades  us  from  the  attempt.  But  from 
these  Folly  sufficiently  frees  us,  and  few 
there  are  that  rightly  understand  of 
what  great  advantage  it  is  to  blush  at 
nothing  and  attempt  everything." 

William  Haller 

THE  question  of  teachers'  salaries  has 
now  received  considerable  attention, 
even  if  the  obvious  steps  have  not  always 
been  taken.  Among  the  many  charts  and 
tables  in  Dr.  Evenden's  thorough  report 
(Continued  on  page  582) 


May  29,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[581 


H0Mi&Rt^^ 


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Dependable  Po* 


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The  largest  wireless  station 
in  the  world,  situated  at 
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with  a  300  K.W.  Crocker- 
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The  C-W  Company  manu- 
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stations,  aeroplanes,  dirigi- 
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a  wide  variety  of  special 
purposes. 


PresidenI 


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New  York 

Boston 

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Guy   Emerson,    Vice-President,    Na- 
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"The  steady  growth  of  the  Rcviezv 
during  the  past  year  has  been  a  fact 
of  distinct  importance  to  the  intel- 
lectual life  of  America.  Liberal 
thinking  has  not  had  its  proper 
medium  of  expression.  Radical 
propaganda  has  been  accorded  more 
than  adequate  treatment.  The  Re- 
viezv  is  doing  much  to  make  the 
balance  true.  Its  success  must  be  on 
its  merits,  but  beyond  the  increasing 
literary  merit  and  readability  of  the 
paper,  there  is  a  vital  consideration 
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should  be  interested,  namely,  the  vig- 
orous and  at  the  same  time  orderly 
progress  of  American  democracy." 


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Please  mention  The  Review  in  writing  to  advertisers. 


582] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  Xo.  55 


(Continued  from  page  580) 
(Commission  Series,  No.  6,  N.  E.  A., 
1919)  none  is  more  convincing  than  that 
which  shows,  p.  110,  that  in  five  populous 
States  even  high-school  teachers  receive 
less  average  pay  than  machinists,  lathers, 
bricklayers,  inside  wiremen,  workers  in 
structural  iron,  blacksmiths,  machine 
tenders  (printing),  compositors,  glaziers, 
plumbers,  carpenters,  hod-carriers,  and 
bakers.  It  is  an  imposing  list — from  the 
point  of  view  of  the  underpaid  working- 
man!  It  is  in  fact  an  arraignment  of 
our  national  judgment  of  what  is  worth 
paying  for,  when  on  close  examination 
it  reveals  that  the  average  for  all  these 
workers  is  more  than  double  the  average 
salary  for  teachers  of  the  United  States. 
It  is  no  longer  worth  saying  gently  that, 
in  all  fairness  to  the  teachers  and  our 
self-respect,  salaries  should  be  raised. 
The  case  is  one  of  dire  necessity ;  some- 
thing must  be  done  at  once  if  our  chil- 
dren are  to  find  any  teachers  behind 
the  desks.  For  who  would  fardels  bear, 
who  would  grunt  and  sweat  under  a 
weary  life  of  class-room  toil  when  he 
could  carry  bricks  for  twice  the  pay! 

AMONG  all  the  pleas  for  increased  pay 
of  teachers  one  rarely  hears  a  call 
for  a  few  much  larger  salaries  at  the 
very  top.  Those  pay-rolls  which  we  are 
constantly  told  should  be  increased  from 
fifty  to  eighty  per  cent.,  in  some  instances 
from  eighty  to  over  one  hundred  per 
cent.,  are  nearly  always  at  the  bottom  of 
the  scale.  Teachers  in  the  middle  dis- 
tance may  be  happy  if  their  salaries  are 
advanced  thirty  to  forty  per  cent.,  while 
those  at  the  top  are  to  be  contented  with 
a  ten  to  thirty  per  cent,  increase.  There 
is  no  doubt  some  justice  in  the  em- 
phasis. The  teacher  at  the  minimum 
wage  simply  can  not  live  in  comfort  with- 
out a  substantial  increase,  while  the 
teacher  at  the  top  is  past  the  starvation 
line;  a  large  increase  for  him  means  not 
merely  all  the  bread  he  needs,  but  a 
flivver  or  a  trip  abroad  or  domestic 
felicity.  Yet  is  not  such  a  condition,  and 
o  little  more,  just  what  should  be  held 
before  the  successful  teacher?  As  things 
are  it  takes  something  akin  to  the  dedi- 
cation of  a  martyr  to  induce  a  man  to 
work  at  any  profession  when  $4,000  or 
$5,000  is  all  he  will  make  even  if  he 
achieves  phenomenal  success.  Careful 
distribution  would  save  the  total  budget 
from  increase  beyond  the  figures  sug- 
gested by  Dr.  Evenden  and  other  ex- 
perts. Fewer  teachers,  to  be  sure,  would 
receive  the  $4,000  or  $5,000  held  out  by 
the  new  rates,  but  if  the  revision  of 
rates  were  carried  out  all  along  the  line, 
no  one  salary  group  could  be  greatly  re- 
duced in  number,  while  many  would  work 
eagerly  for  $3,000  or  even  $2,000  if  they 
knew  that  a  teacher  or  two  somewhere 
short  of  heaven  was  receiving  $10,000  or 
$15,000. 


The  Collapse  of  Japan's 

After-War  Boom 


THE  collapse  of  Japan's  after-war 
boom  has  been  impending  for 
months ;  a  glance  back  over  the  last  quar- 
ter-century of  her  growth  explains  it. 
There  is  a  belief  current  in  Japan  that 
every  ten  years  international  complica- 
tions bring  the  Japanese  Empire  into 
collision  with  some  Power  standing  in 
the  way.  Little,  however,  is  said  about 
this  producing  national  dividends  in  its 
resulting  economic  expansion.  Yet  this 
is  borne  out  by  the  Chino-Japanese  War 
in  1894,  the  Russo-Japanese  War  in 
1904-05,  and  the  entrance  of  Japan  into 
the  European  struggle  in  1914.  One  part 
of  the  picture  may  be  got  by  the  rise 
of  the  per  capita  of  Japan's  whole  for- 
eign trade  from  a  little  over  yen  5  a 
person  in  1894  to  yen  14  at  the  time  of 
the  Russian  struggle,  yen  22  at  the  open- 
ing of  the  Great  War,  and  yen  62  in 
1919.  The  actual  figures  are  worthy  of 
note: 

Japan's  Foreign  Trade 
(In  lOOO's  of  yen) 
Year  Exports  Imports  Total 

1894  113,246  117,481  230,728 

1904  319,260  371,360  690,621 

1914  591,101  595,735  1,186,837 

1919  2,098,872  2,173,313  4,272,185 

Another  angle  on  this  acceleration  of 
Japan's  economic  development  after  a 
war  appears  in  the  rise  of  joint  stock 
enterprises.  When  one  remembers  that 
the  first  modern  corporate  undertaking 
dates  from  1873,  the  growth  in  the  paid- 
up  capital  of  Japanese  business  from  yen 
249,762,000  at  the  time  of  the  Chinese 
War  to  yen  1,114,227,000  in  1904,  yen 
2,068,786,000  in  1914,  and  approximately 
yen  5,720,000,000  to-day  seems  extraor- 
dinary. But  the  other  side  of  the  picture 
must  not  be  forgotten.  That  is,  the 
boom  days  which  have  always  followed 
Japan's  victorious  peace  bring  in  their 
train  the  economic  consequences  of  over- 
expansion,  the  speculative  mania,  and  na- 
tional mal-adjustment. 

The  more  immediate  background  re- 
veals 1919  as  a  turning  point  of  major 
importance  in  Japan's  development.  The 
balance  of  trade  during  the  four  years 
succeeding  1914  was  heavy  on  the  side 
of  exports  from  Japan  to  markets  which 
the  war  situation  made  more  than  invit- 
ing— China,  the  Middle  East,  the  British 
Empire,  Russia,  and  the  United  States. 
This  accumulated  favorable  balance  of 
trade  reached  the  sum  of  yen  1,408,000,- 
000,  but  conditions  operating  towards 
the  end  of  1919  produced  a  drastic 
change  in  the  trend  of  commerce  with 
an  excess  of  imports  amounting  to  yen 
74,441,000. 

Had  it  not  been  for  the  fact  that  Japan 


was  realizing  the  fruits  of  her  partici- 
pation in  the  Great  War  from  the  end  of 
1914,  no  such  tremendous  changes  in  her 
trade  could  have  occurred.  During  this 
period — as  after  every  war — the  Japa- 
nese business  world  extended  itself  in 
every  direction.  In  its  outstanding  de- 
velopments, it  was  a  carefully  controlled 
expansion  not  directed  by  captains  of 
Japanese  industry,  but  finding  its  in- 
spiration in  the  nexus  existing  between 
Japan's  Big  Business  and  the  inner  Gov- 
ernment, which  really  guides  the  Mika- 
do's land. 

This  must  be  clearly  appreciated  in  the 
light  of  what  has  happened.  With  Japan, 
unlike  the  United  States,  her  economic 
life  is  a  means  to  an  end.  Japan's  com- 
petitive strength  lies  neither  in  her 
natural  resources  nor  in  her  business 
capacity;  it  is  this  highly  coordinated 
Government-backed  business,  giving  by 
political  manipulation  marginal  advan- 
tages to  the  Japanese  vested  interests  at 
every  turn.  Economic  centralization  has 
made  Big  Business  truly  the  partner  of 
the  Japanese  Government  in  its  schemes 
of  state,  and  nowhere  is  the  business 
world  so  responsive  to  governmental  opin- 
ion. Ill-founded  though  it  may  seem,  when 
the  flow  of  business  in  1919  is  analyzed, 
the  dominant  note  in  official  circles  was 
one  of  encouragement  in  every  line  of 
enterprise.  Stock  flotations  during  the 
war  period,  according  to  official  sources, 
present  the  following  figures : 

Japan's  Stock  Flotations 

(In  lOOO's  of  yen) 

Year  Total 

1915  197,091 

1916  566.511 

1917  ....: 1,132.912 

1918  1,147.395 

1919  1,914,008 

While  a  considerable  portion  of  these 
sums  are  nothing  more  than  yen  on 
paper,  it  is  well  to  remember  the  bona 
fide  operations  are  great  enough  to  re- 
quire most  of  the  funds  available  in 
1920  and  1921  to  complete  the  payment 
of  stock  subscriptions  unless  the  enter- 
prises are  to  fail.  Much  of  this  repre- 
sents the  expansion  of  old  concerns, 
though  the  trend  through  last  year  was 
highly  speculative  on  the  whole.  More 
light  on  the  promotions,  from  the  stand- 
point of  the  extensions  of  credit,  appears 
in  the  data  prepared  by  the  Mitsui  Bank. 

Relation  of  Stock  Promotions  to  Loans 
Year  Total  in  iOOO's  of  yen 

Capital  Stock  Loans  Total 

1917  ....  2.003,601  73,775  2,077,376 

1918  ....  2,955,062  224,945  3.180,007 

1919  ....  4,137,169  164,370  4,301,539 

Although  the  divergence  in  the  esti- 
mates of  the  total  stock  flotations  may 


May  29,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[583 


be  taken  as  the  maximum  and  minimum, 
the  contraction  of  loans  is  a  striking  in- 
dication of  what  was  expected  in  1920. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  Bank  of  Japan 
advanced  its  discount  rate  several  times 
towards  the  close  of  1920.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  steps  that  were  taken  by  the 
Government  to  check  the  pyramiding 
prices,  declining  export  balance,  and 
speculative  wave  generally,  carried  with 
them  the  reassurance  that  it  would  not 
"interfere  with  prevailing  tendencies 
and  would  rather  encourage  them."  The 
tightening  of  the  money  market,  how- 
ever, was  off-set  by  a  calculated  resort 
to  the  further  inflation  of  the  currency; 
the  total  for  1919  was  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  33  per  cent.,  mostly  in  the  last 
part  of  the  year,  and  increasing  the 
Bank  of  Japan's  notes,  as  compared  with 
the  pre-war  situation,  about  7,700,000,- 
000  yen. 

Men  in  a  position  to  know  what  was 
occurring  raised  lone  voices  here  and 
there  manifesting  full  appreciation  of  the 
impending  crisis.  But  the  Government 
optimism  set  the  prevailing  tone.  A  de- 
cisive factor  in  the  situation  is  to  be 
found  in  the  raw  silk  market — account- 
ing for  one-fifth  of  Japan's  exports,  and 
as  high  as  six-sevenths  of  the  total  raw 
silk  production  finding  its  way  to  the 
United  States.  For  the  past  twelve 
months  Japanese  interests  have  been 
speculating  heavily,  pools  manipulating 
the  market  to  sky-rocket  prices  which 
had  already  advanced  from  a  pre-war 
average  of  yen  800-900  a  bale  to  yen 
1,670  in  1919.  By  the  middle  of  the  year 
this  had  risen  40  per  cent.,  capped  with 
a  spectacular  jump  after  the  July  re- 
lapse, bringing  the  price  to  yen  3,520. 
Speculating  interests  began  to  find  them- 
selves saddled  with  over-stocks  after  the 
New  Year,  the  price  having  outrun  the 
foreign  demand,  and  many  were  carry- 
ing their  1919  hoarding  into  1920  in 
self-protection.  The  break  began  in  the 
last  of  January ;  prices  had  climbed  about 
350  per  cent,  in  twelve  months  to  yen 
4,500,  doubling  between  October  and 
January. 

This  strain  on  the  market  came  at  a 
critical  time.  Premier  Hara  had  just 
warned  Japan  that  retrenchment  was  in 
order,  observing :  "The  large  number  of 
joint  stock  concerns  of  all  sorts,  which 
are  now  being  promoted,  can  hardly  be 
regarded  as  a  healthy  economic  sign,  and 
judging  from  what  occurred  after  the 
conclusion  of  the  Russo-Japanese  War,  it 
is  not  improbable  that  the  crash  may 
come  at  any  moment."  A  dissection  of 
the  months  antecedent  to  the  April  crisis 
reveals  seven  conditions  at  work  to  show 
that  the  Government  and  those  on  the 
inside  were  thoroughly  cognizant  of  the 
situation  impending.  (1)  The  balance  of 
trade  swung  sharply  against  Japan  be- 
tween January  and  March,  total  excess  of 
{Continued  on  page  584) 


THE  HUDSON  COAL  CO. 


CELEBRATED 

LACKAWANNA 

THE  ARISTOCRAT  OF  ANTHRACITE 


1823 


1920 


HAS  NATURAL  QUALITIES  AND  MAN-MADE  REFINEMENT 


D.  F.  WILLIAMS 

Vice-President  and  General  Sales  Agent 


W.  F.  SHURTLEFF 

Assistant  General  Sales  Agent 


SCRANTON,  PA. 


584] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  55 


Long  leisufC  hours  on  shipboard  afford 
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taining as  well  as  serious  reading.  Let 
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Magazine*,  or,  if  you  are  making  the 
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Orders  plactd  by  mail,  UUphone  or  tele- 
graph will  have  moat  prompt  and  care- 
ful allertliort,  and  if  received  in  lime, 
icill  he  delivered  for  you  at  the  steamer. 

SI  Brentano's 

Boolurllm  lo  tlw  WmU 

Fifth  *»e  and  27th  St..    New  York 


THE  NEW  YORK 
TRUST  COMPANY 

^fait%  Office  Fifth  Avenue  Office 

a6  Broad  Street        Fifth  Ave.  and  57th  St. 

NEW  YORK 


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Surplus  and  Profits  $11,000,000 

Detignated  Depoaitar;  in  Bankruptcy  and  of  Court 
and  Trust  Funds 


OTTO  T.   BANNARD.  Chairman  of  the  Board 
MORTIMER  N.  BUCKNER.  President 
F.  J.  Home,  Vice-Pre*.        H.  W.  Shaw 

Jaroe*  Dodd,  Vice-Pre*.  J.-  ^  ^J"""  . 

u     ur     vf  \t  T,  -"•  C.   Downing,  Jr. 

H.  W.   Mor.e.  V.-Pre*.  yf    MacNaughten 
Harry  Forsyth,  Trea*. 


Boyd  G.  Curt*,  Sec*y 


Assistant  Secretaries 
E.  B.  Lewis,  Asst.  Trea*. 


FIFTH  AVENUE  OFFICE 
Cbaxus  E.  Haydock,  Vice-President  and  Manager 

Mu.   KcY  Cauuack Assistant  Secretary 

Rd**xll  V.  WoRSTEix Assistant  Secretary 


TRUSTEES 


Otto  T.  Bannard 
S.  Reading  Brrtron 
Jaine*  A.  Blair 
Mortimer  N.  Buckner 
James  C.  Colgate 
Alfred  A.  Cook 
Arthur  J.  Cumnock 
Robert  W.  de  Forect 
John  B.  Denni* 
nilip  T.  Dodge 
George  Doubleday 
Samuel  H.   Fisher 
John  A.  Carver 
Benjamin  S.  Guinne**' 
F.  N.  Hoffstot 


Buchanan  Houston 
Frederic  B.  Jennings 
Walter  Jennings 
Darwin  P.  Kingslcy 
John  C.  McCall 
Ogden  L.  MiUs 
lohn  J.   Mitchell 
James  Parmclee 
Henry  C.  Phipp* 
Norman  P.  Ream 
Dean  Sage 
Joseph  J.   Slocum 
Mylcs  Tierney 
Clarence  M.  Woolley 


Members  of  the  New   York  Clearing  House  Asso- 
ciation  and   of   the   Federal  Reserve   System 


{Continued  from  page  583) 
imports  being  yen  260,000,000,  or  nearly 
equal  to  50  per  cent,  of  Japan's — for  the 
first  quarter  of  1920.  The  month  of 
March,  with  its  135  million  yen  excess 
of  imports,  constituted  a  record-breaker 
with  the  promise  of  a  billion  yen  on  the 
debit  side  of  the  national  balance  sheet 
if  prevailing  tendencies  were  maintained. 

(2)  The  shipping  slump  has  aggra- 
vated the  problem  of  Japan's  foreign  re- 
mittances by  the  decline  in  freight 
charges  due  her  from  abroad,  and  has 
reduced  profits,  many  of  the  smaller 
operators  being  in  difficulties,  while  the 
general  reaction  on  the  basic  industries 
through  the  cessation  of  construction  is 
serious. 

(3)  Rampant  speculation  developed  in 
the  face  of  a  tightening  money  market 
as  promoters  rushed  flotations  to  get 
capital  pledged  before  the  crash  came; 
thus  the  funds  available  through  1920 
and  1921  are  already  hypothecated  un- 
less wholesale  losses  are  to  be  entailed 
through  the  failure  of  partially  consum- 
mated deals,  and  there  is  little  likelihood 
that  Japan's  billion  yen  gold  reserves 
held  ^abroad — now  liquidating  the  un- 
favorable balances — will  come  to  Japan 
as  specie  instead  of  being  defrayed  in 
goods. 

(4)  Investment  has  been  reduced  by 
the  inflation  of  prices  and  the  tendency 
towards  reduced  dividends,  with  the  ces- 
sation of  abnormal  war  earnings. 

(5)  Foreign  competition,  since  the 
armistice,  has  been  increasing  in  Japan's 
domestic  markets  due  to  the  high  level 
of  prices  and  the  need  of  replenishing 
equipment  quickly. 

(6)  At  the  same  time,  the  position  of 
Japanese  manufacturers  in  overseas  mar- 
kets is  not  encouraging,  as  exchange  has 
turned  against  them  in  countries  of  the 
East,  hitherto  a  war  monopoly  virtually 
of  Japan,  and  prices  of  production  are 
too  high  in  Japanese  industry  under  ex- 
isting conditions. 

(7)  Political  complications  have  hit 
Japanese  business  heavily;  this  is  espe- 
cially true  of  the  economic  reaction 
against  Japan's  foreign  policy  in  China, 
expressed  in  a  more  effective  boycotting 
of  Japanese  manufactures  than  is  ap- 
parent, and  now  being  duplicated  in 
Asiatic  Russia  as  an  outcome  of  the  for- 
ward policy  pursued  by  the  Japanese 
War  Office  diplomacy. 

The  end  of  this  pyramiding  business 
was  definitely  in  sight  when  March  settle- 
ments were  made  with  serious  difficulty. 
The  test  was  the  failure  of  the  markets 
to  rally  in  April  from  the  strain  of  the 
previous  month's  closing.  The  clapping 
down  of  the  Government  censorship  on 
what  is  actually  taking  place  shows  that 
Japan  is  by  no  means  through  with  her 
crisis.  If  deflation  can  be  carried  out 
with  no  further  breaks  symptomatic  of 
panic,  Japan  will  have  rounded  the  most 


critical  year  in  her  swing  over  to  an  in- 
dustrialized country.  We  shall  not  know 
what  to  expect  until  the  mid-year,  as  a 
great  deal  depends  on  the  raw  silk  situa- 
tion and  foreign  purchases — which  means 
the  price  the  United  States  will  pay  for 
the  bulk  of  Japan's  production. 

Shrewd  as  are  Japanese  statesmen  and 
their  financiers,  the  game  is  out  of  their 
hands.  During  the  Great  War  they  kept 
Japan's  export  trade  financed  by  the  Gov- 
ernment backing  the  assumption  of  the 
accumulating  foreign  credits  when  the 
limit  of  the  exchange  banks  was  soon 
reached.  When  the  deposits  to  Japan's 
account  in  New  York  and  London  were 
used  up,  the  Government  resorted  to  the 
issuance  of  paper  money  secured  by  the 
identical  credits  it  was  moving  to  pro- 
tect. The  measures  were  taken  in  1918, 
manifested  themselves  in  1919,  and  must 
be  solved  to-day.  That  depends,  how- 
ever, on  the  share  of  trade  Japan  can 
secure  in  a  normalizing  world.  A  great 
deal  of  the  answer  rests  in  American 
hands,  and  it  is  not  without  irony  that 
Japan's  economic  difficulties  came  at  the 
moment  when  she  threatened  the  "inde- 
pendent financing"  of  the  Chinese  Re- 
public. 

Charles  Hodges 

Books  Received 

FICTION 

Cabell,  James  B.  The  Cream  of  the  Jest. 
McBride. 

Cannan,  Gilbert.     Time  and  Eternity.     Doran 

Ibaiiez,  V.  Blasco.  Woman  Triumphant. 
Dutton. 

Irwin,  Wallace.   Trimmed  with  Red.   Doran. 

Maugham,  W.  Somerset.  The  Explorer. 
Doran. 

Merwin,  Samuel.  Hills  of  Han.  Bobbs- 
Merrill. 

Pryde,  Anthony.  Marqueray's  Duel.  Mc- 
Bride. 

Thurston,  E.  Temple.  Sheepskins  and  Grey 
Russet.     Putnam.     $2.50. 

Waugh,  Alec.    The  Loom  of  Youth.    Doran. 

Wells,  H.  G.  Love  and  Mr.  Lewisham. 
Doran. 

ART 

Villiers,  Frederic.  Days  of  Glory.  Intro- 
duction by  Philip  Gibbs.     Doran. 

BIOGRAPHY  AND  HISTORY 

Benedict,  Bertram.  A  History  of  the  Great 
War.  Vol.  II.  New  York:  Bureau  of  Na- 
tional Literature. 

Cantacuzene,  Princess.  Russian  People. 
Scribner.    $3  net. 

Czernin,  Count  Ottokar.  In  the  World 
War.     Harper. 

Doyle,  Sir  Arthur  Conan.  A  History  of  the 
Great  War :  Vol.  VI — The  British  Campaign 
in  France  and  Flanders.    Doran. 

Fisher,  Lord.  Memories  and  Records.  2 
volumes.     Doran. 

Gibbs,  Philip.  Now  It  Can  Be  Told. 
Harpers. 

Holme,  John  G.  The  Life  of  Leonard 
Wood.     Doubleday,  Page. 

O'Shaughnessy,  Edith.  Alsace,  in  Rust  and 
Gold.     Harper. 


K^'i^^ 


THE  REVIEW 


Vol.  2,  No.  56 


New  York,  Saturday,  June  5,  1920 


FIFTEEN  CENTS 


Contents 


Brief  Comment 
Editorial  Articles: 
The  Problem  at  Chicago 
American  Isolation 
The  German  Elections 
From  Cow  to  Consumer 
The  Political  Parties  in  Germany.     By 

Dr.  Paul  Rohrbach 
The   House   of   Piotr   Ivanovitch.     By 

J.  E.  Conner 
Anatole  France  as  Preacher.    By  Her- 
bert L.  Stewart 
Correspondence 
The    Goncourt    Prize.      By   A.    G.    H. 

Spiers 
Book  Reviews: 

Indictments  Against'  Two  Nations 
One  of  the  Ablest  Members  of  the 

Supreme  Court 
Something  Different 
Free  International  Waterways 
The  Run  of  the  Shelves 
Impressions  de  Voyage — III.    By  Cas- 
par F.  Goodrich 
The  Atavus.    By  Weare  Holbrook 
Drama : 
Dramas  for  the  Reader.     By  O.  W. 
Firkins 
Problems   of  Labor  and   Capital — IV. 

By  Morris  L.  Ernst 
The    Whitley    System    in    the    British 
Civil  Service.     By  E.  S.  Roscoe 


585 

588 
589 
590 
591 

592 

593 

595 
597 

599 

600 

601 
602 
603 
604 

606 
606 


607 


610 


611 


T^REDERIC  HARRISON'S  article 
■*-  in  the  Fortnightly  Review,  long 
extracts  from  which  are  given  in  a 
cable  dispatch  to  the  Sun  and  New 
York  Herald,  brings  to  the  front  an 
aspect  of  the  League  of  Nations  dead- 
lock to  which  Americans  would  do 
well  to  give  more  attention  than  they 
have  done.  Especially  is  this  passage  - 
in  the  veteran  publicist's  article 
worth  pondering: 

It  is  plain  that  the  league  covenant  and  the 
President's  fourteen  points  were  the  American 
conditions  which  the  republic  brought,  with  the 
enormous  weight  of  her  wealth,  her  inex- 
haustible armies  and  her  natural  resources, 
into  the  war.  But  for  that  covenant,  Great 
Britain,  France  and  Italy  would  have  made  a 
quick,  plain,  direct  peace  in  some  form  with 
their  enemies. 

But  the  terms  of  American  .  intervention 
entirely  transformed  the  whole  situation.  Civ- 
ilized nations  had  been  banded  into  a  moral 
alliance.  Peace  had  been  bound  up  with  the 
American  Utopia  and  fifty  nations  of  Europe 
and  Asia  had  been  fired  with  a  passion  for 
self-assertion  at  the  call  of  the  biggest  of  the 
Entente  Powers. 

Then  the  domestic  quarrel  in  the  American 


Republic  broke  out.  She  withdrew  from  action 
in  the  council,  but  she  did  not  withdraw  from 
words.  Refusing  to  meet  the  council,  refusing 
men,  money  and  goods  and  her  own  creation, 
the  League  of  Nations,  she  does  not  cease  to 
complain  and  to  interfere,  both  officially  and 
unofficially,  in  the  doings  of  her  own  allies  and 
the  execution  of  her  own  treaty. 

Mr.  Wilson  of  course  expected  the 
Covenant  to  be  ratified,  but  when  he 
found  that  it  could  not  be  ratified,  in 
any  reasonable  time,  unless  he  made 
certain  concessions,  he  was  in  the 
position  of  a  man  who  had  advised 
his  associates  to  make  profound 
alterations  in  their  plans,  under  an 
engagement  on  his  part  to  effect  cer- 
tain essential  arrangements.  Has  he 
ever  considered  whether  it  was  not 
his  absolute  duty  to  come  as  near  ef- 
fecting these  arrangements  as  possi- 
ble? Has  he  considered  that  long 
delay  might  impose  upon  the  nations 
that  had  trusted  him  evils  of  un- 
speakable magnitude  and  gravity? 
Has  he  asked  himself  whether  he  had 
a  right  to  proceed  upon  his  own  in- 
dividual notions  of  what  is  best,  with- 
out consulting  the  wishes  or  opinions 
of  those  who  had  placed  their  trust 
in  his  promise? 

'T'HE  Presidential  primary,  at  its 
present  stage  of  development, 
is  an  ugly,  clumsy,  expensive,  and 
almost  futile  piece  of  political  ma- 
chinery. The  feature  of  it  that  has 
been  most  conspicuous  in  the  public 
mind  during  the  closing  stages  of  the 
Republican  pre-convention  campaign 
is  the  expenditure  of  large  sums 
of  money.  In  the  case  of  General 
Wood's  campaign,  the  adverse  im- 
pression is  produced  not  so  much  by 
the  total — which,  considering  the  ex- 
tent of  his  operations,  is  not  greatly 
out  of  proportion  with  others — as  the 
circumstance  that  so  large  a  part 
came  from,  or  was  guaranteed  by,  a 
single  wealthy  man.  The  newspapers, 
as  a  rule — and  the  people,  too,  we  be- 
lieve— are  showing  a  good  deal  of 


quiet  good  sense  in  recognizing 
that  a  primary  campaign  can  not 
be  carried  on  without  spending 
much  money.  They  are  not  being 
stampeded  into  any  hysterical  outcry 
of  corruption;  and,  while  General 
Wood's  chances  have  been  injured 
by  the  campaign-fund  developments, 
they  have  by  no  means  been  de- 
stroyed. 

CENATOR  JOHNSON'S  decision 
^  not  to  bolt  may  be  variously  inter- 
preted. His  devoted  followers  have, 
of  course,  set  him  down  as  a  good  fel- 
low. Americans  with  alien  hearts 
are  doubtless  already  casting  about 
for  another  candidate  who  will  ad- 
vance their  special  interests.  Mean- 
while Republican  managers,  whose 
forte  is  figures,  have  probably  come 
to  the  conclusion  that  Johnson  has  a 
feeling  for  figures,  too.  This  is  not 
to  say  that  the  California  Senator  is 
no  longer  to  be  thought  of  as  a  power 
at  the  Chicago  Convention.  But  if 
the  point  has  been  reached  at  which 
he  thinks  it  indiscreet  to  adopt  the 
old  ruse  of  expressing  supreme  con- 
fidence now,  with  the  chance  of  cry- 
ing fraud  later,  forecasting  the  out- 
come of  the  Chicago  Convention  is, 
by  so  much  at  least,  simplified. 

HTHE  New  York  Times  may  be  all 
-*-  right  editorially,  but  in  its  hand- 
ling of  news  it  shows  shocking  in- 
efficiency. A  paper  like  that  ought 
to  know  that  when  Debs  was  notified 
of  his  nomination  for  the  Presidency, 
the  scene  that  was  enacted,  and  the 
words  that  were  spoken,  should  have 
received  as  little  prominence  as  possi- 
ble, and  that  the  story,  even  on  an 
inside  page,  should  have  been  skill- 
fully colored  so  as  to  make  a  damag- 
ing impression.  Instead  of  that,  we 
find  it  presented  with  large  and  allur- 
ing headlines  on  the  first  page,  filling 
a  whole  column  there,  and  continued 


586] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  56 


on  the  third.  And  that  is  not  the 
worst  of  it.  The  scene  is  described 
in  simple  and  sympathetic  language; 
the  reader  gets  the  impression  that 
Debs  is  suffering  imprisonment  in  the 
spirit  not  of  spectacular  martyrdom, 
but  of  calm  and  dignified  suffering 
for  a  great  cause.  Eloquent  and  mov- 
ing passages  are  given  from  the 
speech  of  notification  and  from  Debs's 
reply.  What  does  the  Times  mean 
by  thus  betraying  the  interests  which 
it  professes  to  serve — which,  as  every 
soap-box  orator  in  the  country  knows, 
all  "capitalist"  editors  have  sold  their 
souls  to  serve?  If  we  can't  get  this 
sort  of  news  suppressed,  or  dis- 
torted, or  colored,  in  the  Times,  what 
good  is  there  in  having  a  "capitalist 
press"  at  all? 

"A  FREE  man  may  stop  work 
-^  when  he  pleases,  and  the  con- 
sequences are  no  one's  affair  but  his 
own."  So  Mr.  Gompers,  in  the  Car- 
negie Hall  debate  with  Governor 
Allen,  of  Kansas.  Let  us  see.  If  the 
right  to  strike  is  wholly  without 
limitation,  except  the  pleasure  of  the 
striker,  it  would  be  "no  one's  affair 
but  his  own"  in  case  it  should 
please  him  to  abandon  the  wheel  of  a 
steamer  in  the  St.  Lawrence  rapids, 
for  example,  with  the  possible  loss  of 
life  of  most  or  all  the  passengers  on 
board.  Mr.  Gompers  would  have  to 
admit,  if  pressed,  that  there  are  con- 
ceivable limits  beyond  which  the 
possible  consequences  of  a  strike  are 
very  emphatically  the  affair  of  others 
besides  the  striker  himself.  Society 
has  become  very  sure,  and  Mr.  Gom- 
pers is  doubtless  very  sure,  that  cer- 
tain practices  which  formerly  pleased 
many  employers  of  labor  could  no 
longer  be  regarded  as  no  one's  affair 
but  their  own,  and  legal  require- 
ments are  fast  making  these  prac- 
tices impossible.  We  may  readily 
grant  to  Mr.  Gompers  that  the  right 
to  strike,  in  general,  rests  on  a  sound 
basis  and  can  not  be  swept  away, 
consistently  with  the  fundamental 
tenets  of  freedom.  It  does  not  fol- 
low, however,  that  there  are  no 
possible  cases  or  circumstances  which 
would  justify  a  temporary  or  partial 
modification  of  that  right.  Whether 
Kansas  has  gone  too  far,  in  the  legis- 


lation which  sprang  from  a  desire  to 
make  impossible  a  repetition  of  the 
suffering  caused  by  the  coal  strike, 
is  primarily  a  question  of  fact  and 
of  expediency. 

fyHERE  is  little  more  to  be 
-*■  said  about  the  two-billion-dollar 
bonus ;  the  scheme  has  long  appeared 
moribund,  and  the  House  in  passing 
it  showed  it  up  for  the  thing  it  is.  A 
good  deal  might  be  said  about  the 
high  sense  of  responsibility,  the  far- 
seeing  statesmanship,  exhibited  by 
the  one  hundred  and  seventy-four  Re- 
publicans and  the  one  hundred  and 
twelve  Democrats  who  with  cynical 
levity  did  what  they  could  to  make 
representative  government  a  laugh- 
ing-stock. The  time  for  saying  it  ef- 
fectively, however,  is  next  November. 
In  their  opinion  of  the  action  of  the 
present  House  sincere  advocates  of  a 
bonus  and  its  vastly  more  numerous 
opponents  will  be  pretty  much  of  one 
mind. 

■WTHAT  Gregory  Krassin,  by  com- 
^  ing  to  London,  and  what  the 
Soviet  Government,  by  sending  him, 
hope  to  achieve  is  clear  enough;  the 
mysterious  part  in  this  new  act  of  the 
Russian  tragedy  is  played  by  Mr. 
Lloyd  George.  Was  Bonar  Law's 
denial  of  British  material  and  moral 
support  of  the  Polish  offensive  not  ex- 
clusively made  to  dispel  suspicions  at 
home,  but  also  with  a  view  to  placat- 
ing the  Government  at  Moscow?  If 
so,  why  should  Lloyd  George  and  his 
Cabinet  Ministers  be  so  anxious 
to  negotiate  with  a  Soviet  mission 
which  can  not  achieve  success  except 
at  the  risk  of  a  fresh  ruptmre  between 
England  and  France?  Besides,  if  the 
Soviet  regime  is  on  the  verge  of  a 
collapse,  as  we  are  told  it  is,  and  can 
only  be  saved  by  a  speedy  import  of 
rolling  stock  and  machinery  for  Rus- 
sia's ruined  railroads  and  industries, 
why  should  England  go  out  of  her 
way  to  help  prevent  what,  until  Den- 
ikin's  defeat,  she  spent  millions  in 
trying  to  bring  about?  The  only  re- 
ply that  seems  to  meet  these  questions 
is  that  the  Bolshevist  activities  in 
Persia  and  Transcaucasia  are  caus- 
ing greater  alarm  to  the  Government 
in  London  than  it  would  be  safe  to 
confess,  and,  that  being  so,  there  is 


reason  to  accept  with  some  caution 
the  sanguine  predictions  of  an  im- 
pending Bolshevist  catastrophe.  A 
cessation  of  Soviet  activities  in  Asia 
will  be  demanded  from  Krassin  as  the 
price  for  which  Great  Britain  will 
consent  to  a  resumption  of  trade  re- 
lations with  Russia.  However,  the 
French  Government  will  also  have  a 
say  in  the  matter,  and  it  is  not  likely 
that  Paris  will  consent  to  this  way 
of  safeguarding  British  interests  in 
Asia  without  securing  the  necessary 
guarantees  for  the  safety  of  her  finan- 
cial interests  in  Russia. 

TN  contrast  to  Lloyd  George's  am- 
-■-  biguous  policy  towards  Russia, 
the  attitude  of  M.  Millerand  is  abso- 
lutely clear  and  consistent.  He  re- 
fused the  British  Premier's  invitation 
to  have  M.  Cambon  be  present  at  the 
conversations  between  members  of 
the  British  CabineJ;  and  the  Russian 
envoy  on  the  ground  that  France  is 
duly  represented  on  the  Allied  Eco- 
nomic Council.  If  it  is  trade  transac- 
tions that  have  to  be  discussed  in 
London,  the  French  representative 
on  that  Council  is  fully  authorized  to 
speak  on  behalf  of  the  French  Gov- 
ernment ;  if  political  dealings  are  con- 
templated, France  remains  unshaken 
in  her  determination  not  to  take  part 
in  them.  The  economic  revival  of 
Russia  is  not  the  end  which  Krassin, 
any  more  than  Lloyd  George,  has  in 
view.  To  the  Russian  it  is  only  a 
means  to  an  end,  the  world  revolution 
which  the  Soviet  Government,  once 
firmly  established  in  power  by  the 
improvement  of  economic  conditions 
in  Russia,  hopes  to  bring  about  under 
the  auspices  of  the  Third  Interna- 
tionale. It  is  a  wise  and  honorable 
policy  which  refrains  from  any  ac-  I 
tion  implying  recognition  of  a  Gov- 
ernment which  confessedly  aims  at 
the  overthrow  of  that  international 
organization  to  whose  maintenance 
both  France  and  England,  as  mem- 
bers of  the  League  of  Nations,  stand 
solemnly  pledged. 

A  LIEN    minorities    in    the    newly 


i\ 


created  States  of  Central  Europe 


have  a  claim  to  the  protection  of  the 
League  of  Nations,  but  the  security 
thus  gained  imposes  on  them  the  duty 
to  avoid  all  provocation  in  their  deal- 


June  5,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[587 


ings  with  the  ruling  nationalities 
of  the  countries  they  inhabit.  The 
Germans -in  Czechoslovakia  have  not 
yet  learned  to  behave  in  accordance 
with  this  maxim.  At  the  opening 
meeting  of  the  first  elected  Parlia- 
ment at  Prague,  the  seventy  German 
members  shouted  fierce  protests 
against  the  use  of  the  Czech  language 
by  the  Speaker,  and  when  Masaryk, 
after  his  election  to  the  Presidency, 
was  presented  to  the  Assembly,  the 
German  leader  sprang  to  his  feet  and 
led  his  followers  ostentatiously  out. 
This  is  not  the  way  for  the  Germans 
in  Bohemia  to  secure  respect  either 
for  themselves,  their  rights,  or  their 
nationality.  Nor  can  they  increase, 
by  assuming  this  attitude,  the  world's 
confidence  in  the  moral  conversion  of 
the  German  nation  as  a  whole. 

nPHE  Freeman,  in  commenting  on 
-'-  the  Interchurch  World  Move- 
ment, alleges  that  "the  masses"  dis- 
trust the  church  because,  more  than 
for  any  other  reason,  it  gave  its  ac- 
tive support  to  the  war.  It  may  be 
remarked  that  the  masses,  as  such, 
have  no  unified  attitude  towards  the 
church.  In  any  hundred  men  taken 
out  of  "the  masses"  at  random  will 
be  found  a  group  of  firm  adherents 
to  the  church,  a  group  in  opposition, 
and  others  of  various  shades  of  in- 
difference. But  that  the  masses  dis- 
trust the  church  specifically  because 
of  its  support  of  the  war  is  contrary 
to  plain  facts  within  the  vision  of 
anyone  whose  eyes  are  not  wilfully 
closed.  For  every  man  who  took  the 
attitude  of  the  Freeman,  scores  of 
these  same  masses  were  with  whole- 
hearted loyalty  upholding  the  cause 
of  the  war  by  every  means  in  their 
power.  For  every  woman  who  took 
that  attitude,  the  knitting-needles  of 
a  hundred  were  cheerfully  contribut- 
ing to  the  comfort  of  willing  repre- 
sentatives of  the  masses  on  the  field 
of  battle. 

■]\|RS.  HENRY  FAWCETT,  in  her 
-■■"-^  life  of  Molesworth,  long  ago 
pointed  out  how  necessary  to  the 
pacifist  is  the  war  of  words;  how, 
renouncing  combat  on  the  battlefield, 
he  must  needs  impart  a  tenfold  viru- 
lence to  his  arguments  and  denuncia- 
tions. What  persons  of  a  certain  sort 


forswear  they  must  compensate  for 
in  some  way;  what  they  lack  they 
must  make  theirs  through  the  imagi- 
nation. The  worship  of  Bolshevism 
and  other  violent  forms  of  social  ad- 
venture is  nowhere  so  ardent  as  in  the 
circles  of  the  futile  dilettanti.  The 
helpless  shut-in  takes  the  wings  of 
morning  to  pierce  Barcan  deserts  or 
thread  fearsome  jungles;  the  utter 
failure  in  the  world  as  it  is,  exultantly 
sees  himself  a  Lenin  or  a  Peters  in 
the  world  as  it  ought  to  be.  Even 
men  of  remarkable  powers  in  one 
direction,  but  in  other  ways  hope- 
lessly handicaped,  see  themselves 
champions  and  victors  in  the  fields 
where  they  are  impotent.  Many  of 
the  pre-war  virilists,  says  the  Man- 
chester Guardian,  were  of  this  type. 
There  was  Stevenson,  the  invalid, 
who  "figured  himself  in  voluptuous 
reveries  as  master  of  a  privateer  or 
commanding  a  troop  of  irregular  cav- 
alry"; Henley,  the  lifelong  cripple, 
whose  pages  reek  with  physical  com- 
bat; Synge,  the  consumptive,  "who 
scorned  everything  but  the  life  of 
violence  in  the  open,"  and  even  An- 
drew Lang,  frail  and  "the  most  don- 
nish of  bookmen,"  whose  mind  was 
often,  if  not  usually,  running  on  raids 
and  slaughters.  The  list  might  be 
greatly  extended.  And  so,  thinking 
it  all  over,  perhaps  we  ought  to  be 
more  charitable  to  the  parlor  Bolshe- 
vists. They  have  high  and  plentiful 
warrant  for  their  exercise  when  they 
rave  and  imagine  vain  things. 
Though  ridiculous,  they  serve  a  pur- 
pose in  reillustrating  an  old  law. 

HOW  proletarian  sabotage  always 
and  everywhere,  as  one  rapt 
enthusiast  has  recently  phrased  it, 
"moves  progressively  towards  truth, 
beauty,  love,"  is  well  illustrated  in  an 
episode  from  South  Australia  told  by 
the  Adelaide  correspondent  of  the 
Chnstian  Science  Monitor.  A  cam- 
paign of  "ca'  canny,"  followed  by  a 
strike,  in  the  Government  Produce 
Department,  fizzled  out  after  a  time, 
and  a  normal  output  was  resumed. 
Thereupon,  an  epidemic  of  a  more 
serious  form  of  sabotage  broke  out  in 
the  State  Engineering  Workshops  for 
the  construction  and  repair  of  rolling 
stock.  Rivets  were  put  in  the  reverse 
way,  and  the  tails  were  so  slightly 


burred  that  they  would  have  worked 
loose  as  soon  as  the  cars  began  to  run. 
But  before  any  of  the  cars  were  taken 
out  to  collapse  on  the  tracks  and 
thereby  destroy  human  life,  the  plot 
was  discovered  by  the  chief  mechan- 
ical engineer.  The  somewhat  matter- 
of-fact  boilermakers'  union,  to  which 
these  mechanics  belonged,  was  un- 
able to  regard  the  affair  transcen- 
dentally  and  to  see  in  it  an  expression 
of  truth,  beauty,  and  love.  On  the  con- 
trary, the  union  formally  denounced 
the  men,  declared  that  the  work  "was 
deliberately  bad  and  dangerous  to 
the  travelling  public,"  that  it  "is  a 
wicked  thing  to  do  bad  work  on  roll- 
ing stock  of  any  kind"  and  fined  the 
devotees  of  the  new  faith  $25  each. 
The  penalty  will  no  doubt  be  regarded 
in  the  coteries  of  the  illuminate  as  an 
outrageous  and  a  reactionary  one. 
Evidently  the  doctrine  of  the  beati- 
fication of  proletarian  sabotage  is  not 
making  its  way  withoiit  occasional 
reverses. 

A  N  anonymous  writer,  using  the 
-^  initials  S.  E.,  editorially  certi- 
fied to  be  a  "professor  in  an  American 
college,"  has  been  wrestling  in  the 
columns  of  the  Socialist  Review  with 
the  subject,  "The  'Free  Speech' 
Fallacy."  The  keystone  of  the  liberal- 
ist  edifice,  it  seems,  is  the  liberal's 
faith  in  "freedom  of  discussion."  But 
under  capitalism,  according  to  the 
professor,  there  isn't  any  such  thing. 
Even  where  there  is  legal  or  formal 
freedom  (which  at  any  time  may  be 
restricted),  there  is  no  positive  free- 
dom in  the  sense  of  adequate  means 
or  opportunity  of  discussion.  For 
positive  freedom  "equally  large  and 
constant  audiences  must  be  available 
to  rival  ideas  and  programmes." 
When  a  small  group,  in  the  high  and 
holy  name  of  the  proletariat,  over- 
turns the  capitalist  regime,  then  and 
not  till  then  can  we  have  "freedom 
of  discussion."  That  is,  all  those  who 
approve  of  the  new  regime  may  freely 
express  their  approval.  As  for  those 
who  do  not  approve — well,  the  thing 
to  do  with  them  is  to  label  them 
"counter-revolutionaries,"  and  then 
silence  them.  The  demand  for 
"freedom  of  discussion"  by  any  one 
labelled  a  "counter-revolutionary"  is, 
of  course,  the  height  of  effrontery. 


588] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  .)(> 


The  Problem  at 
Chicago 

TT  is  not  a  happy  situation  that  con- 
•'•  fronts  the  Republican  National 
Convention  which  meets  at  Chicago 
next  Tuesday.  The  difficulties  with 
which  it  is  beset  are  of  a  wholly  dif- 
ferent character  from  thoae  that  one 
associates  with  the  history  of  past 
Presidential  struggles.  The  contests 
in  the  primaries,  so  far  from  clarify- 
ing, have  only  further  clouded  the 
situation.  Such  rivalries  as  those  be- 
tween Conkling  and  Blaine,  between 
McKinley  and  Reed,  brought  out  fac- 
tional animosities  more  sharply  de- 
fined, but  less  difficult  to  handle,  than 
those  with  which  the  coming  Conven- 
tion will  have  to  grapple.  Even  the 
Convention  of  1912,  though  con- 
fronted with  an  ominous  schism,  and 
one  that  in  fact  resulted  in  disaster, 
had  a  comparatively  simple  question 
to  answer,  and  had  to  answer  it  with 
a  plain  Yes  or  No.  At  Chicago  next 
week,  there  is  an  ill-defined  conflict, 
big  with  possibilities  of  harm  to  the 
part}',  which  every  man  realizes,  but 
of  which  no  man  can  define  the  exact 
character. 

The  difficulty  relates  both  to  plat- 
form and  to  candidates;  and  on  the 
very  eve  of  the  Convention  no  way  out 
of  it  presents  itself  clearly  in  any 
direction.  Of  the  three  most  notable 
men  that  have  been  in  the  public 
mind  as  possible  nominees  not  one  is 
in  the  usual  sense  a  commanding 
political  figure.  Senator  Johnson, 
who  is  the  most  political  figure  of 
the  three,  has  shown  himself  capable 
of  rallying  a  big  following,  but  it  is 
a  following  of  nondescript  character. 
Furthermore  his  candidacy  would  so 
obviously  fail  to  be  representative  of 
the  party  as  a  whole  that  his  selection 
by  the  Convention  is  almost  unthink- 
able; and  neither  his  principles  nor 
his  record  have  the  stuff  in  them  that 
could  bear  the  strain  of  the  Presi- 
dential canvass.  The  other  two  of 
the  three  men  we  have  in  mind  are, 
of  course,  General  Wood  and  Mr. 
Hoover.  Both  of  these  men  have  be- 
hind them  a  record  of  distinguished 
achievement  that  has  received  high 
national  recognition;  but  neither  of 


them  has  been  a  political  leader. 
The  hostility  of  the  Johnson  forces 
is  a  great  obstacle  to  the  choice  of 
either  Wood  or  Hoover ;  and  there  is 
not  behind  either  of  these  men  that 
kind  of  intense  political  force  that 
makes  for  the  ultimate  overcoming  of 
any  opposition,  however  powerful — 
the  kind  of  force,  for  example,  which 
caused  Woodrow  Wilson  to  triumph 
over  Champ  Clark  in  the  long-drawn- 
out  struggle  at  Baltimore  in  1912. 

As  regards  platform,  it  does  not 
look  as  though  there  would  be  any 
great  difficulty  in  drawing  one  up 
that  would  be  fairly  satisfactory  to 
the  party  and  the  country,  except  so 
far  as  regards  the  question  of  the 
treaty  and  the  League  of  Nations. 
But  on  the  other  hand,  there  seems 
to  be  little  prospect  of  the  platform 
containing  anj-thing  that  will  awaken 
enthusiasm  or  keen  interest.  The 
Convention  will  have  the  benefit  of 
the  careful  and  systematic  work  that 
has  been  done  by  the  Advisory  Com- 
mittee to  the  Republican  National 
Committee.  This,  if  availed  of,  will 
serve  to  make  the  platform  rational 
and  respectable,  which  will  be  a  thing 
to  be  thankful  for;  but  whether  it 
will  afford  a  strong  basis  for  effec- 
tive public  appeal  is  another  ques- 
tion. And  as  regards  the  treaty  and 
the  League,  the  party  is  in  a  most 
difficult  situation.  It  looks  as  though 
the  best  it  could  do,  in  view  of  the 
utter  disorganization  within  the 
party,  is  to  make  a  declaration  that 
will  hold  together  everj'body  who  is 
not  in  favor  of  accepting  the  treaty 
without  reservations.  A  master  hand 
could  do  better  than  that;  but  no 
master  hand  is  in  sight. 

A  few  months  ago,  it  might  well 
have  been  thought  that  even  with  a 
colorless  platform  and  a  commonplace 
candidate  the  Republican  party  could 
go  into  the  campaign  with  a  certainty 
of  victory.  The  chances  are  still 
strongly  in  its  favor,  but  the  chance 
of  defeat  is  far  from  negligible.  The 
danger  of  widespread  disaffection  is 
manifestly  indicated  in  the  story  of 
the  Johnson  movement.  And  on  the 
Democratic  side  a  distinct  possibility 
of  the  injection  of  new  life  has  re- 
cently come  to  the  fore.  That  party 
has,  in  the  person  of  Ambassador 


John  W.  Davis,  a  resource  which,  if 
availed  of,  may  give  to  the  forthcom- 
ing campaign  a  character  quite  dif- 
ferent from  that  which  it  would  have 
under  the  leadership  of  any  other  of 
the  men  that  have  been  named  for 
the  candidacy.  His  exceptional  fit- 
ness, both  in  ability  and  character, 
are  recognized  with  singular  unanim- 
ity ;  and  he  has  been  just  sufficiently 
identified  with  the  present  Adminis- 
tration to  commend  him  to  supporters 
of  President  Wilson  without  burden- 
ing him  with  the  odium  which  in  so 
many  directions  the  Administration 
has  incurred.  And,  whether  they  nom- 
inate Mr.  Davis  or  not,  the  Democrats 
have  an  advantage  which,  in  a  situa- 
tion so  plastic  as  that  of  to-day,  is 
of  incalculable  value,  in  that  they 
will  not  have  to  make  their  decision 
until  several  weeks  after  the  Repub- 
licans have  gone  to  the  country  with 
theirs.  It  will  not  take  any  extraor- 
dinary amount  of  political  sagacity  to 
draw  important  conclusions  from  the 
way  in  which  the  work  of  the  Chicago 
Convention  will  have  been  received 
by  the  country. 

The  Republican  Convention  will 
have  before  it  two  conspicuous  can- 
didates neither  of  whom  has,  like 
Wood  or  Hoover,  been  identified  with 
affairs  of  national  magnitude,  but 
both  of  whom  have  political  records 
that  afford  a  substantial  claim  to  the 
nomination.  Governor  Lowden  and 
Governor  Coolidge.  Lowden's  claim 
rests  on  solid  achievement  in  the  fis- 
cal affairs  of  the  State  of  Illinois,  and 
especially  on  his  introduction  of  a 
budget  system;  and  altogether  it  ap- 
pears as  though  he  were  the  kind  of 
a  man  who,  in  ordinary  times,  would 
make  an  entirely  satisfactory  Presi- 
dent. Governor  Coolidge,  without 
having  had,  so  far  as  we  know,  any 
special  fiscal  problem  to  deal  with, 
makes  a  much  more  vivid  appeal  to 
the  imagination.  It  is  not  only  his 
conduct  in  relation  to  the  police 
strike,  but  the  tone  and  character  of 
a  number  of  his  utterances  that 
make  him  an  outstanding  figure.  One 
has,  in  regard  to  him,  something  of 
the  kind  of  feeling  that  the  country 
had  in  regard  to  Cleveland  in  the  be- 
ginning of  his  career  in  New  York. 
One  feels  that  with  him  the  funda- 


June  5,  1920] 


THE  KEVIEW 


[589 


mental  principles  of  American  gov- 
ernment and  American  life  are  so  in- 
grained a  part  of  his  being  that  he 
could  be  trusted  to  meet  any  situa- 
tion with  courage  and  with  practical 
wisdom.  And  a  consideration  that 
is  by  no  means  of  minor  importance 
is  the  character  that  a  man  like 
Coolidge  would  be  likely  to  impart  to 
the  campaign.  It  is  not  only  that  his 
speeches  by  their  vigor  and  terseness 
would  be  good  "vote-getters";  some- 
thing more  than  the  question  of  the 
chances  of  the  campaign  is  involved. 
His  habit  is  to  speak  firmly  and  to 
the  point ;  and  from  the  present  look 
of  things  it  seems  that  nothing  will 
be  more  needful  to  the  country  than 
that  its  political  thought  should  be 
clarified — focused  upon  real  issues, 
instead  of  being  dissipated  into  all 
manner  of  vagueness. 

There  are  other  men  upon  whom 
the  choice  of  the  Convention  may  fall ; 
the  chance  of  the  nomination  of  a 
"dark  horse"  is,  in  a  situation  like 
the  present,  always  considerable.  Nor 
is  the  mere  fact  of  a  man  having 
been  a  "dark  horse"  inconsistent  with 
the  possibility  of  his  being  an  inspir- 
ing candidate.  But  the  prospect  of 
such  an  eventuality  is  very  slight. 
The  one  man  whose  selection  would 
carry  with  it  a  thrill  of  high  hope  is 
Herbert  Hoover.  With  his  name  is 
associated  the  thought  of  great  things 
done  for  the  world  in  that  agony 
through  which  it  passed  so  recently, 
an  agony  in  which  our  hearts  were 
engaged  as  nothing  else  could  engage 
them,  an  agony  which,  alas,  is  being 
prolonged  but  which  finds  our  coun- 
try a  paralyzed,  and  apparently 
almost  indifferent,  onlooker.  With  his 
name,  too,  is  associated  the  thought 
of  administrative  genius  and  execu- 
tive eflSciency,  which  would  arouse 
high  expectations  of  help  in  the  eco- 
nomic tangle  in  which  our  affairs  are 
involved.  The  nomination  of  Hoover 
would  arouse  in  millions  of  breasts 
a  kind  of  hopeful  expectancy  to  which 
the  country  has  long  been  a  stranger. 
If  the  question  were  solely  as  to  where 
lay  the  greatest  possibilities  of  im- 
mediate constructive  achievement, 
there  could  be  little  doubt  as  to  the 
answer. 

But  even  from  the  highest  stand- 


point of  patriotic  foresight,  it  can 
not  truthfully  be  said  that  this  con- 
sideration ought  to  be  regarded  as 
conclusive.  In  a  certain  sense,  and 
that  by  no  means  a  remote  or  unsub- 
stantial one,  the  turning  to  Hoover  is 
a  sign  of  political  poverty.  The  Presi- 
dency of  the  United  States  is  an  office 
charged  not  only  with  colossal  re- 
sponsibilities and  magnificent  oppor- 
tunities in  the  administrative  field, 
but  with  a  political  potency  to  which 
there  is  not,  anywhere  in  the  world, 
even  a  distant  parallel.  Whatever 
crisis  may  arise  in  the  clash  of  classes 
or  interests,  in  the  struggle  between 
opposing  political,  economic,  or  social 
ideals,  the  man  who  is  invested  with 
the  power  of  the  Presidency  retains 
it  undisturbed  for  four  years.  And 
one  may  say  without  gross  exaggera- 
tion that  in  the  case  of  a  strong  man 
with  a  mighty  hold  on  the  public 
imagination,  that  power  is,  for  the 
time  being,  almost  anything  that  he 
may  be  inclined  to  make  it. 

When  we  elect  a  President,  we  put 
ourselves  into  his  hands  in  a  degree 
unknown  to  the  parliamentary  sys- 
tem that  obtains  in  countries  like 
Great  Britain  or  France.  When  this 
is  done  in  the  case  of  a  man  with  a 
long  or  well-defined  political  record, 
that  record,  together  with  his  per- 
sonal character  and  ability,  usually 
furnishes  sufficient  assurance  of  the 
attitude  and  conduct  which  may  be 
expected  of  him  in  any  new  situation 
that  may  arise.  In  the  case  of  Mr. 
Hoover,  character  and  ability  are  all 
that  could  possibly  be  desired;  but 
he  has  not  been  tested  in  the  field  of 
politics  or  government.  Splendid  as 
is  his  record,  it  does  not  furnish  the 
kind  of  assurance  of  safety  that  a 
much  more  ordinary  political  record 
would  be  quite  capable  of  affording. 
There  is  no  scale  by  which  one.  can 
measure  the  claims  of  safety  on  the 
one  hand,  and  those  of  high  possibili- 
ties of  extraordinary  service  on  the 
other.  But  it  is  not  a  mean  or  pusil- 
lanimous thing  to  attempt  to  weigh 
them  in  the  balance  against  each  other. 
If  Hoover  should  be  elected  President, 
we  should  have  reason  to  look  for- 
ward to  great  things ;  but  we  should 
not  have  as  much  reason  for  absolute 
confidence  in  the  safety  of  the  Re- 


public as  if  Coolidge  were  elected. 
And  eight  years  of  a  President  of 
unusual  gifts,  who  has  pursued 
high  aims  in  his  own  extraordinary 
fashion,  has  borne  in  upon  many  of 
us  a  keen  appreciation  of  what  may 
be  said  in  behalf  of  a  President  of 
less  extraordinary  quality,  provided 
he  be  known  to  be  of  sterling  stuff. 

American  Isolation 

'T'HE  President  could  not  do  other- 
-*■  wise  than  veto  the  Knox  reso- 
lution declaring  a  state  of  peace  with 
Germany.  It  was  not  a  good  way  of 
dealing  with  our  relations  either  with 
Germany  or  with  our  associates  in 
the  war.  It  was  not  necessary  as  a 
means  of  bringing  to  an  end  the  oper- 
ation in  our  domestic  affairs  of  the 
war-time  laws.  This  could  have  been 
accomplished  by  direct  repeal.  It  was 
merely  a  move  in  the  game  of  "pass- 
ing the  buck"  between  President  and 
Senate.  Both  its  passage  by  the  Sen- 
ate and  its  rejection  by  the  President 
were  foregone  conclusions — almost 
matters  of  mechanical  routine. 

Of  far  greater  interest  than  the 
act  of  rejection  is  the  character  of 
the  veto  message.  Mr.  Wilson  rests 
the  veto  neither  on  justice  nor  on 
practical  detail,  but  on  broad  grounds 
of  national  honor  and  national  policy. 
And  the  large  issue  that  he  thus  once 
again  brings  to  the  front  is  a  real 
one.  We  shall  have  to  keep  it  in 
mind  throughout  the  approaching 
Presidential  campaign — and  after 
that,  until  the  nation  has  taken  some 
definite  position.  The  veto  message, 
brief  as  it  is,  touches  many  points, 
but  the  heart  of  it  is  in  this  passage : 

The  Treaty  as  signed  at  Versailles  has  been 
rejected  by  the  Senate  of  the  United  States, 
though  it  has  been  ratified  by  Germany.  By 
that  rejection  and  by  its  methods  we  had  in 
effect  declared  that  we  wish  to  draw  apart  and 
pursue  objects  and  interests  of  our  own,  un- 
hampered by  any  connections  of  interest  or 
of  purpose  with  other  Governments  and 
peoples. 

For  the  situation  which  he  thus 
describes,  the  President  must  himself 
be  held  in  a  preponderant  degree  re- 
sponsible. He  has  never  recognizd 
the  duty  of  maintaining  our  "connec- 
tions of  interest  or  of  purpose  with 
other  Governments  and  peoples"  by 
gaining  for  a  feasible  and  moderate 


590] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  56 


compromise  the  support  of  those  who, 
while  not  following  him  to  the  letter, 
were  sincerely  desirous  that  the  coun- 
try should  bear  its  rightful  part  in 
the  reestablishment  of  the  world's 
order,  the  securing  of  the  world's 
peace,  the  restoration  of  the  world's 
prosperity.  Month  by  month,  the 
hopelessness  of  anything  being  ac- 
complished has  sapped  the  nation's 
interest,  until  at  last  it  almost  seems 
as  though  the  nation  itself  were 
ready  to  declare  for  that  isolation 
which,  when  the  treaty  was  first  pre- 
sented to  the  Senate,  was  advocated 
only  by  a  few  extremists.  Whether 
Lodge  and  his  followers  were  right 
or  wrong,  is  not  the  question;  what 
has  certainly  been  wrong  is  the 
President's  unvarying  assumption 
that  he  alone  is  entitled  to  form  a 
judgment,  and  that  if  that  judgment 
is  not  accepted  everything  must  go 
to  smash. 

In  the  recognition  of  this,  in  the 
pondering  of  it  at  this  moment,  much 
more  is  involved  than  the  mere  allo- 
cation of  blame.  The  nation  has  not, 
in  point  of  fact,  taken  its  stand  on 
the  issue.  Between  the  nation  and 
the  issue  there  has  been  interposed 
the  impassable  obstacle  of  a  political 
deadlock.  It  is  of  the  first  importance 
that  the  public  should  be  keenly 
aware  of  this  fact ;  because  the  surest 
way  to  make  our  position,  for  good 
and  all,  that  which  the  President  de- 
scribes, is  to  spread  abroad  the  notion 
that  that  position  has  already  been 
actually  taken  by«  the  nation,  or  by 
the  majority  party  in  the  nation.  It 
has  not.  Even  in  their  final  form — 
and  they  might  almost  certainly  have 
been  put  through  many  months  ago 
in  much  milder  form — the  reserva- 
tions left  a  great  deal  of  the  League 
Covenant  effective.  Above  all,  their 
acceptance  would  have  put  us  into  the 
League.  To  prevent  us  from  cutting 
loose  from  all  connection  with  our  as- 
sociates in  the  war,  and  from  all  par- 
ticipation in  the  work  of  world 
restoration,  that  is  still  the  one  way, 
and  it  is  still  open.  To  create  the 
impression  that  it  is  not,  is  to  do  the 
greatest  disservice  that  can,  at  this 
juncture,  be  done  to  the  cause  of  co- 
operation between  America  and  Eu- 
rope. 


The  German  Elections 

'T'HE  decision  of  the  Conference 
■■■  held  at  Hythe  to  postpone  the 
meeting  at  Spa  until  after  the  Ger- 
man elections  for  the  Reichstag, 
should  be  taken  by  the  German  people 
as  a  flattering  recognition  of  its  in- 
creased importance.  In  the  days  be- 
fore the  war  it  mattered  little  to  the 
non-German  world  what  party  sent 
the  greatest  number  of  representa- 
tives to  Berlin,  as  the  Reichstag  un- 
der the  Imperial  regime  had  only  a 
shadow  of  control  over  Germany's 
international  relations.  Only  the 
growth  of  German  Social-Democracy 
under  Bebel's  eminent  leadership  at- 
tracted attention  abroad.  A  more 
and  more  industrialized  Germany 
under  Junker  rule,  adding  year  after 
year  fresh  thousands  to  her  army  of 
wage  workers  and  consequently  to 
the  internationally  organized  army  of 
the  Social-Democratic  party,  was  a 
spectacle  worth  watching  in  its  de- 
velopments. A  clash  between  these 
two  forces  became  more  and  more  im- 
minent, and  the  lighthearted  uncon- 
cern with  which  the  men  in  power  at 
Berlin  rushed  into  the  war  was  partly 
due  to  their  conviction  that  only  by 
calling  up  the  danger  from  abroad 
could  they  prevent  the  German  inter- 
nationalists from  bringing  the  dis- 
ruptive process  within  to  a  head. 

It  was  only  natural,  then,  that  the 
Emperor's  defeat  and  overthrow 
should  bring  the  Socialists  into  power 
who  had  been  the  only  party  to  op- 
pose his  autocratic  regime.  But  this 
political  success  diminished,  relatively 
speaking,  their  importance  as  a  party, 
as  the  same  revolution  had  freed  the 
bourgeois  parties  from  the  shackles 
of  "Kaisertreue"  and  given  them  a 
more  independent  standing.  To  each 
of  them  now  falls  the  task  of  formu- 
lating principles  for  the  guidance  of 
the  Government,  and  it  is  for  the 
voters  to  decide  which  of  those  prin- 
ciples shall  be  adhered  to.  That  gives 
to  the  coming  elections  next  week  a 
special  importance,  and  we  are  glad 
to  print,  in  another  column,  an 
illuminating  article  by  Dr.  Paul 
Rohrbach,  from  which  the  readers  of 
the  Review  may  gain  an  estimate  of 
the  parties'  strength  and  chances. 


The  chief  interest  of  his  survey  h. 
centres  in  the  account  he  gives  of  the 
German  Democratic  party  and  of  its 
tendencies  to  reorient  itself  in  two 
directions,  nationally  towards  the  • 
right,  socially  towards  the  left,  to  de- 
clare itself,  in  other  words,  for  a  pro- 
gramme virtually  identical  with  that 
of  the  Majority  Socialists  while  in- 
sisting on  the  realization  of  national 
ideals  as  against  the  dream  of  inter- 
national brotherhood.  Dr.  Rohrbach 
is  careful  to  remind  us,  in  a  footnote, 
of  the  intrinsic  difference  in  German 
between  the  terms  "National"  and 
"Nationalistic";  the  foreigner's  ap- 
preciation of  the  Democratic  Party's 
activity  will,  indeed,  be  dependent  on 
the  meaning  which  it  will  give  to  its 
name,  not  in  profession,  but  in  prac- 
tice. That  he  describes  this  two- 
sided  reorientation  as  the  old  ideal  of 
Friedrich  Naumann  offers  food  for 
reflection.  Naumann  was  the  prophet 
of  a  mid-Europe  under  the  German 
aegis,  which  was  to  be  the  achieve- 
ment of  the  war,  and  in  the  book  in 
which  he  developed  that  conception 
he  praised  his  friend  Rohrbach  for 
being  the  eloquent  preacher  of  "the 
German  idea  in  the  world."  Were 
the  eulogist  and  his  friend,  when 
those  words  were  written,  five  years 
ago,  the  advocates  of  a  "national"  or 
a  "nationalistic"  policy — were  they 
patriots  or  chauvinists  ?  The  aggres- 
sive policy  of  the  Hohenzollem  which 
they  supported  with  their  pen  sup- 
plies a  decisive  answer  to  that  ques- 
tion. A  nationalism  which  requires 
for  the  realization  of  its  ambitions 
the  subjection  of  .other  peoples'  na- 
tionality makes  chauvinists  of  pa- 
triots. The  country's  boundary  marks 
the  dividing  line  between  a  na- 
tional and  a  nationalistic  policy. 
"Am  deutschen  Wesen  soil  die  Welt 
genesen"  is  the  slogan  of  an  arrogant 
chauvinism,  of  which  the  world, 
averse  to  such  a  cure,  will  hear  no 
more. 

The  enthusiasm  over  the  initial  vic- 
tories of  the  German  arms  created  the 
atmosphere  in  which  the  nationalistic 
ambitions  of  Naumann  and  Rohrbach 
could  thrive.  We  should  do  injustice 
to  the  former's  memory  and  our  con- 
tributor's judgment  if  we  did  not 
deem  them  capable  of  realizing  their 


June  5,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[591 


«rror  in  the  cruel  light  of  subsequent 
actualities.  The  present  moment  de- 
mands, from  a  German  patriot's  point 
of  view,  the  cure,  first  of  all,  of  a 
<}ermany  sick  to  death ;  and  the  world 
■will  not  deny  her  the  right  to  be  cured 
of  the  disease  "am  deutschen  wesen." 
The  Democratic  party,  in  attempting 
that  German  cure  by  the  application 
of  far-reaching  social  reforms,  may 
justly  claim  to  stand  for  a  national 
policy,  and  if  it  lives  up  to  its  claim, 
forswearing  in  practice  past  chauvin- 
istic ambitions,  there  is  some  hope  of 
Germany's  recovery,  both  physical 
and  moral,  and  of  her  reconciliation 
with  the  world. 

From  Cow  to  Con- 
sumer 

XpROM  the  cow  to  the  ultimate  con- 
-'-  sumer  was  the  shortest  possible 
distance  for  the  infant  Jupiter,  hid- 
ing in  a  cavern  from  his  father 
Kronos,  according  to  the  Cretan 
legend,  and  drawing  his  nourishment 
from  the  udders  of  the  goat  Amal- 
thea  with  his  own  lips.  Nor  had 
Romulus  and  Remus  any  further  to 
go,  though  the  "cow"  in  their  case 
was  not  even  a  goat,  but  a  motherly- 
hearted  wolf. 

In  addition  to  these  instances  of  a 
milk  supply  absolutely  direct,  Medi- 
terranean legend  gives  us  also  an  ex- 
ample in  which  the  help  of  the  middle- 
man is  reduced  to  the  very  minimum 
of  cost-increasing  interference.  When 
Metabus,  the  Volscian,  as  Virgil  tells 
us,  fled  from  his  rebellious  people  into 
the  mountains,  carrying  his  infant 
daughter  Camilla  in  his  arms,  he  fed 
her  by  milking  the  warm  fluid  directly 
into  her  mouth,  from  the  udders  of 
the  wild  mares  that  roamed  the  for- 
ests. There  was  no  unnecessary  cost 
here,  surely,  unless  Metabus  had  to 
waste  valuable  time  in  persuading  the 
mare  to  submit. 

Even  yet,  occasionally,  the  traveler 
may  see  an  urchin  of  Naples  or 
Palermo  begging  for  a  mouthful  of 
goat's  milk  alia  Camilla;  but  the 
milkman  is  apt  to  show  a  spirit  of 
jest,  rather  than  a  concern  for  the 
child's  nourishment,  and  neck,  eyes, 
hair  and  mouth  share  about  equally 


in  the  donation.  In  much  of  Italy 
and  Sicily,  however,  there  is  no  great 
loss  between  goat  or  cow  and  the  cof- 
fee cup.  The  American  traveler  in 
Girgenti,  for  example,  starting  for  a 
sunrise  ramble  among  the  temple 
ruins  of  the  plain  below,  may  ask  the 
keeper  of  some  little  ristorante  for 
caffe  e  latte  before  he  has  laid  in  his 
morning  supply.  He  goes  to  the  door 
with  a  little  pitcher,  looks  up  and 
down  the  street  until  he  spies  a  bunch 
of  goats,  and  is  back  in  less  than  two 
minutes  with  just  the  amount  needed. 
A  lone  American  guest  in  a  little 
pensione  among  the  ruins  of  ancient 
Syracuse  saw  the  goat  that  furnished 
the  milk  for  his  breakfast  driven  up 
in  a  donkey  cart  and  milked  before 
the  door.  On  some  of  the  public 
squares  of  Palermo  one  may  see  a 
donkey  cart  standing  for  a  large  part 
of  the  day,  with  two  or  three  cows 
attached  to  it,  and  a  calf  tied  to  the 
tail  of  each  cow,  the  owner  at  hand 
to  milk  the  required  amount  for  any 
customer  who  may  appear.  If  the 
traveler  is  curious  to  know  why  the 
calves  are  brought  along,  he  will  be 
told — or  will  see,  if  he  watches  long 
enough — that  the  cow  is  sometimes 
stubborn  about  giving  down  her  milk, 
and  the  calf  has  to  be  used  as  a 
"starter." 

The  advantage  of  these  more  direct 
modes  of  supply  are  evident,  such  as 
they  are.  No  ice  is  needed  to  keep 
the  milk  from  souring  in  your  re- 
frigerator, when  you  can  call  up  a 
goat  and  get  it  fresh  from  the  original 
package  at  almost  any  hour  of  the 
day.  And  you  can  save  materially  in 
the  fuel  required  to  boil  it,  when  you 
have  a  temperature  of  about  100  to 
start  from.  You  may  know,  also,  that 
it  has  not  been  watered ;  and  there  is 
some  satisfaction  in  knowing  just 
where  it  comes  from.  If  you  do  not 
like  the  milk  from  Giulio's  spotted 
goat  to-day,  you  can  try  a  pint  from 
Giuseppe's  white  one  to-morrow. 
But  whence  comes  the  milk  in  the 
bottle  set  down  at  the  door  of  the 
New  Yorker,  pasteurized,  graded,  and 
sealed,  according  to  the  officially  im- 
posed formula?  No  man  on  earth 
could  tell  you.  The  delivery  man 
knows  at  what  distributing  station 
his  wagon  was  loaded,  but  back  of 


that  all  certainty  vanishes.  No  one 
cow  may  have  been  responsible  for 
even  a  spoonful  in  the  entire  quart. 
No  one  dairy  farm  may  have  supplied 
any  considerable  fraction  of  it.  The 
grass  that  clothes  the  hills  and  valleys 
of  any  one  of  many  possible  combina- 
tions of  counties  and  States  may  be 
represented  in  it.  No,  the  satisfac- 
tion of  knowing  specifically  where  it 
came  from  can  never  be  yours. 

You  can  have  fair  assurance,  how- 
ever, that  it  is  clean.  Doubtless 
neither  the  goat  Amalthea  nor  the 
wolf  of  the  Capitol  had  her  udders 
washed  in  any  germ-destroying  solu- 
tion before  the  infant  Jupiter,  or 
Romulus  and  Remus,  took  their 
meals;  and  there  is  a  very  striking 
contrast  between  the  goats  and  cows 
and  their  milkers,  wandering  un- 
washed through  the  dirty  streets  of  a 
South  Italian  city,  and  the  cleanliness 
of  milker,  cow,  and  stall  of  a  modern 
New  York  dairy  farm.  Seventy 
years  ago  the  proposition  of  an  en- 
thusiast that  the  milk  supply  should 
be  protected  by  Government  tests  and 
inspection  was  used  by  Herbert  Spen- 
cer as  an  instance  of  the  absurd 
length  to  which  Government  might 
go  in  its  encroachment  on  individual 
liberty.  But  to-day  the  deadly  peril 
that  may  lurk  in  unclean  milk  is  too 
well  known  to  leave  any  popular  sup- 
port for  the  liberty  of  a  dairyman  to 
be  clean  or  unclean,  according  to  his 
own  will.  In  a  more  complicated 
civilization,  with  a  more  accurate 
knowledge  of  dangers  heretofore  un- 
appreciated, even  those  of  us  who  be- 
lieve in  as  little  government  interfer- 
ence as  possible  see  more  points  at 
which  government  curtailment  of  cer- 
tain liberties  seems  imperative. 


THE  REVIEW 

A  weekly  journal  of  political  and 

general  discussion 

Published  by 

The  National  Wikkly  Corporatioh 

140  Nassau  Street,  New  York 

Fabian  Franklin,  President 

Harold  db  Wolf  Fuller,  Treasurer 


Subscription     price,     five     dollars     a    ^ear     in 
advance.     Fifteen  cents  a  copy.     Foreign  post- 
age,  one   dollar   extra;    Canadian   postage,   fifty 
cents  extra..     Foreign  subscriptioBs  may  be  sent 
to  Messrs.  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  Ltd.,  24,  Bed- 
ford St.,   Strand,   London,   W.   C.   2,   England. 
Copyright,     1920.     in     the     United     States     of 
America 
Editors 
FABIAN  FRANKLIN 
HAROLD  DE  WOLF  FULLER 
Associate  Editors 
Harry  Morgan  Ayrss     O.  W.  Fisxims 
A.  J.  Barnouw  W.  H.  Johnson 

Jerome  Landfield 


592] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  56 


The  Political  Parties  in  Germany 


A  SUBVERSION  of  the  German  party 
system  was  the  natural  conse- 
quence of  the  Revolution.  The  parties 
themselves,  however,  though  most  of 
them  have  changed  their  names,  are  not 
sufficiently  aware  that  the  emergence  of 
new  political  problems  necessitates  a  re- 
orientation of  their  aims  and  a  restate- 
ment of  the  reasons  for  their  existence. 

Social-Democracy  has  sustained  the 
strongest  shock  in  the  upheaval.  At  the 
outbreak  of  the  war  the  party  as  a  whole 
went  hand  in  hand  with  the  bourgeois 
parties,  which  until  then  had  always 
claimed  to  be  the  "National"  parties.  But 
from  the  outset  there  was  among  the 
Socialists  an  opposition  to  the  war  and 
the  war  credits,  and  when,  in  the  course 
of  time,  this  opposition  took  visible 
shape  by  the  secession  of  the  "Independ- 
ents" from  the  great  Social-Democratic 
party,  the  day  had  arrived  on  which  the 
German  Revolution  virtually  began.  It 
broke  out  at  a  time  not  of  economic  pros- 
perity, but  of  economic  depression,  which 
from  the  German  standpoint  ended  in  a 
catastrophe  in  consequence  of  the  block- 
ade against  the  import  of  foodstuffs  and 
raw  materials  not  being  raised  after  the 
conclusion  of  the  armistice.  The  so- 
called  Majority  Socialists,  the  old  party, 
saw  clearly  that  under  these  circum- 
stances it  would  be  impossible  to  realize 
the  theoretical  ideal  of  the  Marxian  sys- 
tem. They  restricted  themselves  to 
strong  theoretical  statements  and  a 
few  moderate  attempts  at  practical  na- 
tionalization. Even  that  little  proved 
difficult  to  carry  through.  The  Major- 
ity Socialists,  moreover,  recognized  the 
democratic  principle,  that  is,  the  right  of 
decision  on  matters  of  legislation.  Con- 
stitution, government,  and  administra- 
tion by  the  majority  of  the  people.  As 
this  majority,  at  the  elections  early  in 
1919  for  the  National  Assembly,  voted  a 
bourgeois  ticket,  the  compromise  policy 
appeared  unavoidable  from  the  Socialist 
standpoint,  and  will  remain  unavoidable 
so  far  as  the  Majority  Socialists  are  con- 
cerned, as  a  majority  of  the  two  So- 
cialist parties  over  the  total  bourgeois 
vote  is  very  improbable  for  a  long  time 
to  come.  In  this  way  the  Majority  So- 
cialists, from  a  revolutionary  party,  have 
become  a  radical  reform  party,  which 
differs  from  a  Socialism  of  bourgeois 
conception  chiefly  in  this,  that  it  still 
considers  itself  a  Labor  party,  and  in 
that  it  subordinates  its  national  aims  to 
the  international  principle.  Its  right 
wing,  however,  seems  to  tend  towards  a 
revision,  in  these  two  points  also,  of 
the  pre-war  attitude  of  the  old  Social- 
Democracy. 

The  "Independent"  Social-Democratic 
party  is  feebly  represented  in  the  Na- 
tional Assembly,  as  compared  with  the 


Majority  Socialists,  but  it  has,  doubtless, 
among  the  masses,  at  the  present  time, 
a  great  many  more  supporters  than  at 
the  time  of  the  elections  early  in  1919. 
The  extremists  of  the  party,  it  is  true, 
have  left  it  again,  the  most  radical  to 
join  orthodox  Bolshevism,  the  others  to 
form  the  Communist  party;  but  the 
dividing  lines  between  these  three  groups 
are  vague  and  fluctuating.  The  Inde- 
pendents demand,  according  to  the  old 
programme,  immediate  nationalization 
and  the  actual  dictatorship  of  the  pro- 
letariat through  the  system  of  the 
Soviets,  in  conformity  with  the  Russian 
example.  By  the  dictatorship  the  bour- 
geois will  everywhere  be  ousted  from 
power,  and  nationalization  must  be 
realized  at  once  and  without  mercy.  The 
democratic  principle  that  the  majority 
shall  decide  is  not  recognized  by  the  In- 
dependents; they  oppose  to  it  the  will 
and  the  "superior"  right  of  the  labor 
class  to  reorganize,  according  to  their 
demands,  the  state  and  the  social  struc- 
ture, together  with  the  process  of  pro- 
duction and  the  division  of  the  proceeds 
of  labor.  The  rapid  growth  of  the  In- 
dependents' following  is  chiefly  due  to 
the  circumstance  that,  in  spite  of  the 
Revolution  having  extended  the  political 
rights  of  the  people  and  the  actual  power 
of  the  labor  class  in  particular,  this  in- 
crease of  right  and  power  was  not  ac- 
companied by  an  improvement  of  their 
material  existence.  Foodstuffs,  clothing, 
and  all  commodities  remain  scarce  and 
expensive,  and  although  strikes  can  en- 
force increasingly  higher  wages,  their 
purchasing  power  will  never  equal  that 
of  the  much  lower  wages  of  pre-war 
days.  Hence  the  masses  are  easily  per- 
suaded that  only  the  absolute  dictator- 
ship and  the  relentless  destruction  of  all 
the  opposing  capitalistic  interests  of  the 
bourgeoisie  can  bring  them  relief.  This 
is,  so  far  as  Germany  is  concerned,  an 
error,  but  the  error  is  comprehensible, 
and  there  are  no  popular  arguments 
against  it.  Distrust,  unrest,  and  discon- 
tent at  the  high  cost  of  living  are  the 
pacemakers  of  the  Independents  in  their 
race  for  a  majority  over  the  old  Social- 
ist party  at  the  polls,  and  it  is  not 
unlikely  that  the  Majority  Socialists  will 
soon  lose  their  title  to  that  name. 

The  counterpart  of  the  Social  Democ- 
racy on  the  right  is  the  German  National 
People's  party  (Deutschnationale  Volks- 
partei),  formed  by  the  old  Conservatives 
with  militaristic,  agrarian,  and  Pan- 
German  leanings,  and  the  German 
People's  party  (Deutsche  Volkspartei) , 
which  had  its  origin  in  the  right  wing 
of  the  former  National  Liberals,  and 
which  receives  support,  as  the  latter  did, 
from  the  industrial  magnates  and  a  large 
body  of  men  with  university  training. 


The  German  People's  party  is  the  great 
protagonist  of  the  capitalistic  inter- 
ests and  of  the  capitalistic  organization 
of  society.  It  insists  on  the  necessity  of 
leaving  capital  as  much  unimpaired  as 
possible.  It  sees  itself  compelled  by  the 
force  of  circumstances  to  make  conces- 
sions with  regard  to  economic  legisla- 
tion, the  influence  of  the  workers  on  the 
management  of  the  shop,  etc.,  and  many 
of  its  leaders  have  come  forward  with 
good  suggestions  on  these  subjects.  But 
they  are  firmly  opposed  to  the  principle 
of  nationalization.  The  party's  internal 
strength  depends  on  the  membership  of 
the  bulk  of  the  German  intellectuals,  and 
on  the  use,  for  agitation  purposes,  of 
the  fundamentally  false,  but  superficially 
convincing  argument  that  Germany  was 
great  as  a  monarchy  but,  as  a  Republic 
under  the  rule  of  Social-Democracy,  has 
come  to  grief.  An  interesting  fact,  which 
may  prove  the  beginning  of  an  important 
development,  is  the  rise  of  social  ideas 
among  the  extreme  right,  in  the  bosom 
of  the  German  National  People's  party. 
In  the  field  of  social  progress  there  is  a 
better  chance  of  an  agreement  between 
the  democratic  Socialism  of  the  Left  and 
the  ethical  Socialism  within  the  German 
National  party,  than  of  the  former 
with  the  capitalistic  tendencies  of  the 
People's  party. 

A  curious  organization,  destined,  per- 
haps, to  play  the  leading  role  in  Ger- 
many's political  future,  is  the  German 
Democratic  party  (Deutsche  Democrat- 
ische  Partei).  It  is  true,  however,  that, 
constituted  as  it  is  at  present,  it  can 
not  exist  very  much  longer.  Its  develop- 
ment tends,  obviously,  in  two  opposite 
directions :  nationally*  towards  the  right, 
socially  towards  the  left.  This  is  the 
old  ideal  of  the  greatest  thinker  whom 
the  party  ever  counted  among  its  mem- 
bers: the  late  Dr.  Friedrich  Naumann, 
who,  as  long  as  twenty  years  ago,  tried 
to  found  a  separate  National  Social  party. 
Such  a  development  would  eliminate 
from  the  party,  on  the  one  side,  the  ele- 
ments of  the  capitalistic  class;  on  the 
other,  all  such  elements  of  lukewarm  na- 
tionalism as  subordinate  national  to  in- 
ternational ideals.  The  attraction  of  this 
movement,  as  against  Social  Democracy, 
is  in  its  appeal  to  national  sentiment, 
and,  as  against  the  right,  in  so  far  as 
this  is  anti-Socialistic,  in  its  freedom 
from  prejudice  in  social  matters.  If  this 
National-Social  principle  should  be  made 
the  corner-stone  of  the  Democratic  party, 
the  consequence  would  be,  in  the  bosom 
of  the  party,  that  internationalism  and 
capitalism  would  lose  their  hold  on  it 
and  that  the  socially  minded  elements  of 
the  right  and  such  Socialists  as  are  sus- 
ceptible to  national  sentiment  would  feel 
attracted  towards  it;  and  for  that  rea- 
son it  is  not  improbable  that  the  devel- 

*There  is  a  great  difference  in  German  between 
"national"  and  "nationalistic,"  almost  analogous  to 
that  between   "patriotic"  and  "chauvinistic." 


June  5,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[593 


opment  of  the  German  Democratic  party 
will  bring  about  a  more  clear-cut  division 
in  the  German  party  system.  Demo- 
crats who  are  convinced  adherents  of  the 
Republic,  and  such  as,  from  tradition 
and  sentiment,  are  in  favor  of  monarch- 
ism  are  fairly  well  balanced  within  the 
party,  but  both  groups  are  at  one  in 
their  loyal  acceptance  of  the  present 
German  Constitution. 

Independent  of  any  organization  based 
on  political  principles,  the  Christian 
People's  party  (Christliche  Volkspartei), 
still  better  known  by  its  old  name  as 
the  Centre,  finds  its  chief  strength  in 
the  Roman-Catholicism  uniting  its  mem- 
bers and  in  the  authority  of  the  clergy. 
But  the  tension  within  the  party  is 
stronger  than  it  ever  was.  Since  the 
Catholic  labor  masses  saw  what  power 
their  class  had  gained,  thanks  to  the 
Social-Democratic  Revolution,  it  was 
only  natural  and  unavoidable  that  class 
feelings  became  more  and  more  pro- 
nounced among  them.  It  would  prove 
impossible  to  keep  them  within  the 
Centre,  if  the  party  should  turn  unso- 
cial   and    undemocratic.      That    is    the 


reason  for  the  remarkable  coalition  of 
the  Centre  with  Social-Democracy  and 
the  German  Democrats.  The  right  wing 
of  the  Centre,  however,  has  strong  lean- 
ings towards  monarchism,  and  conserva- 
tive tendencies.  In  proportion  to  the 
growth  of  the  influence  on  the  party  of 
the  social  radicalism  of  its  left  wing, 
the  temptation  will  grow  stronger  for 
the  aristocracy  and  the  intellectuals  of 
Catholic  Germany  to  join  the  German 
Nationals,  the  extreme  right  in  Parlia- 
ment, where  also  Protestant  orthodoxy 
has  its  seats. 

All  parties  in  Germany,  therefore,  are 
passing  through  a  crisis.  None  of  them 
has  as  yet  readjusted  itself  to  the  new 
conditions  created  by  the  Revolution. 
The  complete  and  surprisingly  quick  re- 
pression of  the  counter-revolution  has 
shown,  however,  that  strong  reactionary 
forces  are  non-existent.  To  return  to 
the  old  regime  is  the  sentimental  wish 
of  the  entire  right,  but  the  determina- 
tion and  the  will  to  bring  it  back  are 
nowhere  apparent. 

Dr.  Paul  Rohrbach 

Berlin 


The  House  of  Piotr  Ivanovitch 


Do  you  see  that  half-burned  house 
over  there  on  the  knoll?"  asked 
Carson. 

"Yes,  the  one  with  the  red-tiled  roof. 
Looks  as  if  it  had  been  the  best  one  in 
the  village." 

"It  was ;  it  is  always  the  best  one  that 
gets  burned." 

We  were  driving  through  a  Russian 
village  not  far  from  St.  Petersburg  in 
the  early  summer  of  1914.  It  might  just 
as  well  have  been  in  any  other  part  of 
the  country,  for  Carson  knew  what  he 
was  talking  about.  He  had  lived  in 
Russia  at  least  fifteen  years,  had  busi- 
ness interests  that  took  him  everywhere, 
and  had  a  more  intimate  knowledge  of 
rural  Russia  than  any  other  American 
I  knew.  His  remark  that  it  is  always 
the  best  house  in  the  village  that  gets 
burned  made  no  impression,  however, 
for  I  at  once  set  it  down  to  an  unsatis- 
factory breakfast  or  the  vile  cigar  he 
was  smoking,  or  to  one  of  his  occasional 
caustic  attitudes  towards  everything 
Russian.  Seeing  this,  he  looked  me 
square  in  the  face  and  said,  "I  see  you 
do  not  believe  me,  but  I  mean  just  what 
I  say.  If  a  Russian  peasant  builds  a 
much  finer  house  than  those  of  his  neigh- 
bors they  will  burn  it  down  for  him." 

Carson  was  well  started  now  on  his 
favorite  theme,  namely,  Russian  peasant 
characteristics,  and  I  saw  he  was  about 
to  give  me  some  information  gratis  that 
I  should  have  been  glad  to  pump  him  for. 
I  subsided  and  let  him  ramble. 


"You  see,  when  I  first  came  to  this 
country  in  the  life  insurance  business  it 
was  a  very  new  business  for  the  Russian 
peasant.  Few  of  them  had  heard  about 
it  and  none  of  them  knew  anything  about 
it.  I  made  several  exploration  trips  to 
Moscow,  Kharkov,  Kiev,  Odessa,  then 
over  to  the  lower  Volga  region  at  As- 
trakhan and  up  that  stream  to  Tsaritsin, 
Samara,  Kazan,  Nijni  Novgorod,  and 
then  back  to  St.  Petersburg.  From  each 
of  these  cities  I  made  short  excursions  by 
droshky  through  the  surrounding  vil- 
lages, prospecting  for  local  agents.  Busi- 
ness? I  never  imagined  we  should  get 
much  more  than  expenses  out  of  it  if 
we  were  lucky,  not  when  I  first  saw  those 
villages.  Why  man,  just  imagine  it!  No 
fences,  no  roads,  except  mere  cart  tracks 
that  didn't  seem  to  go  anywhere  in  par- 
ticular; no  farmsteads,  for  the  farmers 
all  lived  in  the  villages;  no  welcoming 
groves  of  beckoning  trees  to  show  where 
somebody  lived  on  the  soil  and  loved  it 
and  cared  for  it.  And  the  villages  were 
laid  out  with  but  little  attention  to  order 
and  no  regard  for  the  compass,  the 
houses  were  mere  cabins  of  the  same 
color  as  the  soil,  with  thatched  roofs  and 
small  cabbage  gardens  surrounded  by  a 
brush  fence.  Not  much  prospect  for 
life  insurance  under  such  conditions,  I 
thought;  for  how  can  you  persuade  peo- 
ple to  take  an  interest  in  their  estate, 
their  posterity,  or  even  in  their  own  later 
days  when  they  evidently  have  so  little 
in  their  immediate  surroundings.  The 
houses  or  shanties  were  so  much  alike 
that  they  worried  me.     I  even  tried  to 


show  them  how  to  build  better  ones,  but 
they  looked  at  me  with  suspicion.  I  have 
learned  a  lot  about  them  in  fifteen  years, 
and  now  that  I  understand  their  point  of 
view,  let  me  say  that  I  do  not  altogether 
condemn  it.  Strange  as  it  may  seem  to 
you,  I  will  even  say  that  I  respect  it." 

Carson  glanced  at  me  to  enjoy  my 
look  of  incredulity,  seemed  satisfied,  and 
went  on. 

"I  had  with  me  an  educated  young 
Russian  as  interpreter  and  adviser.  He 
is  with  me  yet  for  that  matter,  is  Ivan 
Andreivitch  Ephimoff,  for  there  is  no 
more  faithful  and  devoted  helper  any- 
where than  a  Russian  when  he  has  be- 
come attached  to  you.  With  his  as- 
sistance I  selected  our  local  agents  from 
among  the  most  thrifty  and  ambitious 
young  men  in  the  villages.  These  we 
called  together  in  conference  in  the 
nearest  city,  and  explained  to  them  the 
purpose  and  working  of  a  life  insurance 
company.  I  was  quite  unprepared  for  the 
interest  they  took  in  it,  and  the  rising  en- 
thusiasm that  seemed  to  seize  upon  them 
as  they  consulted  together,  and  quizzed 
my  interpreter  Ivan  Andreivitch  for 
more  instructions  from  the  'barin.' 
When  we  were  alone  I  in  turn  quizzed 
Ivan  Andreivitch,  and  got  very  little  re- 
turn for  my  pains. 

"Before  long  my  business  was  grow- 
ing astonishingly,  and  I  remembered 
those  forlorn  little  villages  with  wonder. 
Policies  were  issued,  the  premiums  were 
paid  regularly,  and  the  applicants  seemed 
to  come  without  asking.  One  peculiar- 
ity I  noticed  was  that  the  payments  uni- 
formly came  by  postal  money  orde/  and 
not  by  bank  check.  I  asked  Ivan  Andrei- 
vitch for  an  explanation.  'Perhaps,'  he 
replied,  'it  is  because  the  peasants  have 
no  adequate  banking  facilities.'  'What, 
none  at  all?'  'Generally  not;  and  some- 
times they  do  not  trust  those  that  they 
have.'  'Ah!  I  think  I  begin  to  see.' 
'Perhaps  the  barin  sees  also,'  said  Ivan 
Andreivitch,  smiling  significantly,  'why 
this  life  insurance  business  became  popu- 
lar immediately.'  'Possibly  I  do.  You 
mean  that  because  the  banking  facili- 
ties were  inadequate  the  people  turned 
to  life  insurance  as  to  a  bank  deposit.' 
'Yes,  but  that  is  not  all.  Can  you  guess 
the  rest?'  'That  is  enough  for  my  pur- 
poses; but  if  there  are  other  reasons,  I 
have  not  yet  discovered  them.'  'Wait 
till  you  do.  It  will  mean  a  great  deal 
more  to  you,'  said  Ivan. 

"And  still  my  business  continued  to 
astonish  me  with  its  growth.  You  would 
hardly  believe  it,  but  it  is  at  this  moment 
larger  than  all  the  rest  of  our  European 
business  put  together.  I  often  wondered 
where  the  peasants  got  their  money, 
whether  they  hoarded  it  in  unsuspected 
places,  and  whether  they  were  in  fact, 
as  they  certainly  seemed,  all  equally 
poor.  A  flood  of  light  was  thrown  upon 
these  questions  one  summer  while  visit- 


594] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  56 


ing  at  the  country  home  of  a  wealthy 
landed  proprietor,  Sergei  Alexeivitch 
Baritzin,  who  lived  in  true  baronial  stylfe 
minus  the  castle,  but  plus  wide  spread- 
ing lawns,  ample  gardens,  and  an  abun- 
dance of  buildings  suggestive  of  old 
plantation  days  in  America.  The  respect 
and  deference  shown  him  by  his  tenants 
and  immediate  servants,  and  the  genuine 
human  interest  he  took  in  all  their  small 
concerns  was  beautiful  to  se«!,  and  I  could 
not  refrain  from  remarking  upon  it. 

"  "Yes,'  said  he,  'I  should  think  you 
would  notice  it,  and  with  approval,  too, 
in  spite  of  your  American  notions  of 
equality.  Don't  tell  me  that  you  have 
no  trace  of  the  feudal  relation  since 
slavery  was  abolished,  for  you  do  have 
it  Outside  of  agriculture  your  whole 
industrial  system  is  built  upon  it,  just 
as  in  western  and  central  Europe,  and 
the  laborers  are  merely  the  retainers  of 
their  lordly  employers,  dependent  upon 
them  for  their  daily  bread.  You  differ 
not  at  all  from  the  barons,  knights,  and 
hinds  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  I  envy 
you  not  your  theoretical  equality.  What 
you  see  on  my  estate  is  your  own  indus- 
trial system  applied  to  agriculture,  but 
applied  with  a  conscience  and  human 
sympathy,  and  not  with  the  inhuman 
claim  that  labor  is  just  like  any  other 
commodity,  to  be  bought  at  the  lowest 
price.  The  difference  between  our  feud- 
alism and  yours  is  that  here  we  have  not 
lost  the  personal  touch  between  the  upper 
and  the  lower  classes,  while  in  America 
you  have,  hence  their  mutual  antago- 
nism. Then,  too,  your  rule  of  the  major- 
ity-^call  you  that  freedom?  If  I  am  to 
be  ruled  by  anybody,  any  kind  of  gov- 
ernment, I  prefer  the  rule  of  one  intelli- 
gent head  with  a  brain  in  it,  a  Tsar  if 
you  please,  rather  than  the  unintelligent, 
many-headed  monster  you  call  the  ma- 
jority. On  my  estate  I  am  respected, 
beloved,  and  obeyed,  as  you  have  just 
observed,  and  likewise  is  the  Tsar 
by  all  law-abiding  and  upright  people.' 

"  'Yes,  Sergei  Alexeivitch,  I  have  been 
much  delighted  with  the  cordial  relations 
I  have  witnessed  between  you  and  your 
tenants,  and  I  wonder  if  it  is  the  same 
elsewhere.  Do  you  happen  to  be  suffi- 
ciently acquainted  with  other  estates  to 
say  that  yours  is  typical,  or  is  it  ex- 
ceptional? I  do  not  ask  if  everybody  is 
satisfied,  but  if  you  please  to  admit  a 
majority  opinion,  is  the  majority  rea- 
sonably well  satisfied,  either  with  your 
excellent  management  of  your  estate,  or 
with,  for  that  matter,  the  Tsar's  man- 
agement of  the  Empire?' 

"My  friend  halted  for  a  reply,  for  as 
we  both  knew,  disregarding  the  political 
issue  raised,  there  were  too  many  cases 
to  the  contrary.  There  were  the  land- 
lords who  never  lived  on  their  estates, 
who  hired  Jewish  overseers,  and  thus 
contributed  to  racial  enmities.  There 
were  the  independent  communes  as  in 


ancient  times,  the  villages  owning  their 
own  land  and  farming  it  as  unintelli- 
gently  as  in  ancient  times,  no  landlord 
above  them  and  but  little  ambition 
among  them.  There  were  also  the  inde- 
pendent farmers  or  peasants  who  had 
detached  themselves  from  the  village  and 
moved  out  upon  their  own  land — a  rap- 
idly increasing  class.  But  not  wishing 
at  that  time  to  go  to  the  end  of  so  large 
a  subject,  'By  the  way,'  I  said,  'why  was 
yonder  house  ruined  by  fire?  I  am  told 
that  such  things  are  likely  to  occur  to 
the  better  houses  but  never  to  the  poorer 
ones?' 

"  'Here  comes  the  very  owner,'  said 
Sergei  Alexeivitch,  'You  speak  Russian, 
ask  him.' 

"The  old  peasant  doffed  his  cap  as  he 
approached  and  said  'zdravstvuitsye, 
barin'  (health  to  you,  master). 

"  'Good  morning,  Piotr  Ivanovitch,' 
said  the  master,  'aren't  you  sorry  now 
that  you  undertook  to  build  a  finer  house 
than  your  neighbors  have?'  Piotr  shook 
his  head  slowly  and  mournfully — 'No, 
barin,  the  old  one  leaked  badly  and  was 
not  warm  enough  in  the  winter.  My  son 
was  to  be  married  and  we  built  a  larger 
house  to  accommodate  us  all.  A  thatched 
roof  bums  quickly,  barin,  and  so  I 
roofed  it  with  tile.  If  it  was  my  neigh- 
bors that  burned  it,  they  surely  did  me 
a  great  wrong;  but  I  suppose  they  did 
not  understand.' 

"  'Never  mind,  Piotr,'  said  Sergei 
Alexeivitch,  'we  will  all  turn  in  and  help 
you  build  a  new  one,  and  I  promise  that 
you  will  never  feel  the  loss.  But  mind 
you,  what  is  good  enough  for  your  neigh- 
bors is  good  enough  for  you,  and  if  you 
go  to  putting  on  airs  with  a  fine  showy 
house,  why  you  can't  expect  it  to  last 
long — you  know  that  now.' 

"Piotr  Ivanovitch  acquiesced  with  a 
bow  and  moved  away,  apparently  re- 
signed to  the  force  of  the  argument,  even 
if  unconvinced  of  its  justice. 

"And  there,"  said  Carson,  turning  to 
me  again,  "you  have  the  whole  case  in 
a  nutshell.  The  Russian  peasant's  idea 
of  progress  is  that  it  must  not  be  by 
individuals  but  in  mass.  They  accept 
existing  class  distinctions  without  seek- 
ing to  justify  them,  but  the  class  at 
least  must  move  forward  together  or 
better  not  move  at  all.  Injustices  spring 
from  inequalities  in  condition,  unless  the 
strong  protect  the  weak.  Russia  has 
taught  me  that  much,"  said  Carson  with 
conviction.  "America  in  colonial  times 
was  a  country  of  practically  uniform  so- 
cial conditions,  in  which  wealth  played 
no  conspicuous  part,  and  the  misfortunes 
of  individuals  were  alleviated  by  the 
community  as  a  matter  of  course.  This 
was  notably  the  case  under  frontier  con- 
ditions. But  now,  let  a  man  lose  his 
all  in  a  ruined  homestead,  or  worse  still, 
let  him  lose  his  job,  the  only  means  he 
has  of  gaining  a  livelihood,  even  through 


no  fault  of  his  own,  and  the  rule  is  that 
he  will  find  no  neighbors  to  steady  him 
from  falling  till  he  regains  his  feet. 
There  is  nothing  succeeds  like  success  in 
America,  and  conversely  there  is  no  sin  , 
like  unsuccess.  Don't  tell  me  'No,'  I 
have  been  through  it  all  in  our  own  dear 
country  and  I  am  not  theorizing.  I 
speak  from  sad  experience  when  I 
say  that  progress  by  individuals  means 
standing  as  individuals  without  com- 
munity support  in  the  day  of  adversity. 
That  is  the  Anglo-Saxon  way,  but  it  is 
not  the  Russian  peasants'  way,  and  let 
us  be  fair  enough  to  say  that  theirs  has 
its  merits.  To  me  it  seems  as  the  great- 
est lesson  of  Russia's  history  that  the 
solidarity  and  equality  of  her  peasantry 
are  the  sheet-anchor  of  her  hope  as  a 
nation." 

"But,"  I  interposed,  "how  far  have 
your  Russian  peasantry  advanced  in  the 
same  time  that  we  have  transformed  a 
wilderness  into  what  America  is  to-day? 
Are  they  not  in  practically  the  same  con- 
dition that  they  were  in  when  we  began?" 

"Yes,  and  what  is  time  to  a  Russian?" 
replied  Carson.  "Besides,  he  might  an- 
swer you,  'Boast  of  your  past  if  you  like. 
We  look  to  the  future  which  shall  be 
ours  because  we  have  not  laid  the  founda- 
tion of  our  society  in  inequality  and  its 
resulting  injustices!'  Mind  you  this: 
that  when  the  American  thinks  of  in- 
equalities he  thinks  of  political  matters; 
but  the  Russian  means  industrial  in- 
equalities also." 

"Then  a  political  revolution  would  in- 
volve an  industrial  revolution?" 

"Among  the  industrialized  class,  yes; 
among  the  peasant  farmers,  no.  Land 
grabbing  there  would  be,  and  the  despoil- 
ing of  landed  estates,  but  these,  however 
distressful  and  unjust,  would  be  isolated 
and  not  general  phenomena,  and  in  the 
main  not  the  result  of  peasant  initiative." 

"And  the  individual  ownership  of 
land,"  I  continued,  "as  it  breaks  up  the 
close  community  of  the  village,  will  it 
not  just  as  surely  break  up  the  com- 
munity spirit?" 

"That,"  sighed  Carson,  "is  very  much 
to  be  feared.  Still,  Russian  peasant 
solidarity  has  been  proof  against  harder 
tests  than  that.  It  is  the  result  of  cen- 
turies of  pounding  and  hammering  to- 
gether and  it  will  outlast  any  other  that 
I  know." 

"One  point  more,  friend  Carson :  tell 
me  how  industrial  progress  is  at  all 
possible,  either  by  individuals  or  in  com- 
munities, when  progress  is  so  limited 
that  there  are  no  means  of  saving  or  in- 
vesting— no  adequate  banking  facilities, 
and  no  houses  or  other  tangible  forms 
of  property  safe  from  destruction  by  en- 
vious neighbors."  "Ah,  that's  where  I 
come  in,"  said  Carson,  smiling  ever  so 
sweetly,  "life  insurance." 

J.  E.  Conner 
U.  S.  Consul  at  Petrograd,  1909-1914 


June  5,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[595 


I 


Anatole  France  as 
Preacher 

THE  speech  delivered  some  months  ago 
by  Anatole  France  to  the  Congress 
of  Teachers'  Institutes  at  Tours,  and  re- 
ported apparently  verbatim  in  I'Hu- 
manite,  must  have  been  read  with  as- 
tonished, though  quite  genuine,  delight 
by  many  of  the  old  novelist's  admirers. 
We  have  long  known  that  he  could  write 
in  different  styles,  but  we  must  be  for- 
given if  we  did  not  before  think  it 
possible  he  could  preach.  Yet  it  is  preach- 
ing of  a  high  order  that  he  has  now 
given  us.  On  a  somewhat  similar  oc- 
casion, overwhelmed  by  a  like  incon- 
gruity, certain  men  of  Israel  asked, 
"What  is  this  that  is  come  unto  the  son 
of  Kish?  Is  Saul  also  among  the 
prophets?"  His  experience  of  the  Eu- 
ropean tragedy  has  wrought  this  change 
in  the  gay,  debonair  Anatole  France, 
even  as  another — whose  very  tempera- 
ment might  by  itself  suggest  the  com- 
parison— became  a  new  man  when  Sam- 
uel had  roused  him  to  a  sense  of  na- 
tional responsibility,  and  had  poured  the 
oil  of  anointing  upon  his  head. 

It  is  hard  to  think  of  that  impassioned 
address  to  the  teachers  on  the  solemn 
duties  of  their  office  as  proceeding  from 
the  author  of  "Penguin  Island"or  "The 
Opinions  of  Jerome  Coignard."  For  it  is 
as  an  entertainer,  a  satirist,  a  skeptic, 
that  Anatole  France  had  so  far  been 
chiefly  known  to  us.  He  had  entertained 
us  hugely,  and  his  satire  had  spared  none 
of  our  cherished  sanctities.  But  what 
seemed  to  forbid  still  more  strongly  all 
thought  of  him  as  a  guide  to  progress 
was  the  fact  that  he  had  been  so  uni- 
formly skeptical  about  human  advance, 
and  had  poured  such  scorn  upon  the  hopes 
of  world-mending  by  which  others  were 
inspired.  A  glance  at  his  past  in  the 
light  of  his  present  may  not  be  without 
interest  and  value.  It  is  here  offered 
in  no  spirit  of  reproach,  for  one  must  be 
a  poor  trifler  indeed  to  dwell  upon  "in- 
consistencies" in  an  old  man  who  has 
seen  his  world  turned  upside  down.  It 
is  more  fitting  to  express  one's  admira- 
tion for  those  who  can  make  a  change 
in  themselves  when  a  changing  world  de- 
mands it. 

It  was  in  the  year  1870,  while  the 
Franco-Prussian  war  was  at  its  height, 
and  the  shells  from  German  guns  dropped 
every  few  minutes  hissing  into  the 
Marne,  that  the  writer  whom  all  the 
world  has  since  come  to  know  as  "Ana- 
tole France"  was  doing  duty  at  the  front 
as  a  conscript.  He  has  told  us  himself 
that  he  carried  Vergil's  .S^neid  in  his 
knapsack,  and  read  it  as  often  as  he 
found  time.  He  had  no  enthusiasm  for 
the  business  of  war,  and,  when  peace 
was  concluded  on  those  terms  of  des- 


perate humiliation  for  the  French  which 
mankind  in  general  came  so  slowly  to 
appreciate,  he  rejoiced  to  be  set  free 
from  the  burden  of  his  irksome  service. 
The  fortunes  of  Mneas  and  Dido  inter- 
ested him  more  than  any  change  in  the 
Europe  of  his  own  day. 

Forty-four  years  passed.  The  un- 
known youth  of  twenty-six,  who  had  to 
attend,  against  his  will,  to  the  first  Ger- 
man menace,  was  a  famous  man  of  sev- 
enty when  that  menace  appeared  again. 
No  one  cared  much  whether  he  was 
apathetic  in  1869,  but  not  a  few  were 
very  anxious  indeed  to  know  how  his 
immense  influence  would  be  exerted  in 
1914.  Nor  did  his  first  letter  on  the 
subject,  counselling  a  moderation  for 
which  his  countrymen  could  see  little 
place,  tend  to  reassure  the  public  mind. 
But  within  a  few  weeks  he  had  wakened 
up  to  the  grim  reality.  It  caused  some- 
thing like  a  thrill  when  we  learned  that 
he  had  ignored  the  weight  of  his  years, 
presented  himself  at  the  War  Office,  and 
requested  to  be  furnished  with  a  rifle. 
Inconsistency  is  a  poor  reproach  at  best, 
but  it  was  not  even  inconsistent  to  look 
upon  fighting  for  the  Republic  in  1914 
as  quite  another  matter  from  fighting 
for  Napoleoji  III  in  1870.  Needless  to 
say,  the  French  Government  did  not 
agree  to  enrolling  this  veteran  in  the 
ranks,  but  declined  his  spectacular  pro- 
posal with  adequate  acknowledgment  of 
his  zeal.  It  was  felt  that  there  was  an- 
other instrument  which  Anatole  France 
could  make  mightier  than  many  swords, 
and  he  was  bidden  to  return  to  his  pen. 
His  next  book,  "Sur  la  Voie  Glorieuse," 
was  unlike  anything  he  had  ever  written 
before,  except  in  that  vividness,  pathos, 
overwhelming  power,  which  he  now 
turned  to  quite  a  new  purpose.  It  was 
a  trumpet  call  to  destroy  German  mili- 
tarism from  top  to  bottom,  a  bitter  in- 
dictment of  those  who  dared  to  speak 
of  peace  until  the  forces  of  oppression 
should  have  been  crushed,  an  argument 
to  neutral  states  all  over  the  world  that 
no  neutrality  was  possible  in  such  a 
crisis,  and  a  moving  appeal,  such  as  he 
knew  better  than  any  other  man  how  to 
write,  that  Frenchmen  should,  as  of  old, 
be  "the  champions  of  their  smiling,  fer- 
tile land,  the  tombs  of  their  fathers,  and 
the  cradles  of  their  children." 

Those  of  us  who  have  long  revelled  in 
his  books  can  not  help  recalling  some 
things  he  used  to  say,  and  wondering  to 
what  extent  he  would  now  modify  them. 
We  knew,  indeed,  the  fervor  of  his  anti- 
militarism,  and  were  sometimes  inclined 
to  suspect  him  of  being  a  pacifist.  Not 
even  "Tolstoi  himself  had  been  a  more 
mordant  critic  of  the  European  trend 
towards  war.  "Penguin  Island"  deserves 
to  stand  beside  "Gulliver's  Travels"  as 
a  satire  upon  the  society  in  which  its 
author  lived.  We  remember  the  statue 
of   "Trinco"   in   Penguinia,   the  warrior 


who  had  conquered  half  the  known 
world,  planting  his  flag  amid  the  ice- 
bergs of  the  Pole  and  on  the  burning 
sands  of  Africa.  "At  the  time  of  his 
fall  there  were  left  in  our  country  none 
but  the  hunchbacks  and  cripples  from 
whom  we  are  descended  .  .  .  But  he 
gave  us  glory  .  .  .  And  glory  never 
costs  too  much."  What  a  lifelike  pic- 
ture we  had  in  "Professor  Obnubile,"  the 
brilliant  economist  who  taught  that  wars 
are  no  longer  possible,  because  it  is  an 
economic  axiom  that  peace  without  and 
peace  within  are  essential  to  the  prog- 
ress of  the  industrial  state!  As  the  pro- 
fessor visited  democratic  republics,  and 
found  to  his  disgust  that  they  were 
all  busy  with  armaments,  which  of  us 
could  avoid  thinking  of  Norman  Angell, 
and  his  book  so  appropriately  named 
"The  Great  Illusion"?  American  read- 
ers may  have  been  a  little  irritated,  but 
they  were  certainly  amused,  at  the  story 
of  New  Atlantis,  with  its  legislators  sit- 
ting on  cane  chairs  and  resting  their 
feet  upon  their  desks,  passing  the  ac- 
counts for  a  war  with  "Third  Zealand" 
to  kill  two-thirds  of  the  inhabitants  that 
the  remaining  one-third  might  be  forced 
to  buy  Atlantan  umbrellas  and  braces, 
or  decreeing  in  a  few  seconds  a  pig  war 
with  "the  Emerald  Republic  which  inso- 
lently contends  with  our  pigs  for  the 
hegemony  of  hams  and  sauces  in  all  the 
markets  of  the  universe."  Poor  Pro- 
fessor Obnubile  was  driven  to  conclude 
that  a  wise  man  would  collect  enough 
dynamite  to  blow  up  this  planet,  thus 
giving  satisfaction  to  the  universal  con- 
science. "Moreover,"  he  added,  "this  uni- 
versal conscience  does  not  exist." 

And,  impartial  scoffer  that  he  was, 
Anatole  France  was  no  less  sarcastic 
when  he  wrote  of  his  own  countrymen. 
The  "insane  Europeans"  were  plotting  to 
cut  one  another's  throats,  though  they 
were  united  and  enfolded  by  a  single  civ- 
ilization. There  was  no  country  where 
the  freedom  of  the  individual  was  less  re- 
spected than  in  France.  She  pretended  to 
be  democratic,  but  was  in  reality  the  prey 
of  la  haute  finance.  For  the  last  hun- 
dred years  she  had  tried  an  incoherent 
succession  of  insurrectionary  govern- 
ments. In  the  end  all  bonds  had  been 
loosened,  and  she  had  become  more  cor- 
rupt than  in  the  worst  days  of  monarchy. 
Nor  did  our  novelist  build  any  hope  upon 
advancing  education,  upon  the  arousing 
of  the  masses  by  the  light  of  knowledge. 
His  attitude  used  to  remind  us  of  Dr. 
Johnson's  dictum  that  it  was  not  worth 
spending  half  a  guinea  to  live  under 
one  form  of  government  rather  than 
under  another,  for  it  made  no  difference 
to  the  happiness  of  the  individual.  It  is 
risky,  of  course,  to  attribute  to  an  au- 
thor the  sentiments  which  he  puts  into 
the  mouth  of  characters  in  his  fiction, 
but  in  this  case  we  can  scarcely  be  wrong. 
Just  as  Conrad,  Lara,  Harold,  Juan  were 


596] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  56 


so  many  spokesmen  of  the  Byronic  tem- 
perament, so  Bonnard,  Coignard,  Trub- 
bet,  Bergeret  were  lay  figures  through- 
whom  their  creator  expounded  the  Fran- 
cian  theory  of  life.  And  however  fre- 
quently he  incarnated  himself  anew,  we 
meet  with  the  same  spirit  of  genial  kind- 
liness rooted  in  the  same  profound  skepti- 
cism about  the  ideals,  the  growth,  the 
destiny  of  the  human  species.  His  view 
often  suggested  that  of  a  literary  Vol- 
tairean  noble  under  the  ancien  regime, 
with  many  popular  sympathies,  but  with 
no  delusions  about  intellectualizing  the 
herd. 

Rather  did  the  old  Anatole  France 
delight  to  sketch  some  roui  man  of  let- 
ters, straitened  in  purse,  dividing  his 
time  between  the  cabarets  of  the  Latin 
Quarter  and  the  book-shops  of  the  Quai 
Voltaire — someone  like  the  Marquis 
Trubbet  in  "Jean  Servien,"  who  had 
often  breakfasted  on  a  page  of  Tacitus 
and  supped  on  a  satire  of  Juvenal,  but 
for  whom  such  artistic  substitutes, 
though  they  might  take  the  place  of 
food,  could  in  no  wise  do  duty  for  drink. 
In  many  of  his  books  he  makes  one  think 
again  of  that  sjmipathetic  touch  with 
which  Balzac  used  to  depict  revived  aris- 
tocracy in  the  Legitimist  period  of  fif- 
teen years  between  the  fall  of  Napoleon 
and  the  rise  of  Louis  Philippe.  They  sug- 
gest the  unmistakable  friendliness  with 
which  the  frail  and  fair  successors  of 
Ninon  de  L'Enclos  were  painted,  and  the 
far  coarser  workmanship  that  Balzac 
gave  us  when  he  tried  to  present  the 
bourgeois  semi-Puritanism  prevalent  at 
the  court  of  the  Citizen  King.  For 
Anatole  France  in  other  days  was  no 
zealot  for  the  Revolution. 

How  he  loved  to  caricature  the  old 
revolutionary  enthusiasms !  What  fun  he 
poked  at  the  pseudo-history  of  empires 
from  Noah  down  to  Charlemagne,  at  the 
long  procession  of  ambitious  princes, 
greedy  prelates,  virtuous  citizens,  philo- 
sophic poets,  "and  other  personages  who 
had  no  real  existence  outside  the  novels 
of  Marmontel" !  How  he  laughed  at  the 
rhetorical  tropes  about  Brutus  and 
Scaevola  and  Hannibal,  or  at  the  new  de- 
vices for  a  pack  of  playing  cards  that 
would  have  no  such  undemocratic  figures 
as  king,  queen,  knave,  but  would  substi- 
tute Liberty  of  clubs.  Equality  of  spades. 
Fraternity  of  diamonds,  and  Law  of 
hearts!  Coignard's  ideal  for  educating 
mankind  had  for  its  first  purpose  a  very 
singular  rule.  Men  were  to  be  shown 
that  "their  weak  and  silly  nature  has 
never  constructed  nor  imagined  anything 
worth  the  trouble  of  attacking  or  de- 
fending very  briskly."  "If  they  knew 
the  crudity  and  weakness  of  their  great- 
est works,  such  as  their  laws  and  their 
empires,  they  would  only  fight  in  fun 
or  in  play,  like  children  building  sand- 
castles  by  the  sea."  Coignard  himself 
would  never  have  signed  the  Declaration 


of  the  Rights  of  Man,  "because  of  the 
excessive  and  unfair  separation  it  es- 
tablishes between  man  and  the  gorilla." 

Those  who  love  to  trace  spiritual  af- 
finities in  literature  often  insist  that 
Anatole  France  owes  his  deepest  inspira- 
tion to  Ernest  Renan,  and  we  know  that 
this  discipleship  has  been  explicitly  ac- 
knowledged by  himself.  But  if  we  are 
in  search  less  of  the  teaching  which  he 
consciously  followed  than  of  the  tem- 
perament to  which  his  own  was  uncon- 
sciously akin,  it  is  a  different  name  that 
will  occur  to  us.  We  shall  think  of  that 
calm,  reflective,  half-sympathetic  and 
half-cynical  grand  seigneur  who  four 
hundred  and  fifty  years  ago  retired  from 
the  world's  bustle  to  spend  "under  the 
care  of  the  learned  maidens"  whatever 
span  of  life  might  yet  be  allotted  to  him. 
Constantly  as  we  read  the  Bergeret 
books  that  pensive  figure  seems  to  shine 
through  the  page,  and  though  the  words 
are  the  words  of  Anatole  France,  it  is 
the  spirit  of  Montaigne  that  has  em- 
bodied itself  afresh.  We  see  again  the 
placid  critic  of  all  things  human,  heed- 
less alike  of  the  bloodshed  in  a  St.  Bar- 
tholomew massacre  and  the  cannonad- 
ing of  a  Spanish  Armada,  shut  up  in  the 
tower  of  his  chateau  with  the  three  bay 
windows  which  every  tourist  knows  so 
well,  that  he  might  amass  more  and 
more  illustrations  of  the  "wonderful, 
vain,  divers,  and  wavering  subjects"  pre- 
sented to  scrutiny  in  the  life  of  man- 
kind, that  he  might  browse  with  impar- 
tial interest  among  the  treasures  of  lit- 
erature both  sacred  and  pagan,  and  that 
he  might  amuse  his  later  years  by  cov- 
ering beam  and  rafter  with  the  inscrip- 
tions that  appealed  to  his  fancy — the 
aphoristic  wit  of  Martial,  the  cold  skep- 
ticism of  Lucretius,  the  glowing  poetry 
of  the  Psalms,  the  elegant  lyrics  of  Hor- 
ace, and  the  doleful  vaticination  of  Ec- 
clesiastes. 

Now  if  the  veteran  novelist  still  has  "a 
book  in  him,"  as  Lord  Morley  would  say, 
how  many  of  these  old  attitudes  may  we 
expect  him  to  reconsider,  and  how  far 
may  we  expect  him  to  write  differently? 
Will  he  preserve  the  mood  of  "Les  Opin- 
ions de  Jerome  Coignard,"  or  will  he 
further  expand  the  message  of  "Sur  la 
Voie  Glorieuse"?  He  can  not  well  keep 
to  both,  or  much  further  experiment  with 
them  in  turn.  For  instance,  will  he  show 
himself  as  suspicious  as  ever  that  French 
munition  makers  are  raising  a  scare 
about  the  country's  peril  for  no  higher 
purpose  than  to  get  business  for  them- 
selves? Will  he  still  feel  sure  that  there 
is  little  to  choose  between  democracies 
and  aristocracies,  that  the  tyranny  of 
the  former  is  on  the  whole  more  to  be 
feared,  and  that  the  chief  merit  in  a  gov- 
ernment is  to  let  people  alone?  Is  he  as 
clear  as  ever  that  true  knowledge  can 
not  be  widely  diffused,  that  supersti- 
tious adherence  to  custom   is  best  for 


the  proletariat,  and  that  only  a  select 
few  should  be  encouraged  to  try  funda- 
mental thinking?  Does  he  continue  to 
think  of  the  French  Assembly  of  1793 
mainly  in  its  ludicrous  aspect  of  excite- 
ment about  Dumnorix  and  Vercingetorix 
and  the  glories  of  regicide?  When  he 
thinks  of  America,  is  his  attention  drawn 
to  new  wars  devised  for  the  opening  of 
new  markets?  Or  will  he  yet  make  the 
amende  honorable  to  those  whom  he 
treated  in  the  past  with  far  less  than 
justice,  to  the  bourgeois  man  of  business 
who  has  revealed  a  soul  far  above  busi- 
ness profits,  to  the  idealists  who  meant 
something  now  known  to  be  very  vital 
indeed  when  they  talked  of  liberty  and 
equality  and  fraternity,  to  the  priests 
who  have  shown  that  other-worldliness 
at  the  altar  can  be  united  with  an  heroic 
zeal  upon  their  country's  battlefields?  Is 
Montaigne  still  his  pattern  of  an  intelli- 
gent human  outlook,  or  does  he  per- 
chance feel  that  a  little  "enthusiasm"  is 
needed,  and  that  this  world  can  not  be 
saved  if  we  enter  upon  its  work  spiritu- 
ally hamstrung? 

Such  questions  as  these  had  often  oc- 
curred to  me  before  I  chanced  to  read 
the  speech  delivered  by  Anatole  France 
to  the  Congress  of  Teachers'  Institutes. 
Guesses  at  his  present  mood  are  no  longer 
necessary,  for  he  has  spoken  out  with 
frankness  and  even  with  passion.  The 
spirit  which  inspired  his  address  to  the 
soldiers  five  years  ago  is  with  him  still 
as  he  speaks  to  those  who  must  recon- 
struct his  country  at  peace.  He  has  told 
the  French  educators  that  the  future  is 
in  their  hands,  that  the  old  social  system 
has  "sunk  under  the  weight  of  its  sins," 
that  only  in  the  awakening  of  a  new 
humanity  can  Europe  place  its  hope.  He 
has  warned  us  all  against  the  facile  as- 
sumption that  "man  does  not  change," 
or  that  exerting  oneself  towards  social 
improvement  is  wasted  labor.  He  has 
bidden  us  realize  that  human  nature  can 
still  move  backward  and  forward — as  it 
has  moved  continuously  since  the  days 
of  the  cave-dwellers — that  it  is  environ- 
ment which  makes  all  the  difference,  that 
as  one  sort  of  education  led  us  to  catas- 
trophe another  can  secure  us  against  the 
like  catastrophe  again.  His  readers  will 
be  quick  to  recognize  here,  not  indeed 
an  absolutely  new  tone  in  Anatole  France, 
for  he  has  had  fitful  impulses  like  this 
before,  but  a  new  note  of  enduring  reso- 
luteness. Let  the  feeble  folk  who  have 
so  long  imitated  his  skepticism,  though 
they  had  no  share  in  his  power,  take  a 
lesson  from  the  example  he  has  set.  One 
of  the  things  that  some  of  us  hope  from 
the  new  era  is  that  we  shall  hear  a 
little  less  about  "conventional  morality," 
Nietzschean  transvaluations,  and  the  hy- 
pocrisy of  the  "smug  middle  class"!  It 
used  to  be  all  very  amusing,  but  the  hour 
for  seriousness  has  struck. 

Herbert  L.  Stewart 


June  5,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[597 


Correspondence 

Mr.  Dreiser  and  the  Broad- 
way Magazine 

To  the  Editors  of  THE  Review: 

In  your  issue  of  May  8,  1920,  you 
publish  a  letter  from  one  Annie  Nathan 
Meyer,  which  you  label  in  quotes  "Mr. 
Dreiser's  Battle  for  Truth."  Now  be- 
fore dealing  with  Mrs.  Meyer  it  occurs 
to  me  that  a  journal  of  the  usual  beauti- 
ful, good,  and  true  standard  such  as  no 
doubt  yours  professes  to  be  might  find 
it  advisable  before  giving  space  to  libel- 
ous assertions  to  submit  the  same  to  the 
person  accused  or  at  least  to  make  some 
effort  to  confirm  them.  Take  the  state- 
ment by  Mrs.  Meyer  which  reads :  "It  is 
only  a  few  years  since  a  group  of  mem- 
bers of  the  Authors'  League  asked  for 
contributions  for  the  brave  and  hounded 
author  to  enable  him  to  continue  his 
'battle  for  truth.' "  Now  this  is  all  very 
well  as  malice  but  as  a  matter  of  fact  I 
have  never  heard  of  any  such  group. 
Neither  the  Authors'  League  nor  any 
other  league  or  group  has  ever  asked  for 
contributions  for  anything  in  connec- 
tion with  me.  At  the  time  the  New 
York  Society  for  the  Suppression  of  Vice 
undertook  to  suppress  "The  Genius"  the 
Authors'  League  did  call  a  meeting  of 
some  committee,  which  by  the  way  I  did 
not  request  but  before  which,  neverthe- 
less, I  was  invited  to  appear,  to  consider 
whether  it  would  issue  a  protest  against 
the  suppression  of  "The  Genius."  I  did 
so  appear  but,  having  done  so  much,  the 
League  took  no  further  action  and  did 
not  come  to  my  defense  in  any  shape. 
Now  the  Authors'  League  has  a  tele- 
phone and  a  secretary.  Why  could  not 
one  of  the  editors  of  a  paper  pretending 
to  fairness  have  called  him  up  and  made 
inquiry  as  to  this  before  printing  a  lie? 
"I  worked  with  Mr.  Dreiser  sev- 
eral months  as  associate  editor  of  the 
magazine  of  which  he  was  editor-in- 
chief." 

The  lady  refers  to  the  Broadway 
Magazine,  of  which  I  was  not  editor-in- 
chief  but  only  the  managing  editor.  Mr. 
Ben  B.  Hampton  was  the  publisher  and 
editor.  (See  Who's  Who  for  1907.)  Mrs. 
Meyer's  claim  to  having  been  associated 
with  me  in  the  management  of  that 
magazine  takes  its  rise  from  the  follow- 
ing circumstances:  Either  after  having 
been  recommended  to  me  or  coming  to  me 
of  her  own  accord  (I  can  not  now  recall) 
Mrs.  Meyer  undertook  to  prepare  or  have 
prepared  for  the  magazine  a  series  of 
articles  on  art  and  artists.  In  order  to 
impress  those  with  whom  she  desired  to 
deal  she  requested  the  privilege  of  sign- 
ing herself  as  assistant  or  associate 
editor,  to  which  I  agreed,  but  for  that 
work  only.    That  she  has  or  ever  had  any 


letter  conferring  a  general  associate  edi- 
torship is  not  true.  You  might  ask  her 
to  produce  the  letter.  The  reason  why 
subsequently  I  severed  this  arrangement 
with  Mrs.  Meyer  was  this :  She  had  the 
profound  conviction  that  every  word  and 
comma  of  her  not  ill-prepared  text  was 
not  only  essential  but  sacred  and  that 
neither  she  nor  anyone  else  should  be 
called  upon  or  permitted  to  alter  it  in 
any  way.  As  experts  in  the  matter  of 
makeup  and  space  difficulties  in  connec- 
tion with  a  magazine  of  the  illustrated 
variety  perhaps  you  will  appreciate  the 
difficulty  of  such  a  stand.  I  found  it 
insurmountable  and  was  compelled  to 
break  with  Mrs.  Meyer. 

Now  it  may  be  that  subsequently  some 
writer  with  whom  Mrs.  Meyer  made 
some  arrangement  may  have  sued  the 
Broadway  Magazine  Corporation  or  Mr. 
Ben  B.  Hampton  for  non-payment  of 
some  bill.  I  do  not  remember.  And  in 
behalf  of  the  Corporation  I  may  have 
been  compelled  to  appear.  I  do  not  even 
recall  the  incident.  If  so,  I  must  have 
testified  as  I  am  testifying  here,  but  as 
for  denying  her  any  connection  with  the 
magazine,  I  doubt  it.  I  would  like  the 
name  of  the  case  and  the  date  of  the 
trial.  She  asserts  that  I  so  testified  and 
that  on  her  producing  a  letter  which 
showed  such  associate  editorship  the 
judge  looked  at  me  in  disgust  and 
rendered  a  decision  for  the  plaintiff. 
Nothing  more.  But  I  doubt  whether  a 
judge  detecting  a  man  in  perjury  would 
deal  with  him  so  very  leniently.  And  as 
for  my  flushing,  I  think  I  might  well 
have  if  such  were  the  case,  but  I  have 
a  fairly  retentive  memory  and  I  can  not 
recapture  even  so  much  as  a  thought  in 
connection  with  all  this. 

Speaking  of  your  heading,  "Mr. 
Dreiser's  Battle  for  Truth,"  I  wish  I 
could  persuade  mine  enemy  and  all  others 
to  drop  that  overworked  and  misused 
word  "truth."  I  might  be  willing  to 
battle  for  a  fact  or  many  facts,  but  for 
"truth,"  that  wondrous,  religious,  mor- 
alic  thing,  which  like  a  mercenary  can  be 
made  to  do  service  in  any  cause — well — 
no — I  do  not  fight  for  truth. 

Theodore  Dreiser 

New  York,  May  16 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

You  were  good  enough  to  send  me  Mr. 
Dreiser's  statement  to  read  before 
publication.  I  can  see  no  "malice"  in 
my  statement  concerning  Mr.  Dreiser's 
friends,  and  their  effort  to  help  him 
fight  the  censor.  I  never  claimed  that 
it  was  an  official  movement  on  the  part 
of  the  Authors'  League,  but  that  I  was 
asked  to  help  by  some  people  who  were 
members  of  the  League. 

I  am  sorry  I  am  unable  at  the  moment 
to  look  for  the  original  letters,  which  I 
hope  later  on  to  consult.  My  daughter 
having  just   undergone  a  serious   nose 


operation,  it  is  important  not  to  stir  up 
dust  in  the  room  adjoining  hers,  where 
my  old  letters  are  filed  away.  But  I  have 
written  to  England  to  the  writer  who 
sued  the  Broadway  Magazine  and  for 
whom  I  testified,  asking  him  to  send  me 
the  exact  date  of  the  trial,  the  name  of 
the  judge,  etc.  Unquestionably  the  sten- 
ographic report  of  the  trial  will  bear  out 
the  entire  accuracy  of  my  statement.  I 
am  told  by  my  lawyer  that  even  when  a 
judge  who  is  trying  a  case  has  reason  to 
believe  that  a  witness  is  not  testifying 
in  accordance  with  the  facts,  he  very 
rarely  bothers  to  order  the  prosecution 
of  the  witness. 

I  understood  that  Mr.  Hampton  was 
the  owner  of  the  Broadway  Magazine, 
and  it  was  possible  that  he  may  have  been 
down  as  Editor-in-Chief,  but  I  never  saw 
him,  never  had  any  dealing  with  him 
whatever,  and  to  all  intents  and  purposes 
Mr.  Dreiser  acted  as  Editor-in-Chief. 
Mr.  Hampton  never  appeared  at  the  trial, 
and  Mr.  Dreiser  testified  that  he  was 
Editor  of  the  magazine,  and  was  the 
only  one  who  had  authority  to  appoint 
any  Associate  Editor,  and  that  no  one 
else  could  have  given  me  authority  to 
order  articles.  Mr.  Dreiser,  in  his  reply, 
makes  a  point  of  not  having  conferred 
upon  me  any  "general  associate  editor- 
ship." It  does  not  matter  what  kind  of 
editor  I  was;  his  answer  at  the  trial 
was  a  general  denial  that  I  had  any 
power  to  order  articles  of  any  nature 
whatever  for  the  magazine. 

Annie  Nathan  Meyeb 

New  York,  May  27 

[Solely  on  account  of  space  those  portions 
of  Mrs.  Meyer's  letter  which  set  forth  in  de- 
tail her  personal  relations  with  Mr.  Dreiser 
and  the  Broadway  Magazine  have  been  omitted. 
It  may  be  proper  to  add  that  Mrs.  Meyer  is  a 
writer  and  a  public-spirited  woman,  well- 
known  for  the  leading  part  she  took  in  the 
founding  of  Barnard  College. — Eds.  The  Re- 
view.] 

"America's  Duty" 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review  : 

Your  article,  "America's  Duty,"  in  the 
Review  of  May  22,  is  refreshing,  the 
more  so  that  one  seldom  hears  of  late 
from  press  or  pulpit  a  vigorous  expres- 
sion on  what  the  United  States  ought  to 
do  for  the  peoples  in  dire  distress.  The 
contrast  with  what  we  saw  and  heard  a 
year  or  two  ago  is  not  only  mortifying 
but  amazing. 

Congress  is  blamed  for  heartlessness. 
Well  it  may  be,  but  does  not  Congress 
reflect  a  mental  attitude  prevalent 
through  the  country?  Senators  and 
members  of  Congress  are  not  usually 
blind  to  what  interests  their  constitu- 
ents? If  a  particle  of  the  extraordinary 
zeal  for  the  Constitutional  amendments 
had  been  manifested  in  behalf  of  wrecked 
and  starving  nations.  Congress  would 
not  have  been  so  lukewarm  towards  pro- 
posed measures  of  relief. 


598] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  56 


Probably  the  past  six  months  have 
witnessed  a  greater  outpouring  of  gifts 
from  the  American  people  for  ostensibly  . 
beneficent  causes  than  ever  before  in 
our  history,  but  how  trifling  the  part 
of  mitigating  the  miseries  of  those  over- 
whelmed by  the  calamities  of  the  war! 
Every  one  knows  what  the  great  "drives" 
are  for.  So  do  our  Congressmen.  If 
the  vociferous  appeals  that  stir  the  coun- 
try are  made  for  accumulating  funds  to 
insure  the  ministry  of  coming  ages,  to 
pile  up  big  endowments  for  universities 
and  colleges  such  as  never  were  dreamed 
of  before,  and  to  finance  on  a  vast  scale 
ecclesiastical  schemes  for  visionary  en- 
terprises that  tax  credulity  to  the  utmost, 
while  overlooking  millions  of  people  who 
at  this  verj-  hour  are  on  the  verge  of 
starvation,  what  is  to  be  expected  of 
politicians  in  Washington? 

May  not  these  aspects  of  present  con- 
ditions be  properly,  commended  to  the 
serious  consideration  of  all  who  are  en- 
gineering the  drafts  on  popular  bene- 
ficence which  are  to-day  absorbing  at- 
tention and  effort  to  the  exclusion  of  the 
actual  sufferings  of  the  world? 

Altruist 

New  Haven,  Conn.,  May  24 

Survival  After  Death  as 
Related  to  Physics 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

In  your  issue  of  March  6  Professor 
Jastrow,  discussing  Sir  Oliver  Lodge, 
says: 

The  peculiar  aggravation  of  the  "case"  is 
the  trivial  irrelevance  of  the  evidence  upon 
which  a  professor  of  physics  announces  a  sub- 
verswe  dispensation  which,  if  true,  would  con- 
tradict every  principle  of  his  science  and  rele- 
gate ■  his  laboratory  to  the  scrap-heap  of  an 
abandoned    intellectual    habitation. 

The  precise  meaning  of  the  phrase 
which  I  have  italicised  is  not  clear  to  me. 

The  words  seem  to  mean  that  if  "sur- 
vival after  death"  were  proven  to  be  a 
fact  it  would  be  equivalent  to  a  contra- 
diction of  the  principles  of  physical 
science.  As  this  is  manifestly  not  the 
case — for  physical  science  has  no  "prin- 
ciples" which  are  concerned  with  the 
"spirit"  side  of  things — Professor  Jas- 
trow must  mean  something  else,  and 
what  this  something  else  is  is  not  clear 
from  his  words. 

Will  he  be  so  kind  as  to  tell  us  what 
he  meant? 

The  reason  why  I  am  anxious  to  have 
his  meaning  clearly  stated  is  that  many 
ill-informed  people  suppose  that  the 
metaphysical  dogma  which  denies  the 
"spirit"  side  of  things  rests  upon  a  foun- 
dation of  physical  science,  which,  of 
course,  it  does  not.  It  is  pure  dogma. 
Conceivably  physical  science  may  disprove 
it  some  day,  but  it  can  never  prove  it. 

T.  F.  W. 

New  York,  May  9 


[The  reference  is  to  the  fact  that,  as 
Sir  Oliver  is  a  physicist,  he  should  be 
peculiarly  alert  to  any  use  of  physical 
data  for  an  unscientific  hypothesis. 
Since  he  has  included  physical  evidence 
as  part  of  his  conviction,  and  thought 
that  if  Palladino  got  over  her  temporary 
moral  decline  (as  people  throw  off  a 
cold)  she  would  once  again  show  that 
spirit-agency  can  affect  tables  as  hoist 
and  tackle  would.  If  that  is  so,  I  fail 
to  see  any  use  for  a  physical  laboratory 
in  which  one  teaches  and  demonstrates 
certain  laws  of  behavior  during  the  day, 
while  at  evening  in  a  seance  room  things 
behave  in  a  totally  subversive  manner. 

I  had  no  intention  to  imply  that  a  be- 
lief in  survival  after  death  as  a  matter 
of  faith  or  in  association  with  any  re- 
ligious or  cosmic  position  has  any  rela- 
tion to  physical  data.  It  stands  apart  on 
its  own  terms.  So,  also,  there  is  nothing 
in  the  general  conclusions  as  to  the  na- 
ture of  existence  which  may  be  derived 
from  physical  science  that  is  freer  from 
metaphysical  implications  than  a  view 
largely  derived  from  other  sources.  I 
find  myself  wholly  in  agreement  with  the 
view  stated  by  T.  F.  W.  I  should  regard 
it  as  vain  to  look  for  any  confirmation 
of  any  ultimate  views  I  hold  from  the 
revelations  of  a  seance  room,  whether 
the  manifestations  are  physical  or  psy- 
chical. The  sum  total  of  such  revelation 
is  to  my  mind  perfectly  and  necessarily 
explicable  upon  naturalistic  grounds 
which  leave  science  intact  and  consistent. 
Beyond  this  field  we  are  all  aliks  in  our 
limitations  of  knowledge  and  have  open 
the  remaining  sources  of  mental  and 
spiritual  assurance.      Joseph  Jastrow] 

Germany  the   Logical 
Claimant 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

"The  presumptions  are  in  favor  of 
Italy,"  you  say  in  speaking  of  the  Adri- 
atic east  coast,  "because  of  her  sacrifices 
in  the  war,  because  of  the  necessity  of 
securing  her  active  adherence  to  the 
League,  and  because  of  her  established 
cultural  position  and  prospects.  When 
disposing  of  an  almost  undeveloped  re- 
gion, statistics  of  the  scanty  population 
have  secondary  meaning.  What  counts 
greatly  is  the  capacity  of  the  claimants 
for  developing  and  eventually  peopling 
the  territory." 

Permit  me  to  suggest  that  from  all 
these  points  of  view  which  you  so  in- 
geniously suggest,  Germany  is  the  logi- 
cal claimant.  Her  sacrifices  in  the  war 
have  been  greater  even  than  those  of 
Italy;  Italy  shared  in  the  gestation  of 
the  League  and  is  parentally  committed 
to  it,  while  Germany  still  stands  out- 
side the  family  circle;  and  as  to  her 
cultural  position,  and  to  her  need  for 
scantily  populated  territory  may  I  refer 


you  to  the  works  of  Messrs.  von  Bern- 
hardi  and  Treitschke? 

Or  was  that  little  editorial  paragraph 
perhaps  a  slip  on  the  part  of  the  same 
brilliant  student  of  foreign  affairs,  who, 
describing  the  Communist  meeting  at 
Amsterdam,  and  compiling  his  informa- 
tion from  that  expert  and  impeccable 
source,  the  Amsterdam  Handelsblad,  con- 
verted the  Brooklyn  Jew,  S.  J.  Rutgers,. 
Bertram  W.  Kelly 

New  York,  May  5 

[We  are  glad  to  print  this  telling  testi- 
mony to  Mr.  Kelly's  brilliancy  as  a 
student  of  foreign  affairs,  and  humbly 
admit  our  inferiority  of  intellect, 
which  made  us  blind  to  the  fact  that 
Germany,  which  started  the  war  and 
ruthlessly  sacrificed  the  world's  peace 
for  the  sake  of  her  own  aggrandizement, 
has  no  less  a  claim  to  being  rewarded 
for  this  method  of  vindicating  her  cul- 
tural position  than  Italy  has  for  helping 
in  restoring  peace.  As  to  Mr.  Rutgers, 
a  temporary  residence  in  Brooklyn  and 
active  participation  in  Communist  propa- 
ganda in  the  United  States  can  not  con- 
vert a  Dutch  engineer  into  a  Brooklyn 
Jew.    Eds.  The  Review.] 

Gold  as  Commodity  and  as 
Money 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Review: 

In  the  current  discussion  of  the  high 
cost  of  living  does  not  Professor  Laugh- 
lin  blink  the  fact  that  in  both  of  its  func- 
tions, in  the  arts  as  well  as  in  business, 
gold  is  a  commodity  subject  to  the  same 
economic  laws  as  any  other  commodity; 
in  other  words,  that  the  quantity  theory 
of  money  is  implicit  in  the  accepted  eco- 
nomic relation  of  supply  and  demand? 

Let  us  consider  what  would  happen  if 
the  quantity  of  gold  coin  were  suddenly 
centupled  when  the  antecedent  quantity 
just  sufficed  for  the  economic  conduct  of 
business.  The  supposititious  mintage, 
constituting  99  per  cent,  of  new  mone- 
tary medium,  would  have  as  money  no 
function  whatever.  It  would  not  facili- 
tate business  at  existing  prices  and,  not 
being  needed  in  business,  it  could  not 
be  safely  put  at  interest  except  as  it  dis- 
placed existing  loans.  Nine  per  cent.,  let 
us  say,  would  be  absorbed  by  the  arts  but 
90  per  cent,  would  still  remain  in  bank 
vaults  idle.  Inevitably  it  would  seek  in- 
vestment and,  whether  economist  or  not, 
who  can  doubt  that  property  values  as 
expressed  in  gold  would  soar  and  con- 
tinue to  soar  until  finally  adjusted  to  the 
value  of  gold  in  its  double  capacity  of 
commodity  in  the  arts  and  in  finance? 
Whoever  accepts  the  conclusion  implied 
by  this  question  must  accept  also  "a," 
if  not  'the,"  quantity  theory  of  money. 

H.  A.  Briggs 
Sacramento,  Col.,  May  6 


June  5,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


The  Goncourt  Prize 

AMONG  recent  literary  discussions 
none  is  more  interesting  than  that 
connected  with  the  award  of  the  Gon- 
court prize  for  1919  in  France.  In  some 
aspects  this  discussion  is  amusing;  in 
others  it  may  turn  out  to  be  prophetic, 
for  one  of  the  two  volumes  to  which  the 
choice  was  iinally  reduced  is  perhaps  in- 
dicative of  a  view  upon  human  life  which 
will  distinguish  the  serious  novel  of  the 
immediate  future. 

The  winner  of  the  prize  was  Marcel 
Proust  with  his  "A  I'Ombre  des  jeunes 
filles  en  fleurs" ;  the  "runner-up,"  Roland 
Dorgeles  with  "Les  Croix  de  Bois."  The 
same  two  books  were  also  considered  for 
the  Prix  Vie  Heureuse,  awarded  by  a 
women's  committee;  and  this  time  the 
result  was  reversed,  Dorgeles  getting  the 
prize.  Commenting  on  these  results  and 
playing  on  the  titles,  as  also  on  the  sub- 
ject matter  of  the  rival  novels,  the  witty 
critic  Rachilde  attributes  the  preference 
of  the  women  to  nothing  but  the  irresis- 
tible attraction  of  "le  coq."  She  may  of 
course  be  right;  and  she  ought  to  know, 
being  a  woman  herself  and,  as  it  hap- 
pened, chairman  of  the  committee.  But 
I  am  inclined  to  think  that  this  prefer- 
ence was  determined  at  least  in  part  by 
something  else,  a  fact  which  all  have  ob- 
served who  have  dealt  with  the  mental 
processes  of  both  men  and  women,  viz., 
the  greater  docility  of  the  female  mind 
and  its  weaker  appreciation  of  that  which 
is  untried  and  original. 

"Les  Croix  de  Bois"  is,  to  be  sure,  a 
charming  volume.  Containing  stories  and 
sketches  of  the  war,  it  is  as  pleasing  and 
well-written  as  any  collection  of  the  kind 
which  I  have  read,  especially  to  be  recom- 
mended being  the  story  entitled  "le 
Fanion  rouge."  Dorgeles  is  alternately 
amusing  and  serious.  He  has  a  better 
control  of  his  material,  especially  in  the 
matter  of  perspective,  than  many  recent 
writers  on  the  same  subject;  and  he  is 
less  haunted  by  the  tiring  cult  of  the  in- 
conspicuous and  the  commonplace.  Thus 
his  book  appeals  readily  to  the  general 
reader  whose  taste  is  formed  by  cele- 
brated storytellers  of  the  past  and  who 
demand  of  a  book  merely  the  pleasure 
afforded  by  an  artistic  diversion  with 
which  they  are  already  familiar.  But 
for  this  same  reason,  "Les  Croix  de 
Bois"  has  little  of  interest  for  the  in- 
tellectually adventurous,  for  those  who, 
having  watched  the  development  of 
French  letters,  are  eagerly  seeking  signs 
of  something  at  the  same  time  new  and 
bearing  the  ear-marks  of  at  least  com- 
parative permanency. 

Proust's  "A  I'Ombre  des  jeunes  filles 
en  fleurs"  will  better  satisfy  the  inquisi- 
tive. It  suggests  the  thought  that  the 
novelist's  view  of  man  and  the  world 
after  bobbing  up  and  down  for  over  thirty 
years  under  the  pressure  of  the  chang- 


ing densities  of  the  realistic,  the  rational, 
the  sensational,  and  the  intuitive,  is  at 
last  coming  to  rest  in  a  stable  mixture 
of  them  all.  Distasteful  to  the  older 
generation  of  critics  who,  insisting  on 
condensation  and  artistic  choice,  very 
properly  object  to  it  on  stylistic  grounds, 
and  no  less  uncongenial  to  certain 
younger  groups  who,  still  convinced  of 
the  supreme  importance  of  the  lyric  urge 
both  in  the  individual  and  in  society  as 
a  whole,  dislike  it  for  its  merciless  in- 
sistence upon  the  hidden  principles  of 
human  reactions,  it  has  nevertheless 
found  much  significant  support  in 
France.  "Proust,"  says  a  reliable  ob- 
server, "is  one  of  the  two  authors  whom 
every  one  must  have  read";  and  his  re- 
cent book  is  ardently  praised  by  many 
critics  who,  of  varying  ages,  occupy  a 
middle  ground  and  seem  to  be  gaining 
daily  in  numbers  and  influence. 

"A  I'Ombre  des  jeunes  filles  en  fleurs" 
is  like  Proust's  preceding  book,  "du  Cotd 
de  chez  Swann,"  part  of  the  series  bear- 
ing the  general  title  "A  la  Recherche  du 
temps  perdu."  It  describes  events  in  the 
life  of  a  young  man,  presumably  the  au- 
thor, during  a  short  period  of  his  adoles- 
cence, stressing  particularly  the  thoughts 
and  feelings  of  the  hero  (if  so  gentle  a 
lad  may  be  given  such  a  title)  — thoughts 
and  feelings  so  arranged  in  the  retro- 
spect of  the  author  as  to  produce  a  novel 
and  striking  effect  upon  the  reader. 

To  understand  this  effect,  it  must  first 
be  noted  that  Proust  is  a  keen  observer  of 
his  fellow  men,  with  a  subtle  sense  for 
interpretation.  Speaking,  for  instance, 
of  the  fact  that  a  young  girl  who  had 
refused  to  let  the  youth  kiss  her  had 
immediately  afterwards  presented  him 
with  a  gold  pencil,  Proust  remarks  upon 
the  perversity  of  those  who  seek  to  show 
an  appreciation  of  our  attentions  while 
refusing  to  grant  the  particular  favor 
we  ask:  "the  critic  whose  article  would 
flatter  the  novelist,  invites  him  to  din- 
ner; and  the  duchess  does  not  take  the 
social  climber  to  the  theatre  with  her, 
but  sends  him  tickets  for  her  box  on  a 
day  when  she  is  busy  elsewhere." 

"A  I'Ombre  des  jeunes  filles  en  fleurs" 
is  full  of  such  observations  and  of  others 
on  a  more  developed  scale;  certain  pas- 
sages, notably  a  delightful  two  pages 
upon  the  young  Mme.  Swann,  walking 
among  her  admirers  in  the  sunshine  of  a 
spring  afternoon,  are  remarkable  por- 
traits in  which  the  physical  and  the 
moral  are  blended  to  perfection.  In  them 
all  we  detect  the  sharp  eye  and  quick 
sensitiveness  of  an  unusually  gifted  psy- 
chologist. But  these  observations  are 
only  the  material  out  of  which  Proust 
has  built  his  book,  not  its  subject.  His 
aim  is  to  reconstitute  the  past  of  his 
youth  with  all  the  vitality  of  real  life; 
and  this  vitality  he  obtains  by  arrang- 
ing his  material  in  accordance  with  a 
method  of  his  own,  one  might  almost 


say  with  a  certain  particular  philosophy. 
It  is  in  this  that  his  essential  originality 
appears. 

There  is  no  such  thing,  once  the  daya 
of  extreme  infancy  are  past,  as  a  virgin 
mind  or  virgin  sensibilities;  what  is 
more,  no  normal  man  is  exclusively  per- 
ception, feeling,  or  mind.  At  any  de- 
termined moment,  we  are  all  compounds 
of  previously  acquired  ideas  and  senti- 
ments, the  which  determine  our  approach 
to  this  or  that  person  or  thing,  each  suc- 
ceeding experience  of  life  modifying  in 
its  turn  the  predisposition  of  mind  and 
feeling  with  which  we  face  the  next  ex- 
perience. The  man  who  has  loved  once 
can  never,  even  though  he  should  later 
meet  another  woman  exactly  like  the 
first,  love  in  precisely  the  same  manner 
again;  and  he  who  goes  to  the  theatre 
to  see  a  much-talked-of  actress  takes 
with  him  to  the  play  a  prejudice  which 
that  which  he  sees  himself  may  greatly 
change  but  can  not  obliterate;  and  it 
may  even  happen  that  even  this  com- 
pound judgment  will  be  further  modi- 
fied, once  the  performance  is  over,  by 
the  strikingly  expressed  comment  of  an- 
other spectator. 

Such  is  evidently  the  theory  on  which 
Proust  proceeds  "k  la  recherche  du  temps 
perdu" :  he  seeks  to  recapture,  exactly  as 
they  were  at  the  moment,  the  states  of 
mind  and  feeling  succeeding  one  another 
in  the  development  of  his  young  hero. 
Commenting  on  the  letters  of  Mme.  de 
Sevigne,  he  observes,  in  one  passage  of 
his  book,  that  "she  presents  things  in 
the  order  of  our  perceptions  instead  of 
beginning  by  an  explanation  of  their 
causes,"  and  elsewhere  he  shows  his 
painter  Elstir  painting  things  "not 
such  as  he  knows  them  to  be,  but 
in  accordance  with  the  optical  illusions 
presented  to  the  eye."  Proust  has  built 
for  himself  a  method  along  these  lines; 
only,  and  it  is  precisely  this  point  that 
saves  him  from  the  futilities  of  impres- 
sionism, at  the  very  moment  of  describ- 
ing each  impression,  he  recognizes  the 
illusion  as  being  nothing  but  an  illusion 
and  thus  keeps  the  reader's  mind  open 
with  the  expectation  of  new  aspects  or  a 
further  development  to  come  later  on. 
The  result  of  this  method  is  decidedly 
pleasing.  The  world  unfolds  before  us 
as  it  does  to  the  hero;  we  seem  to  dis- 
cover it  ourselves,  advancing  hand  in 
hand  with  the  author,  our  consciousness 
being  constantly  enriched  by  facts,  ra- 
tional, realistic,  and  emotional.  A  group^ 
of  summer  girls  seem  to  us  all  alike  when 
first  encountered  on  the  beach:  they  are 
all  characterized  by  the  same  pride  in 
their  youth  and  the  same  exclusive  joy 
in  one  another's  society;  "They  had  for 
those  who  were  not  of  their  group  no 
affectation  of  disdain:  their  sincere  dis- 
dain itself  satisfied  them."  But  a  further 
acquaintance  leads  us  to  appreciate  dif- 
ferences between  them;  and  in  the  case 


600] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  56 


of  those  we  learn  to  know  best,  the  per- 
sonality of  one,  whose  identity  was 
strongb"  marked  at  the  outset,  grows 
easily  with  the  contribution  of  each 
meeting,  whereas  it  takes  more  effort  to 
reconcile  and  make  into  an  harmonious 
whole  the  different  impressions  and  facts 
picked  up  sporadically  concerning  an- 
other whose  identity  was  not  so  fixed 
when  we  first  saw  her  among  her  friends. 
Similarly,  to  take  an  example  of  a  dif- 
ferent kind,  Proust  makes  us  experience 
once  more  that  sense  of  sudden  enlighten- 
ment which  is  familiar  to  all  persons  who 
take  pleasure  in  making  and  observing 
new  friends.  Through  the  author  we 
make  the  acquaintance  of  certain  aristo- 
crats at  the  hotel ;  we  watch  them  move, 
talk,  and  parade;  we  form  an  opinion  of 
their  merits,  their  faults,  and  their  char- 
acteristics generally.  Then  a  chance  re- 
mark shows  them  to  be  relatives  and 
intimates  of  persons  we  knew  well  years 
before  in  the  very  different  surround- 
ings of  provincial  social  life.  This  asso- 
ciation is  a  revelation:  it  explains  and 
it  modifies,  and  both  our  new  acquaint- 
ances and  our  old  friends  are  henceforth 
seen  by  us  in  a  new  light. 

Thus  Proust  has  found  a  secret  for 
making  men  and  things  real  to  his  read- 
ers; and  it  is  this  sensation  of  discover- 
ing his  world  for  ourselves,  as  though 
with  our  own  eyes,  thought,  and  feelings, 
that  is  the  one  great  charm  of  his  book. 
Unfortunately,  from  the  point  of  view  of 
style  and  composition,  it  is  deplorable. 
Proust  belongs  to  that  school  which  the 
French  call  "dit-toutist."  His  book  is 
four  times,  and  his  sentences  are  half  a 
dozen  times,  too  long.  He  can  resist 
neither  a  secondary  detail  nor  a  subor- 
dinate clause,  and  it  often  takes  an  ex- 
traordinary effort  of  the  attention  to 
catch  the  bearing  of  either.  Perhaps  it 
is  this,  quite  as  much  as  his  originality 
or  the  title  of  his  book,  that  cost  him 
the  favor  of  the  ladies  of  the  Vie 
Heureuse.  Nevertheless  I  am  inclined 
to  agree  with  the  decision  of  the  Acad- 
emie  Goncourt.  Proust  is  a  novelist,  no 
longer  young,  who  has  patiently  worked 
out  and  applied  with  scrupulous  fidelity 
a  method  of  his  own;  and  it  would  fur- 
ther seem,  from  the  nature  of  his  atti- 
tude towards  life  and  the  reception  given 
to  his  book,  that  he  foreshadows  a  liter- 
ary philosophy  towards  which  writers 
have  unconsciously  been  tending.  We 
have  come,  of  late,  to  feel  somewhat  out 
of  sympathy  with  the  older  novelists, 
with  their  exclusions  and  their  over- 
emphasis. Are  we  to  have  at  last  a  new 
synthesis  based  on  a  simultaneous  recog- 
nition of  all  or  nearly  all  the  forces 
which  the  average  man,  in  contrast  to 
the  professional  philosopher,  recognizes 
as  potent  in  his  life — his  knowledge,  his 
reason,  his  imagination,  and  his  intui- 
tion? 

A.  G.  H.  Spiers 


Book  Reviews 

Indictments  Against  Two 
Nations 

Before  and  Now.  By  Austin  Harrison.  New 
York :   John  Lane  Company. 

Red  Terror-  .\nd  Green,  the  Sinn  Fein-Bol- 
shevist Movement.  By  Richard  Dawson. 
New  York :     E.  P.  Button  and  Company. 

IF  Mr.  Austin  Harrison  had  not  long 
since  won  his  own  way  to  our  regard 
for  his  vivacious  articles  as  editor  of  the 
English  Review,  all  lovers  of  brilliant 
journalism  would  still  look  with  eager 
expectancy  to  the  work  of  his  father's 
son.  The  venerable  Frederic  Harrison 
is  among  those  who  throughout  a  long 
lifetime  have  taught  most  to  their  con- 
temporaries, so  that  one  is  tempted  to 
collect  from  the  book  called  "Before  and 
Now"  some  trace  of  family  likeness  in 
style  or  in  message.  These  are  quite  con- 
spicuous to  even  the  most  casual  reader. 
There  is  a  touch  of  the  same  apostolic 
spirit,  the  same  resolve  to  make  literature 
a  medium  of  instruction  rather  than 
mere  entertainment,  the  same  caustic 
criticism  of  conventions,  and  the  same 
daring  challenge  to  prejudice.  Some  of 
the  papers  in  this  collection  appeared 
during  the  three  years  immediately  be- 
fore the  war,  others  between  1914  and 
1918.  They  are  re-printed  now,  with 
footnotes  calling  attention  to  the  points 
in  which  their  argument  has  been  con- 
firmed by  experience.  This  is  a  cour- 
ageous venture,  in  itself  reminiscent  of 
Frederic  Harrison's  own  literary  prac- 
tice, and  the  author  must  not  complain 
if  his  readers  choose  to  supplement  those 
footnotes  which  indicate  his  sagacity 
with  others  which  draw  attention  to  his 
mistakes. 

The  subjects  chiefly  discussed  are  the 
weak  points  of  English  life  and  custom. 
There  is  much  about  the  characteristic 
insularity  of  British  ideas,  about  the 
school  system  which  idolizes  sport,  stereo- 
types class  distinction,  and  imposes  a 
classical  training  to  the  neglect  of  science 
and  modern  languages  upon  those  who 
have  little  aptitude  for  Horace  or  Homer. 
Boys,  according  to  Mr.  Harrison,  leave 
Eton  or  Harrow  with  a  certain  social 
prestige,  but  with  almost  a  contempt 
for  serious  thought,  reverencing  "good 
form,"  but  poorly  equipped  for  the 
strenuous  tasks  of  the  modern  virorld. 
"So  the  system  endures,  and  it  is  the 
most  conservative,  wooden,  and  anti- 
quated business  concern  in  the  country." 
It  is  urged  upon  us  that  the  old  motto 
about  Waterloo  having  been  won  on  the 
playing-grounds  of  Eton  can  not  be  ap- 
plied in  the  changed  conditions  of  our 
own  time,  that  it  inspires  "class  priggish- 
ness  and  class  arrogance,"  that  it  is  re- 
sponsible for  producing  "mental  dere- 
licts,"  and  that  the  thing  needed  first 


and  foremost  is  to  bring  the  old  tradi- 
tional high-grade  schools  under  state 
management  and  discipline.  Mr.  Harri- 
son sees  the  fruit  of  this  obsolete  educa- 
tional heritage  in  John  Bull's  aversion 
to  taking  his  part  in  European  move- 
ments, in  his  sense  of  security  while 
"marooned  upon  our  right-little,  tight- 
little  island,"  in  his  scornful  dislike  of 
Continental  methods,  in  his  adherence  to 
an  ideal  of  personal  freedom  which 
divorces  itself  from  all  concern  with  so- 
cial necessities  and  projects.  He  finds  in 
the  English  temperament  a  strain  of  dis- 
order, of  rebelliousness  against  system 
and  control,  a  belief  that  it  is  always 
possible  to  "muddle  through"  by  a  sort  of 
national  rule  of  thumb  against  other  na- 
tions that  have  appreciated  the  need  for 
applied  science,  a  willingness  to  trust 
private  initiative  where  community  ef- 
fort alone  has  a  chance  of  success.  Thus 
the  same  spirit  which  left  British  hos- 
pitals to  be  maintained  by  the  charitable 
made  it  necessary  on  the  outbreak  of 
war  to  "advertise  for  an  army."  And 
Mr.  Harrison  thinks  that  there  might 
have  been  no  war  at  all  if  this  mood  of 
aloofness  had  not  prevented  Englishmen 
from  realizing  long  ago  the  obvious  men- 
ace in  Europe,  and  from  boldly  declaring 
their  resolve  to  take  active  part  with 
France  in  the  struggle  that  was  bound 
to  come. 

There  is  much  truth  in  all  this,  as  the 
war  has  abundantly  shown,  and  it  is  a 
chief  purpose  of  Mr.  Harrison's  book  to 
enforce  that  changed  policy  in  the  era  of 
peace  which  such  hardly  learned  lessons 
should  suggest.  He  thinks  the  party  sys- 
tem has  become  meaningless,  and  that  the 
men  from  both  political  camps  whom  he 
calls  "re-constructionists"  should  unite 
to  forget  old  watch-words  of  mutual 
antagonism.  Mr.  Lloyd-George  has  been 
saying  the  sams  thing,  but  one  realizes 
how  ambiguous  such  advice  is  when  one 
remembers  that  Mr.  Harrison  himself 
contested  Mr.  Lloyd-George's  seat  and 
bestowed  very  hearty  invective  upon  this 
typical  "re-constructionist"  during  the 
last  general  election.  It  seems  as  if  there 
were  no  escape  from  party  of  one  sort  or 
another,  and  a  chief  complaint  against 
the  teaching  of  "Before  and  Now"  is  that 
old  ideals,  though  they  may  be  faulty  be- 
cause they  are  old,  have  a  profound 
value  because  they  are  ideals.  "The  Eng- 
lishman's zeal  for  personal  freedom  may 
have  been  over-pushed,  but  so  was  the 
German's  zeal  for  state-control,  and  Mr. 
Harrison  has  not  given  us  much  help  in 
selecting  the  happy  mean.  Some  of  his 
papers  are  very  slight  performances, 
crisp,  vivid  journalese,  sometimes  de- 
scending even  to  causerie,  perhaps  worth 
publishing  once,  but  scarcely  deserving 
to  be  republished.  He  has  a  journalist's 
gift  for  the  choice  of  an  arresting  title. 
Thus  he  discusses  the  dethronement  of 
the  landed  aristocrat  by  the  man  of  trade 


June  5,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[601 


and  business  under  the  heading  "The 
Coming  of  Smith";  he  presents  the  case 
about  the  idle,  ostentatious  rich  in  a 
chapter  on  "The  Duke's  Buffalo";  he  in- 
troduces us  to  the  spirit  of  feminism  as 
"The  New  Sesame  and  Lilies."  What  he 
has  given  us  is  very  suggestive,  and  one 
is  grateful  to  any  man  who  can  stir  up 
general  interest  in  our  social  problems 
by  the  use  of  such  a  facile  pen.  Eng- 
lishmen will  be  provoked  to  see  them- 
selves depicted  in  an  essay  on  "The 
Country  of  the  Blind."  But  being  pro- 
voked may  well  be  a  pre-requisite  for  be- 
ing made  to  think,  and  Mr.  Harrison 
loves  the  country  which  he  takes  so  much 
trouble  to  satirise  into  an  awakening  to 
its  urgent  needs.  He  has  the  same  sort 
of  literary  gift  as  Mr.  H.  G.  Wells, 
though  in  a  slighter  degree.  But  he  has 
not  so  far  shown  anything  like  the  rich 
literary  nutritiousness  that  belongs  to 
the  work  of  his  distinguished  father. 

Mr.  Richard  Dawson  is  a  far  more 
alarming  writer  than  Mr.  Harrison.  The 
main  thesis  of  "Red  Terror  and  Green"  is 
that  we  have  all  been  utterly  in  the  dark 
about  the  real  purpose  of  Sinn  Fein.  He 
recognizes  that  that  movement  had  in  its 
earliest  and  quite  ineffective  beginnings 
a  certain  romantic  side.  But  he  urges 
that  its  driving  power  has  long  been  no 
fanatical  attachment  to  "nationhood,"  nor 
a  wistful  sentimentalism  about  Ireland's 
past,  but  rather  a  fierce.  Bolshevistic 
rage  against  property  and  the  prop- 
ertied classes,  so  that  if  we  would  un- 
derstand the  record  of  the  last  twenty 
years  we  must  give  far  less  attention  to 
the  politicians,  and  far  more  to  the 
stormy  petrels  of  organized  Labor.  The 
significant  figures  for  Mr.  Dawson  are 
thus  not  those  whom  the  outside  world 
has  learned  to  know  best.  The  reader 
will  be  astonished  to  find  that,  in  a  book 
which  deals  with  Irish  development  dur- 
ing the  last  ten  years,  there  is  only  the 
most  meagre  reference  to  John  Red- 
mond, an  incidental  mention  of  Mr.  De 
Valera,  almost  nothing  about  Sir  Edward 
Carson,  while  great  space  is  devoted  to 
James  Connolly,  James  Larkin,  and 
Roger  Casement. 

Mr.  Dawson  defines  with  clearness  that 
traditional  view  which  he  means  to  re- 
fute. He  finds  it  generally  taken  for 
granted  (1)  that  the  Irish  insurrection- 
ary movement  developed  out  of  constitu- 
tional nationalism ;  (2)  that  the  physical 
force  party  exploited  the  impatience  of 
those  whose  hope  of  Home  Rule  had  been 
persistently  disappointed;  (3)  that  the 
example  of  Ulster  was  a  potent  influence 
in  making  the  irritated  rank  and  file  of 
nationalism  break  away  from  pacific 
leaders  like  Redmond,  who  had  constantly 
failed,  and  seek  out  a  truculent  leader 
like  Sir  Edward  Carson,  who  seemed 
always  to  succeed.  Against  this  reading 
of  the  story  it  is  pointed  out  to  us  that 
it  does  not  "square  with  the  main  facts." 


It  does  not  explain  the  sudden  and  enor- 
mous access  of  strength  and  money  to  the 
Sinn  Fein  cause  during  the  war,  the  com- 
plete overthrow  of  the  parliamentary  na- 
tionalists, the  Dublin  rebellion,  and  the 
German  alliance.  Mr.  Dawson's  own  way 
of  accounting  for  these  things  is  that 
Sinn  Fein  was  no  passionate  outgrowth 
of  the  old  movement,  but  differed  from  it 
in  kind.  From  the  very  first  it  was 
anti-constitutional,  with  its  real  roots  in 
a  hatred  of  the  existing  economic  order, 
and  its  association  with  the  spirit  of 
nationality  was  never  more  than  a  dexter- 
ous disguise  by  which  those  quite  un- 
sympathetic towards  its  real  purpose 
might  be  cajoled  into  reinforcing  it.  The 
German  alliance,  the  flood  of  money  from 
Bolshevist  sources  abroad,  the  touting 
for  help  from  the  followers  of  Lenin  and 
Trotsky  have  thus  made  clear  the  ends 
which  were  all  along  of  Sinn  Fein's 
essence. 

This  is  immensely  interesting,  and  Mr. 
Dawson  is  a  most  lively  expounder.  As 
an  Indian  chief  was  seldom  of  much  re- 
pute until  he  could  show  the  scalps  of 
some  defeated  rivals,  so  a  clever  jour- 
nalist, aspiring  to  the  honors  of  re-writ- 
ing history,  must  vindicate  his  prowess 
by  disproving  some  traditional  view 
about  the  past.  Nor  can  anyone  deny 
that  there  is  an  element  of  truth  in  what 
Mr.  Dawson  has  urged,  though  he  is  by 
no  means  so  original  in  its  discovery  as 
he  seems  to  suppose.  Sinn  Fein  has 
always  hated  the  constitutional  nation- 
alists, as  was  well  known  before  Mr. 
Dawson  set  this  forth,  with  a  great  show 
of  revealing  to  us  a  secret.  He  does  well 
to  emphasize  the  Labor  side  of  the  rising 
of  1916,  although  almost  every  newspaper 
at  the  time  was  at  pains  to  point  out  how 
significant  was  the  part  then  played  by 
Dublin  Syndicalists.  Perhaps  the  fresh- 
est point  he  has  to  make  is  Connolly's 
adroitness  in  connecting  his  own  com- 
munistic schemes  with  the  spirit  of  the 
old  Irish  tribal  organization,  so  that  he 
might  avail  himself  of  that  national 
sentiment  which  better  men  had  been 
unable  to  conduct  to  success.  The  in- 
trigues of  Casement  with  the  Germans 
make  excellent  material  for  building  up 
a  theory  that  Sinn  Fein  was  part  of  a 
German  plot,  and  in  a  world  torn  by  Bol- 
shevism it  is  plausible  to  suggest  that 
Sinn  Fein  emissaries  have  been  seeking 
to  combine  the  forces  of  disorder  at  home 
with  the  agencies  of  disorder  in  other 
countries.  But  Mr.  Dawson  will  not 
easily  convince  those  who  know  rural 
Ireland  that  its  peasantry — now  bitterly 
Sinn  Fein — are  now  or  were  ever  Bol- 
shevistic. Perhaps  no  other  class  that 
could  be  named  has  so  hated  communism 
as  the  Roman  priesthood,  and,  unless  the 
Ulster  folk  whom  Mr.  Dawson  admires 
are  all  wrong,  it  is  the  Roman  priest- 
hood which  controls  the  rest  of  Ireland. 
Perhaps   the   drollest   of   Mr.    Dawson's 


arguments  is  that  Sinn  Fein  is  now 
"thrown  back  perforce  upon  the  urban 
population,"  just  because  those  in  the 
country  districts  are  least  susceptible  to 
the  forces  of  anarchistic  Labor!  As  Ire- 
land is  overwhelmingly  agricultural,  one 
would  like  to  think  this  view  was  right, 
for  the  success  of  Sinn  Fein  would  then 
be  short-lived.  But  as  its  strength  is 
clearly  spread  over  those  areas  in  which 
his  argument  would  prove  it  impotent, 
one  must  forgo  the  comfort  which  he 
has  momentarily  encouraged.  And  a 
glance  will  show  that  those  main  facts 
with  which,  he  tells  us,  the  traditional 
theory  can  not  be  made  to  square,  are 
quite  inexplicable  on  the  theory  he  would 
substitute.  Mass  changes  in  feeling  are 
not  wrought  in  a  day  even  by  distribut- 
ing German  gold  among  leaders.  But 
they  are  wrought  by  the  prolonged  dis- 
appointment of  mass  hopes.  Subtracting, 
however,  the  due  subtrahend,  as  Carlyle 
would  have  put  it,  one  may  learn  from 
Mr.  Dawson  to  lay  more  emphasis  upon 
the  passions  of  insurgent  Labor  in  the 
cities,  and  less  upon  a  demoralizing  of 
the  quiet  rural  folk,  if  one  would  explain 
the  shocking  orgies  of  crime.  Herein 
lies  the  grain  of  hopefulness  which  the 
writer  has  unwittingly  sown  in  our 
hearts. 

Herbert  L.  Stewart 

One  of  the  Ablest  Members 
of  the  Supreme  Court 

John  Archibald  Campbell,  Associate  Justice 
OF  THE  United  States  :  Supreme  Court, 
1853-1861.  By  Henry  G.  Connor.  Boston: 
Houghton  Mifflin  Co. 

TO  some  lawyers  past  middle  life,  and 
to  specialists  in  the  history  of  this 
country  during  the  decade  from  1855  to 
1865,  the  name  of  John  Archibald  Camp- 
bell is  still  familiar.  To  few  others  would 
it  now  suggest  anything.  Many  more 
could  recall  somewhat  of  such  politicians 
as  Lewis  Cass,  of  such  merchants  as 
A.  T.  Stewart,  of  such  pugilists  as  John 
C.  Heenan,  the  "Benicia  Boy,"  to  say 
nothing  of  such  a  showman  as  P.  T. 
Barnum,  every  one  of  whom  was  at  some 
period  of  his  life  among  his  contem- 
poraries. Yet  we  like  to  think  of  the 
Supreme  Court  as  the  greatest  judicial 
tribunal  that  the  world  has  ever  known, 
and  Campbell  certainly  ranked  among 
the  ablest  half  dozen  of  the  more  than 
three  score  men  who  have  been  members 
of  it.  When  his  name  is  now  mentioned 
at  all,  it  is  usually  in  connection  with 
the  very  few  occasions  upon  which  he 
had  some  hand  in  other  than  legal  mat- 
ters; as  when,  in  the  early  spring  of 
1861,  he  was  intermediary  between  the 
Commissioners  of  South  Carolina  and 
Secretary  Seward;  or  when  in  Febru- 
ary, 1865,  with  Stephens  and  Hunter, 
he  represented  the  Confederacy  at  the 
conference  in  Hampton  Roads;  or  when. 


602] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  56 


two  months  later,  he  obtained  from 
President  Lincoln  permission  for  the 
Virginia  Legislature  to  convene  at  Rich- 
mond, then  in  possession  of  Grant's 
army.  AU  the  greater  the  debt  to  Judge 
Connor  for  this  readable  book  of 
scarcely  three  hundred  pages,  in  which 
is  told  the  story  of  Campbell's  life,  and 
from  which  we  learn  how  highly  his 
professional  brethren  in  his  own  day 
thought  of  him  as  counsellor,  advocate, 
and  judge.  That  is  usually  the  only 
possible  test  of  the  worth  of  a  lawyer. 
There  are  no  formal  measuring  rods  by 
which  to  gauge  his  true  size,  a  fact  which 
the  book  before  us  strikingly  illustrates. 

Campbell  was  one  of  the  six  Justices 
whose  decision  in  the  Dred  Scott  case 
was  recalled  at  the  Presidential  election 
of  1860,  at  Appomattox,  and  by  the  Four- 
teenth Amendment.  He  was  of  the  dis- 
senting minority  in  his  opposition  to  the 
extensions  of  the  Admiralty  jurisdic- 
tion, since  found  so  useful,  and  in  his 
objection  to  the  legal  fiction  by  which 
the  Federal  Courts  have  secured  for 
themselves  so  considerable  a  part  of  the 
litigation  to  which  corporations  are 
parties.  He  was  of  counsel  in  the 
Slaughter  House  cases,  and  there  made 
one  of  the  greatest  arguments  of  his 
life.  He  lived  to  appreciate  how  unfor- 
tunate would  have  been  the  consequences 
had  the  majority  of  the  Court  accepted 
the  construction  of  the  Fourteenth 
Amendment  for  which  he  there  con- 
tended. 

His  efforts  to  postpone  the  outbreak 
of  the  war  by  bringing  about  an  informal 
understanding  as  to  Fort  Sumter;  to 
end  it  by  accepting  the  terms  offered  by 
Lincoln  at  Hampton  Roads;  and  to  es- 
cape from  the  perils  of  radical  recon- 
struction by  calling  together  the  Legis- 
latures of  the  several  States  which  had 
made  up  the  Confederacy,  so  that  they 
might  themselves  undertake  the  neces- 
sary readjustments,  all  failed.  Those 
who  did  not  know  him,  with  such  evi- 
dence and  none  other  before  them,  might 
well  question  whether  after  all  he  was 
really  eminent.  In  such  doubts,  those 
who  had  heard  him  at  the  Bar,  or  had 
sat  with  him  in  the  consultation  room, 
never  shared.  As  Judge  Connor  shows, 
they  knew  him  for  what  he  was.  They 
saw  and  felt  the  power  that  was  in  him. 

In  fact,  if  not  in  intention,  there  is 
sometimes  not  a  little  irony  in  the  con- 
ventional "learned  judge."  It  was  not 
so  as  to  him.  He  was  in  the  first  rank 
as  a  common  law  lawyer,  and  he  was  an 
accomplished  civilian  as  well,  something 
which  few  English  lawyers  of  his  day, 
or  for  that  matter  of  any  other,  were 
or  are.  It  is  a  wonder,  though,  that  any 
love  of  learning  or  capacity  to  acquire 
it  survived  his  early  experiences.  We 
are  told  that  he  entered  Franklin  Col- 
lege, now  the  University  of  Georgia,  at 
eleven,  and  graduated  at  the  head  of  his 


class  at  fourteen.  It  would  profit  little 
now  to  inquire  into  what,  at  that  time, 
were  the  requirements  of  his  alma  mater. 
Let  us  be  thankful  that  he  was  at  least 
apparently  none  the  worse.  Then  for 
three  years  or  thereabouts,  he  was  a 
cadet  at  West  Point.  At  seventeen,  he 
took  up  the  study  of  the  law,  and  kept 
at  it  for  the  sixty  years  he  thereafter 
lived.  By  grace  of  a  special  Act  of  Leg- 
islature, he  was  admitted  to  the  bar 
when  he  was  eighteen.  Fifty-three  years 
later,  in  New  Hampshire  vs.  Louisiana, 
he  made  an  argument  before  the  Su- 
preme Court  which  Waite,  Miller,  Field, 
Grey,  and  Blatchford  united  in  declaring 
to  be  the  greatest  that  anyone  of  them 
had  ever  heard. 

The  reader  of  Judge  Connor's  interest- 
ing little  study  must  regret  that  Camp- 
bell went  out  with  his  State.  He  lived  in 
undiminished  mental  vigor  for  nearly 
twenty-eight  years  afterwards.  The  Su- 
preme Court  might  have  had  him  for  all 
that  time.  Wayne  and  Catron  remained 
on  the  Bench  throughout  the  Civil  War, 
although  Georgia  and  Tennessee  seceded. 
Campbell  could  not  see  his  way  clear  to 
do  the  like.  He  acted  from  a  calm  sense 
of  duty,  for  he  was  not  carried  away 
by  any  enthusiasm  for  secession.  He 
firmly  believed  in  the  right  of  a  State  to 
withdraw,  whenever  it  saw  fit,  but  he 
was  strongly  opposed  to  its  exercise  at 
that  time.  When,  against  his  judg- 
ment and  advice,  Alabama  seceded,  he 
felt  he  was  in  honor  bound  to  follow, 
for  to  her,  in  his  view,  his  allegiance  was 
due.  How  much  water  has  since  gone 
over  the  dam! 

John  C.  Rose 

Something  Diiferent 

The  Cream  of  the  Jest.    By  James  Branch 

Cabell.    New  York :    Robert  M.  McBride 

and  Company. 
Invincible    Minnie.      By    Elizabeth    Sanxay 

Holding.     New  York:    George  H.  Doran 

Company. 

AT  the  booksellers  they  are  used  to  a 
certain  type  of  customer  who  strolls 
in  at  odd  hours  and  asks,  rather  hope- 
lessly, for  "something  different."  He  is 
usually  a  confirmed  novel-reader.  If  he 
can  not  get  his  new  thing  he  will  go  on 
reading  the  old  one:  but  there  is  always 
the  faint  hope  of  change,  of  the  fresh 
theme  or  at  least  the  fresh  accent.  To  a 
few  such  "The  Cream  of  the  Jest,"  by 
James  Branch  Cabell,  first  printed  in 
1917,  may  have  come  as  a  boon.  The 
not  altogether  happy  reception  of 
"Jurgen"  very  likely  justifies  the  pub- 
lisher in  issuing  a  new  edition  of  this 
earlier  fable.  The  book  labors  under  the 
disadvantage  (for  this  period,  at  least,) 
of  a  studied  and  bookish  manner  which 
only  in  "Jurgen"  has  attained  real  free- 
dom and  beauty.  Like  its  successor,  it  is 
fantasy  rather  than  novel.  The  hero, 
Kennaston,  in  the  flesh  "an  inadequate, 


kickworthy  creature"  is,  nevertheless, 
"not  merely  human;  he  is  humanity." 
His  gross  and  dull  physical  presence 
shelters  a  prince  of  romantic  dreaming. 
As  Horvendile,  poet  and  lover,  he 
makes  unearthly  tryst  with  his  mistress 
Ettarre.  A  little  study  discovers  the 
author's  commentary  on  his  work  in  the 
inscription  upon  the  mystic  "sigil  of 
Scoteia,"  symbol  of  the  lovers'  relation. 
"James  Branch  Cabell  made  this  book  so 
that  he  who  wills  may  read  the  story 
of  man's  eternally  unsatisfied  hunger  in 
search  of  beauty.  Ettarre  stays  inac- 
cessible always  and  her  loveliness  is  his 
to  look  on  only  in  his  dreams.  All  men 
she  must  evade  at  the  last  and  many  are 
the  ways  of  her  elusion."  Ancient  and 
inexhaustible  theme,  which  Mr.  Cabell 
has  expounded  more  richly  if  less  dis- 
creetly in  the  unfortunately  discussed 
"Jurgen."  .  .  .  Here,  I  say,  he  is 
less  successful  in  making  us  forget  his 
literary  masters:  has  less  certainly  be- 
come master  of  his  own  medium.  Here 
also  insurgency  of  the  now  quite  con- 
ventional anti-Victorian  stamp  almost 
overbalances  the  basic  idealism  of  the 
book. 

Contempt  for  yesterday  is  an  un- 
safe altar  for  the  worship  of  to-day  and 
forever.  Poor  Kennaston  makes  himself 
ridiculous  by  "dwindling  into"  family 
man,  vestryman,  and  "responsible  citi- 
zen." He  is  the  potentially  free  spirit 
enslaved  by  the  flesh  and  ground  to  pat- 
tern by  the  social  machine.  Conformity 
stultifies  him — and  in  him,  humanity. 
"All  I  advanced  for  or  against  him, 
equally,  was  true  of  all  men  that  have 
ever  lived.  .  .  .  For  it  is  in  this  in- 
adequate flesh  that  each  of  us  must  serve 
his  dream;  and  so,  must  fail  in  the 
dream's  service,  and  must  parody  that 
which  he  holds  dearest."  And  yet  of  this 
Kennastonian  humanity  mockery  is  not 
to  have  the  last  word.  Dreams  are  more 
real  than  the  flesh  that  in  some  feeble 
sense  harbors  them :  "It  is  only  by  pre- 
serving faith  in  human  dreams,"  the  fab- 
ulist gravely  concludes,  "that  we  may, 
after  all,  perhaps  some  day  make  them 
come  true."  .  .  .  Kennaston  of  Lich- 
field, dilettante  author,  pampered  hus- 
band, stodgy  citizen,  sensitive  dreamer, 
is  American  enough.  Mr.  Cabell  makes 
skilful  contrast  between  his  inner  ro- 
mance and  the  dull  realism  of  his  every- 
day: notably  in  the  note  to  the  little 
scene  where  Ettarre  looks  at  him  out  of 
his  wife  Kathleen's  eyes,  and  he  signals 
recognition — in  vain:  "So  they  dined 
alone  together,  sharing  a  taciturn  meal, 
and  duly  witnessed  the  drolleries  of  'The 
Gutta-Percha  Girl.'  Kennaston's  sleep 
afterward  was  sound  and  dreamless." 

"Invincible  Minnie"  is  another  Amer- 
ican book  of  uncommon  substance  and 
savor.  Its  author  says  in  her  word  of 
preface  that  it  is  "not  intended  to  be  a 
romantic  story,  or  a  realistic  story,"  but 


I 


June  5,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[608 


only  a  tale  of  something  which  might 
happen,  given  a  person  of  the  Minnie 
type.    Fairer  to  the  book  and  its  writer 
would  be  its  description  as  a  reduction 
to  the  extreme  (if  not,  towards  the  end, 
to  the  absurd)  of  what  a  Minnie  would 
do  if  invincible  intention  did  not  here 
and  there  meet  an  impenetrable  obstacle. 
In  conduct  and  detail,  it  is  "real"  enough. 
Most    of    us,    as    the    author    surmises, 
"know  a  Minnie."    A  Minnie  is  a  single- 
track  egotist,   a  domestic  "vamp,"   who 
without  verifiable  charm  or  recognizable 
authority  or  conscious  system,  somehow 
gets  what  she  wants  when  she  wants  it. 
This   particular   Minnie,   when   we   first 
meet  her,  is  "a  rather  short,  full-bosomed 
young  woman  of  perhaps  twenty,  with  a 
dark,   freckled   face   and   an    expression 
very   pleasant   and   friendly."      She   has 
the  air  (it  is  hardly  a  pose)  of  the  faith- 
ful housewife,  the  self-effacing  servitor. 
She  is  anxiously  busy  always,  avid  of 
duty;  and  covers  her  shiftlessness  and 
ineffectiveness  even   from  herself,  with 
the  camouflage  of  ceaseless  activity.  And 
by  sheer  pressure  of  primitive  force  she 
imposes  her  will,   to  their  ruin,  on  all 
who  come  too  close  to  the  centre  of  her 
web.    She  is  incapable  of  perceiving  her 
own  outrageousness.     She  can  deliber- 
ately rob  her  sister  of  her  lover,  become 
a  bigamist  in  order  to  support  him,  and 
introduce  him   as  her  brother  into  the 
household  of  the  good  man  to  whom  she 
is  about  to  bear  a  son:  and  all  without 
compunction  in  her  heart  or  shame  when 
she  is  found  out.    Nor  is  this  all.  When 
sister  Frankie  takes  up  with  Minnie's 
leavings  in  the  person  of  the  hoodwinked 
Petersen  and  Minnie's  deserted  children, 
she   is   capable   of   returning   to   snatch 
them   away;    not   because   she   has   any 
deep  feeling  for  them  but  because  they 
are  hers.     And  the  curtain  falls  on  the 
bitter    laughter    of    Frankie,    who    has 
planned  to  rescue  some  sort  of  happiness 
out  of  her   love  and  care  of   Minnie's 
children : 

"She  thought  of  the  house  in  the 
suburbs,  with  the  nursery  and  playroom ; 
even  the  new  toys. 

She  thought  of  herself  and  Mr.  Peter- 
sen married,  for  the  sake  of  her  children. 
She  thought  of  Minnie,  who  had  car- 
ried off  Lionel,  and  Lionel's  child,   and 
Mr.  Petersen's  child,  and  was  now  se- 
curing a  supply  of  Mr.  Petersen's  money. 
She  began  to  laugh  heartily." 
The  curtain  lifts  ironically  for  an  in- 
stant, once  more,  for  a  glimpse  of  Mr. 
Petersen,  years  later,  visiting  the  half- 
grown  children  and  finding  them — what 
Minnie  was  bound  to  have  made  them. 
Only   then   does  his   old   illusion   about 
her  vanish   altogether.     A   bitter  book, 
remorselessly  written,  and  quite  against 
the  current  stream  of  tolerance  for  all 
human  creatures.     Evidently  this  story- 
teller does  not  believe  (with  Mr.  Cabell) 


that  one  person  is  about  as  good  as  an- 
other. Perhaps  it  is  wholesome  for  us 
to  turn  now  and  then  from  the  genial 
process  of  admiring  the  best  of  us  in  the 
worst  of  us,  and  to  behold  how  a  Minnie 
looks,  pinned  fairly  on  the  slide  and  set 
under  a  ruthless  lens. 

H.  W.  BOYNTON 


Free  International 

Waterways 

International  Wati;i<ways.   By  Paul  Morgan 
Ogilvie.     New  York:    The  Macmillan  Co. 

PROBLEMS  of  transportation,  both  at 
home  and  abroad,  with  all  their  in- 
volved factors,  social  and  political  as  well 
as  commercial,  were  never  more  pressing 
than  they  are  to-day.  Mr.  Ogilvie's 
thoughtful  treatise  is  therefore  very 
timely.  The  treatise  proper,  which  deals 
with  the  evolution  of  the  principle  of  the 
freedom  of  international  waterways,  runs 
to  only  some  one  hundred  and  seventy 
pages,  the  rest  of  the  book  being  devoted 
to  an  elaborate  and  carefully-arranged 
reference  manual  to  the  treaties^  conven- 
tions, laws,  and  other  fundamental  acts 
governing  the  international  use  of  in- 
land waterways.  This,  with  a  bibliogra- 
phy and  index,  both  sufficiently  full  to 
serve  the  student  as  well  as  the  casual 
reader,  fills  two  hundred  and  fifty  addi- 
tional pages. 

Mr.  Ogilvie  sketches  the  history  of 
maritime  enterprise  in  the  Mediter- 
ranean, and  its  gradual  expansion 
throughout  the  Seven  Seas;  the  institu- 
tion and  development  of  maritime  law, 
from  the  ancient  sea-code  of  the  Rhodians 
to  the  recognized  usage  of  modern  times ; 
the  sovereignty  of  the  seas,  as  exercised 
in  succession  by  the  Phoenicians,  Greece, 
Carthage,  Rome,  Venice,  Portugal  and 
Spain,  Holland,  and  England;  the  long 
controversy  as  between  Mare  Clausum 
and  Mare  Liberum,  ending  in  the  ac- 
ceptance by  all  maritime  nations  of  the 
principle  of  the  freedom  of  the  seas ;  and 
the  final  extension  of  the  same  principle 
to  inland  waterways.  Freedom  of  navi- 
gation on  inland  waterways  thus  appears 
the  logical  extension  of  the  older  prin- 
ciple of  freedom  of  the  seas. 

To  most  of  us  the  genesis  of  the  prin- 
ciple of  unrestricted  navigation  of  inland 
waterways,  however  important  as  a  mat- 
ter of  history,  will  have  less  real  interest 
than  its  application  to  present-day  prob- 
lems. In  the  recent  treaties  with  Ger- 
many, Austria,  and  Poland,  the  Allied 
and  Associated  Powers  at  the  Peace  Con- 
ference at  Paris  have  provided  for  the 
international  navigation  of  certain  Eu- 
ropean waterways.  These  provisions, 
taken  in  conjunction  with  the  changed 
boundaries  of  many  of  the  old  and  new 
states  of  Central  Europe,  will  have  a 
far-reaching  effect  on  the  development  of 
international  commerce.    As  Mr.  Ogilvie 


points   out,    the   commerce   of   Austria, 
Czecho-Slovakia,    and    Hungary,    which 
formerly   passed   through    the   Adriatic 
ports  of  Fiume  and  Trieste,  may  now 
be  diverted  down  the  Danube.     Switzer- 
land is  engaged   in   extensive  improve- 
ments to  the  upper  course  of  the  Rhino 
which,    when   completed,    will    give   the 
Republic   access   to   the  sea.     The   pro-  ^ 
jected  canal  to  connect  the  Rhine  and 
the  Danube  will  give  through-navigation 
from  the  North  Sea  to  the  Black.    Under 
the  Treaty  of  Versailles,  special  rights 
are  accorded  Czecho-Slovakia  in  the  navi- 
gation  of   the   Elbe   and    of   the   Oder. 
Poland  similarly  has  access  to  the  Baltic 
by  way  of  the  Vistula.     The  projected 
Rhine-Meuse    canal    will    give    through- 
navigation  from  points  on  the  Rhine  up 
to  Verdun   on   the   Meuse.     These   and 
other   projected   improvements  will   be- 
fore long  give  to  most  of  the  principal 
inland   cities    of   Europe   the   practical 
status   of   ocean   ports.     The   resulting 
movement  of  commerce  in  every  direc- 
tion across  the  continent,  to  and  from 
the  North  Sea,  the  Baltic,  the  Black  Sea, 
the    Mediterranean,    and    the    Atlantic, 
must    have    a    profound    influence    not 
merely  upon  the  economic  but  also  upon 
the  social  and  political  relations  of  the 
various  nations. 

Obviously,  most  of  the  conditions  of 
inland   navigation,   and   the   advantages 
of  internationalization  of  inland  water- 
ways, apply  as  distinctly  to  North  Amer- 
ica   as    to    Europe.      This    continent    is 
peculiarly  rich  in  inland  water  communi- 
cations.    It  is  literally  true  that,  start- 
ing from  such  a  great  central  reservoir 
as  Lake  Winnipeg,  a  man  could  travel 
by  boat  or  canoe,  with  only  a  few  port- 
ages,   eastward    to    the    Gulf    of    St. 
Lawrence  or  the  harbor  of  New  York, 
westward  to  the  mouth  of  the  Colum- 
bia, northward  to  the  Arctic,  north-east- 
ward to  Hudson  Bay,  or  southward  to  the 
Gulf  of  Mexico.    In  fact  a  hundred  years 
ago,  in  the  palmy  days  of  the  fur  trade, 
men    did    actually    follow    these    water 
routes  in  canoes.     To-day  many  of  the 
same  waterways  are  traveled  more  ex- 
peditiously and  in  greater  comfort  by 
steamer.     Something  over  sixteen  thou- 
sand miles   of  the  Mississippi   and   its 
greater    tributaries    are    navigated    by 
steam  craft.    The  Columbia  is  navigated, 
although  not  continuously,  for  five  hun- 
dred miles.    The  Hudson  Bay  Company 
maintains   steamers   on  both  the  Atha- 
basca and  the  Mackenzie  rivers,  in  the 
far  northwest.     It  is  possible,  and  even 
probable,  that  within  a  generation  steam 
navigation   will   be   opened   from   Lake 
Winnipeg  to  Hudson  Bay  by  way  of  the 
Nelson    river.      But    it    is    the    eastern 
route  from  the  heart  of  the  continent 
that  offers  the  points  of  greatest  inter- 
est.   The  unrivalled  system  of  waterways 
that  extends  from  the  head  of  Lake  Su- 
perior   to    the     Atlantic     forms     also, 


604] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  56 


throughout  the  greater  part  of  its  course, 
the  international  boundary  between  the 
United  States  and  Canada.  It  is  there-  " 
fore  one  of  the  inland  waterways  cov- 
ered by  Mr.  Ogilvie's  survey.  From 
1794  to  1909,  successive  treaties  between 
Great  Britain  and  the  United  States  have 
secured  the  free  navigation  of  these 
boundary  waters.  The  treaty  of  1909 
'  not  only  provides  that  the  navigation  of 
all  boundary  waterways  shall  remain 
perpetually  free,  but  it  also  extends  the 
same  right  to  canals  connecting  boun- 
dary waters,  now  existing  or  which  may 
hereafter  be  constructed. 

The  International  Joint  Commission, 
created  by  the  Treaty  of  1909,  is  now 
engaged  in  an  investigation,  at  the  re- 
quest of  the  Governments  of  the  United 
States  and  Canada,  to  determine  the 
practicability  of  a  deep  waterway  be- 
tween Lake  Ontario  and  Montreal,"  and 
incidentally,  the  practicability  of  a  water 
route  for  ocean-going  vessels  from  the 
head  of  the  Great  Lakes  to  the  sea.  It 
is  said,  by  those  who  are  opposing  this 
project,  that  it  is  impracticable  for  the 
same  vessels  to  navigate  both  the  open 
sea  and  these  inland  waters.  Mr.  Ogilvie 
throws  some  interesting  light  on  this 
problem. 

Vessels  equipped  with  the  screw  propeller 
may  be  employed  advantageously  either  on  the 
high  seas  or  for  inland  navigation.  Cargoes 
may  be  embarked  at  the  sea-ports  or  inland  ports 
of  one  country  and  transported  by  inland  water- 
ways and  the  high  seas  to  interior  points  on 
distant  continents  without  the  necessity  of 
transshipment  A  ship  may  take  cargo  at  New 
York,  Chicago,  Montreal,  or  Duluth  and  may 
voyage  continuously  until  arrival  at  the  pro- 
posed destination,  whether  three  thousand 
miles  up  the  Amazon  at  the  port  of  Iquitos, 
Peru;  or  Matadi  on  the  Congo;  or  Asuncion, 
Paraguay,  more  than  a  thousand  miles  inland 
on  the  Rio  de  la  Plata;  or  Hankow  on  the 
Vang-tse-kiang,  six  hundred  miles  from  the 
sea;  or  in  Europe  at  one  of  the  many  river 
ports  of  the   Danube. 

He  points  out  that  a  serviceable  type  of 
steamer  has  developed,  capable  of  ply- 
ing between  various  river  ports  on  the 
Rhine  and  the  sea-ports  of  the  Azores, 
Portugal,  Spain,  and  of  the  countries 
bordering  on  the  North  Sea  and  the 
Mediterranean.  "Varying  in  tonnage 
from  342-1770  tons,  these  skilfully  de- 
signed vessels  carry  an  extensive  com- 
merce from  inland  ports  without  necessi- 
tating the  transference  of  cargo."  This 
service  was  instituted  in  1888,  and  al- 
though it  declined  after  1903,  owing  to 
the  shallow  channel  between  Cologne  and 
Rotterdam,  it  still  amounted  in  1907  to 
some  347,000  tons.  If  the  "Rhine-Sea" 
traffic  could  be  successfully  operated  un- 
der the  unfavorable  conditions  of  the 
shallow  Rhine,  there  can  be  little  doubt 
that  a  similar  traffic  would  be  economi- 
cally practicable  between  the  sea  and  the 
Great  Lakes.  Mr.  Ogilvie  points  out  that 
"on  larger  rivers  such  as  the  Amazon,  the 
Columbia,  and  the  Rio  de  la  Plata,  sea- 
going vessels  suffer  no  serious  limitation 


when  employed  in  inland  navigation." 
The  probability  is  that  the  opening  of 
the  St.  Lawrence  route  will  lead  to  the 
evolution  of  a  composite  type  of  vessel, 
built  along  somewhat  similar  lines  to  the 
Rhine-Sea  craft  on  a  larger  scale,  and 
combining  the  advantages  of  the  ocean 
tramps  and  the  lake  freighters. 

L.  J.  B. 

The  Run  of  the  Shelves 


Three  Books  of  the  Week 

[Selected  by  Edmund  Lester  Pearson, 
Editor  of  Publications,  New  York  Pub- 
lic Library.] 

Mrs.  Warren's  Daughter,  by  Sir  Harry 
Johnston.  (Macmillan.) 
The  further  adventures  of 
Vivie  Warren,  heroine  of  Shaw's 
"Mrs.  Warren's  Profession."  Like 
the  author's  "The  Gay-Dombeys," 
which  it  hardly  surpasses  in  inter- 
est, it  is  less  a  novel  and  more  a 
gallery  of  characters,  real  and 
fictitious.  Amusing  comment  upon 
English  life  and  politics,  with  a 
sympathetic  history  of  the  militant 
suffragettes,  and  of  life  in  Brus- 
sels during  the  German  occupation, 
1914-1918. 

Talks  with  T.  R.,  from  the  Diaries  of 
John  J.  Leary,  Jr.     (Houghton.) 

A  reporter's  notes  of  Colonel 
Roosevelt's  conversations,  especially 
interesting  for  the  frank  com- 
ments upon  President  Wilson,  Mr. 
Hughes,  and  the  1916  campaign. 
An  astonishingly  correct  prophecy 
of  the  outcome  of  the  President's 
trips  to  Paris  is  the  subject  of  one 
of  the  conversations. 

Labor's  Challenge  to  the  Social 
Order,  by  John  Graham  Brooks. 
(Macmillan.) 

A  survey  of  the  industrial  situa- 
tion for  the  past  thirty  or  forty 
years,  with  frank  criticism  upon 
the  attitude  and  actions  of  both 
sides  of  the  controversy.  Attract- 
ive to  the  average  reader  because 
it  includes  comment  upon  such 
minor  but  universally  appealing 
topics  as  the  servant  question. 


THE  thorny  path  of  martyrdom  seems 
to  be  the  path  of  the  "intent"  reader 
of  Joseph  Conrad.  From  the  comments 
and  criticisms  provoked  by  his  new 
book,  "The  Rescue,"  it  appears  that  the 
devout  Conradian  approaches  his  novels 
in  some  agony  of  spirit.  Mr.  Wilson 
Follett,  writing  in  the  New  York  Even- 
ing Post,  mentions  the  "tantalizing, 
almost  torturing,  regrets"  endured  by 
the  faithful;  no  simple  and  shallow  en- 
joyment may  be  theirs,  but  on  the  con- 


trary they  must  ponder  upon  every  step 
in  the  psychological  development  of  their 
author.  Long  nights  of  suffering  are  to 
be  filled  with  thoughts  of  what  "The 
Nigger  of  the  Narcissus"  would  have 
been  had  it  been  written  after,  instead 
of  before,  "Chance";  they  must  writhe 
under  the  efforts  of  imagining  "pre- 
cisely wherein  'Heart  of  Darkness'  would 
have  undergone  a  subtle  modification  if 
'Victory'  had  preceded  it."  Other  com- 
ment upon  "The  Rescue"  recalls  the  old 
gibe  about  Henry  James:  "What's  his 
new  novel  about?"  asked  one  man.  "He 
hates  to  tell,"  said  the  one  who  was 
struggling  with  it.  One  Conradian 
read  one  or  two  hundred  pages,  and  an- 
nounced— his  devotion  clearly  wavering 
— that  it  contained  a  fine  description  of 
a  thunder-storm!  Plainly,  the  time  is 
not  far  away  when  the  Conrad  Societies 
will  be  listening  to  "papers"  written  to 
fix  the  exact  date  when  his  "third 
manner"  imperceptibly  melted  into  his 
"fourth  manner,"  and  bitter  debates  will 
occur  as  to  the  relative  merits  of  both 
manners  compared  with  a  fifth  and  per- 
haps a  sixth. 

How  did  Chaucer's  Knight  come  to 
ride  a-chivachieing  with  Guy  de  Lusig- 
nan  to  Lyeys  in  Armenia  "whan  it  was 
wonne"?  What  brought  the  Armenians 
from  the  mountains  of  Ararat  to  the 
plains  of  Cilicia  and  tangled  them  up 
with  the  crusading  kingdoms  of  Jeru- 
salem and  Syria,  thus  to  tie  another  knot 
in  the  problems  of  their  national  fate? 
Who  was  Gregory  the  Illuminator  and 
how  does  their  ecclesiastical  capital  come 
to  be  at  Etzmiadzin  in  the  Russia  that 
once  was?  Of  what  blood  and  kindred 
are  they  and  where  does  their  language 
call  cousin?  What  has  been  their  part  in 
the  world  of  Islam,  and  what  in  that  of 
the  Christian  Church,  national,  Greek, 
Roman,  and  now,  in  this  last  half  cen- 
tury, in  certain  dealings  with  de- 
scendants of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers? 
What  were  the  relations  of  the  Russian 
Armenians  to  the  Russian  Government 
and  thus  to  the  future  revolution  and 
the  Bolshevist  current  in  which  they  are 
now  caught  and  adrift? 

All  these  questions  precede  and  condi- 
tion their  present  situation,  with  its 
many  and  most  complicated  elements,  of 
past  and  present,  of  memory,  of  hope, 
and  of  ambition.  Old  things  live  on  in 
Asia  Minor,  the  Caucasus,  and  Syria,  in 
a  fashion  hardly  thinkable  to  us  with  a 
popular  memory  vivid  only  for  a  century 
or  two.  For  even  the  pan-Turanian 
vision  of  the  Young  Turks  which  rises 
so  menacingly  above  these  lands  is  in 
essence  an  evocation  of  Mongols  and  Tar- 
tars, the  ghosts  of  Chingiz  Khan,  Hul- 
agu,  and  Timurlang.  And  at  the  Konia  of 
to-day  there  still  survives  among  the  de- 
scendants of  the  Seljuks  the  spirit  of 
revenge    for    their    fourteenth    century 


June  5,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[605 


overthrow  by  the  Ottoman  Turks.  All 
this  the  Armenians  in  their  long  history 
have  seen  and  suffered,  and  to  the  ques- 
tions thus  raised  answers  will  fairly  be 
found  in  "Armenia  and  the  Armenians 
from  the  Earliest  Times  Until  the  Great 
War,"  by  Kevark  Asian ;  translated  from 
the  French  by  Pierre  Crabites  (Mac- 
millan).  The  answers  might  sometimes 
be  clearer;  the  latter  part  of  the  book 
is  much  more  lucid  than  the  earlier;  but 
that  is  of  the  nature  of  the  ease.  There 
are  signs,  too,  in  the  names  and  phrasing, 
of  its  Armeno-French  origin,  and  there 
is  grievous  need  of  a  map  and  almost 
equally  of  an  index.  But  the  book  is 
good  and  solid,  sober  with  historical 
sense  and  conscience,  and  can  be  recom- 
mended to  all  but  the  historical  special- 
ist. He  will,  of  course,  turn  to  the  same 
author's'  "Etudes  historiques  sur  le 
Peuple  Armenien,"  for  the  earlier  part 
of  this  history.  Of  it  the  present  book 
is  a  condensation  extended  by  three  addi- 
tional chapters  to  the  present  day. 

Drama  comes  to  us  finally  from  the 
pampas.  DufReld  and  Company  have 
just  published  "Three  Plays  from  the 
Argentine,"  which  Mr.  Jacob  S.  Fassett 
translates,  and  Mr.  Edward  Hale  Bier- 
stadt  edits  and  skillfully  introduces.  The 
three  plays  belong  generally  to  the 
dramas  criollos,  Creole  or  gaucho  dramas, 
which,  centrally  placed  between  earlier 
imitations  and  later  orthodoxies,  in 
Argentine  dramatic  history,  became,  for 
a  time,  a  conduit  of  the  life-stream  of  an 
animated  people.  The  gaucho,  the  pro- 
tagonist, is,  according  to  Mr.  Bierstadt, 
a  combination  of  Daniel  Boone,  Buffalo 
Bill,  and  Robin  Hood. 

Of  the  three  plays,  the  first,  the  "Juan 
Moreira"  of  Silverio  Manco  and  the 
"Santos  Vega"  of  Luis  Bayon  Herrera, 
are  valuable  only  as  sidelights  on  the 
national  spirit  or  as  documents  in  what 
may  be  called  the  biology — or  embry- 
ology— of  literature.  "Juan  Moreira," 
formless,  in  six  brief  scenes,  tattered 
and  bloody  like  the  remnant  of  a  cloak 
which  the  passage  of  a  sword  has  torn 
and  reddened,  with  blunt,  brief  strokes 
which  have  almost  the  effect  of  scratches, 
does  not  lack  interest  of  a  rude  kind. 
"Santos  Vega"  is  more  showy  and  less 
interesting.  It  is  plotless,  and  its  plot- 
lessness  has  the  weight  of  three  acts  to 
carry.  It  must  stand  or  fall  as  a  pic- 
ture of  manners,  and  it  is  difficult  to 
believe  that  manners  so  decorative  have 
not  been  submitted  to  the  hands  of  a 
decorator.  On  the  other  hand,  the  third 
play,  the  "Witches'  Mountain"  by  Julio 
Sanchez  Gardel,  is  a  strong  play,  a  fam- 
ily tragedy,  at  once  deadly  and  vital,  with 
chasms  between  brother  and  brother,  be- 
tween father  and  son,  which  reach  down- 
ward into  moral  abysses.  Strong  pas- 
sions are  finely  imagined — a  fact  still 
notable  in  the  dramatic  world. 


Mr.  Floyd  Dell  in  a  playfully  serious 
article  in  the  April  Liberator,  which  he 
calls  a  "Psycho-Analytic  Confession," 
contends  that  our  great  mechanical  dis- 
coveries, our  locomotives  and  subways 
and  telephones,  are  only  mundane  toys, 
the  great  world's  substitutes  for  kites 
and  marbles.  He  pleads,  half  in  jest,  for 
a  "moderately  advanced  savagery."  The 
word  "savagery"  may  be  taken  as  a  wil- 
ful defiance  of  the  commonplace,  but, 
viewing  the  contention  in  its  breadth  and 
pith,  there  is  meat  as  well  as  salt  in  his 
analogy.  The  inventions  which  dazzle 
and  deafen  both  our  senses  and  our 
minds  are  largely  amusements  in  the 
guise  of  utilities;  they  are  goods,  they 
are  necessities,  only  through  their  con- 
tributions to  an  order  which  may  itself 
be  an  evil  or  a  superfluity.  The  order 
here  referred  to  is  mechanical,  not 
political  or  social;  an  individualist  so- 
ciety might  discard  this  apparatus,  and 
a  socialistic  policy  might  retain  them. 
They  are  not,  however,  easy  to  discard. 
A  child  may  tear  up  its  kite  or  throw  its 
rocking-horse  into  the  pond,  without 
harm  to  its  prospects  of  a  good  dinner 
and  a  warm  bed.  The  naughtiness  of 
the  locomotive  and  the  telegraph  lies  in 
the  craft  with  which  they  have  inserted 
themselves  into  the  circuit  of  which  the 
good  dinner  and  the  warm  bed  are  parts. 

There  follows  a  second  question:  just 
what  shall  we  renounce?  Mr.  Floyd  Dell 
would  drop  the  telephone,  but  keep  the 
typewriter.  His  neighbor,  indifferent  to 
typewriters,  would  keep  the  telephone  at 
all  costs.  It  is  to  be  feared  that  many 
telephones  and  typewriters  would  be  con- 
sumed and  thrown  into  the  dust-heap  in 
the  progress  of  the  debate  that  settled 
these  contentions.  Still,  with  every  allow- 
ance for  difficulty,  one  can  not  but  dwell 
with  pleasure  on  Mr.  Dell's  idea  that 
complexity  may  be  the  middle  term  be- 
tween an  early  and  an  eventual  sim- 
plicity, that  our  apparatus  may  re- 
semble the  alloy  in  the  ring  in  Brown- 
ing's "Ring  and  the  Book,"  which  served 
the  workmanship  no  less  by  its  removal 
at  the  end  than  by  its  insertion  in  the 
process.  (One  may  wish,  in  a  parenthe- 
sis, that  the  "Book"  had  been  as  success- 
ful as  the  "Ring"  in  the  discharge  of  its 
alloys  before  completion).  In  this  hope 
one  is  heartened  not  a  little  by  the 
analogy  of  language  and  of  letters.  Lan- 
guages are  simple  at  the  outset.  They 
improve  by  the  adoption  of  a  complex 
system  of  inflections,  in  which  voice, 
mood,  tense,  case,  gender,  and  number 
are  laboriously  discriminated.  They  im- 
prove still  further  by  the  repudiation  of 
this  system.  Style,  in  the  same  way, 
tends  to  pass  from  an  enforced  simplic- 
ity in  the  immaturity  of  literature 
through  a  voluntary  elaboration  to  a 
voluntary  simplicity.  Perhaps  the  mate- 
rial complexities  of  what  Carlyle  long 
since  named  the  Mechanical   Age  may 


be  the  epoch  of  Johnsonese  interposed 
between  the  primitive  simplicity  of 
Chaucer  and  the  ripened  simplicity  of 
Kipling  or  Galsworthy. 

In  the  text  and  translation  of  Marcus 
Cornelius  Fronto,  the  first  volume  of 
which  has  just  been  added  to  the  Loeb 
Library  (Putnam),  Mr.  C.  R.  Haines  has 
accomplished  a  task  different  in  kind 
from  that  ordinarily  set  before  the  con- 
tributors to  this  series.  In  general  the 
text  has  been  already  established,  and  it 
was  only  necessary  to  give  an  accurate 
and  fluent  translation  and  to  subjoin  an 
occasional  note  of  explanation.  That,  in- 
deed, is  no  light  task,  as  any  one  knows 
who  has  attempted  to  render  a  Greek  or 
Latin  author  into  English;  but  in  the 
present  case  the  editor  has  been  obliged 
to  create  his  own  text  and  to  arrange 
chronologically  a  series  of  letters  which 
have  come  to  us  in  fragmentary  shape 
and  haphazard  order.  We  can  not  enter 
into  a  discussion  of  details;  enough  to 
say  that  Mr.  Haines  has  come  through 
the  ordeal  in  exemplary  manner.  For 
the  first  time  Fronto  can  be  read  with 
ease,  and  belongs  to  literature.  Much  of 
the  correspondence  between  him  and 
Appian  and  Marcus  Aurelius  and  others 
is  concerned  with  questions  of  rhetoric 
which  may  seem  anything  but  exhilarat- 
ing to  the  modern  reader;  but  not  all. 
The  affairs  of  the  empire  are  touched 
on  as  well  as  the  school  exercises  of  the 
emperors.  And  even  where  rhetoric  is 
the  theme,  the  discussion  often  passes 
from  the  small  proprieties  of  diction  to 
the  larger  matters  of  literary  criticism. 

Two  other  volumes  of  the  Loeb  Library 
need  to  be  recorded.  Professor  A.  T. 
Murray  publishes  the  second  volume  of 
his  Odyssey,  and  Professor  Bemadotte 
Perrin  has  progressed  to  the  eighth  vol- 
ume in  his  masterly  rendering  of 
Plutarch's  Lives.  The  present  issue  of 
the  Plutarch  contains  the  Life  of  Cato 
the  Younger,  which  has  left  so  many 
echoes  in  the  literature  of  the  world. 

"Chill  Hours"  (Dufiield),  by  Mrs. 
Helen  Mackay,  is  the  latest  of  this 
author's  books,  all  of  which — "Houses  of 
Glass"  (stories  of  Paris),  "Half  Loaves" 
(a  novel  dealing  indirectly  with  France), 
and  "Accidents"  and  "Journal  of  Small 
Things"  (both  made  up  of  little  French 
sketches  written  during  the  war) — have 
to  do  with  "the  City  of  Light."  Mrs. 
Mackay  has  lived  for  many  years  in  the 
French  capital,  and  during  the  war  she 
labored  in  the  Hospital  Saint  Louis, 
Paris,  until  her  health  broke  down.  The 
present  volume  has  to  do  chiefly  with 
her  experiences  in  the  wards  among  the 
wounded  French  soldiers,  where  "cour- 
age, sacrifice  and  glory  are  come  to  be 
just  the  average,  anonymous,  like  the 
uncounted  little  wooden  crosses  in  the 
fields  and  at  the  road  edges." 


606] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  56 


Impressions 
de  Voyage — III 

THE  air  here  is  full  of  gossip  about 
individuals;  of  rumors  diplomatic 
and  political.  The  place,  therefore,  apart 
from  its  wonderful  monuments  of  art  and 
its  checkered  history,  is  extraordinarily 
interesting  just  now.  Whether  the  situa- 
tion is  normal  or  no,  I  can  not  pretend 
to  saj',  but  I  fancy  such  as  I  find  it,  such, 
in  a  measure,  it  has  always  been.  At 
this  moment  the  aggressive  attitude  of 
the  Japanese  appears  to  hold  first  place 
in  everj-  discussion.  They  are  evidently 
in  deadly  earnest;  they  mean  to  hold  all 
they  have  and  to  reach  out  for  more. 
Crossing  Shantung  by  rail  the  other  day 
1  wondered  why  they  should  covet  it.  So 
meticulously  is  the  soil  cultivated  that  it 
seems  incapable  of  supporting  a  larger 
population;  it  is  surely  not  wanted  for 
Japan's  surplus  millions.  Inquiry  reveals 
the  true  cause  of  this  land  greed  in 
three  facts;  first,  the  existence  of  valu- 
able coal  deposits;  second,  the  former 
German  railway,  from  Tsingtao  to 
Tsinanfu,  giving  access  to  this  coal,  and 
being  withal  a  trunk  line  from  deep 
water  to  Pekin;  third,  the  port  of  Tsing- 
tao itself,  where  heavy  vessels  may  dis- 
charge their  cargoes  direct  into  railway 
cars  which  can  reach  all  parts  of  China 
adjacent  to  the  capital,  while  Tientsin, 
hard  by  Pekin,  is  only  accessible  to  light 
draught  vessels,  thence  a  double  shift  of 
freight  is  required — from  barge  to  small 
steamers  at  the  mouth  of  the  Pai  Ho 
River,  then  again  by  lighters  at  Tientsin 
to  the  railway.  The  Japanese  have  been 
shrewd  enough  to  realize  that  in  indus- 
try he  who  controls  transportation  is 
king.  Moreover,  they  have  bought  up 
practically  all  the  waterfront  at  Tsing- 
tao, thus  assuring  to  themselves  a 
monopoly  of  shipping  facilities.  No 
wonder  one  American  line  of  steamers 
has  abandoned  it  as  a  port  of  call,  so 
annoying  were  the  unnecessary  delays 
to  which  the  Japanese  subjected  it. 

While  this  policy,  repeated  wherever 
they  have  penetrated  in  China,  may  be 
immediately  profitable  to  the  Japanese, 
it  is  certainly  costing  them  friendship 
and  good-will  which  would  doubtless  in 
the  end  prove  quite  as  valuable.  Symp- 
toms of  this  result  were  apparent  even 
to  as  casual  a  traveler  as  I  am.  The 
notices  in  Canton — "Boycott  the  Japanese 
goods";  those  in  shops  in  Shanghai: 
"Japanese  bank  notes  will  not  be  ac- 
cepted" ;  the  glee  with  which  the  natives 
and  others  pointed  out  the  emptiness  of 
Japanese  steamers  on  the  Yangtze  as 
contrasted  with  those  of  Chinese  or  Eu- 
ropean nationality  loaded  to  the  guard; 
the  prompt  negative  invariably  received 
to  the  question,  "Do  you  like  the  Japa- 
nese?" all  bespeak  a  frame  of  mind 
which  bodes  ill  for  pleasant  relations  be- 


tween China  and  Japan.  It  is  a  great 
pity,  for,  pulling  together,  the  former 
might  achieve  her  independence  of  the 
foreign  domination  she  experiences  at 
every  turn.  Can  a  nation  denied  the 
right  to  frame  its  own  tariff  laws  be 
considered  sovereign? 

I  refrain  from  repeating  the  many 
stories  which  come  to  my  ears  illustrat- 
ing the  close  resemblance,  at  least  to 
their  teller's  mind,  between  Japanese  and 
German  methods.  Let  us  hope  that  the 
Japanese  will  realize  how  shortsighted 
is  this  Hun  policy  and,  realizing,  aban- 
don it. 

The  number  of  Chinese  soldiers  visi- 
ble eve;  y where  is  astonishing  and — dis- 
concerting. They  are  not  needed  against 
foreigners,  else  would  the  Shantung 
question  be  settled  promptly  by  the  ejec- 
tion of  the  Japanese  trespassers;  can  it 
be  that  they  are  part  of  a  great  political 
machine?  Every  province  has  its  own 
army  under  a  "Military  Governor."  Are 
these  coolies  in  uniform  but  pawns  on 
the  chess  board  of  personal  ambitions? 
To  the  ignorant  tourist  this  seems  the 
most  likely  solution  of  the  riddle.  More- 
over, his  suspicions  are  confirmed  by 
statements  from  people  long  resident  in 
China.  Instead  of  borrowing  money  why 
should  she  not  economize  by  returning 
to  the  soil  hosts  of  these  unnecessary 
consumers? 

Caspar  F.  Goodrich 

The  Atavus 

THE  Merrills  are  very  modern.  This 
is  natural  because  they  have  lived 
in  the  twentieth  century  for  fully  twenty 
years,  as  against  less  than  ten  in  the 
nineteenth.  It  is  also  forced  to  some 
extent  by  the  apartment  in  which  they 
live.  This  apartment  is  ultra-modern, 
and  they  have  aged  perceptibly  in  trying 
to  keep  up  with  it.  It  is  in  an  efficient, 
grown-up  building;  one  hurdles  no  kid- 
die-cars in  approaching  it.  Within,  there 
are  no  childish  whoops  and  wails,  but 
only  a  series  of  mechanical  clicks  and 
electric  hums. 

Though  I  am  welcomed  most  cordially 
when  I  call  upon  the  Merrills,  I  always 
have  a  devil  of  a  time  getting  in.  I  enter 
a  tight  little  vestibule,  turn  a  knob,  open 
a  box  that  is  often  the  wrong  box,  press 
a  button  .  .  .  and  wait.  As  I  wait 
I  can  hear  vague,  disturbing  noises  in- 
side, a  moan  of  resentment,  a  clatter  as 
if  someone  were  throwing  up  a  defense 
against  me,  an  irritable  rat-a-tat,  and 
though  I  be  arrayed  in  all  the  glory  of 
the  late  Ward  McAllister,  my  tile  be- 
comes a  slouch  cap,  my  cravat  a  knotted 
bandana,  and  I  am  the  person  who  was 
found  loitering  near  the  scene  of  th« 
crime. 

Suddenly  the  grilled  door  in  front  of 
me  slides  back,  permitting  me  to  walk 
into  the  hall.    I  am  no  longer  a  neophyte. 


Steeled  for  the  second  degree  I  present 
myself  to  the  elevator-boy,  a  tall,  gray- 
haired  man  with  the  dignity  that  a  sena- 
tor is  supposed  to  have.    He  looks  at  me 
dubiously. 

"Merrill's,  please."  I  give  the  pass- 
word a  jauntiness  which  should  convince 
him  of  my  familiarity  with  the  home 
whose  sanctity  he  is  guarding. 

"Mr.  ]\:erriirs?"  he  asks  with  an  ac- 
cent of  reproach. 

"Yes — and  Mrs.  Merrill's,"  I  add,  just 
to  assure  him  that  my  welcome  will  be 
unanimous. 

He  hesitates  and  then  asks  hopefully, 
"Are  they  expecting  you?" 

"They  are."     I  confess  it. 

I  can  almost  hear  the  Merrills  sliding 
down  his  estimation.  They  had  seemed 
like  nice  people,  too.  He  admits  me  to 
the  glittering  cage.  He  has  given  up. 
If  I  proceed  to  mock  the  family  portraits, 
or  wipe  my  nose  on  my  sleeve,  or  warble 
at  my  consomme,  let  none  blame  him! 
He  has  done  his  little  best,  but  de  guesti- 
bus  non  est  disputandum. 

At  the  eighth  floor  I  step  out  of  the 
car  with  carefully  disguised  relief;  all 
the  way  up  Charon  has  been  staring  at 
my  ear-lobes,  and  I  feel  that  the  Juke 
is  on  me.  There  is  more  abracadabra 
about  getting  into  the  Merrill  apartment 
proper — mainly  matters  of  vestibules. 
First  there  is  a  vestibule  and  then  there 
is  a  sub-vestibule,  and  the  door  of  the 
vestibule  must  be  closed  before  the  door 
of  the  sub-vestibule  can  be  opened.  This 
is  somewhat  on  the  principle  of  the  turn- 
stile, and  is  a  great  help  in  keeping  pro- 
cessions out  of  the  home. 

The  apartment  is  small  and  very  new. 
It  is,  as  Mrs.  Merrill  has  more  than  once 
remarked,  "ducky" — but  the  remark 
throws  more  light  upon  herself  than 
upon  the  apartment.  Ducky  or  not,  it  is 
too  complex  for  a  simple  soul  like  me. 
There  are  labor-saving  devices  on  all 
sides — one  can't  make  a  move  without 
saving  a  lot  of  labor — and  the  living- 
room  is  bedecked  with  space-saving  de- 
vices until,  like  the  Salteena  of  motor- 
cars, it  seems  dwarfed  by  its  accessories. 
There  is  a  table  that  is  actually  a  multi- 
plication-table in  mahogany.  It  can,  on 
"bridge"  afternoons,  turn  itself  into  a 
host  of  little  tables,  or  it  can  play  the 
role  of  the  long  and  festive  board;  test 
of  all,  it  can  telescope  into  almost  noth- 
ing. The  electric-light  cords  are  on 
spring  reels,  and  your  light  will  go  with 
you  as  far  as  you  wish,  but  is  apt  to 
flash  away  when  you  least  expect  it. 

The  pride  of  the  house  is  in  the 
kitchen.  It  is  an  ironing-board  that 
folds  into  the  wall.  True,  Mrs.  MerriD 
has  all  the  laundry-work  done  outside^ 
but  the  board  is  undeniably  ducky.  The 
way  it  slips  into  its  niche  is  a  tribute 
to  the  mind  of  man,  and  when  it  is  not 
in  use — which  is  all  of  the  time — it  is  as 
ornamental  as  a  spinning-wheel. 


I 


June  5,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[607 


The  modernity  of  the  Merrills  received 
a  setback  with  the  arrival  of  Peter. 
Babies  are  so  old-fashioned.  And  Peter 
was  a  regular  baby;  the  very  first  time 
I  saw  him  I  realized  that.  He  was  pain- 
fully pink,  and  proficient  in  the  vulgar 
art  of  blowing  bubbles. 

"So  this  is  Peter!"  I  said,  in  lieu  of 
something  clever  and  complimentary. 
"That  was  his  grandfather's  name, 
wasn't  it?" 

I  thought  they  must  have  harked  back 
at  least  a  couple  of  generations  for  a 
name  like  that,  but  to  my  surprise  I 
found  that  they  hadn't  harked  at  all. 

"He  isn't  named  for  anyone,"  Mrs. 
Merrill  informed  me.  "We  just  selected 
'Peter'  because  it's  so  quaint." 

1  looked  at  Peter  with  new  interest 
and  not. a  little  pity.  There  he  lay  in 
his  crib— -unfortunate  child! — doomed  to 
spend  the  rest  of  his  days  living  up  to 
a  quaint  name.    What  a  future! 

Though  his  ears  are  neither  pointed 
nor  furry,  if  he  develops  any  conscience 
in  infancy  he  will  feel  bound  to  behave 
like  an  odd,  elfin  creature.  In  childhood 
he  will  have  to  go  away  by  himself  and 
talk  to  fairies  and  flowers  when  he  would 
rather  converse  with  Dirtyneck  McGrew. 
In  youth  he  will  have  to  cultivate  an 
aversion  to  civilization,  and  practice  his 
whimsicalities  while  the  other  lads  are 
shooting  pool.  As  for  love,  who  ever 
heard  of  anyone  named  Peter  breaking 
a  woman's  heart?  Heartbreaking  is  not 
a  laudable  pursuit,  I  admit,  but  we  all 
like  to  feel  that  we  could  go  out  and 
break  a  few  if  we  wern't  so  decent. 
Probably  when  he  gets  older  he  will  have 
to  wear  grotesque  burnsides,  waste  a  lot 
of  time  doddering,  and  be  whimsical 
twenty-four  hours  a  day ;  in  his  declining 
years  he  will  have  to  build  bird-houses 
when  he's  not  writing  for  The  Con- 
tributors' Club,  and  when  he  dies  he  will 
get  a  pun  for  an  epitaph  and  be  remem- 
bered as  a  delightful  old  bore. 

All  this  goes  with  the  name;  the  Fates 
seem  to  have  ordained  it.  But  I  hope 
the  three  sisters — or  two  out  of  three, 
anyhow — may  be  wrong  for  once.  I 
hope  that  Peter  will  look  like  his  father, 
that  he  will  vote  the  same  ticket  and 
sleep  in  the  same  church.  I  hope  that 
he  will  drink  coffee  three  times  a  day, 
chew  gum  at  the  office,  marry  the  third 
girl  he  falls  in  love  with,  read  the  Satur- 
day Evening  Post,  laugh  at  vaudeville, 
spell  through  "thru,"  boast  of  wearing 
B.  V.  D.'s  all  winter,  and  smoke  Camel 
cigarettes. 

But — who  knows  ? — perhaps  these  very 
things  will  be  the  quaintnesses  of  Peter's 
iay.  In  time,  he  may  be  pointed  out  as 
he  eccentric  old  body  who  has  vowed 
lever  to  fly,  though  the  planes  pass  his 
:himney  every  day.  He  will  be  thought  a 
;rifle  "queer"  because  he  uses  the  old- 
'ashioned  Gillette  instead  of  having  his 
vhiskers  removed  by  electricity.  And  it 


will  be  whispered  that  it  is  Peter  who, 
under  the  name  of  "Old  Subscriber," 
writes  those  letters  to  the  New  Republic 
sighing  for  the  good  old  days  when  there 
was  something  wrong  with  the  world 
every  week. 

Weare  Holbrook 

Drama 

Dramas  for  the  Reader 

Representative  One-Act  Plays  by  American 
Authors.  By  Margaret  Gardner  May- 
orga.  Boston :  Little,  Brown  and  Com- 
pany. 

Little  Theatre  Classics,  Vol.  II.  By  Samuel 
A.  Eliot,  Jr.  Boston:  Little,  Brown  and 
Company. 

The  Soothsayer.  By  Verner  von  Heiden- 
stam,  Translated  by  Karoline  Knudsen. 
Boston :   The  Four  Seas  Company. 

The  Bikth  ok  God.  By  Verner  von  Heiden- 
stam.  Translated  by  Karoline  Knudsen. 
Boston :    The  Four  Seas  Company. 

The  Sevkn  Who  Sleit.  By  A.  Kingsley  Por- 
ter.    Boston  :    Marshall  Jones  Company. 

MISS  MAYORGA  has  done  well  to 
bring  together  twenty-four  one-act 
American  plays.  If  the  American  one- 
act  play  has  not  flourished  in  obscurity, 
at  least  it  has  blossomed  in  the  shade, 
and  so  recent  has  been  its  note  that, 
without  actually  counting,  I  should  sup- 
pose that  about  half  the  authors  in  this 
volume  were  under  thirty-five.  The  book 
(Continued  on  page  608) 


UNIVERSITY  OF  WISCONSIN 
Studies  in  Language  and  Literature 

LUCILIUS 

AND 

HORACE 

A  Study  in  the  Classical  Theory  of 
Imitation 

By  GEORGE  CONVERSE  FISKE 
Associate  Professor  of  Latin 

Professor  Fiske  sets  forth  the  point 
of  view  with  which  the  literary  artist  of 
antiquity  approached  his  work,  as  a 
craftsman  consciously  accepting  a  well 
defined  style,  appropriate  to  his  purpose, 
and  manifesting  his  originality  within 
the  limits  thus  set  for  him.  The  book 
applies  these  conceptions  first  to  Lucitius, 
and  then  to  Horace.  The  conclusion 
brings  the  classical  conceptions  into  re- 
lation with  the  modern  romantic  theory 
of  composition. 

The  foregoing  outline  makes  plain  the 
importance  of  Professor  Fiske's  work, 
not  only  as  a  contribution  to  classical 
scholarship,  but  as  a  timely  discussion 
of  fundamental  critical  questions. 

Price,   $2.50 

Orders  should  be  sent  to 

The  Secretary  of  the  Board  of  Regents 

The    University    of    Wisconsin 

Madison,  Wisconsin 


BOOKS   To  Live   With 


TT  is  no  simple  problem — the  choice  of  the 
■■■  books  that  are  to  be  our  friends.  Day  after 
day  we  must  see  them  upon  our  shelves;  must 
make  them  the  intimates  of  our  lives.  Of  course 
there  are  books — casual  acquaintances — that  will 
meet  the  mood  of  the  moment.  They  are  the 
books   that,   once   read,   are   cast   aside.      But    for 


the  tried  and  true  friend  there  must  be  some- 
thing more.  Substance,  thought,  style — these 
qualities  we  must  find  ere  a  volume  is  placed 
on  the  shelf,  just  within  reach,  to  be  read  and 
re-read.  The  following  books,  chosen  from  an 
extensive  list,  meet  these  requirements.  They 
are  preeminently  books  to  live  with. 


My  Neighbor,   Tbe  Working   Man 

By  James  Roscoe  Day 

Chancellor    of    Syracuse     University 
A  strong  and  trenchant  discussion   of  present- 
day    social   and   industrial   unrest. 

I2mo.         Cloth.         Net  $2.50,  postpaid. 

The  Balkans.    A  Laboratory  ol 
History 

By  William  M.  Sloane 

New  Edition.  Reinscd  and  Enlarged 
The  author  has  enlarged  his  text  by  something 
more  than  a  quarter.  The  pages  of  the  earlier 
editions  have  been  revised,  corrected  and 
changed  to  correspond  in  the  form  of  expres- 
sion with  the  additional  pages.  The  volume  is 
a  careful,  lucid,  and  scnolarly  review  of  the 
whole  Balkan  question.  A  very  valuable  book 
for   both   students   and  general   readers. 

8vo.         Three  Maps.  Cloth.     In  Press. 

Pantheistic  Dilemmas 

And    Other   Essays    in    Philosophy    and    Religion 

By  Henry  C.  Sheldon 

Essays  dealing  with  important  issues  in  the 
intellectual  and  religious  world  to-day.  An  in- 
valuable volume  for  the  student  of  current 
philosophical  and  religious  trends.  Professor 
Sheldon's  sanity  of  thought  and  clarity  of  state- 
ment were  never  more  evident  than  in  these 
essays. 

12mo.         Cloth.         Net  $2.50,  postpaid. 

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Public  Opinion  and  Theology 

Lail   Lectures   of   the  Pacific  School   of  Religion 

By  Bishop  Francis  J.  McConnell 

All  thoughtful  readers  will  want  to  follow  the 
Bishop  through  these  illuminating  and  informa- 
tive  pages. 

12mo.         Cloth.         Net  $1.50,  postpaid. 

The  Eyes  ol  Faith 

By  Lynn  Harold  Hough 

President  of  Northwestern   University 
A   keen  and  critical  putting  of  the  relation  of 
experience  to  present-day  problems  of  philosophy 
and    religion. 

12mo.         Cloth.         Net  $1.50.  postpaid. 

Some  Aspects  of  International 
Cliristianlty 

The    Mcndcnhall    Lectures,    Fifth    Series, 
Delivered  at   DcPauw    University 

By  John  Kelman 

"There  are  questions  of  the  most  vital  im- 
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opinion.  The  bearings  of  these  questions  are 
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his  commonsense  view  of  relative  importances, 
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questions  of  the  hour  as  he  understands  them. 
It  is  in  his  name  and  from  his  point  of  view 
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Author's   Preface. 

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608] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  56 


I 


{Continued  from  page  607) 
is  duly  and  competently  supplied  with 
preface,  introduction,  biographical  notes," 
bibliographies,  and  other  concomitants 
of  anthologies.  Miss  Mayorga  classes 
her  twenty-four  plays  under  eleven 
heads.  She  has  just  one  more  category 
than  Polonius  in  that  tragical-comical- 
historical-pastoral  passage  in  which 
Shakespeare  seems,  even  in  those  art- 
less times,  to  find  a  theme  for  mirth  in 
the  nicety  of  classifiers.  At  a  moment 
when  he  was  himself  wildly  capering  in 
the  gloomiest  of  tragedies,  he  felt  the 
value  of  defensive  satire. 

It  is  natural  that  the  one-act  play 
should  be  marked  by  diversity  of  kinds. 
If  one  collected  into  two  groups  the 
people  with  whom  one  could  comfortably 
spend  a  half  hour  and  those  one  could  put 
up  with  for  two  hours  and  a  half,  it  is 
clear  that  the  first  assembly  would  be 
not  only  larger  but  more  diversified  than 
the  second.  Miss  Mayorga  classifies,  not 
by  dividing  the  whole  like  a  logician,  but 
by  adding  the  particulars  like  a  collector. 
But  there  is  no  good  method  of  sorting 
dramas;  logic  is  irrelevant  and  collector- 
ship  is  lax.  Even  with  eleven  heads  it  is 
hard  to  give  each  play  its  proper  billet. 
"Suppressed  Desires"  may  be  satire,  as 
the  editor  thinks,  but  surely  it  is  also 
farce;  and  a  "Good  Woman"  is  no  more 
a  "play  of  ideas"  than  a  "Question  of 
Morality,"  which  is  debited  to  "comedy." 


For  myself  I  have  no  affection  for  clas- 
sifications of  dramas ;  they  were  too  dear 
to  Polonius. 

Miss  Mayorga  has  chosen  well.  She 
tells  us  in  her  preface  that  she  has  some- 
times preferred  the  representative  to  the 
excellent — a  preference  to  which,  after  a 
moment's  hesitation,  one  assents.  The 
average  merit,  however,  is  considerable. 
There  is  no  ground  as  yet  for  national 
exultation,  but  Americans  may  well  be 
soberly  and  humbly  glad  in  the  showing 
made  by  their  compatriots  in  this  vol- 
ume. On  the  whole,  the  pattern  is  much 
better  than  the  goods.  The  ideas,  the 
motives,  are  strong.  But  the  execution 
wants  steadiness.  The  hand  shakes  a 
little;  there  is  no  assurance  in  the  stroke. 
Even  this  defect  is  hardly  marked 
enough  to  be  felt  in  the  theatre,  and  one 
is  glad  that  form  rather  than  matter 
should  be  the  seat  of  the  defect.  It  is 
easier  for  substance  to  annex  style  than 
for  style  to  annex  substance ;  neither  an- 
nexation is  child's  play. 

Envy  is  sometimes  a  good  touchstone, 
and  I  am  moved  to  confess  that  I  should 
like  to  have  written  Miss  Esther  Gal- 
braith's  "Brink  of  Silence,"  Mr.  Oscar 
M.  Wolff's  "Where  But  in  America,"  and, 
but  for  its  slanting  or  sloping  morals, 
Mr.  George  Middleton's  "Good  Woman." 
I  should  like  to  have  been  bright  enough 
to  think  out  the  motive  of  Mr.  Percival 
Wilde's  "Question  of  Morality,"  though 


Sterling  »»«>  French  Franc  Travelers  Cheques 

All  travelers  to  Europe  this  summer  should  carry 
our  new  form  of  Travelers  Cheques,  issued  in  Pounds 
Sterling  or  French  Francs. 

These  Cheques  will  be  good  for  the  amount  of 
pounds  or  francs  printed  on  their  face,  less  the  usual  stamp 
tax,  thus  protecting  the  carrier  from  receiving  an  unfair 
exchange  rate  when  cashing  them. 

They  can  be  bought  in  this  country  at  prices  in  dollars 
based  on  the  exchange  rate  of  the  day,  so  that  travelers 
providing  themselves  with  these  cheques  will  thereafter 
have  no  occasion  to  worry  about  exchange  rates. 

Sterling  and  franc  cheques  can  be  cashed  anywhere, 
and  if  lost  or  stolen  can  be  replaced  on  signing  certain 
protective  agreements.  They  enjoy  all  the  currency  pro- 
tection, and  convenience  of  our  familiar  dollar  cheques  and 
at  the  same  time  protect  the  holder  against  exchange  losses. 

Procurable  at  banks  and  express  offices. 

AMERICAN    EXPRESS  COMPANY 


I  do  not  warm  to  the  gelid  subtlety  of 
the  result.  The  volume  should  serve  the 
one-act  play  as  furtherance  and  as 
incentive. 

In  Mr.  Eliot's  "Little  Theater  Class- 
ics," "Little"  and  "Classics"  should  be 
strongly  underscored.  The  book  adapts 
standard  plays  of  other  centuries  to  in- 
timate, artistic,  solicitous  presentation. 
There  are  some  intrepidities  in  Mr. 
Eliot  which  rather  stagger  me,  though 
whether  the  protest  comes  from  real  dis- 
approbation or  simply  from  that  unused- 
ness  which  whimpers  at  the  approach  of 
novelty  it  is  hard  for  me  to  say.  For 
instance,  I  stand  agape,  if  not  aghast,  at 
Mr.  Eliot's  consolidation  of  the  Chester 
play  and  the  Brome  play  on  Abraham 
and  Isaac  into  one  drama.  Surely  the 
divinely  pathetic  Townley  version  of  this 
still  enjoyable  theme  might  have  served 
his  purpose  better  than  this  adulterous 
conjunction. 

The  "Loathed  Lover,"  the  third  play, 
is  a  greatly  shortened  and  somewhat 
softened  adaptation  of  Thomas  Middle- 
ton's  powerful  and  formidable  "Change- 
ling." I  doubt  if  an  expurgation  so 
cautious  as  Mr.  Eliot's  has  really  im- 
proved the  decorum  of  the  play.  Middle- 
ton's  "Changeling"  is,  in  agreement  with 
its  name,  an  unwashed  and  unkempt 
brat,  and  I  think  its  hairiness  and 
blotchiness  become  more  rather  than  less 
conspicuous  after  it  has  been  washed, 
combed,  and  wrapped  in  comely  linen.  I 
rather  wonder  that  Mr.  Eliot,  whose 
restorative  hand  is  omnipresent,  has  not 
troubled  himself  to  iron  out  the  creases  j 
in  Middleton's  (or  Eowley's)  insupport-  ' 
able  blank  verse. 

Mr.  Eliot  is  quite  justified  in  includ- 
ing in  his  book  the  excellent  old  farce 
of  "Pathelin."  He  has  to  travel  far  back 
in  time  to  reach  it,  but  "Pathelin"  is 
worth  a  journey.  I  do  not  quite  see, 
however,  why  he  should  stop  on  the  re- 
turn trip  to  pick  up  Moliere's  "Sgana- 
relle,"  a  smart,  saucy,  bustling  one-act 
play,  whose  deserts,  I  should  suppose,  had 
been  paid  in  full  by  the  merriment  of  its 
contemporaries.  The  present  text,  which 
is  Mr.  Eliot's  revision  of  the  rhymed 
version  prepared  by  Mr.  Philip  Moeller 
for  the  Washington  Square  players,  is  of 
an  admirable  pithiness,  zest,  and  elas- 
ticity. Of  Mr.  Eliot's  four  curiously 
different  plays,  one  approves  "Pathelin," 
and  "Abraham  and  Isaac,"  at  least  in 
the  ground  work,  tolerates  "Sganarelle," 
and  looks  askance  at  the  "Loathed  Lover." 
But  of  their  fitness  to  their  audience  it 
is  hard  to  judge.  Mr.  Eliot  expressly 
dedicates  "Sganarelle"  to  "lovers  of  the 
new,  the  whimsical,  the  picturesque  and 
style-struck."  He  would  be  a  bold  critic 
who  would  undertake  to  say  what  would , 
not  please  lovers  of  the  new,  the  whim- 
sical, the  picturesque,  and  the  style- 1 
struck  in  the  modern  theatre. 

In  the  "Soothsayer"  and  the  "Birth  of 


June  5,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[609 


God,"  short  plays  by  Verner  von  Heiden- 
stam,  I  find  a  dramatic  void.  Their 
merits  consist  in  serious  purpose,  power- 
ful settings,  and  a  diction — happily  re- 
produced in  Miss  Knudsen's  picturesque 
and  gliding  English — which  has  both 
shape  and  color,  both  complexion  and  pro- 
file. In  the  "Soothsayer"  a  man  flees 
from  hearth  to  temple  and  from  temple 
to  hearth  in  alternate  faithlessness  to 
each.  The  play,  on  its  tiny  scale,  is  like 
"Peer  Gynt"  in  its  detestation  of  the  un- 
committed or  half -committed  man,  and  it 
is  like  "Brand"  in  its  presentation  of  the 
conflict  between  religion  and  domesticity 
for  the  mastery  of  a  struggling  soul. 
Unfortunately  it  adduces  no  reason  for 
its  dictum  that  love  and  priesthood  are 
incompatible,  and  its  mere  word,  in  the 
absence  of  a  reason,  will  not  greatly  im- 
press a  world  in  which  Socrates,  St. 
Peter,  St.  Louis,  and  Ralph  Waldo  Emer- 
son were  husbands. 

The  "Birth  of  God"  is  less  prettily 
wrought,  but  is  somewhat  richer  in  sub- 
stance. Two  strangers,  meeting  at  night 
in  our  own  time  in  Karnak,  hold  a  solemn 
dialogue  to  which  the  images  of  forsaken 
gods  serve  as  framework  and  in  which 
from  time  to  time  the  lamentations  of 
these  gods  augustly  mingle.  God  is  dead; 
God  is  unborn.  His  birth  is  foreseen, 
and  the  foresight  of  his  birth  is  already 
the  beginning  of  his  presence.  All  this 
is  dimly  cheerful;  it  loses  its  cheer  and 
it  does  not  acquire  clearness  when  one 
of  the  strangers  actually  obtains  his  God 
by  a  voluntary  leap  into  sacrificial  flames. 

Mr.  Porter's  preface  to  the  "Seven 
Who  Slept"  is  a  defense  of  illusion.  It 
is  a  dashing,  sprightly,  condescending 
preface,  and  much  of  what  it  says  is 
incontestable.  At  times,  however,  its 
points,  like  crossing  sword-blades,  blunt 
each  other.  We  are  told  at  the  outset 
that  "the  only  power  which  can — or  at 
least  commonly  does — dispel  an  illusion  is 
another  illusion."  We  are  told  at  the 
end  that  "the  modern  age  has  been  mis- 
guided in  its  exclusive  search  after 
truth."  How  can  illusion  be  impaired  or 
impeded  by  our  search  for  truth,  when, 
in  the  search  for  truth,  we  get  illu- 
sion? 

The  legendary  play,  in  four  brief 
episodes,  presents  illusion  as  an  encour- 
agement to  virtue  in  a  pointed  and  clean- 
cut  anecdote  of  the  transitory  revival  of 
the  Seven  Sleepers  of  Ephesus.  With  his 
lesson  Mr.  Porter  has  hardly  succeeded; 
the  moral  is  at  once  importunate  and  elu- 
sive ;  the  reader  can  not  get  hold  of  it  nor 
get  free  of  it.  But  the  play,  in  its  in- 
formal fashion,  shows  a  measure  of 
dramatic  faculty.  Mr.  Porter  manages 
his  surprise  cunningly,  and  he  has  a  good 
dialogue  of  the  plain,  crisp  sort  in  which 
all  the  speeches  are  erect  and  solitary, 
as  insulated  in  their  proximity  as  the 
dwellers  in  New  York  apartment  houses. 
0.  W.  Firkins 


THE  HUDSON  COAL  CO. 


CELEBRATED 

LACKAWANNA 

THE  ARISTOCRAT  OF  ANTHRACITE 


1823 


1920 


HAS  NATURAL  QUALITIES  AND  MAN-MADE  REFINEMENT 


D.  F.  WILLIAMS] 

Vice-President  and  General  Sales  Agent 


W.  F.  SHURTLEFF 

Assistant  General  Sales  Agent 


SCRANTON,  PA. 


610] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  56 


Problems  of  Labor  and  Capital 

IV.  Chartering  vs.  Incorporating  Employers'  Associations 

and  Trade  Unions 


THE  usual  excuse  put  forth  by  em- 
ployers who  refuse  to  enter  into  col- 
lective bargaining  agreements  with  labor 
unions  is  the  alleged  irresponsibility  of 
the   unions.     Employers,   that   is,   very 
seldom  succeed  in  recovering  pecuniary 
damages  from  unions  for  breach  of  con- 
tract.   In  the  belief  that  compulsory  in- 
corporation of  unions  would  make  it  a 
simple  matter  for  an  employer  success- 
fully to  sue  for  damages  arising  out  of 
a  breach  of  contract,  employers  through- 
out the  country  are  in  favor  of  com- 
pulsory incorporation.     This  movement 
is,   of  course,   bitterly   opposed   by   or- 
ganized labor.    The  reason  for  this  op- 
position   usually    alleged    by    organized 
labor  is  unwillingness  to  submit  to  any 
public  control.    There  is  no  valid  reason 
to   suppose   that   the   opposition   arises 
from  a  belief  that  through  incorporation 
the  treasuries  of  the  unions  would  be 
more  subject  to  attack.     An  ingrained 
desire  to  be  free  from  public  scrutiny 
and    inspection    explains    itself    in    the 
light  of  the  fact  that  the  trade  union 
movement  was  an  outgrowth  of  secret 
societies,  somewhat  resembling  the  Ma- 
sonic orders. 


But  in  all  the  discussions  it  has  been 
but  seldom  suggested  that  it  would  be 
equally  wise  and  fair  to  compel  the  in- 
corporation of   employers'   associations. 
For  many  years  employers'  associations 
dealing    with    labor    were    incorporated 
under  State  laws.    In  this  they  followed 
the  practices  of  employers'  associations 
organized  for  purposes  other  than  deal- 
ing with  labor.    Within  the  last  decade, 
however,  there  has  been  a  marked  ten- 
dency among  lawyers  to  advise  employ- 
ers'   associations    to    remain,    unincor- 
porated.    The  reason  for  this  advice  is 
obvious.    Under  the  laws  of  many  States, 
such  as  New  York,  the  statutes  covering 
membership    corporations    vest    in    the 
courts  a  so-called  power  of  visitation,  in 
effect  a  power  of  inspection.     To  pre- 
vent the  possibility   of  any   inspection 
whatsoever,  employers'  associations  gen- 
erally remain  unincorporated,  the  mem- 
bers   being    held    together    merely    by 
formal  or  informal  by-laws  and  consti- 
tutions. 

Though  both  labor  and  capital  are 
fearful  of  public  supervision,  the  unions, 
as  a  rule,  print  in  their  bulletins,  which 
are  distributed  to  their  members  and  to 


TheShawmut  Indian  Head 

has  earned  for  itself  a  permanent  place  in  the 
universal  language  of  trade  marks.  Wherever  it 
is  seen,  at  home  or  in  the  remote  comers  of  the 
world,  it  stands  for  sound  banking  principles 
and  the  accumulated  experience  gained  in 
serving  more  than  three  generations  of  merchants 
and  manufacturers. 

THE    NATIONAL    SHAWMUT    BANK 
OF    BOSTON 


Established 
1837 
Resources  over  $250,000,000 


40  Water  Street 
Boston 


the  public,  audited  monthly  statements 
of  their  financial  condition.  Knowledge 
of  this  fact  comes  as  a  great  surprise 
to  most  employers.  Hardly  a  single  case 
can  be  mentioned  where  an  employers' 
association,  organized  solely  to  deal  with 
labor,  has  ventured  to  publish  an  income 
and  disbursement  statement,  though  they 
willingly  make  public  their  records  of 
votes  on  important  matters,  and  dis^ 
tribute  such  information  not  only  to  their 
members,  but  to  their  particular  trade 
through  their  trade  press,  matters  which 
the  unions  jealously  keep  secret. 

Lack  of  general  publicity  on  both  sides 
is  the  basis  for  much  of  the  lack  of  con- 
fidence existing  between  employers  and 
organized  labor.  The  unions,  with  con-  ' 
siderable  justice,  allege  the  existence  of 
large  "strike  funds"  to  crush  labor  or- 
ganizations. That  high-priced  detectives 
are  engaged  to  act  as  spies  at  union 
meetings  is  so  commonly  assumed  that 
at  many  union  meetings  special  remarks 
are  made  for  the  benefit  of  such  spies. 
Where  such  sums  exist  they  are  in  part 
called  forth  by  the  failure  of  the  courts 
to  give  such  protection  to  the  employers 
as  they  think  they  are  entitled  to.  J 

When  employers  argue  that  the  incor-   ^ 
poration  of  the  unions  would  result  in 
responsibility,  they  argue  from  a  false 
premise  and  without  knowledge  of  the 
facts.    It  can  not  be  denied  that  in  busi- 
ness dealings  generally  credit  is  estab- 
lished on  statements  showing  assets  sub- 
ject to  attack  in  the  event  that  the  credit 
is  abused.    However,  it  is  most  improb- 
able that  employers  would  ever  be  able 
to  reach  the  funds  of  the  unions,  even 
if  such  funds  were  subject  to  legal  at- 
tack.    In  the  first  place,  if  mandatory 
incorporation  were  to  be  adopted,  the  at- 
torneys   for    the    trade    unions    would 
speedily  pursue  the  methods  of  corporate 
financing,  which  have  been  so  success- 
fully carried  on  by  capital  during  the 
past    decades.      Subsidiary   corporations 
would  be  organized  to  which  would  be 
transferred  the  larger  part  of  the  union 
funds.    A  local  union  in  the  City  of  New 
York  decided  some  years  ago  to  go  into 
business  on  its  own  account;  it  bought 
a  plant  worth  several  thousand  dollars 
and  actually  engaged  in  the  line  of  busi- 
ness in  which  its  members  were  quali- 
fied.   In  order  to  safeguard  the  funds  so 
invested,  a  separate  corporation  was  or- 
ganized, each  member  of  the  union  hold- 
ing a  share  of  the  stock.    It  is  plain  that 
the  legal  difficulties  involved  in  follow- 
ing   the    union's    funds    would    prove 
so  expensive  and  difficult  as  to  make  the 
relief    impracticable.      Assuming,    how- 
ever,  that   upon   a  breach   of   contract 
funds  of  the  union  could  be  easily  levied 
.  upon,  it  must  nevertheless  be  apparent 
to  anyone  familiar  with  the  temper  of 
the  labor  movement  in  this  country  that 
the  mere  risk  arising  to  the  funds  in  the 
treasury   would  not   deter  the   average 


June  5,  1920] 


THE  REVIEW 


[611 


labor  union  from  any  course  previously- 
determined  upon.  Probably  every  day 
in  the  year  some  labor  union  without 
funds  receives  assistance  from  other 
unions  in  the  same  or  other  trades 
in  other  parts  of  the  country.  The 
seizure  of  the  union's  treasury  would 
only  further  embitter  the  workers  and 
prolong  the  strike.  Is  it  not  also  true 
that  most  strikes  would  come  to  an  end 
long  before  a  decision  could  be  reached 
in  our  courts  on  an  action  for  damages? 

What  the  employers  and  the  workers 
really  need  is  not  the  subjecting  of  funds 
to  attack.  All  that  is  hoped  for  from 
mandatory  incorporation  could  be  accom- 
plished through  compulsory  licensing  or 
chartering.  Legislation  should  be  en- 
acted to  make  mandatory  the  govern- 
mental chartering  of  trade  unions  and 
employers'  associations.  Such  legisla- 
tion should  expressly  provide  that  the 
financial  responsibility  of  the  parties  is 
unaffected  thereby.  With  this  sound  and 
fair  provision,  and  with  a  further  decla- 
ration of  the  benefits  to  trade  unions  of 
the  compulsory  chartering  of  employers' 
associations,  it  may  be  that  the  present 
opposition  of  organized  labor  to  any  form 
of  public  interference  might  be  overcome. 

Such  chartering  of  the  parties  to  the 
present  industrial  warfare  would  mean 
little  more  than  the  public  filing  of  the 
constitution,  and  by-laws  and  amend- 
ments thereto,  the  periodic  filing  of  de- 
tailed financial  statements  showing  not 
only  assets  and  liabilities,  but  income  and 
disbursements,  and  the  recording  of  the 
names  and  addresses  of  all  members  and 
officers  of  the  respective  chartered  asso- 
ciations. A  further  requirement  of  some 
value  would  be  the  compulsory  filing  of 
certificates  setting  forth  the  result  of  all 
votes  on  election  of  officers  or  commit- 
i  tees  and  proposed  demands  or  strikes  on 
the  part  of  the  workers,  or  lockouts  on 
the  part  of  the  employers.  Through  the 
medium  of  chartering,  the  Government 
could  obtain  power  of  regulation  over 
the  manner  of  taking  and  counting  of 
votes.  The  common  cry  of  employers 
that  they  would  be  willing  to  deal  with 
organized  labor  if  the  leadership  were 
the  leadership  actually  desired  by  the 
workers  would  in  part  be  answered,  if, 
in  addition  to  the  public  filing  of  the  re- 
sult of  the  votes  taken  in  such  matters, 
the  Government  would  also  have  power 
to  surround  these  industrial  ballots  with 
safeguards  similar  to  those  now  protect- 
ing the  political  ballot.  Publicity  of 
somewhat  this  sort  has  been  successfully 
tried  in  isolated  cases  by  the  more  pro- 
ifressive  employers  and  unions.  Neither 
side  would  revert  to  the  former  "star 
chamber"  proceedings.  Unfortunately, 
the  introduction  of  similar  practices  in 
ill  labor  unions  and  employers'  associa- 
;ions  will  take  decades  of  education  in 
.he  absence  of  mandatory  legislation. 
Morris  L.  Ernst 


The   Whitley   System 

in  the  British  Civil 

Service 

IN  March,  1917,  was  issued  the  Whitley 
Report,  so  called  from  the  name  of 
the  Chairman  of  a  committee  ap- 
pointed by  the  Ministry  of  Labor. 
It  has  introduced  into  the  indus- 
trial life  of  England  a  remarkable 
change.  This  committee  recommended 
that  employers  and  employed,  in  each 
trade,  should  form  a  Joint  Standing  In- 
dustrial Council  and  select  representa- 
tives for  the  purpose  of  consultation  and 
advice  on  subjects  connected  with  the 
interests  of  the  two  parties.  Employees 
thus  secured  a  voice  in  the  regulation 
of  the  labor  engaged.  This  principle  has 
now  been  applied  to  the  Civil  Service  of 
the  Crown. 

Constitutional  changes  in  England 
have  for  centuries  occurred  with  so  little 
friction  and  in  so  quiet  a  way  that  their 
importance  is  often  unappreciated.  It 
will  be  seen,  when  described,  how  large 
is  the  change  effected  by  this  application 
of  the  Whitley  Report,  which  primarily 
was  intended  to  affect  only  "the  main  in- 
dustries of  the  country."  It  came  about 
in  this  way.  On  March  7,  1919,  there 
was  issued  a  report  of  a  sub-committee 
of  an  inter-departmental  committee  on 
the  application  of  the  Whitley  Report  to 
Government  establishments.  This  was 
followed  in  April  by  a  conference  at 
which  it  was  resolved  that  a  National 
Joint  Committee  should  be  appointed  to 
consider  a  Whitley  scheme  and  make  a 
report  on  the  same.  Accordingly  a  Pro- 
visional National  Joint  Committee  was 
formed,  consisting  of  fifteen  official  rep- 
resentatives and  fifteen  representatives 
of  the  employees  in  the  English  Civil 
Service.  The  report  of  this  body,  issued 
on  May  28,  1919,  formulated  a  scheme 
which  was  approved  by  the  Cabinet  in 
June,  1919,  and  subsequently  accepted 
by  a  Joint  Official  and  Staff  Conference 
presided  over  by  the  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer.  It  will  be  seen  by  reference 
to  some  of  the  more  important  details 
how  vitally  it  changes  the  position  of  the 
English  Civil  Servants  of  the  Crown. 
The  new  principle,  that  the  employees 
are  entitled  to  a  voice  in  the  organiza- 
tion of  the  service,  is  distinctly  formu- 
lated : 

The  main  objects  of  establishing  a  system  of 
joint  Whitley  bodies  for  the  administrative 
Departments  are  to  secure  a  greater  measure 
of  cooperation  between  the  State,  in  its  capacity 
of  employer,  and  the  general  body  of  Civil  Ser- 
vants, in  matters  affecting  the  Civil  Service, 
with  a  view  to  increase  efficiency  in  the  public 
service  combined  with  the  well-being  of  those 
employed;  to  provide  machinery  for  dealing 
with  grievances,  and  generally  to  bring  together 
experience  and  different  points  of  view  of 
representatives  of  the  administrative,  clerical 
and  manipulative  Civil  Service. 


Complete  Banking  Service 
in    Convenient    Localities 

55  Cedar  Street 
Broadway  at  73rd  St. 
Madison  Av.  at  75th  St. 
12Sth  St.  at  Eighth  Av. 

Customers  of  one  office  have  at  their 
disposal    the    facilities    of    all    offices. 

DEPARTMENTS 
Banking  Trust 

Mortgage  Coupon 

Credit        Transfer  &  Registrar 
Foreign  Municipal  Bond 

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UNITED  mm 

MORTGAGE  LlKUSl 

COMPANY 

Capital    and    Surplus,    $6,000,000 
NEW  YORK 


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Main  Office  Fifth  Avenue  Office 

26  Broad  Street        Fifth  Ave.  and  S7th  St. 

NEW  YORK 


Capital  $3,000,000 

Surplus  and  Profits  $11,000,000 

Designated  Depositary  in  Bankrtiptcy  and  of  Court 
and  Trust  Funds 


OTTO  T.   BANNARD,  Chairman   of  the  Board 

MORTIMER  N.  BUCKNER,  President 
F.  J.  Home,  Vice-Pre».        H.  W.  Shaw 


James  Dodd,  Vice-Pres. 
H.   W.   Morse,  V.-Pres. 
Harry  Forsyth,  Treas. 
Boyd  G.  Curts,  Sec'y 


J.  A.   Flynn 

A.  C.  Downing,  Jr. 

W.   MacNaughten 

Assistant  Secretaries 
E.  B.  Lewis,  Asst.  Treas. 


FIFTH  AVENUE  OFFICE 
Charles  E.  Haydock,  Vice-President  and  Manager 

Mrs.    Key  Cam  mack Assistant  Secretary 

Russell  V.  Worstell Assistant  Secretary 


TRUSTEES 


Otto  T.  Bannard 
S.  Reading  Bertroii 

iames  A.   Blair 
Jortitner  N.  Buckner 
James  C.  Colgate 
Alfred  A.  Cook 
Arthur  T.  Cumnock 
Robert  W.  de  Forest 
John  B.  Dennis 
Philip  T.   Dodge 
George  Doubleday 
Samuel  H.   Fisher 
John  A.   Garver 
Benjamin   S.  Guinness 
F.  N.  Hoffstot 


Buchanan   Houston 
Frederic  B.  Jennings 
Walter  Jennings 
Darwin  P.  Kingsley 
John  C.  McCall 
Ogden  L.  Mills 
Tohn  J.   Mitchell 
James  Parmelee 
Henry  C.  Phipps 
Norman  P.  Ream 
Dean   Sage 
Joseph  J.  Slocum 
Myles  Tiemcy 
Clarence  M.  WooUey 


Members  of  the  New    York  Clearing  House  Asso- 
ciation and   of  the   Federal   Reserve   System 


612] 


THE  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  56 


•  Therefore  we  find  a  representative 
body  of  employers  and  employed,  for  the 
heads  of  departments  may  be  regarded 
a^  employers,  set  up  to  regulate  the  Civil 
Service  system.  Accordingly  three  sets 
of  bodies  are  established — a  National 
Council,  Departmental  Committees,  and 
District  and  OflSce  (or  Works)  Commit- 
tees, the  first  named  body  consisting  of 
fifty-four  members,  half  to  be  appointed 
by  the  Government  and  the  other  half 
by  groups  of  Stafif  Associations. 

The  object  of  the  Council  is  to  carry 
out  the  principles  already  described.  The 
most  startling  point,  and  one  which  in 
any  country  in  Europe  would  be  regarded 
as  subversive  of  existing  institutions,  is 
that  "the  decisions  of  the  Council  shall 
be  arrived  at  by  agreement  between  the 
two  sides,"  and  then  "they  shall  be  re- 
ported to  the  Cabinet  and  thereupon 
shall  become  operative."  Startling  does 
not  seem  too  strong  an  adjective  to  use 
in  reference  to  this  recommendation,  be- 
cause it  appears  to  take  away  Cabinet 
responsibility,  and  the  National  Joint 
Council  becomes  the  real  governing  body 
in  regard  to  the  organization  of  the  Civil 
Service. 

The  Departmental  Committees  will, 
however,  probably'be  of  greater  practical 
utility  than  the  National  Council,  because 
they  will  deal  with  the  affairs  of  each 
department.  The  dividing  line  between 
the  jurisdiction  of  the  National  Council 


and  of  the  Departmental  Committees  is 
very  vague,  for  "the  precise  line  of 
demarcation  between  the  scope  of  the 
National  Council  and  Departmental  Com- 
mittees must  be  left  largely  to  the  test 
of  experience."  District  Joint  Commit- 
tees and  Sectional  Committees  are  sim- 
ply special  committees  necessitated  by 
the  existence  of  special  sections  or  grades 
in  some  departments,  and  do  no  more 
than  carry  the  system  of  Departmental 
Committees  into  greater  detail.  The 
main  interest  of  the  new  system  is  not 
in  the  details,  but  in  the  adoption  of  the 
principle  of  staff  intervention  in  the  or- 
ganization of  the  Civil  Service. 

It  is  clearly  an  extraordinary  change, 
for  if  there  has  been  one  branch  of  civil 
employment  in  which  the  employed  has 
been  entirely  subordinate  to  the  employer, 
it  is  the  Civil  Service.  The  employee 
has  entered  it  knowing  its  terms,  its  re- 
strictions, its  pay,  and  its  duration  of 
employment.  He  made  up  his  mind  from 
the  moment  of  entrance  that  he  was  a 
mere  unit  in  a  huge  Governmental  ma- 
chine. Now  things  are  changed — how 
changed  it  will  be  for  the  immediate 
future  to  show.  One  may  hope  that  the 
status  and  work  of  the  English  Civil 
Service  have  been  such  that  extreme 
changes  will  not  be  required.  But  the 
application  of  the  Whitley  system  to  the 
British  Civil  Service  makes  one  consider 
when  and  to  what  extent  the  same  prin- 


RADICAL  propagandists  in  the  present 
period  of  world  changes  are  striking 
at  the  very  foundation  of  American  institu- 
tions. 

The  most  enterprising  of  these  are  the  in- 
tellectual radical  journals.  They  are  making 
dangerous  headway,  even  among  loyal 
Americans. 

THE  REVIEW  was  founded  to  dispute  the 
teachings  of  such  journals  and  is  making 
real  progress  in  its  work  of  keeping  alive 
the  principles  of  American  liberty. 


f5  A  Ytat 

140  Nassau  Si. 
Nem  York 


ciple  will  be  applied  in  other  countries. 
So  far  as  Great  Britain  is  concerned, 
the  extension  is  of  quite  extraordinary 
interest  because  nothing  is  clearer  than 
that  the  original  Whitley  Report  con- 
templated only  war  conditions  and  the 
problems  which  were  likely  to  arise  im- 
mediately after  the  war  in  relation  to 
industrial  undertakings.  Its  applica- 
tion to  the  Civil  Service  shows  that  its 
principles  will  be  permanently  applied, 
sooner  or  later,  in  every  kind  of  employ- 
ment. For  if  it  is  applicable  to  the  Civil 
Service  of  the  Crown,  it  is  applicable 
universally. 

E.  S.  ROSCOE 
London,  May  10 

Books  Received 

DRAMA  AND  MUSIC 

Gorki,  Maxim.  A  Night's  Lodging.  Four 
Seas  Co. 

Heidenstam,  Verner  von.  The  Birth  of  God. 
Four  Seas  Co.     $1.25  net. 

Leslie,  Noel.  Three  Plays.  Four  Seas. 
$1.50  net. 

Steiner,  Rudolph.  Four  Mystery  Plays.  2 
volumes.     Putnam. 

Three  Plays  of  the  Argentine.  Edited  with 
Introduction  by  Edward  H.  Bierstadt.  Duf- 
field.    $1.75  net. 

ESSAYS  AND  CRITICISM 

The  Letters  of  Henry  James.  Selected  and 
Edited  by  Percy  Lubbock.  2  volumes. 
Scribner. 

Hobson,  J.  A.  Taxation  in  the  New  State. 
Harcourt,  Brace  and  Howe. 

Jastrow,  Morris,  Jr.  The  Eastern  Question 
and   Its  Solution.     Lippincott. 

Kimball,  Everett.  The  National  Government 
of  the  United  States.    Ginn. 

Lyman,  George  H.  Story  of  the  Massachu- 
setts Committee  on  Public  Safety.  Mass. 
Committee  on  Public  Safety. 

MacMurchy,  Dr.  Helen.  The  Almosts:  A 
Study  of  the  Feeble-Minded.  Houghton 
Mifflin.     $1.50, 

Morrison,  A.  J.    East  by  West.    Four  Seas. 

Ogilvie,  Paul  M.  International  Waterways. 
Macmillian 

Pollock,  Sir  Frederick.  League  of  Nations. 
Macraillan.    $4. 

JUVENILE 

Skinner,  Ada  and  Eleanor.  The  Garnet 
Story  Book. 

LITERATURE 

Amos,  Flora  R.  Early  Theories  of  Transla- 
tion.    Columbia  University  Press.     $2  net. 

MISCELLANEOUS 
Kleiser,  Grenville.    Pocket  Guides  to  Public 
Speaking.     Ten  volumes.     Funk  &  Wagnalls. 

POETRY 

Anthology  of  Magazine  Verse  for  1919. 
Edited  by  William  S.  Braithwaite.  Small, 
Maynard.    $2.25  net. 

Barney,  Danford.  Chords  from  Albireo. 
Lane.     $1.50  net 

Barrett,  Wilton  A.  Songs  from  the  Jour- 
ney.    Doran. 

Crowell,  Joshua  F.  Outdoors  and  In. 
Four  Seas  Co.    $1.50  net. 

Georgian  Poetry.     1918-19.     Putnam. 

Poems  of  John  R.  Thompson.  Scribner. 
$2. 

Sarett,  Lew.  Many,  Many  Moons.  Holt. 
$1.50  net. 

Still,  John.     Poems  in  Captivity.     Lane. 

Walsh,  Thomas.  Don  Folquet  and  Other 
Poems.     Lane.     $1.50  net. 


THE  WEEK 

REVIE 


Vol.  2,  No.  57 


New  York,  Wednesday,  June  16,  1920 


FIFTEEN  CENTS 


Contents 


Brief  Comment  613 

Editorial  Articles: 

The  Voice  of  America  616 

Federal  Prohibition  a  Fact  616 

The  Law  or  the  Cadi?  617 

A  Rock-Bottom  Prophet  619 

Worries    of   the   Young    Nations.  By 

Thomas  H.  Dickinson  620 

A  "Gold   Brick"   from   North  Dakota. 

By   Eye-Witness  621 

Poetry: 

Stormbound.     By  William  N.  Bates      623 

Iris  in  Kansas  City.     By  Maytime  624 

•Batter  Up!"  624 

Correspondence  625 
Book  Reviews: 

The  War— The  Last  Phase  627 

Achievement  and  Hope  628 

Conrad  the  Great  629 

Winwood  Reade  629 

From  Couperin  to  Debussy  630 

The  Run  of  the  Shelves  631 
Drama : 

Barrie,  Galsworthy,  and  Others.  By 

William  Archer  633 

Educational  Section  634 
The  Reconstruction  of  France  through 

Agriculture.  By  Andre  Rostand  637 


T  EADERLESS— that  is  the  one  ad- 
■'-'  jective  which,  by  unanimous  con- 
sent, was  assigned  to  the  Republican 
Convention  as  it  assembled  at  Chi- 
cago. To  take  hold  of  the  amorphous 
mass  there  gathered  together  and 
produce  something  like  genuine  crys- 
itallization — that  was  the  problem 
with  which  the  wise  heads  in  and 
laround  the  Coliseum  had  to  grapple. 
By  the  time  this  paper  reaches  the 
majority  of  our  readers,  the  final  out- 
come of  their  efforts  will  in  all  prob- 
ability be  known.  But,  whatever  the 
decision,  either  as  to  platform  or  as 
to  candidates,  the  one  thing  certain 
:s  that  the  coming  campaign  will  be 
one  of  the  most  important  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  country.  Issues  have  been 
more  sharply  defined  at  other  critical 
junctures  in  our  country's  history; 


but  not  more  than  once  or  twice — in 
1860  and  possibly  in  1896 — has  the 
actual  result  of  the  election  had  a 
more  crucial  bearing  on  the  country's 
future  than  that  of  this  forthcoming 
election  is  likely  to  have.  And  the 
less  distinctly  the  issues  are  defined, 
the  more  essential  will  it  be  to  keep 
in  view  the  momentous  character  of 
the  consequences  which  our  choice 
will  almost  certainly  carry  with  it. 
Never  was  there  a  time  when  it  was 
more  necessary  to  keep  our  heads 
level. 

TWTHEN  an  immovable  object — ^an 
"  irreconcilable — is  met  by  a  po- 
litical convention,  which  is  the  first 
to  budge?  Hiram  W.  Johnson's  final 
position  will  soon  be  knowTi ;  but  even 
now  it  is  evident  that  here  is  no  ques- 
tion of  firm  convictions  which  a 
chance  to  be  President  can  not  mod- 
ify. Old  Dr.  Johnson  in  a  pinch 
clearly  believes  in  calling  in  others 
for  consultation — which  is  about  the 
only  comfort  one  could  derive  from 
the  thought  of  him  in  the  White 
House. 

TN  Utopia  there  is  no  place  for  such 
-*-  a  spectacle  as  that  presented  by  the 
Chicago  Convention,  for  Utopia  is 
ruled  solely  by  reason,  and  the 
sprawling  democracies  of  this  world 
by — conventions.  The  American  peo- 
ple are  not  at  the  moment  choosing  a 
President,  they  are  choosing  a  cham- 
pion who  shall  engage  in  a  trial  by 
combat  with  another  champion  simi- 
larly chosen.  As  a  method  of  accom- 
plishing this  result  scrutiny  of  the 
omens  or  the  tight-rope  tests  of  Lilli- 
put  might  be  expected  to  work  as  well 
as  our  way  of  putting  a  thousand 
citizens  into  a  big  auditorium  and 
under  the  chemistry  of  oratory, 
cheers,     bands,    buttons,     whispers. 


waggings  of  the  head,  four  per  cent, 
beer,  and  whatever  else  may  have  es- 
caped the  revived  vigilance  of  the 
authorities,  expecting  them  perfectly 
to  interpret  the  people's  will.  It 
is  highly  ridiculous,  of  course — part 
circus  and  part  race  meet — but,  and 
also  because,  it  is  deeply  human. 
Those  who  refuse  to  be  interested  in 
such  a  spectacle  because  it  does  not 
nicely  conform  to  every  postulate  of 
reason  are  themselves  the  slaves 
of  fundamental  unreason.  Bossed 
or  unbossed,  pledged  or  unpledged, 
stampeded  or  traded,  the  delegates  to 
the  Conventions  do  succeed  in  hittinsr 
upon  men  who  prove  capable  of  dis- 
charging the  duties  laid  upon  them.    , 

THHAT  the  betting  odds  against  the 
-'•  unfavored  candidate  in  an  elec- 
tion are  habitually  less  than  the  ac- 
tual indications  warrant  is  a  familiar 
fact.  When,  for  example,  in  a  Presi- 
dential campaign  in  which  there  are 
practically  only  two  candidates  the 
odds  against  one  of  them  are  steadily 
as  bad  as  3  to  1,  the  actual  feeling 
among  judicial  observers  is  that  his 
defeat  is  almost  certain.  Whatever 
the  explanation  of  this  phenomenon 
— and  there  is  more  than  one  reason 
that  tends  to  account  for  it — the  fact 
itself  will  hardly  be  disputed.  An 
interesting  confirmation  of  it,  how- 
ever, is  furnished  by  the  odds  on  the 
Republican  aspirants  for  the  Republi- 
can nomination  as  posted  by  the  firm 
handling  most  of  the  bets  in  Wall 
Street  on  Saturday,  June  5,  just  be- 
fore the  gathering  of  the  hosts  at 
Chicago.  The  odds  against  the  can- 
didates named  were  as  follows: 

Johnson    ....    1  to  1  Allen   6  to  1 

Wood    7  to  5  Coolidge 8  to  1 

Lowden    ....   8  to  S  Harding  ....  8  to  1 

Hoover    4  to  1  Butler   10  to  1 

Hughes S  to  1  Knox  10  to  1 

Now  if  we  add  up  the  fractions  which 


614] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  57 


represent  the  probabilities  thus  as- 
signed to  the  several  candidates — Vg 
to  Johnson,  5. 12  to  Wood,  etc. — the 
total  is  nearly  2i4»  instead  of  1 ;  and 
this  allows  nothing  for  the  whole 
brood  of  dark  horses!  Thus  it  is 
safe  to  say  that,  on  an  average,  the 
chance  assigned  to  these  several  can- 
didates is  three  times  as  great  as  a 
cold  calculation  would  make  it — 
which  is  quite  in  keeping  with  the 
experience  above  referred  to,  in  elec- 
tion-betting odds. 

SIXTY-SIX  members  of  the  Yale 
Faculty  have  signed  the  follow- 
ing protest  to  the  Senate  and  House 
of  Representatives: 

We,  the  undersigned,  members  of  the  Faculty 
of  Yale  University,  are  unalterably  opposed  to 
anv  interference  by  an  outside  nation  with  our 
domestic  affairs,  and  we  are  equally  opposed 
to  any  attempt  on  the  part  of  our  own  govern- 
ment to  interfere  with  the  domestic  affairs  of 
any  other  nation.  We  protest,  in  particular, 
against  any  Congressional  resolutions,  or  items 
in  political  platforms,  touching  upon  the  rela- 
tions of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland.  We  our- 
selves deeply  resented  proposals  of  foreign 
interference  in  our  domestic  affairs  during  the 
Civil  War  from  1861  to  1865,  and  we  should 
not  fail  to  act  in  the  present  instance  with  the 
propriety  that  we  then  required  of  other 
nations. 

It  is  a  shocking  absurdity  that  such 
pretests  should  be  necessary,  but  they 
are  necessary,  and  it  is  the  clear  duty 
of  thinking  men  and  women  every- 
where to  do  what  they  can  to  make 
it  plain  to  our  representatives  at 
Washington  that  the  country  is 
heartily  sick  of  their  cheap  and  dan- 
gerous political  tricks.  "If  I  were  a 
citizen  of  the  United  States,"  says 
Mr.  Philip  Gibbs,  the  war  correspond- 
ent, in  Harper's  Magazine,  "I  should 
be  afraid — afraid  lest  my  country 
should  by  passion,  or  by  ignorance,  or 
by  sheer  carelessness  take  the  wrong 
way."  Greater  than  all  these  is  the 
danger  arising  from  the  behavior  of 
politicians  scavenging  for  votes. 

GENERALITIES  often  sound  so 
well  as  almost  to  conceal  the  fact 
that  they  do  nothing  else  than  sound. 
Mr.  Gompers,  for  example,  harking 
back  to  his  Carnegie  Hall  debate  with 
Governor  Allen,  asserts  with  great 
emphasis  that  "the  public  has  no 
rights  which  are  superior  to  the  toil- 
er's right  to  live,  and  his  right  to  de- 
fend himself  against  oppression."  As 
these   words   roll   forth,   one   might 


imagine,  for  a  moment,  that  the  op- 
position had  been  knocked  over  the 
ropes  never  to  recover.  A  moment's 
genuine  thought  reveals  the  fact  that 
there  really  is  no  opposition.  No- 
body has  questioned  the  toiler's  right 
to  live,  or  to  defend  himself  against 
oppression.  The  resounding  thump 
administered  by  Mr.  Gompers  was 
only  against  a  man  of  straw  of  his 
own  construction.  Meanwhile,  the 
right  of  the  public  to  insist  that  the 
toiler  shall  defend  his  rights  by  legal 
and  orderly  methods  remains  un- 
scathed. 

THE   wording  of  that  passage  in 
the  Papal  Encyclical  on  Christian 
Peace  and  Reconciliation  which  pro- 
claims His  Holiness  to  be  "not  averse 
to  mitigating  to  some  degree  the  rigor 
of  those  conditions  which,  after  the 
overthrow  of  the  civil  principality  of 
the  Holy  See,  were  justly  established 
by  our  predecessors  to  prevent  the 
coming  of  Catholic  Princes  to  Rome 
in  their  official  character,"  makes  it 
absolutely    clear    that    this    decision 
does  not  embody  a  new  principle,  but 
constitutes  merely  a  measure  of  ex- 
pediency.    "The  dangerous  turn  of 
events,"  and  no  turn  in  the  attitude 
of  the  Vatican,  is  given  as  a  reason 
for  the  lifting  of  the  ban  on  visits  to 
Rome  of  Catholic  Princes  and  heads 
of  States  and  this  "remission,  coun- 
selled, or  rather  wished  for,  by  the 
gravity   of  the   times,   must  by   no 
means  be  interpreted  as  a  tacit  renun- 
ciation of  our  sacrosanct  rights."    In 
other  words,  the   Sovereign   Pontiff 
does  not  renounce  his  claim  to  the 
temporal  power  withheld  from  him 
by     the    King    of    Italy;     he    only 
waives  a  particular  form  of  protest 
against  the  latter's  encroachment  on 
his  rights,  without  ceasing  to  protest 
against  it. 

T^HE  returns  of  the  elections  for  the 
-'-  German  Reichstag  are  the  re- 
flection of  a  centrifugal  force  at 
work  among  the  electorate.  The  left 
wing  of  Social-Democracy,  the  so- 
called  Independents,  and  the  German 
People's  party,  the  stronghold  of  the 
capitalistic  interests,  have  scored  the 
chief  victories  at  the  polls.  The 
former    especially    have    cause    for 


satisfaction.     They  have  verified  Dr. 
Rohrbach's  forecast  by  robbing  the 
Majority  Socialists  of  their  title  to 
that  name.  The  latter  party's  respon- 
sibility  for   the   Government   under  • 
conditions  unprecedented  in  German 
history    has    proved    fatal    to    their 
popularity    with    the    masses.      The 
formation  of  a  new  Government  on 
the  basis  of  this  new  party  alignment 
will  be  fraught  with  difficulties.     A 
combination  of  Independents,  Major- 
ity Socialists,  and  Communists  would 
find  a  strong  block  of  all  the  other 
parties  in  opposition  to  it.     A  Gov- 
ernment of  the  right  is  out  of  the 
question,  as  the  People's  party  and 
the  Nationalists  together  do  not  con- 
stitute  a   majority   over  the   united 
Socialist  groups.     A  continuance  of 
the  present  coalition  of  Majority  So- 
cialists, Democrats,  and  the  Centre  is 
very  unlikely,  since  the  Socialist  lead- 
ers have  paid  for  their  compromise 
with  the  bourgeoisie  by  a  heavy  loss 
in   adherents.      If   the   Centre   lead- 
ers, in  spite  of  their  strong  labor  fol- 
lowing, could  be  persuaded  to  join  a 
coalition  of  the  right,  a  Government  1 
thus  constituted  would  have  to  face  ' 
opposition  from  closed  ranks  of  the 
working  classes,   Catholic  labor  in- 
cluded. 

T7XPL0ITATI0N  of  the  American 


Jl. 


Indian  is  no  longer  an  easy  game. 


The  vigilance  of  the  Indian  Rights 
Association  has  recently  scored  an- 
other triumph  in  a  long  series  by 
compelling  the  suspension  of  a  con- 
tract seriously  inimical  to  the  rights 
and  financial  interests  of  the  Pima 
Indians,  on  the  Gila  River  Reserva- 
tion. The  terms  of  this  contract  are 
analyzed  in  a  pamphlet  published  by , 
the  Association  (No.  119,  Second  1 
Series),  and  it  is  made  very  clear 
that  its  execution  would  have  been  a 
gross  injustice.  It  involved  50,000 
acres  of  excellent  cotton-growing  soil, 
all  capable  of  irrigation,  which  would 
have  gone  into  private  hands  for  ten 
years,  with  possibility  of  renewal,  and 
with  no  real  approach  to  a  fair  com- 
pensation. The  Association  reports 
that  one  Pima  Indian,  having  access 
to  waste  water  from  a  canal,  last 
year  broke  twelve  acres  of  land  in; 
this  same  district  and  made  a  profit 


June  16,  1920] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[615 


of  $6,000  on  his  first  crop.  There 
are  funds  now  available  for  a  diver- 
sion dam  across  the  Gila  River,  a  few 
miles  above  the  Pima  Agency.  Under 
'  the  circumstances,  the  humane  and 
sensible  policy  of  the  Government 
would  be  to  complete  this  dam  with 
all  possible  speed,  and  then,  through 
the  Department  of  Agriculture,  to 
provide  the  Pimas  vdth  the  expert  ad- 
vice which  would  enable  them  to  de- 
velop their  own  lands. 


SO  the  gentle,  merciful,  and  loving 
Bolsheviki  finally  killed  Madame 
Ponafidine,  after  killing  all  the  rest 
of  the  family  they  could  lay  hands 
on.  Only  one  son  survives,  and  at 
last  accounts  he  was  with  the  volun- 
teer army.  Readers  of  Madame  Pona- 
fidine's  letters  in  the  Atlantic  a  year 
or  so  ago  will  recall  the  vivid  picture 
of  a  family  who,  hemmed  in  from  all 
channels  of  escape,  and  gradually  de- 
prived of  everything  which  made  life 
possible,  saw  day  by  day  the  closer 
approach  of  the  final  tragedy.  A 
friend  tells  the  rest  of  the  tale.  The 
Bolsheviki  returned  and  killed  two 
of  the  sons.  They  came  back  again 
and  removed  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Ponafi- 
dine to  a  little  plot  of  ground.  The 
husband  and  father  being  too  old  and 
helpless  to  perform  physical  labor, 
they  compelled  the  wife  and  mother 
to  "work  the  ground  for  a  living." 
Very  likely  no  living  could  be  wrested 
from  the  ground.  So  again  they  came 
back  and  simplified  the  problem  by 
killing  the  useless  old  man.  But  the 
problem  was  still  unsolved,  and  there- 
fore they  came  back  for  a  final  visit 
and  slew  Mrs.  Ponafidine.  Were  the 
Ponafidines  inoffensive  folk,  who 
asked  only  to  be  left  alone?  Ah,  yes, 
no  doubt ;  but  "you  can't  wage  a  revo- 
lution with  rose  water."  These  little 
sacrifices  of  the  individual  life  are 
necessary  oblations  on  the  altar  of 
the  holy  cause  of  Fraternity.  None 
but  reactionaries  will  protest  against 
them. 


^  qOMEWHAT  "bluggy"  is  the  social 

*^    outlook   in  America,    unless   we 

have  a  care;  and  we  are  unlikely  to 

exercise  the  proper  care  unless  we 

^  maintain  the  right  temper.     So  we 

li|  learn  from  a  sort  of  valedictory  ad- 


dress given  in  Boston  by  Professor 
Harold  J.  Laski,  late  of  Harvard  Uni- 
versity, but  now  returning  to  London 
for  a  post  in  the  School  of  Economics. 
Industrial  democracy,  otherwise  self- 
government  in  industry,  he  says, 
"may  be  slow  in  coming,  but  it  is 
inevitable,  and  it  is  the  business  of 
those  who  think  for  the  welfare  of 
the  United  States  to  remember  that 
it  will  come,  if  necessary,  with  blood, 
but  can  be  secured  without  blood,  and 
can  only  be  secured  without  it  ac- 
cording to  the  temper  which  you 
maintain."  The  warning  sounds 
portentous,  but  its  sophomoric  qual- 
ity quickly  reveals  itself  and  allays 
fear.  Assuredly  if  we  (meaning 
everybody)  cultivate  a  temper  that 
inevitably  makes  for  bloodshed,  why 
then  inevitably  we  shall  get  what  our 
temper  calls  for.  Contrariwise,  if  we 
don't,  we  shan't,  and  there's  an  end 
on't.  Speaking  strictly  for  ourselves, 
we  affirm  our  preference  for  fore- 
casts expressed  in  more  positive 
terms.  We  resent  the  attempt  to  har- 
row up  our  feelings  by  forebodings 
which  do  not  forebode.  A  prediction 
bounded  by  "unless"  on  one  side  and 
by  "if"  on  the  other,  even  though  it 
carry  the  suggestibility  of  the  most 
dire  and  catastrophic  events,  is  no 
prediction  at  all.  It  is  too  Laskian, 
so  to  speak,  for  a  world  of  stern 
realities.  It  is  a  Brummagem  sub- 
stitute for  the  real  thing. 

IVTO  exercise,  we  are  fain  to  believe, 
■^  ^  is  so  easy  as  that  of  clapper- 
claw. The  increasing  amount  of  it  is 
surely  proof  of  the  readiness  with 
which  the  trick  is  learned.  Given  the 
mood,  nothing  seems  necessary  but 
a  vocabulary — and  even  a  little  of 
that  will  go  a  long  way,  for  of  course 
one  can  always  repeat.  No  informa- 
tion is  necessary — indeed,  sound  in- 
formation would,  as  a  rule,  only  ob- 
struct the  railing  impulse.  No  par- 
ticular social  theory  is  required;  the 
Anarchist  who  wants  no  government, 
the  bureaucratic  Socialist  who  wants 
much  government,  and  the  Pluralist 
who  wants  a  multitude  of  fractional 
governments,  all  join  voices  in  rail- 
ing at  exactly  the  same  things.  There 
is  but  one  rule — to  rail  and  to  keep 
on  railing  until  exhausted,  and  then 


to  take  a  fresh  breath  and  start  all 
over  again.  Of  course,  a  basic  as- 
sumption or  two  will  help.  One  may 
assume  that  90  per  cent,  of  every- 
thing in  the  world  (outside  of  Soviet 
Russia)  is  wrong,  or  that  everyone 
anywhere  intrusted  with  political 
power  (Soviet  Russia  of  course  ex- 
cepted) is  a  charlatan  chiefly  con- 
cerned with  his  own  interests.  Either 
or  both  of  these  assumptions  serves 
to  concentrate  one's  railing  towards 
more  or  less  definite  objectives.  Still, 
one  can  be  economical  and  get  along 
without  either.  There  is  such  a  thing 
as  railing  on  "general  principles," 
and  a  survey  of  the  field  will  incline 
the  observer  to  the  belief  that  a  con- 
siderable part  of  the  output  comes 
under  this  category.  Perhaps  it  is 
idle  to  call  attention  to  the  problem 
unless  one  can  suggest  a  remedy.  But 
no  remedy,  except  Time,  occurs  to 
us.  Our  stout  ancestors,  on  much 
slenderer  provocation,  tried  various 
drastic  remedies,  including  the  duck- 
ing-stool; but  there  is  grave  doubt 
as  to  the  resultant  benefits.  For  our- 
selves, we  can  counsel  only  a  stoical 
patience  to  endure  the  terrific  din 
while  it  lasts,  confident  that  some  day 
it  vdll  wear  itself  down  to  a  more 
tolerable  murmur. 

T  INCOLN'S  saying  that  you  can 
^^  fool  some  of  the  people  all  of  the 
time  applies  with  particular  force  to 
the  radical  press  and  its  avid  follow- 
ing. This  following,  taken  by  and 
large,  has  a  love  of  bamboozlement 
which  is  intensive,  continuous,  and 
cumulative.  The  victim  always  comes 
up  hungry  for  more;  and  the  supply 
of  what  he  is  looking  for,  great  as  it 
may  be,  is  ever  less  than  the  demand. 
The  radical  paper  with  the  largest 
circulation  in  the  United  States  has 
one  simple  rule:  to  keep  its  follow- 
ing in  the  tensest  possible  state  of 
excitement  and  apprehension.  With 
mankind  as  a  whole  it  may  be  said 
that  the  bamboozler  plays  a  futile 
sort  of  game.  But  this  does  not  apply 
to  the  gudgeons  of  revolutionism. 
Each  fresh  bamboozlement  is  but  a 
whet  to  the  appetite,  which  grows  by 
what  it  feeds  on.  Maybe  Lincoln, 
with  his  keen  prophetic  vision,  had 
this  element  in  mind. 


616] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  57 


The  Voice  of  America 

ENGLAND  has  had  the  habit— she 
freely  admits  it — of  muddling 
through  her  crises.  But  English 
muddling  has  never  amounted  to  hug- 
germugger.  Englishmen  have  had, 
and  still  have,  a  solid  common  sense 
to  keep  them  within  bounds.  The 
confusion  of  American  thought  and 
feeling  to-day  is  something  so  differ- 
ent that  we  can  get  little  comfort 
from  England's  past  examples.  We 
are  approaching  the  Presidential  cam- 
paign at  a  time  when  the  wishes  and 
best  instincts  of  the  country  are  still 
inarticulate.  It  is  not  merely  our 
foreign  policy  which  is  undeter- 
mined. The  elements  of  our  domestic 
life  are  warring  among  themselves, 
and  the  stream  of  traditional  feelings 
and  convictions  upon  which  England 
in  a  pinch  has  been  able  to  rely  to 
carry  her  along  is,  in  our  case,  badly 
clogged.  Will  it,  in  the  next  few 
months,  make  itself  strongly  felt? 

Ours  is  the  difficulty  which  Euro- 
pean statesmen  long  ago  foresaw 
for  a  young  powerful  democracy. 
"A  democracy,"  said  Metternich,  "is 
a  perpetual  tour  de  force."  We  are 
now  undergoing  the  extremely  awk- 
ward experience  of  turning  from  a 
nation  of  doers  to  a  nation  of  think- 
ers. Business  can  not  resume  its  nor- 
mal activity  until  many  questions 
precipitated  by  the  war,  and  more 
especially  by  our  facile  agitators,  are 
settled;  and  business  men  are  of  a 
sudden  asked  to  be  metaphysicians. 
Problems  of  abstract  justice  are  up 
for  decision.  Is  the  right  to  strike 
inalienable?  Should  work  by  hand 
be  better  paid  than  brain  work? 
What  can  be  said  for  interest  on 
capital?  In  the  present  state  of  agi- 
tation what  institution  of  the  country 
is  sacred  to  the  popular  mind?  Ex- 
ploring the  first  principles  of  justice 
is  a  dangerous  experiment  for  a  na- 
tion unless  common  sense  also  is  used 
as  a  guide. 

And  common  sense  should  tell  us 
that,  whatever  the  evils  of  our  pres- 
ent system,  American  civilization  is 
something  altogether  too  precious  to 
revolutionize.  This  year  we  celebrate 
the  three-hundredth  anniversary  of 
the  landing  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers. 


One  might  think  by  the  talk  of  the 
feverish  radicals  who  are  working  for 
change,  change,  and  more  change  that 
the  life  which  has  sprung  up  from 
that  momentous  event  contained  no 
health  and  no  wisdom;  that  the  free- 
dom bred  into  our  bones  had  entirely 
dried  up;  that  this  country  had  not 
been,  and  was  not  still  capable  of  be- 
ing, a  land  of  marvellous  opportunity 
for  persons  with  pluck  and  ambition. 
At  a  time  like  this  it  is  well  to  recall 
that  the  American  who  did  most  dur- 
ing the  war  to  keep  Europe  from 
starving,  started  life  as  a  poor  boy, 
and  that  not  only  has  he  achieved 
great  material  success,  but  his  name 
is  signally  honored  the  world  over. 

It  may  well  be  that  our  best  way 
to  get  on  as  a  nation,  now  that  we 
have  dipped  copiously  into  the  ab- 
stractions of  panaceas,  is  to  draw  in- 
spiration from  the  practical  success 
of  our  history  of  three  hundred  years. 
For  it  is  inspiring  for  one  with  any 
memory  to  call  up  the  cases  upon 
cases  of  persons  who  began  humbly, 
and  who  by  thrift  and  hard  work  and 
the  ambition  to  provide  for  their  chil- 
dren opportunities  such  as  they  never 
had,  gradually  made  for  themselves 
positions  of  security  and  genuine  re- 
spect in  their  various  communities. 
Are  these  opportunities  So  few  to- 
day that  we  must  think  of  making 
the  life  of  this  nation  entirely  over? 
Labor  is  in  great  demand,  wages  are 
high,  and  though  costs  of  living  are 
dear,  they  require  a  degree  of  saving 
far  less  than  that  practiced  by  many 
who  achieved  success  in  the  not  dis- 
tant past. 

There  is  such  a  thing  as  being  re- 
actionary, the  turning  of  deaf  ears  to 
the  call  of  the  present  and  the  future ; 
and  there  is  such  a  thing  as  being  so 
progressive  as  to  foster  discontent 
leading  to  chaos.  We  need  not  be 
ashamed  at  this  moment  to  hearken 
to  the  voice  of  America  calling  down 
the  ages.  The  new  machines  of  in- 
dustry, the  overturn  of  Governments, 
the  searchings  of  heart  and  mind  can 
not,  unless  we  will  it  so,  blur  that 
American  message ;  for  it  issued  from 
truth  and  magnanimity  and  is  just 
as  urgent  for  us  to-day  as  when  it 
first  came  into  being.  What  is  it? 
Our  ancestors  understood  it  as  free- 


dom, and  if  such  freedom  as  they 
meant  has  left  this  land,  we  may  join 
hands  with  radicals  and  ask  for  a 
new  deal.  Have  we  yet  made  of  the, 
humblest  workman  a  slave?  If  he  is 
dissatisfied  with  his  job,  can  he  not 
still  snap  his  fingers  in  the  face 
of  his  boss  and  look  for  other  work? 
Is  his  suffrage  of  less  value  than  a 
millionaire's?  Has  he  less  rights  in 
the  courts  ?  Have  there  been  no  cases 
of  workingmen  becoming  wealthy  in 
the  past  ten  years?  Twenty-five 
years  ago  Americans  boasted  of  their 
country;  in  the  present  state  of  con- 
fusion they  have  grown  over-apolo- 
getic. They  can  best  serve  by  vividly 
remembering  America's  solid  achieve- 
ments as  they  approach  the  many 
problems  that  confront  them  now. 
For  attachment  to  the  past  is  like 
loyalty  among  old  friends;  it  fur- 
nishes an  excellent  touchstone  in  the 
forming  of  new  allegiances. 

Federal  Prohibition 
a  Fact 

nnHE  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
•^  States,  without  a  dissenting  voice, 
has  established  the  validity  of  the 
Eighteenth  Amendment,  and  has  also 
affirmed  the  power  of  Congress  effec- 
tively to  enforce  it.  Nor  does  there 
seera  to  us  to  be  any  sound  reason  sf 
large  principle  why  this  result  should 
ever  have  been  in  serious  doubt.  On 
questions  of  procedure — like  that  re- 
lating to  the  restriction  of  a  Legisla- 
ture's power  by  referendum  require- 
ments in  a  State  Constitution,  or  like 
that  relating  to  what  constitutes 
"two-thirds  of  both  houses"  of  Con- 
gress— there  was  room  for  theoreti- 
cal doubt;  but  as  to  the  large  princi- 
ples, it  has  never  seemed  to  us  that 
there  was. 

The  large  principles  which  we  have 
in  mind  are  two.  First,  that  relating 
to  the  contention  that  the  Eighteenth 
Amendment  was  beyond  the  scope  of 
the  amending  power  defined  by  Arti- 
cle V  of  the  Constitution;  a  conten- 
tion that  has  sometimes  been  but- 
tressed by  the  provision  in  the  Tenth 
Amendment  (part  of  the  "Bill  of 
Rights")  that  the  "powers  not  dele-; 
gated  to  the  United  States  by  the 


June  16,  1920] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[617 


fc 


Constitution,  nor  prohibited  by  it  to 
the  States,  are  reserved  to  the  States 
respectively,  or  to  the  people."  Con- 
cerning this  whole  contention,  we  said 
half  a  year  ago  in  the  Review: 

It  is  safe  to  say  that  the  amendment  will  not 
be  pronounced  invalid  on  the  ground  that  it  is 
in  its  nature  beyond  the  scope  of  Article  V  of 
the  Constitution.  ...  If  the  Tenth  Amend- 
ment had  been  designed  to  prevent  any  future 
delegation  of  power  to  the  United  States,  it 
would  have  so  declared  in  plain  terms.  "The 
powers  not  delegated  to  the  United  States  by 
the  Constitution"  means  powers  not  delegated 
by  the  Constitution,  either  as  originally  made 
or  as  subsequently  amended ;  such  a  power  was 
granted,  for  instance,  in  the  Sixteenth  Amend- 
ment, authorizing  a  Federal  income  tax.  Nor 
is  there  any  weight  in  arguments  based  on  the 
general  notion  of  a  "republican  form  of  gov- 
ernmer^t";  for  a  judicial  body  to  declare  the 
prohibition  amendment  void  because  it  is  de- 
structive of  a  republican  form  of  government 
would  be  an  assumption  of  authority  too  fan- 
tastic to  be  seriously  considered. 

The  second  question  of  principle 
is  that  relating  to  the  "concurrent 
power"  of  Congress  and  the  several 
States  to  enforce  the  prohibition 
amendment.  Whatever  juristic  or 
technical  arguments  may  be  brought 
up  in  criticism  of  this  feature  of  the 
Eighteenth  Amendment,  the  common- 
sense  view  of  it  seems  to  us  to  be 
perfectly  simple,  and  to  coincide  with 
the  view  that  is  taken  by  the  Supreme 
Court : 

The  power  confided  to  Congress  by  that  sec- 
tion, while  not  exclusive,  is  territorially  coex- 
tensive with  the  prohibition  of  the  first  section, 
embraces  manufacture  and  other  intrastate 
transactions  as  well  as  importation,  exporta- 
tion and  interstate  traffic,  and  is  in  no  wise 
dependent  on  or  affected  by  action  or  inaction 
on  the  part  of  the  several  States  or  any  of 
them. 

In  other  words,  any  prohibition  en- 
forcement act  passed  by  Congress 
must  be  obeyed;  if  a  State  passes  a 
prohibition  enforcement  act,  that, 
too,  must  be  obeyed;  and  the  conse- 
quence is  that  whichever  of  the  two 
is  most  prohibitory  is  the  effective 
one.  This  evidently  involves  no  clash ; 
it  is  simply  that  whatever  is  pro- 
hibited by  either  law  is  illegal. 
Complications  may,  of  course,  arise 
in  the  matter  of  the  administra- 
tion of  two  laws,  where  both  cover 
the  same  subject-matter  and  apply  to 
the  same  persons ;  but  that  is  a  prob- 
lem ulterior  to  the  question  of  the 
validity  of  the  laws  themselves.  One 
practical  consequence  is  that  if  some 
future  Congress  should  pass  a  law 
making  five  per  cent.,  or  ten  per  cent., 
the  permissible  alcoholic  content, 
then    only    those    States    would    be 


"bone-dry"  that  vdshed;  those  that 
imposed  no  more  severe  prohibition 
than  Congress  did  would  be  as  "wet" 
as  the  legislation  of  Congress  per- 
mitted them  to  be. 

But  it  is  one  thing  to  say  that  the 
Eighteenth  Amendment  is  a  valid 
part  of  the  Constitution,  and  quite 
another  to  say  that  it  is  a  proper  part 
of  the  Constitution.  An  Amendment 
of  the  Constitution  may  be  valid,  and 
yet  be  revolutionary ;  it  may  be  valid, 
and  yet  be  utterly  out  of  place;  it 
may  be  valid,  and  yet  lower  the  whole 
standing  of  the  great  instrument  of 
which  it  has  become  a  part.  All  these 
things  the  Eighteenth  Amendment  is 
and  does.  Our  protection  against  it 
should  have  been  found  in  a  prompt 
manifestation  of  the  political  virility 
of  our  people,  instead  of  being  left  to 
the  eleventh  hour  possibility  of  a 
rescuing  decision  by  an  overruling 
court . 

It  is  not  the  violation  of  any  merely 
juristic  concept  of  "State  rights"  that 
makes  the  Eighteenth  Amendment 
revolutionary;  the  blow  it  strikes 
goes  to  the  very  heart  of  the  idea 
upon  which  our  union  of  States  rests, 
an  idea  embodied  not  in  mere  legal 
distinctions  but  in  the  intimate  and 
habitual  thoughts  of  the  people.  Any 
attack  upon  the  individuality' of  the 
States,  upon  their  right  to  manage 
their  home  affairs  in  their  own  way, 
which  may  be  launched  on  a  \yave  of 
popular  sentiment  will  hereafter  have 
plain  sailing;  the  assertion  that  it  is 
contrary  to  the  spirit  of  our  institu- 
tions will  hereafter  have  but  little 
force.  And  into  the  Constitution, 
which  has  hitherto  embodied  simply 
the  framework  of  our  Government 
and  the  guarantee  of  fundamental 
liberties  and  rights,  there  has  now 
been  imbedded  a  police  regulation 
which  belongs  on  a  wholly  different 
plane,  and  which  will  serve  as  a 
precedent  for  other  like  intrusions. 
The  presence  of  this  single  one  is 
enough  distinctly  to  lower  the  place 
of  the  whole  instrument  in  the  peo- 
ple's mind;  and  surely  it  would  not 
take  many  more  to  degrade  it  alto- 
gether from  the  place  that  it  has 
proudly  held  during  a  hundred  and 
thirty  years  of  national  achievement 
and  national  trial. 


The  Law  or  the  Cadi? 

/^NE  of  the  distinctive  features  of 
^-^  our  system  of  government,  as 
the  Constitution  of  Massachusetts 
says,  and  as  many  other  State  con- 
stitutions provide,  is  that  it  is  a  gov- 
ernment of  laws  and  not  of  men. 
What  this  means  is  that  our  citizens 
are  to  be  responsible  to  a  standard 
of  conduct  and  of  duty  fixed  in  definite 
form  by  law,  and  not  to  the  mere 
caprice  or  judgment,  good  or  bad,  of 
any  individual  exercising  the  powers 
of  the  Oriental  Cadi.  In  Oriental 
law,  the  Cadi  is  the  centre  of  justice. 
He  determines  at  one  and  the  same 
time  what  the  law  is  and  whether  it 
has  been  violated.  If  we  were  to 
have  this  system  of  law,  we  should 
need  nothing  in  the  way  of  statute, 
perhaps,  beyond  the  Golden  Rule. 

The  Federal  Constitution  in  its 
Sixth  Amendment  provides  that  a 
person  accused  shall  "be  informed  of 
the  nature  and  cause  of  the  accusa- 
tion." Under  a  long  series  of  cases, 
the  rule  had  been  established  before 
the  war  that  the  citizen  is  entitled 
to  be  informed  by  the  law,  as  well  as 
by  the  complaint,  what  acts  or  con- 
duct are  prohibited  and  made  pun- 
ishable; in  other  words,  to  know  in 
advance  of  any  prosecution  what  the 
law  requires  him  to  do.  The  citizen 
must  live  up  to  the  standard  set  by 
the  law  and  not  by  the  varying 
standards  of  public  officials  in  the  ab- 
sence of  law. 

The  Lever  law,  passed  under  war 
conditions,  provides  in  paragraph 
four : 

It  is  hereby  made  unlawful  for  any  person 
...  to  make  any  unjust  or  unreasonable 
charge  in  handling  or  dealing  in  or  with  any 
necessaries. 

The  section  also  provides  a  penalty 
of  $5,000  fine,  or  two  years'  imprison- 
ment, or  both,  for  the  violation  of 
this  section,  adding  immediately  that 
the  section  does  not  apply  to  any 
farmer,  dairyman,  or  other  agricul- 
turalist, with  respect  to  produce  or 
products  raised  or  produced  by  him. 
But  the  Lever  law  does  not  set  up  any 
standard  whatever  by  which  any  man 
can  know  in  advance  what  rates  or 
charges  are  deemed  unjust  or  unrea- 
sonable. All  over  the  country,  Fed- 
eral officials,  acting  under  the  Lever 


618] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  57 


law,  have  been  arresting  citizens,  be- 
rating them  in  the  public  press,  and 
subjecting  them  to  criminal  prosecu- 
tion, for  alleged  unjust  or  unreason- 
able charges  in  handling  or  dealing 
with  necessaries.  However  irritated 
we  may  feel  at  excessive  prices,  as 
the  expression  of  selfishness  and 
rapacitj',  we  have  here  the  question 
of  whether  the  method  of  prevention 
is  not  worse  than  the  disease.  We 
have  to  consider  whether  or  not,  by 
laws  of  which  this  Lever  Act  is  a 
good  example,  the  old  rule  under 
which  a  government  of  law  has  been 
here  established,  and  under  which 
our  country  has  grown,  is  not  being 
insidiously  supplanted  by  an  Oriental 
system,  enforced  by  official  Cadis, 
and  subjecting  citizens  to  a  purely 
bureaucratic  control  hitherto  un- 
known in  this  country.  It  is  for  our 
citizens  to  take  thought  whether  they 
believe  that  such  a  transformation 
should  be  allowed  to  occur. 

Let  us  consider  briefly  some  of  the 
cases  in  which  the  old  principle  re- 
quiring that  the  citizen  should  know 
in  advance  have  been  considered  by 
the  courts.  Here,  for  example,  is 
a  decision  on  an  ordinance  in  the  Dis- 
trict of  Columbia  which  provides  that 
every  street  railway  company  shall 
both  supply  and  operate  "a  sufficient 
number  of  cars,  clean  and  sanitary, 
in  good  repair,  to  all  persons  desirous 
of  using  said  cars  without  crowding 
such  cars."  The  railroad  was  charged 
with  unlawful  failure  to  operate  such 
cars  without  crowding.  The  Court 
declared  the  law  unconstitutional.  It 
said,  among  other  things: 

The  Sixth  Amendment  provides  that  in  all 
criminal  prosecutions  the  accused  shall  be  in- 
formed of  the  nature  and  cause  of  the  accusa- 
tion. In  other  words,  when  the  accused  is  led 
to  the  bar  of  justice,  the  information  or  indict- 
ment must  contain  the  elements  of  the  offense 
with  which  he  is  charged  with  sufficient  clear- 
■  ness  to  fully  advise  him  of  the  exact  crime 
which  he  is  alleged  to  have  committed.  .  .  . 
What  shall  be  the  guide  for  the  court  or  jury 
in  ascertaining  what  constitutes  a  crowded  car? 
What  may  be  regarded  as  a  crowded  car  by 
one  jury  may  not  be  by  another.  What  may 
constitute  a  sufficient  number  of  cars  in  the 
opinion  of  one  Judge  may  be  considered  in- 
sufficient by  another.  What  may  be  regarded 
as  grounds  for  acquittal  by  one  court  may  be 
held  sufficient  to  sustain  the  conviction  by  an- 
other. There  is  a  total  absence  of  any  defini- 
tion of  what  constitutes  a  crowded  car.  This 
important  element  cannot  be  left  to  conjecture 
to  be  supplied  by  either  court  or  jury.  It  is 
of  the  very  essence  of  the  law  itself  and  with- 
out it  the  statute  is  too  indefinite  and  uncer- 
tain to  support  an  information  or  indictment. 

Here  is  another  case  in  which  a  Fed- 


eral Court  passed  upon  the  validity 
of  an  act  providing  that  railroad  com- 
panies shall  not  charge  "unreason- 
able" or  "unjust"  rates  of  fare  for 
the  transportation  of  passengers. 
The  act  did  not  say  what  should  be 
the  rate,  but  simply  that  it  should  be 
just  and  reasonable.    The  Court  held : 

There  is  no  standard  whatever  fixed  by  the 
statute,  or  attempted  to  be  fixed,  by  which  the 
carrier  may  regulate  its  conduct,  and  it  seems 
clearly  to  us  to  be  utterly  repugnant  to  our 
system  of  laws  to  punish  a  person  for  an  act, 
the  criminality  of  which  depends  not  on  any 
standard  erected  by  the  law,  which  may  be 
known  in  advance,  but  one  created  by  the  jury. 
And  especially  so,  as  that  standard  must  be  so 
variable  and  uncertain  as  the  views  of  differ- 
ent juries  may  suggest  and  as  to  which  noth- 
ing can  be  known  until  after  the  commission 
of  the  crime. 

As  Judge  Brewer  says  in  another 
case,  where  a  similar  statute  was  in- 
volved : 

In  order  to  constitute  a  crime,  the  act  must 
be  one  of  which  the  party  is  able  to  know  in 
advance  whether  it  is  criminal  or  not.  The 
criminality  of  an  act  cannot  depend  upon, 
whether  a  jury  may  think  it  reasonable  or  un- 
reasonable. There  must  be  some  definiteness 
and  certainty. 

As  the  Supreme  Court  has  held  in  a 
case  arising  long  before  these  war 
laws  were  enacted:  "Laws  which 
create  a  crime  ought  to  be  so  explicit 
that  all  men  subject  to  their  penalties 
may  know  what  act  it  is  their  duty 
to  avoid." 

Time  and  again  decisions  of  this 
sort  have  been  made.  We  are  dealing 
here,  not  with  legal  technicality,  but 
with  fundamental  principle.  We  are 
considering  whether  or  not  the  basis 
of  bureaucracy  shall  be  laid  under 
war  conditions  and  continued  after 
the  war  is  over.  Old  principles,  fun- 
damental in  our  law,  are  violated  by 
the  quoted  section  of  the  Lever  law. 
No  man  can  tell  in  advance  what 
standard  of  prices  is  fixed,  what 
rate  of  profit  is  allowed.  Whether 
the  storekeeper  or  purveyor  of  neces- 
saries would  be  subject  to  criminal 
prosecution  is  left  a  matter  of  dis- 
cretion to  prosecuting  officers  and 
juries,  and  no  standard  in  one  case 
sets  the  rule  or  standard  in  another. 
From  the  standpoint  of  business,  it 
is  a  wholly  intolerable  situation.  Is 
it  also  an  illegal  encroachment  upon 
the  rights  of  citizens?  Conflicting 
decisions  have  been  rendered  in  the 
lower  Federal  Courts  and  the  matter 
is  now  on  its  way  to  the  Supreme 
Court  for  final  determination. 


While  the  ultimate  outcome  of  this 
particular  statute  as  to  its  constitu- 
tionality is  of  course  a  judicial  ques- 
tion, it  is  not  inappropriate  at  this 
time  for  the  public  to  consider  the 
perplexities  which  this  law  creates,  to 
note  the  extent  to  which  the  shadow 
of  criminal  prosecution  falls  upon  all 
merchants  and  traders  engaged  in 
the  supplying  of  necessaries  to  the 
people.  It  is  entirely  appropriate  to 
observe  and  comment  upon  the  op- 
portunities for  favoritism  and  graft 
which  are  created  by  this  extraor- 
dinary law.  What  is  a  reasonable 
rate  or  charge  ?  How  can  a  merchant 
determine  that  which  is  unjust  or  un- 
reasonable? Under  a  recent  ruling 
of  one  of  the  Federal  District  Courts, 
the  same  article  sold  at  the  same  price 
by  two  different  dealers  may  result 
in  one  merchant  being  a  criminal  and 
the  other  not,  since  one  may  have 
bought  the  goods  he  sold  at  a  lower 
price  than  the  other.  Suppose  we 
have  a  small  store  in  which  numerous 
articles  are  sold,  some  sold  under 
competitive  conditions  and  substan- 
tially without  profit,  others  at  a  very 
low  profit,  and  a  third  class  sold  at  a 
high  profit,  but  the  whole  volume  of 
the  business  being  sufficient  only  to 
produce  a  modest  income  for  the 
storekeeper.  Is  he  subject  to  criminal 
prosecution  and  imprisonment,  if  the 
goods  showing  the  highest  profit,  con- 
sidered by  the  price  examiners,  are 
unreasonably  high? 

Let  us  get  clearly  in  our  minds 
what  concerns  us  all.  We  are  at  the 
end  of  a  war  period,  in  which  vast 
bureaucracies  have  been  built  up,  at 
enormous  public  expense,  for  sup- 
posed public  purposes.  Thousands 
of  men  in  these  bureaucracies  have 
exercised  authority,  have  expended 
and  often  grossly  wasted  public 
money  and  drawn  large  salaries.  Are 
these  bureaucracies  to  continue  in 
times  of  peace?  The  Lever  law  is  a 
startling  instance  of  the  bureaucratic  | 
extension  of  the  idea  of  the  public  I 
prosecutor  as  a  director  general  of 
industry.  The  sober  sense  of  the 
American  people  will  sometime  re- 
quire the  return  of  its  government 
to  the  form  and  substance  of  Anglo- 
Saxon  freedom,  to  a  government  of 
laws  and  not  of  men. 


June  16,  1920] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


tea 


A  Rock- Bottom 
Prophet 

QF  prophecies  of  disaster  there  is 
^-^     such    an   abundance,    in    these 
days  of  world-wide  trouble,  as  to  fur- 
nish satisfaction  to  every  variety  of 
taste  in  pessimism.    And  it  must  be 
confessed  that  there  is  no  need  of 
pessimist  bias  to  give  to  forebodings 
of  evil  ample  warrant.     At  no  time 
in  the  memory  of  living  men  have  so 
many,  elements  of  danger  conspired  to 
envelop  in  doubt  the  prospects  of  the 
civilized  world.     When,  therefore,  a 
writer  comes  forward  with  a  fresh 
survey  of  the  situation,  from  a  stand- 
point of  his  own,  and  finds  that  Euro- 
pean civilization  is  face  to  face  with 
utter  collapse,  he  is  pretty  sure  to 
have  a  large  and  attentive  audience. 
In  the  North  American  Review  for 
June,  Major  Charles  Lacey  Hall,  an 
officer  in  the  Engineer  Corps  of  the 
United  States  Army,  presents  us  with 
such  a  survey  and  such  a  conclusion. 
His  article  is  not  a  mere  recapitula- 
tion of  existing  troubles  and  menaces. 
It  is  "an  attempt  to  arrive,  by  his- 
torical analysis,  at  the  reasons  for 
the  impending  collapse."     The  rea- 
sons are  rooted  in  the  history  of  mod- 
ern capitalism,  which  is  character- 
ized  in  a  few  bold,  strong  strokes. 
Thus    the    true    inwardness    of   the 
policy  of  colonial  expansion  is  ex- 
posed in   this  simple  and  clean-cut 
fashion : 


[619 


c^L^'::^'""''- '''"'  '"^^^  """'""^  "— 


(a)  The  inhabitants  of  the  state  itself,  that 
IS,  the  general  public. 

(b)  The  enemy. 

stated  Itf  .'P^u"^^"}'   .°f    '*"=    semi-civilized 
states  and  of  the  colonies.     Another  alterna- 

diate      tL°*  '°  ^T,^''  ■'  **  ''"-  b"t  to  repu- 
e!ufin„  probability   of   repudiation   is   the 

existing  menace  to  capitalism. 

The  peace  of  Versailles,  "dictated 
by  the  Entente  capitalists,  is  their 
scheme  for  converting  their  paper 
wealth  into  real  wealth  at  the  expense 
partly  of  the  enemy  and  partly  of  the 
mhabitants  of  semi-civilized  states" ; 
but  Major  Hall  points  out  categori- 
cally why  neither  of  these  things  can 
actually  be  done,  and  proceeds  to  tell 
us  what  Europe  is  really  up  against 


haf  denenH.H  ^^^  It'  P^^^rvation  of  capitalism 
lias  depended  on  the  progressive  amelioration 
•  of  the  condition  of  the  lower  classes.  In  order 
to  accomplish  this  amelioration  the  excess 
riom°/.rf"K  ?"  "°^"^"  be  taken  from 
erV  or  Lf  •  '''i"  ■""''  ^"^  "'"^'n^d  from  sub- 
rolrnll  ''^'^^.^"d  countries.  Hence,  a  strong 
colonial  policy  was  an  absolute  necessity  t% 
the  proletariat,  as  well  as  to  the  bourgeoisie 
a  fact  rather  well  appreciated  by  the  fofmer! 

Again,  as  to  the  condition  to  which 
capitalism  has  been  reduced  by  the 

war: 

From  the  day  war  was  declared  the  Western 
i-owers  began  to  use  up  their  accumulated 
overseas  capital  and  thus  dissipate  their 
sources  for  further  commercial  exploitation. 
1  hey  also  proceeded  to  capitalize  their  credit 
for  all  It  was  worth.  By  this  means  wealth 
was  transferred  out  of  the  hands  of  the  holders 
ot  fixed  capital,  the  most  naturally  conserva- 
tive forces  of  the  state,  either  into  economically 
useless  goods  or  labor  (munitions  of  war  and 
pay  of  the  army)  or  into  the  hands  of  entre- 
preneur capitalists.  These  latter  held  their 
wealth  in  paper  money,  and  this  money  could 
only  be  converted  into  real  wealth  at  the  ex- 


HiZ^f      l^  """r"  ^,°'"''on  IS  repudiation,  either 
direct  or  by  a  further  inflation  of  credit.    This 
atter  means  is  the  one  now  actually  being  fol- 
lowed and  IS  apparently  destined  to  continue, 
iiy  It  money  is  being  reduced  in  value  gradually 
until  It  no  longer  pays  to  print.    This  reduction 
naturally  unsettles  international  exchange,  and 
with    It    international   trade.     The    raw    mate- 
rial producer  in  Polynesia  has  been  accustomed 
to  get  money  for  his  cocoanuts  with  which  to 
buy  red  cloth.     When  he   discovers  that,   for 
his  cocoanuts,  he  no  longer  gets  a  reasonable 
amount    of    red    cloth,    he    stops    producing- 
unless   he   can   get   another   source   of   supply 
for  his  red  cloth.    Also  the  soldiery  who  have 
kept  him  in  order  stop  soldiering  when  their 
pay    comes    in    perfectly    useless    paper.     The 
raw  material  market  is  thereby  cut  off ;  and  the 
home  state,  "not  having  of  its  own  whereof  to 
live,     starves.     At  this  point,  in  pure  despera- 
tion, the  people  turn  Bolshevist.    To  this  exact 
spot   all   European   states   are   travelling   with 
varying  speed,  and  when  tliey  reach  it,  capital- 
ism   will   have   collapsed   and    Europeans   will 
have  to  starve  until  they  become  few  enough  to 
live  off  the  land.    During  this  period  of  starva- 
tion it  is  reasonable  to  expect  that  every  insti- 
tution of  society  we  know,  every  rule  of  mo- 
rality we  are  accustomed  to,  and  every  motto 
we  hold  dear,  will  utterly  disappear  from  the 
European  continent. 

Before  such  a  combination  of  re- 
morseless logic  and  picturesque  pres- 
entation, what  can  one  do  but  bow 
one's  head  in  submission?    Yet  there 
is  a  lurking  feeling  that  the  thing  is 
a  little  too  clean-cut — that  history  is 
not  compressible  into  quite  so  simple 
a  formula ;  one  suspects  that  no  man 
can  be  quite  so  wise  as  Major  Hall 
sounds.    And  suddenly  there  appears 
a  gleam  of  genuine  hope  that  he  may 
be  mistaken  about  some  of  his  grand 
conclusions.     For,  coming  down  to 
the  comparatively  simple  problem  of 
the  advancing  of  American  credit  for 
the  restoration  of  European  industry, 
Major  Hall  has  this  to  say  about  the 
difficulty  Europe  will  experience  in 
meeting  the  obligation: 

Since  the  adoption  of  prohibition  there  are 
practically  no  European  goods  needed  in  the 


liw 'fi?  ^*?'"'  ^''"P*  ^  fe*  articles  of  luxury, 
?  **>« '"'"est  can  be  paid  only  in  ^ 

tal  m.rlf?'  "I'-'^rials  from  tropical  and  orien- 
tal markets,  shipped  from  them  in  exchange 
for  European  manufactured  goods. 

abroad  ^^'*"*'''"'^"     of     American     tourisU 

,u''^^  J''^"^^"L°^  "='*''«  of  immigrants  to 
1^  '[  j""""-  The  first  class  will  always  be 
limited,  as  America  still  exports  raw  materials 
on  Its  own  account.  The  second  class  is  un- 
likely to  grow  for  some  years;  and  the  less 
we  have  of  the  third  the  better.  Altogether  the 
outlook  IS  not  promising. 

When  we  came  upon  this  passage,  we 
breathed  a  deep  sigh  of  relief.     If 
Major  Hall  had  turned  to  no  more 
elaborate    a    work    than    the  World 
Almanac,  he  would  have  found  that 
our    total    imports    of   wines,    malt 
liquors,  and  distilled  spirits,  in  the 
fiscal  year  ending  June  30,  1914,  were 
$20,300,000,  while  our  entire  imports 
from  Europe  amounted  to  $896,000,- 
000.  If  he  was  satisfied  to  draw  upon 
his  inner  consciousness  for  an  esti- 
mate of  the  effect  of  prohibition  upon 
the  volume  of  Europe's  trade  with 
this  country,  it  seems  not  impossible 
that   his   selective   imagination    had 
something  to  do  also  with  his  account 
of  larger  matters,  and  with  the  cock- 
sureness    of    his    conclusions    upon 
them.     Which,  by  the  way,  would 
not  be  worth  all  this  notice  but  for 
the  fact  that  it  is  typical  of  a  large 
class.     The  woods  are  full  of  Cas- 
sandras.    It  would  be  foolish  to  shut 
our  ears  to  their  warnings ;  but  it  is 
well  to  remember,  too,  that  for  the 
one  Cassandra  whose  story  has  been 
preserved  there  have  been  ninety  and 
nine  who  have  been  every  whit  as 
solemn,  but  whose  names  have  been 
swallowed  up  in  oblivion  along  with 
their  unfulfilled  prophecies. 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 

Published  by 

"°*,  }i''I}°'""-  Weekly  Co«po»*tiok 

140  Nassau  Street,  New  York 

Fabian  Franklin,  President 
Hakold  de  Wolf  Fuller,  Treasurer 


Subscription     price,     five     dollars 


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advance.     Fifteen  cents  a  copy.     Foreign  post- 
age,  one   dollar   extra;    Canadian    postage,  ^fty 
cents  extra.     Foreign  subscriptions  may  be  sent 
to  Messrs.  G.  P    Putnam's  Sons,  Ltd.,  24,  Bed- 
ford St.,   Strand,   London,   W.   C.  2,   England. 
Copyright,     1920,     >n     the     United    States    of 
America 
Editors 
FABIAN  FRANKLIN 
HAROLD  de  WOLF  FULLER 
Associate  Editors 
Harry  Morgan  Ayres     O.  W  Firkins 
A.  J.  Barnouw  w.  H.  Johnson 

Jerome  Landfield 


620] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  .-)7 


Worries  of  the  Young  Nations 


THE  United  States  is  now  one  hun- 
dred and  forty-three  years  old, 
which  is  a  tolerably  mature  age  as 
nations  go.  While  we  consider  our- 
selves youngsters,  it  is  a  fact  that 
only  the  Governments  of  Great 
Britain  and  Japan  are  older  than  the 
Government  of  the  United  States, 
and  that  there  is  no  Government, 
great  or  small,  on  the  face  of  the 
globe  which  has  not  suffered  radical 
constitutional  changes  during  the 
period  of  our  unbroken  constitutional 
existence.  The  peoples  of  the  old 
world  recognize  this  more  clearly 
than  we  have  done.  Americans  went 
to  Europe  feeling  like  spoiled  dar- 
lings; they  found  that  they  were 
looked  upon  as  rich  uncles.  They  had 
a  plenitude  of  resources;  more  than 
this,  they  were  known  to  have  had 
longer  experience  in  running  a  de- 
mocracy than  any  other  nation. 
Paderewski  of  Poland  and  Masaryk 
of  Czechoslovakia  had  studied  our  in- 
stitutions on  the  ground.  It  has 
taken  the  aftermath  of  the  Great 
War  to  teach  us  some  of  the  oppor- 
tunities as  well  as  the  penalties  of 
national  maturity. 

Between  the  Baltic  and  the  Adri- 
atic Seas  there  are  now  eleven  states, 
not  including  Greece  and  Turkey, 
where  before  the  war  there  were  five. 
The  largest  of  these,  Poland,  has  a 
population  of  about  27,000,000; 
Czechoslovakia,  in  round  numbers, 
has  a  population  of  12,000,000; 
Greater  Serbia,  11,000,000 ;  Rumania, 
8,000,000,  and  Austria,  6,000,000.  By 
the  scratch  of  a  pen  a  large  part  of 
the  government  of  these  countries 
has  been  transferred  from  the  field  of 
internal  administration  to  the  domain 
of  foreign  affairs.  Without  question- 
ing the  propriety  of  this  transfer 
there  is  left  for  the  statesmen  of  the 
countries  themselves  who  were  re- 
sponsible for  the  change,  and  for  the 
statesmen  of  the  great  nations  who 
underwrote  it  in  the  treaty  of  peace, 
the  problem  of  handling  these  affairs 
at  least  as  well  as  they  were  formerly 
handled  under  the  old  regime.  Upon 
their  ability  to  do  so  depends  the 
security  of  the  new  nation  and  the 


peace  of  the  world.  No  one  of 
these  nations  can  supply  all  or  nearly 
all  the  subsistence  needed  for  its  own 
economic  life.  Three  have  no  sea- 
coast  whatever;  the  rivers  and  rail- 
roads upon  which  they  depend  for 
transport  traverse  from  one  to  three 
states  before  reaching  a  world  port. 
One  has  coal,  another  has  oil,  another 
has  a  sufficiency  of  wheat.  None  has 
a  sufficiency  of  all  three,  and  some 
have  little  or  none  of  any  of  them. 

Can  the  New  States  Survive? 

Can  the  states  themselves  within 
a  year  after  liberation  provide  that 
internal  stability  and  that  external 
foresight  which  are  necessary  to 
build  up  their  own  prosperity  and  to 
guarantee  peace  with  their  neigh- 
bors? It  is  not  surprising  that  the 
first  answer  is  a  dubious  one.  Never 
had  rulers  of  new  states  such  bur- 
dens as  haunt  the  pillows  of  their 
statesmen.  History  may  smile,  but 
not  they,  at  the  worries  caused  them 
by  their  own  people.  Everywhere 
there  is  childlike  faith  in  the  law 
and  the  prophets,  dependence  on  the 
aphorisms  of  freedom  and  the  efficacy 
of  politics  to  accomplish  all  ends, 
from  digging  coal  to  running  a  rail- 
road and  solving  a  tangle  in  interna- 
tional finance.  But  the  number  of 
men  who  can  give  to  harassed  admin- 
istrators the  benefit  of  expert  counsel 
on  food  supply,  train  dispatching,  the 
increase  of  coal  production,  and  the 
mysteries  of  international  exchange, 
is  very  small  indeed.  From  some  ex- 
perience in  riding  in  the  trains  of 
Europe  I  should  say  that  the  average 
worker  thinks  to  manage  these  by  the 
caucus  system.  And  I  am  credibly 
informed  that  he  thinks  banking 
problems  can  be  handled  in  the  same 
way.  The  Government's  use  of  such 
experts  as  it  can  find  is  seriously 
handicapped  by  the  party  system  as 
it  exists  in  Europe.  The  United 
States  worries  along  with  two  par- 
ties ;  Great  Britain  turns  to  coalitions 
only  under  the  stress  of  major  neces- 
sity. Our  new  pupils  have  a  dozen 
parties  apiece.  Aside  from  the  fact 
that  mutual  jealousies  limit  the  gov- 


ernment to  the  use  of  mediocre  men, 
there  is  the  further  disadvantage 
that  the  coalition  government  cannot 
act  quickly  nor  vdth  true  foresight, 
and  in  external  affairs  it  is  too  likely 
to  have  to  face  half  a  dozen  ways. 

The  Case  of  Czechoslovakia 

Czechoslovakia  provides  an  excel- 
lent illustration  of  the  condition  in 
which  a  new  state  may  find  itself, 
quite  apart  from  its  own  merits  or 
failings.  In  some  respects  Czecho- 
slovakia is  the  most  favored  of  all 
the  new  states  of  Central  Europe. 
And  its  perplexities  are  the  direct 
outgrowth  of  its  abundant  endow- 
ment. Czechoslovakia  is  in  the  posi- 
tion of  a  dog  which  has  cornered  a 
supply  of  bones  and  is  surrounded  by 
other  dogs  ravenous  for  meat.  Bo- 
hemia, which  is  the  commercial  part 
of  the  new  republic,  contains  the  best 
farming  lands  and  three-quarters  of 
the  mines  of  the  old  Austrian  Em- 
pire. It  has  several  large  industrial 
cities,  it  manufactures  much  of  the 
steel,  and  has  in  normal  times  ex- 
cellent railroads.  Tendencies  are  al- 
ready manifest  which  will  isolate 
Czechoslovakia  by  encircling  it  with 
dissatisfied  and  needy  neighbors. 
There  are  three  million  Germans  on 
the  western  front  of  Bohemia  who 
have  set  their  hearts  on  being  joined 
to  Germany,  now  that  their  ties  with 
Austria  are  broken.  On  the  northern 
border  Polish  labor  is  in  the  majority 
in  Teschen.  The  problem  of  the 
Silesian  coal  fields  is  the  most  con- 
fused boundary  tangle  in  Europe.  In 
the  little  Duchy  of  Teschen  three  lan- 
guages are  spoken.  Just  outside  of 
Mahrisch-Ostrau  there  is  a  point  at 
which,  in  1913,  the  three  empires  of 
Russia,  Germany,  and  Austria  joined. 
Now  envious  eyes  are  turned  to  this 
very  spot  by  Poland  and  Czechoslova- 
kia and  Germany.  Below  the  ground 
are  rich  veins  of  a  gas  coal  which  is 
indispensable  to  the  economic  life  of 
all  Central  Europe.  Not  only  Poland 
and  Czechoslovakia,  but  Germany 
and  Austria  and  Hungary  are  more 
or  less  painfully  interested  in  the  dis- 
tribution of  this  coal.  Without  it 
their  cities  cannot  be  lighted,  their 
traction  lines  cannot  run.  It  is  axio- 
matic that  under  present  confused 


June  16,  1920] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[621 


conditions  no  single  country  should 
be  burdened  with  the  responsibility 
for  the  control  of  the  distribution  of 
this  commodity.  Whatever  way  the 
problem  is  solved,  the  possession  of 
this  coal  is  bound  to  be  the  source  of 
anxiety  on  the  score  of  international 
relationships  as  its  loss  would  be  the 
source  of  economic  anxiety.  Just  at 
present  the  Czechoslovaks  are  in  pos- 
session. Production  is  cut  to  about 
seventy  per  cent,  of  normal;  trans- 
portation facilities  are  far  below  the 
demand,  and  deliveries  to  foreign 
countries  are  held  up  by  diplomatic 
misunderstandings. 

On  the  south  the  Magyars  are  an 
interrogation  point  to-day,  but  only 
yesterday  they  were  strong  enough 
to  push  a  wedge  between  the  Czechs 
and  the  Slovaks.  Will  the  marriage 
between  the  Slovaks,  who  are  agra- 
rians, and  their  industrial  fellow- 
citizens,  the  Czechs,  endure?  The 
answer  depends  upon  many  contin- 
gencies, not  the  least  of  which  lie 
outside  of  Czechoslovakia  in  the  do- 
main of  international  affairs.  If  the 
Great  Powers  can  find  a  world  pro- 
gramme, Czechoslovakia  and  the  other 
young  nations  can  endure.  But  if 
they  are  to  be  left  alone  to  seek  their 
own  salvation,  confusion  is  as  certain 
as  cobwebs  in  dusty  corners.  Czecho- 
slovakia has  no  sea-coast.  She  can 
get  and  give  only  by  railroads  and 
rivers  that  traverse  the  domains  of 
her  watchful  neighbors.  Already 
there  are  signs  of  an  approaching 
understanding  among  these.  Ger- 
man-Austria is  making  advances  for 
an  "economic  entente"  with  the  other 
members  of  the  former  Austrian  Em- 
pire and  is  reaching  across  Czecho- 
slovakia for  a  military  alliance  with 
|l  Poland. 

What  of  Austria? 

It  is  true  that  at  the  present  time 
'  little  is  to  be  feared  from  any  military 
action  of  Austria,  but  Austria  is  not 
to  be  ignored  as  a  source  of  influence 
in  the  Greater  Balkans.  Austria  is 
worse  off  than  Bohemia  for  coal  and 
lands;  she  is  economically  better  off 
than  Bohemia  in  the  sense  that,  while 
the  one  country  has  lost  its  limbs, 
the  other  has  lost  its  directing  head. 
The  city  of  Vienna,  of  two  million  in- 


habitants, which  formerly  command- 
ed a  wide  empire  of  industry  and 
mines,  is  now  the  capital  of  an  area 
in  which  the  industry  is  negligible 
and  the  agriculture  second-rate,  in 
which  the  railroad  systems  are  trun- 
cated, and  in  which  there  are  no 
mines.  A  population  of  seven  million 
cannot  long  support  a  capital  of  two 
million  people,  nor  can  it  indefinitely 
live  under  the  conditions  of  hunger 
and  impoverishment.  A  practical 
solution  might  be  that  Vienna  shrink 
to  an  appropriate  size  to  serve  the 
country.  Such  a  solution  argues 
without  those  economic  and  creative 
factors  which  made  Vienna  the  chief 
commercial  city  of  Eastern  Europe 
before  the  war.  It  may  be  so  ar- 
ranged that  ownership  of  the  Czech 
and  Slav  industries  pass  out  of  Ger- 
man-Austrian hands.  This  would  not, 
however,  solve  the  problem  involved 
in  the  fact  that  it  was  Vienna  which 
before  supplied  the  direction  of  these 
industries  and  the  machinery  for  in- 
ternational commerce.    If  the  world 


wishes  to  transfer  that  machinery 
to  other  cities  it  must  aid  in  the 
transfer.  Otherwise  there  will  be 
every  tendency  for  procedure  to  seek 
its  old  channels. 

Mutual  jealousies  between  the  new 
countries  of  Central  Europe  are  ham- 
pering the  development  of  that  in- 
dustry and  self-reliance  which  are 
essential  to  their  prosperity.  It  is 
still  too  difficult  to  get  a  proper  and 
equitable  distribution  of  export  ma- 
terials, coal,  oil,  and  agricultural 
products.  Expert  labor  sits  on  one 
side  of  a  line  ready  to  do  work  which 
is  sorely  needed  on  the  other  side  of 
the  line,  and  a  narrow  and  selfish 
"national  interest"  denies  its  use. 
There  is  still  needed  the  friendly  and 
neutral  cooperation  of  the  older 
brothers  among  the  nations  to  assist 
the  young  nations  through  their  try- 
ing stage.  The  question  whether  this 
shall  be  accorded  is  rapidly  passing 
out  of  the  domain  of  abstract  discus- 
sion. 

Thomas  H.  Dickinson 


A  "Gold  Brick"  From  North  Dakota 


TT  is  often  said  to  be  easier  to  sell 
-*-  a  gold  brick  on  Broadway  or  in 
Wall  Street  than  to  the  American 
farmer  of  to-day.  There  were  many 
smiles  among  those  familiar  with 
the  situation,  when  they  read  in  the 
New  York  Times  of  Sunday,  May  16, 
1920,  "Governor  Frazier's  Own  Story 
of  the  Nonpartisan  League,"  written 
by  Governor  Lynn  J.  Frazier  of 
North  Dakota.  Knowing  ones  saw 
at  a  glance  that  the  Times  had  been 
"gold-bricked." 

The  Governor  attempts  to  give  the 
reader  the  impression  that  the  Non- 
partisan League  is  a  cooperative, 
economic  movement.  On  the  con- 
trary, it  is  distinctly  political,  de- 
signed to  give  political  power  to  its 
leaders,  most  of  whom  have  been 
proved  to  be  closely  allied  with  the 
radical  movements  of  the  country. 
These  leaders,  from  the  first,  have 
been  members  of  the  Socialist  party ; 
some  of  them  have  been  affiliated 
with  the  I.  W.  W.,  and  Governor 
Frazier  himself  was  in  a  working  alli- 
ance with  John  Fitzpatrick,  radical 


labor  leader  of  Chicago,  principal 
promoter  of  the  new  Labor  party, 
and  has  now  aligned  himself,  as  well 
as  the  organization,  with  the  Com- 
mittee of  48. 

Governor  Frazier  showed  himself 
to  be  one  of  the  "smooth"  kind  in  his 
account  of  the  Fargo  Bank  case : 

One  of  the  erroneous  reports  about  the  Non- 
partisan League  is  the  story  of  the  so-called 
failure  of  the  Scandinavian-American  Bank  at 
Fargo.  Many  publications  received  the  im- 
pression that  it  was  the  Bank  of  North  Dakota 
that  had  been  closed.  The  Scandinavian- 
American  Bank  is  an  ordinary  farmers'  state 
bank,  which  had  been  friendly  to  the  farmers' 
movement  and  which  had  helped  to  finance 
various  farmers'  organizations.  The  opposi- 
tion to  the  Nonpartisan  League  movement,  in- 
cluding the  Attorney  General  of  the  state,  who 
had  turned  traitor  to  our  organization,  tried  to 
discredit  and  put  out  of  business  this  farmers' 
bank.  It  was  illegally  closed,  as  was  shown 
by  the  supreme  court  decision,  which  finally 
re-opened  the  bank.  It  is  still  doing  business 
and  should  never  have  been  closed. 

The  Scandinavian-American  Bank 
was  not  "an  ordinary  farmeFs' 
State  bank."  A.  C.  Townley,  the 
president  and  founder  of  the  Non- 
partisan League,  had  secured  con- 
trol of  the  machinery  of  this  bank 
and  used  it  to  finance  the  Nonparti- 


622] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  57 


san  League,  and  subsidiary  organiza- 
tions of  the  League,  to  a  total  of 
$432,000,  on  collateral  that  would 
never  have  been  accepted  by  any 
properly  managed  institution. 

These  loans  were  in  direct  viola- 
tion of  the  State  banking  law,  which 
provides  that  a  bank  may  not  lend 
more  than  15  per  cent,  of  its  capital 
stock  and  surplus  to  one  account. 
The  capital  of  the  Scandinavian- 
American  Bank  was  $50,000  and  the 
surplus  $10,000,  a  total  of  $60,000. 
This  would  make  the  highest  loan 
permissable  to  any  one  account 
$9,000.  In  violation  of  the  law,  the 
bank  lent  to  four  Townley  accounts 
$432,000.  Furthermore,  the  "collat- 
eral," supposed  to  be  deposited  with 
the  bank,  was  left  in  control  of  the 
borrower  and  in  the  custody  of  the 
borrower's  agents,  without  having 
been  checked  by  the  bank  officials, 
whose  only  record  of  the  "collateral" 
was  that  reported  by  the  agents  of 
the  borrower. 

The  bank  was  closed  and  a  tempo- 
rary receiver  appointed  by  action  of 
the  State  Banking  Board,  on  the  di- 
rect and  definite  recommendation  of 
the  Assistant  Attorney  General  and 
two  deputy  State  examiners,  who 
acted  under  orders  of  the  State  Bank- 
ing Board,  and  who  reported  the 
bank  in  a  state  of  insolvency  as  a  re- 
sult of  the  large  loans  to  the  Townley 
organizations.  These  examiners  also 
reported  that  the  bank  had  absolutely 
no  cash  legal  reserve,  but  was  main- 
taining a  "book  reserve"  through 
"book  credit"  with  a  Duluth  bank, 
based  on  a  deposit  of  discounted 
paper  for  the  definite,  specific,  and 
understood  purpose  of  enabling  the 
Scandinavian-American  bank  to  show 
a  "book  reserve"  only. 

Governor  Frazier  says  that  the 
bank  was  illegally  closed,  yet  the 
president  and  cashier  were  later  ar- 
rested, charged  with  violation  of  the 
State  Banking  act,  and  the  president 
was  convicted  by  a  farmer  jury,  in  a 
court  presided  over  by  a  special  dis- 
trict judge  appointed  by  Governor 
Frazier,  instead  of  the  judge  then  sit- 
ting regularly  in  that  district. 

It  is  true  "the  bank  was  re-opened 
by  order  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
State."     The  deputy  bank  examiner 


who  had  been  installed  as  temporary 
receiver  was  removed,  and  the  bank 
was  ordered  to  resume  business,  with- 
out its  resources  having  been  re- 
habilitated. The  Supreme  Court  of 
North  Dakota  comprises  five  mem- 
bers, four  of  them  elected  by  the  Non- 
partisan League.  Notwithstanding 
the  fact  that  the  bank  case  was  al- 
ready in  the  District  Court,  and 
would  have  come  to  the  Supreme 
Court  under  due  procedure,  the  ma- 
jority of  the  Supreme  Court,  at  the 
request  of  the  leaders  of  the  Non- 
partisan League,  arbitrarily  assumed 
jurisdiction,  gave  a  swift  "once-over" 
hearing  on  affidavits  filed  by  the 
Nonpartisan  League  attorneys,  and 
refused  to  hear  witnesses  on  behalf 
of  the  State  Banking  board,  which 
was  made  the  defendant. 

Three  of  the  five  justices  rendered 
a  decision  that  the  bank  was  solvent, 
principally  on  the  affidavits  of  the 
president  and  cashier.  The  question 
of  jurisdiction,  proper  and  legal  pro- 
cedure, and  all  other  points  raised  by 
the  defense  were  practically  ignored 
and  no  witnesses  were  given  a  hear- 
ing. 

This  was  too  much  for  one  of  the 
Supreme  Court  judges  elected  by  the 
Nonpartisan  League,  who  filed  a  dis- 
senting opinion  declaring  the  major- 
ity decision  to  be  a  fundamental  and 
far-reaching  error. 

It  strikes  at  the  very  foundation  of  judicial 
due  process  of  law  .  .  .  Compared  to  a  de- 
nial of  judicial  due  process,  all  other  questions 
are  as  chaff  to  the  wheat.  It  seems  to  me  that 
this  proceeding  is  most  extraordinary;  I  have 
searched  in  vain  for  any  precedent  for  such 
action  ...  If  considerations  of  this  charac- 
ter are  once  made  controlling  to  the  extent  of 
precluding  trials,  then  government  by  injunc- 
tion will  become  the  accepted  rule  instead  of 
the  odious  exception. 

It  is  true  "the  bank  has  been  re- 
opened and  is  still  doing  business," 
but  new  stockholders  have  bought  in, 
new  capital  has  been  added,  and  a 
complete  change  in  the  management 
effected.  Possibly  the  best  reply  to 
Governor  Frazier's  reference  to  the 
bank  is  found  in  the  statement  issued 
by  the  new  directors,  who  say : 

Our  aim  is  to  rebuild  the  bank,  getting  it 
back  to  its  former  position  as  a  safe  and  sane 
banking  institution.  .  .  .  That  the  bank  ever 
got  into  politics  was  not  the  fault  of  the  stock- 
holders now  in  charge,  except  that  they  did 
not  realize  the  course  that  was  being  taken  by 
the  officers  then  in  charge.  .  .  .  We  directors 
are  very  much  interested  in  bringing  the  bank 
out  of  the  mud. 


Governor  Frazier's  reference  to  his 
action  in  the  coal  strike  crisis,  last 
November,  just  as  carefully  and  com- 
pletely hides  the  true  facts  in  that 
case.  Every  action  of  the  Governor 
in  that  crisis  indicated  his  desire  to 
bring  about  a  condition  that  would 
give  him  an  excuse  for  seizing  the 
mines  and  operating  them  under  the 
State  Socialism  programme  of  the 
League  leaders,  just  as  it  was  the 
purpose  of  the  leaders  of  the  nation- 
wide strike  to  bring  about  a  condition 
that  would  serve  as  an  excuse  for 
nationalization  of  mines. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  Twenty- 
seventh  district  of  the  United  Mine 
Workers  of  America  was  not  in- 
cluded in  the  call  for  the  strike  of 
coal  miners,  and  John  L.  Lewis,  act- 
ing president  of  the  United  Mine 
Workers,  did  not  expect  a  strike  in 
North  Dakota.  Mr.  Lewis  told  Gov- 
ernor Frazier  this  when  the  Governor 
wired  to  the  acting  president  of  the 
United  Mine  Workers  appealing  for 
permission  to  operate  the  mines  un- 
der some  sort  of  State  supervision. 
Mr.  Lewis  informed  the  Governor 
that  the  lignite  miners  of  North  Da- 
kota had  a  contract  with  the  opera- 
tors until  September  20,  1920,  and 
referred  him  to  Henry  Drennan  of 
Butte,  Montana,  president  of  the 
twenty-seventh  district. 

Governor  Frazier  and  Drennan 
held  several  conferences,  which  were 
followed  by  Drennan's  making  an 
abitrary  demand  of  the  operators  for 
a  60  per  cent,  flat  increase  in  the  pay 
of  the  miners.  This  increase  was  not 
to  go  to  the  miners  themselves;  it 
was  to  be  paid  into  the  treasuries  of 
the  miners'  locals  in  other  States. 
This  would  have  meant  that  the  lig- 
nite coal  industry  in  North  Dakota 
would  have  been  required  to  pay 
nearly  $50,000  per  week  into  the 
strike  funds  of  an  organization  whose 
members  in  other  States  were  then 
defying  the  Government  of  the 
United  States. 

Naturally  the  operators  of  North 
Dakota  refused  to  accede  to  these 
demands.  Drennan  ordered  a  strike, 
and  then,  on  November  11,  in  the  face 
of  acting  President  Lewis's  with- 
drawal of  the  national  strike  order. 
Governor  Frazier  issued  a  proclama- 


June  16,  1920] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[623 


tion  of  martial  law,  suspending  all 
civil  rights,  and  seized  the  mines  in 
the  name  of  the  State,  and  proceeded 
to  operate  them  under  conditions  de- 
manded by  President  Drennan,  even 
to  the  point  of  expelling  non-union 
workers  from  some  of  the  mines. 

The  mine  owners  appealed  to  the 
courts,  and  the  executive  came  back 
with  the  dictum  that,  martial  law 
having  been  declared  by  the  Gov- 
ernor's proclamation,  the  civil  courts 
had  no  power  to  intervene.  Never- 
theless, District  Judge  Nuessle 
promptly  issued  an  order  that  the 
mines  should  be  restored  to  their 
owners.  At  the  same  time  he  ex- 
pressed consciousness  that  resistance 
of  the  judiciary  department  to  the 
executive  department  might  plunge 
the  State  into  civil  war,  but  declared 
even  that  condition  preferable  to 
despotism.  "It  seems  to  me  that  it 
amounts  on  the  one  hand  to  confisca- 
tion, and  on  the  other  to  involuntary 
servitude,"  was  the  court's  comment 
on  the  action  Governor  Frazier  had 
taken.  "I  realize  that  any  mandate 
this  court  may  issue,  unless  the  Gov- 
ernment chooses  to  recognize  it,  can- 
not be  carried  out  without  civil  war. 
But  are  we,"  asked  the  court,  "to 
permit  the  executive  to  go  ahead  and 
exert  the  powers  of  the  judicial  and 
legislative  departments  to  make  laws, 
to  construe  them,  and  to  decree  how 
they  shall  be  enforced?  That  would 
be  despotism." 

The  Governor's  next  step  was  an 
application  to  the  Supreme  Court  for 
an  injunction  restraining  the  District 
Court  from  putting  into  effect  its 
order  for  the  return  of  the  mines  to 
the  owners.  The  Supreme  Court  re- 
fused, and  Associate  Justice  James 
E.  Robinson,  one  of  the  Nonpartisan 
League  members  of  the  Court,  wrote 
a  scathing  denunciation  of  the  Gov- 
ernor's action,. which  was  pronounced 
from  the  bench,  in  which  he  said: 

Pandering  to  the  labor  vote,  we  have  passed 
laws  to  permit  and  encourage  strikes,  picket- 
ing, and  idleness ;  a  law  to  permit  any  person 
to  quit  work  in  disregard  of  his  contract,  and 
to  persuade  others  to  do  likewise ;  a  law  to 
prevent  coal  miners  from  working  more  than 
8  hours  a  day,  and  a  law  to  subject  mine 
owners  to  a  tax  of  nearly  five  per  cent  on  their 
payroll.  We  have  a  statute  of  27  printed  pages 
subjecting  mine  owners  to  fearfully  expensive, 
onerous  and  drastic  rules  and  regulations.  The 
result  is  that  the  pleasant  summer  days  have 
passed  with  only  a  limited  production  of  coal. 


We  have  sown  to  the  wind  and  we  are  reaping 
the  whirlwind.  The  long,  cold  winter  is  upon 
us,  and  without  any  grievance,  our  well-paid 
miners  have  quit  work  and  struck  pursuant  to 
orders  from  some  labor  agitators.  The  miners 
were  willing  to  continue  work  for  the  same 
wages,  with  an  advance  of  60  per  cent  to  be 
paid  to  the  agitators  and  idlers.  To  this  the 
mine  owners  did  not  accede,  and  the  result  is 
that,  with  the  military,  the  Governor  has  un- 
dertaken to  operate  the  mines. 

An  injunctional  order  has  been  issued  re- 
straining such  operation.  The  Governor  applies 
to  this  court  for  a  writ  to  forbid  the  district 
court  and  the  mine  owners  from  interfering 
with  his  operation  of  the  mines.  His  position 
is  that  the  courts  have  no  jurisdiction  to  inter- 
fere iinth  him  when  he  acts  as  a  commander 
of  the  militia,  but  that  the  courts  have  jurisdic- 
tion to  aid  him  by  enjoining  all  parties  from 
obstructing  him;  in  other  words,  that  the  courts 
have  only  such  jurisdiction  as  the  Governor 
may  permit  them  to  exercise;  that  the  courts 
may  aid  him,  but  if  they  thwart  his  wishes  he 
may  use  military  force  to  defy  them  and  to 
turn  them  out  of  their  offices. 

In  every  civilized  government  the  courts  are 
the  bulwarks  of  freedom  and  civil  liberty,  the 
refuge  of  the  citizens  for  protection  of  life, 
liberty  and  property.  The  military  power  is 
for  military  purposes  only.  It  may  be  used  to 
suppress  insurrection  and  to  repel  invasion.  It 
may  not  be  used  to  take  from  him  that  has  and 
to  give  to  him  that  has  not. 

The  shortage  of  fuel  is  in  no  way  diflferent 
from  a  shortage  of  bread  and  butter,  flour  and 
feed  and  other  necessities  of  life,  and  who  will 
say  that  such  shortage  does  authorize  the  mili- 
tary to  take  bread  or  grain  from  one  and  to 
give  it  to  another.  It  follows  that  the  Gov- 
ernor has  no  jurisdiction  to  declare  martial 
law  for  the  purpose  of  taking  over  the  mines, 
or  to  cause  anyone  to  do  it,  and  any  order  to 
that  effect  is  wholly  void.    Motion  denied. 

Governor  Frazier  refers  with 
pride,  apparently,  to  the  fact  that 
Mr.  Townley  owns  and  controls  two 
daily  newspapers  and  fifty  weeklies 
for  the  purpose  of  "informing  the 
people  of  the  facts  of  the  political 
and  economic  situation  in  our  State." 
He  does  not  relate,  however,  how  Mr. 
Townley  forced  through  the  last 
Legislature  a  bill  making  these 
papers  in  which  he  is  interested, 
and  in  which  a  number  of  the 
members  of  the  Legislature  are  in- 
terested, the  "legal  papers"  of  the 
State  in  their  respective  counties  and 
requiring  all  public  notices  of  every 
kind  and  nature  to  be  printed  in 
them.  Thus  there  have  been  trans- 
ferred to  these  Townley-owned  and 
controlled  publications  more  than 
$300,000  worth  of  patronage  taken 
from  other  newspapers;  as  a  result, 
at  least  sixty  weekly  publications 
in  various  parts  of  the  State  have 
been  killed  off. 

The  Governor  also  fails  to  tell  the 
readers  of  the  New  York  Times  that 
the  members  of  the  Nonpartisan 
League  are  urged,  and  all  but  com- 
manded, to  read  no  papers  save  those 


owned  and  controlled  by  the  League 
leaders ;  and  it  is  in  that  manner  that 
they  "inform  the  people  of  the  facts 
of  the  political  and  economic  situa- 
tion in  our  State." 

But  for  naive  suggestions  and  de- 
lightful climax,  it  would  be  difficult 
to  find  anything  better  than  the  con- 
cluding thought  of  the  Governor's 
story.  He  says,  "If  this  industrial 
programme  is  not  a  success,  it  will 
die  a  natural  death.  .  .  .  Then  why 
is  it  necessary  for  the  opposition  to 
spend  thousands  upon  thousands  of 
dollars  trying  to  discredit  a  move- 
ment which  cannot  possibly  survive 
if  it  is  not  a  benefit  to  the  rank  and 
file  of  the  people?" 

To  this,  of  course,  the  people  of 
North  Dakota  reply  that  they  are  ex- 
pending the  thousands  with  the  hope 
of  preventing  Governor  Frazier  and 
his  associates  from  involving  their 
State  in  a  programme  that  will  cost 
the  people  of  North  Dakota  millions 
upon  millions. 

EYE-WITNESS 


Poetry 


Stormbound 

"TIEYOND  my  ken  the  winds  their 
■■-'    combat  wage, 
The  dashing  waves  roll  in  on  every 

side. 
And  we,  the  victims  of  the  surging 

tide. 
Lie  impotent  their  fury  to  assuage. 

Its  black  sides  straining  with  the 
tempest's  rage. 

Our  ship  is  borne  along  without  a 
guide. 

The  tattered  sails  are  rent  and  cast 
aside. 

The  hold  is  flooded,  and  no  anchor- 
age." 

So  wrote  Alcaeus  in  the  distant  past 
When  civil  strife  in  Lesbos  held  full 

sway 
And  petty  tyrants  sought  to  rule  the 

land. 

We,  too,  sail  on  by  wind  and  sea 

harassed. 
And  through  the  mists  we  blindly 

grope  our  way; 
God  grant  we  find  a  pilot  to  command. 
WUiLiAM  N.  Bates 


624] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  57 


Iris  in  Kansas  City 

HERE  in  the  West  the  iris  is  bloom- 
ing. Blooming  in  little  yards,  by 
farm  houses  on  unfrequented  roads,  and 
in  big  gardens ;  white,  white  veined  with 
lavender,  lavender,  mauve,  violet,  purple, 
blue  purple,  pink,  cream  yellow,  yellow, 
and  velvet  red,  smoke  purple,  every  one 
beautiful,  some  almost  too  beautiful.  It 
is  growing  everywhere  that  any  one  will 
plant  it.  Drop  a  piece  and  it  will  root 
itself  on  clay  banks  or  in  the  garden 
loam.  The  only  thing  that  keeps  the 
world  from  being  smothered  in  iris  is 
that  if  left  alone  it  grows  so  exuberantly 
that  it  finally  smothers  itself. 

If  that  were  all  the  world  offered  in 
beauty  now  it  would  be  enough  to  satisfy 
one's  soul,  but  that  is  just  the  foreground 
of  the  picture.  With  the  iris  blooms  the 
dainty  columbine,  as  delicate  on  their 
stems  as  fairies  poised  between  flights. 
And  lower  down  the  spice  pinks  are 
sweetening  the  air.  While  out  in  the 
great  farming  world  emerald  green  vies 
with  purple  earth,  and  as  the  cloud 
shadows  sail  across  the  fields  the  greens 
change  to  blues  and  back  to  fresh  shades 
of  green. 

It  is  useless  at  this  season  to  talk  to 
gardeners  of  anything  but  gardens.  We 
wander  among  the  iris  like  worshippers 
hypnotized  by  the  play  of  sunlight  upon 
colors ;  we  remembered  them  as  beautiful 
last  year  but  nothing  ever  could  have 
been  like  this! 

Moths  work  their  will  in  our  houses, 
and  spring  cleaning  is  for  the  drudges 
of  the  earth.  This  is  the  hour  of  the 
gardener's  rejoicing.  Frosts  are  over 
and  done.  His  seedlings,  which  have  to 
risk  a  late  frost  if  they  are  to  grow  large 
enough  before  the  heat  seizes  them,  are 
safely  set  out.  Each  week  we  have  been 
told  that  the  peach  crop  has  failed,  plums 
and  cherries  were  going,  and  little  was 
to  be  looked  for  in  the  way  of  apples  and 
strawberries.  But  somehow  these  dole- 
ful predictions  have  not  been  fulfilled, 
and  the  world  gives  back  the  hopeful 
smile  of  the  once  agitated  gardener. 

One  must,  indeed,  garden  with  grati- 
tude and  philosophy.  Anything  that  my 
garden  produces  I  receive  with  gratitude 
and  anything  that  fails  I  feel  sure  can 
somehow  be  replaced.  I  give  it  credit  for 
having  tried  its  best  to  grow,  but  there 
are  some  things  no  self-respecting  plant 
can  stand;  I  can  at  any  rate  admire  its 
courage.  One  of  my  neighbors  who  had 
put  out  a  row  of  flowers  one  morning  to 
have  them  blown  nearly  out  of  the  ground 
by  a  spring  gale  told  me  that  she  could 
hear  those  plants  shriek  at  her,  "Why 
on  earth  did  you  plant  us  here?  Don't 
you  know  this  is  no  place  for  flowers  in 
a  gale  like  this?"  Yet  if  for  one  instant 
heaven  smiles  they  grow  like  our  friend 
Jack's  famous  lentil.     One  can  see  the 


difference  between  morning  and  evening. 
This  year  we  had  very  little  rain  or  snow 
all  winter.  One  morning  in  March  it 
began  to  rain.  By  night  the  grass  looked 
green.  It  rained  the  next  day  too.  In 
a  week  my  jonquils  had  grown  out  of  the 
ground  and  were  in  bloom,  and  the  leaves 
had  come  out  on  the  early  shrubs  and 
rose  bushes.  I  wonder  if  I  must  tell 
what  happened  on  Easter  Sunday  to 
teach  those  ambitious  leaves  where  they 
belonged  ?  No,  I  am  not  going  to  tell,  be- 
cause it  had  never  happened  in  ten  years 
of  gardening,  and  I  do  not  feel  that  it 
really  is  typical,  but  it  was  awful. 

But  I  do  not  care,  because  now  the  iris 
blooms  and  it  is  glorious.  Some  love  to 
struggle  and  toil  over  their  plants  and 
love  them  more  for  the  labor  expended, 
but  not  so  I.  Give  me  the  iris  that  just 
blooms  for  the  planting.  No  bugs  at- 
tack it,  rarely  does  anything  injure  it; 
one  plants  and  one  receives  a  thousand 
fold.  Peonies  may  be  poor  for  lack  of 
rain  at  the  proper  moment,  chrysanthe- 
mums may  multiply,  but  so  sometimes  do 
the  attacking  aphis;  the  iris,  however, 
blooms  whether  the  season  is  late  or 
early,  whether  there  was  too  little  rain 
last  summer  or  too  much  snow  in 
January. 

Maytime 

"Batter  Up!" 

THE  times  are  singularly  deficient  in 
great  men.  War  produces  great 
men;  the  people  wills  them  into  exist- 
ence, for  the  people  in  time  of  war  knows 
exactly  what  it  wants.  But  it  grows 
harder  and  harder  for  great  men  to  carry 
over  into  the  troubled  times  that  follow 
upon  wars;  the  people  is  no  longer  of 
one  mind,  nor  are  its  many  minds  clearly 
and  cleanly  made  up.  Those  who  try 
of  their  own  strength  to  be  great  quickly 
discover  that  their  roots  do  not  reach 
down  to  the  life-giving  waters.  But  a 
people  must  have  its  heroes  none  the  less 
—  a.  people  always  ready  to  barter  happi- 
ness for  history;  and  great  men,  we 
were  long  ago  assured,  are  "the  quint- 
essence of  history." 

It  is  only  on  some  such  view  of  things 
as  this  that  a  great  people,  having  pretty 
thoroughly  muddled  its  relations  with 
most  of  the  other  peoples  of  earth,  and 
about  to  subject  itself  to  an  agony,  quite 
unparalleled  anywhere  else,  that  is  de- 
signed to  discover  him  who  for  its 
sins  is  to  hang  the  next  four  years  upon 
the  cross  of  the  Presidency,  should  never- 
theless be  moved  to  its  inmost  depths  at 
the  possibility,  grown  less  and  less  re- 
mote, that  Babe  Ruth  will  actually  and 
indubitably,  once  and  for  all  surpassing 
the  might  of  men  hitherto,  swat  the  ball 
into  the  centre-field  bleachers.  Even  if 
he  does  not  achieve  this  ultimate  feat, 
he  has  already  done  enough  to  entitle 


him  to  greatness.  Fifteen  home  runs,  a 
quinzaine  of  perfect,  unanswerable  wal- 
lops, no  less  than  three  in  a  single  game, 
and  all  within  a  season  still  so  young  that 
the  summer  sun  has  hardly  yet  warmed 
him  to  his  work,  where  else  can  one 
point  to  human  effort  so  skillfully,  so 
triumphantly,  in  short,  so  heroically 
disposed  ? 

"There  is  this  other  characteristic  of 
greatness  about  it,  too,  that  others  are 
doing  well  what  at  the  moment  he  does 
superlatively.  His  giant  stick  rises  from 
an  underwood  which  not  meanly  chal- 
lenges its  towering  top.  The  renaissance 
of  batting  upon  which  the  ancient  and 
critical  scarp  of  Coogan's  Bluff  looks 
down  approvingly  is  not  the  work  of  one 
man.  But  none  must  complain  if  the  ap- 
plause of  the  world  centres  itself  on  Babe 
Ruth.  It  is  a  case  of  Shakespeare — and 
the  rest.    The  world  must  have  its  hero. 

Let  no  one  suppose  that  baseball  is  a 
game.  It  is  a  symbol ;  and  the  home  run 
is  its  perfect  expression,  its  pearl,  whole, 
unique,  finished.  No  such  katharsis  any- 
where as  your  home  run;  it  clears  the 
passions  as  it  clears  the  bases.  Purged 
and  refreshed,  life  is  for  the  moment 
radiantly  conscious  of  itself.  In  a  world 
of  tentatives,  of  frustrations,  of  mis- 
directions, it  is  the  one  thing  complete 
and  satisfying,  transmuting  the  raw 
materials  of  life  into  the  perfect  product 
and  leaving  nothing  at  loose  ends;  that, 
at  any  rate,  is  that. 

There  should  be  no  cloud  in  one's  satis- 
faction over  great  deeds  nobly  done  be- 
cause of  the  possibility  that  the  recent 
resurgence  of  human  prowess  at  the  bat 
may  owe  something  to  the  hampered 
state  of  pitchers.  One  likes,  of  course, 
to  think  of  the  batter  as  bravely  standing 
to  whatever  life  offers  him,  refusing,  to 
his  profit,  the  bad  if  he  is  wise  enough 
to  recognize  it,  and  finding  the  good  to 
his  advantage  only  if  he  can  make  use 
of  it.  Now,  however,  that  the  pitcher  is 
estopped  from  putting  his  blackest  magic 
on  the  ball,  may  no  longer  employ  sand 
or  emery,  or,  most  potently  magical 
agency  of  all,  saliva,  to  make  the  ball 
gyre  and  rocket  like  a  woodcock,  the 
chances  of  the  batter  seem  measurably 
improved.  But  that  slight  convention- 
alization of  the  game  does  not  at  all  de- 
tract from  its  value  as  a  symbol.  Here, 
again  symbolically,  is  represented  the 
progress  of  civilization,  consciously  re- 
moving from  life  some  of  its  wilder  and 
more  erratic  hazards.  No  game  is  good 
if  it  is  not  playable,  and  life,  if  it  is  to  be 
well  lived,  must  at  least  be  livable.  The 
rules  are  the  proof  of  greatness — at  once 
its  test  and  its  demonstration. 

There  is  another  side  to  the  matter. 
If  Mr.  Ruth,  by  reason  of  his  unques- 
tioned position  as  hero,  is  allowed  to 
stampede  the  Republican  convention,  if 
he  consents  in  accepting  the  Democratic 
nomination,    if,    assuming    his    batting 


June  16,  1920] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[625 


average  shows  no  falling  off,  he  is  earn- 
estly consulted  about  the  high  cost  of 
living  and  the  desirability  of  trading 
with  the  Russian  Cooperatives,  if  his 
opinion  is  sought  as  to  the  possibilities 
of  communicating  with  Mars,  then  will 
come  the  real  test  of  his  greatness.  Mat- 
ters need  go  but  a  little  further  and  no 
less  than  this  will  happen.  No  public 
error  is  so  common  as  to  confuse  the 
symbol  with  the  thing,  an  error  which 
the  symbols  themselves  are  only  too 
prone  to  share.  It  is  a  wise  nation  and 
a  rare  that  knows  it  own  heroes — and 
their  limitations.  To  be  wise  and  a  hero 
is  granted  to  but  few  among  the  gods. 
But  to  have  had  a  Babe  Ruth  at  all, 
whatever  fortune  hold  for  him  (and  us) 
is  cayse  for  present  thankfulness. 

Correspondence 

Prince  Feisal  on  Zionism 

To  the  Editors  of  THE  Weekly  Review: 
I  quite  agree  with  Professor  Reed's 
statement  that  Prince  Feisal  is  thor- 
oughly qualified  to  speak  for  the  Arabs 
touching  Palestine.  And  this  is  what 
Prince  Feisal  had  to  say  about  the  Zion- 
ist programme  as  submitted  to  the  Peace 
Conference '  and  now  written  into  the 
public  law  of  Nations,  at  San  Remo: 

Paris,  March  3rd,  1919. 
Dear  Mr.  Fe.\xkfurter: 

I  want  to  take  this  opportunity  of  my  first 
contact  with  American  Zionists,  to  tell  you 
what  I  have  often  been  able  to  say  to  Dr. 
Weizmann  in  Arabia  and  Europe;  we  feel  that 
the  Arabs  and  Jews  are  cousins  in  race,  have 
suffered  similar  oppressions  at  the  hands  of 
the  Powers  stronger  than  themselves,  and  by  a 
happy  coincidence  have  been  able  to  take  the 
first  step  towards  the  attainment  of  our  na- 
tional ideals  together.  We  Arabs,  especially 
the  educated  among  us,  look  with  the  deepest 
sympathy  on  the  Zionist  movement.  Our 
Deputation  here  in  Paris  is  fully  acquainted 
with  the  proposals  submitted  yesterday  by  the 
Zionist  Organization  to  the  Peace  Conference 
and  we  regard  them  as  moderate  and  proper. 
We  will  do  our  best  in  so  far  as  we  are  con- 
cerned to  help  them  through.  We  will  wish 
the  Jews  a  most  hearty  welcome  home.  With 
the  chiefs  of  your  movement,  especially  with 
Dr.  Weizmann,  we  have  had  and  continue  to 
have  the  Closest  relations.  He  has  been  a  great 
helper  of  our  cause  and  I  hope  the  Arabs  may 
soon  be  in  a  position  to  make  the  Jews  some 
return  for  their  kindness.  We  are  working 
together  for  a  reformed  and  revised  Near  East 
and  our  two  movements  complete  one  another. 
The  Jewish  movement  is  national  and  not  im- 
perialist. Our  movement  is  national  and  not 
imperialist  and  there  is  room  in  Syria  for  both 
of  us.  Indeed,  I  think  that  neither  can  be  a 
real  success  without  the  other.  People  less  in- 
formed and  less  responsible  than  our  leaders 
and  yours,  ignoring  the  need  for  cooperation 
of  the  Arabs  and  Zionists,  have  been  trying  to 
exploit  the  local  difficulties  that  must  neces- 
sarily arise  in  Palestine  in  the  early  stages  of 
our  movement.  Some  of  them  have,  I  am 
afraid,  misrepresented  your  aims  to  the  Arab 
peasantry  and  our  aims  to  the  Jewish  peas- 
antry, with  the  result  that  interested  parties 
have  been  able  to  make  capital  out  of  what 
they  call  our  differences.  I  wish  to  give  you  my 
firm  conviction  that  these   differences  are  not 


on  questions  of  principle,  but  on  matters  of 
detail,  such  as  must  inevitably  arise  in  every 
contact  of  neighboring  peoples  and  are  easily 
adjusted  by  mutual  good  will.  Indeed,  nearly 
all  of  them  will  disappear  with  further  knowl- 
edge. I  look  forward  and  my  people  with  me 
look  forward  to  a  future  in  which  we  will  help 
you  and  you  will  help  us,  so  that  the  countries 
in  which  we  are  mutually  interested  may  once 
again  take  their  place  in  the  comity  of  civilized 
peoples  of  the  world. 
Believe  me, 

Feisal, 
Delegation  Hedjazienne,  Paris 

Felix  Frankfurter 
Cambridge,  Mass.,  June  7 

The  "Intellectuals" 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Weekly  Review: 

What  is  taking  place  in  America  now— some- 
thing with  which  Europe  has  long  been  familiar 
—IS  the  formation  of  an  intellectual  class. 
revolutionary  in  tendency  and  bound  together 
by  a  common  antipathy  for  the  present  order 
of  things.  Although  not  organized,  it  has 
coherence;  and  it  exercises  power  through  a 
number  of  brilliantly  edited  journals,  which, 
though  recently  established,  have  rapidly  gained 
wide  circulation  and  influence.  It  may  be 
stated  that  the  weekly  which,  unlike  the  daily 
and  the  monthly,  is  primarily  an  organ  of 
opinion,  is  now  largely  in  the  hands  of  radicals, 
who  are  thus  in  a  position  to  mobilize  a  large 
and  influential  section  of  public  opinion  in 
favor  of  their  ideals. 

A  reader  of  Tolstoi,  Marx,  Ibsen,  Shaw  and 
Sorel,  no  matter  how  young  and  superficial,  is 
an  intellectual,  if  his  views  of  life  are  radical. 
I  Use  these  contrasts  in  order  to  emphasize  the 
new  meaning  of  the  word,  not  to  disparage  the 
intellectuals,  for  among  them  there  are  to  be 
found  scholars  and  thinkers  and  scientists  of 
a  high  order  of  ability. 

Matthew  Arnold,  John  Stuart  Mill,  Huxley, 
Lowell,  Emerson,  Hugo,  Taine  were  put  into 
handsome  bookcases  with  closed  doors.  On  the 
open  shelves  appeared  Shaw,  Wells,  Nietzsche, 
Marx,  Anatole  France,  Ibsen,  Tolstoi,  Dos- 
toievsky. 

From  "Revolutionary  Intellectuals"  in  the 
June    Atlantic   Monthly. 

Comment  is  needless,  but  it  might 
serve  a  good  purpose  if  your  sound  and 
conservative  weekly  would  put  these  so- 
called  intellectuals  in  the  class  where 
they  belong.  Probably  most  college  men, 
for  example,  will  be  rather  amused  to 
find  themselves,  according  to  Mr. 
Shapiro's  definition,  in  his  "intellectual 
class."  They  have  been  talking  prose  all 
the  time,  it  seems,  without  knowing  it. 
W.  F.  BiSSING 

New'  York,  May  27 

The  Kaiser's  Case 

[The  author  of  the  following  letter  was  for 
several  years  Professor  of  International  Law 
at  the  University  of  Berne  and  is  now  a  mem- 
ber of  the  bar  of  that  city.  He  is  one  of  the 
leading  authorities  in  Switzerland  on  juris- 
prudence.] 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Weekly  Review: 
It  is  clear  that  the  expiation  under 
consideration  can  have,  and  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  probably  is  intended  to  have,  an 
additional  and  higher  objective.  The 
present  war  has  been  one  of  the  greatest 
occurrences  in  the  existence  of  man- 
kind.    It  is  in  the  interests  of  history 


and  of  humanity  in  general  that  the 
blame  for  its  origin  be  fixed  for  all 
time.  The  tenets  of  international  law 
were  so  often  violated  that  some  ob- 
servers have  asked  if  there  has  not  been 
a  complete  breakdown  of  the  system. 
It  is  a  public  duty  that  these  violations 
and  their  causes  be  determined.  History 
and  international  law,  truth,  and  justice, 
demand  this;  international  morality  de- 
mands it  no  less. 

The  havoc  that  the  war  has  caused  in 
the  soul  of  peoples  is  so  vast  that  it 
can  not  yet  be  fully  comprehended.  If 
those  responsible  for  the  war  had  not 
at  its  beginning  intentionally  brought 
about  a  moral  confusion  by  representing 
themselves  before  the  world  as  the  inno- 
cent victims  of  aggression,  this  moral 
disaster  could  have  been  avoided.  But  as 
it  was,  they  succeeded  in  violently  dis- 
turbing the  moral  equilibrium  through- 
out the  neutral  countries,  and  this 
equilibrium  can  now  be  restored  only 
through  expiation  and  through  the  de- 
termination of  the  whole  truth. 

This  might  have  been  accomplished 
without  asking  for  the  Kaiser's  extradi- 
tion if  the  German  people  had  acknowl- 
edged the  truth,  if  they  had  candidly 
admitted  their  culpability,  if  they  had 
resolutely  repudiated  the  guilty  old 
regime  and  brought  the  criminals  to  jus- 
tice. But  the  expected  and  much  desired 
change  in  the  mental  attitude  of  the 
Germans  unfortunately  has  not  occurred. 
The  German  people  are  as  blind  as  be- 
fore. They  do  not  see  the  injustice  done 
the  world  by  Germany.  On  the  contrary, 
they  consider  as  unjust  the  merited  pun- 
ishment that  has  overtaken  them.  Instead 
of  acknowledging  their  own  culpability 
and  repenting,  the  new  Germany  endeav- 
ors to  obscure  this  culpability  and  to  vin- 
dicate the  old  regime.  The  truth,  even  in 
the  Germany  of  to-day,  is  not  pro- 
claimed unadorned.  The  German  people, 
instead  of  doing  penance,  indulge  their 
self-admiration  in  the  role  of  the  victims 
of  injustice,  of  injured  innocence.  This 
mental  attitude  makes  it  imperative  to 
fix  the  blame  once  and  for  all,  because 
only  thus  can  be  found  the  moral  basis 
for  the  co-existence  of  the  nations. 

Thus  the  problem  of  expiation  for  the 
responsibility  for  the  world  war,  the 
question  of  the  extradition  of  the  guilty, 
has  become  a  moral  problem.  Will  it 
not  be  much  more  effective  if  the  former 
Kaiser,  when  the  facts  have  been  de- 
termined through  judicial  procedure, 
suffers  for  his  moral  guilt  a  moral  pun- 
ishment, and  instead  of  being  a  martyr, 
be  simply  delivered  over  to  the  verdict 
of  history?  It  seems  to  me  such  a  moral 
sanction  would  be  the  best  and  more  ob- 
vious solution  for  the  punishment  of 
crimes  that  stand  outside  of  the  positive 
sphere  of  the  law. 

Ottfried  Nippold 

Berne,  Switzerland.  April  15 


626] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  57 


Business  and  the  Tax  Burden 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Weekly  Review: 

We  are,  most  of  us,  agreed  that  in- 
creased production  is  necessary  in  order 
to  reduce  the  high  cost  of  living.  But 
we  must  reckon  with  the  fact  that  the 
manufacturer  considers  his  business  with 
a  view  to  returns,  and  that  our  present 
system  of  taxation,  instead  of  offering  a 
premium  for  increased  production,  puts 
a  fine  on  the  manufacturer  who  earns 
more  than  a  stated  amount — increasing 
the  size  of  the  fine  (or  tax)  as  the  profit 
increases. 

Personally,  I  see  no  hope  for  increased 
production  on  a  large  scale  so  long  as  the 
present  system  remains  in  force;  by  way 
of  illustration  I  offer  an  instance  which 
occurred  in  Alabama:  Some  time  ago  a 
mill  man  purchased  a  small  tract  of  tim- 
ber, estimating  that  he  had  approxi- 
mately a  ten-year  cut.  He  continued  to 
operate  until  about  June  2,  1919,  and 
then  closed  down.  Eventually  an  auditor 
called  to  go  over  his  books  for  the  year, 
and  asked  why  he  had  shut  down  at  that 
time  of  the  year,  to  which  the  operator 
replied  that  he  had  made  about  all  the 
Government  seemed  to  think  he  was  en- 
titled to,  and,  if  he  continued  running  for 
the  balance  of  the  year,  it  merely  meant 
giving  the  Government  approximately 
forty  logs  out  of  every  hundred.  As  the 
Government  paid  him  nothing  in  return 
for  depreciation  of  his  teams  and  for 
the  wear  and  tear  on  his  machinery,  he 
could  not  see  the  wisdom  of  continuing 
operation.  In  addition  to  this  he  also 
figures,  since  the  Government  seems  to 
think  that  he  is  entitled  to  make  only  so 
much  per  year,  that  it  would  be  to  his 
best  interest  to  operate  six  months  out 
of  every  year,  whereby  he  would  have 
a  twenty-year  cut. 

I  believe  that  in  many  industries  of 
fundamental  importance  men  are  reason- 
ing in  exactly  the  same  way  as  the  Ala- 
bama saw-mill  man.  On  such  men  the 
cry  for  increased  production  will  have 
little  effect  so  long  as  they  labor  under 
the  present  heavy  burden  of  taxation. 
Geo.  Calhoun 

Tampa,  Fla.,  March  6 

"The  Jest" 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Weekly  Review: 
Now  that  "The  Jest"  has  passed  from 
the  stage  it  so  conspicuously  adorned, 
and  the  distinguished  actors  are  reaping 
less  exotic  laurels  in  other  fields,  it  may 
not  be  impertinent  to  inquire  whose  was 
the  edict  which  so  harshly  vulgarized 
certain  episodes  of  so  beautiful  a  play. 
Was  it,  one  wonders,  translator  or  stage 
manager,  that  assumed  the  responsibility, 
for  example,  of  altering  the  third  act 
where  the  fettered  Neri  is  confronted 
with  his  victims — a  scene  rancorous  to 
be  sure,  but  dignified  in  its  rancors — so 


that,  rather  than  the  electric  air  of 
tragedy,  we  breathe  in  the  fetid  mental 
atmosphere  of  a  reformatory  for  mor- 
bid incorrigibles.  The  despots  of  the 
Renaissance,  it  may  be  argued,  were  for 
the  most  part  incorrigibles,  but  it  evi- 
dently pleased  Signor  Benelli,  as  it 
pleases  us,  to  believe  that  beautiful 
decoration,  lovely  garments,  and  the  im- 
minent presence  of  il  Magnifico  might 
impart,  even  to  an  environment  of  crime, 
a  picturesqueness  and  a  conduct  of  evil 
far  removed  from  the  ravings  of  the  de- 
fectives of  a  city  slum. 

"Mad,  indeed,  he  is,  poor  sufferer!" 
says  Laldomine,  as  she  approaches  the 
arch-criminal  she  has  loved  to  her  own 
undoing,  and  then  cries  to  him  "Neri! 
Neri!"  while  the  bitterer  Fiammetta 
cries  "Sir  Traitor!" 

"He  answers  not,"  says  Laldomine 
again,  "and  I — I  pity  him !" 

Fiammetta 
A  traitor  moves  me  not  to  ruth  but  wrath  I 

Laldomine 
Me  too,  he  has  deceived  .  .  .  What  would  you 

have! 
Why  look  for  reason  where  no  reason  is  I 

Later  on,  Fiammetta  says 

"I  would  not  trust  him." 

and  the  more  subtle  Laldomine  responds 

"And  I  would  long  to  dare 

To  trust  .  .  .  that  I  might  trust  him  more  I 
For  when  I  see  him  not,  then  I  detest — 

And  when  I  see  him,  then,  again,  adore  I — 
Yes,  I  am  at  thy  feet  again,  again!" 

Fiammetta 
The  brute  I  he  promised  me  that  he  would  wed, 
Give  me  a  house  as  he  has  given  Ginevra: — 
She,  the  astute,  has  got  both  house  and  gear. 
Would  Fiammetta  had  but  loved   thee  less  I" 

Laldomine 
For    me,   there's   nothing — nothing — I    repent ! 

Fiammetta  (drawing  nearer  to  Neri) 
How  grim  he  isl 

And  fettered  well — ^and  cannot  sin  again  1 
.  .  .  Dullard  I! 

Laldomine 
You  have  no  mercy! 

Fiammetta 
I  am  a  woman — and  where  love  has  led 
Now  hatred  urges. 

(To   Neri) 
I   offer  votive  prayer 
That  you  may  never  know  again 
The  light  of  reason!  thus  you  shall  never 

more 
Betray  fond  women! 

Laldomine 
Alas!  you  are  a  viper,  Fiammetta! 
Does  nothing  move  you  ?    See  how  he  suffers ! 
How  his  poor  eyes  are  darkened — 
His  cheeks  aflame ! 

and  later,  when  Fiammetta  has  reached 
the  climax  of  her  rage,  she  exclaims: 

I  am  too  honest  not  to  know  I  hate! 

Laldomine 
Cruel  is  honesty! 

Fiammetta 
Best  that  I  leave  you  then! 

(To  Neri) 
Yes,  yes,  I  go — and  go 
Without  tearing  your  eyes  I  Traitor  and  knave ! 
I  go! 

This  is  a  somewhat  free  but  quite  un- 
chastened  translation  of  part  of  this  act 
and  of  that  part  of  it  in  which  the  two 


ladies  are  most  uncompromising  in  ex- 
pression, with  their  former  lover  and 
with  each  other.  Now,  however  modern 
opinion  may  lament  Laldomine's  lack  of 
proper  resentment,  or  feel  that  Fiam- 
metta nurses  too  intolerant  a  grudge,  at  ' 
least  they  both  yield  to  the  restraints  of 
a  plane  of  emotion  tense  but  not  frenzied. 
In  the  recent  adaptation,  these  victims 
of  seduction  look  and  behave  like  the 
Furies  of  a  red-light  district  and  "clinch 
and  roll  over"  in  an  access  of  hysterical 
and  physical  abasement,  as  far  from  the 
probable  as  from  the  limits  of  an  exact- 
ing dramatic  taste.  Can  not  an  Ameri- 
can audience  believe  in  the  verities 
of  a  grand  passion  unless  they  are  sus- 
tained by  a  strangle-hold?  And  as  for 
the  tremendous  catastrophe  of  the  fourth 
act,  so  superbly  represented,  so  triumph- 
ant in  situation,  where,  in  that  unforget- 
able  pose  of  a  satisfied,  but  still  appre- 
hensive vengeance,  in  incomparable  grace 
of  color  and  outline,  Giannetto  stands 
against  the  curtain  waiting  the  entrance 
of  the  murderer,  why  must  Neri,  to  the 
dismay  of  the  sensitive,  trail  in  a  bloody 
nightshirt — or  did  the  overexcited  Neri 
pick  up  a  pillow-sham  or  a  bureau-cover 
upon  which  to  wipe  his  weapon?  Why, 
rather,  should  he  not  bring  with  him  the 
dagger — blood-stained,  if  you  will,  but 
still  the  dagger  of  the  text.  Modern 
audiences  are  too  inured  to  bedroom 
scenes  to  balk  even  at  pajamas,  if 
necessary  to  the  action,  and  of  course 
Gabriello's  blood  had  to  go  somewhere, 
but  when  it  was  a  question  of  the 
Renaissance  and  Lorenzo,  the  grand  man- 
ner would  seem  to  be  better  maintained 
by  the  blood-stained  dagger  and  the 
flame-colored  mantle  of  the  author's 
choice. 

And  again,  what  is  the  theological  or 
other  warrant  for  that  sensational  prayer 
offered  at  the  last,  by  Mr.  John  Barry- 
more,  admirable  as  it  is  in  grace  and 
pictorial  effectiveness,  but  very  confus- 
ing to  one's  apprehension  of  Giannetto's 
religious  affiliations?  We  find  no  other  r 
than  that  of  a  single  exclamation.  | 

"Nature!"  cries  Giannetto,  in  the 
tumult  of  his  curiously  contradictory 
impulses. 

Let  me  weep  at  least,  in  order  not  to  know 
The  torture  of  the  evil  I  have  wrought. 

And  thus,  this  Hamlet  of  the  Renaissance : 

To  slay  myself — or  not  to  slay — I  do  not  dare. 

It  is  not  only  regret  at  the  defacement 
of  a  great  play — a  defacement  appar- 
ently uncalled  for  by  any  necessity  of 
cutting  off  the  superfluous  or  suppress- 
ing the  unintelligible,  to  bring  it  within 
the  limits  of  performance — that  shadows 
the  pleasure  in  a  striking  rendering 
lovely  to  the  eyes;  it  is,  likewise,  the 
fear  that  the  retort  to  all  criticism  will 
be  that  the  public  demands  the  conces- 
sions. A.  E.  T. 

Hartford,  Conn.,  March  11 


June  16,  1920] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[627 


Book  Reviews 

The  War— The  Last  Phase 

The  Last  Four  Months  of  the  War.  By 
Major-General  Sir  F.  Maurice.  Boston: 
Little,  Brown  and  Company. 

Our  Greatest  Battle.  By  Frederick  Palmer. 
New  York :    Dodd,  Mead  and  Company. 

WHOEVER  wishes  to  get  a  clear  idea 
of  the  greatest  of  battles  should 
read  both  these  books  together,  for  they 
supplement  each  other  nicely.  General 
Maurice  writes  military  history,  con- 
cerns himself  only  with  operations,  his 
unit  is  the  army.  Mr.  Palmer's  unit  is 
the  American  division.  He  adds  to  his 
account  of  operations  in  the  Meuse- 
Argonne  an  elaborate  commentary  on 
the  entire  effort,  from  the  point  of  view 
of  all  ranks. 

In  its  larger  aspect  the  last  battle  is 
a  miraculous  feat  of  recuperation.  In 
the  late  spring  of  1918  the  Germans  had 
driven  nearly  to  Amiens  in  the  west  and 
to  Chateau-Thierry  in  the  south.  The 
Kaiser  had  prepared  his  observation 
tower  on  the  Marne  to  witness  the  as- 
sault on  Paris.  In  about  six  weeks  after 
the  Germans  had  been  checked  by  our 
2nd  and  3rd  divisions,  on  the  Marne, 
late  in  July,  they  were  smashed  back  to 
approximately  their  positions  of  1914.  It 
should  be  noted  that  this  victory  was 
won  by  those  British  and  French  armies 
which  had  lately  been  thoroughly 
thrashed.  Our  American  aid  in  this 
preparatory  stage  was  confined  to  casual 
reinforcements  and  to  the  flattening  of 
the  salient  at  St.  Mihiel.  But  our  par- 
ticipation had  proved  that  the  American 
divisions  were  highly  efficient,  and  ready 
to  be  made  into  corps  and  armies.  It 
was  this  demonstration  that  justified  in 
the  autumn  of  1918  that  final  blow  which 
had  been  timed  for  the  following  spring. 
In  six  weeks  from  the  last  days  of  Sep- 
tember the  German  armies  were  thrust 
back  fifty  miles  eastward  along  the  en- 
tire front,  their  communications  were 
cut,  their  morale  deeply  impaired,  the 
Kaiser  had  fled,  and  Germany  was  a 
republic. 

General  Maurice  discusses  briefly  the 
disaster  of  early  1918.  It  was  due  to 
dispersion  of  the  British  effort  on  sev- 
eral fronts,  and  the  illusion  of  an  inex- 
pensive decision  in  the  east.  Haig  was 
180,000  men  short,  and  driven  to  the 
desperate  course  of  breaking  up  two 
cavalry  divisions  and  one  hundred 
trained  infantry  battalions  for  replace- 
ments. In  the  face  of  this,  he  had  to 
take  over  twenty-eight  more  miles  of 
front.  Gough's  Fifth  Army,  at  the 
juncture  of  the  French  and  British,  con- 
sisted of  fourteen  depleted  and  battle- 
worn  divisions,  holding  forty-two  miles 
of  front.  It  can  not  be  said  that  they 
yielded.  They  were  overwhelmed  by  a 
three-to-one  superiority  consisting  of  re- 


organized divisions  from  the  Russian 
front.  General  Gough  was  in  an  im- 
possible position,  and,  as  is  usual  in  such 
cases,  was  made  a  scapegoat  for  the 
War  Office. 

Their  sacrifice  and  the  whole  disas- 
trous battle  of  Flanders  were  needless. 
There  were  troops  in  England,  awaiting 
a  hypothetical  invasion,  surplus  troops 
also  in  Palestine.  Lloyd  George  had 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  only  a  stale- 
mate was  possible  in  the  west,  meanwhile 
he  would  wait  for  the  Americans.  We 
may  add  that  if  Jellicoe  had  attacked 
resolutely  instead  of  weakly  at  Jutland, 
the  Germans  would  have  had  small  fight- 
ing edge  for  the  Friedenssturm  of  1918. 

At  least  the  collapse  of  the  British  de- 
fense brought  about  unity  of  command. 
On  April  14  Marshal  Foch  assumed 
supreme  command  of  the  Allied  forces. 
The  pages  which  General  Maurice  de- 
votes to  Foch  are  most  instructive. 
Foch,  in  distinction  from  the  Germans 
who  regarded  war  as  a  science,  con- 
sidered it  as  an  art.  Where  the  Ger- 
mans held  to  long-prepared  and  highly 
elaborated  plans,  he  believed  in  large 
principles  and  simple  plans  based  on  the 
divination  of  the  moment.  Thus  the 
Germans  were  constantly  wearing  them- 
selves out  in  unlimited  offensives  which 
were  badly  timed  and  articulated.  Even 
in  the  victories  of  early  1918,  they  gave 
respites  between  battles.  They  lacked 
the  sense  of  occasion  and  opportunity 
which  Foch  had  in  the  highest  degree. 
Two  days  after  he  took  command,  April 
16,  he  quietly  declared  that  the  Battle 
of  Flanders  was  over,  and  that  Haig 
would  need  no  reinforcements.  This  was 
a  few  days  before  Mount  Kemmel  fell 
to  the  Germans — a  serene  and  correct 
estimate  made  in  the  face  of  confusing 
and  apparently  discouraging  facts. 

When  Foch  got  ready  to  strike,  he 
smote  relentlessly  and  without  pause. 
"He  makes  his  counter-attack  on  July 
18,  and  the  second  battle  of  the  Marne 
ends  with  the  Germans  behind  the  Aisne 
and  the  Vesle  on  August  6.  On  August 
8  Haig  opens  the  Battle  of  Amiens,  and 
on  the  twelfth  it  ends  with  the  Germans 
in  their  lines  about  Chaulnes.  Mean- 
while, on  the  ninth,  Humbert  has  already 
begun  the  battle  of  Lassigny,  which 
comes  to  an  end  on  the  sixteenth,  and 
from  the  seventeenth  to  the  twentieth 
Mangin  is  driving  the  Germans  from  the 
Aisne  heights.  As  soon  as  he  stops, 
on  August  21,  begins  the  battle  of 
Bapaume."  It  lasted  till  August  31.  Six 
days  earlier  Home  struck  from  Arras, 
completing  by  September  19  the  recap- 
ture of  Kemmel,  and  the  occupation  of 
the  Drocourt-Queant  switch.  From  Sep- 
tember 6,  the  French  advanced  rapidly 
on  the  Somme,  and  on  September  12  and 
13  two  American  corps  cleaned  up  the 
salient  of  St.  Mihiel.  In  less  than  two 
months  Foch  had  launched  eight  major 


attacks  every  one  of  which  had  suc- 
ceeded, and  there  had  never  been  time 
between  battles  to  rest  or  reorganize  the 
shattered  German  divisions. 

From  the  moment  on  August  14  when 
Ludendorflf  advised  Berlin  to  make  peace 
the  war  was  won.  Their  forces  had 
shrunk  from  207  divisions  with  66  in  re- 
serve in  May  to  185,  with  19  in  re- 
serve in  early  September.  Meanwhile 
the  British,  who  were  supposed  to  be 
crushed,  had  come  back  in  irresistible 
force,  and  the  fighting  mettle  of  the 
green  American  divisions  had  been 
abundantly  demonstrated. 

At  this  point  the  British  war  Cabinet 
wished  to  halt.  They  feared  the  Ameri- 
cans were  not  fully  ready.  They  still 
hoped  for  an  inexpensive  decision  from 
Saloniki.  Even  Foch  hesitated  to  ask 
greater  sacrifices  of  the  English  and  was 
willing  to  wait  till  the  American  organ- 
ization should  have  been  perfected. 
Pershing  believed  his  new  armies  would 
make  up  in  spirit  for  what  they  lacked 
in  finish  and  experience.  Thus  it  was 
due  to  the  insight  and  confidence  of  Haig 
and  Pershing  that  the  push  for  victory 
was  timed  not  in  the  spring  of  1919  but 
in  the  autumn  of  1918.  General  Maurice 
finds  that  the  decision,  though  immedi- 
ately costly  in  lives,  was  strategically 
sound  and  as  compared  with  the  alterna- 
tive plan  economical  in  every  way. 

We  leave  the  reader  to  follow  the 
essentially  simple  strategy  of  the  final 
battle  in  General  Maurice's  lucid  pages. 
The  German  line  now  lay  nearly  straight 
from  Nieuport  to  Verdun.  The  task  was 
for  the  English  and  French  to  swing 
back  a  great  door  while  the  Americans 
attempted  to  shatter  the  hinges  in  the 
Argonne-Meuse.  The  English  had  the 
longest  walk,  the  Americans  the  tough- 
est mechanical  problem.  If  either  failed 
in  the  mission,  the  French  at  the  centre 
could  have  done  little.  How  the  two  na- 
tions accomplished  their  task  is  familiar. 
The  climax  had  its  sensational  features. 
To  see  the  Americans  emerge  at  Sedan 
must  have  satisfied  the  spirit  of  Lafay- 
ette, while  certain  units  and  individuals 
of  the  "Old  Contemptibles"  heard  the 
command  "cease  firing,"  on  November 
11,  1918,  in  the  precise  positions  on  the 
field  of  Mons  from  which  they  had  re- 
treated in  August,  1914. 

On  the  much  debated  point  whether 
the  armistice  was  premature  General 
Maurice  has  no  doubts.  The  Germans 
were  soundly  beaten,  and  no  commander 
was  justified  in  sacrificing  further  lives. 
In  any  event  the  Allied  Armies  had  out- 
run their  supply  and  were  incapable  of 
a  decisive  general  advance  before  spring. 
To  be  sure,  an  American  offensive  in 
Lorraine  was  fully  prepared,  but  it  of- 
fered no  military  advantage  comparable 
to  the  cost. 

General  Maurice  does  not  dwell  upon 
the    unnecessary    waste    of    the    early 


628] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  57 


stages  of  the  war,  before  unity  of  com- 
mand was  attained.  Such,  however,  will 
be  the  inevitable  reflection  of  every . 
reader  as  he  closes  this  book.  Barring 
shakiness  in  woulds  and  shoulds,  most 
venial  in  a  soldier  and  a  Scot,  the  book 
is  admirablj'  written.  The  just  propor- 
tion between  narrative,  comment,  and 
personalia  is  preserved.  It  should  re- 
main among  the  rather  few  military 
classics.  To  present  a  work  of  this 
importance  without  an  index  is  un- 
pardonable. 

Mr.  Palmer  undertakes  to  give  an  ac- 
count of  the  final  American  operations, 
division  by  division,  and  also  to  convey 
the  picturesqueness  and  color  of  our  en- 
tire overseas  effort.  In  this  blending 
process  operations  come  off  badly.  Every- 
thing is  in  the  book,  but  it  is  only  a  dis- 
ciplined reader  who  can  keep  the  course 
of  events  clearly  in  mind.  Comment 
obstructs  narrative.  The  author  is 
naturally  oppressed  by  the  greatness  of 
his  theme,  and  keeps  the  stylistic  pres- 
sure uniformly  too  high.  Indeed,  his 
account  of  administration  is  more  val- 
uable than  that  of  field  operations.  He 
makes  one  feel  the  shock  of  adjustment. 
The  new  officers  appalled  by  their  novel 
responsibilities  and  the  off  chance  of 
orders  to  Blois  present  an  appealing  pic- 
ture. One  feels  the  somewhat  sinister 
imminence  of  the  Fort  Leavenworth  men, 
nameless  potentates,  who,  from  the  gen- 
eral staff  or  the  dreaded  Vehmgericht  at 
Blois,  disposed  of  the  reputations  and 
even  of  the  lives  of  our  young  crusaders. 
One  feels  as  pathetically  the  fates  of  the 
old  regulars,  shaped  all  their  lives  to 
little  things,  and  suddenly  faced  with  the 
dilemma  of  avowing  or  concealing  in- 
competence. One  feels  even  more  the 
grim  endurance  of  men  in  the  ranks 
cynically  yet  cheerfully  observing  the 
rise  and  fall  of  their  temporary  princes. 
One  senses  the  ruthless,  intelligent  will 
of  the  Commander-in-Chief  making  the 
human  sacrifices  required  by  speed  and 
the  emergency.  One  sees  the  confusion 
emerge  into  a  kind  of  rough  order  in- 
spired by  an  indomitable  will  to  win. 

Here  and  in  the  admirable  portraits  of 
the  commanding  generals  lies  Mr.  Palm- 
er's success.  He  has  lived  into  his  mat- 
ter, and  whether  he  describes  army  cooks 
or  air  men,  "Y.  M."  secretaries,  or  Sal- 
vationers,  engineers,  or  truck  drivers,  you 
feel  that  he  has  campaigned  with  them 
and  understood  them.  Hence  his  book 
is  indispensable  for  those  who  will  share 
in  imagination  the  misery,  confusion, 
and  glory  of  those  great  days  in  France. 
The  account  of  American  operations  re- 
mains to  be  written,  and  it  is  likely  to 
come  in  its  definitive  form  not  from  any 
member  of  the  A.  E.  F.  but  from  some 
calm  person  in  shell  glasses  who  will 
study  the  orders,  reports,  and  war  diaries 
with  glacial  detachment.  Mr.  Palmer  is 
no    monster   of   this    sort.      His    book 


abounds  in  heart,  perhaps  somewhat  to 
the  detriment  of  its  permanency. 

Mr.  Palmer  confirms  General  Maurice's 
low  opinion  of  the  German  service  of  in- 
telligence. On  all  main  issues  it  was 
wrong.  In  particular  its  calculations  of 
morale  were  grotesquely  amiss.  Even  in 
the  smaller  field  they  failed  to  anticipate 
the  American  offensive  in  the  Meuse- 
Argonne.  In  this  as  elsewhere  the  scien- 
tific conception  of  warfare  undid  them. 
Foch,  in  all  the  operations,  and  Pershing, 
whether  in  generously  expending  his 
new  divisions  along  the  straining  line  in 
July  or  in  insisting  on  fighting  with  his 
half  ready  armies  in  the  last  stage,  alike 
showed  that  quality  of  artistic  imagina- 
tion without  which  there  is  no  great 
military  leader. 

Achievement  and  Hope 

The  Century  of  Hope  :  A  Sketch  of  Western 
Progress  from  1815  to  the  Great  War.  By 
F.  S.  Marvin.  New  York:  Oxford  Uni- 
versity Press. 
IT  is  good  to  be  cheerful — especially 
good,  physicians  tell  us,  for  the  diges- 
tion— and  to  any  victim  of  dyspepsia 
we  heartily  recommend  this  book.  Its 
method  is  clear,  its  conclusion  simple. 
As  for  method,  in  a  succession  of  chap- 
ters dealing  with  the  various  fields  of 
human  activity,  Mr.  Marvin  points  out 
the  great  achievements  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  culminating  in  these  glorious 
years  of  the  twentieth.  In  government 
he  shows  the  steady  advance  of  democ- 
racy, nourished  on  the  principles  of  lib- 
erty, equality,  and  fraternity  announced 
by  the  French  Revolution.  Education 
has  been  deepened  and  broadened  (as 
every  teacher  knows).  Science  has 
slowly  become  more  certain  of  herself, 
and  with  her  development  has  blessed  the 
world  with  a  succession  of  miraculous  in- 
ventions which  have  made  existence 
easier  and  larger  for  all  men.  Literature 
has  kept  pace  with  the  expansion  and 
purification  of  practical  life,  enriching 
the  age  with  such  prodigies  of  the 
imagination  as  Victor  Hugo,  to  name 
only  one  of  the  stars  of  the  galaxy.  In 
his  heart  man  has  been  growing  more 
religious  year  by  year,  or  at  least  has 
been  growing  religious  in  a  better  sense 
of  the  word. 

We  condense  necessarily;  those  who 
desire  the  full  breath  of  flattery  must 
read  the  book — they  will  feel  themselves 
mighty  tall  fellows.  This  is  not  said 
in  irony.  Granted  that  some  of  Mr. 
Marvin's  statements  are  questionable, 
and  some  of  his  judgments  a  bit  queer 
(e.  g.,  that  Carlyle  "was  the  strongest 
influence  towards  Socialism,  in  the  wide 
sense  of  the  word,  among  English  writers 
of  the  nineteenth  century"),  nevertheless, 
the  details  of  genuine  progress  here 
heaped  together  make  an  imposing  array. 
So  much  for  the  method  of  the  book. 

When     we    come     to     consider     Mr. 


Marvin's  conclusion  we  are  not  so  sure. 
What  that  conclusion  is  may  be  guessed 
from  the  title  of  the  book.  Much  as  has 
been  accomplished,  still  all  is  but  prep- 
aration: "Come  grow  young  with  me. 
The  best  is  yet  to  be."  Or,  to  quote  Mr. 
Marvin  instead  of  perverting  Brown- 
ing: "In  the  world  a  wider  conscious- 
ness, though  nascent,  has  still  to  come. 
That  we  believe  in  its  coming,  even  in 
the  midst  of  the  greatest  war,  is  of  all 
symptoms  the  most  striking  of  an  Age 
of  Hope."  Now  we —  the  reviewer  of 
this  book,  not  Mr.  Marvin's  world- 
we — make  no  prophecy  regarding  the 
future.  Of  the  sweetness  of  hope  we 
have  knowledge : 

Truth  justifies  herself,  and  as  she  dwells 
With  Hope,  who  would  not  follow  where  she 
leads  ? 

But  there  is  still  that  "unconceming 
thing,"  the  matter  of  fact.  Is  this  really 
an  age  of  hope?  Somehow  an  acquaint- 
ance with  the  radical  press  as  well  as 
the  conservative  leaves  one,  against  one's 
will,  with  an  impression  that  these  days 
of  ours  are  not  so  hopeful  as  they  ought 
to  be.  The  paradox  is  even  a  vexation. 
Why,  after  a  period  of  such  stupendous 
achievement  is  there  so  little  lightheart- 
edness,  so  little  spontaneous  hope  among 
men?  The  discouragement,  such  as  it 
is,  does  not  seem  to  be  a  result  of  the 
war  itself;  though  it  may  have  arisen 
from  a  sudden  return  to  reflection 
brought  about  by  the  shattering  of  illu- 
sions begotten  during  the  war. 

Mr.  Marvin  offers  no  answer  to  such 
a  question — naturally,  since  he  feels  no 
discouragement.  But  perhaps  the  sug- 
gestion of  an  answer  might  be  wrung 
from  him  despite  his  cheerfulness.  One 
observes,  for  instance,  that  social  prog- 
ress seems  to  be  identified  by  Mr.  Mar- 
vin with  socialistic  progress,  and  that 
for  him  Karl  Marx  is  the  man  who  "saw 
things  whole."  Is  it  possible  that  an 
age  of  accomplishment  has  not  ended  in 
an  age  of  hope — speaking  always  of  the 
present  mood,  not  of  things  far  off — 
just  because  it  has  been  suffering  from 
this  confusion  all  the  while?  Again, 
one  observes  that  in  the  evolution  of 
religion,  as  Mr.  Marvin  sees  it,  "the 
growth  of  scientific  thought  and  the  in- 
creasing hold  of  practical  activities  must 
take  first  place."  He  is  emphatic  about 
this: 

It  remains,  however,  profoundly  true — the 
most  important  fact  in  our  whole  discussion— 
that  the  spiritual  forces,  of  which  we  may  trace 
the  workings  in  the  same  period,  are  the 
supreme  factors,  both  in  building  the  individual 
soul  and  in  giving  a  common  soul  to  all  hu- 
manity. This  common  spirit  is  best  exhibited, 
and  most  powerfully  enlarged,  in  the  two  chan- 
nels of  the  growth  of  science  and  the  applica- 
tion of  science. 

Science  is  well,  very  well,  and  practi- 
cal activities  are  well;  but  is  it  possible 
that  an  age  of  enlightenment  has  not 


June  16,  1920] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[629 


ended  in  an  age  of  hope  just  because  it 
has  too  often  failed  to  distinguish  be- 
tween the  spirit  of  science  and  the 
spirituality  of  religion?  We  ask  these 
questions  without  attempting  to  answer 
them. 

Conrad  the  Great 

The  Rescue:  A  Romance  of  the  Shallows. 
By  Joseph  Conrad.  New  York:  Double- 
day,    Page   and    Company. 

WE  who  have  had  a  sense  of  groping 
for  the  old  magic  amongst  the  later 
tales  of  Joseph  Conrad  may  find  it  in 
this  book.  Here  are  the  salt  and  spicy 
atmosphere,  the  haunted  beauty,  the 
strangely  woven  texture,  with  its  pat- 
tern, revealed  as  if  casually  by  gleams 
and  cross-lights  so  that  only  when  the 
web  is  completed  do  we  really  perceive 
its  pattern.  And  here  is  the  spirit,  not 
simply  the  body  or  dress,  of  adventure 
and  romance.  It  is  all,  to  be  sure,  as  far 
as  possible  from  the  reality  of  facts,  an 
elaborate  invention.  But  it  is  an  in- 
vention in  the  older  sense — the  discovery 
of  a  scene  and.  an  action  which  might 
have  been,  might  be  at  any  time,  in  the 
world  of  creative  dreaming  which  em- 
bodies the  inward  nature  of  man. 

"The  shallow  sea  that  foams  and  mur- 
murs on  the  shores  of  the  thousand 
islands,  big  and  little,  which  make  up  the 
Malay  Archipelago,  has  been  for  cen- 
turies the  scene  of  adventurous  under- 
takings" :  with  this  quiet  gesture  the  en- 
chanter begins  the  weaving  of  his  spell. 
A  Chaucerian  motto  in  the  title-page  has 
already  warned  us  frankly  that  we  are 
to  give  not  sober  belief  but  a  willing 
temper  to  the  imaginative  enterprise  in 
hand: 

For  wende   I   never,  by  possibilitee. 

That  swich  a  monstre  or  merveille  mighte  be ! 

This  is  the  older  Conradian  world  of 
"Nostromo"  and  "The  Nigger  of  the 
Narcissus,"  of  exotic  seas  and  far-flung 
shores  and  strange  yet  not  contemptible 
peoples  among  whom  the  white  man 
moves,  here  and  there,  either  feebly  as 
one  who  has  succumbed  to  the  enervat- 
ing lure  of  the  tropics,  or  triumphantly 
as  the  exemplar  of  the  British  seaman's 
code:  duty,  loyalty,  endurance,  honor. 
Triumphantly  as  exemplar,  but  never 
happily  as  individual;  since  in  Conrad's 
melancholy  Slavic  eyes  to  be  good  (that 
is,  faithful,  steadfast,  a  gentleman)  is 
not  more  certainly  to  "acquire  merit" 
than  to  be  unhappy.  .  .  .  This  also 
is  the  eloquent  Conrad  of  old  time,  with 
the  golden  and  at  times  voluptuous  voice, 
not  British,  nor  Polish,  nor  French,  but 
trebly  nourished  and  enriched  for  our 
enchantment.  At  the  very  least,  what 
melody,  what  imagery! 

"On  the  unruffled  surface  of  the  straits 
the  brig  floated  tranquil  and  upright  as 
if  bolted  solidly,  keel  to  keel,  with  its 
own  image  reflected  in  the  unframed  and 


immense  mirror  of  the  sea.  To  the  south 
and  east  the  double  islands  watched 
silently  the  double  ship  that  seemed  fixed 
among  them  forever,  a  hopeless  captive 
of  the  calm,  a  helpless  prisoner  of  the 
shallow  sea." 

But  linked  and  blended  with  the  verbal 
and   emotional   splendor  of   the   earlier 
romances  are  the  sharper  ironic  vision 
and,  at  times,  the  more  restrained  man- 
ner of  the  later  Conrad.    An  announce- 
ment by  the  American  publisher  explains 
this  oddly  composite  effect.  "The  Rescue" 
was  begun  twenty  years  ago  (the  period 
of  "Lord  Jim"),  partly  written  at  that 
time,  and  then  laid  aside,  not  to  be  com- 
pleted till  this  year.     It  interprets  an 
early  episode  in  the  life  of  Captain  Tom 
Lingard,  who  figures  in  Conrad's  first 
two  novels,  "Almayer's  Folly"  and  "An 
Outcast   of  the   Islands."     His   strong, 
primitive  virtue  finds   in  youth   escape 
from  the  crooked  bonds  of  "civilized"  life 
and  a  field  of  exultant  activity  in  the 
Malayan  seas.    There  he  becomes  "King 
Tom,"  a  rough  paladin  of  honorable  ad- 
venture.    Chance  or  fate  leads  him  to 
become  the  savior  and  champion  of  a 
Malayan  prince  and  princess,  robbed  of 
their  island  kingdom.     They  are  a  pair 
worthy  of  devotion;  but  only  King  Tom 
would  have  made  them  a  dominant  ob- 
ligation.    On  the  eve  of  its  discharge, 
when  time  is  ripe  for  the  decisive  blow 
against  the  usurpers.  Fate  takes  a  hand. 
A  yacht  full  of  sophisticated  Europeans 
is  stranded  in  the  very  mouth  of  his  ad- 
venture.   His  first  impulse  is  to  get  rid 
of  them  anyhow,  to  let  them  be  wiped 
out  by  the  Malayans;  by  any  means  to 
have  them  out  of  his  way;  for  he  can 
see  nothing  but  his  sworn  duty  to  his 
proteges.     But  of  course  this  will  not 
do.    A  new  set  of  obligations  to  men  of 
his  race,  and  especially  to  the  woman 
among  them,  force  themselves  upon  him. 
Thenceforth   he  must  struggle  and   be 
torn  between  friendship,  and  honor,  and 
love;  and  on  every  side  in  this  supreme 
crisis  his  boasted  luck  forsakes  him.  His 
passion  for  the  woman,  his  love  for  his 
ship,  his  faith  in  the  old  human  derelict 
he  has  set  afloat  once  more,  all  work 
against  the  fulfillment  of  his  sworn  re- 
solve.   The  end  is  failure,  the  end  of  his 
love,  the  destruction  of  his  noble  young 
pair,  the  ruin,  as  he  feels  it,  of  his  honor. 
The  closing  scene  in  which  he  wordlessly 
renounces  the  woman  who  has  set  his 
safety  before  that  honor,  and  sets  the 
Lightning's  course  towards  no  port,  but 
simply    away    from    that    of    the    yacht 
which  bears  the  symbol  of  his  defeat, 
stops  short  of  tragedy  only  as  it  leaves 
us  feeling  that  the  hero  who  has  escaped 
the  final  defeat  will  live  to  fight  again, 
with  however  sad  heart,  and  under  a  flag, 
however  dimmed  and  torn. 

A  story  of  sombre  magic,  enforcing 
once  again  the  old  Conradian  struggle 
between  on  the  one  hand  the  apparent 


chances  of  incident  and  complications  of 
circumstance  summed  up  in  the  word 
Fate,  and  on  the  other,  the  primary  valor 
and  fidelity  of  the  human  soul.  In  this 
conflict  Conrad  beholds  humanity  losing 
and  losing  again;  yet  not  quite  to  the 
point  of  despair,  so  long  as  the  worship 
of  valor  and  fidelity  endure.  Conrad's 
skepticism,  deepen  and  broaden  though 
it  may  as  the  years  go  by,  may,  rightly 
marching  under  this  double  standard,  be 
of  more  inspiration  to  his  kind  than  the 
chameleon  banners  of  the  all-believers. 
These,  at  all  events,  are  "Anglo-Saxon" 
virtues  in  which  the  romancer  discerns, 
as  it  were,  a  last  hope  for  the  world; 
and  if  that  hope  seems  dim,  we  may 
comfort  ourselves  with  the  reflection  that 
after  all  the  fellow  is  only  a  Slav! 

H.  W.  BOYNTON 

Win  wood  Reade 

The  Martyrdom  of  Man.  By  Winwood  Reade. 
New  York:   E.  P.  Dutton  &  Co. 

AMONG  those  books  which  have  led  a 
subterranean  existence  and  yet  have 
managed  to  live  and  even  flourish  with- 
out the  sunshine  of  popularity  or  the 
oxygen  of  public  discussion,  Winwood 
Reade's  "Martyrdom  of  Man"  furnishes 
a  curious  example.  Ignored  by  critical 
opinion  at  the  time  of  its  publication, 
unmentioned  in  most  histories  of  litera- 
ture, it  has,  nevertheless,  continued  to 
live  on  and  go  through  many  reissues. 
Radical  journals  frequently  quote  it 
(though  Reade  was  politically  a  conserva- 
tive or,  at  most,  a  Whig),  industrious 
compilers  of  lists  of  books  which  have 
influenced  them  not  seldom  include  it, 
and  lovers  of  the  bypaths  of  thought 
and  of  the  curios  of  literature,  like  Mr. 
Philip  Hale,  still  honor  it  with  an  occa- 
sional reference.  The  anomaly  is  worth 
a  brief  investigation. 

Winwood  Reade  was  a  self-reliant,  self- 
willed  man,  reminding  one  in  his  eccen- 
tricity and  stubbornness  of  his  uncle, 
the  famous  novelist,  Charles  Reade.  His 
first  ambition  was  to  be  a  writer,  but, 
upon  the  failure  of  his  abortive  novels, 
he  decided  rather  impulsively  to  become 
an  African  explorer  and  succeeded  so 
well  in  his  enterprises  that  he  was  able 
to  boast:  "Henceforth  no  man  can  say 
that  I  am  only  a  writer ;  for  I  have  proved 
myself  a  man  of  action  as  well  as  a  man 
of  thought." 

But  it  was  as  a  writer  after  all  that 
Winwood  Reade  was  destined  to  keep  his 
name  alive.  While  his  work  in  Africa 
is  now  all  but  forgotten,  his  sombre,  but 
stimulating,  "Martyrdom  of  Man"  con- 
tinues its  semi-clandestine  existence. 
The  book  was  published  in  1872.  Its 
author's  first  intention  was  to  write  on 
the  part  which  Africa  had  played  in  the 
world's  story.  But  the  conception  grew 
under  his  hands  until  it  became  a  full- 
fledged  philosophy  of  history.    His  guid- 


630] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  57 


ing  principle  of  explanation  is  given  in 
the  last  pages  of  the  book:  "I  give  to 
universal  history  a  strange  but  true  title 
— The  Martyrdom  of  Man.  In  each  gen- 
eration the  human  race  has  been  tor- 
tured that  their  children  might  profit  by 
their  woes,"  The  successive  stages  in 
this  painful  upward  struggle  he  desig- 
nates as  war,  religion,  liberty,  and  intel- 
lect, and  to  each  of  them  he  devotes  a 
section  of  his  book.  But  another  stage 
is  yet  to  be  traversed:  we  must  in  the 
interests  of  right  thinking  rid  ourselves 
forever  of  anthropomorphic  religion. 
For  Winwood  Reade  was  a  thorough- 
paced rationalist,  believing,  like  Buckle, 
that  progress  lies  through  the  clarifica- 
tion of  the  intellect. 

It  was  mainly  owing  to  Reade's  attack 
on  Christianity  that  "his  book  was  passed 
over  in  disdainful  silence  by  so  many. 
He  speaks  like  a  dogmatic  atheist  when 
he  sums  up  his  attitude  in  these  words : 
"Supernatural  Christianity  is  false.  God- 
worship  is  idolatry.  Prayer  is  useless. 
The  soul  is  not  immortal  There  are  no 
rewards  and  no  punishments  in  a  future 
state."  At  other  times  his  tone  is  that 
of  the  agnosticism  current  in  his  day: 
man  will  never  be  "nearer  than  he  is  at 
present  to  the  First  Cause,  the  Inscruta- 
ble Mystery,  the  God";  the  "Supreme 
Power  is  not  a  Mind,  but  something 
higher  than  a  Mind ;  not  a  Being,  but  some- 
thing higher  than  a  Being ;  something  for 
which  we  have  no  words;  something  for 
which  we  have  no  ideas."  Reade  does 
not  hesitate  to  call  Jesus  a  dervish;  he 
suggests  that  he  was,  like  other  prophets, 
uncouth  in  appearance  and  uncleanly  in 
garb;  he  regards  him  as  simpleminded 
and  subject  to  hallucinations;  he  thinks 
that  he  did  not  move  consistently  on  the 
highest  moral  plane,  since  he  appealed 
to  the  self-interest  of  his  hearers  and 
displayed  in  his  words  the  spirit  of  a 
persecutor.  The  God-worship  which 
Jesus  taught  must  be  classed  with  those 
provisional  expedients — famine,  war,  slav- 
ery, inequalities  of  conditions — which 
nature  employs  for  the  development  of 
man  and  which  she  throws  aside  when 
they  have  served  her  turn. 

But  though  Reade  regards  the  past 
life  of  the  human  race  as  one  long 
tragedy,  he  is  unquenchably  optimistic 
about  the  future.  "Our  religion,  there- 
fore, is  Virtue,  our  Hope  is  placed  in 
the  happiness  of  our  posterity,  our 
Faith  is  the  Perfectibility  of  Man."  If 
he  seems  to  echo  the  eighteenth  century 
in  those  words,  on  the  other  hand,  he 
sounds  very  like  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw 
when  he  says :  "All  men  indeed  can  not 
be  poets,  inventors  or  philanthropists; 
but  all  men  can  join  in  that  gigantic  and 
God-like  work,  the  progress  of  creation." 
The  seductiveness  of  his  work  for  so 
many  readers  comes,  one  may  conjecture, 
largely  from  the  combined  appeal  which 
he    makes    to    our   grim    sense    of   the 


tragedy  of  the  past  and  to  our  innate 
hopefulness  for  the  future.  His  facile 
generalizations,  which  give  the  experts 
pause,  have  a  potent  attraction  for  the 
lay  reader.  Greek  and  Roman  culture 
is  seen,  not  as  the  very  fount  and  origin 
of  all  civilization,  but  as  a  mere  episode 
in  the  cause  of  universal  history.  Every- 
thing is  made  simple  and  clear  with  a 
few  bold  strokes,  and  the  multiplicity  of 
the  trees  never  obscures  the  woods.  The 
lively  style  is  an  added  stimulus  to  the 
reader,  for  the  author  possessed  an  un- 
deniable talent  for  direct  and  forcible 
statement.  When  he  becomes  enthusi- 
astic in  his  narrative  he  can  revivify  the 
past  as  tellingly  as  Macaulay,  whom  he 
resembles  also  in  the  crispness  of  his 
sentences.  All  of  which  may  help  explain 
why  "The  Martyrdom  of  Man"  has  now 
reached  its  twenty-first  edition. 

W.  K.  Stewart 

From  Couperin  to  Debussy 

French  Music  of  To-Day.  By  G.  Jean-Aubry. 
London :  Kegan  Paul,  Trench,  Triibner  & 
Co. 

IT  is  the  fashion  at  the  Metropolitan 
Opera  House,  and  in  other  places,  to 
belittle  the  importance  of  French  music. 
But  it  is  none  the  less  admitted  by  musi- 
cians of  high  rank  and  standing  that 
the  most  notable  advances  made  in  music 
since  the  death  of  Wagner  have  oc- 
curred, not  as  some  seem  to  think,  in 
Germany,  but  in  France  and  Russia. 

When  the  Metropolitan,  son»e  fifteen 
years  ago,  denied  that  there  were  French 
operas  worth  performing  here,  Mr.  Ham- 
merstein  (the  manager  of  the  Manhat- 
tan) proved  the  absurdity  of  the  con- 
tention. What  Mr.  Hammerstein  began 
has  been  continued  by  the  management 
of  the  Chicago  Opera  Company,  and, 
rather  grudgingly,  by  the  Metropolitan 
management.  Yet  even  now  we  have 
hardly  an  idea  of  the  wide  range  and 
varied  interest  of  French  opera. 

In  the  concert  room,  again,  within  the 
past  ten  years,  Mr.  Damrosch,  Mr. 
Stransky,  and  some  others  have  proved 
the  value  of  French  modern  music. 
They  have  allowed  us  opportunities  of 
enjoying  the  symphonic  works  of  masters 
like  Debussy,  Dukas,  Florent  Schmett, 
and  d'Indy,  to  say  nothing  of  the  Belgian, 
Cesar  Franck,  who,  to  a  great  extent, 
was  the  inspiration  of  his  French  suc- 
cessors. 

But  there  are  still  vast  treasures  wait- 
ing for  explorers  in  French  music,  not 
only  in  the  scores  of  modern  masters, 
but  also  in  the  achievements  of  their 
forerunners.  Before  Gluck,  the  Aus- 
trian, gave  us  "Orfeo  ed  Euridice," 
Rameau  had  written  operas  of  impres- 
sive dignity.  His  "Indes  Galantes,"  his 
"Hippolyte  et  Aricie,"  had  established 
him  in  France.  His  "Castor  et  Pollux" 
(which  was  revived  in  Paris  recently) 


was  in  its  day  perhaps  the  most  popular 
of  all  then  current  operas. 

Before  Rameau,  the  amazing  Couperin 
family  (all  organists  and  writers  for 
the  harpsichord  and  clavecin,  in  turn) 
had  really  founded  the  French  school 
which  later  on  sought  full  expression 
in  so  many  ways.  To  the  Couperins,  and 
more  particularly  to  the  second  Francois 
Couperin,  known  as  "le  Grand,"  we  owe  | 
a  whole  musical  literature,  including  " 
songs  of  rare  beauty,  lovely  and  enchant- 
ing works  for  clavecin,  simple  yet  often  y 
wonderful  organ  music.  The  style  of  | 
Couperin,  to  us,  may  seem  archaic.  But 
to  musicians  of  his  time  it  was  as  modern 
as  Debussy's  is  to  ours.  It  was  dis- 
tinguished by  melodic  grace  and  clear- 
ness. Without  the  resources  of  the  mod- 
ern orchestra — and  in  most  cases  for  a 
single  instrument — the  "great"  Couperin 
produced  small,  delicate  masterpieces. 
Not  "Tristans"  or  "Messiahs,"  to  be 
sure,  but  very  precious;  for  they  were 
pioneer  examples  of  an  art  which  was 
destined  to  take  shape  at  last  in  the  opera- 
comiques  of  Gretry,  Herold,  Boieldieu 
and  Auber;  in  the  operas  and  lyric 
dramas  of  Rameau,  Massenet,  and  Cha- 
brier;  in  the  tone-poems,  songs,  and 
ballets  of  Ravel,  and  Gabriel  Faure,  and 
Debussy. 

It  may  seem  fanciful  to  link  some  of 
the  modernists  just  named  with  Fran- 
gois  Couperin.  Yet,  from  the  essays  of 
Jean-Aubry,  collected  and  translated  into 
English  by  Edwin  Evans,  which  make 
up  the  volume  whose  title  stands  at 
the  head  of  this  review,  it  appears  quite 
plainly  that  in  considerable  measure, 
Frangois  Couperin  inspired  some  of  the 
most  complex  works  of  Claude  Debussy. 
The  Russians,  and  especially  Moussorg- 
sky,  no  doubt  also  largely  influenced 
Debussy  in  his  "Pelleas."  And  so  did 
Wagner.  But,  in  his  piano  pieces  and 
his  exquisite  songs,  one  sees  the  influence 
of  Couperin  and  Rameau.  Mr.  Jean- 
Aubry  tells  us,  in  an  essay  on  Debussy, 
that  the  creator  of  "La  Mer"  and  "Pel- 
leas"  was  once  an  interested  listener  at 
the  revivals  by  the  St.  Gervais  singers  jj 
of  the  older  French  composers  who  pre-  f 
ceded  Couperin.  The  very  title  of  his 
"Hommage  a  Rameau"  is  an  avowal  of 
the  debt  he  owed  that  master. 

The  truth  is  that,  for  something  like 
five  centuries,  there  has  been  a  French 
tradition  in  the  art  of  music.  Couperin 
and  Rameau  clung  to  that  tradition. 
Herold  and  Gretry  and  a  dozen  more 
were  true  to  it.  While  Faure  and  Mas- 
senet, in  different  ways,  helped  to  per- 
petuate it. 

To  quote  a  passage  from  Mr.  Jean- 
Aubry's  "The  French  Foundations  of 
Present  Day  Keyboard  Music,"  the  char- 
acteristics of  Rameau  were  the  "plas- 
ticity of  his  rhythms,  a  sense  of  orderly 
life,  delicacy  and  care  in  maintaining 
the  balance  of  expression."    Like  Coup- 


June  16,  1920] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[631 


erin  before  him,  and  most  later  French 
composers,  his  aim  was  to  attain  a  musi- 
cal maximum  of  expression  with  a  mini- 
mum of  effort.  As  the  author  of  "French 
Music  of  To-day"  with  no  little  justice 
says,  the  chief  features  of  French  music 
bear  a  remarkable  correspondence  with 
those  of  the  French  mind  and  tempera- 
ment. 

"First,  clearness.  Not  the  external 
clearness  of  works  which  are  devoid  of 
thought,  like  some  Italian  compositions, 
but  the  clearness  of  the  mind  that  has 
reflected,  and  that  puts  forth  in  good 
order  the  results  of  its  mediation." 
Next,  "the  avoidance  of  all  that  is  re- 
dundant; knowledge,  without  the  desire 
to  display  it;  a  horror  of  pedantry;  a 
taste  for  pleasantry  and  for  wit." 

The  French  composers  of  all  periods 
have  intuitively  shrunk  from  the  Ger- 
man way  of  mixing  up  music  with  meta- 
physics, philosophy,  and  literary  theories. 
In  the  present  century  they  seek  variety 
of  expression,  atmosphere,  picturesque- 
ness,  rhythmic  beauty.  They  are  sensu- 
ous, and  on  occasion  sentimental,  viva- 
cious, sweet  or  ironic,  very  delicate.  They 
have  subtility  to  a  fault,  and  grace, 
and  piquancy.  But  above  all  they  have 
charm,  charm,  charm. 

They  could  not,  if  they  would,  have 
Wagner's  power,  or  the  sensational  ex- 
travagance of  Richard  Strauss.  Their  art 
is  light  and  fine,  discreet,  alert,  and  rarely 
vulgar.  And,  as  Mr.  Jean-Aubry  gleefully 
reminds  us  in  his  opening  essay,  Romain 
RoUand,  after  attending  a  musical  festi- 
val in  Alsace-Lorraine  some  fifteen  years 
ago,  declared  that  "French  art  was 
.  .  .  taking  the  place  of  German  art." 
In  Germany,  since  Wagner's  day,  there 
has  been  a  tendency  to  confound  gran- 
deur in  music  with  immensity,  to  prefer 
quantity  in  instrumentation  to  quality, 
volume  of  sound  to  eloquence. 

In  the  great  temple  of  the  art  divine 
there  is  room  for  many  schools.  It  is 
mere  snobbery  to  proclaim  that  we  must 
always  thirst  for  Wagner,  Bach,  and 
Beethoven.  All  who  have  hearts  and  ears 
respect  and  love  those  giants.  But  why 
should  they  not  also  love  Debussy, 
Rameau,  d'Indy,  Berlioz,  Couperin,  Bizet, 
Herold,  and  Charpentier? 

The  French  composers  of  our  time  may 
not  have  touched  the  heights.  Yet  they 
have  far  outdone  their  rivals  in  their 
own  fields.  Only  Strauss  compares  (per- 
haps favorably)  with  them  in  ingenuity. 
None  equal  them  in  variety  or — though 
that  does  not  mean  much,  of  course — 
in  art — in  zeal  and  industry.  If  the 
Germans  and  Italians  have  traditions, 
which  go  back  to  Father  Bach,  the 
French  have  theirs,  to  which  they  cling 
devotedly.  And,  while  the  glory  of  the 
German  school  seems  to  be  fading,  the 
future  of  French  music  is  aglow  with 
hope. 

Charles  Henry  Meltzer 


The  Run  of  the  Shelves 


Books  of  the  Week 

[Selected  by  Edmund  Leiter  Pearson, 
Editor  of  Publications,  New  York 
Public  Library.] 

Letters  of  Traveu  By  Rudyard  Kipling. 
Doubleday.  ^ 

Letters  from  America  and  other 
lands  in  1892;  from  Canada  in 
1907;  from  Egypt  and  the  East  in 
1913. 

All  and  Sundry.  By  E.  T.  Raymond, 
author  of  "Uncensored  Celebrities." 
Holt. 

Witty  and  ironical  little  essays 
about  Foch,  Kipling,  the  Prince  of 
Wales,  Conan  Doyle,  President  Wil- 
son, Chesterton,  and  others. 

The  Maintenance  of  Peace.  By  Colonel 
S.  C.  Vestal.     Putnam. 

Too  extensive  for  casual  reading ; 
a  careful  research  by  a  military 
writer  into  the  causes  that  have  in- 
terrupted peace,  how  wars  have 
been  and  may  be  prevented.  The 
writer  thinks  that  peace  is  too 
precious  to  be  sought  in  vague 
optimism,  too  difficult  of  attain- 
ment to  be  won  by  pretty  phrase- 
making. 

The  Port  of  New  York.  By  Thomas 
E.  Rush,  Surveyor  of  the  Port. 
Doubleday. 

The  romance  of  the  past  and  the 
business  of  to-day  in  New  York 
Harbor. 


L 


AS  journalist,  critic,  and  novelist,  ex- 
Premier  Clemenceau  has  had  much  to 
say  about  the  Jews.  He  shows  the  spe- 
cialist's knowledge  of  their  habitats  and 
habits  from  America  to  Asia,  and  though 
his  presentation  of  them  is  never  flatter- 
ing, the  same  may  be  said  of  his  estimate 
of  every  other  sect  or  class  of  humanity 
concerning  which  he  has  emitted  his 
caustic  dicta.  His  "Au  Pied  du  Sinai" 
(Paris:  Georges  Cres),  though  it  bears 
the  imprint  of  this  year,  is  composed  of 
stories  and  sketches  of  which  all,  or  the 
majority,  were  evidently  written  long 
ago.  In  one  of  these  he  speaks  of  hav- 
ing reached  the  age  of  fifty  some  three 
years  before,  and  as  M.  Clemenceau  was 
born  in  1841,  this  bit  of  work  thus  ap- 
pears to  date  back  at  least  a  quarter  of 
a  century.  The  new  book  is  only  a 
belated  fellow  to  the  two  or  three  simi- 
lar volumes  which  he  published  a  genera- 
tion ago.  But  the  Tiger  always  writes 
well,  though  always  severely,  and  there 
is  both  profit  and  amusement  in  the  new 
arrival.  The  conclusion  is  keen  and  just, 
though  perhaps  pitched  a  little  high  for 
American  readers,  who  do  not  think  of 


Semitism  as  a  serious  menace.  "Reform 
the  Christians  who  are  still  masters  of 
the  world,  and  it  will  not  be  necessary  to 
exterminate  the  Jews     ..." 

There  is  sombre  power  in  the  sketch 
of  Baron  Moses  of  Goldschlammbach, 
who  went  mad  with  grief  because  men 
hated  him  for  gold-grabbing,  an  instinc- 
tive process  which  he  could  no  more  re- 
strain than  a  bird  can  help  singing,  and 
who  wandered  the  streets  begging, 
promising  himself  that  he  would  give 
his  millions  for  the  feeding  of  the  hun- 
gry if  one  charitable  passer-by  would 
drop  a  copper  into  his  wretched  out- 
stretched hand.  There  is  still  more  in 
the  rancor  of  the  poor  Galician  Jew  tailor 
who  is  forced  into  the  army  by  the 
trickery  of  his  wealthy  co-religionists, 
and  who  comes  home  to  reap  a  terrible 
vengeance.  There  is  droll  and  almost 
cheerful  humor  in  the  tribute  to  the  en- 
terprising son  of  Jacob  who  sold  the 
Tiger  a  two-dollar  pair  of  spectacles  for 
ten  dollars,  and  there  is  a  grotesque 
abandon,  which  is  not  without  precedent 
in  the  earlier  books,  in  the  irreverent 
anecdote  of  the  old  Israelite  whose  en- 
joyment of  Paradise  was  spoiled  by  the 
apostasy  of  his  son.  The  Tiger's  Ameri- 
can admirers  who  read  French  will  be 
interested  in  this  whimsical  setting  forth 
of  certain  of  his  vigorous  opinions. 

Gossip  has  been  saying  for  some  time 
that  M.  Clemenceau  was  on  the  point  of 
writing  his  memoirs.  But  now  that  he 
has  returned  to  Paris  from  his  Egyptian 
tour  and  can  speak  for  himself,  we  learn 
from  a  private  and  most  reliable  source 
"qu'il  n'est  pas  dans  ses  intentions 
actuelles  d'6crire." 

The  "Open  Vision"  by  Dr.  Horatio  W. 
Dresser  (Thomas  Y.  Crowell  Company) 
is  a  book  about  relations  with  the  dead. 
It  is  also  a  book  about  the  life  of  God 
in  the  human  spirit.  Its  art  lies  in  the 
combination  of  these  elements.  The  oc- 
cupancy of  the  human  soul  by  the  divine 
spirit  is  the  highest  conception  of  the 
highest  religions,  a  conception  that  may 
almost  be  said  to  attain  the  grandeur  of 
the  superhuman  without  falling  into  the 
cheapness  of  the  miraculous.  Spiritism 
rests  on  a  far  lower  plane.  Communica- 
tion with  the  dead  merely  as  the  dead 
is  neither  high  nor  low;  it  is  neutral 
with  the  same  neutrality  that  attaches 
to  communication  with  the  living.  But 
historically  the  instrumentalities,  human 
and  mechanical,  which  have  furthered 
the  alleged  communication  have  been 
sordid.  Dr.  Dresser's  object  is  to  clear 
spiritism  of  its  dross,  and  to  raise  it  to 
a  level  where  it  can  act  on  equal  terms 
and  in  close  conjunction  with  the  life  in 
God.  Accordingly,  he  throws  away  the 
mediums,  and  what  we  may  call  for 
brevity  the  media.  He  has  no  interest  in 
tables,  no  faith  in  experiments.     In  his 


632] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  57 


scheme  for  exchanges  between  the  two 
worlds,  spirit  is  to  act  upon  spirit  with- 
out the  intervention  of  a  medium,  and 
mind  is  to  influence  mind  without  the 
intervention  of  the  senses. 

If  these  are  tactics,  they  are  admirable 
tactics.  In  robbing  spiritism  of  half  the 
charms  which  make  it  interesting  to  its 
disciples,  they  strip  it  of  half  the  ob- 
jections which  alienate  and  irritate  its 
opponents.  The  question  is  whether  the 
shift  of  base  is  possible.  To  the  vast 
majority  of  seekers  the  agency  of  me- 
diums seems  more  effectual  than  their 
personal  efforts  in  producing  a  sense, 
authentic  or  illusory,  of  communication 
with  departed  spirits.  Moreover,  disen- 
chantments  await  the  reader  who  pauses 
over  the  examples  of  mystic  intimations 
supplied  by  Dr.  Dresser  from  the  store- 
house of  his  personal  experience.  He  is 
informed  of  the  perilous  nearness  of  a 
train,  of  the  whereabouts  of  a  missing 
diamond.  It  is  strange  that  a  divine 
being  who  prefers  the  uniformity  of  his 
operations  to  the  safety  of  Pompeii,  San 
Francisco,  or  Messina,  should  think  the 
life  of  Dr.  Dresser  or  the  recovery  of  a 
lost  jewel  a  sufficient  reason  for  a  breach 
in  that  routine.  Dr.  Dresser's  reasoning 
is  systematic,  but  not  powerful,  his  piety 
refined  but  not  robust;  his  style  expands 
discreetly  in  the  calm  of  a  featureless 
level 

Mr.  Theodore  Stanton  and  Mrs.  Stan- 
ton-Blatch  are  finishing  for  Messrs. 
Harper  and  Brothers  a  biography  on 
which  they  have  been  engaged  for  some 
years — that  of  Elizabeth  Cady  Stanton, 
who  died  in  1902,  leaving  a  mass  of 
documents,  letters,  and  notes  bearing  on 
the  reform  movements  which  charac- 
terized the  middle  of  the  last  century. 
This  work  will  be  especially  interesting 
for  the  light  which  it  throws  on  the 
whole  woman  suffrage  struggle,  for  Mrs. 
Stanton  was  first  in  America  to  make  the 
formal  and  public  demand  for  "the  politi- 
cal enfranchisement  of  women,"  as  the 
phrase  went  in  1848.  The  history  of 
the  long  effort,  now  on  the  verge  of  ac- 
complishment, for  the  securing  of  woman 
suffrage  by  Federal  amendment,  is  given 
here  in  a  manner  in  which  it  has  never 
been  presented  before. 

Mr.  George  Middleton  has  published 
six  new  one-act  plays  under  the  title 
"Masks"  (Holt).  That  Mr.  Middleton 
is  somebody  anybody  can  perceive.  The 
paper  jacket,  always  so  affectionate  to 
its  own  contents,  does  not  strain  the 
truth  when  it  praises  the  dexterity,  the 
frugality,  of  his  unbending  and  imperi- 
ous technique.  His  art  is  akin  to  mathe- 
matics. Apart  from  the  soundness  of 
the  fabric,  his  strength  lies  largely  in 
the  hardness,  the  firmness,  the  insistence 
of  the  individual  stroke.  Unfortunately 
for  Mr.  Middleton,  this  hardness  strikes 
inward,  and  the  virtue  of  the  technician 


becomes  the  limitation  and  incumbrance 
of  the  man.  In  his  plays,  every  sen- 
tence, every  phrase,  works,  but  it  works 
under  a  kind  of  duress,  and  the  best 
service  is  not  obtainable  from  characters 
and  situations  in  a  state  of  helotage. 
Donne's  famous  line,  "A  bracelet  of 
bright  hair  about  the  bone,"  might  sug- 
gest the  glittering  surface  and  hard  core 
of  every  one  of  the  half-dozen  plays  in 
"Masks." 

In  "Masks"  itself,  where  Mr.  Middle- 
ton  brings  into  his  own  play  two  imag- 
inary characters  from  his  hero's  play, 
he  hardens  and  cheapens  these  spectra 
to  the  injury  of  a  really  good  conception. 
In  the  "House,"  he  attempts  sentiment, 
and,  adroit  as  he  is,  gets  no  closer  to 
real  feeling  than  celluloid  gets  to  ivory. 
"Jim's  Beast"  has  a  novel  and  happy 
setting  in  a  museum  of  palaeontology, 
but,  when  the  husband  reclaims  the 
faltering  wife  by  contrasting  her  for- 
getfulness  of  her  children  with  the 
maternal  tenderness  of  the  fossil  bronto- 
saurus,  Mr.  Middleton  lets  us  see  that 
human  beings  for  him  are  very  close  to 
petrifactions.  The  "Reason,"  the  sixth 
play,  is  strong  and  vile.  As  drama  it  is 
excellent,  but  there  are  a  few  excep- 
tional infamies  in  life  the  recital  of 
which  amounts  to  collusion.  Such  is  Tom 
Sabine's  conduct  in  this  play. 

"The  attempt  to  escape  from  an  enemy 
country,"  says  Mr.  Eric  A.  Keith  in  "My 
Escape  from  Germany"  (Century  Co.), 
"viewed  as  a  sport,  though  its  devotees 
are  naturally  few  and  hope  to  become 
fewer,  has  a  technique  of  its  own."  Mr. 
Keith  ought  to  know.  He  got  away  three 
times;  the  first  time  he  was  taken  by  a 
ruse  after  he  had  crossed  the  border 
without  knowing  it;  the  second  try  did 
not  take  him  so  far;  the  third  was  suc- 
cessful. He  is  not  even  a  novice  at  writ- 
ing of  his  experience,  since  before  the 
peace  he  published  an  account  veiled  as 
to  many  details  for  the  protection  of 
those  he  left  behind.  He  is  a  Briton  and 
a  sportsman.  His  preface  discusses  the 
technique  of  the  game,  equipment  and 
the  like,  as  if  it  were  like  climbing  the 
Matterhorn;  a  matter  of  life  and  death, 
but  not  of  business.  Temperament  or 
schooling  enabled  him  to  keep  cool 
throughout  the  prolonged  emergency  of 
his  three  attempts;  the  habit  made  his 
attempt  successful,  but  it  does  not  make 
for  the  success  of  the  book  except  as  a 
convincing  document,  for  it  leaves  the 
tone  unemotional,  and  dulls  effects  which 
might  legitimately  show  more  color.  For 
this  the  author's  prison  life  would  amply 
account,  and  perhaps  it  is  hardly  fair 
to  mention  it,  since  the  book  has  thrill 
enough  in  its  mere  situation  to  satisfy 
any  ordinary  reader,  so  much,  in  fact, 
that  it  is  hard  to  comment  on  it  except 
in  terms  of  the  art  of  fiction.  "The 
Spy"  of  Cooper  stands  as  the  archetype 


of  situation  for  sustained  thrill,  for  from 
the  nature  of  his  mission  the  hero  is  in 
danger  at  every  turn  of  his  devious  way. 
His  success  is  to  make  his  friends  think 
him  a  foe  that  his  foes  may  believe  him 
a  friend;  his  friends  may  shoot  him  if 
he  succeeds,  and  his  foes  will  surely  do 
so  if  he  fails.  Second  only  to  this  situa- 
tion is  that  of  the  escaping  prisoner  in 
an  enemy  country.  A  moment's  peace 
is  not  so  much  as  a  breathing  space,  for 
you  never  know  till  it  is  over  that  it  is 
anything  more  than  a  deceptive  calm. 
Not  even  the  assurance  of  the  title  that 
the  end  shall  crown  the  work  can  rob  any 
page  of  its  ticklish  suspense.  You  read 
it  in  ravenous  haste,  draw  a  breath,  and 
go  back  over  the  details.  Then  you  lay 
it  aside  and  think  of  the  flight  through 
the  heather  in  "Kidnapped,"  Gerard's 
escape  from  the  tower  in  "The  Cloister 
and  the  Hearth,"  the  prison  delivery  in 
"St.  Ives,"  and  you  ponder  on  the  mys- 
terious nature  of  the  true  romance. 

"Text  criticism"  has  done  much  for 
modern  scholarship,  but  the  security  of 
its  results  must  evidently  rest  upon  the 
most  scrupulous  care  in  its  processes. 
To  base  some  revolutionary  thesis  as  to 
authorship  or  date  of  a  certain  text  upon 
the  presence  in  it  of  a  certain  number 
of  specific  peculiarities,  and  then  to  have 
some  more  accurate  observer  prove  that 
your  figures  are  radically  wrong,  and 
thus  that  your  thesis  is  bereft  of  the 
very  basis  on  which  you  chose  to  set  it, 
is  disconcerting,  to  say  the  least.  This 
is  just  what  an  American  Homeric 
scholar.  Professor  John  A.  Scott,  of 
Northwestern  University,  has  been  do- 
ing with  the  text  critics  who  have  been 
seeking,  since  the  days  of  Friedrich 
August  Wolf,  to  disprove  the  unity  of 
the  Homeric  poems,  on  the  ground  of 
irreconcilable  differences  in  their  vari- 
ous parts.  While  it  might  be  unsafe  to 
say  that  he  has  finally  put  the  separatist 
theory  out  of  court,  there  can  be  no  rea- 
sonable denial  that  he  has  made  wreck 
of  the  great  mass  of  alleged  textual  dis- 
crepancies upon  which  the  denial  of  unity 
has  been  so  confidently  based,  and  that 
he  has  left  little  ground  for  claim  to 
authoritative  scholarship  to  a  good  many 
who  have  busied  themselves  in  accumu- 
lating such  "discrepancies."  In  the 
March  number  of  the  Classical  Journal, 
Professor  Scott  tells  in  a  very  interest- 
ing way  how  years  of  study  of  the 
Homeric  text  have  brought  him  over 
from  his  early  acceptance  of  the  destruc- 
tive theory  to  a  firm  belief  that  the  Iliad 
and  Odyssey  are  the  work  of  one  great 
poetic  genius,  Homer,  and  that  we  have 
them  essentially  as  he  left  them,  with- 
out expansion,  contraction,  or  expurga- 
tion. "Schliemann  defied  the  authority 
of  higher  criticism  and  found  Troy;  the 
scholars  of  to-day  are  again  defying  that 
authority  and  are  finding  Homer." 


June  16,  1920] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[633 


Drama 

Barrie,  Galsworthy,  and 
Others 

IN  my  last  letter  I  complained  of  the 
dearth  of  plays  worth  writing  about; 
to-day  I  have  more  material  than  I  know 
what  to  do  with.  In  the  last  few  weeks 
we  have  had  a  sudden  rise  in  the  quality 
of  the  work  presented,  synchronizing 
with  a  rather  less  sudden  fall  in  the 
popularity  of  the  theatre  as  a  whole.  I 
do  not  think  that  there  is  any  relation 
of  cause  and  effect  between  these  phe- 
nomena. It  was  pure  chance  that  led 
Mr.  Galsworthy  and  Sir  James  Barrie 
to  break  their  long  silence  on  two  con- 
secutive evenings;  and  the  slump  in  re- 
ceipts, far  from  resulting  from  this 
rise  in  literary  values,  had  set  in  weeks, 
if  not  months,  before  it.  The  truth  sim- 
ply is  that  the  war  fever  which  kept  the 
theatres  full  whatever  rubbish  they  pre- 
sented, if  only  it  was  rubbishy  enough, 
has  at  last  subsided,  and  that  its  sub- 
sidence has  encouraged  serious  play- 
wrights to  creep  out  of  their  shells. 
Perhaps  they  may  suffer  temporarily 
from  the  general  cooling-off  of  the  public 
craze  for  the  theatre;  but  the  ultimate 
effect  of  the  slackening  of  an  unhealthy 
and  uncritical  craving  for  "shows"  of 
every  class  can  not  but  be  good  in  the 
main.  If  this  state  of  things  continues, 
the  demand  for  theatres  will  decline, 
rents  will  fall  to  a  reasonable  level,  and 
good  plays  will  no  longer  have  to  be  taken 
off  merely  because  they  do  not  absolutely 
fill  the  house  every  night  in  the  week. 

Sir  James  Barrie's  "Mary  Rose"  is  not 
&  play  which  gives  me,  personally,  very 
much  pleasure.  When  we  wander  beyond 
the  confines  of  reality,  I  think  it  should 
be  in  search  either  of  sheer  delightful- 
ness  (as  in  "A  Midsummer  Night's 
Dream"),  or  of  some  symbolic  or  phan- 
tasmagoric message  (as  in  "Faust"  or 
"Peer  Gynt").  Now  there  are  many  de- 
lightful details  in  "Mary  Rose,"  but  its 
fable  is  in  essence  profoundly  pessimistic, 
with  a  pessimism  which  is  not  serious, 
but,  so  to  speak,  capricious.  If  Sir 
James  Barrie  really  meant  to  tell  us  that 
life  was  at  the  mercy  of  occult  malevo- 
lences, such  as  those  which  shape  the 
destiny  of  his  heroine,  I  should  hear  him 
with  respect,  if  not  with  agreement. 
But  I  do  not  think  he  means  the  only 
message  which  can  rationally  be  ex- 
tracted from  his  story.  He  tells  it  sim- 
ply to  give  us  pleasure  of  a  pathetic, 
a  semi-tragic,  order;  and  somehow  or 
other  I  can  not  take  pleasure  in  such  a 
fantasy.  If  people  in  general  like  to 
exercise  their  imagination  on  these  lines, 
then  Sir  James  is  right  and  I  am  wrong ; 
for  there  is  certainly  nothing  unworthy 
or  unbeautiful  about  the  play. 
What   we   are    asked    to    conceive    is 


this:  An  ordinary  couple  of  well-to-do 
English  people,  resident  in  Sussex,  and 
differing  from  their  neighbors  only  in 
a  little  extra  amiability,  go  to  the  Heb- 
rides one  summer  with  their  thirteen- 
year-old    daughter,    Mary    Rose.      The 
father,  an  enthusiastic  fisherman,  is  in 
the  habit  of  taking  the  girl  to  an  islet, 
only  a  stone's  throw  from  the  coast;  and 
one  day,  while  his  back  is  turned  for 
a  moment,   she  vanishes   away.     After 
searching  every  possible  nook  and  cranny 
of   the    islet,    the   heartbroken    parents 
naturally  give  her  up  for  lost;  but  be- 
hold !  after  a  month,  she  turns  up  again 
on  the  very  spot  where  she  disappeared, 
and  without  the  smallest  knowledge  that 
anything  unusual  has  happened  to  her. 
Then  she  grows  up  into  a  marriageable 
maiden,  rather  child-like  for  her  years, 
but  otherwise  apparently  normal.     The 
uncanny  incident  in  her  past  has  been 
sedulously  concealed  from  her;  but  when 
a  young  naval  officer  proposes  for  her 
hand,  her  parents  quite  honorably  tell 
him  the  story.    With  the  intrepidity  of 
his  caste,  he  marries  her,  and  they  have 
a  son;  and  then,  carrying  intrepidity  to 
the  point  of  foolhardiness,  he  must  needs 
take  her  to  the  Hebrides,  and  picnic  on 
the  mystic  islet.    He  turns  his  back  for 
a  moment,  to  stamp  out  the  fire  they  have 
lit,  when  suddenly  a  burst  of  wild  music 
is  heard    (inaudible  to  the  lieutenant) 
and  Mary  Rose  walks  off  as  if  in  a  state 
of  somnambulism,  and  is  lost  to  mortal 
ken.     This   time   her   eclipse   lasts   for 
twenty-five  years,  at  the  end  of  which 
she  returns  to  her  Sussex  home,  as  young 
as  ever,  and  very  much  pained  to  find  her 
parents  quite  old  and  her  husband  mid- 
dle-aged.   Her  son  she  does  not  find,  for 
the  young  scapegrace  has  run  away  from 
home  and  gone  to  Australia.    Apparently 
— for  details  are  denied  us — she  dies  of 
chronic  anachronism,  a  distressing,  but 
fortunately  rare,  disease.    But  her  woe- 
ful weird  pursues  her  beyond  the  grave. 
She  disappears  only  too  easily  in  life, 
but  she  can  not  disappear  in  death.    Her 
ghost  haunts  the  Sussex  manor-house, 
sadly  depreciating  its  value ;  until  at  last 
her  runaway  son  arrives,  in  the  person 
of    an    Australian    soldier.      Then    one 
would  have  thought  that  her  perturbed 
spirit  might  have  found  rest;   but   Sir 
James  Barrie  will  have  nothing  to  do 
with  such  facile  optimism.     She  is  as 
incurably  anachronistic  in  the  spirit  as 
in  the  flesh,  and  declines  to  recognize 
her  child  in  this  strapping  Anzac.    What 
occurs  at  the  very  end  is  not  quite  clear, 
but  I  hope,  and  almost  venture  to  believe, 
that  she  permanently  disappears  into  the 
Celtic  Twilight  from  which  she  originally 
emerged.    But  how  she  came  to  be  born 
of    ordinary    English    parents    in    the 
County  of  the  South  Saxons  remains  a 
harassing    mystery.       If    her  forbears 
had  been  second-sighted  Gaels  we  could 
have  understood  it  better. 


Turning    to    Mr.    Galsworthy's    play, 
"The  Skin  Game,"  we  find  ourselves  on 
solid  English  earth  again.    There  are  no 
"harps  in  the  air,"  no  vanishing  ladies, 
no  semi-malignant  ghosts.     (I  forgot  to 
mention  that,  if  I  rightly  understood  the 
matter,  the  ghost  of  Mary  Rose  came 
within  an  ace  of  doing  grievous  bodily 
injury  to  her  son.)     "The  Skin  Game," 
an    inelegant    expression    wholly    unfa- 
miliar to  me,  is  understood  to  be  roughly 
equivalent  to  "War  to  the  Knife."    The 
combatants  are  representatives  of  two 
classes,  the  static  squirearchy  and  the 
dynamic     plutocracy     or     mechanarchy. 
Mr.    Hornblower,    a    rather    aggressive 
member  of  the  latter  class,  comes  to  set- 
tle in  the  immediate  neighborhood  of  the 
ancestral  "place"  of  the  Hillcrist  family. 
Their  relations   might  have  been   ami- 
cable enough  but  for  the  fact  that  Mrs. 
Hillcrist  is  of  a  masterful,  opinionated, 
and  decidedly  "stuck-up"  character.    She 
offensively  closes  her  doors  against  the 
Hornblower  family,  with  the  result  that 
Mr.  Hornblower  threatens  to  buy  a  piece 
of  land  within  three  hundred  yards  of 
the  Hillcrist  mansion,   and    to   erect   a 
factory  upon  it.    The  land  is  put  up  to 
auction,  the  Hillcrists  strain  every  nerve 
to    secure    it,    but   Hornblower    defeats 
them  by  a  rather  mean  trick.     Mean- 
while Mrs.  Hillcrist  has  learnt  a  secret 
about  Hornblower's  daughter-in-law  (his 
wife  is  dead)  which,  if  revealed,  will  not 
only  destroy  the  happiness  of  the  Horn- 
blower household,  but  drive  them  from 
the  district.     Against  the  will  of  her 
rather  ineffectual  husband,  she  uses  this 
knowledge  to  terrorize  Hornblower  into 
re-selling  the  plot  of  land.    It  is  intended 
that  the  secret  shall  be  disclosed  to  Horn- 
blower alone;  but  it  inevitably  leaks  out 
and  becomes  common  property,  to  the 
total    discomfiture    and    misery    of    the 
Hornblower   clan.      The   squirearchy    is 
thus  victorious,  but  at  the  cost  of  its  self- 
respect;  and  the  moral  seems  to  be  that 
class  warfare  is  embittered  by  a  defi- 
ciency on  both  sides  of  what  Matthew 
Arnold  used  to  call  "epieikeia  or  sweet- 
reasonableness." 

Moral  or  no  moral,  the  drama  is  a  very 
strong  one.  Many  of  the  scenes — not- 
ably that  of  the  auction — are  breathless 
in  their  tension.  Some  critics  disparage 
it  as  melodramatic,  but  they  are  surely 
wrong.  The  play  represents  the  clash 
of  character  with  character,  and  the  fact 
that  the  clash  happens  to  be  a  violent  one 
does  not  detract  from  its  artistic  qual- 
ity. I  have  been  a  little  afraid  of  late 
years  that  Mr.  Galsworthy  was  losing  his 
grip  of  the  stage;  but  it  has  never  been 
stronger  than  in  "The  Skin  Game." 

The  same  week  which  brought  Mr. 
Galsworthy  and  Sir  James  Barrie  to  the 
front  witnessed  the  production  of  an- 
other noteworthy  play,  "The  Grain  of 
Mustard-Seed,"  by  Mr.  H.  M.  Harwood. 
This   is  a  really  thoughtful  and  witty 


63-1] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  57 


political  comedy,  the  best  thing  of  its 
kind  since  Mr.  Granville  Barker's 
"Waste."  We  see  how  a  self-made  man 
and  a  political  idealist,  who  has  elab- 
orated a  very  important  housing  scheme, 
is  at  first  welcomed  by  the  Government, 
and  then  summarily  "turned  down" 
when  he  declines  to  emasculate  his 
scheme  out  of  respect  to  inveterate  preju- 
dices and  vested  interests.  The  portrait 
of  Lord  Henry  Markham,  M.P.,  the  cyn- 
ical party  wire-puller,  is  admirable  and 
apposite.  Indeed  the  play,  though  it 
wore  the  colors  of  no  party,  abounded  in 
lines  which  were  intimately  applicable 
to  the  present  situation.  It  was  much 
less  satisfactory  on  its  sentimental  than 
on  its  political  side.  The  middle-aged 
idealist,  the  millionaire  proprietor  of  a 
patent  food,  was  made  to  fall  in  love 
with  a  wisp  of  a  girl,  a  daughter  of  the 
governing  classes,  supposed  to  be  a  rep- 
resentative of  post-war  pessimism,  cyni- 
cism, and  moral  laxity — in  fact,  a  thor- 
oughly bad  lot.  I  feared  at  one  time 
that  the  ennobling  influence  of  "Pongo" 
(the  patent  food)  was  going  to  effect  a 
diange  of  heart  in  this  worthless  young 
person,  and  that  all  was  going  to  end 
happily.  Mr.  Harwood,  however,  spared 
us  this  extreme  of  conventional  opti- 
mism. He  left  his  hero  speechlessly  flab- 
bergasted by  the  revelation  of  his  lady- 
love's moral  obliquity.  But  the  whole 
idea  of  this  love-interest  was  merely  the- 
atrical. The  pure-hearted  man  of  the 
people  marries  in  his  own  class  and  does 
not  go  a-gadding  after  corrupt  slips  of 
aristocracy. 

That  Mr.  Harwood's  heroine  is  not 
really,  or  at  any  rate  not  characteris- 
tically, a  post-war  type,  may  be  gathered 
from  the  fact  that  she  is  very  nearly 
duplicated  by  the  heroine  of  a  comedy 
by  Mr.  H.  V.  Esmond,  "Birds  of  a 
Feather,"  which  was  written  several 
years  ago,  though  produced  only  the 
other  day.  This  is  a  play  of  really  high 
dramatic  quality;  but  its  intellectual  and 
moral  standpoint  is  that  of  about  twenty 
years  ago — whence,  no  doubt,  its  lack  of 
success. 

Miss  Gertrude  Jennings,  authoress  of 
the  very  successful  "Young  Person  in 
Pink,"  has  followed  it  up  with  another 
three-act  play,  "Husbands  for  All," 
which  is  much  less  happily  inspired. 
Miss  Jennings  takes  us  forward  to  the 
year  1925,  and  imagines  that  an  auto- 
cratic Director  of  Reconstruction  has 
hit  upon  the  plan  of  correcting  the  short- 
age of  males  by  legalizing  "lateral  mar- 
riages," or,  in  plain  language,  bigamy. 
Not  only  are  such  marriages  declared 
legal,  but  every  husband  who  has  fewer 
than  seven  children  is  compelled,  on  pain 
of  imprisonment  in  Dartmoor  as  a 
conscientious  objector,  to  contract  a 
"lateral"  union.  Miss  Jennings'  gift  of 
bright  dialogue  enables  her  to  make  this 
skit  fairly  entertaining;  but  her  invent- 


ive and  constructive  powers  are,  un- 
fortunately, by  no  means  on  a  level  with 
her  wit. 

The  Shakespeare  Festival  at  Stratford 
this  year  has  been  noteworthy,  not  so 
much  for  exceptionally  good  acting,  as 
for  the  success  with  which  the  producer, 
Mr.  Bridges  Adams,  has  solved  the  prob- 
lem of  combining  the  advantages  of  the 
non-scenic  Elizabethan  platform  with 
those  of  the  modern  pictorial  stage.  By 
the  skillful  employment  of  movable 
columns,  Mr.  Adams  secures  what  is 
practically  an  expanding  and  contract- 
ing proscenium,  by  aid  of  which  he  can 
change  his  scenery,  or  perhaps  one 
should  say  indicate  changes  of  scene, 
without  any  appreciable  loss  of  time.  He 
suggests  the  environment  of  the  action 
without  building  up  realistic  stage-pic- 
tures; and  that  this  is  the  true  principle 
of  Shakespearean  mounting  there  can 
be  little  doubt.  Successful  experiments 
in  the  same  direction  have  been  made  at 
the  Birmingham  Repertory  Theatre,  and 
(with  a  touch  of  regrettable  eccentric- 
ity) by  Mr.  Nigel  Playfair  at  the  Lyric 
Theatre,  Hammersmith.  The  abolition 
of  the  long  waits  necessitated  by  the 
changing  of  heavy  "sets"  of  the  old 
Lyceum  school  is  a  most  valuable  reform. 
Much  more  questionable  is  the  use  that 
is  being  made  of  this  new  facility.  The 
craze  of  the  moment  is  for  what  I  have 
ventured  to  call  "holus-bolus  Shake- 
speare"— revivals  in  which  no  single 
word,  however  obsolete,  however  incom- 
prehensible, however  manifestly  corrupt, 
shall  on  any  account  be  omitted.  That, 
at  all  events,  is  the  ideal;  but  some  of 
the  longer  plays,  such  as  "Hamlet," 
"Richard  III,"  "Cymbeline"  and  "Corio- 
lanus,".  can  not  even  be  galloped  through 
within  the  limits  of  a  modern  theatrical 
evening.     Mr.  Bridges  Adams  gave  us 


three  hours  and  three-quarters  of  "Ham- 
let"— far  too  much  for  the  endurance  of 
any  ordinary  audience — yet  even  to  this 
end  he  had  to  make  considerable  cuts. 
His  "Cymbeline,"  from  which  he  cut 
something  like  500  lines,  lasted  three 
hours  and  fifteen  minutes.  At  Birming- 
ham they  raced  through  "Othello,"  minus 
some  60  lines,  in  three  hours;  but  the 
play  was  recited  rather  than  acted,  and, 
furthermore,  recited  with  extreme  verbal 
inaccuracy.  It  need  scarcely  be  said  that 
our  latter-day  purists  will  not  spare  us 
any  of  the  obscene  and  otherwise  obsolete 
expressions  which  are  far  less  offensive 
in  Shakespeare  than  in  his  contempora- 
ries, but  are  nevertheless  disagreeably 
frequent  in  some  of  his  plays.  The 
whole  movement  is  one  of  extravagant 
re-action  from  Irving-Tree-Daly  methods 
of  reckless  mutilation.  Common  sense 
will  presently  re-assert  itself,  and  it  will 
be  recognized  that  Shakespeare  is  to  be 
honored  in  the  spirit  and  not  in  the  let- 
ter. Since  we  know  that  Elizabethan 
performances  seldom  exceeded  two  hours 
and  a  half,  we  are  bound  to  conclude 
that  in  his  longer  plays  he  wrote  a  good 
deal  that  he  did  not  intend  to  be  spoken. 
But  even  if  all  his  plays  could,  without 
gabbling,  be  performed  within  a  reason- 
able limit  of  time,  it  would  remain  mere 
folly  to  speak  passages  which  the  lapse 
of  centuries  has  deprived  of  all  their 
savor,  and  even  rendered  absolutely  in- 
comprehensible. It  is  not  only  inartistic 
and  absurd,  but  positively  immoral,  to 
force  actors  to  speak  and  pretend  to 
understand  lines  which,  even  if  not  cor- 
rupt, are  the  battle-ground  of  the  com- 
mentators, and  have  no  vital  meaning 
for  any  human  creature. 

William  Archer 
London,  May  6 


EDUCATIONAL  SECTION 

University  Training 
for  Business 


ALTHOUGH  nearly  all  the  universi- 
ties of  the  United  States  now  have 
departments,  schools  or  colleges  of  com- 
merce or  business  administration,  there 
still  seems  to  be  something  incongruous 
in  this  alliance  of  the  university  with 
the  business  world.  Possibly  this  is  be- 
cause the  movement  is  so  recent — the 
Wharton  School  of  the  University  of 
Pennsylvania  was  founded  in  1880  and 
the  School  of  Commerce  of  New  York 
University  in  1900 — but  more  probably 
it  is  because  of  the  mediaeval  origin  of 
the  university  as  a  corporation  or  guild 
of  masters  and  scholars  chiefly  inter- 
ested in  theological  studies  and  organ- 
ized for  mutual  protection  against  un- 


friendly townsmen.  Of  course,  they 
were  always  willing,  as  now,  to  receive 
doles  from  charitable  citizens,  but  the 
thought  of  making  other  than  spiritual 
return  never  entered  their  mind. 

But  it  was  not  long  until  the  scope  of 
university  activities  widened  to  include 
medical  and  legal  studies,  as  well  as  phi- 
losophy or  the  liberal  arts,  until  in  most 
universities  the  four  traditional  facul- 
ties were  established  for  the  training  of 
clerics,  physicians,  lawyers,  and  teachers. 
After  this  the  universities  ceased  to  give 
birth  to  new  faculties;  and  even  the 
universities  of  America,  which  were 
built  on  European  models,  long  held 
aloof  from  a  number  of  occupations 
which  were  becoming  learned  profes- 
sions in  all  but  the  name. 

Truly  sensible  people,  who  are,  to  be 
sure,  few  in  number,  do  not  care  a  fig 


June  16,  1920] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[685 


I 

I 


whether  their  occupation  be  called  a 
trade  or  a  profession,  but  in  point  of 
fact  a  learned  profession  has  certain 
marks  or  characteristics  which  distin- 
guish it  rather  clearly  from  a  typical 
trade,  and  give  it  a  claim  to  special  con- 
sideration from  the  university.  The 
chief  of  these  is  the  scientific  basis  of 
the  occupation — an  organized  body  of 
knowledge  of  sufficient  volume  to  justify 
a  mature  person's  spending  some  years 
in  the  study  of  it  before  entering  fully 
into  the  activities  of  his  career.  From 
this  point  of  view  the  list  of  learned 
professions  should  probably  be  extended 
to  include  literature  and  the  fine  arts, 
military  and  naval  science,  engineering, 
scientific  agriculture,  dentistry,  phar- 
macy, journalism — and  business.  Of 
course,  it  is  possible  to  write  without 
literary  training,  to  fight  without  mili- 
tary science,  to  farm  without  being  an 
agriculturist,  to  pull  teeth  without  being 
a  dentist,  to  sell  goods  without  being  a 
business  man.  Genius  and  folly  know 
no  rules,  but  ordinary  men  require  years 
of  study  and  experience  for  the  mastery 
of  any  really  learned  profession. 

Some  successful  business  men  question 
the  validity  of  this  argument,  and  insist 
that  cadets  should  enter  business  at  an 
early  age  and  grow  up  with  it,  gaining 
sxperience  and  picking  up  what  theory 
they  may  need  as  they  go  along.  Do 
not  such  conservatives  overlook,  among 
other  important  considerations,  their 
own  unusual  ability,  the  fact  that  pio- 
neer days  are  almost  over,  the  rapid 
changes  that  are  going  on  in  business, 
and  the  new  type  of  business  man  that 
is  coming  into  the  field?  Apprentice- 
ship, it  is  true,  is  the  old  and  tried 
method  of  training — tried  and  found 
wanting.  Formerly  all  the  learned  pro- 
fessions were  recruited  in  this  way;  the 
aspirant  to  holy  orders  began  as  a  nov- 
ice, servant  to  the  alder  clerics;  the 
budding  lawyer  swept  the  floor  in  a  law 
office;  the  young  medico  mixed  pills  for 
lome  physician  or  was  apprenticed  to  a 
lurgeon.  After  a  time,  as  the  volume 
of  knowledge  increased,  it  was  found 
that  broader  and  sounder  instruction 
could  be  obtained  in  the  schools,  and  to 
them  the  most  enterprising  students 
flocked,  leaving  their  belated  brethren 
to  learn  a  weird  mixture  of  truth  and 
error  in  the  service  of  quacks  and  petti- 
foggers. 

For  all  that,  we  still  find  a  few  physi- 
cians, lawyers,  clergymen,  and  teachers 
who  dislike  the  schools,  and  some  busi- 
ness men  who  hold  that  nothing  worth 
while  about  business  can  be  taught  in 
the  university.  Such  distrust  of  learn- 
ing reminds  one  of  the  quaint  Greek 
skeptic  whose  philosophy  was  summed 
up  in  the  formula  "Nothing  is;  if  any- 
thing is  it  can  not  be  known;  if  it  can 
be  known  it  can  not  be  taught."  Pos- 
(Continued  on  page  636) 


To  underttand  and  discuss   intelligently  this  vital   question 
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With  an  Introductory  Letter  By 
COL.   E.   M.   HOUSE 

It  is  a  day-by-day  chronicle  of  just  what  occurred,  with  all  the  sidelights; 
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of  intrigue  and  statesmanship;  the  dramatic  incidents;  the  secret  conclaves  and 
understandings;  the  rise  and  fall  of  the  Fourteen  Points;  the  shattering  of  high 
ideals;  the  battle  of  Covenant  versus  Alliance;  the  struggle  for  the  Spoils  of  War; 
the  matching  of  wits  between  Europe  and  America  in  the  greatest  diplomatic 
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by  superheated  steam  and  cannot  rust. 
These  qualities  alone  give  it  a  wide  use 
in  all  industries.  Besides  this  it  resists 
alkalies  and  most  acids  and  is  tough 
and  ductile. 

The  name  Monel  is  given  to  a  line  of 
metal  products  produced  by  The  Inter- 
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636] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  57 


{Continued  from  page  635) 
sibly  we  should  complete  the  chain  of 
sophistry  by  adding  a  fourth  proposi- 
tion to  the  effect  that,  if  anything  can 
be  taught,  it  can  not  be  applied  in  actual 
practice. 

The  fact  is  that  the  stock  of  knowledge 
that  has  been  accumulated  by  genera- 
tions of  business  men  has  not  died  with 
them,  but  has  been  recorded  in  books, 
magazines,  reports,  and  othor  forms,  and 
is  now  so  great  that  no  business  man 
can  keep  up  with  it.  Indeed,  the  de- 
mands of  business  are  so  exacting  that 
many  business  men,  immersed  in  affairs, 
can  scarcely  find  time  to  read  the  daily 
papers  and  glance  through  the  trade 
journals,  while  the  economic  and  finan- 
cial periodicals  are  quite  neglected,  and 
of  the  numerous  books  and  reports 
treating  of  important  phases  of  business 
economics  they  do  not  even  know  the 
names.  Apart  from  the  disheartening 
lack  of  time,  one  trouble  is  that  they  do 
not  know  what  to  read;  another,  that 
they  have  not  formed  habits  of  study; 
a  third,  that  they  lack  the  stimulus  of 
class  discussion  and  the  guidance  of 
competent  teachers.  No  doubt,  capable 
and  determined  men  can  overcome  all 
these  obstacles,  but  the  way  of  self -edu- 
cation is  hard,  and  those  who  have  not 
had  preliminary  professional  schooling 
are  severely  handicapped.  The  school- 
trained  men  may  have  more  theory  than 
practice;  but  the  theorist  will  soon  gain 
practical  experience,  while  the  mere 
practitioner  can  seldom,  if  ever,  pick  up 
all  the  theory  that  he  needs. 

The  logic  of  the  situation  has,  in  fact, 
forced  the  universities  to  make  provision 
for  the  new  disciplines,  and  has  com- 
pelled all  but  the  most  conservative  busi- 
ness man  to  admit  that  the  coming  gen- 
eration of  business  executives — if  not 
those  in  subordinate  positions — should 
have  a  schooling  in  business  principles 
and  methods  such  as  they  themselves  did 
not  and  could  not  obtain.  The  only 
serious  obstacle  in  the  way  of  carrying 
out  plans  for  the  higher  education  of 
business  men  is  the  difficulty  of  obtain- 
ing competent  teachers.  But  this  ob- 
stacle is  by  no  means  insuperable.  The 
trouble  is  due  to  the  poverty  of  the  uni- 
versity rather  than  to  any  inherent  im- 
possibility of  teaching  the  mysteries  of 
business.  All  professional  schools  have 
been  confronted  with  the  same  problem, 
but  the  best  of  them  have  long  since 
solved  it,  partly  by  finding  practitioners 
who  can  give  a  portion  of  their  time  to 
the  schools,  partly  by  inducing  experi- 
enced men  to  retire  from  practice  and 
give  the  whole  of  their  time  to  the  work 
of  teaching.  Besides,  the  best  universi- 
ties already  have  competent  teachers  of 
commercial  geography,  economics,  money 
and  banking,  corporation  finance,  trans- 
portation, accounting,  business  law,  sta- 
tistics,   insurance,   and   other   standard 


courses,  and  it  is  only  for  the  more  prac- 
tical subjects,  such  as  business  organiza- 
tion and  management,  that  it  is  difficult 
to  arrange. 

Educational  movements  such  as  this 
are  of  the  greatest  significance  as  indi- 
cating a  spirit  of  co-operation  and  mu- 
tual appreciation  between  the  universi- 
ties and  business  men  that  should  result 
in  great  good  for  both  parties.  The 
standards  of  business  efficiency  and 
ethics  should  be  raised  by  the  influence 
of  university  ideals,  and  academic  ways 
of  thought  and  action  should  derive 
benefit  from  contact  with  the  practical 
affairs  of  business  life.  The  one  danger 
to  be  feared  is  the  growth  of  a  tendency 
to  regard  the  practical  and  tangible  re- 
sults at  which  the  business  education  so 
largely  aims  as  setting  a  standard  to 
which  university  study  as  a  whole  should 
conform.  But  the  right  way  to  guard 
against  that  danger  is  not  to  refuse 
recognition  of  the  part  the  university 
may  play  in  business  education,  but  to 
maintain  in  full  vigor  and  authority 
those  higher  intellectual  functions  which 
must,  in  the  future  as  in  the  past,  be 
the  heart  and  centre  of  the  university's 
life. 

THERE  is  a  kind  of  squinting  optim- 
ism in  the  "talks  to  students  and 
graduates"  which  President  Hadley  has 
brought  together  under  the  title  of  "The 
Moral  Basis  of  Democracy"  (Yale  Uni- 
versity Press).  "I  wish  I  could  think," 
he  says,  "that  the  world  to-day  is  as 
sound  of  head  as  it  is  right  of  heart." 
No  doubt,  he  adds,  people  are  more  ready 
to-day  than  ever  before  to  think  about 
their  conduct  and  its  consequences;  but 
still  the  complexity  of  life  has  outstript 
the  growth  of  thought,  so  that  the  need  is 
to  raise  our  intelligence  up  to  an  equality 
with  our  goodness  of  heart.  So  it  is  that 
all  through  these  talks  President  Had- 
ley stresses  the  need  of  taking  thought 
in  the  political  and  social  problems 
that  must  confront  the  college  man  when 
he  goes  out  into  the  world.  That,  he  be- 
lieves, is  the  true  messages  of  the  Gospel, 
that  men  should  not  only  desire  to  do 
right  but  should  reflect  more  earnestly 
upon  what  is  right.  Ah,  well-a-day!  It 
is  pleasant  to  know  that  our  hearts  are 
in  the  right  place,  that  we  are  no  longer 
greedy  and  selfish  and  overbearing  and 
belligerent  by  nature;  it  is  wholesome 
doctrine  to  tell  us  to  take  better  heed  of 
our  acts  in  our  universal  desire  to  serve 
the  world.  Yet  two  things  we  seem  to 
miss  in  these  eminently  useful  and  up- 
lifting discourses.  We  should  like  now 
and  then  to  hear  a  word  addressed  to 
those  who  still  are  conscious  of  the  old 
Adam  of  unrighteousness  in  the  heart, 
and  we  should  like  also  a  plain  statement 
now  and  then  that  education  is  a  good 
thing  in  itself,  in  the  joys  and  consola- 
tions it  may  bring,  with  no  thought  of 


serving  the  world.  This  "service,"  it  is  a 
noble  idea.  But  somehow,  hearing  it  so 
frequently,  we  can  not  forget  the  idle 
story  of  that  land  where  everybody  pros- 
pered by  taking  in  everybody  else's  , 
washing.  Something  like  this  must  have 
occurred  to  Epictetus  when,  in  his  hum- 
ble school  at  Nicopolis,  he  had  this  con- 
versation with  a  student  anxious  to  for- 
get himself  in  service: 

"But  my  country,"  says  he,  "will  lack  assist- 
ance, so  far  as  lies  in  me." 

Once  more  I  ask,  What  assistance  do  you 
mean  ?  It  will  not  owe  colonnades  or  baths  to 
you.  What  of  that?  It  does  not  owe  shoes  to 
the  blacksmith  or  arms  to  the  shoemaker;  it  is 
sufficient  if  each  man  fulfills  his  own  function. 
Would  you  do  it  no  good  if  you  secured  to  it 
anotlier  faithful  and  self-respecting  citizen? 

"Yes." 

Well,  then,  you  would  not  be  useless  to  it. 

"What  place  then  shall  I  have  in  the  city?" 

Whatever  place  you  can  hold  while  you  keep 
your  character  for  honor  and  self-respect.  But 
if  you  are  going  to  lose  these  qualities  in  try- 
ing to  benefit  your  city,  what  benefit,  I  ask, 
would  you  have  done  her  when  you  attain  to 
the  perfection  of  being  lost  to  shame  and 
honor? 

LATIN  scholarship  was  caught  by  the 
war  in  the  middle  stage  of  one  of  its 
most  laborious  and  important  modern  en- 
terprises, the  preparation  and  publica- 
tion of  the  "Thesaurus  Linguae  Latinse." 
The  material  had  been  assorted  and  ar- 
ranged in  due  order,  many  scholars  were 
at  work  upon  their  assigned  portions, 
and  publication  had  reached  about  the 
middle  of  the  fifth  volume.  As  the  work 
was  being  done  in  Germany,  under  the 
auspices  of  the  five  learned  Academies  of 
Berlin,  GOttingen,  Leipsic,  Munich,  and 
Vienna,  the  stress  of  war  soon  brought  it 
virtually  to  a  standstill,  through  inroads 
on  its  editorial  staff,  scarcity  of  printing 
materials,  and  disarrangement  of  its 
finances.  One  fascicle,  the  sixth  of  Vol- 
ume V,  was  printed  in  1915,  and  has  just 
reached  American  subscribers.  At  the 
same  time  comes  word  that  the  under- 
taking is  in  serious  financial  distress, 
and  an  effort  is  now  in  progress  among 
American  philologists  to  raise  a  fund 
sufficient  to  avoid  immediate  disaster.  Is 
it  not  possible  to  find  in  America  a  more 
radical  and  profitable  method  of  relief? 
The  work  is  of  importance  not  merely  to 
a  small  group  of  Latinists,  but  to  every 


The  Brick  Row  Book  Shop,  Inc. 

of  New  Haven 
Announces  the  opening  of  its 

NEW  YORK  BOOK  ROOMS 

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Opposite  the  RUz-Carlton 

Visitors  will  find  here  good  books, 
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I 


June  16,  1920] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[637 


branch  of  learning  connected  with  Latin, 
either  directly  or  indirectly.  Some  speedy 
means  of  carrying  it  to  completion  ought 
to  be  found — speedy,  of  course,  as  is 
consistent  with  its  own  standard  of  thor- 
oughness and  scholarship.  We  have  in 
this  country,  at  Washington,  an  institu- 
tion which,  according  to  the  declared 
purpose  of  its  founder,  "shall  in  the 
broadest  and  most  liberal  manner  en- 
courage investigation,  research,  and  dis- 
covery." It  would  be  an  admirable  illus- 
tration of  that  breadth  and  liberality 
which  stands  at  the  head  of  their  donor's 
deed  of  trust  for  the  Trustees  of  the 
Carnegie  Institution  to  tender  to  the 
management  of  the  "Thesaurus"  a  grant 
sufficient  to  permit  a  complete  reorganiza- 
tion of  their  editorial  staff,  and  assure 
publication  as  rapidly  as  the  matter  can 
be  put  in  shape.  A  number  of  American 
scholars  were  engaged  in  this  work  at  the 
outbreak  of  the  war,  and  a  still  greater 
number  could  easily  be  enlisted,  if  funds 
were  available. 

The  Reconstruction  of 

France   through 

Agriculture 

FRANCE  has  always  been  essentially 
an  agricultural  country.  At  the 
present  time,  about  half  her  population 
is  rural.  She  has  few  great  industrial 
or  commercial  cities,  but  many  villages. 
From  this  point  of  view,  the  appearance 
of  France  has  changed  but  little  since  the 
Middle  Ages.  The  great  alterations  of 
the  nineteenth  century,  which  trans- 
formed the  conditions  of  economic  life, 
did  not  affect  our  country  to  a  degree 
comparable  to  that  seen  elsewhere.  Yet 
few  countries  have  undergone,  in  the 
course  of  ages,  crises  so  grave  as  those 
through  which  France  has  passed.  And 
few  have  known  how  more  rapidly  to 
heal  their  wounds;  this  is  owing 
especially  to  the  richness  of  her  soil,  the 
evenness  of  her  climate,  and  the  per- 
sistent industry  of  her  peasant  popula- 
tion. A  class  destined  by  its  very  nature 
to  feel  most  disagreeably  the  weight  of 
wars,  foreign  or  civil,  the  class  from 
which  are  recruited  the  hardiest  soldiers, 
the  rural  population  has  paid  a  heavy 
tribute  in  the  recent  war.  Statistics 
show  that  of  our  1,500,000  dead,  the 
peasants  have  furnished  55  per  cent.,  in- 
dustrial laborers  18  per  cent.,  clerks,  mer- 
chants, and  professional  men  27  per  cent. 
And  if  the  war  has  ruined  certain  of  our 
most  prosperous  industrial  cities,  it  has 
likewise  devastated  those  of  our  prov- 
inces most  advanced  in  agriculture  and 
furnishing  our  finest  hai-vests  of  cereals 
and  sugar  beets. 

Our  supply  of  cattle  has  been  reduced 
{Continued  on  page  638) 


^      Library 


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THB- 

LOEB 

A    Modern   Library    of  Classical   Greek   ond 
Latin  Texts,  with  Parallel  English  Translations 

Edited  by  E.  Capp*.  Ph.  D.,  LL.  D.;  T.  E.  Pac«,  Utt.D.,  and  W.  H. 
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638] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  57 


(Continued  from  page  637) 
no  less  by  requisitions,  by  destruction 
due  to  the  invader,  and  by  the  necessity  ■ 
of  feeding  immense  armies.  Finally,  the 
threat  of  failure  in  the  bread  supply,  the 
basis  of  French  alimentation,  led  the  Gov- 
ernment to  adopt  a  wheat  policy  the  fatal 
consequences  of  which  we  now  appre- 
ciate. The  principle  having  been  asserted 
that  it  was  necessarj',  by  every  means,  to 
avoid  increasing  the  price  of  bread,  this 
price  has  been  kept  far  below  the  cost 
of  production,  the  state  making  good  the 
difference.  The  fixing  of  the  price  of 
wheat  has  been  managed  in  such  a  way 
that  a  paradoxical  situation  has  been 
reached  in  which  the  raising  of  wheat  is 
less  profitable  than  that  of  oats,  rye,  or 
barley.  Hence,  there  is  a  decrease  in 
acreage  sown  to  wheat,  the  peasant  find- 
ing it  more  advantageous  to  devote  him- 
self to  other  crops. 

To  so  many  causes  of  impoverishment 
may  be  added  the  devastation  of  our  for- 
ests, sacrificed  to  the  demands  of  the 
national  defense,  or  scientifically  de- 
stroyed by  the  enemy,  or,  finally,  an- 
nihilated by  the  rage  of  battle. 

In  consequence  of  the  war,  then, 
French  agriculture  finds  itself  obliged 
to  face  a  crisis  of  unprecedented  gravity. 
With  a  greatly  reduced  supply  of  manual 
labor,  with  ten  departments  ruined  for 
long  years  to  come,  its  problem  is  to  pro- 
duce at  least  as  much  as  before  1914 — 


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MORTIMER  N.  BUCKNER,  President 
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TRUSTEES 


Otto  T.  Bannard 
S.  Reading  Bertron 

iames  A.  Blair 
lortimer  N.  Backner 
James  C.  Colgate 
Alfred  A.  Cook 
Arthur  T.  Cumnock 
Robert  W.  de  Forest 
John  B.  Dennis 
Philip  T.  Dodge 
George  Doubleday 
Samuel  H.  Fisher 
John  A.  Garrer 
Benjamin  S.  Guinness 


F.  N.  Hoffstot 
Buchanan  Houston 
Walter  Jennings 
Darwin  P.  Kingsley 
John  C.  McCair 
Ogden  L.  MilU 
Tolin  J.  Mitchell 
James  Parmelee 
Henry  C.  Phipps 
Norman  P.  Ream 
Dean  Sage 
Joseph  J.   Slocum 
Myles  T ierney 
Clarence  H.  WooUey 


Uembere  of  the  Netc   York  Clearing  House  Asso- 
ciation  and   of   the   Federal  Reserve   System 


even  more,  if  the  country  would  free  it- 
self in  some  degree  from  the  heavy 
tribute  which  it  must  pay  to  the  out- 
sider in  consequence  of  the  importation 
of  commodities  indispensable  to  its  life. 
Still  further,  the  entire  year  1919  was 
marked  by  evidences  of  anxiety,  on  the 
part  both  of  the  Government  and  of  in- 
dividuals, concerning  the  farmers.  This 
was  rather  unusual,  the  foremost  thought 
being,  heretofore,  to  satisfy  the  demands 
of  the  laborers,  strongly  organized  in 
their  unions,  rather  than  those  of  the 
peasants,  isolated  on  their  farms.  Nor 
were  political  considerations  foreign  to 
this  granting  of  attention  to  the  Social- 
istic proletariat,  rather  than  to  the  con- 
servative mass  of  the  rural  districts. 

And  yet,  immediately  after  the  vic- 
tory, everyone  turned  to  him  whom 
journalists  and  politicians  emulously 
proclaimed  to  be  the  savior  of  the  coun- 
try— doubly  its  savior  through  the  blood 
shed  in  such  abundance,  and  the  labor 
carried  on  at  the  rear  by  that  part  of 
the  rural  population  which  was  left,  the 
women,  old  men,  and  children.  The  battle 
for  the  peasant,  one  writer  has  called  it. 
Political  parties,  the  sacred  union  once 
broken,  have  turned  towards  this  great 
force,  which  does  not  know  its  own 
power,  to  win  it  to  them.  Economists 
and  historians  have  recalled  that  on  the 
morrow  of  our  worst  disasters,  it  was 
agriculture  that  restored  a  condition  of 
equilibrium.  It  would  be  difficult  to 
construct  a  bibliography  of  all  that  has 
been  written  on  this  subject  during  the 
past  fifteen  months,  articles  in  the  news- 
papers and  reviews,  and  books  of  scien- 
tific or  sentimental  trend. 

At  so  much  praise,  more  or  less  dis- 
interested, the  peasant  was  at  first 
amazed;  but  with  his  practical  spirit, 
he  took  advantage  of  the  situation  on 
occasion  of  the  legislative  elections  of 
November,  1919.  It  was  especially  the 
rural  vote  that  brought  into  the  Cham- 
ber of  Deputies  so  many  new  men,  of 
moderate  tendencies,  who  gave  to  the 
Assembly  a  conservative  tone  which  it 
had  not  manifested  since  the  National 
Assembly  elected  at  the  close  of  the  war 
of  1870-1871.  This,  however,  is  only  one 
side  of  the  question,  the  political.  The 
economic  side  is  less  easily  resolved.  It 
is  an  easy  matter  to  say.  Produce,  pro- 
duce in  abundance!  But  there  must  be 
the  means  with  which  to  produce.  The 
soil,  kept  in  order  as  well  as  possible 
during  the  war,  needs  to  be  fertilized  in 
order  to  get  back  its  productive  capacity. 
Worn  out  agricultural  machinery  must  be 
replaced.  But  the  crisis  in  the  trans- 
portation system  impedes  all  efforts. 
Even  if  the  factories  of  France  and  of 
foreign  lands  could  supply  the  demand 
(and  such  is  far  from  being  the  case), 
the  railways  are  not  in  condition  to  as- 
sure the  arrival  of  the  fertilizers,  the 
machinery,  and  the  necessary  fuel  for 


the  motors.  Phosphates,  for  example, 
are  found  in  abundance  in  the  North  of 
France,  in  Belgium,  and  especially  in 
Tunisia.  There  are  few  or  no  cars  from 
the  first,  few  or  no  vessels  from  the  sec- 
ond. Potash,  of  which  recovered  Alsace 
could  furnish  us  a  considerable  quantity, 
remains  in  heaps  at  the  mouth  of  the 
mines.  On  the  first  of  April,  1920,  the 
Minister  of  Agriculture  said,  in  reply  to 
a  question  put  by  a  deputy,  that  250,000 
tons  of  potash  fertilizers  were  ready  for 
shipment,  but  that  the  difficulty  of 
transportation  would  permit  of  the  de- 
livery of  only  1,000  tons  per  day.  And 
so  the  mines  are  accepting  no  more 
orders. 

As  for  agricultural  machinery,  an  ef- 
fort has  been  made  to  produce  it  in 
quantity,  both  by  factories  long  special- 
ized for  that  purpose,  and  by  trans- 
formed munitions  factories;  here  again, 
the  lack  of  coal,  and  strikes,  have  de- 
layed production.  As  to  foreign-made 
machinery,  English,  Canadian,  or  Amer- 
ican, the  cost  of  carriage  raises  the  price 
to  a  point  almost  out  of  reach,  and  that 
which  comes  to  our  crowded  ports  re- 
mains upon  the  docks,  for  lack  of  cars 
to  take  it  away. 

But  in  spite  of  so  many  unfavorable 
conditions,  no  one  thinks  of  giving  up  in 
despair,  and  the  work  in  the  fields  goes 
on,  the  French  peasant  having  an  incal- 
culable fund  of  "stick-to-itiveness,"  and 
of  attachment  to  the  soil.  It  is,  indeed, 
one  of  the  characteristic  traits  of  his 
temperament,  noted  by  all  observers.  He 
loves  the  soil,  and  ardently  devotes  him- 
self to  its  conquest.  After  each  great 
social  upheaval,  he  is  the  beneficiary  of 
the  troubled  situation  in  which  the  nation 
finds  itself.  Thus,  after  the  religious 
wars  of  the  sixteenth  century,  and  the 
liquidation  of  a  part  of  the  property  be- 
longing to  the  abbeys,  the  peasant  had 
his  share.  His  share  was  still  more  im- 
portant, we  may  believe,  on  occasion  of 
the  sale  of  national  properties  at  the  time 
of  the  Revolution.  Finally,  the  army 
just  mustered  out  has  seen  the  small 
holding  almost  entirely  cleared  of  mort- 
gage indebtedness,  and  still  further,  the 
purchase  by  the  peasant  of  lands  given 
up  by  their  owners,  desirous  of  realiz- 
ing money  with  which  to  meet  the  in- 
creasing cost  of  living. 

The  farmer  has  acquired,  then,  in 
small  purchases,  that  which  in  other 
times  constituted  vast  domains;  the  re- 
verse of  the  medal  is  that  the  property 
is  cut  up  into  very  small  bits,  and  that 
this  division  is  further  increased  by  our 
legislation,  and  by  the  necessity  of 
partitionings  after  the  death  of  owners. 
This  constitutes  an  obstacle,  and  Rot 
among  the  least,  to  putting  the  soil  in 
condition  to  yield  a  reasonable  economic 
return.  Some  think  of  remedying  the 
situation  by  a  reversal  of  this  process 
{Continued  on  page  640) 


June  16,  1920] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


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THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  57 


(Continued  from  page  638) 
of  dismemberment,  that  is  to  say,  by  a 
series  of  exchanges  and  compromises 
which  would  reestablish,  upon  a  more 
logical  basis,  the  division  of  the  totality 
of  our  land.  But  a  reform  of  this  nature, 
even  if  it  appeared  theoretically  attract- 
ive, would  surely  arouse  a  resistance 
which  sociologists  or  legislators  do  not 
suspect. 

This  minute  division  of  landed  prop- 
erty is  a  hindrance,  also,  to  the  develop- 
ment of  cultivation  by  the  use  of  the 
motor,  which,  to  tell  the  truth,  has  not 
yet  fulfilled  the  hopes  founded  upon  it. 
The  motor-driven  machines  in  agricul- 
tural use,  of  French  or  foreign  make, 
do  not  give  complete  satisfaction.  Built 
in  general  with  a  view  to  cultivation  on 
a  large  scale,  which  is  exceptional  in  our 
country,  expensive  and  too  complicated 
to  be  easily  kept  in  repair,  they  have  not 
yet  really  gained  their  right  of  citizen- 
ship. It  is  incontestable,  however,  that 
in  them  is  to  be  found  the  solution  for 
the  crisis  in  the  labor  supply.  Further- 
more, there  are  serious  efforts  to  con- 
struct models  better  adapted  to  the 
specific  conditions  of  our  country,  more 
economical  of  fuel  than  the  American 
models,  and  also  more  durable;  for  in 
France  one  does  not  like  to  change  too 
often  a  utensil  with  which  one  is  familiar. 
Along  with  this  feeling,  a  propaganda 
is  taking  form  in  the  rural  districts,  dis- 


trustful of  novelties  in  general,  and  at- 
tached to  traditional  methods.  Yet  in 
1919  and  1920,  expositions  of  motor  cul- 
tivation have  been  numerous,  and  have 
been  followed  attentively  by  the  most 
progressive  element  among  our  farmers. 

But  there  is  another  movement,  pre- 
eminently social,  which  has  manifested 
itself  with  such  spontaneity,  and  so  gen- 
erally over  the  entire  territory  of  France, 
that  it  ie  important  to  set  it  forth  in 
clear  relief.  It  is  the  extension  of  agri- 
cultural syndicates.  These  have  had  a 
legal  existence  since  1884,  and  in  some 
regions  have  been  considerably  developed. 
The  lessons  of  the  war  have  here  brought 
forth  their  fruit.  The  vital  necessity 
of  cooperation  has  been  apparent  to  all, 
especially  to  those  who  have  been  in  the 
armies.  The  successes  secured  by  the 
revolutionary  workingmen's  syndicates 
have  led  the  peasants,  essentially  enemies 
of  revolution,  since  it  threatens  the 
right  of  property,  to  group  themselves 
together,  in  turn.  Where  syndicates 
were  already  in  existence,  they  have  seen 
new  adherents  coming  to  them  en  masse; 
where  there  was  none,  they  have  been 
created. 

The  agricultural  syndicate  has  this 
peculiarity,  that  it  is  neither  exclusively 
of  workmen,  nor  exclusively  of  employ- 
ers, but  a  mixture  of  the  two.  It  is  gen- 
erally non-political.  It  exerts  itself  to 
put    its   members   in   direct   connection 


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with  producers,  for  the  purchase  of  sup- 
plies, or  farming  utensils.  Again,  it  fills 
an  educational  function  in  diffusing 
modern  methods  and  in  studying  tech- 
nical questions  too  difficult  for  the  mass 
of  farmers.  It  creates  mutual  credit 
companies,  and  mutual  insurance  com- 
panies to  protect  its  members  against 
losses  by  the  death  of  cattle,  and  by  fire. 
A  network  of  this  kind  is  beginning  to 
spread  itself  over  all  France.  If  these 
attempts  were  to  remain  isolated,  their 
future  would  be  hazardous.  These 
groupings  by  professions  strike  at  too 
many  interests  not  to  encounter  opposi- 
tion. It  was  necessary,  therefore,  to 
federate  these  syndicates.  In  1919,  two 
great  organisms  appeared,  the  General 
Confederation  of  Farmers,  and  the  Na- 
tional Confederation  of  Agricultural 
Associations.  It  is  to  be  desired  that 
the  future  may  see  the  union  of  these 
two  organizations  with  a  common  end. 

Finally,  a  reform  which  may  attain 
great  importance  has  been  voted  by  Par- 
liament— the  creation  of  Chambers  of 
Agriculture.  These  will  be  exclusively 
professional,  and  will  function  within  the 
framework  of  the  Department  of  Agri- 
culture. While  commerce  has  long  had 
its  chambers,  agriculture  has  always 
been  without  them.  The  error  is  now 
going  to  be  repaired,  and  the  farmers, 
in  order  to  solve  the  problems  which 
interest  them,  are  going  to  have  com- 
petent representatives,  chosen  among 
themselves,  disposing  of  an  important 
budget  and  endowed  with  sufficient 
means  to  initiate  useful  projects. 

In  conclusion,  we  may  say  that  French 
agriculture  is  going  to  be  in  position 
to  collaborate  effectively  in  the  work  of 
national  reconstruction.  Professionally 
organized,  defended  in  Parliament  by 
many  of  its  most  authoritative  repre- 
sentatives, who,  until  the  last  elections, 
had  held  aloof  from  political  struggles, 
the  rural  class  has  become  conscious  of 
itself.  Thanks  to  our  possession  of 
North  Africa,  and  to  the  return  to  the 
mother  country  of  the  provinces  lost  in 
1870,  we  have  at  our  disposal  beds  of 
chemical  fertilizers  of  great  value;  and 
thanks  to  our  reconquest  of  the  Briey  L 
basin,  and  of  Lorraine,  we  have  the  f 
scoriae,  or  refuse,  from  the  process  of 
dephosphorization.  Above  all  else,  we 
have  the  peasant  of  France,  who,  if  a 
little  sleepy  upon  the  soft  pillow  of  an 
easy  life  before  the  war,  has  taken  a 
new  vigor,  in  spite  of  the  blows  which 
have  thinned  his  ranks.  He  knows  that 
many  years  will  pass  before  the  world's 
affairs  have  regained  their  normal 
course;  but  years  do  not  frighten  men 
trained  by  their  rugged  life  to  long  cal- 
culations, and  to  submission  to  the  laws 
of  Nature. 

Andre  Rostand 

Flamanville,   Manche,   France, 

May  15 


fe,**' 


THE  WEEKLY 
REVIEW^ 


Vol.  2,  No.  58 


New  York,  Wednesday,  June  23,  1920 


FIFTEEN  CEN1  S 


Contents 


641 


Brief  Comment 

Editorial  Articles: 

The  Result  at  Chicago  644 

"Greek  for  the  Greek-minded"  645 

Is  There  a  Public?  646 

Cheradame  on  Lloyd  George  647 

The    Republican    National    Convention. 

By  Jerome  Landfield  649 

The  Problem  of  Palestine — A  Rejoinder. 

By  Elisha  M.  Friedman  650 

The  Laodiceans.     By  Marion  Couthouy 

Smith  651 

Correspondence  652 

Book  Reviews: 
A  New  History  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion 653 
Study  and  Fable                                       654 
Admiral  Fisher  Speaks   His  Mind         654 
Suggestions  for  a  Far  Eastern  Policy   655 
The  Run  of  the  Shelves  656 
Drama: 

On  the  Verge  of  Literature.  By  O.  W. 
Firkins  658 

Export  Credits  and  European  Rehabili- 
tation.   By  Guy  Emerson  659 

fyHE  democratic  ideal,  which  Amer- 
-'■  ica  inherits  from  the  classical 
world,  hastens  forward  to  introduce 
the  new  candidates  to  their  country. 
Mr.  Coolidge  is  at  pains  to  explain 
that  the  rent  of  his  part  of  the  two- 
family  house  in  which  he  lives  is 
thirty-two  dollars  a  month  and  not 
thirty-five,  as  erroneously,  perhaps 
maliciously,  reported.  We  wonder 
how  the  other  family  would  feel  if  he 
chose  to  carry  on  a  front-porch  cam- 
paign this  summer.  Mighty  pleased, 
is  our  guess.  And  as  for  "Doc" 
Harding — the  old  "doc,"  that  is,  for 
it  is  well  known  that  the  son  of  the 
village  doctor  always  bears  the  cour- 
tesy title  of  "doc,"  too — he  is  dis- 
covered to  the  country  washing  the 
buggy  that  has  succeeded  to  the  old 
jenny  mule  of  earlier  days.  "Warren 
G.  always  was  a  good  boy."  Of  course 
he  was;  everybody  knows  what  that 
means.  It  isn't  in  the  least  incom- 
patible with  having  belonged  to  a 
beefsteak  club  that  wasn't  just  an  eat- 
ing club,  or  with  having  chewed 
tobacco  with   an  efficiency  that  in- 


spired the  awe  of  his  fellows,  or  with 
having  swiped  melons  as  the  leader 
of  the  Stunners.  The  country  is  sud- 
denly invited  to  take  an  interest  in 
some  very  plain  and  very  sturdy 
Americans.  It  doesn't  find  this  pros- 
pect very  thrilling  at  first  glance.  The 
country  has  been  having  a  pretty  big 
time  of  it  lately  and  has  outgrown, 
or  thinks  it  has  outgrown,  some  of 
the  things  it  used  to  admire.  Quite 
apart  from  the  question  of  who 
will  be  elected  and  who  ought  to  be 
elected,  it  will  do  the  country  good 
seriously  to  ponder  the  lives  of  these 
two  men.  It  will  do  it  good  to  real- 
ize afresh  that  living  in  a  small  town, 
winning  one's  way  in  a  small  town 
and  holding  the  liking  and  the  respect 
of  one's  fellow  citizens  the  while,  is 
not  a  dull  business,  but  one  that  is 
both  exciting  and  satisfying  to  those 
who  have  character  sufficient  to  re- 
spond to  it.  It  will  do  the  country 
good  to  remind  itself  again  that  the 
qualities  engendered  by  success  in 
such  a  life  are  qualities  which  form 
no  mean  part  of  the  equipment  of  one 
who  aspires  to  the  highest  honor  in 
the  gift  of  his  fellow-citizens. 

pOMMENTS  in  the  English  and 
^  French  press  on  the  Republican 
nomination  indicate  a  feeling  of  satis- 
faction which  has  been  reached  by  a 
process  of  elimination.  The  thought 
of  Johnson  in  the  White  House  was 
naturally  a  nightmare  to  Europeans, 
and  by  comparison  with  him  the  pic- 
ture of  Harding  as  President  appears 
roseate.  That  the  latter  is  a  friend 
of  Myron  T.  Herrick  is  a  sufficient 
guarantee  to  the  French  that  Mr. 
Harding,  if  successful  in  November, 
will  work  for  pleasant  and  helpful 
relations  with  their  country  It 
must  also  be  a  source  of  gratification 
to  them  to  remember  that  Senator 
Harding  was  numbered  among  those 


Americans  who  earnestly  believed 
that  the  United  States  should  have 
found  an  earlier  opportunity  to  enter 
the  war. 

'pHERE  is  an  old  story  about  a 
recipe  for  a  highly  complicated 
salad,  which,  after  giving  minute  in- 
structions as  to  how  the  concoction 
should  be  effected,  winds  up  with  the 
direction,  "then  throw  it  out  of  the 
window."  That  about  fits  the  case  of 
the  Presidential  primaries,  in  the 
present  stage  of  their  development. 
Whether  there  is  any  way  of  making 
them  a  better  instrument  for  their 
purpose  is  another  question.  But 
enough  is  known  already  to  show  that 
the  mere  creation  of  machinery  for 
the  registration  of  popular  prefer- 
ences, even  if  that  machinery  were 
uniform  throughout  the  country, 
would  furnish  no  assurance  of  the 
direct  Presidential  primary  being  a 
good  way  to  make  choice  of  a  candi- 
date for  President.  There  are  times, 
indeed,  when  such  a  poll  would 
give  a  significant  result.  When,  for 
example,  there  are  two  outstanding 
figures  to  whom  the  choice  is  prac- 
tically limited  from  the  start,  the  vote 
may  really  be  entitled  to  the  weight 
of  a  public  decision.  But  in  a  free- 
for-all  race,  or  anything  like  it,  the 
result  turns  on  a  hundred  factitious 
elements,  and  carries  little  moral 
authority.  To  overcome  this  deficiency 
by  a  cast-iron  legal  regulation  may 
be  a  way  of  settling  things,  but 
whether  it  is  a  good  way  is  open  to 
most  serious  doubt. 

"IvrOBODY  in  the  State  of  New  York, 
-'-*  and  few  intelligent  citizens  any- 
where, will  fail  to  understand  just 
what  the  platform  makers  at  Chicago 
have  in  mind  when  they  "demand 
that  every  American  citizen  shall  en- 
joy  the   ancient   and  constitutional 


642] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  58 


right  of  free  speech,  free  press,  and 
free  assembly,  and  the  no  less  sacred 
right  of  the  qualified  voter  to  be  rep- 
resented by  his  duly  chosen  repre- 
sentatives." This  is  the  epilogue  to 
the  sorry  play  that  was  enacted  at 
Albany  by  Speaker  Sweet  and  his  mis- 
guided followers,  and  pronounces  the 
verdict  of  the  party  on  the  perform- 
ance. Upon  this  outcome  the  Repub- 
lican party  and  the  nation  are  to  be 
congratulated.  What  threatened  for 
a  time  to  be  an  immense  help  to  the 
cause  of  revolutionary  agitation  has 
been  relegated  to  the  position  of  a 
mere  passing  escapade.  Those  Repub- 
lican leaders,  like  Mr.  Hughes,  and 
those  Republican  newspapers,  like  the 
New  York  Tribune,  that  came  out 
in  vigorous  protest  against  the  at- 
tempted proscription  of  radical  opin- 
ion and  the  attempted  disfranchise- 
ment of  radical  constituencies,  did  an 
invaluable  service  to  their  party  and 
to  the  country.  It  was  the  prompt- 
ness and  energy  of  that  protest  that 
prevented  the  affair  from  attaining 
dangerous  dimensions  at  once;  and 
there  can  now  no  longer  be  any  doubt 
that  the  protest  was  not  only  sound 
in  itself,  but  represented  the  true  at- 
titude of  Americans  generally,  what- 
ever momentary  impulse  there  may 
have  been  to  give  way  to  passion  or 
prejudice. 

TiyrR.  HOOVER  will  not  be  our  next 
ITl  President,  but  it  is  quite  possible 
that  he  is  destined  to  play  a  role  no 
less  important.  We  do  not  refer  to 
the  possibility  of  his  service  in  the 
Cabinet  of  the  next  President.  Be- 
sides the  opportunities  of  extraordi- 
nary helpfulness  which  are  open  in 
this  direction,  there  is  another  field 
in  which  his  transcendent  organizing 
ability  may  be  of  even  greater  im- 
portance to  the  world.  The  appal- 
ling conditions  in  Central  and  East- 
ern Europe,  to  which  Mr.  Davison  re- 
cently directed  public  attention,  show 
no  signs  of  passing;  and  the  longer 
they  continue  the  more  desperate  is 
the  need  of  something  really  effective 
being  done  to  cope  with  them.  If  an 
international  arrangement  could  be 
made  whereby  the  direction  of  all 
remedial  efforts  in  that  great  area  of 
human  distress  and  economic  paraly- 


sis was  centred  in  a  single  head,  some- 
thing might  be  accomplished  that  was 
commensurate  with  the  need.  And 
Herbert  Hoover  is  the  one  man  in  all 
the  world  to  whom  the  working  of 
such  a  plan  could  be  entrusted  with 
confident  expectation  of  success. 

JUST  where  the  "progressively- 
minded"  are  headed  for  is  becom- 
ing more  and  more  of  a  mystery.  Mr. 
Villard  tells  us,  in  the  Nation,  "In- 
deed, I  no  longer  believe  that  any 
President  elected  under  the  existing 
political  conditions  could  give  satis- 
faction to  progressively-minded  men 
and  women,  though  a  man  of  Cleve- 
land's type  might  go  far  towards  so 
doing."  If  this  be  true,  one  is  forced 
to  the  conclusion  that  the  "progres- 
sively-minded" have  been  woefully 
misrepresented  by  each  and  all  of 
the  "journals  of  opinion"  which  have 
assumed  to  speak  in  their  behalf.  Mr. 
Villard's  memory  may  be  poor,  but 
there  is  a  man  down  at  Atlanta,  just 
now  running  for  the  Presidency,  who 
doubtless  recalls  without  difl[iculty 
the  Chicago  railway  strike  of  1894, 
the  injunction  secured  by  President 
Cleveland's  Attorney  General,  and  the 
sending  of  United  States  troops  to 
Chicago  to  see  that  the  order  of  the 
court  should  not  be  disobeyed.  There 
were  many  men  of  progressive  mind 
who  applauded  the  President  for  this 
vigorous  assertion  of  national  au- 
thority against  disorderly  interfer- 
ence with  the  functions  of  the  Gov- 
ernment in  the  carrying  of  the  mails ; 
but  such  applause  is  not  exactly  what 
one  expects  from  those  who  would 
pass  muster  as  "progressives,"  on  in- 
spection by  the  editorial  experts  of 
present-day  "Progressivism." 

WE  note  with  pain  the  increasing 
evidences  of  odium  sociologi- 
cum  among  the  brethren  who  are 
striving  to  bring  in  the  ideal  society. 
There  are  many  roads  to  Utopia,  and 
the  travelers  thereon  are  not  at  peace. 
Their  opinions  of  one  another  are 
unflattering.  They  say  hard  things, 
and  they  mean  them,  too.  The  ac- 
quisitive, reactionary,  hypocritical 
bourgeoisie  are  bad  enough,  but  they 
would  appear  to  be  glorified  angels 
when  compared  with  the  members  of 


the  rival  sects  of  revolutionists.  "The 
class-conscious  workers  of  America," 
reads  a  recent  document  of  the  Com- 
munist party,  "are  through  with  the 
stinking  carcass  that  calls  itself  the 
Socialist  party  of  America.  .  .  . 
[It]  is  the  most  dangerous  enemy  of 
the  working  class,  and  as  such  we 
shall  wage  a  bitter  struggle  against 
it."  The  old  Socialist  Labor  party 
has  always  had  a  decidedly  unfavor- 
able opinion  of  its  upstart  rival,  the 
Socialist  party,  and  its  language  of 
denunciation  has  not  mellowed  with 
the  flux  of  time.  "The  Socialist 
party,"  says  the  letter  of  acceptance 
of  the  S.  L.  P.'s  Presidential  candi- 
date, "is  essentially  nothing  but  a 
petty  tax-reducing  concern,  an  ag- 
gregation of  the  cheapest  of  cheap 
politicians,  hoping  to  ride  into  politi- 
cal jobs  on  the  present  wave  of  'radi- 
calism.' "  But  the  other  extremist 
factions  are  almost  as  bad,  and  must 
be  treated  accordingly.  "With  the 
other  wings  and  feathers,  the  rags 
and  tatters  of  the  labor  movement,  the 
I.  W.  W.,  the  Communists,  Commu- 
nist Laborites,  and  what  not,  we  must 
deal  unflinchingly."  Each  of  these 
factions,  we  must  regretfully  say, 
views  its  rivals  in  much  the  same  un- 
charitable light.  One  exception  is  to 
be  noted  in  the  fact  that  recent  cir- 
cumstances have  swung  the  Commu- 
nist Laborites  into  a  more  favorable 
attitude  toward  the  Socialist  party. 
But  otherwise  all  is  discord  and  re- 
crimination. The  outlook  is  disquiet- 
ing; for  how  shall  we  attain  to  the 
earthly  heaven  when  its  consecrated 
exponents  spend  most  of  their  time  in 
damning  one  another  to  perdition? 

/~\F  the  three  proposals  put  forward 
^-^  by  the  Mayor's  Committee 
charged  with  forming  plans  for  New 
York's  permanent  war  memorial — a 
bridge  across  the  Hudson,  a  public 
building  on  the  site  of  Madison 
Square  Garden,  and  a  triumphal  arch 
— the  bridge  was  rightly  given  first 
place.  On  grounds  both  of  utility 
and  of  sentiment  it  seems  to  be  by 
far  the  most  appropriate.  A  Hudson 
River  bridge  is  desperately  needed. 
It  would  be  a  daily  blessing  to  more 
people,  and  a  greater  blessing,  than 
a  public  building,  and  it  could  easily 


June  23,  1920] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[648 


be  combined  with  the  essential  fea- 
tures of  a  triumphal  arch.  The 
building  of  a  bridge  has  from  of  old 
been  regarded  as  a  work  of  especial 
piety.  Flung  across  waters  which  the 
foot  of  man  may  not  walk,  it  is  a 
link  between  two  worlds.  Who  of  the 
millions  who  shall  move  upon  its 
stately  span  but  would  come  to  think 
with  poignant  and  reverent  affection 
of  those  dead  in  whose  name  it  sprung 
into  being? 

IN  Italy  the  political  situation  is 
very  much  like  the  one  which  the 
late  elections  for  the  Reichstag  have 
created  in  Germany.  No  party  is 
strong  enough  to  form,  unsupported, 
a  dependable  majority  for  any  Gov- 
ernment. Coalitions  are  the  neces- 
sary evil  by  which  the  worse  evil  of 
domestic  anarchy  must  be  cured.  But 
the  parties  to  these  makeshift  com- 
promises are  too  ill  assorted  to  be  re- 
lied upon  in  the  solution  of  crucial 
questions  involving  a  sacrifice  of  one 
or  the  other's  principles.  An  illus- 
trative instance  of  the  inconstancy  of 
such  alliances  is  the  attitude  of  the 
Popular  party,  the  political  organiza- 
tion of  the  Catholic  voters,  at  the  first 
and  at  the  second  resignation  of 
Signer  Nitti.  The  earlier  crisis  was 
brought  on  by  the  Popular  party's 
joining  the  Socialists  in  defeating  the 
Government ;  on  the  eve  of  his  second 
resignation  Signor  Nitti  found  him- 
self forsaken  by  all  but  the  Catholics. 
The  latter  reproach  him  with  too 
much  indulgence  towards  agrarian 
Communism  and  the  exactions  of 
labor.  That  is  why  they  ousted  him 
a  month  ago  with  the  help  of  the 
very  element  which  they  accused  him 
of  treating  too  gently.    This  hair-of- 

II  the-dog-that-bit-you  policy  could  not 
cure  the  country  of  its  anarchy.  Its 
only  result  was  a  strengthening  of 
the  Catholic  element  in  Nitti's  recon- 
structed Cabinet,  and,  by  so  much, 
more  bitter  opposition  from  the  So- 
cialists as  a  consequence. 

THE  three  Allied  Commissioners  in 
Budapest  have  agreed  to  make 
joint  representations  to  the  Hun- 
I  garian  Government  for  restoration 
of  order  and  avoidance  of  mistreat- 
ment of  minorities  in  Hungary,  ac- 
cording to  a  report  to  the  State  De- 


partment from  the  United  States 
Commissioner,  U.  Grant  Smith.  Our 
radical  weeklies  will  hail  this  news 
as  a  confirmation  of  the  rumors  they 
helped  to  circulate  concerning  the 
White  terror  in  Hungary.  A  White 
Paper  published  by  the  British  Gov- 
ernment about  a  month  ago,  contain- 
ing the  results  of  an  investigation 
made,  at  the  request  of  Lord  Curzon, 
by  Admiral  Troubridge  and  General 
Gorton,  disposes  of  the  assumption 
that  this  step  of  the  Commissioners 
is  proof  of  the  existence  of  a  White 
terror.  The  conclusion  arrived  at  by 
the  two  investigators,  and  fully 
shared  by  the  other  Allied  representa- 
tives at  Budapest,  was  an  absolute 
denial  of  the  allegations.  "In  the  opin- 
ion of  my  colleagues  and  myself," 
wrote  General  Gorton,  "there  exists 
no  White  terror  in  Hungary,"  and  Ad- 
miral Troubridge  concluded  one  of 
his  letters  from  Budapest  with  the 
statement,  "Life  here  is  just  as  safe 
as  in  England."  The  representations 
of  the  Commissioners  must  have  been 
called  for  by  recent  disorders  which 
Horthy's  Government  may  have  been 
slack  in  repelling;  they  do  not  refer 
to  any  systematic  persecution  under 
Government  auspices. 

MR.  BENJAMIN  TURNER,  a 
member  of  the  British  Labor 
delegation  to  Russia  which  has  just 
returned  to  England,  is  credited  with 
the  statement  that  "the  Soviet  Gov- 
ernment has  the  acceptance  of  the 
bulk  of  the  people,  the  good-will  of 
many,  and  fierce  opposition  from  the 
Social  Democrats,  who  say  individual 
liberty  has  been  destroyed."  This  af- 
fords an  interesting  counterpart  to 
the  picture  of  public  opinion  in  this 
country,  where  the  Soviet  Govern- 
ment remains  unrecognized  with  the 
approval  of  the  bulk  of  the  nation, 
where  many  are  not  unfavorably  dis- 
posed towards  it,  and  where  the  So- 
cial Democrats  hail  it  as  the  only  form 
of  Government  worthy  of  adoption 
by  the  American  nation. 

GENERAL  GOURAUD,  the  French 
High  Commissioner  in  Syria,  con- 
cluded an  armistice  with  Mustapha 
Kemal  Pasha  on  May  30.  A  few 
days  later  M.  Millerand  caused  great 
emotion  in  Paris  by  a  grave  state- 


ment to  the  foreign  affairs  commis- 
sion of  the  Senate  with  regard  to  the 
policy  of  France  in  the  Orient.  He 
declared  that  General  Gouraud's 
army,  in  spite  of  reinforcements,  had 
to  engage  in  a  strategic  retreat,  a 
term  whose  euphemism  did  not  con- 
ceal the  dark  reality.  The  exact  con- 
ditions of  the  agreement  with  the 
Nationalist  leader  have  not  yet  been 
published,  but  so  much  is  known, 
that  they  include  the  withdrawal  of 
French  forces  from  "certain"  towns 
in  Cilicia.  Apart  from  the  critical 
situation  of  the  French  forces  re- 
vealed by  this  transaction,  it  can  not 
fail  to  have  a  serious  effect  on  the 
peace  negotiations  with  Turkey,  as 
any  success  scored  by  Kemal  will 
strengthen  the  opposition  in  Con- 
stantinople against  the  Sultan  and 
his  British-approved  Cabinet.  And 
what  success  is  better  calculated  to 
heighten  his  prestige  in  the  Turkish 
world  than  the  conclusion  of  an  agree- 
ment with  one  of  the  Great  Powers 
constituting  his  official  recognition  as 
the  actual  ruler  of  Anatolia? 

"/CONTEMPTIBLE  is  the  nation 
^  which  does  not  stake  its  all  on 
honor!"  With  these  words  Schiller, 
in  "Wilhelm  Tell,"  justified  the  Swiss 
struggle  for  liberty,  and  with  these 
words  from  Schiller  Prince  Joachim 
Albrecht  of  Hohenzollern  justified  in 
court  his  attack  with  bottle  and  glass 
on  members  of  the  French  Mission  in 
the  Hotel  Adlon  at  Berlin.  This 
Prussian  avatar  of  William  Tell, 
punctiliously  addressed  by  the  pre- 
siding judge  as  "Your  Royal  High- 
ness," gave  flight  also,  in  the  course 
of  the  trial,  to  a  winged  word  of  his 
own  creation :  "A  German  man  must 
be  able  not  only  to  live  and  die  for 
his  country,  but  also  to  suffer  for  it." 
As  the  Berliner  Tageblatt  comments, 
Joachim  Albrecht  has  certainly  not 
died  for  his  country;  it  is  a  question 
if  he  has  lived  for  it;  and  "suffer"? 
Perhaps  at  the  Hotel  Adlon.  However, 
German  liberals  find  some  balm  in 
the  fact  that  in  this  trial,  for  the  first 
time  in  Prussian  history,  a  Hohen- 
zollern was  tried  openly  in  a  civil 
court,  and  fined  500  marks,  a  small 
amount,  in  truth,  but  all  the  state's 
attorney  asked  for. 


644] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  58 


The  Result  at  Chicago 

'T'HE  Republican  party  goes  before 
■■■  the  country  with  an  uninspiring 
candidate  and  an  uninspiring  plat- 
form. So  much  as  this  will  be  widely 
conceded  by  Republicans,  as  well  as 
generally  asserted  by  Democrats.  At 
a  time  when  the  nation  is  faced  with 
problems  of  the  utmost  gravity,  and 
when  its  relations  with  the  outside 
world  are  of  an  importance  never  be- 
fore equalled,  the  party  that  has  for 
two  years  been  in  possession  of  a  ma- 
jority in  both  houses  of  Congress  has 
chosen  as  its  leader  a  man  of  no  pecu- 
liar distinction,  who  has  never  played 
a  leading  part  in  public  affairs;  and 
has  presented  a  declaration  of  prin- 
ciples which,  consisting  in  the  main 
of  long  arguments  in  arraignment  of 
the  opposing  party  and  in  commen- 
dation of  itself,  fails  to  define  its  own 
position  on  the  leading  issue  of  politi- 
cal controversy.  Whatever  else  may 
be  claimed  for  this  result,  it  is  clear 
that  inspiration  is  not  to  be  found  in 
it.  If  the  campaign  is  to  have  ap- 
pealing quality,  it  will  be  because  of 
the  heart  that  may  be  put  into  it  by 
subsequent  developments. 

Concerning  the  question  of  the 
League,  however,  while  the  Conven- 
tion might  have  done  somewhat  bet- 
ter, it  was  practically  out  of  its  power 
to  do  much  better.  The  time  for  do- 
ing much  better  was  months  ago. 
Long  before  the  Convention  met,  it 
was  clear  that  a  kind  of  disorganiza- 
tion of  opinion  had  obtained  in  the 
party  which  made  the  assertion  of  a 
clear-cut  position  on  the  treaty  im- 
possible. When  a  party  is  divided 
into  two  opposing  camps,  it  is  some- 
times quite  possible  to  strengthen  it 
by  a  clear  decision  in  favor  of  one 
faction.  Thus  in  the  campaign  of 
1896  the  Republican  party  took  a  firm 
stand  for  the  gold  standard,  and  let 
the  silver  men  in  it  bolt  or  not  as  they 
pleased.  But  the  peculiarity  of  the 
present  situation  was  that  only  one 
of  the  two  principal  factions  on  the 
treaty  was  thoroughly  in  earnest. 
The  delegates  who  stood  with  the 
Johnson-Borah  irreconcilables  were 
heart  and  soul  against  the  League; 
but  there  was  no  great  body  of  dele- 
gates that  was  heart  and  soul  for  the 


League.  You  can  rally  men  that  are 
heartily  for  one  position  to  stand  up 
for  that  position  and  defy  the  men 
that  are  against  it ;  but  what  can  you 
do  with  people  who  hardly  know  what 
their  own  position  is  ?  And  that  was 
the  situation  in  which  the  Republican 
party,  after  a  year  of  manoeuvring, 
found  itself  at  Chicago  in  regard  to 
the  treaty. 

It  is  too  early  to  say  what  that  situ- 
ation will  be  when  the  campaign  de- 
velops. Much  will  depend,  of  course, 
upon  the  action  of  the  Demo- 
cratic Convention  at  San  Francisco. 
Whether  Mr.  Harding  will  undertake 
to  add  anything  to  the  platform 
declaration  remains  to  be  seen.  In 
the  meantime,  it  is  important  to  take 
exact  note  of  the  position  in  which 
that  declaration  itself  leaves  the 
party.  The  treaty  plank  is  of  pre- 
cisely the  character  which  has  seemed 
to  us  inevitable.  It  was  designed  for 
the  purpose  of  holding  together 
everybody  who  is  not  in  favor  of  ac- 
cepting the  treaty  without  reserva- 
tions. It  says  many  things  that  sound 
inimical  to  the  treaty,  and  carefully 
refrains  from  promising  acceptance 
of  the  League,  even  with  the  Lodge 
reservations;  so  much  as  this  was 
done  to  keep  the  Johnson-Borah  peo- 
ple from  revolting.  But  it  is  equally 
careful  to  say  nothing  that  promises 
rejection  of  the  League ;  and  it  winds 
up  as  follows: 

We  pledge  the  coming  Republican  Adminis- 
tration to  such  agreement  with  the  other  na- 
tions of  the  world  as  shall  meet  the  full  duty 
of  America  to  civilization  and  humanity,  in 
accordance  with  American  ideals  and  without 
surrendering  the  right  of  the  American  people 
to  exercise  its  judgment  and  its  power  in  favor 
of  justice  and  peace. 

Obviously,  ratification  of  the  treaty 
with  the  Lodge  reservations,  or  with 
any  others,  milder  or  stronger,  that 
might  seem  at  the  time  expedient, 
would  be  in  no  way  inconsistent  with 
this  "pledge."  If  the  various  sections 
of  the  party  should,  throughout  the 
campaign,  jog  along  together  without 
any  further  definition  of  its  position 
on  the  subject,  and  if  the  party 
should  carry  the  election,  the  whole 
question  will  be  an  open  one  for  the 
new  President  and  the  new  Congress 
to  settle.  Whether  the  Democrats 
will  be  able  to  smoke  the  Republicans 
out  of  this  peculiar,  but  on  the  whole 


not  uncomfortable,  position  on  the 
treaty,  is  one  of  the  interesting  ques- 
tions of  the  forthcoming  campaign. 

That  the  platform  takes  no  stand 
on  the  subject  of  prohibition,  and  that 
its  declaration  in  regard  to  Mexico  is 
inconclusive,  we  do  not  find  to  be  good 
ground  for  censure.  The  question  of 
prohibition,  so  far  as  regards  the  near 
future,  has  become,  since  the  Supreme 
Court  rendered  its  decision,  essen- 
tially a  question  of  Congressional  de- 
termination of  the  degree  of  rigor 
with  which  the  prohibition  of  "intoxi- 
cating" drinks  is  to  be  carried  out. 
That  is  a  question  of  great  social, 
and  even  political,  importance ;  but  no 
obligation  rests  upon  national  parties 
to  divide  on  the  lines  of  that  issue. 
The  question  of  Mexico  is  in  a  differ- 
ent category ;  but  there  is  ample  rea- 
son why  a  gathering  like  that  at 
a  national  nominating  Convention 
should  hesitate  to  commit  a  party  to 
a  definite  stand  in  so  difficult  a  sub- 
ject. We  ourselves  would  regard  in- 
tervention in  Mexico,  except  under  the 
most  absolutely  unmistakable  neces- 
sity, as  a  national  calamity;  and  if 
the  Convention  had  adopted  a  plank 
that  meant  probable  intervention  we 
should  have  regarded  it  as  a  misfor- 
tune. But  to  find  fault  because  the 
platform  declares  an  intention  to  as- 
sert American  claims  more  vigor- 
ously, and  yet  carefully  avoids  the 
implication  of  an  interventionist 
policy,  seems  to  us  hypercritical. 

High  credit  must  be  given  to  the 
Convention  for  the  clearness  with 
which  it  has  stated  its  position  on 
labor,  and  on  the  closely  related  issue 
of  railroad  ownership  and  operation. 
Here  are  real  questions,  questions 
upon  which  the  attitude  of  the  incom- 
ing Congress  and  the  incoming  Presi- 
dent will  be  of  crucial  importance. 
The  Republicans  declare,  without  ifs 
or  buts,  that  they  are  "opposed  to 
Government  ownership  and  operation 
or  employee  operation  of  the  rail- 
roads." On  the  general  question  of 
the  relations  between  capital  and 
labor — or  rather  between  employers 
and  employed — the  position  of  the, 
party  is  stated"  with  a  degree  of  pre- 
cision unusual  in  political  platforms. 
The  declaration  is  in  accurate  agree- 
ment with  the  recommendations  of 


June  23,  1920] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[645 


the  second  of  the  Industrial  Confer- 
ences held  at  Washington,  upon  the 
President's  call,  in  which  Mr.  Hoover 
is  understood  to  have  been  the  lead- 
ing influence.  It  recognizes  "the 
justice  of  collective  bargaining."  It 
denies  "the  right  to  strike  against  the 
Government."  In  the  case  of  public 
utilities,  it  favors  "the  establish- 
ment of  an  impartial  tribunal"  to  de- 
cide disputes,  the  decisions  of  the 
tribunal  "to  be  relied  on  to  secure 
their  acceptance,"  and  the  tribunal  to 
"refuse  to  accept  jurisdiction,  except 
for  the  purpose  of  investigation,  so 
long  as  the  public  service  is  inter- 
rupted." In  private  industries,  it 
does  "not  advocate  the  principle  of 
compulsory  arbitration,"  but  favors 
"impartial  commissions  and  better 
facilities  for  voluntary  mediation, 
conciliation  and  arbitration,  supple- 
mented by  the  full  publicity  vv^hich 
will  enlist  the  influence  of  an  aroused 
public  opinion." 

The  position  thus  laid  down,  both 
on  railroad  operation  and  ownership 
and  on  industrial  relations  generally, 
has  already  aroused  the  antagonism 
of  prominent  labor  leaders.  In  the 
course  of  the  campaign  it  will  doubt- 
less be  branded  with  that  cheap  and 
handy  epithet  "reactionary" ;  but  it  is 
reactionary  only  on  the  assumption 
that  everything  that  does  not  con- 
template a  radical  change  in  the  eco- 
nomic order  is  reactionary.  To  sober 
American  liberals  it  will  appeal  as  a 
straightforward  statement  of  a  pro- 
gramme of  intelligent  progress  tow- 
ards a  bettering  of  industrial  con- 
ditions. It  is  a  question  of  acute 
interest  whether  the  Democrats  will 
make  a  bid  for  the  labor  vote  by  writ- 
ing into  their  platform  a  declaration 
contrasting  with  this.  Such  a  move 
is  quite  within  the  possibilities,  even 
the  probabilities,  of  the  situation. 
And  if  the  San  Francisco  convention 
should  put  forward  a  plank  designed 
to  satisfy  the  demands  of  labor-union 
extremists,  and  to  appeal  to  the 
predilections  of  the  semi-socialist  "in- 
tellectuals," it  is  by  no  means  im- 
possible that  the  issue  thus  drawn 
will  become  the  leading  issue  of  the 
campaign. 

Upon  the  nomination  of  Governor 
Coolidge  for  the  Vice-Presidency  the 


Convention  is  to  be  heartily  congratu- 
lated. The  spontaneity  with  which 
this  nomination  was  made  is  itself 
matter  for  hearty  satisfaction,  and 
is  in  contrast  with  the  spinelessness 
of  the  rest  of  the  proceedings.  There 
can  be  no  doubt  that  the  presence  of 
Mr.  Coolidge's  name  on  the  ticket  will 
add  materially  to  its  standing  with 
the  people.  And  it  is  to  be  hoped  that 
his  occupancy  of  the  second  place  on 
it  will  not  preclude  the  injection  into 
the  campaign,  upon  more  than  one 
occasion,  of  that  kind  of  savor  which, 
if  he  had  been  nominated  for  Presi- 
dent, his  speeches  might  have  been 
counted  on  to  contribute  abundantly. 
However,  the  curtain  has  barely  risen 
on  the  play,  the  first  actors  have  not 
yet  made  their  bow,  the  identity  of 
others  is  still  to  be  disclosed,  and  the 
character  of  the  plot  is  open  to  a 
great  deal  of  conjecture.  In  times  so 
unusual  as  these,  it  is  the  part  of 
wisdom  to  possess  one's  soul  in  pa- 
tience while  events  are  unfolding  to 
a  point  where  an  accurate  perception 
of  what  is  at  stake  shall  be  possible. 

"Greek  for  the  Greek- 
minded' 


J  J 


rpHE  discussion  over  the  study  of 
-'-  Greek  has  led  some  of  its  oppo- 
nents to  propose — a  generous  con- 
cession, apparently,  in  their  own  es- 
timation— that  it  be  left  to  "the 
Greek-minded,"  as  an  elective  branch 
entirely  in  keeping  with  their  mental 
aptitude  and  disposition.  And  now 
and  then  we  find  some  sincere, 
though  not  Hellenically  clear-sighted, 
friend  of  Greek  expressing  a  similar 
opinion.  The  former  class  are  inter- 
ested in  any  plan  that  will  leave  the 
largest  possible  percentage  of  stu- 
dents the  utmost  freedom  to  take  the 
kind  of  studies  in  which  they  are  par- 
ticularly interested.  The  latter  are 
charmed  with  the  conception  of  a 
scholarly  elite,  a  saving  remnant,  pur- 
suing the  study  into  the  very  sanctum 
sanctorum  of  Greek  art,  literature, 
and  philosophy. 

If  the  two  classes  were  skillfully 
cross-questioned,  their  ideas  as  to 
what  a  "Greek-minded"  student  is 
would  be  found  to  disagree.    With  the 


former,  the  term  would  hardly  con- 
note more  than  a  scholarly  habit  of 
mind,  and  predominantly  literary 
tastes,  with  no  particular  interest  in 
the  natural  sciences,  or  the  newer 
group  of  "social  sciences" — poor  grist 
for  their  particular  mills,  and  indeed 
not  standing  very  high  in  their  re- 
spect, yet  capable  of  being  educated 
after  some  fashion,  and  possibly  use- 
ful in  keeping  the  Greek  teachers 
busy,  so  that  they  will  not  be  trying 
to  tempt  the  "scientifically  minded" 
into  their  classes.  To  the  other  class, 
Greek-mindedness  would  consist  in 
that  quickness  of  mental  perception, 
that  keenness  of  intellectual  insight, 
that  discriminative  appreciation  of 
varying  beauties  and  harmonies,  that 
instinctive  preference  for  the  delicate 
rather  than  the  clumsy,  the  accurate 
rather  than  the  careless  and  slouchy, 
that  joy  in  searching  and  finding 
out,  in  many  fields  of  truth,  which 
entered  characteristically  into  the 
makeup  of  the  "lively  Greek." 

Now  as  a  matter  of  fact,  while  the 
man  of  this  type  is  sure  to  enjoy  the 
study  of  Greek,  sure  to  draw  rich 
profit  out  of  it,  and  to  impart  that 
profit  generously  to  others,  he  is  at 
the  same  time  the  one  man  who  is 
best  able  to  give  a  fairly  satisfactory 
account  of  the  use  of  his  intellectual 
talents  without  it.  To  set  Greek  to 
one  side  as  a  virtually  hedged-in  pre- 
serve for  this  type  of  student  would 
be  no  more  appropriate  than  to  limit 
the  physical-training  facilities  of  the 
schools  and  colleges  to  the  small 
group  whose  physical  endowment  and 
athletic  disposition  were  most  nearly 
perfect  at  the  outset. 

There  is  no  field  to-day  more  in 
need  of  a  liberal  infusion  of  this  life- 
giving  Greek  element  than  that  of 
scientific  investigation;  for  there  is 
no  field  in  which  the  temptation  to 
intellectual  narrowness  is  greater. 
The  task  of  research  into  the  secrets 
of  the  physical  universe  is  worthy  of 
the  best  and  most  complete  mental 
equipment  imaginable;  and  yet  we 
find  the  banks  of  the  great  sea  of 
nature-knowledge  lined  with  would- 
be  "scientists,"  angling  for  its  tarpon 
and  tuna  with  intellectual  tackle  not 
finely  enough  tempered  to  hold  even 
blue-gills   and   "geggle-eyes."      It   is 


646] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  58 


wrong  to  set  up  the  alternative  of 
"science  or  classics,"  as  did  a  recent- 
participant  in  the  discussion  over 
compulsorj'  Greek  at  Oxford.  The 
proper  ideal  to  hold  up  is  as  large  an 
infusion  of  the  subtly  penetrating 
Greek  spirit  as  possible  into  the  field 
of  modern  scientific  research.  And 
just  as  far  as  possible,  that  infusion 
should  come  by  the  normal  and  most 
effective  method  of  direct  contact 
with  the  Greek  language,  literature, 
and  art. 

No  effort  should  be  made  to  force 
Greek  into  educational  curricula  as 
a  positive  requirement.  What  is 
feasible  is  that  Greek  should  be  of- 
fered, by  well-equipped  teachers  and 
with  a  liberal  supply  of  illustrative 
material,  in  at  least  one  high  school 
of  every  large  city.  Such  provision  is 
wholly  in  harmony  with  the  most  ad- 
vanced ideas  of  the  elective  system  of 
study;  and  when  all  that  is  asked  is 
the  mere  possibility  to  elect  the  study 
of  Greek,  for  those  who  desire  it,  op- 
position to  it  smacks  of  a  narrowness 
unbecoming  genuine  educators,  and 
inimical  to  sound  education. 

Is  there  a  Public? 

TN  their  recent  debate  Mr.  Gompers 
■■-  had  no  answer  to  Governor  Allen's 
inquirj'  whether  the  public  had  any 
rights  in  a  strike  which  interferes 
with  the  production  and  distribution 
of  necessities.  Consequently  he  could 
not  say  what  steps  he  would  take  to 
protect  rights  concerning  whose  ex- 
istence his  silence  showed  him  to  be 
in  doubt.  That  he  did  not,  in  a  good- 
natured  way,  say  "the  public  be 
damned"  may  be  due  to  a  belief 
that  there  ain't  no  such  animal  as  the 
public.  Everybody  is  either  a  laborer, 
and  as  such,  in  hearty  sympathy  with 
every  effort  of  labor  to  improve  its 
condition,  or  else  he  is  a  capitalist, 
and,  as  such,  opposed  on  principle  to 
all  strikes  of  whatever  character. 

It  is  not  likely  that  anybody  could 
be  got  consciously  to  assent  to  a  posi- 
tion so  extreme  as  this.  It  is  a  theory 
which  has  all  the  facts  against  it. 
Again  and  again,  especially  of  late, 
the  public  has  risen  in  its  might  and 
unanswerably  asserted  that,  be  differ- 
ences what  they  may,  life  meanwhile 


must  go  on.  In  England  and  in  Sweden 
the  public  has  successfully  met  some- 
thing resembling  a  general  strike. 
Nothing  like  a  general  strike  has 
arisen  in  America,  but  if  one  may 
judge  by  the  behavior  of  the  public 
in  the  face  of  a  police  strike  or  a 
railway  strike,  there  is  a  public  which 
at  any  rate  believes  that  it  exists, 
and  which  believes  it  has  rights  that 
can,  under  sufficient  provocation,  be 
enforced. 

It  is  due  to  the  essentially  foreign 
character  of  the  more  radical  think- 
ing in  this  country  that  there  should 
be  any  tendency  to  identify  the  "pub- 
lic" with  a  "bourgeoisie,"  or  middle 
class.  Even  the  American  laborer  is 
not  particularly  conscious  of  himself 
as  the  member  of  a  class.  He  is  a 
man  who  every  now  and  then  feels 
that  he  has  a  grievance,  a  "raw  deal," 
and  in  those  circumstances  he  sets 
about  using  such  means  as  he  has  of 
getting  the  trouble  corrected.  This 
means  is  usually  the  strike,  and  it  is 
generally  the  case  that  if  the  griev- 
ance can  be  at  all  made  plain  to  the 
overwhelming  majority  who  have  no 
immediate  concern  with  the  matter 
their  sympathy — the  public's  sympa- 
thy— immediately  goes  out  to  the 
strikers.  No  doubt  the  American 
laborer  is  a  very  poor-spirited  fellow 
not  to  be  continually  agitating  for 
some  big  overturn  of  the  social  struc- 
ture, not  merely  little  things  like 
better  wages  and  better  conditions; 
but  these  are  the  things  he  is  inter- 
ested in. 

In  this  respect  laborers  are  at  one 
with  the  public ;  they  are  not  merely 
as  good  as  the  so-called  middle-class, 
and  even  better  able  to  exert  their 
power:  their  attitude  is  essentially 
the  same  as  that  of  the  great  mass  of 
people  who  make  up  the  public.  It 
ought  not  to  be  so,  on  any  theory  of 
class  conflict,  but  in  America  at  any 
rate  it  is  so.  If  the  sense  of  class 
identity  is  weak,  or  at  least  of  brief 
duration,  even  among  organized 
labor,  it  is  still  slower  to  declare 
itself  among  the  millions  wha  are 
either  unorganized  laborers  or  merely 
technically  capitalists.  But  in  their 
degree  they  respond  in  exactly  the 
same  way.  Given  a  sufficient  griev- 
ance and  they — the  public — will  act 


to  correct  it.  And  on  their  side  will 
be  found  many  who  in  other  circum- 
stances would  themselves  use  the 
strike  for  their  own  immediate  ends. 
When  a  strike  brings  to  a  halt  the 
production  and  distribution  of  neces- 
sities, there  is  very  little  difference 
in  its  effect  on  "bourgeois"  and  on 
laborers.  Apart  from  the  few  whose 
interests  are  immediately  bound  up 
in  the  strike,  and  the  still  fewer  who 
console  themselves  for  present  hard- 
ship with  the  hope  that  the  far-off 
divine  event  of  revolution  is  moving 
nearer,  both  "laborer"  and  "bour- 
geois" become  indistinguishably  mem- 
bers of  a  public  which  recognizes 
that  there  are  limits  to  what  it  can 
afford  to  put  up  with. 

The  decision  recently  rendered  by 
a  New  York  court  that  common  car- 
riers shall  not  consent  in  a  strike 
of  the  handlers  of  produce,  making  it 
impossible  for  goods  to  be  moved  ex- 
cept on  terms  dictated  by  the  unions, 
is  an  important  landmark  in  the 
slowly  defining  status  of  the  public. 
If  the  longshoremen  are  not  so  well 
off  as  they  might  be,  it  is  too  bad; 
if  they  can  not  agree  with  the  car- 
riers or  the  carriers  with  them,  again 
too  bad.  Settle  it  if  possible,  and  let 
each  side  get  what  it  deserves,  and,  if 
possible,  what  it  thinks  it  wants.  But 
meanwhile,  gentlemen,  don't  expect 
the  rest  of  the  country  to  sit  by  and 
starve  while  you  are  arranging  your 
little  difficulties.  The  decision  re- 
bukes the  carriers — who  are  presum- 
ably capitalists — quite  as  much  as  the 
longshoremen.  And  it  rebukes  both 
in  the  name  of  everybody  else  who  is 
not  a  direct  party  to  the  quarrel — in 
the  potent  name,  that  is,  of  the  public. 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 

Published  by 

The  National  Weekly  Corporation 

140  Nassau  Street,  New  York 

Fabian  Franklin,  President 

Harold  de  Wolf  Fuller,  Treasurer 


Subscription     price,     five     dollars     a     year     in 
advance.     Fifteen   cents  a  copy.     Foreign  post- 
age,  one   dollar   extra;    Canadian   postage,   fifty 
cents  extra.     Foreign  subscriptions  may  be  sent 
to  Messrs.  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  Ltd.,  24,  Bed- 
ford  St.,   Strand,    London,   W.   C.   2,   England. 
Copyright,     1920,     in    the     United    States    of 
America 
Editors 
FABIAN  FRANKLIN 
HAROLD  de  WOLF  FULLER 
Associate  Editors 
Harry  Morgan  Ayres     O.  W.  Firkins 
A.  J.  Barnouw  W.  H.  Johnson 

Jerome  Landfield 


June  23,  1920] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[647 


Cheradame  on  Lloyd  George 


[M.  Cheradame  has  dealt  so  long  with  the 
uncertain  march  of  future  events,  and  his  writ- 
ings have  excited  so  much  interest  on  both 
sides  of  the  Atlantic,  that  anything  coming 
from  his  pen  is  worth  attention.  The  article 
by  him  which  follows  is,  at  any  rate,  an 
interesting  historical  document,  not  because 
of  the  light  it  throws  upon  Mr.  Lloyd  George's 
alleged  pro-Germanism,  but  for  what  it  reveals 
of  French  fears  and  suspicions  as  to  Great 
Britain's  foreign  policy.  History  is  the  record 
of  human  errors,  and  the  idea  now  possessing 
certain  statesmen  in  Paris  as  to  the  perfidy 
of  the  British  Premier  is  of  no  less  historical 
value  for  being,  as  we  firmly  believe,  a  sad 
delusion.  Lloyd  George's  leniency  towards 
Germany  is  not  dictated  by  the  German  ele- 
ments of  international  high  finance,  but  rather 
by  the  influence  of  British  liberal  opinion  and 
the  pressure  of  labor.  He  is  not  such  a  fool 
as  to  be  working,  after  the  immense  sacrifice 
to  which  he  stimulated  his  country  in  the  war, 
for  an  end  which  would  make  that  sacrifice  a 
needless  waste.  Not  the  financial  and  political 
ruin  of  France  is  his  aim,  but  the  economic 
revival  of  Germany.  To  consider  the  latter  in- 
compatible with  the  welfare  and  safety  of 
France  is  forgivable  in  a  nation  still  suffering 
from  the  wounds  inflicted  by  a  prosperous  Ger- 
many. But  the  world  would  pay  the  French 
an  ill  service  by  encouraging  their  anti-British 
bias  tending  to  substitute  for  the  Entente  Cor- 
diale.  which  stood  the  test  of  the  war,  an  alli- 
ance of  France  with  her  young  proteges  of 
West  and  East  Europe,  whose  chief  desert  in 
Frenchmen's  eyes  is  their  hostility  towards 
Germany  and  Hungary.  The  old  continent  can 
not  be  pacified  by  rebuilding  its  political 
framework  on  foundations  of  enmity  and 
hatred.] 


fyHE  moral  and  material  failure  of 
-■-  the  Peace  Conference  has  natu- 
rally made  many  Americans  averse  to 
taking  any  interest  in  the  affairs  of 
the  Old  World.  Still,  in  spite  of  the 
Atlantic,  the  moral,  political,  and  eco- 
nomic ties  connecting  the  two  Conti- 
nents are  so  many  and  so  close  that 
the  United  States  could  not  ignore 
what  is  happening  in  Europe  without 
serious  damage  to  purely  American 
interests. 

The  situation  I  have  now  to  expose 
is  so  strange  that  even  such  readers 
as  have  lost  their  interest  in  Europe 
will  thank  me  for  bringing  it  to  their 
notice.  It  will  seem  improbable  only 
to  those  who  did  not  read  my  former 
previsions  which,  at  the  time,  seemed 
singularly  audacious  but  have  now 
been  justified  by  the  events. 

The    general    German    manoeuvre 
which  is  actually  developing  is  vir- 
tually the  same  as  denounced  by  me 
t      under  the  title  "Le  Coup  de  I'Armis- 
I      tice,"  in  my  book  "The  Pan-German 
I      Plot    Unmasked,"    which    was    pub- 
lished early  in  1916.     The  dangers 
and  deceptions  of  the  armistice  which 


are  now  facing  the  Allies  were  ex- 
posed in  "The  Essentials  of  an  En- 
during Victory"  (Scribner,  Decem- 
ber, 1918).  Those  readers  who  fol- 
lowed my  articles  in  the  New  York 
Tribune  at  the  end  of  1918  and  the  be- 
ginning of  1919  can  now  verify  the 
accuracy  of  my  statements. 

The  origin  of  the  present  situation 
consists  in  the  fact  that  the  armistice 
was  signed  between  the  Allies  and 
Germany  under  conditions  which  ap- 
pear more  and  more  amazing.  The 
Allied  army  in  Hungary,  which  could, 
without  any  risk,  have  marched  across 
Bohemia  upon  Berlin,  was  forced  to 
give  up  this  plan  by  the  armistice  of 
November  6,  1918,  with  the  Dual 
Monarchy,  and  its  unity  was  later 
broken  up  in  obedience  to  orders 
whose  origin  has  remained  mysteri- 
ous. Official  German  documents 
throw  a  vivid  light  upon  the  strange 
circumstances  which  preceded  the 
conclusion  of  the  armistice  with  Ger- 
many. 

In  the  first  months  of  1919,  a  sharp 
conflict  arose  in  Berlin  between  the 
President  of  the  Council  of  Minis- 
ters and  General  Ludendorff.     The 
polemic  that  ensued  was  so  violent 
that  the  Government  was  induced  to 
publish,  under  the  title  "The  Origin 
of  the  Armistice,"  a  long  series  of 
ofllcial  German  documents  which  to- 
gether form  a  big  volume.    A  certain 
number  of  these  documents  concern 
the  role  played  by  Mr.  Wilson  in  the 
period  preceding  the  armistice,  and 
reveal    the   existence    of   secret    in- 
formants in  German  employ  through 
whom  the  German  Government  knew 
at  almost  every  hour  during  those  de- 
cisive days  the  intimate  thoughts  of 
the   President.     Americans   will   be 
deeply  interested  in  the  perusal  of 
these  documents  of  indubitable  au- 
thenticity. A  German  edition  of  them 
has  appeared  in  Berlin.     A  French 
edition,   by   Captain    Koeltz    of   the 
French  General  Staff,  has  been  pub- 
lished by  the  Renaissance  du  Livre, 
78  Boulevard  St.  Michel,  Paris,  under 
the  title,  "L'Aveu  de  la  Defaite  Al- 
lemande.    Les  Origines  de  I'Armis- 
tice."    Americans  who  will  take  the 


trouble  to  read  the  documents  atten- 
tively will  soon  become  convinced  that 
hostilities  ceased  under  very  surpris- 
ing conditions.  A  similar  conclusion 
is  to  be  drawn  from  a  declaration 
made  by  M.  Poincare,  then  President 
of  the  Republic,  in  an  address  at 
Givet  early  in  December,  1919 :  "The 
day  when  the  German  armies,"  he 
said,  "signed  their  capitulation  be- 
fore the  victorious  troops  of  Marshal 
Foch  they  were  incapable  of  carry- 
ing on  the  war,  and  three  or  four 
days  of  continued  fighting  would  have 
forced  them  to  absolute  surrender.  It 
was  in  order  to  escape  that  disaster 
that  Germany  signed  the  armistice." 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  was  the 
captains  of  international  finance, 
many  of  whom  are  of  German  origin, 
that,  pulling  the  wires  behind  the 
scene,  made  an  end  to  the  war  before 
a  decisive  victory  was  achieved.  As, 
since  the  armistice,  the  Germans  have 
ceded  large  shares  in  their  industrial 
concerns,  at  very  advantageous  con- 
ditions under  the  present  rate  of  ex- 
change, to  certain  Americans  and, 
especially,  to  a  number  of  English- 
men, these  are  now  so  deeply  inter- 
ested in  German  business  that  they 
are  doing  their  utmost  to  rescue  the 
Germans  from  the  economic  conse- 
quences of  the  Peace  Treaty  and,  espe- 
cially, from  those  involved  in  the 
reparations. 

The    influence    exerted    by    these 
financiers  on  Mr.  Lloyd  George  is  so 
powerful  that  the  latter  has  aban- 
doned the  formula  of  his  peace  pro- 
gramme: guarantees,  sanctions,  rep- 
arations.    In  fact,  the  affairs  of  Eu- 
rope are  being  settled  in  such  a  way 
as  to  make  it  seem  that  Mr.  Lloyd 
"George    wished    to    divide    between 
Great    Britain    and    Germany    the 
hegemony    over    Europe   and    Asia. 
That  is  why  Mr.  Lloyd  George  is  do- 
ing  his  utmost   to   prevent   France 
from  applying  the  Treaty  and  to  save 
Germany  from  the  consequences  of 
the  war.     The  full  weight  of  these 
moves  must  gradually  devolve  upon 
France,  which  under  those  conditions 
can  not  fail  to  succumb.    As  a  result 
of  this  policy  France  will  be  brought 
under  the  Anglo-German  yoke.    Cen- 
tral and  North  Russia  and  more  than 
half  of  Siberia  will  become  a  Qerman 


t » 


648] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  58 


colony  exploited  on  behalf  of  Anglo- 
German  syndicates.  This  is  the  ex-  . 
planation  of  Mr.  Lloyd  George's 
favorable  attitude  towards  the  Rus- 
sian Bolsheviki,  whose  principal 
leaders  are  German  agents.  Poland 
will  be  subjugated,  and  Hungary  will 
ser\-e  as  a  base  for  the  Anglo-German 
interests  against  Czechoslovakia,  Ru- 
mania, Jugoslavia.  As  to  Turkey, 
the  Caucasus,  Persia,  South  Russia, 
they  will  form  the  exclusive  share  of 
British  imperialism. 

Such  is,  in  rough  outlines,  the 
political  plan  to  which  Mr.  Lloyd 
George  has  been  won  over,  and 
whose  realization  is  obviously  al- 
ready being  attempted,  as  appears 
more  and  more  clearly  from  recent 
occurrences.  The  Germans  see  an 
immense  advantage  in  this  combina- 
tion of  their  own  invention.  By  it, 
they  have  practically  succeeded  in  de- 
stroying the  Entente.  They  have, 
thanks  to  Mr.  Lloyd  George's  inter- 
ference, evaded  the  real  guarantees 
which  they  ought  to  have  furnished 
and  the  judicial  sanctions  for  the 
crimes  committed  during  the  war. 
The  Germans  are  now  working  to 
elude  the  imposed  reparations,  and 
Mr.  Lloyd  George  goes  out  of  his  way 
to  help  them  find  the  supple  formula 
which,  while  seemingly  leaving  the 
rights  of  France  intact,  will  neverthe- 
less furnish  to  the  Germans  the 
means  of  evading  somehow  their 
execution. 

In  this  entire  transaction  with  the 
English  the  Germans  have,  naturally, 
their  own  particular  aim  in  mind. 
They  know  perfectly  well  that  the 
financial  ruin  of  France  is  bound  to 
involve  her  political  ruin.  They  also 
know  that  England  will  lack  the- 
power  to  maintain  her  hegemony  over 
the  Balkans,  Turkish  Asia,  and  South 
Russia.  The  Germans  are  quite  right 
in  this  respect.  The  social  situation 
of  England  does  not  allow  her,  con- 
fronted as  she  is  by  the  growing  diffi- 
culties in  Ireland,  in  Egypt,  and  in 
India,  to  realize  for  good  the  im- 
perialistic plans  on  a  gigantic  scale 
of  Mr.  Lloyd  George. 

It  follows,  therefore,  that,  ulti- 
mately, the  Anglo-German  combina- 
tion, if  it  developed  unimpeded,  would 
result  in  the  establishment  of  the 


Pan-Germany  which  the  Ludendorffs, 
the  Helfferichs,  the  Bernstorffs,  who 
are  still  the  wirepullers  behind  the 
scene,  have  not  ceased  to  imagine  as 
a  possible  reality.    „ 

Fortunately,  the  extremely  danger- 
ous character  of  Mr.  Lloyd  George's 
foreign  combinations  is  becoming  so 
prominent  that  the  consummation  of 
this  particular  one  is  far  from  cer- 
tain. Part  of  his  project  is  based  on 
Gennany's  hold  on  Central  and 
Northern  Russia,  and  her  exploitation 
of  that  area  on  behalf  of  Anglo-Ger- 
man syndicates.  This  plan,  however, 
involves  the  crushing  of  Poland. 
During  the  last  months,  Mr.  Lloyd 
George  has  done  all  he  could  to  bring 
this  about  by  the  combined  action  of 
the  Germans  in  the  West  and  the 
Bolshevik  army  in  the  East,  an  army, 
by  the  by,  which  is  in  reality  a  Ger- 
man force  consisting  of  Russian  mer- 
cenaries. 

But  here  commences  a  new  miracle 
capable  of  upsetting  all  Mr.  Lloyd 
George's  combinations.  Poland  is 
governed  by  a  man  of  great  capaci- 
ties, Marshal  Pilsudski.  He  has 
wisely  not  waited  for  the  German- 
Bolshevik  forces  to  crush  the  nascent 
Poland.  The  Polish  army,  which  has 
made  enormous  progress  in  the  last 
few  months,  has  inflicted  a  serious  de- 
feat on  the  Russian  Bolsheviki.  If, 
as  is  to  be  hoped,  the  Polish  troops, 
which  will  perhaps  be  joined  by  the 
Rumanians,  follow  up  their  successes, 
it  is  not  impossible  that  these  will 
lead  to  the  overthrow  of  the  abomina- 
ble regime  of  Lenin  and  Trotsky, 
which  has  reduced  the  Russian  people 
to  enforced  labor.  As  to  the  Czecho- 
slovaks, the  Jugoslavs,  and  the  Ru- 
manians, they  are  ready  to  prevent 
Hungary  from  becoming  a  bastion 
for  the  Anglo-German  schemes 
against  them.  If,  finally,  Marshal 
Pilsudski  has  the  wisdom  to  render 
to  the  Russians  the  truly  Russian  ter- 
ritories, and  to  conclude  with  them  a 
cordial  peace,  after  freeing  them  from 
the  Bolshevist  yoke,  the  immense 
consequences  of  such  a  course  would 
be  that  the  project  of  Berlin  and  Mr. 
Lloyd  George  would  be  frustrated  and 
Europe  could  again  look  forward  to  a 
regime  of  liberty.  But  we  have  not 
yet  advanced  so  far. 


In  view  of  this  general  situation 
the  interest  of  the  United  States 
seems  clearly  defined.  America  must 
see  her  interest  in  the  establishment 
of  a  state  of  affairs  which  will  free  her 
forever  from  the  nightmare  of  hav- 
ing again  to  interfere  with  military 
force  in  the  quarrels  of  the  Old  Con- 
tinent, and  which  will  enable  her  to 
carry  on  a  stable  and  profitable  com- 
merce with  the  nations  of  Europe, 
once  for  all  freed  from  the  oppres- 
sion of  Germany. 

The  European  combination  which 
would  most  surely  enable  the  Ameri- 
cans to  obtain  these  results  is  the  con- 
sistent elaboration  of  the  programme 
which  eminent  American  statesmen 
are  said  to  have  approved  for  the  re- 
construction of  Europe — an  "Entente 
Cordiale"  between  France,  Belgium, 
Poland,  Jugoslavia,  Czechoslovakia, 
Rumania,  and  Greece. 

Not  until  that  alliance  is  fully 
realized  will  Americans  be  per- 
fectly free  from  the  fear  of  having 
again  to  intervene  in  the  affairs  of 
Europe,  for  it  will  possess  sufficient 
power  to  prevent  a  renewal  of  the 
Pan-German  peril.  That  combina- 
tion will  also  furnish  the  means  of 
readjusting  the  financial  situation  by 
ending  the  crisis  of  the  exchange. 
That  obstacle  once  surmounted,  the 
Americans  will  be  able  to  do  profitable 
business  with  about  130  million  Con- 
tinental Europeans  anxious  to  wel- 
come them. 

What  is  the  immediate  requirement 
to  produce  this  desired  result?  It 
is  desirable  that  American  opinion 
should  express  its  sympathy  with  the 
cause  of  Poland,  of  Rumania,  of 
Czechoslovakia,  of  Jugoslavia,  and 
that  American  business  men  should 
not  hesitate  to  procure  for  these 
countries  the  means  of  vindicating 
their  independence.  Poland  espe- 
cially has  need  of  arms  and  ammuni- 
tions. It  were  to  be  wished  that 
Americans  favored  these  operations,  j| 
which  are  more  likely  than  any  others 
to  put  an  end  to  the  Bolshevist  pesti- 
lence. No  action  of  Americans  at  the 
present  hour  can  be  more  conducive 
to  provoking  subsequently,  by  reac- 
tion, a  beneficial  effect  for  the  United 
States.  I 

ANDRfi  CHfiRADAME  | 


June  23,  1920] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[649 


The    Republican 
National  Convention 

AFTER  five  sweltering  days  in  the 
Chicago  Coliseum,  to  say  nothing 
of  the  days  and  nights  in  candidates' 
headquarters,  hotel  lobbies,  and  clubs, 
the  Republicans  have  chosen  their  stand- 
ard-bearers for  the  election  in  Novem- 
ber. Nine  ballots  were  required  to  bring 
this  about,  and  up  to  the  seventh  ballot 
the  delegates  seemed  all  at  sea  and  a 
dead-lock  apparently  impended.  Then 
came  the  quick  swing  to  Harding  which 
relieved  the  tense  situation,  and  the 
weary  delegates  heaved  a  sigh  of  relief 
rather  than  of  satisfaction.  To  nominate 
Coolidge  as  Harding's  running-mate  was 
a  matter  quickly  disposed  of. 

The  judgment  passed  upon  the  nomi- 
nation by  many  of  the  representatives  of 
the  press  was  that  it  was  a  triumph  of 
the  so-called  "Old  Guard"  and  the  Sen- 
ate group,  and  it  must  be  admitted 
frankly  that  the  nomination  must  have 
afforded  the  stand-patters  considerable 
satisfaction;  but  to  attribute  the  nomi- 
nation to  their  direct  manipulation  is  to 
give  them  too  much  credit  and  to  ignore 
the  outstanding  characteristic  of  the 
Convention,  which  was  its  absence  of 
leadership.  The  causes  underlying  the 
nomination  of  Harding  were,  in  fact, 
quite  different. 

The  key-note  of  the  work  of  Mr.  Will 
H.  Hays  as  Chairman  of  the  Republican 
National  Committee  has  been  harmony, 
and  by  the  word  "harmony"  Mr.  Hays 
meant  the  bringing  together  into  the 
fold  of  the  Republican  party  all  possfble 
factions,  and  especially  reuniting  with 
it  the  Progressives,  even  those  of  the 
left  wing.  This  involved  a  dangerous 
degree  of  compromise  with  the  tradi- 
tional principles  of  the  Republican  party 
and  led  to  a  situation  of  which  certain 
political  adventurers  were  not  slow  to 
take  advantage. 

It  was  this  that  gave  to  Hiram  W. 
Johnson  and  his  associates,  Senator 
Borah  and  Senator  McCormick,  an  im- 
portance in  the  Convention  out  of  all 
proportion  to  their  actual  strength.  John- 
son came  to  Chicago  prepared,  with  the 
assistance  of  Hearst  and  William  Hale 
Thompson,  to  stage  a  great  popular  dem- 
onstration that  should  stampede  the  Con- 
vention. Had  there  been  real  leadership, 
this  manoeuvre  would  have  been  evaluated 
at  its  proper  worth.  Owing  to  the  lack 
of  it,  Johnson  was  able  to  make  a  dis- 
play of  strength  that  was  not  without  its 
effect  upon  the  Resolutions  Committee 
in  their  work  upon  the  platform.  In 
other  words,  the  whole  policy  of  harmony 
at  any  cost  enabled  this  group  to  hold  up 
the  Convention  and  prevent  the  nomina- 
tion of  either  General  Wood  or  Governor 
Lowden.      If,    therefore,    the    delegates 


were  obliged  to  select  a  somewhat  neu- 
tral candidate  rather  than  a  more  force- 
ful and  positive  leader,  they  have  the 
Johnson  group  to  thank  for  it.  It  was 
the  selfish  and  opportunist  policy  of  the 
Senator  from  California  that  made  such 
a  selection  a  logical  necessity. 

The  opening  of  the  Convention  was 
somewhat  dull  and  listless.  Little  en- 
thusiasm was  displayed  either  on  the 
floor  or  in  the  galleries.  The  key-note 
speech  of  Senator  Lodge  was  well  re- 
ceived, though  frequent  remarks  were 
heard  to  the  effect  that  in  his  effort  to 
justify  the  position  of  the  Republican 
Senators  he  laid  far  too  much  emphasis 
on  the  struggle  between  President 
and  Senate  rather  than  upon  the  chasm 
between  President  and  people.  With 
its  statements,  however,  the  delegates 
showed  themselves  in  accord. 

As  for  the  delegates  themselves,  they 
were  essentially  regulars.  A  majority 
of  them  had  been  delegates  in  the  1916 
Convention,  and  in  reply  to  a  question 
as  to  whether  there  was  any  likelihood 
that  they  would  be  stampeded,  an  old 
Republican  war-horse  remarked  that  the 
Convention  was  "a  basket  of  hard-boiled 
eggs." 

The  first  real  struggle  of  the  Conven- 
tion came  in  the  sub-committee  of  the 
Committee  on  Resolutions,  which  labored 
all  night  to  formulate  a  plank  on  the 
Treaty  and  League  of  Nations  that  would 
satisfy  the  demands  of  Johnson  and 
Borah.  The  plank  finally  adopted  was 
practically  that  written  by  Senator  Root 
just  before  his  departure  for  Europe, 
and  while  it  was  generally  felt  that  John- 
son had  succeeded  in  blocking  a  state- 
ment more  in  harmony  with  the  position 
of  the  mild  reservationists,  such  as  Mur- 
ray Crane  desired,  it  was  in  reality  a 
Pyrrhic  victory  and  did  not  tend  to 
strengthen  Johnson's  position  in  the  Con- 
vention. Another  long  delay  took  place 
when  the  sub-committee  report  came  be- 
fore the  Resolutions  Committee,  a  delay 
which  caused  the  perspiring  delegates  to 
become  very  restless. 

It  was  not  until  late  in  the  afternoon 
of  Thursday  that  the  report  was  finally 
brought  before  the  Convention  and  the 
platform  read  in  extenso  by  Senator  Wat- 
son. On  the  completion  of  his  reading 
occurred  an  incident  at  once  amusing 
and  instructive.  A  fresh  and  self-asser- 
tive young  man  from  Milwaukee  named 
Gross,  for  some  unexplained  reason  a 
member  of  the  Resolutions  Committee, 
presented  a  minority  report — the  report 
of  a  minority  of  one.  It  was  a  long, 
rambling  screed,  couched  in  the  cus- 
tomary patter  of  the  Socialists,  and  might 
have  emanated  either  from  LaFollette  or 
from  Victor  Berger.  The  hour  was  late 
and  the  delegates  tired  and  impatient, 
and  at  first  they  showed  their  displeasure 
and  impatience  vigorously.  But  at  the 
request  of  the  Chairman  the  young  man 


was  given  a  hearing  to  the  bitter  end 
with  derisive  tolerance,  and  was  not  per- 
mitted to  make  a  martyr  of  himself,  as 
was  evidently  his  intention. 

Friday  witnessed  the  whole  series  of 
nominating  and  seconding  speeches,  with 
accompanying  demonstrations.  These 
time-wasting  demonstrations  have  grown 
to  be  a  great  nuisance  in  Conventions 
and  bear  unmistakable  signs  of  artificial 
organization.  The  one  exception  to  this 
was  the  spontaneous  outburst  from  the 
audience  that  greeted  the  nomination  of 
Hoover.  He  was  easily  the  most  popu- 
lar candidate  with  the  audience  of  all 
those  brought  forward;  the  only  thing 
he  lacked  was  delegates.  The  best  of 
the  addresses  was  made  by  Mrs.  Douglas 
Robinson,  Colonel  Roosevelt's  sister,  in 
seconding  the  nomination  of  General 
Wood.  It  stood  out  as  a  gem  amidst  a 
welter  of  platitudinous  and  commonplace 
speeches.  The  worst  address  was  the 
speech  of  Charles  S.  Wheeler  of  San 
Francisco,  placing  in  nomination  the 
name  of  Hiram  W.  Johnson.  If  Johnson 
at  any  time  had  any  chance  of  becoming 
the  Republican  candidate,  this  address 
effectually  killed  it.  Allusions  to  the 
power  of  the  press  and  the  fact  that  his 
candidate  was  divinely  chosen  brought 
forth  a  cry  of  "Hearst,"  which  was  taken 
up  with  derisive  cheers  by  the  whole 
audience,  while  an  insinuating  allusion 
to  the  campaign  expenditures  of  the  two 
leading  candidates  called  forth  a  chorus 
of  boos  from  the  floor.  When  Mr. 
Wheeler  sat  down,  Johnson's  candidacy 
had  been  punctured  beyond  repair. 

Throughout  Friday  night  numerous 
conferences  took  place  in  the  effort  to 
break  the  dead-lock,  and  when  the  Con- 
vention met  on  Saturday,  the  feeling 
was  general  that  Harding  would  be 
chosen,  though  the  names  of  Sproul  and 
Knox  were  also  heard  as  alternatives.  It 
was  said  that  Johnson  was  willing  to  re- 
lease his  delegates  from  their  pledges 
provided  he  were  given  assurance  that 
neither  Wood  nor  Lowden  would  be  nomi- 
nated, and  that  his  preference  was  for 
Knox.  When  the  recess  was  taken  Satur- 
day afternoon,  the  nomination  of  Hard- 
ing was  a  foregone  conclusion;  but  two 
more  ballots  were  required  to  bring  this 
about.  Harding's  name  did  not  arouse 
superlative  enthusiasm,  but  there  was  a 
general  feeling  among  the  delegates  that 
they  had  selected  a  candidate  against 
whom  nothing  could  be  said,  and  that  in 
so  doing  they  had  averted  the  threatened 
break  in  the  Republican  party  and  had 
got  off  lightly  from  the  Johnson  chan- 
tage. Joined  with  this  was  an  undercur- 
rent of  uneasy  feeling  that,  under  Hard- 
ing's leadership,  the  Republican  party 
would  by  no  means  have  a  walk-over  in 
November  and  a  nervous  interest  in  the 
prospective  proceedings  of  the  Demo- 
cratic Convention  at  San  Francisco. 
Jerome  Landfield 


I 


650] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  58 


The  Problem  of  Palestine 
A  Rejoinder 


"rpHE  Problem  of  Palestine,"  by 
J.  Edward  Bliss  Reed,  printed  in  a 
recent  number  of  the  Weekly  Review, 
asks  American  public  opinion  to  "sup- 
port the  enforcement  of  the  clause  in  the 
Balfour  Declaration  that  promises  se- 
curity to  the  great  majority  of  Pales- 
tinians who  are  not  Zionists."  It  may 
seem  a  gratuitous  insult  to  a  friendly 
power  for  Mr.  Reed  to  urge  "that  Amer- 
ica has  a  great  responsibility"  to  tell 
Britain  how  she  is  to  carry  out  the  terms 
of  her  mandate  over  Palestine,  a  mandate 
given  under  a  treaty  which  we  have  yet 
failed  to  ratify,  and  under  which  we, 
therefore,  have  neither  obligations  nor 
rights.  Mr.  Reed  makes  his  appeal  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  a  statement  in  an- 
other part  of  his  article  renders  such  an 
appeal  superfluous  and  irrelevant.  For 
he  quotes  the  just  and  sober  official  state- 
ment of  General  Bols,  Chief  Adminis- 
trator for  Palestine,  ending  in  the  words 
"the  inhabitants  may  be  assured  that  the 
Government  is  well  intentioned  towards 
them  and  holds  only  the  scales  of  justice 
in  its  hands."  Mr.  Reed  makes  his  ap- 
peal to  America  at  a  time  when  her  in- 
terest in  Near  Eastern  affairs  is  regis- 
tered in  the  decisive  defeat  of  the  reso- 
lution in  favor  of  an  American  mandate 
over  stricken  and  suffering  Armenia. 

Why  does  Mr.  Reed  come  to  a  conclu- 
sion diametrically  opposed  to  that  held 
and  advocated  in  the  United  States  since 
1891?  In  that  year  the  Reverend  Wil- 
liam E.  Blackstone  and  Henry  Clay 
Trumbull,  late  editor  of  the  Sunday 
School  Times,  sent  a  memorial  to  Presi- 
dent Harrison,  signed  by  hundreds  of 
prominent  Americans,  favoring  the 
restoration  of  Palestine  to  the  Jewish 
people.  The  Zionist  cause  has  been  con- 
sistently supported  in  America  since 
then.  It  has  been  recently  espoused  not 
only  by  President  Wilson,  Secretaries 
Baker  and  Daniels,  and  Senator  Lodge, 
but  by  the  leaders  of  American  intel- 
lectual and  spiritual  life,  Charles  W. 
Eliot,  G.  Stanley  Hall,  Henry  van  Dyke, 
Right  Reverends  Charles  S.  Burch  and 
Luther  B.  Wilson,  and  James  Cardinal 
Gibbons,  among  others. 

Mr.  Reed  opposes  Zionist  aims  in 
Palestine  because  of  a  mistaken  point  of 
view.  He  talks  in  terms  of  territories 
and  thinks  in  terms  of  theology.  But 
Zionism  is  concerned  only  incidentally 
with  the  former  and  not  at  all  with  the 
latter.  Zionism  is  an  attempt  to  solve 
a  social  problem,  the  Jewish  problem. 
This  is  not  a  problem  of  Palestine,  it 
affects  countries  outside  of  Palestine.  It 
is  a  world  problem.  It  is  not  an  Arab 
problem;  it  affects  all  of  Christendom. 


For  in  Eastern  Europe  there  are  seven 
million  Jews  who  can  not  all  remain 
there.  The  disorganization  of  Europe, 
the  breakdown  of  the  industrial  mechan- 
ism, has  created  a  surplus  population. 

And  even  before  the  war,  the  Jew  had 
an  uncomfortable  berth  on  the  edge  of 
the  volcano.  In  Poland  there  had  been 
developing  a  crushing  anti-Jewish  boy- 
cott. Since  the  war,  Dmowski  has  said 
quite  frankly  that  the  boycott  was  part 
of  "a  war  of  extermination."  In  Ru- 
mania the  native-born  Jew,  whose  an- 
cestors settled  there  hundreds  of  years 
ago  and  who  may  have  served  his  coun- 
try in  war  time,  was  an  alien  in  the  eyes 
of  the  law,  in  spite  of  the  treaty  of  Berlin 
in  1878.  Rumania's  signature  to  the  re- 
cent Treaty  of  Peace  with  Austria  will 
not  bring  this  discrimination  to  an  end. 
The  stroke  of  a  pen  does  not  suddenly 
alter  national  psychology,  nor  will  it 
promptly  change  the  relation  of  illiterate 
and  fanatic  people  towards  others  of  dif- 
ferent ethnic  stock.  The  signing  of  the 
armistice  brought  an  end  to  hostilities 
among  the  belligerents  but  did  not  stop 
massacre  and  pillage  of  the  Jew  in  East- 
ern Europe. 

All  the  old  superlatives  of  the  history 
of  martyrdom  have  been  exceeded.  The 
massacres  in  the  Middle  Ages  have  been 
outdone  in  the  past  three  years.  In  East- 
ern Europe  tens  of  thousands  of  Jews 
have  been  murdered  and  hundreds  of 
thousands  made  destitute.  And  that  is 
why  "they  are  waiting  at  Odessa,  Con- 
stantinople, Constanza,  and  Vladivostok 
for  passage  to  their  new  home."  That  is 
why,  as  Mr.  Reed  calls  them,  "aliens, 
chiefly  Russians,  Poles,  and  Rumanians 
are  to  come  in  and  possess  the  land"  of  • 
Palestine. 

What  are  the  charges  against  Zionism, 
set  forth  by  Mr.  Reed?  The  burden  of 
his  attack  is,  not  what  Zionists  have 
done,  but  what  they  may  do.  And  what 
are  the  fearful  plans  of  the  Zionists?  "It 
is  of  utmost  importance  to  understand 
that  Zionism  desires  in  Palestine  more 
than  a  mere  place  of  refuge  for  op- 
pressed Jews,"  asserts  Mr.  Reed.  The 
Jews  who  as  a  minority  people  have 
suffered  for  untold  centuries  now  seek 
a  place  where  they  may  be  guaran- 
teed freedom.  A  people  that  has  been 
driven  out  of  its  homeland,  and  has  wan- 
dered weary  and  worn,  now  seeks  a  rest- 
ing place  from  which  no  majority  can 
turn  them  out  at  will,  a  homeland  in 
which  their  fathers  dwelt  for  a  period 
that  exceeds  the  history  of  any  nation 
of  Europe  on  its  soil,  a  homeland  in 
which  they  developed  a  culture  which, 
through  its  daughter  religion,  constitutes 


the  cornerstone  of  modern  civilization. 
Truly  the  Jews  do  not  seek  a  mere  refuge 
in  Palestine  as  a  minority.  History  has 
taught  them  the  futility  of  such  a  quest. 
For,  in  the  Middle  Ages,  liberal  Poland 
invited  the  Jews  to  take  shelter  within 
her  borders,  and  to-day  they  are  under 
the  painful  necessity  of  seeking  homes 
elsewhere. 

Mr.  Reed  contends  further  that  "the 
Jews  that  emigrate  there  will  not  go  in 
the  same  spirit  in  which  thousands  of 
Europeans  have  sought  our  shores." 
Hardly  could  he  have  found  a  broken 
reed  less  suitable  to  lean  on.  Not  in  the 
same  spirit,  indeed,  will  the  Jews  go  to 
Palestine  as  the  Europeans  came  to  our 
shores.  What  was  the  motive  of  all  but 
the  earliest  immigration  into  the  United 
States?  Economic  opportunity  in  a  rich 
land,  self-interest,  the  desire  to  partici- 
pate in  an  industrial  bonanza.  The  spirit 
that  is  urging  Jews  to  go  to  Palestine 
is  not  this  spirit.  For  the  land  is  now 
barren  and  desolate.  Its  economic  at- 
tractions are  nil.  The  spirit  that  moves 
them  is  the  spirit  of  the  Puritans,  of  the 
Quakers,  of  the  Huguenots,  and  of  the 
other  colonial  non-conformists,  who,  in 
an  age  of  individualism,  sought  freedom 
of  conscience.  And  in  the  present  social 
era,  the  Jew  seeks  freedom  for  his  people, 
and  an  opportunity  to  express  himself 
unhindered  by  physical  force  or  by  more 
subtle,  though  not  less  painful,  social 
stigma.  The  group  of  Russian  Jews  who 
went  to  the  waste  lands  of  Palestine  in 
1881  suffered  the  fate  of  our  early 
settlers  in  Massachusetts  and  Virginia. 
Like  them  the  "sons  of  Moses"  and  the 
"lovers  of  Zion"  perished  from  starva- 
tion and  fever.  The  immortal  monu- 
ment they  left  behind  is  the  eucalyptus 
tree,  the  Jew  tree,  the  Arab  calls  it — 
that  drained  the  malarial  marshes  for 
the  later  colonists. 

What  are  the  other  wicked  plans  of  the 
Zionists  for  Palestine?  They  brought 
from  Scotland  a  town  planner  of  inter- 
national fame.  Sir  Patrick  Geddes,  "to 
draw  plans  for  the  reconstruction  of 
Jerusalem  *  *  *  and  for  the  de- 
velopment of  Jaffa,  Haifa,  and  other 
places."  Worse  still,  they  are  planning  to 
develop  the  industrial  resources  of  the 
land,  which  have  remained  neglected  for 
centuries.  They  are  planning  to  increase 
production  at  a  time  when  the  world 
sorely  needs  goods.  They  are  planning 
to  relieve  Poland  and  Rumania  of  their 
"surplus"  population.  The  Zionists  aim 
to  bring  to  Palestine  the  mechanics  of 
civilization,  sanitation,  transportation, 
and  education.  The  Zionists,  under 
British  auspices,  are  guilty  of  applying 
the  methods  that  developed  North  Amer- 
ica and  Australia. 

Mr.  Reed  bases  a  long  list  of  griev- 
ances against  Zionists  on  the  personal 
opinion  of  an  unnamed  writer  of  a  letter 
to  the  Manchester  Guardian,  reprinted 


June  23,  1920] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[651 


in  Palestine,  an  unofficial  paper,  and  un- 
related to  the  Zionist  organization.  This 
presumably  irresponsible  letter-writer 
states  that  "the  Zionists  require  a  pref- 
erence in  the  settlement  of  the  waste  and 
dead  lands  *  *  *  and  a  priority 
in  any  concessions  for  public  works  on 
the  development  of  the  natural  resources 
of  Palestine."  Aside  from  the  very 
relevant  and  practical  fact  that  the  Brit- 
ish Government  is  in  control  of  Palestine, 
and  that  what  "Zionism  requires"  counts 
for  naught  except  insofar  as,  in  the 
opinion  of  the  British  authorities,  the 
best  interests  of  Palestine  may  be  ad- 
vanced, Mr.  Reed  quite  naively  cites  in 
destruction  of  his  own  argument  the 
official  statement  of  General  Bols,  as- 
suring even-handed  justice  to  all  the 
inhabitants. 

To  refute  the  other  charges,  one 
need  but  quote  Mr.  Reed's  own  state- 
ments made  in  another  article.  In  the 
Weekly  Review  he  says,  "Zionists  do  not 
wish  equality  of  privilege  for  Christian, 
Arab,  and  Jew."  Elsewhere,  however, 
he  wrote  "the  Zionist  organization  has 
founded  orphanages  and  hospitals  that 
minister  not  to  the  Jew  alone,  but  to 
Christian  and  Moslem  alike,  and  it  has 
brought  to  maintain  them  many  women 
highly  qualified  for  their  work  both  by 
their  spirit  of  devotion  and  their  tech- 
nical training."*  Again,  he  contends  in 
this  article  that  "organized  Jewish  labor 
in  Palestine  has  declared  that  only 
Hebrews  shall  be  employed  on  public 
works."  And  the  irresponsible  writer  of 
the  letter  "reprinted  in  Palestine  would 
require  'adequate  employment  of  Jews  in 
constructing  and  operating  any  public 
works.'"  What  are  the  facts?  Have 
the  Jewish  colonists  at  any  time  in  the 
past  thirty  years  actually  conducted  a 
"boycott  on  Arab  labor"?  Let  Mr.  Reed 
himself  speak.  In  another  article  he 
stated  that  .the  Arabs  have  found  em- 
ployment in  the  Jewish  colonies  to  the 
extent  of  about  one-third  of  the  total 
population  of  the  colonies. 

As  evidence  of  the  Arab  opposition  to 
Zionism,  Mr.  Reed  cites  the  fact  that  in 
some  cities  there  have  been  Arabs  who 
paraded  and  demonstrated.  These  were 
Instigated  by  political  propagandists  that 
opposed  a  British  mandate  and  that  be- 
came particularly  vigorous  immediately 
prior  to  the  confirmation  of  the  Balfour 
Declaration  by  the  Prime  Ministers  at 
San  Remo.  And  as  a  climax  to  these  ef- 
forts of  months  to  incite  the  Arabs 
against  the  Jews,  Mr.  Reed  mentions  a 
riot  in  which  five  Jews  and  four  Arabs 
were  killed.  Through  a  sinister  propa- 
ganda, the  Arabs  are  being  taught  the 
methods  of  the  Black  Hundreds  of 
Russia.  Ten  thousand  times  five  have 
been  slaughtered  in  Europe  since  the 
signing    of    the    armistice.      Wholesale 


massacres  of  Jews  to  drive  them  out  of 
Eastern  Europe  furnish  a  powerful  mo- 
tive to  emigrate  which  can  not  be 
stemmed  by  a  few  retail  killings  in 
Palestine.  The  tremendous  pressure 
driving  Jews  out  of  Europe  can  not  be 
met  by  the  petty  resistance  to  their  im- 
migration into  Palestine. 

These  excesses  in  Palestine  are  de- 
plorable, but  they  do  not  reflect  the 
sentiment  of  the  masses.  What  is  the  true 
voice  of  the  Arab?  Does  the  absentee 
landlord,  the  effendi,  the  non-Pales- 
tinian Arab,  who  fears  the  deprivation 
of  the  privilege  of  exploiting  the  igno- 
rant peasant,  of  the  right  to  farm  taxes 
and  to  thrive  on  bakshish,  speak  for  the 
large  majority  of  Arabs  in  Palestine? 
The  latter  sent  a  protest  against  the 
anti-Jewish  riots  in  Jerusalem  to  Gen- 
eral Bols.  The  representatives  of  eighty- 
two  Arab  villages  sent  this  petition : 

We  have  the  honor  to  express  to  you  our 
protest  and  our  demands  be  forwarded  to 
the  Peace  Conference  and  to  the  British  Gov- 
ernment. 

First  to  cancel  the  declaration  and  demon- 
stration of  a  few  men  in  the  cities  of  Palestine, 
especially  Jerusalem  and  Jaffa.  We,  the  under- 
signed, are  the  majority,  in  numbers  seventy 
per  cent,  and  in  land  and  holdings  (tenantry), 
ninety  per  cent.     *     *     * 

We  state  further  that  there  is  no  danger 
to  public  or  private  interests  in  Zionist  immi- 
gration and  that  our  mutual  relations  will  be 
those  of  justice. 

The  generous  soul  that  vibrates  with 


sympathy  may  with  profit  turn  his  at- 
tention from  the  few  hundred  thousand 
Arabs  in  Palestine  who  are  being  raised 
to  higher  Western  standards  of  living 
by  the  operations  of  the  Zionist  organiza- 
tion. Let  him  look  to  the  millions  of 
Jews  in  benighted  lands,  repressed  and 
thwarted,  and  of  potential  service  to  the 
world  which  enjoys  the  fruits  of  the 
labors  of  a  Bergson,  an  Ehrlich,  a  Flex- 
ner,  and  a  Jacques  Loeb.  Let  his  right- 
eous indignation  be  directed  to  secure 
for  the  Jews  in  Eastern  Europe  what  the 
Balfour  Declaration  guarantees  the  Arabs 
in  Palestine.  Perhaps  an  altruist  may 
find  that  it  profits  the  Arabs  more  if  he 
devotes  his  time,  not  to  inciting  them 
to  riot  in  Palestine,  but  to  developing 
them  in  the  Hedjaz,  Syria,  and  other 
Arab  lands,  many  times  as  large  as 
Palestine  in  area  and  in  population,  and 
richer  in  resources. 

It  is  a  penny-wise  social  policy  which 
attempts  to  allay  the  imaginary  ills  of 
a  small  group  and  to  ignore  the  physical 
suffering  of  a  greater  group.  Mr.  Reed 
may  with  profit  ponder  the  closing 
verses  of  the  book  of  Jonah,  "Thou  hast 
pity  on  the  gourd,  for  the  which  thou 
hast  not  labored  nor  madest  it  grow. 
And  should  I  not  spare  that  great  city 
wherein  are  more  than  six  score  thou- 
sand persons?" 


The  Laodiceans 


"To  the  Angel  of  the  Church  of  the  Laodiceans  write     . 
thou  art  neither  hot  nor  cold.     1  would  thou  wert  cold  or  hot." 


Elisha  M.  Fkiedman 


I  know  thy  works,  that 


WE  are  the  Laodiceans :  we  know  not  the  ice  nor  the  fire ; 
We  have  never  sprung  to  the  edge  of  doom  at  the  call  of  a  brave  desire; 
We  have  basked  in  the  tepid  noon-tides;  we  have  drawn  an  even  breath; 
We  have  never  felt  between  our  lips  the  savors  of  life  or  death. 

We  are  the  Laodiceans,  loved  not  by  God  nor  man; 

We  boast  in  our  ease  or  riches,  and  take  what  praise  we  can; 

No  love  shall  sear  us  with  longing,  no  grief  shall  turn  us  to  stone; 

We  shall  not  dance  to  the  pipes  of  Spring,  nor  answer  to  joy  or  moan. 

We  are  the  Laodiceans:  when  God's  great  summons  came. 

Cleaving  the  hosts  of  living  men,  as  with  a  line  of  flame. 

We  were  tossed  aside  like  vagrant  leaves  at  an  idle  wind's  behest. 

For  we  knew  not  the  ways  of  battle,  and  we  found  not  the  ways  of  rest. 

We  are  the  Laodiceans :  We  have  slight  fear  of  Hell, 
For  even  its  master  can  not  say,  "Ye  have  done  my  bidding  well." 
And  what  for  us  would  Heaven  be,  with  its  endless  lift  and  range? 
We  are  doomed  to  a  passionless  limbo,  that  knows  not  life  nor  change. 

We  are  the  Laodiceans :  we  care  not  for  wrong  nor  right ; 

We  have  no  part  in  a  world's  defense,  no  cause  for  which  to  fight; 

The  fruits  of  the  ground  are  sweet;  we  would  rest  in  our  garden-places, 

But  God  Himself  shall  drive  us  out,  between  the  black  star-spaces. 

We  are  the  Laodiceans :  our  fight  is  with  only  those 
Who  would  send  us  to  burning  deserts,  or  whelm  us  in  alien  snows; 
We  feel  no  lure  of  march  nor  flight;  we  taste  not  hope  nor  shame; 
And  we  die,  in  our  visionless  Eden,  of  a  curse  without  a  name. 

Marion  Couthouy  Smith 


'Yale  Review,  April,  1920. 


652] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  58 


Correspondence 

Retroactive  Income  Taxes 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Weekly  Review: 
I  have  read  with  interest  your  very 
lucid  editorial  entitled  "Stock  Dividends 
Again."  More  than  two  months  ago  I 
sought  to  point  out  what  you  now  show 
in  your  editorial — that  a  second  t^  on 
past  incomes  is,  in  reality,  either  a  tax 
on  property  or  on  that  which  has  ceased 
to  exist  Those  incomes  either  have  been 
spent  or  have  become  capital.  It  is  in- 
conceivable that  the  Supreme  Court 
would  uphold  a  new  tax  on  what  no 
longer  exists;  and  in  so  far  as  the  past 
incomes  have  become  capital,  the  tax 
would  be  a  direct  tax  and  void,  because 
not  apportioned  among  the  States.  The 
iniquity  of  the  proposed  tax  is  obvious 
for  other  reasons — its  retroactiveness 
among  them — but  it  has  been  a  surprise 
to  me  that  the  very  first  conception  of 
it  was  not  killed  by  criticism  as  to  its 
constitutionality.  Instead  of  this  I  am 
informed  by  Mr.  Rainey,  its  first  pro- 
ponent in  Congress,  that  practically  his 
entire  committee  considers  it  legal;  and 
I  learn  that  the  legal  advisers  of  the 
Treasury  Department,  in  the  beginning 
at  least,  were  of  this  opinion  too. 

Some  doubts,  however,  must  have  crept 
into  Congressional  minds  on  the  subject, 
for  another  proponent  of  the  same  idea, 
Mr.  Johnson  of  South  Dakota,  in  his  bill 
of  April  27  for  raising  the  bonus  for 
soldiers,  proposes  a  subterfuge  to  turn 
the  Constitutional  difficulty.  He  pro- 
poses to  call  his  tax  a  tax  on  1920  cur- 
rent income  only,  but  to  take  up  to  80 
per  cent,  of  it,  or  of  what  he  defines  as 
its  "war  income,"  using  as  a  basis  for 
his  definition  of  "war  income"  the  in- 
come, not  of  that  year,  but  of  the  past 
years  of  1917  to  1920.  You  had  evi- 
dently not  noticed  this  feature  of  our 
latest  economic  thought  in  Congress 
when  you  wrote  your  editorial,  and  I 
enclose  correspondence  that  I  have  had 
with  the  Solicitor  of  Internal  Revenue 
on  that  subject,  which  may  be  of  interest 
to  you.  And  Mr.  Rainey  has  proposed  a 
new  bill  in  nearly  identical  terms  with 
Mr.  Johnson's.  To  my  mind,  while  these 
new  bills  purport  to  tax  this  year's  in- 
come, inasmuch  as  the  rate  of  tax  is 
based  on  the  incomes  of  past  years  it  is 
really  another  form  of  taxing  a  second 
time  those  past  incomes.  I  believe  such 
a  tax  as  Mr.  Johnson's  is  not  only  void 
because  as  a  tax  on  past  incomes  it  is  a 
tax  on  capital,  but  also  because  it  violates 
the  uniformity  clause  of  the  Constitution. 
If  Mr.  Johnson's  tax  can  be  sustained, 
then  by  that  same  reasoning  two  per- 
sons, each  having  a  hundred  thousand 
dollars  income  in  1920,  could  be  taxed  on 
8uch  incomes — the  one  just  nothing  at  all 


because  he  happened  to  have  no  income 
in  past  years,  and  the  other  80  per  cent, 
solely  because  he  did  happen  to  have  a 
large  income  in  those  other  years. 

Surely  this  is  not  an  income  tax  for 
1920  that  complies  with  any  reasonable 
view  of  the  uniformity  in  taxation  re- 
quired by  the  Constitution.  Nor  is  it  an 
income  tax  at  all,  since  it  is  not  really 
based  on  current  income  but  on  some- 
thing else.  As  well  enact  a  tax  on  1920 
incomes  so-called  and  base  the  rate  on 
people's  holdings  of  real  estate.  Would 
that  be  an  income  tax?  I  can  not  help 
thinking  that  these  new  measures  are 
as  obnoxious  to  the  Constitution  as  Mr. 
Rainey's  original  measure,  and  that  both 
are  so,  notwithstanding  the  opinions  of 
the  legal  advisers  of  the  Treasury  or  Mr. 
Rainey's  committeemen. 

The  whole  bonus  proposal  looks  at  this 
time  less  likely  to  become  law  than  it 
did — but  it  will  not  do  to  relax  our 
vigilance  in  any  respect,  when  a  bonus 
bill  has  just  passed  the  House  by  a 
large  majority  and  with  a  retroactive 
provision  for  taxing  the  corporate  right 
to  declare  stock  dividends. 

Charles  Robinson  Smith 

Glendale,  Mass.,  June  4 

The  Housing  Problem 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Weekly  Review: 
In  your  editorial  "A  Cost-of-Living 
Exhibit"  on  May  8,  you  fail  to  bring  out 
what  seems  to  me  the  most  significant 
reason  for  the  striking  contrast  between 
the  relatively  small  increase  in  house 
rents  and  the  great  increase  in  clothing 
costs,  etc. 

Houses  differ  in  one  fundamental  par- 
ticular from  the  great  majority  of  com- 
modities which  enter  into  commerce  with 
sufficient  freedom  to  establish  ascertain- 
able market  prices.  In  the  case  of  cloth- 
ing and  food  and  fuel,  for  example,  the 
total  stock  on  hand  at  any  given  time 
(actually  or  potentially  on  the  market 
subject  to  sale  and  delivery  for  imme- 
diate use)  is  a  fraction  of  the  total  an- 
nual production.  In  the  case  of  houses, 
as  in  the  case  of  diamonds  and  gold,  the 
stock  in  existence,  and  potentially  sal- 
able for  immediate  use  to  any  buyer  who 
offers  an  advance  on  the  current  market 
price>  is  enormously  greater  than  the 
normal  annual  production,  or  even  of  any 
possible  annual  production  under  any 
conceivable  stimulus. 

A  rising  cost  of  production  with  any 
commodity  of  course  tends  to  check  ad- 
ditions to  the  stock  on  hand  until  the 
demand  so  outruns  the  supply  as  to  raise 
the  market  price  to  meet  the  production 
cost.  But  while  the  effect  is  relatively 
prompt  on  the  market  price  of  those  ar- 
ticles of  which  the  stock  on  hand  is 
quickly  exhausted  by  actual  consumption 
when  the  rate  of  production  falls  off, 
the  readjustment  is  inevitably  slow  in  the 


case  of  such  things  as  houses,  of  which 
the  quantity  in  existence  and  potentially 
on  the  market  enormously  exceeds  the 
annual  production.  The  market  price 
commanded  by  new  houses  can  not 
greatly  outrun  the  market  price  of  simi- 
lar houses  already  existing,  and  to  pro- 
duce a  given  percentage  of  increase  in 
the  average  market  price  of  all  existing 
marketable  houses — the  accumulated  pro- 
duction of  many  years — the  shortage 
must  be  much  longer  continued,  or  more 
acute,  or  both,  than  in  the  case  of  ordi- 
nary commodities. 

Except  in  so  far  as  the  increased  cost 
of  production  is  very  temporary,  there  ap- 
pears to  be  no  escape  from  the  economic 
necessity  of  acquiescing  in  the  accrual  of 
a  stupendously  large  "unearned  incre- 
ment" for  the  owners  of  the  existing 
houses,  until  the  market  price  and  rental 
value  of  houses,  old  and  new,  shall  have 
risen  to  the  point  where  it  catches  up  with 
the  cost  of  production.  The  unfairness, 
the  "profiteering,"  of  such  a  process 
rankles,  and  this  helps  to  retard  the  re- 
luctant raising  of  purchase  price  and 
rentals  even  under  the  stimulus  of  acute 
and  increasing  shortage. 

The  human  hardships  and  social  dam- 
age which  are  wrought  by  such  a  short- 
age of  housing,  long  continued,  are  for 
the  community  far  more  serious  than 
the  mere  fact  of  the  economic  injustice 
of  the  "unearned  increment"  received  by 
those  who  happen  to  be  house  owners. 
The  housing  shortage  is  one  of  the  worst 
of  all  the  evil  results  of  inflation,  because 
it  combines  slowness  of  price  adjustment, 
on  account  of  the  relatively  great  stock 
potentially  on  the  market,  with  great 
hardship  while  the  shortage  lasts. 

In^case  of  commodities  whose  market 
price  responds  violently  to  relative 
changes  in  supply  and  demand,  making 
for  spasmodic  fluctuations  in  price,  the 
interests  of  the  community  are  served 
by  devices  which  promptly  apply  the 
brakes  to  soaring  or  to  plunging  prices. 
In  the  case  of  houses  the  adjustment  of 
price  is  naturally  so  slow  that  any  de- 
liberate efforts  of  the  community  should 
be  in  the  direction  of  accelerating  the 
required  adjustment,  whether  on  a  ris- 
ing or  a  falling  market.  To  retard  the 
process  of  adjusting  house  values  to  the 
cost  of  production  by  "anti-profiteering" 
efforts  on  the  part  of  a  community  suf- 
fering from  acute  housing  shortage  is 
to  play  the  part  of  those  conservatives 
who  were  once  defined  as  "they  who  re- 
main in  hot  water  lest  they  be  scalded." 
Frederick  Law  Olmsted 

Brookline,  Mass.,  June  1 

[Mr.  Olmsted  treats  the  supply  side 
of  the  housing  problem;  the  editorial  re- 
lated to  the  demand  side,  "the  way  in 
which  an  increasing  volume  of  money 
operates  to  raise  prices."  Eds.  THE 
Weekly  Review.] 


June  23,  1920] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[658 


Book  Reviews 

A  New  History  of  the  French 
Revolution 

The  French  Revolution  :  A  Study  in  De- 
mocracy. By  Nesta  H.  Webster.  New 
York :    E.  P.  Dutton  and  Company. 

MOST  histories  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion inspire  either  enthusiasm  or 
indignation,  or,  it  may  be,  a  mixture  of 
both.  Mrs.  Webster's  new  history  in- 
spires rather,  and  is  intended  to  inspire, 
a  sort  of  cool  disgust.  The  odd  circum- 
stance is  that  she  gets  this  eifect  not 
as  an  enemy  but  as  a  champion  of  the 
popular  cause.  Her  argument  is,  in  brief, 
as  follows:  The  King  knew  what  the 
people  wanted  and  was  prepared  to  give 
it  to  them;  but  at  the  critical  moment 
various  groups  of  conspirators  inter- 
fered violently  and  thwarted  both  the 
royal  and  the  popular  will.  Mrs.  Web- 
ster divides  the  conspirators  into  four 
main  groups:  (1)  those  who  sought  to 
change  the  dynasty  of  France  and  put 
the  Due  d'Orleans  (Philippe  Egalit6) 
on  the  throne;  (2)  the  Subversives, 
affiliated  with  Spartacus-Weishaupt  and 
the  Illuminati  of  Bavaria,  who  attacked 
all  religion  and  government,  fomented 
class  hatred,  and  held  out  the  promise 
of  unlimited  loot;  (3)  those  who  worked 
in  the  interests  of  Prussia;  (4)  the 
English  revolutionaries  who  aimed  to 
overthrow  the  Governments  both  of 
France  and  England.  Only  the  fourth 
of  these  intrigues  may  be  said  to  have 
failed  outright.  Prussia  succeeded  in 
breaking  the  Franco-Austrian  alliance 
and  this  became  the  point  of  departure 
for  her  increasing  domination.  The 
Oi'leanists  triumphed  in  the  Revolution 
of  1830.  As  for  the  Subversives  with 
their  dangerous  secrets  for  imposing 
the  will  of  a  fanatical  and  highly  organ- 
ized minority  upon  a  passive  and  unor- 
ganized majority,  one  can  trace  their 
activities  without  any  change  in  the 
underlying  theory — and  it  is  a  chief 
merit  of  Mrs.  Webster  that  she  brings 
out  clearly  this  connection — from  Jaco- 
bins of  the  eighteenth  century  to  Bol- 
shevists of  the  twentieth. 

There  were  the  instigators  (who  re- 
mained in  the  background),  the  agita- 
tors, the  instruments.  Mrs.  Webster  ad- 
mits popular  participation  in  the  taking 
of  the  Bastille  and  in  the  Tenth  of 
August,  but  in  general,  as  in  the  Sep- 
tember Massacres,  the  people  were 
either  mere  instruments  or  passive  spec- 
tators. "I  am  convinced,"  she  says, 
"that  the  day  will  come  when  the  world, 
enlightened  by  the  principles  of  true 
democracy,  will  recognize  that  the 
French  Revolution  was  not  an  advance 
towards  democracy  but  a  directly  anti- 
democratic  and   reactionary  movement, 


that  it  was  not  a  struggle  for  liberty 
but  an  attempt  to  strangle  liberty  at  its 
birth;  the  leaders  will  then  be  seen  in 
their  true  colors  as  the  cruelest  enemies 
of  the  people,  and  the  people,  no  longer 
condemned  for  their  ferocity,  will  be 
pitied  as  the  victims  of  a  gigantic  con- 
spiracy." 

Mrs.  Webster's  justification  of  the 
heart  of  the  people  is,  one  can  not  help 
reflecting,  more  or  less  at  the  expense  of 
its  head.  Had  it  not  been  for  the  pro- 
digious gullibility  of  great  masses  of 
persons,  the  formidable  secrets  that  she 
describes  for  inciting  tumults  in  the  in- 
terests of  a  few  conspirators  would  have 
been  of  no  avail.  She  herself  speaks  in 
one  place  of  "the  amazing  credulity  of 
the  Parisians"  and  in  another  of  "the 
amazing  credulity  of  the  country  people." 

The  truth  is  that  neither  the  good  nor 
the  evil  of  a  movement  like  the  French 
Revolution  emanates  spontaneously  from 
the  people.  It  is  all  a  question  of  leader- 
ship; and  the  one  serious  doubt  about 
democracy  is  whether  it  can  show  suffi- 
cient critical  discrimination  in  the  choice 
of  its  leaders.  Now,  the  Revolution  was, 
on  the  whole,  singularly  unlucky  in  its 
leaders.  Mirabeau  and  Danton,  who 
had  practical  sagacity,  were  venal  volup- 
tuaries. Those  who  were  upright,  like 
Louis  XVI  himself  and  many  of  his 
counsellors,  and  who  yet  allowed  the 
Revolution  to  drift  into  anarchy,  suffered 
from  something  even  graver  than  the 
lack  of  practical  sagacity.  They  were 
made  ineffective  by  their  acceptance  of 
some  of  the  very  principles  that  led  to 
this  anarchy  and  which,  in  the  earlier 
stages  of  their  application,  seem  to  Mrs. 
Webster  so  admirable.  Croker  speaks 
of  "the  King's  unfortunate  monomania 
that  no  blow  should  be  struck  in  his  de- 
fense." This  monomania  is  not  unrelated 
to  the  growing  belief  not  only  that  the 
will  of  the  people  is  sovereign  but  is  iden- 
tical with  its  shifting  caprice,  for  exam- 
ple, with  the  will  of  a  Parisian  mob. 
If  the  King  and  his  counsellors  had  not 
been  thus  touched  by  the  new  philosophy, 
the  "whiff  of  grapeshot"  would  not 
have  come  before  1790  at  the  latest  and 
there  would  have  been  no  reign  of 
Terror. 

In  general,  Mrs.  Webster  does  not  put 
sufficient  emphasis  on  the  philosophic 
aspect  of  the  Revolution.  She  has  writ- 
ten an  interesting  and  ingenious  survey 
from  her  own  special  angle,  but  one  can 
not  help  feeling  that  the  angle  is  a  some- 
what narrow  one.  At  times  she  seems 
almost  to  reduce  the  Revolution  to  the 
proportions  of  a  dynastic  intrigue.  She 
does  not  make  us  feel  sufficiently  that, 
more  than  any  previous  revolution,  it 
must  be  judged  as  a  movement  of  ideas 
— nay  more,  as  the  dawn  of  a  new  re- 
ligion or  sham  religion.  She  is  quite 
right  in  seeing  one  continuous  move- 
ment    from     Spartacus-Weishaupt     to 


Lenin;  but  we  shall  never  understand 
the  power  of  these  men  if  we  regard 
them  simply  as  "subversives."  In  their 
own  eyes  and  those  of  their  followers 
they  are,  as  she  herself  points  out, 
"idealists."  The  enthusiasm  they  in- 
spire is  due,  above  all,  to  their  appeal  to 
the  type  of  imagination  that  one  may 
call,  in  opposition  to  the  "moral  imagi- 
nation" of  which  Burke  speaks,  Arcadian. 
One  should  make  large  allowance  for  the 
idyllic  element  in  the  psychology  of 
the  terrorist.  It  seems  incredible  that 
Robespierre  and  St.  Just  should  have 
hoped  by  wholesale  massacre  to  bring 
the  real  France,  which  was  too  rich  and 
populous,  into  line  with  the  Sparta  of 
their  dreams.  Unfortunately  scarcely 
anything  is  incredible  in  those  who,  in 
pursuit  of  some  "ideal"  conjured  up  by 
the  Arcadian  imagination,  have  once  al- 
lowed their  logic  and  emotions  to  part 
company  with  common  sense.  In  spite 
of  the  accumulated  experience  of  a  cen- 
tury as  to  the  upshot  of  revolutionary 
Utopias,  Mr.  Bertrand  Russell  has  just 
been  setting  forth,  in  the  columns  of  the 
Liberator,  an  "ideal"  that  is  as  absurd 
in  theory  and  would  prove  at  least  as 
sanguinary  in  practice  as  that  of  Robes- 
pierre and  St.  Just. 

The  Revolution  abolished  innumerable 
partial  evils  and  accomplished  innumer- 
able partial  goods.  It  is  still  possible, 
however,  to  doubt,  not  merely  on  tra- 
dition but  on  purely  psychological 
grounds,  whether  this  movement  was 
right  at  the  very  centre.  Carlyle,  whom 
Mrs.  Webster,  like  most  other  recent 
writers  on  the  subject,  disparages,  puts 
the  issue  squarely:  "Alas,  no,  M.  Roux! 
A  Gospel  of  Brotherhood,  not  according 
to  any  of  the  Four  old  Evangelists,  and 
calling  on  men  to  repent,  and  amend  each 
his  own  wicked  existence,  that  they 
might  be  saved;  but  a  Gospel  rather,  as 
we  often  hint,  according  to  a  new  Fifth 
Evangelist,  Jean-Jacques,  calling  on  men 
to  amend  each  the  whole  world's  wicked 
existence,  and  be  saved  by  making  the 
Constitution." 

According  to  Mrs.  Webster,  England 
was  preserved  from  the  French  anarchy 
and  ruin  not  only  by  the  statesmanship 
of  Pitt  and  eloquence  of  Burke  but  by 
the  sound  common  sense  of  the  English 
people.  She  might  have  added  by  the 
influence  of  religion,  especially  by  the 
Methodist  and  Evangelical  movements. 
These  movements  were  marked  by 
plenty  of  the  new  emotionalism,  but  at 
all  events  they  did  not  encourage  the 
individual  to  shift  the  burden  of  moral 
responsibility,  to  make  "Society  his 
glittering  bride,  and  airy  hopes  his  chil- 
dren." At  present,  if  we  are  to  judge 
from  the  article  by  the  Bishop  of  Here- 
ford in  the  Edinburgh  Review  of  last 
January,  the  drift  of  an  important  sec- 
tion of  the  Anglican  clergy  is  towards 
Socialism. 


654] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  58 


Study  and  Fable 

An-  Imperfect  Mother.    By  J.  D.  Beresford. 

New  York:    The  Macmillan  Company. 
Tamarisk    Town.      By    Sheila    Kaye-Smith. 

New  York :  E.  P.  Button  and  Company. 

THE  deadly  limitation  of  the  kind  of 
realism  that  tries  to  record  fact 
without  interpreting  it  is  that  it  so  soon 
runs  short  of  facts.  The  only  story  a 
man  knows  with  literal  knowledge  is  his 
own.  Or  there  may  be  some  single  per- 
son or  type  outside  himself  who  is  so 
intimate  a  part  of  his  consciousness  and 
his  experience  as  to  belong  to  his  story 
almost  as  he  himself  belongs  to  it.  Mr. 
Theodore  Dreiser  knows  Mr.  Dreiser, 
esse  and  posse  (no  great  range) ;  and  he 
knows  a  woman  of  whom  Sister  Carrie  is 
the  earliest  and  best  embodiment.  When 
he  has  set  forth  the  beings  and  surround- 
ings and  doings  of  those  two  (as  he  did 
long  ago),  he  is  done.  Thereafter  he  can 
only  deal  in  variation  and  caricature. 
That  is  his  sad  fate,  and  we  oughtn't  to 
keep  twitting  him  on  it.  So  it  is  with  a 
number  of  his  English  contemporaries, 
J.  D.  Beresford,  for  example.  He  wrote 
three  novels  about  one  Jacob  Stahl — an 
amazingly  intimate  and  absorbing  chron- 
icle of  a  fellow-being  who,  we  never 
doubted  for  a  moment,  was  in  everything 
that  mattered  the  author  himself.  Jacob 
pleased  us,  or  held  us,  primarily,  I  think, 
because  while  he  was  not  a  noble  hero  of 
the  antiquated  Victorian  strain,  he  was 
not,  either,  the  feeble  wordy  aesthetic 
drifter  of  a  later  model.  He  had  a  pref- 
erence for  decency  and  even  an  instinct 
for  conduct.  So  has  the  son  of  "An 
Imperfect  Mother."  Stephen  Kirkwood 
is  a  Jacob  Stahl  mutatis  mutandis,  a  good 
solid  youth  of  lower  middle  class  who 
after  a  touch  of  public  school  training 
chooses  to  go  in  for  the  solid  unpreten- 
tious career  of  building  contractor. 

But  this  is  the  record  of  "a  life  un- 
folding under  a  definite  influence."  In 
fact,  we  are  here  observing  a  Jacob,  or  a 
Stephen,  in  a  frankly  psychoanalytical 
light,  especially  in  relation  to  the  in- 
fluence of  his  mother.  And  in  order  to 
give  saliency  to  this  study,  Stephen  is 
provided  with  a  mother  extraordinary,  a 
mother  modern  and  temperamental.  We 
are  to  suppose  that  she  married  Stephen's 
good  little  father  out  of  cussedness ;  that 
she  bore  marriage  and  motherhood  with 
tolerably  good  grace  for  twenty  years; 
and  that  she  then  fell  madly  in  love  with 
one  Threlfall,  cathedral  organist  and 
ravager  of  hearts.  After  coolly  discuss- 
ing this  with  Stephen,  now  a  boy  of 
seventeen,  she  leaves  him  and  her  poor 
little  devoted  husband,  and  her  two  grown 
prigs  of  daughters,  and  goes  off  with 
her  Threlfall  to  "live  her  own  life." 
Years  later,  long  after  the  death  of  the 
poor  little  husband,  Stephen  finds  his 
mother  in  London,  a  successful  minor 
figure  of  the  theatre;   married  to  her 


Threlfall,  who  has  also  succeeded;  and 
ornament  of  a  gay  little  upper-Bohemian 
society.  Something  of  the  old  spell  of 
almost  passionate  affection  is  rewoven 
between  them.  But  another  influence 
which  at  its  birth  has  had  much  to  do 
with  their  first  parting  is  now  deepened 
and  confirmed.  The  imperfect  mother  at 
last  transcends  her  nature  by  yielding 
Stephen  to  his  predestined  mate.  It  is 
an  easy  enough  book  to  read;  but  there 
is  nothing  much  to  carry  away  from  it, 
except  the  impression  of  an  experienced 
chronicler  rehandling  his  materials  in 
the  light  of  an  "idea."  Stephen's  self- 
expressive  mother  is  the  new  figure ;  but 
only  new  as  a  subject  for  Mr.  Beresford; 
and,  on  the  whole,  rather  outside  his 
special  realistic  scene. 

The  "new  novel"  of  England  (aside 
from  its  public-school  and  country-house 
department)  deals  almost  exclusively 
with  the  British  middle-class  provincial, 
either  at  home  or  in  London — the  Clay- 
hangers  and  the  Jacob  Stahls.  Mony- 
penny  of  "Tamarisk  Town"  is  a  Clay- 
hanger  robed  in  romance.  His  maker 
belongs  to  a  group  later  and  less  stand- 
ardized than  Mr.  Beresford's.  In  this 
book,  as  in  "The  Challenge  to  Sirius," 
Sheila  Kaye-Smith  strikes  a  richer  imag- 
inative note  than  Mr.  Beresford,  or  any 
of  his  contemporaries  except  Hugh  Wal- 
pole,  has  been  capable  of.  Veracity  is  of 
no  consequence  to  this  writer  except  as 
a  means  of  interpretation.  Nor  is  she 
content  with  the  dry  conversational 
cleverness  of  the  pseudo-recorders.  She 
uses  language  not  as  a  set  of  counters  but 
as  a  plastic  medium.  She  has  a  power  of 
description  not  less  eloquent  than  that  of 
Eden  Phillpotts,  and  free  from  his  tend- 
ency to  lapse  into  a  sort  of  hypnotic 
drone. 

In  the  hollow  of  the  hills  that,  to  the  North, 
melted  into  the  Sussex  Weald  and,  to  the 
South,  broke  and  crumbled  into  the  sea,  Mar- 
lingate  lay  with  the  green  of  the  tamarisks  haz- 
ing its  streets.  The  town  itself  was  a  tumble 
of  blacks  and  reds,  a  mass  of  broken  colors 
flung  between  the  hills,  into  the  little  scoop  be- 
tween the  woods  and  the  sea.  It  lay  there  like 
a  thing  flung  down,  heaped  and  broken,  rolling 
to  the  very  edge  of  the  waves,  and  held  from 
falling  into  them  only  by  its  thick,  battered 
Town  Wall. 

A  mist  usually  hung  over  it,  the  webbing  and 
clotting  of  its  sea  breezes  as  their  spindrift  met 
the  homely  things  of  its  atmosphere— the  grey 
hearth-smoke,  the  stewing  heat  of  the  town's 
crooked  ways,  the  dews  that  refreshed  the 
tamarisks  at  night.  There  was  nearly  always 
this  fog  of  smoke  and  spray  over  Marlingate, 
melting  its  reds  through  purple  into  the  deep, 
dancing  blue  of  the  sea ;  only  now  and  then  the 
colors  came  out  clearly,  blocks  of  blacks  and 
red,  with  slashes  and  slices  of  white,  and  the 
old  grey  mouldings  of  church  and  Town  Hall 
with  their  battlemented  windows.  Then  the 
weather-wise  spoke  of  rain,  and  those  wise  in 
other  ways  than  the  weather's,  saw  in  the  town 
a  queer,  changeling  beauty,  as  if  it  lay  between 
the  hills  a  fairy's  town.  A  wind  would  rise 
and  shake  in  the  woods,  and  blow  down  Fish 
Street  and  High  Street  to  the  sea;  and  the 
sighing  waves  would  answer  the  sighing  trees, 
and  roar  and  cry  to  each  other  over  the  little 


red  town  that   divided  them,  deep  calling  to 
deep,  eternity  calling  to  eternity  across  time. 

So  runs  the  prelude,  with  Monypenny, 
the  solitary,  watching  from  his  window 
in  Gun  Garden  House,  feeling  the  men- 
ace of  nature,  of  the  woods  and  sea  about 
to  regain  their  own,  of  himself  and 
Marlingate  already  "pledged  to  a  divine 
destruction." 

Monypenny  of  Marlingate,  in  his 
grave  and  white-haired  youth,  imposes 
himself  as  a  personal  force  upon  his  fel- 
low-townsmen. He  plans  and  achieves 
prosperity  for  the  little  fishing  town 
through  transformation  into  a  fashion- 
able resort,  carefully  protected  from 
trippers  and  all  cheap  lures  for  cheap 
people.  Then  love  comes  to  him  and 
cheats  him;  and  to  avenge  himself 
against  fate  he  sets  about  the  slow  de- 
struction of  that  which  he  has  created. 
As  mayor  he  is  able  insidiously  to  effect 
the  vulgarization  of  the  place ;  and  in  the 
end  he  perishes,  by  a  frankly  poetic  jus- 
tice, at  the  hands  of  the  mob  he  has 
turned  loose  to  the  ruin  of  his  once  be- 
loved town.  The  tale  has  something  of 
the  magic  of  style  and  of  mood  which  be- 
longed to  Stevenson's  fragmentary  "Weir 
of  Hermiston";  and  as  it  is  a  work  of 
imagination  we  need  have  relatively 
small  fear  of  later  and  paler  imitations 
or  variants  of  the  same  product  by  the 
same  hand.  I  can  think  of  rereading 
this  book;  for  me  it  has  the  glamour  of 
true  story-telling,  the  creative  reality 
which  is  so  dismally  absent  from  most 
studies  of  fact. 

H.  W.  BOYNTON 

Admiral  Fisher  Speaks 
His  Mind 

Memories  and  Records.  By  the  Admiral  of 
the  Fleet,  Lord  Fisher,  in  two  volumes, 
with  portraits  and  illustrations.  Vol.  I, 
Memories.  Vol  II,  Records.  New  York: 
George  H.  Doran  Company. 

THESE  are  books,  as  the  author  ad- 
,  mits,  "without  plan  or  sequence" — 
so  many  lightning  flashes  of  wit,  scorn, 
indignation,  admiration,  and  ambition. 
One  imagines  a  hale  and  hearty  old  man 
walking  up  and  down  the  floor,  thunder- 
ing and  sputtering,  while  the  rapt  stenog- 
rapher works — from  time  to  time  shying 
letters  and  documents  at  her,  partly  to 
ballast  the  recitation,  partly  to  see  her 
duck  her  pretty  head.  Anecdote,  official 
report,  character  sketch,  apt  quotation, 
hint  of  literary  and  religious  preferences 
are  a  glittering  woof  woven  into  the  warp 
of  solid  naval  history.  And  the  gaudy 
fabric  has  coherence  and  charm  of  its 
own  sort.  One  feels  the  great  person- 
ality behind  an  often  fantastic  rhetoric. 
When  Admiral  Fisher  became  First 
Sea  Lord  in  1904,  he  celebrated  his 
advent  by  scrapping  160  obsolete  ships, 
and  discharging  6,000  unnecessary  me- 


June  23,  1920] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[655 


chanics.  Long  an  advocate  of  speed  and 
the  big  gun,  he  reorganized  the  fleet  on 
the  basis  of  dreadnoughts  and  battle 
cruisers.  He  stopped  the  dispersion  of 
the  fleet,  assembling  most  of  it  in  home 
waters,  and  keeping  it  in  constant  readi- 
ness for  action.  In  1902  he  had  dem- 
ocratized the  training  of  officers  through 
the  establishment  of  the  College  at  Os- 
borne. In  1907  he  completed  this  work 
by  making  promotion  open  throughout 
the  naval  ranks.  He  foresaw  the  sub- 
marine menace,  predicted  the  war  with 
Germany  to  the  year,  advocated  in  vain 
a  proper  provision  of  sea  mines,  intro- 
duced the  turbine  engine  and  fuel  oil.  He 
reduced  the  time  of  building  battleships 
from  three  years  to  one.  With  volcanic 
energy  he  combined  adroitness.  He  not 
merely  discharged  the  6,000  workmen 
made  superfluous  by  scrapping  useless 
ships,  but  also  found  them  jobs.  With 
the  keenest  sense  for  materiel,  he  never 
lost  touch  with  the  greater  issues  of  ■ 
strategy.  When  he  retired  in  1910,  he 
left  as  his  monument  the  modern  Brit- 
ish Navy. 

He  had  become  an  enfant  terrible.  The 
office  admirals  hated  him.  The  pacifists 
shuddered  at  him.  Had  he  not  advocated 
"boiling  oil"  at  a  Hague  Conference,  and 
advised  "Copenhagening"  the  German 
fleet?  Yet  the  people  knew  his  worth, 
and  so  did  the  young  navy.    October  30, 

1914,  two  months  after  war  broke  out, 
he  was  recalled  to  his  old  post  of  First 
Sea  Lord.  Three  days  after  his  appoint- 
ment came  news  of  the  disaster  off  Cor- 
onel.  Fisher  launched  the  only  Nelsonic 
stroke  of  the  war.  He  sent  Sturdee's 
battle  cruisers  to  sea  with  the  repair 
gangs  aboard,  and  on  December  8,  Von 
Spee's  squadron  was  annihilated  off  the 
Falklands.  Nothing  less  than  the  con- 
trol of  the  seas  was  involved  in  the  de- 
cision. A  prolonged  chase  of  Von  Spee 
would  have  seriously  weakened  the  North 
Sea  fleet,  while  by  the  simple  process  of 
dispersing  his  cruisers  as  commerce  de- 
stroyers, England's  sea  traffic  might  have 
been  crippled.  On  this  single  conclu- 
sive fight  of  the  war  the  Oxford  Pro- 
fessor of  Poetry,  Sir  Herbert  Warren, 
fairly  beat  the  punning  record,  and  in 
Latin,  as  follows,  Merserat  Ex-Spe 
Spem,  rediit  spes,  mergitur  ex-spes, 
which  congratulatory  verse  may  be  ren- 
dered: "Von  Spee  sunk  the  Good  Hope. 
Hope  revived.  Von  Spee  is  sunk  hope- 
lessly." 

In  his  six  months  of  control.  Lord 
Fisher  planned  a  great  armada  of  612 
vessels  to  seize  the  Baltic  and  effect  a 
Russian  landing  in  Pomerania,  laid 
down  the  gigantic,  lightly  armored  battle 
cruisers — the  so-called  "Irish  ships," 
made  good  the  deficiency  in  submarines, 
and  prepared  gunboats  for  the  Mesopo- 
tamian  campaign.     He  resigned  in  May, 

1915,  when  he  found  the  navy  was  to  be 


seriously  expended  in  the  futile  cam- 
paign at  the  Dardanelles,  but  continued 
to  do  great  work  as  Chairman  of  the 
Board  of  Invention  and  Research. 

He  would  himself  be  the  first  to  admit 
that  his  loss  to  the  Admiralty  was  irre- 
parable. Small  defensive  ideas,  theories 
of  attrition  dominated  by  the  naval 
strategy  of  England,  and  the  fiasco  of 
Jutland  were  a  necessary  consequence  of 
lack  of  energy  and  imagination.  And 
the  only  man  in  England  who  could  have 
supplied  that  imagination  and  energy 
was  the  septuagenarian  Admiral  Fisher. 
Again,  we  have  his  word  for  it,  and  the 
joke  of  it  is  that  he  is  perfectly  right. 
"Passive  pressure"  to  be  sure  brought 
the  German  fleet  ignominiously  to  Scapa, 
but  it  also  prolonged  the  war  by  two  or 
three  unnecessary  years.  And  what  if 
the  German  fleet  had  been  "Copenhag- 
ened"  in  1910? 

John  Arbuthnot  Fisher's  prodigious 
energy  and  zest  for  life  were  lucky  in 
finding  early  opportunity.  At  13,  in  1854, 
the  last  living  Captain  of  Nelson  joined 
with  Nelson's  niece  to  get  him  a  mid- 
shipman's appointment.  From  15  to  19 
he  shared  in  the  China  War,  at  19  he 
was  in  acting  command  of  a  small  vessel. 
"I  entered  the  navy  penniless,  friendless, 
and  forlorn.  While  my  messmates  were 
having  jam,  I  had  to  go  without.  While 
their  stomachs  were  full,  mine  was  often 
empty.  I  have  always  had  to  fight  like 
hell,  and  fighting  like  hell  has  made  me 
what  I  am." 

One  keeps  going  in  such  a  life  only 
through  abundant  toughness  and  humor 
and  sentiment.  Admiral  Fisher  has 
these  qualities  super-abundantly.  In  the 
sixties  he  would  vary  the  responsibility 
for  the  British  Navy  by  dancing  all 
night.  He  openly  yearns  for  America 
because  the  land  of  the  Summer  Girl 
which  may  be  secured  in  Midwinter  at 
Palm  Beach  need  not  be  relinquished 
till  Midsummer  at  Bar  Harbor.  He  re- 
joices in  the  American  ship's  barber  who 
propitiated  an  impatient  client  by  asking 
him  if  he  were  leaving  the  ship.  Ad- 
miral Fisher's  gift  for  comradeship 
makes  him  an  admirable  portraitist. 
King  Edward  is  drawn  to  the  life,  in  his 
beautiful  considerateness,  slightly  tinged 
with  fussiness.  "He  had  the  Heavenly 
gift  of  Proportion  and  Perspective." 
Even  more  vivid  are  the  sketches  of  sea- 
men. Absent-minded  Lord  Kelvin,  enter- 
ing immaculately  dressed  with  his 
trousers  neatly  carried  on  his  arm,  is  un- 
forgettable. One  loves  the  unnamed  ad- 
miral who  because  torpedoes  were  not 
known  in  his  youth  declined  to  bother 
about  them  in  his  old  age.  He  was  prob- 
ably the  same  one  who  being  torpedoed 
thrice  in  manoeuvres  by  a  submarine  and 
requested  by  the  young  commander  to 
withdraw,  simply  signalled  in  return 
"You  be  damned."    But  the  obscure  por- 


traits are  even  better,  and  an  antholo- 
gist could  make  a  handsome  gleaning. 
There  is  no  dull  moment  in  the  two 
volumes.  As  epilogue  we  may  choose  a 
letter  to  a  friend  which  has  bearings  on 
navy  matters  both  sides  of  the  water. 

March  27,  1918. 
My  dear  Blank, 

It  has  been  a  most  disastrous  war  for  one 
simple  reason — that  our  navy,  with  a  sea 
supremacy  quite  unexampled  in  the  history  of 
the  world  (we  are  five  times  stronger  than 
the  enemy)  has  been  relegated  into  being  a 
"subsidiary  service".  What  crashes  we  have 
had! 

Tirpitz — Sunk 

Joffre — Stranded 

Kitchener — Drowned 

Lord  French — 

Lord  Jellicoe —  Made  Viscounts 

Lord  Devenport — 

Fisher — Marooned 

*    *    * 

Heaven  bless  you  I     I  am  here  walking  10 
miles  a  day !    and  eating  my  heart  out ! 

And    a    host   of    minor    prophets    promoted. 
(We  don't  shoot  now!  we  promote!) 

Yours,  etc., 
Fishes. 

Suggestions  for   a    Far 
Eastern   Policy 

Have  We  a  F.\r  Eastern  Folicv?    By  '7  larles 
H.   Sherrill.     New   York:   Charles   Scrib- 

ner's  Sons. 

ONE-HALF  of  Mr.  Sherrill's  book  is 
not  suggested  by  its  title,  and  deals 
with  matters  which  have  no  political  im- 
plications— with  the  flora  of  the  Ha- 
waiian Islands,  with  Japanese  umbrellas, 
footwear,  lanterns,  street  games,  chry- 
santhemum shows,  and  private  gardens. 
Upon  these  topics  Mr.  Sherrill  writes  en- 
tertainingly and  with  artistic  apprecia- 
tion, but  without  adding  much  of  sub- 
stantial value  to  what  is  already  common 
knowledge. 

As  to  whether  the  United  States  has 
a  definite  Far  Eastern  policy,  a  negative 
is  not  distinctly  asserted  but  is  clearly 
implied.  At  any  rate  our  author  pre- 
sents us  with  one  of  his  own  which  he 
considers  worthy  of  adoption  by  our 
Government.  Shortly  stated,  it  is  as 
follows :  That  the  United  States  should 
refrain  from  all  opposition  to  Japan's  ex- 
pansion north  and  west  upon  the  conti- 
nent of  Asia,  that  is,  in  the  regions  of 
Manchuria,  Mongolia,  and  Siberia;  that, 
in  return,  Japan  should  agree  to  aban- 
don her  southeasterly  development  and 
transfer  the  Caroline  and  Marshall 
Islands  to  international  control  or  to  ad- 
ministration by  Australia;  and,  thirdly, 
that  Japan,  Australia,  and  the  United 
States  should  jointly  guarantee  the  in- 
dependence of  the  Philippines.  This 
plan,  he  says,  "ought  to  satisfy  all  four 
parties  concerned,  assure  peace  in  the 
Pacific,  progress  for  American  trade  in 
cooperation  with  Japan,  and  add  another 
star    of    altruistic    achievement    to    the 


656] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  58 


American  escutcheon."  At  what  point 
the  American  altruism  enters  it  is  a  little, 
difficult  to  see,  unless  it  is  deemed  a 
laudable  philanthropy  that  Japan  be  per- 
mitted to  secure  an  increase  of  her  po- 
litical and  commercial  interests  at  the  ex- 
pense, or,  at  any  rate,  without  regard  to 
the  wishes  of,  China  and  Russia.  The  be- 
lief that,  from  such  a  policy,  progress  for 
American  trade  in  the  Far  East  would  be 
promoted  is  evidently  founded  upon  a 
confidence  that  Japan  will  reverse  all  her 
former  practices  and  permit  the  na- 
tionals of  other  Powers  to  trade  upon 
equal  terms  with  her  own  subjects  in 
regions  over  which  she  has  dominant 
political   influence   or  control. 

Mr.  Sherrill  also  refers  to  another  Far 
Eastern  policy  for  the  United  States, 
first  put  forward  by  him  in  1915,  ac- 
cording to  which  the  Philippine  Islands 
should  be  exchanged  for  European  pos- 
sessions in  the  Caribbean  Sea.  He  says 
that  he  has  received  many  expressions 
of  approval  of  this  plan,  but  he  does  not 
dwell  upon  it  to  the  extent  of  explaining 
whether  or  not  this  would  mean  the 
abandonment  by  the  United  States  of 
all  efforts  to  exercise  an  influence,  politi- 
cal or  commercial,  in  the  Orient. 

Without  stopping  further  to  consider 
these  attempts  at  constructive  states- 
manship, we  may  turn  to  some  of  the 
other  points  made  by  Mr.  Sherrill.  The 
strategical  importance  to  the  United 
States  of  the  Hawaiian  Islands  is  prop- 
erly emphasized.  By  the  possession  of 
Jaluit,  on  one  of  the  Marshall  Islands, 
attention  is  called  to  the  fact  that  Japan 
obtains  a  naval  base  some  fourteen  hun- 
dred miles  nearer  to  Hawaii,  and  there- 
fore to  California,  than  she  had  previ- 
ously possessed.  Of  Japan's  determina- 
tion to  control  Shantung,  Mr.  Sherrill 
says: 

It  means  an  eleventh-hour  decision  to  pre- 
vent the  passage  into  white  hands  of  that  last 
remnant  of  Asia  which  fronted  on  the  Japan 
dominated  waters,  the  waters  so  vital  to  the 
island  race  living  in  their  midst.  ...  If  I 
were  Japanese,  I  would  loosen  my  hold  on 
Shantung  at  the  same  time  that  the  French, 
English,  and  Russians  relinquish  their  acquisi- 
tions of  Chinese  territory,  and  not  a  minute 
sooner  ...  If  Japan  had  not  taken  over  Ger- 
many's rights  in  Shantung  .  .  .  then  one  of 
the  usual  Euroneaii  anncxcrs  would  surely  have 
stepped  in  just  as  England  did  into  Wei-hai- 
wei,  or  Russia  into  Manchuria  after  the  Japa- 
nese defeat  of  China,  and  annexed  it.  At  the 
date  of  this  writing  I  firmly  believe  that  China 
will  receive  back  far  more  of  Shantung  from 
the  Japanese  than  she  would  have  gotten  had 
the  English  or  French  occupied  the  German 
holdings  there. 

Mr.  Sherrill  is  of  course  entitled  to  hold 
such  personal  opinions  as  these,  but  they 
surely  must  have  been  formed  in  igno- 
rance or  disregard  of  occurrences  in 
China  and  Korea  since  1905.  How  little 
Mr.  Sherrill  appreciates  Chinese  national 
sentiment  is  shown  by  his  description 
of  the  recent  "student  movement"  in 
China  as  "a  pettish  outburst  against  a 


stronger  race  by  one  whose  childish  be- 
havior confesses  its  helplessness  to  em- 
ploy more  manly  methods  of  national  pro- 
test." 

Mr.  Sherrill  is  convinced  that  the  Fili- 
pinos are  not  yet  qualified  for  full  self- 
government,  and  that  an  independent 
Philippine  republic,  unprotected  by  some 
strong  Power,  would  not  long  endure,  and 
might,  indeed,  prove  a  serious  menace  to 
a  peaceful  Pacific. 

Japan's  record  in  Korea  he  reviews 
with  complaisance  and  even  commenda- 
tion. 

W.   W.   WiLLOUGHBY 

The  Run  of  the  Shelves 


Books  of  the  Week 

[Selected  by  Edmund  Lester  Pearson, 
Editor  of  Publications,  New  York 
Public  Library.] 

The  Stranger.  By  Arthur  Bullard. 
Macmillan. 
A  new  novel  by  the  author 
who,  as  "Albert  Edwards,"  wrote 
"A  Man's  World"  and  "Comrade 
Yetta." 

Swinburne  as  I  Knew  Him.  By  Coul- 
son  Kernahan.  Lane. 
Beginning  the  process  of  "un- 
freezing" Swinburne— strange  as  it 
seems  that  anything  glacial  should 
be  connected  with  his  name. 

The  Irish  Case,  Before  the  Court  of 
Public   Opinion.     By   P.   Whitwell 
Wilson,   American  correspondent  of 
the  London  Daily  News.     Revell. 
Written  at  the  request  of  Amer- 
icans, to  refute  the  theory  of  the 
Sinn  Fein  that  anything  about  Ire- 
land by  an  Englishman  is  "propa- 
ganda," but  by  a  Sinn  Feiner  be- 
comes "facts." 

SiMSADus:  London;  The  American 
Navy  in  Europe.  By  John  Langdon 
Leighton.     Holt. 

"Simsadus"  was  Admiral  Sims's 
cable  address.  The  book  describes 
our  naval  participation  from  the 
point  of  view  of  American  naval 
headquarters. 


IT  would  be  hard  to  think  of  a  more 
appropriate  and  more  interesting 
special  collection  of  books  for  a  public 
library  than  that  of  New  Bedford,  which 
has  filled  a  large  number  of  its  shelves 
with  books  about  whales  and  the  whale 
fisheries.  Books,  pamphlets,  whalers' 
log-books,  and  pictures  make  up  the  col- 
lection, which  is  listed  and  described  in 
a  bibliography  whose  mere  items  are 
fascinating  to  read.  There  is  Lorrin 
Andrews'  treatise  (with  Hawaiian  im- 
print)   entitled   "Sabbath  Whaling;   or, 


Is  it  Right  to  Take  Whales  on  the 
Sabbath?" — which  one  may  imagine  a 
Yankee  skipper  answering  with,  "Yes, 
provided  you  take  Right  whales."  There 
is  the  "Narrative  of  the  most  extraordi- 
nary and  distressing  shipwreck  of  the 
whale-ship  Essex  *  *  *  which  was 
attacked  and  finally  destroyed  by  a  large 
spermaceti  whale  in  the  Pacific  ocean," 
published  in  1821.  And  there  is  so  mod- 
ern an  item  as  "Whale  Meat  and  Hoov- 
erism."  The  bibliography  is  illustrated, 
notably  with  a  half-tone  of  the  fine  statue 
of  the  Whaleman,  which  stands  before 
the  New  Bedford  Public  Library,  with 
its  motto:  "A  dead  whale  or  a  stove 
boat." 

"Talks  with  T.  R."  from  the  diaries 
of  John  J.  Leary,  Jr.  (Houghton  Miiflin 
Company)  is  an  unusually  interesting 
book.  It  is  a  really  valuable  book.  It  is 
certain  to  be  read ;  it  deserves  to  be  read. 
•But  it  should  certainly  not  be  read  alone. 
The  Roosevelt  of  these  papers  is  real,  but 
partial;  he  is  a  reporter's  Roosevelt,  a 
Roosevelt  cast  in  type-metal.  The  Roose- 
velt of  the  Autobiography  is  not  this 
Roosevelt;  he  is  only  his  brother.  Still 
less  is  the  Roosevelt  of  the  letters  to  the 
children  Mr.  Leary's  T.  R. ;  he  is  only 
his  cousin.  It  is  what  we  may  call  with- 
out any  malice  the  Cashel  Byron  attitude 
of  Mr.  Roosevelt  that  is  conspicuous  in 
Mr.  Leary's  pages,  and  the  style  is  like 
the  splitting  of  kindling  wood.  Some- 
times a  match  is  put  to  the  kindlings. 
There  is  much  plain  sense  and  much  more 
plain  speaking;  the  certainty  is  char- 
acteristic, the  vigor  is  stimulating,  the 
sincerity  is  unquestionable.  Mr.  Roose- 
velt copies  and  enacts  nobody  else;  a 
cynic  might  suggest  that  he  sometimes 
copies  or  enacts  T.  R.  The  author  of  the 
book  had  done  well  to  omit  certain  viru- 
lent assaults  on  living  Americans,  notably 
President  Wilson.  At  the  time  of  utter- 
ance these  words  may  have  been  excus- 
able, but  their  publication  after  Mr. 
Roosevelt's  death  and  before  Mr.  Wil- 
son's is  a  matter  which  even  the  admirers 
of  Mr.  Roosevelt  and  the  adversaries  of 
President  Wilson  may  permit  themselves 
to  regret.  Allusion  is  made  to  the 
"pseudo-Americanism  of  Wilson."  Wil- 
son is  a  "selfish,  dishonest  politician"; 
he  "never  had  an  ideal  in  his  life."  "I 
despise  the  man,  and  dislike  his  policies 
to  the  point  of  hate."  The  motto  "de 
mortuis  nil  nisi  bonum"  would  seem  to 
have  its  correlative,  indeed  its  condi- 
tion and  occasion,  in  the  silent  formula, 
"a  mortuis  nil  nisi  bonum."  One  should 
not  fire  from  behind  a  tomb;  the  shelter 
is  too  manifest.  What  Mr.  Roosevelt 
now  feels,  if  his  mind  still  acts,  no  one 
can  say.  But  it  is  at  least  permitted  to 
the  generous  and  the  loyal  to  hope  that 
he  left  vindictiveness  on  the  meaner  side 
of  the  grave,  that  he  has  risen  to  a  point 
of  view  from  which  his  charity  can  in- 


June  23,  1920] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[657 


elude  in  its  enlarging  circle  all  his  fel- 
low-citizens, even  that  citizen  in  whose 
hands  rests  for  the  moment  the  pilotage 
of  the  Republic. 

Professor  Horatio  S.  White,  of  Har- 
vard, the  literary  executor  of  the  late 
Willard  Fiske,  Librarian  of  Cornell,  is 
continuing  the  series  of  volumes  drawn 
from  the  latter's  posthumous  papers. 
The  first  of  these  was  "Chess  Tales  and 
Chess  Miscellanies,"  which  appeared  in 
1912..  The  present  volume,  "The  Editor" 
(Badger),  is  the  first  of  three  to  be 
printed  under  the  general  title,  "Memo- 
rials of  Willard  Fiske,"  and  is  just  out. 
It  is  made  up  of  selections  from  Mr. 
Fiske's  editorial  work  on  the  Syracuse, 
N.  Y.,  daily  Journal,  from  1863  to  1865, 
and  will  be  followed  by  "The  Traveller" 
and  "The  Lecturer,"  and  finally  by  a 
biography. 

At  this  moment  when  the  whole  pro- 
cess of  bookmaking  is  even  more  beset 
with  difficulties  in  France  than  here,  it 
is  most  creditable  on  the  part  of  the 
Plon-Nourit  house  to  begin  a  series  of 
cheap  but  well-printed  books  whose  con- 
tents is  of  more  than  passing  worth.  The 
"Bibliotheque  Plon,"  16mo,  paper-cov- 
ered volumes  of  from  200  to  250  pages, 
began  appearing  last  winter,  at  the  low 
price  of  two  francs,  and  fourteen  have 
so  far  been  issued,  with  two  additional 
volumes  each  month.  Among  the  authors 
represented  are  Paul  Bourget;  the  new 
academician,  Henry  Bordeaux;  the  late 
Paul  Margueritte,  Mistral,  and  Dos- 
toievsky. The  two  newest  volumes  are 
"Le  Chevre  d'Or,"  by  Paul  Arene,  the 
Provencal  poet  who  died  in  1896,  a  tale 
of  passionate  love  told  with  all  the  verve 
of  a  meridional ;  and  "Jeanne  d'Arc,"  one 
of  M.  Gabriel  Hanotaux's  best  pot-boil- 
ing productions,  a  condensation  and  re- 
hash of  the  octavo  and  quai"to  which 
he  published  ten  years  ago  through 
Hachette.  If  M.  Hanotaux  was  sent  last 
month  as  a  special  ambassador  to  the 
Jeanne  d'Arc  canonization  ceremonies  at 
Rome,  it  was  largely  due  to  association 
of  his  name  through  these  volumes  with 
that  of  the  new  saint. 

Poe  books  continue  to  appear  in 
France.  Since  we  noticed  in  this  column 
a  few  weeks  ago  Fontainas's  "Vie 
d'Edgar  Poe,"  even  a  more  acknowledged 
specialist,  Professor  Emile  Lauvriere, 
has  come  forward  with  another  volume, 
his  third,  devoted  to  "one  of  the  most 
popular  authors  of  the  whole  world,"  as 
he  styles  him.  "Edgar  Poe:  Contes  et 
Poesies"  (Paris:  La  Renaissance  du 
Livre)  opens  with  an  Introduction  which 
is  a  resume  of  M.  Lauvriere's  two  previ- 
ous volumes — ^"Edgar  Poe,  sa  Vie  et 
son  Oeuvre"  (Paris:  Alcan,  1904)  and 
"Edgar  Poe"  (Paris:  Bloud  and  Gay, 
1911),  "scientific  studies  of  the  poet," 


as  he  describes  them.  The  publisher  of 
the  present  volume  also  issues  a  series 
entitled  "Les  Cent  Chefs-d'oeuvre 
Etrangers,"  which  contains  a  neat  little 
volume  of  Poe,  some  150  pages  of  prose 
and  30  of  poetry.  While  the  peculiar 
aroma  of  the  Tales  is  fairly  well  pre- 
served in  translation,  the  same  is  not  true 
of  the  poetry,  as  M.  Lauvriere  is  the  first 
to  admit.  "To  Helen,"  "Eldorado,"  and 
"The  Raven"  lose  half  of  their  inde- 
scribable charm  in  French,  and  "The 
Bells"  presented  such  difficulties  that 
M.  Lauvriere  has  left  it  severely  alone. 

Sending  us  his  book.  Professor  Lauv- 
riere gives  us  these  "three  chief  reasons 
why  Poe  exerts  such  an  influence  in 
France" : 

The  first  is  that,  however  morbid  he  may 
be,  he  reasons,  and  most  educated  Frenchmen 
like  reasoning.  The  second  lies  in  the  fact 
that  his  fantasticality  reached  us  at  the  very 
moment  when  that  sort  of  thing  had  a  vogue 
in  France.  The  third  is  because  he  had  a  good 
translator — Baudelaire — who  was  fascinated  by 
him  and  liad  the  public  attention  at  that  mo- 
ment. It  should  be  noted,  too,  that  it  is  the 
prose  of  Poe  which  has  exercised  influence  in 
France,  for  his  poetry,  in  my  opinion,  is  un- 
translatable, the  music  of  words  not  being 
transportable  into  another  tongue,  especially 
in  the  case  of  a  language  without  tonic 
accent. 

In  the  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes  for 
March  15,  1920,  M.  George  Lecomte  has 
the  following  sentence:  "Les  Associa- 
tions   d'ecrivains    viennent    de    la    leur 


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IN  1630,  John  Winthrop, 
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ing 700  Pilgrims  from  Eng- 
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bank  of  the  River  Charles. 
Insufficient  water  supply 
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658] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  58 


['la'  means  'criticism';  leur'  refers  to 
'publishers']  rappeler  en  essayant  de 
provoquer  une  resurrection  de  la  critique 
iitt6raire,  ainsi  que,  sur  la  proposition  de 
la  Soci^t^  des  Gens  de  Lettres  et  du 
Syndicat  de  la  Critique,  le  Congres  du 
Livre  de  1917  en  a  solennellement  emis 
le  voeu"  (page  427).  Two  points  in  this 
remark  impress  the  observant  foreigner. 
The  first  is  the  state  of  French  criticism, 
as  it  appears  even  to  bodies,  to  organiza- 
tions, always  far  slower  than  individuals 
in  the  perception  and  reception  of  ideas. 
"Resurrection"  is  a  strong  word.  Its 
logical  antecedent  is  death.  But  M. 
Anatole  France  is  still  breathing,  still 
articulate,  and,  even  if  the  darkest  view 
be  sound,  if  no  survivors  are  discernible, 
it  is  certain  that  in  their  common  de- 
parture from  the  salon  of  French  letters 
criticism  will  say  politely  to  M.  Anatole 
France,  "After  you." 

The  second  point  of  interest  is  the 
nature  of  the  remedy.  We  have  an  As- 
sociation, a  Society,  a  Syndicate,  a  Con- 
gress, banding  zealously  together  for  the 
resuscitation  of  the  art.  An  American 
or  Briton  would  feel  that  the  patient — 
at  least  the  Anglo-Saxon  patient — would 
be  more  likely  to  come  to  in  the  absence 
of  so  many  officious  nurses  to  surround 
his  pillow  and  cut  off  the  air.  But  France 
still  relies  on  collective  action  in  the  field 
of  letters.  The  love  of  revolt,  which  is 
characteristic  of  the  period,  has  not  de- 


THE  NEW  YORK 
TRUST  COMPANY 

Main  Office  Fifth  Avenue  Office 

2b  Broad  Street         Fifth  Ave.  and  57th  St. 

NEW  YORK 


Capital $3,000,000 

Surplus  and  Profits  $11,000,000 

Designated  Depositanr  in  Bankruptcy  and  of  Court 
and  Trust  Funds 


OTTO  T.   B.^NX.\RD,   Chairman  of  the  Board 
MORTI.MER  X.  BUCKNER,  President 
F.  J.  Home,  Vice-Pra.        H.  W.   Shaw 


James  Dodd,  Vicc-Pres. 
H.  W.  Morse,  V.  Prcs. 
Harry  Forsyth.  Treas. 
Boyd  G.  Curts,  Scc'y 


J.  A.  Flynn 

A.   C.    Downing,  Jr. 

W.  MacNaughten, 

Assistant  Secretaries 
E.  B.  Lewis,  Asst.  Treas. 


FIFTH  AVENUE  OFFICE 
Chaujcs  E.  Haydock,  Vice-President  and  Manager 

Mbs.   Key   Cauuack Assistant  Secretary 

Russell  V.  Wouteu. Assistant  Secretary 


TRU 
Otto  T.  Baonard 
S.  Reading  Bertron 
James  A.   Blair 
Mortimer  N.  Buckner 
James  C.  Colgate 
Alfred  A.  Cook 
Arthur  J,  Cumnock 
Robert  W.  de  Forest 
John   B.   Dennis 
Philip  T.  Dodge 
George  Doubleday 
Samuel  H.  Fisher 
John  A.  Carver  _ 
Benjamin  S.  Guinness 


STEES 

F.  N.  Hoffstol 
Buchanan   Houston 
Walter  Jennings 
Darwin  P,  Kingsley 
John  C.  McCall 
Ogden  L.   Mills 
John  J.  Mitchell 
James  Parmelee 
Henry  C.   Phipps 
Norman  P.  Ream 
Dean   Sage 

ioseph  J.   Slocum 
fyles  Ticrney 
Clarence  M.  Woolley 


Members  of  the  New  York  CUarinff  House  Asso- 
ciation and  of  the  Federal  Reserve  System 


stroyed  the  faith  in  discipline,  which  is 
characteristic  of  the  race.  The  French 
still  value  authority,  and  the  double  oc- 
casion which  authority  gives  for  the 
grace  of  loyalty  and  the  elation  of  revolt. 
One  of  the  differentiae  of  French  crit- 
icism is  the  precision  of  its  attempt  to 
express  the  reaction  of  the  absolute  or 
general  French  minds  to  the  French 
mind  in  particular  (that  is,  to  the  book 
in  its  hands).  In  the  later  nineteenth 
century,  criticism  itself  was  often  partic- 
ular, often  adventurous,  but,  even  so,  it 
defined  adventure  in  the  sense  natural 
to  a  people  in  whom  the  respect  for  tradi- 
tion is  compatible  with  a  pretty  strong 
infusion  of  the  contempt  for  tradition. 
Possibly  the  present  movement  means 
the  recall  of  criticism  to  its  old  central- 
ity.  The  inference  from  M.  Lecomte's 
remark  would  be  that  the  French  not 
only  want  criticism,  but  tvill  it,  and  that 
the  will  no  less  than  the  want  may  be 
powerful  in  the  sustaining  or  revivify- 
ing of  the  form. 

Drama 

On  the  Verge  of  Literature 

Violet    Pearn's    "Fair"    at    the    Neighborhood 
"     Playhouse  .   .    .  "Nightshade"  at  the  Gar- 
rick  Theatre. 

VIOLET  PEARN'S  "Fair,"  which  has 
held  the  boards  for  half-a-dozen  week- 
ends at  the  Neighborhood  Playhouse,  is 
an  attempt  to  depict  and  to  decide  the 
conflict  between  puritan  and  epicure  in 
a  sombre  village  on  the  Cornish  edge  of 
Devonshire.  Strollers  set  up  a  fair  with 
dancing  and  music  in  the  dreary  centre 
of  the  protesting  little  town.  A  ferment 
begins  in  the  pleasure-loving  heart  of  the 
young  daughter  of  the  austerest  elder  of 
the  village,  and  extends  itself  to  the 
young  minister,  who  is  moved  to  joy, 
terror,  and  bewilderment  by  the  sight  of 
her  replenished  loveliness.  In  the  crit- 
ical midnight  scene  of  the  second  act,  he 
is  impelled  to  take  her  life  as  an  agent  or 
embodiment  of  Satan,  and,  in  the  recoil 
from  his  own  violence,  is  converted  to  the 
worship  of  beauty,  and  leads  her  forth 
in  Act  III  to  share  with  him  a  new  life 
in  the  joyousness  of  unfettered  impulse. 
The  play  is  too  slight  for  its  central  in- 
cident, and  its  frail  and  slender  fabric 
can  not  sustain  the  formidable  weight  of 
an  attempt  at  homicide  from  religious 
motives. 

It  will  be  seen  from  the  prompt  and 
cheerful  outcome  that  the  doubleness  of 
the  universe  presents  no  difficulties  to 
Miss  Violet  Pearn.  The  universe  is  per- 
fectly simple.  "Then  come  kiss  me, 
Sweet-and-Twenty,"  is  the  sum  and 
kernel  of  its  message.  That  impulse  is 
both  holy  and  accursed,  that  restraint  is 
both  groveling  and  noble,  that  human  in- 


stinct is  profoundly  right  and  profoundly 
wrong  in  its  interpretation  of  the  needs 
of  the  human  spirit — these  complexities 
have  no  disquiets  for  Miss  Pearn.  I  shall 
not  contest  the  main  thesis,  but  one  lit- 
tle unfairness  in  the  use  of  the  term 
beauty  is  worth  pointing  out.  Beauty  is 
related  on  its  upper  side  to  the  dignities 
and  sanctities  of  life,  and  on  its  lower 
side  to  the  sports  and  gayeties.  You 
may  call  beauty  sacred  (Miss  Pearn 
talks  of  the  God  of  beauty) ;  you  may 
call  pleasure  beautiful;  and  in  this 
double  turn  you  have  almost  consecrated 
pleasure.  This  seems  the  unconscious 
strategy  of  Miss  Pearn. 

Do  I  lay  too  much  stress  on  the  moral 
and  rational  aspect  of  a  simple  folk- 
tale? If  so,  it  is  Miss  Pearn's  own  un- 
curbed didacticism  that  has  invited  and 
countenanced  that  stress.  Miss  Pearn's 
thesis  dominates  her  story  exactly  as  the 
hated  father  dominates  the  young  girl  in 
her  play ;  it  allows  the  wild  young  thing 
no  peace  or  freedom  in  the  fulfilment  of 
its  own  impulse.  I  think  it  rather  un- 
fair in  Miss  Pearn  to  pound  the  desk 
so  much  in  denunciation  of  the  general 
unrighteousness  of  preaching.  She  is 
not  without  talent;  she  can  even  stir  us 
for  a  moment  as  in  the  young  minister's 
really  penetrating  outcry:  "0  God,  dost 
thou  know  how  hard  it  is  to  be  a  man?" 
But  my  judgment  of  the  "Fair"  as  a 
whole  is  that  the  author  has  unduly  sim- 
plified her  tale  to  provide  more  space 
for  the  expounding  of  an  unduly  simpli- 
fied philosophy. 

The  acting  was  fair.  Miss  Alice 
Lewisohn  makes  the  young  girl  a  sprite, 
sheer,  and  absolute  sprite,  from  first  to 
last.  This  is  excusable,  but  hardly  wise. 
Obedience  to  the  call  of  the  wild  would 
be  much  less  remarkable  and  therefore 
much  less  dramatic  in  a  sprite  than  in  a 
human  being.  Mr.  Thomas  F.  Meaney, 
Jr.,  made  the  minister's  pietism  and  his 
interior  conflict  imaginable,  but  did  not 
make  real  to  us  his  impulse  towards 
beauty,  his  quest  of  the  gleam.  The  best 
acting  in  the  play  was  supplied  by  Messrs. 
S.  Philip  Mann,  Jowan  Pherys,  and  John 
Roche  in  the  neatly  defined  and  sharply 
contrasted  comedy  of  the  three  elders. 
An  arch  and  deft  pantomime  ballet  called 
the  "Magic  Shop"  formed  an  engaging 
afterpiece  to  the  serious  play. 

"Nightshade,"  by  an  unknown  hand, 
was  produced  June  7-11,  by  Mr.  Henry 
Stillman  at  the  Garrick  Theatre  in  special 
matinees.  The  performance  leaves  crit- 
icism rather  cold  to  the  play  and  rather 
friendly  to  the  author.  Compact  inten- 
sities in  mutual  relations,  an  air  that  re- 
mains electrical  long  before  it  becomes 
explosive,  the  power,  in  Miriam,  for  in- 
stance, to  keep  a  character  on  the  exact 
boundary  between  two  contrasted  atti- 
tudes— these  traits  are  palpitant  with 
promise.     Even   the   diction,   on  which 


I 


June  23,  1920] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[659 


satire  has  been  so  quick  to  fasten,  seems 
to  me  to  preserve  its  affinities  with  vigor 
in  the  midst  of  its  surrender  to  absurd- 
ity. The  difficulties  of  the  play,  apart 
from  the  unwisdom  of  this  diction,  are 
the  unalloyed  ugliness  of  the  primary  sit- 
uation, and  the  fact  that  the  play  goes 
mad — absolutely  mad — in  the  abandon- 
ment of  its  fourth  act. 

There  are  seven  characters,  known 
only  by  their  Christian  names,  of  whom 
two  are  merely  furnishings  and  super- 
fluities. The  other  five,  who  occupy  the 
same  American  farmhouse,  are  the  farm- 
owner,  the  wife,  the  son,  the  son's  sweet- 
heart, later  his  wife,  and  the  hired  man. 
The  circumstance  that  transmutes  this 
apparently  colorless  and  meaningless 
group  into  a  storm-centre  is  the  fact  that 
the  son's  wife  has  been — very  possibly 
still  is — the  father's  mistress.  I  think  the 
author  is  maladroit  in  the  conduct  of  this 
situation,  where  an  ingenuous  person 
would  have  been  more  skillful.  To  be 
naif  up  to  a  certain  point,  to  have  a  tract 
of  naivete  in  one's  mind,  is  very  useful 
even  to  the  possessor  of  sophistications; 
it  helps  him  to  gauge  his  auditors.  The 
present  author  is  so  indifferent  to  the 
ugliness  of  this  fable  that  he  is  insensible 
of  its  horror,  and  its  horror  is  the  ground 
of  its  dramatic  force.  De  Curel,  in  the 
portrayal  of  a  like  situation  in  "Les 
Fossiles,"  could  have  instructed  him  in 
the  advantage  of  a  sensitive  treatment 
of  a  brutal  theme. 

We  come  next  to  the  peculiar  dialogue. 
Every  one  must  concede  the  perils  of  a 
diction  which  permits  observations  and 
retorts  like  the  following  to  be  habitually 
uttered  in  an  American  farmhouse: 
"Even  the  blind  are  not  fools";  "Per- 
haps folly  is  the  greater  wisdom."  To 
this  aphoristic  vein  is  added  the  instant 
and  constant  passage  by  metaphor  from 
the  material  setting  of  life  to  its  inner 
significance.  The  young  man  finds  night- 
shade in  bloom.  "Nightshade!"  he  ex- 
claims, "Stabbing  beauty!  Stabbing 
pain !"  The  process  in  other  forms  is  by 
no  means  unsuited  to  literature,  or  even 
to  drama.  D'Annunzio  teems  with  it; 
but  perhaps  its  fitness  for  D'Annunzio 
is  the  measure  of  its  unsuitability  to  the 
lips  of  the  American  farmer  in  a  prosaic 
century.  Nevertheless,  I  find  the  diction 
often  terse  and  tense  under  all  this  in- 
cubus of  literature,  and  there  are  mo- 
ments, such  as  Miriam's  implacable 
"Well?"  in  reply  to  the  young  wife's 
I  mention  of  her  own  death  as  the  sole 
alternative  to  another  threatening  issue, 
when  its  suggestiveness  is  potent.  There 
lis  life  in  this  diction;  there  is  life  in  its 
(follies. 

Lastly,  comes  the  insensate  fourth  act. 
[Clive,  as  we  all  know,  was  surprised  at 
(his  own  moderation.  The  author  of 
M'Nightshade"  at  the  end  of  his  third  act 
iBeems  to  be  alarmed  at  his  own  temper- 
lance.    He  plunges  into  excess  less  from 


the  love  of  excess  than  from  the  fear  of 
restraint ;  he  adopts  violence  as  a  precau- 
tion. The  mother  murders  (in  effect) 
the  son's  wife;  the  father  turns  out  the 
mother  into  the  storm;  the  hired  man 
presumably  appropriates  the  mother;  the 
son  fires  a  gun  which  crushes  the  last 
remnant  of  life  in  the  young  girl  as  she 
lies  quivering  iir  the  father's  arms.  The 
strength  and  interest  of  all  these  charac- 
ters lies  in  a  certain  brooding  vigilance; 
when  they  release  themselves,  they  ef- 
face themselves;  and  the  play  vanishes 
in  their  effacement. 


The  acting,  broadly  viewed,  was  of 
high  quality.  Miss  Grace  Knell  made  a 
very  attenuated  Cora,  and  Mr.  Gerald 
Hamer  was  merely  adequate  as  the  son. 
But  Mr.  Gordon  Burby's  father  was  excel- 
lent, Mr.  Alfred  Shirley  imparted  vivid- 
ness to  the  rather  impossible  hired  man, 
and  Miss  Content  Palaeologue  was  strong 
as  Miriam,  the  mother,  up  to  the  point 
when  she  determined  to  be  powerful.  The 
play  lends  itself  to  acting;  that  is  another 
reason  for  holding  that  the  future  has  a 
place  for  the  author  of  "Nightshade." 
0.   W.   FlEKINS 


Export  Credits  and  European 
Rehabilitation 


SIR  GEORGE  PAISH,  in  an  interest- 
ing article  in  Ways  and  Means  of 
May  29,  summarizes  judiciously  the  pres- 
ent economic  situation  of  Europe,  and  its 
relation  to  the  United  States.  Still  in- 
sisting upon  the  imperative  need  of  par- 
ticipation by  America  in  the  economic 
and  financial  reconstruction  of  Europe, 
he  makes  no  mention  of  the  gigantic 
credit  flotation  which  he  had  earlier  pro- 
posed, and  recognizes  the  limitations  of 
America's  ability  to  aid. 

He  speaks  in  a  friendly  and  apprecia- 
tive way  of  the  work  of  the  Atlantic 


City  Conference  called  by  the  Chamber 
of  Commerce  of  the  United  States  last 
October,  and  of  the  report  of  the  com- 
mittee of  the  Chamber  there  appointed, 
saying  that  "the  tone  and  tenor  of  it  is 
all  that  could  be  wished."  He  sanctions 
the  committee's  view  that  "action  by 
the  Government  of  the  United  States  is 
prerequisite  to  practical  effort  on  an  ex- 
tensive scale"  and  that  American  in- 
vestors can  not  provide  the  sum  needed 
by  Europe  so  long  as  American  taxes  are 
so  heavy,  and  large  American  investors 
have  to  put  their  funds  into  tax-exempt 


A  ToAver 

of 
Strength 

THE  STRENGTH  OF  THE 
BANKERS  TRUST  COMPANY  is 

founded  upon  the  bedrock  of  character, 
experience  and  great  financial  resources. 

For  this  reason,  the  Company  has  come  to 
be  regarded  as  a  tower  of  strength  in  the 
financial  community.  Many  important  busi- 
ness concerns  are  looking  to  it  for  the  service 
and  co-operation  obtainable  only  from  an 
institution  of  unquestioned  dependability, 
complete  equipment  and  far-reaching  banking 
connections. 

Bankers  Trust 
Company 

Member  Federal  Jfesert'c  System 
New  York 

Resources 
Over  Four  Hundred  Million  Dollars 


660] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  58 


securities.  He  concurs  in  the  view  that 
Europe  must  return  to  work,  and  to  the" 
practice  of  thrift,  and  must  make  prog- 
ress towards  the  reduction  of  inflated 
currency,  the  balancing  of  budgets,  and 
political  stability,  before  American  in- 
vestors will  have  complete  faith  in  Eu- 
ropean securities.  He  takes  note,  too, 
of  extravagance  and  speculation  in  the 
United  States,  which  have  limited  sav- 
ings and  shortened  the  supply  of  domes- 
tic capital,  leaving  inadequate  surpluses 
of  capital  to  export. 

Sir  George  emphasizes  again  the  immi- 
nence of  the  problem.  He  feels  that 
America  can  not  wait  for  complete  Eu- 
ropean recovery  before  extending  the 
credits  which  the  situation  demands. 

The  general  problem  presented  is  un- 
doubtedly an  acute  one.  Despite  the 
very  extensive  discussion  and  agitation 
which  have  gone  on  since  the  Armistice, 
and  even  before  the  Armistice,  adequate 
measures  have  not  been  devised  for  sup- 
plying Europe  with  long-term  credits  for 
financing  the  export  balance,  since  the 
United  States  Government  ceased  to  do 
so  about  the  middle  of  May,  1919.  It 
is  true  that  the  exporters  themselves, 
who  are  most  vitally  interested  in  the 
pecuniary  side  of  the  matter,  since  it  is 
to  them  that  the  profits  in  the  export 
trade  immediately  accrue,  have  been  able 
by  one  or  another  device  to  keep  going 
a  tremendous  flood  of  exports  to  Europe. 
The  figures  for  our  monthly  balance  of 
trade  have  run  several  hundred  millions 
for  every  month  since  the  Armistice,  and 
the  figures  for  our  balance  with  Europe 
alone  have  been  even  greater  than  our 
balance  with  the  world.  The  investor, 
able  to  obtain  seven  per  cent,  on  safe 
American  securities,  has  not  in  general 
been  attracted  to  the  prospects  of  similar 
yields,  or  yields  a  little  higher,  on  Eu- 
ropean securities,  but  the  active  business 
man  has  often  been  willing  to  tie  up  a 
portion  of  his  working  capital  in  advances 
to  European  customers,  which  run  far 
beyond  the  ordinary  period  for  commer- 
cial credits.  The  violent  breaks  in  the 
exchange  rates  make  it  clear  that  not 
nearly  all  of  the  exports  to  Europe  have 
been  financed  in  this  manner,  but  there 
is  no  doubt  that  a  large  volume  has  been. 

The  United  Kingdom,  financially 
strongest  of  all  the  countries  of  Europe, 
has  been  aiding  the  Continent  to  a  great 
extent  since  the  Armistice.  In  her  deal- 
ings with  France,  Italy,  Belgium,  Ger- 
many, Austria,  Hungary,  Rumania,  Eu- 
ropean Turkey,  and  Russia  in  1919,  she 
imported  goods  to  the  value  of  only  £98,- 
.314,000,  but  exported  goods  to  the  value 
of  £351,237,000,  showing  an  export  sur- 
plus of  £252,923,000  for  the  year.  The 
first  three  months  of  1920  show  a  similar 
ratio.  This  export  surplus  represents  an 
heroic  effort  on  the  part  of  Great  Britain, 
since  Britain's  balance  of  trade  with  the 
world  as  a  whole  is  adverse,  and  since 


she  has  done  it  in  the  face  of  increasing 
financial  strain.  It  is  of  course  not  at  all 
comparable  with  the  excess  of  exports 
over  imports  which  the  United  States 
has  sent  to  Europe,  running  far  beyond 
four  billions  of  dollars  for  the  year  1919, 
but  it  does  mean  that  an  enormous  vol- 
ume of  goods  has  gone  from  Great  Brit- 
ain to  the  Continent,  which,  added  to  the 
volume  sent  from  the  United  States 
directly,  means  that  Continental  Europe 
has  received  and  is  receiving  aid  from 
the  rest  of  the  world  on  a  grand  scale. 

Though  weaker  financially  than  we 
are,  the  British  are  more  capable  of 
engaging  in  transactions  of  this  kind  in 
proportion  to  their  financial  strength. 
London  has  for  generations  specialized 
in  direct  trading  with  the  Continent,  and 
has  developed  agencies  which  make  possi- 
ble a  scattering  of  risks,  so  that  no  one 
individual  may  suflfer  greatly  if  a  par- 
ticular venture  turns  out  unsuccessfully. 
Indeed,  by  the  process  of  distributing 
risks,  diffusing  them  over  the  whole  mar- 
ket, and  combining  many  promising  ven- 
tures, the  certainty  of  loss  in  a  portion 
of  the  enterprises  has  been  combined  with 
a  certainty  of  gain  on  the  totality  of 
such  ventures,  in  the  normal  run  of  Lon- 
don's experience. 

If  a  substantial  portion  of  the  Conti- 
nent revives  industrially  and  financially 
at  a  reasonably  early  date,  Britain  will 
enjoy  enormous  profits  from  these  ven- 
tures. In  part,  her  attitude  towards  the 
Continent  grows  out  of  sympathy  for 
allies  and  friends  in  distress,  but  in  very 
substantial  part,  in  the  opinion  of  many 
British  authorities,  it  represents  also  ex- 
ceedingly good  business.  The  British, 
aware  of  the  beneficent  influences  of  in- 
dustry and  trade,  see  no  conflict  between 
these  two  motives,  and  indeed  feel  that 
the  best  philanthropy  is  that  which  in- 
volves trading  profitable  to  both  sides. 
To  make  it  possible  for  friends  in  dis- 
tress to  do  business  and  to  regain  finan- 
cial stability  is  to  protect  their  pride  and 
independence  at  the  same  time  that  ma- 
terial benefits  are  conferred  upon  them. 

The  great  plans  for  the  financial  assis- 
tance of  Europe,  through  governmental 
coSperation  and  through  the  organiza- 
tion of  great  placements  of  security  is- 
sues with  investors,  have  not  mate- 
rialized. Business  enterprise  has,  in  con- 
siderable measure,  filled  in  the  gap.  But 
this  enterprise  has  lacked  certain  fea- 
tures which,  to  many  observers,  seem 
necessary  for  the  full  rehabilitation  of 
Europe,  in  that  traders,  acting  without 
concert  in  any  particular  case,  will  neces- 
sarily choose  the  most  profitable  oppor- 
tunities, and  so  will  neglect  some  of  the 
most  necessitous  cases.  Moreover,  in- 
dividual enterprises,  operating  without 
coordination,  have  been  unable  to  exert 
the  influence  which  would  lead  to  more 
careful  expenditure,  to  the  imposition  of 
higher  taxes,  and  to  balanced  budgets. 


Trade  carried  on  in  this  manner,  more- 
over, has  been  in  too  large  a  degree  a 
trade  in  luxuries,  and  in  too  small  a  de- 
gree a  trade  in  raw  materials  and  other 
things  necessary  to  set  the  whole  of  in- 
dustry going  in  Europe,  although  raw  ma- 
terials have  gone  over  in  very  large  vol- 
ume. If  some  centralized  economic  con- 
trol could  be  established,  leading  to  the 
full  cooperation  among  all  the  countries 
of  Europe,  the  proper  distribution  of 
goods,  the  control  of  transportation  fa- 
cilities, and  the  restriction  of  luxury 
consumption,  the  requirements  of  Eu- 
rope would  be  reduced  by  hundreds  of 
millions  of  dollars.  It  is  almost  more  a 
job  of  organization  and  engineering  than 
it  is  a  job  of  financing. 

The  problem  is  far  from  solved.  There 
is  need  for  rebuilding  the  world  organi- 
zation which  has  disintegrated  since  the 
Armistice.  Nationalistic  jealousies  have 
asserted  themselves  vigorously  at  a  time 
when  there  was  need  to  subordinate  nar- 
rower purposes  to  a  great  common  emer- 
gency. We  can  not  be  content,  therefore, 
with  the  present  methods  of  extending 
aid  to  Europe.  We  can  not  be  confident 
that  they  will  continue  on  an  adequate 
scale.  We  can  not  be  confident  that  they 
will  get  results  commensurate  with  the 
capital  laid  out.  They  must  be  supple- 
mented by  organized  activity,  and  by  in- 
tergovernmental cooperation.  They  must 
not,  however,  be  supplanted.  So  far  as 
it  can  safely  and  effectively  be  done,  aid 
should  be  extended  on  a  business  basis  by 
business  enterprises  seeking  profits. 

The  private  capital  to  be  secured  will 
probably  be,  on  the  whole,  the  capital 
of  men  willing  to  make  ventures,  rather 
than  the  capital  of  the  investor  who  seeks 
absolute  security.  The  best  results  will 
probably  be  obtained  by  methods  which 
make  possible  unusual  return  on  ven- 
turesome enterprise,  rather  than  by 
methods  which  seek  merely  to  give  nor- 
mal return  on  safe  investments. 

Conditions  abroad  show  many  encour- 
aging signs.  Belgium  has  made  very 
gratifying  recovery.  British  industry 
has  revived  splendidly,  and  the  financial 
courage  of  the  British  Treasury  in  re- 
gard to  taxation,  and  the  policy  of  reduc- 
tion of  the  public  debt,  are  worthy  of 
the  finest  traditions  of  British  finance. 
Italy  has  been  making  heroic  efforts  to 
balance  her  budget.  In  France,  and 
throughout  Europe,  there  are  authorita- 
tive voices  speaking  wisely  and  sanely, 
and  there  are  patriots  working  bravely, 
against  great  odds  of  tradition  and  nar- 
rowness of  vision,  for  the  public  good. 
But  there  is  still  suffering  and  distress  in 
Europe  of  an  appalling  sort,  and  there 
are  grave  industrial  and  financial  diffi- 
culties. The  world  can  not  wash  its 
hands  of  the  problem.  The  United  States, 
above  all,  must  recognize  and  assume  her 
share  of  the  responsibility. 

Guy  Emerson 


THE  WEEKLY 

REVlEW^ 


l^ 


Vol.  2,  No.  59 


New  York,  Wednesday,  June  30,  1920 


FIFTEEN  CENl  S 


Contents 


Brief  Comment  661 

Editorial  Articles: 
The  Old  Familiar  Charge  664 

The  World  and  the  Soothsayers  664 

Greeks  and  Poles  665 

Population   and   Housing  666 

Shepherds  and  Song  in  the  Day's  News  667 
Big  Sinners  and  Little  Ones.     By  Agnes 

Repplier  668 

The  Monroe  Doctrine  as  an  Adventure 
in  Foreign  Policy.  By  Elbert  J. 
Benton  670 

Jobs  for  New  Brooms.    By  Edward  G. 

Lowry  672 

Correspondence  673 

Packing  the  Books.    By  Edmund  Lester 

Pearson  675 

Book  Reviews: 

Complexities  of  the  Irish  Enigma        676 
The  Mystery  of  Jutland  677 

Hamilton  the  Democrat  678 

Mission  Life  at  St.  Antoine  679 

Unhappy  Tales  679 

The  Run  of  the  Shelves  680 

Early  June.     By  E.  G.  H.  683 

Drama: 
"The    Merchant    of    Venice"    at    the 
Playhouse.     By  O.  W.  Firkins  684 

Educational  Section: 
Research   and   Organization.    By  Ar- 
thur Gordon  Webster  686 
The   American    Exporter   in   "Wonder- 
land" 588 


WTHAT  the  San  Francisco  Conven- 
"  tion  will  do  about  the  Presi- 
dential nomination  is  a  thing  that  few 
persons  are  rash  enough  to  predict 
with  any  confidence.  But  what  it 
would  do  if  the  President's  bodily 
health  were  on  a  level  with  his  mental 
vigor  seems  plain  enough.  That  there 
should  be  any  talk  at  all  of  a  third- 
term  nomination,  in  view  of  the  mani- 
fest uncertainty  of  Mr.  Wilson's 
health,  is  the  strongest  possible  testi- 
mony to  the  commanding  position  he 
continues  to  hold  in  his  party.  Were 
it  not  for  that  obstacle  his  renomina- 
tion  would  be,  so  far  as  one  can  judge, 
almost  a  certainty. 

A  S  it  is,  he  bids  fair  to  dominate  the 
■^-  proceedings.  Indeed,  the  charac- 
ter of  the  Democratic  Convention  is 
made  about  as  inevitable  by  ante- 
cedent history  as  was  that  of  the  Re- 


publican Convention.  It  is  impossible 
in  a  few  days'  gathering  of  a  thou- 
sand delegates  to  reshape  the  funda- 
mentals of  a  situation.  There  are 
times  when  two  opposing  elements 
in  a  party  are  fairly  evenly  matched, 
and  when  their  division  is  on  a 
definite  issue.  In  that  case  the  issue 
may  be  fought  out  in  Convention. 
The  result  need  not  necessarily  be  a 
compromise,  but  may  be  a  decisive 
victory  for  one  side,  in  which  the 
other  side  will  acquiesce.  At  Chi- 
cago, no  such  situation  existed.  It 
was  certain  in  advance  that  the 
League  of  Nations  issue  would  be 
treated  in  somewhat  the  manner  in 
which  it  actually  was  treated.  In  like 
manner,  the  Democrats  are  bound  to 
adopt  a  formula  pretty  closely  ap- 
proximating to  President  Wilson's 
position. 

'T'HERE  remains  nevertheless  the 
■*■  question  whether  the  platform 
will  seek  to  conciliate  reservationists 
by  a  skillfully  elastic  phrase.  Mr.  Wil- 
son, though  in  practice  he  has  made 
ratification  impossible  by  his  attitude 
towards  reservations,  has  never  flatly 
declared  against  all  reservations  hav- 
ing any  substantial  quality.  It  is  still 
within  the  bounds  of  possibility  that 
the  campaign,  instead  of  intensify- 
ing the  League  issue,  may  tend  to  sub- 
ordinate it.  This  will  be  especially 
likely  if  the  Democrats  should  adopt 
a  radical  plank  on  labor  and  Govern- 
ment ownership.  On  those  issues — 
and  the  Republican  platform  has 
spoken  out  with  great  clearness  upon 
them — there  are  the  makings  of  a 
genuine  fight. 

WHATEVER  attempts  may  be 
made  by  the  Johnson-Borah 
bitter-enders  to  give  the  fight  a  dif- 
ferent turn,  says  Mr.  Taft,  the  issue 
that  is  sure  to  emerge  in  the  end  is 
this: 


"Was  Mr,  Wilson  right  in  killing 
the  League  with  the  Lodge  reserva- 
tions?" 

There  is  one  aspect  of  this  ques- 
tion to  which  we  should  like  particu- 
larly to  direct  attention,  for  it  has 
received  far  less  notice  than  it  de- 
serves. Mr.  Wilson,  in  putting 
through  his  League  programme  at 
Versailles,  assumed  the  responsibility 
of  securing  its  acceptance  on  his  re- 
turn. European  statesmen  would  not 
have  entered  into  the  bargain  had 
they  not  been  assured  that  the  fulfil- 
ment of  it  was  practically  certain. 
Mr.  Wilson  unquestionably  gave  that 
assurance  in  good  faith.  But  when  he 
came  home  he  found  that  his  power  to 
carry  out  his  promise  was  involved 
in  doubt;  before  long,  it  became  ab- 
solutely certain  that,  unless  he  made 
important  concessions,  he  could  not 
possibly  get  the  treaty  ratified.  In 
this  situation,  was  he  not  under  a 
solemn  obligation  to  the  nations 
which  had  put  their  trust  in  him  to 
get  this  country  into  the  League  on 
the  best  terms  he  could  obtain? 

'T'HE  one  possible  justification  for 
■*•  not  doing  so  would  have  been  the 
unwillingness  of  the  other  Powers  to 
accept  our  cooperation  on  these 
terms;  but  it  has  long  been  certain 
that  this  obstacle  did  not  exist.  On  no 
other  basis  than  his  individual  opin- 
ion or  desire,  Mr.  Wilson  has  kept  this 
country  out  of  the  League  into  which 
he  had  promised  his  associates  at 
Versailles  to  put  it.  He  has,  to  be 
sure,  been  plajdng  for  what  he  re- 
gards as  a  big  stake — to  obtain  the 
League  unmodified,  or  nearly  so.  But 
it  is  a  tremendous  gamble ;  and  to  our 
mind  he  had  no  more  right  to  gamble 
with  the  trust  he  assumed  at  Ver- 
sailles than  a  man  has  a  right  to  put 
to  the  risks  of  Wall  Street  specula- 
tion a  trust  fund  committed  to  his 
care.    We  should  be  glad  to  hear  from 


662] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  59 


readers  of  the  Weekly  Review  on  this 
question. 

THOSE  who,  largely  on  grounds 
of  propriety,  resented  Admiral 
Sims's  disclosures  and  the  subsequent 
naval  inquiry  will  do  well  to  ponder 
the  following  facts  which  the  inquiry 
has  brought  to  light.  The  Senate 
passed  a  resolution,  on  April  12, 1916, 
calling  on  Secretary  Daniels  for  "a 
communication  dated  August  3,  1914, 
from  the  General  Board  of  the  Navy 
warning  the  Navy  Department  of  the 
necessity  of  bringing  the  Navy  to  a 
state  of  preparedness."  On  April  21, 
1916,  Secretarj'  Daniels  declared,  in 
an  official  reply  to  the  Senate,  that 
the  document  in  question  "does  not 
refer  to  the  necessity  of  bringing  the 
Na\'y  to  a  state  of  preparedness." 
Yet  in  the  first  paragraph  of  its  com- 
munication the  General  Board  had 
said:  "In  view  of  the  immediate 
danger  of  a  great  war  in  Europe, 
•  *  *  the  General  Board  ear- 
nestly urges  that  the  battleships  be 
brought  home,  docked  and  put  in  per- 
fect readiness";  and  in  the  last  sen- 
tence had  urged:  "We  should  pre- 
pare now  for  the  situation  which 
would  thus  be  created."  This  bare 
statement  of  the  facts  sufficiently  re- 
veals Secretary  Daniels's  confusion 
and  lack  of  decision  in  the  early 
stages  of  the  European  war ;  but  such 
disclosures,  though  shocking,  will 
amount  to  little  unless  the  result  of 
the  investigation  is  embodied  in  a 
comprehensive  report. 

WHEN  the  head  of  one  of  the  big- 
gest department  stores  in  New 
York  is  arrested  on  charges  of  prof- 
iteering; when  the  warrants  allege 
that  a  suit  bought  for  $5.50  was 
offered  for  sale  at  $15,  one  costing 
$15  at  $33.75,  etc.;  when  the  special 
agent  in  charge  of  the  case  states  that 
there  are  185  separate  counts,  alleg- 
ing profits  ranging  from  90  to  275 
per  cent. — we  must  all  sit  up  and 
take  notice.  It  is  not  merely  a  ques- 
tion of  legal  guilt  or  innocence ;  what 
the  public  ought  to  be  able  to  find  out, 
somehow,  some  time — what  it  ought 
to  have  been  able  to  find  out  long  be- 
fore this — is  whether  these  things 
are  typical.  Are  retail  prices  of  such 


necessaries  as  clothing,  usually  or  in 
any  large  proportion  of  cases,  of  such 
exorbitant  character?  It  looks  much 
too  bad  to  be  true;  but  what  is  the 
truth?  So  far  as  the  individual  case 
here  in  question  is  concerned,  the  trial 
will  presumably  bring  out  the  facts; 
but  what  are  the  facts  in  general? 
"Profiteering"  has  been  the  word  of 
the  day  for  two  years  and  more,  but 
the  country  is  as  much  at  sea  con- 
cerning the  extent  of  it  as  it  was  at 
the  beginning.  In  ordinary  times, 
competition  can  be  counted  on  to  keep 
profits  down  to  a  reasonable  level ;  but 
in  times  when  nobody  knows  what 
ought  to  be  regarded  as  a  normal 
price,  the  working  of  competition  be- 
comes a  very  imperfect  process.  If 
some  part  of  the  vast  amount  of 
money  expended  upon  the  mechanical 
piling  up  of  statistical  figures  had 
been  directed  to  the  task  of  getting  at 
the  homely  facts  of  retail  business, 
we  might  have  been  in  a  position  to 
know  something  definite  about  them ; 
and  if  the  situation  called  for  legis- 
lative remedy,  we  might  have  found 
something  better  in  that  line  than  a 
law  which  once  in  a  while  manifests 
itself  by  a  sensational  raid,  and  the 
rest  of  the  time  does  nothing  what- 
soever. 

'T'HE  real  purpose  of  Krasin's  visit 
-'■  in  London  and  his  conversations 
with  Mr.  Lloyd  George  and  other 
Cabinet  Ministers  seems  to  have  been 
generally  overlooked.  The  skillful 
talk  about  trade  with  Soviet  Russia 
has  successfully  concealed  the  more 
important  pourparlers.  Mr.  Krasin 
is  neither  a  fool  nor  a  fanatic.  He 
is  perfectly  aware  that  the  Soviet 
Government  will  not  give  up  any  con- 
siderable amount  of  that  gold  reserve 
which  constitutes  its  sole  means  of 
attaining  any  financial  stability,  and 
he  also  knows  that  the  stocks  of  raw 
materials  in  possession  of  the  Soviet 
Government  and  available  for  export 
are  so  small  as  to  be  negligible  for 
purposes  of  barter.  What  is  it,  then, 
that  Mr.  Krasin  and  his  associates 
seek  under  cover  of  airy  talk  about 
Russian  trade?  The  convinced  Com- 
munists form  but  a  small  percentage 
of  the  Soviet  authorities  to-day,  as 
Mr.  Krasin  has  already  pointed  out. 


On  the  other  hand,  there  has  grown 
up  among  them  a  class  which  they 
themselves  term  the  "new  bour- 
geoisie." For  these  people  the  Bol- 
shevik revolution  was  a  means  of  at- 
taining power  and  acquiring  prop- 
erty. But  their  new-found  riches  are 
likely  to  vanish  in  smoke  if  some- 
thing is  not  done  to  rescue  the  eco- 
nomic life  of  Russia  from  the  des- 
perate position  to  which  the  Soviet 
Administration  has  brought  it.  They 
now  believe  that  the  one  way  out  is 
to  secure  the  aid  of  foreign  capital 
and  enterprise  in  restoring  and  reor- 
ganizing Russian  industries,  and  they 
regard  Krasin  as  the  Moses  to  lead 
them  out  of  the  Bolshevik  wilderness. 
Should  the  British  financial  groups 
look  favorably  upon  his  proposals,  he 
will  naturally  ask  them  to  exert  pres- 
sure upon  the  British  Government  to 
recognize  the  Soviet  Government,  and 
thereby  legitimate  the  proposed 
transactions.  It  will  be  easy  for  him 
to  suggest  further  inducements  in  the 
way  of  promises  to  abstain  from  revo- 
lutionary propaganda  and  to  limit 
Soviet  aggression  in  the  Near  and 
Middle  East. 

'T'HE  Japanese  Government  appears 
■*-  anxious  to  come  to  a  settlement 
with  China  on  the  Shantung  question, 
but  China  refuses  to  negotiate  di- 
rectly. The  Mikado's  Government 
professes  to  be  surprised  at  this  mani- 
fest distrust  of  its  honest  intentions 
in  the  face  of  repeated  declarations 
which  "leave  no  room  for  doubt  as 
to  the  singleness  of  purpose  with 
which  Japan  seeks  a  fair  and  just 
settlement  of  the  question."  We  sus- 
pect that  it  is  not  the  Government's 
singleness  of  purpose  but  the  single- 
ness of  the  Government  itself  which 
is  in  doubt  at  Peking.  There  is  am- 
ple proof  of  the  existence  of  a  mili- 
tary junta,  which  either  dictates  to 
the  nominal  Government  its  policy, 
or  thwarts  it  when  independently 
adopted.  Even  statesmen  who,  while 
out  of  office,  were  bitter  critics  of 
Japan's  Chinese  policy,  become  in- 
struments of  that  policy  themselves 
when  vested  with  governmental 
power.  Baron  Goto,  during  the  ad- 
ministration of  the  Okuma  Ministry, 
issued  for  private  circulation  a  pam- 


June  30,  1920] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[668 


phlet  which  exposed  the  evils  of  Japa- 
nese policy  in  China.  But  when,  after 
the  fall  of  the  Okuma  Government, 
November,  1916,  Baron  Goto  became 
a  member  of  the  Terauchi  Cabinet, 
no  attempt  was  made  at  reversing 
the  policy  he  had  condemned.  Ex- 
perimental lessons  of  this  kind  must 
make  the  Chinese  hesitate  to  believe 
the  Japanese  professions  of  "single- 
ness of  purpose."  They  are  given  by 
the  nominal  Government,  but  they 
are  discredited  by  the  Government 
de  facto. 

"'yHE  accepted  explanation  of 
Conkling's  enmity  for  Blaine," 
writes  Chauncey  M.  Depew  in  some 
recent  reminiscences,  "was  Blaine's 
allusion  to  him,  during  a  debate  in  the 
House,  as  a  turkey  cock."  Well,  the 
language  in  which  the  turkey  cock  ap- 
peared was  something  more  than  an 
allusion;  and  as  for  the  enmity,  it 
had  an  earlier  origin,  which  prob- 
ably no  diver  among  the  wrecks  of 
time  will  ever  discover.  The  episode 
of  the  clash  is  worth  recalling;  for, 
though  well-nigh  forgotten  in  these 
days,  it  bulked  big  to  our  fathers  of 
the  post-bellum  time.  Moreover, 
Blaine's  part  in  it  furnishes  a  classic 
example  of  what  in  those  days  was 
regarded  as  a  "crushing  reply."  The 
clash  happened  on  a  day  in  1866,  and 
the  scene  was  the  House  of  Represen- 
tatives. Conkling  had  the  floor. 
Blaine  interposed.  "Does  the  gentle- 
man from  New  York  yield  to  the  gen- 
tleman from  Maine?"  asked  the 
Speaker.  "No,  sir,"  replied  Conkling. 
"I  do  not  wish  to  have  anything  to 
do  with  the  member  from  Maine,  not 
even  so  much  as  to  yield  him  the 
floor."  When,  later,  the  member 
from  Maine  got  the  floor,  this  is  what 
he  said: 

As  to  the  gentleman's  cruel  sarcasm,  I  hope 
he  will  not  be  too  severe.  The  contempt  of  the 
large-minded  gentleman  is  so  wilting ;  his 
haughty  disdain  and  grandiloquent  swell,  his 
majestic,  super-eminent,  overpowering,  turkey- 
gobbler  strut,  has  been  so  crushing  to  myself 
and  all  the  other  members  of  the  House  that 
I  know  it  was  an  act  of  the  greatest  temerity 
for  me  to  venture  upon  a  controversy  with  him. 
But,  sir,  I  know  who  is  responsible  for  all  this. 
I  know  that  within  the  last  five  weeks,  as  mem- 
bers of  the  House  will  recollect,  an  extra  strut 
has  characterized  the  gentleman's  bearing.  It 
is  not  his  fault.  It  is  the  fault  of  another. 
That  gifted  and  satirical  writer,  Theodore  Til- 
ton,  of  the  New  York  Independent,  spent  some 
weeks  recently  in  this   city.     His  letters   pub- 


lished in  that  paper  embraced,  with  many  seri- 
ous statements,  a  little  jocose  .satire,  a  |>art  of 
which  was  the  statement  that  the  mantle  of  the 
late  Winter  Davis  had  fallen  upon  the  member 
from  New  York.  He  took  it  seriously,  and  it 
has  given  his  strut  an  additional  pomposity. 
The  resemblance  is  great.  It  is  striking.  Hy- 
perion to  a  satyr,  Thcrsitcs  to  Hercules,  mud 
to  marble,  dunghill  to  diamond,  a  singed  cat 
to  a  Bengal  tiger,  a  whining  puppy  to  a  roar- 
ing lion.  Shade  of  the  mighty  Davis!  Forgive 
the  almost  profanation  of  that  jocose  satire. 

"Conkling,"  writes  Depew,  treating 
of  the  year  1880,  "was  swayed  by  a 
perfectly  savage  hatred  of  Blaine." 
We  do  not  wonder. 

■rVEN  the  more  moderate  (or  less 
-"-^  candid)  zealots  who  move  about 
under  the  nebulous  appellations  "rad- 
ical" and  "liberal"  are  busily  en- 
gaged in  hurling  language  at  one 
another  as  to  who  is  who  and  what 
is  what.  The  pro-war  liberals  were 
and  are  a  poor,  timid,  and  compro- 
mising lot,  according  to  the  anti-war 
liberals ;  while  the  antis,  according  to 
the  pros,  are  an  ineffective  and  unin- 
structed  group  of  sentimentalists  who 
did  not  and  can  not  grasp  the  mean- 
ing of  realpolitik.  To  the  radicals 
(the  unspecified  sort  —  mere  raJi- 
cals) ,  as  well  as  to  the  Socialists  and 
the  Communists  of  various  groups, 
both  liberal  wings  are  about  equal  in 
lack  of  understanding  of  fundamental 
things  and  in  all-round  futility.  And 
so  they  are  all  talking  it  out,  and  the 
controversial  combat  thickens.  The 
points  at  issue  are  in  number  as  the 
autumnal  leaves  along  the  brooks  of 
Vallombrosa  and  in  variety  as  the 
figures  in  a  kaleidoscope.  Was  the 
late  Randolph  Bourne  a  Liberal  ?  Yes, 
says  Professor  Laski  in  the  Freeman, 
but  the  wrong  kind,  because  he  had 
an  inadequate  notion  of  real  liberty. 
Nothing  of  the  sort,  answers  a 
Communist  -  Socialist  correspondent : 
Bourne  was  a  "creative  skeptic,"  and 
he  had  exactly  the  right  notion  of 
liberty.  Did  Professor  John  Dewey 
and  the  New  Republic  really  bring 
on  America's  intervention  in  the 
war?  There  is  high  authority  for 
the  charge,  but  the  matter  has  not 
yet  been  suflSciently  threshed  out  for 
a  verdict.  It  is  easy  enough  for  the 
radical  and  anti-war  liberal  brethren 
to  agree  upon  the  reprehensibility  of 
anything  that  promoted  the  war ;  but 
to  admit  so  large  an  effect  from  so 
futile  an  agent  as  a  pro-war  liberal 


goes  hard.  It  is  therefore  unlikely 
that  the  verdict  against  the  de- 
fendants will  be  more  severe  than 
that  of  "accessory  before  the  fact." 
Ordinary  folk  can  watch  the  whole 
combat  with  serenity.  If  the  contro- 
versialists succeed,  to  even  the  slight- 
est degree,  in  clarifying  their  own 
minds  a  social  good  will  have  been 
gained. 

TJATS,  mice,  and  English  sparrows 
— such  are  the  remnants  of  a 
once  glorious  fauna  towards  which 
Mr.  Homaday,  of  the  New  York 
Zoological  Park,  warns  us  that  we 
are  drifting,  through  lack  of  adequate 
measures  to  check  the  forces  of  ex- 
termination. One  may  admit  a  bit 
of  exaggeration  in  his  words,  but  as 
a  means  of  emphasizing  the  urgency 
of  the  case  it  is  pardonable.  Mr. 
Homaday's  pamphlet,  "The  End  of 
Game  and  Sport  in  America?"  shows 
that  the  bag-limit  laws  of  New  York, 
together  with  the  number  of  persons 
authorized  to  hunt,  make  legally  and 
arithmetically  possible  the  killing  of 
nearly  two  and  a  half  billion  wild 
birds  and  quadrupeds  in  a  single 
year.  In  other  words,  the  real  re- 
striction is  not  the  legal  limit  on  the 
amount  to  be  killed  at  all,  but  merely 
man's  inability,  for  various  reasons, 
to  use  up  any  considerable  portion  of 
the  privileges  which  his  hunting 
license  gives.  But  he  can  use  enough 
of  these  lavish  '•oncessions  to  threaten 
all  kinds  of  game  birds  and  animals 
with  extinction.  Mr.  Hornaday  sug- 
gests that  all  iegal  bag  limits  be  re- 
duced by  one-half,  and  all  open  sea- 
sons in  the  same  proportion.  Fur- 
thermore, he  would  license  the  indi- 
vidual to  hunt  only  one  year  out  of 
two,  and  would  raise  the  license  fee 
to  three  times  its  present  merely 
nominal  figure.  He  urges  the  friends 
of  wild  life  to  use  their  influence  for 
the  public  acquisition  of  marshes, 
waste  woodlands,  and  mountains  as 
game  "sanctuaries,"  and  to  encourage 
the  planting  of  large  quantities  of 
berry,  nut,  and  seed  bearing  bushes 
and  trees,  with  such  annuals  as  kaflir 
corn,  millet,  and  sorghum  cane,  as 
food  for  wild  birds.  One  hopes  that 
his  pamphlet  may  have  a  wide  and 
fruitful  reading. 


664] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  59 


The  Old  Familiar 
Charge 

THE  country  is  approaching  a 
Presidential  campaign  for  which 
men  who  like  to  know  exactly  where 
they  stand  can  have  little  relish.  For 
even  the  fresh  indications  that  Mr. 
Wilson  will  dictate  the  Democratic 
platform  give  no  assurance  that  the 
issues  will  be  squarely  joined.  Over 
and  above  the  issues  will  be  the  per- 
sonality of  the  President,  about  whom 
even  intelligent  antagonists  can  sel- 
dom argue  with  any  satisfaction. 
Those  opposed  to  the  President  will 
be  told  that,  whatever  the  judgment 
of  the  present  generation,  the  future 
will  rank  him  as  one  of  the  greatest 
men  of  all  time.  It  is  indeed  a  sure 
sign  of  Mr.  Wilson's  capacity  for 
greatness  that  he  has  so  caught  the 
imagination  of  many  persons,  both 
here  and  abroad,  that  they  have  seen, 
however  vaguely,  his  vision  of  a  new 
world  order.  But  this  only  adds  to 
our  present  difficulty.  Those  who  have 
not  "seen  the  light"  will  be  asked 
to  accept  too  much  on  faith — which 
is  not  the  American  way. 

No  amount  of  reasoning  will  en- 
tirely rid  the  situation  of  that  diffi- 
culty. Yet  there  may  be  some  ad- 
vantage in  disposing  of  one  argument 
which  is'  sure  to  be  used  insistently 
against  the  opponents  of  the  Presi- 
dent. They  will  be  called  "little 
Americans."  It  is  high  time  that  they 
learned  how  to  defend  themselves 
against  the  charge.  The  case  of  Sen- 
ator Harding  himself  is  instructive. 
Such  a  career  as  his  is  typically  Amer- 
ican —  humble  beginnings  ripening 
into  a  life  of  large  opportunities.  An 
American  he  surely  is.  Is  he  a  "little 
American"?  Much  depends  upon  the 
year  in  which  he  is  examined.  From 
the  moment  the  President  gave  the 
word,  there  was  no  one  in  the  Senate 
more  eager  to  see  the  war  prosecuted 
to  a  decisive  conclusion  than  he. 
Would  anyone  in  those  days  have 
thought  it  proper  to  dub  him  a  "little 
American"?  And  what  shall  be  said 
of  the  Americanism  of  that  host  of 
persons  now  unfriendly  to  the  Presi- 
dent's international  programme,  who, 
long  before  1917,  agitated  for  our  ac- 


tive  participation    with   the   Allies? 

A  mass  of  nonsense  has  been  ut- 
tered at  the  expense  of  the  "little 
Americans."  A  great  majority  of  our 
citizens  have  all  along  been  heartily 
in  favor  of  destroying  once  and  for 
all  the  menace  of  Prussianism,  and 
opposition  to  the  President  increased 
because  he  seemed  to  many,  in  the 
early  years  of  the  war,  to  be  making 
Germany's  case  easier  than  it  should 
have  been.  To  them  the  President's 
later  advocacy  of  a  League  of  Nations 
appeared  to  be  the  outcropping  of  a 
perfectionist,  who  could  not  be  sup- 
posed to  use  the  new  instrument  more 
effectively  than  he  used  the  position 
of  President  in  confronting  German 
insults  and  brutalities.  It  was 
prompted,  they  felt,  by  an  easy  confi- 
dence in  international  machinery  de- 
signed to  take  the  place  of  the  free 
individual  action  which,  if  directed  by 
another  hand,  would  have  made  our 
war  record  a  prouder  one.  They  were 
eager  to  see  the  Allies  through  their 
difficulty  and  to  help  execute  the 
terms  of  peace.  If  they  could  not 
approve  all  the  clauses  of  a  Covenant 
the  creation  of  which  Europe  itself, 
we  now  know,  would  have  been  glad 
to  postpone  until  after  arranging  the 
peace  terms,  are  they  therefore  to  be 
called  "little  Americans"  ? 

We  trust  that  the  phrase  will  be 
discredited  before  the  campaign  pro- 
ceeds very  far.  It  would  merely  con- 
fuse a  valuable  issue.  For  the  coun- 
try wishes  by  all  means  to  know  what 
the  candidates  intend  to  do  about  Eu- 
rope. That  we  must  now  assume 
large  responsibilities  with  reference 
to  Europe  is  certain,  and  it  will  not 
do  to  trust  any  half-hearted  profes- 
sions on  this  important  matter.  Yet 
let  it  be  remembered  that  they  are 
not  "big  Americans,"  or  big  anything 
else,  who,  through  a  vague  yearning 
for  a  perfect  world,  or  through  their 
implicit  confidence  in  the  judgment 
of  one  man,  shout  for  the  Covenant 
just  as  it  stands.  It  is  the  tough- 
minded  American  to  whom  we  must 
look  in  this  emergency.  That  many 
such,  while  approving  the  reserva- 
tions, have  for  years  worked  fever- 
ishly to  relieve  Europe's  distress  is 
evidence  enough  that  they  are  neither 
hard-hearted  nor  little,  Americans. 


The  World  and  the 
Soothsayers 

'T'HE  British  Ambassador,  in  his  ad- 
dress to  the  Princeton  Alumni, 
drew  a  picture  of  the  world's  state  of 
mind,  and  of  the  prospects  of  the  ex- 
isting economic  order,  which  was  cal- 
culated to  make  the  young  men  to 
whom  he  was  speaking  anything  but 
merry.  He  followed  it  up,  it  is  true, 
with  the  assurance  that  he  was  "far 
from  pessimistic,"  that  he  believed 
that  "out  of  this  turmoil,  this  seeth- 
ing and  bubbling  of  new  thoughts  and 
new  ideas,  we  may  get  something  a 
little  saner,  a  little  nobler,  in  our 
civilization";  but  what  reason  there 
was  for  this  hope  he  was  apparently 
content  to  let  his  audience  guess  for 
themselves.  If  the  existing  economic 
order  has  proved  a  ghastly  failure, 
something  more  is  required  to  war- 
rant a  denial  of  pessimism  than  a 
mere  vague  impression  that  better 
things  are  coming.  Sir  Auckland 
Geddes  appears  to  belong  to  that  large 
company  of  misty  "liberals"  who  rise 
superior  to  their  allegiance  to  the  in- 
stitutions of  the  past  and  present, 
without  having  gone  through  that 
mental  travail  which  is  necessary  for 
the  formation  of  a  different  allegiance 
to  take  its  place.  "The  stage  is  surely 
set  for  great  changes,"  he  tells  us; 
for  millions  of  working  people  are 
saying  to  themselves,  "What  is  a  life 
worth  that  at  the  end  leaves  us 
with  nothing  achieved  except  having 
avoided  being  starved  to  death,  and 
having  produced  children  who  will 
follow  in  our  path?"  And  not  only 
is  this  the  case  at  the  present  time, 
but  "as  this  century  opened,  we  had 
in  Europe  an  order  that  was  ob- 
viously nearing  its  end." 

This  sort  of  thing,  uttered  with 
portentous  solemnity  by  the  repre- 
sentative of  the  British  Empire  in  our 
country,  is  calculated  to  make  a  pro- 
found impression  upon  open-minded 
young  men.  "Here,"  they  say,  "is  a 
man  who  really  knows  what  is  going 
on,  a  man  who  can  estimate  the  grav- 
ity of  the  present,  and  forecast  the 
development  of  the  future,  as  we  can 
not.  Of  course,  we  all  know  that  this 
is  a  time  big  with  important  changes ; 


June  30.  1920] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[665 


we  all  know  that  there  is  a  vast 
amount  of  unrest  among  the  working 
people  the  world  over ;  but  we  are  apt 
to  imagine  that  improvement  will 
come  without  subversion  or  revolu- 
tion, and  here  is  a  wise  man  who, 
though  refraining  from  using  these 
words,  is  clearly  convinced  that  it  is 
all  up  with  the  world  as  we  have 
known  it.  We  might  as  well  make  up 
our  minds  that  Socialism  is  upon 
us,  and  adjust  ourselves  to  the  in- 
evitable." 

But  let  us  look  at  the  matter  a  little 
more  closely.  Is  there  any  evidence 
that  Sir  Auckland  has  done  any  real 
thinking  on  the  subject,  either  as  to 
its  facts  or  its  philosophy?  He  does 
not  appear  to  be  a  Socialist;  on  the 
contrary,  apart  from  its  broad  vati- 
cinations, his  talk  sounds  like  that 
of  any  other  British  or  American  pub- 
lic man  who  feels  that  important  eco- 
nomic and  social  changes  are  taking 
place,  which  it  will  require  great 
sagacity  to  make  safe  and  beneficent. 
The  trouble  with  him,  as  with  so 
many  of  our  own  half-way  apostles 
of  a  new  social  order,  is  that  although 
he  presents  a  state  of  things  so  grave 
that  nothing  short  of  Socialism  can 
possibly  mend  it,  he  shrinks  from  ac- 
cepting the  position  either  of  a  So- 
cialist or  of  a  pessimist.  Things  are 
going  to  come  right  somehow ;  we  are 
going  to  have  omelets  without  break- 
ing of  eggs. 

As  to  his  account  of  facts,  it  hap- 
pens that  Sir  Auckland  gives  us  a 
very  excellent  means  of  judging  of 
the  weight  to  be  attached  to  it.  He 
has  made  the  brilliant  discovery  that 
the  real  cause  of  the  European  War 
was  the  growth  of  American  popula- 
tion, which  had  had  the  effect  of  mak- 
ing wheat  unendurably  dear  in  Ger- 
many. Let  us  hear  exactly  what  Sir 
Auckland  says : 

Believe  .me,  I  have  gone  into  this  thing  fairly 
carefully,  and  I  think  that  it  is  not  very  diffi- 
cult to  show  that  the  development  of  your 
population  here  was  the  principal  cause  in 
making  the  European  War  inevitable. 

Germany  was  being  forced  into  a  position 
with  rising  food  costs — look  at  the  change  in 
the  price  of  wheat  in  the  first  ten  years  of  this 
century — Germany  was  being  forced  into  a 
position  in  which  she  almost  had  to  fight. 

Now  there  had  actually  been  a  con- 
siderable rise  in  the  price  of  wheat 
in  the  first  ten  years  of  this  century ; 


but  the  price  just  preceding  that  time 
was  not  a  normal  one,  but  that  ab- 
normally low  price  which  furnished 
the  foundation  for  Bryan's  whirlwind 
campaign  for  free  silver  in  1896.  It 
happens  that  the  course  of  wheat 
prices  in  Germany  was  the  subject 
of  an  elaborate  article  which  ap- 
peared in  the  leading  German  eco- 
nomic journal,  Conrad's  Jahrbiicher, 
in  1914.  From  this  it  appears  that 
the  average  price  of  wheat  per  hun- 
dredweight during  the  period  1847- 
70  was  10.95  marks ;  in  the  following 
three  decades  the  average  price  was 
11.43,  8.35,  6.76,  respectively,  the  last 
figure  being  for  the  decade  1891-1900. 
The  average  price  for  1901-5  was  6.65 
marks;  for  1906-10,  it  was  8.02,  for 
the  year  1911  it  was  7.85  and  for  1912 
it  was  8.38.  So  it  appears  that  that 
price  of  wheat  which  was  so  terrible 
that  Germany  was  driven  to  fight  out 
of  sheer  desperation  was  only  20  or 
25  per  cent,  above  the  phenomenally 
low  price  of  1891-1900,  and  was  de- 
cidedly below  the  prices  that  had  pre- 
vailed for  half  a  century  preceding 
that  low-price  decade. 

So  far,  then,  from  having  "gone 
into  this  thing  fairly  carefully,"  Sir 
Auckland  has  not  even  the  poor 
support  of  a  little  specious  bit  of 
statistics  to  sustain  his  tremendous 
conclusion  that  Germany  was  in  a 
position  "in  which  she  almost  had  to 
fight."  The  idea  was  in  any  case  so 
monstrous — the  gap  sq  enormous  be- 
tween a  high  price  for  wheat  and  the 
burning  up  of  the  world  as  a  remedy 
— that  we  cite  the  figures  not  so  much 
to  refute  what  every  sensible  man 
ought  to  recognize  at  once  as  an  ab- 
surdity, as  to  bring  out  the  irrespon- 
sible character  of  the  whole  breed 
of  Sir  Oracles  to  whom  a  time  of  dis- 
turbance like  the  present  opens  such 
abundant  opportunities.  What  des- 
tiny has  in  store  for  the  world  is  ob- 
scure to  the  rest  of  us,  but  it  is 
manifest  to  them;  and  most  fre- 
quently it  is  the  "economic  interpre- 
tation of  history"  that  gives  them  the 
key  with  which  they  unlock  the 
secrets  of  the  future.  It  is  an  ex- 
tremely handy  instrument,  and  does 
completely  in  a  moment  what  years 
of  study  without  it  would  fail  to  ac- 
complish.   But  whether  the  easy-go- 


ing conclusions  to  which  it  gives  ac- 
cess are  trustworthy  or  not  is  another 
question ;  and  it  is  a  bit  of  good  for- 
tune, therefore,  to  get  an  occasional 
test  of  the  matter  when,  instead  of 
dipping  into  the  future,  the  sooth- 
sayer ventures  with  a  like  jaunty  con- 
fidence into  questions  of  the  past.  One 
such  confident  dealer  in  world-horo- 
scopes. Professor  Simon  N.  Patten  of 
the  University  of  Pennsylvania,  some 
years  ago  put  forth  the  happy- 
thought  discovery  that  the  true  cause 
of  the  French  Revolution  was  that  the 
industries  of  France  had  been  ruined 
by  the  "industrial  revolution"  in  Eng- 
land; but  he  happened  to  overlook 
the  trifling  circumstance  that  in  1789 
the  "industrial  revolution"  was  still 
in  its  embryonic  stage,  and  could  not 
possibly  have  produced  any  note- 
worthy effect  on  French  prosperity. 
It  may  be  that  the  existing  order  of 
society  is  on  its  last  legs,  but  the 
solemn  pronouncements  of  this  type 
of  prophets  add  nothing  whatever  to 
the  reasons  we  may  have  for  think- 
ing so.  And  men  of  sense  should  con- 
cern themselves  not  with  fatalistic 
guesses  as  to  what  the  future  is  to  be, 
but  with  the  duty  of  helping  to  shape 
that  future  according  to  their  own 
judgment  of  what  is  good. 

Greeks  and  Poles 

■yENIZELOS  is  bent  upon  enforc- 
^  ing  the  Turkish  peace  treaty 
without,  if  need  be,  the  assistance  of 
the  Powers.  His  unexpected  arrival 
at  Hythe  had,  apparently,  the  twofold 
object  of  pressing  this  offer  and  of 
obviating  any  intentions  on  the  part 
of  certain  Powers  to  temporize  with 
the  Turk.  The  recent  agreement  be- 
tween General  Gouraud  and  Mus- 
tapha  Kemal  constitutes  a  serious 
menace  to  the  Greeks  of  Asia  Minor, 
and  is  likely  to  be  followed  by  further 
concessions  to  the  Nationalists  by  the 
French,  who,  in  trying  to  placate  the 
Nationalist  leader,  may  hope  to  safe- 
guard their  interests  in  Syria  and, 
at  the  same  time,  play  him  against 
the  British.  Greek  interests,  there- 
fore, fall  in  line  with  the  policy  of 
England,  which,  having  gained  con- 
trol of  the  Turkish  Government  in 


666] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  59 


Constantinople,  must  look  upon  any 
compromise  with  the  Nationalists  in 
Anatolia  as  an  attempt  to  thwart  that 
polic>  and  to  neutralize  the  results  it 
has  achieved  so  far. 

There  is  a  striking  analogy  between 
the  role  which  Venizelos  wishes  to 
assign  to  Greece  and  that  which  Po- 
land is  now  playing  under  the  man- 
agement of  Pilsudski.  Russian  Bol- 
shevists and  Turkish  Nationalists  are 
both  a  menace  to  Europe  and  her 
ciNnlization,  and  it  is  with  the  claim 
of  rendering  service  to  these  that  both 
the  Polish  Republic  and  the  Greek 
Kingdom  are  willing  to  take  up  arms 
against  their  eastern  neighbors.  The 
difference  is  in  the  response  which 
their  sacrifice  meets  in  the  west.  Pil- 
sudski receives  moral  and  material 
support  from  Paris  and  is  praised  in 
the  French  press  for  his  political 
foresight  and  his  championship  of 
Western  culture;  in  England  public 
opinion  is  either  cool  or  indignant  at 
the  Polish  offensive,  which  it  con- 
demns as  a  fit  of  megalomania.  But 
the  same  French  press  which  consid- 
ers the  Red  terror  such  a  menace 
as  to  justify  the  encouragement  of 
Polish  expansionism,  is  stubbornly 
opposed  to  strong  action  being  taken 
against  the  Bolshevists'  Allies  in  Asia 
Minor,  the  Turkish  Nationalists  un- 
der Mustapha  Kemal's  leadership. 
Here  it  is  England  which  favors  such 
action,  and  the  latest  reports  as  to 
the  British  rushing  their  entire  Medi- 
terranean fleet  to  Turkey  read  like  an 
angrj'  reply  to  the  French  armistice 
with  Mustapha  Kemal. 

It  is  clear  that  the  policy  of  neither 
Power,  reacting  so  differently  to  the 
same  menace  in  different  parts  of 
the  world,  is  based  on  any  distinctly 
defined  principle.  One  would  think 
that,  if  the  Bolshevist  danger  de- 
mands the  sacrifice  of  Polish  lives  and 
French  money,  a  similar  sacrifice  on 
the  part  of  Greece  should  receive  a 
similar  support  from  France.  But 
jealousy  of  British  power  in  Asia  is 
stronger  with  the  French  than  their 
fear  lest  the  success  of  Kemal's  op- 
position to  the  treaty  should  indi- 
rectly benefit  his  allies  in  Moscow. 
As  Saladin  says  in  The  Talisman,  "A 
wild  cat  in  a  chamber  is  more  danger- 
ous than  a  lion  in  a  distant  desert." 


So  to  the  French  the  nearer  danger 
of  British  hegemony  in  anterior  Asia 
is  a  greater  menace  than  the  far-off 
one  of  Soviet  Russia  getting  hold  of  it. 

Thus  Venizelos  and  Pilsudski, 
united  in  opposition  against  a  com- 
mon menace,  are  divided  by  the 
diverging  policies  of  their  power- 
ful supporters.  It  is  questionable 
whether  Poland,  even  with  the  whole- 
hearted assistance  of  British  opinion 
and  Mr.  Lloyd  George's  Government, 
could  realize  her  ambitions.  The 
events,  so  far,  seem  to  justify  our  ap- 
prehension that  the  danger  from 
abroad  would  tend  to  strengthen 
Lenin's  position  by  rallying  all  Rus- 
sian parties  round  the  Government  in 
charge  of  the  country's  defense.  In 
Asia  Minor  the  chances  are  different. 
Venizelos  intends  no  aggression  such 
as  that  of  Pilsudski.  He  offers  the 
services  of  the  Greek  army  only  for 
the  protection  of  the  frontiers  de- 
limited by  the  peace  treaty  against 
the  aggression  of  Mustapha  Kemal,  a 
rebel  against  his  own  Government 
and  sovereign.  Kemal's  defeat  is  de- 
manded by  the  safety  of  Greeks  and 
Armenians,  by  the  prestige  of  the 
Powers  that  drafted  the  peace  treaty 
which  he  defies,  and  by  the  necessity 
of  stemming  the  red  tide  of  Bolshe- 
vism wherever  it  rushes  across  the 
Russian  frontier.  Incidentally,  the 
overthrow  of  Kemal,  it  is  true,  would 
serve  to  establish  British  power  over 
a  wider  area  than  seems  compatible 
with  the  French  interests.  But  view- 
ing the  situation  with  an  eye  to  the 
interests,  not  only  of  France,  but 
of  the  world  and  its  peace,  we  believe 
that  France,  even  at  the  risk  of  in- 
directly promoting  the  interests  of 
England,  would  serve  her  own,  and 
those  of  Europe  and  Asia,  by  backing 
the  Greeks  rather  than  the  Poles. 

The  decision  taken  at  Hythe  by 
Lloyd  George  and  Millerand  to  ac- 
cept Venizelos'  offer  is  a  welcome 
indication  that  the  French  Premier, 
at  any  rate,  refuses  to  be  responsible 
for  the  policy  advocated  by  the 
Temps,  which,  to  quote  Auguste 
Gauvain's  definition  in  the  Journal 
des  Debats,  consists  in  "making 
things  easy  for  the  Turkish  National- 
ists in  order  to  make  things  embar- 
rassing for  the  English." 


Population    and 
Housing 


l^EW  YORK'S  gigantic  size  has  not 
made  it  superior  to  the  kind 
of  mental  agitation  which  American 
cities  of  lesser  magnitude  experience 
when  Uncle  Sam's  census  count  fails 
to  come  up  to  their  expectations.  The 
outstanding  feature  of  that  count,  as 
it  stands  in  the  preliminary  announce- 
ment, is  that  the  population  of  the 
Borough  of  Manhattan  fell  from 
2,331,542  in  1910  to  2,284,103  in 
1920,  a  loss  of  47,439.  Revision 
of  the  census  may  alter  this  result; 
apparently  good  authorities,  basing 
their  conclusions  on  pertinent  con- 
siderations, differ  in  their  opinion  on 
the  question.  But  it  is  safe  to  say 
that  Manhattan's  population  either 
actually  declined,  or  at  all  events  in- 
creased very  little,  during  the  decade. 

This  circumstance,  taken  in  con- 
junction with  the  acute  shortage  of 
housing  in  Manhattan,  suggests  an 
important  question  bearing  upon  the 
shortage  of  housing  in  other  cities  as 
well  as  in  New  York.  During  the 
first  half  of  the  decade,  and  more, 
house-building  was  going  on  as 
usual;  and,  although  there  has  been 
in  Manhattan  a  large  amount  of  con- 
version of  dwelling  property  into 
business  property,  it  does  not  seem  at 
all  probable  that  this  has  been  suffi- 
cient to  more  than  cancel  the  addition 
that  has  been  made  to  dwelling  ac- 
commodation during  the  decade.  If 
this  be  so,  and  if  the  population  has 
either  declined  or  remained  station- 
ary, how  is  the  housing  shortage  to 
be  accounted  for  ?  There  seems  to  be 
but  one  possible  explanation.  It  is 
that  there  are  large  numbers  of  fam- 
ilies which  are  now  occupying  more 
dwelling  space  than  they  did  ten 
years  ago — in  other  words,  that  the  ^^ 
crowding  of  some  people  into  less  ^^| 
space  is  caused  by  the  expanding  of  ^^ 
others  into  more  space. 

Just  how  largely  this  factor  actu- 
ally accounts  for  the  situation  in 
New  York,  or  in  any  other  place,  is  a 
question  that  can  be  determined  only 
by  careful  and  difficult  investigation. 
But  that  the  factor  does  enter  into 
the  case  hardly  admits  of  doubt.  The 


June  30,  1920] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[667 


thing  is  one  illustration,  and  a  very 
important  one,  of  the  profound  dis- 
turbance that  is  caused  by  the  great 
and  sudden  change  which  has  taken 
place  in  money  valuations.  That  dis- 
turbance is  due  to  the  irregularity 
with  which  the  change  has  taken 
place.  While  wages  on  the  whole 
have  probably  risen  less  than  prices, 
and  while  most  salaries  have  risen 
very  little,  there  are  many  classes  of 
labor  whose  compensation  has  ad- 
vanced much  more  rapidly  than 
prices  have — has  trebled  or  more, 
while  prices  have  doubled.  But  house 
rents  were  far  slotver  to  rise  than 
general  prices;  it  is  only  within  the 
last  year  that  a  very  great  rise  of 
rents  has  been  general.  Now  in  those 
circumstances  it  seems  inevitable  that 
many  classes  of  working  people 
should,  in  the  course  of  the  first  two 
or  three  years  of  their  greatly  height- 
ened wages,  have  availed  themselves 
of  the  chance  to  get  better  dwelling 
accommodations,  at  the  reasonable 
prices  then  still  prevailing;  and  this 
would  have,  with  the  cessation  of 
building,  the  unescapable  conse- 
quence of  crowding  the  rest  of  the 
wage-earning  and  salaried  class  into 
more  restricted  quarters.  And  the 
same  kind  of  thing  must  have  hap- 
pened among  the  well-to-do  classes,  as 
between  those  that  found  their  money 
incomes  increased  beyond  the  aver- 
age and  those  that  did  not. 

The  point  is  important  in  itself; 
bearing,  as  it  does,  both  upon  the 
ethics  and  the  economics  of  the  hous- 
ing question.  But  it  has  also  a  wider 
interest.  For  it  points  towards  a  fea- 
ture of  the  high-price  situation  in 
general  which  has  received  far  too 
little  attention.  Tremendous  as  is 
the  evil  that  has  been  wrought  by  the 
great  fall  in  the  purchasing  power 
of  the  monetary  unit,  it  is  necessary 
to  remember,  in  the  interest  of  truth, 
that  the  high  prices  which  are  one 
man's  poison  are  another  man's  food. 
The  thing  works  gross  injustice;  it 
ought  to  be  prevented  if  it  can  be 
prevented,  cured  if  there  is  any  good 
way  of  curing  it;  but  it  should  be 
noted  that  there  are,  even  in  the 
wage-earning  class,  large  numbers  of 
persons  who  have  been  gainers,  not 
losers,  by  it. 


Shepherds  and  Song 
in  the  Day's  News 

A  YOUNG  man,  Paul  Darde— so 
-^  runs  a  Paris  despatch — who 
began  life  as  a  shepherd  in  the 
Cevennes,  has  won  the  Prix  National 
for  sculpture.  In  that  bit  of  news 
there  is  matter  for  plea-sant  reflection 
which,  though  it  will  solve  none  of  the 
problems  that  press  upon  us,  may  at 
least  force  them  back  to  a  point  from 
which  they  can  not  overwhelm  us. 

A  shepherd,  who,  while  he  watched 
his  flock,  learned  to  carve  strange 
little  figures  in  wood!  Why  not? 
From  oldest  times  shepherds,  when 
not  singing  and  piping  more  sweetly 
than  the  murmurings  of  pine,  have 
ever  been  quaint  carvers  of  dials  that 
they  might  justly  note  the  passage  cf 
quiet  hours  over  grass  softer  than 
sleep.  One,  more  fortunate,  perhaps 
had  sight  of  the  Great  Pan  himself  at 
noonday,  or  of  a  faun  a-crouch,  his 
eye  fixed  on  yonder  grove  of  tama- 
risks where  but  lately  it  marked  the 
gleam  of  a  white  shoulder.  It  was  an- 
other shepherd  who  left  his  father's 
scanty  flock  and  went  forth  to  slay 
his  tens  of  thousands  and  to  sing  im- 
mortally to  the  praising  harp. 

A  shepherd,  too,  of  the  Cevennes! 
Doubtless  of  the  sunnier  slope,  the 
better  for  flocks,  which  looks  towards 
the  vine  and  olive  of  a  land  which 
speaks  not  "oui"  or  "si,"  but  "oc." 
There  would  be  needed,  one  fancies, 
just  that  touch  of  warmth  to  temper 
the  stern  piety  of  a  Camisard  ances- 
try, just  that  sense  of  the  goodliness 
of  earth  to  lend  body  to  the  mystic 
ecstacies  of  the  son  of  a  people  who 
numbered  themselves  also  among  the 
prophets.  The  Gothic  face,  craggy 
and  bearded,  of  the  young  sculptor 
should  lift  itself,  for  a  glimpse  of  the 
pagan  world,  to  Rome's  turbulent, 
mirthful,  sunburnt  Provence. 

His  successful  contributions  to  the 
Salon,  the  despatch  tells  us,  are  a 
crouching  faun  and  a  snake-locked 
Medusa.  Not  a  Greek  faun,  we  war- 
rant. The  sculptor  confesses  to  being 
a  reader  of  Dante.  Eccovi!  Here  is 
a  faun  that,  too,  has  been  in  Hell. 
His  smile  proves  it.  It  is  the  smile 
he  wore  on  the  night  that  the  plain 


folk  of  the  Cevennes  did  away  in  the 
name  of  the  Lord  with  the  Abbe  du 
Chayla  who  in  the  Lord's  name  had 
persecuted  them.  He  is  a  faun  who 
has  crouched  not  by  rivers  of  Tempe 
or  of  Arcady  but  by  the  river  of 
time.  And  not  the  placid  Greek  Me- 
dusa, we  fancy,  imaging  in  her  coun- 
tenance the  stony  death  which  is  the 
instant  lot  of  all  who  look  upon  her. 
Rather,  a  Gorgo  quivering  under  the 
sorrows  that  have  been  laid  upon  her, 
and  sensible  that  if  sorrow  itself  is 
no  less  immortal  than  she,  endurance 
also  is  not  less. 

If  this  is  not  enough  refreshment  to 
have  picked  up  beside  the  worn  and 
dusty  highway  of  the  day's  news,  ob- 
serve the  item  that  immediately  fol- 
lows it.  Madame  Melba,  singing  near 
London  into  a  microphone,  is  heard 
through  the  agency  of  wireless  tele- 
phone in  Rome,  Madrid,  Berlin,  and 
Stockholm.  That  is  another  side  of 
the  picture — man  through  countless 
generations  at  work  on  his  theories 
and  devices,  testing,  discarding,  con- 
triving, not  knowing  exactly  what  is 
to  come  of  it  all,  but  finally,  by  means 
of  it,  sending  the  living  voice  to 
earth's  uttermost  parts.  There,  too, 
quite  unexpectedly,  is  the  solution  of 
a  problem.  When  it  comes  finally  to 
a  point  of  conversing  with  other 
worlds,  what  can  man  possibly  say 
worthy  of  the  vehicle  of  his  own  mag- 
nificent contrivance?  The  platitudes 
of  Mayor  greeting  Mayor  across  a 
continent,  the  dismal  facts  of  our 
economics,  the  details  of  the  latest 
fashionable  murder  —  not  these, 
surely,  but  the  voice  of  Melba,  a  lan- 
guage that  would  be  understood  in 
other  worlds  than  ours. 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 

Published  by 

Thi  National  Weekly  Corporatiom 

140  Nassau  Street,  New  York 

Fabian  Franklin,  President 

Hakold  di  Wolf  Fullkk,  Trtaturtr 


five 


advance.      Fifteen   cents  a  copy.     Foreign   post- 
age,  one   dollar   extra;    Canadian    postage,    fifty 
cents  extra.     Foreign  subscriptions  may  be  aent 
to  Messrs.  G.  P.   Putnam's  Sons,  Ltd.,  24,  Bed- 
ford   St.,    Strand,    London,    \V.    C.   2,    England. 
Copyright,     1920,     in     the     United    States    of 
America 
Editors 
FABIAN  FRANKLIN 
HAROLD  DE  WOLF  FULLER 
Associate  Editors 
Hauy  Morgan  Avrks     O.  W.  Fiikins 
A.  J.  Barnouw  W.  H.  Johnkn 

Jerouk  Landfikld 


668] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  59 


Big  Sinners  and  Little  Ones 


TN  the  years  when  Mr.  Henry  La- 
■'■  bouchere  solaced  his  combative 
soul  and  agitated  the  British  public 
by  touching  off  explosives  in  the  pages 
of  Truth  (a  vivacious  periodical  with 
a  disputable  title) ,  it  was  his  especial 
joy  to  print  in  parallel  columns  a  se- 
lection from  the  lists  of  crimes  com- 
mitted weekly  in  England,  with  their 
curiously  ill-adjusted  penalties.  Four- 
teen shillings  fine  for  assaulting  a 
wife.  Fourteen  days'  imprisonment 
for  stealing  a  scrag  of  mutton.  Ten 
shillings  fine  for  assaulting  a  police- 
man. Two  months'  imprisonment  for 
stealing  a  pair  of  boots.  Ten  shillings 
fine  for  knifing  a  sister-in-law — prob- 
ably under  provocation.  Ten  shil- 
lings fine  for  sleeping  out  of  doors,  in 
default  of  a  bed  to  sleep  in. 

Making  due  allowance  for  Mr.  La- 
bouchere's  incomprehension  of  the 
British  temperament,  its  profound 
distaste  for  thieving,  and  easy  disre- 
gard of  a  skirmish,  he  was  right  in 
assuming  that  justice  in  England 
"wad  thole  amends."  It  is  plain 
that  he  was  puzzled  as  well  as  af- 
fronted ;  and  we  Americans  can  sym- 
pathize with  his  perplexity  when  we 
read  in  one  column  of  our  morning 
paper  that  a  man  was  arrested,  fined, 
and  sent  to  jail  for  carrying  a  flask 
of  whisky;  and  in  another  column 
that  a  gang  of  thieves  had  carted 
away,  without  let  or  hindrance,  four- 
teen barrels  of  whisky,  valued  at 
$21,000,  from  a  bonded  warehouse. 
The  extraordinary  acuteness  of  the 
law  in  X-raying  a  citizen's  hip  pocket, 
and  bringing  to  light  one  little  flask, 
contrasts  strangely  with  its  extraor- 
dinary obtuseness  in  allowing  to  male- 
factors all  the  leisure  and  liberty 
needed  for  rolling  down  fourteen  bar- 
rels from  the  high  racks  where  they 
were  stored,  examining  their  con- 
tents, piling  them  on  a  truck,  and 
carrying  them  peacefully  away. 

The  bulk  and  weight  of  merchan- 
dise would  seem  to  the  uninitiated  to 
be  an  important  factor  in  its  safety; 
but  this  is  because  we  picture  thieves 
as  subject  to  intrusion.  The  burglars 
who  removed  from  the  shelves  of  a 
New  York  dealer  twelve  hundred  silk 


sweaters,  weighing  half  a  ton,  and 
valued  at  $30,000,  were  undaunted  by 
the  specific  gravity  of  their  find. 
There  is  something  oppressive  in  the 
mere  thought  of  half  a  ton  of  sweat- 
ers, and  it  must  have  taken  patience 
and  perseverance  to  purloin  them. 
But  as  $60,000  worth  of  silk  coats 
had  been  stolen  from  an  adjacent 
building  two  weeks  before,  and  $35,- 
000  worth  of  clothing  from  a  build- 
ing in  the  rear  one  week  before  that, 
the  burglars  were  probably  working 
along  familiar  and  accustomed  lines. 
With  an  intelligence  almost  human, 
the  detectives  employed  on  the  case 
opined  that  all  three  burglaries  were 
committed  by  the  same  band ;  but  re- 
gretted that  "in  each  instance  they 
were  so  careful  about  their  move- 
ments that  they  did  not  leave  a  single 
clue."  One  wonders  what  these  an- 
noyed officials  expected  to  find.  Visit- 
ing cards  and  telephone  numbers  to 
facilitate  arrest? 

That  liquor  brought  from  unregen- 
erate  ports  to  the  United  States 
should  be  discovered  and  confiscated 
is  natural  enough.  All  the  agents 
have  to  do  is  to  search  every  boat 
that  comes  along,  and  sooner  or  later 
they  will  find  something.  But  that 
two  men  who  distilled  a  little  whisky 
in  the  tranquil  privacy  of  a  Bronx 
stable  should  have  been  swiftly  ap- 
prehended, and  severely  punished, 
illustrates  what  we  like  to  call  the 
"Argus  eyes"  and  the  "long  arm"  of 
the  law.  Apparently  the  only  safe 
thing  to  do  with  whisky  in  this  coun- 
try is  to  steal  it.  This  is  so  well  un- 
derstood that  six  million  dollars' 
worth  has  been  unlawfully  removed 
from  the  guardianship  of  the  Re- 
public. 

When  booty  of  lighter  weight  and 
higher  value  is  desired,  the  burglar 
transforms  himself  into  a  "motor 
bandit,"  and  carries  off  his  prize  on 
sunny  days  at  noon.  If  he  works 
along  the  line  of  least  resistance,  he 
is  content  to  smash  a  jeweler's  win- 
dow glass,  take  what  he  wants  from 
the  window,  step  into  his  confeder- 
ate's "high-speed"  motor,  and  disap- 
pear behind  a  smoke  screen  from  the 


gaping  crowd  in  the  street.  If  his 
confidence  and  his  cupidity  run  high, 
he  walks  with  a  few  well-selected  as- 
sociates into  the  jeweler's  shop,  holds 
up  clerks  and  customers  with  revol- 
vers, helps  himself  to  whatever  is 
most  costly,  and  retires  in  good  form 
to  the  waiting  car. 

This  occurs  so  often,  and  with  such 
monotonous  sameness,  that  each  new 
crime  reads  like  a  repetition  of  the 
old  one.  I  know  few  things  more  in- 
telligible or  more  pitiful  than  the  de- 
fiance of  a  Chicago  jeweler,  who, 
when  confronted  with  the  customary 
bandits  and  the  customary  revolvers, 
and  bidden  to  open  his  safe,  answered 
desperately:  "Go  ahead  and  shoot! 
I've  been  robbed  so  often,  and  lost 
so  much,  that  I'd  just  as  soon  you 
would."  The  robbers,  so  bidden,  did 
shoot ;  then  herded  the  two  clerks  into 
a  rear  room,  emptied  the  jewel  cases 
into  a  canvas  bag,  and  left  their  vic- 
tim huddled  bleeding  and  unconscious 
on  the  floor.  God  is  in  his  Heaven, 
without  doubt;  but  all  is  not  right 
with  a  world  in  which  such  things 
happen  daily. 

There,  is  a  periodical  published 
weekly  in  New  York  called  the 
Jewelers'  Circular,  which  is  presum- 
ably bought  and  read  by  men  in  that 
line  of  business.  I  picked  up  a  copy 
for  May  19,  1920,  expecting  to  find 
articles  on  goldsmith's  work  and  pre- 
cious stones;  instead  of  which  this 
particular  number  read  like  an  echo 
of  the  Police  Gazette.  There  was 
first  of  all  a  description  of  a  "Burglar- 
Proof  Show  Window,"  protected  by 
two  sheets  of  fine  glass  with  a  "py- 
roxylin plastic  sheet"  between  them, 
and  warranted  to  give  window- 
smashers  "the  surprise  of  their  young 
lives."  Next  came  a  long  account  of 
the  ingenious  robbing  of  Philadelphia 
jewelers  in  a  Philadelphia  hotel  by  an 
imitation  cripple,  who  had  $35,000 
worth  of  jewels  sent  to  his  apart- 
ments, and  took  away  all  he  wanted, 
after  locking  up  the  messenger  in  a 
bath-room.  This  account  was  hope- 
fully headed,  "No  Trace  of  Gem  Ban- 
dit." 

Two  pages  further  on  there  was  an 
interesting  paper  on  a  Jekyll  and 
Hyde  chauffeur  who  ran  a  respectable 
car  for  a  respectable  family  in  the 


June  30,  1920] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[669 


daytime,  and  a  bandit  car  for  bur- 
glars at  night.  This  was  followed  by 
a  warning  to  Chicago  and  Milwaukee 
jewelers  to  be  on  their  guard  against 
a  young  man  of  simple  and  confiding 
manners  who  desires  to  look  at  unset 
diamonds  for  an  engagement  ring, 
and  who  manages  to  leave  a  paste 
substitute  for  at  least  one  valuable 
stone.  Then  came  a  photograph  of 
Pedro  Silva,  a  young  Italian  who, 
with  a  Mexican  accomplice,  raided  a 
number  of  jewelers'  shops  in  the 
State  of  Kansas.  Then  a  brief  dis- 
sertation on  some  New  Jersey  safe- 
breakers,  an  account  of  a  pearl  rob- 
bery in  New  Orleans,  a  diamond  rob- 
bery in  Cincinnati,  a  diamond  and 
pearl  robbery  in  Kansas  City,  another 
in  Chicago  ("no  clue  to  the  robbers"), 
and  last  but  not  least  the  pleasant  tale 
of  the  recovery  of  jewels  stolen  from 
Sioux  City,  because  the  bandits'  car 
stuck  in  the  mud.  All  honor  to  the 
bad  roads  of  Iowa ! 

It  is  a  generous  showing  for  a  week. 
When  Mr.  William  E.  Johnson,  known 
to  newspaper  readers  as  "Pussyfoot" 
Johnson  (a  phrase  equally  offensive 
to  prohibitionists  and  to  cat-lovers), 
spoke  last  March  in  Paris  to  the 
French  Anti-Alcoholic  League,  he  told 
his  audience  that  in  his  arid  and  ad- 
mirable land,  "The  prisons  are  empty, 
the  banks  are  full,  the  people  are  hap- 
py." A  terrestrial  paradise,  not  clearly 
recognizable  to  those  who  live  in  it. 
If  the  people  are  happy,  they  have  a 
confoundedly  uneasy  way  of  mani- 
festing their  content.  If  the  banks 
are  full,  money  is  tight.  If  the  pris- 
ons are  empty,  it  is  partly  because 
minor  offenses  are  less  frequent,  and 
partly  because  major  offenders,  who 
ought  to  be  in  prison,  are  at  large. 
The  preposterously  high  rates  of  bur- 
glar insurance  point  to  a  state  of 
recognized  insecurity.  When  that  op- 
pressed member  of  the  public  body 
known  as  the  tax-payer  protests 
against  these  rates,  he  is  told  that  the 
steady  increase  of  burglary,  the  value 
of  the  goods  stolen,  and  the  impossi- 
bility of  obtaining  either  protection 
or  restitution,  make  such  insurance 
the  costly  thing  it  is,  and  may  end 
by  making  it  impossible. 

To  say  that  this  carnival  of  crime 
is  attributable  to  "widespread  social 


conditions"  is  simple,  safe,  and  un- 
hampered by  any  promise  of  better- 
ment. A  Tammany  administration 
may  account  for  the  lawlessness  of 
New  York,  but  not  for  the  lawless- 
ness of  other  cities.  Mr.  Arthur 
Woods,  an  able  ex-Police-Commis- 
sioner of  New  York,  has  informed  us 
in  the  pages  of  the  New  York  Tri- 
bune that  "Scientific  policing  of  a  city 
is  comparatively  a  new  thing  in  our 
American  life,"  and  adds  that  the 
great  Metropolis  has  given  "intensive 
study"  to  the  needs  of  every  precinct 
she  controls.  This  sounds  hopeful; 
but  the  edge  is  taken  off  our  confi- 
dence when  we  read  further  on  that 
"there  are  on  an  average  twenty-five 
persons  a  day  arrested  in  New  York 
who  are  mentally  defective."  Of 
course!  These  are  just  the  people 
who  would  be  arrested — as  easily 
scooped  up  as  were  the  drunks  and 
disorderlies  of  the  old  bad  days,  as 
far  removed  from  the  disobliging 
criminals  who  carry  off  a  ton  and  a 
half  of  goods,  and  leave  no  "clue"  be- 
hind them. 

An  anonymous  ex-convict,  writing 
recently  in  the  Outlook,  regrets  that 
the  judges  of  the  criminal  courts 
should  so  often  come  to  the  bench 
with  "blunted  ethical  perceptions." 
Curiously  enough,  this  is  a  phrase 
which  the  unenlightened  have  been 
wont  to  apply  to  wrong-doers.  It  is 
not  only  the  men  who  strip  show- 
cases, open  safes,  hold  up  paymasters, 
and  shoot  the  disaffected  whose 
standard  of  ethics  seems  imperfect. 
Eighty-two  lynchings  in  the  year  1919 
would  seem  to  indicate  that  trial  by 
jury  had  grown  distasteful  to  a  sec- 
tion of  the  public.  The  men  who  of- 
fended the  majesty  of  the  law  by  dis- 
tilling a  few  gallons  of  whisky  in  a 
stable  were  sent — very  properly — to 
prison.  The  man  who  offended  the 
majesty  of  the  law  by  standing  up 
in  a  Virginia  courtroom  and  saying 
that  he  hoped  to  see  the  American 
flag  go  under,  and  the  red  flag  float 
in  its  stead,  had  his  bond  reduced  to 
one-tenth  of  the  original  sum,  through 
the  courtesy  of  the  Department  of 
Labor  in  Washington,  and  was 
promptly  released  to  do  all  in  his 
power  to  lower  the  Stars  and  Stripes. 

The  same  leniency  was  accorded  to 


Robert  Minor,  who,  having  striven 
without  much  success  to  undermine 
the  loyalty  of  the  American  soldiers 
at  Coblenz,  and  win  them  over  to  Ger- 
many and  the  Spartacists,  was  freed 
from  the  annoyance  of  military  re- 
straint, and  suffered  to  return  to  the 
United  States,  to  pursue  his  labors 
under  more  harmonious  conditions. 
The  consideration  shown  to  these  of- 
fenders was  in  exact  proportion  to 
the  gravity  of  their  offense. 

It  is  an  old  story,  and  far  more  uni- 
versal than  Mr.  Labouch^re  ever  sus- 
pected. The  most  painful  problem 
which  confronted  us  in  the  great  war 
was  the  slacker,  a  very  human  per- 
son, after  all,  whom  we  took  little 
trouble  to  understand.  Courage  is 
largely  a  matter  of  education,  loyalty 
of  tradition.  The  slacker  had,  as  a 
rule,  neither  education  nor  tradition 
to  help  him  face  the  guns.  Dvdce  et 
decorum  est  pro  patria  mori  would 
have  meant  as  little  to  him  in  one 
language  as  in  another.  He  was  sim- 
ply and  honestly  afraid;  and  the  ac- 
counts he  could  not  help  hearing  of 
Germany's  ferocity  lent  anguish  to 
his  fear.  An  inglorious  and  pitiful 
figure  whose  hard  fate  it  was  to  be 
asked  for  greater  things  than  his  na- 
ture could  yield. 

For  such  a  culprit,  lenity  is  as  rea- 
sonable as  it  is  right.  But  when  that 
arch-slacker  Bergdoll,  whose  name, 
Grover  Cleveland,  insults  the  memory 
of  a  great  American,  illustrated  the 
ease  with  which  wealth  evades  the 
law,  the  scales  of  justice  seemed  a  bit 
unbalanced.  This  young  German- 
American  has  always  entertained  a 
lively  contempt  for  restrictions  of  any 
sort.  When  he  drove  a  car,  he  drove 
it  recklessly.  When  he  was  deprived 
of  his  license,  he  went  on  driving 
without  one.  When  he  played  at 
aviation,  he  flew  his  plane  perilously 
low  over  the  city's  roofs.  When  he 
refused  his  service  (it  wouldn't  have 
been  worth  much)  to  his  country,  he 
did  so  defiantly  and  rejoicingly,  send- 
ing derisive  postals  from  various 
States  to  the  disappointed  officials  of 
the  Draft  Board.  It  was  a  superla- 
tive contempt  for  authority  which  in- 
duced him  to  return  home  after  the 
armistice,  and  which  finally  compelled 
his  arrest. 


670] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  59 


Now  why  should  Mr.  Gibboney  and 
Mr.  Romig  have  assured  the  public 
that  Bergdoll  would  have  been  re- 
leased anyhow  as  soon  as  the  adju- 
tant-general had  reviewed  the  case; 
and  lamented  that  the  "impatience"  of 
their  young  friend  had  made  him  un- 
willing to  bide  a  few  weeks  longer  in 
prison.  Apparently  it  was  a  question 
of  patience  or  impatience,  of  willing- 
ness or  unwillingness,  and  the  deci- 
sion was  left  to  the  prisoner. 

In  Mr.  Galsworthy's  last  volume  of 
tales  there  is  a  heart-rending  sketch 
of  a  good,  a  very  good,  German  in 
London,  who  is  interned  during  sev- 
eral years  of  the  war,  to  the  ruin  of 
himself  and  his  family.  It  is  the  kind 
of  stor>-  which  is  sure  to  strike  a  sym- 
pathetic chord  in  the  sentimentalist's 
heart.  The  disastrous  results  of  Eng- 
land's long  delay  in  interning  her 
German  residents  is  naturally  not  al- 
luded to.  The  inevitable  inclusion 
of  the  innocent  with  the  guilty  in  a 
general  internment  is  dwelt  upon  with 
emphasis.  Consequently,  violence  and 
treachery  are  allowed  to  drop  out  of 
sight,  and  censure  is  reserved  for  the 
possible  blunder  of  the  well-inten- 
tioned. 

France's  indulgence  to  the  great  of- 
fender is  proved  by  the  clemency  ac- 
corded to  Caillaux,  for  whom  "ex- 
tenuating circumstances"  were  dis- 
covered, but  not  divulged,  who  was 
held  to  have  served  his  term  while 
waiting  for  trial,  whose  other  penal- 
ties were  too  light  for  consideration, 
and  who  is  once  more  at  liberty  to 
dishonor  his  country's  name.  It  took 
the  courage  and  the  noble  rage  of 
Clemenceau  to  compel  a  prosecutioii. 
An  acquittal  was  not  possible.  But 
that  Caillaux  should  walk,  free  and 
disdainful,  over  the  graves  of  French 
soldiers  whose  work  he  strove  to 
undo,  is  an  insult  to  every  man  who 
died  for  France.  There  was  a  bitter 
irony  in  inviting  Mr.  Hearst  to  help 
welcome  our  returning  troops.  Had 
Caillaux  been  at  large  on  the  Four- 
teenth of  July,  he  might  have  oc- 
cupied a  distinguished  post  at  the 
Fete  de  la  Victoire.  Was  Benedict 
Arnold  asked  to  be  a  guest  of 
honor  at  the  inauguration  of  Wash- 
ington ? 

Agnes  Repplier 


The  Monroe  Doctrine  as  an  Adven- 
ture in  Foreign  Policy 


TN  American  history  every  departure 
-'-  in  foreign  policy  from  one  based 
upon  geographical  isolation  is  an  ad- 
venture into  world  politics.  Wash- 
ington laid  the  basis  of  the  policy  of 
isolation,  and  for  an  immediate  pur- 
pose— to  protect  the  United  States 
from  its  late  enemy.  Great  Britain, 
and  likewise  from  its  ally,  France. 
His  goal  was  freedom  of  action  and 
an  American  character.  Jefferson 
wrote  of  isolation  as  an  end  in  itself. 
He  declared  in  his  inaugural  that 
there  was  enough  land  within  the 
bounds  of  the  United  States,  that  is 
east  of  the  Mississippi,  for  "the 
thousandth  and  the  thousandth  gen- 
eration." He  recommended  to  Con- 
gress the  building  of  a  dock  where  the 
navy  might  be  "laid  up  dry  and  under 
cover  from  the  sun,"  and  pinned  his 
faith  to  such  peaceful  coercion  as  em- 
bargoes. Two  wars  in  rapid  succes- 
sion— that  with  the  Barbary  States 
and  that  with  Great  Britain — seemed 
to  indicate  that  isolation  of  a  nation's 
life  and  interests  was  difficult  in  the 
world  as  it  was. 

The  occasion  of  the  first  formal  ad- 
venture in  American  history  in  for- 
eign policy  was  an  aftermath  of  the 
Napoleonic  wars.  The  powers  of 
Europe,  freed  from  the  menace  of 
Napoleon,  turned  to  rebuilding  their 
fences  at  home  and  to  shepherding 
their  flocks  abroad.  Fur  traders  of 
Great  Britain  and  Russia  and  mis- 
sionaries of  Spain,  as  well  as  explor- 
ers and  traders  of  the  United  States, 
were  beginning  to  meet  on  the  Pacific 
slopes  of  North  America.  It  was  a 
remote  problem  for  either  nation. 
But  the  United  States,  as  well  as  the 
other  Powers,  had  a  Secretary  of  For- 
eign Affairs  planning  for  a  distant 
future.  In  1818  John  Quincy  Adams 
held  the  British  advance  into  the  Ore- 
gon country  within  bounds  by  the 
agreement  that  for  the  next  ten 
years,  at  least,  there  should  be  joint 
occupation.  The  following  year  a 
treaty  with  Spain  limited  the  north- 
ward reach  of  the  Spanish  claims  on 
the  Pacific  coast  to  the  forty-second 


parallel.  A  treaty  of  1824  likewise 
limited  the  southward  reach  of  Rus- 
sia with  the  parallel  which  is  now  the 
southern  boundary  of  Alaska.  Diplo- 
macy was  making  progress  with  one 
world  problem — that  of  the  owner- 
ship of  the  Pacific  side  of  North 
America.  Everywhere  the  rivals  to 
the  United  States  were  thinned  down 
to  one:  Spain  in  California,  England 
in  the  Oregon  country,  and  Russia  in 
Alaska,  a  region  in  which  the  United 
States  at  the  time  had  about  as  much 
interest  as  a  Western  farmer  has  in 
Uganda  or  Timbuctu.  During  the 
correspondence  of  Adams  with  the 
Russian  Government — to  be  exact,  on 
July  17,  1823— he  had  asserted  "that 
the  American  continents  were  no 
longer  subjects  for  any  new  Euro- 
pean colonial  establishment." 

A  second  problem  of  world  politics 
emerged  in  1822.  Rumor  ran  that  a 
revolution  impended  in  Cuba ;  in  fact, 
some  of  the  would-be  insurgents  made 
advances  to  the  United  States  for  an- 
nexation. England,  France,  and  the 
United  States  each  felt  that  the  con- 
trol of  Cuba  would  be  vital  to  its  in- 
terests. England  went  so  far  as  to 
send  a  fleet  to  the  waters  of  Cuba  and 
Porto  Rico  for  the  purpose  of  guard- 
ing its  commerce  and  checkmating 
annexation  by  the  United  States.  The 
move  aroused  the  American  Govern- 
ment. Adams  sent  a  letter  to  the 
Minister  at  the  court  of  Spain  outlin- 
ing the  policy  of  the  United  States  in 
regard  to  Cuba.  That  island,  he  said, 
is  a  natural  appendage  of  the  United 
States,  bound  to  become  "indispen- 
sable to  the  continuance  and  the  in- 
tegrity of  the  Union  itself"  within 
half  a  century,  and  destined  by  all 
the  laws  of  political  gravitation  to 
fall  to  the  North  American  Union  in 
the  process  of  time.  In  the  mean- 
time it  was  the  policy  of  the  United 
States  to  favor  Spain's  retention  of 
both  Cuba  and  Porto  Rico.  The  let- 
ter, which  bore  the  date  of  April  28, 
1823,  included  the  significant  state- 
ment that  the  United  States  would 
not  interfere  with  the  dependencies 


June  30,  1920] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[671 


of    European    Powers    in    the    new 
world. 

The  third  problem  of  the  United 
States  arose  from  the  rumor  that 
Austria,  Russia,  Prussia,  and  France 
of  the  Bourbon  restoration,  all  joined 
together  in  a  sort  of  league  of  peace 
for  and  by  benevolent  despots,  were  to 
aid  Spain  in  reconquering  its  Span- 
ish American  colonies.  The  danger 
was,  perhaps,  remote,  but  so  far  as  it 
was  real  it  threatened  the  interests 
of  both  Great  Britain  and  the  United 
States,  and  started  forces  which 
tended  to  establish  a  rapprochement 
between  the  two.  During  the  sum- 
mer and  early  fall  of  1823  Canning 
for  Great  Britain  and  Adams  for  the 
United  States  watched  closely  the 
movements  of  the  European  allies. 
The  American  interest  in  Chile,  Peru, 
and  Argentina  about  equaled  that  of 
to-day  in  Poland,  Czechoslovakia,  and 
Serbia — namely,  the  wish  to  secure 
for  the  small  States  in  South  America 
an  opportunity  to  continue  and  de- 
velop their  democratic  organization, 
and  beyond  this  to  set  up  a  new 
world  order  in  the  regions  which  they 
occupied,  an  order  of  peace  and  self- 
development.  The  liberal  elements 
in  Great  Britain  shared  this  Amer- 
ican sentiment.  The  powerful  com- 
mercial interests  of  the  kingdom  were 
interested  in  the  retention  of  the  trade 
relations  which  they  had  established 
with  the  revolutionary  republics. 
Four  times  Canning,  casting  about 
for  an  effective  policy,  suggested  in 
one  form  or  another  a  joint  declara- 
tion by  the  United  States  and  Great 
Britain  against  any  plan  to  subju- 
gate for  Spain  the  Hispanic-Amer- 
ican Republics.  President  Monroe's 
first  impulse  was  to  accede  to  Can- 
ning's plan.  The  ex-Presidents,  Jef- 
ferson and  Madison,  were  consulted. 
They,  too,  favored  the  entente  with 
Great  Britain.  They  seemed  to  think 
such  a  policy  would  separate  Great 
Britain  entirely  from  the  European 
•coalition  and  align  that  Power  defi- 
nitely and  finally  upon  the  side  of 
free  government.  Jefferson  recog- 
nized that  such  a  course  might  block 
the  annexation  of  Cuba  by  the  United 
States,  but  he  was  willing  to  make 
the  sacrifice  for  the  greater  benefits 
which  he  saw  in  the  powerful  combi- 


nation with  Great  Britain  in  a  good 
cause.  Madison  wanted  cooperation 
to  go  further  and  take  the  form  of  in- 
tervention in  behalf  of  the  liberals  in 
Spain  and  the  Greeks  struggling  for 
freedom  from  Turkey.  Many  of  the 
leading  men  of  the  day,  members  of 
Congress  like  Webster  and  Clay, 
elder  statesmen  like  Gallatin,  sup- 
ported intervention  in  behalf  of  lib- 
eralism everywhere.  All  the  para- 
phernalia of  the  American  foreign 
policy — aloofness,  isolation,  non-en- 
tangling alliances  which  time  had 
gathered — were  seemingly  to  be 
thrown  overboard. 

The  Secretary  of  State,  who  had 
spent  the  summer  in  his  New  Eng- 
land home,  returned  to  Washington 
in  October  to  find  the  new  foreign 
policy  taking  shape.  With  the  Rus- 
sian measures  for  the  colonization  of 
the  Pacific  coast  and  the  British  de- 
signs on  Cuba  and  the  plans  of  the 
league  for  a  South  American  restora- 
tion all  in  mind  as  the  separate  moves 
in  world  politics,  he  took  the  position 
that  the  United  States  ought  to  act 
separately  "rather  than  to  come  in  as 
a  cock-boat  in  the  wake  of  a  British 
man-of-war,"  to  declare  its  own  pol- 
icy, and  thus  in  effect  make  of  these 
combined  episodes  the  elements  of  a 
popular  national  foreign  policy.  "The 
ground  I  wish  to  take,"  he  said,  "is 
that  of  earnest  remonstrance  against 
the  interference  of  European  policy 
by  force  with  South  America,  but  to 
disclaim  all  interference  on  our  part 
with  Europe ;  to  make  an  American 
cause  and  adhere  inflexibly  to  that." 
Such  a  procedure  had  the  added  ad- 
vantage, no  mean  one  for  an  out-and- 
out  expansionist  like  Adams,  that  it 
blocked  further  territorial  acquisi- 
tions by  Great  Britain  without  in  the 
slightest  degree  embarrassing  the  ex- 
pansion of  the  United  States.  If  it 
was  Canning's  double  purpose,  as 
some  imagine,  by  an  alliance  with  the 
United  States  to  save  British  com- 
merce in  Latin  America  and  check- 
mate the  United  States  in  Cuba, 
Adams  had  played  the  game  of  the 
diplomat  well  for  a  son  of  the  new 
world. 

Monroe  accepted  the  views  of  his 
Secretary  of  State  and  revised  the 
earlier  draft  of  his  message  to  Con- 


gress to  include  them.  The  foreign 
policy  of  John  Quincy  A'dams  became 
the  Monroe  Doctrine  by  full  and 
frank  adoption. 

The  historian  gives  Monroe's  for- 
eign policy  a  greater  unity  than  it 
probably  had  in  its  author's  mind. 
The  message  was  discursive  in  form. 
The  parts  which  told  o{  the  measures 
which  had  been  taken  upon  foreign 
policy  were  scattered  throughout  the 
message,  in  connection  with  the  sev- 
eral subjects  under  discussion.  The 
combination  of  these  paragraphs  into 
the  so-called  Monrce  Doctrine  gives 
the  policy  a  greater  force  than  it  had 
in  the  original  form.  The  purpose  of 
the  framers  is  none  the  less  clear  and 
positive — to  secure  the  Americas  for 
the  Americans.  That  the  United 
States  was  one  of  the  Americas  and 
to  be  the  greatest  beneficiary  was 
only  incidental.  Those  that  see  na- 
tional selfishness  written  throughout 
miss  the  spirit  of  the  new  order 
which  the  authors  sought  to  found  for 
the  western  hemisphere.  They  pro- 
posed to  establish  the  new  order  by 
removing  from  the  world  Powers  the 
temptation  for  a  war  for  the  division 
of  the  Americas.  They  sought  to 
avoid  the  nineteenth  century  counter- 
part of  the  colonial  French  and  Indian 
wars.  The  clause  against  further 
colonization  was  an  announcement 
that  the  United  States  was  endeavor- 
ing to  terminate  the  rivalry  of 
the  nations  of  Europe  in  the  settle- 
ment of  the  Americas  begun  with 
Columbus,  Cabot,  and  Cartier.  This 
meant  that  the  settlement  of  the  wild 
lands  of  the  Americas  was  to  be  left 
to  the  nations  then  claiming  them. 
The  clause  against  intervention  of 
European  powers  in  South  American 
affairs  assumed  that  there  was  an 
American  system  of  government  es- 
sentially different  from  that  of  Eu- 
rope, and  announced  that  the  United 
States  would  "consider  anj'  attempt 
on  their  part  to  extend  their  sj'stem 
to  any  portion  of  this  hemisphere  as 
dangerous  to  our  peace  and  safety." 
European  Powers  with  American  col- 
onies were  assured  that  the  United 
States  had  no  intention  of  interfering 
with  them. 

One  part  of  the  old  foreign  policy 
remained,  that  in  regard  to  Europe:; 


672] 


THE  ^VEEKLY  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  59 


"not  to  interfere  with  the  internal 
concerns  of  any  of  its  Powers ;  to  con- 
sider the  Government,  de  facto,  as 
the  legitimate  Government  for  us ;  to 
cultivate  friendly  relations  with  it, 
and  to  preserve  those  relations  by 
frank,  firm,  and  manly  policy,  meet- 
ing, in  all  instances,  the  just  claims 
of  every  Power,  submitting  to  in- 
juries from  none." 

The  policy  of  Washington  and  Jef- 
ferson had  comprised  only  the  inter- 
ests of  the  eastern  portion    of    the 
North  American  continent.    That  of 
Adams  and  Monroe  included  the  two 
Americas;  the  first  had  been  hardly 
continental  in  scope,  the  second  hemi- 
spheric.   The    United    States    knew 
neither  Asia  nor  Africa  as  yet;  it 
would  continue  to  hold  aloof  from  old 
world  politics;   it  would   adventure 
wholesouled  into  the  politics  of  the 
new  world.  What  the  adventure  meant 
or  might  mean  men  stood  ready  to 
foretell.    When  the  popular  Speaker 
of    the    House    of    Representatives 
attempted   to   place   Congress    upon 
record  for  Monroe's  adventure  by  a 
resolution  of  endorsement,  he  found 
the  Congressmen,  mainly  on  grounds 
of  expediency,  unwilling  to  commit 
themselves.  John  Randolph  voiced  the 
open  opposition.     "You  will  put  the 
peace  of  the  nation  into  peril,"  he 
said,  "and  for  whom?    For  a  people 
of  whom  we  know  almost  as  little  as 
we  do  about  the  Greeks.     Can  any 
man  in  this  House  say  what  even  is 
the  state  of  society  in  Buenos  Aires — 
its  moral  condition,  etc.?    Let  us  ad- 
here to  the  policy  laid  down  by  the 
second,  as  well  as  the  first  founder  of 
our  Republic    ...    by  him  who  was 
the  Camillus  as  well  as  the  Romulus 
of  the  infant  state :   to  the  policy  of 
peace,  commerce,  and  honest  friend- 
ship with  all  nations,  entangling  alli- 
ances with  none;  for  to  entangling 
alliances  we  must  come  if  you  once 
embark  in  such  projects  as  this."   At 
least  one  Western  paper,  the  Cleve- 
land Herald,  thought  that  the  country 
would    be    unwisely    guided    if    it 
should  be  involved  in  a  war  to  defend 
nations  "whose  claims  on  us,  politi- 
cally, are  limited  to  our  best  wishes 
and  sympathies." 

Only  ignorance  of  the  world  as  it 
was  could  make  one  say  that  the  new 


world  entered  into  an  era  of  peace 
"because  of  the  adventure  of  Monroe. 
While  the  American  President  was 
leading  the  United  States  from  what 
might  have  become  a  narrow-vis- 
ioned  isolation,  Canning  placed  the 
British  nation  on  record.  The  allied 
Powers  of  Europe  were  given  to  un- 
derstand that  intervention  in  His- 
panic-American affairs  would  involve 
the  interests  of  Great  Britain.  And 
history  records  that  no  intervention 
took  place  in  that  generation. 

Elbert  J.  Benton 

Jobs  for  New  Brooms 

1  DON'T  envy  the  statesman,  patriot, 
or  politician,  whoever  he  may  be, 
who  comes  to  our  town  next  March  to 
be  President  of  the  United  States  for 
four  years.  I  say  explicitly  four  years  be- 
cause all  the  chances  are  that  he  will 
never  serve  a  second  term.  He  will  find  a 
job  of  house-cleaning  facing  him  which 
he  can  not  escape.  It  must  be  done.  It 
has  been  put  off  too  long  already.  It 
must  be  a  real  spring  house-cleaning, 
too;  not  an  ordinary  dusting  and  sweep- 
ing. Now,  everybody  knows  how  dis- 
agreeable that  is,  how  it  frazzles  nerves, 
destroys  a  pleasant  routine,  and  makes 
for  wranglings  and  janglings.  The  best 
that  can  be  said  for  it  is  that  it  is  a 
necessary  evil. 

If  what  has  to  be  done  in  our  national 
household  is  done,  a  great  many  persons 
will  be  disturbed  and  made  uncomfort- 
able and  unhappy.  They  will  resent  it  and 
lay  the  blame  for  their  trouble  on  the 
President  who  undertakes  the  rehabilita- 
tion and  reorganization  of  all  the  rou- 
tine processes  and  normal  necessary 
functions  of  day-by-day  public  business. 

The  new  President  will  have  to  work. 
He  won't  be  able  to  put  in  much  time 
at  being  a  great  man  and  having  noble 
sentiments.  The  time  has  come  to  fix 
the  leak  in  the  bathroom  that  is  destroy- 
ing the  library  ceiling.  That  sort  of 
thing  won't  wait  forever.  Or,  to  change 
the  figure,  the  new  President,  as  the 
want  ads.  put  it,  must  not  only  be  a 
good  chauffeur  but  a  competent  mech- 
anician. 

A  blight  rests  on  Washington  at  this 
moment.  Everybody  knows  that.  All 
the  administrative  processes  are  at  the 
lowest  ebb  of  efficiency.  Morale  in  the 
departments  and  other  executive  estab- 
lishments is  equally  low.  There  is  no 
hope  of  any  recovery  or  change  until  a 
new  set  of  men  comes  in.  The  governmen- 
tal machine  will  have  to  run  along,  as 
best  it  may,  under  its  own  momentum 
until  next  March.  As  proof  of  this,  just 
the  other  day  one  of  the  recently  in- 


ducted Cabinet  officers  was  asked  how 
he  liked  his  new  job.  He  said  he  thought 
it  might  be  very  interesting  if  he  had 
anything  to  do!  His  mind  was  simply 
numbed  by  the  prevalent  lethargy.  All 
of  his  capacities  employed  to  the  utmost 
could  only  begin  to  place  his  department 
on  the  plane  of  efficiency  where  it  should 
be.  It  offers  almost  unlimited  oppor- 
tunities for  constructive  service  that 
would  immediately  benefit  the  condition 
of  all  of  us.  Yet  the  man  who  should 
furnish  the  springs  of  action,  the  mo- 
tive power,  signs  his  name  at  the  place 
indicated  on  routine  papers,  and  deplores 
that  he  has  nothing  to  do. 

The  new  President  will  have  to  alter 
all  that.  He  will  have  to  bring  a  fresh 
impulse  and  vitality  into  the  whole  execu- 
tive branch  of  the  Government.  He  will 
need  to  bring  to  Washington  with  him 
as  chiefs  of  executive  departments  men 
of  enthusiasm,  with  capacity  for  hard 
work  and  an  understanding  of  the  prob- 
lems and  necessities  of  the  great  mass  of 
clerks  and  subordinates  who  actually 
carry  on,  under  direction,  the  work  of 
government."  They  will  find  good  mate- 
rial here,  but  at  this  juncture  tired  and 
discouraged  and  disillusioned.  Also  these 
new  executives  will  find  drones,  and  dead 
wood,  and  unfit  material,  the  hodge- 
podge accumulation  of  years.  This  will 
have  to  be  got  rid  of,  and  it  won't  be 
easy.  It  will  want  skill  and  delicacy  plus 
a   certain   surgical   ruthlessness. 

The  real  construction  job  will  be  to 
reorganize  the  several  departments  and 
executive  establishments.  They  are  anti- 
quated. They  don't  function  properly  and 
to  the  extent  of  their  capacities.  As  I  may 
phrase  it:  They  don't  develop  their  indi- 
cated horse  power.  All  of  the  depart- 
ments have  grown  by  accretion  and  not 
by  an  orderly  plan.  They  overlap  in  their 
duties  and  responsibilities.  Work  is 
duplicated,  which  is  another  way  of  say- 
ing that  time  and  money  are  wasted.  I 
am  never  tired  of  saying  that  it  is  your 
money.  The  Government  never  earned  a 
penny.  That  is  not  its  business.  The 
Government  spends  its  billions  every 
year,  but  you  earn  it,  and  the  Govern- 
ment has  an  infinite  capacity  for  spend- 
ing. It  is  the  thing  it  does  best.  It  is 
silly  merely  to  complain  of  "Government 
extravagance"  while  you  do  nothing  to 
stop  it.     It  lies  within  your  power. 

John  Sharp  Williams  used  to  say  in  the 
old  days  when  he  was  in  the  House  that 
the  great  main  difference  between  serv- 
ing in  the  State  Legislature  and  in  Con- 
gress was  that  when  a  member  went 
home  from  the  Legislature  he  was  met  at 
the  train  by  a  delegation  of  his  constitu- 
ents who  asked:  "Why  in  Sam  Hill  did 
you  vote  for  that  big  appropriation? 
Taxes  in  this  State  are  too  high  already." 
But  when  the  members  of  Congress  came 
home  after  adjournment  the  same  dele- 
gation was  at  the  train  to  ask:     "Why 


June  30,  1920] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[673 


didn't  you  get  a  new  post  office,  and  a 
public  building  at  Pineville,  and  some- 
thing for  the  district  in  the  River  and 
Harbor  bill?"  The  poor  innocents 
wanted  some  "Government  money." 

But  all  that  is  aside  from  my  present 
contention  as  to  the  immediate  need  of 
reorganizing  and  rehabilitating  the  Gov- 
ernment departments.  I  present  a  com- 
pact bit  of  testimony  from  an  expert  and 
competent  witness,  Representative  Good, 
Chairman  of  the  Appropriations  Commit- 
tee of  the  House  of  Representatives: 

To-day  duplication  in  the  Government  serv- 
ice abounds  on  every  hand.  For  example, 
eight  different  departments  of  the  Government 
with  large  overhead  organizations  are  engaged 
in  engineering  work  in  navigation,  irrigation 
and  drainage :  eleven  different  bureaus  are  en- 
gaged in  engineering  research;  twelve  different 
organizations  are  engaged  in  road  construc- 
tion, while  twelve  with  large  overhead  organi- 
zations are  engaged  in  hydraulic  construction, 
and  sixteen  are  engaged  in  surveying  and  rnap- 
ping.  Sixteen  different  bureaus  exercise  juris- 
diction over  waterpower  development.  Nine 
different  organizations  are  collecting  informa- 
tion on  the  consumption  of  coal.  Forty-two 
different  organizations  with  overhead  expenses 
are  dealing  with  the  question  of  public  health. 

The  Treasury  Department,  the  War  Depart- 
ment, the  Interior  Department,  and  the  Labor 
Department  each  has  a  bureau  dealing  with 
the  question  of  general  education.  These  de- 
partments operate  independently;  instances  of 
cooperation  between  them  are  exceptional. 
Each  of  these  departments  is  manned  at  all 
times  with  an  organization  prepared  to  carry 
the  "peak  of  the  load,"  and  maintains  an  ex- 
pensive "ready  to  serve"  personnel.  A  lack 
of  cooperation  in  the  executive  departments 
necessarily  leads  to  gross  extravagance.  The 
system  is  wrong,  and  Congress  alone  can 
change  the  system.  If  it  fails  to  act  now  and 
refuses  to  make  the  necessary  changes  in  a 
plan  that  is  admittedly  bad.  Congress  will  and 
should  receive  the  condemnation  of  the  Ameri- 
can People. 

But  Congress  has  adjourned  and  has 
not  changed  the  system.  It  is  not  likely 
that  it  will  undertake  it  in  the  brief 
fag-end  of  its  life  next  winter.  Any 
real  constructive  changes  and  considera- 
tion will  have  to  be  undertaken  by  the 
new  President  and  the  new  Congress 
after  next  March.  Congress  did  pass  a 
budget  bill  just  before  it  adjourned  that 
might  have  proved  the  introductory  step 
to  a  real  budget  system,  but  the  Presi- 
dent vetoed  it  because  he  thought  one  of 
its  provisions  usurped  the  prerogatives 
of  the  Executive.  This  is  one  matter 
than  can  be  remedied  next  winter  after 
the  elections.  Whether  it  will  be  or 
not  remains  to  be  seen. 

As  a  minority  stockholder  in  the  oper- 
ating company  who  has  had  exceptional 
opportunities  to  observe,  I  must  report 
that  the  Ship  of  State  not  only  needs  a 
new  skipper  and  a  new  crew,  but  when 
they  are  in  charge,  their  first  duty  and 
necessity  will  be  to  put  the  vessel  in 
dry  dock  for  thorough  overhauling  and 
repairs.  She  is  not  safe  for  passengers. 
Edward  G.  Lowry 

Washington,  D.  C. 


Correspondence 

List  to  Charles  Kingsley 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Weekly  Review: 
Your  readers  may  find  in  the  following 
poem  by  Charles  Kingsley  a  stirring  mes- 
sage for  the  present  generation. 

W.  B. 
Tenafly,  Neiu  Jersey,  June  11 

THE  DAY  OF  THE  LORD 

The  day  of  the  Lord  is  at  hand,  at  hand : 

Its  storms  roll  up  the  sky: 
The  nations  sleep  starving  on  heaps  of  gold ; 

All  dreamers  toss  and  sigh. 
The  night  is  darkest  before  the  morn; 
When  the  pain  is  sorest  the  child  is  born, 

And  the  day  of  the  Lord  at  hand. 

Gather  you,  gather  you,  angels  of  God — 

Freedom,  and  Mercy,  and  Truth; 
Come !  for  the  earth  is  grown  coward  and  old, 

Come  down,  and  renew  us  her  youth, 
Wisdom,  Self-sacritice,  Daring,  and  Love, 
Haste  to  the  battle-field,  stoop  from  above, 

To  the  day  of  the  Lord  at  hand. 

Gather  you,  gather  you,  hounds  of  hell — 

Famine,  and  Plague,  and  War; 
Idleness,  Bigotry,  Cant,  and  Misrule, 

Gather,  and   fall   in  the  snare! 
Hireling  and  Mammonite,  Bigot  and  Knave, 
Crawl  to  the  battle-field,  sneak  to  your  grave, 

In  the  day  of  the  Lord  at  hand. 

Who  would  sit  down  and  sigh  for  a  lost  age 
of  gold,  , 

While  the  Lord  of  all  ages  is  here? 
True  hearts  will  leap  up  at  the  trumpet  of  God, 

And  those  who  can  suffer,  can  dare. 
Each  old  age  of  gold  was  an  iron  age  too, 
And  the  meekest  of  saints  may  find  stern  work 
to  do 
In  the  day  of  the  Lord  at  hand. 

The  Right  to  Strike 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Weekly  Review  : 
Originally  the  strike  was  labor's  best 
weapon  for  self-defence,  and  this  first 
law  of  nature  has  always  been  recognized 
as  above  all  customs  and  all  statutes.  In 
self-defence  a  nation  may  abrogate  a 
treaty;  a  municipality  may  deprive  a 
citizen  of  his  liberty;  an  individual  may 
commit  manslaughter.  In  self-defence 
workers  have  the  right  to  strike.  Re- 
move the  necessity  of  self-defence,  how- 
ever, and  changed  economic  and  political 
conditions  are  fast  removing  it,  and  the 
right  to  strike  is  at  once  limited.  Treaty 
breaking,  false  imprisonment,  murder 
are  crimes  recognized  by  all  men;  but 
just  what  necessity  of  self-defence  justi- 
fies beyond  all  question  the  calling  of  a 
strike  is  not  yet  determined.  Governor 
Allen  and  Mr.  Gompers  in  their  recent 
debate  both  failed  either  to  help  their 
followers  to  understand  the  real  point  at 
issue,  or  to  instruct  public  opinion 
more  justly  to  discriminate  the  basic 
rights  involved. 

At  the  conferences  held  last  fall  before 
the  strike  of  the  New  York  drug  clerks 
I  listened  to  long  debates  that,  if  they 


did  little  else,  testified  to  this  con- 
fusion of  first  principles.  The  duty  to 
the  public  of  the  trained  pharmacist, 
practicing  his  profession  under  license 
from  the  State,  and  the  right  of  the 
public  to  the  protection  of  its  health  by 
his  properly  trained  skill,  were  mixed 
hopelessly  with  the  individual  rights  of 
the  clerks  and  their  families  and  the  re- 
dress they  sought  for  inadequate  pay 
and  very  long  hours  of  work.  Each  side 
admitted  the  two  contentions  of  their 
opponents.  Both  cited  the  Boston  police 
strike,  which  at  the  time  was  unsettled, 
as  proof  of  their  better  claims.  An  em- 
ploying druggist  used  it  in  defence  of 
the  right  of  public  safety  against  the 
right  to  strike.  The  union  organizer  used 
it  to  justify  any  strike  called  because  of 
intolerable  hours  and  working  conditions. 
He  did  not,  however,  convince  his  hear- 
ers, who  were  too  familiar  with  Ameri- 
can city  politics  to  believe  that  a  strike 
was  necessary  to  wring  from  the  voters 
fair  working  hours  and  decent  station 
houses  for  the  police  force.  In  that  strike 
no  question  of  self-defence  was  raised  in 
impartial  minds.  Nevertheless,  the  plea 
of  self-defence  for  the  Boston  police  was 
made  by  Mr.  Gompers  himself,  and  the 
repeated  characterization  of  strikes  as 
"the  last  resort"  by  union  leaders  is  a 
tacit  admission.  In  many  strikes  the 
issues  are  not  sharply  defined;  but  it  is 
increasingly  clear  that,  when  the  neces- 
sity of  an  appeal  to  force  can  not  be 
proved,  then  the  right  to  strike  comes 
into  conflict  with  other  rights. 

Intimately  connected  with  the  right  to 
strike  are  the  rights  of  the  workers 
themselves.  To  deny  a  worker  the  right 
to  leave  any  employment  that  for  any 
reason  whatever  is  distasteful  to  him 
is  to  establish  industrial  slavery.  To 
take  from  a  worker  that  right  to  accept 
any  employment  upon  whatever  terms 
he  sees  f^t  is  but  to  sanction  an  industrial 
tyranny  as  degrading  and  as  dangerous. 
If  men,  as  individuals  or  as  members 
of  an  organization,  have  the  right  to 
leave  enxgloyment,  then  other  men  have 
the  right,  singly  or  in  a  body,  to  take 
emplojmient,  even  upon  terms  unsatisfac- 
tory to  others.  This  is  contrary  to  the 
theory  of  the  strike  held  by  union  lead- 
ers. They  have  always  maintained  that 
men  leaving  work  in  a  body  secure  by 
their  concerted  action  an  option  on  their 
former  jobs.  Just  what  proprietary 
rights  are  acquired  by  the  seemingly 
contradictory  means  of  a  strike  must 
be  reconciled,  sooner  or  later,  with  the 
individual  rights  of  both  the  employers 
and  other  workers.  This  is  the  very 
latch-string  to  the  door  of  the  open  or 
the  closed  shop. 

The  right  to  strike  often  impinges 
upon  property  rights.  Leaving  out  of 
consideration  both  the  willful  destruction 
of  property  and  the  breaking  of  con- 
tracts, the  mere  act  of  striking,  the  stop- 


674] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  59 


ping  of  production,  the  closing  down  of 
a  plant,  often  involves  great  financial 
loss.  Property  rights  are  not  paramount 
to  human  rights;  but  they  are  our  oldest 
economic  rights  upon  which,  as  a  foun- 
dation, rests  our  whole  economic  struc- 
ture. The  right  of  a  man  to  the  fruits 
of  his  labor,  to  possess  them  for  his  own 
use  and  to  dispose  of  them  as  he  sees 
fit,  so  long  as  he  acts  within  the  bounds 
of  law  and  order,  is  the  foundation  of 
our  society,  the  first  cause  of  all  labor- 
in  both  its  broadest  and  most  restricted 
meanings.  The  Governor  of  Kansas  and 
the  President  of  the  Federation  of  Labor 
would  join  to  defend  this  right,  for  much 
as  it  has  been  abused,  and  sharply  as  it 
is  criticized  to-day,  it  is  still  the  most 
eagerly  sought  right  free  men  possess. 

During  the  past  decade  the  widened 
scope  of  the  unions  and  their  develop- 
ment into  closely  controlled  national  or- 
ganizations have  brought  the  right  to 
strike  into  increasingly  direct  conflict 
with  the  rights  of  the  public.  Formerly, 
their  domain  was  confined  almost  wholly 
to  skilled  workers  in  industrial  fields :  to- 
day, they  are  steadfastly  working  to  ex- 
tend their  influence  over  retail  trades, 
over  the  professions,  and  among  Govern- 
ment employees.  A  strike  that  calls  out 
the  loom  workers  in  the  textile  mills  of 
one  town  is  a  very  different  thing  from 
a  strike  that  cuts  off  the  whole  nation's 
coal  supply.  A  demand  for  ten  cents  an 
hour  increase  in  wages  made  upon  a  pri- 
vate corporation  is  not  at  all  the  same 
thing  as  a  threat  to  the  Congress  of  the 
United  States  that  it  must  pass,  before 
a  certain  fatal  hour,  a  law  designed  solely 
for  the  benefit  of  railroad  employees. 
The  strike  is  beginning  to  involve  the 
people  at  large.  The  very  size  and 
strength  of  the  unions  make  it  impossi- 
ble for  them  to  employ  their  strike 
weapon  without  hurting  the  bystander, 
and  self-defence  is  becoming  a  preroga- 
tive, not  of  the  unions,  but  of  the  public. 

Nevertheless,  the  unions  continue  to 
brandish  their  weapon  threateningly,  and 
they  do  not  hesitate  to  wield  it  ruth- 
lessly. Any  suggestion  that  they  disarm 
in  the  interest  of  public  safety  meets 
determined  opposition.  Union  leaders 
oppose  compulsory  arbitration  because  it 
curtails  the  right  to  strike.  They  de- 
mand the  elimination  of  the  injunction 
in  time  of  strike  on  the  ground  that  it 
nullifies  their  right  to  strike.  They  main- 
tain that  the  application  of  anti-Trust 
laws  to  labor  organization  is  unjust,  be- 
cause it  involves  the  right  to  strike. 
Whether  they  are  appealing  to  the  public, 
rallying  their  followers,  or  trying  their 
case  in  the  courts,  they  make  their  stand 
upon  the  right  to  strike. 

Definition  of  this  right  is  obviously 
the  key  to  the  problems  of  industrial  re- 
adjustment, and  for  this  reason  indus- 
trial tribunals  whose  decisions  can  estab- 
lish precedents  for  testing  the  right  to 


strike  in  conflict  with  other  rights  are 
sorely  needed  to-day.  "The  State,"  as 
inghram  has  pointed  out,  "claims  and 
exercises  a  controlling  and  regulating  au- 
thority over  every  sphere  of  social  life, 
including  the  economic,  in  order  to  bring 
individual  action  into  harmony  with  the 
good  of  the  whole."  This  harmony  is 
not  possible  until  the  proper  limits  are 
set  to  conflicting  rights  that  involve  all 
classes  of  society.  In  the  more  restricted 
field  this  is  even  more  imperative,  and 
industrial  peace  depends  upon  a  precise 
definition  of  the  right  to  strike. 

William  Haynes 
New  York,  June  15 

Our  Dead  in  France 

To  the  Editors  of  THE  Weekly  Revikw  : 

I  have  no  wish  to  intrude  myself  into 
the  discussion  of  a  question  which  is  for 
America  wholly  a  question  of  national 
and  even  of  family  concern.  It  is  for 
the  parents  of  the  soldiers  who  died  in 
France,  and  for  them  only,  to  decide 
whether  they  shall  bring  home  the  bodies 
of  their  sons  or  leave  them  at  rest  in  the 
spot  where  they  fell  gloriously  in  sup- 
port of  the  common  cause. 

But  there  is  one  remark  which  per- 
haps I  have  the  right  to  make,  if  only  as 
Chaplain  of  the  American  Ambulance  at 
Neuilly  where  we  cared  for  eight  thou- 
sand of  your  wounded  (along  with  four- 
teen thousand  of  our  own)  and  where 
many  died  in  spite  of  the  admirable  care 
of  your  nurses  and  doctors:  and  that  is 
that  the  graves  of  all  your  soldiers,  killed 
on  the  field  of  battle  or  dying  in  the  hos- 
pitals, are  tended  with  pious  care  in  every 
cemetery  where  they  lie.  The  public 
authorities  have  seen  to  it  that  these 
graves  were  properly  arranged  and  cared 
for;  the  women  of  France  cover  them 
with  flowers  and  greenery  as  if  they  were 
those  of  their  own  children;  priests  and 
ministers  of  religion  hold  services  there 
on  anniversaries  and  other  days  of  na- 
tional observance. 

I  quite  understand  that  many  families 
would  wish  to  lay  their  heroes  beside 
their  ancestors ;  and  there  are  some  even 
in  France  who  would  prefer  it  so.  But 
those  who  leave  them  with  us  should 
know  of  very  truth  that  they  are  not, 
and  never  will  be,  in  a  foreign  land.  I 
even  venture  to  think  that  there  is  in 
their  fate  something  even  more  touching 
and  more  glorious. 

So,  at  least,  it  seemed  to  your  great 
Theodore  Roosevelt,  whom  I  had  the 
honor  and  the  consolation  of  seeing  in 
New  York  only  two  months  before  his 
death.  Speaking  to  me  of  his  son  Quen- 
tin  he  said:  "I  have  no  intention  of 
bringing  him  home  to  America;  I  think 
that  our  heroes  ought  to  lie  on  the  field 
where  they  fell.  But  we  shall  come,  his 
mother  and  I,  to  pray  at  his  grave."  His 
mother  has  come,  and  alone!     She  will 


be  able  to  tell  other  American  mothers 
what  deep  and  comprehending  sympathy 
is  extended  in  France  to  the  families 
which  have  so  generously  given  their 
sons  and  who  confide  them  to  our  care 
as  the  most  sacred  pledges  of  immortal 
union  between  our  two  peoples. 

Abbe  Felix  Klein 
Meudon,  near  Paris,  May  17 

The  Quantity  Theory 

To  the  Editors  of  The  Weekly  Review: 
In  a  letter  in  a  recent  issue  of  the 
Weekly  Review  Mr.  Briggs  suggested 
that  I  blinked  the  fact  that  the  standard 
must  be  a  commodity  and  thus  was  neces- 
sarily affected  in  its  value  by  its  quan- 
tity. Perhaps  your  correspondent  is  not 
informed  on  the  literature  of  the  sub- 
ject, or  he  would  have  known  that  in  my 
"Principles  of  Money,"  in  Chap,  vii,  127 
pages  were  devoted  to  the  "History  and 
Literature  of  the  Quantity  Theory." 
From  p.  226  throughout,  especial  atten- 
tion was  called  to  the  point  that  a  rise 
of  prices  due  to  a  fall  in  the  value  of  the 
standard  was  not  a  case  covered  by  the 
quantity  theory.  Of  course,  the  stand- 
ard is  a  commodity;  it  is  affected  in  its 
value  by  demand  and  supply.  That  is 
an   economic  commonplace. 

Price  is  a  ratio  of  exchange  between  an 
article  and  a  standard,  like  gold.  A 
change  of  price  can  be  caused  by  in- 
fluences affecting  either  gold  or  the 
article  exchanged  for  it.  Demand  and 
supply  chiefly  (since  with  an  imperish- 
able commodity  like  gold  cost  of  produc- 
tion has  no  immediate  effect)  regulate 
the  value  of  gold,  so  far  as  causes  affect- 
ing gold  itself  are  concerned.  But  de- 
mand and  supply  (as  affected  quickly 
and  directly  by  production-costs)  operate 
on  the  value  of  any  other  article.  Hence, 
price  in  fact  is  modified  by  any  change 
in  two  sets  of  forces,  one  on  the  side  of 
gold,  and  one  on  the  side  of  goods.  The 
quantity  theorists,  however,  insist  that 
prices  are  determined  by  the  amount  of 
money  and  credit  offered  against  goods 
brought  to  market.  The  fundamental 
error  of  the  quantity  theory,  in  my  judg- 
ment, is  that  it  is  one-sided,  fixing  prices 
only  through  demand  (or  purchasing 
power),  wholly  disregarding  supply  and 
production-costs  of  the  goods  in  the 
market.  In  a  former  issue  of  the  Weekly 
Review  I  tried  to  point  out  the  fallacy 
of  a  theory  of  prices  based  only  on  de- 
mand, and  ignoring  the  causes  working 
on  supply  and  supply-costs.  In  Professor 
Irving  Fisher's  formula  of  the  equation 
of  exchange  there  is  no  symbol  repre- 
senting production-costs.  That  such 
costs  do  affect  prices  every  day  every 
business  man  knows  without  the  help  of 
an  economist. 

J.  Laurence  Laughlin 
E.  Jaffrey,  N.  H.,  June  16 


June  30,  1920] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[675 


Packing  the  Books 

WE  had  reached  the  third  and  last 
trunk :  I  stood  up  straight  to  rest 
my  tortured  spine  and  mop  my  forehead. 
The  heat,  this  evening,  was  unspeakable; 
Peter  the  parrot,  happily  recalling  his 
tropic  isle,  whetted  his  beak  on  his  cage 
and  gave  a  ribald  laugh.  There  had  been 
moments  since  dinner  when  he  was  the 
only  one  on  speaking  terms  with  anybody 
else.  But,  with  trifling  exceptions,  Jane 
and  I  had  come  through  the  ordeal  with- 
out breaking  off  diplomatic  relations.  I 
had  dropped  one  boot  with  a  thump,  and 
juggled  a  mid-iron  which  crashed  to  the 
floor.  Then  I  had  been  caught  trying  to 
wrap  three  tennis  balls  in  a  white  silk 
stocking  (which  was  certainly  not  mine) 
and  had  been  told  that  as  a  trunk- 
packer  I  am  an  obstacle.  I  believe  that 
Briggs's  cartoons  of  "A  Handy  Man 
about  the  House"  are  the  work  of  a  bitter 
realist. 

A  small  space  remained,  before  the 
tray  went  in.  Jane  pointed  to  it,  and 
asked,  briefly,  "Books"? 

"Is  that  all  the  room  there  is  left? 
Then  we'll  have  to  take  the  other  bag." 

"Nonsense.  You  can  get  a  dozen  books 
in  there.  That's  all  we  need:  we  always 
take  more  than  we  look  at." 

"Well,  maybe  a  dozen  will  do — if  we 
can  find  small  ones.  It's  plain  we  can 
not  take  'The  Home  Book  of  Verse' — 
though  I  would  like  to." 

"It's  much  too  large,  and  heavy.  We 
must  have  small  ones,  that  we  can  take 
on  walks  with  us;  and  books  for  me  to 
take  over  to  the  tennis  court  and  read 
aloud,  while  you  are  waiting  for  Jack- 
son to  come.  He's  always  late.  Besides, 
small  books  are  best  for  summer — Stev- 
enson said  so." 

"It  was  Dr.  Johnson,  and  it  was  winter. 
Otherwise  you  are  right.  He  said  small 
books  are  best  to  carry  to  the  fireside — 
and  I  do  not  believe  he  meant  summer 
firesides." 

"I'm  certain  it  was  Stevenson." 

"I'll  bet  you  it  was  Dr.  Johnson,  and 
I'll  prove  it." 

So  I  reached  for  the  last  volume  of 
Boswell,  and  hunted  for  the  reference  in 
the  index.  But  of  course  I  came  across 
the  entry  "Bagpipes,"  and  could  not  re- 
sist hunting  it  up,  knowing  Johnson 
would  have  something  extra  venomous  to 
say  about  a  Scotch  institution  like  bag- 
pipes. That  is  the  trouble  with  the  index 
to  Boswell.  Next  to  the  one  in  Wheat- 
ley's  edition  of  Pepys,  it  is  the  most  dis- 
tracting in  the  world.  I  never  pick  up 
either  without  lapsing  into  semi-uncon- 
sciousness, and  returning  to  earth  thirty 
or  forty  minutes  later,  with  three  vol- 
umes in  each  hand,  trying  to  hold  six 
places  open  with  as  many  fingers  and 
thumbs,  and  to  run  down  seven  differ- 
ent   and    fascinating    references    which 


have  caught  my  eye.  ("Babies"  is  an- 
other interesting  entry  in  Boswell.)  Sud- 
denly I  became  aware  that  Jane  was 
stuffing  some  useless  clothing  into  the 
space  for  books,  and  I  uttered  a  howl 
of  protest. 

"I  thought  you  had  decided  not  to 
take  any  books,"  she  murmured,  grief- 
stricken. 

It  was  necessary  for  me  to  placate  her, 
and  I  did  it  by  producing  from  behind 
a  row  of  books  a  number  of  little,  fat  red 
volumes,  comprising  some  of  the  less 
known  works  of  Mr.  Trollope.  Jane  is  a 
nearly  demented  Trollopian,  and  this  ad- 
dition to  the  trunk  was  to  suit  her  taste, 
not  mine.  The  day  was  when  I  could 
have  bounded  the  See  of  Barchester  with 
fair  readiness,  and  described  most  of  the 
intrigues  of  that  ecclesiastical  cock-pit. 
But  Jane  has  long  been  graduated  from 
the  elementary  school,  and  can  talk  by 
the  hour  of  Phineas  Finn's  parliament- 
ary career,  of  the  Duke  of  Omnium,  of 
Lady  Glencora,  Lady  Mason,  and  the  rest. 
She  did  not  at  all  enjoy  hearing  some- 
body remark,  airily,  that  "Cabot  Lodge 
says  you  have  to  be  middle-aged  to  read 
Trollope,"  as  she  says  that  she  began 
to  read  him  at  eighteen,  and  that  that  was 
not  thousands  of  years  ago.  So  she  fell 
with  cries  of  joy  upon  "The  Macdermots 
of  Ballycloran"  and  "The  Bertrams"  and 
decided  that  room  could  be  made  in  the 
trunk,  after  all.  I  had  another  diplo- 
matic triumph  when  I  brought  out  two 
small  volumes  of  "The  Early  Diary  of 
Frances  Bumey" — another  of  her  fav- 
orite personages.  Then  it  seemed  safe 
to  pander  to  my  own  tastes  for  ancient 
mysteries  and  murders  long  ago.  This 
was  "The  Riddle  of  the  Ruthvens"  by 
William  Roughead — a  retelling  of  old 
tales  of  the  kind  that  Stevenson  and 
Andrew  Lang  loved  to  hear,  of  the 
Cowrie  Conspiracy,  of  old  Scotch  witch- 
craft and  murder  cases.  It  is  a  heavy 
book  and  probably  provoked  an  extra 
curse  from  the  men  who  lifted  the  trunk. 
But  Mr.  Roughead,  a  sober  Scottish  law- 
yer, sound  in  his  learning,  orderly  in 
his  style,  with  a  nice  taste  for  trials  and 
blood-lettings  (as  the  books  which  he  has 
edited  go  to  prove)  would  attract  me  at 
any  time  away  from  the  newspaper 
stories  of  murders.  This  and  "Miss 
Lulu  Bett" — so  highly  recommended — 
were  the  only  new  books  we  put  in. 

"Now,  for  some  small  ones,"  said  Jane, 
"for  some  that  we  like  to  read  over,  and 
to  read  aloud.  You  never  will  listen  to 
Trollope." 

We  agreed  without  difficulty  upon  Max 
Beerbohm's  "Zuleika  Dobson,"  so  that  we 
might  revel  again  in  the  wonderful  pro- 
posal of  the  Duke  of  Dorset.  And  we 
had  the  book  in  the  Modern  Library 
Series — made  for  summer  and  vacation 
reading.  Calverley's  "Verses  and  Fly 
Leaves"  went  in  by  unanimous  consent. 
We  hesitated  at  the  Leacock  shelf,  but 


chose  "Nonsense  Novels,"  and  finally  de- 
cided to  take  "Arcadian  Adventures"  as 
well.  I  had  had  an  adventure  with  a 
Swami  recently,  at  the  library,  and  de- 
sired to  read  about  Ram  Spudd  and  the 
Yahi-Bahi  Society  once  more.  Of  J.  A. 
Mitchell's  we  took  "The  Last  American," 
and  of  Viel^'s,  "The  Inn  of  the  Silver 
Moon" — a  book  for  summer  reading  be- 
yond compare.  Too  few  Americans  have 
had  his  light  touch.  Jane  put  in  Lucas's 
"The  Open  Road,"  for  its  pleasant  prose 
and  verse,  and  I  made  no  objection  (for 
I  still  felt  uneasy  about  the  two  pounds 
of  Ruthvens),  although  I  am  beginning, 
professionally,  to  growl  about  the  end- 
less anthologies.  Chambers's  novels  are 
not  small,  but  they  are  light,  and  we  own 
two  written  in  his  golden  period  of  inno- 
cence, long  before  Mr.  Hearst  put  hia 
hands  upon  him.  One  of  these  is  little 
known  to  folk  who  think  of  Mr.  Cham- 
bers only  as  the  author  of  his  later  novels 
— it  is  "A  King  and  a  Few  Dukes."  The 
other,  "In  Search  of  the  Unknown"  is 
fantastic  foolery,  admirable  for  hot 
weather. 

Richard  Jefferies's  "The  Story  of  My 
Heart,"  like  all  good  books,  has  achieved 
editions  in  small  size.  I  have  heard  it 
denounced  as  mawkish,  and  it  is  true 
that  the  melancholy  strain  is  evident. 
But  it  is  musical  prose,  and,  like  all  his 
books,  one  to  be  read  in  the  open  air. 
"Ballades  and  Rondeaus,"  edited  by  Glee- 
son  White — it  is  the  only  boon  ever  con- 
ferred upon  me  by  a  card  catalogue! 
Once,  desiring  to  write  a  vilanelle,  or 
maybe  a  rondeau,  for  the  Harvard  "Lam- 
poon," and  wondering  what  such  a  thing 
might  be  like,  I  went  to  that  dreadful 
jungle — the  catalogue  of  the  library  of 
Harvard  College.  It  directed  me  to  Glee- 
son  White's  book,  where  there  is  an 
introduction  which  describes  these  verse 
forms.  But  I  never  learned  anything 
from  the  introduction,  for  I  opened  to 
the  contents  of  the  book  itself — and  what 
would  anyone  care  for  essays  upon  pros- 
ody after  that?  We  put  it  in,  and  also 
"The  Crock  of  Gold,"  by  James  Stephens. 

The  Chief  Packer  now  said  that  the 
trunk  was  too  full.  But  as  I  had  taken 
"The  Crock  of  Gold"  from  the  shelf  the 
book  next  to  it  fell  down,  as  if  it  wished 
to  go  with  us.  Picking  it  up  I  saw  that 
it  was  Maurice  Baring's  "Dead  Letters," 
which  I  have  already  read  four  times, 
and  e.xpect  and  desire  to  read  four  times 
again.  It  should  go  to  the  country  with 
us,  it  should.  Jane  said  that  there  was 
absolutely  no  room.  I  suggested  that  she 
should  take  out  her  parasol,  which  has 
pink  spots,  and  is  a  wicked  object  in  any 
landscape.  I  further  offered  to  sacrifice 
two  of  her  waists,  and  a  roll  of  some- 
thing that  looked  like  chiffon.  My  gener- 
osity was  received  without  the  least  pre- 
tence of  interest,  and  in  the  end  I  carried 
"Dead  Letters"  in  my  coat  pocket. 

Edmund  Lester  Pearson 


676] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  .59 


Book  Reviews 

Complexitie-*.  of  the  Irish 
Enigma 

Ikelanu  an  Enemy  of  the  Allies?  (L'lrhnde 
— EnHemte?)  Translated  from  the  French 
of  R.  C.  Escouflaire.  New  York:  E.  P. 
Dutton  and  Company. 

THIS  book  belongs  to  a  type  of  litera- 
ture which  has  of  late  just  begun  to 
be  published,  and  which  aims  at  supply- 
ing a  real  need.  Men  who  have  been 
exasperated  by  the  disclosure  of  intrigue 
four  years  ago  between  Dublin  and 
Berlin,  by  the  horrors  of  Sinn  Fein  out- 
rage, and  by  the  general  intractableness 
of  Irish  agitators,  are  writing  their  re- 
cantation of  a  sympathy  they  once  pro- 
fessed. They  tell  us  how  a  fresh  survey 
of  the  facts  has  shown  them  that  Eng- 
lish misgovernment  in  Ireland  is  much 
overstated,  that  ancient  wrongs  long 
since  redressed  are  being  trumpeted  as 
if  they  were  grievances  of  to-day,  and 
that  far  less  than  justice  is  being  done 
to  the  honesty  of  British  statesmen.  It 
is  much  to  be  desired  that  some  such 
corrective  should  be  made  available,  for 
the  propagandists  of  "Ireland  a  Nation" 
are  often  unfair,  and  there  is  widespread 
delusion  about  that  country's  real  ground 
of  complaint.  Hence  one  turns  with 
keen  interest  and  expectancy  to  those 
writers  who  confess  that  they  were  long 
misled,  and  announce  that  their  eyes  have 
now  been  opened  to  the  truth  about  Ire- 
land and  the  Irish. 

M.  Escouflaire's  book  begins  with  the 
question  why  Ireland  is  not  on  the  side 
of  the  Allied  Powers,  and  for  the  answer 
we  are  asked  to  note  some  psychological 
peculiarities  of  the  Irish  race.  It  has, 
like  many  other  peoples,  a  tragic  past,  in 
which  it  suffered  much  oppression  from 
a  stronger  neighbor.  But,  unlike  other 
peoples,  it  still  lives  in  that  past,  refus- 
ing under  any  circumstances  and  despite 
the  most  ample  reparation  to  let  bygones 
be  bygones.  When  we  call  a  thing  "an- 
cient history,"  says  M.  Escouflaire,  we 
mean  that  it  has  lost  much  of  its  im- 
portance; but  in  Ireland  people  mean  the 
opposite.  Their  persisting  demand  upon 
England  in  the  twentieth  century  is  like 
a  proposal  that  Europe  should  never  have 
peace  until  it  had  "liquidated  all  the  hor- 
rors of  its  past,  from  Charles  the  Bold 
to  the  Duke  of  Alva,  from  the  Sicilian 
Vespers  to  the  Palatinate."  Moreover, 
Ireland  has  made  the  unfortunate  dis- 
covery that  she  has  a  gift  for  interna- 
tional "acting,"  by  which  sympathetic 
emotion  may  be  effectively  stirred,  and 
she  continues  to  play  this  part  of  the 
injured  innocent  with  quite  undeserved 
success. 

Thus  the  present  book  aims  at  unde- 
ceiving the  public.     M.  Escouflaire  re- 


writes Anglo-Irish  history,  pointing  out 
the  allowances  which  have  to  be  made  for 
some  stern  measures  of  long  ago,  the 
provocation  which  Ireland  gave,  the  cor- 
responding sins  on  her  own  part  which 
must  be  included  in  the  account,  the  fact 
that  effort  after  effort  has  been  made  to 
heal  the  sting  of  old  wounds.  So  far  the 
purpose  of  his  work  seems  admirable, 
and  it  is  written  with  a  certain  piquancy 
of  style  by  which  interest  is  held 
throughout.  One  must  regret,  however, 
that  the  intention  is  so  seriously  marred 
in  the  performance,  and  it  is  a  reviewer's 
plain  duty  to  tell  M.  Escouflaire  that  the 
task  he  has  set  himself  is  very  much  be- 
yond his  powers  of  criticism  and  his- 
torical discrimination. 

Not  much  can  be  hoped  from  those 
who  approach  this  difficult  subject  in  so 
inflamed  a  mood,  and  with  knowledge  so 
sadly  limited.  One  can,  of  course,  under- 
stand the  bitterness  of  a  Frenchman 
whose  outlook  is  determined  by  the  mem- 
ory of  1916,  and  by  the  thought  of  a 
Dublin  rising  so  ominously  timed  to 
coincide  with  the  desperate  crisis  of  the 
Allies.  But  M.  Escouflaire  professes  to 
be  writing  history,  and  he  makes  the 
mistake  of  trying  to  prove  immensely 
too  much.  Having  begun  by  accepting 
the  view  of  anti-British  extremists  as 
completely  established,  he  proceeds  to  the 
conclusion  that  it  is  completely  refuted, 
and  the  simplicity  of  mind  which  made 
him  so  easy  a  victim  in  the  first  case 
has  been  no  less  fatal  to  his  judgment  in 
the  second.  He  is  aware,  indeed,  that 
there  are  fearful  pages  in  the  record  of 
Anglo-Irish  government,  but  he  thinks 
they  belong  wholly  to  the  period  before 
1829,  and  that  the  events  since  then,  so 
far  as  they  were  directed  by  English 
Conservative  statesmen,  are  a  long  series 
of  acts  of  generosity  by  which  old  griev- 
ances should  have  been  quite  obliterated 
for  any  race  that  knew  what  it  was  to  be 
grateful.  For  his  former  vision  of  the 
"Martyred  Isle"  he  substitutes  the  vision 
of  a  churlish,  petulant  "Tragedy  Queen," 
posing  before  the  world  with  the  myth 
of  her  wrongs,  and  meeting  every  ad- 
vance by  her  best-intentioned  bene- 
factors in  a  stubbornly  vindictive  spirit 
of  revenge. 

It  is  lamentable  to  find  an  excellent 
case  given  away  like  this.  Sinn  Feiners 
could  desire  nothing  better  than  that 
such  a  book  should  be  accepted  as  the 
authoritative  manifesto  by  their  oppo- 
nents. M.  Escouflaire's  own  competence 
in  this  field  may  be  judged  from  a  few 
examples.  Froude  he  thinks  falsified  his- 
tory to  exalt  the  Irish  race!  Whatever 
other  falsifications  Froude  may  have 
committed,  this  particular  one  can  not  be 
laid  to  his  charge,  as  all  readers  of  "The 
English  in  Ireland"  must  be  aware.  His 
rhetoric  rather  suggests  at  times  that  of 
M.  Escouflaire  himself,  as  when  he  sneers 
at  the  race  which  can  "bewail  its  wrongs 


in  wild  and  weeping  eloquence  in  the 
ears  of  mankind."  The  rebellion  of  1798 
was,  it  appears,  specially  inexcusable,  be- 
cause it  came  at  a  moment  when  the 
Irish  had  been  "overwhelmed  with  con- 
cessions"; about  the  claim  for  parlia- 
mentary reform  and  for  Catholic  eman- 
cipation which  had  not  yet  been  con- 
ceded, and  which  entered  so  largely  into 
the  motive  for  rebelling,  our  critic  has 
nothing  to  say.  We  are  informed  that 
"since  1829  there  has  been  practically 
not  the  slightest  inequality,  civil  or  po- 
litical, between  Roman  Catholics  and 
Protestants."  Whether  M.  Escouflaire 
judges  it  equal  treatment  that  the  sole 
university  worthy  of  the  name  and  lav- 
ishly endowed  by  state  funds  should  have 
remained  for  at  least  half  a  century  a 
Protestant  preserve,  whether  he  thinks 
it  fair  that  a  Protestant  State  Church 
should  have  been  maintained  by  compul- 
sory tribute  in  a  country  four-fifths 
Catholic,  whether  he  finds  no  hardship  in 
the  monopolizing  of  Crown  appointments, 
civil  and  judicial,  by  a  Protestant  garri- 
son and  in  the  practical  penalizing  by 
Crown  patronage  of  those  who  adhered 
to  the  ancient  faith,  or  what  dates  he  has 
in  mind  for  the  Tithe  War,  the  opening 
of  official  posts  in  Trinity  College,  and 
the  first  admission  on  terms  anything 
like  equal  of  Catholic  candidates  for  pub- 
lic posts — about  all  this  one  is  left  to  con- 
jecture. Macaulay,  who  after  all  was 
something  of  an  historian  in  his  leisure 
time,  and  who  was  not  quite  devoid  of 
British  loyalty,  summed  up  the  principle 
of  those  Conservatives  whom  M.  Escou- 
flaire admires  as  that  of  yielding  nothing 
to  justice  and  everything  to  fear. 

But  this  French  critic  is  so  far  from 
the  spirit  of  his  own  generous  nation  that 
such  virulence  as  he  can  spare  from 
Irish  agitators  is  poured  on  the  head  of 
English  Liberals.  He  seems  to  have  lit- 
tle love  for  Mr.  Lloyd  George,  and  he 
has  an  exasperating  habit — perhaps  bor- 
rowed from  Thucydides  but  now  largely 
obsolete — of  presenting  a  statesman's 
views  by  writing  a  speech  for  him,  and 
declaring  that  this  expresses  his  attitude 
"in  effect."  He  is  good  enough  to  de- 
scribe the  British  Prime  Minister  as 
"formerly  an  intractable  Radical,  sud- 
denly fired  by  patriotism,"  and  I  venture 
to  think  that  Mr.  Lloyd  George  would 
prefer  writing  his  own  speeches  rather 
than  adopt  the  whirling  words  which  M. 
Escouflaire  puts  into  his  mouth  as  an  ad- 
dress to  the  Convention  of  1917.  No 
doubt  an  Englishman,  getting  up  in  a 
hurry  an  account  of  party  strife  at  Paris, 
might  have  his  facts  no  less  obscured, 
his  fictions  no  less  radiant,  his  whole  way 
of  presenting  the  case  no  less  confused 
by  weak  generalities  and  strong  person- 
alities. What,  for  instance,  can  any  man 
know  about  Charles  Stewart  Pamell 
who  speaks  of  his  great  "oratorical  tri- 
umphs"?   But  an  Englishman  would  not 


June  30,  1920] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[(577 


meddle  in  this  random  way  with  a  for- 
eign field.  And  the  present  critic  at 
least  would  be  sorry  if  the  eye  of  a 
German,  at  a  loss  to  excuse  von  Beth- 
mann-Hollweg's  phrase  about  the  "scrap 
of  paper,"  should  light  upon  this  French- 
man's apology  for  the  broken  Treaty  of 
Limerick:  "It  is  too  much  to  hope  that 
a  piece  of  parchment  can  prevent  the 
workings  of  natural  and  popular  reac- 
tions, as  irresistible  as  the  forces  of 
nature"!  It  betrays  a  sad  lack  of  self- 
criticism  in  the  author  that  he  let  this 
sentiment  escape  him  without  noticing 
its  applicability  to  the  Prussian  crime 
against  Belgium. 

Thus  M.  Escouflaire's  book  must  be 
laid  down  with  a  sigh  of  disappointment. 
It  is  the  sort  of  work  which  can  help  no 
one,  a  perfect  specimen  of  how  Irish  mat- 
ters should  not  be  discussed,  and  those 
most  anxious  for  the  object  he  sets  be- 
fore himself  should  be  the  first  to  re- 
pudiate the  methods  by  which  he  is  seek- 
ing it.  Everywhere  his  tone  is  that  of 
an  apologist  for  a  super-State,  enforcing 
discipline  upon  barbarous  natives,  and 
to  be  adored  for  occasional  acts  of  clem- 
ency. We  know  that  tone,  and  the  world 
will  listen  to  it  no  longer.  The  spirit 
of  the  new  time  M.  Escouflaire  meets 
with  futile  vituperation.  As  he  glorifies 
the  House  of  Lords  for  its  wisdom  in 
checkmating  the  elective  Chamber,  as  he 
hurls  scurrilous  epithets  at  Cobden  and 
Bright,  at  Gladstone,  and  Mr.  Asquith, 
and  even  Mr.  Lloyd  George,  as  he  begins 
by  propounding  a  riddle  and  leaves  us 
more  deeply  than  ever  in  the  dark  about 
its  solution,  one  hardly  knows  whether 
to  laugh  or  cry.  Why  is  the  Ireland  of 
1920  so  different  from  the  Ireland  of 
1914?  For  answer  we  get  a  storm  of 
abuse  at  the  Irish  temperament,  and  a 
volley  of  bad  names  at  English  states- 
men whom  the  misguided  world  has  some- 
how come  to  respect. 

There  are,  it  must  be  confessed,  in 
this  book  things  both  true  and  im- 
portant, pungently  and  vividly  set  forth, 
which  one  could  have  wished  to  see  apart 
from  that  setting  of  sheer  nonsense  by 
which  truth  itself  is  discredited,  and 
that  rancour  of  intemperateness  which 
M.  Escouflaire  endeavors  to  allay  but 
succeeds  rather  in  exemplifying.  He  ob- 
viously thinks  that  he  has  done  a 
great  deal  to  expose  a  fraud,  and 
there  are  frauds  both  in  the  Irish 
and  in  the  anti-Irish  case  which  need 
exposure.  The  present  critic  hates  Sinn 
Fein  and  all  its  works  as  much  as 
M.  Escouflaire  can  hate  them,  but  he 
would  wish  to  see  it  attacked  with  artil- 
lery not  so  far  out  of  range.  The  com- 
plexities of  the  Irish  enigma  still  wait 
for  a  more  delicate  hand,  a  finer  his- 
toric sense,  and  a  better  grasp  of  the  con- 
ditions of  international  friendship. 

Herbert  L.  Stewart 


The  Mystery  of  Jutland 

The  Battle  of  Jutland.  The  Sowing  and 
Reaping  of  the  British  Navy.  By  Com- 
mander Carlyon  Bellairs,  M.P.  With  maps 
and  diagrams.  New  York:  George  H. 
Doran  Company. 

BOTH  in  Germany  and  in  England  the 
battle  of  Jutland  was  hailed  as  a 
victory.  No  sensible  person  long  believed 
either  claim.  If  it  were  a  German  suc- 
cess, why  had  Von  Scheer  fled  to  cover? 
If  it  were  a  British  victory,  how  had  the 
British  fleet — strong  two  for  one — lost 
six  big  cruisers  as  against  a  battle 
cruiser  and  one  pre-dreadnought  for 
Germany?  Something  was  wrong  on  the 
face  of  it:  the  Germans,  for  no  apparent 
military  reason,  had  conducted  a  rash  but 
eminently  successful  raid,  while  the 
British  had  let  slip  a  supreme  chance  to 
destroy  the  German  fleet.  Meanwhile 
the  mystery  has  deepened  because  the 
British  oflicial  accounts — enormous  at  the 
first — have  subsequently  dealt  only  in 
general  terms,  while  the  official  maps 
have  plainly  been  merest  approximations. 
And  Admiral  Viscount  Jellicoe  himself 
has  hardly  made  the  darkness  more  vis- 
ible in  his  elaborate  commentary  on  the 
battle.  It  appears  that  he  was  baffled  by 
the  flight  of  the  Germans  and  the  clos- 
ing in  of  night.  Against  this  the  well- 
informed  reader  will  set  the  facts  that 
after  his  deployment  at  6.16  P.  M.  there 
remained  three  hours  of  daylight,  while 
his  battle  line  had  at  least  three  knots 
of  speed  over  that  of  the  Germans,  not 
to  mention  double  weight  of  salvos. 

Of  this  mystery  Commander  Bellairs 
cff'ers  a  very  simple  explanation.  Ad- 
miral Jellicoe  was  repeatedly  and  grossly 
unenterprising.  Beatty,  in  his  own 
words,  "delivered  the  German  fleet  into 
his  jaws,"  and  he  hesitated  to  close  them. 
The  facts,  according  to  our  author,  are 
as  follows:  On  May  30,  1916,  Beatty's 
three  squadrons  and  Jellicoe's  six  took 
the  sea  to  meet  the  German  fleet.  From 
3.47,  May  31,  Beatty  engaged  Admiral 
Hipper's  battle  cruisers,  and  followed 
him  back  to  Von  Scheer's  main  fleet. 
Beatty  continued  the  battle  cruiser  fight 
for  two  hours  and  a  half,  under  fright- 
ful punishment,  and  about  6.16  P.  M. 
moved  aside,  still  hammering  the  head  of 
the  German  line,  to  make  place  for 
Jellicoe's  fleet.  Beatty  still  fought  for 
nearly  three  hours  more.  Jellicoe,  as  we 
shall  soon  see,  virtually  elected  not  to 
fight.  Practically  all  the  damage  received 
or  inflicted  in  the  battle  was  incurred 
or  wrought  by  Beatty  or  his  sup- 
porting squadron  leaders.  Hood  and 
Evans  Thomas.  Jellicoe's  casualties  in 
the  twenty-four  minutes  in  which  he  was 
partially  engaged  amounted  to  one 
shell  hit  on  the  Colossus  and  the  crip- 
pling of  the  Marlborough  through  a 
torpedo. 

Jellicoe's  moves,  as  analyzed  by  Com- 


mander Bellairs,  came  to  this:  (1) 
Coming  down  from  Scapa,  he  failed  to 
establish  visual  links  with  Beatty,  sev- 
enty miles  ahead,  and  thus  located  the 
enemy  only  on  contact.  (2)  At  5.30 
P.  M.  he  sent  Hood  with  four  battle 
cruisers  to  the  east  to  cut  off  possible 
retreat  of  the  Germans  to  the  Baltic. 
This  was  an  unimaginative  move.  Hood's 
squadron,  while  far  too  strong  to  be 
detached  for  mere  reconnaissance,  was 
too  weak  to  check  the  supposed  flight. 
That  Hood  actually  turned  up  at  the 
head  of  Beatty's  hard-pressed  line 
was  due  to  his  splendid  initiative  and 
to  good  luck,  with  no  thanks  to  the 
high  command.  (3)  About  six,  sailing 
south  in  five  columns  of  squadrons,  Jelli- 
coe sighted  the  foe  on  the  starboard  bow, 
to  the  south-west.  Instead  of  making 
the  natural  deployment  to  the  right, 
which  would  have  given  him  immediate 
contact  with  the  whole  German  battle 
line,  he  deployed  to  the  left,  away  from 
the  enemy.  The  movement,  begun  at 
6.14  or  6.16,  was  effected  in  some  twenty 
minutes.  Von  Scheer,  seeing  the  formid- 
able line  stretching  five  miles  ahead 
of  him,  turned.  Thus  only  the  rear 
divisions  of  Jellicoe's  fleet  were  in  action. 
By  the  time  Jellicoe's  model  single  line- 
of-battle  had  been  formed,  the  ridiculous 
situation  arose  that  the  British  fighting 
fleet  was  steaming  at  17  knots  in  the 
opposite  direction  from  the  fleeing  Ger- 
mans. At  the  very  moment  of  Jellicoe's 
evasive  deployment  the  Invincible,  De- 
fence, and  Warrior  were  done  for.  An 
aggressive  deployment  to  the  right  would 
presumably  have  saved  them.  (4)  Jelli- 
coe pursued  what  had  become  a  retreat 
for  about  ten  minutes,  opening  up  an 
additional  four  miles  between  himself 
and  the  fleeing  enemy.  (5)  After  turn- 
ing south  to  regain  contact,  Jellicoe  twice 
turned  his  whole  formation  away  to  avoid 
feeble  destroyer  attacks,  and  at  no  time 
increased  his  speed  beyond  18  knots.  (6) 
At  7.32  P.  M.,  Beatty,  being  still  in  con- 
tact with  the  enemy,  signalled  for  Jelli- 
coe's leading  squadron  to  join  his  line 
and  cut  off  the  enemy.  Jerrams  was  not 
allowed  to  redeem  the  day  by  this  cor- 
rect manoeuvre,  and  the  last  chance  for 
the  great  fleet  to  do  its  work  of  annihila- 
tion was  ignored.  (7)  Although  night 
found  Jellicoe  between  the  enemy  and 
the  Bight  of  Heligoland,  with  all  the  ad- 
vantages of  speed  on  his  side,  they  read- 
ily evaded  him  in  the  dark  and  got  away 
home.  Such  is  briefly  Commander  Bel- 
lairs' case  against  Jellicoe.  It  looks  like 
a  true  bill — like  a  case  not  for  a  vis- 
county, but  for  a  court  martial.  Captain 
Persius'  language  seems  both  correct  and 
moderate  when  he  writes  of  "the  un- 
skillful handling  of  the  British  fleet  un- 
der Admiral  Jellicoe." 

It  should  be  said,  however,  that  these 
charges  are  made  on  partial  information. 


678] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  59 


The  laymen  can  readily  grasp  the  diffi- 
culty of  plotting  a  battle  on  the  high 
seas.  Ships'  clocks  differ  slightly,  ves- 
sels are  not  always  correctly  identified, 
bearings  are  sometimes  bad  approxima- 
tions, everything  is  moving  together. 
Besides,  the  complete  navy  account  of 
the  battle  has  not  yet  appeared.  On  the 
other  hand,  most  of  the  seven  specifica- 
tions above  are  of  too  general  a  sort  to 
be  contested  as  facts,  and  nearly  all  are 
admitted  in  Viscount  Jellicoe's  own  book. 
For  e.xample,  he  elaborately  defends  a 
deployment  which  amounted  to  an  eva- 
sion, because  the  obvious  deployment  to 
the  right  and  towards  the  enemy  would 
have  involved  punishment  by  destroyer 
attack  and  gun  fire  during  the  evolution. 
Against  statistical  comparisons  of  broad- 
sides at  given  theoretical  moments — 
highly  fallacious  calculations — the  ob- 
server will  set  the  fact  that  Jellicoe's 
destroyers  with  their  heavier  guns  should 
handily  have  looked  out  for  the  German 
torpedo  craft,  while  ship  for  ship  his 
salvos  outweighed  the  Germans  by  fifty 
per  cent.,  and  he  had  about  three  fight- 
ing ships  for  their  two. 

Tactically  Jellicoe,  as  our  author 
clearly  points  out,  indulged  two  fatal 
misconceptions — first,  the  oft  discredited 
theory  of  the  rigid,  single  line-of-battle ; 
second,  the  illusion  that  a  battle  line  five 
miles  long  can  be  tactically  fought  by  an 
Admiral  in  the  centre.  Let  us  recall  that 
twenty  minutes  after  the  enemy's  smoke 
appears  a  modem  sea  fight  will  have  been 
finished.  That  means  that  the  Admiral's 
plan  must  be  instantaneous,  that  the  de- 
tails must  be  left  to  his  squadron  lead- 
ers, whose  minds  he  must  have  impressed 
with  his  tactical- principles  and  prefer- 
ences through  years  of  training.  Ad- 
miral Jellicoe,  hesitating  before  the 
sweetest  sight  that  ever  met  a  sea  fight- 
er's eye,  wondering  where  to  place  his 
mathematically  correct  line,  affords  a 
spectacle  as  pathetically  obsolete  as  the 
Coliseum.  Beatty  had  the  German  fleet 
headed,  an  ideal  situation.  Jellicoe  had 
only  to  deploy  towards  the  foe  on  Beatty, 
and  within  a  half  hour  there  would  have 
been  no  German  fleet.  But  he  was  not 
quite  clear  as  to  the  situation,  and  the 
great  fleet  awaited  his  signal.  Mean- 
while the  situation  was  perfectly  plain 
two  miles  to  his  right.  Had  Bumey  on 
the  Marlborough  been  permitted  a  squad- 
ron leader's  initiative,  he  would  immedi- 
ately have  turned  to  the  right  towards 
the  head  of  the  German  battle  line,  and 
the  four  other  squadrons  would  have  fol- 
lowed his  move.  Of  course,  that  would 
have  involved  risk  and  certain  losses,  but 
the  prize  was  the  German  fleet.  Bumey, 
as  things  were,  merely  awaited  the  signal 
from  the  bewildered  Admiral  on  the  Iron 
Duke. 

We  have  been  assuming,  with  our 
author,  that  Jellicoe's  mission  was  the 
destruction  of  the  High  Seas  Fleet.    On 


the  contrary  theory,  that  his  mission  was 
to  avoid  a  ding-dong  fight,  drive  the 
Germans  home,  and  continue  to  exert 
"passive  pressure"  from  Scapa,  all  his 
moves  are  entirely  logical.  On  no  other 
supposition  can  they  be  justified.  We 
do  not  know  what  were  his  instructions 
from  the  Admiralty.  We  do  know  that,  if 
Hipper  and  Von  Scheer  had  been  sunk, 
the  clearance  of  the  Baltic  offered  merely 
technical  difficulties,  Russia  might  have 
been  stiffened,  the  submarine  menace, 
which  within  a  year  was  threatening 
starvation  for  England,  could  have 
been  eradicated  in  a  few  months.  Who- 
ever was  responsible,  naval  history 
hardly  shows  a  similar  example  of  lost 
opportunity. 

But  if  Jellicoe  was  right,  then  Beatty 
was  entirely  wrong.  If  his  mission  was 
not  to  lead  the  German  fleet  to  destruc- 
tion— and  so  he  undoubtedly  read  his 
duty — but  merely  to  see  that  it  was 
frightened  back  home,  then  he  fought  a 
fight  as  needless  as  it  was  heroic,  and 
recklessly  threw  away  his  magnificent 
battle  cruisers.  In  short,  it  was  absurd 
to  award  viscounties  to  both  Jellicoe  and 
Beatty.  Both  could  not  be  right,  and 
one  was  unpardonably  wrong.  Only  a 
court  martial  could  have  elicited  facts 
which  now  remain  in  considerable  ob- 
scurity. Meanwhile  the  presumption  is 
in  favor  of  the  Admiral  who  acted  in 
Nelson's  tradition. 

Hamilton  the  Democrat 

•Alexander  Hamilton.    By  Henry  Jones  Ford. 
New  York:  Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 

SIR  OLIVER  LODGE  and  others  versed 
in  such  matters  believe,  as  we  under- 
stand, that  the  shades  of  the  departed 
can  not  communicate  with  earth  other- 
wise than  through  mediums.  Few  of 
these  gifted  ladies  have  time  to  keep  up 
with  current  biographical  and  historical 
literature,  and  the  great  who  have 
passed  hence  do  not  know  of  the  efforts 
of  succeeding  generations  to  pay  them  a 
tribute  of  gratitude  which  their  own 
either  altogether  withheld  or  grudgingly 
gave.  If  the  spirit  of  Alexander  Hamilton 
could  read  what  Professor  Ford  says 
about  him,  he  might  feel  that  atonement 
had  been  made  for  much  that  he  suffered 
in  the  flesh  from  the  tongues  and  pens  of 
Monroe,  Giles,  Freneau,  and  others  of 
their  way  of  thinking. 

This,  the  latest  of  his  biographers, 
numbers  him  "among  the  greatest  states- 
men the  world  has  produced."  Well-in- 
formed foreigners  like  Talleyrand  in  his 
own  era,  and  Oliver  in  ours,  have  so 
ranked  him.  In  this  country.  Federalists 
and  those  who  sympathize  with  the  Fed- 
eralist tradition,  have  left  little  unsaid 
in  praise  of  what  he  was  and  of  what  he 
did. 

The  biographer,  we  believe,  has  always 
belonged  to  the  party  first  organized  by 


Jefferson,  but  for  all  that,  he  finds  him- 
self in  sympathy  with  much  of  Hamil- 
ton's teachings.  In  one  of  the  most  strik- 
ing portions  of  his  book,  he  points  out 
that  Hamilton  was  far  more  of  a  demo- 
crat than  were  many  of  his  political  op- 
ponents, founders  and  leaders  as  they 
were  of  the  party  which  since  the  close  of 
their  era  has  called  itself  Democratic. 
As  late  as  1830,  Madison  and  Monroe,  in 
the  Constitutional  Convention  of  Vir- 
ginia, united  with  Marshall,  in  maintain- 
ing property  qualifications  for  voting,  al- 
though more  than  forty  years  before, 
Hamilton  had  favored  the  election  of  the 
Federal  House  of  Representatives  by  uni- 
versal manhood  suffrage. 

Hamilton's  wish  for  a  strong  execu- 
tive, with  an  absolute  veto  over  Congres- 
sional action,  and  with  the  right  to  ap- 
point State  Executives,  may  have  in  it 
something  of  appeal  to  the  writer  of  that 
"Life  of  President  Wilson"  which  four 
years  ago  was  used  as  a  campaign  biog- 
raphy. He  believes  Hamilton's  constitu- 
tional idea  to  have  been  "plenary  power 
in  the  administration,  subject  to  direct 
and  continuous  accountability  to  the  peo- 
ple, maintained  by  a  representative  as- 
sembly, broadly  democratic  in  its  char- 
acter," while  Jefferson  wished  thr.t  the 
"powers  of  government  should  be  so 
divided  and  balanced  among  several 
bodies  of  magistracy  as  that  no  one  could 
transcend  their  legal  limits  without  being 
effectually  checked  and  restrained  by  the 
others."  If  he  is  right,  it  seems  that 
in  the  Presidential  campaign  upon  which 
the  country  is  now  entering,  those  who 
think  themselves  to  be  followers  of  Ham- 
ilton will  be  inclined  to  preach  the  Jef- 
fersonian  doctrine,  while  the  defense  of 
many  of  President  Wilson's  actions  will 
lead  the  loyal  members  of  his  party  to 
champion  Hamilton's  views,  whether  they 
be  aware  of  it  or  not. 

How  Hamilton's  plan  would  have 
worked,  no  one  can  with  certainty  say. 
Although  the  Presidency  is  without  some 
of  the  far-reaching  powers  he  wished  it 
to  have,  its  real  influence  has  been 
steadily  growing,  while  that  of  Congress 
has  been  shrinking.  Professor  Ford 
thinks  that  it  is  quite  possible  that  under 
such  a  Constitution  as  Hamilton  planned 
the  real  weight  of  Congress  would  have 
been  greater  than  it  now  is.  It  would 
almost  certainly  have  had  a  far  firmer 
hold  upon  the  imagination  and  affection 
of  the  people,  and  in  a  democracy  that 
counts  for  much. 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  Hamil- 
ton expected  that  the  principal  officers 
of  the  executive  administration  would 
draft  the  legislation  they  thought  expe- 
dient, and  would  in  person  explain  and 
defend  it  on  the  floor  of  each  of  the 
Houses.  If  throughout  our  history  this 
practice  had  been  actually  followed.  Pro- 
fessor Ford  thinks  Congress  would  be 
more  rather  than  less  powerful  to-day. 


June  30,  1920] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[679 


Such  a  method  of  legislating  would 
have  been  more  dramatic  and  therefore 
far  more  likely  to  attract  and  hold  public 
attention.  The  rejection  of  an  important 
ministerial  measure  would  have  been  a 
political  event  of  the  first  order.  The 
Cabinet  officer  responsible  for  it  might 
not  usually  have  lost  his  place,  for  the 
Constitution  carefully  guards  the  Presi- 
dential independence,  but  it  is  certain 
that  the  heads  of  the  great  executive  de- 
partments under  such  a  system  would 
necessarily  have  had  to  be  chosen  with 
an  eye  to  their  ability  to  get  on  with 
Congress.  The  possession  of  a  mind 
which  would  go  along  with  that  of  the 
President  might  have  been  a  less  im- 
portant qualification. 

The  precedent  which  has  ever  since 
excluded  Cabinet  ministers  from  direct 
participation  with  Congress  in  the  con- 
sideration of  legislation  was  made  by 
the  First  Congress.  In  coming  to  its 
decision,  the  House  followed  the  lead  of 
Madison.  Professor  Ford  suspects  that 
he  was  anxious  to  keep  Hamilton  from 
the  floor,  because  he  feared  that  the  elo- 
quent and  persuasive  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  might  favor  the  location  of  the 
capital  on  the  Susquehanna  or  the  Dela- 
ware, rather  than  on  the  Potomac.  If 
so,  great  consequences  flowed  from  a 
petty  cause. 

Most  students  of  Hamilton  will  agree 
with  the  author  in  thinking  that  the 
years  of  his  life  of  least  worth  either  to 
his  country  or  to  his  fame  were  those 
which  follawed  the  accession  of  Adams  to 
the  Presidency,  although  not  all  would 
agree  that  they  deserved  the  full  meas- 
ure of  condemnation  here  visited  upon 
them.  The  fact  is,  under  our  system  of 
government,  things  are  likely  to  work 
badly  whenever  an  influential  section  of 
the  party  in  power,  consciously  or  even 
unconsciously,  looks  for  leadership  to 
some  other  than  its  President.  Experi- 
ence has  shown  this  to  be  almost  equally 
true,  whether  the  occupant  of  the  White 
House  be  somewhat  vain  and  altogether 
peppery,  like  the  elder  Adams,  amiable 
if  perchance  a  trifle  weak,  like  Buchanan, 
or  modest  and  good  natured,  like  Taft, 
and  whether  the  unofficial  leader  be  a 
Hamilton,  a  Douglas,  or  a  Roosevelt. 

Such  difficulties  are  by  no  means  un- 
known even  under  a  parliamentary  gov- 
ernment of  the  British  type,  but  there 
they  are  usually,  although  of  course  not 
always,  speedily  adjusted  by  the  simple 
expedient  of  calling  the  real  head  of  the 
party  to  office.  Over  here  we  have  no 
such  easy  way  of  setting  things  right, 
and,  upon  each  of  the  three  occasions  re- 
ferred to,  party  disruption  and  loss  of 
power  was  the  consequence — in  the  first 
instance,  forever;  in  the  second,  for 
nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century,  and  in 
the  third,  for  at  least  two  Presidential 
terms. 

John  C.  Rose 


Mission  Life  at  St.  Antoine 

Le  Petit  Nord,  or  A>^kals  or  a  Labrador 
Harbour.  By  Anne  Grenfell  and  Katie 
Spalding.     Boston:    Houghton  Mifflin  Co. 

TTHE  headquarters  of  Dr.  Grenfell'a 
A  medical  mission  in  Labrador  is  at 
St.  Antoine,  situated  far  up  on  the 
eastern  side  of  the  long  tongue  of  New- 
foundland which  runs  to  the  north. 
Among  the  other  institutions  which  have 
grown  up  on  that  bleak  spot  is  an  or- 
phanage for  children  who  would  other- 
wise be  utterly  destitute.  An  English 
lady.  Miss  Spalding,  who  came  out  to 
take  charge  of  it,  wrote  letters  home  to 
a  friend  in  Scotland.  Those  letters,  to- 
gether with  some  of  Mrs.  Grenfell's,  have 
been  printed  to  form  these  annals.  They 
present  a  very  vivid,  unpretending  pic- 
ture of  things  as  they  really  are  in  this 
work,  viewed  by  a  capable,  energetic, 
and  humorous  temperament. 

Hardships  not  a  few  were  this  lady's 
lot  before  she  ever  reached  her  station — 
seasickness,  bad  food,  cold,  wet,  loss  of 
luggage,  expectorating  men  on  board  a 
crowded  little  steamer,  loneliness,  home- 
sickness. Of  all  of  these  she  makes  light, 
but  they  must  have  been  real  enough. 
Her  post  in  the  orphanage  was  no  bed 
of  roses.  Winter  lasts  nine  months.  In 
blizzards,  the  thermometer  falls  to  thirty 
below,  and  the  snow  sifts  in  through 
every  crack  and  crevice  of  the  orphan- 
age, in  spite  of  double  windows.  A  fire 
may  be  burning  briskly  in  the  kitchen 
range,  and  the  water  in  the  kettle  frozen. 
The  mere  mending  and  darning  for  a 
family  of  three  dozen  sturdy  children 
is  a  sufficient  task.  Looking  after  them 
when  the  whole  family  comes  down  with 
measles  would  seem  to  be  beyond  any 
one  woman's  strength.  Christianity  and 
a  strong  sense  of  humor  carry  her 
through.  Both  were  sorely  tried,  how- 
ever, when  a  bale  of  clothing  donated 
by  kind  friends  at  home  was  found  to 
consist  of  muslin  blouses  and'  old  ladies' 
bonnets. 

The  need  of  such  a  mission  must  be 
apparent  to  all.  Miss  Spalding  draws  an 
unflattering  picture  of  the  local  condi- 
tions. "There  is  no  education  worthy 
of  the  name,  in  many  places  no  schools 
at  all,  and  in  other  places  half-educated 
teachers  eking  out  a  miserable  existence 
on  a  mere  pittance.  This  is  chiefly  due 
to  the  antediluvian  custom  of  dividing 
the  Government  educational  grant  on  a 
denominational  basis.  A  large  propor- 
tion of  the  people  can  neither  read  nor 
write.  There  are  no  roads;  no  means  of 
communication,  no  doctors  or  hospitals 
(save  the  mission  ones),  no  opportunities 
for  improvement,  no  industrial  work, 
practically  no  domestic  animals,  and  on 
Labrador,  taxation  without  representa- 
tion! There  is  only  one  hospital  pro- 
vided by  the  Government  for  the  whole 
of  this   island,   and   that   one   is   at   St. 


John'.s,  which  is  inaccessible  to  these 
northern  people  for  the  greater  part  of 
the  year." 

Like  every  other  visitor  to  these 
shores,  Miss  Spalding  is  impressed 
with  the  truly  Christian,  boundless  char- 
ity of  the  very  poor.  She  instances  an 
old  blind  Frenchman  incapable  of  sup- 
porting himself.  "The  neighbors  vie 
with  each  other  by  helping  him.  One 
day  a  load  of  wood  will  find  its  way  to 
his  door.  The  next  a  few  fresh  'turr,' 
a  very  'fishy'  sea  auk,  are  left  ever  so 
quietly  within  his  woodshed — and  so  it 
goes.  It  is  a  constant  marvel  to  me  that 
these  people,  who  live  so  perilously  near 
the  margin  of  want,  are  always  so  eager 
to  share  up." 

The  Doctor  himself  has  provided  the 
book  with  a  series  of  pen-and-ink  draw- 
ings, the  humorous  intention  of  which 
is  more  commendable  than  the  technique. 
The  frontispiece  shows  a  steamer  wal- 
lowing in  tremendous  seas.  It  might 
serve  as  an  illustration  for  "The  Descent 
Into  the  Maelstrom";  but  surely  no 
steamer  could  have  carried  so  much  sail 
in  such  stress  of  weather. 

Archibald  MacMechan 

Unhappy  Tales 

Maureen.  By  Patrick  MacGill.  New  York : 
Robert  M.  McBride  and  Company. 

Harvest.  By  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward.  New 
York:  Dodd,  Mead  and  Company. 

""lyTaureen"  is  another  chapter  in  the 
ifj.  plaintive  tale  of  Ireland  as  told  by 
her  sons  of  this  generation:  the  tale  of 
Kathleen  ni  Houlihan,  beautiful  and 
adored,  embodiment  of  an  Ireland  that 
might  be  or  might  have  been;  and  the 
tale  of  a  dull  and  sordid  peasantrj',  with 
generous  impulses  but  mean  thoughts, 
ridden  by  the  gombeen  man  and  the 
parish  priest:  not,  Kathleen  or  no  Kath- 
leen, the  stuff  of  which  a  free  people 
is  to  be  made.  Such  is  the  effect  of  the 
testimony  of  these  young  Irish  poets  and 
novelists.  Their  passionate  love  for  Erin 
is  worship  of  a  mystical  queen:  a  wor- 
ship disturbed  and  distracted  by  the 
sight  of  the  unseemly  drab  they  have  to 
live  with.  Often,  as  in  the  recent  "Cb.nk- 
ing  of  Chains"  of  Brinsley  MacNamara, 
this  contrast  is  the  overt  theme  of  the 
story  teller.  With  Patrick  MacGill,  as 
a  rule,  his  persons  keep  the  foreground, 
and  their  story  embodies  rather  than 
merely  illustrates  the  tragi-comic  fate  of 
his  land.  The  portrait  of  Maureen  dom- 
inates this  book,  though  there  is  so  much 
else  in  it. 

Maureen  is  part  of  the  price  of  a  de- 
cent girl's  momentary  weakness.  In  the 
little  parish  of  Dungarrow  that  price 
must  be  paid  in  full;  though  a  broad- 
hearted  parish  priest  (for  whom  we  are 
grateful)  tempers  the  wind  as  he  may. 
Mother  and  daughter  are  devoted  to  each 
other.    The  mother  dies  when  Maureen 


680] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  .59 


has  come  to  full  maidenhood.  There  is 
a  tiny  propertj-  for  her,  but  she  now  feels 
the  odium  of  her  birth  and  wishes  to 
leave  Dungarrow.  Love  in  the  person  of 
the  manly  Cathal  Cassidy  is  at  her  feet ; 
but  she  thinks  herself  not  good  enough. 
After  some  uneasy  experiences  at  ser- 
vice "beyont  the  mountains,"  she  returns 
to  Dungarrow;  and  love  and  happiness 
seem  to  be  near  when  a  brutal  fate,  work- 
ing equally  through  her  Irish  innocence 
and  the  Irish  villainy  of  the  unspeakable 
Columb  Ruagh,  smears  her  out  of  inno- 
cence and  life  together,  as  a  careless 
hand  crushes  an  insect  on  a  window  pane. 
Ireland  is  left,  the  Ireland  of  fine 
dreams  and  of  squalid  Dungarrow,  to 
produce  other  Cathals  and  Columbs  and 
Haureens,  fated  to  mutual  destruction, 
while  time  endures.  ...  In  a  way 
Maureen  may  be  taken  as  a  symbolic 
Kathleen,  the  hapless  soul  of  that  un- 
easy land ;  but  she  may  better  stand  as  a 
human  portrait  of  appealing  reality. 
Cathal  and  his  fellow  Sinn  Feiners  may 
drill  and  plot  and  make  their  ill-judged 
demonstrations  for  a  free  Ireland.  It  is 
in  the  body  of  Maureen  that  the  Ireland 
of  to-day  has  its  being  and,  perhaps,  ful- 
fills its  sad  destiny. 

For  me  there  is  less  health  and  more 
melodrama  in  Mrs.  Ward's  latest  and  last 
novel,  "Harvest."  This  also  is  the  story 
of  a  woman's  hapless  fate;  but  while 
Maureen  in  her  simple  dignity  is  a  tragic 
figure,  Rachel  Henderson,  when  all  is  said 
a  feeble  soul  in  a  splendid  body,  never 
really  rises  above  pathos.  You  may  fall 
in  love  with  her,  but  she  is  not  lovable; 
you  may  credit  her  with  good  qualities, 
but  they  are  not  summed  up  in  character. 
To  give  the  story  in  bare  outline  is  to 
suggest  a  scenario  for  the  movies.  In- 
genue marries  gentleman  villain,  dis- 
covers his  true  character,  rebels,  is 
abused,  escapes,  gets  a  divorce.  This 
takes  place  in  Canada.  She  goes  back 
home  under  her  maiden  name,  becomes 
a  wartime  woman  farmer,  prospers, 
loves  again,  is  about  to  be  happy;  when 
re-enter  villain,  hard  up,  heartless,  black- 
mails her,  she  pays  him  five  hundred 
pounds  to  keep  away.  She  has  told  her 
soldier-lover,  EUesborough,  of  her  former 
marriage.  But  she  has  not  told  him 
"all";  namely,  that  in  the  confusion  and 
distress  of  her  first  divorced  days  she 
has  been  the  temporary,  quite  temporary, 
mistress  of  a  second  man.  The  villain 
knows  all,  and  knows  or  suspects  that 
EUesborough  is  ignorant.  After  bribing 
him,  Rachel  realizes  her  impossible  posi- 
tion, with  an  early  war-wedding  in  sight; 
writes  a  letter  to  EUesborough  telling 
him  "all" ;  EUesborough  gulps  again,  and 
flies  to  take  her  in  his  arms;  where  she 
is  shot  to  death  by  the  opium-crazed  and 
half-jealous  husband.  The  author  ap- 
pears to  have  a  suspicion  that  this  may 
be  as  good  a  solution  as  can  be  hoped  for 
in  the  circumstances :  "Had  it  been  after 


all  'deliverance'  for  Rachel  from  this 
'troublesome  world,'  and  the  temptations 
that  surround  those  who  are  not  strong 
enough  for  the  wrestle  that  Fate  sets 
them — that  a  God  appoints  them?"  But 
the  truth  is  that,  save  in  our  acceptance 
of  that  glamour  of  physical  health  and 
beauty  with  which  her  creator  strives  to 
invest  her,  there  is  little  in  this  Rachel 
to  engage  us  deeply.  She  is  a  quite  ordi- 
nary weak  young  woman  with,  for  all  we 
know,  extraordinary  looks,  who  tries  to 
dodge  the  consequences  of  her  weakness, 
finally  confesses,  and  is  forgiven;  also 
shot,  which  doesn't  matter  much,  one  way 
or  the  other.  Single-hearted  Maureen 
rather  than  the  muddled  Rachel  inspires 
in  us  the  deeper  pity  and  terror  which 
alone  may  ennoble  our  delving  into  the 
mysteries  of  passion  and  of  death.  I 
for  one  should  be  unhappy  if  it  were 
necessary  for  me  to  remember  Mrs.  Ward 
by  this  book. 

H.  W.  BOYNTON 

The  Run  of  the  Shelves 


Books  of  the  Week 

[Selected  by  Edmund  Lester  Pearson, 
Editor  of  Publications,  New  York 
Public  Library.] 

Life  of  Lord  Kitchener,  by  Sir  George 
Arthur.     Macmillan. 

In  three  volumes.  The  size  is 
justified  in  the  biography  of  a  man 
of  action,  whose  career  is  so  recent 
as  to  leave  plentiful  material.  Pre- 
sumably authentic,  and  intensely 
interesting. 

The  Peace  Conference  Day  by  Day, 
by  Charles  T.  Thompson.  Brentano. 
The  author  was  Superintendent 
of  the  Foreign  Service  of  the  As- 
sociated Press  in  Paris.  It  is  a 
diary,  beginning  with  President 
Wilson's  arrival  in  France. 

Follow  the  Little  Pictures,  by  Alan 
Graham.     Little,  Brown. 

A  novel  of  mystery  and  buried 

treasure  for  the  lovers  of  puzzles. 


I  DON'T  like  it,"  said  an  Anglican 
clergyman  concerning  the  Salvation 
Army,  "but  between  you  and  me,  I  think 
God  likes  it." 

So  will  many  readers  feel  about  "The 
Life  of  General  William  Booth,"  by 
Harold  Begbie  (Macmillan),  those  at 
least  who  are  not  in  complete  sympathy 
with  "old  fashioned"  evangelical  religion 
— and  it  is  safe  to  say  that  there  are 
fewer  now  than  there  were  fifty  years 
ago  who  look  to  the  Blood  of  the  Lamb 
for  cleansing  from*  sin,  in  whose  thought 
hell  stands  as  something  more  shrivel- 
ingly  real  than  the  colored  lights  of  pul- 
pit   dramatics.      A    liberal    in    religion, 


especially  if  he  be  somewhat  fastidious 
in  his  tastes,  will  feel  in  reading  the  first 
part  of  this  biography  a  somewhat  forced 
sympathy.  We  know  that  the  Salvation 
Army  does  almost  literally  a  world  of 
good,  and  we  always  drop  our  quarters 
into  the  tambourine  when  it  jingles  un- 
der our  noses,  but  we  do  not  propose  to 
make  ourselves  uncomfortable  about  it. 
To  any  except  the  elemental  mind  (for 
which  it  was  planned),  its  crudity  has  no 
appeal  until  it  becomes  monumental.  So 
in  the  first  part  of  the  biography  the 
reader  is  oppressed  by  an  atmosphere 
like  that  of  Zion  Chapel  in  Browning's 
"Christmas  Eve,"  distracted  by  it  so  that 
he  misses  the  very  beauty  he  is  seeking, 
that  of  a  completely  unselfish  spirit. 

"Historians  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury," says  Mr.  Begbie,  "will  probably 
pay  some  attention  to  the  architecture  of 
Nonconformity — this  deliberate  effort  of 
the  religious  conscience  to  do  without 
aids,  this  evident  suspicion  and  dislike 
of  beauty,  this  rather  hard  and  insensible 
insistence  on  utility.  .  .  .  More  than 
a  touch  of  the  Puritan  is  in  this  early 
Victorian  architecture  of  Nonconform- 
ity." It  is  the  architecture  of  Booth's 
own  spirit.  He  was,  we  are  told,  "not 
greatly  concerned  with  nature,  and  per- 
haps even  less  with  literature  and  art," 
he  "resolutely  turned  his  back  upon 
science,  and,  like  St.  Paul,  determined 
to  know  nothing  but  Christ,  and  Him 
crucified."  It  was  a  narrow  channel,  but 
its  narrowness  gave  the  spirit  half  its 
force.  At  first  the  force  was  not  great, 
but  it  was  absolutely  unquenchable;  its 
flow  was  ceaseless,  and  to  dam  it  back 
was  only  to  lend  it  power.  It  has  carried 
its  priesthood  and  ablution  to  almost 
every  earthly  shore,  and  incidentally  it 
carried  William  Booth  from  behind  the 
counter  of  a  pawnbroker's  shop  into  the 
palaces  of  kings.  It  is  the  type  of  the 
Puritan  spirit  in  its  intensity  in  all 
things,  in  the  conviction  of  religious 
truth,  the  indefatigable  zeal  for  pro- 
selyting, the  will  never  to  submit  but 
to  do  good  to  everybody  whether  any- 
body wants  it  or  not.  In  its  minor  as- 
pects it  commands  only  annoyance.  If 
it  is  misguided  it  is  disastrous — "Lord, 
do  Thou  guide  us  aright,"  says  the 
Puritan  prayer,  "for  Thou  knowest  that 
whether  we  be  right  or  wrong  we  be 
veiy  determined."  Only  when  it  is  suc- 
cessful, when  it  moves  a  Crusade,  plants 
a  continent,  abolishes  slavery,  does  it 
command  admiration.  At  the  end  of  Mr. 
Begbie's  two  volumes  one  is  left  in  no 
doubt  that  General  Booth  was  successful. 
The  conviction  might  have  been  obtained 
with  fewer  words;  for  the  general  reader 
there  are  rather  too  many  "interesting 
cases"  of  conversion  described  in  the 
more  or  less  technical  diction  of  revival- 
ism, too  much  journalism  in  the  way  of 
press  clippings  and  tributes  from  royalty. 
But  the  record  as  a  whole  is  an  inspiring 


June  30,  1920] 


one  of  heroic  achievement  against  heavy 
odds,  and  the  portrait  is  successfully 
drawn,  for  through  details  that  might 
tend  to  obscure  it  the  figure  shines 
clearly  of  the  man  of  intense  spirit,  of 
uncompromising  sincerity  (no  one  can 
doubt  it  now),  undiminishing  sensibility 
and  sympathy,  and  large  vision  of  his 
chosen  task. 

The  personality  of  the  author  of 
"Democracy"  and  "Passion" — the  latter 
was  reviewed  in  one  of  our  recent  issues 
— is  as  interesting  as  his  novels.  Shaw 
Desmond  is  an  Irishman  on  his  father's 
side.  His  mother  is  an  Englishwoman, 
who  comes  of  a  French  Huguenot  fam- 
ily— La  Fontaine.  He  was  originally  in 
"big  business,"  and  at  twenty-three — he 
is  now  forty-three — was  secretary  to, 
and,  later,  director  in,  five  or  six  limited 
liability  companies  in  London.  He  writes 
in  a  private  letter: 

I  always  really  hated  business  but  wanted 
to  "make  good"  and  get  as  soon  as  possible 
to  my  real  work — writing,  which  I  began  in 
1912,  and  public  speaking.  I  lived  the  first 
ten  years  of  my  life  in  Ireland  and  still 
think  it  "God's  country,"  with  America  a 
good  second.  I  can  say  without  affectation 
that  I  love  America  and  her  people,  and  am 
one  of  those  who  believe  that  she  is  not 
primarily  a  money-getter — the  common  su- 
perstition— nor  boasting.  The  only  Ameri- 
cans who  boast  that  I  have  met  are  those 
living  in  Europe.  I  have  great  hopes  for 
her  future  in  art;  and  the  reading  quality  of 
the  American  public  is  some  sixty  or  seventy 
per  cent,  above  that  of  England — why  I  do 
^ot  know — so  that  my  stories,  which  some 
of  the  best  critics  on  this  side  have  said  are 
unique  in  their  way,  stand  a  poor  chance 
of  recognition  here.  I  have  begun  on  some 
plays,  one  of  which — "My  Country" — will,  I 
hope,  soon  be  performed  here  by  the  Peo- 
ple's Theatre  Society  upon  the  executive  of 
which  I  am.  I  may  add  that  "Passion,"  like 
all  my  books,  is  "a  story  without  a  plot." 
People   call   them    novels — a    detestable    word. 

Mr.  Desmond  wrote  for  many  years  for 
the  leading  European  newspapers,  re- 
views, etc.;  stood  for  Parliament  as  an 
Independent  Socialist  against  Cabinet 
Minister  John  Burns  in  the  1910  election 
and  "got  badly  beaten  after  six  days  give 
and  take." 

Mr.  Desmond  has  lectured  in  many 
countries,  meeting  with  special  success 
during  the  war  in  Denmark,  Norway, 
and  Sweden.  He  speaks  Danish  fluently, 
having  lived  in  Copenhagen  for  a  long 
time  and  being  married  to  the  Danish 
writer  Karen  Ewald,  daughter  of  the 
late  Carl  Ewald,  the  novelist  and  poet. 
In  fact  his  first  book — "Fru  Danmark" 
(Mother  Denmark) — appeared  in  1917 
in  Danish  and  came  out  later  in  Eng- 
lish as  "The  Soul  of  Denmark."  We  may 
add  that  the  American  public  will  soon 
be  able  to  judge  of  Mr.  Desmond's  ability 
as  a  lecturer,  as  he  is  to  make  a  tour  in 
this  country  in  the  autumn,  beginning  at 
New  York. 

From  the  window  of  your  room  in  the 
Hotel  d'Angleterre  at  Rouen,  you  look 
(Continued  on  page  682) 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[681 


NOW  AT  YOUR  BOOKSELLERS  ! 

THE  WIND  BETWEEN  THE  WORLDS 

By  AUCE  BROWN 

A  swiftly  moving  plot  and  dramatic  action  evolves  against  the  background  of 
automatic  writing  and  communication  with  the  dead.  A  timely  novel  of  extraordinary 
mterest  in  which  the  crisp  realities  of  daily  experience  play  against  the  dubious  dis- 
coveries of  a  pseudo  scientist. 

American  Guide  Book  to  France  and  its 
Battlefields  $3-50 

By  Lieut.-Col.    E.    B.    Garey,  A.  E.  F.  ;    Lieut.-Col.    O.    O. 
Ellis,  A.  E.  F.;   Lieut.-Col.  R.   V.  D.  Magoffin,  O.  R.  C. 

With  a  foreword  by  Major-General  Leonard  Wood 
A  "^w,  3"d  practical  guide  book,  giving  especial  attention   to  the  battlefields  of 
the  Great  War,  and  thoroughly  dependable  in  matters  of  civil  and  military  history. 

Tlie  Human  Factor  in  Industry 

By  Lee  K.  Frankel,  Ph.D. 

Third  Vice-President  of  the  Metropolitan  Life  Insurance  Company 

AND 

Alexander  Fleisher,  Ph.D. 

Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Metropolitan  Life  Insurance  Company 
A   keen    and    comprehensive   analysis    of    personnel    work    in    industry    from    the 
standpoint  of  better  cooperation  between  employer  and  employee.    A  book  of  distinct 
practical  value  to  the  business  man  as  well  as  the  general  public. 

Helping  Men  Own  Farms 

By  Elwood  Mead  $2.35 

An   authoritative    survey    of  government   aid    in    land    settlement,    discussing   the 

history  of  past  attempts  in  this  country   and   in  Europe,   with  especial   reference  to 
present  conditions. 

Bluestone 

By  Marguerite  Wilkinson  $1.50 

A  series  of  remarkable  poems  written  with  freedom,  passion  and  beauty.     One  of 
the  most  original  productions  of  the  recent  poetic  renaissance. 

Marion  Frear's  Summer 

By  Margaret  Ashmun  $i-75 

An  exceedingly  amusing  book  for  girls  by  the  author  of  the  famous  Isabel 
Carleton  series. 

Occasional  Papers  and  Addresses  of  an 
American  Lawyer 

By  Henry  W.    Taft  $2.50 

A  timely  volume  containing  brilliantly  written  and  carefully  thought  out  conclusions 
on  the  most  important  national  and  political  questions  now  agitating  the  public  mind. 

A  Service  of  Love  in  War  Time 

By  Rufus  M.  Jones  $2.50 

An  inspiring  interpretation  and  history  of  the  work  of  the  American  Friends 
during  the  war  in  rebuilding  homes,  reviving  agriculture,  reconstructing  devastated 
areas  and  saving  the  lives  of  children. 

The  Religious  Consciousness 

By  James  Bissett  Pratt  $4.00 

.\  thorough  and  comprehensive  analysis  of  the  religious  consciousness  from  the 
standpoint  of  an  unbiased  observer  who  is  closely  acquainted  with  the  entire  literature 
of  the  subject. 

THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY,       Pubiuh.r,       NEW  YORK 


682] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  59 


(Continued  from  page  681) 
down  on  the  deck  of  a  slender  little 
steamer  at  its  dock  in  the  Seina  It  is 
there  in  the  evening,  but  when  you  open 
the  shutters  after  your  breakfast  in  bed 
it  is  gone.  Thereafter  it  lingers  in  your 
mind,  and  whenever  you  think  of  it  you 
wish  you  had  cut  loose  from  your  care- 
fully planned  itinerary  and  taken  that 
little  boat  down  the  Seine  to  Havre.  If 
you  missed  the  journey  when  you  were 
there,  you  may  take  it,  turned  end  for 
end,  between  the  covers  of  Anna  Bow- 
man Dodd's  "Up  the  Seine  to  the  Bat- 
tlefields" (Harpers).  It  is  a  rather 
sentimental  little  journey.  Episodes  are 
of  the  slenderest ;  emotional  contracts  are 
light.  Placid  shores,  dim  rich  cities,  an- 
cient villages,  drift  by  in  tones  a  trifle 
too  pale,  dimmed  rather  than  enriched 
by  the  atmosphere  through  which  Mrs. 
Dodd  shows  them.  They  gain,  however, 
by  the  historical  background  against 
which  here  and  there  they  are  sketched, 
the  flight  of  royalty  deposed,  the  funeral 
barge  of  the  exiled  Emperor,  the  storied 
towers  of  Jumieges,  the  death  of  the  Con- 
queror. Unfortunately  Mrs.  Dodd's  style 
is  too  hasty — at  points  it  is  positively 
slipshod — to  carry  the  finer  effects  that 
would  make  for  complete  success  in  such 
work  as  this.  But  the  book  is  enticing 
for  its  review  of  the  little  French  towns, 
churches,  towers,  and  abbeys,  the  love  of 
which  is  now  so  widespread  in  the  United 
States.     And  reading  it  makes  you  cer- 


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and  the  Search 
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By  GUSTAV  POLLAK 

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'The  Hygiene  of  the  Soul,"  etc 

A  series  of  essays  just  issued  on 
the  importance  of  preserving  an 
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literature.  Among  the  subjects 
treated  are: 

Literature  and  Patriotism ; 
Goethe's  Universal  Interests ; 
Grillparzer's  Originality ;  Sainte- 
Beuve's  Unique  Position ; 
Lowell:  Patriot  and  Cosmopoli- 
tan ;  Permanent  Literary  Stand- 
ards; Feuchtersleben  the  Phi- 
losopher, etc. 

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tain  of  one  thing,  when  next  you  are  at 
Havre  or  Rouen  nothing  earthly  shall 
prevent  you  from  taking  that  little  boat 
on  the  Seine. 

The  Columbia  University  Press  is  re- 
sponsible for  the  American  edition  of  the 
"English-Speaking  Brotherhood  and  the 
League  of  Nations,"  by  Sir  Charles 
Walston  (emendation  for  Waldstein). 
This  work  is  partly  a  re-issue  of  an 
earlier  book,  the  "Expansion  of  West- 
ern Ideals  and  the  World's  Peace,"  pub- 
lished in  1899,  partly  a  sheaf  of  lectures 
and  articles  of  very  recent  date,  among 
which  "Nationality  and  Hyphenism"  and 
the  "Next  War,  Wilsonism  and  Anti-Wil- 
sonism"  are  the  most  conspicuous.  Sir 
Charles  is  coolly,  soberly,  even-tem- 
peredly,  but  resolutely  bent  on  the  aboli- 
tion of  war  by  some  form  of  international 
concert.  He  is,  in  a  word,  the  prose 
idealist,  a  man  much  more  likely  to  serve 
us  in  our  present  straits  than  the  prose 
realist  or  the  poetic  idealist.  What  he 
wants,  however,  is  not  a  League  of 
Nations  so  called,  but  a  Supernational 
Court  backed  by  Power.  But  his  Court 
remains  rather  indistinct,  and  the  armies 
that  enforce  its  decisions  are  phantom- 
like. This  is  a  criticism,  not  of  his  plan, 
but  of  his  exposition,  and  his  allotment 
of  four  pages  to  so  incidental  and  ines- 
sential a  point  as  the  employment  of 
Latin  as  an  international  tongue  makes 
one  rather  impatient  of  his  meagreness 
on  larger  matters.  Sir  Charles  is  a 
zealous  advocate  of  a  closer  bond  between 
Great  Britain  and  the  United  States.  Up 
to  the  present  hour  the  world,  in  his 
judgment,  has  been  saved  by  the  leader- 
ship of  Great  Britain.  Between  this  mo- 
ment and  the  establishment  of  a  Super- 
national  (jourt  it  is  to  be  saved  by  the 
concerted  leadership  of  Great  Britain 
and  America. 

There  is  a  steadying  influence,  for  all 
but  the  craziest  minds,  in  the  contempla- 
tion of  the  experiments  and  failures  of 
the  past.  There  rise  in  these  as  in  a 
mirror  the  Utopian  visions  of  our  own 
day;  but  we  see,  too,  the  plunge  into 
reality,  the  maddened  conflict  to  carry 
through,  the  crash  and  the  chaos.  And 
then  we  see  the  same  old  human  nature 
calmly  resurgent,  a  little  dishevelled  for 
a  time;  but  unshaken.  The  pity  is  that 
those  who  need  the  lesson  can  not  see  it ; 
they  are  sure  that  they  have  found  the 
pinch  of  difference  needed  to  make  the 
prescription  a  success  for  the  admittedly 
sick  world.  Yet  such  simple,  direct, 
shoft  statements  as  Ameen  Rihani's 
"Descent  of  Bolshevism"  (Boston,  Strat- 
ford Co.)  may  reach  some  who  would 
never  look  at  formal  histories.  It  is  built 
on  pungent  axioms  of  the  marketplace, 
and  its  sketches  of  previous  Bolshevist 
dreamers  and  their  uprisings,  all  of  the 
nearer  East  except  that  of  the  European 
Illuminati  of  the  eighteenth  century,  are 


not  obscured  by  details  or  historic  dubi- 
tations.  He  tells  his  stories  roundly  and 
underlines  his  morals  blackly;  but  his 
essential  facts  are  sound. 

It  is  evident  that  the  Indian  stories  of 
"F.  W.  Bain"  are  filled,  for  many  people, 
with  a  very  subtle  and  hardly  describable 
attraction.  It  is  almost  the  physical  and 
yet  ethereal  attraction  of  a  perfume;  and 
on  perfumes,  still  less  than  on  tastes,  can 
there  be  disputing.  Perfumes,  too,  are 
on  the  border  line  of  the  sensuous  and 
the  sensual;  few  have  in  them  the  clean, 
free  breath  of  moorland  winds,  and  they 
pass  rapidly  into  the  intoxicating  mias- 
mas of  the  hothouse.  So  it  is  in  these 
stories,  with  their  mingling  of  realism 
and  the  fairy  tale,  of  human  passions  and 
oriental  lay -figures.  The  last,  which  has 
just  appeared,  "The  Substance  of  a 
Dream"  (Putnam),  will  please  those 
whom  the  others  have  pleased.  It  is  very 
feminine ;  sensuous  to  the  point  of  orgies 
of  kissing;  sensual  with  soul-huntings 
and  languors  and  faintings;  fleshly  in 
artistic  ecstasies;  and  psychological  in 
imaginative  suggestion.  Its  "fabula" 
is  evidently  Indian;  its  mise-en-scene 
shows  good  knowledge  of  Indian  mythol- 
ogy; but  its  human  characters  are  not 
convincingly  oriental  and  their  motives 
are  sicklied  over  with  western  mysticism 
and  questionings.  As  for  the  author — 
aut  femina  aut  diabola!  She  knows  too 
much  about  women  and,  still  more, 
thinks  too  meanly  of  them — is  too  un- 
fair to  them — to  be  aught  else  herself. 
As  Southey's  sturdy  English  nature 
stood  out  from  and  over  his  "Kehama," 
so  here — the  very  woman.  Hers,  too,  is 
a  western  nature  with  western  yearn- 
ings, guessings,  graspings,  but  bound, 
too,  with  western  inhibitions.  No  Ori- 
ental would  have  stopped  and  found 
heaven  where  it  is  found  for  a  moment 
here;  Orientals  are  of  a  more  natural 
mind  and  more  direct. 

It  is  in  its  cities  that  a  counti-y's  in- 
tellectual life  flourishes.  To  be  deprived 
of  them  means  to  lose  the  nurseries  of 
national  culture.  That  is  the  sad  plight 
to  which  Hungary  is  reduced  by  the 
terms  of  the  peace  treaty.  To  Rumania, 
to  Jugoslavia,  to  Czechoslovakia  she  has 
to  cede  a  number  of  towns  of  purely  or 
preponderantly  Hungarian  populations, 
such  as  Komarom,  the  native  town  of 
the  novelist  Jokai,  Kassa,  sacred  to  the 
memory  of  Prince  Rakoczy;  Presburg, 
where  the  Hungarian  Kings  were 
crowned;  Szabadka,  Nagyvarad,  Temes- 
var,  Klausenburg,  are  all  lost  to  the 
country  and  to  Hungarian  literature,  as 
a  ban  is  laid  on  the  import  of  Magyar 
books.  The  sale  of  the  published  output 
is  thus  restricted  to  Budapest  and  to 
the  countryside,  where  the  demand  for 
books  is  limited.  The  Hungarian  people 
are,  apparently,  in  danger  of  intellectual 
starvation. 


June  30,  1920] 


thp:  weekly  review 


[688 


Early  June 


Now  is  the  season  of  perfumes.  In 
the  country  the  clover;  in  the  city, 
roses,  honeysuckle,  syringa;  and  in  one's 
garden  all  of  these  with  the  peonies  and 
iris. 

The  breeze  as  it  conies  from  the  south- 
ward smells  as  if  on  its  way  it  had  gath- 
ered the  sweetness  of  millions  of  flowers 
and  borne  it  northward  as  promise  of 
beauty   to   follow. 

Come  open  my  east  porch  door  with  me 
to-morrow  morning  when  the  shadows 
are  long  and  every  grass  blade  holds  a 
dew-drop,  and  be  greeted  by  the  fra- 
grance of  the  Trier  rose  that  is  climbing 
up  the  side  of  the  portal,  and  you  will 
stand  still  with  me  just  smelling.  The 
warming  sun,  opening  the  coming  buds, 
seems  to  draw  out  every  whiff  of  sweet- 
ness and  offer  it  to  greet  the  morning. 
Or  shall  we  go  out  the  west  door  into 
the  honeysuckle,  or  the  front  door  to 
the  south,  where  comes  the  evasive  yet 
penetrating  fragrance  of  the  Russian 
olive  mingled  with  syringa? 

Everywhere  the  birds  are  singing. 
The  sun  shines  through  the  iris  border, 
turning  blue  lavenders  to  pinks  and  pur- 
ples to  glowing  wine,  red  like  the  red 
of  old  stained  glass. 

East  of  the  garden  itself  the  syringa 
hedge  is  flooding  the  surrounding  air 
with  an  almost  overpowering  sweetness. 
The  colors,  the  freshness,  the  fragrance 
are  intoxicating.  One's  artist  soul  gazes 
spellbound  from  fluted  petal  to  sunlit 
green.  Flower  colors  against  the  sun- 
light! See  where  the  light  passing 
through  a  petal  is  reflected  and  reflected 
back  and  forth  until  the  whole  flower 
head  seems  to  glow  as  with  an  inward 
light  of  its  own,  as  if  a  bit  of  sun  were 
there  imprisoned  in  its  heart.  The  color 
of  reflected  shadows,  true  shadows,  sun- 
light itself,  defy  the  palette  and  enthrall 
the  eye.  The  beauty  is  bewildering,  con- 
fusing, almost  crushing.  Do  you  feel  a 
little  dazed  by  such  superlatives?  This 
is  what  I  would  convey  to  you,  something 
penetrating,  saturating,  almost  over- 
powering. 

It  seems  as  if  the  weather  man  felt 
that  heaven  was  getting  too  near  earth, 
and  that  something  must  be  done  to  keep 
us  from  being  too  happy;  so  he  always 
arranges  that  the  opening  of  the  peonies 
shall  be  the  signal  for  showers.  As  the 
clouds  gather  and  darken,  we  rush  from 
the  house  to  pick  the  half  open  buds  to 
save  them  from  such  desecration.  One 
gathers  and  gathers  until  the  house  will 
hold  no  more,  and  every  guest  is  im- 
pressed into  taking  away  an  armful  to 
preserve  us  from  suffocation  by  sweet- 
ness. Still  one  carefully  scans  the  border 
o'er  and  o'er  to  see  if  more  may  not  be 
planted  somewhere. 

Have  you  ever  smelt  miles  and  miles 
(Continued  on  page  684) 


To  understand  and  discuss   intelligently  this  vital  question 
you,    as    an     American     citizen    and     voter,    should    read 

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684] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  59 


(Continued  from  page  683) 
of  clover?  Pink  clover,  standing  tall, 
ready  to  cut,  and  the  low  white  clover 
growing  in  the  pastures?  That  is  the 
way  the  countrj*  smells  now,  alternating 
with  the  newly  mown  alfalfa  lying  loose, 
not  piled  up  with  its  white  hats  on  to 
protect  it  from  the  showers.  The  wheat 
is  so  tall  one  can  no  longer  see  its  comb- 
ings and  some  of  it  is  heading.  The 
corn  runs  a  thread  of  green  along  the 
furrows  or  radiates  off  in  perfect  geo- 
metrical lines  opposite  one's  eyes  as  one 
drives  by. 

Everywhere  the  green  this  year  is  su- 
perbly dense  and  dark.  The  elms  along 
the  streams  can  hardly  hold  their  plumes 
of  leaves,  they  are  so  heavy,  and  every- 
where the  growth  is  lush  and  rank.  The 
wheat  against  the  purple  black  or  culti- 
vated corn  fields,  the  corduroy  of  the 
potatoes,  the  pastures,  and  the  oats 
change  and  glow  under  the  passing  cloud 
shadows;  the  near  hedgerow  stands  out 
against  the  distant  blues,  the  patch- 
work of  the  fields  upon  the  receding 
ridge;  all  is  so  varied,  so  abundant,  one 
feels  the  electricity  of  growth.  It  is  so 
vast,  so  strong,  so  rich,  so  very  beautiful. 
A  mound  of  honeysuckle  on  a  farmer's 
gate  post  reminds  one  that  the  city,  too, 
is  sweet  with  fragrance  on  almost  every 
wall  and  portico. 

At  this  season  I  can  not  understand 
why  every  one  does  not  havt  a  garden. 
What  are  moles,  caterpillars,  and  the  per- 


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sistent  aphis  when  such  as  this  may  be 
produced  ?  Should  we  become  too  happy, 
"  too  stodgry,  complacent,  self-satisfied  if 
none  of  these  had  been  put  here  for  our 
tormenting?  I  suppose  so,  I  fear  that 
an  all-wise  Providence  knew  what  must 
be  done  to  keep  us  growing  on  the  way 
to  heaven.  Probably  without  them  we 
should  sit  all  day  agaze,  sometimes  think- 
ing, but  more  often  just  "a-settin'." 

No  gardener  out  here  can  just  "set"; 
victory  is  only  to  the  vigilant  and 
valiant.  Between  the  weather,  the  wild 
young  rodents  that  stalk  above  and 
scramble  below  ground,  the  world  of 
fliers  and  crawlers,  one  has  plenty  of 
occupation.  When  I  once  was  told  that 
the  mole  was  more  prolific  than  the 
guinea  pig,  for  a  moment  I  almost  gave 
up  gardening.  But  my  sporting  instinct 
to  win  out  came  to  my  aid. 

Our  gardening  has  peculiar  exhilara- 
tions about  it  unknown  in  the  East  be- 
cause it  is  yearly  so  varied.  When  we 
have  a  warm,  moist  spring,  like  life  in 
a  greenhouse,  poppies  think  they  are  hol- 
lyhocks and  hollyhocks  aspire  to  emulate 
the  tower  of  Babel,  with  similarly  disas- 
trous results.  Sometimes  one's  border 
plants  become  "masses,"  and  sometimes 
one's  masses  become  handsome  sticks  of 
witheredness.     It  is  never  monotonous. 

I  once  grew  a  little  neat  sunflower  four 
feet  high  with  small  flowers  on  the  end 
of  every  branch  and  I  thought  what  a 
nice  hedge  it  would  make  between  me 
and  my  neighbor.  I  planted  it.  That 
year  we  had  a  wet  season,  and  my  hedge 
grew  eleven  feet  tall  with  wild  arms 
sticking  out  in  every  direction,  the  flow- 
ers at  their  ends  looking  about  the  size  of 
buttons.  I  had  forgotten  that  the  year 
before  it  had  not  rained  much  from  May 
to  August.  And  one  year  my  annual 
poppies  lived  through  the  winter  and 
came  to  bloom  in  May  along  with  all 
the  blue  pinks  of  the  peonies,  sweet 
William,  and  spice  pinks.  It  was  per- 
fectly magnificent,  but  it  was  not  just 
what  I  had  intended.  Of  course,  in  June 
I  had  nothing,  but  no  one  could  say  I 
had  not  had  poppies.  I  fastened  my 
eyes  on  the  hollyhocks,  which  had  grown 
twice  the  height  of  any  proper  holly- 
hock, and  felt  as  if  giants  were  standing 
all  round  the  yard  daring  me  to  murmur 
a  single  word  about  the  poppies. 

We  do  not  have  the  gardens  of  Europe, 
the  neatness  produced  by  the  middle- 
aged,  trained  gardener,  the  cut  hedges, 
the  grass  paths,  not  a  hair  ever  out  of 
line.  No,  we  certainly  do  not.  If  we 
did,  we  should  not  be  true  to  our  souls, 
which  express  themselves  in  gardens  just 
as  well  as  in  rooms.  Besides,  we  have 
not  gardened  as  long  as  we  have  without 
learning  that  many  things  can  be  done 
but  that  some  are  impossible.  The  great 
force  that  grows  the  food  to  feed  the 
world  is  not  to  be  held  down  inside  a 
garden  bed.    When  it  feels  the  urge,  it 


pushes  all  man-puny  forces  aside  and 
thrusts  up  fierce  green  arms  into  the 
sun.  One  is  awed,  almost  terrified,  to 
see  the  resistless  strength  with  which 
it  goes  about  its  business. 

Our  gardens  are  like  our  cities  and 
our  lives.  Full  of  beauty,  full  of  prom- 
ise, but  incomplete,  irregular.  They  lure, 
they  baffle,  but  still  they  beckon.  What 
one  creates  one  loves,  the  force  to  grow 
more  beauty  lies  at  hand;  it  is  for  us 
to  choose  whether  weeds  or  flowers  shall 
be  the  output.  It  calls,  and  more  and 
more  are  answering. 

E.  G.  H. 


Drama 

"The  Merchant  of  Venice" 
at  the  Playhouse 

THE  Merchant  of  Venice"  took  its 
place  among  the  prophylactics  of 
cancer  when  the  generosity  of  many  the- 
atrical people  gave  a  benefit  to  the  Amer- 
ican Society  for  the  prevention  of  that 
disease  on  the  evening  of  June  10th  at 
the  Playhouse.  The  American  Society 
slipped  a  pamphlet  into  each  programme, 
in  which,  with  great  frankness  on  ugly 
symptoms  and  great  emphasis  on  tiny 
ones,  it  gave  us  all  to  understand  that 
cancer  was  hardly  farther  from  us  than 
Shylock's  knife  from  Antonio's  breast. 
"You  must  prepare  your  bosom  for  the 
knife"  said  the  American  Society,  in 
effect,  to  us.  Now  I  respect  the  Society 
and  I  would  certainly  rather  forward 
than  retard  its  propaganda ;  but  they  had 
offered  me  in  exchange  for  good  money 
a  good  time,  and  I  had,  and  still  have, 
a  slight  sense  of  a  wrong  in  the  discovery 
of  a  death's  head  in  the  golden  casket. 

The  performance,  in  spite  of  certain 
roughnesses  which  leisure  or  repetition 
would  have  planed  away,  was  an  agree- 
able one.  In  one  major  point  it  was 
more  agreeable  and  very  probably  more 
Elizabethan  than  the  accepted  high-class 
representation  of  the  drama.  The  mod- 
ern Shylock  has  outgrown  or  overgrovra 
the  play.  He  would  subdue,  dominate, 
and  darken  the  entire  action,  if  the  play, 
like  Jessica,  did  not  evade  his  mastery  by 
an  escape  to  Belmont  where  it  recovers 
its  spirits  in  the  gayety  of  Portia.  But 
the  Shylock  of  Mr.  Edmund  Waldman  is 
a  mild  Shylock.  The  make-up  is  more 
sordid  than  terrible;  it  is  the  face  one 
might  expect  to  find  behind  the  curtain 
at  the  entrance  of  an  Italian  cathedral 
or  on  the  lowest  step  of  the  stairway 
leading  to  the  "Elevated"  in  New  York. 
He  is  an  unpleasantness  rather  than  a 
horror  in  the  play.  We  trust  our  Shake- 
speare, and  we  are  quite  assured  that 
this  land  rat  or  water  rat,  whichever  he 
may  be,  will  not  be  suffered  finally  to 


June  30,  1920] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[685 


have  his  evil  way  with  well-dressed  and 
handsome  people. 

The  performance,  accordingly,  under- 
goes a  kind  of  release,  it  resumes  its  na- 
tive elasticity.  The  Shakespearean  Ven- 
ice asserts  its  spell — that  magical  Venice, 
in  which  the  merchandise  is  silks  and 
spices,  and  the  merchants  are  dreamers, 
and  the  spendthrifts  poets  and  phil- 
osophers, and  the  serving-maids  ladies, 
and  the  ladies  (anticipating  our  own 
time)  doctors,  and  the  roysterers  gentle- 
men, in  which  the  talk  shines  with  rings 
and  jewels,  and  fortunes  come  and  go 
with  the  lightsomeness  of  cavaliers.  The 
minor  parts  fell  in  with  this  impression. 
The  Bassanio  was  rich  voiced,  the  Lo- 
renzo was  very  handsome,  the  Jessica  was 
delicately  right,  the  Launcelot  was  crisp 
in  resilience,  the  Gratiano  abounded — 
somewhat  overbounded — in  torpedoes, 
and  the  Duke  was  perfect  in  a  straitened 
part. 

Miss  Laura  Walker  made  a  .somewhat 
unequal  Portia.  Neither  her  face  nor 
her  voice  is  markedly  expressive.  On  the 
other  hand,  there  was  a  freedom — some- 
times a  felicity— in  her  action  which 
seemed  to  overflow  and  break  down  the 
limits  of  the  personality  suggested  by 
the  face  and  voice.  In  the  trial  scene 
she  was  really  good.  She  attempted  no 
more  masculinity  than  a  clever  woman 
could  easily  and  evenly  compass,  and  her 
adherence  to  this  form  of  masculinity 
was  faithful.  Miss  Walker  takes  her  act- 
ing seriously  enough  to  know  that  Portia, 
too,  would  take  Portia's  acting  seriously, 
that  she  would  not  allow  the  woman  to 
become  visible  through  the  transparen- 
cies of  the  boy. 

There  is  one  point  in  the  handling  of 
the  fifth  act  which  lures  me  into  inci- 
dental criticism.  It  is  a  criticism  of  the 
current  practice  rather  than  of  the  Play- 
house actors,  for  whose  adhesion  to  that 
practice  in  a  single  night's  benefit  per- 
formance no  excuse  is  required.  The 
fifth  act  in  "The  Merchant  of  Venice"  is 
an  idyl.  Now  if  an  idyl  is  indigestible  at 
eleven  P.  M. — an  hour  at  which  diges- 
tion, physical  or  mental,  is  rebellious — 
let  us  frankly  and  curtly  stop  the  play 
with  Act  IV.  But  if  we  dare  the  idyl, 
let  us  not  flee  from  our  own  valor 
by  playing  it  at  a  quickstep  through 
which  its  suave  and  sumptuous  grace  is 
snatched  from  the  pursuing  ear  and  eye. 
"The  Merchant  of  Venice"  will  not  bear 
the  spur.  It  is  leisurely  everywhere, 
even  in  the  tense  court  scene  it  is  delib- 
erate. It  is  stately  in  its  very  joyous- 
ness;  its  relation  to  "Twelfth  Night"  or 
"As  You  Like  It"  is  precisely  like  that 
of  Portia  to  Viola  or  Rosalind,  an  equal 
merriment  reposing  on  a  larger  dignity. 
That  dignity  is  lost  when  the  play  scamp- 
ers and  scurries  through  an  unceremoni- 
ous fifth  act  to  a  precipitate  end. 

0.  W.  Firkins 


BY  TfVO  OF  THE  AMERICAN  DELEGATES 

SOME  PROBLEMS  OF  THE 
PEACE  CONFERENCE 

By 

CHARLES  HOMER  HASKINS 

Chief    of    the    Division    of    Western    Europe    of    the    American 
Commission  to  Negotiate  Peace 

AND 


ROBERT  HOWARD  LORD 

Chief  of  the  Russian-Polish  Division 


viii  +  310  pages 


6  maps 


Price,  $3.00 


In  the  main  this  volume  gives  a  rapid  survey  of  the  principal 
elements  in  the  territorial  settlement  of  Europe,  which  Charles 
Seignobos  has  called  "the  most  reasonable  part  of  the  work  of  the 
Conference."  At  the  same  time,  however,  attention  is  given  to 
economic  conditions  and  to  questions  which  affect  the  League  of 
Nations,  and  there  is  agraphic  description  of  the  tasks  and  methods 
of  the  Conference.  The  authors,  as  two  of  the  most  important 
advisers  of  the  gathering,  had  the  advantage  of  first-hand  acquaint- 
ance with  their  subject. 

Secret  Treaties  of  Austria-Hungary,  1879-1914 

Vol.  I :  Texts  of  the  Treaties  and  Agreements 

Edited  by  Alfred  F.  Pribram,  of  the  University  of  Vienna; 
American  edition  by  Archibald  Cary  Coolidge,  of  Harvard 
University.  326  pages.     $2.^0 

"Absolutely  indispensable  to  any  student  of  history." — Glasgoiv 
Herald. 

"An  interesting  and  important  collection." — American  Historical 
Review. 


Three  Peace  Congresses  of  the  19th  Century ; 
Claimants  to  Constantinople 

By  Charles  Downer  Hazen,  William  Roscoe  Thayer, 
Robert  Howard  Lord,  and  Archibald  Cary  Coolidge. 

93  pages.    $1.00 

Four  essays  on  the  Congresses  of  Vienna,  Paris,  and  Herlin,  and  on 
the  question  of  Constantinople,  all  throwing  much  light  on  the  Paris  Con- 
ference of  1919. 

To  be  found  at  all  bookshops 

HARVARD  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

10  Randall  Hall,  Cambridge,  Mass.  19  East  47th  St.,  New  York  City 


686] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  59 


EDUCATIONAL  SECTION 


Research  and  Organization 


1HAVE  read  Dr.  James  Rowland  An- 
gell's  very  interesting  article  on  "Or- 
ganization in  Scientific  Research"  in  the 
Weekly  Review.  Will  you  permit  me,  as 
one  vitally  interested  in  this  important 
subject,  to  offer  a  few  observations 
thereon  ? 

The  National  Research  Council  origi- 
nated in  the  fertile  brain  of  Dr.  George 
L.  Hale,  the  very  eminent  astrophysicist 
and  the  foreign  secretary  of  the  National 
Academy  of  Sciences.  The  writer  was 
present  at  the  meeting  of  the  National 
Academy  at  which  Dr.  Hale  unfolded 
his  idea,  and  has  been  familiar  with  the 
history  of  the  National  Research  Coun- 
cil from  the  start. 

Undoubtedly  a  certain  amount  of  or- 
ganization is  a  good  thing.  Dr.  Hale 
came  to  this  idea  after  a  very  consider- 
able experience  with  the  organization  of 
astrophysics.  Astronomy,  or  astrophy- 
sics is  a  science  very  well  adapted  for  co- 
operative organization.  The  sky  presents 
itself  to  us  in  the  form  of  a  spherical 
surface,  every  portion  of  which  is  geo- 
metrically similar  to  every  other  portion 
of  the  same  size.  I  can  see  the  North 
Star,  but  I  can  not  see  the  southern  stars. 
How  natural  it  is,  therefore,  if  we  wish 
to  make  a  photographic  map  of  the 
heavens,  to  divide  up  the  whole  celestial 
sphere  into  regions,  of  course  not  of 
equal  differences  in  declination  and  right 
ascension,  but  into  regions  of  equal  area, 
and  distribute  them  among  the  observa- 
tories of  the  world  that  have  telescopes 
of  a  standard  size  and  can  take  photo- 
graphs that  can  afterwards  be  aggre- 
gated into  a  great  star  map.  Nothing 
simpler,  or  more  proper.  Also,  the  de- 
termination of  stellar  spectra  may  be 
organized  in  the  same  way. 

The  late  Professor  Pickering  of  Har- 
vard was  an  eminent  exponent  of  co- 
operation. He  was  very  largely  inter- 
ested in  the  photometry  of  the  stars.  In 
fact,  he  once  said  in  the  presence  of  the 
writer,  during  a  meeting  of  the  Rumford 
Committee  of  the  American  Academy  of 
Arts  and  Sciences  in  Boston,  that  he  had 
just  made  his  millionth  setting  of  his 
photometer  on  stars.  I  thought  at  the 
time  that  this  was  an  admirable  example 
of  how  not  to  do  it,  inasmuch  as,  after 
the  first  few  thousand  settings,  the  thing 
might  easily  have  been  hired  out  to  an 
inferior  man  leaving  Professor  Picker- 
ing free  to  do  the  thinking  part  for 
other  people.  However,  he  did  enough 
planning,  so  we  will  let  that  go.  His 
plan  was  to  get  the  Rumford  Committee 
to  allocate  funds  for  the  construction  of 
a  number  of  his  photometers,  which  were 
then  distributed  to  observatories  where 
there  was  a  person  who  could  make  the 


observations  and  a  telescope  that  the  pho- 
tometer could  be  placed  upon.  In  this 
way  a  large  amount  of  cooperative  re- 
search was  carried  out. 

Another  example  is  the  International 
Geodetic  Union.  It  is  very  obvious  that 
if  the  shape  and  properties  of  the  earth 
are  to  be  determined  this  must  be  done  by 
cooperation  between  observers  who  are 
widely  distributed  over  the  surface  of 
the  earth.  In  the  same  category  are  oD- 
servations  of  the  tides,  and  all  observa- 
tions which  are  secular  in  their  nature; 
I  mean  by  that,  which  have  to  be  waited 
for  and  which  can  not  be  caused  to  re- 
produce themselves  in  the  laboratory  or 
at  the  volition  of  any  of  the  observers. 
No  scientific  King  Knut  can  cause  the 
tide  to  answer  to  the  request,  "Please 
repeat  that  last  experiment."  There  is 
nothing  to  do  but  to  wait  for  to-morrow's 
tide,  next  year's  tide,  the  tide  of  next 
century.  Tidal  work  then  is  an  admirable 
example  adapted  for  coCpe'ration,  not  only 
simultaneously  in  space,  but  posteriorly 
in  time. 

The  subject  of  hygiene  and  medicine, 
as  mentioned  by  Dr.  Angell,  is  also  an 
excellent  example.  During  war  all  sorts 
of  research  must  be  done  on  the  hurry- 
up  plan,  which  is  best  promoted  by  co- 
operation more  or  less  military  in  na- 
ture. In  time  of  peace,  however,  things 
are  far  otherwise.  Many  of  the  branches 
of  science  are  not  very  well  adapted  to 
the  cooperative  method,  carried  out  on 
a  large  scale.  To  be  sure,  one  of  the 
most  successful  undertakings  of  this  sort 
was  that  carried  out  by  M.  Solvay,  the 
great  Belgian  chemist,  who,  a  few  years 
before  the  war,  had  the  very  ingenious 
and  generous  idea  of  inviting  a  certain 
limited  number  of  the  elite  physicists  of 
the  various  countries  of  Europe  to  meet 
in  Brussels,  where  he  entertained  them 
in  a  hotel  hired  by  himself  for  the  pur- 
pose, and  got  them  to  discuss  the  most 
important  physical  questions  of  the  hour. 
The  two  reports  of  this  Conference  Sol- 
vay form  a  monument  to  this  kind  of  co- 
operation. No  doubt  something  of  this 
soit  is  contemplated  by  the  National  Re- 
search Council. 

However,  research  in  general,  though 
it  is  not,  as  is  truly  maintained  by  Dr. 
Angell,  like  the  production  of  poetry, 
sculpture  or  painting,  is  somewhat  simi- 
lar. It  depends  upon  the  creation  of  ideas 
in  the  mind  of  the  person  interested  in 
research,  as  I  regret  to  say  it  is  com- 
monly called.  This  is  the  most  funda- 
mental step,  the  conception.  Practically, 
however,  of  still  more  importance  to  the 
public  is  the  birth.  For  this  purpose  a 
certain  amount  of  preparation  is  neces- 
sary, and  a  competent  medical  operator. 


Now,  to  speak  very  personally,  I  do 
not  want  any  organization  of  research  to 
tell  me  what  to  do.  Although  I  am  an 
elderly  man,  I  have  ideas  enough  to  keep 
me  going  for  the  next  twenty  years. 
There  is  not  much  danger  of  my  tread- 
ing on  other  people's  toes,  for  I  know 
who  is  who  and  what  he  is  doing,  and  he 
also  knows  what  I  am  doing.  My  method 
of  research  is  very  simple.  I  divide  all 
problems  up  into  two  classes,  those  that 
I  think  I  might  possibly  solve  and  those 
that  I  am  very  sure  I  never  could.  I 
think  it  better  business  to  devote  my 
entire  attentions  to  problems  of  the  first 
class.  Further  than  that  I  do  not  impose 
any  limitations,  nor  do  I  wish  any  im- 
posed. 

I  happen  to  have  worked  for  twenty 
years  on  the  subject  of  sound,  which  I 
think  constitutes  me  the  senior  in  this 
country.  I  am,  however,  equally  inter- 
ested in  electricity,  on  which  I  have  writ- 
ten a  book,  or  on  ballistics,  in  connection 
with  which  I  have  founded  a  new  labora- 
tory, or  any  other  subject  of  physics, 
theoretical  or  experimental.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  I  have  been  put  upon  a  number 
of  committees  of  the  National  Research 
Council,  and  I  have  recently  returned 
from  a  meeting  of  the  Committee  on 
Sound.  There  were  six  of  us,  and  when 
I  went  into  the  meeting  I  stated  that  I 
should  not  agree  to  be  bound  by  the 
vote  of  the  caucus,  and  I  presumed 
that  the  net  result  would  be  that  we 
should  all  go  home  and  go  to  work  on 
those  subjects  which  God  had  given  us 
the  ability  to  work  upon.  I  was  put  upon 
a  half  dozen  sub-committees,  and  in  due 
time  I  shall  hand  in  my  report.  We  had 
a  very  good  time  and  increased  the  re- 
spect and  admiration  that  we  had  for 
each  other  and  that  we  shall  continue  to 
have.  Quite  a  sum  of  money  was  used 
up  in  getting  us  to  the  place  of  meeting 
and  back  again.  All  this  is  very  good. 
But  the  prime  need  of  everyone  of  us  is 
more  brains,  more  hands,  and  more 
money. 

In  the  experience  of  thirty  years  of 
research  at  a  single  institution,  which 
I  believe  is  longer  than  that  of  Dr.  An- 
gell (I  said  an  elder  soldier,  not  a  better), 
I  spent  nearly  twenty  of  it  without  any 
assistant  whatever.  Then  I  had  an  as- 
sistant. He  was  not,  as  I  hoped,  a  Ph.  D., 
but  he  was  a  candidate  for  it,  and  one 
of  the  best  assistants  that  I  ever  saw. 
From  that  time  to  this  I  have  been  very 
fortunate  in  the  quality  of  my  assis- 
tants, although  they  have  generally  been 
only  graduate  students.  Last  year  in  my 
ballistic  institute,  by  various  pickings 
and  stealings,  I  managed  to  get  five  as- 
sistants. This  year  I  am  reduced  to  half 
an  assistant,  and  I  see  no  probability  of 
getting  any  more. 


June  30,  1920] 


THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[687 


I  am  informed  that  the  National  Re- 
search Council  has  seven  million  dollars. 
Shall  I  get  any  of  this?  I  think  not. 
One  million  is  to  be  used  for  a  monu- 
mental administration  building,  as  in  the 
case  of  the  Carnegie  Institute  of  Wash- 
ington. The  rest  will  be  used  to  pay 
for  the  red  tape  which  will  bind  up  the 
various  packages  containing  the  wisdom 
of  the  authorities  of  the  National  Re- 
search Council.  Perhaps  it  won't.  I 
don't  know.     This  is  my  opinion. 

I  have  experienced  in  my  day  three 
Great  Illusions.  They  have  been  in  con- 
nection with  the  fantasy  that  any  of  the 
money  coming  from  a  great  American 
millionaire  could  do  me  any  good.  When 
the  Carnegie  Institution  of  Washington 
was  founded  nearly  twenty  years  ago,  I 
thought  I  might  get  an  assistant  and  was 
so  indiscreet  as  to  say  to  a  few  of  my 
friends,  "Now  things  will  be  easy  for 
me."  Not  a  cent.  The  money  was  all 
gone  in  the  establishment  of  great  re- 
search undertakings,  like  Professor 
Hale's  Mount  Wilson  Solar  Observatory, 
Professor  Bauer's  Magnetic  Survey  of 
the  Earth,  the  Laboratory  of  Genetics  of 
Professor  Davenport,  and  Professor 
Benedict's  Nutrition  Laboratory.  These 
are  all  first-class,  and  I  have  nothing  to 
say  against  them.  That  does  not  change 
the  fact  that  the  money  did  not  do  me 
any  good.  Second,  the  Carnegie  Founda- 
tion for  the  improvement  of  something 
or  other,  which  promised  us  all  pensions. 
That  has  been  so  lied  about,  and  so  many 
great  discoveries  have  been  propounded 
showing  pensions  to  be  entirely  useless, 
that  I  have  long  given  up  the  expecta- 
tion of  getting  anything  whatever  from 
this.  Probably  no  money  would  be  given 
to  a  person  that  could  be  so  insulting  in 
his  remarks.  And  now  the  National  Re- 
search Council  with  the  money  that  comes 
from  I  do  not  know  where. 

I  belong  to  the  only  trade  that  has  not 
met  with  the  general  advance  in  wages  in 
this  country.  My  salary  is  the  same 
that  it  has  been  for  seven  or  eight  or 
nine  years,  and  I  never  expect  to  have 
it  any  greater.  However,  I  have  dab- 
bled a  little  in  commerce  and  found  out 
what  my  brain  is  worth.  It  is  worth  ex- 
actly one  hundred  dollars  a  day  or  more, 
for  this  is  what  I  get,  or,  if  it  is  less 
than  a  day,  at  the  rate  of  twenty-five 
dollars  an  hour. 

Now  I  do  not  care  in  the  least  for  prac- 
tical applications  of  science.  I  am  much 
more  interested  in  Einstein's  principle 
of  relativity  and  Maxwell's  differential 
equations  than  I  am  in  wireless  tele- 
graphs, automobiles,  aeroplanes,  or  any- 
thing of  the  sort.  Nevertheless,  if  people 
will  come  and  thrust  their  dirty  money 
into  my  hands,  my  hand  by  a  very 
natural  reaction  closes  upon  it.  One 
hundred  dollars,  multiplied  by  three 
hundred  working  days,  is  thirty  thou- 
sand   dollars,    I    believe.      Can    anybody 


tell  why  I  should  work  for  ten  per  cent, 
of  this  sum  or  thereabouts?  Yes,  I  can. 
The  reason  is  because  I  like  it,  because 
there  is  a  fascination  about  the  struggle 
with  nature,  the  wresting  of  her  secrets 
in  the  laboratory,  and  the  wringing  from 
them  by  the  process  of  higher  mathe- 
matics differential  equations  from  data 
obtained  experimentally.  This  is  what 
I  love.  Every  scientist  worthy  the  name 
loves  it.  For  that  he  is  willing  to  starve 
his  wife  and  children  (my  children  are 
all  grown  up  and  married,  or  self-sup- 
porting, so  that  they  are  not  starving 
very  much),  and  bear  the  odium  of  his 
neighbors  for  a  cruel  or  incapable  hus- 
band and  father.  It  is  rather  tough,  but 
he  does  it. 

In  conclusion,  I  should  like  to  make  a 
reply  to  a  statement  often  made  by  these 
millionaire  foundations  that  it  is  not 
expedient  to  cut  their  millionaire  en- 
dowments up  into  small  grants.  My  an- 
swer in  a  general  denial.  I  know  better. 
I  have  been  for  twenty-five  years  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Rumford  Committee  of  the 
American  Academy  of  Arts  and  Sciences 
which  appropriates  about  two  thousand 
dollars  in  small  grants,  of  which  Dr. 
Hale  in  his  salad  days  had  a  good  many. 
We  always  get  extremely  good  results. 
The  administration  of  red  tape  is  nil.  I 
am  also  one  of  the  trustees  of  the 
Bache  fund  of  the  National  Academy  of 
Sciences.  These  two  funds  are  the 
largest  of  the  smaller  funds  for  research 
in  the  country;  the  results  are  the  same. 
The  trustees  seldom  meet;  they  corre- 
spond. In  a  committee  of  this  sort  it  is 
unnecessary  to  have  huge  files  of  ques- 
tionnaires and  punch  machines  by  which 
you  will  find  who  will  do  this  thing  or 
the  other.  One  of  the  committee  usually 
knows  the  man ;  or  if  he  doesn't,  he  takes 
the  recommendation  of  somebody  that 
does  know  him.  A  little  conversation  or 
one  or  two  letters  suffice  to  determine 
whether  the  research  is  worth  encour- 
agement, and  the  appropriation  is  made 
or  refused.  Uniformly  the  results  are 
good.  To  tell  me  that  the  Carnegie  In- 
stitution of  Washington  could  not  dis- 
cover people  proper  to  give  grants  of 
$500,  $1,000,  or  $2,000  to  is  an  absolute 
admission  of  incompetency.  The  same 
with  the  National  Research  Council. 

I  maintain  that  the  greatest  part  of 
research  will  always  be  done  by  the  uni- 
versities, and  that  any  plan  that  neg- 
lects them  will  involve  a  miscarriage. 
The  contact  with  young  men,  enthusiastic 
disciples,  will  always  be  a  great  stimulus 
to  the  researcher,  and  there  is  no  teacher 
so  good  as  the  one  who  is  himself  engaged 
in  scientific  creation. 

If   any   of   the   things   which   I   have 
stated  above  are  not  facts,  or  if  any  per- 
son does  not  think  they  are  facts,  let 
him  speak,  for  him  have  I  offended. 
Arthur  Gordon  Webster 

Clark  University 


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This  is  the  hook  of  the  hour  on  onr  of  the 
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This  is  a  dynamic  book.  It  stirs  one  to 
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THE  WEEKLY  REVIEW 


[Vol.  2,  No.  59 


"The  Natural  History  of  the  Child," 
by  Dr.  Ck)urtenay  Dunn  (Lane),  is  not 
a  work  of  science,  nor  of  pseudo-sciencei, 
but  the  commonplace-book  of  a  Cornish 
physician,  himself  the  father  of  seven 
children,  in  which  are  set  down  jottings 
culled  from  much  curious  reading.  From 
Democritus,  Jr.,  if  Melancholy  had  not 
marked  him  for  her  own  and  if  he  had 
inhabited  the  outskirts  of  a  nursery,  in- 
stead of  being  a  solitary  scholar  of 
Christ  Church,  something  in  this  vein 
might  have  been  looked  for.  A  reader  of 
antiquarian  bent,  who  is  at  the  same  time 
not  troubled  by  the  absence  of  references, 
may  reasonably  expect  to  pick  up  a  nug- 
get or  two  of  forgotten  lore. 

Successful  cultivation  of  flowers  is  so 
much  a  matter  of  local  conditions  that 
only  long  experience  discloses  how  much 
of  the  fair  promise  held  forth  by  the 
books  and  catalogues  is  capable  of  real- 
ization. Next  to  one's  own  experience 
the  best  thing  is  one's  neighbors',  and  it 
is  the  wisdom  of  the  Garden  Community 
of  Kansas  City,  Missouri,  which  Mrs. 
Massey  Holmes  has  condensed  and  or- 
ganized in  a  little  pamphlet  called 
"Flower  Garden  Guide."  Every  neigh- 
borhood where  flowers  are  grown  should 
collaborate  in  a  study  of  this  kind,  to- 
gether with  a  survey  of  its  resources  in 
wild  flowers  and  shrubs  that  are  sus- 
ceptible of  domestication. 


The  American  Exporter  in  "Wonderland" 

"TF   it   takes   seven   years   to   make  a 


THE  NEW  YORK 
TRUST  COMPANY 

Main  Office  Fifth  Avenue  Office 

26  Broad  Street         Fifth  Ave.  and  S7th  St. 

NEW  YORK 

Capital $3,000,000 

Surplus  and  Profits  $11,000,000 

Designated  Depositary  in  Bankruptcy  and  of  Cotut 
and  Trust  Funds 

OTTO  T.  BANNARD.  Chairman  of  the  Board 
MORTIMER  N.  BUCKNER.  President 
F.  J.  Home,  Vice-Pres.        H.  W.  Shaw 

giaMs  Dodd,  Vice-Pres.        A.   C.   Downing,  Jr. 
.  W.  Morse,  V.-Pres.        W.  MacNaughten, 
Harrr  Forsyth,  Treas.  L.  Bradford 

Boyd  G.  Curts,  Scc'y  S.  B.  Silleck 

E.  B.  Lewis,  I.  LeR.  Bennett 

W.  J.  Birdsall,  Wm.   H.   Taft,  2nd, 
Asrittant  Treasurers  Assistant  Secretaries 

FIFTH  AVENUE  OFFICE 
Chaclzi  E.  Havdocic,  Vice-President  and  Manager 

JosxrH  A.  Flykn Assistant  Secretary 

Mas.   Key   Cauuack i...  .Assistant  Secretary 

Smszix  v.  WoasTXU. Assistant  Secretary 

TRUSTEES 
Otto  T.  Bannard  F.  N.  HofFstot 

S.  Reading  Bertron  Buchanan  Houston 

James  A.  Blair  f.^P   "•  Jennings 

Mortimer  N.  Buckner  1^=^}^''  J™"'"8«  , 

y  ^    ^  ,     .  Uarwin  P.  Kingsley 

J*f««  C-  Colgate  John  c.  McCall 

AUred  A.  Cook  Ogden  L.   Mills 

Arthur  J.  Cumnock  John  J.  Mitchell 

Robert  W.  de  Forest  James  Parmelee 

John  B.  Dennis  Henry  C.  Phipps 

Philip  T.  Dodge  Norman  P.  Rolb 

George  Douhleday  Dean  Sage 

Samuel  H.  Fisher  Joseph  J.   Sloctim 

John  A.  Garrer  Myles  Ticmey 

Benjamin  S.  Guinness  Clarence  M.  Woolley 

Utmbert  of  iht  New  York  Clearing  House  Asso- 
ciation and  of  the  Federal  Reserve  System 


tailor,"  said  the  Mockturtle  to  Alice, 
"how  long  does  it  take  to  make  an  Amer- 
ican exporter?"  or  might  very  well  have 
said,  for  to-day  the  question  of  Ameri- 
can exporting,  particularly  to  Latin- 
America,  is  very  much  a  "Wonderland." 

Not  long  ago,  in  a  very  prosperous 
country  on  the  River  Plate,  a  big  whole- 
sale importer  ordered  from  an  American 
house  a  large  consignment  of  men's  thin 
summer  undershirts  to  be  delivered  early 
in  October  for  the  summer  trade.  The 
goods  were  then  sold  for  future  delivery 
to  the  retailers  throughout  the  Republic. 
October  came  and  with  it  a  consignment 
of  the  heaviest  type  of  woolen  under- 
wear. The  customers  of  the  wholesale 
house  protested.  Summer  goods  was 
what  they  wanted.  And  a  lawsuit  was 
instituted  against  the  importer  which 
forced  him  to  make  heavy  payments  for 
non-delivery.  Protests  were  made  in  turn 
to  the  exporter  with  no  satisfactory  re- 
sults. It  is  understood,  however,  that 
the  junior  clerk,  in  full  charge  of  the 
export  department  of  this  important 
business  house,  when  preparing  the 
order  for  shipment  was  heard  to  remark, 
"These  boobs  in  South  America  don't 
know  nothing.  Summer  undershirts  in 
October!  Send  'em  heavy  woolens, 
Jim!" 

And  when  the  Latin-American  mer- 
chant who  was  forced  to  the  United 
States  for  his  market  during  the  war 
tells  you,  "The  Americans,  Seiior,  are  not 
a  serious  business  people,"  what  can  you 
reply? 

It  is  just  that  which  will  decide  our 
future  in  the  Latin-American  trade. 
Seriousness — seriousness  in  our  can- 
vassing for  orders — our  promises  for  de- 
livery at  a  fixed  time — our  packing,  and, 
above  all,  the  sending  to  the  customer  the 
article  he  wants  and  not  what  we  want 
to  send  him. 

For  the  last  two  decades  the  advice 
and  warning  given  to  American  mer- 
chants by  those  who  have  traveled  and 
lived  in  Latin-America  has  been  the 
same — packing,  delivery  on  time,  and 
goods  of  absolutely  the  same  quality  as 
the  sample  or  the  description.  The  ad- 
vice is  as  good  to-day  as  it  ever  was,  yet 
in  twenty  years  we  have  given  no  sign  of 
acting  upon  it. 

We  may  easily  plead  that  economic 
conditions  in  the  United  States  have  not 
forced  us  to  seek  foreign  markets.  We 
have  not  had  the  same  inducements  to 
engage  in  South  American  trade  as  the 
British  and  Germans,  whose  factories 
needed  the  outlet  of  foreign  markets  and 
whose  intelligent,  industrious  younger 
sons  had  to  seek  their  fortunes  abroad. 
This  is  an  easy  way  to  confess  and  ob- 
tain absolution  for  our  sins  of  the  past — 

0 


but  the  economic  conditions  of  ten  years 
ago  exist  no  longer  and  we  must  seek  our 
place  in  the  export  trade  of  the  world. 
Have  we  taken  this  into  consideration? 
Are  we  prepared?  Are  we  trying  to  en- 
ter the  field  seriously? 

England  and  Germany  in  1915,  1916, 
1917,  and  1918  could  not  supply  the 
South  and  Central  American  markets. 
Goods  they  must  have — such  goods  as 
they  could  obtain.  Who  could  supply 
them?  The  United  States,  and  so  we 
started  to  send  south  what  we  wanted 
and  in  our  own  way.  And  the  importer 
had  to  be  satisfied. 

In  South  America  to-day,  one  sees  shop 
windows  full  of  American  products.  We 
have  become  a  manufacturing  and  ex- 
porting nation  to  our  Latin-American 
neighbors.  But  a  year  has  passed  and 
more  since  the  armistice.  War  is  for- 
gotten on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic 
by  the  producers  and  exporters,  and 
British  and  German  goods,  with  the  old 
easily  moving  machinery  of  sales  and 
delivery,  are  rapidly  finding  their  way 
into  the  windows.  Can  we  compete? 
Can  we  increase  as  an  exporting  nation? 
The  odds  are  against  us  and  we  must 
meet  the  situation  face  to  face  and  play 
the  same  serious,  careful  game  as  our 
able  competitors.  We  must  have  learned 
something  during  these  last  four  years 
— our  own  economic  necessity,  for  for- 
eign trade  must  be  something  real  to 
us  by  this  time. 

We  can  certainly  hold  our  own  if  we 
follow  such  simple  rules  as  these: 

1.  The  placing  at  the  head  of  our  ex- 
port departments  of  men  who  have,  be- 
sides known  business  qualifications,  some 
geographical  knowledge  and  a  commer- 
cial knowledge  of  Spanish  and  Portu- 
guese, and  who  are  willing  to  learn  for- 
eign trade  conditions. 

2.  The  preparation  of  catalogues  in 
Spanish  and  Portuguese  which  can  be 
read  by  the  customer. 

3.  The  packing  of  goods  to  meet  the 
geographical  and  other  needs  of  the 
country  of  import — not  difficult,  with 
care  and  study  of  conditions. 

4.  The  sending  of  salesmen  who  know 
the  country  into  which  they  are  to  go. 

5.  Refraining  from  making  fine  prom- 
ises as  to  dates  of  delivery  and  char- 
acter of  goods  until  the  exporter  is  sure 
that  he   can  carry   them   out. 

6.  The  supplying  of  goods  exactly  as 
ordered — not  sending  "any  old  thing 
which  is  good  enough  for  them." 

By  following  these  suggestions,  and 
only  in  this  way,  can  the  American  ex- 
porter take  and  keep  his  proper  place 
in  the  keen  competition  which  is  now 
coming.  In  this  way  alone  will  he  be 
able  to  have  it  said  of  him,  "Seiior,  the 
American  is  a  serious  man  of  business,"